IDN-InDepthNews – Page 696 – News for a Sustainable World, Peace and Security

Africa2016-11-152023-07-10

Morocco Hosts Africa’s Coordinating Office on Desertification

MARRAKECH (IDN) – Morocco has agreed to host the Africa Regional coordination Unit of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) with a view to providing the Bonn-based secretariat with vital support services that the Parties to the Convention need to effectively implement the Convention in Africa.

The announcement to this effect was made on November 14 by Abdeladim Lhafi, Morocco’s High Commissioner for Water and Forests and the Fight against Desertification and Commissioner of the 22nd session of Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Conference (COP22), from November 7 to 18 in Marrakech.

OPINION2016-11-152023-07-10

Peace in Antarctica Exemplary for International Relations

By Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – In 1772, sailing to the far south, Captain James Cook deflated the prevailing myth of Antarctica, that it was a temperate land, fertile and populated. Although he never landed on the continent he saw the vast icebergs, the frozen sea and the “worst weather anywhere in the world”. He wrote that “it is a continent doomed by nature” and doubted that man would ever find a use for it.

The words had not been long out of his mouth before governments started to make tentative grabs. The British were the first to make a move, claiming sovereignty on the grounds that the government needed to regulate commercial whaling.

Africa2016-11-152023-07-10

Telling the African Story Through the African Media

By Ronald Joshua

KIGALI (IDN | GIN | The New Times) – Media practitioners from around the continent have called for more emphasis on principles of independence, fairness and accountability as prime kits to tell the African story through the African media.

Driven by the concept of ‘Africa that we want’ motto through the ‘Africa Media We Want’ mantra, the call was made when journalists gathered in Kigali, Rwanda, on November 7, for the Africa Information Day, which was celebrated in parallel with the eighth National Media Dialogue.

Africa2016-11-152023-07-10

After Trump’s Election Africans Assess U.S. Landscape

NEW YORK (IDN | GIN) – Africans were tweeting and messaging about the surprise outcome of U.S. elections that left many around world worried for the future. Kenyan-American and distinguished professor Makau Mutua was “quarterbacking” as a “day after” couch potato who second-guesses why his team lost.

“Hillary Clinton was defeated by “white-lash”, as opposed to “white backlash”, he wrote, an opinion shared with CNN analyst Van Jones, the African-American Harvard-educated lawyer,

Food security, nutrition & sustainable agriculture2016-11-152023-07-10

FAO Joins the South Centre to Boost South-South Cooperation

By Bernhard Schell

MARRAKECH (IDN) – The South Centre and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN have decided to join together to foster South-South Cooperation with the aim to improve food security, boost rural development, and address climate change in the Global South.

The five-year cooperation agreement – in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) – builds on years of collaboration between the two organizations. It was signed on November 11 on the sidelines of the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP22) taking place in Marrakech; Morocco from November 7 to 18, 2016.

Gender Equality2016-11-142023-07-10

UN Women Launches 16-Day ‘Orange the World’ Initiative

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – On November 25, the United Nations and civil society commemorate the International Day to End Violence against Women. That same day, UN Women – the global champion for gender equality – will kick off 16 days of global activism, until December 10, to halt a gross violation of women’s human rights that affects at least 1 in 3 women and girls worldwide.

“It is a pandemic that we must stop. To do so, we need everyone’s help,” says Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women.

Decent Work & Economic Growth2016-11-132023-07-10

UN’s New Development Agenda Assigns a Key Role for Youth

By Rodney Reynolds

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has continued to reiterate the key role to be played by youth in the implementation of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, points out that many young people across the world have been disproportionately affected by economic crises and recession.

“As torch bearers of the new development agenda, you have a critical role to play in ending poverty, inequality, hunger and environmental degradation. Your actions will be central in ushering in an era in which no one is left behind,” he told a gathering of youth.

UN INSIDER2016-11-132023-07-10

India Stresses Urgency of Security Council Reform

By Syed Akbaruddin, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN in New York

Following are excerpts from his statement on November 7, 2016 at the current Session of the General Assembly’s Agenda Item 122: ‘Question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and other matters Related to the Security Council.’

While aligning with the statements made by St. Lucia on behalf of the L69 (a cross regional grouping of 42 developing countries from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific) and Germany on behalf of G4 (including Brazil, India and South Africa), he highlighted a few additional issues in his national capacity. Excerpts follow.

ARMAMENTS2016-11-132023-07-10

Kazakh President’s Japan Visit Focuses on Nuke-Free World

By Katsuhiro Asagiri and Ramesh Jaura

TOKYO | HIROSHIMA (IDN) – Striving for a nuclear-weapons-free world holds a special place in Kazakh-Japan relations, according to President Nursultan Nazarbayev who on November 9 visited Hiroshima that suffered U.S. atomic bombings along with Nagasaki 71 years ago.

Nazarbayev was on a three-day official visit to Japan less than two months before it joins the UN Security Council in January as its non-permanent member for two-years until the end of 2018. In the first year it would be working closely with Japan before Tokyo’s two-year term in the Council comes to a close at the end of 2017.

UN INSIDER2016-11-122023-07-10

U.S. is UN’s Founding Member, Ban Reminds Trump

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Three days after having congratulated Donald Trump on his election as forty-fifth President of the United States in a statement he read out to the press at the UN Headquarters in New York, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has in a phone call on November 12 commended the President-elect’s calls for unity – and this with apparent satisfaction.

On November 9, Ban said in a statement to the press: “In the aftermath of a hard-fought and often-divisive campaign, it is worth recalling and reaffirming that the unity in diversity of the United States is one of the country’s greatest strengths. I encourage all Americans to stay true to that spirit.”