Panama renews bid to pass bill marking 1989 U.S. invasion as ‘mourning day’
Panama’s National Assembly has renewed efforts to pass a bill to officially recognize December 20 as the ‘day of national mourning,’ marking the deadly U.S. military invasion of the country in 1989. Local activists, who have been pushing for the enactment of such a legislation for years, have decried successive U.S.-backed administrations for politicizing and hindering the cause, accusing them...
UK unemployment rises higher amid skyrocketing inflation
UK’s unemployment rate has increased over the first three months of the year as skyrocketing inflation puts further pressure on the labor market, according to official data released on May 17. According to a report by the National Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate across the UK climbed from 3.8 percent during the three-month period ending in February to 3.9 percent. Chancellor of the...
Mural at Black archive in Amsterdam vandalized
AMSTERDAM—Vandals daubed white paint over the faces of Black historical figures on a mural outside a Black cultural archive in Amsterdam in early December in what one of the archive’s founders called a racist attack. The vandals also stuck stickers on the mural saying in Dutch “soot-smudge Pete is genocide,” a reference to the long-running and increasingly polarized debate about...
Response plan launched to support 1.4 million Rohingya and Bangladeshis
“Robust and sustained international support” is again needed for Rohingya refugees and the Bangladeshi communities generously hosting them, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on March 29. “Humanitarian agencies are seeking more than $881 million to support approximately 1.4 million people, including over 918,000 Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char, and around 540,000 Bangladeshis in neighboring communities,” UNHCR spokesperson Babar...
Bush administration employs Reagan-era approach
JIM.LOBE Analysis: Bush administration brings Reagan-era ‘strategic consensus’ approach to Arab countries Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Foreign Policy (Ecclectica) WASHINGTON (IPS/GIN) - Secretary-of-State Condoleezza Rice denounced the United States’ past support for authoritarian governments in Arab countries two years ago. Nevertheless, she and Pentagon chief Robert Gates are, in an uncannily familiar move, now offering arms to...
Macron warns French public of difficult time amid soaring energy prices
French President Emmanuel Macron says tough months are ahead as his administration braces for energy price hikes due to the war in Ukraine. Addressing a cabinet meeting on Aug. 24, Mr. Macron said people were living through a series of crises, ranging from extreme temperatures, fires and drought of the past weeks, to the Ukraine conflict and disruptions to global trade. “This...
UN rights chief appeals for end to arbitrary detention
Arbitrary detention must end “once and for all,” UN human rights chief Volker Türk said on Jan. 3 in an appeal to governments everywhere. “At the start of this year—the 75th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—I call on governments and all detaining authorities, globally, to amnesty, pardon or simply release all those detained for exercising their rights,” he said...
Hands off African import taxes, Europeans told
/GIN BRUSSELS (IPS/GIN) - A new report commissioned by the French government is expected to fault the European Commission for pushing trade agreements with African and Caribbean countries that ignore social and economic development needs. In the report by Christiane Taubira of the French national assembly, she recommends that the mandate given to the 27-member European Commission to negotiate...
Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba and the fight for a united Africa
The only remains of murdered Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba—a gold-capped tooth in a blue box—was handed over to his family during a ceremony in Brussels, noted the German international newscaster. This symbolic handover of the first democratically elected leader of the now Democratic Republic of Congo, and recent visit by Belgium’s King Phillippe to the minerally rich country appeared...
Ugandan presidential candidate speaks in D.C.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Ugandan politician and musician Bobi Wine came to the nation’s capital during the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference to ask politicians to stop funding the oppression of the Ugandan people. His National Geographic Documentary, “Bobi Wine: The Man, The Music and The Movement,” was screened at an event sponsored by the Institute for the Black World 21st...