News headlines for “Democracy”, page 8
Data Gaps are Hiding the Most Excluded Children
- Inter Press Service

DOHA, Qatar, May 7 (IPS) - In 2024, 273 million children, adolescents, and youth were out of school globally as per the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. While that is a staggering number, the figure is incomplete. The 2026 Global Education Monitoring report warns that the global out of school population may be undercounted by at least 13 million once humanitarian sources are used to correct data gaps in conflict-affected contexts.
VENEZUELA: ‘The Credit Goes to Detainees’ Families, Human Rights Organisations and the International Community’
- Inter Press Service

CIVICUS discusses the status of political prisoners in Venezuela with Manuel Virgüez, director of Movimiento Vinotinto, a Venezuelan human rights organisation that works for citizen empowerment, democracy and justice.
How Santa Marta Finally Made Fossil Fuel Phase-Out Politically Discussable
- Inter Press Service

SRINAGAR, India, May 6 (IPS) - The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia, may eventually be remembered as a defining moment in global climate politics, not because it produced a treaty or a formal negotiation outcome, but because it changed the tone, structure, and ambition of the conversation itself.
Speaking Up for Girls’ Education Carries Heavy Risks in Afghanistan
- Inter Press Service

HERAT, Afghanistan, May 5 (IPS) - Qadoos Khatibi, an Afghan university lecturer, and Fayaz Ghori, a civil society activist, also from Afghanistan, were detained by the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Their crime? Advocating for girls’ right to education.
100 Days, No Outcry – The Cost of Speaking Out
- Inter Press Service

KARACHI, Pakistan, May 5 (IPS) - “We’ve abandoned this couple completely; we have not done even 1% of what they did for us all these years!” said journalist Asad Ali Toor.
The UN NGO Committee: Civil Society’s Gatekeeper in Hostile Hands
- Inter Press Service

BRUSSELS, Belgium, May 4 (IPS) - In January, the government of Algeria succeeded in locking two civil society groups out of access to the United Nations (UN). It raised questions at the UN Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations, known as the NGO Committee, about two civil society groups with accreditation. It alleged that Italian organisation Il Cenacolo was making politically motivated statements at the UN Human Rights Council and the Geneva-based International Committee for the Respect and Implementation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (CIRAC) was selling UN grounds passes. Four days later, it called a vote to revoke their status. Other states urged delay, but the no-action motion failed, and 11 of the body’s 19 members voted to recommend that the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) revoke Il Cenacolo’s accreditation and suspend CIRAC’s for a year.
Pacific Ocean Under Pressure — Now a Region Finally Armed With Evidence
- Inter Press Service

SUVA, Fiji, May 4 (IPS) - For generations, Pacific people have understood the ocean not as a resource but as identity, sustenance, and survival. Today, that relationship is being tested in ways science is only just beginning to fully capture.
Migration a Toxic and Divisive Issue in Many Parts of the West
- Inter Press Service

KATHMANDU, Nepal, May 4 (IPS) - Migration is a strange thing, hard to pin down. It is a complex phenomenon that transforms communities while shaping people’s identities and it is so multifaceted that individuals perceive it and live it in different ways.
World Press Freedom Day, 2026
- Inter Press Service

On May 3rd, the world marks World Press Freedom Day – a United Nations observance dedicated to the fundamental principles of press freedom.
‘Nuclear Weapons Are Not Just Tools of War. They Are Weapons of Mass Suffering.’
- Inter Press Service

NEW YORK, May 1 (IPS) - “We choose hope because despair is a form of surrender that we cannot accept,” UN Ambassador to the Philippines, Enrique Manolo, told civil society representatives and the diplomatic community, considering the question of whether to pursue nuclear disarmament in a world that is becoming more polarized on the issue.

