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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 18 | 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 Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Adam Smith who in 1776 wrote “The Wealth of Nations”, the Bible of capitalism, which has become the standard economics text for over two centuries, was quick to single out monopolistic tendencies as the most important tool in undermining the virtues of capitalism. It kept the poor poor. The laws that give these capitalists their freedom to exploit the marketplace, so-called rent-seeking, “may be said to be all written in blood”. At the moment, Amazon is in the firing line for practicing such practices. Indeed, a majority of Silicon Valley companies rent-seek. Big pharma companies, like Pfizer, which is expecting this year 25% profits on its corona virus vaccine are another.
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By Kalinga Seneviratne
SYDNEY (IDN) — A controversial ban on flights from Covid-hit India landing in Australia, has blocked around 9,000 Australians from returning home. Most of them are Australians of Indian origin, while there are also a handful of Australian elite cricketers, coaches, and other officials currently taking part in the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket extravaganza.
This unprecedented move of banning its own citizens from returning home has angered many Australians, who have also branded this move by Prime Minister Scott Morrison government as "racist" because no such bans were imposed on flights from the UK and US during the peak of the pandemic there.
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Viewpoint by Lori Wallach
Lori Wallach is the director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. This is a slightly abridged version of a blog post by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) New York.
WASHINGTON DC (IDN | IPS-Journal.EU) — As we see infection rates in India and other parts of the world skyrocketing, European Union (EU) and US government officials regularly declare that the Covid-19 public health disaster and resulting economic crises will not end anywhere unless people everywhere are vaccinated. Yet the two World Trade Organization (WTO) heavyweights are blocking an initiative now supported by 100 nations that could boost access to Covid-19 vaccines, treatments and diagnostic tests worldwide. On 5 May the issue will again come to a head at the WTO. The US and EU must join the rest of the world.
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Viewpoint by Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens
GENEVA (IDN) — Three days (April 27-29, 2021) of "informal" talks on the future of Cyprus were held in Geneva under the leadership of UN Secretary-General António Guterres. There have been no formal negotiations on the issue since 2017.
The UN-sponsored meeting with representatives of Greek and Turkish Cypriots as well as representatives of Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom—the former colonial power—was to ascertain if there is enough common ground to start negotiations later this year.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — News of working journalists in Africa is often a tale of threats, abduction, forced disappearance and arrest.
Most recently, two Spanish journalists and an Irish national were abducted near a nature reserve in Burkina Faso. Government officials confirmed their deaths on April 2. It remains unclear who carried out the attack.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — In riveting testimony before a South African commission investigating corruption and graft, President Cyril Ramaphosa acknowledged that the ruling ANC party did little to prevent corruption, including by his predecessor Jacob Zuma.
“State capture and corruption have taken a great toll on our society and indeed on our economy as well,” Ramaphosa said. “They have eroded the values of our constitution and undermined the rule of law. If allowed to continue they would threaten the achievement of growth, development and transformation of our country.”
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Senior military commanders, including the son of President Yoweri Museveni, have been named in a case before the International Criminal Court for a wave of abductions and torture—adding new charges to claims levelled by opposition politician Robert Kyagulanyi, the former reggae singer known as Bobi Wine.
Prosecutors at the ICC are already reviewing an early submission from Wine that described widespread human rights abuses before presidential polls held in January.
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“The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over, and then expecting different results”……attributed to Albert Einstein, but first said by Rita Mae Brown (Sudden Death)
Viewpoint by Tariq Rauf *
VIENNA (IDN) — For more than a year, a vain search has been continuing to find an appropriate date to convene the Tenth Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), as the deadly COVID-19 pandemic rages taking millions of lives with it.
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A special feature by Kalinga Seneviratne* to mark UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day.
SYDNEY (IDN) — In recent months, there has been alarming one-sided reporting in the so-called mainstream media—both internationally and nationally—that sounds more like public relations handouts from the big pharmaceutical companies from the West. This 'vaccine consent' journalism and the labelling of anyone questioning the safety or ethics of the vaccine roll out as "conspiracy theorists" is slowly but surely killing the "watchdog" role of journalism.
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By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW (IDN) — While speaking during a signing ceremony of an agreement formalising World Bank support of US$100 million assistance to the affected districts, Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi unreservedly reiterated his detailed plan to enforce nation-wide security by cracking down on the militant groups who have been staging attacks in parts of the northern province of Cabo Delgado since October 2017.
He also informed that courage, persistence and determination are necessary for the full-fledged fulfilment of the plan, as well as time for modernising and building the capacity of the Mozambican forces, adding that his government has to tread cautiously in choosing what type of aid to accept from other countries.
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Viewpoint by John Scales Avery*
COPENHAGEN (IDN) — I have attempted to explain the vital relationship between water and life in my new freely downloadable book, which can be circulated, from the link: http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Water-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf
Also, on its home page for World Water Day, commemorated on March 22 this year, the United Nations explains what water means to people, its true value and how we can better protect this vital resource.
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By Radwan Jakeem
NEW YORK (IDN) — A senior UN official in charge of the region has urged the Palestinian authorities to set a new date for heading to the polls, originally scheduled for May 22.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had announced the postponement of the planned parliamentary elections, amidst a dispute over voting rights in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, according to news reports.
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Viewpoint by Shastri Ramachandaran
NEW DELHI (IDN) — On April 9, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg was fined 20,000 kroner ($2,352) for breach of COVID rules during her 60th birthday celebration on February 26.
It was nothing remotely like the Shashti Abda Poorti (celebrating completion of 60 years of age) seen in India.
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Viewpoint by Dr Jargalsaikhan Enkhsaikhan
The writer is Chairman of Blue Banner NGO, Former Mongolian Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
ULAANBAATAR (IDN) — Post-cold war peace dividend has not realized. Though the number of nuclear weapons of the two largest nuclear weapon holders—Russia and the United States—was reduced but then the reduction process came to a complete halt. The number of states possessing nuclear weapons has almost doubled against the background of further modernization of such weapons, lowering the threshold of their possible use and the increase in nuclear weapon spending. The non-proliferation regime is gradually weakening.
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By Shastri Ramachandaran*
NEW DELHI (IDN) — Amidst the raging epidemic and desperate clamour for vaccines, along with oxygen and hospital beds, comes news that Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, is expected in India by May end. Russia has also been forthcoming with a lot of other support and assistance as India finds itself desperately short of medicines, oxygen and hospital beds for battling a huge second surge of the coronavirus where the daily infections exceed 300,000 and deaths are at an all-time high.
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Kester Kenn Klomegah* Interviews Roscongress' CEO
MOSCOW (IDN) — As the epidemiological situation begins to stabilize through mass vaccination and building herd immunity, the 24th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is finally set to take place on June 2-5, 2021. This unique Russian forum is expected to bring together politicians, corporate business directors and investors from different parts of the world. The organizing committee will do everything in its power to ensure that the event is held with all the necessary measures in place to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
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Viewpoint by M.K. Bhadrakumar
The writer is a former Indian diplomat. This article was first published in the Indian Punchline.
NEW DELHI (IDN) — Ex-CIA officer Bruce Riedel at Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, whose familiarity with Afghanistan is never in doubt, has held a looking glass to figure out the future course of events even as the US troop withdrawal commences.
History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. Riedel sees in the haziness old familiar shapes appearing—the erstwhile Northern Alliance warlords. And he invokes the fate of the communist regime led by Dr Najibullah after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.
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By Matthew Scott*
A special feature moved in association with the Asia Pacific Report.
AUCKLAND, New Zealand (IDN) — The beach is vanishing, one day at a time. The sea approaches the coastal village. It will not be negotiated with. With seawater flooding the water table, crops that have fed the islanders for centuries are losing viability. The problem is invisible, under the people’s feet. But it demands change.
Each year, the cyclones have seemed to get more volatile and less predictable. What used to be a cycle of weathering the storm and rebuilding has become a frenetic game of wits with the elements.
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Viewpoint by Sunil J. Wimalawansa
The writer is Professor of Medicine: Director, Cardio-Metabolic Institute, New Jersey, U.S.A.
NEW JERSEY, USA (IDN) — The SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) affected the entire world; many died, millions got sick, and the misery continues. Second and third waves of SARS.Cov-2 infection are devastating most countries.
Non-strategic lockdowns and curfews (as in Sri Lanka) further aggravated the peoples’ misery, sufferings, daily lives, and economies, more than that from the virus. The toxic combination of COVID-19 and curfews devastated local productions and supply chains, livelihoods, people welfare, food security, and the county’s economy.
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