By Julio Godoy
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
BERLIN (IDN) – Between late 2009 and mid-2010, the German government, represented by its foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, made a case for dismantling B61 atomic bombs on German soil. The actual number of such weapons of mass destruction is a top military secret, but some 20 of these are reported to be stationed in Germany.
By R. Nastranis
IDN- InDepth NewsReport
ATHENS (IDN) – Church leaders from around the world have expressed solidarity with the much pooh-poohed and crisis-ridden Greece in a two-day visit to the country during which they met Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens and All Greece as well as the Deputy Foreign Minister Constantinos Tsiaras.
By Kalinga Seneviratne
IDN-InDepth NewsReport
SINGAPORE (IDN) – Amid reports that an internal document, made public on November 14 by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, has triggered soul-searching in the world organisation on its failure to protect non-combatants in Sri Lanka’s civil war, a visit to the country shows that the army and the people in the Northern Province are busy rebuilding the infrastructure destroyed by 30 years of a gruesome conflict.
By Eric Walberg*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice welcomed Washington’s re-election on the United Nations Human Rights Council on November 12, saying that the HRC “has delivered real results”, citing its criticism of Syria. But she criticized the rights council’s continued “excessive and unbalanced focus on Israel” yet again, underlying that though President Barack Obama has ‘improved’ upon his predecessor Bush’s policy, the U.S. Administration has yet to evidence that it upholds “the highest standards regarding human rights”.
By Bernt Berger*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
STOCKHOLM (IDN) – The 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party officially endorsed on November 15 the members of the new Politburo Standing Committee, China’s top leadership body. Despite the secrecy, speculation and rumours in the run-up to the announcement, the make-up of China’s fifth generation of leaders was predictable. Although it reflects the outcome of protracted behind the scenes power struggles, generally speaking the result might have little impact on the government’s political directions.
Besides Party Secretary-General (and de facto president-in-waiting) Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, who is expected to become prime minister in the official transition of power in March 2013, the five new Standing Committee members are: Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli. Two candidates said to have an inclination towards greater public participation, Li Yuanchao and Wang Yang, did not make it into the inner circle.
By Julio Godoy
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
BERLIN (IDN) – Late last August, during the conference of the non-aligned countries in Tehran, the Iranian press quoted the Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi saying that the government of Bahrain, given its dismal human rights record, had lost whatever legitimacy it had. Nothing surprising in this quote: The regime of Bahrain has indeed a dismal human rights record, it latest performance being to strip opposition leaders of the Bahraini nationality, after harassing them for many months.
By Ernest Corea*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
Washington DC (IDN) – There’s nothing like a real-life scandal involving a spymaster, who is also a bemedalled and highly regarded retired general, to deprive a big-time political event of major headlines, whether in the print or electronic media.
The scandal turned convolute, and the entire activity considered worthy of even more headlines, when the FBI informed the Pentagon that the retired general’s successor in the army (another general) had exchanged “potentially inappropriate” emails with the woman whose informal complaint to an FBI agent sparked the investigation that initially exposed the scandal.
By Kalinga Seneviratne
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
SINGAPORE (IDN) – A battle for the control of the Internet threatens to overshadow the forthcoming World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) to be held in Dubai from December 3 to 14. WCIT-12 is a United Nations mega-talkfest to be held under the auspices of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the inter-governmental UN agency entrusted with telecommunication issues.
By Frederick N. Mattis*
IDN-InDepth NewsEssay
ANNAPOLIS, USA (IDN) – A gathering theme in world affairs is the desirability of a treaty [convention] to ban nuclear weapons. Such a treaty would bring the following benefits to all states and people: freedom from nuclear war or nuclear attack, freedom from possible “false-alarm” nuclear missile launch, and freedom from possible acquisition by terrorists of a nuclear weapon from a state’s arsenal.
By Shastri Ramachandaran*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
COPENHAGEN (IDN) – The race for a share of the enormous reservoirs of fossil fuel – an estimated 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil alone – beneath Greenland’s ice sheet in the Arctic Circle is heating up. While the good news is that climate change, which is making the polar ice cap melt, may not be altogether bad because of the economic prospects it holds out, the bad news is that India appears to be nowhere in this emerging global game.
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