IDN-InDepthNews – Page 674 – News for a Sustainable World, Peace and Security

ARMAMENTS2017-02-232023-07-10

Japan’s Largest Ever Voluntary Contribution to the CTBTO

By Jamshed Baruah

BERLIN | VIENNA (IDN) – Japan, by far the only country to experience atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has decided to make the largest ever extra-budgetary contribution to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).

The funds amounting to about USD 2.43 million will support a range of verification related activities to improve the detection capabilities of the Organisation – and thus pave the way for a world free of nuclear weapons.

A voluntary contribution of this size must be recognized as a strong signal of Japan’s commitment to ‘finish what we started’ – getting the Treaty into force and finalizing the International Monitoring System, said CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo.

Peace & Security2017-02-232023-07-10

Global Arms Trade Hits Highest Level Since Cold War Ended

By Phil Harris

ROME (IDN) – With the global arms trade having reached its highest level since the end of the Cold War, the United States leads the list of countries transferring major weapons, and flows have increased to the Middle East, Asia and Oceania.

Releasing its latest figures on arms transfers, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said February 20 that the volume of international transfers of major weapons has grown continuously since 2004 and increased by 8.4 percent between 2007-2011 and 2012-2016.

OPINION2017-02-232023-07-10

Securing ACP Economic Interests After BREXIT

By Dr. Patrick I. Gomes, ACP Secretary-General

Following are extensive excerpts from a presentation by the ACP Secretary-General during launch of the book AFTER BREXIT – SECURING ACP ECONOMIC INTERESTS by The Ramphal Institute on February 17, 2017 at King’s College London.

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – Eight months have passed since the British voted in a referendum to leave the European Union. A lot has since been written and debated on the impact and implications of the vote. This is yet another occasion to join the discourse on BREXIT and to acknowledge and appreciate the work done by the Ramphal Institute by this seminal study.

HUMAN RIGHTS2017-02-222023-07-10

Rights Group Warns of Growing Division and Fear

By A.D. McKenzie

PARIS (IDN | SWAN) – Politicians have shamelessly been peddling a “toxic rhetoric” that is creating a more divided and dangerous world, according to human rights group Amnesty International.

Speaking at the launch of its annual report on rights around the world in Paris on February 21, the organisation’s Secretary General Salil Shetty warned that the “politics of demonisation” was threatening to unleash the “darkest aspects” of human nature.

“Too many politicians are answering legitimate economic and security fears with a poisonous and divisive manipulation of identity politics in an attempt to win votes,” Shetty told journalists.

UN INSIDER2017-02-212023-07-10

Young People Drivers of UN Sustainable Development Agenda

Interview with Cristina Gallach, UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information

NEW YORK (IDN) – Representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and academia adopted a global education action agenda affirming the importance of Sustainable Development Goal 4 – ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong opportunities for all – at the 66th United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI) / NGO Conference that concluded on June 1, 2016 in Gyeongju, South Korea.

What has happened since? What role are youth groups playing in the second year of implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) endorsed by the international community in September 2015? Will there be a DPI / NGO conference in 2017 despite a new Secretary-General and management team taking office in January? What does it mean serving as Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information at the United Nations?

OPINION2017-02-212023-07-10

Trump Marks the End of a Cycle

Analysis by Roberto Savio*

ROME (IDN) – Let us stop debating what newly-elected US President Trump is doing or might do and look at him in terms of historical importance. Put simply, Trump marks the end of an American cycle!

Like it or not, for the last two centuries the entire planet has been living in an Anglophone-dominated world. First there was Pax Britannica (from the beginning of the 19^th century when Britain started building its colonial empire until the end of the Second World War, followed by the United States and Pax Americana with the building of the so-called West).

The United States emerged from the Second World War as the main winner and founder of what became the major international institutions – from the United Nations to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – with Europe reduced to the role of follower. In fact, under the Marshall Plan, the United States became the force behind the post-war reconstruction of Europe.

OPINION2017-02-212023-07-10

How Backwater Europe Transformed To World Power

By Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Eleven hundred years ago Europe was a backwater. There were no grand cities, apart from Cordoba in Spain which was Muslim. The Middle East was much further ahead, still absorbing the intellectual delights and challenges of Greek science, medicine and architecture which Europeans were largely ignorant of. In southern China agriculture advanced and trade in tea, porcelain and silk flourished.

By 1914 it was a totally different world. The Europeans ruled 84% of the globe and they had colonies everywhere. How was it that Europe and its offspring, the United States, became the dominant dynamic force in the world, and still are today in most things?

ARMAMENTS2017-02-202023-07-10

Relationship Between the CTBTO and OPANAL

By Lassina Zerbo

Lassina Zerbo is the Executive Secretary of Preparatory Commission for the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). Following are excerpts from his statement at the XXV Session of the General Conference of the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL) in Mexico City on 14 February 2017.

VIENNA (IDN) – Mexico’s historical role in advancing non-proliferation and disarmament is well recognized, not least through the work of Nobel peace prize laureate Alfonso García Robles in the creation and adoption of the Treaty of Tlatelolco.

Let me also highlight the excellent relationship between the CTBTO and OPANAL in the context of the agreement that both entities concluded in 2002.

ARMAMENTS2017-02-192023-07-10

Celebrating Tlatelolco – The First Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone

By Jayantha Dhanapala*

KANDY, Sri Lanka (IDN) – The commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the signature of the Treaty of Tlatelolco could not have come at a more opportune moment. In the UN General Assembly last year, Mexico and a number of Latin American and Caribbean countries joined with countries from other regions – including my own Sri Lanka – to ensure the adoption of the Resolution “Taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations”.

This Resolution decided that a UN conference should be convened in 2017 “to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons leading towards their total elimination”. The Conference will meet from March 27-31 and from June 15 – July 7, 2017.

UN INSIDER2017-02-182023-07-10

Iceland Shares Land Restoration Expertise with the Needy

By Lowana Veal

REYKJAVIK (IDN) – Back in 1907, at a time in which Iceland was already faced with severe land degradation problems caused mainly by overgrazing and logging for firewood, the Soil Conservation Service of Iceland (SCSI) was set up as a governmental agency with the mission of preventing soil erosion and reclaiming eroded land.

Much has been learned in the intervening years and keen to pass on its expertise, SCSI – in collaboration with the Agricultural University of Iceland (AUI) – is now running a United Nations University (UNU) training programme targeting participants from developing countries.