By Azu Ishiekwene The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria. ABUJA, 26 May 2023 (IDN) — After weeks of being at daggers drawn over the results of the last general elections and with only days to the inauguration of a new government on May 29, one of Nigeria’s three […]
Humanitarian Aid to Africa Falls Far Short of Target
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 25 May 2023 (IDN) — At a UN sponsored high-level meeting, donors collectively pledged about $2.4 billion in “life-saving and life-sustaining assistance” to nearly 32 million people across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia plagued by five consecutive poor rainy seasons. But the pledges—from 28 donors out of the 193 UN member […]
Poor Countries Face Collapse Over Unsustainable Borrowing
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK, 22 May 2023 (IDN) — African countries that borrowed billions of dollars from international creditors and private lenders face painful repayment demands that threaten their budgets for schools, power, food and fuel. After nail-biting negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Ghana’s Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta announced […]
Ex-Nigerian Leader Ordered To Explain Loan For Crime-Stopping Project
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK, 22 May 2023 (IDN) — Outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari has been ordered to account for a $460 million loan from a Chinese bank to pay for a closed circuit TV (CCTV) project that failed to materialize. Minister of Finance Zainab Ahmed reportedly has been unable to explain […]
How Myanmar’s Arms Purchases Circumvent Sanctions
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 18 May 2023 (IDN) — The much-maligned military regime in Myanmar, accused of genocide and human rights abuses, is being sustained by nearly a billion dollars’ worth of arms—plus raw materials to manufacture weapons—originating primarily from China and Russia, two permanent members of the Security Council, along with Singapore, Thailand […]
Thai People Want Change. And the Conservative-Military Elite?
By Jan Servaes* BRUSSELS, 16 May 2023 (IPS) — 39.5 million (or 75% of registered) Thai voters flocked to the polls on 14 May in a hotly contested election that will determine whether Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha, the general who seized power in a 2014 coup, will be overthrown by his rivals. There is a […]
After Historic Apology, Fiji Moves to Build a New Nation
By Kalinga Seneviratne SUVA, Fiji, 15 May 2023 (IDN) — In an emotionally charged “Reconciliation and Thanksgiving” service organized by Fiji’s Methodist Church—the country’s largest Christian denomination—the President of the church Reverend Ili Vunisuwai and Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka apologized to the Indo-Fijian community for the suffering and insults they have endured in Fiji’s post- […]
African Migrants Finding Sanctuary in US Maine
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK, 15 May 2023 (IDN) — An African migrant crisis in southern Maine, the easternmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States? Newly arrived asylum seekers have been overwhelming several Maine cities, straining municipal budgets to the breaking point. Surprising to some, many of […]
How Hopes for A Sudanese Spring Failed to Take Hold
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK, 15 May 2023 (IDN) — Since independence six decades earlier, through long stretches of military rule interrupted only by brief spells of democracy, Sudanese citizens began to dream of freedom. They had suffered enough.
Doomsday Cult in Kenya Had White Supremacist Roots
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK, 15 May 2023 (IDN) — Cults are common in Kenya, which has a religious society. But the toll taken by the lead pastor has horrified Kenyans and governing officials who are set to prosecute Paul Mackenzie for terrorism-related offenses. Mackenzie, his wife and 16 other suspects will […]