Peace & Justice

Photo: Secretary-General António Guterres (fourth from left) and Tijjani Muhammad-Bande (left), President of the seventy-fourth session of the General Assembly, attend the high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly to commemorate and promote the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas. 26 September 2019.

UN Chief Warns of Nuclear Disarmament Going Reverse

By Shanta Roy

NEW YORK (IDN) – As the United Nations commemorated its annual International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons September 26, Secretary-General António Guterres underlined two political realities facing the world community.

Firstly, not only has progress on nuclear disarmament come to a halt, but “it is going in reverse,” he warned. Secondly, relations between nuclear-armed States are mired in mistrust while dangerous rhetoric about the utility of nuclear weapons is on the rise, he noted.

: Shanta Roy; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 29 September 2019

Photo: Group photo at the signature and ratification ceremony of the treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Credit: UN.

12 States Join the Nuclear Ban Treaty at Signature Ceremony

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN | UNODA) – For the second year in a row, the “core group” of States supporting the Treaty for Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) convened a signature and ratification ceremony on the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, September 26.

At the ceremony, Botswana, Dominica, Grenada, Lesotho, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Tanzania and Zambia signed the Treaty; Bangladesh, Kiribati and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic deposited their instruments of ratification. Maldives and Trinidad and Tobago both signed and ratified.

: Santo D. Banerjee; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 29 September 2019

Photo: Tackling vulnerabilities, building resilience. Credit: UNCTAD.

UN Calls for A Global Green New Deal and Radical Reforms

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) – In a bold move, new UN report has proposed a series of reform measures to make debt, capital and banks work for development and finance a Global Green New Deal generating a net increase in global employment of at least 170 million jobs, with cleaner industrialization in the South and an overall reduction in carbon emissions by the target year of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

“We can meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, but only if we find the political will to change the rules of the international economic game and adopt policies that scale up the resources needed for a big investment push led by the public sector and set the global economy on an expansionary course, says UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Report 2019.

: Jaya Ramachandran; SUSTAINABILITY; Peace & Justice; 27 September 2019

Image credit: Transparency International

Corruption a Cause for Citizen Concern in Latin America and the Caribbean

By Kwame Buist

BERLIN (IDN) – In the last five years, momentum has been building against corruption in Latin America and the Caribbean. High-level politicians have been found guilty of corruption in Guatemala and Brazil, and a wave of legal action against the perpetrators of grand corruption has swept across the continent, including the Lava Jato – or “Operation Car Wash” – investigation in Brazil.

However, most of the region’s citizens think their governments are not doing enough to tackle corruption and that corruption levels have increased in the past 12 months across the region.

: Phil Harris; THE WORLD; Latin America & the Caribbean; 25 September 2019

Photo: Gathering of WFC Councillors and recipients of Alternative Nobel Prize from 13 to 15 September at SEKEM, Egypt. Credit: SEKEM

Securing a World of Climate Resilience, Prosperity and Peace

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN (IDN) – In the run-up to the Climate Action Summit at the UN in New York on September 23, the World Future Council (WFC) has called for immediate measures to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 to avoid climate catastrophe and to achieve 100 per cent renewable energy by 2050, and elimination of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction.

: Jutta Wolf; SUSTAINABILITY; Poverty; 17 September 2019

Photo: UN Secretary-General Guterres shakes hands with Chinese President XI while UN censors 100 rights groups on Chinese abuses, blocks publication of joint appeal. Source: UN Watch.

Censorship at the Heart of the UN is a Betrayal of its Charter

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has long been controversial. Back in the days of the Soviet Union, Moscow protected communist and ultra-socialist dictators around the world from any attack on their human rights abuses. At the same time routine attacks on Israel, even the extravagant ones, were given free reign in the Council.

Indeed, this still continues with the protagonists often unable in their minds to separate criticizing Israel, which deserves it, with criticizing the religion of Judaism, so-called anti-Semitism. (One should add that many Jews conflate the two as well.)

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 17 September 2019

Image: In this image from June 2002, astronaut Franklin R. Chang-Diaz works with a grapple fixture during a spacewalk on the STS-111 mission to perform work on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA.

Outer Space, the Common Heritage of Mankind, In Peril

By Somar Wijayadasa*

NEW YORK (IDN) – The world’s arms race—which is being played out with sophisticated weapons largely in the battle fields of Asia and the Middle East – is steadily advancing into a new frontier: outer space.

And he who dominates outer space, argue military analysts projecting into the future, may perhaps dominate the world.

: Somar Wijayadasa; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 16 September 2019

Photo: Outgoing IMF Chief Christine Lagarde. Source: IMF Flickr

Keeping Up Anti-Corruption Momentum in the Post-Lagarde IMF

Viewpoint by M. Emilia Berazategui

The author is Global Advocacy Coordinator at Transparency International, the global civil society organisation leading the fight against corruption

BERLIN (IDN) – In recent years, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has repeatedly demonstrated its ambition to play a leading role in tackling corruption worldwide. Under the leadership of Christine Lagarde, it made public commitments at the 2016 UK Anti-Corruption Summit and during the High Level Segment of the 2018 International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) in Denmark.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 13 September 2019

Photo: On 4 September 2019, Ambassador A.L.A. Azeez, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva who presided over the 9th MSP, handed over the Presidency of the Convention on Cluster Munitions to Ambassador Félix Baumann, Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the Conference on Disarmament as the President of the Second Review Conference. Credit: The Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Sri Lanka Praised for Advancing the Cluster Munitions Convention’s Objectives

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – Sri Lanka has won kudos for a number of progressive measures taken during its presidency of the Ninth Meeting of States Parties (MSP) to the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) that addresses the humanitarian consequences and unacceptable harm caused to civilians by cluster munitions, through a categorical prohibition and a framework for action. The Convention observed its ninth anniversary on August 1, 2019.

: Jamshed Baruah; SUSTAINABILITY; Peace & Justice; 11 September 2019

Photo: Kwame Nkrumah. Source: buzzghana.com

Ghana’s First President Predicted Black-on-Black Troubles in Africa

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, warned as far back as the 1960s that political independence from European colonial oppressors without economic independence was a recipe for disaster.Nkrumah, who authored The struggle continues, Class Struggle in Africa and Neo-colonialism – the last stage of imperialism, among others, was deeply aware of the threats faced by the new states and the ploys of their former oppressors.