USA and Canada

Image: The ethno-religious composition of Syria. Credit: Institute for the Study of War. Public Domain.

Joe Biden's Dilemma on Syria

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – If you like confusion in foreign policy take a new look at Syria, the country that has the worst civil war since the one that raged in Angola in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Syria is now a near-total wreck. Four of its historically important Christian cities are in ruins. More than half a million civilians are dead and many more wounded. Millions are without jobs. This legacy that happened on the watch of Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump now lands in Joe Biden’s in-tray.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 24 November 2020

Photo: Pro-European Union Euromaidan protesters in Kyiv, December 2013. CC BY-SA 3.0

Outmanoeuvring Russia, Not Spreading Democracy Is US Priority

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – It’s rather revealing that during the conflict which now besets Azerbaijan and Armenia the US is barely interested, happily leaving it to Russia to do the mediating and peacekeeping and the UN to deal with the refugee problems. Quite the reverse with the Ukrainian crisis that began in 2013. Why? What’s the difference?

As the crisis evolved and fighting broke in the east and south with pro-Russian Ukrainians on one side and pro Westerners on the other the US shipped in arms and Russia sent in troops without insignia. The fighting continues to this day.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 17 November 2020

Photo: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left), US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman (centre), and then-tourism minister Yariv Levin (right) during a meeting to discuss mapping extension of Israeli sovereignty to areas of the West Bank, held in the Ariel settlement, February 24, 2020. Credit: David Azagury/US Embassy Jerusalem.

Biden Administration Will Help Stem the Slide into A De Facto Bi-National State Reality

Viewpoint by Avi Gil

The writer is a former diplomat, who served under Shimon Peres for almost 30 years in various capacities. Ambassador Gil has been closely involved in Israel's policy-making and peace efforts, including the negotiations that led to the Oslo Accords. This article is being republished from The Blogs in the Times of Israel.

JERUSALEM (IDN) – Trump’s defeat marks the end of the Israeli right’s four-year celebration. At the global level, Trump has significantly intensified the erosion of the liberal world order. In a world where human rights are underrated, the on-going Israeli occupation provokes less condemnation, and the Palestinian plight has been pushed off the agenda.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 14 November 2020

Photo: "I've just spoken to President-elect @JoeBiden to congratulate him on his election. There are no greater friends and no greater allies than Australia and the US," PM Morrison on November 12. Source. @ScottMorrisonMP

Australia At Crossroads with A Biden Presidency

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) – The government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been closely aligned with that of the US President Donald Trump on climate change and policy towards China. But, media commentators here in the past few days have been arguing that a Biden administration may put pressure on Australia to change its climate change policies in particular and tread a more cautious approach to diplomacy with China.

Australia is one of the world’s biggest per-capita greenhouse emitters as well as a major exporter of coal. The Morrison government has set a 2030 emission target of 26-28 per cent reduction from 2005 levels, after having rejected a scientific report by the Climate Change Authority recommending reducing the emission levels by 45-60 per cent over the same period.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 13 November 2020

Photo: Damien Grobes, 42, of West Philadelphia, lead manager for One Pennsylvania, helps a man driving by to text their number and hands them a sign to help others register to vote in North Philadelphia, on September 26. Credit: TYGER WILLIAMS / The Philadelphia Inquirer

Biden Needs to Reshape Himself into A Left-Wing Populist for America's and the Democrats' Sake

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) – President-elect Joe Biden has called the November 2020 U.S. election a “battle for the soul of the nation.” In offering himself up as a contrast to President Donald Trump, Biden made a clear distinction between his political agenda and statesman-like behaviour, and that of Trump.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 12 November 2020

Image: Collage of pictures with Venezuelan President Maduro (left) and Joe Biden (right) from Internet.

US President-Elect Should Talk to Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro

Viewpoint by Vijay Prashad *

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

NORTHAMPTON, Massachusetts (IDN) – In June, Joe Biden, who will be the U.S. president in January 2021, sent out a tweet that described Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro—and others—as “thugs and dictators.” Maduro won two elections to hold his post—in 2013 and 2018. In 2018, Maduro won 67.8 per cent of the vote, losing a third of the votes to Henri Falcón and Javier Bertucci, two figures of the opposition.

: Opinion Editor; THE WORLD; Latin America & the Caribbean; 11 November 2020

Photo: Joe Biden (left) and Donald Trump (right). Credit: MIT Technology Review

The US Has Moved to Being the Saboteur of Democracy

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – It will take a long time before America can again strut the world stage and lecture about the values of democracy, poking its finger in the eye of every authoritarian or dictatorial government it has the desire to show up. A former president, no less, is going to use every occasion into the distant future to tell the world that this election of 2020 was illegally hijacked.

The election has shown up the deficiencies in America’s “democracy”. We again learnt that winning a handsome majority of votes wasn’t enough and that for President-elect Joe Biden to win he had to garner 270 votes in the electoral college which is biased towards the under-populated, rural, states such as Wyoming with only 600,000 people.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 10 November 2020

Photo: Trump has a hobby, a nasty hobby, of blocking Nigerian candidates for international positions. He incited the Board of the African Development Bank (AfDB) against its president Akinwunmi Adesina’s second term bid. And, he has been blocking, Nigeria/Africa’s candidate for the position of director general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Collage of pictures of Akinwunmi Adesina (left) and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (right) by IDN-INPS.

Letter to US President-elect Joe Biden

By Azu Ishiekwene

The writer is the Managing Director/Editor-In-Chief of The Interview magazine based in Abuja, Nigeria.

ABUJA (IDN) – If Nigerians had a vote, you’ll probably not be the 46th President of the United States of America. A Pew Research Centre poll in January showed that two countries – Kenya and Nigeria – were still madly in love with lame-duck President Donald J. Trump.

You might wonder why in spite of your long list of transgressions against Trump – from his malicious negligence in the fight against Coronavirus to his congenital lying, and from race-baiting to his crooked politics – we still love him.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 10 November 2020

Photo: Screenshot of President Trump delivering President Trump delivering remarks in North Carolina on November 2, 2020. White House YouTube video.

The Evil That Men Do Lives After Them

Viewpoint by Roberto Savio*

ROME (IDN) – Now it is clear that Joe Biden is the new president of the United States. It is unlikely that Donald Trump’s legal manoeuvring will change the election results, as when a conservative Supreme Court in 2000 decided in favour of George Bush over Al Gore, who lost by 535 votes. Not even this Supreme Court, where Trump has six sympathetic members (three appointed by him, quite a record), and only three unsympathetic, will dare to change a result coming from too many states.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 09 November 2020

Photo: US Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris and President-elect Joe Biden as he arrives for his victory address after being declared the winner in the 2020 presidential election, in Wilmington, Delaware. The National | EPA

Defending Democracy and Our Future: Biden’s Victory and the Struggles Ahead

Viewpoint by Joseph Gerson*

NEW YORK (IDN) – That was one roller coaster of a week! A nasty four years!

Celebrating Biden’s election with others in my hometown, there was joy as drivers’ faces lit up with smiles, women in hijabs and Central American landscapers gave us thumbs up, and hundreds of car horns rang out in support.

People’s joy was an expression of relief at the anticipated departure of a would-be dictator more than a love for Joe Biden. The African-American commentator Van Jones' tearful words spoke for so many: