Berlin a ‘Launch Partner’ to UNDP’s Accelerator Labs in 60 Countries By Santo D. Banerjee NEW YORK (IDN) – The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has greeted the German government’s decision to raise a further 25 percent in funding from its 2019 core resources, which follows a 60 percent increase for 2018. Germany is currently […]
Why Green New Deal Advocates Must Address Militarism
Viewpoint by Medea Benjamin and Alice Slater* Where is the call for the New Peace Deal that would free up hundreds of billions from the overblown military budget to invest in green infrastructure? ask the authors of this article that first appeared on Common Dreams on 12 December 2018. NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – In the […]
Participatory Development is a Humane Alternative to Migration
Viewpoint by Yossef Ben-Meir and Manon Burbidge While Yossef Ben-Meir, Ph.D. is a sociologist and President of the High Atlas Foundation, based in Marrakech, Manon Burbidge is a post-graduate studying Human Ecology at Lund University, Sweden and currently interning at the High Atlas Foundation. MARRAKECH (IDN) – December 2018 is gearing up to be a […]
East Africans Score Victory for Minneapolis’ Amazon Workers
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) – Somali women packers for the giant Amazon distribution center in Minneapolis are fired up and refusing to speed up the production line, becoming the first known group to defy Amazon management and bring them to the bargaining table. “Nobody would assume a Muslim worker with […]
Maasai Fight Efforts to Convert Their Lands to Game Parks
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) – “The water that quenches our thirst, the air that we breathe, the trees that provide shade and the animals that give us company, all make life real and creation complete.” So begins a prayer by an elder of the Maasai people of Tanzania whose traditional […]
UK’s May Should Announce a New Referendum Immediately
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The whole debate about Brexit has had a weird quality about it from beginning to end. Prime Minister Theresa May voted in the referendum two and half years ago to remain in the European Union but then as a quid pro quo for being made prime minister […]
European Parliament Hails the Global Compact for Migration
By Robert Johnson BRUSSELS (IDN) – Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) regret “the campaign of disinformation” that has led to several countries withdrawing their support from the United Nations Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). They emphasize that the migration compact is a non-legally binding framework that does not create new […]
Survivors and Activists Spotlight Solutions to End Violence Against Women
By UN Women LOS ANGELES (IDN-INPS) – Commemorating Human Rights Day and the global advocacy campaign “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence”, the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund) held a fundraising luncheon in Santa Monica, California, on December 10. In the hometown of the #MeToo movement, the event […]
Civil and Political Rights are Also Indivisible Human Rights
Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne SINGAPORE (IDN) – When European gunboats went across the world, Christian missionaries who wanted to “civilize” the people – to whom the Bible was an unknown entity – accompanied the colonizers. Today, when U.S. or NATO missiles rain on countries, Western human rights organisations and their activists follow them, with their […]
Parliamentarians for Nuclear Disarmament Emphasize Need to Combat Climate Change
By Aleksandra Gadzinski KATOWICE (IDN) – Nuclear weapons and climate change are the two major existential threats to the survival of humanity, civilization and the planet Earth. With this in view, in January 2018 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the legendary Doomsday Clock to 2 minutes to Midnight, due to […]