InDepthNews, Author at IDN-InDepthNews

UN INSIDER2016-02-282023-07-10

New Tools to Assess Implementation of Global Development Goals

KUALA LUMPUR (IDN) – The United Nations and policymakers around the world now have new scientific tools to measure progress towards meeting commitments under the 2011-2020 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity of the United Nation’s Convention on Biological Diversity and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, endorsed by 193 UN member nations in September 2015.

The 124-nation Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) adopted at the close of a week-long meeting on February 28, the report, titled The Methodological Assessment of Scenarios and Models of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. IPBES was established in April 2012.

GLOBAL ISSUES2016-02-282023-07-10

New Tools to Assess Implementation of Global Development Goals

By Jaya bin Izzati | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

UN INSIDER2016-02-272023-07-10

Kudos and Criticism on Human Rights Council’s 10th Anniversary

GENEVA (IDN) – “What we are doing to improve human rights situation around the world is not enough,” stated the American attorney and diplomat Alfred Moses in a critical reflection on the tenth anniversary of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) stressing that the state of human rights has broadly deteriorated with atrocities being committed worldwide.

“What we need is action. We must ask ourselves why is it that the UNHRC has done so little,” noted the Ambassador speaking on a panel at the Geneva Summit on Human Rights and Democracy in Switzerland on February 23.

The inter-governmental body within the United Nations system made up of 47 member states, which are elected by the UN General Assembly, was created in 2006. It replaced the functional Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) within the overall framework of the UN.

VIDEOS2016-02-272023-07-10

Climate of Denial – Karaj & The Hard Reality

{youtube}XTwqGzPWPA8{/youtube} Karaj is a California Bay Area songwriter with a taste for spare arrangements and insightful lyrics. Many of his original compositions are inspired by open spaces and western states. He performs his original songs along the Pacific coast and beyond, plus more by great songwriters near and far.

MULTIMEDIA2016-02-272023-07-10

Climate of Denial – Karaj & The Hard Reality

Karaj is a California Bay Area songwriter with a taste for spare arrangements and insightful lyrics. Many of his original compositions are inspired by open spaces and western states. He performs his original songs along the Pacific coast and beyond, plus more by great songwriters near and far.

SYNDICATION, UNITED NATIONS2016-02-272023-07-12

Kudos and Criticism on Human Rights Council’s 10th Anniversary

By Fabíola Ortiz | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

ARTS & CULTURE2016-02-262023-07-10

Cold War Games and the First Pan-African Arts Festival

PARIS – Its goal was to bring together leading intellectuals and artists from Africa and the diaspora, and 50 years ago, the first Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres (World Festival of Negro Arts, or FESMAN) did exactly that.

Played out against the backdrop of the Cold War, with the United States and the former Soviet Union jockeying for influence in Africa, the three-week-long festival took place in Dakar, Senegal, in April 1966, initiated by then President Léopold Sédar Senghor.

It included some world-renowned headliners: writers Wole Soyinka, Aimé Césaire and Langston Hughes; musician Duke Ellington; dancers from the Alvin Ailey troupe; iconic singer and activist Josephine Baker; calypso star Mighty Sparrow – and many others, representing some 45 countries.

UN INSIDER2016-02-252023-07-10

UN Debates Persistent ‘Stigma on the Conscience of the World’

NEW YORK (INPS | IDN) – Over half a century after the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, the decolonization process has not yet concluded and colonialism has yet to be eradicated.

Against this backdrop, as the UN Special Committee on Decolonization began its 2016 Session on February 25, several speakers stressed the need to establish a road map to concluding the decolonization process before 2020,

SYNDICATION, UNITED NATIONS2016-02-252023-07-12

UN Debates Persistent ‘Stigma on the Conscience of the World’

By J Nastranis | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Over half a century after the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, the decolonization process has not yet concluded and colonialism has yet to be eradicated.

Food security, nutrition & sustainable agriculture2016-02-252023-07-10

Scientists Deal with a Silent Killer of Productive Lands

BEIRUT (INPS) – Salinity is one of the most severe environmental factors limiting agricultural productivity. According to the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), rising salinity is fast becoming a silent killer of productive lands in areas like the Indo-Gangetic Basin, Euphrates River Basin, Nile Delta, and Aral Sea Basin.

The global cost of salinity-afflicted loss in crop yields is roughly 27.3 billion USD per year, according to a recent study, ‘Economics of Salt-induced Land Degradation and Restoration’, published by the Research Program on Water and Land Ecosystems of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Moreover, the salinized areas are increasing at a rate of 10% annually for various reasons.