Viewpoint by Silvia Panizza* PIEDMONT, Italy (IDN) – “They say when trouble comes, close ranks.” So begins Jean Rhys’s novel Wide Sargasso Sea. When the new coronavirus started spreading in Europe, my first impulse was to travel home, to Italy, to be with my family. Lesson number one learned from the virus: you remember what […]
Bernie Sanders Pushes Democratic Party to the Left
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden (IDN) – Is Bernie Sanders still in with a chance? It is a slim one, but in these primary elections one never knows. There have been a number of surprising upsets. Even if Joe Biden comes out on top and has to face Donald Trump for the presidency the […]
The Largest US-Led Military Exercise in Europe Continues Despite COVID-19
Viewpoint by Jan Oberg*, The Transnational Foundation, TFF. LUND, Sweden (IDN) -– Defender Europe 20 is a huge, basically US military exercise, on European soil between February and May this year. It has already started. In the midst of a closed-down coronavirus Europe. And it is war-preparing, not peace- or confidence-building. The diagram above from […]
International Cooperation Vital to Defying the Consequences of Coronavirus
Viewpoint by Beate Trankmann*, UNDP Resident Representative in China BEIJING (IDN) – Since its outbreak, the effects of the coronavirus have been felt in countries across the world. With around 110,000 confirmed cases of COVID19 and over 4,000 deaths as of March 10, this epidemic has put public health systems and emergency services under immense pressure. […]
Massive African Infrastructure Projects Often Hurt, Not Help, Local People
Viewpoint by Tom Goodfellow* SHEFFIELD (IDN) – Big infrastructure projects are always controversial. Yet in parts of the world associated with severely deficient infrastructure, the positive value of major infrastructure investments is often taken as a given. This assumption needs to be subjected to much greater scrutiny, as I argue in new research that explores […]
A COVID-19 Vaccine Quickly and Cheaply Is Possible
Viewpoint by John Scales Avery* The writer is a theoretical chemist noted for his research publications in quantum chemistry. COPENHAGEN (IDN) – Public health experts say that if the COVID-19 epidemic is not successfully contained, it could become a global pandemic, perhaps spreading to 80% of the world’s population. With a 1% mortality rate, this […]
Postpone the NPT Review Conference to 2021 and Convene in Vienna
Viewpoint by Tariq Rauf The writer has attended all nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) meetings since 1987 as a delegate, including as senior adviser to the chair of Main Committee I (nuclear disarmament) in 2015 and to the chair of the 2014 preparatory committee; as alternate head of the International Atomic Energy Agency delegation to the […]
New ACP Chief to Enhance the 79-Nation Group’s Effectiveness at the UN
By Georges Rebelo Pinto Chikoti, ACP Secretary General The following are extensive excerpts from the inaugural address of Georges Rebelo Pinto Chikoti, Secretary General of the 79-nation ACP Group of States to the Special Meeting of the ACP Committee of Ambassadors on 2 March 2020 at the ACP House in Brussels. Angola’s Minister of Foreign […]
Our Addiction to Fossil Fuels Can Kill Us
Viewpoint by John Scales Avery* COPENHAGEN (IDN) – The Industrial Revolution marked the start of a massive human use of fossil fuels. The stored energy from several hundred years of plant growth began to be used at roughly a million times the rate at which it had been formed. The effect on human society was […]
Interconnected Dangers to Civilization
Viewpoint by John Scales Avery* COPENHAGEN (IDN) – Cultural evolution depends on the non-genetic storage, transmission, diffusion and utilization of information. The development of human speech, the invention of writing, the development of paper and printing, and finally, in modern times, computers and the Internet: all these have been crucial steps in society’s explosive accumulation […]