Negotiating Solutions to the Senkaku-Diaoyu Conflict

Sound has been travelling faster than light in China, Japan and Taiwan lately, as political, religious, and economic leaders use a lingering conflict for their own domestic political interests.

OP-ED: Polio Eradication – A Reflection on the Darfur Campaign

It was early July 2004, and Darfur was looking like a war zone - massive human displacements of an estimated one million people, ongoing skirmishes, inclement weather, a parched landscape due to the recurring droughts, and sheer misery everywhere.

The World Needs Healthier Food Oils

For half a century cardiovascular disease has been the largest killer in Western countries, but recently it has started to dominate the health statistics in the South as well. In India coronary heart disease is already the biggest killer, and strokes are about to rise to second place. Globally, cardiovascular disease now kills about 17 million people a year, and a growing number of people are having heart attacks or strokes as early as their 40s or 50s.

Q&A: “The Children Take on an Artist’s Lovely Identity, from a Young Age”

Venezuela’s youth symphony orchestras that have enamoured audiences on several continents are a social programme aimed at fighting poverty and marginalisation, more than an artistic endeavour, says the founder of the initiative, José Antonio Abreu.

Q&A: ‘Mismatch Between Commitments and Action on Biodiversity’

The eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 11 CBD) approaches amidst a hailstorm of public protest against the ‘tragedy of the commons’ – the rapid loss of biodiversity in forests, oceans and indigenous community farmlands.

Q&A: UN Urges Men to Join Call to Action to End Violence against Women

“We have to expand the sense of urgency and indignation towards gender violence,” Dr. Ana Güezmes, UN-Women regional director for Mexico, Central America, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, told IPS on a recent visit to the Cuban capital.

A Photo with Reagan for the Sovereignty of Costa Rica

As part of the research for a book on Central America's tragic 30-year war, which lasted until 1987, I consulted recently-declassified official U.S. government documents with the expectation that 25 years later it would be possible to make known the facts surrounding the so-called Iran-Contra affair and the policy of then-President Ronald Reagan.

Money Versus Health: the Yasuni Story

In 2007 Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, sponsored the Yasuni Initiative to end oil prospecting in the vast Yasuni National Park, thereby preventing some 400 million tonnes of carbon emissions, if the international community or the United Nations would compensate Ecuador for half of the unrealised oil revenues (an estimated 13 billion dollars over 13 years).

Q&A: Colombia’s FARC Guerrillas “Took Up Arms to Make Ourselves Heard”

It's hard to imagine her in guerrilla fatigues, carrying a 25-kg backpack and firing shots to repel an enemy attack, or diving for cover from aerial bombardment. She is known as Sandra Ramírez, and she has left the field of battle in Colombia to come to the Cuban capital to talk peace.

Multilateralism is at a Crossroads

Multilateralism is at a crossroads. This is a crucial matter for environmental and sustainability issues, as we have seen in the Rio+20 Summit, and for trade and other economic matters. The G20 Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, focused precisely on improving our collective response to the current economic turbulence, which is at the heart of developments in the European Union (EU) as well.

Lessons From a Unique Decade

The fight against poverty and hunger cannot waste time, nor disdain any scales of action. Public and private initiatives are critical and must include both family farming and so-called agribusiness. It is up to governments and international cooperation to harmonise this collective economic effort and to ensure that bigger harvests translate into increased food security for the needy.

OP-ED: Small Justice for a Small State

Rule of law is the foundation of governance. Societies, from their inception, have had their own set of rules, norms and boundaries, to govern their lives for themselves and their relationship with others. Applied by the governors unto the governed, this universal tenet applies to all of us in the family of humanity. The fundamental application of laws creates societies and paves the way for civilisation, making it the litmus test between barbarism and civilisation.

The Atlantic Ties

The growing importance of the Pacific rim has been a dominant narrative of recent years. One reason is the entrance of Chinese interests into Latin America and growing economic ties between Asia and the U.S. and Europe. The feverish mythology of globalisation also contributed to advancing this transformational tale. The Pentagon is positioning the bulk of its fleet in Pacific ports as if it expected another Pearl Harbour.

Will India Still Supply Cheap Drugs to the World?

India may be famous for the Taj Mahal, its religious ceremonies, Bollywood films and one of the highest economic growth rates in recent years. But more importantly, India has had a positive global impact through its supply of vast quantities of low-cost, good-quality generic medicines, which have saved or prolonged millions of lives.

Q&A: Guatemala’s Bold Attorney General Makes a Dent in Impunity

Since Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey became attorney general in Guatemala in 2010, a string of crimes involving military personnel who fought leftwing guerrillas, drug traffickers and organised crime have been cleared up.

World Rejects European Fine on Aviation C02 Emissions

Since January 2012, aviation has been included in the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) that requires aircraft operators to surrender one allowance per tonne of carbon-dioxide emitted on a flight to and from (and within) the EU. This covers passenger, cargo and non-commercial flights and applies no matter where an aircraft operator is based.

OP-ED: Arab Democracies and the West

Anti-Western protests across the Arab Islamic world denouncing the anti-Islam video, reportedly produced in the United States, is a serious test for the new democratic governments in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and elsewhere.

Q&A: “Pacification of Favelas Not a Real Public Policy Yet”

The “pacification” of the favelas in this Brazilian city, aimed at driving out armed groups and fighting drug trafficking, has not yet become a fully effective public policy, says Eliana Sousa Silva, who has lived in one of Rio’s shantytowns for nearly 30 years.

Climate talks at new crossroads

The global climate change negotiations are at a new crossroads, as evident after the latest round of meetings that ended in Bangkok on Sep. 7.

OP-ED: MEXICO-U.S.: La Caravana Has Arrived

On Monday, after a month-long trek across the United States, a caravan of victims of violence in Mexico made its way to Washington, D.C.

OP-ED: Women and Girls at Heart of the Blue Revolution

World Water Week recently concluded in Stockholm with a special emphasis on the linkages between water and food security.