By Kester Kenn Klomegah MOSCOW (IDN) – The rescheduling of the Group of Seven (G7) summit from late June to September and Russia’s participation alongside with South Korea, Australia, India and South Korea has sparked discussions among both Russian officials and experts. The Kremlin reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump […]
McDonald’s and the Ongoing Indo-Chinese Conflict
Viewpoint by Manish Uprety F.R.A.S. and Jainendra Karn * NEW DELHI (IDN) – Thomas Friedman first put forward the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention in 1996 which claimed that no two countries that both had McDonald’s had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald’s. However, life has its own logic […]
A UN Day Will Address Serious Concerns of Widows Worldwide
Viewpoint by Roseline Orwa * BONDO, Kenya (IDN) – COVID-19, the deadly pandemic that has upended our world, is also, according to a new report, “a widow-making machine”. The emerging scientific evidence that many more men than women are dying from COVID-19 shows that the coronavirus crisis is creating new widows even as global economic […]
A Framework to Achieve the Model for Development in Morocco
Viewpoint by Yossef Ben-Mei * MARRAKECH (IDN) – There may be irony in Morocco now reconsidering and revamping its development model, which is its national guiding frameworks for social and environmental fulfilment. I have long been and remain a believer in Morocco’s existing structures for people’s development. There is, after all, a lot to like. […]
How the Black Lives Matter Movement Went Global
By Mark Leon Goldberg, UN Dispatch Podcasts NEW YORK (IDN ) – The Black Lives Matter movement has spread quickly around the world. Over the last several weeks, there have been BLM demonstrations in nearly every major city in Europe. Tens of thousands of people showed up for protests in Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, and London, […]
Why COVID-19 Offers A Chance to Transform UN Peacekeeping
Viewpoint by Charles T. Hunt and Adam Day * LONDON (IDN | The Conversation) – United Nations Peacekeeping may be entering a period of major change. Over the past four years, there has been a steady decline in the number of peacekeepers deployed worldwide. And two of the largest peacekeeping missions in history are beginning […]
UN Senior African Officials ‘Outraged’ at Systemic Racism and Police Brutality
By Caroline Mwanga NEW YORK (IDN) – Twenty-two United Nations senior African officials who hold the rank of Under-Secretary-General have in their “personal capacity” signed “Joint Reflections” on the last few weeks of protests at the killing of George Floyd in the hands of police, which they say in no uncertain terms have left them […]
Arab Women’s Organizations Join the UN Chief Urging a Global Ceasefire in the Face Of COVID-19
By Caroline Mwanga NEW YORK (IDN) – In a joint statement, ninety-one women’s organizations from Iraq, Libya, Palestine, Syria and Yemen have joined a global appeal issued by UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the outset of the pandemic. On March 23, Guterres urged warring parties across the world to lay down their weapons in support of the bigger […]
UN Helps Conserve Migratory Waterbirds and Protect Biodiversity in 119 Countries
“Now Is the Time to Invest in and Step Up Action for Nature” By Rita Joshi BONN (IDN) – At least 40 per cent of the world’s economy and 80 per cent of the needs of the poor are derived from biological resources. These include diversity within species, between species, and between ecosystems. The richer […]
Supreme Court Against India’s Name Change to ‘Bharat’
Important Rulings on Migrant Workers and the Coronavirus Dead News briefs compiled by Suresh Jaura* TORONTO | NEW DELHI (IDN) – Indian news media have been reporting on a wide range of events and ongoing developments, including on the economy becoming “self-reliant” – an age-old but not yet achieved objective – without having an alternative […]