Viewpoint by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury* DHAKA, Bangladesh, 20 May 2023 (IDN) — US President Joe Biden’s scandalous son Hunter Biden, who has earlier met with State Department official on behalf of Gabriel Popoviciu, a corrupt Romanian real estate tycoon in exchange for US$1 million when Joe Biden was vice president in 2016, seems to […]
A19-Year-old Self Publishes a Fantasy Novel
By Maya Schlessinger* NEW JERSEY, USA, 20 May 2023 (IDN) — While most Pascack Valley (PV) students go to the library to check out books, PV senior Treshan Nilaweera, 19, hopes to see his own on the shelves. Last October, Nilaweera self-published a fantasy novel entitled The Many Worlds Theory, now available for purchase on […]
Southern Africa Looks Forward to Productive Landscapes
By Rita Joshi BONN, Germany, 19 May 2023 (IDN) — The largest living structure on earth, spanning 8,000km across Africa, is ushering in a new era of sustainability and economic growth. A game-changing African initiative launched by the African Union in 2007 aims to restore the Sahel’s degraded landscapes and transform millions of lives, according […]
The Occupation Is Destroying Israel’s Democracy
Regardless of What Kind of Spin Is Put On By Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK, 19 May 2023 (IDN) — My recent article entitled “An Occupying Power Cannot Be a Beacon of Democracy” engendered both criticism and compliments. Given the severity of the Israeli occupation and the need to end it under conditions of peace, I […]
How Myanmar’s Arms Purchases Circumvent Sanctions
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 18 May 2023 (IDN) — The much-maligned military regime in Myanmar, accused of genocide and human rights abuses, is being sustained by nearly a billion dollars’ worth of arms—plus raw materials to manufacture weapons—originating primarily from China and Russia, two permanent members of the Security Council, along with Singapore, Thailand […]
The Speech That Biden Should Give: ‘I’ve Changed My Mind’
By Norman Solomon* SAN FRANCISCO, 18 May 2023 (IDN) — My fellow Americans: I’ve changed my mind. With a heavy heart, I am announcing that I will not seek or accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for president in 2024. The poll numbers indicate that I would be a burden on the party’s national ticket next […]
New UN Report Shows How to Drastically Slash Plastic Pollution
By J Nastranis NEW YORK, 17 May 2023 (IDN) — A new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report says countries and companies could reduce plastic pollution by 80 percent by 2040 using existing technologies. According to UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen, “the way we produce, use, and dispose of plastics pollutes ecosystems, poses health risks, and […]
India: PM Modi’s BJP Ousted in Key Karnataka State Elections
By Devinder Kumar NEW DELHI, 17 May 2023 (IDN) — The opposition Indian National Congress (INC), which appeared to have sunk into oblivion, scored a decisive victory in the southern state of Karnataka over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the legislative assembly elections on 10 May. Karnataka is the […]
Making the World More Equal Is a Hard Nut to Crack
By Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden, 16 May 2023 (IDN) — Maybe, after all, there is an argument for saying that the world needs more violence not less if we are to make its societies more equal. This is one conclusion we can derive from Walter Scheidel’s important book, “The Great Leveller”. He starts from what […]
Thai People Want Change. And the Conservative-Military Elite?
By Jan Servaes* BRUSSELS, 16 May 2023 (IPS) — 39.5 million (or 75% of registered) Thai voters flocked to the polls on 14 May in a hotly contested election that will determine whether Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha, the general who seized power in a 2014 coup, will be overthrown by his rivals. There is a […]