OPINION

Photo: The Security Council has primary responsibility, under the United Nations Charter, for the maintenance of international peace and security. Credit: UN Photo/Kim Haughton

Nationally-owned Transitions Are Key to Sustainable Peace

Viewpoint by António Guterres

Following are extensive extracts from the UN Secretary-General's remarks at Security Council Briefing on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace: Strengthening Partnerships for Successful Nationally-owned Transitions on July 18, 2019.

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – United Nations special political missions and peacekeeping operations are some of our most effective tools to promote and maintain international peace and security. But they are temporary. We are strengthening our focus on moments of transition, when our missions are reconfigured or leave a country.

: UN Bureau; SUSTAINABILITY; Peace & Justice; 27 July 2019

Graphic: The anti-corruption organizations of China and Laos have decided to jointly supervise the construction of China-Laos Railway and establish a mechanism to uphold integrity, which can be seen as a model for clean governance. Credit: Song Chen/China Daily

China’s Risky Bets Along the Belt and Road Initiative

Viewpoint by James M. Dorsey

James M. Dorsey – a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, an adjunct senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute of Fan Culture – offered this viewpoint to IDN.

SINGAPORE (IDN) – China’s infrastructure and energy driven one-trillion-dollar Belt and Road initiative involves risky bets across a swath of land populated by often illiberal or autocratic governments exercising power without independent checks and balances.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 26 July 2019

Photo: Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Prime Minister of Denmark since June 2019, has adopted a very radical approach against immigrants. Credit: Jens Dresling. Source: Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

When Social Democracy Bows to the New Pensée Unique

Viewpoint by Roberto Savio*

ROME (IDN | OtherNews) – Social Democrats, who had been steadily disappearing following the crisis of 2008, have been making a small comeback in the last year. Now they are in power in Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Finland and, most recently, in Denmark. But the statistics are daunting. The recent European elections gave members of the Socialist group 20% of the vote, against 25% in 2014, and the erosion from the 34% achieved in 1989 and 1994 is clear.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 25 July 2019

Public Good Hijacked by Tobacco Corporation for Profit

Viewpoint by Dr. Ulysses Dorotheo

The writer is Executive Director of Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA).

BANGKOK (IDN) – Many corporations make money at the expense of the public interest, but the world’s largest tobacco company, Philip Morris International (PMI) has raised the bar again.

In 2017 PMI pledged US$80 million annually for 12 years toward the establishment of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW) as part of its “smoke-free future”, and claims it wants people to stop smoking.

: Asia Editor; OPINION; 25 July 2019

Photo: The UN Security Council unanimously adopted on 20 July 2015 a resolution establishing a monitoring system for Iran’s nuclear programme and considering the “eventual removal” of all nuclear-related sanctions against the country. President Trump told the White House press corps on May 11, 2018 that the Deal was defective at Its core. A new one would require real commitments. Credit: UN Photo.

Iran at the Edge of a Cliff as the Bomb Question Hangs Fire

Trump Scrapped Security Council Endorsed Nuclear Deal

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – There’s never been a full-scale war between two nuclear-armed states. If Iran one day did cross the nuclear threshold the same deterrence will apply. No one rational would want to provoke their own incineration. Columbia university professor, Kenneth Waltz, the distinguished theorist on the conduct of war, wrote in Foreign Affairs that with Israel possessing over 200 nuclear weapons (which the U.S. refuses to publicly admit) Iran having a bomb would bring stability.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 23 July 2019

Photo: Moroccan Male Youth. Credit: hiveminer.com

Reintegrating Moroccan Male in National and Global Interest

Viewpoint by Caleb Tisdale*

MARRAKECH (IDN) – Attracting young people to radical, extremist ideas is not hard. Just ask the ISIS recruiters behind one of the most effective propaganda presences in the world. Extremist groups are so effective at recruitment because the target audience is easily identified and appealed to: those who are at the margins of society. Radical ideologies offer an alternative to social and economic conditions – high unemployment, lack of purpose, social displacement – that have left them vulnerable.

: Africa & ME Editor; THE WORLD; Middle East & North Africa; 18 July 2019

Photo: Sword of Damocles, 1812, oil on canvas. Richard Westall. Ackland Museum, Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Public domain). Source: The Times of Israel.

Damocles' Sword Hanging Over Netanyahu and Netanyahu's Over Palestine

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – A sword of Damocles hangs over the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The sword of Netanyahu hangs over Palestine – and Israel. Which will fall first?

A court case approaches. A new election in September approaches. Netanyahu is being accused of a serious crime of corruption. He is fighting not just for his political beliefs but also for his own self-interest. If he wins the election he could seek immunity from prosecution.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 16 July 2019

Photo: The Chinese-backed Baloch port city of Gwadar – with seashores on both sides – on the southwestern coast of Balochistan, one of the four provinces of Pakistan, which has witnessed multiple attacks on its Hazara Shiite minority as well as in May on a highly secured luxury hotel frequented by Chinese nationals in Gwadar. CC BY-SA 4.0

Many More Than Just Maritime Powder Kegs in the Gulf

Viewpoint by James M. Dorsey

SINGAPORE (IDN) – A recent interview in which Baloch National Movement chairman Khalil Baloch legitimised recent militant attacks on Iranian, Chinese and Pakistani targets is remarkable less for what he said and more for the fact that his remarks were published by a Saudi newspaper.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 14 July 2019

Photo: Secretary-General António Guterres speaks during a dialogue with civil society organizations focused on youth and gender empowerment, women leadership, prevention and countering violent extremism and promotion of interfaith dialogue, while visiting the Kamukunji Constituency in Nairobi, Kenya, on 9 July 2019. Credit: UN Photo | Duncan Moore.

Do More to Expand African Counter-Terrorism Networks

Viewpoint by António Guterres

Following are excerpts from UN Secretary-General's remarks to the African Regional High-Level Conference on Counter-Terrorism and the Prevention of Violent Extremism Conducive to Terrorism, in Nairobi on 10 July 2019.

NAIROBI (IDN-INPS) – I would like to honour the tens of thousands of African victims of terrorism and to express solidarity with African countries that have suffered terrorist attacks that shock with their barbarity and disregard for human life. Kenya itself has endured numerous terrorist attacks. This year alone, terrorists murdered 21 people in the Dusit hotel complex in Nairobi, and in Wajir County, eight police officers were killed and others injured when their vehicle struck an improvised explosive device.

: UN Bureau; THE WORLD; Africa; 12 July 2019

Photo: Goodbye, the Liberal Idea? Vladimir Putin in Osaka for the G20 summit. Credit: Mikhail Metzel/Tass

The Liberal Order Needs to Be Profoundly Reformed

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The attack on “the liberal idea” by Vladimir Putin in his long interview in the Financial Times at the end of June is still vibrating in my mind.

First, I’d like to know if the Russian people share his views on immigration. In Britain and the U.S., despite the anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions of Prime Minister Theresa May and President Donald Trump, most people, according to polls, are more pro-immigration than they are against.