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No alternative to a negotiated solution!

by Wolfgang Herzberg*

(6 December 2022) As a descendant of Jewish-German survivors and a political writer of many years’ standing, whose family members perished in the genocide of the Nazi regime or were scattered all over the world. My parents, out of a deep sense of political responsibility, returned to Berlin after the Second World War, to help build an anti-fascist and peaceful Germany. Against the background of these existential family experiences, I ask myself the following fundamental questions about the war in Ukraine, which I would also like to address to the public and all those with political responsibility.

Peace as a Human Right

25 Principles of International Order to Ensure Sustainable Peace

by Alfred de Zayas,* Geneva

(6 December 2022) The motto of the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, “Pax Optima Rerum”,1 peace is the highest good, reminds us that even after the monstrous Thirty-Years’ War with its eight million deaths, peace could be re-established in Europe by diplomatic negotiation. There were no victors.

Palestine and International Law

From occupation to de facto annexation?

Statement of “International Progress Organization” at United Nations meeting on Palestine

United Nations Office at Vienna, 29 November 2022 – RE/28630c-is

(6 December 2022) In a statement delivered at a special United Nations meeting convened by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the President [Hans Köchler*] of the International Progress Organization (I.P.O.) welcomed the decision of the Special Political and Decolonization Committee of the UN General Assembly to request an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice concerning the legal consequences from the ongoing violation of the Palestinian people's right to self-determination.

Conference in Solothurn, 15 and 16 October 2022 – Part 4

What Media in Whose Interest?

by Alan MacLeod,* Scottland

(6 December 2022) I’m an investigative journalist for Palestinian-American news outlet “MintPress News”. I have also been published or quoted in many of the most well-known English-language media outlets. Before that, I was an academic specializing in media and journalism studies.

U.N. General Assembly, 3 November 2022

Near-Unanimous UN Call to End Cuba Blockade

by Brett Wilkins,* USA

(6 December 2022) Thursday’s vote was 185-2. The only two “no” votes were those of the United States and Israel, with Ukraine and Brazil abstaining.

From noodles to the car that rocks Tesla

Reporting from Vietnam

Guy Mettan,* freelance journalist

(6 December 2022) It is a story that begins with a noodle restaurant in Ukraine in 1993 and that continues today in Vietnam in the shape of the country’s largest conglomerate with a turnover of $5 billion by 2021. Meanwhile, its founder, Pham Nhat Vuong, (54), who had settled in Kharkov after completing his geology studies in Moscow, became Vietnam’s first billionaire with an estimated fortune of $8 billion and an enterprise that ranks among the 50 largest in Asia. A career that is in no way inferior to that of Bill Gates' and Steve Jobs' starting in a “garage”.