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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 09 | 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 Vijay Prashad*
NORTHAMPTON, Massachusetts (IDN) — For the past three months, Indian farmers and agricultural workers have been in the middle of a difficult struggle against the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Tens of thousands of them have gathered around the capital city of New Delhi; they say that they will not disband unless the government repeals three laws that negatively impact their ability to remain economically viable.
The government has shown no sign that it will withdraw these laws, which provide immense advantages to the large corporate houses that are close to Prime Minister Modi. The government’s attempt to crack down on the farmers and agricultural workers has altered the mood in the country: those who grow the food for the country are hard to depict as “terrorists” and as “anti-national.”
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By S. Gianesello
BRUSSELS (IDN | EEPA) — As the UN Security Council prepared to meet on March 4 to talk over the humanitarian situation in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, the situation in the Horn of Africa was getting from bad to worse with reports of ethnic targeting and cleansing. The meeting was requested by Ireland, joined by other members of the UN Security Council.
Diplomats stated there is no assurance that the closed-door meeting will produce a joint statement. The Security Council held several meetings over the situation in Tigray since the beginning of the conflict, on November 4, 2020. The last Council meeting was held on February 2, 2021.
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Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — “Diplomacy is back”, President Joe Biden said recently. But then in the middle of a delicate diplomatic dance with Iran he goes and bombs a small, politically inconsequential, Iranian surrogate in Syria, in retaliation for the killing of one American soldier.
This seems to go against everything he said during his presidential campaign on moving towards fashioning a quick agreement with Iran so that the deal made by President Barack Obama that froze Iran’s nuclear activities could be resuscitated after Donald Trump’s decision to blow it up. Biden’s bombing has made the chance of simultaneous choreographed moves by both sides to get back to the deal made by Obama more difficult.
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Viewpoint by Yvonne Bartmann*
This article first appeared on International Politics and Society, an e-Journal published by Germany's Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung's office in Brussels.
GENEVA (IDN) — When problems proliferate, expectations tend to be high. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is facing many problems, indeed a whole raft of them. Accordingly, there’s a lot of pressure on its new Nigerian Director-General, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Not just because of the state of the WTO, but also because she’s its first female and first African leader. So it's on Okonjo-Iweala now to fix the WTO's many problems.
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By Isabella Duque Muñoz
This article first appeared as one of Youth Community's Spotlight Stories on February 26, 2021, as a part of UNODA's #Youth4Disarmament Initiative.
BOGOTA (IDN) — As a Colombian, I grew up in a nation marked by violence and armed conflict. These matters seized my interest from a very young age; learning about them felt vital to understanding my country and the factors that drive conflicts around the world.
In 2016, Colombia signed a historic peace agreement and began a process of laying down arms. Witnessing these developments confirmed my passion for issues of peace, security and disarmament, as well as development in emerging countries. I wanted to get involved and make my own contribution.
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Viewpoint by M.K. Bhadrakumar
The writer is a former Indian diplomat. This article was produced in partnership by Indian Punchline and Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute where it first appeared.
NEW DELHI (IDN) — In a statement marking the “return” of the United States to the United Nations Human Rights Council on February 24, Secretary of State Antony Blinken disclosed that the Biden administration is placing democracy and human rights at the centre of American foreign policy.
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By Krishan Dutta
BANGKOK (IDN) — A new report released by the Sydney-based Lotus Communication Network (LCN) on February 26 warns that Buddhism is under threat across Asia, both from within and outside, and calls for concerted action by Buddhists across the region to empower themselves.
The 238-page report produced as an eBook identifies six issues that threaten Buddhism in Asia, a region, whose identity over the centuries has been built around what is called the ‘Indic-Buddhist’ civilization. These issues include proselytism targeting Buddhist communities, particularly by Evangelical (Pentecostal) Christian groups and lately Wahabi Islamists.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Nail-biting negotiations are underway for the release of 317 schoolgirls kidnapped on February 26 in north-western Nigeria — a region beset by banditry that takes thousands of lives each year. Terms of a large ransom are reportedly being discussed but officially denied.
Frightened parents who raced to the scene on hearing gunshots arrived too late to rescue their daughters at the Government Girls Secondary School in Jangebe, a village in Zamfara state. Police say they believe the girls in a state of distress were taken to a forest after being abducted at about 1 a.m. from their boarding school.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — In what may be U.S. President Joe Biden’s first major test in Africa, a key U.S. ally stands accused of undertaking a campaign of ethnic cleansing, massacring hundreds of unarmed civilians and threatening the fragile stability of the region.
President Biden, confronting the scenario linked to U.S. ally Ethiopia, shared his concerns in a telephone call on February 25 to Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.
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By Devinder Kumar
NEW DELHI (IDN) — Disarmament is at the heart of the collective security system set out in the United Nations Charter, with its goal to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war". In commemoration of the United Nation's 75th anniversaries and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) established the "75 Words for Disarmament Youth Challenge", which was launched on August 12 International Youth Day and closed on September 26, the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
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By J C Suresh
TORONTO | WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) — While independent arms control experts around the world heaved a sigh of relief at Joe Biden's signature decision to extend the New START Treaty with Russia through February 4, 2026, Pentagon officials say it is "just the beginning of a larger discussion with Russia and China about placing further limits on nuclear weapons proliferation".
The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense (DOD). As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase The Pentagon is also often used as a metonym or synecdoche for the Department of Defense (DOD) and its leadership.
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By Ramu Damodaran
The writer is Chief, United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) hosted in the Department of Global Communications. This OpEd first appeared in the latest #WhyWeCare, @ImpactUN.
NEW YORK (IDN | UNAI) — "STOP" said the imperious red sign (actually two red signs) as I ventured to the frostily frigid February frontline of the Atlantic coast, an injunction reminiscent of an earlier time when the United States chose to inhibit its interests within an isolated domain, a time that the Second World War brought to a definitive end when, in 1941, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill concluded the Charter named for that ocean, one of whose clauses spoke of a peace that "should enable all men to transverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance", "voyages as metaphorical as literal, the nascent nautical navigations that we speak of today" as "global engagement", in the phrase of the title of the annual summit convened by the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) and the United Nations Foundation (UNF).
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By Radwan Jakeem
NEW YORK (IDN) — A UN climate action report warns that nations are “nowhere close” to the level of action needed to fight global warming. It urges countries to adopt stronger and more ambitious plans to reach the Paris Agreement goals, and limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, by the end of the century.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s Initial NDC Synthesis Report measures the progress of national climate action plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs, ahead of the 26th session of the Conference of its Parties (COP26) this November in Glasgow.
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By Jamshed Baruah
GENEVA (IDN) — Providing a global update to the Human Rights Council, Michelle Bachelet has said that as the COVID-19 pandemic gathers pace, people worldwide are “being left behind — or pushed even further behind”; they are being excluded from not only development but also opportunities. At the same time, civil society activists are being denied the right to voice opposition to the government.
“This makes us all weaker”, she warned the Council's virtual meeting on February 26. “It heightens grievances that are destabilizing. It means we miss perspectives and expertise that could inform and strengthen our initiatives. It shields corruption and abuses, by silencing feedback.”
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Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte
The writer is Ambassador, former High Representative of the United Nations for Disarmament Affairs and current President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
NEW YORK (IDN) — We do not know exactly how many millennia ago human beings started their ascent among other species to become dominant over the planet. We can, however, pinpoint with certainty in the Industrial Revolution the beginning of the rapid development of science, manufacturing techniques, trade and other skills that allowed unprecedented material progress particularly since the second half of last century.
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By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW (IDN) — Russia is committed to helping eradicate the rapidly increasing coronavirus infections in Africa amounting to approximately 3.8 million with its latest developed Sputnik V vaccine. Such a step will enable Russia to reassert its geopolitical influence that involves a keen competition with other foreign players on the continent.
An official media release in mid-February said that the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team — set up by the African Union to acquire additional vaccine doses so that Africa can attain a target immunization of 60% — has received an offer of 300 million Sputnik V vaccines from the Russian Federation.
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