By Mulaffer Khalid The writer is a political analyst, a Senior Lecturer at the Chartered Institute of Supply & Materials Management and Visiting Lecturer both at the National Institute of Business Management and the Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration. COLOMBO (IDN) — India, one of the major nuclear powers in South Asia, has long […]
“They”, The Blob, Are Pushing for War Over Ukraine
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden (IDN) — You can insult them, call them the “Blob”, “group thinkers”, or even worse. You can challenge their scholarship and their prejudices. You can demonstrate that the policies they advocated for former wars were dead wrong and met failure. You can prove they don’t know their history and […]
Drought and Hunger Stalk the Horn of Africa While the Continent Is in the Grip of Coups
Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwene The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria. ABUJA (IDN) — There’s a severe, earth-baking drought in the Horn of Africa. About 13 million people in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Djibouti are in the grip of acute hunger. The rains have failed in three consecutive years, […]
Ukraine Conflict: Need to Re-Evaluate NATO’s Role
Viewpoint by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies* NEW YORK (IDN) — Every day brings new noise and fury in the crisis over Ukraine, mostly from Washington. But what is really likely to happen? There are three possible scenarios: The first is that Russia will suddenly launch an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Two Sides of The Same Coin — The Legal Controversy of China’s Naturalisation Practice in Sport
Viewpoint by Dr Yiyong Liang The writer is a Sport business consultant and an independent researcher. HEBEI (IDN) — Athletes’ naturalisation has been common practice in international sports, many countries have turned to foreign nations for success. It is not until recent years the Chinese government adopted such an approach in order to shine on […]
Russia On the Warpath? Or Is Peace at Hand?
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power MOSCOW (IDN) — Just before former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev made his stunning criticism of the West that, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it had engaged in “triumphalism”, I was in Moscow. Everyone I talked to say the West had set out to humiliate Russia (not to help rebuild […]
Understanding Russia
Viewpoint by John Scales Avery* COPENHAGEN (IDN) — Both Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin and its Foreign Secretary, Sergey Laverov, have repeatedly stated that Russia does not intend to invade Ukraine. Logic also tells us that if they had wished to do so, they would have done it long ago. The threat of a Russian invasion […]
Diplomacy for Ukraine Is Spelled M-i-n-s-k
A Memo to Congress Viewpoint by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies NEW YORK (IDN) — While the Biden administration is sending more troops and weapons to inflame the Ukraine conflict and Congress is pouring more fuel on the fire, the American people are on a totally different track. A December 2021 poll found […]
UN Sanctions “A Vital Tool” Available to the Security Council
By Rosemary A. DiCarlo Ms DiCarlo is the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs. NEW YORK (IDN) — United Nations Security Council sanctions are no longer the “blunt instrument” they once were, having transformed since the 1990s into “a vital tool” that minimizes negative consequences for civilians, and States that are not directly being […]
Are Democracies Slowly Dying in The Age of Authoritarianism and Populism?
Viewpoint by Jan Servaes * BRUSSELS (IDN) — Military coups d’état posed the greatest threat to democracies during the Cold War, until about 1990, and were responsible for nearly three out of every four democratic collapses. Democracies in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand, Turkey and Uruguay all […]