InDepthNews – Page 721 – IDN-InDepthNews

Forests, desertification, land degradation & biodiversity2016-06-172023-07-10

UNESCO and China Support UNCCD in Combating Desertification

By Devinder Kumar

NEW DELHI | BEIJING (IDN) – Aware that 2.6 billion people depend directly on agriculture, but 52 per cent of the farm land is affected by soil degradation, not only UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the specialised agency UNCCD but also UNESCO have stressed the compelling need to rehabilitate every year at least 12 million hectares of degraded land.

At the same time, during the global observance of the World Day to Combat Desertification – this year in Beijing – China and the UNCCD launched the Joint Action Initiative to combat desertification, rehabilitate degraded land and mitigate the effects of drought (JAI).

UN INSIDER2016-06-172023-07-10

Progress in Achieving Gender Equality No Cause for Complacency

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – UN Women, United Nations organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, has drawn attention to three “historic firsts” achieved this year in combatting sexual violence in conflict. At the same time, the organisation’s Deputy Executive Director Lakshmi Puri has stressed that “realizing gender equality has a deadline, and it is 2030”.

In run-up to the first International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict on June 19, UN Women said all three historic firsts were “long overdue and all had one thing in common: the unstoppable force of women’s voice and leadership”.

UN INSIDER2016-06-162023-07-10

UN-Backed Strategy to Mobilize Sustainable Energy for All

By Jaya Ramachandran

BRUSSELS (IDN) – Over 1.2 billion people – one in five of the world’s population – do not have access to electricity. The majority are concentrated in about a dozen countries in Africa and Asia. Another 2.8 billion rely on wood, charcoal, dung and coal for cooking and heating, which results in over four million premature deaths a year due to indoor air pollution.

Without electricity, women and girls have to spend hours fetching water, clinics cannot store vaccines for children, many schoolchildren cannot do homework at night, and people cannot run competitive businesses.

UN INSIDER2016-06-152023-07-10

Climate Change Top Priority of General Assembly’s Fijian President

Analysis By J. Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Fiji’s man at the UN, who has been elected as President of the 71st of Session the General Assembly in “a rare secret ballot”, plans to be particularly vocal on the issue of climate change.

It is the first time that a representative of a Pacific small island developing State will serve as head of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), which is the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the world body.

The selection of its President follows a geographical rotation system, with respective regional groups putting forward a consensus candidate each year. In this case Asia-Pacific States could not reach consensus on a single nominee.

Subsequently, on June 13, Peter Thomson was pitted against Andreas Mavroyiannis of Cyprus, who was defeated by a secret-ballot vote of 94 to 90, with one abstention.

Africa2016-06-142023-07-10

NEWSBRIEF: ‘Naive’ Libyan Fund Sues Goldman Sachs for ‘Abuse’

NEW YORK (IDN | GIN) – Over a four-month period, complex and unsuitable trades made by Goldman Sachs bankers ate up nearly the entire investment of a Libyan sovereign-wealth fund – an amount Libya is suing to recoup, according to a case now before a UK High Court.

The fund, set up under the regime of the then Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi, was intended to invest the country’s oil wealth just as sanctions against it were being lifted. Due to the fund’s limited experience with so-called “jumbo and elephant trades”, unwise trades nearly bankrupted the fund.

Goldman Sachs, on the other hand, reaped huge profits from only nine trades – including one larger than the bank had undertaken in a single stock – earning more than $200 million for the company, it was alleged.

Africa2016-06-142023-07-10

NEWSBRIEF: U.S. Grants Asylum to Gambian President’s Nephew

NEW YORK (IDN | GIN) – The nephew of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, threatened with the loss of his government scholarship over a pro-LGBT Facebook post, has been granted asylum in the U.S., local media reports.

Alagie Jammeh confirmed the story to the Washington Blade, an LGBT news source, in a telephone interview. Jammeh, who is due to graduate next week from the University of California, Santa Barbara, told the Blade that he wrote the post after he became friends with a gay man.

Alagie Jammeh had learned on May 17 – the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia – that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had recommended him for approval. He told the Blade that his lawyer called him two days later and said his asylum request had been granted after passing a background check.

Individual Journalists, SYNDICATION2016-06-142023-07-12

Democracy Reaches Plateau After a Great Climb

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Is there a democratic recession? No, not an economic one. Rather one of the voting kind. In other words: Is democracy going backwards? It is not. Democracy remains resilient. Authoritarianism is being held at bay, despite recession in Russia, Turkey and China.

“Democracy may be receding somewhat in practice, but it is still globally ascendant in people’s values and aspirations,” writes Larry Diamond in a new book, “Democracy in Decline”. In fact, Diamond’s positive conclusion is less positive than I believe the facts say. By and large democracy is not receding.

UN INSIDER2016-06-132023-07-10

NEWSBRIEFS: 1.19 Million Might Need Resettlement in 2017 – ‘Preventable Calamities’ and ‘Worrying’ Trends in More than 50 Countries – Ban Kicks Off 100-Day Countdown to International Day of Peace

GENEVA – With a multitude of conflicts and crises causing record displacement around the world, more than 1.19 million people are projected to be in need of resettlement in 2017, the UN refugee agency said on June 13.

According to the Projected Global Resettlement Needs 2017, released June 13 by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, more than one million refugees were submitted by the agency to over 30 resettlement countries in the past decade, and the number of people in need of resettlement far surpasses the opportunities for placement in a third country.

The number of people in need of resettlement in 2017 will likely surpass 1.19 million, up 72 per cent on the projected needs of 691,000 in 2014, before large-scale resettlement of Syrians began.

UN INSIDER2016-06-132023-07-10

Eritrean-Ethiopian Border Clashes Might Require UN Intervention

Analysis by Reinhardt Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (IDN) – As border clashes between Eritrea and Ethiopia continued into the second day on June 13, observers recalled UN Secretary-General’s remarks in January 2008 that he was “worried about the growing militarization, on both side(s) of the boarder, which could lead to a war”.

That concern is shared by civil society organisations in the two countries. They are warning that the border clahses that triggered on June 12 in the Tsorona area on the border of Ethiopia and Eritrea “can easily escalate into full-blown war”.

While calling for an end to fighting, the civil society organisations are urging the African Union to step in with its peace and Security Council; and the European Union and the United States to step in as witnesses to a peace process.

ARMAMENTS2016-06-132023-07-10

Eight States Blocking a Global Legal Ban on Nuclear Testing

Analysis by Jamshed Baruah

BERLIN | VIENNA (IDN) – When will the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) enter into force and become international law? This was the question on the minds of senior officials from around the world who had gathered in Vienna on June 13 to mark the 20th anniversary of the treaty, which is crucial to ushering in a world free of nuclear weapons.

The answer to the question is simple. CTBT has so far been signed by 183 States and ratified by 164. Its demanding entry-into-force provision requires 44 particular “nuclear technology holder” States to ratify the Treaty for it to enter into force.

Eight of them have yet to ratify: China, DPRK (North Korea), Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and the United States (China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the United States have already signed the Treaty).