Individual Journalists

Photo: A political Advocacy Road show for reelection of Buhari, led by Dr. Ramatu Tijjani Aliyu, a foremost Buhari loyalist, who is also a member of the Presidential Campaign Council and the National Women Leader of the Presidential Support Committee. Credit: Vanguard.

Buhari, If Reelected, Could Put Nigeria Back On Track

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Nigeria is a veritable factory of sophisticated novelists. It was no surprise that Ben Okri won the British Booker Prize that goes annually to the best novelist of the year.

Considering that high-class novel writing in English only began in Nigeria in 1958 with Chinua Achebe’s famous work, “Things Fall Apart”, now a classic, it has come a long way in a short time. Will Nigeria move at a similar speed with its economy and banish poverty as it once promised to?

: Jonathan Power; THE WORLD; Africa; 12 February 2019

Photo: Global prosperity is at its highest level in the 12-year history of the Legatum Index. Only in the U.S. do we see a significant setback in such good fortune. Tragically for many, under Trump, it is going to get worse. Credit: Legatum Institute.

Global Prosperity Rises, Inequality Haunts The U.S.

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Every so often reports emerge that attempt to measure which are the best countries to live in. The Nordic countries plus New Zealand, Holland and Switzerland, usually come out on top. Sweden is number one just for the sheer stability of life and security. Denmark is seen as the most agreeable place to live. The highest rate of longevity is found in Japan. The best schools are in Finland, New Zealand and Canada. Political and press freedom put the Nordics at the top of the league.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 05 February 2019

Photo: 2019 Missile Defense Review. Credit: Defense News Weekly.

Time Is Running Out For Sensible Decision-Making On Missile Defences

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The number of nuclear weapons possessed by the U.S. and Russia is a fraction of what it was during the height of the Cold War. Successive presidents on both sides, since the time of John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, have feared their destructive power. The supposed value of nuclear arsenal, so called Mutually Assured Destruction, known by its capitals, MAD, is in fact valueless. They cannot be used, and nearly everyone accepts that.

Yet they continue to exist and, as President Mikhail Gorbachev and his ally in nuclear arms control, President Ronald Reagan, both said, there is the fear of a false alarm or two errant officers in the silo entering simultaneously their keys, which allows the firing of the rocket.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 29 January 2019

Photo: A group of demobilized child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2000-2007). Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

DR Congo Is Rotting From Within

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The Algerian philosopher and revolutionary writer, Frantz Fanon, wrote: “Africa is shaped like a gun, and Congo is its trigger. If that explosive trigger bursts, the whole of Africa will explode.”

The Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa’s largest country, is now caught up in the aftermath of its first proper election since independence from Belgium in 1960. Towards the end of last year one could say, after years of non-stop wars and massive carnage, the country was 90 percent bereft of fighting.

The authoritarian regime of President Joseph Kabila was still in power but at last it had been pressured to call an election by the African Union, the Western aid-givers, some of the big Western businesses that mine in the mineral-rich country and, not least, the Catholic Church.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 22 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: 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

Photo: Portraits of King Salman and Prince Mohammed in Jenadriyah. CC BY-SA 4.0.

The U.S. Is Apparently At The Mercy Of Saudi Arabia

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman remains at large, the unapologetic murderer (according to the CIA) of the respected dissident journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. Even though President Donald Trump came close to accusing him of the deed, he has pulled back, citing Saudi Arabia’s importance as an oil producer and arms buyer.

The Prime Minister of the UK, Theresa May, is too preoccupied with Brexit to want to give up an important market. President Emanuel Macron of France is silent after an initial outburst. Now pressed by the demands of the demonstrators, he also wants to keep sources of revenue that come from sales of jets.

: Jonathan Power; THE WORLD; Middle East & North Africa; 01 January 2019

Photo: President Joseph Kabila Kabange of the Democratic Republic of the Congo addresses the seventy-third session of the United Nations General Assembly on 25 September 2018. UN Photo/Cia Pak

UN Intervention In The Congo Appears To Be Successful

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The general election in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) has been postponed yet again – to December 30. Will this country, the largest and potentially the richest in Africa, ever escape from its continuous dictatorship, and its propensity to civil war? It’s not so long ago that Susan Rice, then the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was talking about the Congo as the site of “Africa’s First World War”.

Has the UN at long last really pacified this country that has been continuously in a state of unrest since the Belgian colonisers, after effectively looting the country, fled in 1960, turning the country over to a hastily improvised African government?

: Jonathan Power; THE WORLD; Africa; 25 December 2018

Image source: Democracy without Borders; Freedom House report for 2018.

Democracy Has Hit An Iceberg

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – In the Western world there is a constant debate about democracy. In the U.S. the Democrats charge quite correctly that the House’s constituencies are gerrymandered against them. Then there’s the insoluble issue of the Senate’s anti-democratic bias where its numbers are tilted against the Democrats by the fact that rural, less populated, states which tend to be conservative, elect two senators, just as do the Democratic-inclined, heavily populated, states.

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 18 December 2018

Photo: Manchester Brexit protest for Conservative conference, October 1, 2017. CC BY-SA 4.0

UK's May Should Announce a New Referendum Immediately

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – The whole debate about Brexit has had a weird quality about it from beginning to end. Prime Minister Theresa May voted in the referendum two and half years ago to remain in the European Union but then as a quid pro quo for being made prime minister she has led the charge to implement Brexit.

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, voted to remain but has made it clear that he too prefers out, albeit keeping the UK in the Customs Union.