Feed aggregator

CVE - Le Président de la CVE, Dr KANE Hamidou Baba a reçu hier mercredi 17 Septembre 2020 le leader de Ira, Biram Dah Abeid, à sa demande, à...

Le Conseil fédéral propose de simplifier les conditions requises pour que les assureurs remboursent davantage, à partir de leurs excédents, les primes payées en trop.

Event Video: 
Photos

jQuery(document).ready(function(){jQuery("#isloaderfor-crvjda").fadeOut(2000, function () { jQuery(".pagwrap-crvjda").fadeIn(1000);});});

On September 18th, IPI, in partnership with UN75, The Group of Women Leaders, and the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, convened a virtual event commemorating the 75th anniversary of the United Nations with a diverse group of women leaders in a dynamic conversation on priorities and solutions for “recovering better” from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Following welcoming remarks by IPI Vice President Adam Lupel. Waheguru Pal Sidhu, Professor and Head of the UN Initiative at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU, opened the session positing three possible post-pandemic scenarios for the UN’s future, in order of preference.

The first was the UN’s “continued relevance as the center of the multilateral universe,” but this would come about “only if the UN is able to leverage the ongoing disruption, engage a host of sub-state and non-state actors, devise innovative negotiation approaches and address emerging challenges to recover better.”

The second would result if the UN simply opted for “business as usual,” in which case “it might be relegated to the sidelines and become just one of the multiplicity of forums to deal with 21st century challenges.”

The last, and, by Professor Sidhu’s admission, “most somber” was a UN “unable or unwilling to recover better” and consequently passing into “irrelevance or even demise.”

Professor Sidhu said that none of these outcomes was inevitable but that advancing the UN’s future would require “concerted collective action from the individual to the global level, especially if we want to preserve and strengthen the UN over the next 25 years.” He asked, “So how can we ensure the solidarity and sustained collective action for the outcome we want? Can the UN be the arena, agent, and actor that we need in order to build the future we want?”

In response, Maria Fernanda Espinosa, President of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly and member of The Group of Women Leaders, Voices for Change and Inclusion, singled out the need for “leadership and concerted action.”

She cast a wide net in describing the leadership she had in mind. “It has to come from the whole of society. It is not only government or messianic leaders, but social activists:  women, journalists, opinion makers, scientists, academia, indigenous leaders. I think we all have a role to play in building this new social contract that we have the opportunity now to build, and this new social contract has to be between society, the economy, politics, and nature as well.”

She stressed the importance of a wide-ranging collective effort to shore up the distressed multilateral system. “It is not a self-operating machine, it does not have self-agency. The multilateral system at the UN is what we want it to be. It’s us who have the responsibility to craft the system to serve us and the interests of ‘we, the peoples.’”

Picking up on that point, Elizabeth Cousens, President and CEO of the United Nations Foundation, commented, “I sometimes say that multilateralism is the new realism. It’s not sentimental. It’s not because everybody gets along, it’s precisely because they don’t always get along that you need multilateral institutions and understandings.”

She lamented the “anger and distrust in politics that are deepening rather than overcoming our divisions” and focused her remarks on the uplift coming from “bright spots, pa­rticularly at the local level.”

Ambassador Cousens listed a random few of them, including the voluntary local reviews of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that have been created in more than 100 American cities, the state of Hawaii, and at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh; a new SDG “tracker tool” in Los Angeles allowing community organizations to connect the SDGs to “real lives and impacts;” an effort underway to unite more than 40 American cities behind an equitable response to COVID-19 and recovery; and a campaign by Walmart, the biggest employer in the US, to transform its supply chains to tackle equity, climate change, and gender issues. “That’s just a few snippets from this country, but there is obviously incredible leadership and bright spots around the world in cities and communities.”

What’s essential now, Ambassador Cousens said, is better coordination and broader encouragement. “So I look to a lot of these sources of leadership and innovation where we have real reserves of political power in other places, and the key is to connect them, to empower them, and to find new ways of bringing that leadership into the debate and platforms and actions that we have at a global level.”

Natalie Samarasinghe, UN75 Deputy and Chief of Strategy, said she feared at first that the coming of the pandemic would diminish enthusiasm and distract from the mission of UN75. “But that’s actually when we saw the initiative take off, and I don’t think it was just because people were bored during lockdown. It was because people saw this was a global crisis with far-reaching consequences that couldn’t be solved by their governments acting in isolation and that probably would require intensive efforts over many years and that no country, no matter how big or powerful, was going to be spared.”

She said that she was impressed that even the UN’s biggest backers saw the moment not as just an opportunity to restore the UN but one to make it better and more inclusive and accountable in the future. “They’re thinking long-term, what’s the impact on inequality and unemployment, how can we get more support for the hardest hit? I think it’s a powerful message of solidarity to take back to world leaders.”

In rebuilding the UN post-pandemic, Ms. Samarasinghe cautioned against sticking to just structural renovation and urged attention in addition to improving political leadership and making the world body more inclusive. “We often focus on structures, the composition of certain parts of the UN. That’s right. That’s hard. But even the most perfect system, the most perfect design, won’t make up for politics. We should focus on our leadership, good leadership at all levels, senior but mid-level too. And not paying lip service to include other voices, but actually doing it—meaningful, ongoing inclusion, embedding people, other stakeholders into the system. That will help deliver more evolutionary change, ongoing change and renewal, more than another sort of static re-design of the system would.”

Nisreen Elsaim, Chair of the UN Secretary-General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change and Chair of the Sudan Youth Organization on Climate Change, cited the common observation that the pandemic had laid bare the desperate inequality in the world but stressed that in her part of the world, such inequality was rampant before COVID-19 and would persist afterward if it continued to be neglected.

“We’re always saying that the SDGs are about leaving no one behind, but that is actually what COVID did. So before thinking about the inequalities that COVID caused, we should first think of the inequalities that we had before, and realize that even if we find a cure, there will still be a lot of inequality happening,” she said.

Regarding her youth organization work, Ms. Elsaim said that young people welcomed all the attention and talk about including them in policy-making but were disappointed at the lack of follow-through on repeated promises. “As young persons, we have gotten used to being the trend, to having people say, ‘Young people are the fuel for the future, they are the change agents.’ But then when it comes to decision-making, when it comes to really implementing things in reality, then the young people, the ones who are actually trending, disappear.”

Ms. Elsaim said that involving young people was not just a moral responsibility, it was a measure that would make the UN more effective, innovative, and more broadly relevant. “What makes us special as young people is that we actually take different suggestions, we take the information we get, we empty our cup, we try to use different materials in order to make our world better. And last but not least, we are fearless.”

Jimena Leiva Roesch, Senior Fellow and Head of IPI’s Peace and Sustainable Development Program, moderated the discussion.

.content .main .entry-header.w-thumbnail .cartouche {background: none; bottom: 0px;} h1.entry-title {font-size: 1.8em;}

Alors que les Sénégalais ne sont jusque-là pas édifiés sur la position du Président Macky Sall quant à une éventualité de briguer un troisième mandat présidentiel, voilà que l’ancien président de l’Assemblée nationale ivoirienne, Guillaume Soro, met un coup de projecteur sur la posture du dirigeant sénégalais. C’est au cours d’un point de presse tenu, […]

L’article Macky Sall et le troisième mandat : Soro vend la mèche est apparu en premier sur Afrik.com.

L’actrice algérienne Salima Abada a été nominée dans la catégorie du meilleur acteur d’Afrique du Nord à la 5ᵉ édition des SOTIGUI Awards. Dans le cadre de la 5ᵉ édition des SOTIGUI Awards, cérémonie de récompense des acteurs africains et de la diaspora africaine, l’actrice algérienne Salima Abada a été nominée dans la catégorie du […]

L’article SOTIGUI Awards 2020 : Salima Abada nominée dans la catégorie du meilleur acteur de l’Afrique du Nord est apparu en premier sur .

Ein Affe klaut dem Malaysier Zackrydz Rodzi sein Smartphone und schiesst massenweise Selfies und Videos von sich. Rodzi wird mit diesen Affen-Selfies nun weltbekannt. Doch dies kann auch Nachteile haben.

Thun lässt Punkte liegen, GC erzittert sich den ersten Dreier. Das Roundup der Challenge League.

Dieser Fall schockiert Italien. Ein 73-Jähriger verteidigt eine junge Frau vor ihrem aggressivem Partner (25). Dieser prügelt den Senioren daraufhin spitalreif. Die junge Frau verteidigt den Täter – ihren Verlobten.

Liu Bolin (China), Guernica, 2016

By External Source
Sep 18 2020 (IPS-Partners)

US President Donald Trump and his ‘war council’ – led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – have amplified their aggression against China. What began as a trade dispute in the 1990s has now escalated into the United States making an existential challenge against China.

The threat against China is made not for irrational reasons, but for perfectly rational ones, which are laid out below in our Red Alert no. 9 (also available as a separate download from our website). These have to do with the emergence of China as a major economic and technological power. What most rankles the US ruling class is that the various hybrid war techniques to weaken or overthrow the government are simply not available. The only means at the disposal of the United States to hold on to its power – chillingly – is armed force.

Red Alert no. 9. The US-Imposed Hybrid War on China

Is the United States trying to impose a war on China?

For the past several decades, the US has conducted a trade war against China. There are two key issues that worry the United States: first, a trade imbalance that benefits China, and, second, the growth of the Chinese technology sector. Techniques that the US has used against China include: pressuring China to revalue its currency against the dollar, pressuring China to prevent ‘piracy’ on intellectual property in order to slow down its domestic intellectual property developments, and pressuring China to slow down or cease its Belt and Road Initiative.

The US has now begun a war against the Chinese economy. The attempt to isolate Huawei and ZTE from their suppliers and their markets will have a debilitating impact on the growth potential of the Chinese economy. The US has sanctioned roughly 152 companies that make chips and other products for Huawei and ZTE. Increased bans – through the US government’s Clean Network initiative – would prevent US companies from using Chinese cloud services and undersea cables, and it would ban Chinese apps from appearing on app stores. The US government has increased pressure on other countries to join in this campaign.

The US government has increased its military pressure along the eastern rim of China. This includes the 2017 revival of the Quad (Australia, India, Japan, and the US), the creation of the US’ Indo-Pacific Strategy (its key document from 2020 is called ‘Regain the Advantage’), and the development of a range of new weaponry, including cyberweapons. This military power has come alongside hostile rhetoric against China, with attention focused on Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Taiwan, and the depiction of the coronavirus pandemic as a ‘China virus’. Evidence is not as important here as the use of older racist and anti-Communist ideas to demonise China.

Liu Xiaodong (China), Wedding Party, 1992.

Why is the US increasing its pressure against China?

China’s technological advances could result in a generational advantage over the West. China’s scientific and technological developments came because of the country’s investment in higher education and in its ability to transfer technology from firms that entered the country to manufacture goods. In 2018, Chinese scholars for the first time published more scientific articles than their colleagues in the US, and Chinese firms filed more patent applications than US firms. Chinese tech firms have now produced products that appear to be ahead of US, European, and Japanese products. Examples for this include 5G, BeiDou (a better mapping technology than GPS), high-speed trains, and robots.

Faced with US pressure, China has crafted an independent trade and development agenda. Since the world financial crisis, China began diversifying its economy from reliance upon the US and European markets to build up its own internal market and to increase engagement with the Global South. The immediate projects that developed included the Belt and Road Initiative, the String of Pearls Initiative, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States Forum. The Chinese government has also begun to pay more attention to the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). These moves come alongside a remarkable poverty eradication programme.

Currently, China is highly dependent on imported energy – such as gas from ASEAN nations, Australia, and Qatar. The China-Russia 6000kms ‘Power of Siberia’ pipeline will bring 38 billion cubic metres of natural gas, a substantial increase to meet the demands for the 90 billion cubic meters consumed by China. In 2014, Russia’s multinational energy corporation Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation signed a $400 billion for a thirty-year deal.

Increasingly, China has attempted to build institutions outside of Western-controlled trade and development architecture, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (founded in 2014). As part of this, China has committed to de-dollarisation; China has proposed to hold its reserves and to conduct trade in currencies other than the US dollar. This is a long-term but inevitable development, and one that threatens the overall role of the Wall Street-Dollar complex. China’s cooperation with Russia is most advanced in this arena, with about 50% of Russia-China trade conducted in roubles and yuan (Russia owns about 25% of the global yuan reserves). Both Russia and China are divesting themselves of their dollar reserves. In January 2020, Russia sold $101 billion, or 50%, of its dollar reserves and moved $44 billion into Euros and $44 billion into yuan. The yuan, however, represents only 2% of global currency reserves.

Against the eastward expansion of NATO and the emergence of the Quad, China and Russia have crafted a military and diplomatic Eurasian security bloc. This is evident in the arms deals and the military exercises, but also in diplomatic coordination. For example, Russian and Chinese foreign ministry spokespersons Maria Zakharova and Hua

Chunying said in late July that they would join efforts in combatting the information war against China and Russia. Chinese diplomats have taken a more forthright attitude in their statements; they have been dubbed the ‘wolf warrior diplomats’, an allusion to a popular film where a Chinese soldier from an elite Wolf Warrior troop defeats a group of terrorists led by an ex-US Navy Seal.

Clearly, the US has found that Chinese leadership has been unwilling to go the Gorbachev road – namely, to surrender the Chinese model to the will of the United States. There is no possibility that the Communist Party of China will dissolve itself. The Chinese middle class – possible fodder for a ‘colour revolution’ – does not have any appetite to overthrow the government. It is content with the direction of the government and sees that its government has improved living standards and has been able – unlike Western governments – to tackle the Coronavirus pandemic (as we write about in a series on ‘CoronaShock’). A Harvard University study shows that the government led by the Communist Party of China has increased its approval from 2003 to 2016, largely because of the social welfare programmes and the fight against corruption pushed by both the Communist Party of China and by the Chinese government. The overall approval stands at 93%.

Zhong Biao (China), Paradise, 2007.

What contradictions does the US war project face?

Chinese economic developments – such as the country’s capacity to outspend the US in development aid to outbid Western firms in trade deals – has produced alliances between China and key capitalist sectors in countries that have otherwise been secure US allies. Examples of this are amongst sections of the capitalist class in the Philippines and Sri Lanka, where Chinese investment has been welcomed.

The Chinese state has intensified its intervention in the tech sector inside China, with a $14 billion private and public fund to support tech developments. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) – China’s top chip company – had an initial public offering (IPO) in Shanghai which netted $7. 5 billion. As a consequence of such funds and its own scientific developments, China will soon be able to bypass the US chip firms.

China’s economic capacity continues to exert pressure on fragments of capital in different countries. For instance, Australian mining companies rely upon China to buy iron ore from Australia. These companies lobby Canberra not to take too hostile a position against China. Roughly one third of Australia’s total exports go to China; these include soy, barley, meat, fruits, gas, and the raw minerals. The Australian government is forced to acknowledge these concerns, even though it has a longer-term perspective than the short-term profit concerns of the mining conglomerates. China has already hedged its bets, increasing purchases of soy and meat from Argentina and Brazil, and it will likely buy more mined goods from Brazil (Brazil’s Vale is using massive ships to carry mined goods to China).

The US military is stretched thin between the conflicts in Venezuela and Iran, and now in China. The US Navy has had four secretaries in a year, part of the chaos in the Trump administration. As a consequence, the US Navy has complained about the lack of ability to handle so many theatres of war at the same time. China has developed sophisticated defence mechanisms, such as cyber warfare techniques that have the ability to shut down US communications, starting with their satellites, and such as their Dongfeng missiles, which are capable of hitting the US navy ships that are in the South China Sea.

The eighth century Chinese poet Li Bai wrote of the ugliness of war; as far as war is concerned, nothing has changed over the centuries.

Soldiers smear their blood on the dry grass

While generals map the next campaign.

Wise people know winning a war

Is no better than losing one.

The post Wise People Know That Winning a War Is No Better Than Losing One appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dedicated to Soni Prashad, 1929-2020, who spent her life looking for a better world.

The post Wise People Know That Winning a War Is No Better Than Losing One appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Adrar-Info - Vendredi, la police mauritanienne a dispersé une manifestation organisée par les coordinateurs des candidats ayant obtenu une note...

Der österreichische Kanzler Sebastian Kurz ist heute zu Besuch in Bern. Mimi Jäger hat ein gesundes Kind zur Welt gebracht und Guillaume Hoarau hat beim FC Sion unterschrieben.

Kater Elvis (†2), das Büsi von Selina S. (22) aus Wauwil LU, ist tot. Ihr Verdacht: Elvis wurde von einem Menschen getötet. Der Kopf hing nach hinten, ein Auge wurde ausgeschlagen und der Kiefer ausgerenkt.

Le Premier Ministre, Abdelaziz Djerad, a présidé hier, jeudi 17 septembre, la cérémonie d’installation de M. Abdelaziz Medjahed au poste de DG de l’INESG. Au nom du Président de la République, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, le Premier Ministre, Abdelaiziz Djerad, a présidé la cérémonie d’installation de M. Abdelaziz Medjahd à son nouveau poste de Directeur Général de […]

L’article Abdelaziz Medjahed installé au poste de DG de l’INESG est apparu en premier sur .

Via Whatsapp verschickte ein Priester aus der Zentralschweiz ein Penis-Bild an eine Pfarramtssekretärin. Der Geistliche wurde daraufhin freigestellt. Der Priester sieht sich als Opfer, spricht von «einem perfiden Spiel».

Le roi du Maroc, Mohammed VI, devra mener le combat de sa vie pour parvenir à assurer la transmission du pouvoir à son fils par ailleurs héritier du trône, Moulay El Hassan. Chasse au trône au Maroc ? Rien n’est moins sûr. Toutefois, l’on sait que le roi Mohammed VI a un combat à mener, pas […]

L’article Maroc : Moulay Hassan, l’autre combat de Mohammed VI est apparu en premier sur Afrik.com.

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2020 - EP

Xherdan Shaqiri zeigt im Training des FC Liverpools sein ganzes Können. Im Fussball-Tennis packt der Zauberzwerg einen Fallrückzieher aus – und punktet!

Le360 Afrique - Le Premier ministre mauritanien, Mohamed ould Bilal, a reçu en audience l’ambassadeur du Royaume du Maroc, Hamid Chabar. Un...

Sonya Kraus ist entspannt im Pool, Ashley Tisdale erwartet Nachwuchs und Oliver Pocher zeigt eine neue Seite. Willkommen zu den Foto-Storys des Tages!

In jungen Jahren kämpfte die Walliserin Stefanie Heinzmann mit Selbstzweifeln. Dies ging so weit, dass sie sich selbst begann zu verletzen und letztendlich in eine Psychiatrie einwies.