By Tharanga Yakupitiyage UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 2015 (IPS) – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon emphasized the importance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) rights during a High-Level Core Group event on Sep. 29, noting his experiences in working with… Continue Reading
By J Nastranis | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis NEW YORK (IDN) – A new report released after the adoption of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is quite upbeat about Africa’s development prospects, but expresses serious reservations on several counts. “Having made encouraging… Continue Reading
V. Anantha Nageswaran* – livemint.com, HT Media The pendulum that swung away from labour towards capital must swing back towards labour Teaching for a job or for pleasure is a good thing for the mind. The exposition to students is… Continue Reading
By Barbara Adams – Global Policy Watch The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) negotiated painstakingly over two years by all UN Member States with thousands of public interest organizations providing their commitment and expertise have been copyrighted. And by whom? The… Continue Reading
Geoff Dyer and Kathrin Hille – Financial Times Renewed support for Assad triggers alarm over Putin’s intentions, while Washington is under pressure to end the war Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin have been forced to engage as the crisis in… Continue Reading
By Juan Cole* – The Nation If the GOP obsession with banning abortion is about life, why aren’t they celebrating the avoidance of war with Iran? Pope Francis’s address to the United Nations on Friday engaged robustly with world politics.… Continue Reading
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Sep 2015 (IPS) – The United States and Russia are escalating arms sales to two of their major allies in the Middle East – Iraq and Syria – despite fears that some of these weapons… Continue Reading
By Zoë Carpenter – The Nation By framing immigration as a moral challenge, rather than a criminal one, activists say the pope reinforced much of the work they are doing to challenge dehumanizing rhetoric. When Andrea Cristina Mercado arrived at… Continue Reading
Boaventura de Sousa Santos* One day, when we finally find we can describe the age we now live in, the greatest amazement of all will come from the realization that we lived it all with no sense of before and… Continue Reading
Richard Falk* – middleeasteye.net Any attempt to provide a coherent account of the political strife afflicting Yemen is bound to fail. The country is a crucible of contradictions that defy normal categories of rational analysis. Looking beyond the political fog… Continue Reading
Tania Karas – Irish Examiner Obaida, a 22-year-old refugee from an area of Syria controlled by Islamic State, said he tried hard to get a passport the legal way. In May, he paid his way to Istanbul from the border… Continue Reading
By Rosa Miriam Elizalde – Cubadebate.cu/The Nation A dispatch from the first Cuban journalist to travel with the pope. Rome-Havana— “Your Holiness, thank you for the loving message you addressed to my nation,” was what I came up with to… Continue Reading
Naomi Klein* – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal Speech given by Naomi Klein on September 5 to the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Sydney Opera House, Sydney. Thank you so much Ann and everyone else at FODI [the Festival of… Continue Reading
George Szirtes* – The Guardian As a 1956 refugee I deplore Orbán’s policy of fear. He doesn’t represent the thousands who care about those crowded at the Hungarian-Serbian border One night, after the failed uprising of 1956, when I was… Continue Reading
By Thomas Piketty* The Tsipras victory has come as a surprise to some. What has changed for Greece? Normally, we would expect some stability in the coming years. But above all, Greece and Europe need to make up for lost… Continue Reading
By Frances Kissling* No, women who get abortions aren’t automatically excommunicated from the Catholic Church. But you wouldn’t know that from the pope. Earlier this year, Pope Francis announced an “extraordinary” Jubilee Year devoted to mercy. Jubilee, or Holy Years,… Continue Reading
The Economist Eastern European attitudes One man epitomises hostile views on migrants widely held by his people HE ORDERED a fence topped with razor-wire along the 175-kilometre border with Serbia. He cast Christian Europe as battling Muslim hordes for survival,… Continue Reading
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Sep 2015 (IPS) – As the United Nations commemorates its 70th anniversary, the world body is re-assessing and re-evaluating its 16 peacekeeping missions costing a staggering 8.3 billion dollars in 2015-2016 – even as military… Continue Reading
By TIMOTHY SNYDER –The New York Times New Haven — BEFORE he fired the shot, the Einsatzgruppe commander lifted the Jewish child in the air and said, “You must die so that we can live.” As the killing proceeded, other… Continue Reading
By Jack Moore – Newsweek Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko banned a number of Western and Russian journalists from the country, accusing them of being a “threat to national interests” or promoting “terrorist activities,” according to a list published on the… Continue Reading
