Peace & Justice

Photo: Mushroom-shaped cloud and water column from the underwater nuclear explosion of July 25, 1946, which was part of Operation Crossroads. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Strong Plea for Early Entry into Force of Nuclear Ban Treaty

By Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – On the eve of a crucial international conference, an eminent Buddhist organization advocating a nuclear-weapon-free world has called for the signing, ratification and early entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) adopted by 122 UN member states as a sign of their resolve to overcome nuclear terror in the interest of protecting human rights and dignity.

Since the adoption of the TPNW in July 2017, non-nuclear-weapon, nuclear-weapon and nuclear-dependent states are meeting for the first time in the Second Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) – Second PrepCom of the 2020 NPT Review Conference – from April 23 to May 4 in Geneva.

: Jamshed Baruah; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 20 April 2018

Photo: U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, June 2017. CC BY 4.0

Back to the Past with Trump’s National Security Strategy – Part 3

Viewpoint by Michele Nobile*

This is the third of a four-part article looking at the approach to Russia and China in the national security strategy of the United States under the administration of President Donald Trump. The article is a follow-up to the five-part article by the same author on ‘US Foreign Policy and Trump's Contradictions’ published earlier by IDN

ROME (IDN) – Various versions of the NSS show the oscillations in relations between the United States and Russia, but until the beginning of Putin's third presidential term (marked by a strong domestic dispute) and the civil war in Ukraine, on the whole the prevailing trend after every crisis (Kosovo in 1999, the "coloured revolutions" in Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan between 2003 and 2005, the war between Russia and Georgia in 2008) was in the direction of improving relations between the two states.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 18 April 2018

Photo: The panel during the South Centre debate (from left to right): Andrew Cornford, Observatoire de la Finance, Geneva; YV Reddy, South Centre Board Member; Martin Khor, South Centre; Yilmaz Akyuz, South Centre; Hervé Hannoun and Peter Dittus, co-authors of Revolution Required. Credit: South Centre.

G7 Fiscal, Monetary Policies Are Ticking Time Bombs

By D. Ravi Kanth

This article was published in No. 211, 18 April 2018 in SOUTHNEWS, a service of the South Centre to provide information and news on topical issues from a South perspective. It was originally carried by the South-North Development Monitor (SUNS) #8663 on 17 April 2018. – The Editor

GENEVA (IDN-INPS) – Major developed countries led by the United States are "sleep walking towards war" by implementing unsustainable fiscal and monetary policies since the 2008 financial crisis, with the destructive consequences to be borne by the developing countries, two former senior officials of the Bank for International Settlements have warned.

: UN Bureau; SUSTAINABILITY; Peace & Justice; 18 April 2018

Photo: The Press Union of Liberia President Charles Coffey, Sr. Credit: Front Page of Africa

Press Freedom Becoming Increasingly Vulnerable in Liberia

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK | MONROVIA (IDN) – Liberia’s new government under President George Weah is not having a honeymoon with the media though he has endeavoured to reassure journalists that they would have a "200 percent freedom of expression and press freedom under my government".

The one-time soccer star, who succeeded Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in the country's first peaceful change of power in seven decades in January 2018, is accused of allowing the press to be muzzled.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 17 April 2018

Photo: Ambassador Kairat Umarov, Kazakh Permanent Representative to the UN, addressing the Security Council. Credit: Kazinform

Air Strikes in Syria Perturb Host of Astana Peace Process

By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK (IDN) – Kazakhstan, host to eight rounds of Syria peace talks in its capital city of Astana until December 2017, has warned against further military escalation in the wake of air strikes conducted by the United States, France and UK, adding that "whatever action taken under whatever good pretext can't and will not justify the military use of force."

Kazakhstan is the first Central Asian country to be elected to the Security Council as non-permanent member for a two-year period (2017-2018). It was also the first Central Asian state to chair the Council in January 2018.

: Santo D. Banerjee; UN INSIDER; 15 April 2018

Photo: A family flees an active conflict neighbourhood in eastern Ghouta, Syria, using a cart to carry their belongings. Credit: UNICEF/Amer Al Shami.

Experts Slam Syria, Slate Trump and Favour a UN Mechanism

By J C Suresh

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN) – The Trump administration's latest missile strikes in response to Syrian chemical weapons use is not embedded within a broader U.S. strategy to deter further chemical weapons use, protect Syrian civilians caught in the horrible Syrian civil war, and bring a political resolution to the seven-year misery of the people of Syria, according to Tom Countryman and Daryl G. Kimball, Chair and Executive Director of the Arms Control Association (ACA).

They are "deeply concerned" that the U.S., UK, and French military operation was taken without specific authorization by the U.S. Congress, and with (apparently) little consultation with Congress.

: J C Suresh; THE WORLD; Middle East & North Africa; 14 April 2018

Photo: Back of a $1 million note, indicating what the money should instead be spent on. Design by Michael Green

Campaign For Moving 'Nuclear Weapons Money' to Boost Peace

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – While governments meet in New York for the first ever United Nations High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament from May 14-16, 2018 campaigners for 'zero nuclear weapons' will be busy counting one million specially designed notes each of $1 million value, adding up to $1 trillion.

The amount of one trillion dollars (with twelve zeros and even eighteen zeros in some countries) is being allocated over the next ten years to 'modernize' the nuclear arsenals of nine countries, which together possess around 15,000 nuclear weapons.

: J Nastranis; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 13 April 2018

Image credit: Modern world caricature illustration by Steve Cutts. Source: boredpanda.com

Reflection on Today's World and Our Era

Viewpoint by Michele Nobile*

The author wrote this as a reaction to the article by Roberto Savio entitled ‘Ten Reflections on the Crisis‘ which was published by IDN on 8 April 2018. – The Editor

ROME (IDN) – The reflections of Roberto Savio touch problems which have roots that are not recent and have become increasingly serious over time. His arguments coincide with mine, which are directed both to the present and to a re-reading of the past in the light of contemporary needs. With no claim to being exhaustive, the following are a number of considerations stimulated by Savio's article.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 12 April 2018

Photo: Lula climbs the ramp leading to the Palácio do Planalto, with Vice President José Alencar, for the official ceremony marking the beginning of their second term, in 2007. CC BY 3.0 br

Lula da Silva – Condemned by the Courts, Absolved by History

Viewpoint by Boaventura de Sousa Santos*

COIMBRA, Portugal (IDN) – The Lula da Silva case blatantly shows that something is rotten in the Brazilian judicial system. It brings to the fore procedures and practices that are incompatible with the basic principles and guarantees of democracy and the rule of law, in a way that needs to be denounced and democratically opposed.

The principle of the independence of the courts is one of the basic principles of modern constitutionalism. It ensures that citizens have the right to a justice that is free from pressures and interference on the part of political or factual powers, whether national or international.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 11 April 2018

Photo: A forensics tent covers the bench where Sergei and Yulia Skripal fell unconscious. CC BY 2.5

Trade War, Skripal, Arsenic and Old Lace

Viewpoint by Michele Nobile*

ROME (IDN) – Like the rest of humanity, I have no way of identifying the instigator of the attempted assassination of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter. But I venture some reasoning, just to clear the field of fantasies and focus on real problems.

It is true that personalities unwelcome to the Kremlin sometimes meet with serious and mysterious pathologies. One of the famous cases is that of Viktor Yushchenko, a candidate for the presidential elections of Ukraine in 2004, in an election campaign during which, among others, Russian President Vladimir Putin travelled seven times to that country to support Yushchenko's competitor Viktor Yanukovych.