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Wednesday, November 11, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Active Citizens
RUSSIA-HUMAN RIGHTS: Prisoner Of Conscience Walks Free, For A While
Retired naval captain Aleksandr Nikitin, who was released from a St Petersburg prison on Dec. 14, may not be free to address a planned press conference in Moscow Wednesday, but his friends are increasingly confident that he will stay out of jail.RUSSIA: Cold War Secret City Comes Out Into A Cold World
Two hundred metres underground, carved out of a granite mountain deep in the Siberian hinterlands, accessible only by a five kilometre tunnel, Zheleznogorsk's Mining and Chemical Combine (GKhK) was one of the Cold War's biggest secrets.INDONESIA-MEDIA: Government Loosens and Tightens Grip on TV
The first bill on broadcasting to be passed in Indonesia will allow private television stations to produce their own news programmes, breaking the government's monopoly of the past 30 years.RUSSIA-ENVIRONMENT: Kostroma Voters Reject Nuclear Power
The final results are in on a ground breaking referendum in a small north-east Russian district, with voters delivering a solid 'no' to the construction of a nuclear power plant held in their neighbourhood.RUSSIA: Miners’ Strike Continues
Most of Russia's miners are still supporting an indefinite strike called by the Russian Coal Industry Workers' Union (Rosugleprofsoyuz) on Tuesday.RUSSIA: Resource-rich Tyumen Region Faces Breakup — and Poverty
Russia's richest region is facing the prospect of elections for governor on Dec. 22 -- and instability caused by inter-regional differences over the process.BOSNIA-HERCEGOVINA: Serb Paramilitaries Threaten Peace, Group Says
Bosnian Serb leaders accused of ethnic cleansing during 1993 and 1994 continue to control paramilitary groups that threaten to derail Bosnia's peace process, the rights group Human Rights Watch/Helsinki says.HEALTH: HIV/AIDS Spreads In Former Soviet Republics – U.N.
Fifteen years into the AIDS crisis, the virus that causes the disease is spreading in Central and East European countries, their weakened health service infrastructure unable to tackle the problem, according to new evidence published Thursday.RUSSIA-ASIA: Primakov Forces Russia’s Gaze Eastwards
Oil, pipelines, trade and other factors of development rather than purely political matters dominate Russia's primary interest in Asia, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.RUSSIA: Peoples’ Power Versus Nuclear Power
A groundbreaking initiative by a community action group has forced local authorities in a north-east Russian region to call a referendum on whether to allow the state to complete construction of a nuclear power plant in their area.BELARUS: Parliament Close To Being Crushed By Lukashenko Steamroller
Belarussian opposition hopes of saving their parliament from president Alexander Lukashenko's steamroller bid to assume near-total power appeared to have foundered in the wake of his 'success' in a much discredited weekend referendum.RUSSIA: Chechnya Deal Draws Fire From Nationalists
President Boris Yeltsin's weekend order to bring Russian troops back from Chechnya and grant the breakaway republic unprecedented autonomy continued to draw fire from nationalist parliamentarians Monday.RUSSIA: Nuclear-Armed Soldiers Starved Of Food, Shelter And Clothes
With government debts to the Russian military mounting by the day, there are no funds even for basic necessities like food and clothing, let alone new equipment, say its commanders and the armed forces trade union.ENVIRONMENT: Large Amounts of Chemical Weapons Dumped and Buried
Chemical weapons stockpiles in the former Soviet Union were far greater than official sources have admitted, claims professor Lev Fyodorov, president of the non-governmental group The Union for Chemical Safety (Russia).DISARMAMENT: You Got The People, We Got The Guns, Russia Tells Asia
Management of Russia's arms manufacturing giant Rosvooruzheniye speak happily of the new sales ethos that has made their arms export industry the second largest in the world after the United States.IRAN-CIS STATES: The Battle For The Resources Of The Caspian Sea
Wednesday's deal between Russia, Turkmenistan and Iran to cooperate on splitting Caspian oil resources, may break a deadlock that has turned on the arcane question of whether the 169,381 square kilometre body of water counts as 'sea' or 'lake'.RUSSIA: Iraq’s ‘Good Behaviour’ Is In Russia’s Interest
Russia is putting increasing pressure on Iraq to comply with all U.N. security Council resolutions, so that one resolution in particular -- Security Council's Resolution No. 986 -- can come into force.RUSSIA-ENVIRONMENT: 1950s Nuclear Test Leaves A Deadly Legacy
A nuclear weapons test conducted at the Totsk test site in the Urals on Sep. 14, 1954 is still having serious health and environmental effects 42 years later, says Russian deputy minister for emergency situations Vladimir Vladimirov.RUSSIA: Yeltsin And Russian Democracy Go Under The Knife Together
With a sweep of a pen and a slice of the surgeon's scalpel, Russia Tuesday began its severest test so far of its political maturity as a democratic, constitutional state.INDIA-RUSSIA: New Delhi Shops For Nuclear Technology In Moscow
India is expected to sign a final contract before the end of the year for the construction of a Russian- designed nuclear power plant comprising two of its VVER-1000 pressurised water reactors.UKRAINE-ENERGY: Merger of Nuclear Plants Said to Aid Efficiency
Ukraine plans to merge all five of its nuclear power stations and their infrastructures into a new state enterprise on Dec. 1 which will have a sweeping mandate.« Previous Page — Next Page »
Global Citizen Festival in New York. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
Active citizens are committed to social change because they know that it is achievable. However, major political challenges face active citizens across the world. For example, in authoritarian regimes in Latin America where the hegemonic party has been in power for decades on end, protestors and human rights activists face enormous repression and struggle to materialize their advocacy into concrete results. The same can be said for Africans, where a shift towards elected government in recent decades has yet to translate into an effective voice in decision-making. Now, the Strengthening Citizen Demand for Good Governance, which uses evidence-based approaches – funded by DFID's Governance and Transparency Fund – seeks to raise their voices.
In 2025, the CIVICUS Monitor’s People Power Under Attack report revealed that civic freedoms are severely limited in 122 of 198 countries and territories, and only 7.2% of the global population now lives in countries where civic space is open. Through partnership with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and CIVICUS, IPS reporters across the continent will seek to define the extent and limits of state capability, government accountability and the responsiveness of leaders to the needs of citizens.
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