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Russia

Photo: Ships both old and new displayed their combat power and military might. Credit: Kremlin.ru

By Mark Thomas-Patterson*

WASHINGTON, DC (IDN) – July 28 marked Russia’s Naval Day, one of the series of military holidays celebrated in the country. The highlight of this year’s festivities was the first national fleet review in seven years, with President Vladimir Putin present at the main parade in St. Petersburg while Prime Minister Dmytry Medvedev was in Sevastopol. The parade also served as a time to display hardware, such as a new Admiral Gorshkov class frigate and Lada-Class submarine, two critical components of the modernized Russian navy.

THE WORLD
Russia

Photo: Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov with Burkina Faso President Marc Kabore in Ouagadougou in July 2019. Credit: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

By Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW (IDN) – As Russia prepares to strengthen its overall corporate economic profile during the African leaders' summit in Sochi in October, policy experts are questioning agreements that were signed – many of them largely unfulfilled and forgotten – at least in the past decade with African countries. 

Experts, such as Professors Vladimir Shubin and Alexandra Arkhangelskaya from the Institute for African Studies in Moscow, have argued that Russia needs to be more strategic in aligning its interests, and be more proactive with instruments and mechanisms in promoting economic cooperation in order to reap the benefits of a fully-fledged partnership.

THE WORLD
Russia

Image: The Dragonbear (Source: David Parkins)

Viewpoint by James M. Dorsey

James M. Dorsey – a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, an adjunct senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute of Fan Culture – offered this viewpoint to IDN.

SINGAPORE (IDN) – Russia, backed by China, hoping to exploit mounting doubts in the Gulf about the reliability of the United States as the region’s sole security guarantor, is proposing a radical overhaul of the security architecture in an area that is home to massive oil and gas reserves and some of the world’s most strategic waterways.

THE WORLD
Asia-Pacific

Photo: Two aerial photos of atomic bomb mushroom clouds, over Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 (left) and Nagasaki on 9 August 1945 (right). Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Viewpoint by Alice Slater

Author and nuclear disarmament advocate, Alice Slater is a member of the Board of World Beyond War, UN NGO Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and a longtime member of CODEPINK.

NEW YORK (IDN) – August 6 and 9 mark 74 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where only one nuclear bomb dropped on each city caused the deaths of up to 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 people in Nagasaki. Today, with the U.S. decision to walk away from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) negotiated with the Soviet Union, we are once again staring into the abyss of one of the most perilous nuclear challenges since the height of the Cold War.  

OPINION

Photo: Accompanied by their NATO counterparts, the then Soviet inspectors enter a weapons storage area to verify NATO compliance with the INF Treaty. Created on 16 August 1989. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Viewpoint by Daryl G. Kimball

The writer is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. The following is the text of his statement issued on August 2.

WASHINGTON, DC (IDN | Arms Control Association) – The loss of the landmark INF Treaty, which helped end the Cold War nuclear arms race, is a blow to international peace and security. Russian noncompliance with the INF Treaty is unacceptable and merits a strong response. But President Trump’s decision to terminate the treaty will not eliminate Russia’s noncompliant 9M729 missiles — and is a mistake.

OPINION

The then Soviet inspectors and their American counterparts scrutinize Pershing II missiles in 1989. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

By Jamshed Baruah

NEW YORK (IDN) – In his agenda for disarmament, Securing Our Common Future, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres calls for reinvigorated dialogue, serious negotiations and a return to a common vision leading towards nuclear disarmament.

Next year, over 190 States Parties will gather in New York for the 2020 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and mark 50 years of this cornerstone of nuclear disarmament. According to experts, there are significant challenges to be overcome if this conference is to be successful – in spite of unceasingly deteriorating international security climate which does not bode well.

ARMAMENTS
Nuclear Weapons

Screenshot: Arab News

By James M. Dorsey*

SINGAPORE (IDN) – Climate change, much like war, could prove to be a geopolitical and commercial gold mine. At least, that is the take of DP World, Dubai’s global port operator, and Russia’s sovereign wealth fund.

DP World is partnering with the fund, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) to create an all-year round maritime sea route from Europe to Asia through the Arctic.

THE WORLD
Middle East & North Africa

Photo: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg following the meeting of the NATO-Russia Council at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Source: NATO website.

Viewpoint by Daryl G. Kimball

The writer is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. This article first appeared on July 15 on the organization's website.

WASHINGTO, DC (IDN-INPS) – Russian pursuit of the 9M729 intermediate-range missile, which is banned under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, is unacceptable and merits a strong response. But NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg’s formula, as expressed in a new op-ed published in the German-language Frankfurter Allgemeine, is inadequate.

ARMAMENTS
Nuclear Weapons

Photo: Côte d'Ivoire Foreign Minister Marcel Amon-Tanoh and Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov at a joint press conference in Moscow on 17 July 2019.

By Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW (IDN) – The ways and means of invigorating bilateral relations in political, trade, economic, educational and humanitarian areas were the centrepiece of the first diplomatic encounter between Foreign Minister Marcel Amon-Tanoh of Côte d'Ivoire, also known as Ivory Coast, and his counterpart Sergey Lavrov of Russia, in Moscow.

The two Foreign Ministers also exchanged views on major global and regional issues, such as crisis settlement and peacekeeping in Africa. Countering international terrorism and extremism in the context of collective efforts to neutralize these threats in Africa and beyond too topped their agenda.

THE WORLD
Russia

Photo credit: opnuns.org

By Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW (IDN) – Chairman of the State Duma, Viacheslav Volodin, has urged African leaders to use the untapped enormous natural resources to vigorously pursue sustainable development goals as the best way through which to escape underdevelopment, economic dependency syndrome and neo-colonialism.

In order to achieve this, Russia, he said, was prepared with a new legislative supported comprehensive plan in the coming years to uplift, especially, its economic cooperation into a new stage with African countries.

THE WORLD
Africa

  1. The Liberal Order Needs to Be Profoundly Reformed
  2. World Parliamentarians Look Forward to Fruitful Cooperation
  3. Putin’s Russia Doesn’t Compare with The Days of The Gulag
  4. Economic Growth Makes Africa Highly Popular with Investors
  5. Russia-Africa Economic Partnership Under the Spotlight

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