By Azu Ishiekwene The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria. ABUJA | 13 October 2023 (IDN) — This is the moment the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu always feared with great anxiety. Yet when Hamas launched a deadly attack on Southern Israeli border towns in the early hours […]
Hospitals in the Gaza Strip at a Breaking Point, Warns WHO
JERUSALEM | 12 October 2023 (IDN | WHO EMRO) — WHO warns that the health system in the Gaza Strip is at a breaking point. Time is running out to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe if fuel, life-saving health, and humanitarian supplies cannot be urgently delivered to the Gaza Strip amidst the complete blockade. Hospitals have only a few hours of electricity […]
Egypt Working to End Poverty, Hunger by 2027
By UNIC Cairo CAIRO. | 12 October 2023 (IDN) — Egypt has committed to end poverty and hunger by 2027. At the 2023 SDG Summit, Egypt laid out bold, concrete commitments to accelerate its progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The SDG Summit, convened by the President of the UN General Assembly at […]
Saudi Arabia’s Military & Nuclear Demands Maybe Undermined by US Congress
By Tariq Rauf* VIENNA. 25 August 2023 (IDN) — The Biden administration has characterized securing the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel as a national security matter and is actively working to achieve its goal. US domestic politics is driving the Biden policy that sees Saudi-Israel normalization as a “foreign policy win” for […]
UN May Seek Accountability for Saudi Killings of Hundreds of Migrants
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS. 23 August 2023 (IDN) — The United Nations has expressed serious concern over the killings of hundreds of migrants, mostly Ethiopians, crossing war-ravaged Yemen trying to reach Saudi Arabia. “I think trying to stop migration using the barrel of a gun is intolerable,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters on […]
A Perilous Implosion Awaits Israel Unless True Democracy Prevails
By Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK. 12 August 2023 (IDN) — To prevent creeping authoritarianism and the complete disintegration of Israel’s democracy, it will be crucial to not only preserve the independence of the judiciary but to embrace other central pillars on which democracy rests The socio-political turmoil in Israel which is manifested by the pervasive […]
Israel Is on the Brink of a Disaster. Will History Repeat Itself?
By Alon Ben-Meir NEW YORK. 28 July 2023 (IDN) — The battle over Israel’s democracy, if not its very soul, has been raging since the current Netanyahu government came to power seven months ago. The passage of the first round of ‘reforms’ has made an indelible crack in Israel’s democracy; if the public’s outcry to […]
An Open Letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu
You Can Still Be Hero If Only You Muster the Courage By Alon Ben-Meir NEW YORK, 21 April 2023 (IDN) — I can’t imagine how you must feel. Perhaps never throughout your political career have you faced a more fateful test in your life. You have placed yourself in an untenable state. If you win […]
Arab Media Sustains a Heavy Presence at the UN
By Shanta Roy
UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – The day-to-day news coverage by the UN press corps represents a virtual political barometer of the outside world – from a UN perspective.
Since most news organizations in the developing world cannot afford either a fulltime or a part-time correspondent at the UN, they have traditionally relied on the mainstream wire services and news organizations such as Reuters, BBC, the Associated Press, Deutsche Welle, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and the Chinese news agency Xinhua — all of them fully staffed and geared for extensive UN coverage.
What’s Going On in the Middle East?
By Pier Francesco Zarcone*
ROME (IDN) – The military breakthrough in the Syrian war appears to be definitive … at least according to Robert S. Ford, former U.S. ambassador to Syria.
Even though the conflict has not yet come to an end, in a recent interview with Foreign Affairs Ford stated that the Syrian army has won the war and the United States must “abandon hopes of supporting a separate Kurdish region” having “no good options in Syria” so that “hopes of getting rid of [Bashar Hafez al-] Assad are far-fetched fantasies.”
The reason for this situation was Russian intervention. An obvious question comes to mind: why and in what way did the Russians succeed? In this regard, it is necessary to clarify a number of points.