IDN-InDepthNews – Page 693 – News for a Sustainable World, Peace and Security

Asia-Pacific2016-11-022023-07-10

Philippines and Malaysia Unplug Obama’s Asian Pivot

By Kalinga Seneviratne

BANGKOK (IDN) – Philippines’ outspoken President Rodrigo Duterte while unplugging U.S. President’s much-publicized “Pivot to Asia”, has also challenged the United States to help promote cooperation in the region not confrontation.

Duterte provoked alarm in diplomatic circles last month (October) by announcing his country’s “separation” from the United States and realignment with China while on a visit to Beijing.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak has also signaled a similar realignment of foreign policy during a visit to Beijing. In a commentary published in the China Daily he said that former colonial powers should not be lecturing to countries they once exploited on running their internal affairs.

NEWSBRIEFS2016-11-012023-07-10

Nigerian Soldiers Accused of Raping Boko Haram Victims

NEW YORK | ABUJA (IDN | GIN) – Dozens of young girls, rescued from Boko Haram kidnappers, were made victims again by the Nigerian soldiers and policemen assigned to protect them, according to accounts documented by investigators for Human Rights Watch.

The New York-based rights group found forty-three cases of “sexual abuse, including rape and exploitation.” Four victims told HRW they were drugged and raped. Thirty-seven said they had been coerced into sex through false marriage promises and material and financial assistance.

NEWSBRIEFS2016-11-012023-07-10

Millions Earmarked for Maternity Care Go Missing in Kenya

NEW YORK | NAIROBI (IDN | GIN) – Dizzying amounts of taxpayers’ money are alleged to have gone missing from Kenya’s Ministry of Health including 800 million shillings (close to US$8 million) designated for free maternity care for poor mothers to be.

The scandal has stunned even the most jaded media pundits who have seen the theft of public monies throughout their careers.

“This is official corruption at its most cruel and unbelievable,” wrote Otieno Otieno of Kenya’s Daily Nation. “You know Kenya has gone to the dogs when they steal from Kenyatta National Hospital, the country’s largest referral health facility mostly in the news for its stone-age problems like the single broken down cancer machine.”

OPINION2016-11-012023-07-10

Africa Should Not Leave the International Criminal Court

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Many African leaders have been angry for a number of years that the International Criminal Court and the affiliated Rwanda and Sierra Leone war crimes courts appear to have focused exclusively on African war criminals – in Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya and Somalia.

The South African government announced on October 21 its intention to withdraw from the ICC. Burundi said it had already made such a decision. Then, after those two, came Gambia and now observers are saying there may be others that will follow.

UN INSIDER2016-10-312023-07-10

UN Stresses Importance of Cooperation with Regional Bodies

By Jamshed Baruah

NEW YORK (IDN) – Despite differing strategies, the United Nations is committed to strengthening its partnership with regional organizations in Eurasia and Central Asia on peace and security matters, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has told the Security Council.

“That is why it is so important to deepen our strategic dialogue, forge common approaches to emerging crises, and strive to improve our collective responses to peace and security threats,” he said, as the Council discussed on October 28 cooperation between the United Nations and regional and subregional organizations in maintaining international peace and security.

ARMAMENTS2016-10-302023-07-10

‘Acrimonious‘ UNGA Agrees to Negotiate Nuke Prohibition

Analysis by PNND

“This was the most acrimonious UN General Assembly I have seen in the nearly 30 years I have been observing the Disarmament and International Security Committee at the UN.” – Alyn Ware, PNND Global Coordinator.

NEW YORK (IDN) – On October 27, the Disarmament and International Security Committee of the United Nations General Assembly adopted a ground-breaking resolution Taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations.

The resolution establishes a UN conference in 2017 ‘to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.’

Africa2016-10-292023-07-10

Water Crisis a Challenge in South Africa’s Squatter Camps

By Jeffrey Moyo

JOHANNESBURG (ACP-IDN) – For South Africans living in slums crowded with makeshift homes standing side by side, residents battle to draw water from the very few water taps available.

Like countries the world over, South Africa is mandated to achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all by 2030, but for many South Africans like 24-year old Thembisa Mzwakhe living in Diepkloof, South Africa’s populous slum area in Johannesburg, growing up in the shanty area with inadequate water supplies has become normal.

ARMAMENTS2016-10-282023-07-10

Kazakh Award for Jordanian King Backs WMD-Free Middle East

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – “At a time when the international community is seeing a renewal of big-power rivalry and debating the pros and cons of nuclear technology, the initiative of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev in establishing the Nazarbayev Prize for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World and Global Security is both prescient and timely,” says Ong Keng Yong, Ambassador-at-Large at the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He is referring to the decision to award the Nazarbayev Prize for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World and Global Security to King Abdullah II of Jordan who has worked tirelessly to secure peace and stability in the Middle East where efforts to declare the region free of weapons of mass destruction including nuclear weapons failed in 2015.

UN INSIDER2016-10-282023-07-10

UN Resolution to Outlaw Nuclear Weapons Hailed

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Nuclear disarmament campaigners have hailed the landmark resolution adopted by the United Nations on October 27 for launching negotiations in 2017 on a legally binding treaty outlawing nuclear weapons. The resolution heralds an end to two decades of paralysis in multilateral nuclear disarmament efforts.

In a historic move, at a meeting of the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, which deals with disarmament and international security, 123 member states of the UN voted in favour of the resolution, 38 voted against and 16 abstained.

The resolution will set up a UN conference beginning in March 2017, open to all member states, to negotiate a “legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination”. The negotiations will continue in June and July.

UN INSIDER2016-10-272023-07-10

Marketable Youth Skills – Today’s Challenge

Analysis by Dr Palitha Kohona

Former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in New York.

COLOMBO (IDN) – As the youth component of the global population increases, a new problem of critical magnitude is slowly creeping up on policy makers, especially in developing countries.

Many developing countries, consistent with their commitments under the Millennium Development Goals, some with great difficulty, have provided basic literacy and health care to their populations. But providing employment to these millions who possess basic literacy has not been successfully addressed.