Individual Journalists

Photo: President Barack Obama greets Premier Wen Jiabao and members of the Chinese delegation after a bilateral meeting at the United Nations in New York, Sept. 23, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

US Should Emphasise Harmony with China

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - The two American presidential candidates give the impression of being rather hostile towards China. This is counterproductive.

“The US should not adopt confrontation as a strategy of choice. In China, the US would encounter an adversary skilled over the centuries in using prolonged conflict as a strategy and whose doctrine emphasizes the psychological exhaustion of the opponent.

"In an actual conflict both sides possess the capabilities and ingenuity to inflict catastrophic damage on each other. By the time any such hypothetical conflagration drew to a close, all participants would be left exhausted and debilitated. They would then be obliged to face anew the very task that confronts them today: the construction of an international order in which both counties are significant components”.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 20 September 2016

Photo: Russian President Putin (left) with Israel Premier Netanyahu (right). Credit: intifada-palestine.com

The Russians Go to Israel and Palestine

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - Russia announced on September 8 that it has decided to go where angels fear to tread – into the whirlpool of negotiations between Palestine and Israel. Long a preserve of the Americans and the French, the attempt to bring peace between the two and to make a final settlement on boundaries has frustrated them for decades. Can Russia do better?

Russia comes on the scene at a time when the script is perhaps about to be re-written in a radical way. After decades of negotiating around the premise that the only solution was a two-state arrangement with an independent Jewish state and an independent Palestinian state existing cheek by jowl, opinion in Palestine is shifting.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 13 September 2016

Photo: UN Mission Planning team carries out its first regional visit. UN Photo

The Story of Peace in Colombia sans US-NATO Invasion

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - After 52 years of fighting between the Colombian government and FARC, the left wing, drug-dealing, Marxist, guerrilla grouping, there is a peace agreement.

I’ve always wondered why the U.S. and NATO never intervened militarily. They should have if they were to be consistent. Colombia has long been exhibit A for those who say, “Look what happens when the outside world doesn’t intervene – the local fires just burn brighter and fiercer”. (And it has been said likewise for Sri Lanka during its civil war.)

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 30 August 2016

Photo: Solar geysers Credit: Jefffrey Moyo

Zimbabweans Embracing Solar Energy in Remote Areas

By Jeffrey Moyo

MWENEZI, Zimbabwe (IDN) – Deep in Vesera village in Mwenezi district in Zimbabwe’s Masvingo Province, 34-year-old Albert Chindiro emerges from his pole and dagga thatched hut holding a medium size solar panel which he positions on the roof to recharge solar batteries for lighting when night falls.

The house of neighbour Alphios Mhike is linked to power lines from the state energy utility, the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), but has long been disconnected from the after Mhike failed to keep up payments for prepaid electricity supplies. He too has now turned to solar energy.

: Jeffrey Moyo; THE WORLD; Africa; 28 August 2016

Photo: A carnival float in Duesseldorf depicts Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Turkish President Erdoğan, 2016. Abu Bakr is the leader of the Sunni militant jihadist organisation known as the ISIS_Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which controls territory in western Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Don't Overhype ISIS: Remember How Russians Fought Napoleon

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - Politicians have it in their DNA to hype our supposed present dangers. So do journalists. So does the military-industrial complex. So do certain think tanks and university professors who depend on sounding the alarm about this and that to gain grants from foundations.

When Leon Panetta was defence secretary under President Barack Obama he was not atypical when he said that any defence cuts would undermine the military’s “ability to protect the nation” and reductions would “invite aggression”.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 23 August 2016

Photo: President Obama and President Vladimir Putin of Russia speak to the press after a bilateral meeting in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, 17 June 2013. Credit: White House.

Strategic Dialogue Needed to Avert New Cold War

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - Nearly everyone I talk politics to says the world is in a mess. But I live in a student town and most of them have nothing to measure their opinions against. They know not much about the Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis, Watergate or the great famines in Africa and India.

In many ways most of us live in the best of times, on better incomes than our parents, with longevity increasing all over the world, not least in the poorer countries and helped by inventions that our parents never dreamt were possible.

: Jonathan Power; THE WORLD; USA and Canada; 09 August 2016

Photo: Timber transported from a woodlot in the hills of Zhangpu County, Fujian. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

China: A Paper Tiger With a Burgeoning Yet Erratic Economy

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - How far behind the West is China? Is its economy still booming so it could within 20 years overtake America? Is its military becoming of such a strength it will take the big decision to confront the U.S. navy in the South China Sea?

While it is obvious that the Chinese leadership is much more farsighted and cautious than, say, Donald Trump, can one conclude with 100 % certainty that potentially dangerous clashes won’t occur?

The communist leadership believes that before long it will be the world’s biggest economy. Yet if one looks at national income per head it is way down the league table of economic achievers. Size is not everything.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 02 August 2016

Photo: Donald Trump is greeted by President Ronald Reagan at 1987 White House reception. Source: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Does Trump Really Want to Win in November?

Viewpoint by Donald A. Collins

WASHINGTON - After a week of the Republican National Convention, the widely reported comments of the nominee the morning of 7/22 about Ted Cruz and his family must be quite confusing to Trump’s supporters as it is to many other undecided voters who are thinking about voting for him.

And clearly things in America are not as dire as Trump’s acceptance speech postulated.

Terrorism has long been with us as Columbine (e.g., the Genesis of the current terrorist surge?) proved, but this onslaught of religiously or otherwise motivated kooks does not mean we should give up our civil liberties, which could well happen if we go down the road of enforcement suggested by Trump’s remarks.

: IDN-INPS Asia Editor; OPINION; 27 July 2016

Photo A U.S. Air Force Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker from the Ohio Air National Guard's 121st Air Refueling Wing at Rickenbacker International Airport, Ohio, touches down on the flightline at Incirlik, Turkey. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

NATO’s Largest Nuclear Storage Facility Carries Risks

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.

: Jonathan Power; SYNDICATION; Individual Journalists; 26 July 2016

Photo: İstiklal Avenue in Istanbul's cosmopolitan Beyoğlu district is visited by an average of 3 million people on weekend days. Credit: Zumrasha | Wikimedia Commons.

Need to Propel Turkey Forward into the EU

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - Europe is under attack from both ends. In the west Brexit, the referendum to take Britain out of the European Union (EU). In the east Turkey, which is not formally a member because of the veto made by the conservative last president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Both have led to dreadful consequences. Britain because the EU was made for Britain, although the hard work was done by France and Germany. It is meant to bring together the countries of Europe who were antagonists in two world wars by means of an economic union in order to bind Europe together so its countries would never fight another European war. Britain leaving shatters that profound political pact.