Viewpoint by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka The writer is UN Women Executive Director. She issued this statement for International Youth Day, 2019. NEW YORK (IDN) – Sixteen-year old Gambian Jakomba Jabbie wants to be an aerospace engineer. A vocal advocate for girls’ education, she created a robotics team at school to show that girls can also participate […]
No Excuse to Further Defer Action on Climate Change and Land
Viewpoint by Ibrahim Thiaw Following is the text of the response of Ibrahim Thiaw, UN Under Secretary General and Executive Secretary to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), to Special Report on Climate Change and Land by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released in Geneva on August 8. BONN IDN) – We have […]
Europeans Should Refuse to Go MAD Again
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – If MAD was Mad then the decision of President Donald Trump to renounce the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) is MADDER. MAD is Mutually Assured Destruction, a concept which underlay the nuclear deterrence of the Cold War. Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan began the hard work […]
Hiroshima Unlearned: Time to Tell the Truth About US-Russia Relations and Finally Ban the Bomb
Viewpoint by Alice Slater Author and nuclear disarmament advocate, Alice Slater is a member of the Board of World Beyond War, UN NGO Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and a longtime member of CODEPINK. NEW YORK (IDN) – August 6 and 9 mark 74 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, […]
CEND Is Creating the Conditions to ‘Never Disarm’ – 74 Years Since Hiroshima, Nagasaki
Viewpoint by Tariq Rauf The writer is a Vienna-based nuclear arms control specialist, who was Head of Verification and Security Policy Coordination, Office reporting to the Director General at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 2002—2011/2012, in which capacity he was the Alternate Head of the IAEA NPT Delegation. The views expressed in this […]
Nuclear Disarmament Through the Vortex of Global Concern
Viewpoint by A.L.A. Azeez The writer, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN in Geneva, is concerned about the security landscape in most regions as well as globally. He pleads for all feasible measures to resume discussions on substantive matters. Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are the foremost among them, he adds. The […]
INF Treaty’s Demise Opens Door to a Dangerous Arms Race
Viewpoint by Daryl G. Kimball The writer is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. The following is the text of his statement issued on August 2. WASHINGTON, DC (IDN | Arms Control Association) – The loss of the landmark INF Treaty, which helped end the Cold War nuclear arms race, is a blow to […]
The World Is on a Breakneck Course Towards Barbarisation
Viewpoint by Roberto Savio* ROME (IDN | OtherNews) – When all is said and done, it appears that Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher who had a dire vision of man, was not totally wrong. From the frivolous to the serious, in just a week we have had four items of news which would […]
Saudi-Iranian Rivalry and Turkish Ambitions Meet in Kashmir
Viewpoint by James M. Dorsey James M. Dorsey – a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, an adjunct senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute of Fan Culture – offered this viewpoint to IDN. SINGAPORE (IDN) […]
US War with Iran will Violate Law Against Aggression
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – In 2010 the signatory states of the International Criminal Court, established to prosecute war crimes, convened a conference to add aggression to the list of crimes the court could try. The U.S., Russia, Iran, China and India have refused to sign up as ICC members and have […]