UN Insider

Photo: Presentation of the UN World Drug Report 2022, with UNODC Research Officer Dr Thomas Pietschmann on the extreme right. Credit: UN Correspondents Association Vienna.

Conflict Zones as Magnets for Synthetic Drug Production

Growing Capacity to Manufacture Amphetamine in Ukraine

By Aurora Weiss

VIENNA (IDN) — Nearly 284 million people aged 15-64 used drugs worldwide in 2020, a 26 per cent increase over the previous decade. Young people are using more drugs, with use levels today in many countries higher than those of the previous generation, notes the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)'s World Drug Report 2022.

Globally, the report estimates that 11.2 million people worldwide were injecting drugs. About half of them were living with hepatitis C, 1.4 million with HIV and 1.2 million with both.

: Europe Editor; UN INSIDER; 02 July 2022

Image: The Red Sea's reef is one of the longest continuous living reefs in the world. © Unsplash/Francesco Ungaro

A Tide of Pledges at the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | LISBON (IDN) — The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has pledged to enable 100 coastal countries including all Small Island Developing States to realize the maximum potential of their blue economies through sustainable, low-emission and climate-resilient ocean action by 2030.

: Ramesh Jaura; SUSTAINABILITY; Oceans, seas and marine resources; 02 July 2022

Famine is a Policy Choice: The Afterlife of Covid, Institutional decay, and Privatization—Part 2

This is the second in a series of two articles. Click here for Part 1

COLOMBO (IDN) — What was never mentioned in connection with power cuts and soaring fuel and energy prices was the privatization of sale of the Yugadanavi power plant to an American New Fortress company in a corrupt mid-night deal in November 2021 by former US citizen President Rajapakse, before he took wing to New York to address the United Nation’s General Assembly to boast about his green energy and fertilizer policies that had bought Sri Lanka to the current disaster!

: Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 18 June 2022

Photo: Millions of people globally are on the brink of famine. Credit: WFP/Marwa Awad

Famine Is a Policy Choice: IMF Talks, Geopolitics and Disaster Capitalism—Part 1

Viewpoint by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake *

This is the first in a series of two articles.

Them belly full but we hungry
A hungry mob is an angry mob
A rain a-fall but the dirt, it tough
A pot a-cook but the food no ‘nough

A hungry man is an angry man
— Bob Marley and the Wailers

: Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 17 June 2022

Image: Nearly three-fourths of rural India Has a Mobile Connection Now Source: The Better India.

The World Is Not Going to Hell in A Handbasket

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Is the World going to hell in a handbasket? (The etymology of this goes back to Revolutionary France in the eighteenth century when guillotined heads fell into a conveniently placed basket.) No, it is not, despite Covid and despite the worldwide unsettling, brought about by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 14 June 2022

About Football-, Pandemic-, Kremlin- and Military Experts

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission.

Viewpoint by Herbert Wulf

A satirical essay that skewers the age of instant experts

BONN (IDN) — A glance at the analyses and conclusions of just about any major newspaper or news website will confirm: the self-proclaimed military experts are in charge, ready to explain to us what "heavy weapons", "no-fly zones", "anti-aircraft guns", "flagships" etc. are. And why not? They’ve been dealing with the matter for quite some time now, a whole two months since February 24, 2022.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 07 June 2022

Photo: Former Prime Minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, addresses the 1972 Stockholm Conference. Credit: UN Photo/Yutaka Nagata.

Stockholm Conference to Help Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

By Devendra Lamarajan

NAIROBI (IDN) — An international meeting to drive action towards a healthy planet for the prosperity of all will take place on June 2 and June 3 in Stockholm, Sweden. Participants will be world leaders and representatives from government, business, international organizations, civil society and youth.

The significance of the event comes at a crucial time as the Earth is in emergency mode, and urgent action is needed to address the triple planetary crisis.

: Devendra Kamarajan; UN INSIDER; 28 May 2022

New Report Focuses on Security Risks of Environment Crisis

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — The world’s growing environmental crisis—including climate change, which has resulted in widespread droughts, floods and heatwaves threatening major food crops—is escalating security risks worldwide.

A new policy report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), titled Environment of Peace: Security in a New Era of Risk,‘ points out that between 2010 and 2020 the number of state-based armed conflicts roughly doubled (to 56), as did the number of conflict deaths. At the same time, the number of refugees and other forcibly displaced people also doubled, to 82.4 million.

: Thalif Deen; SUSTAINABILITY; Climate Action; 24 May 2022

Global Leaders Call for Urgent Action to Stem the Loss of Lives and Livelihoods

By Devendra Kamarajan

ABIDJAN, Côte d’Ivoire (IDN) — Government leaders meeting at the United Nations global conference on land have called on the international community to take urgent action to stem the loss of life and livelihoods that communities all over the world are experiencing due to the increasing and devastating impacts of desertification, land degradation and drought.

: Devendra Kamarajan; UN INSIDER; 09 May 2022

Photo: Overlooking the central Kumasi market at closing time in Kumasi, Ghana, June 22, 2006. Credit: Jonathan Ernst / World Bank (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Ukraine and Africa: Food Crisis, Energy Ambiguity and An Uncertain Political Outcome

This article was issued by The Institute for International Political Studies - ISPI.

Viewpoint by Lucia Ragazzi

MILAN (IDN) — Since the war in Ukraine broke out in Europe, its consequences and side effects have been reverberating across African countries. Rising food and energy prices, supply disruptions, and inflationary pressures have created additional challenges on the road to a post-pandemic economic recovery the continent painstakingly embarked upon, in what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called a 'perfect storm'.