IDN-InDepthNews

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).

ACP Group of States2016-07-242023-07-10

Brexit Implications for 79 ACP Countries Yet Unknown

By Robert Johnson

LONDON (IDN) – The outcome of the Brexit referendum on June 23, 2016 has set the UK on a path to leave the European Union (EU) that will also result in an end to its membership of the bloc’s Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) the free trade deals between the European Union (EU) and the 79 countries of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group.

According to experts, while Brexit will have consequences for the UK, its impact on the ACP countries could be far reaching. Precisely how and in what ways was the subject of a brainstorming session of leading experts organized by the Ramphal Institute on July 15.

Named after Shridath “Sonny” Ramphal, second Commonwealth Secretary-General (1975-1990), the Ramphal Institute’s mandate is to tackle development issues and the wider world. So the focus was on Brexit and the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).

Africa2016-07-232023-07-10

New Report Shows Way Out of Persistent Conflict in Africa

By Devendra Kamarajan

ADDIS ABABA (IDN) – For quite some time, Africa has been hosting at least three-quarters of the UN Peacekeepers worldwide which South African President Theo Mbeki and Algerian UN diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi bemoan as “a sad fact”.

In preface to the landmark report titled ‘African Politics, African Peace’, the two African leaders stress that having “engaged in a successful struggle against colonialism and apartheid . . . we surely have an obligation to exercise our hard-won right to self-determination and independence effectively to address this humiliating reality of persistent conflict on our Continent and the unwelcome and painful consequences it has imposed on the masses of Africa.”

DEVNET2016-07-222023-07-10

Development Cooperation Critical for Asia-Pacific Countries

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – A high-ranking United Nations official has stressed the need to translate the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development into national planning and budgetary processes.

This is particularly important in countries with special needs, declared the head of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) on the sidelines of the fifth biennial high-level meeting of the Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) in New York on July 21. GERMAN | HINDI | SPANISH

ARMAMENTS2016-07-222023-07-10

Support for ‘Obama Nuclear Doctrine’ by Executive Order

Analysis by Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN) – Despite protests by Republican congressional leaders and the heads of Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees, President Barack Obama is garnering wide support for his reported plan to implement at least a part of his cherished nuclear agenda through a series of executive actions during the next months before leaving the White House.

None of the executive options Obama is considering require formal congressional approval. In fact, all of those actions would “fall under his executive authority as commander-in-chief”, says David Krieger, president of the U.S.-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF).

Krieger is one of the nuclear disarmament pundits whose views IDN solicited in the aftermath of a report in the Washington Post on July 10, which said that executive options Obama is considering, include declaring a “no first use” policy for the United States nuclear arsenal and a UN Security Council resolution affirming a ban on the testing of nuclear weapons as envisaged by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Peace & Security2016-07-212023-07-10

Behind Turkey’s Failed Coup and its Puzzling Aftermath

Analysis by Jacques N. Couvas

ANKARA (IDN) – The fourth and latest military coup in the history of the Turkish Republic ended at 8:02 p.m. on Saturday, July 16, less than 24 hours after it had begun. It was bloody. And it failed.

Hardly a week later, the state of emergency has been declared, tens of thousands of state and military personnel have been dismissed and three million servants recalled from holidays.

As the Turkish people recover from the psychological shock following the events, questions and all kinds of theories fill the discussions in the squares, cafés and social media. They are wondering “why” and “why now”? And then, “what is next”? All this on the assumption that everyone agrees with the answer to the question “who did it”?

UN INSIDER2016-07-212023-07-10

UN Special Event to Fast-Track Climate Treaty Ratifications

By Rizwy Raheem

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who hails the Climate Change agreement as one of the political legacies of his 10-year tenure in office, is hosting a special event in September urging member states to deposit their instruments of ratification so that the treaty can come into force before he steps down end December.

The invitation for the September 21 event has been sent out to world leaders who will be attending the annual General Assembly sessions.

The agreement, which was finalized in Paris in December 2015, will enter into force 30 days after at least 55 countries – accounting for 55 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions – deposit their instruments of ratification or acceptance with the Secretary-General.

Decent Work & Economic Growth2016-07-202023-07-10

Reforestation in Oxapampa: Peru’s Challenges and Priorities

By Fernando Torres Morán

LIMA (IDN) – Oxapampa is a province in the Pasco Region, in the high jungle area of Peru, which is home to the Oxapampa-Asháninka-Yanesha Biosphere Reserve that was recognised by UNESCO in 2010.

The reserve houses a number of protected natural areas such as the Yanachaga Chemillen National Park, with an area of 122 thousand hectares (spread over the districts of Huancabamba, Oxapampa, Villa Rica and Pozuzo) and the San Matías-San Carlos Protection Forest, with an area of 145,818 hectares (spread over the districts of Palcazu, Puerto Bermudez and Villa Rica).

Over the decades, the area has suffered forest depredation, and Peru’s non-governmental Pronaturaleza foundation for the conservation of nature has recently condemned the illegal felling of trees in the Yanachaga Chemillen National Park, including the extraction of one hundred thousand planks of wood from trees such as thyme, cedar and fig.

UN INSIDER2016-07-202023-07-10

Waiting for Effective Solutions from UN Summit on Refugees

By J C Suresh

TORONTO (IDN) – Governments, civil society organisations and more than 65 million people who are uprooted from their homes are looking forward to the United Nations Summit on Refugees and Migrants on September 19 at UN headquarters in New York.

The high-level meeting being organised by the UN General Assembly will address large movements of refugees and migrants, with the aim of bringing countries together behind a more humane and coordinated approach.

Addressing an event at the world body’s headquarters on July 19 in New York, UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson stressed the need for “a discourse about making migration safe, orderly and responsible”, as spelled out in one of the Sustainable Development Goals under Agenda 2030.