Peace & Justice

Photo: The Japanese Peace Bell and its en:pagoda at United Nations Headquarters, New York City. Photograph credit: Drag | Wikimedia Commons

Peace as Form of Life

Viewpoint by Tito Alvarado

MONTREAL (IDN) – Of the world's more than six thousand extant languages, three thousand have little chance of continuing to be used in the next century. This tragic fact represents a terrible finding: we will lose three thousand ways to approach life and humanity from the perspective of others in their relationship with the environment that surrounds them.

However, as this is a case of death for the people who use these languages, it is perceived as anecdotal, as a kind of fatalism; in fact, we wash our hands whereas we are responsible for working for the survival of the variety of cultures and languages.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 27 July 2018

Photo: A Palestinian girl inside her family’s partially destroyed home, looks at the destruction outside, in the Shejaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City. Credit: UNICEF.

Palestinian Peoples' Fundamental Rights Under Assault, Concern Over Lurking Dangers

By Ramesh Jaura

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – The outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, has expressed "acute concerns" over the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including the situation in the occupied Gaza Strip, which in recent months has escalated dramatically, with the potential to generate threats to peace across a far broader region.

His concerns were affirmed when UN News reported on July 24 that intense diplomatic efforts by the United Nations and Egypt had helped avoid another Israeli-Palestinian war in Gaza that appeared just "minutes away" over the previous weekend.

: Ramesh Jaura; THE WORLD; Middle East; 26 July 2018

Photo: U.S. President Trump and Chinese President XI. Source: The United States Studies Centre, Sydney.

Competitive Diplomacy Under the Trump Administration – Part 1

Viewpoint by Michele Nobile*

This is the first of a two-part article which was written before the July 11-12 NATO summit in Brussels – The Editor.

ROME (IDN) – The goal of the diplomacy of George W. Bush under his National Security Strategy (NSS) was to be "transformative", that is, aimed at building and supporting democratic states in collaboration with "many international partners".

In other words, the armed export of "democracy" presupposed the ability and will to build variable alliances tailored on military intervention. Except for the fact that, for the purpose of partial political legitimation and outside any UN Security Council mandate, unilateral military action had to be combined with multilateralism.

: Phil Harris; UN INSIDER; 16 July 2018

Photo: Angela Merkel. Credit: Federal Government/Steffen Kugler

Why Germany Is Important For Survival Of Multilateralism

By Shastri Ramachandaran*

NEW DELHI | BERLIN (IDN) – A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of right-wing nationalism that is anti-immigrant and, in many pockets, feeding racism and xenophobia. Germany, which stood tall and firm against this gathering illiberal tide by throwing open its doors in 2015-16 to over a million refugees – mainly from the war in Syria – is today facing a crisis over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policy on refugees.

With the U.S. turning its back on globalization and the global order facing an erosion of liberal and humanitarian values, Germany rose as a new pole of power in the West. It is Germany that has been calling the shots on behalf of the advanced industrial nations, and not only at the recent G7 summit, which saw Chancellor Merkel taking a tough line against President Donald Trump.

: Shastri Ramachandaran; THE WORLD; EU & Europe; 12 July 2018

Photo: OSCE parliamentarians voting in plenary session in Berlin on10 July 2018. Credit: OSCEPA.

300 Parliamentarians Call For Commitment To UN Charter

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN (IDN) – More than 300 parliamentarians representing the collective voice of one billion people from Vancouver to Vladivostok adopted a 76-page declaration on July 11 expressing deep concern about unresolved conflicts and nuclear weapons threats, and proposing measures that should be taken to rebuild peace and security in Europe.

The members of 53 participating States and four partners for co-operation were in Berlin for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which was held in the Reichstag building, the seat of the German Bundestag, from July 7-11, in the run-up to the NATO Summit in Brussels and the Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki.

: Ramesh Jaura; SUSTAINABILITY; Peace & Justice; 12 July 2018

Photo: Eritrean Prime Minister Afwerki (left) and his Ethiopian counterpart Ahmed in Asmara. Credit: africanews.

Eritrea and Ethiopia End Two Decade Long War

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK | ASMARA (IDN) – “And into ploughshares beat their swords. Nations shall learn war no more.”

With those words of Isaiah, Ethiopia and Eritrea announced the end of a futile war and agreed to normalize ties, drawing the curtain on a 20-year military standoff on the Horn of Africa that cost over 70,000 lives and hundreds of millions of dollars.

This was 10 years after the Security Council decided to end the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) terminating the mandate of the eight-year-old peacekeeping force monitoring the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea in response to lack of fuel supplies following Eritrean government restrictions.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 10 July 2018

Photo: Bora Bora, French Polynesia. CC BY 2.0

UN Warned Against Taking a Case-by-Case Approach to Self-Determination

By Kwame Buist

NEW YORK (IDN) – A case-by-case approach to the issue of the world's remaining 'non-self governing territories' must not be misinterpreted as a rationale for legitimising the political and economic inequality of dependency status, the recently concluded session of the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation was told.

The committee concluded its 2018 session on June 22, having approved a series of draft resolutions and decisions after hearings on the situation regarding lingering self-determination issues in 'non-self governing territories' throughout the world.

: UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 29 June 2018

Photo: Jacek Czaputowicz (left), Minister for Foreign Affairs of Poland and President of the Security Council for the month of May, chairs the Security Council meeting on 29 May 2018. At right is Rosemary A. DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe.

Kazakhstan Pleads for Resolving Ukraine Conflict Through Peaceful Means

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Kazakhstan has expressed concern for "the unpredictable and volatile situation" in eastern Ukraine and the frequent ceasefire violations, which have a direct impact on the civilian population. "These violations result indeaths and injuries, along with many humanitarian consequences," said Ambassador Kairat Umarov, the Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the United Nations headquarters in New York.

He was addressing the Security Council meeting on May 29, 2018 which discussed the situation in Ukraine in the face of civilians bearing the brunt of four-year-old conflict in Ukraine, bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Belarus to the northwest, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia to the west, Romania and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south and southeast, respectively.

: J Nastranis; THE WORLD; Central Asia; 21 June 2018

Governments Do Little as West African Countries are Plundered

By Will Fitzgibbon

In the region’s largest-ever journalism collaboration, reporters from 11 countries expose the financial secrets of some of West Africa's most powerful politicians, moguls and corporations. The following article first appeared on the website of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) on 22 May 2018 with the headline WEST AFRICA LEAKS: How Officials, Businesses and Traffickers Hide Billions from Cash-Starved Governments Offshore. Contributors to this story: Moussa Aksar and Alloycious David. – The Editor.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN | ICIJ) – Government officials, arms merchants and corporations have spirited away millions of dollars from destitute West African nations through offshore tax havens, an investigation by journalists from the region and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has found.

: UN Bureau; THE WORLD; Africa; 24 May 2018

Photo: Women Cross DMZ, in partnership with the Nobel Women’s Initiative and the Women’s Peace Walk, a coalition of more than 30 women’s peace organizations in South Korea, will travel to Seoul, South Korea May 24-26 for the #WomenPeaceKorea: A New Era delegation. Credit: Stepehen Wunrow | Women Cross DMZ

The 'Libyan Model' is Unhelpful: Korea needs its Own Process for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament

By Rebecca Johnson*

SEOUL (IDN) – I'm now in Seoul, taking part in the peace actions and international meetings organised by Women Cross the DMZ, referring to the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

News has been dominated by fears that the US National Security Advisor, John Bolton, may have jeopardised the hoped-for Singapore Summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump. Was this Bolton's intention?

As South Korea's President Moon Jae-in meets with Trump in Washington, it is hoped that all efforts will be made to consolidate plans for the Singapore Summit to be successful. Bolton's references to the "Libyan model" for North Korea's disarmament were extremely unhelpful.