The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria. ABUJA (IDN) — These days, it seems all right to play with fire. The blaze started as a solitary spark in Mali in August when the streets, the elite, and jihadists banded to remove President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. The former president had […]
NATO Plans to Focus on Russia and China
By Robert Johnson BRUSSELS (IDN) — “What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO,” French President Emmanuel Macron declared in a blunt interview with The Economist in November 2019. Europe stands on “the edge of a precipice”, he said, and needs to start thinking of itself strategically as a geopolitical power; otherwise, […]
The Nuclear Threat in the New Information Age
Viewpoint by Daryl G. Kimball The writer is the executive director of Arms Control Association and publisher of Arms Control Today since 2001. The following is the text of Mr Kimball’s Foreword to 2021 Joint Media Project Report of the Non-Profit International Press Syndicate Group with IDN as flagship agency in partnership with Soka Gakkai […]
Biden Should Return Quickly to the Obama-led Iran Nuclear Deal
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden (IDN) — It was the Americans who helped the long-ago-deposed Shah of Iran start Iran’s nuclear power research. He wanted a bomb. The Americans seemed insouciant about where this might lead. After the revolution, the research was bequeathed from the wrong pair of hands to another wrong pair of […]
Bandits Constrain Nigeria to Seeks Return of ‘Africom’
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — Early Pentagon plans for a US military command based in Africa were once firmly rejected by almost every country on the continent. African governments were reluctant to associate themselves with America’s “war on terror” and fearful of US intervention. Libya and Algeria both refused to […]
Corona May Shutter South Africa’s Beloved Heritage Museums
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — Popular exhibits at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg and other legacy museums are barely surviving and may close over funding shortfalls due to COVID-19. A pair of boxing gloves worn by Nelson Mandela at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, one of […]
Africa the Next Centre for Manufacturing COVID Drug?
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — For a while, Africa appeared to be losing the fight to build manufacturing capacity for the production of COVID-19 vaccines as big pharma and rich countries questioned African capacity to make its own vaccines. Some international companies regard African self-sufficiency as a long-term risk to […]
The Next Frontier: Human Development and the Anthropocene [1]
Viewpoint by Franz Baumann*, Former UN Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations. This article was first published in Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, Volume 63 Issue 3, May/June 2021 and is being republished with the author’s permission. NEW YORK (IDN) — One must thank UNDP for putting together the 2020 UNDP Human Development Report (HDR). […]
Musings on Jazz and the 30th Anniversary of the 1991 Windhoek Declaration on a Free Press
By Ramu Damodaran The writer is Chief, United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) hosted in the Department of Global Communications. Following are excerpts of the OpEd, first published in #WhyWeCare on May 7. NEW YORK (IDN | UNAI) — Last weekend was bookended by two celebratory observances, the International Day of Jazz on April 30, and […]
UNESCO Creative Cities of Music Celebrate Intl. Jazz Day
By Robert Johnson PARIS (IDN | UNESCO) — As the great Nina Simone said, “Jazz is not just music, it is a way of life, it is a way of being, a way of thinking”, says UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It adds: “The story of Jazz is written into the […]