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By Devinder Kumar
NEW DELHI (IDN) – International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), set up in 1957 as the world’s 'Atoms for Peace' organization within the United Nations family, and the Atomic Energy Commission of India have agreed on an extended cooperation to the benefit of nuclear professionals from across Asia.
IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano and Sekhar Basu, Chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Commission, achieved the agreement during the former's three-day visit to India from March 13 to 15.
Interview with Jorge Chediek, Director of the UN Office for South Cooperation (UNOSSC)
NEW YORK (IDN) – South-South and triangular cooperation forms an integral part, complementing North-South Cooperation, of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by Member States of the United Nations on September 25, 2015 to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all.
How is the UN Office for South Cooperation (UNOSSC) – as the global and United Nations system-wide focal point for South-South cooperation – engaging in advocacy, policy development, knowledge sharing and innovative programmatic activities? Ramesh Jaura, Editor-in-Chief and International Correspondent of IDN, flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate group, asked UNOSSC Director Jorge Chediek this and related questions in an e-mail interview. Read the Q&A in full:
By Samantha Sen
LONDON (ACP-IDN) - The Brexit question as seen by the small and poor group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries is far simpler – and potentially far more lethal – than those the more usual Brexit debate engages with. It belongs less to debate on knock-on effects rolling into the future than to questions of physical survival here and now. When a fifth of Fiji exports head for the UK, when a Caribbean island lives off bananas sold to Britain, new spokes in buying and selling can hit the people, and even all of the people, of a small nation.
By Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - The state of being vigorously anti the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is becoming out of control. It is in danger of becoming pathological and self-destructive. What does the West gain in the long run if it sees nothing ahead but being anti-Russia? The West is in danger of having embarked on a journey to nowhere. Russia is not going to change significantly in the near future. The very close Putin/ Dimitri Medvedev team are going to remain in the saddle for a long time.
We are not yet in a second Cold War. Those who say we are don’t know their history. The Cold War was years of military confrontation, not least with nuclear arms. It was a competition for influence that stretched right around the globe and it was done with guns. There was the Cuban missile crisis when nuclear weapons were nearly used.
By Jutta Wolf
BERLIN (IDN) – 'Shaping an interconnected world' is the slogan Germany has chosen for its Presidency of the Group of Twenty (G20) summit of heads of state and government on July 7-8 in the port city of Hamburg. It is based on three thematic pillars: building resilience, improving sustainability, and assuming responsibility.
The German Economic Cooperation Ministry (BMZ) has contributed to defining the German G20 agenda, as all three pillars are closely related to development cooperation.
Building resilience relates to financial services for small and medium-sized enterprises, and sustainable supply chains (innovative financing models, improvement of the general environment, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises) such as the textile sector.
By Lowana Veal
REYKJAVIK (IDN) – Back in 1907, at a time in which Iceland was already faced with severe land degradation problems caused mainly by overgrazing and logging for firewood, the Soil Conservation Service of Iceland (SCSI) was set up as a governmental agency with the mission of preventing soil erosion and reclaiming eroded land.
Much has been learned in the intervening years and keen to pass on its expertise, SCSI – in collaboration with the Agricultural University of Iceland (AUI) – is now running a United Nations University (UNU) training programme targeting participants from developing countries.
BONN (IDN) – Population declines of 95 percent in Africa and Asia in recent decades, are threatening most vulture species in Africa, Asia and Europe with extinction. With this in view, an overarching international Action Plan applicable throughout the ranges of all species is being developed at an expert meeting convened by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) from February 16 to 19 in Toledo, Spain.
The plan aims to prevent the further decline of vultures – nature’s primary scavengers – providing indispensable ecological services as carrion feeders and disposers of disease-carrying carcasses.
By Santo D. Banerjee
NEW YORK (IDN) - The Group of 77 (G77) and China, the largest coalition of developing countries in the United Nations, is calling upon the international community "to address the challenges and needs faced by developing countries, especially countries in special situations".
These, says Ambassador Horacio Sevilla Borja, Ecuador's Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, in a statement on behalf of G77 and China, include "in particular, African countries, least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and Small Island developing States".
BANGKOK (IDN) - At a United Nations forum, Bangladesh, China, India, Laos, South Korea and Sri Lanka have agreed to more than double the number of products under preferential tariff treatment in order to expand trade and boost growth in the region.
The six countries are party to the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA), previously named the Bangkok Agreement, signed in 1975 as an initiative of United Nations Economic and Social Council for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), which functions as the APTA secretariat.
By Dr. Patrick I. Gomes, ACP Secretary-General
BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) - Presidents and Prime Ministers of 79 Member States of the African, Caribbean & Pacific (ACP) Group, the ACP Council of Ministers, Senior Officials, Continental and Regional organisations, development partners, civil society and private sector organisations deserve the ACP’s Secretariat's deep appreciation for having contributed so significantly to the main achievements of the ACP Family in 2016.
