News stories by Thalif Deen, page 2

UNITED NATIONS, August 14 (IPS) - Pakistan, one of few South Asian countries to oscillate between democratic governments and authoritarian regimes, is cracking down on journalists, including foreign correspondents covering the political situation in the world’s fifth most populous nation, with an estimated population of over 250 million people and ranking behind India, China, the United States, and Indonesia.

UNITED NATIONS, August 7 (IPS) - The highly- unpredictable five-month-old US-Iran war has been plagued by on-again, off-again peace agreements — with such monotonous regularity — the conflict seems never ending. But according to several news reports, the US faces a new threat — it may soon run out of key weapons systems.

UNITED NATIONS, July 31 (IPS) - An age-old axiom in Statistics reads: Figures Cannot Lie, But Liars Can Figure. And more so, in military conflicts, including the five-month-old US-Iran war, where casualty figures are difficult to track down because of lack of transparency and false accounting.

UNITED NATIONS, July 29 (IPS) - Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (Republican of Kansas) rose to public attention in the 1950s with his allegations that hundreds of “Communists” had infiltrated the State Department and other federal agencies.

UNITED NATIONS, July 22 (IPS) - A proposal to restrict US visas to foreign journalists assigned to cover the US has triggered a strong protest from the New York-based Foreign Press Association (FPA).

UNITED NATIONS, July 16 (IPS) - As the international community continues to weigh the good, the bad and the deadly in artificial intelligence (AI), which is spreading far and wide with apparently no guardrails, the United Nations is taking a closer look at the impact, both positive and negative, of AI.

UNITED NATIONS, July 1 (IPS) - The on-again, off-again US-Iran peace negotiations, which have been disparaged by Israeli leaders, have resulted in a rare rift between the US and Israel, a Middle East ally which has had America’s unwavering “iron clad” support since its creation in 1948.

UNITED NATIONS, June 22 (IPS) - When Egypt’s onetime Foreign Minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali was running for the post of U.N. Secretary-General in late 1991, he had to contend with the rival candidature of Bernard Chidzero, then foreign minister of Zimbabwe.

UNITED NATIONS, June 18 (IPS) - As the campaign for a new UN secretary-general gathers momentum, will the US exercise the decisive vote — or the veto– in the final selection?

The US has publicly declared its opposition to some of the basic goals in the UN’s socio-economic agenda, including gender empowerment and policies relating to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), while dismissing climate change as “a hoax” and a “giant scam.”

UNITED NATIONS, June 9 (IPS) - As ongoing military conflicts in Europe and the Middle East continue with no signsof winding down, there is increasing focus on nuclear weaponsamid heightened risks of escalation.