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Published by The Non-profit International Press Syndicate Group
with IDN-InDepthNews as the Flagship Agency
Dear Reader,
We are pleased to send you Edition 46 | 2020 of BEYOND BREAKING THE NEWS, a flagship news product, now in the fifth year, meanwhile published every Monday by the Non-Profit International Press Syndicate Group, with registered offices in Canada, Germany, Japan and Singapore, and correspondents around the world. Previous editions are available on https://newsletter-archive.indepthnews.net. Read. Share. Publish; free of charge but mention us as the source. We would appreciate your Feedback.
Kind regards from the Non-Profit
International Press Syndicate
Viewpoint by Andreas Hemp*
BAYREUTH (IDN) – In October 2020, firefighters in Tanzania had to tackle a number of fires on Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest mountain and the largest free-standing mountain in the world. The mountain and surrounding forests fall into Kilimanjaro National Park, named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987. Andreas Hemp provides a glimpse into the mountain’s natural environment and the challenges it faces.
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By J W Jackie
RENO, Nevada, USA (IDN) – Nearly one-fifth of small businesses experienced either a hack, virus or data breach in 2019, according to data from B2B site The Manifest. While this proves that small businesses are indeed vulnerable to cyber attacks, it also serves as a warning to others that makes proper security precautions a necessity in 2020 and beyond. From the consequences that being unprepared can bring to the reasons behind why small businesses are such a target, prioritizing cybersecurity is critical as hackers continue to get smarter.
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Viewpoint by Avi Gil
The writer is a former diplomat, who served under Shimon Peres for almost 30 years in various capacities. Ambassador Gil has been closely involved in Israel's policy-making and peace efforts, including the negotiations that led to the Oslo Accords. This article is being republished from The Blogs in the Times of Israel.
JERUSALEM (IDN) – Trump’s defeat marks the end of the Israeli right’s four-year celebration. At the global level, Trump has significantly intensified the erosion of the liberal world order. In a world where human rights are underrated, the on-going Israeli occupation provokes less condemnation, and the Palestinian plight has been pushed off the agenda.
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Interview by Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW (IDN) – Under the Russian Chairmanship of BRICS 2020, Moscow has organised and hosted a series of corporate conferences, business forums and other important events. For example, the Roundtable discussion on the theme “International Cultural Cooperation for Strengthening BRICS Unity” brought high-profiled participants from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It was part of efforts at broadening the scope of cooperation in different directions, and steps toward attaining an admirably influential position and becoming active on the global stage.
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By Kalinga Seneviratne
SYDNEY (IDN) – The government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been closely aligned with that of the US President Donald Trump on climate change and policy towards China. But, media commentators here in the past few days have been arguing that a Biden administration may put pressure on Australia to change its climate change policies in particular and tread a more cautious approach to diplomacy with China.
Australia is one of the world’s biggest per-capita greenhouse emitters as well as a major exporter of coal. The Morrison government has set a 2030 emission target of 26-28 per cent reduction from 2005 levels, after having rejected a scientific report by the Climate Change Authority recommending reducing the emission levels by 45-60 per cent over the same period.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – Migrants around the world are continuing their desperate flights for survival even though rescue efforts have slowed, and rich countries are building higher walls against the asylum seekers.
The deadliest shipwreck of the year occurred most recently off the coast of Senegal where at least 140 people drowned after a boat carrying around 200 migrants sank, according to the UN migration agency (IOM).
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Viewpoint by Sonali Kolhatkar
This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute. Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations.
LOS ANGELES (IDN) – President-elect Joe Biden has called the November 2020 U.S. election a “battle for the soul of the nation.” In offering himself up as a contrast to President Donald Trump, Biden made a clear distinction between his political agenda and statesman-like behaviour, and that of Trump.
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By Santo D. Banerjee
NEW YORK (IDN) – A new report finds that consumers have an increasing awareness of the planet’s biodiversity and want corporations to protect it. They feel that "companies have a moral obligation to ensure that they have a positive impact on people and biodiversity". However, more than 70 per cent suggested their trust is higher when a brand’s commitment to the ethical sourcing of biodiversity is independently verified. The report, commissioned by the Union for Ethical BioTrade (UEBT), released on November 11, is based on a survey. The data was published in the 2020 UEBT Biodiversity Barometer, an ongoing set of research updated each year, that has covered more than a decade.
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Viewpoint by Vijay Prashad *
This article was produced by Globetrotter.
NORTHAMPTON, Massachusetts (IDN) – In June, Joe Biden, who will be the U.S. president in January 2021, sent out a tweet that described Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro—and others—as “thugs and dictators.” Maduro won two elections to hold his post—in 2013 and 2018. In 2018, Maduro won 67.8 per cent of the vote, losing a third of the votes to Henri Falcón and Javier Bertucci, two figures of the opposition.
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Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN) – It will take a long time before America can again strut the world stage and lecture about the values of democracy, poking its finger in the eye of every authoritarian or dictatorial government it has the desire to show up. A former president, no less, is going to use every occasion into the distant future to tell the world that this election of 2020 was illegally hijacked.
The election has shown up the deficiencies in America’s “democracy”. We again learnt that winning a handsome majority of votes wasn’t enough and that for President-elect Joe Biden to win he had to garner 270 votes in the electoral college which is biased towards the under-populated, rural, states such as Wyoming with only 600,000 people.
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By Ramesh Jaura
BERLIN (IDN) – When she learned that the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) reached the 50 states parties required for its entry into force, Setsuko Thurlow said: "I was not able to stand. I remained in my chair and put my head in my hands, and I cried tears of joy. … I found myself speaking with the spirits of hundreds of thousands of people who lost their lives in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I was immediately in conversation with these beloved souls. …I was reporting to the dead, sharing this good news first with them, because they paid the ultimate price with their precious lives."
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By Azu Ishiekwene
The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-In-Chief of The Interview magazine based in Abuja, Nigeria.
ABUJA (IDN) – If Nigerians had a vote, you’ll probably not be the 46th President of the United States of America. A Pew Research Centre poll in January showed that two countries – Kenya and Nigeria – were still madly in love with lame-duck President Donald J. Trump.
You might wonder why in spite of your long list of transgressions against Trump – from his malicious negligence in the fight against Coronavirus to his congenital lying, and from race-baiting to his crooked politics – we still love him.
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Viewpoint by Roberto Savio*
ROME (IDN) – Now it is clear that Joe Biden is the new president of the United States. It is unlikely that Donald Trump’s legal manoeuvring will change the election results, as when a conservative Supreme Court in 2000 decided in favour of George Bush over Al Gore, who lost by 535 votes. Not even this Supreme Court, where Trump has six sympathetic members (three appointed by him, quite a record), and only three unsympathetic, will dare to change a result coming from too many states.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – Those who held high hopes for peace in the Horn of Africa are troubled by the rise in conflicts across the region with fears growing of a potentially destabilizing civil war. The latest conflict pits the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed against the Tigray people who see themselves side-lined from power after almost two decades as head of a coalition that ran the country from 1991 until 2012.
On November 4, Mr. Abiy, winner of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize after making peace with Eritrea, ordered the start of a military offensive against Tigray, accusing the region’s ruling party of attacking a government defence post and attempting to steal artillery and military equipment.
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Viewpoint by P.I. Gomes*
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago (IDN) – The Preamble to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development refers to what is called the 5P’s of People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership. They capture with such lucid precision what is referred to as “all areas of critical importance for humanity and the planet.”
These are all areas deserving of concerted attention, but the widespread and insidiously yet blatant impact of violence, as the negation of “peace”, might benefit from some reflections. Manifested increasingly in such multiple forms as gender-based violence (GBV), trafficking in persons, ruthless assaults of gun violence, armed conflict, racial supremacist abusive language, ethnic profiling and violent extremism – all span a range of human behaviour that is violent in intent and in effect, resulting in loss of life or life-long injury, at times physical, psychological or both.
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