SYNDICATION

Photo: Maj. Gen. Kristin Lund, force commander of the UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus from 2014 to 2016 and a Norwegian, with Jorn Gjelstad, her country’s ambassador to Cyprus and Greece, left; and Borge Brende, Norway’s foreign minister, May 6, 2016.

UN’s First Female Force Commander Talks Gender Equality in the Military

By Shana L. Childs* | Reproduced courtesy of PassBlue

NEW YORK (IDN | Passblue) - Maj. Gen. Kristin Lund made history in 2014 when she was appointed the first female force commander of a United Nations peacekeeping mission – in this case, Cyprus. Still in active duty in the Norwegian military, General Lund, 58, gives lectures and advises the Norwegian Defense University College in Oslo. Although she is proud to have made history and wants to see more women in the world’s militaries, General Lund has no silver bullets for peace.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; THE WORLD; Europe & Central Asia; 21 April 2017

Photo: President Sirisena (left) greeting people. Credit: The official website of the President of Sri Lanka.

Western Remedies for Sri Lanka's ills: Lessons From History

By Dr Palitha Kohona

Dr Palitha Kohona is former Ambassador & Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in New York. This article first appeared in Ceylon Today on March 19, 2017 and is being reproduced courtesy of the daily newspaper. – The Editor

COLOMBO (IDN-INPS) -- Sri Lanka commemorated a dark day in its long and proud history last month. We recalled the cession of our sovereignty to King George III of Britain following the signature of the Kandyan Convention on March 2/3, 1815 in the historic Audience Hall.

On March 1, 2017, in the same Audience Hall, President Sirisena made the much belated pronouncement to remove from the list of traitors in the government Gazette those who valiantly but vainly struggled against the troops of George III three years later to recover the sovereignty that we had lost through a combination of factors well beyond our control.

: Dr. Palitha Kohona; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 20 April 2017

Photo: Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, with Liu Jieyi, China’s ambassador, before the April 18 Security Council meeting focused solely on human rights. Rick Bajornas/UN Photo

Haley’s ‘Historic’ Human Rights Debate Left a Small Impression

By Dulcie Leimbach* | Reproduced courtesy of PassBlue

NEW YORK (IDN | Passblue) - Nikki Haley, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, presided over what she was determined to sell as “an historic meeting exclusively on human rights” in the UN Security Council. But her brief speech in the April 18 meeting fell far short of introducing innovations to confront violations of human rights or prevent them in such places as Syria, Burundi and Myanmar.

“If this Council fails to take human rights violations and abuses seriously, they can escalate into real threats to international peace and security,” Haley began. “The Security Council cannot continue to be silent when we see widespread violations of human rights.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 19 April 2017

Havana to Stage International Jazz Day Global Concert

By A.D. McKenzie

PARIS (IDN | SWAN) – The “musically vibrant and culturally rich city” of Havana, Cuba, will host the main concert of this year’s International Jazz Day, to be celebrated worldwide on April 30, according to the Paris-based United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

In a joint announcement, the agency’s director-general Irina Bokova and American jazz musician Herbie Hancock (a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador) said that the day will culminate with an All-Star Global Concert presented at the Gran Teatro de La Habana Alicia Alonso.

: A.D. McKenzie; ARTS & CULTURE; 15 April 2017

Photo: Anti-war protest against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C. on April 24, 1971. The Vietnam War had already been going on for a number of years when President Lyndon Johnson decided he wanted to ratchet up the fighting. In August 1964 a fictitious event was manufactured. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

U.S. Administrations' Long List of Distortions and Lies

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - Are our governments economical with the truth, if not maliciously misleading? Do governments the world over lie? Of course yes, because there are always occasions when realpolitik appears to demand it.

Most recently, many are arguing, we have seen an attempt to obfuscate the truth when President Donald Trump ordered missiles to be fired at an airbase in Syria in, he said, retaliation for an attack using sarin gas by the Syrian government on unarmed civilians. Critics blame the rebels.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 11 April 2017

Photo: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan taking part in a Victory Day ceremony on 30 August 2014

Turkey and the Waxing Dangers of Populism

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - The long talked-about referendum in Turkey will happen on April 16. In effect voters have to decide whether the president, Recep Erdogan, in theory the incumbent of a relatively modest political post, should now be given the powers of the president and prime minister together.

Combined with a large majority in Parliament he would have enormous power to shape Turkey around his pro-Islamic agenda. Although working within a democratic system, Erdogan is in many ways a populist, rather in the mould of President Donald Trump.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 04 April 2017

Photo: President Donald Trump (right) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) at joint press conference on February 15. 2017. Credit: Whitehouse.gov

How U.S. Policies Are Perpetuating Wars

Viewpoint by Ann Wright*

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) - Fourteen years ago on March 19, 2003, I resigned from the U.S. government in opposition to President George W. Bush’s decision to invade and occupy Iraq, an oil-rich Arab/Muslim country that had nothing to do with the events of September 11, 2001, and that the Bush Administration knew did not have weapons of mass destruction.

In my letter of resignation, I wrote of my deep concerns about Bush’s decision to attack Iraq and the predictable large number of civilian casualties from that military attack. But I also detailed my concerns on other issues: the lack of U.S. effort on resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the U.S. failure to engage North Korea to curb nuclear and missile development, and the curtailment of civil liberties in the United States through the Patriot Act.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 03 April 2017

Photo: U.S. President Donald Trump signing the "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States" order, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence (left) and Secretary of Defense James Mattis (right). Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Peace Is Possible Without Perpetuating Militarization

Viewpoint by Veterans For Peace

Veterans for Peace, an international organization made up of military veterans, military family members, and allies, calls for a reduction in the Pentagon budget and an increase in spending to meet human needs at home and abroad. This statement originally appeared on the organization's website.

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (IDN-INPS) - As military veterans from WWII to the current era of conflicts, who have trained for, and in many cases, fought in U.S. wars, we know that current U.S. policies have not only failed to bring peace but are morally bankrupt.

Veterans For Peace has called for a different approach than war to demonstrate power and strength and prevent and end violent conflict. For the past thirty-two years, we have called for the abolishment of war as an instrument of national policy.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 01 April 2017

2020 NPT Review Conference Needs Innovative Strategies

By Jayantha Dhanapala

“ . . . and thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.” - Shakespeare: Twelfth Night

Note: The first Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will meet from May 2 to 12, 2017 in Vienna, Austria. Following the text of a Policy Brief Jayantha Dhanapala – a former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, and a former Ambassador of Sri Lanka – did for the Asia Pacific Leaders Network (APLN) middle of March 2017. It is being reproduced with the permission of the author who currently serves as the 11th President of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, These are his personal views.

: Jayantha Dhanapala; ARMAMENTS; 28 March 2017

The Poor are Keen to Make Progress Despite Famine

By Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - Once again the media is presenting us with the images of the mother of all famines – stretching from the Yemen to Somalia, to Sudan and South Sudan, to the Central African Republic, to northern Nigeria.

It’s a bad famine but there have been bad famines in the not so distant past – the great Ethiopian one in 1985, which triggered the rock star, Bob Geldorf, to organise a massive world-wide popular response. (I remember running with tens of thousands of other campaigners in London’s Hyde Park.) Before that, in 1974 at the World Food Conference, there was a real feeling that the world was running out of food and dramatic new policies must be put in place by the richer countries.