News stories by Leila Yasmine Khan

ROME and AMSTERDAM, Jan 02 (IPS) - The recent elections in the Netherlands signals the increasing power of the far right in Europe. The populist party of Geert Wilders, the Party for Freedom, won a decisive, albeit unexpected, victory taking 37 seats out the 150 seat in parliament. Wilders will likely be the head of the next Government. His policies include stopping all immigration into the Netherlands, holding a referendum on leaving the EU, and banning mosques and the Quran.

ROME and AMSTERDAM, Oct 05 (IPS) - The USA and its allies have repeatedly stated that promoting women’s rights was one of the key reasons they were in Afghanistan. The US military top brass, in a letter to marines stated that they were in Afghanistan “for the liberty of young Afghan girls, women, boys, and men who want the same individual freedoms we enjoy as Americans”.

ROME and AMSTERDAM, Jul 27 (IPS) - There is nothing honourable about murder. And murdering someone of your own family, your own child - a daughter, someone you held in your arms and rocked to sleep when they were babies? This is such a horrifying crime that there are no words to describe it – certainly not the word Honour. And yet it happens! It happens in Pakistan and to the shame of all of us in the diaspora, it has been brought to Italy.

AMSTERDAM/ROME, May 05 (IPS) - For several years, a fast growing and assertive China has been challenging the USA’s global dominance.  China’s GDP, takinginto account differences in purchasing power, is now greater than that of the USA; its military spending has been expanding rapidly and exceeds by wide margins that of other countries except the USA with which it is catching up; it is the manufacturing power house of the world; it is quickly moving up the technological ladder; and it is the key trading partner for an increasing number of countries.  All this is creating tensions with the USA and its key allies.

AMSTERDAM/ROME, Apr 08 (IPS) - The notion of “Clash of Cultures” is most frequently used as a justification for anti-immigrant prejudice and, particularly in Europe and in the USA, for islamophobia. The reasoning goes as follows: immigrants, especially Muslims, have a deeply different culture from the hosting communities and these differences create unsurmountable tensions and conflicts.

AMSTERDAM/ROME, Jan 25 (IPS) - Developing countries as a group have been growing faster than developed countries for several decades. As a result the ratio between average incomes between the two sets of countries – albeit still very large - has been shrinking.  This is good news. The other piece of good news is that over this period the number of people living in extreme poverty has also been dropping – from 1.9 billion in 1990 to about 650 million in recent years.  China has recently declared an end to extreme poverty. 

AMSTERDAM/ROME, Oct 08 (IPS) - Around the 16th century there was a radical shift in the way humans perceived nature.  New thinking in physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics heralded a deeper understanding of the world around us.  Between the 17th and 18th century this new thinking had resulted in spate of technological inventions such as the steam engine, railways, electricity and the telephone.

AMSTERDAM/ROME, Oct 05 (IPS) - Lockdowns, social distancing, face-masks and other restrictions on personal and social behaviour have helped slow the progress of the COVID-19 virus. Enough to allow health systems to start catching their breath, for doctors to work out treatment protocols, and for work to start on a vaccine. There is now a need to take stock of the many other impacts the pandemic is likely to have, particularly at the economic and political level.

AMSTERDAM/ROME, Jun 08 (IPS) - As the COVID-19 virus spread rapidly around the globe, so did various theories about what caused the pandemic. According to the standard scientific theory, the virus originated in bats; crossed over to humans, probably via another intermediate host; and then spread rapidly across the globe.

AMSTERDAM/ROME, Jun 01 (IPS) - As the COVID-19 virus spread rapidly around the globe, so did various theories about what caused the pandemic. According to the standard scientific theory, the virus probably originated in bats and then crossed over to humans, probably via another intermediate host. It then spread rapidly across the globe, piggybacking on the international travel network.