By Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden | 8 May 2024 (IDN) — Napoleon warned us that China was a sleeping giant best left, undisturbed. No longer. As is clear from the visit of President Xi Jinping to France this week, the giant is well awake, even happy to pay a ceremonial visit to Napoleon’s tomb, affirming […]
The Palestinian Case: Applying to be a Member of the UN
UN Security Council Report BERLIN | NEW YORK | 8 May 2024 (IDN) — On 18 April, the US vetoed a draft Security Council resolution that would have recommended that “the State of Palestine be admitted to membership in the United Nations”. Twelve Council members voted in favour of the draft resolution, while two abstained […]
Africa: A New Study May Warn of Future Climate Tipping Points
By Martin H. Trauth, Asfawossen Asrat, and Mark Maslin* LONDON | ADDIS ABABA | 8 May 2024 (IDN) — Around five and half millennia ago, northern Africa went through a dramatic transformation. The Sahara desert expanded and grasslands, forests and lakes favoured by humans disappeared. Humans were forced to retreat to the mountains, the oases, […]
UNODC Launches New Action to Combat Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling
By Aurora Weiss VIENNA | 8 May 2024 (IDN) — Human trafficking and migrant smuggling are multi-billion-dollar businesses that have changed dramatically in recent years. Financial crises, armed conflicts, and forced displacement, catalysed by the pandemic, have strained justice systems, significantly reducing investigations, prosecutions, victim identification, and protection. In 2020 alone, the number of detected […]
UN Peacekeepers Killed in Civil Wars – Where Nothing is Civil
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS | 7 May 2024 (IDN) —The UN’s peacekeepers and its humanitarian workers are increasingly victims of killings in war zones—in the midst of civil wars and military conflicts. As a former UN Secretary-General once famously remarked: there is nothing civil about civil wars, where hundreds have been killed mostly in […]
Gaza War: More Death and Despair for Rafah’s 700,000 Women and Girls
By UN Women NEW YORK | 7 May 2024 (IDN) — With the population of the southern city of Rafah, in Gaza, ballooning fivefold, from 250,000 to 1.4 million people, in just seven months of the war, the physical and mental health conditions for women and girls have been deteriorating rapidly, as new data collected […]
EU Will Not Promote Democracy with Patronising Speeches and Paternalistic Funds
By Jan Zielonka* This article has been issued jointly by Social Europe and IPS-Journal OXFORD | 7 May 2024 (IDN) — In a recent interview for the New Statesman, a former head of Israel’s internal-security service, Ami Ayalon, disarmingly confessed: ‘We have to assume we shall have a war with Hezbollah not because we want […]
How Israel and Iran Benefit from Escalation
By Dr Muneer Ahmed & Siddharth Anil Nair* This article was issued by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS), an independent think-tank. NEW DELHI | 7 May 2024 (IDN) — While the spectre of inter-state conflict has loomed large over West Asia these past few months, it appears now to be at a […]
Catastrophic Flooding Takes Hundreds of Kenyan Lives
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 7 May 2024 (IDN) — “Maji! Maji! (Water Water!). That was the frantic cry heard throughout Mathare, one of Kenya’s overcrowded squatter settlements in the capital, Nairobi, as torrential rains triggered widespread flooding across the capital city. The rains have been ravaging Kenya since March during […]
Dozens Of Ugandan Officials Swept Up in Major Corruption Scandal
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 6 May 2024 (IDN) — In a shocking development, dozens of Uganda’s high-placed ministers and legislators have been accused of stealing from the poor communities they serve in a sprawling scandal that has outraged graft-weary citizens. Sanctions imposed by Uganda’s Anti-Corruption Court target Parliament Speaker Anita […]