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Astana Conference Pleads for Ban on Nuclear Tests and More

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | ASTANA (IDN) – Some three weeks before the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons opens for signature on September 20 in New York, a landmark international conference in the capital city of Kazakhstan has called upon "all governments and people to reflect on the grave and irreversible ecological and humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and to spare no efforts towards achieving a nuclear-weapon-free world."

The appeal, made by the Council of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, coincided with the International Day against Nuclear Tests, designated by the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly on December 2, 2009 by unanimously adopting resolution 64/35. Watch Our Video

: Ramesh Jaura; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 14 September 2017

Water, Food and Energy Security for All is Possible

By Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General

Following is the text of a speech given by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (1997-2006), the founding chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation, and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, on September 7, 2017 at the ‘Making Waves’ conference in Afsluitdijk (English: Enclosure Dam), a major causeway in the Netherlands, constructed between 1927 and 1932. It is being reproduced courtesy of the Kofi Annan Foundation. – The Editor.

GENEVA (IDN-INPS) - I can’t think of a more symbolic and inspirational location to promote innovative solutions around water, food and energy than the iconic Afsluitdijk. The dam is a masterpiece of Dutch engineering and a symbol for the country’s centuries-long fight against flooding from the sea.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; SUSTAINABILITY; Food security, nutrition & sustainable agriculture; 14 September 2017

Photo credit: Dr. Manuel F. Montes, Senior Advisor on Finance and Development of the South Centre, speaking at the ECOSOC DCF event in Buenos Aires held on September 6-8, 2017. Source: South Centre

South-South Cooperation Helps Achieve UN Development Goals

By Silvia Espíndola*

The author is Undersecretary of International Cooperation of the Republic of Ecuador. Following are excerpts from his statement at the Workshop titled South-South Cooperation forty years since BAPA: Challenges and Opportunities during the ECOSOC Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) meeting, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on September 6, 2017 – in the run-up to the UN Day for South-South Cooperation was celebrated worldwide on September 12. – The Editor

GENEVA (IDN-INPS | SouthNews) - Since the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among developing countries (1978), South-South cooperation has been steadily gaining momentum and has shown encouraging trends. Many initiatives attest to the increasing importance of South-South cooperation as a growing dimension of international cooperation for development.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; OPINION; 14 September 2017

Photo: Viwanou Gnassounou, Assistant Secretary General of the ACP Group. Credit: IISD

79 Countries Gather in the Bahamas to Address Sustainable Development of Fisheries and Aquaculture

By Viwanou Gnassounou

ACP Assistant Secretary General for Sustainable Economic Development and Trade.

Fisheries and aquaculture are critical for poverty eradication and sustainable development in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. With this in view, ministers and senior government officials from 79 countries that constitute the ACP Group of States will gather in Nassau, the capital city of the Bahamas – the coral-based archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean Bahamas with 700-plus islands – from September 18 to 21, 2017. "The focus will be on bolstering high level shared commitments, sharing national or regional best practices and seeking consensus on priority issues that need multilateral action," says Viwanou Gnassounou, ACP Assistant Secretary General for Sustainable Economic Development & Trade. – The Editor

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 13 September 2017

Ulaanbaatar Conference Stresses the Role of Individual States in Nuclear Disarmament Process

By Jamshed Baruah

NEW YORK | ULAANBAATAR (IDN) – While unanimously agreeing on tougher sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in response to the country's sixth and most powerful nuclear test early September, the UN Security Council called for the resumption of the Six-Party Talks.

By pleading for the multilateral negotiations involving China, DPRK, Japan, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation and the United States, the 15-member Council expressed its "commitment to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution to the situation on the Korean Peninsula".

The issue also drew the focus of the 'International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament Issues: Global and Regional Aspects' on August 31-September 1 some 10,150 kilometres away in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia, bordered by China to its south and the Russian Federation to it north.

: Jamshed Baruah; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 13 September 2017

Photo: Army-People Rallies Hail Success in H-bomb Test. Credit: The Rodong Sinmun.

UN Panel Remains Sceptical about Sanctions on North Korea

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN) – Six days before the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to impose harsher sanctions on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), it received a far from encouraging report on the implementation of sanctions slammed so far.

The report submitted to the Council on September 5 by the UN Panel of Experts monitoring the implementation of Security Council sanctions against North Korea says: "Lax enforcement of the sanctions regime coupled with the country’s evolving evasion techniques are undermining the goals of the resolutions that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea abandon all weapons of mass destruction and cease all related programmes and activities."

: Ramesh Jaura; UN INSIDER; 12 September 2017

President Akufo-Addo at inauguration. Credit: myjoyonline

Corruption Returns with a Vengeance in Ghana

By Global Information Network

NEW YORK | ACCRA (IDN) – Waving a gold sword – a symbol of Ghana’s presidency – the new president came out swinging against years of debilitating corruption.

“We must restore integrity in public life,” President Nana Akufo-Addo thundered at his swearing in ceremony last January. “State coffers are not spoils for the party that wins an election, but resources for the country’s social and economic development.”

Nine months later, the unpleasant stench of corruption is swirling around the presidency after it was revealed that highly-overpriced garbage contracts to the tune of $74 million were okayed by government officials.

: Global Information Network; NEWSBRIEFS; 12 September 2017

Thousands March for Change in Togo and End to Dynasty Rule

By Global Information Network

NEW YORK | LOME (IDN) - In another strike against presidents who refuse to hand over power, the people of Togo filled the streets this month to protest 50 years of repressive rule by one family.

In an estimated crowd of 100,000 protesters, banners reading “Free Togo” and “Faure resign” could be seen. Police dispersed the protestors with tear gas and violence. In earlier protests in August, two people were killed and 13 injured when police fired on demonstrators. Taking the punishment a step further, the regime shut down the internet, making it almost impossible for opponents to use social media to organize.

: Global Information Network; NEWSBRIEFS; 12 September 2017

Photo: F. George Njoroge (left), Ambassador Robinson Njeru Githae (centre) and Prof. Makua Mutua (right)

U.S.-Based Kenyan Scholars Spar Over Election Outcome

By Global Information Network

ATLANTA (IDN) – The fierce contest between President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition candidate Raila Odinga since their discarded election in August found echo here in Atlanta between Nairobi’s ambassador to Washington and a prominent U.S.-based legal scholar.

“I can categorically say here looking you straight in the eye that the Supreme Court robbed Uhuru Kenyatta of his win and stole the election from the Kenyan people,” Ambassador Robinson Njeru Githae was reported to say.

Not so, responded Prof. Makua Mutua, a human rights advocate and former dean at the University at Buffalo Law School.

: Global Information Network; NEWSBRIEFS; 12 September 2017

Photo: Sheikh Zayed Road and its skyscrapers in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on 14 September 2007. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

A Little Less Architectural Vanity Will Make A Lot Happier

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – "What did these vain and presumptuous men intend? How did they expect to raise their lofty mass against God, when they had built it above all the mountains and clouds of the earth’s atmosphere?" This is St. Augustine writing about Babylon in his 'City of God'. In more modern times Jonathan Raban has written in 'Soft City': "The city has always been an embodiment of hope and a source of festering guilt: A dream pursued, and found vain, wanting and destructive."

St. Augustine wrote the 'City of God' in a state of sorrowful contemplation. The city of man, he believed, ought to be a harmonious reflection of the City of God. In actuality it is vulgar, lazy and corrupt, a place so brutish that it lacks even the dignity of the satanic. St Augustine would surely write the same way if reincarnated in Atlanta, Johannesburg, Mumbai or Riyadh.