IDN-InDepthNews – Page 796 – News for a Sustainable World, Peace and Security

Africa2016-03-172023-07-10

Campaign to Save Senegal’s Local Language Begins with a Book

DAKAR (INPS | GIN) – Waly Fay of Senegal had an obsession. He was determined not to let one of Senegal’s local languages become a footnote of linguistic history.

Not only was Serer the third most spoken language in Senegal but it was the language of the country’s first president. Although Léopold Sédar Senghor, a president and a poet, wrote most of his couplets in French, he never lost his “Serer-ness,” he told Fay with whom he corresponded over the course of his life.

Now, three decades since he began translating Senghor’s French language poems into Serer, Way’s book has been released.

Fay, a poet and academic, presented the book of presidential poems at a three-day party in the Serer-speaking region of Fadial.

UN INSIDER2016-03-172023-07-10

Nuclear Weapons Challenge the World’s Highest Court

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | THE HAGUE (IDN) – After ten days of public hearings involving teams of eminent international lawyers – some backed by staunch proponents of ‘nuclear zero’ and others clinging to the doctrine of ‘nuclear deterrence’ – the world’s highest court is faced with a challenging task of far-reaching significance.

Not the least because this year marks the twentieth anniversaries of the 1996 ‘advisory opinion’ by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the opening for signature of the CTBT, the treaty banning all nuclear tests everywhere – nuclear tests that are at the heart of nuclear proliferation.

Explaining the core subject for ICJ’s deliberation, a famous Dutch lawyer Phon van den Biesen said, “from a legal perspective”, the issues presented by the three legal cases “are ordinary ones, but a positive outcome will, spectacularly, change the world”.

SYNDICATION2016-03-172023-07-12

Nuclear Weapons Challenge the World’s Highest Court

By Ramesh Jaura | IDN-InDepthNews Analysis

UN INSIDER2016-03-162023-07-10

Reminiscences of the United Nations and Japan’s Asia Strategy

By Prof. Makoto Taniguchi*

TOKYO (IDN) – When the United States was bashing the United Nations as an ‘Useless presence’ in the 1980s, young bureaucrats of the rank of Minister-Counsellors, who were dispatched as government representatives to the UN in New York, were using a deprecating term – a “zombie” group －to describe the situation in which they found themselves.

Counsellor Mr. Sergey Lavrov of the Soviet Union, who was like a leader among his peers, was convinced that something needs to be done about the world body. Otherwise he and others will not be respected back home. So he was inspiring the group that was otherwise beginning to lose sight of a vision to strengthen the United Nations. SPANISH | GERMAN | HINDI | JAPANESE

Africa2016-03-162023-07-10

Mauritania Ratifies Pact to End Modern-Day Slavery

GENEVA | NEW YORK (INPS | GIN) – Mauritania has ratified the 2014 protocol to the Forced Labour Convention (1930), reinforcing thus the global movement against forced labour in all its forms, including human trafficking.

Mauritania follows Niger, Norway and the United Kingdom, as one of the first states to formally commit to implement the Protocol. The Protocol, adopted in 2014 by an overwhelming majority by the International Labour Conference, supplements Convention (No. 29) 1930, requiring States to take effective measures for prevention, protection of victims and ensuring their access to justice and compensation.

Responsible Consumption & Production2016-03-152023-07-10

Thai Youth Learn to Develop a ‘Mindful’ Economic Behaviour

This article is the fourth in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate.

CHIANG MAI (IDN | Lotus News Features*) – The Mindfulness fad sweeping across the West today may be the new money-spinner for those “gurus” who charge hundreds of dollars for each session to teach its applications, often to improve one’s ability to navigate the global capitalist system to make more money for yourself. But, for the Thais it’s a 2500-year old philosophy taught by Gautama the Buddha to encourage moderation, self-reliance and contentment in your daily life.

Thailand’s revered King Bhumibol introduced mindful economic philosophy known as Sufficiency Economics to his subjects in 1997 when Thailand faced a severe economic crisis that led to many people committing suicide. In 1999 this concept became the guiding principles of Thailand’s national development policies. It has also been introduced to the national education curriculum both at primary and secondary level eight years ago.

GLOBAL ISSUES2016-03-152023-07-10

Thai Youth Learn to Develop a ‘Mindful’ Economic Behaviour

By Kalinga Seneviratne* | IDN-InDepthNews Feature

This article is the fourth in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate.

CHIANG MAI (IDN | Lotus News Features**) – The Mindfulness fad sweeping across the West today may be the new money-spinner for those “gurus” who charge hundreds of dollars for each session to teach its applications, often to improve one’s ability to navigate the global capitalist system to make more money for yourself. But, for the Thais it’s a 2500-year old philosophy taught by Gautama the Buddha to encourage moderation, self-reliance and contentment in your daily life.

SYNDICATION2016-03-152023-07-12

Biting on a Bitter Kernel of a Truth of Human Experience

LUND, Sweden (IDN | INPS) – Was the cultured and sophisticated Italian writer, Oriani Fallaci, speaking for the large numbers of working class people who end up being the ones who usually play host to immigrants, when she wrote in a leading liberal newspaper, Corriere della Serra, of her experience of trying to get rid of Somali immigrants living in a tent, performing all their bodily functions next to Florence’s cathedral?

“I don’t go singing Ave Marias or Paternosters before the tomb of Mohammed. I don’t piss or shit at the feet of their minarets. When I find myself in their countries I never forget that I am a guest and a foreigner. I am careful not to offend them with clothing or behaviour that are normal to us but inadmissible to them. Why should we respect people who don’t respect us? Why should we defend their culture or presumed culture when they don’t respect ours. I want to defend our culture and I say that I prefer Dante Alighieri or Omar Khayyam. And the sky opens. They crucify me ‘Racist, racist’.”

GLOBAL ISSUES2016-03-152023-07-10

Biting on a Bitter Kernel of a Truth of Human Experience

By Jonathan Power | IDN-INPS Viewpoint

UN INSIDER2016-03-142023-07-10

2016 Crucial for Promoting a Nuclear Weapons Free World

By Jamshed Baruah

BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN | INPS) – The 25th anniversary of the closure of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site and the twentieth anniversaries of the opening for signature of the treaty to ban all kinds of nuclear tests as well as of the unanimous advisory by the world’s highest court are three significant hallmarks of the year 2016.

“These historical dates are an important occasion for pooling the efforts of all countries to promote a nuclear-free world,” said Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev on March 2 during a meeting in Astana with the heads of foreign diplomatic missions accredited in the republic.

The Semipalatinsk Test Site (STS or Semipalatinsk-21), also known as “The Polygon”, was the primary testing venue for the then Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union conducted 456 nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk from 1949 until 1989 with little regard for their effect on the local people or environment. The full impact of radiation exposure was hidden for many years by Soviet authorities and has only come to light since the test site closed in 1991. READ IN JAPANESE