By Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (WHO Director-General) and Anura Kumara Dissanayake (Sri Lanka President) TIME first published this commentary on 12 October 2026, and it is reproduced with WHO’s permission. GENEVA | 13 October 2026 (IDN) — In recent decades, many countries have made meaningful progress in developing community-based mental health services. Moreover, rights-based approaches […]
UN and The Hague Confront Impunity for War Crimes
By Nicolas J. S. Davies NEW YORK | 12 October 2026 (IDN) — On 9 October 2026, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Navi Pillay, the South African international lawyer who defended Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid political prisoners on Robben Island, and went on to serve as a judge on the UN International Criminal […]
A Cultural Turning Point for American Democracy
What artists and religious leaders reveal about the health and future of democracy By Azza Karam NEW YORK, 12 OCTOBER 2026 (IDN) — A concert can tell us more about a country than an election poll can. It can reveal whose suffering people are prepared to acknowledge, what powerful institutions will permit them to say, […]
Books or Bombs? France’s Student Revolt vs. NATO’s Spending Push
By Medea Benjamin NEW YORK | 12 October 2026 (IDN) — For the third week in a row, high school students across France are taking to the streets demanding more investment in their education. They want more teachers, smaller classes, decent school buildings and a public education system that works for poor and working-class students. […]
The Slow-Motion Erasure Of The West Bank
By Dr Alon Ben-Meir* A people are being erased not in a single cataclysm, but through daily terror: bulldozers, armed settlers, night raids, demolished homes, and stolen water. The West Bank’s suffering is not a security policy—it is a warning of Israel’s own moral collapse NEW YORK | 10 October 2026 (IDN) — There are crimes […]
Germany’s Ukraine Policy: The Merz Factor
By Wolfgang Bittner* The following commentary reflects the author’s personal assessment of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s policy towards Ukraine. GÖTTINGEN, Germany | 9 October 2026 (IDN) — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was pleased that Viktor Orbán was not re-elected and that the EU can transfer 90 billion euros to Ukraine. On 14 April 2026, he […]
Breaking the Cycle of Violence
By David L. Phillips* OXFORD, UK | 8 October 2026 (IDN) — Israel colluded with Hamas for decades, seeing it as a counterweight to Fatah and the Palestinian Authority. Israel’s approach culminated in the terror attack on October 7, 2023 that killed 1,200 Israelis and 252 hostages. Does Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bear responsibility for the […]
Brazil’s Fateful Election
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 7 October 2026 (IDN) — Since its birth as a nation-state, “Brazil has been a paradise for some, an endless hell for others, and for the rest, a kind of purgatory on earth.” So write two Brazilian historians, Lilla Schwarcz and Heloisa Starling, in their massive volume on Brazil. […]
Germany’s Unfinished Sovereignty: Is Neutrality Still Possible?
By Wolfgang Bittner* GÖTTINGEN, Germany | 6 October 2026 (IDN) — Recently, there have been calls for Germany to become neutral,[1] as Stalin had already proposed in 1952. At that time, he offered the other three principal victorious powers of the Second World War negotiations on a peace treaty with Germany. The condition was the […]
Gaza Shattered the Myth of the “Most Moral Army”
By Alon Ben-Meir* Israel’s claim that the IDF is “the most moral army in the world” did not survive Gaza. What emerged was not moral exceptionalism, but a machinery of devastation so vast that the slogan now stands as an indictment—of power without restraint and conscience without consequences NEW YORK | 3 October 2026 (IDN) […]