IDN-InDepthNews

Gender Equality2016-07-272023-07-10

Scoring for Gender Equality Through Sport

UN Women News Feature

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – Sport has the power to transcend boundaries of sex, race, religion and nationality. It promotes health and wellness, improves self-esteem, and teaches leadership, team skills and perseverance.

Women in sport defy gender stereotypes, make inspiring role models, and show men and women as equals. Seeing is one step closer to being.

Women are more visible in sport now than ever before: Of a total of 997 athletes, only 22 women competed, for the first time, at the 1900 Games in Paris. The London 2012 Olympics was the first Games in which women competed in every sport of the Olympic programme. In Rio, approximately 4,700 women – 45 per cent of all athletes – will represent their countries in 306 events.

OPINION2016-07-272023-07-10

Moving from Decision to Action on Sustainable Development

Viewpoint by Dr. Patrick I. Gomes

Following are excerpts from a statement ACP Secretary General Dr. Patrick I. Gomes delivered on behalf of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, at the 14th session of the Conference of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD XIV) on July 21, 2016 in Nairobi, Kenya.

BRUSSELS (IDN) – Since its establishment in 1964, UNCTAD has been the appropriate forum to ensure a comprehensive dialogue between developed and developing countries on trade and development and interrelated issues.

OPINION2016-07-272023-07-10

Does Trump Really Want to Win in November?

Viewpoint by Donald A. Collins

WASHINGTON – After a week of the Republican National Convention, the widely reported comments of the nominee the morning of 7/22 about Ted Cruz and his family must be quite confusing to Trump’s supporters as it is to many other undecided voters who are thinking about voting for him.

And clearly things in America are not as dire as Trump’s acceptance speech postulated.

Terrorism has long been with us as Columbine (e.g., the Genesis of the current terrorist surge?) proved, but this onslaught of religiously or otherwise motivated kooks does not mean we should give up our civil liberties, which could well happen if we go down the road of enforcement suggested by Trump’s remarks.

UN INSIDER2016-07-262023-07-10

UN Underfunded as South Sudanese Flee to Uganda

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – The UN Refugee Agency UNHCR has expressed great concern about the precarious security situation in South Sudan, where some 4,000 people are currently fleeing every day to neighbouring Uganda. 90 percent are women and children.

South Sudan’s conflict erupted in December 2013, and it has produced one of the world’s worst displacement situations with immense suffering. Some 1.69 million people are displaced inside the country, while 831,582 South Sudanese refugees are abroad, mainly in Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda.

OPINION2016-07-262023-07-10

Historic Commitment at Havana Peace Talks Table on Colombia

By Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and Zainab Hawa Bangura

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, and Zainab Hawa Bangura, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.

NEW YORK (IDN-UN Women) – On 24 July 2016, we celebrated with the people of Colombia the historic commitment by the Government and FARC-EP at the Havana Peace Talks Table to ensure that one of the agreement’s fundamental objectives is to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women.

The implementation of this commitment will be the critical test of whether peace will endure, and fulfil the highest aspirations of Colombians for a just, equitable, inclusive and democratic society.

Individual Journalists, SYNDICATION2016-07-262023-07-12

NATO’s Largest Nuclear Storage Facility Carries Risks

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) -The Incirlik air base in southeast Turkey – from which U.S. pilots launch bombing raids on ISIS forces in Syria – is home to about 50 B-61 hydrogen bombs. That makes it NATO’s largest nuclear storage facility.

Each bomb has a yield of up to 170 kilotons, nearly a dozen times more powerful than the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima. The bombs are stored in underground vaults within aircraft shelters that in turn are protected by a security perimeter.

Recently, Incirlik was in the headlines because it appears it was one of the command centres of the attempted coup, meant to topple President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

UN INSIDER2016-07-252023-07-10

Rising Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan Worry UN

By Devinder Kumar

NEW DELHI | KABUL (IDN) – “It was in the evening time and my wife, children, and mother were at home. Taliban attacked an Afghan National Army checkpoint and they both started firing mortars and rockets at each other. A mortar round exploded in my house, killing my eight-year-old daughter and injuring my seven-year-old son and my wife,” father and husband of victims killed and injured told the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in an interview in May 2016.

“We were hysterical, running from one side of the house to another thinking that another mortar round would hit the house. Since that moment, I have no life anymore,” reports the UNAMA’s ‘Midyear Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict: 2016’ released on July 25.

NEWSBRIEFS2016-07-252023-07-10

NEWSBRIEF: African Union Unveils New Pan-African Passport

KIGLI (IDN | GIN) – National leaders at the African Union summit held in Kigali, Rwanda, were presented on July 17 with a prototype of the long-awaited Pan-African passport.

“We’ve been overwhelmed by requests and enquiries of other ministers, officials and African citizens to share in this privilege of holding an African passport,” said AU Commissioner Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

It is hoped that the new document will facilitate the seamless mobility of Africans and ease trade across the continent, consequently leading to the continent’s economic transformation.

UN INSIDER2016-07-252023-07-10

Committee to Protect Journalists Wins UN NGO Accreditation

By Rodney Reynolds

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – The New York-based Committee to Project Journalists (CPJ), an independent non-governmental organization (NGO) campaigning for press freedom worldwide, has been recognized as an UN-accredited civil society organization by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

The July 25 decision by the 54-member ECOSOC, the primary UN body which coordinates the social and economic agenda of the United Nations, overrides a decision by one of its own committees, the UN Committee on NGOs, to reject the CPJ application on May 26.

CPJ’s application for NGO status was rejected by the committee with only 6 votes in favour of NGO status (Greece, Guinea, Israel, Mauritania, Uruguay and the United States) and 10 against (Azerbaijan, Burundi, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Sudan and Venezuela), with three abstentions (India, Iran and Turkey).

ARMAMENTS2016-07-252023-07-10

Astana and Geneva Preparing Ban-the-Bomb Conferences

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – Kazakhstan will host an international conference on August 28-29 to build and strengthen political will for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons, some 15,000 of which are threatening the very survival of humankind.

The conference in Astana is being organised by the Senate of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan and Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND).

It will gather parliamentarians and mayors from around the world, along with a selection of religious leaders, government officials, disarmament experts, policy analysts, civil society campaigners and representatives of international and regional organisations – the United Nations, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).