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Photo: Sri Lanka’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Dinesh Gunawardena at the 46th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on February 23.

Majority of UN Members Refuse to Fund UNHRC’s Sri Lanka Probe

But would the West Respect the Majority Will?

Viewpoint by Sugeeswara Senadhira

COLOMBO (IDN) — Majority of members of the UN, especially from the Global South, have refused to donate funds to the United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC’s) move to set up a separate secretariat to enforce matters relating to the Resolution it passed on Sri Lanka in March this year. The inability to raise sufficient funds is a major setback to UNHRC plans to implement the Resolution, but there are fears here that the West will not respect the will of the majority in the international community, and may chip in with funds to implement their project.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; OPINION; 16 June 2021

Photo: Code Pink anti-war activists protest U.S. Senators supporting Saudi-U.S. arms deals, December 2017. CC BY 2.0

Aid Does Not Necessarily Foster Stability

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN) — The biggest war at the moment is the civil war in Somalia, started in 1991. It has claimed over half a million lives. Second, is the civil war in Syria which has led to about 400,000 deaths. Third, is South Sudan where approximately 400,000 have been killed. Yemen is a younger conflict, with over 230,000 deaths. Human suffering is at its worse in Yemen—it is held in the pincers of Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates. Food and medical supplies have often been squeezed to a dribble. The US and the UK contribute to relief in the Yemen via the UN’s World Food Program and UNICEF, while supplying arms to the side of Saudi Arabia.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 15 June 2021

Photo: COVID-19 patients receive oxygen at a place of worship in Ghaziabad, India. © UNICEF/Amarjeet Singh.

Donating for COVID-Relief — Mixed-Up Governmental Priorities

Viewpoint by Sunil J. Wimalawansa *

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought “a tsunami of suffering”, taken over 3.4 million lives and 500 million jobs, while wiping trillions of dollars from global balance sheets, Secretary-General António Guterres told business last May, for equitable vaccine distribution worldwide.

NEW JERSEY, USA (IDN) — While the COVID-situations are significantly improving in the USA, UK, and most European nations, the situation in Asian countries such as Sri Lanka, Nepal, and India worsened. Flawed policy decisions and fraud considerably worsen the situation.

: Opinion Editor; SUSTAINABILITY; Health & Well Being; 15 June 2021

Photo: Women planting an olive tree in the Marrakech-Safi region of Morocco (High Atlas Foundation, 2021)

Decentralisation Vital to Achieving the UN's Global Goals

Viewpoint by Yossef Ben-Meir

The writer is a former Peace Corps Volunteer and president of the High Atlas Foundation.

MARRAKECH (IDN) — The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are aspirationally universal, addressing globally relevant issues with earnest objectives. Despite the profound good that they represent, fundamental problems exist with the Goals. They lack prescriptiveness, even to the extent of not explicitly aligning with what we know is indelible to sustainability: local people’s participation.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 14 June 2021

Image: Memorial to Dulcie September in the Basque/Spanish town of Guernica. Wikimedia Commons.

Life of Anti-Apartheid Activist Dulcie September Profiled in New Documentary

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — South African anti-apartheid activist Dulcie September was the representative of the African National Congress (ANC) in France, Luxembourg, and Switzerland until her murder outside of ANC offices in Paris in 1988. Despite an array of clues, her killer was never identified and the story of the 52-year-old activist drifted into oblivion.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 14 June 2021

Photo: Tsitsi Dangarembga in November 2006 during a UK tour. C BY-SA 3.0

Zimbabwean Novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga Called ‘Voice of Hope’

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — For her “ability to capture and communicate vital truths even amidst times of upheaval”, Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Dangarembga will receive the PEN Pinter prize in memory of the Nobel laureate Harold Pinter.

Dangarembga is the author of Nervous Conditions, which she wrote when she was 25, and which was described by Doris Lessing as one of the most important novels of the 20th century.

: Global Information Network; ARTS & CULTURE; 14 June 2021

Photo: G7 leaders with their family members. @GretaTunberg

G7 Judged a 'Colossal Failure' for All the World to See

Viewpoint by Jon Queally*

PORTLAND | USA (IDN) — Anti-poverty groups, climate campaigners, and public health experts reacted with outrage and howls of disappointment Sunday after the G7 leaders who spent the weekend (June 11-13) at a summit in Cornwall, England issued a final communique that critics said represents an extreme abdication of responsibility in the face of the world's most pressing and intertwined crises—savage economic inequality, a rapidly-heating planet, and the deadly Covid-19 pandemic.

: Opinion Editor; SUSTAINABILITY; Health & Well Being; 13 June 2021

Photo: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson poses with the world leaders at the extended family photocall during the G7 Summit at Carbis Bay hotel in Cornwall, UK on June 12, 2021. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

WHO Welcomes G7 Commitment to Donate Vaccines but Asks for "More" and "Faster"

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) — The leaders of seven industrial nations, constituting the Group of Seven (G7 Summit), have pledged in a landmark agreement to share COVID-19 vaccine doses internationally, in support of global equitable access and to help end the acute phase of the pandemic. In doing so, they have built on the momentum of the G20 Global Health Summit hosted by Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on May 21 and the Gavi COVAX AMC Summit hosted by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan on June 2.

: Jaya Ramachandran; SUSTAINABILITY; Health & Well Being; 13 June 2021

An Indian Ocean Island That Comes with an Expiry Date

By Thalif Deen*

NEW YORK (IDN) — Just after a band of mercenaries tried to oust the government of the Maldives, I asked a Maldivian diplomat about the strength of his country's standing army. "Standing army?", the diplomat asked with mock surprise, "We don't even have a sitting army."

With a population of about 250,000, back in March 1999, the Maldives was perhaps one of the world’s few countries with no fighter planes, combat helicopters, warships, missiles or battle tanks. As a result, the island's fragile defenses attracted a rash of free-lance mercenaries and bounty hunters who tried to take over the country twice—once in 1979, and a second time in 1988.

: Thalif Deen; UN INSIDER; 12 June 2021

US Withdrawal from Afghanistan and National Security

Viewpoint by Manish Uprety F.R.A.S. and Jainendra Karn

Manish Uprety is an ex-diplomat & ALCAP’s Special Advisor for Asia & Africa and Jainendra Karn is a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of IDN-InDepth News.

NEW DELHI (IDN) — Who would have thought that Heroin which inspired Lou Reed to write a cult classic in 1967 would be discussed in the strategic circles of global democracies especially for its national security implications in the twenty-first century.