THE WORLD

Photo: Twenty-five years since the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize shared by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat – who negotiated and signed the Oslo Peace Accords – peace continues to evade the Middle East, Palestine-Israel relations remain tense and a Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Zone in the region is nowhere in sight. The picture shows Rabin (left) shaking hands with Arafat (right) at the World Economic Forum in Davos, 2001 | Credit: CC BY-SA World Economic Forum.

Middle Eastern States Are Back on The Path to A WMD Free Zone

Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte

The writer is President of Pugwash and former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.

NEW YORK (IDN) – The establishment of a nuclear weapon free zone in the region of the Middle East has been one of the most frustrating undertakings in the field of arms control and non-proliferation at the United Nations. Over the past few decades it has been possible for States in other regions of the globe to successfully negotiate and adopt treaties that establish nuclear weapon free zones that greatly enhance peace and security.

: Sergio Duarte; OPINION; 01 December 2019

Photo: Mario Marazziti, co-founder of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty in 2002 and Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri | INPS-IDN Multimedia Director.

Papal Visit to Japan Revives Debate About Death Penalty

By Katsuhiro Asagiri

TOKYO (IDN) – An international conference "No Justice Without Life" has called on Japan to halt all executions next year, the year of the Olympic Games. Japan is one of the 56 nations which retains capital punishment, also known as the death penalty or death sentence for capital crimes. In fact, Japan, the United States and South Korea are the only nations in the group of developed economies that mete out death penalty.

: Katsuhiro Asagiri; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 30 November 2019

Photo: Pakistan Supreme Court Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa. Source: Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Supreme Court Attempts to Destabilize the Pakistan Govt.

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali*

FREMONT, California, USA (IDN) – The Supreme Court of Pakistan on November 28 limited the three years extension in the term of Army Chief of Staff General (COAS) Qamar Javed Bajwa to six month.

A three-member court bench led by the Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, who retires in less than one month, on November 27 suspended Prime Minister Imran Khan’s August 2019 order to extend the term of General Bajwa to three years.

: Suresh Jaura; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 30 November 2019

Photo: Kazakh children back from Iraqi prisons. Credit: The Astana Times.

Adaptation Course for Kazakh Children Returned from Iraq

By Aidana Yergaliyeva

NUR-SULTAN | BAGHDAD (IDN | The Astana Times) – Kazakhstan’s humanitarian operation on November 27 brought 14 children back to their homeland from an Iraqi prison, where they have been living for two years with their mothers. The life “after” will start for them with courses of rehabilitation at Pravo public fund’s regional centres.

“There are six of them (mothers). They are in an Iraqi prison in Baghdad. They have been serving the life sentence, which in Iraq means 25 years. And for two years they (children) have been there with their mothers. Unfortunately, our government only got to know that our citizens are in an Iraqi prison in March,” said The Astana Times reporter Assel Satubaldina who was reporting from Baghdad.

: Europe Editor; THE WORLD; Central Asia; 29 November 2019

Photo: IRGC's Naval special forces, S.N.S.F. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Iranian Agents Likely to Target U.S. and European Assets

Viewpoint by Syafruddin Arsyad*

JAKARTA (IDN) – As the Iranian leaders are now feeling the pressure of the full sanctions on Iranian oil and the terror-designation of Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), they will try and shift much of the IRGC’s human resources and assets into Iranian intelligence service that operates under Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).

The developing scenarios in the Middle East and the last year’s thwarted Paris explosion plot suggest that MOIS operatives might be used against U.S. and European interests and assets globally, particularly in Western soil.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 29 November 2019

Photo: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa being received by External Affairs Minister V.K. Singh in New Delhi on November 28, 2019. | Credit: V.V. Krishnan. Source: The Hindu

Rajapaksa’s Election Win in Sri Lanka Exposes Bankruptcy of ‘Velvet Revolutions’

Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE (IDN) – International news reports about former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s rise to power in Sri Lanka project him as a human rights violator who detests democracy. But, there is an untold story behind his path to the country’s presidency that would have lessons for Asian countries in particular, who are in the crossfire of the geo-political battle for supremacy between the world’s two super powers U.S. and China in what is now called the ‘Indo-Pacific’.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; OPINION; 28 November 2019

Photo credit: A. Baffoe and deforestation

Tropical African Plants Facing Extinction

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – A new study warns that a third of tropical African plants are on the path to extinction, with much of western Africa standing to lose more than 40 percent of plant diversity.

Ethiopia, and parts of Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are the hardest hit regions, the researchers found.

Species at risk include trees, shrubs, herbs and woody vines.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 28 November 2019

Image courtesy of Stephff | The Korea Times

The China-India Double Helix in the Reemergence of Asia as World’s Dominant Power

Viewpoint by Manish Uprety F.R.A.S. and Jainendra Karn *

NEW DELHI (IDN) – It has been posited that in the 19th century, the world was Europeanized. In the 20th century, it was Americanized. Now, it is being Asianized. But is the story of the Asian success as blossoming as it looks.

There are immense challenges across the contemporary world. Merkelisation has caused a social crisis in the European Union which has been exacerbated by BREXIT, and Francis Fukuyama, the noted author of The End of History expresses his fears for a U.S.-China war.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; OPINION; 27 November 2019

Photo: Beitar Illit, one of the four biggest settlements in the West Bank. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The two-state Solution is Dead as Netanyahu Pushes for ‘Greater Israel’

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – It’s unbelievable that 102 years have passed since the Balfour Declaration when the British colonial government decided to give the Jews their own homeland – but also promised that “it be done without infringing on the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish population”.

Now, this month, the Trump Administration has announced that the Jewish settlements on West Bank Palestinian land are no longer illegal. No matter the rest of the world is against this, the Palestinians face the possibility that 60% of the West Bank will be covered with Israeli settlements. 40% will be left as disconnected and isolated Palestinian cantons. There are now about 400,000 settlers.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 26 November 2019

Photo: Sidama people. Source: Addis Standard.

Ethiopia‘s Fragile Union Threatened as Sidama People Vote for Self-Government

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Some of the 80 ethnic groups that form the nation of Ethiopia are demanding great autonomy and are voting with their feet for self-government. The Sidama people voted overwhelmingly in November to become self-governing, casting 98.5 percent of the votes backing the change.

The Sidama – who number about 3 million – represent close to four percent of Ethiopia’s 105 million population. By creating their own federal region, the Sidama hope to regain control of land resources, political representation as well as to reaffirm their cultural identity.