By Caroline Mwanga NEW YORK (IDN) — The international community has set the goal of achieving gender equality by 2030. But UN Women, a United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, maintains that “at the current rate of progress, gender equality will not be reached among Heads of Government until […]
Afghan Women’s Voices on Peace Heard with UN Mission’s Backing
By Devinder Kumar NEW DELHI | KUNDUZ (IDN) — While the UN Security Council on March 14 “condemned in the strongest terms” the alarming number of attacks deliberately targeting civilians in Afghanistan, women activists were over several days knocking on doors in Kunduz, posing two questions to their relatives, neighbours and fellow residents of the […]
A Campaign Plans ‘Global Primaries’ for the UN Chief’s Post
The goal of the campaign is to democratize the selection process and give António Guterres a viable candidate to run against. By Stéphanie Fillion*, Passblue NEW YORK (IDN) — A new grass-roots campaign, called #Forward, is launching open, digital global primaries to find a “people-backed” candidate to run for United Nations secretary-general this year, for […]
Profit Hungry Modi Government Ready to Risk Famine in India
Viewpoint by Justin Podur* This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. TORONTO (IDN) — India’s right-wing government has been deploying all the modern tools of repression against a historic farmers’ protest. Much is at stake. For the people of India, their agricultural system is about to get far more […]
Buddhists Map A New Paradigm for Dev. Communication
By Krishan Dutta BANGKOK (IDN) — A group of Buddhist economists and communication scholars from Asia are embarking on a mission to redefine the development communication paradigm using concepts from the Buddhist philosophy. A webinar held earlier this month organized by Lotus Communication Network (LCN) in association with the Institute of Asian Studies (IAS) at […]
UN Acclaims VODAN’s Contribution to Fight COVID-19 in Africa
By Reinhard Jacobsen BRUSSELS (IDN) — The United Nations has commended VODAN-AFRICA for their innovative approach to “data sharing and re-use under the present COVID-19 circumstances”. The Virus Outbreak Data Network is a system of sharing data on Coronavirus that ensures that the information remains in the country that generated it, rather than being exported […]
Detoxracy: The Current Challenge to Democracy in America
Viewpoint by Bill Dahl* QUERETARO, Mexico (IDN) — Detoxification is essential to human life. Every cell of the human body must routinely detoxify. From the cellular level, these toxins are transported to our organs of elimination—the kidney and liver, to be processed and expelled. Organizations, institutions and governments also become toxic and must purge these […]
Keeping an Eye on The Situation in Tigray War
By Reinhard Jacobsen BRUSSELS (IDN) — The midnight of November 3-4, 2020 witnessed the unleashing of the armed conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa. For nearly a fortnight there was a communication blackout until on November 17 the Europe External Programme with Africa (EEPA) launched a daily situation report. […]
Rape Allegations Rock the Australian Parliament
By Kalinga Seneviratne SYDNEY (IDN) — While International Women’s Day was celebrated around the world on March 8, a debate was gathering momentum in Australia about the “toxic workplace culture” within the corridors of power in the Australian parliament in Canberra, with politicians running for cover as rape allegations against them and their staff surfaced […]
Indian Dilemma Over UNHRC Resolution on Sri Lanka
Viewpoint by Sugeeswara Senadhira COLOMBO (IDN) — New Delhi is in an unenviable situation over the UNHRC (United Nations Human Rights Council) resolution on Sri Lanka as it would not be in India’s long-term interest to pave way for the international body to be provided with an opportunity to directly interfere in an internal affair […]