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Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN) – Perspective and proportion are everything in this Pandemic of Fear that now consumes our attention and our daily lives. With very rare exceptions the media ignores this. As I write there have been world-wide 436,005 deaths from Coronavirus. But a remarkable, barely noticed, 4,137,712 have recovered.
Viewpoint by Alice Slater
The writer serves on the Board of 'World Beyond War', and represents the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at the United Nations.
NEW YORK (IDN) –The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) just issued its 2020 Yearbook, reporting on developments in armaments, disarmament, and international security. In light of the drumbeat of frightening news about growing hostility between the dominant nuclear-armed states vying for power, SIPRI describes a bleak outlook for arms control. It notes ongoing nuclear weapons modernization and new weapons development, space weaponization moving forward, without check or controls, and a disturbing increase in geopolitical tensions together with a rapid deterioration in practices and possibilities for cooperation and monitoring between the great powers.
Viewpoint by Marshall Auerback
The writer is a market analyst and commentator. This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
NEW YORK (IDN) – On May 5, Germany's constitutional court ruled that parts of the European Central Bank's bond-buying operations to avert a mounting economic depression were illegal. In the wake of that decision, many new proposals have surfaced. First, the European Central Bank (ECB) added a further €600 billion to its earlier announced pandemic emergency purchase program (PEPP) to support Europe's rapidly faltering economy.
Viewpoint by René Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens
GENEVA (IDN) — "For nearly a half a century — almost as long as the United Nations has been in existence — the General Assembly has recognized the need to establish such a court to prosecute and punish persons responsible for crimes such as genocide. Many thought that the horrors of the Second World War — the camps, the cruelty, the exterminations, the Holocaust — could never happen again. And yet they have.
"In Cambodia, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Rwanda. Our time — this decade even— has shown us that man’s capacity for evil knows no limits. Genocide is now a word of our time too, a heinous reality that calls for a historic response." — Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General from January 1997 to December 2006.
Viewpoint by Manish Uprety F.R.A.S. and Ritesh Tandon*
Manish Uprety F.R.A.S. is an ex-diplomat, and Ritesh Tandon is the Republican Party Candidate for the U.S. Congress from 17th Dist. California.
CALIFORNIA (IDN) – Pursuit of Peace and Development has been cherished both by nations and the international community. The U.S. under the Trump administration, in particular, has made it a specific policy and manifested a synergy of both in the government's many decisions.
Viewpoint by Ramesh Jaura
BERLIN | NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan (IDN) – On June 12, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev completed the first year of his term as President of Kazakhstan, traversing a road to multifarious reforms at home, reflecting the maturity and stable political transition in Central Asia's biggest nation-state. At the same time, he has been strengthening bilateral and multilateral relations, building on Kazakhstan's rich experience in negotiating peaceful ways out of conflictive situations.
Viewpoint by Linda Eckerbom Cole
The writer is Director/Founder, African Women Rising, shuttles between Santa Barbara, California and Gulu, Uganda.
SANTA BARBARA, California (IDN) – African Women Rising (AWR) has created a campaign to build 2,000 new Permagardens, which will help feed 15,000 at-risk people who are experiencing food scarcity due to COVID-19. Permagardens empower communities to meet their own food needs and are a long-term solution to hunger.
Viewpoint by John Scales Avery*
COPENHAGEN (IDN) – In written Chinese, the word “crisis” is represented by two characters. One of these, taken alone, means “danger”. The other, by itself, means “opportunity”. A crisis nearly always leads to great change. There is a danger that this will be a change for the worse. But there also is the opportunity to change society for the better – to reform and improve it. Both paths are present in a crisis like our present one. We must strive with all our strength to make society take the right path.
By Elena Marmo, Global Policy Watch (GPW)
This article first appeared in the GPW's blog.
NEW YORK (IDN) – Across the UN System, all hands are on deck to address the impact of COVID-19 from immediate humanitarian and health needs, to medium and longer-term socio-economic policy. Various initiatives are circling one another, raising issues of governance, reporting and accountability. Member States in the ECOSOC Operational Activities Segment explored some of these questions as they related to the UN Development System (UNDS). At the same time, in the 28 May and 2 June meetings on Financing for Development, they also explored policy ideas, with an emphasis on accounting for vulnerability in macroeconomic analysis.
Ramesh Jaura Talks to Ian Redmond
A tropical field British biologist and conservationist Ian Redmond has served as Ambassador for the UN Year of the Gorilla in 2009 and for the UNEP Convention on Migratory Species since 2010.
BERLIN | LONDON (IDN) – The fact that ecosystems and human health intersect has been repeatedly emphasized by UN Secretary-General António Guterres. "As we encroach on nature and deplete vital habitats, increasing numbers of species are at risk. That includes humanity and the future we want," he reiterated in a message on the International Day for Biological Diversity, observed on May 22, 2020.
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