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Photo: EU and Western Balkans Summit: Strengthening cooperation at all levels to support the region’s transformation. Credit: eeas.europa.eu

EU-Facilitated Dialogue Vital For Kosovo-Serbian Accord

By Ramesh Jaura

This is the second report from Kosovo, stressing the importance of an EU-facilitated dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade. The first is titled Kosovo Looks Forward To UN Membership. – The Editor

BERLIN | PRISTINA (IDN) – In the wake of the Kosovo War, in the whirl and muddle of Yugoslav Wars, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, Kosovo, as part of Serbia and Yugoslavia, was placed under United Nations administration UNMIK by virtue of the Security Council Resolution 1244.

NATO launched the bombing campaign against Yugoslavia on March 24,1999 because "efforts to achieve a negotiated, political solution to the Kosovo crisis" had failed. But it did so "without seeking explicit Security Council authorization".

: Ramesh Jaura; THE WORLD; EU & Europe; 03 August 2018

Photo: Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj (second from left) talking to a media team end of June 2018 at his office in Pristina. He is flanked by Kosovo government officials. Credit: Cia Pak | Scannews.

Kosovo Looks Forward To UN Membership

By Ramesh Jaura

This is the first of two reports from Kosovo, on its efforts to garner international recognition in the aftermath of unilateral declaration of independence in February 2008 subsequent to the breakup of Yugoslavia after Josip Broz Tito's death in the 1980s. – The Editor

BERLIN | PRISTINA (IDN) – The United Nations Security Council has engaged with the situation in Kosovo and its relations with Serbia three times already this year. But when the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly opens on September 18, 2018, Kosovo will be missing. It is the only among seven breakaway states of former Yugoslavia that is not yet a member of the UN.

: Ramesh Jaura; THE WORLD; EU & Europe; 03 August 2018

Photo: Nikki R. Haley, Permanent Representative of the United States to the UN, addressing the Security Council meeting on 9 July 2018. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe.

Nikki Haley Blames Rights Groups for Her Misguided 'Reform'

By Kenneth Roth

Kenneth Roth is the executive director of Human Rights Watch, one of the world's leading international human rights organizations, which operates in more than 90 countries. This article was published in The Hill on 29 July 2018.

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – Shortly after arriving in New York as Donald Trump’s representative to the United Nations, Nikki Haley said she would be “taking names” of those who stood in her way. Most assumed she was referring to governments that blocked U.S. initiatives at the United Nations Security Council.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; THE WORLD; USA and Canada; 02 August 2018

Photo: Ambassador Kairat Umarov, Chair of the Sanctions Committee on Somalia and Eritrea and Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the UN, addresses the Security Council meeting on the situation in Horn of Africa on 30 July 2018. United Nations, New York. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias.

Kazakh Chair of UN Sanctions Committee Calls for Support to Peace in Horn of Africa

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – Applauding the landmark rapprochement between Ethiopia and Eritrea, ending two decades of hostility, the UN Security Council has called for providing all necessary support to build peace in the Horn of Africa. The appeal came in the briefing on July 30 on the Council's recent visit to the region by the Sanctions Committee on Eritrea and Somalia, which Ambassador Kairat Umarov, Kazakhstan's Permanent Representative to the UN headquarters in New York, chairs.

Umarov welcomed the July 9 signing of the Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship by President Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, as well as the July 28 visit by Somalia's President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo to Asmara. In the reporting period, March 14 and July 30, 2018, the Committee also attended meetings in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Somalia, Umarov said.

: Santo D. Banerjee; UN INSIDER; 02 August 2018

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.