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By Kester Kenn Klomegah
MOSCOW (IDN) – Instead of concentrating on developing its newly-established strategy for Africa, Russia has locked horns with United States over its funding for educational programmes, media and NGOs.
Russia has also accused foreign players of adopting neocolonial tendencies and approaches in dealing with Africa, according to analytical reviews and observations by diplomats, policy experts and researchers.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN) – Seventy-five years ago the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 and on Nagasaki on August 9 was premeditated mass murder.
President Harry Truman had a workable alternative to using the atom bomb – to cooperate with Stalin, as Roosevelt and Churchill had done on the Western front, in the Soviet advance on Japan, rather than making it a race for control.
Indeed, it was the Soviet advance that convinced Japan to surrender.** Although unaware of each other’s thinking both Truman and the Japanese leadership shared a common cause – they both wanted to pre-empt the possibility of the Soviet Union occupying parts of Japan before the U.S. had got its boots on Japanese ground. Truman did not want to be compelled to concede Soviet participation in the government of post-surrender, occupied, Japan.
By Kalinga Seneviratne
SINGAPORE (IDN) – The landslide victory of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP – Sri Lanka Peoples’ Front) led by the Rajapaksa brothers throws a challenge to so-called “liberals” everywhere whose ideology may not be in sync when a huge portion of the electorate vote for a “strong” government rather than a coalition representing various segments of the community that may not provide political and economic stability at a time of a crisis.
Viewpoint by Marshall Auerback
The writer is a market analyst and commentator. This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
NEW YORK (IDN) – The media likes to dabble in war game fantasies between the 21st-century great powers China and the U.S., but it’s a distraction from the hybrid economic warfare that is underway—from Trump’s tariff hikes to the shores of the advanced economy.
Here in a nutshell is the problem facing the United States. The country that used to be a world leader in all forms of high tech, especially semiconductor chips, now spends its time re-designing chocolate chips.
Viewpoint by Vijay Prashad *
This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
NORTHAMPTON, Massachusetts (IDN) – Six months ago, on January 30, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). Ten days before this, the Chinese government had said—to great alarm—that the coronavirus could be transmitted from human to human. The contagiousness of this virus led the WHO to make the declaration, which came a month after the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention told their counterparts in the United States about the virus.
By Drew Christiansen
Writer Drew Christiansen, S. J., is Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Human Development at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. He is the co-editor with Carole Sargent of A World Free from Nuclear Weapons: The Vatican Conference on Disarmament (Georgetown University Press, 2020). facebook.com/disarmnowgeorgetown
WASHINGTON, DC. (IDN) -- Nagasaki is the historic centre of Japanese Catholicism. In the 16th century, beginning with the missionary visits of one of the first Jesuits, Francis Xavier, Nagasaki was the focal point of their efforts to bring Christianity to Japan.
By Kalinga Seneviratne
SYDNEY (IDN) – Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne during a joint press conference in Washington on July 29 with her U.S. counterpart Mike Pompeo bluntly remarked that although the two countries often hold common positions because they share fundamental values, yet "we don't agree on everything".
She not only refrained from echoing Pompeo's bellicose rhetoric against China regarding its behaviour in the South China Sea, but, was also determined not to be seen as a hapless pawn in America's increasingly tense stand-off with China.
Viewpoint by António Guterres
Following is the text of remarks by UN Secretary-General on the occasion of his latest policy brief titled The Impact of COVID-19 on South-East Asia. It examines how the eleven countries of South-East Asia are addressing the immediate impacts of COVID-19, focusing on the subregion’s socio-economic response.
NEW YORK (IDN) – As in other parts of the world, the health, economic and political impact of COVID-19 has been significant across Southeast Asia — hitting the most vulnerable the hardest.
By Jaya Ramachandran
GENEVA | SEOUL (IDN) – A new UN report says that women forcibly returned to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) are subjected to torture, ill treatment, sexual abuse, and other violations.
The report published by the UN Human Rights office (OHCHR) on July 28 is based on 100 first-hand accounts by North Korean women who said they were beaten or suffered other individual or collective punishment while in detention between 2009 and 2019.
Viewpoint by Usha M Rodrigues, Deakin University
VICTORIA, Australia (IDN) – India is now the third most impacted country by COVID-19, with cases nearing 900,000 and deaths surpassing 23,000 as of July 13. India is also one of the leading nations when it comes to the sharing of 'fake news’.
By all accounts, India has not yet seen the peak of coronavirus causalities. Nor has India reached the peak of mis- and disinformation circulation on various media platforms.
IDN-InDepthNews offers news analyses, features, reports and viewpoints that impact the world and its peoples. It has been online since 2009. Its network spans countries around the world.