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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 17 | 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 Sugeeswara Senadhira
The writer is Director (International Media), Presidential Secretariat, Colombo. This article was first published on April 26. It is being re-published with Mr Senadhira's permission.
COLOMBO (IDN) — Exactly 35 years ago, on April 26, 1986, the biggest nuclear accident in history took place at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, killing dozens of people and making hundreds of people victims of Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS). Later, the disaster was attributed to a flawed Soviet reactor design coupled with serious mistakes made by the plant operators. It was a direct consequence of Cold War isolation and the resulting lack of any safety culture in the erstwhile Soviet Union.
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Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Last week on Tuesday (April 20), US Strategic Command, the part of the military responsible for nuclear weaponry and its use, posted an official Tweet that read, “We must account for the possibility of conflict leading to conditions which could very rapidly drive an adversary to consider nuclear use as their least bad option”.
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By Mahinda Seneviratne*
SYDNEY (IDN) — As twilight approaches, Rakesh (not his real name) mounts his bicycle with a large thermal backpack over his narrow shoulders. He lost his regular job at a small suburban restaurant when the family business could not sustain itself during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. With the recent shocking road deaths of three food delivery riders heavily on his mind, Rakesh pedals cautiously into the growing traffic lanes to commence his first home delivery gig.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — South African law firm Mbuyisa Moleele Attorneys is partnering with lawyers at Lehigh Day, a UK law firm, to launch a class action in South Africa against the ride-hailing firm Uber.
The case on behalf of drivers would recognize them as employees with benefits, rather than as independent contractors not covered by the legal minimum wage. Similar cases have been brought in California and New York with mixed success.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — European and American military leaders lost a key African ally in their fight against insurgent movements across Africa. Foreign forces face an uncertain future with the recent death of the President of the African nation of Chad.
Idriss Deby Itno died on April 20 during a firefight with militants of the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) who had crossed into Chad from Libya. His death coincided with his reelection victory for a sixth term that would have made him one of the longest-serving leaders in the world.
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By Thalif Deen*
NEW YORK (IDN) — The recent military coup in Myanmar and an attempted palace coup in Jordan harks back to the days when insurrections by armed forces came along a veritable assembly line—particularly in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.
And at least one political leader—a former Prime Minister of Thailand—was ousted from power when he was at the United Nations to address the General Assembly. After he finished his address, he was homeless and had no country to go to, and sought political asylum in a Middle Eastern country.
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By Radwan Jakeem
NEW YORK (IDN) — Eminent thought leaders in economic and social fields have called for fundamental change in the multilateral system in the spirit of international solidarity to combat the severe impacts of COVID-19. They comprise the United Nations High-level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs, convened by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).
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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 was first published in #WhyWeCare on April 22.
NEW YORK (IDN | UNAI) — “End our war on nature” was Antonio Guterres’s call at the Leaders Summit on Climate convened by President Biden this, April 22 Earth Day morning. Last week we had quoted from the remarks by Viet Nam’s Deputy Prime Minister, Nguyen Duy Trinh, at the time of his country’s admission to the United Nations in 1977; rereading that speech, I was struck by his observation that how “in our time mankind is making enormous progress in its endeavour to transform nature and society.”
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Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwene
The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of The Interview magazine based in Abuja, Nigeria.
ABUJA (IDN) — Something Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said reminded me of British political journalist, Andrew Marr.
Journalism, Marr wrote in his book, My Trade, is a chaotic form of earning, ragged at the edges and full of snakes and con artists.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — A number of African activists were listening in at President Joe Biden’s major climate summit on April 22 at which 40 world leaders were invited. Among the listeners was Kumi Naidoo, special adviser for the Green Economy Coalition’s Social Contract Initiative and Dipti Bhatnagar of Friends of the Earth International.
Naidoo, former head of Amnesty International and Greenpeace, claimed that foot dragging, particularly on the part of the United States, not only with Trump but with previous administrations, has left the world basically at one minute to midnight in terms of the climate crisis.
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By Somar Wijayadasa*
NEW YORK (IDN) — President Joe Biden of the United States announced that its war in Afghanistan, the US’s longest war ever, will end on September 11, 2021.
A glimpse of Afghanistan’s history—dubbed as “the country where Empires go to die” will help us understand why many empires failed in that country.
Afghanistan, rightfully called a “graveyard of empires”, is a mountainous landlocked country located along the ancient Silk Road between Asia and Europe, and surrounded by powerful nations such as India, Pakistan, and Russia.
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By Razeena Raheem
NEW YORK (IDN) — The United Nations, which has remained locked down since March last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, is planning to make a “phased return to the premises in New York.”
Until now, nearly 3,000 UN staffers have been forced to work from home while virtually all meetings, including Security Council sessions, have been on video teleconferencing (VTC), turning the Secretariat building into a ghost town.
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By Kelsey Davenport, Julia Masterson and Sang-Min Kim
While Kelsey Davenport is Director for Nonproliferation Policy and Julia Masterson, Research Associate at the Arms Control Association, Sang-Min Kim is Scoville Fellow.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) — The United States, Iran, and the other parties to the 2015 nuclear deal expressed varying degrees of optimism over the progress made during recent talks in Vienna on the necessary steps to restore full implementation of the accord.
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By Leonardo Flores
This article was produced by Globetrotter. Leonardo Flores is a Venezuelan political analyst and peace activist with CODEPINK. He is a Globetrotter/Peoples Dispatch fellow.
VENICE, CA (IDN) — “We don’t just repair machines; we repair consciences,” says Sergio Requena of the Productive Workers Army (EPO by its Spanish-language initials) in Venezuela. The EPO is a group of 2,270 volunteers with a broad range of technical expertise. They go from factory to factory repairing broken machinery. Their mission is to recover Venezuela’s industrial production by empowering workers to take matters into their own hands.
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