By Mohamed Gabobe* MOGADISHU, Somalia | 14 March 2025 (IDN) — A new African Union peace enforcement mission, known by its acronym AUSSOM, was launched at the beginning of the year to support a fragile Somali government that has struggled against a jihadist insurgency entrenched in the countryside. AUSSOM is the third iteration of a multinational combat […]
Men Continue to Dominate Politics
By J Nastranis NEW YORK | 11 March 2025 (IDN) — New data from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and UN Women underscores the critical need for immediate action, as progress toward gender equality in political leadership at the start of 2025 has been unacceptably slow. According to the 2025 edition of the IPU-UN Women Women […]
A Momentous Occasion for Humanity
By Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury* NEW YORK | 9 March 2025 (IDN) — This year’s International Women’s Day has been celebrated by the world as we observe two major anniversaries — the 30th for the Beijing Platform for Action adopted in 1995 and the 25th for the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 adopted in 2000. […]
A Gender-equal World Free of Discrimination Remains a Pipedream
By Ramesh Jaura BERLIN, NEW YORK | 9 March 2025 (IDN) — In an inspiring song “Imagine” from his 1971 album, British musician John Lennon encouraged listeners to imagine a world of peace, without materialism, borders separating nations and religion. Much to our chagrin, that world has remained a pipedream. So has a gender-equal world […]
Entrenched Patriarchal Structures Hindering Women’s Political Participation’
Joseph Kayira interviews Oxfam Malawi country director, Lingalireni Mihowa LILONGWE, Malawi | 9 March 2025 (IDN) — The persistent challenge in increasing women’s participation in politics, decision-making, and the broader economy in Malawi stems from deeply entrenched patriarchal structures that have not been effectively dismantled, despite the existence of progressive policies and legal frameworks, said […]
IN LIGHTER VEIN — At the UN: from the Sublime to the Hilarious
By Thalif Deen* UNITED NATIONS | 8 March 2025 (IDN) — The primary mandate of the United Nations is to maintain international peace and security, but the world body is also a rich source of political anecdotes — from the sublime to the hilarious. The debates and resolutions in the 15-member Security Council, the UN’s most […]
Ending The Second Cold War Between Russia and The West
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 4 March 2025 (IDN) — George Orwell, the author of “Animal Farm”, the satire on how a dictatorship can slowly but steadily evolve in a democratic society, and “1984”, a novel about three dystopian dictatorships always at war with each other, was the first person to use the phrase […]
From A National Initiative to A Non-Discriminatory Concept of NWFZs
Follow-Up On a Cold War Era Lesson By Enkhsaikhan Jargalsaikhan The writer is Chairman of Blue Banner NGO, Former Mongolian Permanent Representative to the United Nations. NEW YORK | 4 March 2025 (IDN) — During the Cold war years Mongolia has learned a bitter lesson of the implications of hosting military bases of a nuclear-weapon […]
UN Undertakes Yet Another Attempt to Ban the Bomb
By Ramesh Jaura BERLIN | 4 March 2025 (IDN) — The West’s preoccupation with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine three years ago on 24 February and the spectre of a nuclear clash has put out of sight the urgent menace of 2,100 nuclear warheads nine states — Russia, United States, China, France, United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, […]
Global Ocean Treaty Two Years On: A Chance for International Cooperation
By Reinhard Jacobsen BRUSSELS | 3 March 2025 (IDN) — Greenpeace deems the second anniversary of the Global Ocean Treaty being agreed on March 4 “a victory for multilateralism and a chance to protect the ocean worldwide”. Bringing it to life as soon as possible is the only way to keep the 30×30 ocean target […]