IDN-InDepthNews – Page 659 – News for a Sustainable World, Peace and Security

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.

UN INSIDER2017-05-042023-07-10

UN Study Accuses Israel of ‘Distorting’ Palestinian Economy

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) – Undeterred by Israel’s sensitivity to all perceived criticism, a new study by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has expressed disapproval of the country’s policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

“The security, military, political and economic measures implemented by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory – the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem – since the onset of occupation in 1967 have significantly distorted and disoriented the Palestinian economy,” says the study, The Occupied Palestinian Territory: Twin-Deficits or an Imposed Resource Gap?

OPINION2017-05-042023-07-10

Ensuring EU Development Cooperation Is Sustainable

By Seamus Jeffreson

Following is a slightly abridged text of the presentation by Seamus Jeffreson, Director of Brussels-based CONCORD, at the high-level Conference – titled ‘Sixty Years and Beyond: Contributing to Development Cooperation’ – in Rome on 27 April 2017 to mark the 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome. CONCORD is the European Association of NGOs for relief and development, advocating sustainable development based on human rights, justice and gender equality.

ROME (IDN-INPS) – Before looking to the future, it is instructive to recall the origins of EU cooperation – enshrined unexpectedly and at the last minute in the Treaty of Rome.

Reading the memoires of Dieter Frisch – one of the doyens of EU cooperation over the years – it is striking how the concept of working together characterized the relationship between the African Caribbean and Pacific partners and the European Community from the beginning.

UN INSIDER2017-05-032023-07-10

ITPO Enhances UN Presence in Bonn

BONN (IDN) – The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), based in Vienna, has officially opened an Investment and Technology Promotion Office (ITPO) in Bonn, which hosts nearly 20 UN secretariats, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

The office was opened on May 3, nearly six months after the German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Gerd Müller, and the UNIDO Director General,LI Yong concluded an agreement in November 2016 on the margins of UNIDO’s 50th Anniversary celebrations at the Vienna International Centre.

UN INSIDER2017-05-032023-07-10

Exercising Power Fairly More Important SDG Yardstick than Democratic Accountability

By Kalinga Seneviratne

BANGKOK (IDN) – In its 2017 Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific, the Bangkok-based UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) makes an interesting argument in regards to achieving the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in seemingly downplaying the importance of democratic accountability and emphasising that how power is exercised is more important.

“In the Survey for 2017 political dimensions, such as democratic accountability, are avoided, and governance is framed in terms of how power is exercised instead of how it is acquired,” the report says in its executive summary.

OPINION2017-05-022023-07-10

Building ACP-EU Development Cooperation on a Heritage of Genuine Partnership

By Dr Patrick I. Gomes, ACP Secretary-General

Following are extensive excerpts from a statement by the Secretary-General of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) at the high-level Conference – titled ‘Sixty Years and Beyond: Contributing to Development Cooperation’ – in Rome on 27 April 2017 to mark the 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome. – The Editor

BRUSSELS (IDN-INPS) – The Treaties of Rome provided the historic foundations that enabled the fatal conflicts of war to be overcome by the spirit of peace and solidarity for the common good of all Europeans. Among the most undeniable success of the Treaties of Rome is the European Integration Project with its four freedoms – of goods, capital, services and people. We can together rightly celebrate one of the greatest landmarks of the post World War II era.

OPINION2017-05-022023-07-10

Senegal Court Sets a Precedent by Convicting Ex-Chadian Ruler for Crimes Against Humanity

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Last May a court in Senegal convicted and sentenced to life-imprisonment Hissène Habré, the former ruler of Chad, for the crime of torture and crimes against humanity. On April 27, 2017 an appeal court upheld the sentence and now Habré, who ran from Chad after a coup in a military transport that airlifted him, his entourage and a Mercedes to what he hoped would be a luxurious exile in Senegal, is languishing in an ordinary prison cell.

Habré’s government killed more than 40,000 people during his presidency from 1982 to 1990, when he was deposed. The American government made a last minute effort to save but failed. He had long been an important, if secret, ally. He was, according to Michael Bronner, writing in the respected Foreign Policy magazine in January 2014, “The centrepiece of the Reagan Administration’s attempt to undermine Muammar Gadaffi who had become an increasing threat and embarrassment to the US with his support of international terrorism”.

UN INSIDER2017-05-012023-07-10

Effective Governance Critical for the Quality of Asia-Pacific Economic Growth

By Shamshad Akhtar

Dr. Shamshad Akhtar is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) and the Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). – The Editor

BANGKOK (IDN) – The Asia-Pacific region’s high and steady economic growth has been an anchor of stability for the struggling world economy in recent years. Developing economies of the region now account for almost a third of global GDP (gross domestic product), slightly less than the combined output of the developed economies of North America and Western Europe.

If the region continues to grow at the current pace, it would account for more than a half of world economic output by the year 2050. With its increasing importance, the role of traditional ‘success factors’ such as education, high investment and savings rates, reliance on world markets through exports, is likely to evolve as well. Future economic growth will need to rely more on productivity gains which, in turn, require effective institutions and better governance, in both public and private spheres.

OPINION2017-04-302023-07-10

Three Months of Donald Trump: More of the Same

Analysis by Marcelo Colussi*

GUATEMALA CITY (IDN) – More than three months have passed since the inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the world’s leading capitalist power: the United States of America. Nothing has changed. If someone had thought that something could change with his arrival at the White House, they were mistaken from beginning to end. Why should anything change?

The rhetoric used by the tycoon during his presidential campaign could certainly have led one to imagine – mistakenly – some change of scenario. Given the current crisis experienced by the US economy, his programme appeared to be – at least in words – a promise to revive a downcast national industry.