GLOBAL ISSUES – Page 150 – IDN-InDepthNews

HUMAN RIGHTS2017-02-222023-07-10

Rights Group Warns of Growing Division and Fear

By A.D. McKenzie

PARIS (IDN | SWAN) – Politicians have shamelessly been peddling a “toxic rhetoric” that is creating a more divided and dangerous world, according to human rights group Amnesty International.

Speaking at the launch of its annual report on rights around the world in Paris on February 21, the organisation’s Secretary General Salil Shetty warned that the “politics of demonisation” was threatening to unleash the “darkest aspects” of human nature.

“Too many politicians are answering legitimate economic and security fears with a poisonous and divisive manipulation of identity politics in an attempt to win votes,” Shetty told journalists.

ARMAMENTS2017-02-202023-07-10

Relationship Between the CTBTO and OPANAL

By Lassina Zerbo

Lassina Zerbo is the Executive Secretary of Preparatory Commission for the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). Following are excerpts from his statement at the XXV Session of the General Conference of the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL) in Mexico City on 14 February 2017.

VIENNA (IDN) – Mexico’s historical role in advancing non-proliferation and disarmament is well recognized, not least through the work of Nobel peace prize laureate Alfonso García Robles in the creation and adoption of the Treaty of Tlatelolco.

Let me also highlight the excellent relationship between the CTBTO and OPANAL in the context of the agreement that both entities concluded in 2002.

ARMAMENTS2017-02-192023-07-10

Celebrating Tlatelolco – The First Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone

By Jayantha Dhanapala*

KANDY, Sri Lanka (IDN) – The commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the signature of the Treaty of Tlatelolco could not have come at a more opportune moment. In the UN General Assembly last year, Mexico and a number of Latin American and Caribbean countries joined with countries from other regions – including my own Sri Lanka – to ensure the adoption of the Resolution “Taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations”.

This Resolution decided that a UN conference should be convened in 2017 “to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons leading towards their total elimination”. The Conference will meet from March 27-31 and from June 15 – July 7, 2017.

Latin America & the Caribbean2017-02-152023-07-10

Caribbean Faith Leaders United to End HIV-AIDS

By Desmond Brown

KINGSTON, Jamaica (ACP-IDN) – Efforts to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean by 2030, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), received a much-needed boost from faith leaders across the region when they met from Feb. 1-2 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, to find ways to reduce and eliminate spread of the virus.

The Caribbean is one of the most heavily affected regions in the world, with adult HIV prevalence about one percent higher than in any other region outside sub-Saharan Africa.

ARMAMENTS2017-02-142023-07-10

Fifty Years of Success of Landmark Treaty of Tlatelolco

By Sergio Duarte and Jenifer Mackby*

On February 14, 2017 the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean – Treaty of Tlatelolco – celebrated its 50th anniversary. The Treaty prohibits the testing, use, manufacture, production or acquisition of nuclear weapons. All 33 countries in the region are party to it. This article casts a close look at the vital importance of the treaty.

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS | TRANSCEND Media Service) – As the first of its kind in a populated area, the Treaty made a fundamental contribution to both global and regional disarmament, peace and security. It includes a number of innovative provisions, such as indefinite duration, prohibition of reservations, a definition of nuclear weapon, a commitment by nuclear-weapon States to respect the militarily denuclearized status of the Zone through negative security assurances and the engagement of its Parties to utilize nuclear energy exclusively for peaceful purposes.

ARMAMENTS2017-02-092023-07-10

Forthcoming UN Conference Underlines Resistance to Nukes

By Samantha Sen

LONDON (IDN) – Now that the new world order some of us were talking about threatens to collapse into a new world disorder, the emerging fear is what the U.S and Russia could agree on, rather than what they disagree about. U.S President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have discovered one another as political twins looking in the same direction from opposite sides – what were thought to be opposing sides anyhow. Nowhere does this union of vision appear more deadly than in the business of nuclear armament, and business it is.

Both leaders have said yes to all the weapons they have, and nodded in the direction of yet more. Both have spoken of “strengthening” their nuclear capabilities. Strengthen how much more to what end? Dire arithmetic abounds on how many times over each can destroy the world. Skip the count; once would be enough.

ARMAMENTS2017-02-052023-07-10

The Rapidly Increasing Urgency of Nuclear Zero

By Rick Wayman*

SANTA BARBARA, CA, USA (IDN) – October 24-25, 2016, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation brought together a small group of academics, activists and thought leaders to discuss how to shift the global discourse toward nuclear disarmament. The symposium, entitled “The Fierce Urgency of Nuclear Zero: Changing the Discourse,” discussed the current state of nuclear threats, geopolitical and psychological obstacles to nuclear zero, and the path forward.

The symposium’s final statement was delayed in order to incorporate the new political realities following the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, which took place just two weeks after the symposium.

USA and Canada2017-01-312023-07-10

UN Indignation Unlikely to Sway Trump

By Phil Harris

ROME (IDN) – Newly-elected US president Donald Trump has been hyperactive in his first week in office, signing executive orders that confirm his pre-election pledges to “make America great again” by brushing aside any concern for the plight of those seeking to find safety and a better life.

One of his first acts was the signing of an executive order to begin the process of building a wall on the US-Mexico border, saying that “a nation without borders is not a nation. Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders, gets back its borders.”

EU & Europe2017-01-302023-07-10

Kazakhstan Moves Toward Democratic Development

By Devinder Kumar

NEW DELHI | ASTANA (IDN) – President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan whose commitment to international peace and security facilitated the Central Asian state’s election to the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member, has laid out far-reaching plans for government reforms and constitutional changes.

The intention is “to build a more efficient, sustainable, modern system of governance” in the country which celebrated its 25th anniversary of independence from the then Soviet Union in December 2016.

Latin America & the Caribbean2017-01-272023-07-10

Caribbean Countries Strive For Energy Security

By Desmond L. Brown

NASSAU, The Bahamas (ACP | IDN) – Caribbean countries have found themselves between a rock and a hard place. Already grappling with a myriad of challenges, including crime and weak economies, Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member states from Jamaica in the north to Guyana in the south are also now faced with extremely high energy costs.

Prime Minister of The Bahamas, Perry Christie, said his country and its neighbours must move with haste to transition to sustainable energy sources, something he believes would also help shore up their ailing economies and also address the crime scourge.