Peace & Justice

Image: One of the temple murals by Solis Mendis; Sri Lankan gift to Kushinagar International Airport. (The Hindu)

Inaugural Flight To Kushinagar Cements Eternally Binding Buddhist Indo-Lanka Bond

By Sugeeswara Senadhira

This article is the 47th in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship agency of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate. Click here for previous reports.

COLOMBO (IDN) — An inaugural flight between Colombo and India's newest international airport Kushinagar landed on October 20 to mark the official opening of the airport by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The flight carried 150 dignitaries including the highest-ranking Buddhist monks of the four nikayas (sects) and the son of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, Cabinet minister Namal Rajapaksa, cementing the eternal Indo-Lanka Buddhist bonds.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; SUSTAINABILITY; Peace & Justice; 21 October 2021

UN Agency Calls for More Funds for Developing Nations from World's Largest Institutional Investors

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) — Sustainable finance and the global capital market play an important role in meeting a growing need to mobilize the vast sums of capital needed to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015. The agenda provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.

: UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 20 October 2021

Photo credit: The Society for Socialist Studies

Our Future vs. Neoliberalism

Viewpoint by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies*

NEW YORK (IDN) — In country after country around the world, people are rising up to challenge entrenched, failing neoliberal political and economic systems, with mixed but sometimes promising results.

Progressive leaders in the U.S. Congress are refusing to back down on the Democrats’ promises to American voters to reduce poverty, expand rights to healthcare, education and clean energy, and repair a shredded social safety net. After decades of tax cuts for the rich, they are also committed to raising taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations to pay for this popular agenda.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 20 October 2021

The EU Sidelined?

Viewpoint by Herbert Wulf

This article was issued by Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission

What do the Biden administration's recent lonely foreign and security policy decisions imply for the EU? Perplexity and annoyance in Paris. Consternation in Brussels. Lots of open questions and no answers in Berlin.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 19 October 2021

Image: North Korea Test-Fires New 'Long-Range Cruise Missile': KCNA

North Korea Flexes its Nuclear Muscles – and Defies the Western World

By Thalif Deen

NEW YORK (IDN) – North Korea, long dubbed as a "hermit kingdom" has continued to remain cut off from the rest of the world—politically, economically and geographically.

But neither rigid sanctions, nor international isolation and growing food insecurities, have prevented the country—officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)—from making significant advances as the world’s ninth nuclear power, along with the US, Britain, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Israel.

: Thalif Deen; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 17 October 2021

Public Development Banks Fail to Meet Commitments to Human Rights & Community-led Development

Viewpont by Siddharth Akali

The writer is an international lawyer who has been trained by local communities, Indigenous governments and peoples in Canada, India and Nepal. He works as director of the Coalition for Human Rights in Development, a global coalition of social movements, civil society organizations, and grassroots groups working together to ensure that development is community-led and that it respects, protects, and fulfills human rights.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 16 October 2021

Photo: NZ Broadcasting and Media Minister Kris Faafoi's ambition is to “reflect the cultural diversity of New Zealand”. Credit: Samuel Rillstone/RNZ

With Public Interest Journalism Fund, NZ Seeks To 'Normalise' Diversity

By Sri Krishnamurthi

The author wrote this article for the IDN partner Asia-Pacific Report on October 13.

WELLINGTON (IDN) — The announcement in February of a new $55 million, three-year Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF) by Minister for Broadcasting and Media Kris Faafoi suggested a revitalisation of tired old traditional media models.

Since then it has been viewed suspiciously by journalists with right-leaning tendencies and denizens of the dark who contend the government is attempting to curry favour with this bauble.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; SUSTAINABILITY; Peace & Justice; 15 October 2021

Photo: Captain Thomas Sankara and journalist Sennen Andriamirado in Paris in 1986. Pascal Maitre/Archives JA. Source: The African Report.

Alleged Killers of Pan-African Icon Thomas Sankara on Trial

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — The trial of the accused killers of Thomas Sankara, revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso—including his former friend Blaise Compaore who succeeded him as president and went on to rule for 27 years— has now been adjourned to October 25 after defense lawyers asked for more time to prepare their case. It was to have opened on October 11 in the capital Ouagadougou.

Fourteen men are being tried over the assassination in 1987. Near the Thomas Sankara memorial site, many expressed the hope that the trial would shed light on his murder.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 13 October 2021

Image: The Islamic Bomb. Credit: The Conversation

About the First Islamic Bomb and Its Father

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Whenever I introduced Munir Khan to a friend I would say light-heartedly “and this is the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb,” just to enjoy the pleasure of watching the reaction. Khan himself would give a self-deprecatory smile. As Hans Blix, the former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the world’s nuclear policeman, put it to me, Khan was “a cheerful soul.”

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 12 October 2021

Photo: The pyre of light weapons being readied ahead of a ceremony in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire at which small arms and light weapons were set alight and destroyed in April 2013. Credit: The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS)

A Senior Kenyan Ambassador Stresses the Need to Tackle Illicit Weapons, Ammunition

By Franck Kuwonu, UN Information Officer

NEW YORK (IDN | Africa Renewal) — BMS7 took place in New York, in July. In this interview with Africa Renewal’s Franck Kuwonu, Ambassador Kimani, chair of the Seventh Biennial Meeting of States (BMS7) to consider the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (PoA) and its international Tracing Instrument (ITI), talks about the proliferation of dangerous firearms in Africa, and welcomes efforts to trace ammunitions. These are excerpts from the interview.