Sudhirendar Sharma De-growth can help people engage life journeys with patience and compassion, rather than investing in material acquisitions to escape the daily quota of pain, sadness and frustration. Epidemics have happened in the past but the speed and scope…
Tag: Opinion
How Climate Targets Can Help Economic Recovery
by Francisca Tondreau SANTIAGO – With the world gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic, policymakers have turned their attention to economic stimulus and financial support of households and firms. As a result, many countries have been delaying the preparation and submission…
The Neglected Water and Sanitation Crisis
by Kevin Rudd SUNSHINE COAST – The COVID-19 crisis has laid bare the importance of access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene. As we all know now, hand washing is one of the best frontline defenses against the virus. Yet…
The Environmental Consequences of Political Repression
by Henry Munangatire HARARE – Zimbabwe was once Africa’s rising star. Boasting robust human capital, considerable natural-resource wealth, and modern infrastructure, it was the continent’s leading producer of crops such as maize, wheat, and soybeans. Agricultural exports earned it the…
How Public Development Banks Can Help Nature
by Elizabeth Mrema, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez MONTREAL/WASHINGTON, DC – This week’s Finance in Common Summit will mark the first time that leaders of the world’s 450 public development banks (PDBs) come together to discuss how to reorient investments toward sustainable…
Europe and China Take the Climate Reins
by Laurence Tubiana PARIS – In the space of just a week during this year’s United Nations General Assembly, representatives of the world’s largest single market and the world’s second-largest economy each laid their climate cards on the table. One…
Over 1.5 mn killed worldwide without single shot being fired
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Nov 20 2020 (IPS) – The world’s major military powers exercise their dominance largely because of their massive weapons arsenals, including sophisticated fighter planes, drones, ballistic missiles, warships, battle tanks, heavy artillery—and nuclear weapons of…
Fighting COVID-19 in Solidarity, Advancing BRICS Cooperation
Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China I wish to begin by thanking President Putin and the Russian government for their thoughtful organization of this BRICS Summit. Right now, the world is caught between a pandemic of the…
Scotland declares corporal punishment child abuse
Sometimes being an honourable and decent person is not enough. It’s time for good teachers to speak out, act, and help correct the faults of their law-breaking wayward colleagues. The ignorance of many ‘teachers’ on the national payroll is the…
Glorious days: Waste dumping remains a never ending story
Mostafa Kamal Majumder Despite the official announcement from the highest level of the government of rejection of their proposal for the import of toxic industrial wastes in the guise of generating cheap electricity for a caustic chlorine plant, the waste…
Working Class Bears Disproportionate COVID-19 Fallout Burden
DELHI, India, Nov 16 2020 (IPS) – Back in May 2019, we were visiting a large garment factory in Arsikere, Karnataka, when we asked some of the workers, “What would you do if you got Saturdays off?” Their responses to…
US Republican Party’s Soul in Danger as Trump Hijacks GOP
By Ameen Izzadeen COLOMBO, Nov 13 2020 (IPS) – What has happened to the Republican Party? Picking Donald Trump in 2016 as the Republican candidate, giving him victory in primary after primary and later tolerating his idiosyncrasies and unpredictably dangerous…
Trump Is Gone, But Trumpism Remains
By Roberto Savio ROME, Nov 11 2020 (IPS) – Now it is clear that Joe Biden is the new president of the United States. It is unlikely that Donald Trump’s legal manoeuvring will change the election results, as when a…
On the Coming Decline and Fall of the US Empire?
By Prof. Johan Galtung Paper written in 2015 1. Definitions and Hypotheses: An Overview Definition: An empire is a transborder Center-Periphery system, in macro-space and in macro-time, with a culture legitimizing a structure of unequal exchange between center and periphery:
How Did Trump Get this Far?
By Joaquín Roy MIAMI, Nov 10 2020 (IPS) – To believe that Biden’s triumph is the end of the drama that has unfolded since January 2016 is an example of a mirage with fatal consequences. Pretending that those more than…
Veteran journalist and author Robert Fisk remembered
By Conor Pope Highly regarded, controversial foreign correspondent had long relationship with Ireland Veteran foreign correspondent and author Robert Fisk has died after becoming unwell at his Dublin home on Friday.
Delicate transition for Biden
By John Foley Americans chose Joe Biden as their 46th president. That should usher in a more predictable period for policymaking, and decisive action on containing Covid-19. But he faces three major challenges: voters’ effective rejection of his party’s punchier…
Don’t Wanna Know
Sudhirendar Sharma Our taste for ignorance is a strategic tool for autocracies, a drug spurring mindless consumerism and turning crucial profit.
The Problem Is Not Trump
By Joaquín Roy MIAMI, Nov 7 2020 (IPS) – The election tie, whatever the end result, that has been revealed is not a temporary phenomenon. The protagonist of Trump’s resistance is not the tenant of the White House of the…
US Groups Pour Millions of ‘Dark Money’ into Latin America
By Diana Cariboni and Isabella Cota MONTEVIDEO, Oct 30 2020 (IPS) – Half a dozen US Christian right groups have poured millions of dollars into Latin America and have promoted misinformation about COVID-19 and other health and rights issues, openDemocracy…
The Palestinian struggle betrayed
By Askiah Adam The Abraham Accord signed recently between Israel on the one hand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain on the other, is touted as a peace deal. They were not at war. There was peace between…
Glorious days: Campaign blocking waste import had life risks
Mostafa Kamal Majumder My lookout for news stories landed me on a move by some greedy people coming up with a formal proposal submitted to the government in October 1988 to import toxic wastes camouflaging it under the cover of…
Rising above Hate Online – Indian Muslim Women Speak Out
By Mariya Salim NEW DELHI, India, Oct 23 2020 (IPS) – When a minority woman with an opinion doesn’t comply with stereotypes, she is targeted with online hate, says award-winning journalist and senior editor at The Wire, Arfa Khanum Sherwani…
How Israel wages war on Palestinian history
By Jonathan Cook Nazareth: When the Palestinian actor Mohammed Bakri made a documentary about Jenin in 2002 – filming immediately after the Israeli army had completed rampaging through the West Bank city, leaving death and destruction in its wake –…
Glorius days: Rare aura of unanimity seen in 1991 Parliament
Mostafa Kamal Majumder When the Bangladesh Nationalist Party won the 1991 parliamentary elections held on 27 February initially securing a total of 141 seas against Awami league’s 88, many in political circles thought the party fell into a dilemma about…
Inside the wilds of curiosity
Sudhirendar Sharma Literature has stayed aloof in generating environmental consciousness, leading to inter-generational disconnect in transferring the subtleties of inter-dependence on nature and myriad other life forms.
Minimising Covid-19 Impact on Food System
M Zahidul Haque RECENTLY the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres announced a new plan to transform the world’s food systems. Emphasizing the importance of food system he said that the issue will be culminated in a major summit scheduled to…
Food Systems need to Mimic Nature
By Samira Sadeque UNITED NATIONS, Oct 16 2020 (IPS) – Despite the World Food Programme (WFP) being awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its work in addressing global hunger, sustainable food systems expert Emile Frison believes a lot more…
UN Survives a World Turned Upside Down
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Oct 16 2020 (IPS) – As the United Nations plans to commemorate its annual UN Day, come October 24, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is presiding over a world body which has remained locked down since last…
Revive the Role of Trust in Economy and Politics
By Bhabani Shankar Nayak The pandemic driven lockdowns have triggered worldwide growth of unemployment, hunger, homelessness and poverty. The speed of economic descent in the world economy is extraordinary. The world is sleep walking into a greater economic depression of…