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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 31 | 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
By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW (IDN) — Russia has a long time-tested relationship with Africa. After the first symbolic Russia-Africa summit in the Black Sea city of Sochi on October 23-24, 2019 both Russia and Africa adopted a joint declaration, a comprehensive document that outlines the key objectives and necessary tasks that seek to raise assertively the entire relations to a new qualitative level.
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By Niba Mirza*
HYDERABAD (IDN) — In the times of COVID-19, the Audiovisual Regional Hub of the Asociación Latinoamericana de Comunicación Audiovisual Parlamentaria, ALCAP, or the Latin American Parliamentary Association of Audio-Visual Communication, signed a MOU with the ESIC Medical College, Hyderabad for joint-movie/documentary productions concerned with the pandemic and other global public health issues on August 4, 2021.
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Africa Renewal's Managing Editor Kingsley Ighobor talks to Damilola Ogunbiyi
NEW YORK (IDN | Africa Renewal) — Damilola Ogunbiyi is the CEO of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All. On the sidelines of the UN High-Level Political Forum from July 6 to 15 in New York, Ms. Ogunbiyi spoke to Africa Renewal’s Kingsley Ighobor on a range of issues, including how to tackle energy poverty in Africa. Here are the excerpts:
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Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Let me appear to be cynical for once. I’m constantly arguing that war can be avoided and even pre-empted if would-be war criminals are arrested and stopped in their tracks. But what if the way to end a war is not to intervene, not to help, but to encourage the likely winner to get on with it and get the job done?
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By Thalif Deen*
NEW YORK (IDN) — A recent joint press release by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) had an arresting headline: Famine Relief Blocked by Bullets, Red Tape and Lack of Funding.
But not necessarily in that order.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — With those warm words of welcome, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara hugged his former arch enemy and rival Laurent Gbagbo, 10 years after the two were locked in ethnically-fuelled combat over a disputed election.
Former president Gbagbo has now returned to the land of his birth one year after his acquittal by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — The Netherlands-based International Court of Arbitration has affirmed that money transfers to a company controlled by the first daughter of Angola’s ex-president Jose Eduardo dos Santos were “contaminated by illegality” and should be considered “null and void.”
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Edible, circular gardens are part of a bigger project to bring a belt of green across the continent of Africa.
“Tolou Keur”—circular gardens resistant to drought—are part of Africa’s Great Green Wall project. The project calls for planting papaya and mango trees and a variety of plants across 5,000 miles, from Senegal to Djibouti.
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By J C Suresh
TORONTO | MONTREAL (IDN) — Colombia's Mr. Juan Carlos Salazar officially assumed the office of Secretary General of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on August 1, succeeding Dr. Fang Liu of China. Mr Salazar is the second to replace a Chinese as head of a UN specialized agency.
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Viewpoint by K.M. Seethi*
KOTTAYAM | India (IDN) — The Arctic geopolitics has become one of the strategic policy planks of big powers. This has been reflected in the separate statements issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden after the US-Russia summit in Geneva on June 16.
Putin told reporters that Moscow and Washington “should interact on issues related to the Arctic region.” He said: “Russia and the United States are among the eight members of the Arctic Council; Russia chairs the Arctic Council this year. Moreover…there is a strait between Alaska and Chukotka, the United States is on one side and Russia is on the other. All this together should push us to join efforts” (The TASS News 16 June 2021).
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By Radwan Jakeem
NEW YORK (IDN) — The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has brought to light not only the systemic interdependence of countries, but also the socioeconomic fragility of the global economy. From a trade and development perspective, this has been felt most acutely in the most vulnerable developing countries—the least developed countries (LDCs), says the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
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But would the West Respect the Majority Will?
Viewpoint by Sugeeswara Senadhira
COLOMBO (IDN) — Majority of members of the UN, especially from the Global South, have refused to donate funds to the United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC’s) move to set up a separate secretariat to enforce matters relating to the Resolution it passed on Sri Lanka in March this year. The inability to raise sufficient funds is a major setback to UNHRC plans to implement the Resolution, but there are fears here that the West will not respect the will of the majority in the international community, and may chip in with funds to implement their project.
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Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — The biggest war at the moment is the civil war in Somalia, started in 1991. It has claimed over half a million lives. Second, is the civil war in Syria which has led to about 400,000 deaths. Third, is South Sudan where approximately 400,000 have been killed. Yemen is a younger conflict, with over 230,000 deaths. Human suffering is at its worse in Yemen—it is held in the pincers of Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates. Food and medical supplies have often been squeezed to a dribble. The US and the UK contribute to relief in the Yemen via the UN’s World Food Program and UNICEF, while supplying arms to the side of Saudi Arabia.
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By Jamshed Baruah
GENEVA (IDN) — Independent UN rights experts are concerned that Venezuelan cancer patients could die because they have been caught up in excessively strict application of U.S. sanctions aimed at Venezuela and the state-owned oil company Petroleum of Venezuela (PDVSA).
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Viewpoint by Matthew L. Myers, President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) — In 2020, 3.6 million kids in the United States used electronic cigarettes, including 1 in 5 high school students. A growing percentage of them did so frequently or daily, a sure sign of addiction.
With 83% of youth e-cigarette users using flavored products, the evidence is clear that flavored e-cigarettes have driven this epidemic.
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Newsbrief by Reinhard Jacobsen
VIENNA (IDN) — More than 120,000 smallholder households in Uganda's northern and north-eastern regions engaged in the production and marketing of oil seeds (groundnuts, sunflower, sesame and soy) are expected to benefit from US$30 million loan agreement the OPEC Fund for International Development has signed with Uganda.
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By Caroline Mwanga
NEW YORK (IDN) — The COVID pandemic has pushed no less than 124 million more people into extreme poverty. "Many millions" have been left vulnerable to the scourge. Half of victims in low-income countries are children, noted UN Secretary General António Guterres noted just ahead of the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. adding that Most are trafficked for forced labour, added the UN Chief.
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Viewpoint by Shastri Ramachandaran *
NEW DELHI (IDN) — The significance and strategic implications of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Tibet from July 21-23 is unlikely to be lost on those entrusted with India’s external affairs, national security and defence.
How New Delhi views this landmark visit to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) by a Chinese president—the first since President Jiang Zemin’s visit in 1990—needs to be adequately articulated to enable an informed understanding of what it means in the context of the current impasse in eastern Ladakh between the armed forces of the two Asian giants.
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Torture in Syrian military hospital
By Rita Joshi
BERLIN/KARLSRUHE (IDN) — The German Federal Prosecutor's Office announced on July 28 that it has filed charges under the principle of universal jurisdiction against Alaa M, a Syrian doctor who fled to Germany. M is accused in 18 cases of torturing people and subsequently killing one of them, according to ECCHR – European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.
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