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Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Xi Jinping, president of China, remains an enigma. You watched him on television reviewing the dancing in Pyongyang in the company of Kim Jong-un and his face is near to expressionless when in repose. He doesn’t stand like an arrogant man and we recall that time when he went out to eat in a noodle cafe he joined the back of the queue. His face doesn’t look hard, as did Hitler’s or Stalin’s or Donald Trump’s and Boris Johnson’s do today.
By Jaya Ramachandan
NEW YORK (IDN) – UNRWA, officially the Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, faces a "serious funding shortfall", the General Assembly President María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés has warned. The agency is $211 million short of the $1.2 billion needed to deliver its aid programmes.
She was speaking at the opening of the 2019 pledging conference for UNRWA on June 25, alongside Secretary-General António Guterres, and the agency’s Commissioner-General, Pierre Krähenbühl.
Viewpoint by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
The writer is UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, of UN Women.
NEW YORK (IDN) – What’s a family? Classically, we think of a mother, a father and the children. The father goes out to work, the mother takes care of the children, maybe she works part time, at home or close to home so she can be there when the children get back from school. It’s a common formula in advertising, movies and the media. It’s the pattern of romance plots, the story of song lyrics, the image for illustrations in schoolbooks. It’s comforting, stable, predictable. And it’s wrong, for the majority of families in the world.
By Ramesh Jaura
BERLIN | ROME (IDN) – With the election of Qu Dongyu as Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), China has made yet another stride in its unrelenting efforts to take over a signature role in strategic UN organisations and foster its massive 'Belt and Road' infrastructure initiative spanning the globe.
Qu takes over from Brazil's José Graziano da Silva August 1. He was first elected in 2011 and has served two consecutive terms. The new FAO chief is expected to find in LI Yong, the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) Director-General since 2013, an example of how a UN organisation can be deployed to proselytise the advantages of the Belt and Road initiative.
By Jamshed Baruah
VIENNA (IDN) – Strongly pleading for a legally binding universal prohibition of nuclear tests, CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo has said that an early entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in a state of limbo for 23 years will positively influence the outcome of the 2020 NPT Review Conference.
Zerbo was opening a five-day multidisciplinary conference on intended to further enhance the strong relationship between the scientific and technological community and policy-makers as well the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty Organization (CTBTO).
Viewpoint by Izumi Nakamitsu
The following are extensive excerpts from the statement by Izumi Nakamitsu, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) at the High-Level Panel “CTBT: Science and Technology in a Changing World” on 24 June at Hofburg Palace, Vienna, in the opening session of the Science and Technology Conference2019 (SnT2019) 24 June-28 June 2019.
VIENNA (IDN-INPS) – The world is witnessing a technological revolution through which an unparalleled convergence in scientific and technological innovations are changing almost every aspect of people’s daily lives. Communications, logistics, manufacturing and, yes, war and peace-making have all been, and will continue to be, revolutionized in our lifetimes.
By Alisher Kukanbekov*
PAMIR, Tajikistan (IDN) – The great mountains of Pamir that have been known as the ‘Roof of the World’ over the centuries is now falling victim to climatic change. One of the largest glaciers here, Garmo glacier, has retreated by a staggering 7 kilometers in the past few decades with the annual mean temperatures recording an upwards trend over the past decade.
Pamir is situated at an altitude of over 2000 meters in the heart of Central Asia. Throughout centuries it has been the hub for many great empires such as the Persian Empire and the Roman Empire led by the boundless Alexander the Great. However, in the recent years, climate change has had its toll on the great mountains here and the whole of Tajikistan.
Viewpoint by Dmitry Medvedev
The following are extensive extracts from the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s remarks on June 21, 2019 to the Russia-Africa Conference and the general meeting of shareholders of the African Export-Import Bank, a leading regional financial institution. This was only the second meeting of the Bank’s shareholders outside the African continent. – The Editor
MOSCOW (IDN-INPS) – Russia and African countries are bound by friendly relations and partnerships that have a solid historical foundation. But with all due respect for the past (and we must remember it), it is much more important to look into the future, forward, to jointly make various plans and to implement them together.
By Kester Kenn Klomegah
MOSCOW (IDN) – Squeezed between European and American sanctions, Russia has stepped up efforts to elevate its existing relationship, mostly focusing on trade, investment and economic cooperation with several African countries, to include areas spanning the financial sector, energy, the mining industry, railway infrastructure, digital technologies, cybersecurity, healthcare, education, and food security.
The latest additional step taken in propelling partnership efforts was an open Economic Conference held within the Afreximbank Annual Meetings (AAM2019) from June 20-21 in Moscow.
Viewpoint by Kristina Melicherová
BRUSSELS (IDN) – Refugee and host communities in Ethiopia came together on June 20 to commemorate World Refugee Day through various cultural activities, organized within refugee camps as well as urban settings. But the reality behind the festivities is that hundreds of Eritrean refugees continue to cross the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia every day.
Despite the peace deal between Ethiopia and Eritrea, signed in July 2018, the internal situation and oppression of Eritrean people, mainly through the indefinite military service, remains intact. The continued inflow of young Eritreans fleeing oppression is putting strain on Ethiopia’s refugee camps.
IDN-InDepthNews offers news analyses, features, reports and viewpoints that impact the world and its peoples. It has been online since 2009. Its network spans countries around the world.
IDN-InDepthNews serves as flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate and its partner, the Global Cooperation Council, established in February 1983.