THE WORLD

It's Time Overdue To Tame The Beast Called Capitalism

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – Capitalism rules the world. Correct. But Bernie Sanders has his doubts about it. Good. It is a malicious system in many ways but as Winston Churchill might have said, it is better than all the alternatives. Nevertheless, it’s time overdue to tame the beast.

After the Second World War the Western world did make a big effort to mitigate some of its worst effects. In the U.S. there was the GI bill to help returning soldiers get started in life. Later, there was Medicaid for poorer people. In Europe there was a widespread attempt to replicate the free health services pioneered by the Scandinavian countries and New Zealand.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 25 February 2020

Doha Hosts High-Level Meeting of the UNODC's Global Judicial Integrity Network

By Bernhard Schell

DOHA | VIENNA (IDN | UNIS) —The second high-level meeting of the Global Judicial Integrity Network of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has launched in Doha under the patronage of Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of Qatar, with hundreds of chief justices and senior judges from around the world in attendance.

Until February 26, the conference will take stock of the achievements of the Network since its launch and discuss existing and emerging challenges related to judicial integrity, exploring the efforts made by judiciaries to address them, and identify priority areas for the Network.

: Bernhard Schell; UN INSIDER; 25 February 2020

UN Study Predicts $32 Billion Fall in Post-Brexit UK Exports

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN | UNCTAD) — A new study expects non-tariff measures (NTMs) to cause major fractures in post-exit trade relations between the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU), knocking up to US$32 billion, or 14 per cent, off of UK exports to the EU.

NTMs are policy measures other than ordinary customs tariffs that can potentially have an economic effect on international trade in goods, changing quantities traded, or prices, or both. They are the key factors mediating market access in the world economy.

: Jamshed Baruah; UN INSIDER; 25 February 2020

Photo: President George H.W. Bush with Jerry Falwell. Credit: Liberty University

America's Christian Right, Republicans and Donald Trump – 5

Viewpoint by John Newsinger*

This is the fifth of a six-part article originally published in International Socialism under the title The Christian right, the Republican Party and Donald Trump. Click here for part four of the series. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of IDN-InDepth News.

LONDON (IDN) – Pat Robertson, whose Christian Broadcasting Network in many ways led the field and who was to establish the Christian Coalition, found faith healing an extremely useful way to generate donations (all tax free). He regularly cured disabilities, both health and financial, on the TV, as noted by James Randi in ‘The Faith Healers’:

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 24 February 2020

A High-Optics, Low-Outcome Trump Trip to India

Viewpoint by Bharat Karnad *

NEW DELHI (IDN) — It's unclear what Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said to U.S. President Donald Trump when the former called the White House on February 11. Reportedly what sealed the presidential trip to India was Modi's promise that some 5-7 million people would be lining the route from Ahmedabad airport to the new stadium in Motera to greet him.

Ahmedabad is the largest city of Gujarat, the state where Modi ruled as chief minister for over a decade. For a showman like Trump, the prospect of dawn-to-dusk U.S. television coverage rich in colourful imagery featuring millions of Indians attesting his international popularity and exotic locales like the Taj Mahal must have been too intoxicating to turn down, especially in a year in which he is seeking re-election.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; OPINION; 23 February 2020

Photo: Evangelical prayer rally in Washington, D.C., in 2008. Credit: Creative Commons

America's Christian Right, Republicans and Donald Trump – 4

Viewpoint by John Newsinger*

This is the fourth of a six-part article originally published in International Socialism under the title The Christian right, the Republican Party and Donald Trump. Click here for part three of the series. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of IDN-InDepth News.

LONDON (IDN) – According to Craig Unger, the evangelical churches fill the "real or perceived needs of tens of millions of Americans". They lived in "an elaborate, fully developed evangelical counterculture that utilised all the marketing tools of the modern world".

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 23 February 2020

Photo: An area that used to be on the edge of Lake Chad. The d/drying_lake_chad.jpg

Drying Lake Chad Basin Triggers Humanitarian Crisis

By Leon Usigbe; Africa Renewal

LAGOS (IDN) — Twenty-year-old Phoebe Musa remembers the day Boko Haram militants stormed her village of Gwoza in Borno State, northeast Nigeria, five years ago. They came in on horseback, motorbikes and screeching military vehicles and attacked everyone in sight. Amid bursts of gunshots, they set fire to dozens of homesteads.

The fighters then abducted Ms. Musa from her home, blindfolded her and dragged her deep into the nearby Sambisa forest, where she remained until she was rescued by Nigerian troops earlier this year.

: Africa Renewal; THE WORLD; Africa; 22 February 2020

Photo: Baxter with her kids before they fell victim to the brutality of her husband. Source: Internet.

Epidemic of Domestic Violence Shocks Australia

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY (IDN) —The gruesome murder of a 31-year-old mother Hannah Clarke and her three small children aged 6, 4 and 3 years, by her estranged 42-year-old husband Rowan Baxter, a former footballer, has shocked the nation and brought into the spotlight an epidemic of domestic violence in Australia that has gone largely unchecked for years. It has also got Australians questioning the attitude of men towards women with their greater tendency towards violence against women.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 22 February 2020

Photo: Fundamentalist Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, a political-action organisation to mobilise religious conservatives, with President Ronald Reagan. Credit: Salon.com

America’s Christian Right, Republicans and Donald Trump – 3

Viewpoint by John Newsinger*

This is the third of a six-part article originally published in International Socialism under the title The Christian right, the Republican Party and Donald Trump. Click here for part two of the series. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of IDN-InDepth News.

LONDON (IDN) – Graham was, according to one of his biographers, by this time, “something like an extra officer in Nixon’s cabinet, the administration’s own Pastor-without- Portfolio”. Or as the left-wing journalist I. F. Stone put it, he was Nixon’s “smoother Rasputin, dishing out saccharine religiosity”.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 21 February 2020

Photo: Evangelical preacher Billy Graham, one of the key figures in the religious revival of the 1950s and beyond. Credit: Billy Graham Evangelistic Association

America's Christian Right, Republicans and Donald Trump – 2

Viewpoint by John Newsinger*

This is the second of a six-part article originally published in International Socialism under the title The Christian right, the Republican Party and Donald Trump. Click here for part one of the series. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of IDN-InDepth News.

LONDON (IDN) – And this was just one campaign. The American Legion, the veterans’ organisation which in 1952 claimed more than 2.7 million members, launched its own "Back to God" campaign, helping equip the country to combat the threat of atheistic communism.