Categories
Geopolitics The Endless War

Middle East, Of Political Dead-Ends And Scientific Hopes

-Analysis- Will the world’s oldest conflict ever be resolved? There have been a few fleeting occasions over the past 25 years when both Israelis and Palestinians appeared eager to negotiate, and a solution seemed within reach. Alas these are now mere memories — so distant that their effects have largely worn off. Perhaps there has […]

Categories
Geopolitics Ideas Terror in Europe

Who’s Left Behind In New Global Arms Race? Old Europe

France has long been the only country in continental Europe to invest in its military. Though others are now reacting to new threats, it may be too little too late.

Categories
Ideas Syria Crisis

New Monday, New World: Russia Is In Charge

Well that was quite a first weekend. After Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday, an estimated two million people took to the streets worldwide to protest against the controversial new president, who continued his open warfare with the American press — and some would say, with the truth itself. Now, he faces a first work week […]

Categories
In The News

Santos, An Awkward Nobel Peace Prize

The committee that awards the Nobel Peace Prize does not approach its task the way the Academy assigns the Oscars. The Nobel is not a trophy to crown an achievement as much as a message … or more precisely, a “shot in the arm.” The Nobel committee has long made it clear that they choose […]

Categories
Geopolitics Ideas

Will A FARC Political Party Turn Colombia Into Another Venezuela?

-OpEd- BOGOTÁ — On Sunday, Colombians will decide whether to ratify a peace deal that makes the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, lay down their arms. But if that happens, what will the future of FARC look like? Will it become a socialist party like the one that has driven Venezuela into an […]

Categories
Ideas

How FARC Deal Could Change The Way Colombians Treat Each Other

Decades of war between FARC guerrillas and the government seem to have made aggression a widespread social trait in Colombia that’s reflected in cases of domestic violence, bullying at school and a tendency to talk tough. The peace deal could help

Categories
blog

Local Daily Names Cost Of War As Colombian Peace Deal Signed

El Tiempo — Sept. 26, 2016 “Peace after 267,162 dead,” declares the stark headline on the front page of newspaper El Tiempo on Monday as Colombia gets ready for a historic accord between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The Latin American country has seen war for 52 years in a […]

Categories
blog

Making Peace — Video Quote Of The Day

Categories
Geopolitics Society

Women Always Lose In War — That’s Why They Can Help End Them

Negotiators working to end Colombia’s decades-long civil war are seeing women as a critical component of lasting social and political peace.

Categories
blog

April 10

Categories
blog

ISIS Loses Ramadi, Comfort Women Restitution, Fictional Refugees

IRAQI FORCES RECLAIM CENTRAL RAMADI An Iraqi military official said this morning that government forces had “fully liberated” Ramadi, which fell to ISIS last May in an embarrassing defeat. Government forces have been trying to retake the city, the capital of the Anbar province, for weeks. But another official was quick to say that while […]

Categories
Geopolitics Ideas Society

Dalai Lama: “We Must Dialogue With ISIS”

BANGALORE — Here in the Indian capital of global call centers, the Dalai Lama was the feature guest at the Arab-Asian Chamber of Commerce” Peace for Economy conference. In an interview with La Stampa on the sidelines of the conference, the highest authority of Tibetan Buddhism extended an olive branch to the West’s current Enemy […]

Categories
Ideas The Endless War

Twenty Years On, Yitzhak Rabin’s Vision For Peace Is Gone Forever

With renewed violence raging between Palestinians and Israelis, and an international community caught up with other conflicts, the two-state solution is all but dead and buried. Another reason to mourn the Israeli leader, assassinated Nov. 4, 1995.

Categories
Society

In The Name Of Peace, Kabul Artists Beautify War-Torn Walls

KABUL — Eyes are always described as a symbol of beauty in art and eastern literature, but the two eyes painted on a wall in Kabul’s Share New neighborhood have literally beautified an ugly security wall. And in this case, eyes are used as a symbol of monitoring corruption. These “we are watching” eyes were created by the ArtLords, a group of young creatives who paint war-torn walls across the city of Kabul. “We have been facing cultural and social problems in Afghanistan, and art has never been used to solve disputes,” says the group’s leader Kabir Mokamel. “Instead force […]

Categories
Geopolitics Ideas

Is Israel Using Brazil To Test Waters Of A One-State Solution?

A showdown over Israel’s choice for ambassador to Brazil, pro-settlements leader Dani Dayan, shows the Netanyahu government may be set to abandon the two-state solution that has promised Palestinians a homeland.

Categories
blog

Colombian President, Rebels Set ‘Deadline For Peace’

El Tiempo, Sept. 24, 2015 Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and rebel leader Timoleón Jiménez of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) agreed Wednesday on a “deadline for peace,” promising to end the country’s half-century-long civil war within six months, Colombia’s daily El Tiempo reports. The two men sealed the deal with a historic […]

Categories
Geopolitics

The Muslim Brotherhood In Ruins, Split Between Peace And Jihad

The bloody dispersal of Cairo’s sit-ins two years ago marked a decisive end to the Muslim Brotherhood’s political ascendancy. The group now is in crisis, its membership divided over its ultimate direction.

Categories
blog

Grexit Chances Grow, Jeb Bush To Announce, Jurassic Wins Weekend

GREXIT BECOMES MORE LIKELY Greece is edging closer to default and a potential Eurozone exit after talks with international creditors broke down once again late yesterday, The Guardian reports. Tensions with Berlin appear to be ratcheting up after the parliamentary leader of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party said, “Greece needs to get back to reality.” […]

Categories
Geopolitics Ideas

Israel Election And The World: Netanyahu Or An End To Isolation?

-OpEd- PARIS — With just days to go before the Israeli election, it becomes increasingly difficult to predict who will win the race. The latest polls show the center-left Zionist Union candidates Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni leading over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ruling Likud party. Of course, the country’s proportional system means […]

Categories
Geopolitics Ideas

Why A Ceasefire Alone Will Not Bring Peace To Colombia

Despite FARC declaring a ceasefire, peace won’t come to Colombia until warring parties in decades of civil war admit to all the people they’ve kidnapped, tortured and killed.

Categories
Geopolitics

Inside Geneva’s Secret “Guerrilla Convention”

A Swiss NGO convenes representatives of 35 rebel groups in Geneva to talk about the mechanics, and great difficulties, of respecting humanitarian laws when fighting civil wars.

Categories
blog

Meet The Matriarch Who Lost 14 Family Members In Colombia’s Civil War

Carmen Tulia Ortega recently came face-to-face with a former paramilitary chief responsible for some of the deaths of her loved ones. No, she did not forgive him.

Categories
Geopolitics

Lech Walesa: Here’s How To Handle Putin

The Polish Solidarity leader and Nobel Peace Prize Winner offers a combative vision for how Europe can stand up to Moscow. He speaks from experience.

Categories
Geopolitics Syria Crisis

A Post-Westphalian Caliphate? Deconstructing ISIS Ambitions

CAIRO — Since the group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) declared a caliphate, much has been written about the movement — but still more remains unclear. How seriously should we take their rise? How does ISIS define Islamic law, and how would it be implemented? There are also more basic […]

Categories
Ideas The Endless War

How This War Could Put Gaza On The Road To Peace

If you’re ever in Gaza and have the time for a museum visit, pop by the Al-Mathaf Hotel. Here in dusty glass showcases you’ll find treasures on display dating back to the days when this coastal area was still one of the ancient world’s major trade centers. Tempora mutantur (times change) — the wealth of the Philistines is well in the past: Gaza today is about misery, war and death. The Palestinian strip of coastland has become a cipher for an apparently unsolvable conflict. For decades this small scrap of land has been thrown back and forth between powers, administered […]

Categories
Geopolitics

Intifada 3.0: How The West Bank Changes Gaza Calculus

Palestinian Authority President Abbas surprised some by backing Hamas. But it is growing protests among youth in Ramallah that may have the real power to make a change.

Categories
Geopolitics

Japan’s Quiet Return To Global Weapons Market

As President Obama arrives on an Asian tour, yet another sign that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to undo Japan’s pacifist policies that are a vestige of World War II.

Categories
Geopolitics Ideas

Kerry’s Faults: 4 Errors That Undermined Middle East Peace

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had high hopes of bringing the Israelis and Palestinians together, but fell into the same traps as other would-be saviors of the Middle East of the past.

Categories
Geopolitics Ideas

The Price Of War And Amnesia In Colombia

-OpEd- I too can play the game of “I won’t think about that, so it can’t exist,” like a character tells himself in Delirium, the novel by Colombian writer Laura Restrepo. Indeed, such mental games are a national character trait. The country’s principal cinema chain Cine Colombia refused last December to show a short trailer […]

Categories
Geopolitics Mandela, Adieu

After Mandela, South African Economy In The Balance

JOHANNESBURG – When Nelson Mandela was sworn in as president 19 years ago, he proclaimed that South Africa was entering “a covenant” to create a society that guaranteed human rights for both blacks and whites, “a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.” Mandela, who died on Thursday at the age of 95, […]

Categories
Geopolitics Ideas

Why The FARC Peace Process Is Not On The Fast Track

One full year has past since peace talks opened between the Colombian government and the rebel forces after decades of war. But behind the slow pace, there are real reasons for hope.

Categories
Geopolitics Ideas

From Northern Ireland To South Sudan, Global Lessons On The *Process* Of Peace

Peace is a process, never a single event. Negotiations for peace are always far more complicated than the public understands, and the results are not always miraculous. Even so, the majority of modern conflicts — 80%, according to the School for the Culture of Peace in Barcelona — eventually end after negotiations. The school’s reports […]

Categories
LGBTQ Plus Society

Being LGBT In Colombia: Victims Of Hatred, Casualties Of Civil War

BOGOTA — The LGBTI community (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual/Transgender and Intersexual) in Colombia has suffered disappearances, forced migrations, mutilations, humiliation and abuse. The phrase “damaged bodies, silent crimes’ has come to be used by this community to describe their suffering often made even worse by the civil war that has torn Colombia apart over the […]

Categories
Geopolitics Society

From Spain To Colombia – Ghosts Of Civil Wars, Past And Present

A father and son take shelter from the rain. Suddenly, a 76-year old man arrives, wedging himself in between the two of them. After a throwaway remark about the downpour, a question alters the course of the conversation. “During the war, you weren’t in Fonfría by any chance?” the man asks the father, referring to […]

Categories
blog Society

The Clash Between Environmental Reality And Utopian Dreams

-OpEd- BOGOTA — “Thinking that everything can stay the same is the biggest utopia of all…” Margarita Marino de Botero is a Colombian environmentalist who aims to be as creative as she is dedicated. Environmentalism — dynamic and obsessed with changing reality — is continually touching upon the concept of utopia. This is, in fact, […]

Categories
Geopolitics

Slim Chances, But Middle East Peace Talks Could Be Different This Time

John Kerry has convinced Israeli and Palestinian leaders that the region’s upheaval requires them to at least search for a solution. Whether they find it is another question.

Categories
Geopolitics

Obama Calls For Calm After Zimmerman Verdict, Violence Continues

BBC (UK), CNN (USA) Worldcrunch WASHINGTON– In a statement released on the White House’s website, US President Barack Obama has called for calm as protests continue following a Florida jury’s not guilty verdict in the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case, reports the BBC. In his statement, Obama called Martin’s death a tragedy, but said that America […]

Categories
The Next Pope

Pope Francis To Meet Argentinian Nobel Winner, As Questions Linger About Dictatorship

CLARIN, LA NACION (Argentina), BBC MUNDO Worldcrunch VATICAN CITY– Pope Francis will meet Argentinian Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the Vatican confirmed late Wednesday, as questions linger about the new pontiff’s role during Argentina’s military dictatorship. Pérez Esquivel, who won the 1980 Peace Prize for his defense of Human Rights during the dictatorship, […]

Categories
Ideas

No Change You Can Believe In – Israel Is All Wrong About Obama’s Visit

President Obama’s arrival in Israel with no new peace proposal to offer is reassuring to many Israelis. They should be worried instead.

Categories
Society

Black Moccasins And Truck Driver Dreams – Up Close With Amos Oz

Perhaps the most acclaimed Israeli writer of his generation, and a fixture of the peace movement, Oz continues to surprise at the age of 73.

Exit mobile version