Peace & Justice

Image credit: IDN-INPS with Serbian and Kosovo flags from Wikimedia Commons.

Is Serbia Planning a "Special Operation" in Kosovo?

Viewpoint by Aurora Weiss

The possibility of the Serbian president Vučić starting to play the role of the Balkan Vladimir Putin with an eventual invasion of Kosovo seems never to have been more serious.

VIENNA (IDN) — Escalation: it's like lighting a match. Two separate components, Phosphorus and Match, can spark several times before the flame catches and finally lights up the fire. From the first, second or third attempt, it is only a matter of time before it starts burning.

: Europe Editor; OPINION; 05 August 2022

Pelosi’s Pivot as Cold War and Colonialism Rebound

Viewpoint by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake*

COLOMBO (IDN) — All bets were off as Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and second in line to the United States Presidency, pivoted to Asia on August 1. As Ms Pelosi tottered off a US Air Force plane at Singapore’s Changi Airport in her signature stilettos, Southeast Asia tripped into high tension as a collective shudder seemed to reverberate through the region.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 03 August 2022

Photo: Soldiers with the 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Oklahoma Army National Guard, fire weapons over a trench during a live-fire exercise at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, July 24, 2021. (Pfc. Emily White/Oklahoma Army National Guard)

As Wars Threaten to Continue, No More Major Wars?

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN) — Will historians a hundred years hence look at the end of the twenty-first century much as we now look at the end of the nineteenth and twentieth and say, “unfortunately, the peace and prosperity of that moment was but an interlude before the bloodiest century in mankind's history?”

Will they conclude as Aldous Huxley did, that "Every road towards a better state of society is blocked, sooner or later, by war, by threats of war, preparations for war. That is the truth, the odious and unacceptable truth".

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 02 August 2022

Photo: UN General Assembly Hall. Credit: UN

A Nuclear Review Conference Amidst Loud War Drums

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — The Tenth Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which runs from August 1-26, takes place amidst a raging battle: a nuclear Russia vs a non-nuclear Ukraine and potential military conflicts on the horizon, including a nuclear China vs a non-nuclear Taiwan, a nuclear North Korea vs a non-nuclear South Korea and a nuclear Israel vs a non-nuclear Iran.

: Thalif Deen; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 01 August 2022

Photo: Experts at work in the OPCW Laboratory, located in Rijswijk, The Netherlands. The Laboratory will move to the OPCW Centre for Chemistry and Technology in The Hague when it opens in 2023. 31 October 2016. OPCW

All Stakeholders Have a Role to Play in Ridding the World of Chemical Weapons

Viewpoint by Fernando Arias

This article was published in the UN Chronicle and is being republished with their permission.

THE HAGUE (IDN) — On 29 April this year, we marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the entry into force of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (the Chemical Weapons Convention), and the establishment of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) as the Convention’s implementing body.

: Opinion Editor; UN INSIDER; 01 August 2022

Photo: Sri Lankans wait in line with their empty gas cylinders near a gas shop in Colombo. Credit: Tharaka Basnayaka/NurPhoto via AP

Time for New Solutions for Sri Lanka

Viewpoint by Charith Gunawardena

Fight for Private Creditor Debt Cancellation

The writer is a former Local Councillor for London Borough of Enfield in the United Kingdom representing the Green Party and a member of the Sri Lankan diaspora.

LONDON (IDN) — With the whole world watching the deteriorating political, economic and humanitarian situation unfolding in Sri Lanka, and while we pray for swift solutions to food, fuel and medical shortages, there is now an opportunity to reinvent how countries caught in post-Covid 19 debt traps recover from crippling debt and re-emerge as healthy, functioning economies.

: Opinion Editor; THE WORLD; South Asia; 31 July 2022

demonstrating for the release of Julian Assange. Source: Deutsche Welle.

CIA Whistleblower Reflects on the Persecution of Julian Assange

Viewpoint by Jeffrey Sterling*

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) — It is difficult to talk about happenings in the world other than the continued, appalling Russian invasion of Ukraine and the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, Uvalde, Chicagoland, and elsewhere. Then, there is the Supreme Court which continues down a judicial road of eroding personal rights and towing the conservative party line. I don’t want to take attention away from those outrages.

However, the shadow of one tragedy is not dispelled by the light of another.

: Opinion Editor; THE WORLD; USA and Canada; 30 July 2022

Photo: U.S. airmen from the 60th Aerial Port Squadron load cargo onto a Boeing 757 Jan. 22, 2022 at Travis Air Force Base, California. Since 2014, the United States has committed more than $5.4 billion in total assistance to Ukraine, including security and non-security assistance. (Nicholas Pilch/Air Force)

The US Provides a Hefty $8.2 billion to Ukraine Battling a Superpower

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — The five largest recipients of US weapons have traditionally included Saudi Arabia, Australia, South Korea, Japan and Qatar.

Ukraine, which was ranked as the 50th largest importer of US arms, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), is now set to make a giant leap upwards.

During 2017-2021, Saudi Arabia accounted for 23% of US arms exports, Australia 9.4%, South Korea 6.8%, Japan 6.7% and Qatar 5.4%.

: Thalif Deen; THE WORLD; USA and Canada; 29 July 2022

Photo: Charline (left), 11, fled her village because of recent armed clashes in North Kivu province, DR Congo. She has taken refuge with her family in a camp for displaced people called Kiwandja in Rutshuru territory. ©UNICEF/Jean-Claude Wenga

The Congo, its Minerals and its Tribalism

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN) — When the United Nations pulled its troops out of the Congo, a country the size of western Europe, in June 1964, Secretary General U Thant reported, "The UN cannot permanently protect the Congo from internal tensions and disturbances created by its own organic growth towards unity and nationhood".

: Jonathan Power; THE WORLD; Africa; 26 July 2022

Photo: Willie Kimani was representing a client who had been assaulted by a police officer. Source: BBC

Unsolved Cases of Police Brutality on The Rise in Kenya

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — For Kenyans who waited six years and one month for justice, a Nairobi court finally handed them a decision—finding three police officers guilty in the kidnapping and murder of a human rights lawyer, his client and their taxi driver—all of whom disappeared after being locked up at a police station.

The mutilated bodies of Willie Kimani, his client Josephat Mwendi and the driver Joseph Muiruri were found two weeks after their disappearance in June 2016. They had reportedly been taken to an open field at night, executed and dumped in a river.