By Santo D. Banerjee NEW YORK (IDN) -– In a dramatic warning from 13 Nobel Prize winners about the existential dangers of nuclear weapons and climate crisis, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on January 23 set the hands of its iconic ‘Doomsday Clock’ to 100 seconds to midnight, On April 25, during the Covid-19 crisis, […]
COVID-19 Strikes South Asia’s Minorities Whose Rights Are Already Threatened
By Jaya Ramachandran LONDON (IDN) – A new report warns that the minorities and other marginalised communities are even more exposed to the worst impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is hitting South Asia. It has come at a time when governments are inflicting sustained assaults on their rights. Minorities face severe obstacles in accessing […]
COVID-19 Shows How Ecosystems and Human Health Intersect
Viewpoint by Dominick A. DellaSala, William J. Ripple, and Franz Baumann* This article is being re-published by courtesy of The New Republic, which carried it first on April 20. NEW YORK (IDN) – The butterfly effect is a thought experiment about how a small change in a system— a butterfly flapping its wings — can […]
UN Chief and German Chancellor Call for Rebuilding ‘Our World for the Better’
By Ramesh Jaura BERLIN (IDN) – German chancellor Angela Merkel and UN Secretary-General António Guterres have accentuated that any coronavirus recovery programme should have a clear focus on climate targets and rebuilding “our world for the better”. They were addressing a two-day video conference in Berlin co-organised by Germany and Britain, the latter as the […]
Two ‘Unsung Heroes’ Helping Kenya’s Slum Dwellers Facing Coronavirus
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) – Journalists who step out of their high-floor offices or manage to escape from their coronavirus confinement sometimes find a great story right on the street below. Such was the story discovered by Kevin Phillips Momanyi, a reporter with Kenya’s Tuko news channel.
‘Flowers of Hope’ from Kenya As Major Markets Dry Up
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) – It was inevitable during a lockdown that sales of Kenya’s flower exports would dry up as buyers make fewer impulse purchases of carnations, roses and other blossoms. According to data from the Kenya Flower Council, sales of cut flowers in overseas markets have fallen below […]
America Should Not Be Number One Because It’s A Spent Star
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power The US needs first and foremost to look after itself-– its often counterproductive foreign policy, its poverty, its third rate health services, its misdistribution of income, to save the economy and to save those most hurt by the Coronavirus crisis. LUND, Sweden (IDN) – It might seem that the world is […]
Africans Mourn the Passing of a Distinguished Thinker and two Outstanding Artists
By Lisa VIves, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) – While the rate of fatalities in Africa is still much below that of developed countries, every life lost is a library gone, according to a saying. Here are three noted Africans who passed this year just as thousands of lives were tragically lost to the […]
Kenyans Are Innovative in Finding Ways to Fight COVID-19
By Justus Wanzala BUSIA, Kenya (IDN) – It is a hot afternoon at a bus station at Mungatsi market centre, Nambale Sub-County, in Busia County, Western Kenya. Many people, many travellers, are queuing to wash their hands. Each person is maintaining a distance from the other as they wash their hands and board public service […]
Women Leaders Rise in Solidarity to Save Lives and Protect Livelihoods
By UN Women “Rise for All” calls on all leaders to meet the human crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic and fully fund the UN Response and Recovery Trust Fund NEW YORK (IDN) – Supporting the UN Secretary-General’s call for solidarity and urgent action in response to the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19, an initial group of […]