Speaking Out for People, Planet and Peace

Viewpoint by Bill Dahl

The writer is a former Senior Vice President for Bank of America in Los Angeles, CA. He currently resides in Queretaro, MX. His insightful analysis of global economic affairs have been published widely. He is a contributing columnist for Mexico News Daily, IDN-InDepthNews and Wall Street International Magazine.

REDMOND, Oregon, USA (IDN) – The Coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic has revealed that there are certain human beings more susceptible to heightened risks of infection, serious illness and death.

By Vijay Prashad and Subin Dennis *

This article is taken from Countercurrents which published it on March 27. The article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

KOLKATA (IDN) – K.K. Shailaja is the health minister in the Left Democratic Front government in Kerala, the state in the southwest of India that has a population of 35 million people. On January 25, 2020, she convened a high-level meeting to discuss the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China. What had particularly worried her is that there were many students from Kerala studying in that province of China.

Viewpoint by Siddharth Chatterjee and Mutahi Kagwe

Mr. Mutahi Kagwe is the Cabinet Secretary for Health in Kenya and Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator to Kenya. This article was first published in Africa Renewal on 24 March 2020.

NAIROBI (IDN) – Many soldiers have seen first-hand the horrors of war and, terrifying though it often was, they knew who they were fighting, and could recognise their enemy.

The COVID-19 or the new Corona Virus is different. In this virus we have an enemy which is invisible and sometimes deadly, and the task is harder.

Africa Renewal Talks to FAO Chief Economist Maximo Torero Cullen

NEW YORK (IDN) – The COVID-19 pandemic has put the world on a crisis footing, with unprecedented actions to restrict movements and plans for radical deployment of public funds to combat the threat posed by a novel coronavirus that knows no boundaries. Success will entail coherent and robust plans for our food systems. FAO Chief Economist Maximo Torero Cullen outlines a framework for how countries can think about and craft these plans.

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN (IDN) – The world's oldest peace NGO, the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Peace Bureau (IPB), is calling for a "dramatic reduction" of military spending in favour of healthcare and meeting social needs. A petition launched on March 27 and signed by all interested will be submitted to the United Nations General Assembly on the first day of the next session opening on September 15, 2020.

"The world spends 1.8 trillion dollars on military expenditure every year and is scheduled to spend 1 trillion dollars on new nuclear weapons in the next 20 years," notes the IPB in the petition and a statement earlier from its headquarters in Germany's capital city, Berlin.

By Reinhard Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (IDN) – The epicentre of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic has moved from China to Europe and the United States. But it has not spared Africa. "It will victimise particularly communities living in poverty who have no protection and no access to health care," says Prof. Dr. Mirjam van Reisen who chairs 'Computing for Society' at the Leiden University.

The public research university in the Netherlands has joined universities in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zimbabwe in the Virus Outbreak Data Africa Network (VODAN) FAIR Data initiative.

Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) – With the new coronavirus now known as COVID-19 becoming a global pandemic affecting countries around the world, with epicentres in western countries, various conspiracy theories have emerged and are gaining traction both in social media and the mainstream. Rather than dismissing these, all such theories may need close examination by independent bodies to keep the world safer from such biological warfare fears.

By James Muraguri

The writer is CEO of the Institute of Public Finance,  Kenya, & an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity.

NAIROBI (IDN) – On March 12, 2020, the first case of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was confirmed in Kenya. Over the next eleven days, 16 more cases were confirmed. Based on precedents elsewhere, we know this pandemic could set in motion an economic crisis that will burden Kenya for a long time to come.

By J W Jackie

RENO, Nevada, USA (IDN) – Emissions from the new generation of hybrid cars are 31 percent higher than those from the previous generation. While the demand for larger vehicles appears to be the driving force, this discrepancy is part of a larger problem that the most eco-conscious hybrid owners are acutely aware of: that hybrids aren't as eco-friendly as they thought. Hybrid carmakers are under fire for giving buyers a wrong impression of their cars' emission-reduction capabilities.

Viewpoint by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana.

The writer is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP.

BANGKOK (IDN) – Rising economic prosperity and poverty reduction may not tell the whole story of progress in Asia and the Pacific. Telling signs in the natural world recount a narrative that is far from complete. This year has been particularly affected by the COVID-19 global health pandemic, with devastating impacts on our health and the economy. Yet, building on its achievements, the region must continue its drive towards a sustainable conclusion.

Viewpoint by Alex Broadbent and Benjamin T.H. Smart*

JOHANNESBURG (IDN) – Suppose you had the choice between two health policies, A and B. Policy A would result in the death of a lot of elderly people. Policy B would result in the death of a lot of children, especially infants. Which would you choose?

Right now we are facing a choice between more or less drastic measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, a virus which, at the time of writing, has yet to claim a life under 10, and claims very few lives under 30, with the risk rising exponentially with age.

By Radwan Jakeem

NEW YORK (IDN) – In a clarion call for "an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world", UN Secretary-General António Guterres on March 23 urged warring parties across the world to lay down their weapons in support of the bigger battle against COVID-19: the common enemy that is now threatening all of humankind.

The ceasefire would allow humanitarians to reach populations that are most vulnerable to the spread of COVID-19, which first emerged in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, and has now been reported in more than 180 countries. So far, there are nearly 300,000 cases worldwide, and more than 12,700 deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – While the international community has been engrossed in combating the global COVID-19 pandemic, it has been constrained to respond to North Korea's first missile launches this year. The United Nations Security Council convened behind closed doors on March 5 but failed to agree on a resolution.

However, Britain, Germany, France, Estonia and Belgium said in a "joint statement" that they are "deeply concerned by the testing of ballistic missiles by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea" (DPRK) on March 1.

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – According to the New York Times, President Donald Trump's re-election campaign is investing more money and resources in an attempt to attract African-American voters than any previous Republican presidential campaign. The Trump camp believe that with eight months of continuous advertising coupled with the opening of field offices in black communities it can peel off enough black voters to improve his standing by a crucial couple of points.

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – As much of the world attempts to source much-needed face masks, Africa has been offered 5.4 million masks, more than a million testing kits and other items in a donation from Chinese billionaire Jack Ma.

Massive medical supplies donated by the Jack Ma Foundation to 54 African countries arrived on March 22 morning in Addis Ababa, capital of the East African nation of Ethiopia, through an Ethiopian Airlines cargo flight.

Kenya Surges on UN 'Happiness' Report

NEW YORK (IDN) - As Mae West once said, "I've been rich, and I've been poor; believe me, rich is better."

But could there be more to the story? A landmark survey of the state of global happiness designates Kenya as more positive and hopeful than its neighbors despite the challenges that the country faces. In fact, Kenya is ranked as the happiest nation in East and Central Africa in the World Happiness Report of 2020.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" – Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States (1882-1945).

Viewpoint by Dr. Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake*

The writer is a cultural anthropologist with research expertise in international political economy, peace, and development studies in South and South East Asia.

COLOMBO (IDN) – COVID 19 is more a panic than a pandemic: It obscures from view the fact that far more people die as a result of illness related to poverty, malnutrition, and other forms of structural violence than anything else in South Asia, and indeed the rest of the world.

By Daniel Johnson of UN News

GENEVA (IDN) – United Nations agencies are working round the clock to provide all the necessary aid to vulnerable sections of the society to combat the Coronavirus pandemic at diverse levels: ensuring meals to millions of children affected by the closure of schools, airlifting relief to Sudanese refugees in Chad.

Also, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said that for the moment, there is no reason why people infected with the COVID-19 virus should not take ibuprofen, a widely available drug used to treat fever and soreness.

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) – A new UN study has warned of accelerating climate change on land, sea and in the atmosphere. Compiled by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), parented by the United Nations Economic and Social Council, the report documents impacts of weather and climate events on socio-economic development, human health, migration and displacement, food security and land and marine ecosystems.

Viewpoint by Hobeth Martinez Carrillo*

LONDON (IDN) – Four years after the UN-monitored peace agreement that was intended to end more than five decades of civil war in Colombia, the communities that suffered most during the armed conflict may finally be gaining places at the political table.

The members of the UN Security Council welcomed in a press statement on Colombia (SC/14081) continued progress by the three components of the Integral System for Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Non-repetition, with the participation of victims. They reaffirmed their full support for the critical role of these components in the peace process and stressed the need for them to be able to work independently and autonomously.