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Photo credit: Sunrise Movement / @SunriseMvmt. Source: Common Dreams.

Why Green New Deal Advocates Must Address Militarism

Viewpoint by Medea Benjamin and Alice Slater*

Where is the call for the New Peace Deal that would free up hundreds of billions from the overblown military budget to invest in green infrastructure? ask the authors of this article that first appeared on Common Dreams on 12 December 2018.

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – In the spirit of a new year and a new Congress, 2019 may well be our best and last opportunity to steer our ship of state away from the twin planetary perils of environmental chaos and militarism, charting a course towards an earth-affirming 21st century.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; OPINION; 12 December 2018

Photo: High Atlas Foundation works in rural areas of Morocco to target the most marginalized communities. Credit: High Atlas Foundation.

Participatory Development is a Humane Alternative to Migration

Viewpoint by Yossef Ben-Meir and Manon Burbidge

While Yossef Ben-Meir, Ph.D. is a sociologist and President of the High Atlas Foundation, based in Marrakech, Manon Burbidge is a post-graduate studying Human Ecology at Lund University, Sweden and currently interning at the High Atlas Foundation.

MARRAKECH (IDN) – December 2018 is gearing up to be a pivotal month for migration on the world stage, and the epicentre is here, in Marrakech, Morocco, with two high-level fora taking place concerning development and migration.

However, in order for the discussions that take place at such conferences to be impactful on the lives of ordinary people.

: IDN-INPS Middle East & Africa Editor; UN INSIDER; 12 December 2018

Photo: The Awood Center is a place for the East African Community to learn, defend our rights at work, and build East African worker power. Credit: Awood Center

East Africans Score Victory for Minneapolis’ Amazon Workers

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Somali women packers for the giant Amazon distribution center in Minneapolis are fired up and refusing to speed up the production line, becoming the first known group to defy Amazon management and bring them to the bargaining table.

“Nobody would assume a Muslim worker with limited language skills in the middle of Minnesota could be a leader in a viable fight against one of the biggest employers in the world and bring them to the table,” said Abdirahman Muse, executive director of Awood, the Somali word for “power.”

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 11 December 2018

Photo: Entrance to a new boma built by the displaced Maasai. Credit: The Oakland Institute.

Maasai Fight Efforts to Convert Their Lands to Game Parks

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – “The water that quenches our thirst, the air that we breathe, the trees that provide shade and the animals that give us company, all make life real and creation complete.”

So begins a prayer by an elder of the Maasai people of Tanzania whose traditional knowledge encompasses herbal medicine, grazing practices, landscape ecology, the behaviour of animals, livestock management, and the gathering of wild plant foods.

For centuries, Maasai communities lived in harmony within the rich ecosystems of East Africa. But in recent decades, evictions under the banner of “conservation” and “tourism” have been carving out huge chunks of Maasai lands.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 11 December 2018

Photo: Manchester Brexit protest for Conservative conference, October 1, 2017. CC BY-SA 4.0

UK's May Should Announce a New Referendum Immediately

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The whole debate about Brexit has had a weird quality about it from beginning to end. Prime Minister Theresa May voted in the referendum two and half years ago to remain in the European Union but then as a quid pro quo for being made prime minister she has led the charge to implement Brexit.

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, voted to remain but has made it clear that he too prefers out, albeit keeping the UK in the Customs Union.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 11 December 2018

Photo: Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration Conference Site, Bab Ighli, Marrakech, Morocco © UN Photo/Mark Garten

European Parliament Hails the Global Compact for Migration

By Robert Johnson

BRUSSELS (IDN) – Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) regret "the campaign of disinformation" that has led to several countries withdrawing their support from the United Nations Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). They emphasize that the migration compact is a non-legally binding framework that does not create new obligations for states and is in full respect of the principle of national sovereignty.

164 out of the 193 member states of the UN that had gathered in Marrakech approved the Compact by consensus on December 10, defying the United States and other countries that had withdrawn, citing concerns about migrant flows and national sovereignty.

: Robert Johnson; UN INSIDER; 11 December 2018

Photo: UN Trust Fund 16 Days Fundraising Event. Credit: UN Women

Survivors and Activists Spotlight Solutions to End Violence Against Women

By UN Women

LOS ANGELES (IDN-INPS) – Commemorating Human Rights Day and the global advocacy campaign “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence”, the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund) held a fundraising luncheon in Santa Monica, California, on December 10. In the hometown of the #MeToo movement, the event brought together a powerhouse of survivors, dignitaries, UN officials, gender experts and Hollywood celebrities.

Hosted by UN Women’s Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman, the event celebrated the ground-breaking initiatives supported by the UN Trust Fund across the world over the past 22 years and highlighted the work that remains to end this human rights violation, which impacts one in three women worldwide.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 11 December 2018

Photo: View of the front line of demonstrators during the March on Washington in 1963 over clasped hands. Credit: Steve Schapiro/Corbis. Source: AARP

Civil and Political Rights are Also Indivisible Human Rights

Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE (IDN) – When European gunboats went across the world, Christian missionaries who wanted to “civilize” the people – to whom the Bible was an unknown entity – accompanied the colonizers. Today, when U.S. or NATO missiles rain on countries, Western human rights organisations and their activists follow them, with their media in tow. They also have a similar mindset: to civilize the people with notions of “freedom” and democracy. However, the debacle of the ‘Arab Spring’ and the double standards practiced in the war on terror, have exposed the shortcomings of this gospel.

As we mark the 70th anniversary (December 10) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) adopted at the United Nations it is good time to review its relevance to today’s society. Should this document be the sole criteria of human rights in the 21st century?

: Kalinga Seneviratne; OPINION; 10 December 2018

Parliamentarians for Nuclear Disarmament Emphasize Need to Combat Climate Change

By Aleksandra Gadzinski

KATOWICE (IDN) – Nuclear weapons and climate change are the two major existential threats to the survival of humanity, civilization and the planet Earth. With this in view, in January 2018 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the legendary Doomsday Clock to 2 minutes to Midnight, due to the threats from nuclear weapons and climate change, said Alyn Ware, Global Coordinator of the Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND) at an event on December 9.

The event was hosted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) at the two-week-long COP24, the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Katowice, Poland that concludes on December 14.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 10 December 2018

Photo credit: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Shigeo Hayashi - RA119-RA134

Nuclear Weapons and Climate Change Threaten Human Survival

John Avery interviews David Krieger

COPENHAGEN | SANTA BARBARA, CA (IDN) – One of the five “M’s” can trigger a nuclear war any time: malice, madness, mistake, miscalculation and manipulation. "Of these five, only malice is subject to possibly being prevented by nuclear deterrence and of this there is no certainty. But nuclear deterrence (threat of nuclear retaliation) will not be at all effective against madness, mistake, miscalculation or manipulation (hacking)," David Krieger tells John Scales Avery in an exceptional interview.

Krieger is the Founder and President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) that has been committed to a world free of nuclear weapons since 1982. He has been working steadily and unwaveringly for peace and the total abolition of nuclear weapons. Avery is an eminent academician and scientist, and an impassioned peace activist.