By Lautaro Rivara * PORT-AU-PRINCE (IDN) – Thirteen United Nations peacekeeping missions are underway in various countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Haiti has been the epicenter of the UN peacekeeping missions in Latin America and the Caribbean; there have been eight UN missions since the International Civilian Mission in Haiti (MICIVIH) was […]
US Pressurizes TPNW Signatories Triggering Uncertainty About Nuclear-Weapons-Free World
By Thalif Deen * NEW YORK (IDN) – Responding to a question, Albert Einstein, the German-born physicist who won the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics, predicted rather ominously: “I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Einstein, who regretted […]
How Colonial Policy Is Impoverishing Indian Ocean Coastal Communities
Viewpoint by Dr Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake The writer is an anthropologist affiliated with the International Center for Ethnic Studies in Colombo. Read also A Hybrid Cold War Unfolding in The Indo-Pacific Beneath the Covid-19 Mask. COLOMBO (IDN) – Like the Chagossians who were forcibly displaced to Mauritius and Seychelles, Sri Lankan and other Indian Ocean Rim […]
A Hybrid Cold War Unfolding in The Indo-Pacific Beneath the Covid-19 Mask
Viewpoint by Dr Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake The writer is an anthropologist affiliated with the International Center for Ethnic Studies in Colombo. COLOMBO (IDN) – The Covid-19 narrative has colonised the world, shutting down the global and local economy and society, with a face mask as its telling symbol. In strategically located Sri Lanka, more people have […]
New Research Raises Alarm for Our Most Precious Buffer to Climate Change: Groundwater
Viewpoint by Vincent Casey The writer is Senior WASH Manager – Water, WaterAid UK LONDON (IDN) – WaterAid’s newly released water security research has uncovered an alarming lack of global governance and grave mismanagement of the world’s precious groundwater reserves, needlessly putting millions of lives at risk. Hundreds of millions of people rely on groundwater […]
Five BRICS Countries Accentuate UN’s Central Role in International Affairs
Parliamentarians Pledge Partnership for Global Stability By Kester Kenn Klomegah* MOSCOW (IDN) – Parliamentarians of five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have pledged to join hands in combating COVID-19, facing the challenges and threats that each member state currently faces, and strengthening cooperation, including at the inter-parliamentary level. In view of […]
The Need to Engage Youth Social Entrepreneurs to Accelerate the SDGs
Viewpoint by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana Ms. Alisjahbana, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) was Professor of Economics at Universitas Padjadjaran in Bandung, Indonesia. BANGKOK (IDN) – This year, the United Nations is marking its 75th anniversary – a milestone of extraordinary economic and social progress […]
Win or Lose, Trump Is Africa’s Dangerous Example
Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwene The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-In-Chief of The Interview magazine based in Abuja, Nigeria. ABUJA (IDN) – If Donald J. Trump were president of Wakanda on the eve of an election, that country would have received several warnings from the US State Department on the need for free and fair polls, […]
The Politicization of the United States Supreme Court
An affront to the Independence of the Judiciary and American Democracy Viewpoint by Somar Wijayadasa* NEW YORK (IDN) – The United States Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, as a Justice of the Supreme Court. Despite the partisan rancor, Barrett’s confirmation was a forgone conclusion. The Court now has a conservative […]
Setsuko Thurlow: The TPNW – A Game Changer in Nuclear Disarmament
The following is the text of the Statement by Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and long time campaigner for nuclear-weapons abolition, as the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) reached the 50 states parties required for its entry into force. ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear […]