By David Robie This article was published in Asia-Pacific Report and is being republished with the author’s permission. SUVA, Fiji, 6 March 2023 (IDN) — Two countries. A common border. Two hostage crises. But the responses of both Asia-Pacific nations have been like chalk and cheese.
Films by Women A Standout at Africa’s Famed Film Festival
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | OUAGADOUGOU, 6 March 2023 (IDN) — In the bad old days of French colonial rule, Africans were forbidden from making films. As a result, one of the first films ever produced by an African “Afrique-sur-Seine” (Africa on the Seine), was made in Paris in 1955 by […]
Pacific Islanders Want Japan to Stop Dumping Nuclear Waste into Their Ocean
By Kalinga Seneviratne SUVA, Fiji 6 March 2023 (IDN) — Alarmed at Japan’s plans to dump nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean regional leaders are calling upon the Japanese government to immediately call a stop to such plans. Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Fisheries and Marine Resources, Jelta Wong, said on Monday (6 March) “there […]
A New UN Treaty Seeks to Protect One-third of World’s Oceans
By J Nastranis NEW YORK, 5 March 2023 (IDN) — After two weeks of tough negotiations at the UN Headquarters in New York, the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction—better known by its acronym BBNJ—has agreed on a text to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of […]
“We Are Drinking Mercury”: In Zimbabwe, Artisanal Gold Mining Is Polluting Water
By Farai Shawn Matiashe MUTARE, Zimbabwe, 5 March 2023 (IDN) — Every morning as Mercy Mubatsa fetches water from a tap outside her home in Penhalonga, a mining area 263 kilometres (163 miles) outside the Zimbabwean capital Harare, her anxiety is heightened. In March last year, mercury and cyanide deposits from artisanal gold mines in […]
New Report Finds Women in Parliaments Worldwide
By Jutta Wolf BERLIN | GENEVA, 04 March 2023 (IDN) — Women’s participation in parliament has never been as diverse and representative as it is in many countries today. For the first time in history, not a single functioning parliament in the world is male-only, says the latest Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).
In Focus: Education and the SDGs
By Kalinga Seneviratne SYDNEY, 04 March 2023 (IDN) — Education contributes to many of the Sustainable Development Goals. It reduces poverty, drives sustainable economic growth, prevents inequality and injustice, leads to better health —particularly for women and children—and helps to protect the planet.
UNCTAD Urges Support for the World’s Poorest Countries
By Jaya Ramachandran GENEVA, 4 March 2023 (IDN) — Multiple crises including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis, growing inequalities, rising debt burdens and economic shocks are strongly affecting world’s 46 Least Developed Countries (LDCs). They face the challenge of high debt costs because they do not have sufficient cash to provide essential services. In the […]
It’s High Time to Stop the March Towards World War III
By Tony Robinson* This article was published in Pressenza International Press Agency and is being republished with the author’s permission. LONDON, 3 March 2023 (IDN) — In Europe, North America and a few other countries that feed themselves with information from the western media, it can have escaped no one’s attention that we are actually […]
Nigeria’s Elections and the Man Who Thinks He Is “the State”
By Azu Ishiekwene The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria. ABUJA, 3 March 2023 (IDN) — The last thing he wants to hear is that he desires anything other than what is good for Nigeria. Hero of Nigeria’s civil war; a former military president who supervised the first-post-war transition […]