OPINION

Photo: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa being received by External Affairs Minister V.K. Singh in New Delhi on November 28, 2019. | Credit: V.V. Krishnan. Source: The Hindu

Rajapaksa’s Election Win in Sri Lanka Exposes Bankruptcy of ‘Velvet Revolutions’

Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE (IDN) – International news reports about former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s rise to power in Sri Lanka project him as a human rights violator who detests democracy. But, there is an untold story behind his path to the country’s presidency that would have lessons for Asian countries in particular, who are in the crossfire of the geo-political battle for supremacy between the world’s two super powers U.S. and China in what is now called the ‘Indo-Pacific’.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; OPINION; 28 November 2019

Image courtesy of Stephff | The Korea Times

The China-India Double Helix in the Reemergence of Asia as World’s Dominant Power

Viewpoint by Manish Uprety F.R.A.S. and Jainendra Karn *

NEW DELHI (IDN) – It has been posited that in the 19th century, the world was Europeanized. In the 20th century, it was Americanized. Now, it is being Asianized. But is the story of the Asian success as blossoming as it looks.

There are immense challenges across the contemporary world. Merkelisation has caused a social crisis in the European Union which has been exacerbated by BREXIT, and Francis Fukuyama, the noted author of The End of History expresses his fears for a U.S.-China war.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; OPINION; 27 November 2019

Photo: Collage of portraits of ESCAP Executive Secretary Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana (left) and UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (right). Photos by ESCAP.

A Lot More Needs Be Done to Achieve Gender Parity

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

Government Ministers and senior officials from the Ministries of Women, National Planning, and Finance, representatives of civil society and other key stakeholders from across the Asia-Pacific region have gathered at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok, Thailand for a three-day Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on the Beijing+25 Review concluding on 29 November. The following is a joint viewpoint of Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of ESCAP, and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UN Women.

: UN Bureau; OPINION; 27 November 2019

Photo: Beitar Illit, one of the four biggest settlements in the West Bank. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The two-state Solution is Dead as Netanyahu Pushes for ‘Greater Israel’

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – It’s unbelievable that 102 years have passed since the Balfour Declaration when the British colonial government decided to give the Jews their own homeland – but also promised that “it be done without infringing on the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish population”.

Now, this month, the Trump Administration has announced that the Jewish settlements on West Bank Palestinian land are no longer illegal. No matter the rest of the world is against this, the Palestinians face the possibility that 60% of the West Bank will be covered with Israeli settlements. 40% will be left as disconnected and isolated Palestinian cantons. There are now about 400,000 settlers.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 26 November 2019

Photo: Former Titan II Missile in its silo, Sahuarita, Arizona. Source: The Titan Missile Museum.

How Nuclear False Warning Could Have Unleashed a Catastrophe

Viewpoint by Daryl G. Kimball

The writer is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. The following is the text of his article published in Arms Control Today.

WASHINGTON (IDN) – Forty years ago, on November 9, the U.S. Defense Department detected an imminent nuclear attack against the United States through the early-warning system of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). U.S. bomber and missile forces went on full alert, and the emergency command post, known as the “doomsday plane,” took to the air.

: Arms Control Association; OPINION; 25 November 2019

Communities at The Forefront in the HIV/AIDS Response

Viewpoint by Somar Wijayadasa*

NEW YORK (IDN) – Since the first identification of HIV/AIDS in the United States of America (USA), in 1981, approximately 80 million people have been infected with HIV, and over 40 million have died of AIDS – the highest global death toll of all time – and also one of the world’s most serious public health challenges.

Each year, on December 1, the world commemorates World AIDS Day to show support for people living with HIV and to remember those who have died from AIDS-related illnesses.

: Somar Wijayadasa; OPINION; 24 November 2019

Image: Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones (Blue); Nuclear weapons states (Red); Nuclear sharing (Orange); Neither, but NPT (Lime green). CC BY-SA 3.0

Anxiety Looms Over the 10th NPT Review Conference Next Year

Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte

The writer is President of Pugwash. Former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.

NEW YORK (IDN) – The contentious start of the 74th Session of the First Committee of the General Assembly last October in New York was a harbinger of the difficulties to be faced in the run-up to the forthcoming 2020 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and in United Nations multilateral organs devoted to disarmament.

: Sergio Duarte; OPINION; 21 November 2019

Photo: Remnants of the American RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance unmanned areal vehicle shot down by Iran. CC BY 4.0

Be Mindful of Constantly Confronting Iran

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – Of all the present foes of America it is Iran which has consistently been over time the number one. Since its Islamic Revolution in 1979 that overthrew the secular-minded Shah and supplanted him with a militant, sometimes warlike, Islamic theocracy, it has been America’s Great Satan. (But for Europe rather less so, although no country has broken ranks with Washington.)

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 19 November 2019

Photo: Proceedings instituted by the Republic of The Gambia against the Republic of the Union of Myanmar on 11 November 2019. Source: ICJ.

The Importance of Gambia Invoking Genocide Convention Against Myanmar

Viewpoint by Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens

GENEVA (IDN) – The Government of Gambia on November 11, 2019 has brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague a complaint against the Government of Myanmar (formerly Burma) for violation of the 1948 Convention on Genocide concerning actions against the Rohingya. Under the rules of the ICJ, Member States can bring action against other Member States over disputes alleging breaches of international law, in this case the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

: Rene Wadlow; OPINION; 13 November 2019

Photo credit: Institute for Security Studies.

$78 Billion a Year Will Suffice to Abolish Extreme Poverty

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

“Ending poverty in all its forms everywhere” is the first of 17 Goals of the United Nations. The latest data indicate that it would cost only $78 billion a year – less than 0.1% of Global GDP – to abolish extreme poverty. Indeed, there is an argument for giving the abolition of the worst poverty priority over funding the combating of global warming. It’s a much, much cheaper cause than what is being estimated as necessary for stalling global warming – $2.5 trillion each year on the energy issue, overwhelmingly targeted on renewables.