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By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – Nearly one-and-half years after UN Secretary-General António Guterres launched Securing Our Common Future: An Agenda for Disarmament in May 2018, a new handbook to support disarmament for security and sustainable development has been released. Its approach and focus draw primarily on the Agenda. Titled Assuring our Common Future, published by four international parliamentary organizations and two international policy bodies on November 5, 2020, the new publication offers background and examples of effective policies and parliamentary actions on a wide range of disarmament issues.

By Aar Jay Persius

BRLIN (IDN) – As Germany and other western European countries struggled to combat the Corona virus, eagerly awaiting the advent of a vaccine to unfetter humanity from the scourge of the ruthless pandemic, UN Secretary-General António Guterres descended on Berlin and declared that the prophesied inoculum must be viewed as a global public good.

Guterres undertook the mission as Germany prepared to complete its two-year term as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council which is charged with primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. The visit came on the dawn of the last year of his first five-year term at the UN Secretary-General.

Viewpoint by Matthew Flinders and David Blunkett*

SHEFFIELD (IDN) – If crises bring with them new opportunities to think afresh, then the combined impact of Brexit and COVID has been to focus attention on the capacity and structure of the British state. This rethinking is increasingly framed in terms of smart government. Dominic Cummings, the British prime minister’s now departing chief adviser, has been at the centre of a drive to “harness the power of data and technology” at every turn. Technology has a role to play in modern government, but what Cummings seems intent on fashioning appears something closer to a populist technocracy based on a belief in algorithmic governance.

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SILVERTON (IDN) – With over 9.3 million international visitors spending close to $34 billion in Australia last year, Tourism Australia’s executive director Bob East predicted a rosy picture for the county' tourism sector, in its annual report for 2018-19 released at the beginning of this year. He said the sector has seen “exceptional achievements” in the past year, and thousands of tourism operators are “making a good living from a strong and sustainable industry”.

Even before the rosy report could be properly distributed, the tourism sector came crashing down, when Australia became the first country in the world to seal its borders in January this year. It was just before the peak of the international visitor arrivals during the lunar new year holidays in Asia.

Viewpoint by Sonali Kolhatkar

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute. Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations.

LOS ANGELES (IDN) – India’s farmers are revolting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in a mass movement that has drawn international attention. The world’s largest democracy is witnessing a collective groundswell of protest as hundreds of thousands of farmers, largely from the states of Punjab and Haryana, have laid siege to the outskirts of the capital of New Delhi, determined to occupy the edges of the city until Modi reverses unpopular new laws that they say are anti-farmer.

Human Constructions Have the Same Mass as All Living Organisms

Viewpoint by Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams*

LEICESTER, United Kingdom (IDN) – Our deficiencies have always driven us, even among our distant ancestors, back in the last Ice Age. Having neither the speed and strength to hunt large prey nor sharp teeth and claws to tear flesh, we improvised spears, flint knives, scrapers. Lacking a thick pelt, we took the fur of other animals.

As the ice receded, we devised more means of survival and comfort – stone dwellings, ploughs, wheeled vehicles. All these inventions allowed small oases of civilisation to be wrested from a natural wilderness that seemed endless.

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Siddharth Chatterjee, an eminent Indian national at the world body, as UN "resident coordinator" to China, who has the same rank as an ambassador of a foreign state accredited to that country. The Chinese government' has formally accepted the UN Secretary-General’s selection.

Observers consider this important particularly as Chatterjee is also an Indian Army Special Forces veteran. He holds a Bachelor's Degree from the National Defence Academy in India.

Viewpoint by P. I. Gomes*

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago (IDN) – In the Preamble of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, reference is made to what is called the 5P’s of People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership. They capture with such lucid precision what is referred to as “all areas of critical importance for humanity and the planet.”

These are all areas deserving of concerted attention, but the widespread and insidiously yet blatant impact of violence, as the negation of “peace”, might benefit from some reflections.

By Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury in New York

The following is the full text of the address by Ambassador Chowdhury at the Knesset of Israel on November 17, 2020, at 14:30 Israel Standard Time. He is former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations and initiator of the precursor decision leading to the UNSCR 1325 as the President of the UN Security Council in March 2000 at the Special Meeting of the Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality of the Israeli Knesset marking the 20th anniversary of UNSC Resolution 1325 with focus on the challenges, progress made, and way forward in its implementation.

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – Early December the former president of France Valery Giscard D’Estaing died. The Guardian in its obituary described him as “the grand old man of French politics”. President Emanuel Macron said, “his presidency had transformed France and his direction still guides its way”. The New York Times said he was “a modern-minded conservative”.

Unlike many of the other obituaries, the New York Times failed to mention the scandal that was a major factor in bringing him down when he ran for a second term in 1981. He was accused and it was proved that he had accepted a gift of diamonds from Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Republic valued at about quarter of a million US dollars.

Viewpoint by Angélica Maria Jácome Daza

The writer is FAO Director, Office for Small Island Developing States (SIDS), Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs).

BRUSSELS (IDN) – The possible food crisis that could be triggered by the effects of COVID-19 differs significantly from traditional food crises brought on by conflict or natural disasters. In contrast to the food crisis of 2007 and 2008, the current challenge is about ensuring food access, not food availability.

By Reinhard Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (IDN) – The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali "for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea." The prize was also meant to recognise all the stakeholders working for peace and reconciliation in Ethiopia and in the East and Northeast African regions.

By Lisa Vies, Global Information Network

NW YORK (IDN) – The South African firm Aspen may soon be rolling out drugs to combat COVID-19 on the continent after signing a deal with the U.S.-based Johnson & Johnson.

The American pharma company has conducted the only major study testing the efficacy of a single dose of Covid vaccine among 60,000 volunteers. In October, the company announced that the single-dose drug “induced a strong neutralizing antibody response in nearly all participants aged 18 years and older and was generally well tolerated.”

Viewpoint by Tariq Rauf* from Vienna for IDN

Great Expectations is a novel published in July 1861 by the renowned British writer, Charles Dickens. It depicts the education of an orphan nicknamed Pip who has a stroke of good luck and great expectations but then loses both his luck and his expectations. Against that backdrop, the writer – an eminent nuclear disarmament expert – cautions that the taking of office by Joe Biden as US President next January would not mark the coming of the Messiah for nuclear arms control as wished for by his supporters. Besides, he argues, the already postponed tenth review conference of the parties to the NPT should be held in April-May 2022 in the Austrian capital city Vienna and not in August 2021 at the UN headquarters in New York. And this for two reasons: the wide-ranging impact of COVID-19 pandemic and Vienna offering an ideal venue for nuclear disarmament conferences.

By Lisa Vies, Global Information Network

NW YORK (IDN) – While the news media from coast to coast has been trumpeting a “historic breakthrough” between Israel and Morocco with credit to the Trump administration, ties between the two countries have been close for decades, with cooperation on intelligence and military matters that even included the assassination of an opposition leader.