By Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury Following is the text of Inaugural Keynote Address by Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations and Founder of The Global Movement for The Culture of Peace (GMCoP), at the First Annual Peace Education Day Conference organized virtually by The Unity Foundation and Peace […]
Sri Lanka’s Valorous Battle Against a Separatist Insurgency
Viewpoint by Admiral Ravindra C Wijegunaratne The writer is former Chief of Defence Staff and Retired from the Sri Lanka Navy COLOMBO (IDN) — The month of August 2006, fifteen years ago was a very eventful month for Sri Lanka Navy. I was the Commandant of Naval and Maritime Academy (NMA) and Flag Officer Naval […]
The G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative Is a Fiasco
Viewpoint by William N Kring The writer is the Assistant Director for the Global Development Policy Center at Boston University. This article first appeared on EastAsiaForum on September 7, 2021. BOSTON (IDN) — As the more lethal and contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 rips across the globe, the prospects of multilateral efforts to combat the […]
The Western Debate About Islam Is Frankly Uninformed, Sometimes Infantile
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Once again the CIA and MI6 are publishing dire warnings of the vitality of Al Qaeda. Once again the Islamic world as a whole is being tarnished by association. Are we returning, as we sadly commemorate the destruction of New York’s Twin Towers on 9/11, to what […]
It’s Time to Question the Validity of the “War on Terror”
Viewpoint by John Scales Avery* COPENHAGEN (IDN) — Twenty years after the events of 9/11, 2001, and in the midst of the messy withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan, it seems appropriate to question the validity of the so-called “War on Terror”. The Costs of War project estimates that America’s 20-years of wars, initiated […]
Condé Took Guinea for A Ride, But the Coup Makes No Sense
Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwene The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria. ABUJA (IDN) — Zambia’s peaceful and orderly election in August offered a glimmer of hope that Africa’s story might be changing. For the third time in three decades, an opposition leader defeated the sitting president sending a message […]
Taiwan Unlikely to Return as Part of Mainland China
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power TAIPEI (IDN) — “And then, there is Taiwan, the issue administration officials and national security experts agree is most likely to tip the scales from power struggle to military conflict. At the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon, officials are trying to figure out if the long-time American policy […]
Abortion Bounty Hunters in Texas Are Not ‘Whistleblowers’ — They’re Cruel Vigilantes
Viewpoint by Norman Solomon Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Solomon is the founder and executive director of […]
Geo-political Regionalism Challenges Multilateralism, Fobs Off the Global South with Empty Promises
Viewpoint by P.I. Gomes Dr P.I. Gomes is former Secretary-General of the Organisation of African, the Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), previously the ACP Group of States. PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago (IDN) — The commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the United Nations in January 2020 was acknowledged world-wide and accompanied by the […]
Achieving SDG7 Will Put Us on A Pathway to Net-Zero
Viewpoint by Damilola Ogunbiyi The writer is CEO and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) and Co-Chair of UN-Energy. VIENNA (IDN | UNDESA) — The energy transition story is a story of energy access. I’ve often said this, and it’s worth repeating. The climate crisis and the energy access […]