By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS. 6 August 2023 (IDN) — The United Nations has been a vociferous and longstanding advocate of gender empowerment in its political, social and economic agenda characterized by 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including poverty and hunger eradication, quality education, human rights and climate change. In her 23 July presentation, titled […]
Niger Coup Reflects Anti-French Sentiment in the Region
By Kola King* LAGOS, Nigeria. 6 August 2023 (IDN) — Barely two weeks after President Bola Tinubu made his inaugural speech as the new Chairman of the Economic Community of West Africa, ECOWAS during the Africa Union, AU meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya on 16 July, where he excoriated coup plotters and military adventurers who […]
Will the Modern-Day Silk Road Bring Prosperity to Laos?
By Pattama Vilailert VIENTIANE, Laos. 5 August 2023 (IDN) — When a China-built high-speed railway began operations in December 2021, Laos joined the modern-day silk road project that opened itself to trade and tourism opportunities across Asia. But many in the country doubt whether the land-locked nation would reap full benefits. “Since the Laos-China railway […]
Kazakhstan Continues to Suffer Awful Impact of Nuclear Tests
By Aurora Weiss VIENNA. 4 August 2023 (IDN) — The Central Asian Republic of Kazakhstan, along with Japan and other Pacific Island states, is one of the most challenging in terms of the consequences of testing or use of nuclear weapons. Being a young state, Kazakhstan is facing a very heavy heritage and its difficult […]
Will ‘Oppenheimer’ Movie Avert Nuclear Holocaust?
By Ramesh Jaura BERLIN. 4 August 2023 (IDN) — The release of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer sparked a media frenzy just weeks before the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in Vienna. It is a biopic about the “father” […]
There Is a Lot More to the Coup in Niger Than Meets the Eye
By Azu Ishiekwene The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria. ABUJA. 3 August 2023 (IDN) — Not only are military coups becoming frighteningly frequent in West and Central Africa, virtually all of them, it appears, also speak French. For the fifth time in three years in West Africa, soldiers […]
Russia-Africa Summit Fortifies ‘Deep-rooted’ Relations
By Somar Wijayadasa* This is the second of a two-part article looking into relations between Russia and Africa, which began long before the massive decolonization of Africa in the 1960s. Here is the link to the first part. NEW YORK. 2 August 2023 (IDN) — The second Russia-Africa summit, which concluded on 28 July in […]
Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: ‘Nuclear Tests’?
By Norman Solomon* SAN FRANCISCO, USA. 2 August 2023 (IDN) — In 1980, when I asked the press office at the U.S. Department of Energy to send me a listing of nuclear bomb test explosions, the agency mailed me an official booklet with the title “Announced United States Nuclear Tests, July 1945 Through December 1979”. […]
US Submarine Provokes Renewed Tensions in the Korean Peninsula
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS. 2 August 2023 (IDN) — The United States, which has long accused North Korea of nuclear saber-rattling, is now at the receiving end of the same charges. The accusations have been prompted by the arrival in South Korea on July 18 of a US submarine capable of launching nuclear missiles. […]
What Went Wrong with US-Russian Relations After Reagan and Bush?
By Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden. 1 August 2023 (IDN) — What would the conservative president, Ronald Reagan, have done if the Ukraine debacle had happened on his watch? I suspect he would have made sure it didn’t devalue relations between the US and Russia. It wasn’t him nor his vice-president, George W.H Bush, who inflamed […]