By Dr Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK. 4 October 2023 (IDN) — It’s time for the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo to come to their senses and accept certain realities that neither can change. They are stuck and should recognize that their conflict will end only through mutual understanding of each other’s aspirations and respect for […]
France Attempts to Pressure Australia to Stop Engaging with Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty
By ICAN GENEVA. 3 October 2023 (IDN) — Recent statements by a French diplomat to “the Australian” newspaper criticizing Australia’s decision to observe the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) reveal the panicked efforts by nuclear-armed states to undermine the treaty as support for the ban continues to grow. It also shows […]
India-led South Asia Plays a Significant Role in Global Politics
By Ambassador Kazi Anwarul Masud The writer is a former Secretary and ambassador of Bangladesh DHAKA. 1 October 2023 (IDN) — South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, defined in geographical and ethnic-cultural terms. As commonly conceptualized, South Asia consists of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Most recent figures in […]
India Refuses to Be Coerced into Dumping Its Independent Foreign Policy
By M K Bhadrakumar * NEW DELHI. 1 October 2023 (IDN) — The sombre mood at the Council on Foreign Affairs in New York during External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s talk on 26 September was only to be expected against the backdrop of the India-Canada diplomatic spat over the killing of a Sikh secessionist in […]
The ‘Bumpy Road’ between Cuba and America
By Jan Servaes* MIAMI, USA. 29 September 2023 (IDN) — “As many people who know Cuba and Miami well have observed, each is a peculiar mirror of the other. … It is impossible to understand the Cuban Revolution without understanding Miami, and it is impossible to understand Miami without understanding the Cuban Revolution,” writes Ada […]
Review: Special issue of ‘Africa Development’ by Post-Colonialisms Today**
By Ray Bush* LEEDS, UK. 29 September 2023 (IDN) — A new calendar year ushers in the usual array of tropes on Africa. They include why the continent is failing, what it should be doing better and why it has so much resilience in dealing with its own frailty. Overwhelmingly, Western institutions (NGOs, credit rating […]
But for NATO, Flood Havoc Could Have Been Averted in Libya
Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne SINGAPORE. 27 September 2023 (IDN) — Catastrophic floods in Libya this month have killed over 10,000 people, according to estimates, due to a burst of a dam, weak infrastructure, and a lack of governance created by NATO’s bombing campaign over a decade ago to overthrow the long-serving Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi […]
Ukraine Conflict: Global Leaders Plead for Peace at UN
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies* NEW YORK. 27 September 2023 (IDN) — As it did last year, the 2023 United Nations General Assembly has been debating what role the United Nations and its members should play in the crisis in Ukraine. The United States and its allies still insist that the UN […]
Washington Supports International Law When It Serves US National Interests
By Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden. 26 September 2023 (IDN) — There is little doubt that Russia broke international law with its attempted take-over of Ukraine and, earlier, of Crimea. It is not only observers in the West who say this but a good number of Russians. Nevertheless, the Kremlin is right to say the West […]
Ukraine Conflict: A Peace Proposal to Avert an All-Out War
By Michael von der Schulenburg* VIENNA. 25 September 2023 (IDN) — At the end of August this year, four highly respected German personalities presented a peace proposal for ending the war in Ukraine through a ceasefire and subsequent peace negotiations: It is arguably the most comprehensive and groundbreaking peace proposal made by any government, international […]