By Shoko Noda The writer is the UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Crisis Bureau Director. NEW YORK | 4 January 2024 (IDN) — When we think of migration in the context of climate change, it is most often in relation to the thousands, or even millions, of people displaced by extreme weather. The numbers, while […]
COP28 – Massive Disappointments, Slight Glimmers of Hope
By Volker Boege* Toda Peace Institute issued this article, and it is being republished with their permission. BRISBANE, Australia | 4 January 2024 (IDN) — At the closing plenary of COP28, Anne Rasmussen from Samoa, the lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Islands States (AOSIS), expressed her disappointment about the conference’s outcome in no […]
Vietnam: Drought and Salinity in the Mekong Delta Threatens Food Security
By Le Thanh Binh HO CHI MINH CITY | 3 January 2024 (IDN) — The Mekong Delta in South Vietnam has been the country’s rice granary for generations, feeding more than 20 million people today. But climate change resulting in droughts and salinity of the river-fed waters is now threatening food security. The Mekong River […]
Controversies Mar the Reputation of Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus
By Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury DHAKA | 2 January 2024 (IDN) — For many decades, Muhammad Yunus succeeded in remaining in the attention of international media and global celebrities and leaders by continuing self-promotion as the ‘savior of the poor’, ‘father of microcredit’ etc. Interestingly, many leaders in the West, including former US First Lady […]
Peace and Security: Homage to a Buddhist Spiritual Leader and a Great Writer
By Ramesh Jaura BERLIN | 1 January 2024 (IDN) — “Even an old fountain pen, if it happened to have belonged to some great writer, is looked on with awe and reverence by the people of later times, for they feel that somehow it is capable of revealing the secrets of the great man’s masterpieces,” […]
Yet Another Challenge for 2024
By Ramesh Jaura BERLIN | 31 December 2023 (IDN) — The New Year marks our 15th anniversary. Since going online in 2009, we have devoted ourselves to in-depth news and analysis of issues that impact the world, particularly the countries of the Global South. Our focus has been on promoting the bold and transformative 2030 […]
President Biden: Learn the Names of Children You’ve Helped Israel to Murder
Following is the letter Norman Solomon* wrote to President Joe Biden on 26 December 2023. SAN FRANCISCO | 29 December 2023 (IDN) — You’ve often spoken of how much you care about children and how terrible it is when they’re murdered. “Too many schools, too many everyday places have become killing fields,” you said at […]
India: Is the World’s Largest Democracy A “Mockery”?
By Kalinga Seneviratne SINGAPORE | 28 December 2023 (IDN) — India’s national Parliament—known as Lok Sabha (Lower House of the People)—has become a “mockery of democracy,” says the main opposition party Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge following a splurge of expulsions of their members from the chambers before important criminal law reform bills were debated and […]
Bosnia and Herzegovina: The German High Representative Is Sowing Conflict
By Aurora Weiss VIENNA | 28 December 2023 (IDN) — To be convinced of the legal position of the High Representative Christian Schmidt, we asked for a review of the resolution and vote in the UN Security Council. We spoke with President Milorad Dodik, the famous lawyer Anto Nobilo, and many others to find out […]
Ideologues and Military-Industrial Complex Hack US Foreign Policy
By Jeffrey D. Sachs* This article was published in Common Dreams and is being republished with the author’s permission. NEW YORK | 28 December 2023 (IDN) — US foreign policy seems to be utterly irrational. The US gets into one disastrous war after another—Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and Gaza. In recent days, the US […]