By Jan Servaes* MIAMI, USA. 6 October 2023 (IDN) — “There are a lot of things very few people—even my friends—know about me. Things like, when I was a kid, we often didn’t have coins to feed the washing machine in our apartment building, meaning we couldn’t do laundry and my clothes smelled of cat […]
Religious Leaders Can Help Bring About World Peace
By Kassym-Jomart Tokayev ASTANA. 6 October 2023 (INPSJapan | IDN) — It is not a secret that the world is witnessing rising international tensions and erosion of the global order that has been in place since the establishment of the United Nations. Divisive blocs, which have not been seen since the Cold War, are making […]
Small Island Nations Are at the Forefront of Our Global Crises
By Li Junhua, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs. NEW YORK. 4 October 2023 (IDN) — Over the past six weeks, the United Nations has facilitated an intensive round of consultations and meetings in the three regions of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) of the world. What struck me while visiting Mauritius, St. Vincent […]
Elected Democrats Are Conformist Enablers of Biden for 2024
By Norman Solomon* SAN FRANCISCO. 4 October 2023 (IDN) — Recent news reports have been filled with results of one poll after another after another showing that President Biden continues to weaken as a candidate for re-election. With an overall approval rating now 21 points underwater, polling shows he has lost support among key demographics that made […]
Serbian and Kosovo Leaders Should Accept Realities
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 […]