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Photo: "The Guardian of Time", a sculpture by Lebanese artist Tony Farah outside the lower cave at Jeita. CC BY-SA 3.0

Embedded in Beirut: A Communion with Ancestors

Recollections by a Nigerian journalist who toured Lebanon two years ago

By Louis Odion

*The writer, Fellow of Nigerian Guild of Editors, is the Senior Technical Assistant on Media to President Muhammadu Buhari.

ABUJA (IDN) – Many wished they were allowed to capture the moment with the camera, but the literary amazon from Borno beheld a different picture in the officially restricted space. She saw politics in the classification of the Jeita Grotto as the "world's 15th wonder" and not within the first 10.

: Africa & ME Editor; THE WORLD; Middle East; 06 August 2020

Photo: Side view of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 2.5

Looking Back at the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Nuclear Attacks on 75th Anniversary

Viewpoint by Tariq Rauf

The writer is former Head of Nuclear Verification and Security Policy at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, former Alternate Head of the IAEA Delegation to the nuclear non-proliferation Treaty (NPT); Senior Advisor on nuclear disarmament to the Chairs at the 2015 NPT Review Conference and 2014 NPT PrepCom; long time Expert with Canada's NPT delegation until 2000. Personal views are expressed here. The following is an expanded version of comments made at the event, 'The 75th Anniversary of Atomic Bombing and the United Nations In the Time of COVID-19: Where Do We Stand and What Can Be Done for a Nuclear-Free World?', organized by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Hiroshima.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 06 August 2020

Photo: Hiroshima Ruins, October 5, 1945. Photo by Shigoo Rayashi

75th Anniversary of the Bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki

Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte

The author is Ambassador, President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, Former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.

NEW YORK (IDN) –Seventy-five years ago, on August 6, 1945, a nuclear attack razed the city of Hiroshima. Three days later, Nakgasaki suffered identical fate. More than 200,000 men, women and children suddenly lost their lives, and many others perished from the effects of radiation during the next decades. Some survivors, known as hibakusha in Japan, whose average age is 82, still struggle to make their bitter experience known to the remainder of humanity, under the motto "no one should suffer what we have suffered".

: Sergio Duarte; OPINION; 06 August 2020

Image: Peace cranes. Credit: ICAN | Ari-Beser

The Elders Urge World Leaders to Take Action or Risk Nuclear Catastrophe

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN | LONDON (IDN) – A group of eminent world leaders, comprising The Elders, has called on the heads of states of five permanent members (P5) of the UN Security Council to use the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki "as a moment to reflect on the lives lost and begin substantive steps towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons".

The atomic bombing of the two cities on August 6 and 9, 1945 led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, laying bare the true horror of nuclear weapons. Today, over 13,000 nuclear warheads are in existence.

: Jutta Wolf; SUSTAINABILITY; Peace & Justice; 05 August 2020

Photo: ICAN has campaigned for a ban treaty on nuclear weapons, inside and outside the United Nations headquarters, for over a decade, Credit: ICAN

Unlike the Pandemic, Nuclear War Can Be Blocked before It Begins

Viewpoint by Marina Martinez*

This article was originally published on WagingNonviolence and is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

NEW YORK (IDN) – Nuclear weapons have been posing a threat to humanity for 75 years – ever since the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

These days, our focus is understandably on the COVID-19 virus and the threat it poses to human life. But as we commemorate the anniversary of these bombings, it is important to acknowledge that unlike the coronavirus, nuclear weapons can only be remediated with prevention. Millions of people could be killed if a single nuclear bomb were detonated over a large city, and the added threats of radiation and retaliation could endanger all life on Earth.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 05 August 2020

We Need A One-World Monitoring System to Watch and Destroy Viruses

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – Almost forgotten in the story about the Coronavirus is the story of AIDS. The drive to deal with it, the search to find medicine to cure it, and the self-discipline by homosexuals only began in 1981, when the disease was discovered, and its causes understood.

It was a stroke of luck that AIDS was discovered so quickly. Another five or ten years could have easily passed before it was detected. Then it would have rampaged through societies all over the world.

Long before AIDS became known, the human immunodeficiency virus HIV was at work. Scientists do not know exactly for how long, but it was probably around for decades. With better warnings and more time, we could have got a grip on the virus before it travelled around the globe.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 04 August 2020

Photo: Rep. John Lewis, Washington DC, January 31, 2017. Credit: Flickr/Lorie Shaull. CC BY-SA 2.0

Warfare or Community-Building: Which Way Forward?

Viewpoint by Michael Edwards*

This article was originally published on openDemocracy. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of IDN-InDepth News

NEW YORK (IDN) – "Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.”

I cried my eyes out reading the final words of the great John Lewis that were published in the New York Times the day after he died, their quiet magnificence landing a powerful punch to my solar plexus. If you haven’t read them, please do.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 04 August 2020

Photo: South African citizens placed under COVID-19 quarantine at The Ranch Resort in Limpopo Province, South Africa. CC BY-ND 2.0, Flickr / GovernmentZA.

South Africa Struggles To Contain Exploding Rate of Coronavirus Infections

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – South Africa, with a population of about 58 million, has the fifth-highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. It has become the country with the highest number of infections on the continent.

Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize announced 10,107 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the country’s cumulative total to 503,290, including 8,153 deaths.

South Africa’s Gauteng province — which includes Johannesburg, the country’s largest city, and Pretoria, the capital — is the country’s epicenter with more than 35% of its confirmed cases.

Health experts say the country could reach the peak of its outbreak in late August or early September.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 04 August 2020

Bronx Zoo Issues Apology for Displaying African Man In Cage

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – 'Black Lives Matter' can take credit for the scores of apologies from around the world for racist statues, discriminatory corporate policies and now from the Bronx Zoo for its cruel and racist display of an African man in a cage in 1906.

“In the name of equality, transparency, and accountability, we must confront our organization’s historic role in promoting racial injustice as we advance our mission to save wildlife and wild places,” officials with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) said a statement released to the press on July 29.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 03 August 2020

Photo: Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa talks with Nick Swanepol, former president of Commercial Farmers Union after the signing ceremony at State House in Harare, Zimbabwe, on July 29, 2020. (Xinhua/Wanda)

Zimbabwe To Pay White Farmers for Lands Taken Under Mugabe

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – "The compensation of land is a settled issue, and we are not revisiting it." Those were the words of government spokesman Nick Mangwana defending a $3.5 billion agreement to compensate white farmers whose properties were confiscated by the Mugabe regime to be redistributed to the majority Black population left landless by British colonial policies.

According to the agreement just signed at President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s State House offices in Harare, white farmers would be compensated only for infrastructure on the farms and not the land itself, as per the national constitution.