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By Kester Kenn Klomegah
MOSCOW (IDN) – Instead of concentrating on developing its newly-established strategy for Africa, Russia has locked horns with United States over its funding for educational programmes, media and NGOs.
Russia has also accused foreign players of adopting neocolonial tendencies and approaches in dealing with Africa, according to analytical reviews and observations by diplomats, policy experts and researchers.
Viewpoint by Sharanya Kanikkannan
The writer is Legal and Policy Adviser at AIDS-Free World and its Code Blue Campaign.
NEW YORK (IDN) – Like so many Indian girls, I learned at an early age that light skin was feminine, precious, and desirable.
Pink tubes of Fair & Lovely cream—a product that comprises 40 percent of the skin lightening market in India—were a staple of my childhood, tucked away in dressing table drawers in every home and displayed on the shelves of every corner store. Looking back, I wonder why so many adults failed to imagine a world where girls were more than a “pantone” shade on a plastic tube.
Viewpoint by Dr Palitha Kohona
This is the second of a two-part article by Dr Palitha Kohona, Former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, Former Chair of the UNGA Sixth Committee and the Former Co-Chair of the UN Ad Hoc Committee on BBNJ. Click here for Part One.
COLOMBO (IDN) – The way UN’s constitution (The Charter) is formulated ensures that its powers are strictly constrained. At the same time the rights and privileges of those who won the Second World War are well and truly entrenched in a blatantly undemocratic manner in the Charter, causing much disenchantment in a world where the political, economic and social power centres have shifted significantly.
Viewpoint by Dr Palitha Kohona
This is the first of a two-part article by Dr Palitha Kohona, Former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, Former Chair of the UNGA Sixth Committee and the Former Co-Chair of the UN Ad Hoc Committee on BBNJ.
COLOMBO (IDN) – As the United Nations enters its 75th year, faded photographs stare down at corridors emptied by Covid 19 and ageless memorabilia faintly glisten in the semi darkness. Almost a sad reflection of the lofty dreams and aspirations of its founders not fully realised.
Viewpoint by Vijay Prashad and Érika Ortega Sanoja *
This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
NORTHAMPTON, Massachusetts (IDN) – On August 4, 2020, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on Venezuela. Appearing before the committee was U.S. State Department Special Representative Elliott Abrams. Abrams, who has had a long—and controversial—career in the formation of U.S. foreign policy, was assaulted by almost all the members of the Senate committee. The senators, almost without exception, suggested that Abrams had been—since 2019—responsible for a failed U.S. attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro.
By Jacqueline Skalski-Fouts
VIRGINIA, USA (IDN) – Since early June, an estimated 15 to 26 million people across the United States have participated in protests against the death of George Floyd and the persistence of systematic racism in America, making it one of the largest movements in the country’s history.
Recent trends have shown that support for the Black Lives Matter movement—now more than 67%— has doubled since 2016, and the majority of Americans favour working directly with Black Americans to solve local issues.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – An Indian Ocean island nation, beloved for its sandy beaches, pristine lagoons and reefs, its tropical climate and its multi-ethnic population, has become another world treasure soiled by the relentless trade in oil, shipped by tankers, unsafe at any speed.
The ship that ran aground off the shores of Mauritius began spilling oil into the country’s famed blue lagoons this week, setting off an environmental crisis in a tiny island nation that relies on its waters for fishing, food and tourism.
Viewpoint by Sonali Kolhatkar
This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute. Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations.
LOS ANGELES (IDN) – When President Donald Trump was challenged by Axios national political correspondent Jonathan Swan to respond to the fact that, “a thousand Americans are dying a day” due to COVID-19, the president responded as though the grim tally was perfectly acceptable, saying, “They are dying, that’s true. And it is what it is.”
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN) – Seventy-five years ago the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 and on Nagasaki on August 9 was premeditated mass murder.
President Harry Truman had a workable alternative to using the atom bomb – to cooperate with Stalin, as Roosevelt and Churchill had done on the Western front, in the Soviet advance on Japan, rather than making it a race for control.
Indeed, it was the Soviet advance that convinced Japan to surrender.** Although unaware of each other’s thinking both Truman and the Japanese leadership shared a common cause – they both wanted to pre-empt the possibility of the Soviet Union occupying parts of Japan before the U.S. had got its boots on Japanese ground. Truman did not want to be compelled to concede Soviet participation in the government of post-surrender, occupied, Japan.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – Death sentences are rare in northern Nigeria where Sharia law is implemented alongside secular law in most states.
But the recent sentence of a 22-year-old singer to die by hanging has revived an emotional debate in the West African nation. An upper Sharia court in the Hausawa Filin Hockey area of Kano state ruled on August 10 that Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, 22, should die by hanging for the crime of blasphemy for a song he circulated via WhatsApp in March.
This interactive WHO dashboard/map provides the latest global numbers and numbers by country of COVID-19 cases on a daily Basis.
IDN-InDepthNews offers news analyses, features, reports and viewpoints that impact the world and its peoples. It has been online since 2009. Its network spans countries around the world.
IDN-InDepthNews serves as flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate and its partner, the Global Cooperation Council, established in February 1983.