By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies* NEW YORK | 6 February 2025 (IDN) — This year’s Doomsday Clock Statement landed like a damp squib in a Trump-swamped corporate news cycle on January 28th. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists only moved the hands of the Clock forward by one second, from 90 seconds […]
United States Quits UN Tax Convention Process
Eurodad NEW YORK | 5 February 2025 (IDN) — The United States has pulled out of the process to deliver a new UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation. The announcement came during the afternoon on the first day of the Organisational Session, which is taking place at UN Headquarters in New York and runs […]
Arctic Council: Too Important to Be Squeezed Between the Great Powers
By Ingeborg Breines The writer is Norwegian peace educator, former director in UNESCO and former president of the International Peace Bureau-IPB. OSLO, Norway | 04 February 2025 (IDN) — There are many reasons to pay close attention to what is happening in the far north. The Arctic is attracting strong international interest as global warming […]
Summit Pledges to Connect 300 million Africans to Electricity by 2030
By Lakshmi Thor DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania | 3 February 2025 (IDN) — Ahead of the African Union Summit on 17-18 February in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, thirty African Heads of State and government have committed to concrete reforms and actions to expand access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable electricity to power economic growth, improve […]
UNGA President Urges Member States to Commit to Security Council Reform
By J Nastranis NEW YORK | 2 February 2025 (IDN) — UN General Assembly President Philemon Yang has in an exclusive interview with India’s leading news agency PTI called on all member states to “engage actively” and commit to reform, including of the Security Council. Yang, who is set to travel to India from February […]
Reform Credit Ratings to Fix Africa’s Debt Crisis
By Daniel Cash The writer is Associate Professor at Aston University and Senior Fellow at the UN University Centre for Policy Research NEW YORK | 30 January 2025 (IDN) — Africa is in a debt crisis. On the continent, interest payments on debt have risen by 132% over the past decade. Thirty-two African countries now […]
What’s UNDOF? Why UN Peacekeepers Patrol the Israel-Syria Border
By Eileen Travers NEW YORK | 29 January 2025 (IDN) — More than 1,100 UN peacekeepers are currently deployed in the Golan, a demilitarised zone along the Israel-Syria border at what is a tense and dangerous time in the history of the region. But why are the Blue Helmets there? One of the UN’s longest-standing […]
Kenya Deploys 200 More Police Officers to Haiti as Crisis Escalates
By Nicholas Mwangi* NAIROBI | 27 January 2025 (IDN) — Kenya has deployed another batch of 217 police officers to Haiti, adding to the 400 sent last year as part of a “multinational mission” aimed at addressing the country’s deepening crisis of gang violence. The intervention aims to protect critical infrastructure and conduct “targeted operations” […]
The Killing of General Cirimwami Escalates Conflict in DR Congo
Geopolitical scramble for the country’s vast mineral wealth By Kambale Musavuli* ACCRA, Ghana | 26 January 2025 (IDN) — Major General Peter Cirimwami, the military governor of North Kivu province, was shot near Kasengezi this past Thursday and later succumbed to his injuries. The incident occurred as he visited the frontline to assess the deteriorating […]
Global Education Must Integrate AI, Centred on Humanity
By J Nastranis NEW YORK | 26 January 2025 (IDN) — Education is a human right, a public good and a public responsibility and the right to education is enshrined in article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The United Nations General Assembly, therefore, proclaimed 24 January as International Day of Education, in […]