GLOBAL ISSUES – Page 152 – IDN-InDepthNews

Migration2016-12-152023-07-10

South Pacific: ‘Sea-Level Rise’ Migrants Posing a Problem

By Henry Oritimae and Sonal Shivangani*

This is the second in a series of features on the South Pacific produced in collaboration with Wansolwara, an independent student newspaper of the University of the South Pacific.

SUVA, Fiji (IDN) – With sea levels rising rapidly across the South Pacific and the resulting movement of people within and across countries, the region is facing a new problem of a lack of proper migration policies to address the issue, according to experts.

Inhabitants of artificial islands in the Soloman Islands are migrating to settle in the bigger islands because of sea-level rise and coastal inundation.

ARMAMENTS2016-11-132023-07-10

Kazakh President’s Japan Visit Focuses on Nuke-Free World

By Katsuhiro Asagiri and Ramesh Jaura

TOKYO | HIROSHIMA (IDN) – Striving for a nuclear-weapons-free world holds a special place in Kazakh-Japan relations, according to President Nursultan Nazarbayev who on November 9 visited Hiroshima that suffered U.S. atomic bombings along with Nagasaki 71 years ago.

Nazarbayev was on a three-day official visit to Japan less than two months before it joins the UN Security Council in January as its non-permanent member for two-years until the end of 2018. In the first year it would be working closely with Japan before Tokyo’s two-year term in the Council comes to a close at the end of 2017.

USA and Canada2016-11-112023-07-10

Trump Win an Indictment on the Republican Party

By Somar Wijayadasa*

NEW YORK (IDN) – After an acrimonious election that lacked a dialogue on policy issues but filled with animosity and innuendo, Donald J. Trump won the presidency in a stunning upset that has surprised the whole world.

He single-handedly won the election despite the Republicans in Washington shamefully spurned the Republican nominee with disdain and contempt. Even the major media outlets jumped on the bandwagon indiscriminately bashing Trump’s every word. Even three days after elections, the media was still stirring the cesspool.

Trump’s win is not a win for the Republican Party because Americans voted to prove their absolute repugnance and distrust of the “established political order” in Washington.

ARMAMENTS2016-11-072023-07-10

NATO Shores Up Hegemonial Power Through Nuke Deterrence

By Xanthe Hall, IPPNW and ICAN Germany

Note: This article first appeared in the IPPNW Peace and Health Blog on November 3, 2016.

BERLIN (IDN-INPS) – For once, the United States, France and the United Kingdom are in agreement with Russia: plans to negotiate a nuclear weapons ban need to be stopped. Before the vote on October 27 in the UN First Committee, they pulled out all the stops to pressurise other states to vote against or abstain on a draft resolution co-sponsored by 57 states for a conference to be convened in 2017 to negotiate a nuclear ban.

ARMAMENTS2016-10-302023-07-10

‘Acrimonious‘ UNGA Agrees to Negotiate Nuke Prohibition

Analysis by PNND

“This was the most acrimonious UN General Assembly I have seen in the nearly 30 years I have been observing the Disarmament and International Security Committee at the UN.” – Alyn Ware, PNND Global Coordinator.

NEW YORK (IDN) – On October 27, the Disarmament and International Security Committee of the United Nations General Assembly adopted a ground-breaking resolution Taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations.

The resolution establishes a UN conference in 2017 ‘to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.’

ARMAMENTS2016-10-282023-07-10

Kazakh Award for Jordanian King Backs WMD-Free Middle East

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – “At a time when the international community is seeing a renewal of big-power rivalry and debating the pros and cons of nuclear technology, the initiative of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev in establishing the Nazarbayev Prize for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World and Global Security is both prescient and timely,” says Ong Keng Yong, Ambassador-at-Large at the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He is referring to the decision to award the Nazarbayev Prize for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World and Global Security to King Abdullah II of Jordan who has worked tirelessly to secure peace and stability in the Middle East where efforts to declare the region free of weapons of mass destruction including nuclear weapons failed in 2015.

ARMAMENTS2016-10-182023-07-10

Learning from the Reykjavik Summit 30 Years On

By Lowana Veal

REYKJAVIK (IDN) – At a time when there is a sharp deterioration in relations between the United States and Russia, triggered by disputes over Ukraine, the Crimea and Syria, the capital of Iceland hosted experts, diplomats and researchers on October 10-11 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the historic Reykjavik Summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.

IDN, a flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate group, spoke to some of the participants of the commemorative event, the initiative for which came from the International Peace Institute (IPI) in New York. What prompted them to organize the event?

ARMAMENTS2016-10-132023-07-10

The Legacy of the Reykjavik Summit – The Road Ahead

By Jayantha Dhanapala*

This is an expanded version of thoughts expressed by the author at a conference organized by the International Peace Institute (IPI) with the Foreign Ministry of Iceland on October 10-11 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Summit meeting between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev.

REYKJAVIK (IDN) – Richard Rhodes, the famous author of several books on nuclear weapons, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” (1986), has written a play entitled “Reykjavik” dramatizing the famous Summit. At the conclusion he has Gorbachev say, “Reykjavik is not a failure – it’s a breakthrough”.

ARMAMENTS2016-10-132023-07-10

Gorbachev: ‘Worst Thing” Collapse of Trust Between Major Powers

REYKJAVIK – At an IPI seminar in Reykjavik, Iceland on October 11, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said via video, “I would like to emphasize something, with all the emotions I have in my soul: the worst thing that has happened over the past few years is the collapse of trust in relations between the major powers, which, according to the UN Charter, bear primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security, and which still have enormous stockpiles of nuclear weapons and must reduce them, up to and including their elimination.”

ARMAMENTS2016-10-112023-07-10

Atomic Bombing Survivors Want a Ban on Nukes

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The ‘International Hibakusha Appeal Signature Campaign’, launched early 2016, aims to collect hundreds of millions of signatures by 2020 in the hope that a treaty to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons will be achieved in their lifetime. As of October 1, 2016, the Campaign had gathered 564,260 signatures in Japan and in several other countries around the world.

The Campaign was initiated on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Japan Confederation of A-and H-Bomb Sufferers’ Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo).