Russia Upstages Neo-Colonialist France in West Africa

Going back to the 16th century and continuing through the late 1960s, France was described as the world’s second largest colonial power—just behind the British Empire. As the old saying goes: The sun would never set over the British Empire because God wouldn’t trust an Englishman in the dark. But would that also apply to the French colonial empire?
https://www.ipsnews.net/2023/08/russia-upstages-neo-colonialist-france-west-africa/

Is Big Power Rivalry Threatening to Sink the Indian Ocean Zone of Peace?

A former Indian ambassador once told an American audience that one of the biggest misconceptions about the Indian Ocean is that it belongs to India. “Not so, but we wish we did”, he said, amidst laughter.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2022/02/big-power-rivalry-threatening-sink-indian-ocean-zone-peace/

UN’s Most Powerful Political Body Remains Paralyzed Battling a New Cold War

A new Cold War – this time, between the US and China —is threatening to paralyze the UN’s most powerful body, even as military conflicts and civil wars are sweeping across the world, mostly in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2021/04/uns-powerful-political-body-remains-paralyzed-battling-new-cold-war/

UN Survives a World Turned Upside Down

As the United Nations plans to commemorate its annual UN Day, come October 24, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is presiding over a world body which has remained locked down since last March because of the spreading coronavirus pandemic.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/10/un-survives-world-turned-upside/

India’s Citizenship Law Triggered by Rising Right-Wing Ideology

“Fire bullets at the traitors of the country,” chanted mobs of Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, supporters wrapped in Indian flags in Delhi last week.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/01/indias-citizenship-law-triggered-rising-right-wing-ideology/

Palestinian Children, the True Victims of the Conflict

Over 500 to 700 West Bank children are arrested and prosecuted each year by Israeli military forces. Palestinian child rights organisation, Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP), says that between 2012 and 2017 the organisation represented more than 700 children, some 72 percent of whom endured violence after their arrest.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2018/08/palestinian-children-true-victims-conflict/

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Heads for 50 Years of UN Failure

Come 2017, the United Nations will mark the 50th anniversary of one of the world's longstanding unresolved political problems firmly entrenched on the UN agenda: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict dating back to the Six Day War in June 1967.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2016/12/israeli-palestinian-conflict-heads-for-50-years-of-un-failure/

Trump’s Threat on Multilateral Treaties Keeps UN Guessing

At the height of the US Presidential campaign in early 2015, Republican nominee Donald Trump made a rash of public pronouncements -- some threatening internationally-agreed UN conventions-- which set off political reverberations throughout the United Nations.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2016/11/trumps-threat-on-multilateral-treaties-keeps-un-guessing/

Civil Wars Threaten to Break up a Volatile Middle East

As civil wars and cross-border military conflicts continue to escalate in the Middle East, Syria, Iraq and Libya are in danger of breaking up —even as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) continues to make territorial gains in the volatile region.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2016/03/civil-wars-threaten-to-break-up-a-volatile-middle-east/

Europe Invaded Mostly by “Regime Change” Refugees

The military conflicts and political instability driving hundreds of thousands of refugees into Europe were triggered largely by U.S. and Western military interventions for regime change – specifically in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria (a regime change in-the-making).
https://www.ipsnews.net/2015/09/europe-invaded-mostly-by-regime-change-refugees/

U.S. Ally Yemen in Danger of Splitting into Two – Again

When North and South Yemen merged into a single country under the banner Yemen Arab Republic back in May 1990, a British newspaper remarked with a tinge of sarcasm: "Two poor countries have now become one poor country."
https://www.ipsnews.net/2015/01/u-s-ally-yemen-in-danger-of-splitting-into-two-again/

U.S. Faulted for Undermining Torture Convention

The timing was inadvertently impeccable as two stinging reports on harsh interrogation techniques - by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States and former military regimes in Brazil - were released on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the U.N. Convention Against Torture.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2014/12/us-faulted-for-undermining-torture-convention/

Obama Blasts Brutality and Bullying, but Not by Israel

When U.S. President Barack Obama addressed the U.N. General Assembly Wednesday, he was outspoken in his criticism of Russia for bullying Ukraine, Syria for its brutality towards its own people, and terrorists of all political stripes for the death and destruction plaguing Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Somalia.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2014/09/obama-blasts-brutality-and-bullying-but-not-by-israel/

No Victors or Vanquished in Brutal Gaza Conflict

As the dust - and the gunpowder - settles after the month-long devastating conflict in Gaza, there were apparently no victors or vanquished.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2014/08/no-victors-or-vanquished-in-brutal-gaza-conflict/

Why No Vetoed Resolutions on Civilian Killings in Gaza?

As the civil war in Syria continues into its fourth year, the Western nations sitting on the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) have unsuccessfully tried to condemn the killings of civilians, impose punitive sanctions and accuse the Syrian government of war crimes - in four vetoed and failed resolutions.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2014/07/why-no-vetoed-resolutions-on-civilian-killings-in-gaza/

Israel in Political Isolation Over New Palestinian Government

The United States' decision to "work with" the new Palestinian government has virtually isolated Israel: the only country so far to have publicly rejected the political alliance between Fatah and Hamas.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2014/06/israel-in-political-isolation-over-new-palestinian-government/

Russia Expelled From G8, but G20? Not So Fast

When Western powers, led by the United States, decided to throw Russia out of the Group of 8 (G8) industrial nations, it was aimed at punishing and "isolating" President Vladimir Putin for his intervention in Ukraine and "annexation" of Crimea.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2014/04/russia-expelled-g8-g20-fast/