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Call for Renewed U.S.-Russian Strategic Dialogue

By Daryl G. Kimball*

WASHINGTON , D.C. (IDN-INPS) – In the latest in a series of expert conferences and dialogues in Moscow and Washington, a group of distinguished U.S. and Russian experts released a public statement calling on U.S. and Russian officials to get back to the arms control negotiating table, with the first order of business being agreement on a five-year extension of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), as allowed for in Article XIV of the treaty, and talks designed to head-off new arms competition in the wake of the likely termination of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

: Daryl G. Kimball; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 12 April 2019

Image: Reversing the financial interests in fossil fuels and the nuclear arms race. Credit: nuclearweaponsmoney.org

Moving Money for a Nuclear-Free and Eco Friendly World

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA | BASEL (IDN) – While Fridays for Future protests underline a global dissatisfaction with the continuing failure of governments and industry to protect the climate, the setting of the Doomsday Clock hands to 2 minutes to midnight in January 2019 signifies a continuing high risk of a nuclear clash with disastrous consequences for human beings and the planet Earth.

But devastating climate change and the risk of a nuclear war will not be prevented unless the international community tackles the economic and political influence of the fossil fuel and nuclear weapons industries: this is the crux of the message expected to emerge from an international conference organized by the Basel Peace Office and taking place in Basel, Switzerland on April 12-13, 2019.

: Jamshed Baruah; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 11 April 2019

Call for UN Summit on Digitalization and Sustainability

By Rita Joshi

BERLIN (IDN) – A new report has called on Germany and the European Union to convene a United Nations summit on 'Digitalization and Sustainability' in 2020 – 30 years after the UN Conference on Environment and Development, widely known as the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The central theme of the summit should be reaching agreement on the necessary fundamental steps to be taken to achieve digitally supported sustainable development and to avoid the risks involved in digital change, say the authors of the report entitled 'Towards our Common Digital Future', presented by the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) to Federal Minister of Education and Research Anja Karliczek and Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze on April 11, 2019.

: Rita Joshi; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 11 April 2019

Hookah Culture Invades Central Asia

By Milena Melnikova*

NAYRN, Kyrgyzstan (IDN) – The culture of smoking hookah is becoming popular among young adults in the Central Asian countries of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, because of its affordability as well as due to its being legal as a way to relax and get rid of the accumulated stress, in the absence of other forms of entertainment. Cafes and restaurants seem like an expensive choice, discotheques are almost non-existent here.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; CENTRAL ASIA; 10 April 2019

Rich Nations Slash Development Aid to Neediest Countries

By Krishan Dutta

PARIS (IDN) – “Donor countries are not living up to their 2015 pledge to ramp up development finance and this bodes badly for us being able to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals,” OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría has cautioned.

The warning of the head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) comes at a time when, according to preliminary data collected by the OECD, official development assistance (ODA) from 30 member countries of the club of rich nations fell 2.7 percent in 2018 from 2017. The worst affected by the declining share were the neediest countries.

: Ramesh Jaura; SUSTAINABILITY; Global Partnerships; 10 April 2019

Photo: Mao's calligraphy of his poem "Qingyuanchun Changsha". CC BY-SA 3.0

Dictators Striving to be Thinkers and Writers

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – “Since the days of the Roman Empire”, Daniel Kalder wrote in his book ‘The Infernal Library’, “dictators have written books, but in the twentieth century there was a Krakatoa-like eruption of despotic verbiage, which continues flowing to this day.”

It’s a strange thing but true that many dictators began their working lives as writers “which probably goes a long way towards explain[ing] their megalomaniac conviction in the awesome significance of their own thoughts.”

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 09 April 2019

Photo: Participants of the NAM Ministerial Meeting in Baku, Azebaijan. Credit: MEA India.

Think Tank Supports NAM Call for Reform of the UN System

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – Backing the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the International Institute for Non-Aligned Studies (IINS) has called for “comprehensive, transparent, inclusive and balanced” reform of the United Nations.

Recalling the final document of the 2018 NAM Ministerial Meeting held in Baku, Azerbaijan, the think tank emphasizes that the reform should be “pursued in an effective and accountable manner, fully respecting the political nature of the Organization as well as its intergovernmental, universal and democratic character, consistent with the UN Charter”.

: Santo D. Banerjee; UN INSIDER; 08 April 2019

Photo: Sengalese at cultural parade in Harlem in New York. Photo: Alamy | Richard Levine | Source: Africa Renewal.

African Migrants Strive to Preserve Their Cultural Heritage

By Sharon Birch-Jeffrey*

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – To experience a taste of African culture deep inside the Big Apple, visitors – including many Senegalese – turn to Le Petit Senegal (Little Senegal), a West African neighborhood in West Harlem, New York.

African grocery shops, fabric stores, hair braiding parlors and regional restaurants sit shoulder to shoulder along the streets. The Sandaga Market of Little Senegal showcases a strong blend of African cultures, customs and languages, symbolizing efforts by African immigrants to project and protect their cultural identities.

: IDN-INPS Middle East & Africa Editor; THE WORLD; Africa; 08 April 2019

Photo: President of Angola Joao Lourenco.

Angola Plans Manufacturing Russian Military Equipment

By Kester Kenn Klomegah*

MOSCOW (IDN) – Many African countries are looking for profitable business, investment and trade rather than development aid. Now Angola, a south-central Africa, has announced corporate plans to diversify its state business away from purchasing to full-fledged manufacturing of Russian military equipment for the southern African market, and possibly other regions in Africa – impeding realization of the Sustainable Development Goal 16 calling for peace and justice.

: IDN-INPS Middle East & Africa Editor; THE WORLD; Africa; 07 April 2019

Photo: Group photo of ACP-EU parliamentarians in Bucharest. Source: Website of Jacob L. Oulanyah

Parliamentarians Demand 'Greater Presence' of ACP-EU Compact at the UN

By Robert Johnson

BRUSSELS (IDN) – Parliamentarians of the compact of more than 105 countries of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group and the European Union (EU) are demanding "a greater presence" at the United Nations (UN). As a minimum, an ACP-EU coordination unit should have a seat at the UN, says a landmark resolution of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly held in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. It also pleads for "permanent ACP-EU working mechanisms across UN special agencies and other global institutions to enhance the global visibility of the ACP-EU partnership."