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Viewpoint by Alexey Gromyko*
This article was issued by the European Leadership Network on January 20, 2022.
MOSCOW (IDN) — The current discussions between Russia and NATO pivot on Russia’s requirement for the Alliance to provide legally binding security guarantees: specifically, that the alliance will not expand east, which will require revoking the 2008 NATO Bucharest summit decision that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members of NATO”.
Viewpoint by Boaventura de Sousa Santos*
This article was issued by Other News and is being republished with their permission.
COIMBRA, Portugal (IDN) — The difficult challenges facing today’s world—the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, the escalating Cold War, the risk of a nuclear conflict, the increase in human rights violations and the exponential rise in the number of refugees and hungry people—more than ever demand active intervention on the part of the UN, whose mandate includes maintaining collective peace and security, as well as defending and fostering human rights.
By Radwan Jakeem
NEW YORK (IDN) — The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), issued by the U.S.-based international organization Veterans For Peace, warns that the danger of nuclear war is greater than ever and that nuclear disarmament must be vigorously pursued. NPR also calls for measures that would reduce the risk of nuclear war, such as implementing policies for No First Use and taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.
Viewpoint by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies*
NEW YORK (IDN) — U.S. President Biden and the Democrats were highly critical of President Trump’s foreign policy, so it was reasonable to expect that Biden would quickly remedy its worst impacts. As a senior member of the Obama administration, Biden surely needed no schooling on Obama’s diplomatic agreements with Cuba and Iran, both of which began to resolve long-standing foreign policy problems and provided models for the renewed emphasis on diplomacy that Biden was promising.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — A smoky building fire that raced through a 19-story building on an early Sunday this month took 17 lives—adults and children, many from the African nation of The Gambia—is raising questions about the building’s reported insufficient heat and automatic doors that should have been shut but weren’t working.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Not long ago, movies made in Hollywood filmed in major cities in Africa displayed an unapologetic ignorance of even minimal facts about the continent.
Cities named Lagos, Nairobi or Johannesburg became “somewhere in Africa”, anti-colonial sentiments became a “coloured struggle”, and the continent became a “setting and backdrop which eliminates the African as a human factor.”
Viewpoint by Herbert Wulf
This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission.
After constant Cold War rhetoric and sabre-rattling, the presidents of the USA and Russia talk to each other about the Ukraine conflict and more generally about the security architecture in Europe. The EU is directly affected but is left out and wonders.
BONN (IDN) — In recent years, observers of the security situation in Europe have been reminded of the times of the Cold War. Ice age, confrontation and mutual mistrust prevail.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — The Biden administration has cracked down on three African countries accused of serious rights violations, expelling them from AGOA, a duty-free trade program worth millions in benefits.
The three countries—Ethiopia, Mali and Guinea—had been warned in November of the threatened action which affects imports and exports of their products to the U.S.
Viewpoint by M K Bhadrakumar *
NEW DELHI (IDN) — A Kyodo News agency report on December 23 cited Japanese government sources to the effect that Tokyo and Washington have drawn up a draft joint operation plan that would enable the setup of an attack base along the Nansei island chain in Japan’s southwest in the event of a Taiwan contingency.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — The negotiations over Iran’s supposed nuclear bomb-building abilities seem to be stuck in a rut. On December 27, they re-started once again. Given the detailed undertakings by Iran made in the agreement negotiated by the administration of President Barack Obama before President Donald Trump sabotaged it, it should have only been a hop, skip and a jump to forge a final agreement once President Joe Biden decided to resurrect it.
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