IDN-InDepthNews

Asia-Pacific2013-01-292023-07-10

Sanctions Do Not Lead To Nuke Abolition in Asia

By Kalinga Seneviratne | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

SINGAPORE (IDN) – North Korea’s response to the United Nations Security Council’s expanded sanctions on January 22 by threatening to resume nuclear tests and failure last November of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to persuade the five recalcitrant nuclear powers to sign the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone Treaty (SEANWFZ) have focused attention on the atomic threat facing the Asian region that is fast emerging as the centre of the global economy.

GLOBAL ISSUES2013-01-282023-07-10

Japan Treading New Horizons in Education

By Ramesh Jaura | IDN-InDepth NewsFeature

BERLIN (IDN) – When I visited Japan five years ago and met senior representatives of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) in Tokyo, I learnt about the educational activities of this faith organization and the underlying concept spelt out by its President Daisaku Ikeda: “Education that lacks an ethical or spiritual underpinning can warp our attitudes toward knowledge, allowing scientific research to run dangerously out of control.”

Nothing demonstrates this more horrifically than the development of nuclear weapons, he said in an interview. “This is why I have put my energies into dialogues aimed at bridging differences of nationality, religious affiliation and ideology, and into promoting educational exchanges that foster people-to-people connections,” stressed the President of SGI, a worldwide Buddhist network spanning the globe and promoting peace, culture and education through personal transformation and social contribution.

USA and Canada2013-01-262023-07-12

Obama Urges Middle Class-Based Prosperity

By Ernest Corea* | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

WASHINGTON DC (IDN) – A 19-year-old single mother captured the spirit of hope and change that animated candidate Barack Hussein Obama’s first presidential election campaign with this text message: “Rosa sat, so Martin could walk; Martin walked so Obama could run; Obama is running so our children can fly.” Khari Mosley, a leader of the Democratic Party in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania cited the comment in a newspaper article and it re-surfaced in 2013, reaffirming the sentiments of “hope and change” that helped to propel Obama to the pinnacle of political power in the US.

GLOBAL ISSUES2013-01-252023-07-10

World Bank Helps Tackle Rapid Urbanization

By J C Suresh | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

TORONTO (IDN) – Developing countries are urbanizing so fast that their populations will tilt from less than 20 percent urban today to more than 60 percent in just 30 years. This is in stark contrast to the mostly gradual transformation today’s developed countries experienced as their cities expanded over a period of 100 years or more with jobs shifting from farms to factories.

Developing countries cannot afford today’s developed countries’ luxury of trial and error in growth patterns and policies. To meet the challenges that rapid migration is creating, city leaders must move quickly to plan, connect, and finance resilient and sustainable growth. A new World Bank report, Planning, Connecting and Financing-Now: What City Leaders Need to Know, provides a framework to assist in this huge task.

Africa2013-01-232023-07-10

Africa Witnessing Impressive Economic Growth

By Jaya Ramachandran | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

GENEVA (IDN) – There is good news from Africa. The continent is witnessing the second fastest economic growth, and according to knowledgeable sources it may grow even faster in 2013. What is more, currently Africa accounts for 14 sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) with a total amount of USD114 billion in 2009, representing 3% of global SWFs, and that share is expected to increase in future with the establishment of new SWFs.

ECONOMY2013-01-222023-07-10

Debt Crises Can and Need Be Resolved

By Martin Khor* | IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

GENEVA (IDN) – The issue of foreign debt has made a major comeback. This is due to the crisis in Europe, in which many countries had to seek big bailouts to keep them from defaulting on their loan payments. Before this, debt crises have been associated with African and Latin American countries. In 1997-99, three East Asian countries also joined the indebted countries’ club.

European countries, notably Germany, insisted that private creditors share the burden of resolving the Greek crisis. They had to take a “haircut” of about half, meaning that they would be repaid only half the amount they were owed.

Africa2013-01-212023-07-10

The ‘Arab Spring’ Arrives in Eritrea

By Mirjam van Reisen* | IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

BRUSSELS (IDN) – Arab Spring has arrived in the Horn of Africa. Young people have been campaigning for the last year, inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, phoning households in the country that has been in the grip of its leader Isaias Afewerki since independence from neighbouring Ethiopia in 1991.

USA and Canada2013-01-182023-07-12

‘Drone War Will Trigger New Arms Race’

By Jaya Ramachandran | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

LONDON (IDN) – The increasing resort to drones by President Barack Obama will over the long term usher in “a new arms race and lay the foundations for an international system that is increasingly violent, destabilized and polarized between those who have drones and those who are victims of them”, a leading terrorism expert has warned.

One of the distinctive elements of President Obama’s approach to counterterrorism has been his embrace of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to target terrorist operatives abroad, says Michael J Boyle in an article for International Affairs, a British journal published every two months.

SYNDICATION, UNITED NATIONS2013-01-182023-07-12

UN Keen To End Humanitarian Crisis in Congo

By Richard Johnson | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

GENEVA (IDN) – Stepped up violence among ethnic groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the second largest country in Africa, has led to a serious humanitarian crisis, displacing thousands of people who live in hostile conditions, according to the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO). The world body and its partners are, therefore, appealing for $30.5 million to assist some 59,000 people in DRC’s eastern province of North Kivu.

Europe2013-01-172023-07-10

German Trade Union Tables Euro Marshall Plan

By Eva Weiler | IDN-InDepth NewsReport

BERLIN (IDN) – The German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB) has tabled a 260 billion Marshall Plan for Europe aimed at providing a decisive impetus for qualitative growth as well as new jobs with a future in all 27 European Union (EU) countries for a 10-year period from 2013 to 2022.

The proposed investments and investment subsidies of €260 billion annually comprise direct investment and investment grants of €160 billion and ten-year low-interest loans of €100 billion to private investors.