Asia

The Netherlands Waged a Bloody 4-Year War to keep Indonesia Colonized after 1945; Finally it is Apologizing

( Jacobin NL) On Monday 29 May 2023 I stood with my granddaughter and my son-in-law in front of the Proclamation Monument in Jakarta, with the two more than life-size bronze statues of the Indonesians Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta, who on 17 August 1945 proclaimed the independence of the Republic of Indonesia. In between them […]

China

Palestinians welcome China’s new Middle East Role, but they want more than Mediation

Ramzy Baroud

by Ramzy Baroud RamzyBaroud ( Middle East Monitor ) – It is feasible for China to continue playing an important role in mediating Middle East conflicts. In fact, it already has. In the case of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, however, mediation is hardly the issue. Even before Beijing successfully managed to achieve reconciliation between […]

Afghanistan

Afghanistan under Taliban: Repression, Humanitarian Crisis, Abuses against Women Threaten Millions

Human Rights Watch

(Human Rights Watch ) – (New York) – Taliban authorities have tightened their extreme restrictions on the rights of women and girls and on the media since taking took control of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, Human Rights Watch said today. Over the past two years, Taliban authorities have denied women and girls their rights […]

Afghanistan

The Taliban’s War on Women in Afghanistan must be formally recognized as Gender Apartheid

The Conversation

By Vrinda Narain, McGill University | – (The Conversation) – The second anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is fast approaching. Since then, Afghan women have been denied the most basic human rights in what can only be described as gender apartheid. Only by labelling it as such and making clear the situation in […]

China

Green Jobs take off in China after Beijing’s Carbon Neutrality Pledge

China Dialogue

Jiang Mengnan ( China Dialogue ) – Around the world, tech and finance companies have been laying staff off. In 2022, tech firms’ payrolls fell by 164,000 employees, with a further 166,000 jobs cut in the first quarter of 2023, according to tracking platform Layoffs.fyi. In China, youth unemployment is also rising, hitting 20% this […]

Afghanistan

The Forever War’s Forever Legacy: Shutting down Gitmo is Hardly the Last Step

Karen J. Greenberg

( Tomdispatch.com ) – There can be little question that the grim prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which still shows no sign of closing anytime soon, is a key legacy — in the worst sense imaginable — of America’s post-9/11 forever wars. I’ve been covering the subject for decades now and that shameful legacy has […]

China

In 2024, China will hit Peak Gasoline, with its Demand on a Downward Spiral ever After

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Yale Environment 360 points to recent energy reports as suggesting that China will hit peak gasoline next year. That is, after 2024 the country’s demand for gasoline to fuel automobiles will fall every year. China was one of the last advanced economies to lift COVID-19 restrictions, as President Xi Jinping […]

Bangladesh

Climate Crisis: Bangladesh is Undertaking the World’s Largest Resettlement Program

The Conversation

By Atmaja Gohain Baruah, King’s College London | – Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to climate extremes. The nation’s topography lays its citizens bare to cyclones, flash floods, erosion and drought – not to mention the significant socio-economic impact these bring. Agricultural economist GM Monirul Alam showed, in a 2017 study, that with more than 230 […]

China

Will China Leapfrog America in the Middle East Using its Green Technology and EVs?

Neil Thompson

Over the past decade, since Xi Jinping became the General-Secretary of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2012, he has accelerated China’s return to political prominence. In turn, China’s ambitious global programme of economic, diplomatic and political expansion has pushed the world back towards a state of multipolarity. As well as developing China’s domestic […]