Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne * SYDNEY (IDN) — Civil unrest spreading across Sri Lanka in the past few weeks resembles the beginnings of the Arab Spring uprising by youth frustrated with corrupt political systems which left the Middle East in utter chaos, and the youth at the mercy of human traffickers and European governments.
The End Of (Human) History?
Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte The writer is Ambassador, former United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affair, and President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. NEW YORK (IDN) — Roughly three decades have gone by since the publication of Francis Fukuyama’s essay “The End of History?”. The interrogation mark makes clear that the social […]
Putin’s Aggression Against Ukraine Has Changed the World
This article was issued by the Wall Street International and is being republished with their permission. Viewpoint by Franz Baumann NEW YORK (IDN) — Wars teach about geography. In mid-February, the autocorrect on my phone did not recognize, and few people in Western Europe or America could have located on a map Mariupol, Charkiv, Bucha, […]
Can Latin America’s New ‘Pink Tide’ Turn Green?
This article was issued by the Diálogo China and is being republished under the Creative Commons licence. Viewpoint by Felipe Betim SÃO PAULO, Brazil (IDN) — Much like the early 2000s, Latin America could be on the brink of a new “pink tide”—but one that is awash with another colour. Gabriel Boric won Chile’s presidential […]
Climate Change and the Tribal Communities of Manipur, India
This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission. Viewpoint by Robert Mizo NEW DELHI (IDN) — Climate change is bound to have far-reaching implications on tribal societies even though they have traditionally lived in close harmony with nature. For them, climate change is an issue of human […]
Russia, Ukraine, and Nazi Influence
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Lost in the clouds of combat we forget how the violence in otherwise peaceful Ukraine came about. The spark that lit the fire was struck in Kyiv’s central square, the Maidan. In 2014, demonstrators in the Maidan, the central square of the capital, Kyiv, were motivated by […]
South Asia’s Arab Spring: Protests Amid Hybrid Economic War in Pakistan and Sri Lanka
Viewpoint by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake The writer, Dr Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake, is a Sociocultural and Medical Anthropologist based in Colombo. Her latest publication is ‘Multi-religiosity on Contemporary Sri Lanka: Innovation, Shared Spaces, Contestation”. (Routledge 2022) COLOMBO (IDN) — South Asia’s Arab Spring is here, amid global Cold War tensions and slow tectonic shifts in power and wealth […]
When A Joke Fetches a Slap
Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwene The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria. ABUJA (IDN) — One week before Hollywood, Nigeria hosted a different kind of Oscar moment. At the swearing-in ceremony of Charles Soludo, former Governor of the Central Bank and new governor of the most commercially significant southeast states, […]
The Red Scare
Viewpoint by Alice Slater The writer serves on the Boards of World Beyond War, the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. She is also the UN NGO representative for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. NEW YORK (IDN) — In 1954 I attended Queens College during the years before Senator Joseph McCarthy finally […]
Avoiding Nuclear War Over Ukraine
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden (IDN) — In the Cold War days, some of us used to say, “Better red than dead”—to rebuff those who believed in “role-the-dice” nuclear deterrence as a way of political life that gave them security. Now those of us who are frightened that Vladimir Putin could start a nuclear […]