|
|
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 05 | 2022. 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 Allison Lau and Lauren Gonitzke *
This article was produced by Local Peace Economy, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
NEW YORK (IDN) — In mid-December 2021, South African comedian Trevor Noah used “The Daily Show” to target China when he aired a segment titled “Why China Is in Africa”. While this segment was advertised as an informed, nuanced overview of the complex international relationship between China and many African states, it mainly reinforced the debunked myth of “debt-trap diplomacy” to its American audiences, ending with a throwaway line about #StopAsianHate.
Read More
Viewpoint by Inge Kaul *
This blog is part of a series by Center for Global Development (CGD) ahead of the EU-Africa Summit on February 17-18, 2022. This series presents proposals for priorities, and commentary on whether a meaningful reconstruction of the relationship between the two continents is likely.
BERLIN (IDN) — When the European Union (EU)-African Union (AU) summit which will take place in February was cancelled in 2020, background documents had already been prepared, and some are still on the table.
Read More
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — The term “apartheid”, describing institutionalized racial discrimination, was widely prevalent both in white-ruled South Africa and in Southwest Africa (now Namibia), beginning in 1948 until it ended with the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994 in Pretoria.
But elsewhere it was treated as a four-letter word—and largely shunned both by the United States and the United Nations—particularly when it was tagged onto Israel to describe its treatment of Palestinians.
Read More
Viewpoint by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies *
NEW YORK (IDN) — So what are Americans to believe about the rising tensions over Ukraine? The United States and Russia both claim their escalations are defensive, responding to threats and escalations by the other side, but the resulting spiral of escalation can only make war more likely. Ukrainian President Zelensky is warning that “panic” by U.S. and Western leaders is already causing economic destabilization in Ukraine.
Read More
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — The divisions and tensions in some parts of ex-Yugoslavia appear to be boiling up again. The leadership of the Serbian ministate, Srpska, which comprises 49% of Bosnia’s territory, appears to be challenging the governing entity of Bosnia, founded at the end of the civil wars that raged in ex-Yugoslavia, 1991-2001. In a peculiar compromise, this sliver of Serbian territory was confirmed as part of Bosnia, but with its own self-government at the local level. Twenty-seven years later its hard-line leaders are set on joining up with Serbia proper.
Read More
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — After years of seeing their complaints stalled, postponed, and thrown out of court, some 700 Kenyan plantation workers have finally won their bid to sue a British-based tea company for imposing work conditions that they say caused crippling physical harm while getting paid poverty wages at a Kenyan tea plantation.
Read More
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — An ambitious road construction project in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, has demolished some 13,000 homes in the informal housing of Mukuru Kwa Njenga, technically a slum, ignoring human rights and leaving some 40,000 people homeless, says Diana Gichengo of Amnesty International Kenya.
Schools, businesses and homes across nearly 100 acres have been demolished since October as the government constructs the so-called “road for the rich” while others, forced by poverty, will be left to walk.
Read More
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — In his first speech to the nation since the overthrow of President Roch Kabore, the new military leader of Burkina Faso promised a return to the normal constitutional order "when the conditions are right".
Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba, who led the ouster of President Kaboré, blamed the president for failing to contain violent extremists. An attack last November that left almost 50 military police officers dead is considered a key event that led to the coup.
Read More
Viewpoint by Alice Slater
The writer is a Member of the Board of Directors of World BEYOND War. She is also the UN NGO Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. www.warbeyondwar.org
NEW YORK (IDN) — It seems hard to believe that in these possible end times in the midst of a global pandemic with an endless succession of catastrophic climate disasters and thousands of nuclear weapons poised and pointed in the US and Russia, ready to destroy life on earth, we are beset by a bought, corrupted mainstream media that assaults us with the “wrongdoings” of Russia and China, and most recently North Korea, with barely a mention in their assaultive reporting of how the US might be a cause.
Read More
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — North Korea, long described as a “hermit kingdom”, apparently isn’t living in total political isolation or is cut off from the rest of the world.
Or so it seems, judging by the failure of the US and some of its UN allies to impose sanctions on five North Korean officials—sanctions really aimed at a country that continues to defy the West with its multiple ballistic nuclear tests.
Read More
By Jaya Ramachandran
ROME (IDN) — A new report by two UN agencies has identified "hunger hotspots" across 20 countries and regions where parts of the population are expected to face a significant deterioration of acute food insecurity in the coming months that will put their lives and livelihoods at risk. This warning of spiralling uncertainty relates to areas where conflict, economic shocks, natural hazards, political instability, and limited humanitarian access, are hard-hitting.
Read More
Dr. Diya Abdo, Founder of Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR)
The writer discusses in this article how institutions of higher education can support the successful integration of refugees. It was issued by the United Nations Academic Impact.
GREENSBORO, North Carolina, US (IDN) — Universities have the necessary physical facilities and human resources to provide much needed temporary housing and community support for refugees.
Read More
Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte
The writer is President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.
NEW YORK (IDN) — On the eve of the opening of the Tenth Review Conference* of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the five states recognized as possessors of such armament—China, United States, France, United Kingdom and Russia—issued a Joint Declaration recalling the affirmation by presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that “a nuclear war cannot be won a should never be fought”, adding that those weapons should serve defensive objectives, prevent aggression and avoid war.
Read More
Viewpoint by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake
The writer, Dr Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake, is a Sociocultural and Medical Anthropologist based in Colombo. Her latest publication is 'Multi-religiosity on Contemporary Sri Lanka: Innovation, Shared Spaces, Contestation".(Routledge 2022.
COLOMBO (IDN) — The greatest transfer of wealth in human history took place during Covid-19 lockdowns with Covid masks and Personal Protection Equipment. The rest of the world was impoverished.[i] But the tipping point is here now: Two years of Covid 'panicdemic' and WHO staged ‘Permanent Emergency’ has shown us that 'the Emperor has no clothes', comprehensively.
Read More
By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE (INPS) — There are over 228 000 coronavirus cases in Zimbabwe, with more than 5000 deaths while north of this country stands Zambia laden with over 300 000 coronavirus cases and more than 3000 COVID-related deaths and not to be left out, is Mozambique east of Zimbabwe, contending with more than 200 000 coronavirus cases, this with over 2000 deaths related to the feared pandemic.
As this happens, health experts like Malawi’s Joseph Banda have said for Africa as a whole, there is no respite as coronavirus cases continue to rise, getting out of hand in the process.
Read More
Viewpoint by Elizabeth Morgan
This article was issued by the CARICOM TODAY on January 26. The writer is specialist in International Trade Policy and International Politics.
KINGSTON (IDN) — On January 11, I wrote about the USA hosting the 9th Summit of the Americas and mentioned the weakened state of democracy in that country. The Economists Intelligence Unit, in its Democracy Index, ranked the USA as a flawed democracy. In fact, as I wrote that article, I wondered whether the USA could be invited to the Summit it is hosting, given that a criterion for attendance is adhering strictly to democratic principles.
Read More
|
|
|