InDepthNews – Page 653 – IDN-InDepthNews

ARMAMENTS2017-05-292023-07-10

It’s High Time to Ban the Bomb

Viewpoint by Alice Slater

Alice Slater serves on the Coordinating Committee of World Beyond War, which first carried the article.

NEW YORK (IDN) – On May 22, the Chair of an exciting UN initiative formally named the “United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination” released a draft treaty to ban and prohibit nuclear weapons just as the world has done for biological and chemical weapons.

The Ban Treaty is to be negotiated at the UN from June 15 to July 7 as a follow up to the one week of negotiations that took place March 27-31, attended by more than 130 governments interacting with civil society. Their input and suggestions were used by the Chair, Costa Rica’s Ambassador to the UN, Elayne Whyte Gómez to prepare the draft treaty. It is expected that the world will finally come out of this meeting with a treaty to ban the bomb!

Africa2017-05-282023-07-10

UN Chief Underscores the Need to Invest in Africa’s Youth

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN | TAORMINA (IDN) – The Group of Seven (G7) leaders has in its ‘Taormina Communiqué‘ underscored that “Africa’s security, stability and sustainable development are high priorities”. But it has yet to respond to UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ specific call for the need to invest in young people, with stronger investment in technology and relevant education and capacity building in Africa.

The two-day G7 summit in Italy, in which the leaders of six other industrial nations – Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the U.S. also took part, concluded on May 27 in Taormina, a hilltop town on the east coast of Sicily, Italy.

UN INSIDER2017-05-282023-07-10

Funding Needs for UN’s 2030 Development Agenda Skyrocket – to Trillions of Dollars

By Shanta Rao

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – As the United Nations assesses the implementation of its 2030 Agenda for Development, including its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the estimated funding needs keep skyrocketing — from the initial millions and billions to trillions of dollars annually.

The President of the General Assembly, Ambassador Peter Thomson of Fiji, said on April 18 that SDG financing, including the eradication of extreme poverty by 2030, is going to cost about $6 trillion annually — and then to a hefty $30 trillion through 2030.

At the same time, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA), which outlines the implementation of the 17 SDGs, points to an infrastructure gap of some $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion annually in developing countries, while estimates of the global gap generally range from $3 trillion to $5 trillion annually.

UN INSIDER2017-05-282023-07-10

Promoting Peace and Security Through Interfaith Dialogue

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The Mission of Kazakhstan to the United Nations focused early May on ‘Interfaith and Inter-Ethnic Dialogue as a Key Instrument to Promote Peace and Security, an Inclusive Society and State Building’, with Kazakhstan’s Minister for Religious Affairs and Civil Society, Nurlan Yermekbayev, as a keynote speaker.

The importance of this event on May 12 is underscored by the fact that Kazakhstan is a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the two year-period 2017-2019. The Security Council is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, tasked with the maintenance of international peace and security.

Africa2017-05-272023-07-10

Blazing the Trail with Coffee Culture in Cameroon

By Ngala Killian Chimtom

YAOUNDE (ACP-IDN) – Hermine Tomaino Ndam Njoya is arguably Cameroon’s largest coffee farmer. Her farm spans some 150 hectares, and she depends on the labour of a whole village to keep the farm alive.

But what sets her apart is not just the size of her farm. What makes her different is that she is a woman excelling in a venture generally reserved for men.

Growing up in her native Noun commune in Cameroon’s West Region, she saw her parents tend their coffee farm with great care. “So I fell in love with coffee,” she says, smacking her lips after a sip of the aromatic drink.

UN INSIDER2017-05-262023-07-10

A Change of Guard at the WHO

By Laurie Garrett

Since 2004, Laurie Garrett has been a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Garrett is the only writer ever to have been awarded all three of the Big “Ps” of journalism: the Peabody, the Polk, and the Pulitzer. Her expertise includes global health systems, chronic and infectious diseases, and bioterrorism. (Full Bio and Contact). This article first appeared on 25 May 2017.

GENEVA – For the first time in its seventy-year history, the World Health Organization (WHO) will, effective July 1, be led by a nonphysician, an African, and a person from the global South. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia campaigned in an unprecedented election that gave 186 nations equal voice and saw three globetrotting candidates plead their cases.

UN INSIDER2017-05-262023-07-10

WHO Accused of Hiding Positive Report on Israel

GENEVA IDN) – The World Health Organization (WHO), a specialized agency of the United Nations that is concerned with international public health, “decided to hide a positive report on Israel from the public eye” under pressure from Syria’s Assad regime, reports UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights organization.

The report has been published three days after the WHO Member States elected the first African, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia, as the new Director-General, who will begin his five-year term on July 1, 2017.

USA and Canada2017-05-252023-07-10

Veterans For Peace Mobilise To Resist Militarism

By Brian Trautman*

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN-INPS) – The United States is the most militarized and jingoistic nation on earth. Its foreign policy is guided by imperialist militarism, neoliberal capitalism and racial xenophobia. For more than sixteen years now, three presidential administrations have carried out a so-called “War on Terror” (GWOT), a perpetual state of war that is waged globally, under the depraved reasoning that “the world is a battlefield,” to quote investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill.

As demonstrated by the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the GWOT is conducted through conventional warfare. More often, however, it is executed through covert or “dirty” wars, against groups and individuals in many other nations.

UN INSIDER2017-05-242023-07-10

ECLAC Promotes Caribbean Implementation of SDGs

By Desmond Brown

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (ACP-IDN) – While there have been several activities at sub-regional level aimed at stimulating Caribbean countries to position themselves for successfully implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the pace of implementation has remained slow.

Specifically, the lack of national institutional frameworks for SDG implementation in most Caribbean countries constitutes a major obstacle to effective implementation of the goals.

The SDGs are the cornerstone of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which became effective on January 1, 2016, and is supposed to shape sustainable development efforts globally.

Nuclear Weapons2017-05-242023-07-10

U.S. Prepares To Confront Nuclear Ban Treaty With Smart Bombs

Analysis by Rick Wayman*

WASHINGTON, D.C: (IDN) – On May 23, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a press release celebrating President Trump’s proposed 2018 budget. DOE specifically lauded the proposed “$10.2 billion for Weapons Activities to maintain and enhance the safety, security, and effectiveness of our nuclear weapons enterprise.”

Less than 24 hours earlier, Ambassador Elayne Whyte of Costa Rica released a draft of a treaty banning nuclear weapons. Ambassador Whyte is President of the United Nations Conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination. Over 130 nations have participated in the ban treaty negotiations thus far. A final treaty text is expected by early July.