By Richard Johnson | IDN-InDepth NewsReport
LONDON (IDN) – While Japan’s reactors remain vulnerable two years after Fukushima disaster, more than 45 countries, ranging from sophisticated economies to developing nations are reported to be actively considering embarking upon nuclear power programs, The front runners after Iran are said to be UAE, Turkey, Vietnam, Belarus, Poland and Jordan.
By Jaya Ramachandran | IDN-InDepth NewsReport
BERLIN (IDN) – Some 600 scientists, government officials and representatives of civil society organizations are gathered in Bonn to carry out the first ever comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of desertification, land degradation and drought. During the meetings, concluding April 19, governments will for the first time also provide concrete data on the status of poverty and of land cover in the areas affected by desertification in their countries.
By J. C. Suresh | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
TORONTO (IDN) – Two eminent NASA scientists have taken up the cudgels for nuclear power, which is being increasingly pooh-poohed around the world since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011.
A landmark study by scientist-turned-climate activist James Hansen, who has been more outspoken than virtually all of his peers on the need for climate action, and his NASA colleague Pushker Kharecha avers that nuclear power is far safer than natural gas. According to them, 1.84 million lives have been saved by the worldwide use of nuclear power instead of fossil fuels between1971 and 2009.
By Frederick N. Mattis | IDN-InDepth NewsEssay
ANNAPOLIS, USA (IDN) – Soka Gakkai International (SGI) President Daisaku Ikeda’s Peace Proposal for 2013 notes that worldwide abolition of nuclear weapons will require the legal framework of a treaty banning the weapons (variously called a nuclear abolition treaty, nuclear ban treaty, or Nuclear Weapons Convention – NWC). The SGI president proposes the goal of substantial completion in 2015 of the NWC text. Upon its finalization, then, of course, time will be needed for states to evaluate, sign, ratify, and formally accede to the NWC.
By Jaya Ramachandran | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
PARIS (IDN) – Development aid that some of the world’s poorest countries are direly in need of declined for the second successive year in 2012, according to a new report. The reason, says the 34-nation Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), is the continuing financial crisis and euro zone turmoil, which has led several governments to tighten their budgets.
By Ernest Corea* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – The party has ended, and the hubbub of nice sounding words and phrases has receded into personal and institutional memory. There are other issues calling for urgent attention, including the dangerous war talk from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, better known as North Korea.)
For all that, President Barack Obama’s March 2013 visit to the Middle East was, say those who were on the spot, nice while it lasted. Even the rockets fired by Hamas operatives from beleaguered Gaza into Israel and carefully directed not to create excessive damage during Obama’s visit failed to spoil the mood.
By Debak Das* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
NEW DELHI (IDN) – A year has passed since the last Nuclear Security Summit took place in Seoul in March 2012 and it has been announced that the next summit shall be held in the Netherlands in 2014. What should be the important concerns for the 2014 summit in the Netherlands? What are the important issues that must be taken note of by the Sherpas for the next summit?
By Bennett Ramberg* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
LOS ANGELES (IDN | Yale Global) – Following North Korea’s February 12 nuclear weapons test, the UN Security Council adopted tough penalties on Pyongyang. Along with a new round of financial sanctions, the council beefed up inspections of suspect cargo to and from the country and took steps to halt illegal activities by Pyongyang diplomats – all intended to squeeze North’s nuclear and missile programs.
But the sanctions do not address the more serious questions raised by North Korea’s doubling down challenge threatening pre-emptive nuclear strikes on the United States as well as threats against South Korea and Japan:
By Ramesh Jaura* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
BERLIN (IDN) – Two former German policy-makers and practitioners of international development cooperation have decided to break taboos and call in a joint paper for an overhaul of national, European and international aid policies as a befitting response to rapid globalization that “has changed the world more than many in the field of development policy cooperation would like to believe”. They also cast a rather critical look at the 0.7 percent aid target, generally considered as development community’s ‘holy cow’.
“The (present) global development structures and programs are lagging behind the new realities of economic and political needs. There is no longer a ‘North/South’ or ‘donor/recipient’ structure. Developmental paternalism that ‘donors’ continue to practice must therefore give way to genuine partnership and ownership by partners,” say authors of the paper, Eckhard Deutscher and Erich Stather, made available to IDN.
By Antonio Carlos Silva Rosa* | IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
PORTO (IDN | Transcend Media Service) – In regards to the way things are and how they could/should/ought to be, we are cutting ourselves short by concentrating almost exclusively on our intellect, knowledge and intelligence.
I am fascinated with the insights the evolution of science provides, particularly astronomy, cosmology, quantum physics and medicine. Medical research and technology opened the doors to the insides of our brains, considered by ourselves superior and in many ways as complex, dynamic, fascinating as the universe itself. And scientists keep sending those ‘intelligent’ messages to outer space in hopes that other ‘intelligent’ beings will pick them up and beam back their replies to them thus completing the human life-changing experience of a close encounter of whatever kind. They assume that beings ‘out there’ possess minds and intellects like our own.
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