There has been a constant buildup of military forces by the governments of both India and China along their common frontiers. The Indian province of Arunachal Pradesh (called Zangman by the Chinese) with Itanagar as its capital is claimed by the Chinese. The frontier was drawn in 1914 and is called the McMahon Line. The frontier dispute led to the[Read More…]
24 April 2022 saw renewed violence in the Darfur Provence of Sudan between Arab militias and the indigenous tribes of the area, the Masalit and the Fur. The violence began in 2003 and has caused some 300,000 deaths and some three million displaced. While most of the fighting was when General Omar al-Bashir was President, his overthrow by new military[Read More…]
27 September 2020 marked the start of a renewed armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh among the forces of Azerbaijan, the Armenian-populated Republic of Artsakh, and Armenia. The conflict has provoked a loss of life and the destruction of civilian property. Of the 150,000 persons living in the Republic of Artsakh prior to the start of the fighting, a large percentage[Read More…]
Since the hungry billion in the world community believe that we can all eat if we set our common house in order, they believe also that it is unjust that some men die because it is too much trouble to arrange for them to live. Stringfellow Barr Citizens of the World (1954) World Food Day was set by[Read More…]
Representatives of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe gathered in Geneva on 9 October 2020 but were not able to advance beyond their earlier calls for a ceasefire to be followed by negotiations. The Minsk Group, created in 1994 after the 1992-1994 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan has 11 States as members with[Read More…]
For nearly a half a century — almost as long as the United Nations has been in existence — the General Assembly has recognized the need to establish such a court to prosecute and punish persons responsible for crimes such as genocide. Many thought that the horrors of the Second World War — the camps, the cruelty, the exterminations,[Read More…]
The United Nations General Assembly on 20 October 2010, by resolution A/RES/65/PV.34 designated the first week of February of every year as the World Interfaith Harmony Week between all religions, faiths and beliefs. The General Assembly, building on its efforts for a culture of peace and non-violence, wished to highlight the importance that mutual understanding and inter-religious dialogue[Read More…]
Normandy Format for Russia – Donbas – Ukraine Conflict Resolution Re-activated. Serious Negotiations Still Needed. For the first time in several years, there are realistic possibilities for a negotiated settlement of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine between the Ukrainian government and separatist forces backed by the Russian Federation in which an estimated 13,000 persons have been killed The Normandy[Read More…]
After an extended period of darkening storm clouds, there are signs of hope for tension reduction in two separate but related Persian Guld conflicts: Yemen and Syria. On 20 September 2019, the representatives of the Yemen Ansar Allah Movement (often called al-Houthi) proposed a peace initiative to hold off all their drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia in[Read More…]
Mehran Kamrava. Troubled Waters. Insecurity in the Persian Gulf. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018) The 14 September 2019 drone attacks on oil installations in eastern Saudi Arabia have dimmed hope for U.S. – Iranian discussions aimed to reduce tensions and potentially end the armed conflict in Yemen. Tensions have increased, and oil prices have risen. Certain hopes created[Read More…]
The first act of the Iran Nuclear Accord took eight years. The backdrop kept changing from Geneva to Vienna but the actors were nearly all the same. Except for the representative of the European Union it was an all male, middle-age cast with little comic relief, at least on stage. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, to give the[Read More…]
On 23 July 2019, the Russian Government’s “Collective Security for the Persian Gulf Region” was presented in Moscow by the Deputy Foreign Minister, Mikhail Bogdanov. Bogdanov stated that “The main principles are incrementalism, multilateralism, and strict observation of international law, primarily the U.N. Charter and Security Council resolutions. The looming strategic challenge outlined is creating a holistic mechanism of[Read More…]
World Citizens Call for Renewed Efforts to Resolve Asian Maritime Delimitations Dispute 8 June has been designated by the United Nations General Assembly as the International Day of the Oceans to highlight the important role that the United Nations has played in creating the Law of the Sea Convention. Nevertheless there are maritime delimitation disputes that are currently dangerous and[Read More…]
On 14 and 15 May 2019, revenge violence broke out in a number of towns in Sri Lanka against Muslim shopkeepers by Christians motivated by the Easter Sunday attacks on three Christian churches, two Roman Catholic and one Protestant. The Easter church attacks were carried out by a recently formed militant Muslim militia most of whose members have now been[Read More…]
On 8 May 2019, Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, after a 3-day mission to the Cameroon, welcomed the Cameroon government’s willingness to cooperate over finding workable solutions to what she called “major human rights and humanitarian crises” caused by months of serious unrest and violence across the southwest and north of the country. She said[Read More…]
28 April 1919 can be considered as the birth of the League of Nations. The creation of the League had been on the agenda of the Peace Conference at Versailles, just outside of Paris, from its start in January 1919. The U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was the chief champion of the League. The creation of such an organization was discussed[Read More…]
On Tuesday, 23 April 2019, the United Nations Security Council voted resolution N° 2467 concerning the use of rape as a weapon in times of armed conflict. This resolution builds on an earlier resolution of 24 June 2013 which called for the complete and immediate cessation of all acts of sexual violation by all parties in armed conflicts. The new[Read More…]
“Shall we not learn from life its laws, dynamics, balances? Learn to base our needs not on death, destruction, waste, but renewal?” — Nancy Newhall On 16 April 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump vetoed S.J. Resolution 7 to withdraw U.S. support for the Saudi and United Arab Emirates-led coalition in the war on Yemen. The resolution had passed both houses[Read More…]
International Mother Earth Day on 22 April each year was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2009. Its aim is to promote living in harmony with Nature and to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations. The concept of living in harmony with Nature was seen by the U.N.[Read More…]
On 11 April 2019, the Defense Minister of Sudan, Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf, announced that the President Omar al-Bashir had been removed from office and was under house arrest along with a few members of his inner circle. General Ibn Auf proposed that a transitional body of military and technicians lead the country for a two-year period after which elections[Read More…]
With the administrative-political situation in Libya badly stalemated and a meeting for negotiations to be held 14-16 April unlikely to make progress, on Thursday 4 April 2019, General Khalifa Hafter, one of the key players in the drama decided to start a “March on Tripoli” and to take overall power by force. Most of the significant buildings in Libyan cities[Read More…]
Street demonstrations began in Algiers on 22 February 2019 and quickly spread to other cities in Algeria. The demonstrations, often led by young people, are massive on Fridays, the chief day of rest. The first demands were that President Abdelaziz Boutefika not stand for a fifth term as president having already been president for 20 years since 1999. The demands[Read More…]
26 March 2019 marked the 4th anniversary of thee start of the Saudi Arabia-led armed intervention into Yemen. The purpose of the war has been lost in the sands of the war. However, the necessary negotiations in good faith to end the war have not taken place. There have been limited negotiations under the leadership of United Nations mediators. The[Read More…]
May the soul flourish; May youth be as the new-grown grain Navroz, usually celebrated on 21 March in Iran and Central Asia, is the “New Day”, the end of the old year with its hardships and deceptions and the start of the New Year to be filled with hope and optimism. With each periodical festival, the participants find the same[Read More…]
Decide to Network, use every letter you write, every conversation you have, every meeting you attend to express your fundamental beliefs and dreams, affirm to others the vision of the world you want. In a world of big powers, big media and monopolies, networking is a new freedom, the new democracy, a new form of happiness. Robert Muller Robert[Read More…]
One of the major voices of the spirit of nonviolence is Romain Rolland. He is the symbol of those who would not let war destroy the cultural bridges between peoples, especially during the 1914-1918 World War. Romain Rolland came from a French family with many generations in the legal profession. However, from his secondary school days on, his interest was[Read More…]
Dr Denis Mukwege has created a clinic near Bukavu in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. The eastern area of Congo is the scene of fighting at least since 1998 – in part as a result of the genocide in neighboring Rwanda in 1994. In mid-1994, more than one million Rwandan Hutu refugees poured into the two Kivu provinces. Many[Read More…]
On Friday, 9 November 2018, at the invitation of the Russian Government and under the chairmanship of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov began what has been called “The Moscow Format” to end the armed conflicts and to find appropriate structures of governance in Afghanistan. Present for the first time were representatives of the Afghanistan High Peace Council – a[Read More…]
To dream of vast horizons of the Soul Through dreams made whole, Unfettered free – help me! Help me make our world anew. Langston Hughes The United Nations remains the only universally representative and comprehensively empowered body the world has to deal with challenges to the security and welfare of the world society. However, the awareness of these challenges grows[Read More…]
On October 29, 2018, the Supreme Court of Pakistan reversed the decision of lower courts sentencing to death Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of four for blasphemy. After 3,422 days of imprisonment in solitary confinement, the Supreme Court reversed a 2010 lower court verdict. Asia Bibi is now in seclusion and will probably leave the country as some 60 persons[Read More…]
The co-laureate of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, Denis Mukwege, has become an eloquent spokesperson for the effort to outlaw the use of rape as a weapon of war. Rape has often been considered as a nearly normal part of war. When an army took a city or town, the rape of women followed, a reward to brave soldiers. Military[Read More…]
Since the hungry billion in the world community believe that we can all eat if we set our common house in order, they believe also that it is unjust that some men die because it is too much trouble to arrange for them to live. Stringfellow Barr Citizens of the World (1954) The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (2015-2030) aims[Read More…]
The Government of Nauru, the small Pacific island State, has expelled the medical and psychological personnel of the international non-governmental organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) on Sunday 7 October. The Government gave no explanation for its actions, but relations with the NGO have been difficult in the 11 months that MSF has been working there. It is likely that the Government feared[Read More…]
Joseph E. Schwartzberg. Transforming the United Nations System: Designs for a Workable World (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2013, 364pp.) In Memory of Joseph Schwartzberg who died on 19 September 2018 There have been a number of periods when proposals for new or different United Nations structures were proposed. The first period was in 1944-1945 when the U.N. Charter was[Read More…]
When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States (1933-1945) in his January 6, 1941 State of the Union address to Congress presented the “Four Freedoms”, much of the world was at war: German troops were advancing in Europe as were the Japanese armies in China. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) said then “ I suppose that[Read More…]
On 12 July 2018, the United Nations General Assembly agreed to the text of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration after more than a year of discussions among Member States, non-governmental organizations, academic specialists on migration issues as well as interviews with migrants and refugees. imm01_400The discussion had gained visibility in September 2016 at the U.N. General[Read More…]
The summit meeting in Singapore on 12 June of President Donald Trump of the United States and Kim Jong-un, Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was a highly significant meeting, facilitated by a good number of diplomatic efforts, in particular that of Moon Jae-in, President of South Korea as well as[Read More…]
There are two major issues today that the League of Nations did not have to face. Thus when the League was reincarnated in 1945 as the United Nations, no one considered how to structure appropriate responses. The major political issue today is the disintegration of Member States. The second major issue is the ecological and social consequences of global warming.[Read More…]
At the heart of this growing phenomenon of mass violence and social disintegration is a crisis of values. Perhaps the most fundamental loss a society can suffer is the collapse of its own value system. Many societies exposed to protracted conflicts have seen their community values radically undermined if not shattered altogether. This has given rise to an ethical[Read More…]
The holding of the Winter Olympics in South Korea from February 9 to 25, followed by the Paralympics on March 9-18, may be an opportunity to undertake negotiations in good faith to reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula and to establish, or re-establish, forms of cooperation between the two Korean governments. Such negotiations in good faith would be in[Read More…]
The flight on 23 November 2017 of Igor Plotinitsky, President of the separatist Ukrainian area of the Lugansk People’s Republic is a sign of the continuing difficulties of developing appropriate forms of constitutional government in the Ukraine. Plotinitsky was in open conflict with his “Minister of the Interior” Igor Konet whom he had fired but who refused to give[Read More…]
The battle for Raqqa, a symbolic city for the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria is underway with ever-increasing dangers to civilian populations caught in the cross-fire of ISIS and the advancing Kurd-led Syrian Democratic Forces, supported by air strikes of the US-led coalition. The United Nations Secretariat has raised an alarm concerning the fate of families held by the[Read More…]
The first foreign visit of the new French President Emmanuel Macron, after a now habitual trip to Berlin, was to Gao in northern Mali as head of the French military. The visit was an attempt to be seen as paying attention to the efforts of French troops in operations in northern Mali and other states of the Sahel region of[Read More…]
There have been over the years since the 1953 armistace periodic increases of tensions related to the policies of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Currently, the nuclear program and missile launches of North Korea, the establishment of sophisticated anti-missile systems in South Korea, increased sanctions against North Korea voted[Read More…]
The United Nations (UN) together with the governments of Sweden and Switzerland which have often led humanitarian issues in the UN system held a high-level pledging conference in Geneva on April 25, 2017 to again draw attention to the deepening humanitarian crisis in war-torn Yemen, currently the largest food security emergency in the world. Some 60% of the population[Read More…]
The United Nations is currently preparing a world conference 5-7 June 2017 devoted to the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal N° 14: Conserve and sustainable use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development. Non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the U.N. are invited to submit recommendations for the governmental working group which is meeting 24 to 27 April[Read More…]
On 19 September 2016, the UN General Assembly held a one-day Summit on « Addressing Large Movements o Refugees and Migrants » – a complex of issues which have become important and emotional issues in many countries. Restrictive migration policies deny many migrants the possibility of acquiring a regular migrant status, and as a result, the migrants end up being[Read More…]
US to send long-range ATACMS missile to Ukraine 
In Jawan, Shah Rukh Khan makes us an offer we can refuse 
Nijjar affair poses an existential dilemma 
On the Brink of Famine 
Appeal to withdraw the notification for the public hearing for the proposed Sijimali Bauxite Mining Project 
“Making a thriller from grain” 
Key Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) Likely To Collapse In 2025-2095 
Global Biofuel Alliance at G20: Land vs Water vs Food Security- Has the government addressed the trade-offs? 
The Nijjar Murder and Indian Government’s alleged “involvement”: Reactions and Reflections 
France Will Pull Out Its Diplomats And Military From Niger, Says Macron 
Imperial Footprints in Africa: The Dismal Role of AFRICOM 
Hunger in Africa has its roots in a History of Colonialism and Neo-colonialism 
The Climate March: Magnificent and Misdirected 
Imagining a Progressive Pentagon 
“Lost Voices of Fentanyl” Rally at the White House 
Indian Government Must First Evict Dalai Lama & his Followers before Admonishing Canada for Separatist Activities 
Peasant-rebels: lineages of insurgency 
Mission to Free Assange: Australian Parliamentarians in Washington 
Bayer-ICAR Collaboration Raises Serious Concerns Regarding Indian Farm Policy 
Place of Minorities as Allotted by Savarkar, Golwalkar and Upadhyaya 
What is in the name? Attempt to stop the usage of ‘India’ by the Government 
Poona Pact: A Reappraisal 
Hate Speech Inside Parliament: Reaching a New Low 
Criminal Justice And Freedom of Speech 
75,000 Climate Protesters Marched In New York With Demand To End Fossil Fuels 
On the Dark Side of the Moon.. 
Avoiding the War on Terror would have saved over 10 million lives at home and abroad 
The Angertainer Steps Down: Rupert Murdoch’s Non-Retirement 
Climate Emergency Update, September 2023 
My appeal to Meta’s Oversight Board: Palestinian political and resistance organizations & individuals are not “terrorists” as classified by Israel 
Artificial Intelligence: Profit Versus Freedom 
How Can We Understand the Passage of Time? 
Pre- and Post-Soviet Language Policy in the East-Baltic States 
Breadcrumb 
Three Indian Movies win TIFF 2023 Awards 
Ukrainian president holds crisis talks in Washington amid failure of “spring offensive” 
Zelensky Faces Difficult Time In Washington D.C. 
Stumbling Towards Old Age And Looking for Someone to Lean On 
Tolstoy’s Dilemma 
Ukraine Peace Activists Protest During Zelensky White House Visit 
My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
