IDN-InDepthNews

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.

Health & Well Being2016-07-192023-07-10

UNICEF Needs Funds to Keep 244,000 Nigerian Children Alive

GENEVA (IDN) – The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF appealed for $55.5 million early 2016 to respond to the humanitarian crisis in north-east Nigeria, but has so far only received 41 percent or $23 million.

Now that the scale of the humanitarian crisis caused by the Boko Haram emergency continues to unfold, and UNICEF finds that nearly a quarter of a million children are severely malnourished in Borno state, northeast Nigeria, and face a high risk of death, it expects the appeal to increase significantly.

Out of the 244,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition in Borno, an estimated 49,000 children – almost one in five – will die if they are not reached with treatment, UNICEF said on July 19, and urged all partners to join the humanitarian response and donors to urgently provide resources.

UN INSIDER2016-07-192023-07-10

Youth Empowerment Crucial in Achieving SDGs

By Rodney Reynolds

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – The United Nations formally launched on July 11 its global campaign to help ensure the implementation of its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aimed at achieving social, economic and environmental advancement for over 7.0 billion people worldwide.

But the lingering question before the 10-day High Level Political Forum (HLPF) on SDGs was whether or not the international community will reach its targets, including the elimination of poverty and economic inequalities by 2030, as envisaged by world leaders in September 2015?

Reiterating the primary theme of the SDG Forum – “Ensuring that no one is left behind” – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the successful implementation of SDGs will depend on its inclusiveness.

OPINION2016-07-192023-07-10

Need to Propel Turkey Forward into the EU

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Europe is under attack from both ends. In the west Brexit, the referendum to take Britain out of the European Union (EU). In the east Turkey, which is not formally a member because of the veto made by the conservative last president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Both have led to dreadful consequences. Britain because the EU was made for Britain, although the hard work was done by France and Germany. It is meant to bring together the countries of Europe who were antagonists in two world wars by means of an economic union in order to bind Europe together so its countries would never fight another European war. Britain leaving shatters that profound political pact.

ARMAMENTS2016-07-182023-07-10

Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Needs Stronger Political Push

Interview by Ramesh Jaura with CTBTO Chief Dr Lassina Zerbo

BERLIN | VIENNA (IDN | INPS) – If it were for Dr. Lassina Zerbo, Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), the treaty banning all nuclear tests would have entered into force “yesterday”.

This view not only reflects what he terms in a lighter vein his “notoriously optimistic” perspective. It is also grounded in a series of signals underlining that “the discussion about ratification has moved to a new level” so that the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, better known by its acronym CTBT, should not remain an “unfinished business”.

In an exclusive email interview with IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate (INPS), he spells out the reasons for his ‘optimism’, adding: A UN Security Council resolution banning nuclear tests, as President Obama is reported to be contemplating, might be a good thing. “But what really counts is the ratification of the remaining eight countries.” These are China, DPRK (North Korea), Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and the United States.

UN INSIDER2016-07-172023-07-10

Commodity Exporting Countries Losing Billions of Dollars

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA | NAIROBI (IDN) – A new United Nations report lists China, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Britain and the U.S. among countries that are benefiting from ‘trade misinvoicing’ practised by a large number of Commodity Dependent Developing Countries (CDDCs).

Trade misinvoicing – involving resort to deliberately misreporting the value of a commercial transaction on an invoice submitted to customs – “continues to be used as a key mechanism of capital flight and illicit financial flows from developing countries”, says a study by the Geneva-based UNCTAD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Nearly 90 of developing countries are losing commodity export earnings worth billions of dollars in valuable foreign exchange earnings, taxes and income that might otherwise be spent on development. $3.9 trillion is the estimated annual investment required for achieving Sustainable Development Goals by the year 2030 ,