By Kate Higgins* Toda Peace Institute issued this article, and it is being republished with their permission. VICTORIA, Australia | 16 November 2023 (IDN) — At last year’s COP27 in Egypt, an agreement was reached to establish a Loss and Damage Fund for countries, such as those in the Pacific, vulnerable to the “adverse effects” […]
Security Council Vote Fails to Call for a Cease-fire in Gaza
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS | 15 November 2023 (IDN) — The 15-member Security Council, described as the most powerful body in the United Nations, has remained paralyzed because of a new “cold war” between the five veto-wielding permanent members. The sharp political division—with China and Russia on one side and the US, UK and […]
Barbados — Not the US — Is Most Aligned with the UN Charter
By Jeffrey D. Sachs | Guillaume Lafortune This article was issued by Common Dreams and Other-News, and is being republished with the author’s permission. NEW YORK | 14 November 2023 (IDN) — As part of our academic research on how to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we are examining the extent to which UN […]
Korean Peninsula: U.N. Coalition’s Commitment to Peace Praised
By Joseph Clark WASHINGTON, D.C. | 14 November 2023 (IDN | DOD News) — Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III praised the international alliance committed to securing lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula as United Nations Command member states gathered today for the coalition’s inaugural defense ministers’ meeting in Seoul, South Korea. Austin […]
A Middle East Nuclear Free Zone Remains Grounded
By Thalif Deen* UNITED NATIONS | 12 November 2023 (IDN) — A longstanding proposal for a nuclear-weapons-free zone (NWFZs) in the politically and militarily volatile Middle East has been kicked around the corridors and committee rooms of the United Nations since 1995. Over the last 28 years, the proposal has failed to get off the […]
PCC at COP28: Advocating for Phasing Out of Fossil Fuels, Funding for Loss and Damage, and Peace
By James Bhagwan* SUVA, Fiji | 11 November 2023 (IDN) — For the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC), the ecumenical alliance for the Pacific region, it was a very difficult decision to go to this year’s COP in Dubai, a conference chaired by the CEO of Dubai’s national oil company who is a significant figure […]
Towards a World Without Armies and Wars
By P. Soma Palan* COLOMBO | 11 November 2023 (IDN) — A world without armies would seem to the vast majority of people fanciful, impracticable, unrealistic, idealistic and unattainable a proposition in our present existential world. This is on the presumption that the existing world order is fixed and unalterable. But, if all the countries […]
Global Progress Towards Ending Land Loss to Be Reviewed in Uzbekistan
By Jutta Wolf BONN | 10 November 2023 (IDN) — The UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has announced the launch of its first-ever Data Dashboard compiling national reporting figures from 126 countries, which shows that land degradation is advancing at an astonishing rate across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Between 2015 and 2019, the […]
Jayantha Dhanapala: A Leader for Nuclear Disarmament
By Randy Rydell Remembering Mr. Jayantha Dhanapala, at the UN First Committee’s Side Event hosted on 7 November by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) at the United Nations. UNITED NATIONS | 9 November 2023 (IDN) — I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak today and to meet once again […]
Crisis in Sri Lanka and the World
A Book Review by W. D. Lakshman The writer is Professor Emeritus, University of Colombo Asoka Bandarage| Crisis in Sri Lanka and the World: Colonial and Neoliberal Origins – Ecological and Collective Alternatives. De Gruyter Contemporary Social Sciences. Vol 30. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. 2023 9 November 2023 (IDN) — Asoka Bandarage is known […]