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Photo: Ambassador Kairat Umarov (centre, on dais), Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the UN and President of the Security Council for the month of January, briefs journalists on the Council’s programme of work for the month on January 2 at the UN Headquarters in New York. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe.

Security Council under Kazakh Presidency has a Content-Rich Agenda for January

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – Two days after the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres issued "a red alert for our world", the new Security Council President Kairat Umarov has presented a content-rich agenda for the January programme of work of this vital organ of the world body which bears primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.

Umarov is Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the UN in New York – the first Central Asian country ever to chair the Council for January. Kazakhstan joined the Council as non-permanent member on January 1, 2017 for two years.

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 03 January 2018

Photo: Roberto Savo, the author. Credit: Opera Mundi.

A Time Bomb Waiting to Explode

Viewpoint by Roberto Savio

The writer is publisher of Other News, an eminent proponent of "information that markets eliminate" and founder of IPS-Inter Press Service News Agency. This article is being reproduced courtesy of Other News with the writer's permission. He can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and his articles and comments can be read on Facebook @robertosavioutopia

ROME (IDN) – In the year that has just ended, the world's 500 richest people increased their wealth by one trillion dollars, rising by 23 percent to top a comfortable five trillion dollars, outstripping even the US federal budget which stands at 3.7 trillion dollars.

What lies behind the figures for the world’s billionaires published in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index is the not widely known fact that the amount of money circulating stays the same …no new money has been printed to accommodate these 500 billionaires but, more importantly, this means that the rest of world’s population actually lost those trillion dollars!

: Roberto Savio; OPINION; 03 January 2018

Photo: New President of Liberia, George Weah. Credit: Daily Post, Nigeria

An Encounter with a Star Footballer Now President of Liberia

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – It was late 2003, the Liberian war was winding down after taking the lives of 250,000 civilians, spawning a small army of deadly child soldiers, and I was sitting at lunch in Monrovia inside the president’s palatial office and residence with the American ambassador on my right and George Weah, Fifa’s World Footballer of the Year, on my left.

When I introduced myself to the ambassador he made it clear he didn’t want to talk. He wasn’t happy having ended up with a journalist next to him. Every 15 minutes an aide would rush up to him with the latest news on the fighting. We could hear the sound of rifles cracking. I asked him if he was nervous. He ignored me. But Weah was more than ready to chat.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 02 January 2018

South African War on Corruption Moves into High Gear

By Global Information Network

NEW YORK | PRETORIA (IDN) – A shakeup in the African National Congress has boosted hopes that new party officials will make a clean sweep of the backroom dealings that have made millionaires out of a small South African elite and punished the majority with high unemployment and a national credit rating downgraded to “junk status.”

Business tycoon Cyril Ramaphosa, newly elected president of the African National Congress, has raised hopes that he will stamp out corruption, expedite job creation, improve the lacklustre economy and speed up the transfer of land to black people.

: Global Information Network; NEWSBRIEFS; 02 January 2018

Liberian Soccer Icon Plans Sweeping Changes as New President

By Global Information Network

NEW YORK | MONROVIA (IDN) – George Weah, Liberia’s president-elect, declared the country open to investment and pledged to tackle entrenched corruption, in his first speech to the nation since decisively winning an election on December 30, 2017.

Speaking at a press conference at his party headquarters, Weah thanked his predecessor, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, for enabling Liberia's first democratic transition in over 70 years but said he was determined to usher in sweeping changes.

Weah, 51, faces sky-high expectations from young supporters who are desperate for jobs and better wages.

: Global Information Network; NEWSBRIEFS; 02 January 2018

Photo: Nikki R. Haley, new United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations presented her credentials to Secretary-General António Guterres on 27 January 2017.

UN Chief Faces A Challenging 2018

By Erol Avdovic

The writer is Senior Diplomatic Correspondent of WebPublicaPress Online Magazine. This article first appeared on WebPublicaPress with the headline '2018 Very Challenging Year for Antonio Guterres.' It is being reproduced with slight modifications.

UNITED NATIONS (IDN-INPS) – When the new Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres took office one year ago, on January 1, he appealed for 2017 to be a year for peace. But just on the eve of the New Year 2018 he confessed – the world has gone in reverse: “Unfortunately – in fundamental ways.”

“I think the Secretary General will be the first one to tell you that the world today is in a mess,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric told Webpublicapress.

: Ramesh Jaura; UN INSIDER; 02 January 2018

New Year ... Let Us Unite Against the New Obscurantism!

Viewpoint by Michele Zizzari*

CASTELLAMMARE DI STABIA, Italy (IDN) – What can we say about the fact that we live in such an inhuman world ... where even the most superfluous of personal whims, the smallest interest or private profit is enough to make us completely ignore others or consider them (especially if poor, or for some other reason) only with annoyance and disdain?

A narrow, widespread, often gratuitous, induced, unmotivated egoism ... that we even try to justify invoking a banal and misunderstood sense of peaceful life ... which then translates into an even less noble "let's mind our own business" or "who makes us do it?"

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 01 January 2018

As the First Central Asian Country Kazakhstan Assumes Security Council Presidency

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – When Kazakhstan joined the 15-nation United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on January 1, 2017 as a non-permanent member for two years, President Nursultan Nazarbayev pledged "adapting the . . .Council and the entire UN system to the threats and challenges of the 21st century."

"We will seek to strengthen the understanding of Security Council members on the importance of creating a renewed model of international relations that accurately reflects the realities of the 21st century and shapes a collective responsibility for meeting global and regional challenges," President Nazarbayev declared.

: Ramesh Jaura; UN INSIDER; 01 January 2018

Photo: António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General, at the Security Council meeting on Non-proliferation/Democratic People's Republic of Korea on December 15, 2017. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias.

UN Chief Issues 'Red Alert,' Calls for Defending Shared Values

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has issued "a red alert for our world" in his message on the occasion of 2018 New Year. It's probably the first time ever a UN Chief has done so.

He does not explicitly refer to the nuclear muscle-flexing between the United States and North Korea, but warns: "Global anxieties about nuclear weapons are the highest since the Cold War."

Red alert is "a state of alert brought on by impending danger". The full text of his message on December 31 explains why he perceives a sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. But there is something the international community can undoubtedly do to avert the impending danger. Here the full text of Guterres' video message:

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 31 December 2017

Photo: IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano (left) and OFID Director-General Suleiman J Al-Herbish (right) at the conclusion of an agreement to increase food security and promote sustainable agriculture in Asia. Credit: OFID.

OPEC Fund Supports UN Atomic Energy Agency to End Hunger

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN | VIENNA (IDN) – The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Fund for International Development (OFID) has joined hands with the United Nations atomic energy agency in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 on ending hunger, achieving food security

Backed by the OFID grant of US$ 600,000, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) projects will benefit especially poor farmers in developing countries in Asia: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Nepal and Vietnam.

OFID Director-General Suleiman J Al-Herbish and IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano signed an agreement for the purpose on December 21. Al-Herbish said: "Grant financing is an important part of OFID's development operations and we are pleased to be working with the IAEA in support of agriculture in Asia."