By Santo D. Banerjee NEW YORK | PORT VILA (IDN) – One month old Joy Nowai has become the world’s first child to be given a vaccine delivered commercially by drone in a remote island in the South Pacific country of Vanuatu, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported on December 18. The vaccine delivery […]
Democracy Has Hit An Iceberg
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – In the Western world there is a constant debate about democracy. In the U.S. the Democrats charge quite correctly that the House’s constituencies are gerrymandered against them. Then there’s the insoluble issue of the Senate’s anti-democratic bias where its numbers are tilted against the Democrats by the […]
Africa’s Blue Economy Or a Global Ocean Grab by the Rich?
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) – Six counties in Kenya’s coastal region have been tagged for technical training in the blue economy – what some have called “the new frontier of the African Renaissance”. The goal is to enable young people to find jobs in the maritime industry. Kevit Desai, a […]
Of Cockroaches and Humans
Viewpoint by Roberto Savio The writer is publisher of Other News, a vehicle for “voices against the tide”, and founder of IPS–Inter Press Service News Agency. This article is being reproduced courtesy of Other News with the writer’s permission. He can be contacted at utopia@robertosavio.info and his articles and comments can be read on Facebook […]
Possibility of Peace in Afghanistan Was Never More Real Than It’s Now – UN Envoy
By J Nastranis NEW YORK (IDN) – The possibility of a negotiated end to the conflict in Afghanistan has never been more real in the past 17 years than it is now, according to the United Nations top envoy in Afghanistan. Tadamichi Yamamoto told the Security Council on December 17 he is encouraged by several […]
Kazakhstan Continues Discussions on Cooperation Between Afghanistan and Central Asia States
By Santo D. Banerjee NEW YORK (IDN) – Ambassadors from Central Asia and UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) Tadamichi Yamamoto met at Kazakhstan’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations on December 14, two weeks ahead of the Central Asian state’s non-permanent membership of the […]
Japan Shines with a Youth Forum to Commemorate Universal Human Rights Declaration
By Katsuhiro Asagiri TOKYO (IDN) – When the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in Paris on December 10, 1948, it came up with a milestone document in the history of human rights that took into account the horrendous experiences of the Second World War. With the end of that […]
World’s Poorest Look Forward to 2019 Climate Summit at the UN
By J Nastranis NEW YORK | KATOWICE (IDN) – The year 2018 has been marked by a series of natural disasters underlining that no country is immune to the impacts of climate change. But it is the nearly 1 billion world’s poorest people living in the 47 least developed countries (LDCs) that are often hit […]
Africa – Realising The Promise of the Demographic Dividend
Viewpoint by Graça Machel The author, who writes this piece following the recent publication of the Africa Report on Child Wellbeing and the African Child-Friendliness Index, is the widow of Nelson Mandela and former First Lady of both South Africa and Mozambique. She is Chair of the International Board of Trustees of the African Child […]
‘Ugly’ Is the New Delicious in Singapore
By Nadia Amirah Binte Kamsani SINGAPORE (IDN) – As Asian societies become affluent, their modern lifestyles are leading to much wastage in the food chain to satisfy the high standards of hygeine and freshness consumers demand. To combat the issue of higher food wastage in Singapore – one of the most affluent countries in the […]