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IDN-InDepthNews

Photo credit: Kofi Annan Foundation

By Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General

Following is the text of a speech given by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (1997-2006), the founding chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation, and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, on September 7, 2017 at the ‘Making Waves’ conference in Afsluitdijk (English: Enclosure Dam), a major causeway in the Netherlands, constructed between 1927 and 1932. It is being reproduced courtesy of the Kofi Annan Foundation. – The Editor.

GENEVA (IDN-INPS) - I can’t think of a more symbolic and inspirational location to promote innovative solutions around water, food and energy than the iconic Afsluitdijk. The dam is a masterpiece of Dutch engineering and a symbol for the country’s centuries-long fight against flooding from the sea.

SUSTAINABILITY
Food security, nutrition & sustainable agriculture

Photo credit: Dr. Manuel F. Montes, Senior Advisor on Finance and Development of the South Centre, speaking at the ECOSOC DCF event in Buenos Aires held on September 6-8, 2017. Source: South Centre

By Silvia Espíndola*

The author is Undersecretary of International Cooperation of the Republic of Ecuador. Following are excerpts from his statement at the Workshop titled South-South Cooperation forty years since BAPA: Challenges and Opportunities during the ECOSOC Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) meeting, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on September 6, 2017 – in the run-up to the UN Day for South-South Cooperation was celebrated worldwide on September 12. – The Editor

GENEVA (IDN-INPS | SouthNews) - Since the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among developing countries (1978), South-South cooperation has been steadily gaining momentum and has shown encouraging trends. Many initiatives attest to the increasing importance of South-South cooperation as a growing dimension of international cooperation for development.

OPINION

Photo: Viwanou Gnassounou, Assistant Secretary General of the ACP Group. Credit: IISD

By Viwanou Gnassounou

ACP Assistant Secretary General for Sustainable Economic Development and Trade.

Fisheries and aquaculture are critical for poverty eradication and sustainable development in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. With this in view, ministers and senior government officials from 79 countries that constitute the ACP Group of States will gather in Nassau, the capital city of the Bahamas – the coral-based archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean Bahamas with 700-plus islands – from September 18 to 21, 2017. "The focus will be on bolstering high level shared commitments, sharing national or regional best practices and seeking consensus on priority issues that need multilateral action," says Viwanou Gnassounou, ACP Assistant Secretary General for Sustainable Economic Development & Trade. – The Editor

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
ACP Group of States

Photo credit: The Blue Banner

By Jamshed Baruah

NEW YORK | ULAANBAATAR (IDN) – While unanimously agreeing on tougher sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in response to the country's sixth and most powerful nuclear test early September, the UN Security Council called for the resumption of the Six-Party Talks.

By pleading for the multilateral negotiations involving China, DPRK, Japan, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation and the United States, the 15-member Council expressed its "commitment to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution to the situation on the Korean Peninsula".

The issue also drew the focus of the 'International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament Issues: Global and Regional Aspects' on August 31-September 1 some 10,150 kilometres away in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia, bordered by China to its south and the Russian Federation to it north.

ARMAMENTS
Nuclear Weapons

Photo: Army-People Rallies Hail Success in H-bomb Test. Credit: The Rodong Sinmun.

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN) – Six days before the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to impose harsher sanctions on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), it received a far from encouraging report on the implementation of sanctions slammed so far.

The report submitted to the Council on September 5 by the UN Panel of Experts monitoring the implementation of Security Council sanctions against North Korea says: "Lax enforcement of the sanctions regime coupled with the country’s evolving evasion techniques are undermining the goals of the resolutions that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea abandon all weapons of mass destruction and cease all related programmes and activities."

UN INSIDER

President Akufo-Addo at inauguration. Credit: myjoyonline

By Global Information Network

NEW YORK | ACCRA (IDN) – Waving a gold sword – a symbol of Ghana’s presidency – the new president came out swinging against years of debilitating corruption.

“We must restore integrity in public life,” President Nana Akufo-Addo thundered at his swearing in ceremony last January. “State coffers are not spoils for the party that wins an election, but resources for the country’s social and economic development.”

Nine months later, the unpleasant stench of corruption is swirling around the presidency after it was revealed that highly-overpriced garbage contracts to the tune of $74 million were okayed by government officials.

NEWSBRIEFS

Photo courtesy Twitter.

By Global Information Network

NEW YORK | LOME (IDN) - In another strike against presidents who refuse to hand over power, the people of Togo filled the streets this month to protest 50 years of repressive rule by one family.

In an estimated crowd of 100,000 protesters, banners reading “Free Togo” and “Faure resign” could be seen. Police dispersed the protestors with tear gas and violence. In earlier protests in August, two people were killed and 13 injured when police fired on demonstrators. Taking the punishment a step further, the regime shut down the internet, making it almost impossible for opponents to use social media to organize.

NEWSBRIEFS

Photo: F. George Njoroge (left), Ambassador Robinson Njeru Githae (centre) and Prof. Makua Mutua (right)

By Global Information Network

ATLANTA (IDN) – The fierce contest between President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition candidate Raila Odinga since their discarded election in August found echo here in Atlanta between Nairobi’s ambassador to Washington and a prominent U.S.-based legal scholar.

“I can categorically say here looking you straight in the eye that the Supreme Court robbed Uhuru Kenyatta of his win and stole the election from the Kenyan people,” Ambassador Robinson Njeru Githae was reported to say.

Not so, responded Prof. Makua Mutua, a human rights advocate and former dean at the University at Buffalo Law School.

NEWSBRIEFS

Photo: Sheikh Zayed Road and its skyscrapers in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on 14 September 2007. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – "What did these vain and presumptuous men intend? How did they expect to raise their lofty mass against God, when they had built it above all the mountains and clouds of the earth’s atmosphere?" This is St. Augustine writing about Babylon in his 'City of God'. In more modern times Jonathan Raban has written in 'Soft City': "The city has always been an embodiment of hope and a source of festering guilt: A dream pursued, and found vain, wanting and destructive."

St. Augustine wrote the 'City of God' in a state of sorrowful contemplation. The city of man, he believed, ought to be a harmonious reflection of the City of God. In actuality it is vulgar, lazy and corrupt, a place so brutish that it lacks even the dignity of the satanic. St Augustine would surely write the same way if reincarnated in Atlanta, Johannesburg, Mumbai or Riyadh.

OPINION

Photo: 'Nur Alem,' the world's largest spherical building, known as 'the Sphere.' Credit: EXPO 2017

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | ASTANA (IDN) – Kazakhstan's "biggest and probably most ambitious event" EXPO 2017, which concluded in the capital city on September 10 after three months, is leaving behind some far-reaching legacies.

One of the legacies is 'Nur Alem,' the world's largest spherical building with the diameter of 80 and height of 100 meters. It is the world’s first ‘complete sphere’ building and hence called the Sphere. Integration of photovoltaic elements into the façade allows conversion of sunlight energy into electric one. Two wind generators are also provided for at the upper part of the sphere. Watch Our Video for an interview with Kazakh Deputy Foreign Minister Roman Vassilenko on the legacies of EXPO 2017 Astana

SUSTAINABILITY
Global Partnerships

  1. BRICS: From Economic Partnership to Global Governance
  2. 9/11 – The Morning That Changed The World I Knew
  3. UN Concerned About the Implementation of Development Goals
  4. Safe Piped Water Remains a Luxury Across Africa
  5. UN Chief Pleads for "a Surge in Diplomacy for Peace"

About IDN

IDN-InDepthNews offers news analyses, features, reports and viewpoints that impact the world and its peoples. It has been online since 2009. Its network spans countries around the world.

IDN-InDepthNews serves as flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate established in February 1983.

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