WASHINGTON, March 23, 2012 (IPS) – In a surprise to many development and finance experts here on Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama nominated Jim Yong Kim, a relatively unknown but highly regarded international health specialist to become the next president of the World Bank.
In 1992, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the United Nations held its landmark Conference on Environment and Development. Also known as the Earth Summit, the Conference set the global environmental agenda for the next two decades. Now, twenty years on, the world’s governments, development practitioners, and environmental activists are set to reconvene once again, in Brazil, in June 2012, for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development-Rio +20.
On 16 March 2012, North Korea announced that it would launch an earth observation satellite named Kwangmyongsong (Lodestar) 3, aboard an Unha carrier rocket sometime between the hours of 7 am and noon on a day between 12 and 16 April, to commemorate the 100thanniversary of the birth of its state founder, Kim Il Sung, and the attainment of “strong and prosperous” status by the country. The launch from a base in the north of the country close to the border with China would be pointed south, dropping off its first phase rocket into the Yellow Sea about 160 kms to the southwest of South Korea’s Byeonsan peninsula and the second into the ocean about 140 kilometres east of Luzon in the Philippines. Due notice of the impending launch was issued to the appropriate international maritime, aviation and telecommunication bodies (IMO, ICAO and ITU) and, to mark the occasion, North Korea announced that it would welcome scientific observers and journalists. The 15 April date, in the 100th year according to the calendar of North Korea, has long been declared a landmark in the history of the state, and the launch seems designed to be its climactic event.
Physical distance is difficult because of the helplessness it engenders. To see one’s world unraveling continents and oceans away and to feel that you can’t do anything can be terribly frustrating. But with distance, one also sees more clearly. Art, as I understand it, and this includes philosophy, is about cultivating a certain distance so that we might, in turn, lend our vision to those in the thick of historic events. Which is to say, one cannot evaluate the play while sharing the stage with the actors. At least this is how I justified my decision, as an Egyptian, to remain in the United States, my adopted home of the past six years, during the Arab Spring Revolution.
Mexico took on the presidency of the G20 in December 2011 at a moment of multiple crises. The nation shares the presidency with a “three-member management Troika of past, present and future chairs”, this year, France and Russia.1 As chair, Mexico is responsible for establishing a temporary secretariat to coordinate work and prepare for and organize the June 2012 Summit. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is charged with this task, with the participation of other ministries in specific areas.
Math has never been my strong suit, but even I can see that the Pentagon — whose officials treat “weapons program” and “cost overrun” as synonyms — has a monster math problem. Not surprisingly, it’s also a place that has never successfully passed an audit. Its top officials have talked endlessly about the giant cuts they are making in future Pentagon planning to fit the changing financial mood of the country. And the media, which seems similarly weak on its math foundations, has been highlighting these claims with headlines featuring major Pentagon “cuts” and significant budget “slashing.”
They say that it’s only in hard times that you really see who your true friends are. What separates opportunistic partnership from genuine alliance isn’t necessarily treaties, but a willingness among both parties to hang onto their relationship when the going gets tough.
WASHINGTON, Mar 8, 2012 (IPS) – This week was supposed to be all about Iran – at least, that’s how Israel and its powerful U.S. lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), had planned it – and why the U.S. should prepare to bomb it very, very soon if its leadership doesn’t cave into Western demands to abandon its nuclear programme.
When I heard the sudden news of the death of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-il, I felt as if I had been struck by lightning. Since his miracle recovery from the 2008 stroke, he had been busy travelling in and outside North Korea. Both he and others around him would have been concerned about his health, and also prepared for this moment. His death must have been such a huge regret for Kim himself, who was single-mindedly focusing on keeping his public promise to open a ‘big gate’ for a ‘powerful and prosperous Korea’ by the 100th anniversary of the birth of his father, Kim Il-song in 2012. As one Japanese who has been hoping for normalization of Japan-North Korea relations for the last 10 years, I could not but grieve over the death of the leader of our neighbouring country, who, more than anyone else, hoped to realise this goal. The Japanese government and people have lost their best chance to achieve normalization. The last decade has now become a lost decade.
“The people believe that they will prosper with the arrival of the World Cup, but the truth is that they will be brutally repressed,” warns Roberto Morales, advisor to Socialist Liberty Party Representative Marcelo Freixo. The agreements between the Brazilian government and the Federate International Football Association (FIFA) restrict merchandise sales around the stadiums and ban vendors from coming within two kilometers of the events.