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By Bahauddin Foizee
DHAKA (IDN) — A historic infrastructure milestone for Bangladesh and now the longest bridge of the country, the newly-built Padma Multipurpose Bridge would now help grow Bangladesh’s GDP by 1.3% annually.
The US$ 3.86 billion worth mega-infrastructure was inaugurated on June 25 and is forecast to increase jobs, service sector activity and tourism in the country’s southwestern districts, connectivity to which was poor even a day before the opening of this bridge.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
The following is an updated version of the story moved on June 27. - The Editor.
NEW YORK | LUANDA (IDN) — Colonial powers from east to west all played a role in subjugating the southern African nation of Angola over a stretch of 500 years until independence was achieved on November 5, 1975. Agostinho Neto, a politician, physician and poet, was the first to hold the presidency. After his death in 1979, Jose Eduardo dos Santos assumed the post. He stepped down five years ago and has been in intensive care since 2019. Aged 79, he died on July 18.
Viewpoint by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake *
COLOMBO (IDN) — A shortage of exorbitantly privileged American Dollars, the global reserve fiat currency, which is not backed by gold, silver, oil or drugs, is the purported reason for Sri Lanka's compounding crisis and the international media narrative of 'famine' in the country.
The financial crisis that has brought the strategic Indian Ocean Island nation to a standstill, which coincidentally stymies protests, originated with an International Sovereign Bond (ISB), debt trap and Default in April this year.
Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte
The writer is an Ambassador, former United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affair, and President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.
NEW YORK (IDN) — The public curiosity about the Brazilian nuclear-powered submarine, named “Alvaro Alberto” in honour of a nuclear research pioneer in Brazil, has raised interest in the special verification procedures applicable to the project. This is the first time that a country that does not possess nuclear weapons, such as Brazil, decides to activate such procedures for the fuel to be used in a conventionally armed submarine powered by a nuclear reactor. It is thus important to review the legal provisions of the relevant international instruments, as well as the obligations assumed by Brazil in this field.
By Aurora Weiss
VIENNA (IDN) —Ukraine and Moldova have moved closer to membership of the European Union (EU) much faster than the six countries of the Western Balkans. There has been general agreement that requirements for EU accession candidature are not easy to meet, but Ukraine and Moldova seem to have got that status overnight.
By Kalinga Seneviratne
SYDNEY (IDN) — Australia's new Labour Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has been criticised on Twitter and some media for secretly making a trip to Ukraine to meet Volodymyr Zelensky and pledge $100 million of military aid. At the same time, thousands of families across Australia were being evacuated from rising flood waters, with emergency services seemingly underfunded. Some families have evacuated their homes for the second or third time this year.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Once again in the European Union, thanks to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, the discussion about admitting new members is coming to the boil and, once again Turkey, promised membership of the Union over 30 years ago, is not on the list.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — As members of the Pan-African Parliament hotly disputed the election of senator and chief Fortune Charumbira as their next president, a familiar figure could have turned the exercise upside down.
The familiar figure was ex-President Robert Mugabe. Charumbira, an unapologetic Mugabe supporter, once faced censure from Zimbabwe’s High Court which ruled that his comments publicly supporting Mugabe’s Zanu PF party were unconstitutional as chiefs are required to be neutral.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — “Mr President, where is our money? The high cost of living will kill us.”
Those were the cries that filled the streets of Accra as the usually peaceful people of Ghana could no longer stop their anger and frustration over intolerable living costs, record inflation, and misleading information about the economy shared by the government.
Over the past week, hundreds of Ghanaians clashed with police and denounced their government’s inaction on the crisis.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Legislators in Ghana with unapologetic support from President Nana Akufo-Addo have come up with a new law making life even harder for LGBTQIA+ persons in the West African country, a bill which essentially strips the community of all human rights.
Dubbed the “most homophobic document the world has ever seen”, the 36-page Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021, which is yet to be considered by parliament, would criminalize LGBTQIA+ activities in the religious West African country.
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.