Viewpoint by René Wadlow*, TRANSCEND Media Service GENEVA (IDN) – It has often been mentioned that the Chinese characters for “crisis” is a combination of the characters for “danger” and for “opportunity”. Thus it is today for the Iran Crisis. The dangers are evident and have been around for a while. The Persian Gulf region […]
Government Exam for Journalists in Nepal Riles the Profession
By Kalinga Seneviratne KATHMANDU (IDN) – The democratically elected Communist Party government in this former Hindu Kingdom is trying to change decades old media laws that were enacted before the digital age and is running into opposition from journalists who fear that the government is trying to muzzle a free media. “The communist party came […]
UN Denies Endorsement of India in Nuclear Suppliers Group
By Shanta Roy NEW YORK (IDN) – India, Pakistan and Israel, three countries armed with nuclear weapons, are not recognized as nuclear weapon states by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – a “privilege” bestowed only on the world’s five major nuclear powers: the U.S., UK, Russia, France and China, which are also members of the […]
After Kashmir Sikkim Buddhists Fear Losing Their Special Constitutional Rights
By Kalinga Seneviratne This article is the 34th in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate. Click here for previous articles. GANGTOK, Sikkim (IDN) – Since the special status accorded under section 370 in the Indian constitution to Jammu and Kashmir was abrogated by the […]
Asia-Pacific Faces a Daunting Spectrum of Natural Hazards
New UN Report Warns of Huge Economic Losses By Devinder Kumar NEW DELHI | BANGKOK (IDN) – Vulnerable and marginalized communities are among the hardest hit by natural disasters that occurred in a relentless sequence in Asia and the Pacific in the past two years, beyond what the region had previously experienced or was able […]
How the Kashmir Debate in India Is Being Fuelled by Falsehoods
Viewpoint by A.G. Noorani India’s Union Home Minister Amit Shah claims that if it wasn’t for the country’s first prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir would have been in India’s possession. The truth is, if Kashmir is a part of India, it is almost entirely because of Nehru, writes A. G. Noorani, an Indian […]
Rohingya Refugee Children Want to Learn, Says UNICEF
By Sean Buchanan NEW YORK (IDN) – The daily struggle to survive for Myanmar’s Rohingya people in some of the world’s largest refugee settlements has caused overwhelming despair and jeopardised the hopes of an entire generation, according to the head of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Henrietta Fore. In a report marking two years since […]
The Unique Sights & Sounds of Sri Lanka Come Alive in America
By Nandasiri (Nandi) Jasentuliyana The writer is Former Deputy Director General, United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV), Director, the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, and President Emeritus, International Institute of Space Law & Policy. NEW YORK (IDN) – When the annual Sri Lanka Day was celebrated in the historic city of Pasadena, Sri […]
Kashmir Crisis Forebodes a New World Order in the Making
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) […]
Exploding the Myth of the ‘Ugly Indian’
The new-generation tourists are the millennials, and they are anything but ugly — at least when abroad. They travel light and are averse to carrying stuff. They travel not to pick up things, but to gather experiences. By Shastri Ramachandaran* NEW DELHI (IDN) – East Asian hotels and resorts, especially in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and […]