IDN-InDepthNews – Page 639 – News for a Sustainable World, Peace and Security

Asia-Pacific2017-09-012023-07-10

Complex Realities of the Rakhine Issue in Myanmar

By Ye Htut*

Ye Htut was the Minister for the Ministry of Information of Myanmar (formerly Burma) from 2014 to 2016 and spokesperson for the President from 2013 to 2016. He previously served as a Lieutenant Colonel in Myanmar Army.

NAYPYIDAW (IDN-INPS) – On August 23, 2016 Myanmar’s de facto leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi announced the formation of an Advisory Commission on Rakhine State. This Commission, established on September 5, 2016, is led by former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, and with three international and six Myanmar experts as members of the Commission.

Asia-Pacific2017-08-312023-07-10

Little Known FEALAC Promotes Asia-Latin American Cooperation

By Tae Han Goo

SEOUL (IDN) – South Korea’s large port city Busan hosted end of August the meeting of Foreign Ministers and Senior Officials of the little known Forum for East Asia-Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC) constituting 36 countries of East Asia, Southeast Asia and Latin America.

Though comprised mainly of developing countries, the two regions did not have an official cooperative mechanism bridging the two continents together until in September 1998, the then Prime Minister of Singapore Gho Chok Tong tabled a concrete proposal to enhance the relations. Subsequently, the EALAF (East Asia-Latin America Forum) Senior Officials’ Meeting was held in Singapore in September 1999, marking the beginning of FEALAC.

Nuclear Weapons2017-08-302023-07-10

Kazakhstan Joins UN’s Nuclear Watchdog in a Milestone Step Toward Non-Proliferation

By Ramesh Jaura

ASTANA (IDN) – While a moment of silence was observed on August 29 at 11:05 a.m. local time in Kazakhstan’s capital city Astana to honour the memory of the victims of all nuclear weapons tests, some 2713 miles (4365 kilometres) away, North Korea fired an intermediate range ballistic missile that flew over Japan: The same day a new facility was inaugurated in Kazakhstan under the auspices of the UN’s nuclear watchdog that could open a fresh chapter in non-proliferation.

In the five decades between July 1945, when the United States exploded its first atomic bomb, and the opening for signature of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996, over 2,000 nuclear tests were carried out all over the world. After the CTBT was opened for signature in September 1996, nine nuclear tests had been conducted until 2016. Since then, only North Korea is known to have been conducting nuclear tests.

Africa2017-08-302023-07-10

UN Responding to the Humanitarian Crisis in Sierra Leone

Interview with Dr. Kim Eva Dickson, Representative of the UNFPA Sierra Leone

NEW YORK | FREETOWN (IDN) – UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is paying specific attention to the needs of women and girls affected by the floods and mudslides in the country’s capital city Freetown that killed over 495 people on August 14, 2017. Joan Erakit, UN correspondent of IDN, flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate (INPS) Group, spoke with Dr. Kim Eva Dickson, Representative of the UNFPA Sierra Leone. Following is the full text of the interview.

OPINION2017-08-292023-07-10

America Should Get out of Afghanistan Before it’s Tool Late

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – It’s the most repeated maxim in all the reporting on Afghanistan: “The Americans have the watches, the Taliban have the time.”

Dead right! This is America’s longest war ever, 16 years and counting. President Donald Trump, admitting he was reversing his campaign call for pulling out, has now decided to stay in, sending to Afghanistan another 3,900 troops to reinforce the 8,400 there now.

Trump doesn’t claim it will do the job of defeating the Taliban. In fact he lays out no long-term strategy at all. It’s not difficult to imagine that in a decade the same stalemate will exist.

Africa2017-08-282023-07-10

Poverty Swoops on Southern Africa’s Urban Dwellers

By Jeffrey Moyo

HARARE (IDN) – At one stage in her life, she was a top accountant with the National Railways of Zimbabwe. Now, domiciled in Epworth, a crowded informal settlement in south-eastern Harare Province, 25 kilometres outside Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, hers has turned out to be a riches-to-rags tale.

Shuvai Chikoto, a 48-year-old mother of three who was widowed five years ago, is just one of millions of other Southern African urban dwellers who have plunged into poverty over the years – and she is not particularly impressed that the United Nations has set the goal of ending poverty in all its forms everywhere within the next 13 years.

UN INSIDER2017-08-272023-07-10

Climate Change Threatens Agriculture in Pacific Rim Economies

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Global warming is expected to have a significant impact on future yields of everything from rice to fish, particularly in countries situated closer to the equator, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has warned, and urged the Asia-Pacific economies to take a leading role in adaptation and mitigation.

“Many APEC [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation] economies have already felt the full force of agricultural losses from natural disasters in recent years, with the vast majority of these being climate related,” said Kundhavi Kadiresan, Assistant Director-General and FAO Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific, reported UN News.

UN INSIDER2017-08-262023-07-10

Globally Endangered Snow Leopard Draws the Focus

By Sultan Karimov

BISHKEK (IDN) – An elusive denizen of the mountains of Central and South Asia, the snow leopard (panthera uncia) inhabits parts of 12 countries: Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Its geographic range, 60 percent of which is in China, runs from the Hindu Kush in eastern Afghanistan and the Syr Darya through the mountains of Pamir, Tian Shan, Karakorum, Kashmir, Kunlun, and the Himalaya to southern Siberia, where the range covers the Russian Altai, Sayan, Tannu-Ola mountains and the mountains to the west of Lake Baikal.

Nuclear Weapons2017-08-252023-07-10

The World Loses a Hero in Tony de Brum

Courtesy Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF)

SANTA BARBARA (IDN-INPS) – Tony de Brum, former Foreign Minister of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), passed away on August 22, 2017. He was a powerful and inspiring voice for the abolition of nuclear weapons as well as climate sanity. He was a visionary leader, respected and admired throughout the world for his strength, wisdom, warmth and unceasing optimism.

Born in 1945, de Brum was one of the first Marshall Islanders to graduate from college. He played a key role in the negotiations that led to the first compact of free association between the U.S. and the RMI, and participated in the development of the Constitution of the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

UN INSIDER2017-08-252023-07-10

Kazakhstan Plays a Crucial Role in Making the Nuclear Fuel Bank a Reality

By Tariq Rauf*

ASTANA (IDN) – The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Kazakhstan will formally inaugurate a Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) Bank located at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant at Öskemen (formerly Ust Kamenogorsk) on August 29.

This event will mark an important milestone in the long march for the IAEA to set up an IAEA owned and operated nuclear fuel bank as envisaged in the 1957 IAEA Statute. This initiative was proposed in September 2006 by the Washington, DC-based Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) which offered US$50 million to the IAEA, provided by global investor Warren Buffet, to set up an IAEA LEU Bank by raising an additional $100 million.