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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – The stench of fish rot is wafting over Namibia. It’s taken down two Namibian ministers and leaves an Icelandic fisheries minister in the hot seat.
“A coterie of well-heeled vampires is sucking our fishing sector dry!” protested the local Namibian newspaper as news of the corrupt trading of valuable fishing quotas came to light.
Viewpoint by Dr Palitha Kohona
The writer is former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, and former Foreign Secretary.
The Economist proclaimed recently that Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the man who, as secretary of defense, presided over this horrifying episode (the final phase of Sri Lanka’s terrorist inspired internal conflict), has just been elected president of Sri Lanka. To Sinhalese Buddhists, about 70% of the population, he is a hero. After all, the militia he destroyed was appallingly cruel and bloodthirsty and had tormented Tamils as much as, if not more than, other Sri Lankans.
By Kalinga Seneviratne
This article is the 37th in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate. Click here for previous articles.
BANGKOK (IDN) – On a Saturday morning a couple drives into the Santi Asoke community in the north-eastern outskirts of Bangkok, and walks into a large warehouse stacked with clothes, shoes, books, electrical goods, mobile phones, washing machines, furniture and other household items. The couple inspects a stack of clothes scattered on a mat, picks some up and puts it in a basket. It is then taken to a volunteer cashier, who weighs it and quotes a price.
Viewpoint by Jiang Feng
Prof Dr Jiang Feng chairs the University Council of Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) in China. This article first appeared on International Politics and Society Journal, published by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s Brussels office.
SHANGHAI | BRUSSELS (IDN-INPS) – For German government representatives and top politicians visiting China, a quick trip to Shanghai has almost become obligatory. The city’s rapid development provides a wealth of reasons for admiration and astonishment. Germans are often surprised that it’s much more modern than people generally assume and that it offers a very different picture from the one conveyed in the German press.
By Jaya Ramachandran
GENEVA (IDN) – As 2019 comes to a close, the United Nations has warned that climatic shocks, large infectious disease outbreaks and intensifying, protracted conflicts will constrain nearly 168 million – or one person in 45 on the planet – to seek humanitarian assistance and protection next year in crises spanning more than 50 countries. Also, millions of children across the globe will need life-saving support.
![comes with a substantial monetary award. [IDN-InDepthNews – 03 December 2019]](/images/Aminatou_Haidar.jpg)
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – The Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’ goes to five human rights activists this year. Among them is Aminatou Haidar of the Western Sahara.
Ms. Haidar receives the Right Livelihood Award “for her steadfast nonviolent action, despite imprisonment and torture, in pursuit of justice and self-determination for the people of Western Sahara”, according to organizers of the event in Stockholm, Sweden on December 4.
By Katsuhiro Asagiri
TOKYO (IDN) – An international conference "No Justice Without Life" has called on Japan to halt all executions next year, the year of the Olympic Games. Japan is one of the 56 nations which retains capital punishment, also known as the death penalty or death sentence for capital crimes. In fact, Japan, the United States and South Korea are the only nations in the group of developed economies that meet out death penalty.
Viewpoint by Adama Dieng
The following are extensive excerpts from the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, Mr. Adama Dieng, to the 12th International Meeting of Justice Ministers, on 29 November in Rome. The meeting focussed on ‘Paving the Way: Defeating Hatred for a World Without Death Penalty’. Mr. Dieng is former board member of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) and a former registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali*
FREMONT, California, USA (IDN) – The Supreme Court of Pakistan on November 28 limited the three years extension in the term of Army Chief of Staff General (COAS) Qamar Javed Bajwa to six month.
A three-member court bench led by the Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, who retires in less than one month, on November 27 suspended Prime Minister Imran Khan’s August 2019 order to extend the term of General Bajwa to three years.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN) – It’s unbelievable that 102 years have passed since the Balfour Declaration when the British colonial government decided to give the Jews their own homeland – but also promised that “it be done without infringing on the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish population”.
Now, this month, the Trump Administration has announced that the Jewish settlements on West Bank Palestinian land are no longer illegal. No matter the rest of the world is against this, the Palestinians face the possibility that 60% of the West Bank will be covered with Israeli settlements. 40% will be left as disconnected and isolated Palestinian cantons. There are now about 400,000 settlers.
