 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Viewpoint by Katrina vanden Heuvel*
NEW YORK (IDN) — October 16 marks 60 years since the Cuban missile crisis—the 13-day standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union widely regarded as the closest we ever came to global nuclear war. On this anniversary, as we veer terrifyingly close to the brink of Armageddon once again, we should look to that crisis to guide us in resolving our present one.
Viewpoint by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
The writer is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
BANGKOK (IDN) — Ten years ago, the Asia-Pacific region came together and designed the world’s first set of disability-specific development goals: the Incheon Strategy to “Make the Right Real” for Persons with Disabilities. This week, we meet again to assess how the governments have delivered on their commitments, to secure those gains and develop the innovative solutions needed to achieve fully inclusive societies.
Viewpoint by Norman Solomon
SAN FRANCISO (IDN) — This is an emergency.
Right now, we’re closer to a cataclysmic nuclear war than at any other time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. One assessment after another has said the current situation is even more dangerous.
Yet few members of Congress are advocating for any steps that the U.S. government could take to decrease the dangers of a nuclear conflagration. The silences and muted statements on Capitol Hill are evading the reality of what’s hanging in the balance—the destruction of almost all human life on Earth. “The end of civilization.”
![— 12 October 2022] Photo: US President Joe Biden boarding Marine One in New York on October 6 warned that the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is at the highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Credit: Andrew Harnik | AP. Source: Tampa Bay Times.](/images/biden-nuclear_armageddon.jpeg)
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — We were standing in Hiroshima looking at a stonewall. All there was to see was a shadow of a man. It had been etched into the wall at the moment of his obliteration by the blinding light of the first atomic bomb. Olof Palme, prime minister of Sweden, stared hard at it. An hour later, he had to give a speech as head of the Independent Commission on Disarmament, of which I was a member. "My fear", he remarked, "is that mankind itself will end up as nothing more than a shadow on a wall."
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) — Brazil’s first round of elections, held on October 2, yielded a major victory for the man who held the presidency from 2003 to 2010, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Winning 48 per cent of the vote in a multicandidate race, Lula now heads to a runoff against incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro, who won 43 per cent.
Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne
BANGKOK (IDN) — The recently concluded 51st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva exposed once again the double standards of the global human rights agenda.
West’s failure to get a resolution adopted at the UNHRC on October 6 on further investigation into the violation of human rights of the Muslim Uighurs in the north-western region of Xinjiang province in China reflects the international community’s scepticism of weaponizing human rights.
Viewpoint by Paul Goble
Eurasia Review issued this article.
OREGON, USA (IDN) — There is nearly universal consensus that World War I was the most senseless conflict in modern times, Yury Yarym-Agayev says; but in fact, Putin’s war in Ukraine is even more senseless than that war of a century ago in that none of its proclaimed goals are real and its real goals are not achievable.
The former member of the Moscow Helsinki Group who emigrated to the United States in 1980 and has worked as a physicist at Stanford and MIT has avoided making comments about Russia until now. But the war in Ukraine has compelled him to end his silence, he says (wow-press.com/u-vojny-net-celi-tolko-putin/?amp=1).
Viewpoint by Ariel Gold and Medea Benjamin*
COUNTERCURRENTS issued this article on October 7, 2022.
NEW YORK (IDN) — In what was described as a harsh rebuke of Russia, the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Ukrainian human rights organization 'Center for Civil Liberties', along with Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski and the Russian human rights organization Memorial. While at first glance, the Ukrainian 'Center for Civil Liberties' might sound like a group that is well deserving of this honor, Ukrainian peace leader Yurii Sheliazhenko wrote a stinging critique.
Viewpoint by Volker Boege
Toda Peace Institute issued this article, and it is being republished with their permission.
BRISBANE, Australia (IDN) — At the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2022, the leaders of the small island—or ‘big ocean’—countries in the Pacific called for a re-focus on the global climate emergency. Using their moral authority, which is grounded in the fact that their countries are the ones most affected by this emergency while contributing hardly anything to its causes, Pacific leaders demanded more decisive climate action and put forward new proposals and initiatives.
Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwene
The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria.
ABUJA (IDN) — There is a fire in Ouagadougou. And who’s to say where it’s catching next? For the second time in eight months, the military in Burkina Faso struck in a palace coup that removed military leader Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.
The coup leader, Captain Ibrahim Traore, cited the same excuses Damiba gave for seizing power in January as reasons for his removal; namely, that the government has proved incompetent in containing the spread of Islamic insurgency, leading to increasing loss of lives among military and civilian populations.
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.