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Photo: A view of the General Assembly Hall as Taous Feroukhi (on screen), President of the 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the NPT, closes the 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. 22 May 2015. United Nations, New York. Photo # 631869. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe.

The Bumpy Road to Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Process

By Sergio Duarte

The writer is President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.

NEW YORK (IDN) – On July 1, 2018 the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will celebrate the fiftieth aniversary of its opening for signature. Although criticised as discriminatory for establishing different rights and obligations for nuclear and non-nuclear Parties, since that date in 1968 a total of 191 States have acceded to the Treaty, making it one of the most successful instruments in the field of arms control.

Only four countries among the members of the United Nations are not Party to it. While several different factors can explain the fact that so far the majority of nations have chosen not to acquire nuclear weapons the NPT can certainly be credited as instrumental in this regard.

: Ramesh Jaura; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 14 May 2018

Photo: Security Council meeting on Maintenance of international peace and security, Nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe.

Nuclear Weapon States' Long Arm Seen Behind Deferral of Landmark UN Conference

By Alyn Ware

The writer is Co-Chair, World Future Council Disarmament Commission.

NEW YORK (IDN) – May 14, 2018 was supposed to see the opening at the United Nations of a three-day High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament, scheduled to discuss "effective nuclear disarmament measures to achieve the total elimination of nuclear weapons, including, in particular, on a comprehensive convention on nuclear weapons."

The UN General Assembly decided five years ago to hold such a conference in 2018, following a series of annual, one-day, high-level meetings at the United Nations.

: Alyn Ware; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 14 May 2018

Image: Cover (cropped) of Report on Inequality in Asia-Pacific. Credit. UNESCAP.

Inequality on the Rise in Asia-Pacific – UNESCAP Reports

By Rita Joshi

BERLIN | BANGKOK (IDN-INPS) – The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, approved by the United Nations in September 2015, pledged to "leave no one behind". But two years since the Agenda began to be implemented, inequality in Asia and the Pacific is on the rise. This is affirmed by a study launched at the 74th Session (CS74) of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), which opened on May 11, 2018 in Bangkok.

The Report shows that satisfactory progress has been made at the regional level towards eradicating poverty (Goal 1), promoting health and well-being (Goal 3), and achieving quality education for all (Goal 4).

: Rita Joshi; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 13 May 2018

Image: International Monitoring System with 337 Facilities – 90%+ complete. Source: CTBTO.

CTBTO Must Credibly Confirm Dismantling & Closure of DPRK Nuclear-Weapon Test Site

By Tariq Rauf *

While North Korea has invited journalists from a handful of countries to witness the dismantling and closure of its nuclear-weapon test site at Punggye Ri, only the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) has the required expertise, verification technology and credibility to confirm the closure of the Punggye Ri test site.

Contrary to popular belief, the highly competent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has expertise only in monitoring and verification of civilian nuclear programmes, but not in the areas of dismantling of nuclear weapons and dismantling of nuclear-weapon test sites.

The IAEA monitors the “upstream” dimension of nuclear weapons development while the CTBT is intended to monitor the “downstream” final proof of a State's intention to develop nuclear weapons – that is, the actual nuclear test explosion.

: UN Bureau; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; CTBTO; 13 May 2018

Photo: UN Climate Talks in Bonn from April 30-May 10. Credit: UNFCCC

The Road to Climate Summit in Poland Leads Through Bangkok

By Jaya Ramachandran

BONN (IDN) – Since the climate negotiations in Bonn failed to pave the way for a successful United Nations climate summit COP24 in Poland in December, an extra round is being convened from September 3-8 in Bangkok.

Commenting the negotiations in Bonn, concluded on May 10, the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group Chair Gebru Jember Endalew expressed concern at "the lack of urgency" to move the negotiations forward, despite the fact that "it is time to look at the bigger picture, see the severe impacts that climate change is having across the world, and rise to the challenge."

: Jaya Ramachandran; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 12 May 2018

Photo credit: The Financial Gazette, Zimbabwe

European Development Fund Comes to Rescue as Backyard Schools Swamp Africa

By Jeffrey Moyo

HARARE (ACP-IDN) – Enrolment in primary education in developing countries has reached 91 per cent but 57 million children remain out of school. More than half of children that have not enrolled in school live in 48 countries from Sub-Saharan Africa, which are members of the 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP). An estimated 50 per cent of out-of-school children of primary school age live in conflict-affected areas.

Sub Saharan Africa is home to 17 of the 33 countries and territories the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group classifies as 'fragile or conflict affected'. The IFC Conflict Affected States in Africa Initiative (CASA) is active in Burundi, the Central African Republic, Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, and South Sudan.

: Jeffrey Moyo; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 12 May 2018

Image: Mural by Diego Rivera showing the Karl Marx. In the National Palace in Mexico City. CC BY-SA 3.0

In A Sense, We Are All Marxists

Viewpoint by Peter Singer*

MELBOURNE (IDN) – It is not far-fetched to suggest that the predictions of Karl Marx – whose 200th anniversary fell on May 5, 1818 – have been falsified, his theories discredited, and his ideas rendered obsolete. So why should we care about his legacy in the twenty-first century?

From 1949, when Mao Zedong’s communists triumphed in China’s civil war, until the collapse of the Berlin Wall 40 years later, the historical significance of Marx was unsurpassed. Nearly four out of every ten people on earth lived under governments that claimed to be Marxist, and in many other countries Marxism was the dominant ideology of the left, while the policies of the right were often based on how to counter Marxism.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 11 May 2018

Photo: The ECOSOC Forum on Financing for Development follow-up (FfD Forum) in New York on Day 1 (23 April 2018). Credit: UN

Finance for Development Should Focus on Poverty Eradication

By Sahar Nasr, on Behalf of the Group of 77 and China

Following are extensive excerpts from the Statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China by Ms. Sahar Nasr, Minister of Investment and International Cooperation of Egypt, at the general debate of the Forum on Financing for Development Follow-up on the follow-up and review of the financing for development outcomes and the means of implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in New York on 23 April 2018. – The Editor.

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – The Group of 77 and China has engaged constructively throughout the negotiations over the draft text of agreed conclusions and recommendations with a view to reaching a consensus-based outcome document encompassing all action areas of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.

: UN Bureau; SUSTAINABILITY; Global Partnerships; 11 May 2018

Photo: Overgrazing by livestock can lead to land degradation. Credit: The United States Department of Agriculture.

UN Predicts Loss Of $43 Trillion Through Land Degradation

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN | BONN (IDN) – Land degradation has reached staggering proportions. If the current pace continues unabated, a gargantuan amount of $43,000,000,000,000 ($43 trillion) will be lost to the world economy by the year 2050, warns the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

But the anticipated colossal loss can be avoided by spending $4.6 trillion on addressing a combination of human-induced processes adversely affecting the biophysical environment and huge stretches of fertile lands.

: Jutta Wolf; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 10 May 2018

Pugwash, UN and ICAN Warn of Ramifications of US Quitting Iran Nuclear Deal

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The announcement by President Donald Trump to abandon the Iran nuclear deal is "a costly mistake that can hold wide-ranging ramifications beyond its strictly nuclear parameters," the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize winner Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs have warned.

The decision undoes many years of constructive and patient diplomacy between Iran and the P5+1, which produced a landmark agreement in non-proliferation, said Pugwash president Sergio Duarte and Secretary-General Paolo Cotta Ramusino in a statement on May 9.