NOTE! This site uses cookies and similar technologies.

If you do not change browser settings, you agree to the use of cookies.

I understand

IDN-InDepthNews

 

CENTRAL ASIA

   

 

Acronym of the Year

    

UN INSIDER

Individual Journalists

Photo: Vladimir Putin meets with U.S. President Barack Obama in New York City, 29 September 2015. CC BY 4.0

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

Under Obama the spirit of cooperation had nearly all gone. But President Donald Trump wants to bring the era of goodwill back again. Unfortunately, because of his erratic leadership, no one is quite sure whether to trust him. Moreover, he says one thing about friendship with Russia while his Administration increases sanctions and does a go-slow on arms control.

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Two mistakes, committed on President Barack Obama's watch, were the triggers for the end of the long post-Cold War period of good relations with Russia. They were the attack on Libya by the U.S., France and the UK and the subsequent killing of its long-time dictator, Muammar Gadhafi. The second was the crisis in Ukraine.

OPINION

Image: Moses's army in the land now called Palestine attacked its resident tribes including the Midianites. Following their defeat, Moses told his victorious generals, God was ordering him to kill all the women and their young sons. The watercolor by James Tissot at the Jewish Museum, New York, shows 'The Women of Midian Led Captive by the Hebrews'. Credit; Wikimedia Commons.

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Recall Shakespeare's great work of dramatic art, the Merchant of Venice, where Shylock was treated as an unpleasant Jew (with a lovely, self-effacing daughter) who dealt mainly in shady usury.

His speech to the court is one of Shakespeare’s most remembered:

“Hath not a Jew eyes? / Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? /If you prick us, do we not bleed? /If you tickle us do we not laugh? /If you poison us, do we not die? /And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

But what if we substitute Palestinian for Jew? Viz: "Hath not a Palestinian eyes?" and so on. …

OPINION

Photo: Khan at a political rally in Peshawar in 1996. CC BY-SA 3.0

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – I haven't played cricket with Imran Khan, the newly elected prime minister of Pakistan, but I did interview him back in 2005 when only a rare foreign journalist was interested in him despite his fame as having been the world’s best cricketer. Now he has won a handsome political victory.

We did talk about Kashmir, the number one foreign policy issue then and today. He didn’t think the Indian government of that time, when Manmohan Singh was prime minister, was strong enough to make a deal. On the Pakistani side he didn't think an army man could do it despite the army's large influence on politics. He went on to say, "a civilian prime minister could do it if a real leader emerged like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto" (who was prime minister in the 1960s). Maybe he meant himself.

OPINION

Photo credit: donaldjtrump.com

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – Russian president Vladimir Putin has been in a benign mood after a perfectly organized World Cup which gave Russians and foreigners the rare freedom to mass in the street. In response the world TV audience has looked at Russia with new eyes. Maybe there’s a new Russia coming to the boil which, if the West could seize the chance, could help the two countries make a pot of very tasty and good tea! Maybe.

The Donald Trump/Vladimir Putin encounter is as convoluted as they come.

OPINION

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

  1. No Harm to be Polite When Dealing with North Korea
  2. Trump Might Well Break International Law Over North Korea
  3. Trump Appears to be Getting Ready to Wage War in Syria
  4. Mattis-Trump Duo Uncovers China and Russia as US Adversaries
  5. Torture Begets More Brutality

Page 1 of 2

Search