Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - In the middle of September Pakistani militants moved across the “line of control” that separates Pakistan-controlled Kashmir from the Indian-controlled part. The two countries have been at loggerheads about the title to this gorgeously beautiful state, now bereft of tourism and much income, since independence.
In recent years guerrilla activity has died away and most observers thought that the Pakistani army was seriously clamping down on its own sponsored guerrillas. The indications were that the government truly wanted rapprochement with India. And India too with Pakistan.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - Africa up or down? After 10 years of quite remarkable growth across the continent most countries are experiencing a downturn, with average growth nearer 3.75% than 5% as before.
Nigeria, the continent’s most populous country with its largest economy, was at one time growing year after year at 7+%. Now it looks like it’s heading for recession and a growth rate pointing to zero. It has been hit by a six-fold whammy – oil prices sharply down, the effects of the great recession in the industrialised countries, the Chinese economy slowing, bad economic and foreign exchange policies under the relatively new president, Muhammadu Buhari, increased corruption under his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, and the war against Boko Haram in the far north.
By A.D. McKenzie | SWAN
PARIS - It is being billed as the largest exhibition devoted to Mexican art in at least half a century, and the impressive show now on at Paris’ Grand Palais does feel like a landmark event.
Titled Mexique 1900 - 1950: Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, José Orozco and the avant-garde, it features Mexico’s most famous artists, as well as those less known, and gives a historical perspective of the Latin American country through its art.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - The many world leaders who gathered in Jerusalem on September 30 for the funeral of Shimon Peres, the former president of Israel, are safely ensconced back home. They will not bother much to think about Israel again until the next Palestinian uprising. But the Israelis will continue to only think about themselves.
The Israelis are obsessed with themselves, with their history, with the present time and with their destiny. Every nation has some of this but Israeli navel gazing is something else. At this level of intensity it makes compromise difficult and condemns Israel to political paranoia and limitless inflexibility.
By Kimiaki Kawai
The author is Director, Peace and Human Rights, Soka Gakkai International (SGI). This is an abridged version of his presentation at a panel discussion 'Not in the Name of Religion' on the occasion of IPB World Congress 2016 on Military and Social Spending, at the Technical University in Berlin, on October 02, 2016.
BERLIN (IDN-INPS) - While "the use of violence is always a defeat for humanity”, there are still more than 15,000 nuclear warheads in the world, which continue to threaten our very existence. They are at the peak of a pyramid of violence as the most destructive of all our tools of war.
By A.D. McKenzie
LOS ANGELES | PARIS - When Cuban artist Belkis Ayón died in 1999, she was only 32 years old, but she left behind a body of work that belied her age, comprising huge and striking prints that had already received international critical acclaim.
Now, for the first time, a museum in the United States is hosting a solo retrospective of her work, with a view to making the public more aware of this singular artist who reflected Afro-Cuban traditions, the history of contemporary printmaking and the challenges that her country faced in the 1990s.
Viewpoint by David Hall and Leonard Eiger
David Hall, of Lopez Island, and Leonard Eiger, of North Bend, are active members of Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action and Physicians for Social Responsibility.
SEATTLE (IDN | The Seattle Times) - Have you seen the Seattle bus ads? They read: “20 miles west of Seattle is the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the U.S.”
In light of recent media attention on who should have their finger on the nuclear button, this statement seems to beg the question: With so many nuclear weapons, what would happen should the president order their use?
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - The last war in the Western hemisphere came to an end on September 26 with the signing of the formal peace treaty between Colombia and the FARC rebels, a conflict that has raged on and off for 50 years.
Fortunately, the cities have been spared overt destruction – it was the army and individuals who were targeted. In Syria, even though the war has lasted only 5 years, in some cities, such as Aleppo, the bombing and fighting have wrought almost total destruction.
Is the world going to hell in a handbag? If one looks at Colombia the answer is “no”. Moreover, Latin America has long been the most peaceful of all continents. Only East Asia rivals it. Africa after decades of civil wars, at one time being the most violent of all the continents, is increasingly peaceful.
By Barbara Crossette* | Reproduced courtesy of PassBlue
NEW YORK (IDN | Passblue) - With a cease-fire in Syria collapsing around him and bombs destroying precious relief supplies intended for the hungry, traumatized survivors of relentless government attacks on the once grand city of Aleppo, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon used his last speech to open a UN General Assembly debating season to lash out at the government of Syria and its supporters.
“Many groups have killed many innocents, but none more so than the government of Syria, which continues to barrel bomb neighborhoods and systematically torture thousands of detainees,” Ban said on Sept. 20, in a rare outburst of anguish and anger from a secretary-general aimed at a member country in this most public of places, as the world watches. “Powerful patrons that keep feeding the war machine also have blood on their hands.”
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - The two American presidential candidates give the impression of being rather hostile towards China. This is counterproductive.
“The US should not adopt confrontation as a strategy of choice. In China, the US would encounter an adversary skilled over the centuries in using prolonged conflict as a strategy and whose doctrine emphasizes the psychological exhaustion of the opponent.
