By J C Suresh

TORONTO (IDN) – More than one in every eight Americans, numbering 40 million, equal to 12.7 % of the population, are living in poverty, and almost half of those – 18.5 million – in abysmal poverty, according to a new report.

Though the United States is one of the world’s richest, most powerful and technologically innovative countries, “neither its wealth nor its power nor its technology is being harnessed to address the situation,” stresses Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights in his statement on a two-week visit to the USA.

Alston, an international law scholar and human rights practitioner, is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, and co-Chair of the law school’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. (P39) JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | KOREAN TEXT VERSION PDF | SPANISH
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By Rodney Reynolds

NEW YORK (IDN) – The politics of the Trump administration are being increasingly governed by the twin policies of unilateralism and isolationism.

After Donald Trump was elected president in November 2016, he withdrew from a historic 2016 climate change agreement signed by 195 countries – and the only signatory to do so.

And this year, he announced plans to dilute the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal signed by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC), namely the U.S., UK, France, China and Russia, plus Germany and the 28-member European Union (EU) – much against warnings by all the other signatories. (P37) JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | KOREAN TEXT VERSION PDF
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