IDN-InDepthNews – Page 736 – News for a Sustainable World, Peace and Security

UN INSIDER2016-04-082023-07-10

Fate of Climate Change Victims Does Not Make Headlines

Analysis by Ronald Joshua

ROME (IDN) – A new report funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has taken up cudgels on behalf of some 60 million people around the world, who are facing severe hunger because of El Niño and millions more because of climate change.

Just days before world leaders gather at the United Nations in New York to sign the concluding document of the twenty-first session of the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP21), held in December 2015 in Paris, the report reveals that coverage on climate change has significantly fell off the radar of major media outlets across Europe and the United States.

IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze finds it “incredible” that in a year when we have had record temperatures, 32 major droughts, and historic crop losses that media are not positioning climate change on their front pages. “Climate change is the biggest threat facing our world today and how the media shape the narrative remains vitally important in pre-empting future crises,” he adds.

UN INSIDER2016-04-082023-07-10

Sustainable Development Crucial to Countering Terrorism

Analysis by Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) – Within days of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington that considered modes of averting nuclear materials falling into the hands of terrorists, possible ways of Preventing Violent Extremism drew the focus of a UN conference in Geneva.

The conference on April 7-8 was held against the backdrop that terrorist groups such as ISIL, Al-Qaida and Boko Haram have come to embody the image of violent extremism and the debate about how to address this threat.

An important element of a plan to counter all kinds of terrorism, according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, has to be full implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), because fulfilment of these goals will address many of the socioeconomic drivers of violent extremism. The SDGs highlight women’s empowerment and youth engagement, because societies with higher equality and inclusion are less vulnerable to violent extremism.

UN INSIDER2016-04-072023-07-10

Rich Countries Asked to Honour Paris Climate Accord Pledges

Analysis by Devinder Kumar

NEW DELHI (IDN) – The world’s four major newly industrialized countries – Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC) – have in effect warned that signing the Paris Climate Agreement at the High-Level Ceremony on April 22 in New York will lead nowhere unless all elements of an ambitious accord are implemented in letter and spirit.

The High Level Signature Ceremony has been convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the world body’s headquarters. Ban’s second term as UN Chief expires end of the year.

The four BASIC countries have welcomed the adoption of the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and acknowledged that the 21st Conference of Parties (COP-21) held in Paris in December 2015 marked “a milestone in global climate cooperation”.

News Media, SYNDICATION2016-04-072023-07-12

Myanmar’s General Thein Sein Becomes a Monk

By Special Arrangement with The Buddhist Channel*

YANGON – Myanmar’s retired junta General Thein Sein has become a monk. He has been ordained as U Thandi Dhamma. According to reliable sources, it was the well known Dhamma teacher Dr. Ashin Nyanissara or better known as Sitagu Sayadaw who implored him to take up monkhood.

Thein Sein is widely regarded as the junta head who opened up Myanmar. After taking over from military dictator Senior General Than Shwe in 2011, he was expected to carry on as an opaque and isolationist ruler, much like his feared predecessor. After all, in 1998 he was personally named by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar for directly ordering his soldiers to commit human rights abuses.

Records have indicated that his history in brutality was no less than previous junta heads, such as Ne Win and Than Shwe.

Africa2016-04-062023-07-10

Reflecting on the Genocide in Rwanda

NEW YORK (IDN | GIN) – Candle lighting, a minute of silence, the laying of wreaths and other memorial ceremonies will be held on April 11 when Rwanda recalls the genocide in 1994 that took 800,000 lives.

It is also a time for diplomats and local leaders to talk with communities about the atrocities of genocide and the importance of working towards a peaceful way of life. Student conferences, exhibitions, and other commemorative activities are also held.

The activities officially last a week, but the commemoration continues up to July 4, marking 100 days of genocide.

This year, a cadre of hundreds of social workers trained to help trauma victims are expected to be available to help survivors still struggling with memories from that time.

Africa2016-04-062023-07-10

Liberia Outsourcing Public Education to a U.S. Company

NEW YORK | MONROVIA (IDN | GIN) – In what might be a first in Africa, Liberia will put its entire pre-primary and primary education system in the hands of a U.S. start-up that would bring a charter school model to struggling schools on the continent.

Bridge International Academies already has a presence in Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. Despite a headquarters in Nairobi, a listing for the company shows a San Francisco address.

When Liberian Education Minister George K. Werner announced in January that all pre-primary and primary schools would be outsourced to Bridge to manage, he set off a furor among local and international education experts. The arrangement, they said in an interview with the New Dawn newspaper, would be a “blatant violation of Liberia’s international obligations under the right to education and have no justification under Liberia’s constitution.

Individual Journalists, SYNDICATION2016-04-062023-07-12

Why Brazil Must Not Fire its President

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN | INPS) – The Brazilians have an elected president. They must keep her. If Dilma Rosseff is pushed to resign democracy has failed.

Two years ago she won re-election handsomely. That is the source of her mandate. From that she derives her legitimacy. The only thing that could topple her is if hard evidence emerges that she is crook- in her case supposedly stole millions of dollars from the Brazilian oil giant, Petrobras, of which she was once head of the board. Then Congress would be within its rights to discuss her impeachment.

But there is no evidence of her personal corruption – although there is evidence aplenty that her party, The Workers’ Party, has received a lot of black money, not just from Petrobras.

UN INSIDER2016-04-052023-07-10

Two New Candidates for UN Chief Undermine East European Claims

By Rodney Reynolds

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – When Antonio Guterres, the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees and ex- Prime Minister of Portugal, announced his candidature for the post of UN Secretary-General on February 29, he virtually undermined the longstanding claim that the next UN chief should be from Eastern Europe under a system of traditional geographical rotation.

But traditions are generally meant to be trodden down – at least at the United Nations.

Until Guterres’ declaration, all other officially declared candidates were from Eastern Europe: Dr Srgjan Kerim of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; Vesna Pusic of the Republic of Croatia; Dr Igor Luksic of Montenegro; Dr Danilo Turk of of Slovenia; Irina Bokova of Bulgaria; and Natalia Gherman of of Republic of Moldova.

On April 4, Helen Clark, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, announced her official candidature for the same post, throwing the race even more widely open.

UN INSIDER2016-04-042023-07-10

UNDP’s Helen Clark Lays Claim to the Post of UN Chief

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Helen Clark, New Zealand’s first woman Prime Minister from1999 to 2008 and current Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) since 2009, is convinced that she is “up to the task” of leading the United Nations when Ban Ki-moon’s term expires at the end of the year.

Helen Clark threw down the gauntlet to three women and four male candidates for the post of the UN Secretary-General on April 4. The woman candidates are: UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova of Bulgaria; Vesna Pusic, former Foreign Minister of Croatia, and Natalia Gherman, former Foreign Minister of the Republic of Moldova. The male candidates are: Srgian Kerim of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; Igor Luksic of Montenegro; Danilo Turk of Slovenia, and former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, who also served as the Portuguese Prime Minister.

ARMAMENTS2016-04-042023-07-10

2016 Nuclear Security Summit: Obama’s Last Hurrah

Analysis by Jayantha Dhanapala*

KANDY, Sri Lanka (IDN) – In the practice of general medicine a placebo is defined as a medicine or a procedure prescribed for the psychological benefit for the patient – to humour or placate rather than for any physiological or therapeutic effect. U.S. President Barack Obama’s rhetoric in Prague in April 2009 gave the world a tantalizing vision of a nuclear weapon free world: “The existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War …. I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

Since then we have had the anti-climax of four Nuclear Security Summits and repeated warnings about nuclear terrorism but no meaningful nuclear disarmament.

Pocketing his prematurely awarded Nobel Peace Prize, the U.S. President has reverted to being the conventional leader of the greatest military-industrial complex in the world spending approximately US $ 610 billion annually of the global military expenditure of US $ 1.8 trillion and a staggering US $ 355 billion over the next ten years on nuclear weapon modernization.