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Viewpoint by Dr Ram Puniyani
This article is the 20th in a series of joint productions of South Asian Outlook and IDN-InDepthNews, the flagship of the International Press Syndicate. The writer is a former professor of biomedical engineering and former senior medical officer affiliated with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (now Mumbai) and meanwhile a social activist and commentator.
By Ravindra Singh Prasad
SUVA (IDN) — Every year on May 14 Fiji’s Indian community mark the day when the first shipment of their ancestors came here as indentured labourers to work in British sugarcane plantations established in their Pacific Ocean colony.
Girmitiya is how they came to be known over time—the name derived from the term Girmit, a corruption of the English word, agreement.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — During the difficult years that preceded the British handover of Hong Kong to China the Chinese government's intense antipathy to opium and the still-fresh memories of the evil that eighteenth-century buccaneering Britain had inflicted on China and Hong Kong added an extra emotional charge to what, anyway, was a most complicated transition.
Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte
The writer is Ambassador, former United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affair, and President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.
NEW YORK (IDN) — Roughly three decades have gone by since the publication of Francis Fukuyama’s essay “The End of History?”. The interrogation mark makes clear that the social scientist and philosopher was not announcing an end to contradiction and conflict among nations. He was mainly asking whether Western liberal democracy could be considered as the final stage of human sociocultural evolution and the final form of governance that would endure.
Viewpoint by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies*
NEW YORK (IDN) — Russian President Putin has claimed that he ordered the invasion of Ukraine to “denazify” its government, while Western officials, such as former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul, have called this pure propaganda, insisting, “There are no Nazis in Ukraine.”
Viewpoint by Azu Ishiekwene
The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP newspaper based in Abuja, Nigeria.
ABUJA (IDN) — War is messy and never fails to spread responsive misery. When Adolf Hitler asked for safe passage to East Prussia through the Polish corridor and for the occupied port of Danzig, not many could have imagined that it would spiral into a World War that would cost 85 million lives and leave an unspeakable trail of devastation in its wake.
Considering that the above question cannot be answered at this stage, a look back at history of the founding of the League of Nations and the origin of the United Nations would be useful. Following are excerpts from the UN Website https://www.un.org/en/about-us/history-of-the-un/predecessor
From UN in Geneva
GENEVA (IDN) — The predecessor of the United Nations was the League of Nations, established in 1919, after World War I, under the Treaty of Versailles "to promote international cooperation and to achieve peace and security."
Despite some early successes, the League of Nations was not able to prevent World War II.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — The divisions and tensions in some parts of ex-Yugoslavia appear to be boiling up again. The leadership of the Serbian ministate, Srpska, which comprises 49% of Bosnia’s territory, appears to be challenging the governing entity of Bosnia, founded at the end of the civil wars that raged in ex-Yugoslavia, 1991-2001. In a peculiar compromise, this sliver of Serbian territory was confirmed as part of Bosnia, but with its own self-government at the local level. Twenty-seven years later its hard-line leaders are set on joining up with Serbia proper.
Viewpoint by Dr Ram Puniyani
This article is the 18th in a series of joint productions of South Asian Outlook and IDN-InDepthNews, the flagship of the International Press Syndicate. The writer is a former professor of biomedical engineering and former senior medical officer affiliated with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (now Mumbai) and meanwhile a social activist and commentator.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in anguish over the extreme violence displayed at the aftermath of the legendary Montgomery bus boycott, found solace in Ghana which he visited with his wife Coretta Scott King at the invitation of the newly installed Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah.
Alongside African American leaders including A. Philip Randolph, Adam Clayton Powell and Ralph Bunch, MLK was there to observe Ghana’s independence ceremony. It was March of 1957.
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.