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

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.

UN INSIDER2017-02-182023-07-10

Second Sub-Saharan African to Head IFAD

By Phil Harris

ROME (IDN) – The Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has elected its second president from sub-Saharan Africa, after incumbent Kanayo F. Nwanze from Nigeria.

At the just concluded meeting of the body’s Governing Council (February 14-15), Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo from Togo, a former Prime Minister of his country, was appointed the Fund’s sixth President and will take office on April 1.

Houngbo was one of eight candidates, including three women, competing for the top leadership position in the specialised United Nations agency, which is also an international financial institution that invests in eradicating rural poverty in developing countries around the world.

Africa2017-02-172023-07-10

Tanzanian Schools Turn to Maximising Resource Use

By Kizito Makoye Shigela

DAR ES SALAAM (IDN) – The ringing of the bell marks the end of lessons at Hekima Primary School, and for 10-year-old Leila Kitwana and her classmates it signals time to tend the school’s vegetable gardens where students take turns to water vertical gardens through a drip irrigation system using rainwater stored in giant tanks.

“We grow different types of vegetables, they are an important part of our meal,” says Kitwana.

Until recently, most students at this school in the impoverished Tandale area of Kinonodoni district in Dar es Salaam Region had spent more time looking for water than attending lessons. “We had a borehole but the water there was too salty to drink,” explains Kitwana. “We only used it for cleaning toilets.”