|
|
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 50 | 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 Louis Charbonneau
The writer is United Nations Director of Human Rights Watch.
UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — United Nations member countries currently haggling over the organization’s 2022 budget should stand firm against Russia and China-led efforts to slash funding for UN human rights work.
Every December, diplomats on the UN General Assembly’s fiscal body, the Fifth Committee, hold negotiations on the UN budget. As in past years, China and Russia have been pushing to cut funding for a number of budget items related to human rights, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
Read More
By Ray Acheson
The writer is Director of Reaching Critical Will and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
NEW YORK (IDN) — During the final day of the Sixth Review Conference of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in Geneva on December 13-17, the constant refrain from the Russian delegation, “our position has not changed”, led to the systematic removal from the document of progress across all remaining substantive issues.
Read More
Viewpoint by Herbert Wulf
This article was issued by Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission.
BONN (IDN) — The new German coalition government will not rock the foundations of German foreign and security policy. It wants to remain a reliable partner in the EU and NATO. But it sends an important signal for disarmament and arms control efforts. The 177-page coalition agreement contains the following passage on the TPNW: "In light of the results of the NPT Review Conference and in close consultation with our allies, we will constructively accompany the intention of the treaty as observers (not as members) at the Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons."
Read More
By Thalif Deen
NEW YORK (IDN) — As the US withdrew the last of its troops from Afghanistan on August 31 following a deadly 20-year-old war, one of the messages coming out of Washington was clear: the US will curtail “boots on the ground” in all future conflicts—even though there are still more than 40,000 American troops stationed around the Middle East.
But the wave of the future may be 'killer robots'—mostly the deployment of drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)—in “shadow wars,” particularly against terrorist groups worldwide.
Read More
Viewpoint by Norman Solomon
The writer is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.
Read More
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — George Orwell, the author of “Animal Farm”, the satire on how a dictatorship can slowly but steadily evolve in a democratic society, and “1984”, a novel about a future dystopian dictatorship, was the first person to use the phrase “Cold War” in a 1945 newspaper article, written just after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Read More
By Thalif Deen
NEW YORK (IDN) — The United Nations, which temporarily dropped its defences and partially lifted its 20-month-old lockdown last month, has reacted swiftly to the rise in COVID-19 infections in New York city by suspending its “flexible working arrangements” and advising staffers to work remotely—from their homes beginning December 20.
The new restrictions will continue through January 9, 2022.
Read More
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — A golden bowl, a ceremonial libations vessel, a marble statue and a small chest for human remains were among the 180 reputedly stolen antiquities that decorated the homes and offices of a Brooklyn billionaire whose collection of the ancient artefacts was valued at $80 million.
Under a deal struck by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a multi-year, multinational investigation of artefacts in the possession of hedge fund pioneer Michael Steinhardt will not be prosecuted.
Read More
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | MOGADISHU (IDN) — A Book Fair is flowering in Mogadishu, bringing the world of literature and other areas of learning to a region challenged by the coronavirus pandemic and political tension linked to disagreements over the ongoing parliamentary elections in the country.
The event had been suspended last year due to Corona-19.
This year’s event was limited in size but according to the founder of the fair, Mohamed Diini, organizers are already working to accommodate more people next year.
Read More
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | NAIROBI (IDN) — Kenya’s crucial rainy season came up short this year with only a few showers, wiping out livestock and putting millions of people at risk.
Photographs from Wajir County, near the border with Somalia, show dying and dead cows in a desert dotted with thorn trees. The longest dry spell in memory is pushing pastoralists nearer to starvation. “If they die,” said one herder referring to his camels, “we all die.”
Read More
By Radwan Jakeem
NEW YORK | ISLAMABAD (IDN) — A senior UN official has painted a grim picture of Afghanistan with 23 million people facing hunger; malnourished children overflowing in health facilities; 70 per cent of teachers working without salaries; and millions of students—who are the country's future—out of school.
The UN's Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator said, Afghanistan’s economy is in “free fall”, and warned that if decisive and compassionate action is not taken immediately, it may “pull the entire population with it”.
Read More
By UN News
NEW YORK (IDN) — Secretary-General António Guterres received the Lamp of Peace award on December 18, a major honour from the Catholic Church, which he said recognizes the work of UN personnel “striving for peace around the world”.
Reminding that after the horrors of World War in the 20th Century, “the UN was created in the name of peace”, he affirmed that “we are united here today in our pursuit of peace”.
Read More
By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW (IDN) — Russian policy experts and academic researchers have been upbeat with heated reactions, especially in the local media on the current state of affairs between the United States, Europe and Russia, and the prospects of moving forward. The focus has been on the key questions dealing with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its eastward expansion, security in the former Soviet republics and the much-speculated Russia's war on Ukraine.
Read More
By Marie Terracol and Ida Nowers
BERLIN (IDN | Transparency International) — Whistleblowing is one of the most effective ways to detect and prevent harm. Still, only 47 per cent of European citizens feel they can safely report corruption, with 45 per cent fearing reprisals for speaking up. Far too often, those who witness malpractice are not empowered to say something, and when they do, face personal, professional or legal attacks, harming their mental and even physical well-being. Robust legislation is key to protect individuals who blow the whistle and ensure that the wrongdoing they report is addressed.
Read More
By Mayors for Peace
The following is the text of an Open Letter Issued by Mayors for Peace to NPT States Parties.
HIROSHIMA (IDN) — On behalf of Mayors for Peace, a global non-governmental organization with 8,059 member cities, we are writing to express our views prior to the NPT Review Conference that will open next January in New York.
We urge all participants to recall the solemn historical circumstances facing this conference. The use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had catastrophic humanitarian consequences.
Read More
By Sri Krishnamurthi for Asia-Pacific Report
WELLINGTON (IDN) — The world’s highest paid rugby player, Charles Piutau, is delighted he will be eligible to play for Tonga now that World Rugby has changed its eligibility rules.
In one of his rare New Zealand interviews, he told Pacific Media Network’s Tongan programme with Tangata Pasifika’s John Pulu he was surprised and relieved that world rugby had changed its eligibility rules.
Read More
By Kalinga Seneviratne
SINGAPORE (IDN) — A new 414 kilometers high-speed rail link between China and Laos has finally opened landlocked mountainous Laos to the region and made it possible for trade and tourism to expand across Southeast Asia. This link has technically facilitated rail travel from China to Singapore, and land-based trade that could make South China Sea less important for regional trade.
Read More
Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwene
The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria.
ABUJA (IDN) — It’s not been a merry run-up to Christmas for many Nigerian travellers. It all started with Canada, Saudi Arabia, and then the UK, red-listing Nigeria (and 10 other African countries) for the Omicron variant of COVID-19 in spite of relatively low reported cases.
Read More
By Emi Hayakawa
This article is the 48th in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship agency of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate. Click here for previous reports. Emi Hayakawa is Head of Global Operations, BTN (Buddhist Television Network) World, South Korea.
SEOUL (IDN) — The celebrated “birthplace” of contemporary Korean Catholicism was originally a Buddhist hermitage and temple, the history of which is being ruthlessly erased from modern Korean narrative, with an information plate on the site today misrepresenting an important part of the country’s religious history.
Read More
|
|
|