By Thalif Deen – UNITED NATIONS – In Hollywood movies, the legendary Wild West was routinely portrayed with gunslingers, lawmen and villains—resulting in the ultimate showdown between the “good guys and the bad guys”. Linda Thomson-Greenfield, US ambassador to the UN, told the Security Council early this month that the warring…

WebPublicaPress (New York) – Chinese President Xi Jinping has said his country will not use its position to seek hegemony over smaller neighbors amid a flaring maritime dispute. Meanwhile, Myanmar was not represented at an ASEAN-China conference, DW has reported quoting other news agencies. The Chinese president on Monday assured leaders…

WebPublicaPress (New York / Vienna) — Austrians went back into lockdown after fierce protests over the weekend, for a period of at least 10 days and potentially 20. Elswhere, Germany logged its highest seven-day incidence of the pandemic. DW has the latest, Deutsche Welle (DW) reported quoting other media sources. Austria…

By Jamshed Baruah - GENEVA (IDN) — Despite the COVID-19 pandemic creating havoc worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) has good news in public health. Its Global Tobacco Epidemic 2021 report says progress is being made in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3: to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for…

By John J. Metzler - The setting is remote.  The players are highly improbable.  Yet in the deep and forgotten forests along the Belorussian/Polish frontier, thousands of migrants from far off Syria, Iraq, and even Afghanistan are massing and milling trying to enter Poland. Why?  Because Poland forms the easternmost frontier of the European Union (EU) and…

By Thalif Deen – UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations, which consists of 193 member states, has long been accused of discrimination against staffers who number over 315,000 and spread across 56 UN agencies and entities worldwide. But most of these are deeply rooted system-wide. A wide-ranging staff survey, both in…

For the second time in recent weeks the Alliance for Peacebuilding’s (AfP) statement at the beginning of November urging decisive action from the U.S. and international community to stem political and ethnic tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). AfP sent a letter signed by 40 NGOs urging U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken,…