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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
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Dear Reader,
We are pleased to send you Edition 15 | 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 Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — In 2017 the office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) released a report which for the first time explicitly named US military forces in the field and CIA operatives in secret prisons as possible war crimes culprits for their alleged use of torture and rape. Because the American soldiers were based in Afghanistan, which is an ICC member, the ICC in theory has broad jurisdiction over crimes committed by combatants on Afghan soil.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Speaking by video on the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged the world community to choose humanity over hatred; compassion over cruelty; courage over complacency and reconciliation over rage.
If anyone missed the underlying message, the UN chief had quietly linked the horror of the genocide of one million Rwandans to the “sickening violence” now taking place in the Ukraine. While we honour the memory of those who died, he said poignantly, “we must reflect on our failures as an international community”.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Fellowships to 180 exceptional individuals in pursuit of scholarship in any field of knowledge and creation in any art form were announced on April 7 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Chosen from a rigorous application and peer review process out of almost 2500 applicants, the successful applicants were chosen on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise.
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THE HAGUE (IDN) — The Technical Secretariat of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is monitoring closely the situation in Ukraine. According to the OPCW spokesperson, the Secretariat is concerned by the recent unconfirmed report of chemical weapons use in Mariupol, which has been carried in the media over the past 24 hours.
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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — A projected rise in global poverty this year—with over a quarter of a billion more people joining the ranks of the world’s poor—threatens to undermine the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the General Assembly back in 2015.
One of the primary goals, listed high-up as number one, was the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger by 2030. But neither is likely to be reached on deadline.
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By Krishan Dutta
BANGKOK (IDN) — With an eye on the continuing uncertainty over the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic and increased global risks, the Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific for 2022, has called for anchoring the region’s economic recovery and progress in “a new social contract” of inclusiveness to protect the vulnerable from future shocks.
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By Neena Bhandari
SYDNEY (IDN) — The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), the region’s leading political and economic policy organisation, has appointed a panel of global experts on nuclear issues to provide independent scientific and technical advice to Pacific nations in their discussions with Japan over its intentions to discharge treated nuclear wastewater from the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean.
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By J Nastranis
NEW YORK (IDN) — The United Nations Security Council has been told that there is mounting evidence of brutal killings by Russian troops as part of the "special military operation". The Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.
Kateryna Cherepakha, President of the organization La Strada-Ukraine, said local human rights groups are currently consolidating efforts to save civilian lives and collect survivor testimonies about the war crimes committed by the Russian Federation.
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By Kester Kenn Klomegah*
MOSCOW | LISBON (IDN) — After two and half decades of its existence as a popular multilateral forum for Portuguese-speaking countries, the Confederação Empresarial da CPLP has been looking at multifaceted and diverse opportunities to strengthen the organization and to improve mutual cooperation among the member-governments which are geographically located in separate continents.
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This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission.
Viewpoint by Ramesh Thakur
CANBERRA, Australia (IDN) — Resorting to what President Barack Obama called the Washington Playbook of militarised response to a foreign policy crisis, Arta Moeini writes, the ruling elites in the West collude with the mainstream media in a Manichean framing that ‘redirects a natural reaction of sympathy felt by all into a moral outrage that insists on certain retaliation’.
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Close ties with China ‘a consensus shared by all groups in Pakistan’
This article was issued by Global Times.
Viewpoint by Yang Sheng and Liu Caiyu
BEIJING (IDN) — Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted from office in a no-confidence vote in the country's parliament on Sunday (April 10), but such a major political upheaval in Islamabad will not affect the solid friendship between China and Pakistan. Experts from both China and Pakistan are confident in the future of the China-Pakistan ties, as they believe the new government will continue to uphold the country's long-standing tradition to make sure the friendship with China and all China-Pakistan cooperation projects will be unaffected.
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This article was originally published by CommonDreams.org under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Viewpoint by Robert Freeman
LIVERMORE, CA USA (IDN) — Russia's assault on Ukraine is an unambiguously bad thing. But it didn't happen in a vacuum. In order to solve the problem, we have to first understand the context in which it occurred, and the part that the U.S. played in its happening.
[The U.S.] can attain that end with two simple moves: declare that Ukraine will not be admitted into NATO; and remove its offensive nuclear missiles from Russia's borders.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — While political leaders around the world jockey for comebacks, to extend their terms in office or merely to ignore a no-confidence vote, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta was scheming to make sweeping changes to the constitution which, critics say, would have expanded his powers and create a ‘super presidency’.
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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — As the US prepares to welcome tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing war, scores of African and Caribbean refugees are being sent back to unstable and violent homelands where they face rape, torture, arbitrary arrest and other abuses. Racial bias? An African refugee thinks so.
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This article was issued by the Indian Punchline.
Viewpoint by M. K. Bhadrakumar*
NEW DELHI (IDN) — The phone call to the Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on April 6 by Israel’s alternate Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid adds to the tectonic shifts in the geopolitics of the Middle East of late. Lapid reached out to China within ten days of the visit by the US Secretary of State to Israel.
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Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne *
SYDNEY (IDN) — Civil unrest spreading across Sri Lanka in the past few weeks resembles the beginnings of the Arab Spring uprising by youth frustrated with corrupt political systems which left the Middle East in utter chaos, and the youth at the mercy of human traffickers and European governments.
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Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte
The writer is Ambassador, former United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affair, and President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.
NEW YORK (IDN) — Roughly three decades have gone by since the publication of Francis Fukuyama’s essay “The End of History?”. The interrogation mark makes clear that the social scientist and philosopher was not announcing an end to contradiction and conflict among nations. He was mainly asking whether Western liberal democracy could be considered as the final stage of human sociocultural evolution and the final form of governance that would endure.
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This article was issued by the Wall Street International and is being republished with their permission.
Viewpoint by Franz Baumann
NEW YORK (IDN) — Wars teach about geography. In mid-February, the autocorrect on my phone did not recognize, and few people in Western Europe or America could have located on a map Mariupol, Charkiv, Bucha, Kherson, Chernihiv or Irpin. Now we know, tutored by the shocking images of Putin’s 'spetz operatsiya’.
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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — The Russian invasion of Ukraine is forcing most European countries to increase defence spending, boost military capabilities and secure their territorial borders.
The attack against Ukraine, which began February 24 and has continued despite international condemnations, has resulted in thousands of civilian killings, along with the devastation of a country of 44 million people, triggering charges of war crimes.
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