Home - IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

New Ebola Drugs Show Exciting Promise With 90% Cure Rate

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Two experimental treatments are raising hopes among medical personnel that a cure for the deadly virus Ebola has been found. The antibody-based treatments will now be offered to all patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, announced the finding together with Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director of Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research and Dr. Michael J. Ryan, director of emergency response for the World Health Organization.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 13 August 2019

The 'Roof of the World' Festival Keeps Tajikistan's Traditional Culture Alive

By Alisher Kukanbekov

KHOROG, Tajikistan (IDN) – In this mountainous Gorno Badakhshan region with around a third of the population estimated to be unemployed, the exodus of the people for greener pastures abroad has gathered momentum in the past decade. To protect the colourful traditional culture from disappearing along with its population, the ‘Roof Top of the World” annual cultural festival was launched 12 years ago.

It now has the added objectives of attracting both its expat population to come back for a summer cultural break as well as to attract tourist to the region.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; CENTRAL ASIA; 13 August 2019

Photo: Ivana Farina, Inger Andersen and Elizabeth Mrema. Photo by Florian Flussstetter/ UN Environmen

Prosecutors Are Key to Progressing Environmental Law

By UN Environment

NAIROBI (IDN) – If human society is to stay within the bounds of critical ecological thresholds, it is imperative that environmental laws are widely understood, respected and enforced. This is the environmental rule of law.

Since the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development of 1992, the world has converged on protecting our ecosystems; to illustrate, environmental laws and agencies have expanded 38-fold in the last few decades.

: UN Bureau; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 12 August 2019

Photo: UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Credit: Kea Taylor

Transforming Education for a New Generation of Leaders

Viewpoint by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

The writer is UN Women Executive Director. She issued this statement for International Youth Day, 2019.

NEW YORK (IDN) – Sixteen-year old Gambian Jakomba Jabbie wants to be an aerospace engineer. A vocal advocate for girls’ education, she created a robotics team at school to show that girls can also participate in the area of technology, and “to make it a space for all of us”. She knows how important education is, especially to a girl.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 12 August 2019

Photo: Plenary session of 2016 ACP Summit Papua New Guinea’s Port Moresby. Credit: ACP Press

Kenya to Host a Momentous Summit of 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific Nations

By Reinhard Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (IDN) – The heads of state and government of the 79-nation African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States will gather at a momentous Summit themed ‘A Transformed ACP: Committed to Multilateralism’ from December 9-10 in Nairobi, Kenya. Laying the groundwork for finalizing the Post-Cotonou agreement as well as the revision to its Constitutive Act, the 1975 Georgetown Agreement will top the agenda of what is the 9th Summit.

: Reinhard Jacobsen; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 11 August 2019

illustration: Sandeep Joshi. Source: The Tribune

Exploding the Myth of the ‘Ugly Indian’

The new-generation tourists are the millennials, and they are anything but ugly — at least when abroad. They travel light and are averse to carrying stuff. They travel not to pick up things, but to gather experiences.

By Shastri Ramachandaran*

NEW DELHI (IDN) – East Asian hotels and resorts, especially in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, have a despicable practice of not letting a guest leave until the room has been gone through with a toothcomb. A lot of hotels in Europe are also behaving like those in East Asia, especially when it comes to Indians. In parts of Europe, there are hotels that discourage Indians while a few keep a separate section for Indians.

: Shastri Ramachandran; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 11 August 2019

Photo: "Against the dark background of the atomic bomb, the United States does not wish merely to present strength, but also the desire and the hope for peace. The coming months will be fraught with fateful decisions… may they be the decisions which will lead this world out of fear and into peace." (U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in an address to the 470th United Nations General Assembly on 8 December 1953) Credit: UN Photo/MB

The Devastating Arms Race Rages Unabated

Viewpoint by Somar Wijayadasa*

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." – U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower in 'The Chance for Peace' address in April 1953.

NEW YORK (IDN) – The arms race has reached a new dimension as the United States President Donald Trump withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

: Somar Wijayadasa; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 10 August 2019

Photo: Ships both old and new displayed their combat power and military might. Credit: Kremlin.ru

Blue Water Navy Plays an Important Role in Russian Diplomacy

By Mark Thomas-Patterson*

WASHINGTON, DC (IDN) – July 28 marked Russia’s Naval Day, one of the series of military holidays celebrated in the country. The highlight of this year’s festivities was the first national fleet review in seven years, with President Vladimir Putin present at the main parade in St. Petersburg while Prime Minister Dmytry Medvedev was in Sevastopol. The parade also served as a time to display hardware, such as a new Admiral Gorshkov class frigate and Lada-Class submarine, two critical components of the modernized Russian navy.

: Europe Editor; THE WORLD; Russia; 10 August 2019

Photo: Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov with Burkina Faso President Marc Kabore in Ouagadougou in July 2019. Credit: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

Russia Prepares for Africa Summit to Elevate Economic Profile

By Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW (IDN) – As Russia prepares to strengthen its overall corporate economic profile during the African leaders' summit in Sochi in October, policy experts are questioning agreements that were signed – many of them largely unfulfilled and forgotten – at least in the past decade with African countries.

Experts, such as Professors Vladimir Shubin and Alexandra Arkhangelskaya from the Institute for African Studies in Moscow, have argued that Russia needs to be more strategic in aligning its interests, and be more proactive with instruments and mechanisms in promoting economic cooperation in order to reap the benefits of a fully-fledged partnership.

: Kester Kenn Klomegah; THE WORLD; Russia; 09 August 2019

Collage: A glimpse of Choldala in Southern Kazakhstan. Photos by Kalinga Seneviratne, IDN-INPS

Costly City Housing Threatens Farming in Southern Kazakhstan

By Milena Melnikova*

CHOLDALA, Southern Kazakhstan (IDN) – "I work six days a week, like my wife. I can sometimes take extra hours, and she takes work home. We don’t have time to grow something or raise cattle," says Andrei Pan, who has been living in Choldala about 580 miles (or 933 km) south of the country's capital town Nur-Sultan for the past six years. He and his family moved from the nearby city Of Taraz in 2013 after numerous attempts to find affordable housing there.