By Manish Rai* SYDNEY | 1 February 2025 (IDN) — Turkey’s proxy groups like the Syrian National Army (SNA) which is also part of a coalition of Syrian opposition groups led by Hayat Taheer Al-Sham (HTS) have been attacking the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in North Syrian since December 2024. In particular, fierce fighting […]
Reform Credit Ratings to Fix Africa’s Debt Crisis
By Daniel Cash The writer is Associate Professor at Aston University and Senior Fellow at the UN University Centre for Policy Research NEW YORK | 30 January 2025 (IDN) — Africa is in a debt crisis. On the continent, interest payments on debt have risen by 132% over the past decade. Thirty-two African countries now […]
Social Media and Politics in Southeast Asia
By Jan Servaes* BANGKOK, Thailand | 29 January 2025 (IDN) — Southeast Asia exhibits a wide range of political structures, cultural systems, depths of political engagement, and histories. Nearly four decades since the advent of the Internet in the region, the online population has grown substantially, hand in hand with increased government capacity to exert […]
The US Should Not Hold Provocative War Games Near China
By Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden | 28 January 2025 (IDN) — When Donald Trump was last elected as president his secretary of defence, Jim Mattis, declared a new era: “There has been a return of great power competition……great power competition- not terrorism- is now the primary focus of US security”. In the then new national […]
Can Hamas Redeem Itself?
By Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK | 27 January 2025 (IDN) — Now that the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire is in place, with some ongoing hiccups, the question is, will the second phase follow, and what lesson, if any, has Hamas learned following 15 months of horrendous death and destruction? The current first phase […]
Kenya Deploys 200 More Police Officers to Haiti as Crisis Escalates
By Nicholas Mwangi* NAIROBI | 27 January 2025 (IDN) — Kenya has deployed another batch of 217 police officers to Haiti, adding to the 400 sent last year as part of a “multinational mission” aimed at addressing the country’s deepening crisis of gang violence. The intervention aims to protect critical infrastructure and conduct “targeted operations” […]
The Killing of General Cirimwami Escalates Conflict in DR Congo
Geopolitical scramble for the country’s vast mineral wealth By Kambale Musavuli* ACCRA, Ghana | 26 January 2025 (IDN) — Major General Peter Cirimwami, the military governor of North Kivu province, was shot near Kasengezi this past Thursday and later succumbed to his injuries. The incident occurred as he visited the frontline to assess the deteriorating […]
Trump’s Message from God for Africa
The writer is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the new book Writing for Media and Monetising It. ABUJA, Nigeria | 23 January 2025 (IDN) — It’s hard to argue when U.S. President Donald Trump says that God saved him to save America. Not only is a rational argument often suspended or lost when God […]
Peace With China Is Far More Important Than Power Over China
By Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden | 21 January 2025 (IDN) —The West, the US especially, has got itself into a fretful mood over the rise of China. Quite unnecessarily so. The Chinese growth rate is slowing. As a BBC commentator said recently, reviewing this week’s government-issued statistics, China never will hit double digit growth again. […]
Rabbinical Cease Fire in Gaza: A New Oslo?
By James E. Jennings* ATLANTA, USA | 18 January 2025 (IDN) — The Israelis are very good at two things: bombing the hell out of places all over the Middle East using American planes and bombs and writing complicated “peace” deals that wrap the Palestinians in a morass of words so that peace never comes. […]