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 […]
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 […]
United Nations Can Bring About Peace Between Israel and Palestine
By Jeffrey D. Sachs* This article was published in Common Dreams and is being republished with the author’s permission. NEW YORK | 20 October 2023 (IDN) — Following Hamas’s heinous attack on innocent Israeli civilians, senior Israeli military strategists are threatening the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. This would be another Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe), akin […]
A Trust Redeemed: Celebrating and Reinforcing Achievements
By Ramu Damodaran* NEW YORK | 14 October 2023 (IDN) — Among all the conditions that convened at the creation of the United Nations, and have sustained what will be its 78 years on October 24, none was as unequivocal and decisive as that of trust, the trust demanded between States and invested by them […]
UN Human Rights Council: Russia Loses, China Wins Narrowly
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS | 11 October 2023 (IDN) — The UN’s 47-member Geneva-based Human Rights Council (HRC) has had a longstanding notoriety for having several so-called “repressive regimes” and “authoritarian governments” as its members—elected by the 193-member General Assembly. At the elections, held by secret ballot on 10 October, the 15 new members […]
UN Human Rights Council: Are Inmates Taking over the Asylum?
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS. 5 October 2023 (IDN) — When the 193-member General Assembly (GA) elected some of the so-called “repressive regimes” as members of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in a bygone era, US Congressman Dana Rohrabacher remarked: “The inmates have taken over the asylum”. And, as an after-thought, he added: “I […]
UN Can Prevent 21st Century Becoming a Tragedy
By Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden. 3 October 2023 (IDN) — In Ukraine, there is war. The only place where it is happening on a significant scale in the Western hemisphere. Elsewhere in the Middle East, there are only two “live” wars—Syria and Yemen. In Latin America and the Caribbean, zero. In Asia, only in Myanmar. […]
Human Rights Activists Facing Threats in 40 Countries for Cooperating with UN
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 29 September 2023 (IDN) — Be warned: If you are a human rights activist or an individual cooperating with the UN in revealing abuses, you may be under surveillance or in danger of facing physical threats. A new report from Secretary-General António Guterres says that from 1 May last year […]
Nuclear Annihilation: A Haunting Reality of the Future
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS. 26 September 2023 (IDN) — When the United Nations commemorated the 10th anniversary of International Day for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, the President of the General Assembly, Dennis Francis, was dead on target when he warned that the risk of nuclear annihilation “is not a chapter from our past; […]