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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
Download Sustainable Development Observer
Dear Reader,
We are pleased to send you Edition 49 | 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 Norman Solomon*
SAN FRANCISCO, USA (IDN) — Nuclear weapons are at the pinnacle of what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism.” If you’d rather not think about them, that’s understandable. But such a coping strategy has limited value. And those who are making vast profits from preparations for global annihilation are further empowered by our avoidance.
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By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW (IDN) — With renewed and full-fledged interest to uproot French domination, Russia has ultimately begun making inroads into the Sahel region, an elongated landlocked territory located between North Africa (Maghreb) and West Africa, and also stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. While it remains largely underdeveloped and the greater part of the population impoverished, terrorist organizations including Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are operating and have contributed to the frequent violence, extremism and instability in this vast region.
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It Will Only Ratchet Up Tensions
Viewpoint by David Robie
The writer Dr David Robie is editor of Asia Pacific Report, founding editor of Pacific Journalism Review and former director of the Pacific Media Centre.
AUCKLAND (IDN) — “Loyalist” New Caledonians handed France the decisive victory in the third and final referendum on independence it wanted in Sunday’s vote.
But it was a hollow victory, with pro-independence Kanaks delivering Paris a massive rebuke for its three-decade decolonisation strategy.
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Viewpoint by Ian Fry
This article was issued by Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission.
CANBERRA, Australia (IDN) — For many, the Glasgow Climate Change Conference, known as COP26, was a significant disappointment. Much had been promised by the UK Government, but last-minute ructions over the reference to the phase-out of coal left many with a sour taste in their mouth. Glasgow was an opportunity to steer the global community towards the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperatures to 1.5⁰C above pre-industrial levels.
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By Sugeeswara Senadhira*
COLOMBO (IDN) — Following the recent visit to Delhi by Sri Lanka’s Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, a four-point package agreed to with India to help overcome the island nation’s current economic problems, has put the traditionally close relations between the two South Asian neighbours back on rails.
India acceded to Sri Lanka’s plea for a line of credit to cover the import of food and medicines and a currency swap arrangement, to deepen economic cooperation.
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Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Oh, to be a Cold War warrior again! I always felt a bit sorry for those politicians, academics, soldiers and journalists who had hitched their careers to the onward march of the Cold War. It was satisfying. There was a clear enemy. The complex arithmetic on which side had what and what nuclear weapons could do was as satisfying intellectually as it was complicated.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Reckya Madougou, one of the strongest challengers to Benin’s autocratic leader, Patrice Talon, will be observing the next election from her cell in jail. The 47-year-old activist was found guilty of conspiring to assassinate political figures and sentenced to 20 years behind bars.
Madougou was the head of the party Les Démocrates and had been the face of “Don’t touch my constitution!”—a civil society campaign that rallied against leaders seeking to extend their reign under the guise of constitutional reform.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — An investment of $1.15 billion in a gas project in northern Mozambique is being challenged by Friends of the Earth which foresees a major increase in greenhouse gas emissions by up to 10 per cent by 2022.
That’s the equivalent of the combined annual emissions of all 27 EU member countries, according to FoE.
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By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW l PRETORIA (IDN) — On December 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a telephone conversation with the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. According to the official Kremlin transcript, which hardly gives detailed information, “the presidents agreed to join efforts in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, in particular in view of the newly identified Omicron strain, and further discussed interaction within BRICS and trade and economic cooperation”.
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By Pralhad Gairapipli and Simone Galimberti
Pralhad Gairapipli works with Humanity & Inclusion as Regional Communications Officer, covering India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Simone Galimberti is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE, an NGO partnering with youths living with disabilities. Opinions expressed are personal.
KATHMANDU (IDN) — Can a mobile app become the transformative tool that will allow thousands of vulnerable children to enjoy their right to education?
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By Jaya Ramachandran
GENEVA (IDN) — Close to seven million deaths could be prevented by 2030, if low and lower-middle income countries were to make an additional investment of less than a dollar per person per year in the prevention and treatment of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), according to a new World Health Organization report. NCDs include heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and respiratory disease.
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By UNDP
SAL | Cabo Verde (IDN) — Cabo Verde President José Maria Neves on December 2 joined the development community in calling for urgent universal vaccine access as a way to mitigate the impact of Omicron and other variants of the Covid-19 virus.
The World Health Organization on December 3 categorized Omicron as a Covid-19 “variant of concern”, signifying that it could be more contagious than other known mutations.
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By Jutta Wolf
BERLIN | KATOWICE, Poland (IDN) — Ensuring the protection of human rights and social and economic inclusion in the digital age was front and centre at the five-day discussions. These concluded in Katowice, Poland, on December 10 with a call to urgently connect the 2.9 billion people who still cannot access the Internet and to make the global network an open, free and safe space where everyone’s human rights and basic freedoms are respected.
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By Jaya Ramachandran
GENEVA (IDN) — The global pandemic is likely to halt two decades of global progress towards Universal Health Coverage, according to two complementary reports compiled by the World Health Organization and the World Bank. The organizations also reveal in two reports launched on Universal Health Coverage Day that more than half a billion people are being pushed into extreme poverty because they have to pay for health services out of their own pockets.
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Viewpoint by Alicia Bárcena, Sergio Díaz-Granados, Mathias Cormann, Jutta Urpilainen*
The following is the text of the editorial in the 'Latin American Economic Outlook 2021: Working Together for a Better Recovery'.
PARIS (IDN) — Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has been the region worst affected by the pandemic and is only re-emerging from what is the deepest recession in the region’s history.
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By J Nastranis
NEW YORK (IDN) — People and countries most vulnerable to climate change also are most vulnerable to terrorist recruitment and violence, speakers in an open debate told the Security Council on December 9, as the 15-nation United Nations organ considered a draft resolution proposed by Niger and Ireland. The Council was considering a draft resolution, co-sponsored by Niger (Council President for December) and Ireland.
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By Ibrahim Mayaki and Wanjira Mathai
Dr Mayaki is the CEO of AUDA-NEPAD, while Ms Mathai is the Vice President and Regional Director for Africa at the World Resources Institute.
JOHANNESBURG; South Africa (IDN | Africa Renewal) — Six years ago, African leaders recognized that the degradation of 65 per cent of Africa’s agricultural land threatens economic and environmental ruin for millions of farmers.
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Viewpoint by M K Bhadrakumar*
NEW DELHI (IDN) — This must be a rare occasion when Russian President Vladimir Putin during his 18 years in the Kremlin came out second best in an encounter with an American president. And it had to be at the hands of President Joe Biden who has not yet completed one year in office. Yet, Putin has met with every sitting American president since Bill Clinton, in dire circumstances filled with awkward silences, icy stares and even professions of trust.
The Kremlin officials apparently misread the tea leaves and betted on a high probability that Putin and Biden would strike a deal at one-to-one level over Russia’s “red lines” in Ukraine—no NATO membership for Ukraine, no western deployments close to Russian borders.
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Viewpoint by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies*
NEW YORK (IDN) — The Biden presidency is still in its early days, but it’s not too early to point to areas in the foreign policy realm where we, as progressives, have been disappointed or even infuriated.
There are one or two positive developments, such as the renewal of Obama's New START Treaty with Russia and Secretary of State Blinken’s initiative for a UN-led peace process in Afghanistan, where the United States is finally turning to peace as a last resort, after 20 years lost in the graveyard of empires.
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Viewpoint by Fazlun Khalid
Fazlun Khalid is Founder of the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences and the author of “Signs on the Earth - Islam Modernity and the Climate Crisis” published in 2019.
BIRMINGHAM, UK (IDN) — As the post-colonial world emerged in the middle of the last century it left in its wake a host of dismembered traditional societies which for millennia had faith as their anchor and embraced the natural world as the source of life.
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