GLOBAL ISSUES – Page 205 – IDN-InDepthNews

ARMAMENTS2013-02-272023-07-10

U.S. Abandoning Commitment to Nuke-free World?

By Lawrence Wittner* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

ALBANY (IDN) – In a major address in Prague on April 5, 2009, the newly-elected U.S. President, Barack Obama, proclaimed “clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

On January 24, 2013, however, Senator John Kerry, speaking at Senate confirmation hearings on his nomination to become U.S. secretary of state, declared that a nuclear weapons-free world was no more than “an aspiration,” adding that “we’ll be lucky if we get there in however many centuries.” Has there been a change in Obama administration policy over the past four years? There are certainly indications that this might be the case.

GLOBAL ISSUES2013-02-252023-07-10

Happiness is More than State of Mind

By Shastri Ramachandran* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

NEW DELHI (IDN) – The big-versus-small debate pervades all facets of our lives. Big may be better, but small is smarter. This seems to be the subtext of a recent “happiness survey” in the Indian daily Hindustan Times. The happiness index was based on whether people are happy with their health, wealth and sex lives.

The survey’s findings are important for what they state as much as for what they conceal. Small is not always beautiful or smart.

Trade2013-02-222023-07-10

Global Trade Talks Remain Stuck

By R. Nastranis and Kinda Mohamadieh*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

GENEVA (IDN) – Uncertainty clouds the fate of the current round of global trade negotiations under the umbrella of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which commenced in November 2011 and have been stalled since July 2008. All eyes are now set on the ninth ministerial conference (MC9) to be held on the Indonesian island of Bali December 3-6, 2013.

The reason behind the impasse, according to Dr Rubens Ricupero, a former UNCTAD Secretary-General, is that the advanced economies are retracting on their promises given at the WTO’s Fourth Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001.

ARMAMENTS2013-02-212023-07-10

What Oslo Conferences Mean For Nuke Abolition

By Alyn Ware* | IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

NEW YORK (IDN | Pressenza) – A meteor blasting into the atmosphere over Siberia (on February 15), injuring about 1000 people with debris, provided a graphic warning of the risk of a larger meteor, or even an asteroid, hitting earth. About the same time that the 10 ton meteor entered the earth’s atmosphere, an asteroid 15,000 times larger whizzed past planet earth. If the asteroid instead of the meteor had hit us, it could have wiped out civilization just as an asteroid hitting the earth 65 million years ago created climatic consequences that wiped out the dinosaurs.

ARMAMENTS2013-02-192023-07-10

High-Alert Nukes As If the Cold War Didn’t End

By Jamshed Baruah | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

BERLIN (IDN) – A new report by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) has come to a worrisome conclusion that the United States and Russia continue to maintain large numbers of nuclear forces on high levels of alert, ready to launch within minutes, as if the Cold War – which is believed to have ended more than two decades ago – was going on unabated.

Together with France and Britain, the four countries deploy approximately 2000 warheads ready for use on short notice – more nuclear warheads than held by all the other states in possession of nuclear weapons combined, finds the report titled Reducing Alert Rates of Nuclear Weapons, co-authored by Hans M. Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and Matthew McKinzie from the Natural Resources of Defense Council.

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.

Indigenous Peoples2013-02-152023-07-10

Indigenous Peoples Find A New Dialogue Forum

By R. Nastranis | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

ROME (IDN) – The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations, has opened a new chapter in its longstanding engagement with indigenous peoples, majority of whom live in rural areas and face the dual challenges of poverty and marginalization. They were offered an important platform of dialogue at the first meeting of the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum at IFAD.

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.

ARMAMENTS2013-02-132023-07-10

Aiming at Global Disarmament by 2030

By Ramesh Jaura | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

BERLIN (IDN) – An eminent Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda is calling for an “expanded nuclear summit” in 2015 to solidify momentum toward a world free from nuclear weapons and become the launching point for a larger effort for global disarmament aiming toward the year 2030.

With this in view, he hopes that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and forward-looking governments will establish an action group to initiate before year’s end the process of drafting a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC) outlawing nuclear weapons, which are not only inhumane but also swallow some $105 billion year after year.

“A key factor . . . will be the stance taken by those countries which have relied on the extended deterrence of nuclear-weapon states, the so-called nuclear umbrella,” writes Ikeda, who heads Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a Tokyo-based lay Buddhist organization spanning the globe.

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.