by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
By Arul Louis,
United Nations : US President Donald Trump, who has had an adversarial relationship with the world body, surprisingly showered praise on Secretary-General Antonio Guterres saying he was “working hard to ‘Make the UN Great Again'”.
The unexpected kudos in his tweet came after their meeting on Friday, which played off his election slogan of “Make America Great Again” and appeared to show a newly found appreciation that the world body could help Washington by dealing with conflicts after several developments that have highlighted the rift between Trump’s US and the UN.
Trump’s praise of Guterres was centred on monetary savings for the US as he added in his tweet, “When the UN does more to solve conflicts around the world, it means the US has less to do and we save money.”
The UN has been at odds with Trump’s world view with the General Assembly criticising Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy there, Guterres opposing Washington’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, and the UN failing to act jointly with the US against Syria.
The White House said that two of those issues — Iran and Syria — figured in the talks between Trump and Guterres.
A UN statement said: “The Secretary-General expressed his appreciation for the continued US engagement in the work of the UN.”
The meeting with Trump capped two days of Guterres’s diplomacy in Washington where he made rounds of Congressional leaders to try and revive the flagging support for the world body, especially with cuts in US contributions to the UN looming.
While neither the UN nor the White House gave details of who were at the talks, Trump’s tweet included a photograph that showed them with Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, Permanent Representative Nikki Haley, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton.
Trump also praised Haley, saying in the same tweet that she “is doing a fantastic job!”
She is credited with squeezing out $285 million out of the 2018-2019 UN budget of $5.4 billion, saving about $63 million for the US, which foots 22 per cent of budget.
The White House said they also discussed UN reform — which is focused on saving even more — and “the President reiterated his support for the Secretary-General’s efforts to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the UN”.
Another topic in their discussions was North Korea, where Trump is hoping for a breakthrough in his upcoming talks with that nation’s leader Kim Jong-un leading to Pyongyang’s denuclearisation.
The UN statement said that they discussed the “broader situation” in the Middle East, without indicating if this week’s Palestinian protests in Gaza during which more than 60 people were killed in firings by Israeli forces came up.
Guterres’s Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq said that before the talks with Trump, he met with Pompeo and Bolton.
A former permanent representative, Bolton once said that if the UN headquarters building “lost ten stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference”.
On Thursday Guterres even had a meeting with the Freedom Caucus, a hardline right-wing group of Republican members of the Congress, who are very critical of the UN.
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Networking, Technology, World
Kigali : Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, set up by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and UNESCO, on Monday pushed for more concerted global efforts to increase broadband connectivity.
“As we discuss Fifth Generation (5G) broadband connectivity. it is up to us to lead the way in driving innovation both in policy and business models in order to speed up the provision of broadband where it has been slowest to reach,” said Rwandan president Paul Kagame during a two-day meeting of the broadband commission that kicked off on Sunday in the Rwandan capital Kigali, Xinhua reported.
The two-day event focused on global internet connectivity, vulnerable countries, epidemic preparedness, digital entrepreneurship and digital health, according to organisers.
“The reality is that all other digital services whether in commerce or education or healthcare run on top of broadband. Africa’s economic transformation requires broadband infrastructure with an emphasis on both access and affordability,” said Kagame, who is a co-chair of the commission along side Mexican magnate Carlos Slim and ITU Secretary-General Zhao Houlin.
The commission was established in 2010 with the aim of boosting the importance of broadband on the international policy agenda and expanding broadband access in every country as key to accelerating progress towards national and international development targets.
Slim said that broadband services should be made affordable in developing countries, at less than 2 percent of
monthly gross national income per capita in order to reach unconnected areas.
The commission has set a global broadband target whereby all countries should have a funded national broadband plan or strategy by 2025, said Slim.
“We are aiming at having the global community connected, especially the billions of unconnected. Government leaders and policy makers should help ITU in ensuring that this becomes a reality in the next few years,” said Zhao.
Poor infrastructure in developing countries was slowing the growth of broadband connectivity, he said.
According to ITU, 50 percent of the world’s population is expected to be connected to the Internet by the end of 2019.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Vienna : The UN nuclear agency has reiterated that no evidence was found in Iran relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device after 2009.
“The same report stated that the Agency had no credible indications of activities in Iran relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device after 2009,” said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in a statement on Tuesday about Iranian nuclear issue, saying that its consideration of this issue was closed, Xinhua reported.
The statement came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a televised presentation on Monday, disclosed files allegedly obtained by Israel’s intelligence agency from Iran’s “secret nuclear archive,” saying the files prove Iran has secretly worked on nuclear weapons.
On Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Ministry dismissed Netanyahu’s allegations as “lies” aimed at influencing US President Donald Trump’s upcoming decision about the Iranian nuclear deal signed in July 2015.
The deal struck between Iran and six world powers — the US, Britain, Russia, China, France and Germany was designed to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the removal of international sanctions on Iran.
IAEA monitors Iran’s implementation of the deal. The assessment of Iranian nuclear program by IAEA was made in 2015.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
UN General Assembly President Miroslav Lajcak
By Arul Louis,
United Nations : Peace and upholding of human rights are preconditions for development and, therefore, the UN has to put a priority on peacebuilding to prevent conflicts from arising, said General Assembly President Miroslav Lajcak.
“We made it very clear that you cannot speak about peace in separation from development and from human rights,” he told reporters on Tuesday during the two-day high-level meeting he convened on peacebuilding and sustaining peace.
This new approach to sustaining peace demands a comprehensive approach, he said.
He said: “Obviously you cannot talk and think about meeting the Sustainable Development Goals in a situation when a country or region is in conflict.
“Therefore, peace is a precondition and prerequisite for development and also for the respect of human rights.”
This approach was firmed up in resolutions adopted by both the Assembly and the Security Council in 2016 on peacebuilding and sustaining peace and the high-level meeting is a stocktaking exercise at the two-year mark “to see how much has been achieved, how much the work of the UN has improved, has changed for the better, what needs to be done for the future,” he added.
Earlier speaking at the opening of the meeting attended by two presidents, a king, two prime ministers and about 50 ministers and vice-ministers, Lajcak said that although the UN has prevented a world war, “we could have done more to respond to conflicts and more to prevent them from happening at all.”
Preventing conflicts must be given greater priority with more emphasis on mediation and diplomacy, he said.
“We need a drive for diplomacy and the UN must be the engine room,” he added.
He warned about the rising intolerance, hate speech and divisive rhetoric, and said that the international community should find ways to counteract them.
He said that making the decision-making processes more inclusive by having women in leadership positions was essential for peace and avoiding conflicts while noting that mostly men wielded power.
(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
United Nation : Expressing solidarity with the UK, US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, has warned that if concrete measures were not initiated, “Russia will use chemical weapons here in New York or in cities of any country that sits on this Council”.
Haley said the Donald Trump administration “stands in absolute solidarity with Great Britain” following a nerve agent attack against a Russian double agent and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury last week, the CNN reported.
In the strongest statement yet from the US administration on the affair, Haley said Washington shared the UK’s assessment that the Russian state was behind the poisoning and demanded a firm international response.
“The US believes that Russia is responsible for the attack on two people in the UK using a military-grade nerve agent,” Haley said in her remarks at a UN Security Council emergency session on Wednesday, blasting the Russian government for flouting international law, the CNN report said.
“If we don’t take immediate concrete measures to address this now, Salisbury will not be the last place we see chemical weapons used,” said Haley.
“They could be used here in New York or in cities of any country that sits on this council.”
Russia, however, has dismissed the accusations as “fairy tales” and denied any involvement in the attack which landed the Skripals, along with a British police officer, in the hospital.
The UK believes Russia was behind the attempted murders of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia because of the nerve agent used. Novichok, was developed in the Soviet Union and could not be replicated by non-state actors, CNN quoted UK officials as saying.
London on Wednesday announced it would expel 23 Russian diplomats after Moscow failed to meet a UK deadline to give a “credible response”.
Moscow’s Ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, even suggested the UK might have been responsible for the attack in an attempt to smear Russia. “In the Russian Federation, no scientific research or development work under the title Novichok were carried out,” he told the Security Council.
Laying the blame firmly at Russia’s door and highlighting Moscow’s support of the Assad regime in Syria following that government’s use of chemical weapons against civilians, Haley told fellow diplomats the world had reached “a defining moment”.
“Time and time again, members states say they oppose the use of chemical weapons under any circumstance,” said Haley. “Now one member stands accused of using chemical weapons on the sovereign soil of another member.
“The credibility of this Council will not survive if we fail to hold Russia accountable,” she said.
—IANS
