|
|
EDITORIAL: Billions Suffering from Privatization
Billions of poor people who lack adequate access to healthcare and old-age security are posing a key challenge in developing countries that undertook drastic reforms and privatized social security systems at the behest of the World Bank, IDN reported mid-August quoting a new report by the Washington-based Bretton Woods Project (BWP).
|
MIDDLE EAST: Obama Seeks New, Post-Combat Page of History
The crunch of convoys taking U.S. combat troops out of Iraq has been silenced. The sound of silence proclaims (at least for now?) that U.S. combat operations in Iraq have ended.
|
MIDDLE EAST: The Arabs and the Race to Nuclear Hell
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sounds rather optimistic -- or has chosen to do so: “Recently, we have seen signs of progress on nuclear non-proliferation talks,” he said some two weeks ahead of announcing on August. 3 that ministerial-level discussions on eliminating the world’s nuclear weapons will take place in New York in September. But signals from both the Arab region and the U.S. induce a dramatically different conclusion.
|
MIDDLE EAST: New Report Cautions Companies Operating in Israel
A new report has warned that companies with operations and suppliers in Israel, or offshore projects in disputed waters in the region, face the risk of "complicity in human rights violations by state security forces". Besides, terrorism, internal violence and regional instability pose "significant" hazards.
|
ENVIRONMENT: UN Decade to Combat Desertification
Call it land degradation or desertification: it is threatening the livelihoods of more than 1 billion people in 100 countries around the world. To raise awareness and mobilize action against this major economic, social and environmental problem of concern, the United Nations has taken a landmark step.
|
ENVIRONMENT: Asia Expects a New Decade in Sustainable Transport
A new town of about 150,000 people is expected to sprout every day in the next 20 years in the Asia-Pacific region, increasing the urban population from 1.6 billion to 2.7 billion in 2030. This will also influence mobility patterns and private vehicle usage.
|
ENVIRONMENT: Guarding Environment with a Paper-and-Pencil Project
Asia-Pacific already has the largest number of motorized vehicles in the world and if the present trend continues, the region would in the coming years have more automobiles than Europe and North America combined.
|
MDG SEPTEMBER SUMMIT: Neither Pity nor Charity
With only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on world leaders to attend a summit in New York on 20-22 September 2010 to accelerate progress towards the MDGs.
|
MDG SEPTEMBER SUMMIT: Not Much Reason to Rejoice
When heads of government and state meet at the UN in New York from September 20-22 to review progress, assess obstacles and gaps, and agree on concrete strategies and actions to meet the eight MDGs by 2015, they will not have much reason to rejoice.
|
MDG SEPTEMBER SUMMIT: Global Partnership Not yet in Sight
A 'global partnership for development', which is the eighth goal of the Millennium Declaration 2000, appears far from attainable five years ahead of the target date, according to a UN report.
|
MDG SEPTEMBER SUMMIT: Eminent Personalities Galvanize Support
The United Nations is leaving no stone unturned to galvanize action toward achieving by 2015 the global anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
|
MDG SEPTEMBER SUMMIT: Child Labour Flourishing in Fast Growing Economies
Nearly 160 million kids aged between five and fourteen are trapped in child labour world wide. They are everywhere but invisible, toiling as domestic servants in homes, labouring behind the walls of workshops, hidden from view in plantations, handling chemicals and pesticides in agriculture, working in mines, or operating dangerous machinery.
|
MDG SEPTEMBER SUMMIT: Expanding Middle Class Promises Huge Growth to Asia
With a burgeoning middle-class growth in developing Asia, the region is set to be at the forefront of worldwide consumption in 2030, when it is expected to spend $32 trillion. This will signify a steep rise on 2008 and amount to about 43 percent of the global consumer expenditure, says a new report.
|
CULTURE: Music for People around the World
The depth and dimension of its repertoire is fabulous if not unparalleled: the sublime blend of beauty and music of an opera; the spectacular and dynamic creativity of a ballet; inspiring presentation of classics orchestrated by a magic wand; musicals, jazz, folk music and dance enlivening feelings of joy and happiness.
|
CULTURE: World Heritage List Reviewed and Expanded
UNESCO, the United Nations agency mandated to conserve the world's heritage has placed the Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi in Uganda on the List of World Heritage in Danger. The World Heritage Committee meeting in Brasilia from July 25 to August 3 also decided to remove the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador from this List.
|
ATOMIC ENERGY: Over 30 Countries Aspire for Nuclear Power
More than 30 countries, which are presently not harnessing energy from the atom, are actively considering embarking upon nuclear power programmes. These include both industrial and developing economies, according to a new report.
|
ATOMIC ENERGY: China to Have its First Nuclear City Soon
Preparations are at an advanced stage for building China's first Nuclear Power City in the coastal city of Haiyan, on the Yangtze Delta. The construction of the Nuclear City is expected to "start soon", according to the World Nuclear News.
|
ATOMIC ENERGY: Huge Support for South Korea's Nuke Energy Ambitions
South Korea is set to become a major world nuclear energy country exporting technology. The support for the atomic power industry is huge and rising in the wake of the country's successful bid to construct four APR1400 reactors in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for which it bagged a U.S. dollar 20 billion contract.
|
STRAY THOUGHTS: Bridge to Nowhere - Road to Disaster
Practitioners of realpolitik would not claim they are poets, very much in the way that they do dismiss they are utopians. As former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, neither a poet nor utopian, once famously put it: If you have visions, you better go to the optician. In any case, stay out of politics.
|
| |
