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Photo: Brass and Stainless Steel Metal Tool. Credit: Pixabay

3D Printing Ushers in A New Era With Industry 4.0

By J W Jackie

RENO, Nevada, USA (IDN) – 3D printing is a mode for construction that is continuing to break out and pervade through numerous industries. Forbes reported that in 2019 80 percent of enterprises claim 3D printing is allowing them to innovate faster, reducing costs for production and allowing for greater flexibility of their products’ design.

On the one hand, this developing technology permits the freedom to formulate complex geometric figures free from the restraint of machine or injection moulding. On the other, it is faced with limits in the form of small build chambers lofts and restricted resource compatibility.

: Admin; SUSTAINABILITY; Sustainable Industrialisation; 29 June 2019

Photo: Trawler arrested in 2016 by the Norwegian Coast Guard for illegal fishing. Source: Wikimedia

ACP Urges G20 to End Menacing Illegal Unreported and Unregulated Fishing

By Reinhard Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (IDN) – Ahead of the G20 Summit in Japan’s Osaka on June 28-29, the Brussels-based organisation of 79 developing countries, the ACP Group of States, called upon Heads of Government to take strong measures to end Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing – an issue at the core of marine ecosytems and ensuring food security.

This has a pride of place in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their entirety and SDG14 in particular, the international community pledged in September 2015 to achieve by 2030.

: Reinhard Jacobsen; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 28 June 2019

Photo: Sri Lanka Navy's SLNS Samudura and USNS Fall River (T-EPF-4) at the Hambanthota Port in 2017. Under the Hambantota “debt swap” deal the Chinese were given 15,000 acres around the harbour on 99-year old lease. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Sri Lanka’s Strategic Location Incites US-China Rivalry

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE (IDN) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cancelled a scheduled visit to Sri Lanka on June 27 as part of his 'Indo-Pacific' tour citing “unavoidable scheduling conflicts”, according to the United States Embassy in Colombo. But they might more precisely have said, the visit was dropped “due to unavoidable opposition to U.S. moves” in Sri Lanka.

In recent years, Sri Lanka has been wooed both by China and the U.S. due to its location in the Indian Ocean that carries some 70 percent of global maritime trade. After recent bomb blasts in the island, Sri Lankans are increasingly getting worried that the U.S.-China rivalry would engulf their island which will not be to its benefit.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 28 June 2019

Map: Financial Action Task Force countries. Source: FATF

Ultimata to Iran and Pakistan Threaten to Cloud China’s FATF Presidency

Viewpoint by James M. Dorsey

James M. Dorsey – a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, an adjunct senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute of Fan Culture – offered this viewpoint to IDN.

SINGAPORE (IDN) – China’s chairmanship of an international anti-money laundering and terrorism finance watchdog could put to the test the cohesiveness of global efforts to counter political violence with Iran and Pakistan hoping that they will be able to avoid blacklisting with China at the helm.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 27 June 2019

Photo: Egyptian professor Dr Mohamed El-Guindy addressing the conference. Credit: David Robie.

Ethics Essential to Developing Global Smart Tech, Say Experts

By David Robie*

This feature is moved in association with the Pacific Media Centre in New Zealand.

BANGKOK (IDN) – Addressing the annual conference of Asian communication scholars, a leading cyber security expert has called on universities to play a more active role in implementing ethics and legal frameworks for communications smart technology to save society from an Orwellian future.

Dr Mohamed El-Guindy, an Egyptian consultant to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC-ROMENA), says communication research programmes should promote “ethically aligned” design.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 27 June 2019

Photo: Aimé Césaire. Source: Toward Freedom

Remembering the Martinque Poet Aimé Césaire

By Rene Wadlow

The writer is President of the Association of World Citizens, and author of ‘Aime Cesaire: (1913 - 2008) A Black Orpheus’.

GENEVA (IDN) – Aimé Césaire, whose birth anniversary we note on June 26, was a Martinique poet and political figure, a cultural bridge builder between the West Indies, Europe and Africa. A poet, teacher, and political figure, he had been mayor of the capital city, Fort-de-France for 56 years from 1945 to 2001, and a member of the French Parliament without a break from 1945 to 1993.

: Ramesh Jaura; ARTS & CULTURE; 27 June 2019

Photo: The Bangladeshi migrants were part of a 75-strong group stuck onboard a tugboat for weeks before being taken to Tunisia. Photograph: Courtesy of Forum Tunisien pour les Droits Economiques et Sociaux. Source: The Guardian.

Tunisia Forces Bangladeshi Migrants to Return Home

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

New York (IDN) – A shipload of desperate Bangladeshi migrants was told to turn the boat around and go home by Tunisian officials or be deprived of food, water and medicines. The migrants, trapped on a merchant ship off Tunisia for three weeks, were sent back to their home country against their will, according to relatives.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), an intergovernmental organization linked to the United Nations, said the Bangladeshis “wished to return home”.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 26 June 2019

Photo: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed with Presidfent Guelleh of Djibouti on 18 November 2018.

Ethiopian Old Guard Rejects Prime Minister’s Sweeping Reforms

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK | ASMARA (IDN) – Since becoming prime minister of Ethiopia in April 2018, Abiy Ahmed has launched a wide-ranging programme of political and economic reforms, not all of which have met with favour by supporters of the federalism-based constitution and system of the land-locked country on the Horn of Africa.

In a challenge to his sweeping reform, rebel gunmen launched a coordinated assault on June 22-23 in the Amhara region. Several senior government officials died in the assault including the army chief and the governor of Amhara state.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 26 June 2019

Photo: Xi with the first lady during the Moscow Victory Day Parade on 9 May 2015. CC BY 4.0

President Xi of China Remains an Enigma

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Xi Jinping, president of China, remains an enigma. You watched him on television reviewing the dancing in Pyongyang in the company of Kim Jong-un and his face is near to expressionless when in repose. He doesn’t stand like an arrogant man and we recall that time when he went out to eat in a noodle cafe he joined the back of the queue. His face doesn’t look hard, as did Hitler’s or Stalin’s or Donald Trump’s and Boris Johnson’s do today.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 25 June 2019

BIOPAMA Launches the 1st Call for Proposals for Medium Grants

By Reinhard Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (IDN) – The Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management (BIOPAMA) has launched on June 24 the first call for proposals for medium grants (up to € 400,000) in the frame of its "Action component". The Programme assists the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries to address their priorities for improved management and governance of biodiversity and natural resources.

BIOPAMA provides a variety of tools, services and funding to conservation actors in ACP countries. It is an initiative of the ACP Group of States financed by the joint ACP-European Union (EU) 11th European Development Fund (EDF).