Peace & Justice

Photo: Farmers selling their vegetables and fruits from organic farming at a modest profit in the weekend market. Credit: Kalinga Seneviratne | IDN-INPS.

Grassroots Buddhism Flourishes in the Outskirts of Bangkok

By Kalinga Seneviratne

This article is the 37th in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate. Click here for previous articles.

BANGKOK (IDN) – On a Saturday morning a couple drives into the Santi Asoke community in the north-eastern outskirts of Bangkok, and walks into a large warehouse stacked with clothes, shoes, books, electrical goods, mobile phones, washing machines, furniture and other household items. The couple inspects a stack of clothes scattered on a mat, picks some up and puts it in a basket. It is then taken to a volunteer cashier, who weighs it and quotes a price.

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

Photo: Although the German composer J.S. Bach never visited China in his lifetime, his statue now welcomes visitors entering Shanghai from the city's main railway station. CC BY-SA 3.0

Germany Must Help Shape Faltering Multilateral World Order

Viewpoint by Jiang Feng

Prof Dr Jiang Feng chairs the University Council of Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) in China. This article first appeared on International Politics and Society Journal, published by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s Brussels office.

SHANGHAI | BRUSSELS (IDN-INPS) – For German government representatives and top politicians visiting China, a quick trip to Shanghai has almost become obligatory. The city’s rapid development provides a wealth of reasons for admiration and astonishment. Germans are often surprised that it’s much more modern than people generally assume and that it offers a very different picture from the one conveyed in the German press.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 07 December 2019

Photo: Displaced children stand in the shredded remains of tents in Abs settlement, Yemen, for internally displaced persons. Located just 40 km from the frontlines, the settlement is regularly damaged by passing sandstorms. Credit: OCHA/Giles Clarke

UN Calls for $32 Billion to Battle Humanitarian Crises in 2020

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) – As 2019 comes to a close, the United Nations has warned that climatic shocks, large infectious disease outbreaks and intensifying, protracted conflicts will constrain nearly 168 million – or one person in 45 on the planet – to seek humanitarian assistance and protection next year in crises spanning more than 50 countries. Also, millions of children across the globe will need life-saving support.

: Jaya Ramachandran; UN INSIDER; 04 December 2019

Photo: Aminatou Haidar meeting an old friend on her departure from prison. CC BY-SA 2.0

Western Sahara Rights Activist Awarded Major Peace Prize

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – The Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’ goes to five human rights activists this year. Among them is Aminatou Haidar of the Western Sahara.

Ms. Haidar receives the Right Livelihood Award “for her steadfast nonviolent action, despite imprisonment and torture, in pursuit of justice and self-determination for the people of Western Sahara”, according to organizers of the event in Stockholm, Sweden on December 4.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 03 December 2019

Photo: Mario Marazziti, co-founder of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty in 2002 and Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri | INPS-IDN Multimedia Director.

Papal Visit to Japan Revives Debate About Death Penalty

By Katsuhiro Asagiri

TOKYO (IDN) – An international conference "No Justice Without Life" has called on Japan to halt all executions next year, the year of the Olympic Games. Japan is one of the 56 nations which retains capital punishment, also known as the death penalty or death sentence for capital crimes. In fact, Japan, the United States and South Korea are the only nations in the group of developed economies that mete out death penalty.

: Katsuhiro Asagiri; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 30 November 2019

Photo: United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, Mr. Adama Dieng, addressing the 12th International Meeting of Justice Ministers. Source: www.santegidio.org.

Defeating Hatred: For a World Without Death Penalty

Viewpoint by Adama Dieng

The following are extensive excerpts from the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, Mr. Adama Dieng, to the 12th International Meeting of Justice Ministers, on 29 November in Rome. The meeting focussed on ‘Paving the Way: Defeating Hatred for a World Without Death Penalty’. Mr. Dieng is former board member of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) and a former registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

: UN Bureau; OPINION; 30 November 2019

Photo: Pakistan Supreme Court Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa. Source: Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Supreme Court Attempts to Destabilize the Pakistan Govt.

By Abdus Sattar Ghazali*

FREMONT, California, USA (IDN) – The Supreme Court of Pakistan on November 28 limited the three years extension in the term of Army Chief of Staff General (COAS) Qamar Javed Bajwa to six month.

A three-member court bench led by the Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, who retires in less than one month, on November 27 suspended Prime Minister Imran Khan’s August 2019 order to extend the term of General Bajwa to three years.

: Suresh Jaura; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 30 November 2019

Photo: Beitar Illit, one of the four biggest settlements in the West Bank. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The two-state Solution is Dead as Netanyahu Pushes for ‘Greater Israel’

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – It’s unbelievable that 102 years have passed since the Balfour Declaration when the British colonial government decided to give the Jews their own homeland – but also promised that “it be done without infringing on the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish population”.

Now, this month, the Trump Administration has announced that the Jewish settlements on West Bank Palestinian land are no longer illegal. No matter the rest of the world is against this, the Palestinians face the possibility that 60% of the West Bank will be covered with Israeli settlements. 40% will be left as disconnected and isolated Palestinian cantons. There are now about 400,000 settlers.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 26 November 2019

Photo: Former Titan II Missile in its silo, Sahuarita, Arizona. Source: The Titan Missile Museum.

How Nuclear False Warning Could Have Unleashed a Catastrophe

Viewpoint by Daryl G. Kimball

The writer is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. The following is the text of his article published in Arms Control Today.

WASHINGTON (IDN) – Forty years ago, on November 9, the U.S. Defense Department detected an imminent nuclear attack against the United States through the early-warning system of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). U.S. bomber and missile forces went on full alert, and the emergency command post, known as the “doomsday plane,” took to the air.

: Arms Control Association; OPINION; 25 November 2019

Image: Cyber security. Source: Eurocontrol

Action Needed to Face Looming Danger of Cyberwar

By Arul Louis *

NEW YORK (IDN) – The terrifying potential for cyberwar between nations and also asymmetrical cyberwar by non-state actors now looms over the world with the same intensity of the threat of a nuclear holocaust.

The danger was writ large in a recent cyber intrusion into a nuclear power plant in India and the planting of a virus in an Iranian nuclear facility.