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IDN-InDepthNews

 

CENTRAL ASIA

   

 

Acronym of the Year

    

UN INSIDER

Individual Journalists

Photo credit: tv2.no

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Don’t cry for me, Europe. The time for diminishing Europe’s self-esteem is over. It’s time for toughness and retaliation. Even a personal intervention by his favourite European head of state, Emmanuel Macron, President of France, failed to move President Donald Trump on the gravest of all policies – his decision that the Iran nuclear deal, meant to reduce its nuclear prowess, will be scrapped by the US in favour of a policy of confrontation.

Many observers, in Europe, the Middle East, Russia and China – all signatories to the historic agreement of 2015 – are worried stiff that this will lead to war between Iran and Israel, in which Trump will feel moved to intercede if Israel is being badly hurt.

OPINION

Photo: U.S. President Barack Obama said that the then president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, was “the most popular president on earth”. This picture shows Obama greeting him in the Oval Office in March 2009. Credit: White House.

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – President Barack Obama said that the then president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, was “the most popular president on earth”. Now, while fighting for a new term in office, he has been brought low, imprisoned for 12 years for corruption.

He is still the most popular politician in Brazil and until he went to prison on April 7 he was the favourite to win October’s election. After his previous terms in office he left behind a country, one that had been the most unequal society on earth, see a quarter of its population lifted out of poverty, a fast-growing economy and a sharp increase in its lower-middle class as millions got jobs and/or pay rises.

OPINION

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Personally I'm a coward. I'm unlikely ever to be a hero. (I have rescued on different occasions three young children from drowning, but I didn't risk my life.) I certainly would never have done what Colonel Arnaud Beltrame, the French policeman, did.

He asked the terrorist who had taken over a supermarket if he could substitute himself for the female hostage he held. The terrorist agreed and then murdered him. Beltrame was given a state funeral on March 28. The Moroccan terrorist who appears to be a supporter of ISIS is in jail, awaiting trial.

OPINION

Photo: Vladimir Putin delivering Presidential address to the Federal Assembly on 1 March 2018 at the Manezh Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow. Credit: Presidential website en.kremlin.ru

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The seemingly eternal president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has an iron grip on his nation and a foreign policy to match. A large majority of Russians give him their support. He will win re-election.

Is it his early economic success? Or is it because of a new stability? Or the nation’s growing self-respect after the ignominious years that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union? Or is it a sense of besieged defensiveness because of the advantage the West took of Russia afterwards.

The answer is a bit of all these.

OPINION

Photo: Umbrellas on the Piazza of the Prophet´s Holy Mosque in Medina. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – What do we in the West know about Islam? Perhaps more than we did before 9/11 but not much.

When Tony Blair was prime minister of the United Kingdom he was photographed walking along holding the Koran. President George W. Bush said repeatedly that Islam was a religion of peace.

Even though at that time one of the most influential American political writers, Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard University, had written that it wasn’t fundamentalism that was the problem, it was Islam itself.

OPINION

Photo: Jacob Zuma (right) with Robert Mugabe (left) during his high-profile visit to Zimbabwe in November 2016. The then President Zuma visited the country to reciprocate his Zimbabwean counterpart Mugabe's trip to South Africa in April 2015 – the first such state visit from Mugabe in over 20 years. Credit: issafrica

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – It’s been an odd couple of months for southern Africa. No one predicted last year that in almost the same breath the long-serving dictator of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, and the super-corrupt president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, would be soon overthrown – and non-violently to boot.

In Zimbabwe the army did trigger Mugabe's demise, but it was a sort of passive coup, a non-violent withdrawal of support. In South Africa Zuma was compelled to stand down as leader of the African National Congress because of a majority vote against him in an assembly of the ANC, the party of black protest against former minority white-led rule. Again, all done non-violently.

OPINION

Image: Snapshot of Vice President Pence at the 2018 Winter Olympics extracted from YouTube. Credit: The White House.

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – How rude can you get? The US vice-president, Mike Pence, sitting one row in front of the sister of the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un refused to turn round and say hi. She was one outstretched arm away from him. For the whole of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics he sat with his back to her.

It didn’t have to be a handshake – unless the lady initiated it – but a pleasant expression and a friendly hello would not only be what mother told all us men to do when meeting a lady, it would a way of saying, "We Americans hope that we can substitute ploughshares for the sword".

OPINION

Photo: U.S. President Donald J. Trump (on screen) addresses the General Assembly’s annual general debate on 19 September 2017 in which he declared: "The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea." Credit: UN Photo/Ariana Lindquist

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – We are soon going to have a clash between President Donald Trump and international law. This is predicable when one examines the presidential discourse over what to do about North Korea and its possession of nuclear-tipped rockets.

He has threatened "fire and fury" which doesn’t sound like the opening words of the UN’s Charter: "We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…..and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained……and for these ends to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours."

OPINION

Photo: U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (here shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before their working dinner at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on February 14, 2017) believes that “Iran seeks dominance in the Middle East and the destruction of our ally, Israel”. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – President Donald Trump said it would never happen. Now it is. During the election he said he did not want more interventions – no more Iraqs, no more Afghanistans,  Libyas or Syrias.

A year into his presidency the American military is involved in all these places and he’s aching to get boots on the ground in North Korea and perhaps even Iran. At least he’s not thinking about it in Ukraine – that would really set the cat among the pigeons.

Last week his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said that waging war in Syria is “crucial to our national defence”. This is a big deal but few seem to be talking about it. The pundits and congressmen are either asleep at the switch or taking a holiday.

OPINION

Photo: President Trump departs from the Pentagon alongside Secretary of Defense James Mattis on Jan. 27, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (DOD photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jette Carr)

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The American secretary of defence, Jim Mattis, has declared a new era: "There has been a return of great power competition ……great power competition – not terrorism – is now the primary focus of U.S. security." In the new national defence strategy document*, unveiled on January 19, China and Russia are singled out as "adversaries".

Although the U.S. is now spending on defence three times as much as China (1.7% of its GNP as against America’s 3.3%), Mattis is worried that the U.S. military advantage over its adversary has eroded "in every domain of warfare". The military, he said, was coping with "inadequate resources" and he called for Congress to appropriate it more billions of dollars.

OPINION

  1. Torture Begets More Brutality
  2. An Encounter with a Star Footballer Now President of Liberia
  3. It's Getting Better Except in Trump's America
  4. The Doomsday Machine by a Damascene Convert
  5. No More Bluster, A Way Out of North Korean Nuclear Crisis

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