Viewpoint by Ramesh Jaura BERLIN | NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan (IDN) – On June 12, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev completed the first year of his term as President of Kazakhstan, traversing a road to multifarious reforms at home, reflecting the maturity and stable political transition in Central Asia’s biggest nation-state. At the same time, he has been strengthening bilateral […]
African Women Respond to Covid-19 Hunger Emergency
Viewpoint by Linda Eckerbom Cole The writer is Director/Founder, African Women Rising, shuttles between Santa Barbara, California and Gulu, Uganda. SANTA BARBARA, California (IDN) – African Women Rising (AWR) has created a campaign to build 2,000 new Permagardens, which will help feed 15,000 at-risk people who are experiencing food scarcity due to COVID-19. Permagardens empower […]
COVID-19 in Africa: WHO Urges Constant Vigilance as Cases Top 200,000
By Jamshed Baruah GENEVA (IDN) – At present, Africa has an only small fraction of more than 7.5 million COVID-19 affected people, nearly 423,000 of whom have died because of the Coronavirus worldwide. The virus has affected about 200,000 people on the 54-nation continent and killed 5,600. “Swift and early action by African countries has […]
Women in The Pacific Confront the Dual Impact of a Pandemic and A Tropical Cyclone
By UN Women NEW YORK (IDN) – Although the Pacific has largely been spared by the spread of the disease relative to other regions around the world – with Fiji hardest hit of the six countries the UN Women’s Ending Violence Against Women and Girls programme works in, at 18 confirmed cases – all of […]
US Protests Unmask The ‘Torch-Bearer’ Of Human Rights
By Kalinga Seneviratne SYDNEY (IDN) – “The United States (US) has always taken pride in calling itself the ‘Land of the Free’ and appointed itself to be the global cop to punish others who violate human rights. … It has poked its nose in the affairs of almost all countries, all the time presenting itself […]
Crisis Means Danger and Opportunity
Viewpoint by John Scales Avery* COPENHAGEN (IDN) – In written Chinese, the word “crisis” is represented by two characters. One of these, taken alone, means “danger”. The other, by itself, means “opportunity”. A crisis nearly always leads to great change. There is a danger that this will be a change for the worse. But there […]
COVID-19 Puts to Test the UN Development System
By Elena Marmo, Global Policy Watch (GPW) This article first appeared in the GPW’s blog. NEW YORK (IDN) – Across the UN System, all hands are on deck to address the impact of COVID-19 from immediate humanitarian and health needs, to medium and longer-term socio-economic policy. Various initiatives are circling one another, raising issues of […]
COVID-19 A Threat to Great Apes, Closely Related to Humans
Ramesh Jaura Talks to Ian Redmond A tropical field British biologist and conservationist Ian Redmond has served as Ambassador for the UN Year of the Gorilla in 2009 and for the UNEP Convention on Migratory Species since 2010. BERLIN | LONDON (IDN) – The fact that ecosystems and human health intersect has been repeatedly emphasized […]
The Republicans’ Treasonous Betrayal of The American People
Viewpoint by Dr Alon Ben-Meir Dr Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU). He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies. NEW YORK (IDN) – There is nothing that Trump says or does that will surprise me any more, no matter […]
The Coronavirus and its Impact Dominate India’s Everyday Life
News briefs compiled by Suresh Jaura* TORONTO | NEW DELHI (IDN) – A wide range of themes from informal workers to the multi-layered impact of Coronavirus spans this edition of briefs. For example, the loss of more than 120 million in April 2020 as a result of the lockdown, the absence of transparency in regard […]