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 […]
25 Years on From Beijing, COVID-19 Highlights Profound Interconnectedness & Persisting Inequalities
Viewpoint by Anita Nayar and Aishu Balaji Anita Nayar is Director and Aishu Balaji Program Coordinator of Regions Refocus. This article is based on the civil society statement delivered at the opening of CSW64/Beijing+25 by Anita Nayar, also Co-Chair of the Gender and Trade Coalition. NEW YORK (IDN) – On March 9, 2020, New York-based […]
Singapore’s Fight Against the Coronavirus on Social Media
Viewpoint by Archana Atmakuri The writer is a Research Analyst at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) at the National University of Singapore. This opinion piece first appeared on East Asia Forum on 6 March 2020. SINGAPORE (IDN) — Over 60 countries are now fighting confirmed and suspected cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), […]
CORVID 19 – The Insatiable Urge to Bash China Surfaces Again!
Viewpoint by Dr Palitha Kohona The writer is former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, and former Foreign Secretary. COLOMBO (IDN) — Historically, the West has always had an equivocal attitude towards China, not to mention the non-white world. A fear, a suspicion, a fascination, an uncertainty, a sense of […]
The Virus of Nuclear Proliferation
Viewpoint by Alice Slater The writer serves on the Board of ‘World Beyond War’, and represents the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at the United Nations. NEW YORK (IDN) — In an avalanche of reporting we are now assaulted with information about how the world is urgently attempting to batten down the hatches to avoid the […]
Risks and Realities of Extending the UN Arms Embargo on Iran
Viewpoint by Kelsey Davenport and Daryl K. Kimball This article first appeared as Issue Brief of the Arms Control Association on 5 March 2020. Kelsey Davenport is director for nonproliferation policy, and Daryl G. Kimball, executive director, Arms Control Association. WASHINGTON, DC (IDN) — More than a decade ago, the United States and its partners […]
COVID-19: Switching to Airplane Mode — Life Lessons From the Unchartered
Viewpoint by Nisar Keshvani SINGAPORE (IDN) — Like many others around the world, life took an unexpected turn around Lunar New Year. With the world health situation suddenly becoming unpredictable, we’ve had to adapt to new scenarios, almost by the hour, based on new information. I feel privileged to be in my communications role — […]
USA Needs Social Democracy or What Sanders Calls Socialism
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden (IDN) – The U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is having trouble with his socialism. The younger voters get it, but many of the older liberally-minded people don’t — the kind of people who read the New York Times and probably like its endorsement of Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar […]