IDN-InDepthNews

Africa2016-08-162023-07-10

Complacency in Nigeria Blamed for Polio’s Return

NEW YORK | ABUJA (IDN | GIN) – A year after Nigeria was removed from the polio-endemic list, two cases have been reported in the northern Borno state, where the terrorist Boko Haram still controls the territory.

The eradication of polio, reported in 2015 by the World Health Organization, was called an “historic achievement” by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a public-private partnership leading the effort to eliminate the disease.

As recently as 2012, Nigeria accounted for more than half of all polio cases worldwide. Since then, a concerted effort by all levels of government, civil society, religious leaders and tens of thousands of dedicated health workers resulted in Nigeria successfully stopping polio.

Latin America & the Caribbean2016-08-152023-07-10

Thursday’s Date with Calls for a Fairer Chile

Viewpoint by Pía Figueroa*

SANTIAGO (IDN) – Every year, as they have been doing since 2011, students in Chile take to the streets each Thursday, demanding a free and good quality education system.

They are increasingly being joined by their parents – tired of paying for expensive schooling which is certainly the most expensive in the whole of Latin America – and teachers who leave work to join the students with a call for proper definition of the teaching career.

UN INSIDER2016-08-142023-07-10

UN Security Council’s South Sudan Resolution Faulted

By Jaya Ramachandran

NEW YORK (IDN) – Two of the five veto wielding members of the Security Council, China and Russia, and two from among the ten non-permanent ones, Egypt and Venezuela, abstained from the resolution renewing on August 12 the mandate of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) until June 30, 2017, authorizing the expansion of peacekeeping forces and stressing the priority of civilian protection in its mandate.

The Council adopted a U.S.-drafted resolution that also threatened to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan if the government blocks the deployment of a robust force of 4,000 troops.

Asia-Pacific2016-08-142023-07-10

Singapore’s 1st Olympic Gold Props Opponents of Foreign Talent

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE (IDN) – The stunning victory of 21-year-old Singaporean swimmer Joseph Schooling in the 100m butterfly at the Rio Olympics on August 12 has reignited debate about importing foreign sporting talent to raise the profile of local sports, especially in the international arena.

It was the tiny island nation’s first ever Olympic gold medal and Southeast Asia’s first Olympic Gold in swimming.

Schooling beat his childhood idol and perhaps the greatest swimmer of all-time Michael Phelps of the United States as well as Commonwealth Games champion Chad Le Clos of South Africa and the 33-time European champion Laszlo Cseh of Hungary. All three of them tied for silver medal while the young Singaporean took the gold with a new Olympic Games record.

UN INSIDER2016-08-122023-07-10

UN Turns to World’s Youth for Achieving 2030 Agenda

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s second term comes to an end on December 31, 2016, he has intensified efforts to focus on the concerns and aspirations of world’s youth, urging them to lead a global drive to break the patterns of the past and set the world on course to a more sustainable future.

“Young people are directly affected by the tragic contradictions that prevail today: between abject poverty and ostentatious wealth, gnawing hunger and shameful food waste, rich natural resources and polluting industries,” Ban said in his message on International Youth Day, celebrated annually on August 12.

Africa2016-08-122023-07-10

Africa’s Civil Society Faces Up to Hostile Governments

By Kingsley Ighobor*

NEW YORK (IDN | Africa Renewal) – A Liberian women’s peace movement led by 31-year-old Leymah Gbowee did something extraordinary in July 2003 to force Liberian warlords to sign a peace agreement that ended 10 years of a bloody civil war.

After months of fruitless negotiations, hundreds of women, members of Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, gathered at the venue of the peace talks in Accra, Ghana, and sat at the entrance to the conference hall. They looped their hands and vowed to stop the warlords from leaving the venue until they had reached a peace agreement.

UN INSIDER2016-08-122023-07-10

Austria’s Ex-Chancellor UN Special Envoy for Youth Employment

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Three months after being constrained to quit as Chancellor of Austria and head of the country’s Social Democratic Party, Werner Faymann has been named by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a new Special Envoy for Youth Employment.

Faymann was Chancellor of Austria and chairman of the country’s Social Democratic Party from 2008 to 2016. He resigned both posts on May 9, 2016, after losing confidence from a considerable number of party members, after his party’s candidate and the candidate from its coalition partner were both eliminated in the first round of the presidential elections held on April 24, 2016.

UN INSIDER2016-08-112023-07-10

Explosive Legacy of 2014 Conflict Continues to Hurt Gaza

By Bernhard Schell

AMMAN (IDN) – Two years after the Gaza conflict, paucity of sufficient funds is hampering a speedy clearance of Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) that pose a serious threat to the life and physical integrity of the population in the tiny self-governing Palestinian territory.

During the 2014 conflict, Israel launched more than 6,000 airstrikes and fired nearly 50,000 tank and artillery shells in the 51-day operation in Gaza, killing 1,462 Palestinian civilians, a third of them children.

The United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry’s report on Gaza conflict, published on June 22, 2015, found that Palestinian armed groups fired 4,881 rockets and 1,753 mortars towards Israel in July and August 2014, killing 6 civilians and injuring at least 1,600.

ARMAMENTS2016-08-102023-07-10

The No Nukes Mantra Between Hope and Despair

Analysis by Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN (IDN) – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s mantra “No more Hiroshimas – No more Nagasakis – Never again”, chanted to commemorate the anniversaries of the devastating atomic bombings of two Japanese cities has yet to usher in a nuclear-weapon-free world. Also his ‘five point proposal on nuclear disarmament’, tabled on UN Day October 24, 2008, has been practically consigned to oblivion.

The fault does not lie with the Secretary-General. As the world commemorated the 71st Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries on August 6 and August 9, the question on the minds of proponents of a world free of nuclear weapons was: Is there reason to hope rather than despair?

UN INSIDER2016-08-102023-07-10

Peace Uncertain When Yemen Talks Resume in September

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) – Yemen, an Arab country in Western Asia, has been undergoing a civil war since 2015 causing huge suffering. The United Nations has been at pains to encourage the conflicting parties to come to a lasting agreement in talks that have been hosted by Kuwait for the past three months.

In a statement announcing one-month break in negotiations – between a Yemeni Government delegation and a delegation of the General People’s Congress and Ansar Allah – on August 6, UN Special Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed assured that the process will enter a “new phase,” during which “the focus will be on working with each side separately to crystalize precise technical details”.