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Image: Independent Israeli and Palestinian states can peacefully coexist and be sustained only through the establishment of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation that Jordan would subsequently join. Source: Middle East Online

Israel & The Palestinians: The Way Back From The Dark Dead-End Alley

By Alon Ben-Meir*

The following is the third instalment in a series of three articles. The first addressed how Israel lost its way, the second dealt with how the Palestinians lost their way. The following article offers a way out of their 75-year-old bloody and perilous conflict.

NEW YORK, 2 March 2023 (IDN) — It is time for Israel and the Palestinians to face the bittersweet truth and accept certain realities on the ground that neither side can change short of a calamity. These inescapable realities will frame the contours of a peace agreement in the context of an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian confederation.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 02 March 2023

Image: Families affected by the earthquake in northwestern Syria are being accommodated at a reception centre located just outside the city of Afrin. © UNICEF/UNOCHA

Russia, a Major Weapons Supplier, has Thrown its Protective Arms Around Syria

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, 2 March 2023 (IDN) — When the 193-member UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on 23 February calling on Russia to “immediately, completely and unconditionally” withdraw all of its military forces from Ukraine and the cessation of hostilities, the vote was 141 in favour, 32 abstentions and seven against.

Besides Russia, the six “noes” included Belarus, North Korea, Mali, Eritrea, Nicaragua and Syria, the only Middle Eastern country openly supportive of the invasion.

: Thalif Deen; THE WORLD; Russia; 02 March 2023

Image: 37-year-old Lwandile Zwane of Khayelitsha in Capetown has become used to power outages and has learnt to adjust her daily domestic schedule to match with electricity blackouts in South Africa. Courtesy of Lwandile Zwane.

Energy Poverty Grips Southern Africa

By Jeffrey Moyo

CAPETOWN, South Africa, 01 March 2023 (IDN) — Thirty-seven-year-old Lwandile Zwane of Khayelitsha and her two daughters have their super by 4 pm to beat the six-hour electricity outage across Capetown.

Characterized by slum settlements, Khayelitsha is a township in South Africa’s Cape Town where power outages have not spared many poor South Africans as the African country contends with energy shortages.

: Jeffrey Moyo; SUSTAINABILITY; Affordable Clean Energy; 01 March 2023

Image: Students in Sri Lanka were driven to study by candlelight or kerosene-oil lamp due to power cuts. Source: Asian Affairs

Sri Lanka: Franchise Raped

By Neville de Silva*

LONDON, 01 March 2023 (IDN) — Apocryphal or not, France’s Bourbon king Louis XIV is attributed to have said “l’etat, c’est moi” (I am the State). These words reflect the era of France’s pre-revolution tyranny.

Thankfully Sri Lanka has not descended to such state tyranny—not yet, some might say—though signs of repression that clamp down on liberty, equality and fraternity (as the French revolutionaries would have said) are not hard to discern even as the economic stranglehold on a struggling people continues to tighten and the country’s professionals leave our shores in droves in search of a better tomorrow.

: Asia Editor; OPINION; 01 March 2023

Image: State flag of Ukraine behind a wall of anonymous protesters in Kyiv, Ukraine. Events of February 18, 2014. CC BY-SA 3.0

Behind The Ninth Anniversary of the Ukraine War

Truths remain obscured by US secrecy and European obsequiousness to US power

By Jeffrey D. Sachs*

This article was published in Other News and is being republished with the author's permission.

NEW YORK, 01 March 2023 (IDN) — We are not at the one-year anniversary of the war, as the Western governments and media claim. This is the 9-year anniversary of the war. And that makes a big difference.

The war began with the violent overthrow of Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, a coup that was overtly and covertly backed by the United States government (see also here). From 2008 onward, the United States pushed NATO enlargement to Ukraine and Georgia. The 2014 coup of Yanukovych was in the service of NATO expansion.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 01 March 2023

Image: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at Desert Pines High School in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Gage Skidmore, Flickr) Source: LA Progressive

Showdown in Nevada as Democratic Establishment Targets Party Chair

By Norman Solomon*

SAN FRANCISCO, 28 February 2023 (IDN) — To understand the current fierce attacks on the progressive leadership of the Nevada Democratic Party, it’s helpful to recall the panicked reaction from political elites three years ago when results came in from the state’s contest for the presidential nomination.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 28 February 2023

Image: UN short clip on the Rule of Law, Peace and Security

Will the New Struggle for Dominance Uphold the UN Charter?

By Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden, 28 Feb 2023 (IDN) — Eleven hundred years ago Europe was a backwater. There were no grand cities, apart from Cordoba in Spain which was Muslim. Muslim Spain was the epicentre of learning in Western Europe.

The Middle East was much further ahead, still absorbing the intellectual delights and challenges of Greek science, medicine and architecture which Europeans were largely ignorant of. In southern China agriculture advanced and trade in tea, porcelain and silk flourished.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 28 February 2023

Image: Tunisian President Saied complained that sub-Saharan migrants arriving in Tunisia were changing the complexion of the North African country from “Arab” to Black. Image shows Arabs leaving mosque in Tunis c. 1899. Wikimedia Commons.

Tunisian President's Remarks Spark Fear Among Migrants and 'Blacks'

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK | TUNIS, 27 Feb 2023 (IDN) — Tunisian President Kais Saied sparked controversy last week when he complained that sub-Saharan migrants arriving in Tunisia were changing the complexion of the North African country from “Arab” to Black.

The President complained that “the undeclared goal of the successive waves of illegal immigration is to consider Tunisia a purely African country that has no affiliation to the Arab and Islamic nations”.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Middle East; 27 February 2023

Image: A family sit in their shelter at a displaced persons site in Aden, Yemen. © UNHCR/Ahmed Al-Mayadeen

Yemen, Facing World’s Worst Humanitarian Disaster, Misses Aid Target

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, 27 February 2023 (IDN) — The United Nations once described the deaths and destruction in the eight-year-old civil war in Yemen as “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster”.

The killings of mostly civilians have been estimated at over 100,000, with accusations of war crimes against a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

: Thalif Deen; UN INSIDER; 27 February 2023

Image: Ajaypal Singh Banga, Designated World Bank President. Credit: The World Bank

Twin Challenges of Climate Change and Debt Crises Confront Banga at World Bank

By Arul Louis

The writer is a New York-based non-resident senior fellow of the Society for Policy Studies, a New Delhi-based think tank. He can be contacted @arulouis.

UNITED NATIONS, 26 Feb 2023 (IDN) — US President Joe Biden has nominated Ajay Banga to head the World Bank with a mandate to promote climate change policies—the latest iteration of its evolving priorities—but he will also be under pressure to deal with the more immediate task of helping deal with the financial crises facing many in the Global South.