By UN News KAUAI, Hawaii (IDN) – The 17 goals agreed by the global community to reduce poverty and crate a sustainable planet are the responsibility of all people, wherever they are in the world, according to the United Nations. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a boundary-pushing blueprint for the future of the Earth […]
COVID-19: Resources Needed for Gender and Social Inclusion
Women Front and Centre Viewpoint by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka UN Under-Secretary-General and UN Women Executive Director. NEW YORK (IDN) – One thing is clear about the COVID-19 pandemic, as stock markets tumble, schools and universities close, people stockpile supplies and home becomes a different and crowded space: this is not just a health issue. It is […]
How to Think Positively about Isolation during Coronavirus Lockdown
Viewpoint by Silvia Panizza* PIEDMONT, Italy (IDN) – “They say when trouble comes, close ranks.” So begins Jean Rhys’s novel Wide Sargasso Sea. When the new coronavirus started spreading in Europe, my first impulse was to travel home, to Italy, to be with my family. Lesson number one learned from the virus: you remember what […]
Bernie Sanders Pushes Democratic Party to the Left
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden (IDN) – Is Bernie Sanders still in with a chance? It is a slim one, but in these primary elections one never knows. There have been a number of surprising upsets. Even if Joe Biden comes out on top and has to face Donald Trump for the presidency the […]
Iran Should Demonstrate That Its Nuclear Program Is Peaceful
By Kelsey Davenport and Julia Masterson This article first appeared on Arms Control Association Website. Kelsey Davenport is director for nonproliferation policy, and Julia Masterson research assistant WASHINGTON, DC (IDN) – International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi raised concerns earlier in March about Tehran’s failure to cooperate with an agency investigation into possible […]
China Shows Novel Coronavirus Can Be ‘Stopped in Its Tracks’
By UN News BEIJING (IDN) – China’s experience in containing the spread of the new coronavirus could serve as a lesson for other countries now facing the COVID-19 pandemic, a senior official with the World Health Organization (WHO) has told UN News in an in-depth interview. While more than 153,00 cases of the respiratory illness […]
The Largest US-Led Military Exercise in Europe Continues Despite COVID-19
Viewpoint by Jan Oberg*, The Transnational Foundation, TFF. LUND, Sweden (IDN) -– Defender Europe 20 is a huge, basically US military exercise, on European soil between February and May this year. It has already started. In the midst of a closed-down coronavirus Europe. And it is war-preparing, not peace- or confidence-building. The diagram above from […]
International Cooperation Vital to Defying the Consequences of Coronavirus
Viewpoint by Beate Trankmann*, UNDP Resident Representative in China BEIJING (IDN) – Since its outbreak, the effects of the coronavirus have been felt in countries across the world. With around 110,000 confirmed cases of COVID19 and over 4,000 deaths as of March 10, this epidemic has put public health systems and emergency services under immense pressure. […]
Coronavirus Reaches African Shores
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) – Only a few weeks ago, African leaders were breathing a sigh of relief as the new coronavirus skipped the continent to lodge in Italy, Spain and other European countries. “Whether it’s a matter of faulty detection, climatic factors or simple fluke, the remarkably low rate […]
Massive African Infrastructure Projects Often Hurt, Not Help, Local People
Viewpoint by Tom Goodfellow* SHEFFIELD (IDN) – Big infrastructure projects are always controversial. Yet in parts of the world associated with severely deficient infrastructure, the positive value of major infrastructure investments is often taken as a given. This assumption needs to be subjected to much greater scrutiny, as I argue in new research that explores […]