IDN-InDepthNews

Asia-Pacific2017-05-102023-07-10

Planting Churches and ‘Saving Souls’

By Janaka Perera*

COLOMBO (IDN-INPS) – Sri Lanka is celebrating the 2561st year of Vesak on an international scale starting on May 10. The question however is whether the organizers and the foreign participants in the event will pay sufficient attention to the facts highlighted in a recent report of the Bangkok-based World Buddhist University (WBU) on the socio-economic and cultural challenges facing Asian Buddhists with a case study in Sri Lanka.

Designed to give an insight to the challenges facing Sri Lanka’s grassroots, the study was undertaken by Communications & Media Specialist Dr. Kalinga Seneviratne assisted by Samanmalee Swarnalatha.

Africa2017-05-102023-07-10

Access of African Youth to Labour Market Receives Boost

By Justus Wanzala

NAIROBI (IDN) – The African Union (AU) in collaboration with the government of Germany has established an initiative to help young Africans acquire practical skills for meeting the needs of labour markets.

The aim is to strengthen their occupational prospects in view of the continent’s unemployment crisis.

Most hit are young people, with around 60 percent of the unemployed under the age of 25. Key players in implementation of the initiative are the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the German government’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation, as well as the German KfW Development Bank. NEPAD is a socio-economic development flagship programme of the AU.

UN INSIDER2017-05-102023-07-10

Mayors for Peace: Nuclear Weapons Don’t Ensure Security

By Jamshed Baruah

VIENNA (IDN) – While nuclear weapons have not been deployed since 1945 when atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nearly 15,000 pieces of such instruments of mass destruction still exist, posing risks too great to be ignored. In view of this menacing reality, Mayors for Peace are warning that the danger of nuclear proliferation remains real, as seen in the case of continuing nuclear tests by North Korea.

Addressing the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2020 NPT Review Conference from May 2-12 in Vienna, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui expressed concern on behalf of the Mayors for Peace representing more than 7,200 member cities around the world, that nuclear-weapon states and their allies continued to stress the relevance of nuclear deterrence. He voiced strong support for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), especially its Article VI obligation to negotiate nuclear disarmament in good faith.

OPINION2017-05-092023-07-10

It’s High Time Trump Made Friends with Russia

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Does anyone, however well-informed, know what President Donald Trump thinks about President Vladimir Putin? I hazard a guess that he is still more pro than anti, only he doesn’t quite know where to begin.

It’s time overdue that they met and hammered out on the anvil what their mutual interests are.

Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have left a legacy that makes it hard for Trump to manoeuvre. They have trampled not so much on Putin but on Russia’s core interests. When Putin’s predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, and later Putin himself were lobbying for what the last Soviet leader, Mikhael Gorbachev, had called a “common European house” they were taking heed of a Russian mood to drive through a new entente.

UN INSIDER2017-05-082023-07-10

UNESCO Criticised for NGO Global Forum in Saudi Arabia

By Ronald Joshua

GENEVA (IDN) – UNESCO, the UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, and its Director-General Irinia Bokova are coming under sharp criticism for holding the UNESCO NGO Global Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

According to UNESCO, more than 400 NGOs and over 2,100 delegates from some 70 countries attended. Speakers included Olympic gold medallist Carl Lewis, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

“Regrettably, UNESCO mentioned nowhere at its 7th International Forum of NGO, or on the conference website, that Saudi Arabia prohibits independent NGOs and arrests, jails and even sometimes flogs human rights activists,” said UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter in a press release on May 7.

UN INSIDER2017-05-082023-07-10

Faith Groups Deeply Concerned About Nuclear Weapons

Following is a joint statement read out on May 3, 2017 at the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference from May 2-12 in Vienna. It was drafted by a coalition of faith groups, with the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), the World Council of Churches (WCC), Pax Christi International, and PAX (Netherlands) taking the lead. The statement was delivered by Kimiaki Kawai, Director, Peace and Human Rights at SGI, which has collaborated with faith groups to issue interfaith statements highlighting the moral and ethical dimensions of nuclear weapons. – The Editor.

UN INSIDER2017-05-072023-07-10

World’s Poorest Push for Action to Address Climate Change

By Jutta Wolf

BONN (IDN) – As representatives of countries from around the world were preparing to gather in Bonn from May 8-18 for a new session of United Nations climate change negotiations, Chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group, Gebru Jember Endalew of Ethiopia stressed the need for “substantive progress” on the rules and processes that will fully operationalise the Paris Agreement.

The conference marks the half-way point to the finalisation of this process by 2018. It is also a staging-post for for COP23, the 23rd annual Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn in November 2017.

ACP Group of States2017-05-062023-07-10

79 ACP States Reflect on Future Ties with EU and the World

By Jaya Ramachandran

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – The African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries are determined to “undertake the reforms needed to transform the ACP Group into an effective global player, fit for the 21st century, and responsive to the emerging priorities” of member states.

This emerged from the two-day gathering of the ACP Council of Ministers who concluded the 105th session on May 4 with key decisions that will influence how the bloc of 79 countries will carve out a more effective role in the international arena.

According to the President of the Council, Ethiopia’s Minister of Finance and Economic Cooperation, Dr Abraham Tekeste, “The current occupancy of the Presidency of the UN General Assembly by Fiji, and the current membership of Senegal and Ethiopia in the UN Security Council, serve to underscore the positive contributions by ACP countries at the global levels.”

Middle East & North Africa2017-05-052023-07-10

Suspense Abounds in Iran’s Presidential Elections

By Mortezagholi Raissi

BONN | TEHRAN (IDN) – In the run-up to the Presidential elections in Iran on May 19, all but six of the 1600 women and men who were registered as presidential candidates for the twelfth poll since the ‘Islamic Revolution’ that resulted in the toppling of the monarchy on April 1, 1979, have been axed.

The spokesman of the powerful ‘Guardian Council’ announced in an interview with the Iranian television on April 26 that only the six approved candidates fulfilled the requirements for standing for elections to the office of the President.

The Guardian Council consists of 12 persons, 6 of whom are scholars appointed directly by Ayatollah Khamenei, the country’s Supreme Leader, and the other 6 are jurists, who need to be confirmed by the Parliament. However, the chairman of the Council is a confidant of the leader. But all candidates are requited to be local to the regime.

Nuclear Weapons2017-05-042023-07-10

Nuclear Risks in North East Asia Call For A Mutual Pullback

By Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs

This is the text of a statement issued on May 4 by Pugwash President Jayantha Dhanapala, Secretary General Paolo Cotta-Ramusino, Executive Committee Chair Steve Miller, Council Mark Suh and Executive Committee’s Tatsujiro Suzuki. – The Editor

KANDY, Sri Lanka (IDN-INPS) – The mounting confrontation with North Korea is raising grave dangers. Both sides have made potentially escalatory moves. Indeed, the combination of harsh rhetoric and threatening military actions has produced a situation that has been characterized by some in the United States as a Cuban missile crisis in slow motion. As was true in 1962, there is an unusual sense that events can slip out of control, that disastrous outcomes could result from the dynamics now underway in Northeast Asia.