By Thalif Deen UN, Jan 29 2018 (IPS) – When the World Economic Forum (WEF) concluded in Davos, Switzerland last week, the outcome of the annual talk-fest was seemingly predictable—plenty of unrestrained platitudes but, surprisingly, less of the American populist,…
The number of teachers in the primary, secondary and college level is about nine lakh in Bangladesh who have been demonstrating in various ways to press home their long standing demands. Several groups of teachers were on demonstration in the…
New data from the World Health Organization (WHO) has found widespread levels of antimicrobial resistance worldwide. This was revealed in a report by WHO’s new global antimicrobial surveillance system (GLASS), which showed high levels of resistance to a number of…
By Emma Richards CONFLICT and mass displacement have pushed parts of Burma (Myanmar) and Bangladesh near crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity, food agencies warned the UN security council on Monday.
Brittany Scalise Whenever you bite into a piece of food, do you think about where it comes from? How did it get from the ground to your table? Who are the farmers and entrepreneurs who cultivated and sourced it? It’s…
Aristotle measured the quality of democracy by the extent to which politics constrains the economically powerful, allowing the preferences of the landless to be reflected in public policy. According to a new analysis, American democracy gets a failing grade on…
The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), held in October 2017, called for implementing the national strategy of revitalizing rural villages and townships. So-called “internet plus agriculture” was identified as an important…
A new whitepaper on cooling in Southeast Asia finds low public awareness around the importance of energy-efficient cooling for reducing pollution and fighting climate change, and its implications for a more sustainable future for the region.
Ranjan Panda Cities need to increase treatment, recycling and reuse of wastewater to reduce the amount of untreated wastewater discharged into freshwater bodies by at least 50 per cent by 2030. Ever since the new government at India’s centre came…
By Dr Salim Nazzal I believe that there is no political declaration throughout history that has had devastating effects such as the Balfour Declaration. The Balfour Declaration has ignited wars lasting 100 years in addition that it has posed a…
by Éloi Laurent Reports of the death of growth have been greatly exaggerated. As the IMF noted last month, the world enjoyed in 2017 the “broadest cyclical upswing since the start of the decade”. In other words, after ten years…
by Marcel Pauly “In a constitutional state, the true ruler is the voter”, go the words of Ferdinand Lassalle, the champion of workers and intellectual force behind European social democracy. But in the meantime, the voter has – more than…
The European Union’s top court says that Austrian privacy campaigner Maximillian Schrems can bring a case against Facebook Ireland as an individual but there cannot be a class action suit.
Though 2017 was marked by stories of humanitarian disasters around the world, many crises remain under the radar with devastating consequences for those affected, a new report says.
Robert J. Burrowes As our world spirals deeper into an abyss from which it is becoming increasingly difficult to extricate ourselves, some very prominent activists have lamented the lack of human solidarity in the face of the ongoing genocide of…
By: Rehab Abd Almohsen Nairobi – An investigation into the toxic fallout of three years of armed conflict has added the environment — and the residents set to suffer long-term impacts from pollution — to the list of casualties in…
By Baxter Dmitry A 79-year-old retired officer of the CIA, Bill Oxley, has made a series of stunning confessions since he was admitted to the Mercy Hospital in Maine on Monday and told he has weeks to live. He claims…
By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram Sydney and Kuala Lumpur, Jan 23 (IPS) – As the ‘masters of the universe’ gather for their annual retreat at Davos, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has just published its Inclusive Development Index…
by Meena Raman The annual climate change talks under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol (KP) and the Paris Agreement (PA) took place in Bonn, Germany, on 6-18 November 2017, ending a day later…
By Rafiqul Islam Sarker Nankar, Bangladesh, Jan 20 (IPS) – Wahid Haider talks about his son’s departure to Italy almost seven years ago without regret or hesitation. Haider has not seen Nayeem, now 30 years old, since he left Nankar…
Social democracy in Europe is not in good shape. Perhaps the main reason for social democratic parties losing support has been their perceived association with austerity policies. Where, however, the centre-left has more categorically rejected austerity, as in the case…
Ejaz Ghani Washington, DC – When the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to undergo large-scale urbanization in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the process transformed its economy and society. Today, India is facing a similar…
Approval for US falls to 30% from 48% under Obama In just under half of the world’s countries – 65 out of 134 – US standing collapsed, by 10 percentage points or more. Global confidence in US leadership has fallen…
By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram Sydney and Kuala Lumpur, Jan 17 (IPS) – The United Nations Agenda 2030 for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is being touted in financial circles as offering huge investment opportunities requiring trillions of…
By Thalif Deen UN, Jan 18 (IPS) – The continued erratic and outrageous comments by President Donald Trump – and his attempts to undermine the United Nations – are threatening to cause irreparable damage to the world body.
Populists abhor restraints on the political executive. Since they claim to represent “the people” writ large, they regard limits on their exercise of power as necessarily undermining the popular will. Such constraints can only serve the “enemies of the people”…
By Junaid Ahmad As we enter the new year, and have experienced one year of Donald Trump as President of the United States, it seems like the world should have no reason to be shocked anymore at Trump’s outbursts, particularly…
In Nepal’s far western Achham, a remote arid region where farming villages dot the foothills of the Himalayas, government and aid workers have walked from door to door for nearly a decade to advocate against chauupadi, an ancient Hindu ritual…
by Gerald Holtham There is currently a big debate about productivity growth. Is it as slow as it has been measured or have changes in the economy led to growing measurement errors? If slow growth is real, what causes it?
By Thalif Deen New York, Jan 16 (IPS) – When the United States abruptly cuts off military supplies to its allies for political or other reasons, the reaction has been predictable: it drive these countries into the arms of the…