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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 19 | 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 Daryl G. Kimball
The writer is the executive director of Arms Control Association and publisher of Arms Control Today since 2001. The following is the text of Mr Kimball's Foreword to 2021 Joint Media Project Report of the Non-Profit International Press Syndicate Group with IDN as flagship agency in partnership with Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.
WASHINGTON, DC (IDN) — An informed and mobilized public is essential to human survival in the nuclear age—and effective and independent journalism is essential to revealing the hard truths, the consequences, and the choices that nuclear weapons pose for all of us.
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Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — It was the Americans who helped the long-ago-deposed Shah of Iran start Iran’s nuclear power research. He wanted a bomb. The Americans seemed insouciant about where this might lead.
After the revolution, the research was bequeathed from the wrong pair of hands to another wrong pair of hands—the revolutionaries who overthrew the Shah in 1979.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Early Pentagon plans for a US military command based in Africa were once firmly rejected by almost every country on the continent. African governments were reluctant to associate themselves with America’s "war on terror" and fearful of US intervention.
Libya and Algeria both refused to host the combatant command. Even Morocco considered Washington’s closest North African ally, rejected the idea, saying it would not welcome a permanent military presence on its soil.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Popular exhibits at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg and other legacy museums are barely surviving and may close over funding shortfalls due to COVID-19.
A pair of boxing gloves worn by Nelson Mandela at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, one of the most popular exhibits, is now covered with dust in a darkened room, according to Mfuneko Toyana, writing for Reuters.
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Viewpoint by Franz Baumann*, Former UN Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations.
This article was first published in Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, Volume 63 Issue 3, May/June 2021 and is being republished with the author's permission.
NEW YORK (IDN) — One must thank UNDP for putting together the 2020 UNDP Human Development Report (HDR). It is a magisterial work and could well be an excellent textbook, if a slightly nerdy one, useful more for dedicated teachers than for students new to the subject, not to mention the general public.
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By Ramu Damodaran
The writer is Chief, United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) hosted in the Department of Global Communications. Following are excerpts of the OpEd, first published in #WhyWeCare on May 7.
NEW YORK (IDN | UNAI) — Last weekend was bookended by two celebratory observances, the International Day of Jazz on April 30, and World Press Freedom Day on May 3.
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By Robert Johnson
PARIS (IDN | UNESCO) — As the great Nina Simone said, "Jazz is not just music, it is a way of life, it is a way of being, a way of thinking", says UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It adds: "The story of Jazz is written into the quest for human dignity, democracy and civil rights. It has given strength to the struggle against discrimination and racism."
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By Tarique Anwar
This report was first published in News Click on May 8, 2021.
NEW DELHI (IDN) — The healthcare staff at Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital in Delhi frantically clear the facility of bodies. One of the biggest government-run COVID-19 hospitals in the national capital, it is swamped by patients, triggering chaotic situations for doctors and paramedics who are scrambling to cope with the virulent infection amid a shortage of beds, oxygen, ventilators, doctors and other medical professionals.
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Sri Lanka Embarks on Ambitious Project to Create Another Asian Financial Hub
By Sugeeswara Senadhira
COLOMBO (IDN) — The Sri Lankan Supreme Court’s determination on the proposed Colombo Port City Economic Commission Bill will be placed before the parliament on May 18, paving way for the legal act to establish the Commission, with an amendment in accordance with the judiciary's verdict. The Supreme Court conveyed its decision to Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, who will discuss with party leaders on May 18 on fixing a date to debate the Bill.
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By J W Jackie
RENO, Nevada, USA (IDN) — The latest International Renewable Energy Agency IRENA analysis reveals that by 2050, variable renewables like wind and solar PV will dominate the global total power supply. The insights from IRENA’s World Energy Transitions Outlook were released on March 16-17, 2021, at the Berlin Energy Transitions Dialogue.
With 163 Members, IRENA plays a leading role in the energy transformation as a centre of excellence for knowledge and innovation, a global voice for renewables, a network hub and a source of advice and support for countries.
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Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwene
The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria.
ABUJA (IDN) — Bill and Melinda Gates had barely finished saying the “D” word when all kinds of marriage counsellors and grief-mongers besieged social media with suggestions of why they think the couple is breaking up.
The sentiments, ranging from the probable to the bizarre, with a sprinkling of fictional tales in between, have defied the couple’s request for privacy. Misery loves company. Some accounts even make you wonder if the composers might have had a bedside view of the 27-year-old marriage.
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Viewpoint by Kaveh Zahedi *
A defining feature of the post-COVID world will be the digital transformation of the world, though it might also widen gaps in economic and social development within and between countries. The digital transformation has gone hand in hand with the rise of digital technologies, writes Kaveh Zahedi, the Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
BANGKOK (IDN) — We are living through a decisive moment. The COVID-19 pandemic’s devasting impact is reaching every corner of the world. As we look back at this period, we will see history divided into a pre-COVID and a post-COVID world.
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Viewpoint by António Guterres
Chancellor Angela Merkel and the German government convened this year’s Petersberg Climate Dialogue virtually on May 6 with Alok Sharma, the UK Chair-designate of 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), in Glasgow, from November 1 to November 12, 2021. UN Secretary-General António Guterres also spoke. Following are major excerpts from his remarks.
NEW YORK (IDN | UNDG*) — Six months ahead of COP26, and still deep in the COVID-19 crisis, I would like to share my assessment of where we stand.
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Viewpoint by Prabir Purkayastha*
NEW DELHI (IDN) — The COVID-19 pandemic continues its brutal march across India. Figures of new infections reached 355,828 on May 3—which accounted for more than 62 percent of the world’s new infections on that day. As hospitals run out of beds, ICU capacity, and even oxygen, these factors have been contributing to the already skyrocketing death toll in the country. Dead bodies in mortuaries, crematoria and burial grounds speak of the awful toll of the pandemic.
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