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SYNDICATION
By SWAN
PARIS (IDN-INPS) – Fans of African art in France have been spoilt for choice this year, with an abundance of exhibitions around the country, particularly in the capital Paris
During the spring, Art Paris Art Fair featured Africa as its “guest of honour”, with works from all over the continent, while the Louis Vuitton Foundation dedicated its vast space to art from South Africa and other countries in the region.
Paintings, sculptures and photographs have all been on view, with established and emerging artists showcased. The highlights of the year so far include the thrilling Also Known as Africa (AKAA) art and design fair and the highly praised exhibition of photographs by Malian icon Malick Sidibé, titled Mali Twist and running until Febuary 25, 2018.
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - When, soon after the election, President Barack Obama invited Donald Trump to the White House we didn't learn much about their conversation. But we were briefed on one thing: Obama had told Trump that North Korea would be the most pressing and difficult issue on his agenda.
How right that was. But the Americans have missed the boat. It's as simple as that. What’s done is done. While Washington has dithered and dithered through three successive presidencies, missing opportunity after opportunity, North Korea has gone from zero nuclear weapons to an arsenal of at least 20. Its test of an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile, in the early hours of November 29, is said to be capable of striking the U.S. It doesn't have a nuclear tip yet but that will come sometime in the next two or three years.
By Jamshed Baruah
GENEVA (IDN | UNFOLD ZERO) – Amid menacing tensions between the United States and North Korea in the aftermath of Pyongyang testing a long-range missile that is potentially capable of hitting the entire mainland U.S., young academics and activists from around the world are asking world leaders to reduce the risks of nuclear weapons being deployed and to support United Nations initiatives for nuclear disarmament, including the High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament to take place in 2018.
The appeal – Reach High for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World – was issued at the conclusion of a three-day conference (November 27-29) in Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic. It was organised by the Youth Network of Abolition 2000, a global civil society network to eliminate nuclear weapons.
By Daryl G. Kimball
Daryl G. Kimball is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. This article first appeared with the caption 'Step Back From the Nuclear Brink'.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN-INPS) - Over the past year, cavalier and reckless statements from President Donald Trump about nuclear weapons and his threat to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea have heightened fears about Cold War-era policies and procedures that put the authority to launch nuclear weapons in his hands alone.
Partially in response, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, for the first time since 1976, held a hearing on the “executive’s authority to use nuclear weapons.” The November 14 hearing should be just the start of a process that leads to changes that reduce the risk of nuclear miscalculation and establishes that the United States will not be the first to use nuclear weapons.
Viewpoint by David Krieger*
SANTA BARBARA | USA (IDN-INPS) - The future of the world and of humanity is at the mercy of a lunatic. His name is Donald Trump, and he alone has access to the U.S. nuclear codes. Before he does something rash and irreversible with those codes, it is imperative to decode Donald, taking the necessary steps to remove this power from him.
Trump tweeted on December 16, 2016: "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes."
What good would a greatly strengthened and expanded nuclear capability do for the U.S.? We can already end civilization and most life on the planet with the use of our nuclear arsenal. The U.S. has nearly 7,000 nuclear weapons, with more than 1,500 of them deployed and ready for use.
Viewpoint by David Krieger*
SANTA BARBARA | USA (IDN-INPS) - The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has been working to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life for 35 years. We were one of many nuclear disarmament organizations created in the early 1980s, in our case in 1982. Some of these organizations have endured; some have not.
We were founded on the belief that peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age, that nuclear weapons must be abolished, and that the people of the world must lead their leaders to achieve these goals. As a founder of the organization, and as its president since its founding, it now seems an appropriate time to look back and reflect on the changes that have occurred over the past 35 years.
- David Krieger
- OPINION
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) - Timing is everything. Dear Reader you’re right. If I was going to write on the conviction in a UN court of General Ratko Mladic I should have done it last week when the court sentenced him to life imprisonment for the mass murder of a significant part of Bosnia’s Muslim population during the civil wars in ex-Yugoslavia.
But does a week here or a week there matter when it has taken the ridiculous time of 22 years from the horrific event in Srebrenica, when 7,000 Muslim men were rounded up and slaughtered, to conviction? It was 16 years from the end of the war and 6 years from the date of his capture. The trial in Nuremberg of ex-Nazi leaders took only a year and took place immediately after the end of the Second World War.
By John Dramani Mahama and Siddharth Chatterjee
John Dramani Mahama is the former President of the Republic of Ghana. (Follow him on twitter.) Siddharth Chatterjee is the UN Resident Coordinator to Kenya. (Follow him on twitter.)
ACCCRA | NAIROBI (IDN-INPS) - In July 2017, Spanish charity workers rescued 167 migrants arriving from Africa aboard a small boat.
2016 was the deadliest for migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean, with at least 3800 deaths recorded. Most know the dangers they face on the route, yet still choose the possibility of death in overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels over the hopelessness of life in areas they reside.
Viewpoint by Alemayehu G. Mariam
The writer is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, a constitutional lawyer and Senior Editor of the International Journal of Ethiopian Studies. The source of this article is Pambazuka News, which republished it on November 23. It first appeared in The Hill. The views in the following article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of IDN-INPS editorial team. – The Editor
SAN BERNARDINO, California, USA (IDN-INPS) – Despite its apparently new interest in preserving democracy, for 37 years the military was an indispensable part of a fossilized oligarchy which betrayed the "revolution" and bankrupted Zimbabwe. Sadly, any post-Mugabe civilian government could only exist if it makes a Faustian bargain with the military.
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