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Viewpoint by Tina Nybo Jensen*
AMSTERDAM (IDN) — In this Decade of Action for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we hear much about how organizations, countries and individuals are stepping up their efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda. Despite this, the reality is that the pace of action has not been quick enough, and we are already far behind on delivering the Global Goals.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
New York (IDN) — False or misleading posts on Facebook and Instagram are being blamed for enabling human traffickers who recruit African women to be ferried to Saudi Arabia and other countries with promises of visas and jobs.
Instead, the women are held captive, denied access to food and forced to perform sex acts in massage parlours, according to internal investigations published recently in the Wall Street Journal.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
New York (IDN) — On February 5, 1820, the first organized group of emigrating freed slaves departed from New York to Freetown, Sierra Leone, in West Africa.
Next year, Liberia will mark the date with a bicentennial celebration beginning January 2022 and running through December 2022, according to a recent announcement by President George Manneh Weah.
By Reinhard Jacobsen
BRUSSELS (IDN) — The Elders address the UN Security Council (UNSC) on Tigray; refugees in Ethiopia approved for resettlement reportedly refused departure; UN urges opening of Tigray for aid; 29 Tigrayan bodies found between Sudan and Ethiopia; 5,000 Ethiopian migrants blocked in Yemen; Ethiopia is facing competing alliances; over 23,000 refugees returned to Libya this year, reports the Belgium-based Europe External Programme with Africa in its latest report on the Horn of Africa situation.
By Kalinga Seneviratne
SYDNEY (IDN) — It is news, when a worker falls off a construction site and dies, but not necessarily when a construction worker commits suicide. It may be a slow and quiet death, which the employers and the workers’ family may not like to talk about.
In the USA, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that in 2018 there were 1,008 construction fatalities, but there were also 48,344 suicides by construction workers that year, which went largely unnoticed.
Viewpoint by Alok Sharma, President of COP 26 Climate Conference
LONDON (IDN | UNDESA) — Solar changed Neville’s life. I saw this for myself when, as UK Secretary of State for International Development, I visited his home in Kenya, and he told me how off-grid solar power was helping him to study for his degree.
This article is transmitted under a new partnership between IDN-InDepthNews and Uni Apro, a Regional Organisation of Services workers in Asia Pacific, part of UNI@uniglobalunion.
By Kim Lui
SINGAPORE (IDN) — Representatives from international textile retailers have reached a new, 26-month agreement with UNI Global Union and IndustriALL that builds on the progress made by the ground-breaking Bangladesh Accord while promising to expand the scope of the Accord’s legally binding commitments.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information News
NEW YORK (IDN) — Rooted in healing rituals and Sufism, the hypnotic sounds of Gnawa music have attracted artists and musicians of all stripes—from Jazz Age poet Claude McKay to Archie Shepp, Ornette Coleman and the legendary Randy Weston.
Dar Gnawa—or Gnawa House—is a one-of-a kind three-story Moorish-style building built in Tangier, Morocco, in the 1850s. It’s a cultural center for Gnawa music, making it the first officially recognized center devoted to celebrating and preserving the music of the descendants of slaves in Morocco.
By Kalinga Seneviratne
SYDNEY (IDN) — Australia’s farming sector has been badly hit by the closing of the borders due to the Covid-19 pandemic and with the harvesting season on the horizon there is an estimated shortage of 25,000 fruit pickers and harvesting machinery operators across Australia.
While the farmers are asking the government to provide special provisions for vaccinated foreign workers to be brought to work in the farms, labour rights advocates here says that thousands of Australians on government welfare are not willing to work on “slave wages” on farms.
By Ekua Nuama Bentil, Yoko Nagashima, Himdat Bayusuf, Jamil Salmi, Assane Dieng & Venkatesh Sundararaman*
WASHINGON, D.C. (IDN) — The Western and Central Africa (WCA) region is home to an estimated half a billion people and more than 40% of the population is under the age of 15, as shown by the data from the United Nations Population 2030 report, making the youth one of the greatest assets of this region. The youth population is expected to grow further.
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.