By Sugeeswara Senadhira The writer is Media Advisor at the Presidential secretariat. COLOMBO (IDN) — Genocide is the intentional destruction of a particular group through killing, serious physical or mental harm, preventing births and/or forcibly transferring children to another group and this term has been applied to the experiences of Indigenous peoples in Canada, particularly […]
UN Experts Call on Myanmar Businesses ‘To Take a Stand’ Against Military Junta
By Caroline Mwanga NEW YORK (IDN | UN News) — Independent rights experts of the United Nations have urged businesses in Myanmar to fulfill their human rights responsibilities and pressure the military junta to halt grave human rights violations against its own people. According to UN News, some businesses have reiterated their public support for […]
Widespread Frustration in Nigeria Would Not Justify a Coup
The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria. ABUJA (IDN) — These days, it seems all right to play with fire. The blaze started as a solitary spark in Mali in August when the streets, the elite, and jihadists banded to remove President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. The former president had […]
NATO Plans to Focus on Russia and China
By Robert Johnson BRUSSELS (IDN) — “What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO,” French President Emmanuel Macron declared in a blunt interview with The Economist in November 2019. Europe stands on “the edge of a precipice”, he said, and needs to start thinking of itself strategically as a geopolitical power; otherwise, […]
The Nuclear Threat in the New Information Age
Viewpoint by Daryl G. Kimball The writer is the executive director of Arms Control Association and publisher of Arms Control Today since 2001. The following is the text of Mr Kimball’s Foreword to 2021 Joint Media Project Report of the Non-Profit International Press Syndicate Group with IDN as flagship agency in partnership with Soka Gakkai […]
Biden Should Return Quickly to the Obama-led Iran Nuclear Deal
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden (IDN) — It was the Americans who helped the long-ago-deposed Shah of Iran start Iran’s nuclear power research. He wanted a bomb. The Americans seemed insouciant about where this might lead. After the revolution, the research was bequeathed from the wrong pair of hands to another wrong pair of […]
Bandits Constrain Nigeria to Seeks Return of ‘Africom’
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — Early Pentagon plans for a US military command based in Africa were once firmly rejected by almost every country on the continent. African governments were reluctant to associate themselves with America’s “war on terror” and fearful of US intervention. Libya and Algeria both refused to […]
Corona May Shutter South Africa’s Beloved Heritage Museums
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — Popular exhibits at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg and other legacy museums are barely surviving and may close over funding shortfalls due to COVID-19. A pair of boxing gloves worn by Nelson Mandela at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, one of […]
Africa the Next Centre for Manufacturing COVID Drug?
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — For a while, Africa appeared to be losing the fight to build manufacturing capacity for the production of COVID-19 vaccines as big pharma and rich countries questioned African capacity to make its own vaccines. Some international companies regard African self-sufficiency as a long-term risk to […]
The Next Frontier: Human Development and the Anthropocene [1]
Viewpoint by Franz Baumann*, Former UN Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations. This article was first published in Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, Volume 63 Issue 3, May/June 2021 and is being republished with the author’s permission. NEW YORK (IDN) — One must thank UNDP for putting together the 2020 UNDP Human Development Report (HDR). […]