HUMAN DEVELOPMENT – Page 114

PLANET EARTH2013-03-212023-07-10

Land and Forest Should Ride A Tandem

By Luc Gnacadja* | IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

There is widespread agreement that sustainable forest management on a global scale is not achievable without halting land degradation. But this view is not shared by the rationale and focus of the tools and mechanisms designed during the past decade to promote and incentivize sustainable forest management.

As if to prove the point, the global coalition of the willing has been putting its money and effort into saying “Yes we can achieve sustainable forest management on a global scale without halting land degradation.”

“What if we change this state of affairs?” asks UNCCD Executive Secretary Luc Gnacadja. “Can the economy and the business community benefit from such a change?” he adds and elaborates “on the nexus of land degradation and sustainable forest management” and highlights the specific case of drylands.

PLANET EARTH2013-03-212023-07-10

Fossil-Fuel Subsidies Help Asia Roar

By Will Hickey* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

DAEJEON (IDN) – One reason behind greater pollution leading to global warming has been artificially lowered gas prices brought by subsidies. Governments have carried on this shortsighted policy to foster growth and satisfy consumers. But as world fuel prices begin rising again, the costs of subsidy – both budgetary and environmental – will come to the fore. While the much-talked-about carbon tax remains unpopular with consumers, curbing producer subsidies that encourage fossil fuel consumption could be a more effective way to fight environmental challenges.

USA and Canada2013-03-112023-07-12

US Spending Cuts Hit Poor at Home and Abroad

By Martin Khor* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

GENEVA (IDN) – On 1 March 1, the United States government had to introduce spending cuts of US$85 billion for this year, as President Obama and the Congress failed to reach an agreement on how to reduce the budget deficit. The so-called “sequestration” marked a new failure in the relations between the President and the Republicans in Congress.

The term “dysfunctional” is now commonly used to describe the US government system, as the deadlock between the President and Congress, and the animosity between the Democrat and Republican parties have blocked laws, policies and agreements.

USA and Canada2013-02-172023-07-12

Obama Retains Audacity of Hope

By Ernest Corea* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – Hostile and sometimes potentially humiliating treatment of some of President Barack Obama’s nominees or potential nominees for high office by opposing legislators provides a foretaste of what might lie ahead for legislation that will be formulated in line with the national agenda he outlined in his State of the Union Address on February 12.

His proposals cannot simply spring into life and become the law of the land without expert and empathetic management and implementation by senior officials, primarily members of his second term Cabinet that he is now in the process of putting together.

Climate Change2013-02-142023-07-10

UNFCCC Partners With Yet Another African Bank

By Jaya Ramachandran | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

BONN (IDN) – The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat is joining hands with the East African Development Bank (EADB) to establish a regional collaboration centre in Ugandan capital Kampala, to increase African countries’ participation in clean development mechanism (CDM) projects.

An agreement for the purpose was signed by UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Christiana Figueres, and the EADB Director General, Vivienne Yeda, on February 12.

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT2013-02-102023-07-10

The Longest War is the War on Global Poverty

By Nimal Fernando* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – The ‘new year’ is already over a month old and all pointers are that at least one very old global issue is only that much older.

There is much reference to the ‘longest’ wars of the fiery kind, but less, perhaps, to the often silent, near-Sisyphean struggle against global poverty. Many concerned voices would argue that 2013 could be among the worst years in which to even embark on any kind of lasting progress on this front.

USA and Canada2013-02-092023-07-12

‘Coercive Diplomacy’ With Iran is Questionable

By Jeremy R. Hammond* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

TAIPEI (IDN | Foreign Policy Journal) – The January/February issue of Foreign Affairs features an article titled ‘Getting to Yes With Iran: The Challenges of Coercive Diplomacy‘ by Robert Jervis. By ‘Getting to Yes’, of course, Jervis means compelling Iran to obey Washington, and by the Orwellian phrase “Coercive Diplomacy”, of course, means issuing ultimatums and threats of criminal violence.

USA and Canada2013-02-082023-07-12

US-Israel: Peace Needs More Than Handshakes and Photo-Ops

By Ernest Corea* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – Hear those sounds? They are probably the echoes of Israel’s fervent supporters in the US erupting in hosannas when the White House recently confirmed that President Barack Obama is due to visit Israel in March 2013. On the same safari, he will stop over in Jordan and in the Palestinian territory universally known as the West Bank.

The visits are of regional and international significance because they raise the possibility that Obama intends to be directly engaged in the Middle East peace process and that this time around he will be more focused, and supported by more decisive aides, than he was during his administration’s previous attempt to support effective peace negotiations. That effort now lies as inert as road-kill on a highway.

USA and Canada2013-01-262023-07-12

Obama Urges Middle Class-Based Prosperity

By Ernest Corea* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – A 19-year-old single mother captured the spirit of hope and change that animated candidate Barack Hussein Obama’s first presidential election campaign with this text message: “Rosa sat, so Martin could walk; Martin walked so Obama could run; Obama is running so our children can fly.” Khari Mosley, a leader of the Democratic Party in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania cited the comment in a newspaper article and it re-surfaced in 2013, reaffirming the sentiments of “hope and change” that helped to propel Obama to the pinnacle of political power in the US.

USA and Canada2013-01-182023-07-12

‘Drone War Will Trigger New Arms Race’

By Jaya Ramachandran | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

LONDON (IDN) – The increasing resort to drones by President Barack Obama will over the long term usher in “a new arms race and lay the foundations for an international system that is increasingly violent, destabilized and polarized between those who have drones and those who are victims of them”, a leading terrorism expert has warned.

One of the distinctive elements of President Obama’s approach to counterterrorism has been his embrace of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to target terrorist operatives abroad, says Michael J Boyle in an article for International Affairs, a British journal published every two months.