Unless world leaders make next year a year for development, the consequence would not be just poverty, but also military conflicts for decades to come from which the rich would be unable to protect themselves, Graca Machel, widow of former South African president Nelson Mandela, yesterday told British Prime Minister David Cameron in a letter.
It is Machel’s first global political act since Mandela’s death last year.
The letter to Cameron was also signed by former archbishop Desmond Tutu, Irish rock star Bono, Nobel Peace Prize-winner Muhammad Yunus, billionaire entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim and 17-year-old Pakistani activist Malala Yousufzai.
The letter urges Cameron to take the lead on an international UN framework on climate change next year and to secure an agreement on tighter UN Millennium Development Goals, an issue on which he took a personal lead last year.
The letter coincided with the anniversary of Mandela’s birthday yesterday — and also the day on which the current negotiations on replacing the Millennium Development Goals are due to close.
At present, there is little sign of progress, with signs that there will be an increase in the number to 17 and a proliferation in targets to 145. That number is widely seen as unwieldy.
“A growing insecurity caused by unequal access to increasingly scarce natural resources leads to tragic conflicts from which nobody — no elite, no matter how rich — can hide. This is an entirely plausible outcome of a complacent business-as-usual approach to 2015,” the letter says. “Which world do you want to live in by 2030? Which world it will be depends upon the decision you make in 2015, and the preparations we make for it now.”
The letter also calls for a global movement to unite development, climate and human rights campaigns around this agenda.
A campaign called Action/2015 — backed by organizations from around the world, from Amnesty International to the All Africa Conference of Churches and Save The Children to the ONE Campaign — is to be launched in January.
“The good news is a global movement is coming together for 2015 and the future, inspired by the words of Nelson Mandela: ‘Like slavery, like apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome by the actions of human beings.’ Climate change too can and must be remedied by the actions of human beings,” the letter says.
The campaigners expressed fear that the summit on climate change called by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is already at risk.
Cameron is under pressure to confirm that he will go to the summit on Sept. 23 and make a substantial pledge, but has so far made no commitment, citing the Scottish referendum on independence and the Conservative Party’s conference.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
RSS