History

Photo: Adrianne Vlok, Minister of Law in Apartheid regime. Credit: SABC

South African Apartheid-Era Minister Who Sought Amnesty Dies

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK | PRETORIA (IDN) — There were many heartless, soulless, violent men and women who defended apartheid during the years of racist white rule in South Africa. Some held government jobs, some were brutal enforcers of law, some gave quiet approval as tens of thousands of Blacks were detained, locked up without trial, deprived of their lands, their rights and finally their lives.

But one man was the “face of evil”, according to many who lived during those times. His name was Adriaan Vlok.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 09 January 2023

Photo: Ambassador Palitha Kohona with Chinese TV film crew at his office in Beijing.

China–Sri Lanka: Two Millennia of Mutually Enriching Relations

Viewpoint by Ambassador Palitha Kohona*

BEIJING (IDN) — Sitting in the middle of the Indian Ocean at the southern tip of India, Sri Lanka occupies an enviable strategic position. A blessing that it has successfully leveraged to advantage in the past and a curse that will continue to attract the rapacious attention of global and regional powers seeking to dominate the Indian Ocean region strategically, economically and culturally.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 30 November 2022

Photo: President Kennedy meets in the Oval Office with General Curtis LeMay and the reconnaissance pilots who found the missile sites in Cuba. Credit: CIA, Wikipedia Commons

Looking Back on the Cuban Missile Crisis Of 60 Years Ago

Viewpoint by Katrina vanden Heuvel*

NEW YORK (IDN) — October 16 marks 60 years since the Cuban missile crisis—the 13-day standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union widely regarded as the closest we ever came to global nuclear war. On this anniversary, as we veer terrifyingly close to the brink of Armageddon once again, we should look to that crisis to guide us in resolving our present one.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 16 October 2022

Photo: Subhash Chandra Bose on a 1964 stamp of India. Wikimedia Commons.

India: Misrepresenting Subhash Chandra Bose's Philosophy

Viewpoint by Dr Ram Puniyani

This article is the 23rd in a series of joint productions of South Asian Outlook and IDN-InDepthNews, the flagship of the International Press Syndicate. The writer is a former professor of biomedical engineering and former senior medical officer affiliated with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (now Mumbai) and, meanwhile, a social activist and commentator.

: Suresh Jaura; OPINION; 22 September 2022

Photo: Edmund Carpenter with George Merrill, a working-class man also from Sheffield, 22 years his junior, who became in 1893 Carpenter's companion. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Edward Carpenter and the Healing of Nations

Viewpoint by Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens

GENEVA (IDN) — Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) born on August 29, was an English writer, educator and pacifist, socialist reformer. Carpenter came from a middle class intellectual family and studied at Cambridge University. As with some of his fellow students who were interested in philosophy and ideas, he was ordained in the Church of England hoping that its outlook and theology could be widened from the inside.

: Rene Wadlow; OPINION; 30 August 2022

Photo: Late Prof. Hasbullah. Source: Colombo Telegraph

Being Abroad and Local: Late Prof. Shahul Hasbullah

By A. L A. Azeez

Former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN in Geneva

COLOMBO (IDN) -- Most comments that have come out in public since the sad passing away of Prof. Hasbullah in August 2018 appear to give due credit to him for the work he has done to highlight the plight of the displaced community.

That work extends to an exploration of the complexities of the phenomenon of IDPs and other demographic and geographical issues. Empirical facts gathered through that very process have contributed to a global understanding of the multidimensionality of that phenomenon.

: A. L. A. Azeez; THE WORLD; South Asia; 26 August 2022

Photo credit: Leicester Museum Art Gallery

Asians Recall Expulsion from Uganda 50 Years Ago

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK | LEICESTER (IDN) — It remains a bitter memory for Asians, some life-long and others more recent residents of Uganda, of their sudden, unexpected expulsion from the African country they called home 50 years ago this month.

They had just 90 days to pack up and leave, then President Idi Amin declared in a televised speech. For now, he was "giving Uganda back to ethnic Ugandans".

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 10 August 2022

Photo: Veterans at the annual meeting in Abomey in 1908. Wikimedia Commons.

New Film Highlights World’s Only Female Army in the Kingdom of Dahomey

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — The only documented female army in modern history was that of the Kingdom of Dahomey—now southern Benin—which, by the 1800s, had thousands of female troops.

In September, a film version that portrays the lives of these warrior women will be seen in cinemas around the country. In the meantime, a trailer of the film can be seen on YouTube. It features Viola Davis and Hero Fiennes.