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Image: The ethical application of artificial intelligence is one of the pressing questions of our time. Credit: Information Age

Let's Train Humans First … Before We Train Machines

Viewpoint by Hazel Henderson*

JACKSONVILLE, Florida (IDN) – We humans are at the absurd stage in our technological evolution when we seem to have abandoned our common sense.

Billions are spent by governments, corporations and investors in training computer-based algorithms (i.e. computer programs) in today’s mindless rush to create so-called “artificial” intelligence, widely advertised as AI.

Meanwhile, training our children and their brains (already superior to computer algorithms) is under-funded, schools are dilapidated, sited in run-down, often polluted areas while our teachers are poorly paid and need greater respect. How did our national priorities get so skewed?

: Phil Harris; SYNDICATION; Think-Tanks; 06 December 2018

Photo source: The Island Daily, Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka's Heroic Freedom Struggles of 1818 and 1848 – Part 2

By Dr. Palitha Kohona

The author is former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, and former Foreign Secretary. The following is Part 2 of the text of his keynote address delivered at Sri Lanka's University of Peradeniya, Kandy, on 26 November 2018. – Click here for Part 1.

COLOMBO (IDN-INPS) – The first major British invasion of Kandy suffered the same fate as those of the Portuguese and the Dutch. The King commanded the loyalty of the chiefs, the people and the monks and the invaders were just massacred at Le Wella (Bloody Beach) but the world’s only superpower at the time did not take this defeat lying down.

: Dr. Palitha Kohona; THE WORLD; History; 06 December 2018

Leaders Pledge to Boost Blue Economy, Protect Water Bodies

By Justus Wanzala

NAIROBI (IDN) – The Kenyan capital was literally painted ‘blue’ for the first-ever global conference on the blue economy attended by over 18,000 participants from 180 countries.

Running from November 26 to 28, the Sustainable Blue Economy Conference ended with various countries signing commitments to ensure that humanity benefits from the blue economy – or the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods and jobs.

Participants discussed a host of topics around the issue of sustainable use of oceans, seas and inland water bodies, and a joint communiqué issued by leaders undertook to utilise their countries' water resources for the benefit of their people.

: Justus Wanzala; SUSTAINABILITY; Oceans, seas and marine resources; 05 December 2018

Image: Visual China Group (also known as VCG). Source: China Daily

China Not Interested In Any 'Cold War'

Viewpoint by Shen Dingli

The author is a professor at the Institute of International Studies, Fudan University, Shanghai. This article first appeared on China Daily on 4 December 2018.

SHANGHAI (IDN-INPS) – Of late, there has been talk of and concern over a possible "Cold War" between the United States and China. The argument goes that Beijing and Washington are competing to establish their respective versions of "political correctness" and global order.

And although the Sino-U.S. trade conflict has eased after U.S. President Donald Trump agreed at the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires on Saturday [December 1] to not impose additional tariffs on Chinese imports and President Xi Jinping said China will increase U.S. imports, Beijing still favours a multilateral approach to international trade based on rules and equality while Washington seems keen on pushing ahead its version of "fairness" and "reciprocity".

: Devinder Kumar; OPINION; 05 December 2018

Photo: The Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, one of the most holy sites in Sri Lanka reputed to contain an actual tooth of the Buddha on his 2nd visit to the Island over 2000 years ago. CC BY 2.0

Sri Lanka's Heroic Freedom Struggles of 1818 and 1848 – Part 1

By Dr. Palitha Kohona

The author is former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, and former Foreign Secretary. The following is Part 1 of the text of his keynote address delivered at Sri Lanka's University of Peradeniya, Kandy, on 26 November 2018.

COLOMBO (IDN-INPS) – We look back on a heroic struggle that our ancestors waged 200 years ago against the mightiest empire that the world had known up to that time, to regain their freedom and that of a nation that had remained unbowed for over 2300 years.

Unfortunately, it was a heroic but unequal struggle with a much more powerful and vengeful colonial power, which had also through unscrupulous manipulation succeeded in splitting the Kandyan people in to factions suspicious of each other and diluted the centuries old bonds that bound the nation together.

: Dr. Palitha Kohona; THE WORLD; History; 05 December 2018

Photo: A general view of the NATO meeting on December 4, 2018. Credit: NATO.

U.S. INF Treaty Termination May Once Again Trigger Nuclear Arms Race

By Daryl G. Kimball and Kingston A. Reif

The following is the text of the analysis in Issue Brief (Volume 10, Issue 10, December 4, 2018) by the Arms Control Association (ACA). Daryl G. Kimball, is the executive director and Kingston A. Reif the director for disarmament and threat reduction policy of ACA. – The Editor

WASHINGTON; DC (IDN-INPS) – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared [on December 4] Russia in material breach of the landmark 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and announced that the United States plans to suspend U.S. obligations under the treaty in 60 days unless Russia returns to compliance.

In a new statement on the INF Treaty also released [on December 4], NATO foreign ministers collectively declared for the first time “that Russia has developed and fielded a missile system, the 9M729, which violates the INF Treaty". The ministers also stated: “It is now up to Russia to preserve the INF Treaty.”

: Daryl G. Kimball; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 05 December 2018

Photo: Deputy Executive Secretary Giovanie Biha of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). Credit: Encomium Magazine.

Africa Should Focus on Young People – Say Experts

By Ronald Joshua

KIGALI (IDN) – Africa’s “easy decade” of accelerated economic growth is coming to an end, and only accelerated job creation and integration will ensure sustainable growth and development across the continent, Prof. Paul Collier, one of the world’s most influential development economists has warned.

A Professor of Economics and Public Policy in the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, Collier was delivering a keynote address at the African Economic Conference 2018, hosted by the African Development Bank, the Economic Commission for Africa and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Kigali, Rwanda.

: Ronald Joshua; THE WORLD; Africa; 04 December 2018

ICC Leaders Join in Global Initiative to Break Down Gender Barriers

By Robert Johnson

THE HAGUE (IDN) – Top officials of the International Criminal Court ("ICC" or "the Court") – President Chile Eboe-Osuji, Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and Registrar Peter Lewis – have joined the International Gender Champions network, an important initiative to break down gender barriers at all levels.

This global leadership network brings together decision-makers determined to break down gender barriers and make gender equality a working reality in their spheres of influence.

The network was launched in July 2015 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva and hubs have been established in New York, Vienna, and Nairobi. It counts over 200 active Champions and Alumni worldwide, including the UN Secretary General, heads of UN offices and organizations, ministers, ambassadors and permanent representatives, and NGO, academic and business leaders.

: Robert Johnson; SUSTAINABILITY; Gender Equality; 04 December 2018

Photo: U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg signs The Kellogg Briand Pact (or Pact of Paris) for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy on August 27, 1928 at the ministry of foreign affairs in Paris. Background French Foreign Affairs Minister Aristide Briand. Credit: AFP/Getty Images.

Significant Progress in Ending All War

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – “We need jaw jaw not war war,” said Winston Churchill rather hypocritically. Still, he would be glad to see that the number of wars around the world has fallen dramatically since the end of the Second World War, despite the wars in Korea, Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Pakistan versus India, Central America, Cyprus, ex-Yugoslavia, Syria and now Yemen.

Compared with centuries past this has been a remarkable era, yet one not often acknowledged.

Interstate wars, apart from India versus Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Yemen, have vanished off the map. The wars that remain are civil wars. The democracies do not go to war with each other, as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher long ago observed.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 04 December 2018

Photo: Seyni Nafo (left), spokesman of the African delegation to the COP24, with Amina J. Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General, at a meeting in 2016. Credit: World Bank

Africa Seeks Commitments to Fight Climate Threat at COP24

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Seyni Nafo, spokesman of the African delegation at the UN Climate Change Conference COP24 taking place in Katowice in southern Poland from December 2-14 is not one to mince words about the serious climate threat now facing the African continent.

"We are the most vulnerable, we are the least responsible but we will suffer the most," the Malian-born Nafo summed up in an interview with Germany’s international broadcaster DW. The African continent is already experiencing the effects of climate change. In many places drought, torrential rainfall or flooding are regular occurrences.