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IDN-InDepthNews

 

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UN INSIDER

OPINION

Photo: President Donald Trump with Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Deputy Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, on March 14, 2017, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. Credit: Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead.

By Kingston Reif, Daryl G. Kimball and Kelsey Davenport

Kingston Reif is Director for Disarmament and Threat Reduction Policy and Daryl G. Kimball is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. Kelsey Davenport is the Association's Director for Nonproliferation Policy. This article appeared as Issue Brief on April 5, 2018 with the caption 'The Risks of Nuclear Cooperation with Saudi Arabia and the Role of Congress'. It is being reproduced with permission from the Association. – The Editor.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN-INPS) – Curbing the spread of nuclear weapons and the technologies to make them has long been and remains strongly in the U.S. national security interest, especially in the troubled Middle East.

OPINION

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Personally I'm a coward. I'm unlikely ever to be a hero. (I have rescued on different occasions three young children from drowning, but I didn't risk my life.) I certainly would never have done what Colonel Arnaud Beltrame, the French policeman, did.

He asked the terrorist who had taken over a supermarket if he could substitute himself for the female hostage he held. The terrorist agreed and then murdered him. Beltrame was given a state funeral on March 28. The Moroccan terrorist who appears to be a supporter of ISIS is in jail, awaiting trial.

OPINION

Photo: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, ex president of Argentina, with Pope Francis. CC BY-SA 2.0

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – This present pope – Francis – is probably the most powerful man in the world, in the round.

Stalin once asked when confronted with the argument about the Pope’s reach and influence, replied, “How many divisions has the pope got?” He missed the point. The pope does not work these days in the world of hard power. He is a peddler of soft power.

Francis has much more power, maybe because of the strength of his convictions, than any of his predecessors, with the exception of the Polish pope, John Paul II, who played a front-line role in triggering the events that brought down communism.

OPINION

Photo: In May 2015, on the 70th anniversary of Korea’s division into two separate states by cold war powers, 30 international women peacemakers from around the world walked with thousands of Korean women, north and south, to call for an end to the Korean War, reunification of families and women’s leadership in the peace process. Credit. San Francisco based Niana Liu.

By Rick Wayman

Rick Wayman is Programs Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF). In April 2016, he received the 'Activist of the Year' award from the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) for "dynamic leadership in bringing the Marshall Islanders' Nuclear Zero litigation to world attention, activating the next generation of peace leaders, and guiding ANA as board member and tech guru." – The Editor

SANTA BARBARA, CA (IDN) - A possible summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un is just weeks away. Questions abound: Is it a good idea? When and where will it take place? What will they talk about? Who, if anyone, is preparing the U.S. president for this high-stakes meeting? Will it be a success?

OPINION

Photo credit: Iran Review

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Like it not we find that we’re having to get used to the paradoxes, contradictions and confusions of the Trump era.

None is more apparent than his attack on the landmark Iran de-nuclearisation agreement, fashioned by the Obama Administration and the Iranian government. President Donald Trump wants to unwind it, even though it has the 100 percent support of the UN Security Council which in an unanimous vote enshrined the agreement in international law.

OPINION

Photo: Vladimir Putin delivering Presidential address to the Federal Assembly on 1 March 2018 at the Manezh Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow. Credit: Presidential website en.kremlin.ru

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The seemingly eternal president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has an iron grip on his nation and a foreign policy to match. A large majority of Russians give him their support. He will win re-election.

Is it his early economic success? Or is it because of a new stability? Or the nation’s growing self-respect after the ignominious years that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union? Or is it a sense of besieged defensiveness because of the advantage the West took of Russia afterwards.

The answer is a bit of all these.

OPINION

Photo: Trump's shift from the tiny Trump Tower to the "bigly" White House has traumatized the best and the brightest of America. BY-SA-3.0

By H. L. D. Mahindapala*

"… my administration, I believe, has had the most successful year in the history of the Presidency," Donald Trump, Conservative Political Action Conference, Maryland, February 23, 2018.

MELBOURNE, Australia (IDN) – Since it is generally agreed that one week is a long time in politics, it is time to ask, at the end of one year, how far have America’s stature grown since Donald Trump set out “to make America great again.”  From the first step he took to march on the road to White House he has been chanting the mantra of “making America great” which also translates into “putting America first”. They are two shades of the same slogan.

OPINION

Photo: The House of Peace on the 38th parallel, likely to be the venue of the Trump-Kim summit by May 2018. Source: lifeinkorea.com

By Jayantha Dhanapala

The writer is a former Sri Lanka Ambassador and UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs. He was also President of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs for ten years until August 2017. Click here for his previous stimulating contributions for IDN. – The Editor.

KANDY (IDN) – Donald Trump has always had the capacity to surprise us. Amidst the actions to fulfil his Presidential Campaign promise to "Make America Great Again" by slapping tariffs on friendly allies and having declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel, he has now signalled a dramatic volte-face on talks with Kim Jong-un of the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) whom he had frequently taunted as the "little rocket man".

OPINION

Photo: CTBTO Executive Secretary Dr. Lassina Zerbo addressing the UN Conference on Disarmament on 26 February 2018. Credit: Kazakh Mission in Geneva.

By Dr Lassina Zerbo

The author is Executive Secretary of CTBTO, Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization. The following is a slightly abridged and modified text of his address on 26 February to the High-level segment of the Conference on Disarmament, multilateral disarmament negotiating forum where the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in Geneva was negotiated in the 1990s. (Read the original text here.) Dr. Zerbo stressed that "we must take great care to preserve the integrity of the institutions and instruments we have and to build trust in them and around them. This means maintain and securing the NPT and its entire chain of responsibilities – of which the CTBT entry into force is an integral part". – The Editor

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
CTBTO

Photo: ESCAP Executive Secretary Dr Shamshad Akhtar. Credit: UNIDO | Flickr

By Shamshad Akhtar

Dr. Shamshad Akhtar is the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

BANGKOK (IDN) – In 2018, we have an opportunity to accelerate progress towards gender equality. Movements such as #MeToo have shone the spotlight on an unacceptable status quo and demonstrated how too many women the world over continue to be deprived of respect and equal opportunities. Let’s use International Women’s Day to build on this global momentum for change and suggest targeted solutions to empower women across our economies and societies. Women entrepreneurs have a key role to play.

OPINION

  1. US Foreign Policy and Trump's Contradictions – Part 2
  2. What the Prophet Implied and What Sustains Fundamentalists
  3. US Foreign Policy and Trump's Contradictions – Part 1
  4. The Focus Turns To Corruption in 2018
  5. On the Use – or Abuse – of "Politically Correct"

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