News headlines for “Democracy”, page 15
Consent Ignored, Convictions Rare: Pakistan’s Courts Under Fire
- Inter Press Service
KARACHI, Pakistan, January 8 (IPS) - As 2026 dawns, women in Pakistan are left grappling with a stark reality: rape and marital rape continue to be misinterpreted by judges in the country’s highest courts.
Maternal Deaths Spike in War-Torn Ukraine
- Inter Press Service
BRATISLAVA, January 7 (IPS) - “It was an emergency caesarean section when the life of the pregnant woman was at risk. We did the operation with just flashlights and no water, and against a backdrop of constant explosions,” says Dr Oleksandr Zhelezniakov, Director of the Obstetrics Department at Kharkiv Regional Clinical Hospital, in eastern Ukraine.
Bombing and Ballots, Myanmar’s Contentious Election
- Inter Press Service
YANGON, Myanmar and BANGKOK , January 6 (IPS) - With thousands of civilians killed in years of civil war and over 22,000 political prisoners still behind bars, no one was surprised that early results from Myanmar’s first but tightly controlled elections since the 2021 coup show the military’s proxy party speeding to victory.
When Democracy Freezes, Autocrats Rise
- Inter Press Service
VIENNA, Austria, January 5 (IPS) - Consider our political systems not merely as battlegrounds of passions, ideologies and economic interests, but as systematically functioning arrangements of interactions, akin to game theory. In recent decades, we have witnessed the dissolution of large homogeneous groups into numerous subgroups — a patchwork of minorities.
Security Council Divided on United States’ Venezuela Action
- Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS & JOHANNESBURG, January 5 (IPS) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed deep concern about the immediate future of Venezuela.
‘This Anti-LGBTQI+ Bill Can Still Be Blocked – but Only With Sustained International Pressure’
- Inter Press Service
CIVICUS discusses Kazakhstan’s anti-LGBTQI+ bill with Temirlan Baimash, activist and co-founder of QUEER KZ youth initiative, a Kazakhstani LGBTQI+ organisation.
Sudan’s Crisis: Mass Killings Continue While the World Looks Away
- Inter Press Service
LONDON, December 30 (IPS) - Satellite images show corpses piled high in El Fasher, North Darfur, awaiting mass burial or cremation as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia tries to cover up the scale of its crimes. Up to 150,000 El Fasher residents remain missing from the city, seized by the RSF in November. The lowest estimate is that 60,000 are dead. The Arab militia has ethnically cleansed the city of its non-Arab residents. The slaughter is the latest horrific episode in the war between the RSF and the Sudan Armed Forces, sparked by a power battle between military leaders in April 2023.
‘Zambia Has Environmental Laws and Standards on Paper – the Problem Is Their Implementation’
- Inter Press Service
CIVICUS discusses environmental accountability in Zambia with Christian-Geraud Neema, Africa editor at the China Global South Project, an independent journalism initiative that covers and follows China’s activities in global south countries.
The Fight Against Femicide: Victories and Setbacks in 2025
- Inter Press Service
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, December 27 (IPS) - Hours before world leaders gathered in Johannesburg for the 2025 G20 summit in November, hundreds of South African women wearing black lay down in a city park for 15 minutes — one for each woman who loses her life every day to gender-based violence in the country. The striking visual protest was organised by a civil society organisation, Women for Change, which also gathered over a million signatures demanding the government declare gender-based violence (GBV) a national disaster. Hours later, the government acquiesced.
‘People Reacted to a System of Governance Shaped by Informal Powers and Personal Interests’
- Inter Press Service
CIVICUS discusses Generation Z-led protests in Bulgaria with Zahari Iankov, senior legal expert at the Bulgarian Centre for Not-for-Profit Law, a civil society organisation that advocates for participation and human rights.
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