By Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK | 4 September 2026 (IDN) — Comparative conflict analysis reveals clear conditions under which weaker actors concede. The Palestinian case meets none of them, underscoring Israel’s strategic futility in expecting capitulation in the absence of a political settlement. The asymmetry of power between states and non-state actors—or between dominant governments […]
25 Years Ago, 9/11 Triggered a U.S. Crusade of Torture
By Norman Solomon* SAN FRANCISCO | 3 September 2026 (IDN) — A quarter-century has passed since the terrorist attack that killed almost 3,000 people in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. During the first seven years after that mass atrocity, Pentagon spending doubled. The aftermath of 9/11 was also a huge boost for “the […]
Rushed UN Resident Coordinator Restructuring Risks Guterres’s Legacy
By Mohammed Chiraz Baly The writer is a staff representative and former General Secretary of the CCISUA staff union federation. He is also a data analyst at UNCTAD focusing on investment financing in developing countries. GENEVA, Switzerland | 3 September 2026 (IDN) — At the end of a Secretary-General’s term, questions are asked about legacy. […]
LDC Watch Expresses Solidarity with the People of Nepal
By LDC Watch BRUSSELS | 3 September 2026 (IDN) — LDC Watch is shocked and deeply saddened by the devastating flash flood that struck Nepal’s Rasuwa district and the Bhotekoshi–Trishuli river corridor on 26 August 2026. The loss of hundreds of lives, the displacement of communities and the thousands of people still unaccounted for are devastating. […]
Ben Okri—a Great Novelist and an Immigrant—Hits Out
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 2 September 2026 (IDN) — “In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road, and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry.” This must be one of the best opening lines ever penned […]
From the Evil Genius to the Digital Leviathan
By Sam Ben-Meir* NEW YORK | 1 September 2026 (IDN) — Philosophy is often imagined as a discipline that builds—constructing systems, securing knowledge, clarifying truth. But its deepest power may lie elsewhere. Philosophy does not merely build; it destroys. It unsettles, destabilises, and, at its most powerful, pulls the ground out from beneath us. Nowhere […]
A Nuclear Bomb Took My Arms Before I Was Born. We Must Not Let It Take Our Future
By Karipbek Kuyukov* ASTANA | 28 August 2026 (IDN) — I paint with a brush held between my teeth or my toes. I was born without arms in 1968 about 100 kilometres from the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site in eastern Kazakhstan. My parents’ generation watched mushroom clouds rise over the steppe without being told what […]
The Palestinian Imperative: Statehood Demands Strategy, Not Slogans
By Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK | 28 August 2026 (IDN) — A two-state solution remains the only viable path to peace, yet it will not emerge from Israeli policy shifts alone. Palestinians must undertake a profound strategic transformation—rooted in unity, institutional reform, and nonviolence—to make statehood both credible and attainable For decades, I have written […]
Substitute Sounds for Noise
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 26 August 2026 (IDN) –Everyone has their favourite sounds- a ball on a cricket bat on a summer’s afternoon, birds singing, waves breaking on the beach, the coffee pot perking on the stove, children playing Scooby-Doo. Mine are the quiet sounds of the English Lake District- William Wordsworth’s: “A […]
Realizing Genuine “Country Ownership”: Beyond Extractive Economics and Elite Collusion
By Soheila Comninos* WASHINGTON DC | 25 August 2026 (IDN) — Since joining the Funders Roundtable on the Future of Development, I have had the opportunity to attend several high-level forums on international development and observe a powerful critique threading through these spaces: old, extractive development models have created a cycle of dependency, holding back […]