By Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Following are extensive excerpts from Kazakh President’s State of the Nation address on October 5, 2018 in the Akorda presidential residence. ASTANA (IDN | KAZINFORM) – Over the years of our independence we have achieved a great deal. Having created a modern progressive state with a […]
Pompeo Heads to Pyongyang in Quest of Denuclearization
By Kelsey Davenport & Alicia Sanders-Zakre Kelsey Davenport is director for nonproliferation policy and Alicia Sanders-Zakre is research assistant at the Arms Control Association. This article first appeared in the Inaugural Issue: The North Korea Denuclearization Digest on October 3, 2018. It is being reproduced courtesy Arms Control Association. – The Editor WASHIGTON, D.C. (IDN-INPS) […]
Costa Rica Set to Achieve Carbon Neutrality by 2021
By Fabiola Ortiz SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (IDN) – It has been twenty two years since Costa Rica embarked on its national program of payment for environmental services (PES), the first in the world to start a nationwide scheme for compensating landowners for keeping the forests standing for people and the planet. Now that the […]
UN High-Level Meeting Reflects Broad Support for Total Nuclear Disarmament
By Santo D. Banerjee NEW YORK (IDN) – The United Nations has pursued the goal of nuclear disarmament since the adoption of the very first General Assembly resolution in 1946. But aware that countries possessing nuclear weapons have well-funded, long-term plans to modernize their nuclear arsenals, in 2013 the UN declared September 26 as the […]
Kazakh Initiated Global Coalition Aims at Terrorism-Free World
By J Nastranis NEW YORK (IDN) – In the first voluntary political declaration of its kind adopted at the global level, UN Member States have reiterated in the Code of Conduct for the Achievement of a World Free of Terrorism their commitments to strengthen international cooperation to reach the common goal of eradicating a crucial […]
Multilateralism and Sovereignty are not Antithetical
Viewpoint by Heiko Maas With three months to go for Germany joining the Security Council as a non-permanent member for 2019-2020, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas spelt out in his speech at the general debate of the 73rd General Assembly of the United Nations on 28 September 2018 the country’s agenda putting the focus on […]
Helping Rural Latin America Beat the Economic Downturn
By Kwame Buist ROME (IDN) – Over the last three decades, the countries of Latin American and the Caribbean have experienced a profound transformation which has extended to rural areas. All countries in the region, except for Haiti, are now considered middle-income. This economic and rural transformation has resulted in many benefits, especially between 2004 […]
Brazil Sets Up an Innovative Model to Reverse Land Degradation
Viewpoint by Prof. Dr. Valdemar Rodrigues The writer is Director of Sustainable Rural Development of the Ministry of Environment of Brazil, National Director of the UNDP / GEF / MMA Program and National Director of the FAO / GEF / MMA Program. Prior to joining the Ministry, he was he was a Professor at the […]
Upcoming UN General Assembly Promises a Whiff of History
Fourth Woman President in 73 years – 18-year-old Female Activist to Speak at High Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament By Santo D. Banerjee NEW YORK (IDN) – The 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly opening on September 18 promises to be historic. Not only because its President, María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, the Foreign […]
My Life Will Never be the Same Again
By Ilya Kursenko ON TRAIN FROM KURCHATOV TO ASTANA (IDN) – A Russian member of the CTBTO Youth Group, llya Kursenko, attended the five-day 2018 Youth International Conference of the CTBTO Youth Group and the Group of Eminent Persons (GEM) which concluded on September 2 in Astana, capital city of the Central Asian republic of […]