By Azu Ishiekwene The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria. ABUJA | 09 April 2024 (IDN) —The words of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye were honey to taste. Following the bitter ending of the 12-year rule of Macky Sall, highlighted by the widespread belief that France is at the heart […]
Kenyan Doctors’ Strike Enters Third Week As Gov’t Stonewalls Talks
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 8 April 2024 (IDN) — Kenya’s health sector, underfunded and understaffed, is closed for business until the government makes good on salary arrears and agrees to hire badly needed trainee doctors as promised to the union. The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists, and Dentists Union (KMPDU) also […]
New Leadership in Senegal Inspires a Continent Seeking Change
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 8 April 2024 (IDN) — A firebrand politician and a young tax inspector opposed to French colonialism have taken the government of Senegal by storm, say journalists inspired by the electoral victory of Bassirou Diomaye Faye, 44, and Ousmane Sonko, 49, on a platform of major […]
Indian Ocean “Zone of Peace” Sinking in Troubled Waters
By Thalif Deen* UNITED NATIONS | 8 April 2024 (IDN) — Just after a group of mercenaries tried to unsuccessfully oust the government of the Maldives in 1979, I asked a Maldivian diplomat, using a military jargon, about the strength of his country’s “standing army”. “Standing army?”, the diplomat asked with mock surprise, and remarked […]
A Flame of Remembrance for Victims of the Rwandan Genocide
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 7 April 2024 (IDN) — Rwandans are marking the 30th anniversary of a genocide that took the lives of an estimated 800,000 mostly ethnic Tutsis over 100 days between April and June 1994. President Paul Kagame and First Lady Jeannette Kagame laid wreaths at the Kigali […]
Latest Huge Transfer of 2,000-Pound Bombs from US to Israel Not Newsworthy to the Times
By Norman Solomon* SAN FRANCISCO | 3 April 2024 (IDN) — When the Washington Post revealed Friday afternoon that “the Biden administration in recent days quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel,” a lot of people cared. Readers of the story posted more than 10,000 comments on […]
Gambian Women Furious Over Vote to Restore Female Circumcision
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 1 April 2024 (IDN) — ‘Over my dead body!’ That was how one Gambian woman expressed her frustration with a vote by the country’s majority male legislators to end the prohibition of female genital mutilation (FGM). The practice has been on the rise in recent years […]
Drought Grips Southern Africa, Hunger Crisis Foreseen
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 1 April 2024 (IDN) — A severe dry spell in southern Africa linked to the El Nino weather pattern is crippling the nations of Malawi and Zambia. Zimbabwe has seen much of its crops decimated, underlining concerns by the UN World Food Program that numerous nations […]
West African Philosopher Who Challenged Colonialism Leaves Major Legacy
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 31 March 2024 (IDN)—Paulin Jidenu Hountondji of Benin, West Africa, considered one of the founding fathers of modern African philosophy, has recently passed away at the age of 82. His work “On African Philosophy” (1976) greatly clarified the debate over African philosophy—freeing it from the colonial […]
Mekong Delta Adopts Water-Saving Irrigation
By Le Thanh Binh HO CHI MINH CITY | 28 March 2024 (IDN)—The Mekong Delta region in South Vietnam is a major food production base for the country. Approximately two million hectares of land are allocated for rice and fruit farming, and about a third of this land is regularly affected by drought and salinity […]