News Media

Photo: Women discuss politics at a women’s conference in Darfur, Sudan. Credit: UN

Women in Politics: Miles to Go Before Parity Is Achieved

By Zipporah Musau

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – In the fight for gender equality, women around the world have advanced in small and large ways. Yet for women in Africa, progress is measured in micro steps, and the struggle has a long way to go.

The good news is that women’s representation in political decision making has been on the rise globally. The not-so-good news is that the increase has been stubbornly slow, barely 1% in 2018 compared with the previous year. In 2018 the number of women ministers worldwide reached an all-time high at 20.7% (812 out of 3922).

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; THE WORLD; Africa; 19 April 2019

Photo: Sengalese at cultural parade in Harlem in New York. Photo: Alamy | Richard Levine | Source: Africa Renewal.

African Migrants Strive to Preserve Their Cultural Heritage

By Sharon Birch-Jeffrey*

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – To experience a taste of African culture deep inside the Big Apple, visitors – including many Senegalese – turn to Le Petit Senegal (Little Senegal), a West African neighborhood in West Harlem, New York.

African grocery shops, fabric stores, hair braiding parlors and regional restaurants sit shoulder to shoulder along the streets. The Sandaga Market of Little Senegal showcases a strong blend of African cultures, customs and languages, symbolizing efforts by African immigrants to project and protect their cultural identities.

: IDN-INPS Middle East & Africa Editor; THE WORLD; Africa; 08 April 2019

Photo: Parliament building (west wing) in Bridgetown, Barbados. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

ACP Countries Urged to Intensify Cooperation to Confront Global Challenges

By Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC)

The original report by CMC has been slightly modified.- The Editor

BRUSSELS | BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (ACP-IDN) – A two-day inter-regional high level consultation on comparative regionalism in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific (ACP) began here on March 26, 2019 with Barbados underscoring the need for the 79-member grouping to build a strong, vibrant and energetic relationship among themselves especially in a changing global environment.

: Robert Johnson; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 27 March 2019

Photo: Tjekero Tweya, Namibia's Minister of Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development of the Republic of Namibia, and President of the ACP Council of Ministers addressing the 37th session of ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) in Bucharest. Source: New Era Live.

Post-2020 ACP-EU Partnership Expected to be Unique

By Edgar Brandt, New Era Live

WINDHOEK (ACP-IDN) – Namibia has reaffirmed its commitment to the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) and European Union (EU) partnership and says it will do all it can to honour and work toward the commitments embodied in the Cotonou Agreement and post-Cotonou when it expires in 2020.

This was the message by Minister of Industrialisation, Trade and SME Development of the Republic of Namibia and President of the ACP Council of Ministers, Tjekero Tweya, when he spoke at the 37th session of ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) March 18-20 in Bucharest, Romania.

: Robert Johnson; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 21 March 2019

Photo: A bird's-eye view of Sochi. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Towards the First Russia-Africa Summit

By Kester Kenn Klomegah*, Eurasia Review

China has offered $60 billion, Japan $32 billion, and India $25 billion, while large investment funds have also come from the United States and European Union, all towards realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa. Russia has not pledged any funds. But Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to establish a committee that will be in charge of preparing for and holding the Russia-Africa Summit in October 2019 in Sochi on the Black Sea. This is the first in a series of articles on Russia’s decision to join the new “Scramble for Africa” nearly 28 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. – The Editor

: Ramesh Jaura; THE WORLD; Africa; 04 March 2019

Photo: U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis (right) stands with Australia’s Minister for Defence Industry Christopher Pyne before an office call at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., April 6, 2017. (DOD photo by U.S. Army Sgt. Amber I. Smith)

Australia Increasingly Silent on U.S. Leadership in Asia

Viewpoint by Hugh White

The writer is Emeritus Professor in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, The Australian National University. EastAsiaForum carried this article on 18 February 2019. A version of this analysis was first published in The Straits Times.

CANBERRA (IDN-INPS) – Sometimes what is left out of a major policy speech is as important as what is said. This was certainly true late January 2019 when Australia’s Defence Minister Christopher Pyne spoke about regional security in a keynote address to a prestigious audience in Singapore.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; OPINION; 27 February 2019

Photo: U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev at the first Summit in Geneva, Switzerland, in November 1985.

A Nuclear Arms Race Will Produce No Winners

Despite everything, it is still in our power to avoid nuclear confrontation.

Viewpoint by Mikhail Gorbachev*

MOSCOW (IDN-INPS) – The fate of the INF treaty has politicians and ordinary people worried on every continent. I am also concerned, and not only because I signed that treaty with former U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Dec. 1987. These events are yet another manifestation of the dangerous and destructive trends in world politics facing us today.

The main idea guiding us on the path to signing the original treaty was expressed in a joint statement with the United States, adopted at our first meeting in Geneva: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; OPINION; 21 February 2019

Why Venezuela's Oil Money Could Keep Undermining Its Economy And Democracy

By Scott Morgenstern and John Polga-Hecimovich*

LONDON (IDN-INPS) – As political and economic crises threaten to topple Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, political scientists like us are not surprised that he has run into trouble.

Instead, we see Venezuela as another example of what scholars call the “resource curse.” That’s the unfortunate correlation first described by the British economic geographer Richard M. Auty between nations with vast wealth from oil or other natural resources and political instability.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; OPINION; 10 February 2019

Photo: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said the White House had "ordered and planned" a "coup". Credit: cancilleria.gob.ec

Venezuela Crisis Drives A Wedge Between Europeans

Viewpoint by Shastri Ramachandaran*

NEW DELHI (IDN) – It’s a topsy-turvy world. President Emmanuel Macron’s France can recognise Juan Guaido, who is leading the protests in distant Venezuela, as “Interim President” of that country. But Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio cannot meet “Yellow Vest” protestors demonstrating on the streets of Paris.

Why is recognition of protests acceptable in the case of Venezuela but not when it comes to France?

Because the West led by the United States and its camp followers in Europe say so. This is the so-called “international community” known for its duplicitous standards.

: Shastri Ramachandran; OPINION; 09 February 2019

Writing From A Sinking Vessel

Viewpoint by Federico Mayor Zaragoza*

BARCELONA (IDN) – “Suddenly,” said Leonardo Da Vinci, “there are no poor and rich, no young and old, no white and black on board … only a bunch of passengers toiling, working together to survive, to avoid a shipwreck.”

This is the advice we should convey today through all media so that the “peoples” become aware of the situation humanity is facing for the first time in history. In recent years a series of global threats have been recognised as potentially irreversible processes that need to be confronted and dealt with on time before it is too late.