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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 13 | 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 John Scales Avery*
COPENHAGEN (IDN) — One reason why the Glasgow Climate Conference (October-November 2021) failed so miserably to produce urgently needed climate action was that humans tend to react to what is close to them. Money to pay the rent is urgent, while a climate catastrophe seems to be a distant threat.
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By Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
GENEVA (IDN) — World governments have produced a strong basis for a post 2020 global biodiversity framework to safeguard the health of the planet, scheduled for final agreement at UN Biodiversity Conference in Kunming, China later this year.
"Governments came to Geneva eager to meet in person and make progress on urgent action on the goals, targets and institutions needed to protect nature,” said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
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By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW | DAR ES SALAAM (IDN) — European Union members have been soliciting support from the African Union (AU), Regional Economic organizations and African countries for the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, now experiencing tremendous atrocities and worsening humanitarian conditions as a direct result of Russia's “special military operation” since late February.
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By Busani Bafana
KIGALI, Rwanda (IDN) — Less than ten years to the deadline to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Africa is at development cross roads. The big question is how can Africa achieve inclusive and sustainable development to meet the twin agendas; 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063?
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By Sugeeswara Senadhira
COLOMBO (IDN) — This week, Sri Lanka is hosting the fifth Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) summit in the backdrop of member nations struggling to shake-off the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The summit would provide the leaders of the seven members—India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, and Sri Lanka—to finalise the much delayed BIMSTEC Charter and initiate tangible measures for economic cooperation.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, the head of the World Trade Organization (WTO), is warning that skyrocketing global food prices as a result of the war in Ukraine could trigger food riots from people going hungry in poor countries.
WTO Director General Okonjo-Iweala urged food-producing countries against hoarding supplies and said it was vital to avoid a repeat of the Covid pandemic, when rich countries were able to secure for themselves the bulk of vaccines.
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Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — In the Cold War days, some of us used to say, “Better red than dead”—to rebuff those who believed in “role-the-dice” nuclear deterrence as a way of political life that gave them security. Now those of us who are frightened that Vladimir Putin could start a nuclear war over Ukraine should coin a new phrase. How about: “Better alive than going to the grave with Vladimir Putin”?
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Viewpoint by Nicolas J.S. Davies*
NEW YORK (IDN) — The war in Ukraine has placed U.S. and NATO policy toward Russia under a spotlight, highlighting how the United States and its allies have expanded NATO right up to Russia’s borders, backed a coup and now a proxy war in Ukraine, imposed waves of economic sanctions, and launched a debilitating trillion-dollar arms race. The explicit goal is to pressure, weaken and ultimately eliminate Russia, or a Russia-China partnership, as a strategic competitor to U.S. imperial power.
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By Bernhard Schell
DUBAI (IDN) — Entrepreneurship, innovation, and investment in a post-pandemic recovery as vehicles to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the focus of a United Nations forum that opened in Dubai on March 28 under the aegis of Dubai Exhibition Centre at Dubai Expo 2020.
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Viewpoint by Tobias Ide
This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission.
PERTH, Australia (IDN) — The impacts of climate change on peace and conflict are high on the agenda of policy makers and the general public. From UN Security Council debates about climate change and security to comics about the impact of drought on the Syrian civil war, interest in the topic has grown immensely in recent years. If challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic have taught us anything, it is the importance of science in addressing global problems. So, what is the scientific evidence on climate change, peace and conflict?
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Viewpoint by Norman Solomon
SAN FRANCISCO, USA (IDN) — Ever since Joe Biden ended his speech in Poland on Saturday (March 26) night by making one of the most dangerous statements ever uttered by a U.S. president in the nuclear age, efforts to clean up after him have been profuse.
Administration officials scurried to assert that Biden didn’t mean what he said. Yet no amount of trying to “walk back” his unhinged comment at the end of his speech in front of Warsaw’s Royal Castle can change the fact that Biden had called for regime change in Russia.
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By Caroline Mwanga
NEW YORK (IDN) — At a side event of the 66th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66) that concluded on March 25, UN leaders, policy makers, and civil society activists highlighted the impacts of climate shocks and environmental hazards on women and girls in humanitarian settings.
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By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW | PARIS (IDN) — Russia joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in April 2011 after almost 18 years of persistent efforts and multiple negotiations, to fulfil stringent membership requirements, apparently because the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and replaced by the Russian Federation. Average accession period is five to seven years.
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By Maria Bystedt
Maria Bystedt is Strategy Lead at H&M Foundation, a non-profit foundation, privately funded by the Stefan Persson family, founders and main owners of the H&M Group, working to fast-track the achievements of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, to safeguard humanity and the planet.
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Viewpoint by Ramesh Jaura
BERLIN (IDN) — "We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought," pledged the leaders of the five nuclear-weapon states—China, France, Russia, UK, and the United States—in a joint statement on January 3, adding that they "consider the avoidance of war" between them and "the reduction of strategic risks" as their "foremost responsibilities". The five nuclear-weapon states are also the five permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council, which has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.
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Viewpoint by Claudia Ituarte-Lima
Dr. Claudia Ituarte-Lima is a Professor at the Stockholm University & Raoul Wallenberg Institute on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law & School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia.
The Convention on Biological Diversity’s resumed sessions of the twenty-fourth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA 24) is taking place in Geneva March 14-29.
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Viewpoint by John P. Ruehl
This article was produced by Globetrotter. John P. Ruehl is an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, D.C. He is a contributing editor to Strategic Policy and a contributor to several other foreign affairs publications. He is currently finishing a book on Russia to be published in 2022. Source: Globetrotter.
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Viewpoint by Purnaka L. de Silva*
“Anyone who falls into the habit of thinking and expecting the best of his subordinates at all times is, for that reason alone, unsuited to command an army”—Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) in Vom Kriege (1832)
NEW YORK (IDN) — The Kremlin confirmed in September 2014 that Russia’s current President Vladimir Putin, told José Manuel Barroso the outgoing president of the European Commission that “Russian forces could conquer the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, in two weeks if he so ordered”. For more details see the September 2, 2014 Guardian article by Ian Traynor: “Putin claims Russian forces ‘could conquer Ukraine capital in two weeks’”.
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