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News for a Sustainable World
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 08 | 2021. This weekly is the flagship news product of the Non-Profit International Press Syndicate Group with registered offices in Canada, Germany, Japan and Singapore, and correspondents around the world. Feel free to share and re-publish articles pro bono mentioning the source. Previous editions are available on https://newsletter-archive.indepthnews.net. Your feedback is most welcome.
Kind regards from the Non-Profit
International Press Syndicate
Viewpoint by Somar Wijayadasa*
NEW YORK (IDN) — The leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) and the Munich Security Conference (MSC) held two meetings virtually on February 19, 2021, as these had to be postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The G7 countries — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States — meet annually to discuss major world crises issues and to resolve global problems. The virtual meeting was hosted by the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.
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Viewpoint by Michael Jennings*
LONDON (IDN) — The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to various new, repurposed or newly popular terms. The newest entry to the pandemic lexicon might be “vaccine diplomacy”, with some countries using their jabs to strengthen regional ties and enhance their own power and global status.
In early February, half a million doses of the Chinese Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Pakistan, before soon also reaching 13 other countries including Cambodia, Nepal, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe.
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Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — The Mexicans had a joke about ex-President Donald Trump’s planned wall along its border with the US. “It’s not being built to keep Mexicans out of the US; it’s built to keep Trump out of Mexico!” If this be so, then President Joe Biden can relax. No longer is there the need to dismantle the wall built by Trump.
The US media reports say that Mexico has to deal with another migrant “caravan” of fleeing Central Americans pouring into the south of the country, hoping to somehow crash their way into the US.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — The country that drew worldwide attention over a now-debunked U.S. theory linking Saddam Hussein with the purchase of “yellowcake” uranium powder is in the spotlight again.
On February 21, unidentified attackers set off a landmine that exploded under a car full of election commissioners in the Tillaberi region of the landlocked West African nation of Niger, killing seven.
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Viewpoint by Dr Yossef Ben-Meir
The writer is President of the High Atlas Foundation, which is an implementer of the USAID Farmer-to-Farmer Program in Morocco.
MARRAKECH (IDN) — Participatory community movements found a contemporary impetus in post-World War II reconstruction of Europe and decolonization, primarily in Africa. The approach of locally managed change, however, was highly distrusted during these initial years, during which the dominant view was that central-level policymakers are in a better position than the people to make highly productive decisions regarding development projects.
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Viewpoint by Michael McEachrane*
LUND (IDN) – Centuries of European colonialism have had a tremendous impact on shaping inequities within and among countries, many of which are yet to be effectively addressed. This may seem like a trivial statement, but it is only recently being recognised by EU countries.
In 2019, the European Parliament passed a resolution on the Fundamental Rights of People of African Descent. It called for a comprehensive perspective on colonialism and slavery, which recognises their historical and contemporary adverse effects on people of African descent.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — For months, Tanzanian President John Magufuli stuck to a controversial stand that COVID-19 would only be defeated by prayer.
This Sunday (February 21), the President amended his position. He urged citizens to wear masks — only locally made ones — and take other preventive measures against the virus.
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Viewpoint by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
BANGKOK (IDN) — The past year is one that few of us will forget. While the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have played out unevenly across Asia and the Pacific, the region has been spared many of the worst effects seen in other parts of the world. The pandemic has reminded us that a reliable and uninterrupted energy supply is critical to managing this crisis.
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By Ramesh Jaura
BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN) — UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) President Munir Akram has called for a 'Coalition of the Willing' to promote agreement at the global level, on a specific set of early actions to provide fiscal space and supplementary liquidity to developing countries suffering the disastrous impact of COVID-19.
In an email interview with IDN, Mr Akram said speedy actions should include comprehensive debt suspension, debt restructuring for countries in current or potential debt distress, creation of new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) worth $500 billion and redistribution of unutilized SDR quotas to developing countries.
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By Devendra Kamarajan
NAIROBI (IDN) — When the COVID-19 pandemic crisis started, most people were extremely pessimistic. They thought that the region would drown in terms of trade declining catastrophically. But a new report reveals that the East Africa Community economies — Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda — have, by global standards, proven to be relatively resilient.
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Viewpoint by Daniel Haile*
COLLEGE STATION, Texas | USA (IDN) — The United States should abandon its base in Djibouti and build a new military base in Eritrea after the Communist regime in Asmara falls from power. daniel_haile.jpg
The communist regime of 78-year-old dictator Isaias Afwerki has an expiration date. When the current government in Asmara is overthrown, either from a coup d'état or the death of Afwerki, the US should build a strong relationship with Eritrea's future ruler to persuade them to host a US military base in Assab or Massawa.
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Viewpoint by Robert Muggah*
RIO DE JANEIRO (IDN) — It was once fashionable to describe Brazil as the country of the future. What a difference half a decade makes. In recent years, a democratically elected president was stripped of power and ultimately replaced by an authoritarian strongman. Today, Latin America's largest country is suffering from a “triple crisis” — a raging pandemic, economic turmoil and political turbulence. It wasn't supposed to be this way. So what accounts for Brazil's malaise?
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Viewpoint by S. Jaishankar
A return to normalcy in 2021 will mean safer travel, better health, economic revival and digitally-driven services. They will be expressed in new conversations and fresh understandings, writes Dr S. Jaishankar, the minister of external affairs of India and author of "The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World." The views expressed in this article are the writer's own. This opinion piece first appeared in the Newsweek Magazine with the headline "Reimagining Diplomacy in the Post-COVID World: An Indian Perspective".
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Can This 'Grandmother' Save The World Ruled by Gender and Racial Bias?
Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwene
The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of The Interview magazine based in Abuja, Nigeria.
ABUJA (IDN) — As the World Trade Organization (WTO) formally announced the appointment of Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Director-General on February 15, a Swiss newspaper received her with a disgraceful headline: “This Grandmother will become the boss of the WTO,” with her photograph under the headline.
The headline sparked outrage, forcing the editors to modify their position: “This 66-year-old Nigerian will head WTO.”
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By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW (IDN) — The opening of the world's largest free trade area in Africa on January 1, 2021, is of great interest to Russia. It comes more than one year after the first Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi on the Black Sea. As Russian President Vladimir Putin then said: "The event really opened a new page in relations between Russia and the states of the African continent."
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) spanning 54 states over the next years has the potential to unite more than 1.3 billion people in a $2.5 trillion economic bloc.
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By Manu Moudgil*
NEW DELHI (IDN) – On February 6, protesters blocked roads at an estimated 10,000 spots across India as part of the ongoing movement against the new farm laws enacted by the national government last year. For over two months, the most populous democracy in the world has witnessed what is being called one of the biggest protests in human history.
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Viewpoint by Ramesh Jaura
BERLIN | TOKYO (IDN) — Like the United Nations, the global community-based Buddhist organisation Soka Gakkai International (SGI) is a beacon of hope to a world shrouded by dark clouds of unprecedented crises. An international association of the Soka Gakkai and an NGO in consultative status with UN ECOSOC, SGI has members in 192 countries and territories around the world. SGI President is Daisaku Ikeda, a Buddhist philosopher, peacebuilder and educator.
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Viewpoint by Agnes Kalibata*
NEW YORK (IDN) – Long before the emergence of COVID-19, it was well-accepted that the world was off-course to achieve most of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, including ending hunger. But recovering from the pandemic to deliver any of the 17 SDGs relies now more than ever on first feeding the world.
Yet as COVID-19 spread, the reported number of hungry people rocketed upward after three decades of progress, with worse still likely to come in some regions as farmers contend with an unprecedented number of extreme weather events as well as the impact of the pandemic.
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By Kwame Buist
ROME (IDN) – The United Nations is to involve millions of rural people in the 2021 Food Systems Summit as part of an ambitious public engagement process, in which indigenous communities, family farmers, rural women and youth are among those invited to take a seat at the table during Independent Dialogues to help transform global food systems.
This unprecedented commitment to ensure that the voices and opinions of millions of the world’s most remote rural people are at the heart of the Food Systems Summit was announced February 18 by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy, Agnes Kalibata, and the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Gilbert F. Houngbo.
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