THE WORLD

Photo: Kyle Rittenhouse (left, with backwards cap) walks along Sheridan Road in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on August 25, with another armed civilian. Adam Rogan/The Journal Times via AP.

Many Police Can Hardly Be Distinguished from Armed Vigilantes

Viewpoint by Sonali Kolhatkar

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute. Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations.

LOS ANGELES (IDN) – Police in America, whose mottos claim to “protect and serve” us, have been openly declaring allegiance with the forces of white supremacy. It is no coincidence that this has become a hallmark of Donald Trump’s presidency.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 11 September 2020

Photo: Prime Minister Boris Johnson making a statement at the coronavirus press conference on September 9.

Breaking the Law over Brexit: How the UK is Playing Dirty in EU Talks

Viewpoint by Simon Sweeney*

YORK, United Kingdom (IDN) – The UK government seems to be doubling down on threats to leave the European Union without a deal unless the EU gives in on issues of state aid and fisheries. These two concerns are as important in Brussels as they seem to be in London.

In the latest attempt to ramp up the drama as the deadline to reach an agreement nears, the UK has said it plans to revisit the withdrawal agreement it has already signed with the EU on the terms of departure. This will include changing the plan agreed with the EU in December 2019 on how trade will move between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 10 September 2020

Photo: One of the protests against President Trump in 2017. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Mass Direct Action Might Be the Only Way to Stop Trump from Stealing the Election

Viewpoint by George Lakey *

This article was originally published on Waging Nonviolence and is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

PHILADELPHIA (IDN) – The warning drums for a contested election are beating louder and louder. At a recent campaign stop in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Trump once again laid the groundwork for not stepping down by saying, “The only way [the Democrats] are going to win is by a rigged election.”

The concern for what Trump might do in the absence of a landslide Biden victory has even led one bi-partisan group of experienced legal and political minds to run a “war-game” type experiment called the Transition Integrity Project.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 09 September 2020

Photo: Fires like this one in the city of Ventura, California, are likely to be more common, say University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) climate scientists. Credit: Ryan Cullom/Ventura County Fire Department.

Why The November U.S. Election Is Critical

Viewpoint by John Scales Avery *

COPENHAGEN (IDN) – Why did Prof. Noam Chomsky call the US Republican Party “The most dangerous organization in the history of the world”? He did so because the party is characterized by climate change denial and by support for giant fossil fuel corporations. According to the 2018 IPCC Report, the world has only a very short time left in which to stop the extraction and use of fossil fuels. If we collectively fail to do this within a decade or so, feedback loops may be initiated which will make human efforts to avoid catastrophic climate change useless. Much of the world could become uninhabitable, and a very large-scale mass extinction could be initiated.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 09 September 2020

Collage of the mass grave at the Killing Field of Choeung Ek with the leader of the Killing Fields on the left. Source: Wikimedia.

Death of The Leader Of "The Killing Fields" Raises Questions

Will there be more genocides that the world will ignore until it is too late?

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – One of the cruellest men ever to have lived died on September 2 in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Kaing Guek Eav, popularly known as “Duch”, was 77 and had been convicted of mass torture by the UN/Cambodian war crimes court. He was the only one of the five defendants to admit his crimes. In July 2010 in a trial I witnessed first-hand he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

According to Seth Mydans, the New York Times’s correspondent in Cambodia at the time of the rule of Pol Pot who founded the guerrilla movement, the Khmer Rouge, “he was a schoolteacher before the Khmer Rouge came to power. He took his revolutionary name from a children’s book about an obedient schoolboy named Duch. ‘I wanted to be a well-disciplined boy who respected the teachers and did good deeds’, he told the court.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 08 September 2020

Shakespeare Festival in South Africa Performed by An All Woman Cast

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK | JOHANNESBURG (IDN) – “Theatre will rise again,” declared James Ngcobo, artistic director of the renowned Market Theatre in Johannesburg. “COVID hasn’t stifled our passion, just moved it into another space.”

This month, Ngcobo is spotlighting speeches from some of Shakespeare’s iconic plays, mostly written for male characters but acted here by women. Reversing the roles, he says, will provide the actors with artistic challenges in dramas that were written more than 400 years ago but are still relevant today.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 07 September 2020

Photo: The Senegalese-American RnB singer Akon has just announced the laying of the foundation stone for the construction of the green and futuristic Akon City in western Senegal. Source: Afrik21.

Senegal Sees Dollar Signs in New Construction Underway in Dakar

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK | DAKAR (IDN) – Can a fish and peanut-based economy ramp up to become a world-class industrial powerhouse when money is tight and oil discoveries may not bring the hoped-for rewards?

That’s the question for Senegalese people to consider as hopes placed in their president, Macky Sall, and his “Plan for an Emerging Senegal” sputter forward.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 07 September 2020

Photo: The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny marches on Tverskaya street on 26 March 2017. CC BY-SA 4.0

Reactions to Navalny's Poisoning Aren't Much Ado About Nothing

By Kester Kenn Klomegah

MOSCOW (IDN) – Despite Western and European countries and many reputable international organizations calling for objective investigations that will inevitably establish facts about the alleged "poisoning" of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Russian officials have categorically turned down and confidently played against such suggestions.

He is a Russian opposition politician and anti-corruption activist. He came to international prominence by organizing demonstrations and running for political office, to advocate reforms against corruption in Russia, President Vladimir Putin, and Putin's government.

: Kester Kenn Klomegah; THE WORLD; Russia; 07 September 2020

Photo: Dr. Palitha Kohona, Former Permanent Representative of UN to Sri Lanka. Credit: NewsinAsia.

Distinguished Diplomat Kohona Tipped to be Sri Lanka's Ambassador to China

By Radwan Jakeem

NEW YORK | COLOMBO (IDN) – A major overhaul of the heads of Sri Lankan diplomatic missions abroad will come into effect in the next 30 days and new ambassadors have already been handpicked to key embassies abroad. These include New Delhi, Washington DC, Chennai, Tokyo, Beijing and Ottawa, reports Sunday Times.

At the same time, several retired diplomats who are over 60 years and heading embassies overseas have been summoned back by October 4 — i.e one month’s notice from when they were recalled. They include Kshenuka Senewiratne, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, Asoka Girihagama in Ottawa, Sudanthaka Ganegamarachchi in Stockholm, Damayanthi Rajapaksa in Cairo, A.L. Ratnapala in Havana and Sumith Nakandala in The Hague. Sumith Nakandala will be given time till October 22 when he turns 60.

: Radwan Jakeem; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 06 September 2020

Photo: President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, are joined by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, and his wife, Mrs. Akie Abe, as they pose for photos Saturday, Feb. 11, 2017, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, FL. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Japan's Longest-Serving Prime Minister Failed to Achieve Most of His Goals

Viewpoint by Sven Saaler

The writer is representative of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Japan and Professor of Modern Japanese History at Sophia University in Tokyo. This article appeared the web-based International Politics and Society Journal on September 3.

TOKYO (IDN) – On 28 August 2020, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that he would be stepping down after a record term in office of almost eight years. Abe had already been Prime Minister between 2006 and 2007. In his first term of office, he had been barely able to move anything forward and was described in the media as ‘a complete failure’.