By Rick Wayman*
THE HAGUE (IDN) – The International Court of Justice has determined that it does not have jurisdiction in the nuclear disarmament cases brought by the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) against India, Pakistan and the United Kingdom (UK).
By an 8-8 vote, with President Ronny Abraham of France issuing the casting “no” vote, the Court declared that there was not sufficient evidence of a dispute between the RMI and the UK, and therefore the Court lacks jurisdiction.
BERLIN | SYDNEY (IDN | UNFOLDZERO) – An International Peoples’ Tribunal on Nuclear Weapons and the Destruction of Human Civilisation held in Sydney handed down its judgement on August 16 affirming the illegality of any use or threat to use nuclear weapons and convicting the leaders of the nine nuclear-armed States of war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes against peace and crimes of threatening, planning and preparing acts which would constitute genocide, ecocide and omnicide (the destruction of humanity as a species).
The tribunal also considered a test case against Malcolm Turnbull, the leader of Australia, which is one of the states under extended nuclear deterrence relationship with the United States. Turnbull was convicted for complicity, i.e. aiding and abetting the planning and preparation for the use of nuclear weapons, which would constitute a crime, and for making illegal threats to facilitate and support the use nuclear weapons.
Analysis by Aldo Caliari *
WASHINGTON DC (IDN-INPS | Center of Concern) – Due to UNCTAD‘s decidedly pro-South and uncompromising development-focused mission, its quadrennial conferences have traditionally been North-South showdowns.
Coming a few months after the adoption of the ambitious and universal 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 associated goals, the theme of the XIV Quadrennial Conference of UNCTAD (the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) was “From Decisions to Actions”.
Analysis by Vice Admiral Anil Chopra*
The attempted coup on July 15 in Turkey as well as its aftermath have irreparably dented President Erdogan’s international image and impacted Turkey’s standing as a democratic state, a military power, a NATO member, an EU aspirant, and an emerging economy. This downtrend is unlikely to be reversed in the near future and the country is in for an extended period of instability
MUMBAI (IDN-INPS | Gateway House) – There has been, and continues to be, much speculation about whether the attempted coup in Turkey was staged by President Recip Erdogan himself; about him orchestrating it in order to identify and eliminate his enemies, both Kemalists and Gulenists – as the millions of moderate and pro-western followers of the U.S.-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen, are now referred to. Parallels are even being drawn with Adolf Hitler’s purges after the staged Reichstag fire in 1933.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) -The Incirlik air base in southeast Turkey – from which U.S. pilots launch bombing raids on ISIS forces in Syria – is home to about 50 B-61 hydrogen bombs. That makes it NATO’s largest nuclear storage facility.
Each bomb has a yield of up to 170 kilotons, nearly a dozen times more powerful than the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima. The bombs are stored in underground vaults within aircraft shelters that in turn are protected by a security perimeter.
Recently, Incirlik was in the headlines because it appears it was one of the command centres of the attempted coup, meant to topple President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Is there a democratic recession? No, not an economic one. Rather one of the voting kind. In other words: Is democracy going backwards? It is not. Democracy remains resilient. Authoritarianism is being held at bay, despite recession in Russia, Turkey and China.
“Democracy may be receding somewhat in practice, but it is still globally ascendant in people’s values and aspirations,” writes Larry Diamond in a new book, “Democracy in Decline”. In fact, Diamond’s positive conclusion is less positive than I believe the facts say. By and large democracy is not receding.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – “ISIS is not an existential threat to the United States,” President Barack Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg of Atlantic magazine recently.
What becomes clear in this long article, much of it Obama’s own words, is that Obama shies away from the idea that war can make bad things good. The unquenchable wars that he inherited – Iraq and Afghanistan – were set alight by his predecessor, George W. Bush, and no amount of Obama fire engines have been able to douse them with enough water to put them out.
As for the rest of the waterfront of foreign affairs, he argues that after a period of uncertainty he decided that the U.S. should not militarily involve itself in the civil war in Syria. He decided that Ukraine is not a core American interest, although it is a Russian one, and he was convinced that Iran would agree through peaceful negotiation to renounce the dangerous parts of its nuclear program.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon video message on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day 2016.Theme: 2016 Theme: Access to Information and Fundamental Freedoms – This Is Your Right!
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN | INPS) – If worst comes to worst and Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff is deposed and her widely beloved predecessor, Luiz “Lula” da Silva, is discredited they will long be remembered for the “Bolsa Familia”.
This is a government program that has cut Brazil’s once appalling poverty rate by half and reduced the number of poor very sharply to 3% of the population. It reaches 55 million people and 36 million have been lifted out of poverty. It has been such a winner that around sixty countries have sent their experts to study it.
Indeed, it has been so successful politically that we shouldn’t be surprised that if Rousseff is felled by the shenanigans of Congress masses will go out on the street and riot.
By Special Arrangement with The Buddhist Channel*
YANGON – Myanmar’s retired junta General Thein Sein has become a monk. He has been ordained as U Thandi Dhamma. According to reliable sources, it was the well known Dhamma teacher Dr. Ashin Nyanissara or better known as Sitagu Sayadaw who implored him to take up monkhood.
Thein Sein is widely regarded as the junta head who opened up Myanmar. After taking over from military dictator Senior General Than Shwe in 2011, he was expected to carry on as an opaque and isolationist ruler, much like his feared predecessor. After all, in 1998 he was personally named by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar for directly ordering his soldiers to commit human rights abuses.
Records have indicated that his history in brutality was no less than previous junta heads, such as Ne Win and Than Shwe.
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