By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 15 June 2023 (IDN) – In Asia, some of the countries dependent on remittances from migrant workers overseas include India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, China, Bangladesh and the Philippines. At the international airport in one of the Southeast Asian capitals, there is a sign at the “arrivals” terminal for a special […]
African Plan to End Ukraine War Turns Out to be a Non-Starter
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK, 19 June 2023 (IDN) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, among a group of seven African leaders meeting on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, presented an African plan to end the ruinous war between Russia and the Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Counteroffensive with the Youth on Suicide Mission
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies NEW YORK, 19 June 2023 (IDN) — As Ukraine prepared to launch its much heralded but long delayed counteroffensive, the media published a photograph of a Ukrainian soldier with his finger on his lips, symbolizing the need for secrecy to retain some element of surprise for this […]
India’s Vibrant New Relationship with US—Political, Economic & Military
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 18 June 2023 (IDN) — When India, the world’s largest democracy, was on the verge of taking a dictatorial path in the mid-1970s, the United States expressed its usual anxieties—and held out its usual threats. Back in June 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had not only declared emergency rule, suspended […]
A Pakistani University Employs Artificial Intelligence to Boost Agriculture
By J Nastranis NEW YORK | KARACHI, Pakistan, 18 June 2023 (IDN) — A member institution of the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) in Pakistan, the Iqra University, appears to have spared the South Asian country of an impending food crisis, predicted within two years.
‘The US & EU Need a New Roadmap to Solve Serbia-Kosovo Conflict’
By Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK, 17 June 2023 (IDN) — It is naïve to assume that given the current geopolitical conditions in the Balkans and the psychological dimension of the conflict between Kosovo and Serbia that a resolution to their conflict can be found unless the EU and the US develop a clearly articulated cost-and-benefit […]
Nations Pledge to Improve Refugee and Migrant Health
By Bernhard Schell RABAT, Morocco, 16 June 2023 (IDN | WHO) — One in eight people worldwide is either a migrant or is forcibly displaced by factors including conflict, persecution, environmental degradation, or the lack of human security and opportunity. With this in view, United Nations member states and several UN agencies have adopted a […]
Are Nuclear Talks with Iran Underway Again?
By Kelsey Davenport The author is Director for Nonproliferation Policy at the Arms Control Association (ACA). The following text was published in their P4+1 and Iran Nuclear Deal Alert news digest for June 2023. WASHINGTON, DC, 15 June 2023 (IDN) — Recent comments from U.S. and Iranian officials suggest that the space for negotiations over […]
Spending on Nuclear Arms Reaches a Hefty $83 Billion & Rising
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 12 June 2023 (IDN) — As geopolitics take a turn for the worse—with Russian nuclear threats in Ukraine, the saber-rattling by North Korea and the increasing political confrontation between the US and China—there are rising investments in the world’s expanding nuclear arsenals. Global spending on nuclear weapons increased in 2022 […]
Universalization of Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty Is Essential
By Ramesh Jaura BERLIN | TOKYO, 11 June 2023 (IDN) — Peacebuilder and Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda, who is president of the Tokyo-based Soka Gakkai International (SGI), issued a statement ahead of the meeting of the Group of 7 (G7) countries in Hiroshima May 19-21, calling on the G7 leaders to take bold steps toward […]