GLOBAL ISSUES – Page 207 – IDN-InDepthNews

GLOBAL ISSUES2013-01-252023-07-10

World Bank Helps Tackle Rapid Urbanization

By J C Suresh | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

TORONTO (IDN) – Developing countries are urbanizing so fast that their populations will tilt from less than 20 percent urban today to more than 60 percent in just 30 years. This is in stark contrast to the mostly gradual transformation today’s developed countries experienced as their cities expanded over a period of 100 years or more with jobs shifting from farms to factories.

Developing countries cannot afford today’s developed countries’ luxury of trial and error in growth patterns and policies. To meet the challenges that rapid migration is creating, city leaders must move quickly to plan, connect, and finance resilient and sustainable growth. A new World Bank report, Planning, Connecting and Financing-Now: What City Leaders Need to Know, provides a framework to assist in this huge task.

ECONOMY2013-01-222023-07-10

Debt Crises Can and Need Be Resolved

By Martin Khor* | IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

GENEVA (IDN) – The issue of foreign debt has made a major comeback. This is due to the crisis in Europe, in which many countries had to seek big bailouts to keep them from defaulting on their loan payments. Before this, debt crises have been associated with African and Latin American countries. In 1997-99, three East Asian countries also joined the indebted countries’ club.

European countries, notably Germany, insisted that private creditors share the burden of resolving the Greek crisis. They had to take a “haircut” of about half, meaning that they would be repaid only half the amount they were owed.

USA and Canada2013-01-182023-07-12

‘Drone War Will Trigger New Arms Race’

By Jaya Ramachandran | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

LONDON (IDN) – The increasing resort to drones by President Barack Obama will over the long term usher in “a new arms race and lay the foundations for an international system that is increasingly violent, destabilized and polarized between those who have drones and those who are victims of them”, a leading terrorism expert has warned.

One of the distinctive elements of President Obama’s approach to counterterrorism has been his embrace of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to target terrorist operatives abroad, says Michael J Boyle in an article for International Affairs, a British journal published every two months.

ENERGY2013-01-162023-07-10

Anti-Nuclear Power Protests Continue in India

By Devinder Kumar | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

NEW DELHI (IDN) – Though the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL) and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are at pains to ‘sell’ atomic energy as a “safe, environmental friendly and an economically viable source of electrical energy to meet the increasing need of electricity in the country”, protests continue unabated.

Renewables2013-01-132023-07-10

Abu Dhabi Conference Focuses On Energy For All

By Bernhard Schell | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

DUBAI (IDN) – More than one billion people live without electricity mainly in poor and rural communities. Providing universal access to energy will therefore be a key discussion point at the sixth World Future Energy Summit (WEES) from January15 to17 in Abu Dhabi, an eminent emirate of the federation of United Aran Emirates (UAE).

GLOBAL ISSUES2013-01-112023-07-10

IMF Pleads Guilty But Insists on Austerity

By Julio Godoy* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

BERLIN (IDN) – Under different conditions, the recent admission by the head economist of the International Monetary Fund, Olivier Blanchard, that the Fund was dead wrong when it prescribed tough austerity measures to countries trapped in a sovereign debt crisis and in recession, would be a reason for satisfaction. But the price paid by the youth in Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, to name only the European victims of the IMF ill advices, is too high for celebrating being right.

GLOBAL ISSUES2013-01-112023-07-10

Indian Olympic Association Farce Unveils Entrenched Ills

By Shastri Ramachandaran
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

NEW DELHI (IDN) – Just months after India achieved its best ever, if still meagre, Olympic haul of six medals, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) was suspended because of excessive governmental interference in its work.

The paradox is that the Indians, who were visibly proud at the country’s performance in the London Olympics (July-August 2012), were hardly seen lamenting the IOA’s loss of place and face in the international arena.

The average television-watching, newspaper-reading Indian is thrilled by the winning performances of Indians in international events – be it the Olympics, Asian Games or Commonwealth Games. But this Indian is not conspicuously upset if the country fails to make a mark. It is simply written off as another bad day, and life goes on.

GLOBAL ISSUES2013-01-102023-07-10

Robots Changing Modern Battlefields

By Chas Henry* | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

This report, by Washington-based national security correspondent Chas Henry, was broadcast during December 2012 on All News 99.1 WNEW, a CBS Radio station in Washington DC. You can hear Chas Henry’s’ audio documentary here: www.chashenry.com/robot-wars-2/

Washington DC (IDN) – When we humans go to war, our least favorite way is hand to hand, face to face.

“It speaks to human nature,” says Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Missy Cummings, a former Navy fighter pilot. “We don’t really like to kill, and if we are going to kill, we like to do it from far away.”

ARMAMENTS2013-01-072023-07-10

U.S. Fiscal Cliff Deal Boosts New START

By R. Nastranis | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

TORONTO (IDN) – The tug of war about the U.S. federal budget ‘fiscal cliff’ threatened to jeopardise the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). But much to the satisfaction of disarmament experts that danger has been removed after a new legislation passed the U.S. Senate and House.

ECONOMY2012-12-302023-07-10

Zero Interest Loans For The Poor Until 2014

By J C Suresh
IDN-InDepth NewsReport

TORONTO (IDN) – As part of a wider strategy to support concessional lending to poorer countries that are combating the effects of the global economic crisis, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a two-year extension to the zero interest rates charged on loans to low-income countries

Subsequent to further weakening of global growth and low-income countries’ declining ability to withstand the crisis, the IMF approved a second extension to the exceptional interest waiver on loans under its Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT).