By Phil Harris
ROME (IDN) - She is 10-years-old when she is raped by her mother’s companion and becomes pregnant. Extremely ill, undernourished and underweight during her pregnancy, her mother requests an abortion and although the law permits termination of a pregnancy if authorities deem the carrier’s health is in danger, the request is denied by the State.
The girl’s mother is arrested and temporarily imprisoned for failing in her duty of care to her daughter, despite having previously reported the abuse to the police, who did not act.
Meanwhile, the State sends the girl to an institution against her wishes, where she is made to stay until the birth of her child. She is not allowed any visitors, apart from an aunt who is allowed to come once a week for two hours. (P12) ｜JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF
By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE (IDN) – As soon as dusk falls, Petina Dube emerges from her house balancing a sack full of garbage which has been lying uncollected in her yard amid reports that the municipal garbage collectors have no fuel to carry out their job across many residential areas in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.
At the age of 43, Dube, a resident of Warren Park high density suburb in Harare, apparently does not care where the garbage will go after she dumps it. “I am honestly not worried about where this garbage will end up; I will just dump it by a stream not far from here,” says Dube.But for many environmental experts like Happson Chikova, who holds a degree in environmental studies from Zimbabwe’s Midlands State University, waste dumped anywhere eventually ends up in oceans and this spells bad news for marine life. (P11) HINDI｜JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | PORTUGUESE
By Kalinga Seneviratne
SYDNEY (IDN) - In 1967, in a historic referendum, some 92 percent of Australians voted for the original inhabitants to be recognized as “people” to be counted in the census.
Exactly 50 years later, over 250 Indigenous Australians met in a historic summit overlooking the sacred Uluru rock in Central Australia May 24-26 and called upon the Australian government to change the constitution to give them a voice in parliament and a treaty to recognize their relationship to the land.
Australian Aborigines have come a long way since the 1967 referendum that allowed them to be considered as people like the rest of the Australians. (P10) ｜JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF
By Ek Soria
MEXICO CITY (IDN) – The 2017 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction conference, held in Cancun from May 22 to 26, brought together disaster risk managers, policy makers and leaders from the private, scientific and civil society sectors to discuss the commitments of States to absorb, adapt to and recover from disasters in a timely and efficient manner.
High on the agenda was assessment of global progress in implementing the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction adopted in Sendai, Japan, in 2015 as a 15-year, voluntary, non-binding agreement which recognises that the State has the primary role to reduce disaster risk but that responsibility should be shared with other stakeholders including local government, the private sector and other stakeholders. (P09) ｜JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF
By Shanta Rao
UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – As the United Nations assesses the implementation of its 2030 Agenda for Development, including its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the estimated funding needs keep skyrocketing --- from the initial millions and billions to trillions of dollars annually.
The President of the General Assembly, Ambassador Peter Thomson of Fiji, said on April 18 that SDG financing, including the eradication of extreme poverty by 2030, is going to cost about $6 trillion annually -- and then to a hefty $30 trillion through 2030.
At the same time, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA), which outlines the implementation of the 17 SDGs, points to an infrastructure gap of some $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion annually in developing countries, while estimates of the global gap generally range from $3 trillion to $5 trillion annually. (P08) ｜JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF
By Ramesh Jaura
BONN (IDN) – The world's 48 poorest countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change are profoundly concerned whether "substantive progress" will be made in the months ahead on implementing the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement in all its aspects.
This was emphasised by Chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group, Gebru Jember Endalew of Ethiopia, as delegates from 140 countries closed the two-week session of the United Nations climate change negotiations on May 18 in Bonn.
The LDCs are a group of countries that have been classified by the UN as "least developed" in terms of their low gross national income (GNI), their weak human assets and their high degree of economic vulnerability. (P07) ARABIC | FRENCH | GERMAN | HINDI | SPANISH ｜JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | CHINESE TEXT VERSION PDF
- Ramesh Jaura
- Goal 13+14+15
Interview with Soka Gakkai International (SGI) President Dr. Daisaku Ikeda
BERLIN | TOKYO (IDN-INPS) – Why is it important to highlight the role of young people in ushering in a New Era of Hope? Will the landmark UN Conference to negotiate “a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination” succeed? How can UN Secretary-General António Guterres ensure sufficient support from the international community for implementing the SDGs and the Paris Climate Change Agreement?
Ramesh Jaura, Editor-in-Chief and International Correspondent of IDN, flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate group, asked SGI President Dr. Daisaku Ikeda these and related questions in an e-mail interview. Read the Q&A in full: (P06) JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF
- Ramesh Jaura
- Goal 4
By Shanta Rao
NEW YORK (IDN) – The UN’s 16 peacekeeping operations (PKOs), funded by a hefty $7.9 billion budget for the current 2016-2017 biennium, are in jeopardy facing threats of drastic cuts – and in some cases, even extinction.
The United States, the largest single contributor accounting for about 28% of that budget, has not only threatened to reduce funding, possibly down to 25%, but is also calling for a downgrading – or even the total elimination-- of some of the ongoing missions.
Addressing the Council on Foreign Relations in March, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley gave an advance warning when she challenged the current state of peacekeeping operations. (P05) ITALIAN ｜JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF
By J Nastranis
NEW YORK (IDN) - Less than 30 dollars spent per person per year can work wonders for adolescent health and education, finds a new study commissioned by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.
The report has been published in The Lancet on the eve of the World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington D.C. from April 21 to April 23, 2017, where finance and development leaders from 188 countries were slated to discuss the critical need to invest in adolescents.
The Lancet is an independent, international general medical journal purported to make science widely available so that medicine can serve, and transform society, and positively impact the lives of people. (P04) ARABIC | HINDI | SPANISH | SWAHILI | TURKISH ｜JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF
By Desmond Brown
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (IDN) – Investing in sport can help reduce spiralling health costs and promote education, social cohesion and gender equality, says a new guidebook published by The Commonwealth.
The recommendations of the guidebook, titled ‘Enhancing the Contribution of Sport to the Sustainable Development Goals’, are important to the Caribbean, where chronic and communicable diseases are devastating to individuals and community, threatening the quality of life and becoming an increasingly negative factor in the region’s development.
Guyana, for example, spends on average 4.6 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare every year, equivalent to 200 dollars per capita. (P03) JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF
