By C. Todd Lopez This article was issued by U.S. Department of Defense. WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) — In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced on February 25 activation of the alliance’s defense plans, which means also that it can deploy the NATO Defense Force. The U.S. Defense Department […]
India Trapped on A Tightrope in Big Power Games
Viewpoint by Shastri Ramachandaran * This article was issued by WION and DNA, and is being re-published with the writer’s permission. NEW DELHI (IDN) — India’s diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing this week was another balancing act of a piece with its position on Ukraine in the UN Security Council meeting last […]
The Sad Story of Western Wrongs to Russia
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Are the West’s chickens coming home to roost? If the Western powers had gambled 2% of NATO’s budget and met the Soviet Union’s economic needs in President Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost era there would have been a much less de-stabilising transition and today, there would have been a […]
Growing Calls for Investigation into Bronx Fire That Took Over a Dozen African Lives
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — A smoky building fire that raced through a 19-story building on an early Sunday this month took 17 lives—adults and children, many from the African nation of The Gambia—is raising questions about the building’s reported insufficient heat and automatic doors that should have been shut […]
Russia Chooses St. Petersburg for Second African Leaders Summit
By Kester Kenn Klomegah* MOSCOW (IDN) — With high optimism and high desire to strengthen its geopolitical influence, Russian authorities are gearing up to hold the second African leaders’ summit in St. Petersburg scheduled early November 2022. The gathering, as expected, will focus on enhancing further constructive cooperation and advancing integration processes within the framework […]
Kazakhstan Might Turn Out to Be Russia’s Next Ukraine
Viewpoint by James M. Dorsey* SINGAPORE (IDN) – With Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s borders, it’s not only Ukrainians who worry about what President Vladimir Putin may have in store for them. It’s Kazakhs too. For now, Kazakhs don’t have to be immediately concerned about Russian troop movements. What unsettles them is years of Russian […]
Three African Countries Lose U.S. Trade Benefits Over Rights Violations
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — The Biden administration has cracked down on three African countries accused of serious rights violations, expelling them from AGOA, a duty-free trade program worth millions in benefits. The three countries—Ethiopia, Mali and Guinea—had been warned in November of the threatened action which affects imports and […]
Collective Sanctions Isolating Mali in the Sahel Sahara as Russia Rides the Wave of Anticolonialism
By Kester Kenn Klomegah* MOSCOW I BAMAKO (IDN) — The Republic of Mali, a landlocked West African state with an impoverished population, faces increasing isolation from the international community over the political power grab. Even as the African Union (AU), the continental organization, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the regional bloc, […]
India’s Marriage of Convenience with Myanmar
By Niranjan Marjani The writer is an independent researcher and columnist based in Vadodara (formerly Baroda), India. VADODARA, India (IDN) — The November 13 attack on an Assam Rifles convoy by two Manipur insurgent groups—the People’s Liberation Army and Manipur Naga People’s Front—in Churachandpur district of Manipur has the potential to further destabilise Northeast India. […]
Russia Studying the Impact of a New Edition of US Triangular Diplomacy
By Kester Kenn Klomegah* MOSCOW (IDN) — Russian policy experts and academic researchers have been upbeat with heated reactions, especially in the local media on the current state of affairs between the United States, Europe and Russia, and the prospects of moving forward. The focus has been on the key questions dealing with the North […]