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Photo: Trade ministers or representatives, including Singapore's Minister for Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing (front row, sixth from left), from 16 countries gathering on July 1, 2018 in Tokyo for the Fifth Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Intersessional Ministerial Meeting. Credit: XINHUA

Asia's Evolving 'Free' Trade Deal May Not Benefit Workers

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE (IDN) – A Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – a "free" trade agreement between the 10 ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and its major trading partners in the region – is expected to be signed later this year. But labour unions and workers' rights advocates in the region fear that the secretive six-year negotiations will further erode workers’ rights in the Asian region, while strengthening the hands of investors who may even be able to sue governments for changing laws such as setting minimum wages, that would erode their profitability.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 01 August 2018

ACP Group Striving for Interrelated Sustainable Development

By Reinhard Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by world leaders in September 2015 at an historic UN Summit opens a new era for a repositioned African, Caribbean and Pacific Group (ACP Group) to continue and deepen its decisive role in supporting all 79 member states "to achieve the 17 SDGs as the basis for the Sustainable Development of their societies and our only home we have for humanity".

The basis and raison d'étre of the ACP is development and this implies "ending poverty in all its forms everywhere" (SDG 1). The unity and solidarity on which the ACP is founded provides a unifying force in adopting measures to end poverty, says a policy paper.

: Reinhard Jacobsen; SUSTAINABILITY; Global Partnerships; 31 July 2018

Photo: Khan at a political rally in Peshawar in 1996. CC BY-SA 3.0

Can Pakistan's New PM Resolve The Kashmir Issue?

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – I haven't played cricket with Imran Khan, the newly elected prime minister of Pakistan, but I did interview him back in 2005 when only a rare foreign journalist was interested in him despite his fame as having been the world’s best cricketer. Now he has won a handsome political victory.

We did talk about Kashmir, the number one foreign policy issue then and today. He didn’t think the Indian government of that time, when Manmohan Singh was prime minister, was strong enough to make a deal. On the Pakistani side he didn't think an army man could do it despite the army's large influence on politics. He went on to say, "a civilian prime minister could do it if a real leader emerged like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto" (who was prime minister in the 1960s). Maybe he meant himself.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 31 July 2018

Photo: Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed wants the diaspora to tear down the wall of hatred and bring home the culture of innovation. Source: ECADF

Ethiopian PM Sparks Euphoria In A Whirlwind U.S. Trip

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – It’s been called 'Abiy-mania' – an impulse to reach out and hug the young new Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, who brought an end to his country's two-decade-long war with Eritrea and other sweeping changes in the Horn of Africa.

The 41-year old Ethiopian leader landed in the United States on July 26 where he met with thousands of his countrymen and women and reiterated his message of love and unity. "He urged them to tear down the wall of hatred and bring home the culture of innovation that Los Angeles is known for," his chief of staff wrote on Twitter.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 30 July 2018

Photo: Astana, Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, architect Norman Foster. CC BY-SA 2.0

Astana's 20th Anniversary Highlights Kazakh Achievements as Security Council Member

By Jaya Ramachandran

NEW YORK (IDN) – Since Astana was established as the capital city of Kazakhstan twenty years ago, it has become a symbol of international peace and security. Its 20th anniversary has come to highlight the Central Asian republic's achievements as a non-permanent member of the Security Council for 2017-2018.

It was befitting therefore that the heads of United Nations agencies and entities, of New York based offices of international organisations and NGOs affiliated to the UN and representatives of member states of the world body, experts and journalists joined celebrations at Kazakhstan's Permanent Mission to the UN to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Astana, the capital of the Central Asian country.

: Jaya Ramachandran; CENTRAL ASIA; 30 July 2018

Photo: A glimpse of AIDS2018. Credit: AIDS2018

AIDS 2018 Concludes Underlining $6 Billion Gap In Funding

By Reinhard Jacobsen

AMSTERDAM (IDN) – Since the first cases of HIV were reported more than 35 years ago, 78 million people have become infected with HIV and 35 million have died from AIDS-related illnesses, says UNAIDS, a United Nations organization that is leading the global effort since1996 to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

According to the latest figures available, in 2017, 36.9 million people were living with HIV and 21.7 million with HIV on antiretroviral therapy. 1.8 million were newly infected with HIV in 2017.

: Reinhard Jacobsen; UN INSIDER; 29 July 2018

Photo: UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed. UN Photo/Mark Garten

Governments, Partners Asked To Provide Funds, Incentives For Sustainable Development Targets

By Amina Mohammed

Following are extensive extracts from UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed's remarks at the informal briefing on the Secretary-General’s meeting on financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in New York on July 27, 2018. – The Editor

UNITED NATIONS (IDN-INPS) – As we look ahead together, our focus is clear: to advance implementation of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the 2030 Agenda and to mobilize the means to turn vision into reality.

Three years in, we face growing challenges. Despite global growth, we are seeing a waning commitment to international trade, climate, economic and financial cooperation. In many countries, public investment is constrained, while private investment does not always flow to where it is most needed. All of this threatens Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) implementation.

: Ramesh Jaura; OPINION; 28 July 2018

Photo: LandInfo App training in Nakuru, the fourth-largest city in Kenya after Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu. Credit: ATPS.

African Experts Decry Information Gap on Climate Change

By Justus Wanzala

NAIROBI (IDN) – Climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts in Africa are being undermined by lack of information on climate issues among the public, policy-makers and leaders in Africa, leading to poor and delayed decision making as well as untimely undertaking of remedial actions.

This emerged during a Regional Climate Change Dialogue and Training Workshop organised by the African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS) held on June 25-27, 2018 in Nairobi.

ATPS is a trans-disciplinary network of researchers, policy-makers, private sector actors and the civil society that promotes the generation, dissemination, use and mastery of science technology in Africa.

: Justus Wanzala; THE WORLD; Africa; 27 July 2018

Photo: The Japanese Peace Bell and its en:pagoda at United Nations Headquarters, New York City. Photograph credit: Drag | Wikimedia Commons

Peace as Form of Life

Viewpoint by Tito Alvarado

MONTREAL (IDN) – Of the world's more than six thousand extant languages, three thousand have little chance of continuing to be used in the next century. This tragic fact represents a terrible finding: we will lose three thousand ways to approach life and humanity from the perspective of others in their relationship with the environment that surrounds them.

However, as this is a case of death for the people who use these languages, it is perceived as anecdotal, as a kind of fatalism; in fact, we wash our hands whereas we are responsible for working for the survival of the variety of cultures and languages.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 27 July 2018

Photo: A Palestinian girl inside her family’s partially destroyed home, looks at the destruction outside, in the Shejaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City. Credit: UNICEF.

Palestinian Peoples' Fundamental Rights Under Assault, Concern Over Lurking Dangers

By Ramesh Jaura

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – The outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, has expressed "acute concerns" over the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including the situation in the occupied Gaza Strip, which in recent months has escalated dramatically, with the potential to generate threats to peace across a far broader region.

His concerns were affirmed when UN News reported on July 24 that intense diplomatic efforts by the United Nations and Egypt had helped avoid another Israeli-Palestinian war in Gaza that appeared just "minutes away" over the previous weekend.