News headlines in March 2020, page 11

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 04 (IPS) - First, it was the ill-fated annual sessions of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), scheduled for March 9-20, which was undermined by the spreading coronavirus COVID-19.

JAKARTA, Mar 04 (IPS) - Despite having a law and various tasks forces to combat human trafficking, Indonesia is still grappling with the crime that likely sees tens of thousands of people turned into modern day slaves.

STOCKHOLM / ROME, Mar 03 (IPS) - "Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community. They were immediately silenced, but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots." 1 -- Umberto Eco

The great American impeachment show has ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. The dirt was washed away from President Trump, the perfect Teflon Guy. Maybe his invulnerability comes from the fact that he appears to be more of a brand than a real person, adapted to a frame of mind that increasingly dominates social media – cheap entertainment, shallowness, vulgarity, invectives, and catchy phrases without support in well-founded facts. Trump is all and nothing, a shape shifting trickster pretending to be the role model for voiceless masses.

NEW YORK, Mar 03 (IPS) - This International Women's Day, 25 years after we first heard it declared that "women's rights are human rights" at the historic Beijing 1995 Fourth World Conference on Womenwe need to take the space and time to reflect on just how far we've come – and just how much more work there is to do.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 03 (IPS) - International Women's Day, March 8 2020 - Twenty-five years ago, thousands of representatives adopted the Beijing Declaration, one of the most progressive universal agreement to advance women's rights.

QUITO, Ecuador, Mar 02 (IPS) - Inclusion of women in political processes is one of the key ingredients of sustainable peace.

KESERWAN, Lebanon, Mar 02 (IPS) - Women were at the forefront of Lebanon's 2019 ‘October Revolution'. Beyond the iconic images of their participation, it seems that by women linking equity in politics to the broader issues of mismanagement of corruption paid off - although activists say there is a long road ahead.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 02 (IPS) - The deadly coronavirus COVID-19, which is spreading across China, Japan, South Korea, Iran, Italy, the Philippines-- along with new cases in Asia, Western Europe and the Middle East-- has claimed one of its first casualties at the United Nations.