OPINION

Photo: A dead person inside a destroyed car in Bucha, 2 April 2022. CC BY 4.0

Ending the War of Attrition in Ukraine

Viewpoint by Jeffrey D. Sachs

This article was issued by Project Syndicate and is being republished with the author's permission.

NEW YORK (IDN) — Wars often erupt and persist because of the two sides’ miscalculations regarding their relative power. In the case of Ukraine, Russia blundered badly by underestimating the resolve of Ukrainians to fight and the effectiveness of NATO-supplied weaponry. Yet Ukraine and NATO are also overestimating their capacity to defeat Russia on the battlefield. The result is a war of attrition that each side believes it will win, but that both sides will lose.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 11 May 2022

Image: Irpin, Ukraine, Kutsenko Volodymyr/Shutterstock

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
It was the season of light, it was the season of darkness
It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair — A Tale of Two Cities 1859

Viewpoint by Joseph Camilleri

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission.

MELBOURNE, Australia (IDN) — These opening lines of Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution, offer us a remarkable insight into humanity’s current predicament.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 11 May 2022

Image: Taj Mahal, Agra, India. Credit: © Yann Forget / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA.

Is The Taj Mahal Not a Part of Indian Culture?

Viewpoint by Dr Ram Puniyani

This article is the 19th 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.

: Asia Editor; ARTS & CULTURE; 11 May 2022

Photo: Protestors at a February 2022 rally against Russia's invasion of Ukraine march past the statue of Tsar Alexander II in Senate Square in Helsinki. CC BY 2.0

Endless Wars

Viewpoint by Sergio Duarte

The writer is an Ambassador, former United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affair, and President of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.

NEW YORK (IDN) — The Charter of the United Nations consolidated important norms of international law. Its Preamble affirms the decision to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind”. At the time of its adoption, the world was deeply shocked by two successive wars that directly involved Europe and other regions. In spite of the lofty purposes expressed in the Charter, several armed conflicts in many parts of the globe have marked the seventy-seven years of the United Nations’ existence.

: Sergio Duarte; OPINION; 10 May 2022

Image: The Opium wars. Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Legacy of The Opium Trade in Hong Kong

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.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 10 May 2022

Photo: A landscape view of El Geneina town, the capital of West Darfur, Sudan. UNAMID/Hamid Abdulsalam

Renewed Violence in Darfur Leaves Behind an Unstable Sudan

Viewpoint by Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens

GENEVA (IDN) — 24 April 2022 saw renewed violence in the Darfur Provence of Sudan between Arab militias and the indigenous tribes of the area, the Masalit and the Fur. The violence began in 2003 and has caused some 300,000 deaths and some three million displaced. While most of the fighting was when General Omar al-Bashir was President, his overthrow by new military leadership has not fundamentally improved the situation.

: Rene Wadlow; OPINION; 09 May 2022

Photo: Overlooking the central Kumasi market at closing time in Kumasi, Ghana, June 22, 2006. Credit: Jonathan Ernst / World Bank (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Ukraine and Africa: Food Crisis, Energy Ambiguity and An Uncertain Political Outcome

This article was issued by The Institute for International Political Studies - ISPI.

Viewpoint by Lucia Ragazzi

MILAN (IDN) — Since the war in Ukraine broke out in Europe, its consequences and side effects have been reverberating across African countries. Rising food and energy prices, supply disruptions, and inflationary pressures have created additional challenges on the road to a post-pandemic economic recovery the continent painstakingly embarked upon, in what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called a 'perfect storm'.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 08 May 2022

Image: Remains of Russian tanks in Ukraine, March 2022 | Credit: Twitter/@DefenceU. Source: theprint.in

Russia Is Financially Prepared for Longer War—Even in Case of An Oil Embargo

Viewpoint by Prof. Dr Rolf J. Langhammer

Prof. Langhammer is a trade expert at Kiel Institute for World Economy (ifw). The following comment on the resilience of the Russian economy against the background of the discussion about an oil embargo was issued by the Kiel Institute Media Information.

BERLIN | KIEL (IDN) — Hopes that Russia will soon give in to the Ukraine war in the face of drastic Western sanctions are likely to be disappointed. Both the state budget situation and structural characteristics of the Russian economy create sound conditions for a prolonged persistence of a war economy based on autarky.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 06 May 2022

Image: Migrant logistics centre on the Belarus/Poland border, November 2021 Djordje Kostic/Shutterstock

Double Standards

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission.

Viewpoint by Herbert Wulf

BONN (IDN) — At present, historical analogies are very often used to explain reasons for or against the causes of the war in Ukraine or to describe the horrors of this war with historical arguments. Some of these comparisons are downright perfidious, like equating Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 06 May 2022

Image: Pipeline construction in Nigeria as part of the Trans-Sahara natural gas pipeline, expected to run through Northern Nigeria into Niger and Algeria, connecting to Europe. Credit: Pipeline & Gas Journal.

The Russian Oil Ban Opens Up New Prospects for Africa

Viewpoint by Olatubora Ayodeji

LAGOS, Nigeria (IDN) — It's very important to understand that Russia is the world's third biggest oil producer, behind the US and Saudi Arabia and of about five million barrels of crude oil it exports each day, more than half went to Europe before the sanctions were announced. Before the announcement, Russia accounted for about 8% and 3% of the UK and US oil demand respectively.