OPINION

Photo: As the climate change melts sea ice, the U.S. Geological Survey projects that two-thirds of polar bears will disappear by 2050. CC BY-SA 4.0

Global Heating Poses A Serious Systemic Challenge

Viewpoint by Franz Baumann

The following are excerpts from an article first published in the October 2018 issue of 'International Politics Review'. Dr. Franz Baumann is a visiting professor at New York University and a former UN assistant secretary-general, special adviser on environment and peace operations. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – Climate change, used here synonymously and interchangeably with global heating and global warming, is happening. To wit: 17 of the 18 warmest years on record have occurred in the twenty-first century. The past three years were the hottest since records began (World Meteorological Organization, 2018a). Distress signals are coming from all corners of the earth (Achenbach and Fritz, 2018; Samenow, 2018; Sengupta, 2018b).

: Franz Baumann; OPINION; 18 January 2019

A New Spectre Is Haunting Europe

Viewpoint by Roberto Savio

The writer is publisher of Other News, a vehicle for "voices against the tide", and founder of IPS-Inter Press Service News Agency. This article is being reproduced courtesy of Other News with the writer's permission. He can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and his articles and comments can be read on Facebook @robertosavioutopia

ROME (IDN) – After Teresa May’s defeat in the British parliament on January 15, it is clear that a new spectre is haunting Europe. It is no longer the spectre of communism, which opens Marx’s Manifesto of 1848; it is the spectre of the failure of neoliberal globalisation, which reigned uncontested following the fall of the Berlin Wall, until the financial crisis of 2009.

: Roberto Savio; OPINION; 16 January 2019

Photo: As part of Count Folke Bernadotte action, Danish Red Cross buses drive through Odense on the way to Sweden, carrying Danish prisoners from German concentration camps April 17, 1945. CC BY-SA 2.0.

Folke Bernadotte, A Forgotten Humanitarian With Legendary Will Power

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Many know about Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat in Budapest, who led his embassy in a successful attempt to issue “protective passports” to at least 6,000 Hungarian Jews so they could escape the Nazi occupiers and travel to Sweden. He also helped forestall a planned massacre. He became the second person to be given honorary U.S. citizenship.

Many also know about the magnificent effort by the occupied Danes to use small boats to enable around 7,000 Jews to cross the water that separates Denmark and Sweden to get them to neutral Sweden.

And about the German businessman, Oskar Schindler, who later became the star of Stephen Spielberg’s masterpiece film Schindler’s List that showed how he used his business in Poland as a means of sheltering a thousand Jews.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 15 January 2019

Photo: The Joint Security Area (JSA) in the DMZ, looking toward South Korea from the North. Conference Row seen from the northern side of the JSA. CC BY-SA 3.0

Pyongyang And Washington Do Not Speak The Same Language

Viewpoint by Kelsey Davenport

The writer is the Director for Nonproliferation Policy at the Arms Control Association, where she provides research and analysis on the nuclear and missile programs in Iran, North Korea, India, and Pakistan and on nuclear security issues. This article was posted on January 8 on the Association's website as part of the current issue of 'Arms Control Today'.

WASHINGTON, DC (IDN-INPS) – North Korea reiterated that denuclearization of the Korean peninsula must include removal of U.S. nuclear weapons in the region, a statement that underscores that diplomatic advances in 2019 will require addressing simultaneously North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and its security concerns.

: UN Bureau; OPINION; 11 January 2019

Photo: The Sule Pagoda and Bengali Sunni Central Mosque located side by side in Central Yangon. Credit: Kalinga Seneviratne | IDN-INPS

Myanmar Buddhists Say International Media Is 'Unfair'

Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne

This article is the 26th in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate.

YANGON, Myanmar (IDN) – When I checked into a hotel at 10.00 pm in Central Yangon near the iconic Sule Pagoda, seeing a lot of South Asian Muslims around the place, I asked the hotel reception if it was safe to walk up the road to get some dinner. The receptionist laughed and said: "It is very safe here, sir."

For the next eight days in December, I lived in the heart of a Muslim Bengali/Indian community. I walked around the place late at night and early mornings and found that it is a very peaceful community where the Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Christians interact well.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 09 January 2019

Photo: Russia's 9M729 missile reportedly has been tested using a mobile launcher system similar to that used by the 9K720 Iskander-M pictured here on September 18, 2017. Photo credit: Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation

The INF Treaty Crisis Is A Global Security Problem

Viewpoint by Daryl G. Kimball

The author is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. He wrote this editorial for the January-February issue of Arms Control Today.

WASHINGTON ; DC (IDN-INPS) – Next month, it is very likely the Trump administration will take the next step toward fulfilling the president’s threat to “terminate” one of the most far-reaching and most successful nuclear arms reduction agreements: the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which led to the verifiable elimination of 2,692 Soviet and U.S. missiles based in Europe. The treaty helped bring an end to the Cold War and paved the way for agreements to slash bloated strategic nuclear arsenals and to withdraw thousands of tactical nuclear weapons from forward-deployed areas.

: Arms Control Association; OPINION; 09 January 2019

Photo: Medea Benjamin (left) and Alice Slater (right). A collage by INPS-IDN.

Time To Leave The Nuclear Age, Create A Green Planet At Peace

Viewpoint by Medea Benjamin and Alice Slater

While Medea Benjamin is codirect or of CODEPINK for Peace and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic, Alice Slater serves on the Coordinating Committee of World Beyond War and is the UN Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

NEW YORK (IDN) – A deafening chorus of negative grumbling from the left, right, and center of the U.S. political spectrum in response to Trump’s decision to remove U.S. troops from Syria and halve their numbers in Afghanistan appears to have slowed down his attempt to bring our forces home.

However, in this New Year, demilitarizing U.S. foreign policy should be among the top items on the agenda of the new Congress. Just as we are witnessing a rising movement for a visionary Green New Deal, so, too, the time has come for a New Peace Deal that repudiates endless war and the threat of nuclear war which, along with catastrophic climate change, poses an existential threat to our planet.

: UN Bureau; OPINION; 09 January 2019

Photo: Flags of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China. CC BY-SA 4.0

Most Taiwanese Would Not Support A Hong Kong Style Arrangement With Beijing

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Those, like some highly placed people in the U.S. government and Congress, who say it is inevitable that Taiwan with its population of 24 million will one day return as part of mainland China rather as Hong Kong did, have really missed a beat. There is simply no likelihood that an overwhelming majority of Taiwanese will ever agree to that.

The leader of the traditionally independence-minded Democratic Progressive party, President Tsai Ing-wen, now plays down independence and argues for the status quo. President Xi Jinping’s recent speech reiterated China’s long held view that it would use force if necessary to prevent Taiwan's formal independence. He is shooting down a bird that will never fly.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 08 January 2019

An Exceptional Book With A Message Of Hope That Does Not Exist Today

Viewpoint by Roberto Savio*

The following is the text of the Foreword to Riccardo Petrella's In the Name of Humanity, English edition under way of Au nom de l’humanité. L’audace mondiale - Éditions Couleur Livres, 2015. Petrella is an Italian economist, political scientist and a leading figure in the anti-globalisation movement. He is Emeritus Professor at Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium). He was a co-founder, in 2012, of the international initiative Banning Poverty 2018. – The Editor

: Roberto Savio; OPINION; 06 January 2019

Photo: The Marines deploying in Syria reportedly have M777 howitzers, seen here with artillerymen at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center. Credit: Wikipedia | U.S. Marines.

Syria Withdrawal Plan Tallies With America's Wish To Bring Soldiers Home

Viewpoint by Ellen R. Wald

The writer is a historian and author of 'Saudi, Inc.' She is the president of Transversal Consulting and also teaches Middle East history and policy at Jacksonville University, USA. Twitter: @EnergzdEconomy. This article first appeared on the Arab News on January 2, 2019.

JACKSONWILLE, USA (IDN-INPS) – President Donald Trump shook the establishment in Washington by announcing on December 19, 2018 that he would do exactly what he had promised during his campaign. He declared that American military service members would be leaving Syria. As Trump explained: "We have defeated (Daesh) in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump presidency."