Millenium Young People’s Congress
Priorities for the next Millenium
by Dmitry Kushneruk
Odessa - 1 9 9 9

Plan

Introduction

Conclusion

Introduction

The last year of our century, of our Millenium is coming to its end. We are standing on the cross-roads of two Milleniums. We are the youth that will live on this Planet in this world some years later.

None of us wants to die because of the 3^rd World War, because of AIDS or because of the nuclear power station explosion. All of us want to live in peace and to breathe pure air. But nobody will solve these problems instead of us. We ought to decide what to do as early as possible.

So, that’s why I’d like to mention the priorities I think to the most important in the next Millenium.

What was the main problem for humanity during the whole history of the world? It was the problem of war and peace. All the countries that exist in nowadays world suffered from the war at some time. Some countries received some advantages before the others and conquered new markets for selling their production. But the main thing is that tens and may be even hundreds millions of people have died in these wars and the war is still the biggest obstacle to development.

So, how can we abolish war? It’s very important thing to be done, because every local war conflict may cause an international one, as Cosovo may become. The 3^rd World War, if begin, may be nuclear one. So, the 3^rd World War may be the last one on the Earth.

Our modern system of international law doesn’t provide a real mechanism of guarantee and balances in international community. There is no real force that may make one country do what others say. The system of collective security proposed and supported by United Nations is not really effective.

So, one of the ways of solving this situation may be the creation of new international organization, which activity would be connected only with solving the problems of peace and disarmament. This organization can be named the Peace Council. All the regions of the world (Europe, Africa, Asia etc.) should be represented there by an equal amount of countries-members, which will be changed every year. Why must it be in such a way? Because only such a system will not make some countries having more influence on the world situation than the others will. So, any aggressive steps will not be made by the countries without the acceptation from the Peace Council. If, in spite of all, such steps will be made and no diplomacy methods work the only way out will be using powerful international war forces that will be formed by the efforts of all the countries. In ideal situation every state will give the equal amount of people, war technique, equipment. But understanding the not equal possibilities of different countries, which is connected with different degrees of their development, more developed countries may give more than the others will do. But it must not provoke the bigger power and influence of these “more givers”.

one and it will save the world from the wars in new Millenium.

existing So, I hope that such system may be more effective than the

Problem of ecology

Problem of ecology always was and still stays one of the most important for humanity during the last time. Why is it so? Actually it is world known and everybody understands it, but such evidence is not enough for such a work.

Global warming, acid rains caused by the pollution of harmful plants and factories, enormous using of useful minerals and enormous chopping the wood – these awful things have become our reality. Year 1998 was the warmest year in the Millenium. Great amount of trees are dying because of the diseases, such as elm disease, caused by the acid rains that are often happening things even in Germany and of course in other countries. Even the President of USA Bill Clinton devoted his speech on 3^rd of June this year to the problem of environment. Because he understands all the danger for the first for his state and also for the whole world. But why the others do not understand it? We must help the others to do this and to show the ways of solving this problem.

So, what should we do? We have to learn to live in more sustainable way – consuming less, recycling more, saving and conserving our environment and its resources, because many useful minerals are not replaceable. We must recycle more, because only this will save poor trees, woods. We must use only high quality, non-dangerous products in order not to provoke the increasing of ozone hole.

Diseases have always been one of the most awful disasters, troubles for people at all times. In ancient times and in the Middle Ages the medicine was on the low level by its development. It was one of the main reasons why such awful diseases as for example plague spread so widely with great temps. And actually there was nothing to do with it. The epidemics killed more and more people who were just helpless at those situations. But now it is year 1999, its almost another Millenium, but the problem of diseases still stays one of the mains. Of course the diseases has changed. Plague is no more threatening us, but even more dangerous diseases appeared.

More and more scientists speak about new and new achievements in curing the cancer, but actually everybody of us knows that there is no real effective vaccine against the cancer. Of course nobody can deny that it is possible to stop the development of the tumour, but it costs a lot of money and poor people do not have possibility to survive. So even now cancer is a big problem for humanity.

AIDS is such awful disease that any scientist still did not manage to do something with it. Such great people as Freddie Mercury died because of it. Even their money did not help them to survive so; there is no need to speak about the poor people who are week because of their way of life.

International cooperation is necessary thing in this situation.

Terrorism does not appear without a reason by itself, because very seldom people take the weapon and go killing the others just for fun or because of having nothing to do. Terrorism is provoked by the policy provided by the national authorities or because of different nationalities struggling for their leadership in some region or because of religious disagreements. International terrorism appears, when some nations live in bad conditions not on a native territory and the government of the country in which the nation lives provides a policy of ethnic cleaning or something else and the representatives of this nation which live on the territory which belongs to them begin to “protect” their relatives using the violence methods.

Sometimes military actions are used to stop the international terrorism, but it is not known exactly whether it will help or not. In some situations may cause international terrorism and not stop it.

It is very important for the whole world. Because the existence of nuclear stations in one country threatens not only its citizens, but also the citizens of other neighboring countries. Chernobyl proved this in my country, in Ukraine, when the radiation spread to Russia, Belorussia, Poland, Slovakia etc.

The only possible way in what this problem can be solved is the concentrating the financial sources to energetic sphere. If the state does not have enough money to spend them on such goals developed countries must or even have an obligation to help those countries, because the environment catastrophe, which can happen, may and will influence the ecology of developed countries also.

Problem of searching an existence of another life in our Galaxy and peaceful space exploring.

It is almost necessary to find other planets that can be used as a mineral source for the Earth. It is important to find out whether the other forms of life are possible, whether they are mindful and if there is any possibility may be to communicate to cooperate with them.

Such powerful states in space engineering as United States of America, Russia, Great Britain and others should cooperate more effectively than they are doing now.

May be new really international organization that will focus its attention only on the problem mentioned here. Named, for example International Space and Another Life Exploring Organization (ISALEO), it will exist on the financial support from different countries.

Problem of creation of bio-cybernetic technologies.

This problem appeared not long ago, because such thing as cybernetic appeared also only in 20^th century.

This problem also includes a problem of genetic researches. Nowadays some important questions appeared: “Should we let genetic engineering to develop? Do we approve of copyrighting genetic materials from our bodies? Should we continue cloning experiments?”.

Our generation is going to face challenges that reach to the very essence of life itself. Are we prepared?

It is necessary not to ask only doctors, professors etc. It is necessary just to ask people. May be even international referendum or plebiscite must be held to find out people’s mind and thoughts about it. Its results may become the basis for the decision that will be taken by United Nations for example.

Problem of the growth of population

Another very important problem is connected with the great growth of the population. This problem causes another problem, which is the problem of food providing.

Due to the last statistic the population of our planet is going to be about 8 billion by year 2020. This statistic is created with the most optimistic predictions. Pessimists say it is going to be 20 billion. The real amount is somewhere between these two numbers.

It is obvious that is necessary to control the population to control the number of people that born. Such policy as supporting the families with only one child is needed in China, India and some other countries.

But at the same time the situation is contrary different. The number of children that born in Sweden, Ukraine and many other countries, is less than the number of people that die every year. In this countries absolutely contrary policy is needed.

Providing and supporting such policies will create the number of population on the Earth, when the food problem will not exist.

Problem of using drugs and alcohol

This occurrence, this phenomenon is the normal thing in the society with low or even lost moral principles. This problem is more spread in the states with low life-level, but actually this problem is not less important in America, Australia and others.

So, what is the solution? For the first it is necessary to return the moral principles that were lost during the time, but this process will take a very long period of time. So what to do now? To stop or at least to decrease the level of illegal drug trading and using, it is necessary to put the governmental monopoly on drug sphere and may be to make the using of some light drugs, such as marihuana, legal. It will bring the drug business out of illegal sphere and than it will be more easy to prohibit its using.

The first part is a necessary condition for solving all the other problems. In the next Millenium international integration and cooperation may become a “treatment” for the entire World “diseases”.

Problem of human rights although existing very long is not still solved. International organizations and UN for the first must widen their nets of services to other far points of the planet.

Conclusion

In this report I tried to show, which priorities are the most important now on my opinion. There were ten of them. I could name more, but the conditions of the Congress made to mention only the main ten.

Actually these ten problems are not new, everybody knows about their existence, but they are really the most important. So, just to bring something new to my report I proposed the ways of solving these problems. Of course, I do not want to say that my variants are really the only right, universal that must be approved by United Nations and tomorrow I will go to reserve the author rights on this report. No. I have just proposed these solutions to show that the young people in Ukraine are also thinking about these problems.