By Eric Walberg*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
TORONTO (IDN) – Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird announced on September 7 that Canada is suspending all diplomatic relations with Iran, expelling all Iranian diplomats, closing its embassy in Tehran, and authorizing Turkey to act on Canada’s behalf for consular services there. Baird cited Iran’s enmity with Israel, its support of Syria and terrorism.
By Jaya Ramachandran
IDN-InDepth NewsReport
BERLIN (IDN) – While there are hardly any signs of substantive and forward-looking agreements being reached at the United Nations climate change conference from November 26 to December 7, 2012 in Doha, latest research cautions that impact of climate change on future food prices is being underestimated.
By Martin Khor *
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
The Eurozone crisis and the slowdown of the U.S. economy is impacting China, India and major countries in South America and Africa. They are increasingly faced with deterioration in GDP growth and exports. The forecast of a “staggering rise of the South” is turning out to be a myth.
GENEVA (IDN) – Developing countries are increasingly being adversely affected by the economic recession in Europe and the slowdown in the United States. The hope that major emerging economies like China, India and Brazil would continue to have robust growth, de-coupling from Western economies and becoming an alternative engine of global growth has been dashed by recent data showing that they are themselves weakening.
By Richard Johnson
IDN-InDepth NewsReport
LONDON (IDN) – Despite widespread scepticism about nuclear energy in the aftermath of Fukushima disaster, Poland, which is heavily dependent on coal and imported gas, has decided to go in for its first nuclear power plant.
The move comes some three decades after the the Council of Ministers passed a decree in January 1982 on the construction of the Żarnowiec Nuclear Power Plant, which would have been the first in the country. But due to changes in the economic and political situation in Poland after 1989, as well as public protests in the late 1980s and early ’90s which escalated in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, the construction was cancelled.
By Ernest Corea*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
WASHINGTON (IDN) – They are done. Democrats and Republicans have completed their conventions, and President Barack Obama has secured the anticipated post-convention bounce.
The latest Gallup poll puts Obama at 49 percent among registered voters, compared with 45 percent for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. The Reuters/Ipsos poll also gives Obama a four-percentage-point lead over Romney, 47:43. Obama’s personal favourability rating has increased as well and his favourability:unfavourability score is up to 52:43. That’s a seven percentage point bounce.
By Eric Walberg*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
TORONTO (IDN) – The world is living through a veritable slow-motion earthquake. If things go according to plan, the US obsession with Afghanistan and Iraq will soon be one of those ugly historical disfigurements that — at least for most Americans — will disappear into the memory hole.
By Devinder Kumar
IDN-InDepth NewsReport
NEW DELHI (IDN) – Human Rights Watch has expressed concern about increasing violence against the minority Shia Muslim community in Pakistan and asked the government in Islamabad to protect it from sectarian attacks by Sunni militant groups.
“Deadly attacks on Shia communities across Pakistan are escalating,” HRW’s Asia director Brad Adams said. “The government’s persistent failure to apprehend attackers or prosecute the extremist groups organizing the attacks suggests that it is indifferent to this carnage,” he added.
By Alyn Ware*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
NEW YORK (IDN) – The ATOM Project, an exciting new initiative to build global support for nuclear abolition, was launched at a parliamentary assembly in Astana, Kazakhstan on August 29, the International Day Against Nuclear Tests.
The project, entitled Abolish Testing: Our Mission (ATOM), highlights the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons – particularly the nuclear tests conducted in Kazakhstan that have adversely affected the health and lives of nearly 2 million people. The images of the survivors, though sometimes difficult to witness, are featured in the campaign in order to raise awareness surrounding the damage nuclear testing can cause.
By Anwarul K. Chowdhury*
(Note: This article first appeared on IDN on January 19, 2012 and is being reproduced because of its profound significance in view of the new UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ emphasis on sustained peace and development. Now follows the article as published five years ago. – Editor)
No time is more appropriate than now to build the culture of peace. No social responsibility is greater nor task more significant than that of securing peace on our planet on a sustainable foundation. Today’s world with its complexities and challenges is becoming increasingly more interdependent and interconnected. The sheer magnitude of these requires all of us to work together. Recognition of the human right to peace by the international community, particularly the United Nations, will surely generate the inspiration in creating the much-needed culture of peace in each one of us.
By Santo Das Gupta
IDN-InDepth NewsReport
PARIS (IDN) – The prospects for the world economy look rather gloomy in the coming two years, says a respectable international economic organisation of 34 countries. The situation can, however, be redeemed if leading industrial and emerging countries take “bold decisions” to get the global economy back on track, it adds.
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