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By Jan Servaes*
BRUSSELS, 23 Feb 2023 (IDN) — Tantawan "Tawan" Tuatulanon and Orawan "Bam" Phupong, aged 21 and 23, respectively, have been on hunger strike since January 18 to push for reforms in Thailand's judicial system, the release of political prisoners and the abolition or reform of some of the laws against dissidents, including the infamous Lèse Majesté law.
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, 23 Feb 2023 (IDN) — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, accused of human rights abuses, war crimes and use of chemical weapons—is one of several authoritarian Middle Eastern leaders who never addressed the UN General Assembly or stepped into the United Nations.
By Norman Solomon*
SAN FRANCISCO, 22 Feb 2023 (IDN) — Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago, media coverage of the war hasn’t included even the slightest mention of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Yet the war has boosted the chances that ICBMs will set off a global holocaust.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK, 21 Feb 2023 (IDN) — At the opening of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa this weekend, UN Secretary General António Guterres scolded an “unfair financial system” for denying many African countries the debt relief and concessional financing they need.
"Systems and structures, from health and education to social protections, job-creation and gender equality are starved of investment for lack of support,” he said.
By Arul Louis
The writer is a New York-based non-resident senior fellow of the Society for Policy Studies, a New Delhi-based think tank. He can be contacted @arulouis.
UNITED NATIONS, 20 Feb 2023 (IDN) — Paralysed by its own Charter and structure, the world organisation that is charged with preventing wars confronts an existential challenge from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, 18 Feb 2023 (IDN) — In the 1960s and 70s, the 116-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), founded in Belgrade in 1961, was one of the largest and most powerful political coalitions (now numbering 120) led initially by countries such as Yugoslavia, India, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Zambia, Algeria, Cuba and Sri Lanka.
The concept of “non-alignment” gained political traction at the UN during the height of the Cold War, which ended around 1989.
By J Nastranis
NEW YORK, 17 Feb 2023 (IDN) — In view of the failure of the global financial system to effectively cushion the impacts of current global crises on the Global South—the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the ongoing climate emergency—the UN has called for an increase of about $500 billion each year by world's most developed nations to finance the crucial 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs).
By Kalinga Seneviratne
SYDNEY, 16 Feb 2023 (IDN) — Universities are sometimes seen as ivory towers aloft from the communities they are supposed to serve. But, in reviving a sector that was badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, universities are now taking the lead in working with the communities to achieve the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
By UN News
JUBA, South Sudan 14 Feb 2023 (IDN) — Women leaders called for swift, concerted action to advance gender rights at the first International Conference on Women’s Transformational Leadership, in Juba, South Sudan.
Almost 400 women leaders from 15 African countries joined the UN-backed three-day conference, which opened on February 1, including former and current presidents.
By Rodrigo Pérez
SANTIAGO, Chile (IDN) — As many as 131.3 million in Latin America and the Caribbean have had to forego nutritious foods in 2020 because of the higher average daily cost of healthy diets in the region compared to those in other areas of the world. According to the new United Nations report Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2022, in 2019, the figure amounted to about 123 million.
IDN-InDepthNews offers news analyses, features, reports and viewpoints that impact the world and its peoples. It has been online since 2009. Its network spans countries around the world.