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Le prix du pétrole brut Brent a dépassé, aujourd’hui  jeudi 18 février les 65 dollars le baril pour la première fois depuis le 21 janvier 2020. Le cours du baril de pétrole ne cesse d’augmenter depuis plusieurs semaines, le prix des contrats à terme pour avril a augmenté de 0,25% pour atteindre 65,06 dollars le […]

L’article Pétrole : Le prix du Brent au plus haut depuis janvier 2020 est apparu en premier sur .

Le prix du permis de conduire devra connaitre une importante augmentation, selon ce qu’a annoncé, mercredi, le président de la fédération nationale des auto-écoles Zineddine Aoudia. Dans une déclaration au quotidien arabophone Echorouk, le responsable a indiqué que le prix du permis de conduire sera revu à hauteur de 34 000 DA à compter du mois de […]

L’article Permis de conduire : Ce qui va changer à partir du mois de mars est apparu en premier sur .

A court in Belarus on Thursday (18 February) sentenced two journalists to two years in prison on charges of fomenting protests against strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko.

Le recours en invalidation de la candidature de Paul Hounkpè au poste de vice-président à l'élection présidentielle d'avril prochain n'a pas reçu l'avis favorable de la Cour constitutionnelle. Les sages de la haute juridiction au terme de l'audience de ce mercredi 17 février ont rejeté la demande formulée par le sieur Imorou Zéidi.

Selon le requérant, Paul Hounkpè, candidat au poste de vice-président du parti Force cauris pour un Bénin émergent (FCBE), a fait l'objet d'une peine devant un tribunal. Pour lui, le présidentiable n'est pas d'une bonne moralité, et ne pourra donc pas prétendre à la fonction présidentielle.
Les faits évoqués remontent à l'année 2015, où le candidat Paul Hounkpè avait été condamné à deux mois d'emprisonnement assorti de sursis pour abus d'autorité.
Dans sa délibération, la Cour constitutionnelle a fait observer que le Code électoral évoque la condamnation de trois mois alors que Paul Hounkpè a fait l'objet d'une condamnation de deux mois. D'où le rejet de la demande de Imorou Zéidi.

F. A. A.

Die politische Krise in Georgien vertieft sich: Premierminister Giorgi Gacharia ist am Donnerstagmorgen zurückgetreten. Grund dafür ist seine Ablehnung einer Gerichtsentscheidung zur Festnahme des wichtigsten Oppositionsführers.

14 fonctionnaires ont été admis dans l'Ordre national de mérite du Bénin. Ces agents de l'Etat ont été distingués pour les services rendus à la nation.

Au nombre des récipiendaires, figure le directeur général des médias par intérim, Lévy Ayouba. Ce dernier a été reçu au grade de chevalier de mérite.
Selon la grande chancelière du Bénin, Koubourath Osseni, ces fonctionnaires ont été valeureux pour avoir consenti des services au rayonnement du pays.
La distinction qui leur est faite, est « la plus élevée que le Bénin décerne à ses plus valeureux citoyens », a-t-elle souligné.

F. A. A.

Die Verteidigungsministerinnen und Verteidigungsminister der NATO-Staaten haben am Mittwoch erstmals über die Reformvorschläge von Generalsekretär Jens Stoltenberg beraten. Einige Mitglieder ließen bereits durchblicken, dass sie der Vorlage eher skeptisch gegenüberstehen.

Les candidats en lice à l'élection présidentielle de 2021 sont attendus au siège de la Cour Constitutionnelle ce jeudi 18 février 2021 pour la visite médicale.

Cette étape du processus électoral est assurée par un interniste, un cardiologue et un psychiatre mandatés par la Cour Constitutionnelle. Le collège des médecins va examiner les candidats Patrice Talon, Mariam Talata Chabi Zimé, Paul Hounkpè, Allassane Soumanou Djimba, Corentin Kohouè et Irénée Agossa sur leur santé physique, mentale et aptitude à exercer la fonction de Président de la République ou de Vice-président.

A.A.A

Tvnoviny.sk: Kemény időket él meg Kassa. Emelkedik a kórházi betegek száma (nem ritkák a 20-30 éves páciensek sem), és az elhalálozásoké is naponta növekszik. A kisebb városok után, már a keleti megyeszékhelyen is egy hűtőkocsit kellett rendelni az elhunytak holttesteinek tárolására.

Roderic Grigson was Asia Pacific Vice President for Novell, a global networking company, working in Melbourne Australia until he retired from corporate life to become a full-time writer. He worked at the United Nations Secretariat in New York in the ‘70s and ‘80s as a technology innovations officer, serving in UN peacekeeping forces in the Middle East. He is the author of Sacred Tears, The Sullen Hills and After the Flames, a trilogy of thrillers set in war-torn Sri Lanka, and is currently working on his fourth book.

By Roderic Grigson
MELBOURNE, Australia, Feb 18 2021 (IPS)

The United Nations is an institution mired in politics focusing primarily on military conflicts, civil wars, economic sanctions, peacekeeping, plus sustainable economic development.

But there is also a lighter side to it, which is brilliantly laid out in a new book released last week on Amazon titled “No Comment and Don’t Quote Me on That.”

It takes years to write a good book, and in this insightful memoir, Thalif Deen, a former UN Bureau Chief and Regional Director at Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, gives us a riveting memoir filled with observations that come from 40-years of stalking the halls and corridors of the ‘glasshouse by the East River’.

Told through a series of news stories, interviews, anecdotes, and personal recollections, No Comment is held together by flashes of surprising humour and an overarching third world focus and point of view. It comes as no surprise that some of his stories were picked up at the Delegates Lounge, a well-known watering hole for UN delegates.

He also describes an incident that took place when he was doing a wrap-up of the 1992, two-week-long international conference in Rio de Janeiro. Deen approached Dr Gamani Corea, a former Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and a member of the Sri Lanka delegation, for a final comment.

“We negotiated”, Dr Corea said with a tinge of sarcasm, “the size of the zero”, as he held out his fingers to indicate the zero, describing the response of Western nations who refused to make any concrete commitments to fund a plan for the protection of the global environment.

In his first year as a student at Columbia University, Deen was terrified of the hazards of crime-ridden subway travel in New York and scared of the impending winter. When he complained about his first-ever brutal winter in New York, a wise-cracking American classmate advised him: “The best remedy is to curl up in bed with a good book — or with someone who has read one”.

Though its scenes are scattered, they are individually memorable, evoking amazement and laughter in the same breath. Deen has always been a raconteur, often entertaining guests at various functions and parties with stories from his vast array of yarns, and this comes through his narrative in abundance.

Deen surprises the reader with an unaffected insider view of international reporting, recounting his stories with freshness and colour. A longstanding columnist for the Sunday Times, UN correspondent for Asiaweek, Hong Kong and Jane’s Defence Weekly, London, his firsthand experiences add importance to his common-sense take on global diplomacy.

The book’s title is taken from an encounter Deen had with a diplomat at the UN building. As a general rule, most ambassadors and diplomats do not tell UN correspondents either to go to hell or heaven – but avoid all comments on politically sensitive issues with the standard non-excuse: “Sorry, we have to get clearance from our capital”.

But often that “clearance” from their respective foreign ministries never came. Still, it was hard to beat a response from a tight-lipped Asian diplomat who told him: “No comment” – and as an after-thought, added: “And Don’t Quote Me on That”.

It is a gift that he has now written his long overdue memoir. Blessed with a robust sense of humour, Deen gives us the real scoop on headline stories with both wit and intelligence, a perspective that comes from mining his dog-eared reporter’s notebooks, of which he assures me, there are over a hundred.

It is also the story of how Deen did it. A former information officer at the UN Secretariat in New York in the mid-1970s, Deen has covered virtually every major UN conference on population, human rights, the environment, sustainable development, food security, humanitarian aid, arms control and nuclear disarmament in the past 40-years.

Working at the UN during the most dramatic events of our time — from the pursuit of war and peace in the Middle East to the humanitarian disasters in Africa and Asia, this book provides an insider’s view on what went on behind the ‘glass curtain’ during a period of extraordinary turbulence.

A Fulbright scholar with a master’s degree (MSc) in Journalism from Columbia University in New York, Deen was born and educated in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). A student of Zahira College, Colombo, he graduated with an Economics degree from the University of Ceylon at Peradeniya. He became the first student from Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) to gain admission to the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia.

At Peradeniya in the 1960s, it was the prevalent trend among most undergrads to fancy themselves either as Trotskyites, Communists or Socialists. When asked about his own political leanings, Deen told one of his professors he was a die-hard Marxist. ”But I followed Groucho, not Karl,” he declared.

Speaking at a corporate dinner, sponsored by the International Institute for Education (IIE), during his student days, he said he had arrived in New York with a degree of trepidation because his colleagues at Lake House, the newspaper office where he worked, cautioned him that Fulbright grants were given only to “half-bright students”. Mercifully, it wasn’t so.

Studying for his master’s in the early seventies in New York City, known then as the ‘murder capital’, was not easy. But having been brought up in the unforgiving northern suburbs of Colombo, he successfully navigated the asphalt jungle that was the Big Apple and has lived to tell the tale.

When he was in Iraq’s battle zone in Baghdad during the 1990 Gulf War, he was armed with a military flak jacket with a cautious warning inscribed on the back: “United Nations. Press. Don’t Shoot.” Perhaps it helped. Now, he says, with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, he occasionally wears it in the mean streets of New York, a city where he has lived for over 45 years, and where a bank robber can get mugged as he flees to a get-a-way car.

He completed his studies before embarking on his remarkable career ‘reporting from the United Nations’, first as a UN Information officer, a UN correspondent for Janes Defence Weekly and finally as a UN correspondent and bureau chief at IPS.

Possessed with the curiosity, nimbleness of mind and openness to change, Deen stands out among veteran correspondents for the range of his experience and his gift as a storyteller. An eyewitness to history being made at the highest levels, with this unique perspective, Deen brings to life scenes from the past and present.

A story he recounts often is after a band of mercenaries tried to oust the Maldives’ government, he asked a Maldivian diplomat about the strength of his country’s standing army. “Standing army?”, the diplomat asked with mock surprise, “We don’t even have a sitting army.”

Ambassador H.M.G.S. Palihakkara, a sharply-witty, former Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary and a one-time Permanent Representative to the UN, once paid him an ultimate compliment, when he said in an email message: “Permanent representatives are never permanent. Sri Lanka’s only Permanent Representative at the UN is the IPS UN Bureau Chief Thalif Deen.”

He said Deen had survived about 20 Sri Lankan Permanent Representatives (PRUNs) – some of them transiting through New York.

He is a splendid companion as I can personally attest to after working with him in New York in the ‘70s and ‘80s. One thing I most admire about him is that he has always remained true to himself, his principles, career, and origins. He is someone with genuine bona fides as a journalist and an unassailable commitment to the profession’s enduring values.

“No Comment” is a dizzying text, part memoir, part discourse on international reporting reality from a third-world perspective.

The book is available on Amazon. The link follows:
https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
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The post The UN: From the Sublime to the Hilarious appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Roderic Grigson was Asia Pacific Vice President for Novell, a global networking company, working in Melbourne Australia until he retired from corporate life to become a full-time writer. He worked at the United Nations Secretariat in New York in the ‘70s and ‘80s as a technology innovations officer, serving in UN peacekeeping forces in the Middle East. He is the author of Sacred Tears, The Sullen Hills and After the Flames, a trilogy of thrillers set in war-torn Sri Lanka, and is currently working on his fourth book.

The post The UN: From the Sublime to the Hilarious appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Koronavirus.gov.hu: További 2.853 magyar állampolgárnál mutatták ki az új koronavírus-fertőzést, ezzel 394.023 főre nőtt a Magyarországon beazonosított fertőzöttek száma. A kórnak szerdán 104 halálos áldozata volt, így az elhunytak száma már 14.035. A gyógyultak száma: 301.363, az aktív fertőzötté pedig 78.625 fő.

Les migrants des Caraïbes étaient temporairement hébergés dans des tunnels souterrains. Aujourd'hui, le public peut également les visiter.

In today's edition of the Capitals, find out more about Croatia and Slovakia looking into getting the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, Lithuania's parliament calling for the persecution of Uighurs in China to be investigated, and so much more.

KYIV, 17 February 2021 — The Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), Ambassador Heidi Grau, made the following statement to the press after the regular meetings of the TCG ‎and its Working Groups held through video conferencing:

“A few days ago, on February 12, six years elapsed from the signing of the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements, which, together with the Minsk Protocol and the Minsk Memorandum, constitute the single political framework for the peaceful resolution of the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Participants of the TCG meetings pledge commitment to the Minsk agreements. Nevertheless, additional efforts and the political will of the sides are still required for their implementation.

Measures to Strengthen the Ceasefire have contributed to a significant reduction of the kinetic activity in the conflict zone, although recently an increase in the number of ceasefire violations has been recorded. This was the subject of discussion at the meeting of the Security Working Group.  

Participants in the Working Group also discussed conditions and procedures to agree on and carry out repair and reconstruction works at critical civilian infrastructure.

The Political Working Group addressed issues related to the implementation of the tasking given by the TCG to develop a draft action plan in full compliance with the Minsk agreements.

I call on the Working Group members to demonstrate political will for compromise and make mutual concessions to bring their positions closer.

The Humanitarian Working Group focused on removing obstacles to the opening and proper functioning of the entry-exit crossing points (EECPs) near Zolote and Shchastia of the Luhansk region.

I count on speedy solutions to outstanding issues, with a view to the simultaneous opening of both EECPs as soon as possible.

During the Working Group's discussions, issues of the mutual release and exchange of conflict-related detainees were also duly considered.

Participants in the Economic Working Group debated current questions of water supplies across the contact line as well as the provision of mobile communications by “Vodafone-Ukraine” in certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine (CADLR).

A possible international inspection of the storage sites of radioactive materials in CADLR was also discussed.”

‘Conflict trap’ a growing obstacle to sustainable development - UN chief 6 January 2021. Credit: UN Photo/Tobin Jones

By Camila Corradi Bracco
AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands, Feb 18 2021 (IPS)

Since the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2016, the role of the private sector in fulfilling the 2030 Agenda has been widely acknowledged, as set out under SDG 12. Yet to assess how companies are actually contributing towards these Global Goals, we need greater transparency on their impacts.

Over the past four years, GRI has championed the participation of companies in measuring their performance on the SDGs. As we look ahead to the Decade of Action needed to achieve the SDGs, it is clear that further progress will be needed, including doing more to increase private sector contributions.

Progress so far

At the end of 2020, a four-year Action Platform for Reporting on the SDGs, from GRI and UN Global Compact, concluded. This included a Corporate Action Group (CAG) that connected business representatives in a peer learning platform, which successfully helped companies define and improve their SDGs reporting.

Research on CAG participants revealed:

1. Increased clarity on how to engage with the SDGs from a business perspective
2. Improvements in how they measured SDGs performance
3. Better prioritization of the most relevant SDGs
4. More integration of the SDGs into business decision-making processes

However, the findings also indicate that many companies continue to face challenges with understanding and disclosing their SDGs contributions, with opportunities to make corporate reporting more relevant and effective.

Improving data quality and addressing gaps

Reporting on priorities at the SDG target level, within each of the overarching Goals, and linking them to the business strategy, is often missing. Overall, deeper connections between material topics with SDG targets and corporate priorities are needed.

We also see there are opportunities to further explore the links between SDG priorities and the contributions of companies in the countries and jurisdictions where they operate.

Most importantly, corporate reporting on the SDGs often focuses on positive contributions that companies make to the SDGs, with a lack of transparency and accountability for negative impacts. This issue was also highlighted by KPMG research in December.

Reporting that has impact

Identifying SDG priorities throughout the value chain is a complex undertaking, as is demonstrating the cause-and-effect relationship between SDG contributions and business performance.

Moreover, because of the interconnected and interdependent nature of the SDGs, companies need to identify and take account of synergies and trade-offs between positive and negative impacts.

Efforts to quantify impacts on the SDGs and contextualize them (for example, considering the social thresholds and planetary boundaries) needs strengthened. That is why it is necessary to move beyond assessing activities and outputs and focus on how to disclose outcomes and impacts.

This is crucial as it enables businesses to manage their performance and demonstrate accountability for their impacts.

Making SDG reporting relevant to stakeholders

There is increasing interest from a wide range of stakeholders in business contribution to the SDGs, including how companies are aligning products, services and business strategy with the SDGs.

Policy makers, investors, consumers, labor organizations and civil society all increasingly demand that companies show transparency through providing quality data and balanced reporting.

However, different stakeholders have different expectations and data requests. Steps business can take to provide more strategic and relevant information include:

• Providing aggregated or disaggregated information that allows stakeholders to assess their performance and contribution to the SDGs
• Setting long-term SDG-related performance targets, and regularly reporting on progress
• Clearly demonstrating how the business strategy aligns with the SDGs

Proactive communications on the issues that matter most – to both the company and stakeholders – is crucial. Not only does it provide the necessary information to assess corporate sustainability performance and impact, it also allows stakeholders to make decisions that contribute to the SDGs.

Driving business action through reporting

Inspired by the progress to date and the opportunities still to come, GRI is launching a Business Leadership Forum on corporate reporting as a driver for achieving the SDGs. This forum, to commence in March, will offer participating companies with practical insights on sustainability reporting, focusing on how to raise the quality and strategic relevance of their reporting.

The forum is built around a series of online sessions that will bring together corporate reporters and representatives from key stakeholder groups – including the investment community, governments, regulators, members of the supply chain, civil society and academia.

The experiences of the past four years have shown that both businesses and stakeholders benefit from strategic and relevant SDG-related information. Sustainability reporting is an essential driver of the transformational change that is required to achieve the SDGs.

As we look ahead to the Decade of Action and the pandemic recovery phase, the case for meaningful corporate reporting on the SDGs is more compelling than ever before.

*The Global Reporting Initiative is an international independent standards organization that helps businesses, governments and other organizations understand and communicate their impacts on issues such as climate change, human rights and corruption. With more than 10,000 reporters in over 100 countries, GRI is advancing the practice of sustainability reporting and enabling businesses, investors, policymakers, and civil society to use this information to engage in dialogue and make decisions that support sustainable development.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
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The post Corporate Reporting on SDGs: Challenges and Opportunities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Camila Corradi Bracco handles Content Development & Program Delivery at Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)*

The post Corporate Reporting on SDGs: Challenges and Opportunities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Die ungelösten Probleme zwischen Athen und Ankara könnten diskutiert und gelöst werden, indem man die NATO als Koordinations- und Kooperationsplattform nutzt, betonte NATO-Generalsekretär Jens Stoltenberg auf einer Pressekonferenz.

Tous les matins, Les Capitales décrypte pour vous l'info à travers l'Europe

The political crisis in Georgia is deepening as Prime Minister Georgi Gakharia stepped down on Thursday (18 February), citing his disagreement with the team on the court decision to arrest the main opposition party leader.

Szlovákia világelső a járvány miatti elhalálozások számában. A kormány a többi EU-s országtól kért orvosi segítséget a járvány leküzdéséhez. Ausztria felajánlotta a hadserege egészségügyi szakembereinek a segítségét. Az SaS és a Za ľudí kormánypártok nem akarják ellenőrizetlen orosz vakcinával beoltani a lakosságot.

Az Emberi Jogok Európai Bírósága (EJEB) ideiglenes intézkedésként arra szólította fel szerdán Oroszországot, hogy azonnali hatállyal bocsássa szabadon Alekszej Navalnij bebörtönzött ellenzéki politikust.

A tájékoztatás szerint Navalnij január 20-án fordult a fogva tartásával kapcsolatos panaszaival a strasbourgi székhelyű Európa Tanács égisze alatt működő bírósághoz, amely most a szabadon bocsátását kérte. Mint írták, a kérelemben foglalt sérelmek kivizsgálására Oroszországnak feltett kérdésekre adott válaszokat Navalnij vitatta. Véleménye szerint az orosz kormány által felsorolt intézkedések nem biztosítottak számára elegendő védelmet élete és egészsége tekintetében.

A bíróság szerint figyelembe véve a kérelmező életét fenyegető kockázatok jellegét és mértékét, illetve fogva tartása általános körülményeit, “első látásra” nyilvánvalónak bizonyult, hogy szükséges az ideiglenes intézkedés alkalmazása az eljárási szabályzat 39. cikke alapján. Hozzátették, a vonatkozó cikk szerinti intézkedés nem befolyásolja az üggyel kapcsolatos későbbi döntéseket. Az EJEB kizárólag kivételes esetekben rendel el ideiglenes intézkedéseket, akkor, ha azok hiányában a panaszosok visszafordíthatatlan károk kockázatával néznének szembe.

The post A strasbourgi bíróság Navalnij szabadon bocsátására szólította fel Oroszországot appeared first on .