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By Aurora Weiss
VIENNA (IDN) — Ukraine and Moldova have moved closer to membership of the European Union (EU) much faster than the six countries of the Western Balkans in general. There has been general agreement that requirements for EU accession candidature are not easy to meet, but Ukraine and Moldova seem to have got that status overnight.
By Kalinga Seneviratne
SYDNEY (IDN) — Australia's new Labour Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has been criticised on Twitter and some media for secretly making a trip to Ukraine to meet Vladimir Zelensky and pledge $100 million of military aid. At the same time, thousands of families across Australia were being evacuated from rising flood waters, with emergency services seemingly underfunded. Some families have evacuated their homes for the second or third time this year.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Once again in the European Union, thanks to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, the discussion about admitting new members is coming to the boil and, once again Turkey, promised membership of the Union over 30 years ago, is not on the list.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — As members of the Pan-African Parliament hotly disputed the election of senator and chief Fortune Charumbira as their next president, a familiar figure could have turned the exercise upside down.
The familiar figure was ex-President Robert Mugabe. Charumbira, an unapologetic Mugabe supporter, once faced censure from Zimbabwe’s High Court which ruled that his comments publicly supporting Mugabe’s Zanu PF party were unconstitutional as chiefs are required to be neutral.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — “Mr President, where is our money? The high cost of living will kill us.”
Those were the cries that filled the streets of Accra as the usually peaceful people of Ghana could no longer stop their anger and frustration over intolerable living costs, record inflation, and misleading information about the economy shared by the government.
Over the past week, hundreds of Ghanaians clashed with police and denounced their government’s inaction on the crisis.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Legislators in Ghana with unapologetic support from President Nana Akufo-Addo have come up with a new law making life even harder for LGBTQIA+ persons in the West African country, a bill which essentially strips the community of all human rights.
Dubbed the “most homophobic document the world has ever seen”, the 36-page Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021, which is yet to be considered by parliament, would criminalize LGBTQIA+ activities in the religious West African country.
By Jutta Wolf
BERLIN (IDN) — Germany has taken a historic step toward addressing colonial injustice. It has agreed to return valuable bronzes to Nigeria. More than 1100 fascinating bronzes pillaged from the former Kingdom of Benin (today's Nigeria) are stored for some 125 years in the stockrooms and collections of 20 German museums. These are not only magnificent artefacts. They are some of Africa’s greatest treasures.
Southern Voices to be Heeded: A Call for Debt Justice, Debt Jubilee and Debt Cancellation
COLOMBO (IDN) — The Coalition for Economic Democracy in Sri Lanka (CEDSL) is a group of concerned academics, activists, agricultural, fisheries and industrial workers, students, businesspersons, trade unionists, and professionals based 'in country' and overseas, including the diaspora, who uphold the values of economic rights and justice in public policy making.
Growing Capacity to Manufacture Amphetamine in Ukraine
By Aurora Weiss
VIENNA (IDN) — Nearly 284 million people aged 15-64 used drugs worldwide in 2020, a 26 per cent increase over the previous decade. Young people are using more drugs, with use levels today in many countries higher than those of the previous generation, notes the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)'s World Drug Report 2022.
Globally, the report estimates that 11.2 million people worldwide were injecting drugs. About half of them were living with hepatitis C, 1.4 million with HIV and 1.2 million with both.
Viewpoint by Alon Ben-Meir
Dr Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations at the 'Center for Global Affairs' at New York University (NYU). He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies for over 20 years.
NEW YORK (IDN) — Recently the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which granted women the constitutional right to abortion, and the other ruling nullified a century-old New York law that forbid New Yorkers from carrying firearms in public. Both rulings are despicable as they will only severely undermine the health and security of millions of Americans.
IDN-InDepthNews offers news analyses, features, reports and viewpoints that impact the world and its peoples. It has been online since 2009. Its network spans countries around the world.