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By ACP Press
BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – Assistant-Secretary-General of the ACP Group, Léonard-Emile Ognimba, together with the Director General for Development and International Cooperation of the European Commission, Stefano Manservisi, officially launched the new ACP-EU Culture Programme on the occasion of the 26th edition of The Ouagadougou Pan-African Film and Television Festival (FESPACO), on February 24, 2019 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The long war is almost over in Syria. Tyranny has won. Violence has won. Most have suffered, many unspeakably. For too long all sides were stalemated by each other’s brutality. Now the government of Bashar Al-Assad has come out on top, aided by Russia and Iran
What to do next? On March 12, 2019 the EU member states start their three-day third annual Conference on Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region, co-chaired by the UN. It’s time for some radical re-thinking. Well-wishing for good things like the persecution of war crimes is whistling in the wind, at least for now.
By Robert Johnson
BRUSSELS | PARAMARIBO, Suriname (ACP-IDN) – Climate change, which is a major concern in the Caribbean, and identifying and implementing effective climate adaptation and mitigation strategies were high on the agenda of the 17th regional meeting of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, from February 28 to March 2, 2019
Parliamentarians from the Caribbean region of the ACP Group and their European counterparts also focused on regional Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), security and the political situation of the region as well as on energy, economic growth and employment.
Viewpoint by Maíra Martini and Laure Brillaud
This article is reproduced with the permission of Transparency International. Maira Martini is Knowledge Coordinator and Laure Brillaud Senior Policy Officer, Anti-Money Laundering, of Transparency International. Any views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of IDN.
LONDON (IDN) – What do all recent major grand corruption scandals have in common? Individuals and companies involved in schemes like the Russian and Azerbaijani “Laundromats” and Operation Car Wash in Brazil relied on European banks to pay bribes, transfer illicit funds and hide the proceeds of corruption.
By Ronald Joshua
GENEVA (IDN) – The activities funded by the European Union are making a difference on the ground and are helping countries to develop their capacities against the threat of proliferation of biological weapons by States or non-States actors.
This was one of the conclusions at an EU side event that was organised in the margins of the annual meeting of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in Geneva in December 2018 to present project activities under the EU Council Decision 2016/51 in support of the Convention. "Our aim is to promote universal adherence to this important Convention and support States Parties in their efforts to implement their obligations," said Anne Kemppainen, Head of the Political Section for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation at the EU Delegation in Geneva who moderated the panel discussion.
By Somar Wijayadasa*
NEW YORK | MUNICH (IDN) – "The whole liberal world order appears to be falling apart – nothing is as it once was," said Wolfgang Ischinger, a senior German diplomat in an opinion article in the run-up to the 2019 Munich Security Conference (MSC) that he chairs.
He added: "When Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and started the bloody conflict in Eastern Ukraine in 2014, many considered him to be the major cause of global destabilization."
"Nobody could have known," Ischinger went on to say, "that just a few years later the U.S. President, of all people, would seriously challenge the current international order. Donald Trump questions free trade just like he questions the Western set of values or NATO. This has massive consequences – not just for us Europeans."
Despite everything, it is still in our power to avoid nuclear confrontation.
Viewpoint by Mikhail Gorbachev*
MOSCOW (IDN-INPS) – The fate of the INF treaty has politicians and ordinary people worried on every continent. I am also concerned, and not only because I signed that treaty with former U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Dec. 1987. These events are yet another manifestation of the dangerous and destructive trends in world politics facing us today.
The main idea guiding us on the path to signing the original treaty was expressed in a joint statement with the United States, adopted at our first meeting in Geneva: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | LONDON (IDN) – The UK government is coming under pressure to compensate and apologize to the last surviving African veterans who fought alongside white British soldiers in the Second World War that began 80 years ago and lasted six years.
More than half a million black African soldiers who fought in the British army were paid up to three times less than their white counterparts, a newly unearthed document has revealed, prompting calls for an investigation and the government to compensate surviving veterans.
By Dimitris Avramopoulos
The following are extensive excerpts from keynote speech by the European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, on Europe’s response to the challenges of migration and security at the London School of Economics on 23 January 2019.
BRUSSELS (IDN-INPS) – In the year 2015, Europe was confronted with a large number of vulnerable and desperate people seeking refuge on its shores.
At that time, the European Union and its Member States were unprepared and taken by surprise.
By Klara Smits
BRUSSELS (IDN) – After his visit to Austria, Libya’s foreign minister Mohammed Sayala told the Kuwaiti News Agency on January 31 that Libya’s southern borders have now become Europe’s borders. Illegal migration could not be stopped at the Mediterranean Sea, he argued. Therefore, he promised that on the February 20, Libya will present the EU with a policy to cooperate on ‘protecting’ those southern borders. The plan will also include border agreements with Chad, Niger and Sudan.
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