By Kalinga Seneviratne* FUNAFUTI, Tuvalu | 4 Dec 2023 (IDN) — While COP28 in UAE debates about how to distribute money from the new climatic change reparation fund, the small Pacific Island state of Tuvalu is grappling with a multitude of climate change-induced problems that could take millions of dollars to fix, if at all. […]
COP28 and the Unaccounted Loss and Damage for Pacific Youth
By Ria Shibata* Toda Peace Institute issued this article, and it is being republished with their permission. WELLINGTON, New Zealand | 4 December 2023 (IDN) — As the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) […], the global community braces for tough negotiations over climate finance, emission reductions, adaptation strategies and funding for climate-induced loss and […]
Nuclear Deterrence: An Unproven Gamble that Risks Humanity
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS | 3 December 2023 (IDN) — Is it justifiable for a country to go nuclear—on the grounds that it is doing so to protect itself from nuclear attacks? The argument is based on the concept of “nuclear deterrence”: a widely-challenged theory that nuclear weapons are intended to deter nuclear attacks prompting […]
Climate Crisis Fuels Child Marriages, FGM in East and Southern Africa
By Kizito Makoye DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania | 3 December 2023 (IDN) — At 15, Sarah* was entangled in an early marriage that would change her life forever. The drought spells in Kotulogh village in Kenya’s West Pokot country had pushed many pastoralist families to the brink of survival. Sarah’s mother, desperate for money to […]
Forty Years After ‘The Day After’
By Daryl G. Kimball The writer is the Executive Director of the Arms Control Association (ACA). The following article appears as the Focus of the December 2023 issue of Arms Control Today. WASHINGTON, D.C. | 2 December 2023 (IDN) — On Sunday, Nov. 20, 1983, I left my college dorm to visit my parents’ home […]
Outgoing President Weah Leaves an Unflawed Legacy
By Azu Ishiekwene The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria. ABUJA | 2 December 2023 (IDN) — Liberia and Sierra Leone have a common historical legacy and often tend to imitate each other in war and peace. But events in the last two weeks suggest that while Liberia may […]
The Future of Nuclear Disarmament Lies with the Younger Generation
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS | 1 December 2023 (IDN) — With little or no progress on nuclear disarmament worldwide or the abolition of nuclear weapons, there is a widespread belief that the responsibility for the continued global campaign should now be passed onto the young generation of anti-nuclear activists. A joint statement by a […]
Faith-based Organizations Warn Nuclear Arms as Worst of all Evils
By Razeena Raheem UNITED NATIONS | 1 December 2023 (IDN) — As the weeklong Second Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons concluded on December 1, a joint statement by a coalition of 115 faith-based and civil society organizations warned of the double violence of climate catastrophe and rampant […]
The Voices of Victims of Nuclear Weapons Testing
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 30 November 2023 (IDN) — Speaking at a side event during a weeklong meeting of States Parties on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), Hirotsugu Terasaki, Director General of Peace and Global Issues, Soka Gakkai International (SGI), warned that the past two months have seen the outbreak of wide-scale violence […]
For Media Elites, War Criminal Henry Kissinger Was a Great Man
By Norman Solomon* SAN FRANCISCO | 30 November 2023 (IDN) — For U.S. mass media, Henry Kissinger’s quip that “power is the ultimate aphrodisiac” rang true. Influential reporters and pundits often expressed their love for him. The media establishment kept swooning over one of the worst war criminals in modern history. After news of his […]