By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — When the two-weeklong COP27 climate summit began negotiations November 6, the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were not far behind. At the conference centre in the Egyptian coastal town of Sharm el-Sheikh, the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) is hosting an SDG Pavilion for […]
COP 27: An ‘Implementation COP’ To Save People and the Planet
By Meena Raman The author is a Senior Researcher at the Third World Network in Penang, Malaysia. SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (IDN) — The annual climate conference under the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement kicked off in the Egyptian coastal resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh on November […]
Thailand: Education at Fingertips for the Disabled
By Pattama Vilailert BANGKOK (IDN) — Quality Education and Reduced Inequalities are two Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With 3.3 per cent of Thailand’s population categorized as “disabled”, Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University (STOU) has come up with an innovative program to provide a new lease of life to people who would otherwise be left behind in […]
Thailand: Secularism Hinders Buddhists to Address Mental Health Crisis
By Kalinga Seneviratne BANGKOK (IDN) — Wile the massacre of 37 people that included 26 preschool children in a remote north-eastern township of Thailand on October 7 has shocked the nation and exposed the inadequacy of the public mental health system, it is yet to trigger a debate about whether Buddhism could step in to […]
Drone Warfare: The Battlefield of the Future
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — The deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)—more commonly known as drones—largely by US and Russian military forces has highlighted a weapon that is being increasingly deployed in war zones in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and most recently Ukraine.
A UN Security Council Committee Meets in India to Commit to Fight Digital Terror
By Aar Jay NEW YORK | NEW DELHI (IDN) — In a two-day meeting of the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee in India, member states have decided to counter the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes. The non-binding document, known as The Delhi Declaration, was adopted in the Indian capital on October […]
UN Climate Conference Must Make Funds for Poor Nations A Priority
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — Water stress, withering droughts and devastating floods are hitting African communities, economies and ecosystems hard. Rainfall patterns are disrupted, glaciers are disappearing and key lakes are shrinking. In South Africa, the extreme rainfall that triggered one of the country’s deadliest disasters of this century was […]
Effective Ebola Vaccines Discovered in Pennsylvania Drug Company’s Freezer
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — Thousands of doses of a vaccine effective against the Ebola pathogen now circulating in Uganda have been discovered in freezers of the Merck pharmaceutical company in Pennsylvania. The drugs were discovered after repeated inquiries by Science magazine, a peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association […]
German Experts Study the Impact of Economic Sanctions Against Iran and Russia
By Jutta Wolf BERLIN (IDN) — Researchers at the Institute for World Economy IfW Kiel and DIW Berlin have analysed the economic impact of jointly implementing punitive measures in the context of the 2012 Iran and 2014 Russia sanctions. They find that coalitions serve two crucial purposes—they not only magnify the economic cost imposed on […]
COP27: First official Food and Agriculture Pavilion
Putting agrifood systems transformation at the heart of the COP27 By Jaya Ramachandran ROME (IDN) — For the first time, the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), CGIAR and The Rockefeller Foundation will host the official Food and Agriculture Pavilion at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) taking place in Sharm El […]