New Major of Istanbul Brakes Rule of AKP Party

(WEBPUBLICA) ISTANBUL - Turkey’s election watchdog has announced the opposition candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu as the winner of the municipal elections in Istanbul and has handed over the mandate nearly two weeks after the local polls closed, ending the 25-year rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the country’s largest metropole, Turkish Hurriyet Daily News reported.
The Istanbul provincial body of [...]

Trump Vetoes Congress Resolution on Yemen

(Webpublicapress) Washington D.C. – US President Donald Trump rejected a bill from Congress to end assistance to Saudi Arabia for the Yemen war. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the veto would serve to ”perpetuate America’s shameful involvement” in the crisis, DW (Deutsche Welle) reported quoting other news agencies.

President Trump issued a veto on 16. April to [...]

Antonio Guterres to Restore UN Cyprus Talks

(WEBPUBLICAPRESS) New York - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on April 16 that he is pressing on with a bid to re-start negotiations on reuniting Cyprus, nearly two years after talks collapsed, Agence France Press reported.
In a report sent to the council, Guterres said he had asked his envoy, American diplomat Jane Holl Lute, to continue holding talks with Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders on [...]

Notre Dame Will Rice Again From The Ashes

By Rick Fulker (DW) - After the Notre Dame fire, it took only a few hours for shock to give way to consolation and promises of a full restoration of the famous cathedral. Anything else would have been unimaginable. The apocalyptic images of the Parisian cathedral in flames are still fresh. And they’ve already burned their way into the [...]

Key North African state faces critical transition

By John J. Metzler - UNITED NATIONS — For nearly two months, large popular demonstrations have rocked Algeria protesting the candidacy of incumbent President Abdelaziz Bouteflika who planned to run for a fifth five-year term in national elections. The protests evoked the so-called Arab Spring in which demonstrations and later armed revolts reverberated from Tunisia to Syria to [...]

Civil Society, Once the “World’s New Superpower,” is Battling Against Heavy Odds

By Thalif Deen - This article is part of a series on the state of civil society organizations (CSOs), which is the focus of International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, and currently taking place in Belgrade, concluding April 12.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 10 2019 (IPS) - A former UN Secretary-General, the late Kofi Annan, once described civil society [...]

NGOs Blast US for Undermining Criminal Court

By Thalif Deen | This article is part of a series on the role of civil society organisations (CSOs), which will be the focus of International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, and scheduled to take place in Belgrade, April 8-12.

UNITED NATIONS - As it paves a destructive path against international institutions and multilateralism, the Trump administration [...]

Is Republic of China Still a Permanent Member of the Security Council – Despite its Ouster in 1971?

By Thalif Deen | UNITED NATIONS  - The Republic of China (Taiwan) withdrew from the United Nations in protest when it was ousted from its highly-prized permanent seat in the UN Security Council (UNSC) about 48 years ago.But according to the UN charter, it still remains one of the five permanent members of the most powerful body in [...]

NATO Celebrates 70th Birthday in Washington

By John J. Metzler - UNITED NATIONS—Responding to the Berlin Blockade, the communist coup in Czechoslovakia, and the looming threat from the Soviet Union, the U.S. and Western European states formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).  On 4 April 1949, the foreign Ministers of twelve countries including the USA, Britain, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy and the     Netherlands signed the [...]

Women Activists Protest Torture & Imprisonment Under Repressive Regimes

By Thalif Deen | This article is part of a series on the current state of civil society organisations (CSOs), which will be the focus of International Civil Society Week (ICSW), sponsored by CIVICUS, and scheduled to take place in Belgrade, April 8-12.

UNITED NATIONS – Faced with an uneven battle against right wing nationalist governments, repressive regimes [...]