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Number 31 | 2020
Dear Reader,
We are pleased to send you Edition 31 | 2020 of IDN UN INSIDER, a product of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate Group. UN INSIDER comprises news and analyses from 'UN News', associated websites and our correspondents in New York, Geneva, Vienna, Nairobi and Bonn.
Access previous editions on www.newsletter-archive.indepthnews.net. Feel free to share and publish free of charge but mention us as a source. We would appreciate your Feedback.
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The Non-profit International Press Syndicate Group
Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte
The author is Ambassador, President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, Former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.
NEW YORK (IDN) –Seventy-five years ago, on August 6, 1945, a nuclear attack razed the city of Hiroshima. Three days later, Nakgasaki suffered identical fate. More than 200,000 men, women and children suddenly lost their lives, and many others perished from the effects of radiation during the next decades. Some survivors, known as hibakusha in Japan, whose average age is 82, still struggle to make their bitter experience known to the remainder of humanity, under the motto "no one should suffer what we have suffered".
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By Jutta Wolf
BERLIN | LONDON (IDN) – A group of eminent world leaders, comprising The Elders, has called on the heads of states of five permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council to use the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki "as a moment to reflect on the lives lost and begin substantive steps towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons".
The atomic bombing of the two cities on August 6 and 9, 1945 led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, laying bare the true horror of nuclear weapons. Today, over 13,000 nuclear warheads are in existence.
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Viewpoint by Marina Martinez*
This article was originally published on WagingNonviolence and is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
NEW YORK (IDN) – Nuclear weapons have been posing a threat to humanity for 75 years – ever since the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
These days, our focus is understandably on the COVID-19 virus and the threat it poses to human life. But as we commemorate the anniversary of these bombings, it is important to acknowledge that unlike the coronavirus, nuclear weapons can only be remediated with prevention. Millions of people could be killed if a single nuclear bomb were detonated over a large city, and the added threats of radiation and retaliation could endanger all life on Earth.
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Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN) – Almost forgotten in the story about the Coronavirus is the story of AIDS. The drive to deal with it, the search to find medicine to cure it, and the self-discipline by homosexuals only began in 1981, when the disease was discovered, and its causes understood.
It was a stroke of luck that AIDS was discovered so quickly. Another five or ten years could have easily passed before it was detected. Then it would have rampaged through societies all over the world.
Long before AIDS became known, the human immunodeficiency virus HIV was at work. Scientists do not know exactly for how long, but it was probably around for decades. With better warnings and more time, we could have got a grip on the virus before it travelled around the globe.
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Viewpoint by Michael Edwards*
This article was originally published on openDemocracy. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of IDN-InDepth News
NEW YORK (IDN) – "Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.”
I cried my eyes out reading the final words of the great John Lewis that were published in the New York Times the day after he died, their quiet magnificence landing a powerful punch to my solar plexus. If you haven’t read them, please do.
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Viewpoint by Prabir Purkayastha
The writer is the founding editor of Newsclick.in, a digital media platform. He is an activist for science and the free software movement. This article was produced in partnership by Newsclick and Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
NEW DELHI (IDN) – Microbes do not recognize borders. We are all safe only when everybody is safe. In a pandemic, to attack the only body we have for global cooperation endangers everyone. That is why the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) is dangerous not only for the United States, but for all of the world.
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By Drew Christiansen
Writer Drew Christiansen, S. J., is Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Human Development at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. He is the co-editor with Carole Sargent of A World Free from Nuclear Weapons: The Vatican Conference on Disarmament (Georgetown University Press, 2020). facebook.com/disarmnowgeorgetown
WASHINGTON, DC. (IDN) -- Nagasaki is the historic centre of Japanese Catholicism. In the 16th century, beginning with the missionary visits of one of the first Jesuits, Francis Xavier, Nagasaki was the focal point of their efforts to bring Christianity to Japan.
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Viewpoint by António Guterres
Following is the text of remarks by UN Secretary-General on the occasion of his latest policy brief titled The Impact of COVID-19 on South-East Asia. It examines how the eleven countries of South-East Asia are addressing the immediate impacts of COVID-19, focusing on the subregion’s socio-economic response.
NEW YORK (IDN) – As in other parts of the world, the health, economic and political impact of COVID-19 has been significant across Southeast Asia — hitting the most vulnerable the hardest.
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include articles from "Toward a Nuclear Free World" and "SDGsforAll"
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