By Jan Servaes* BRUSSELS, Belgium | 18 December 2025 (IDN) — “We Americans have never been very good at managing empire. It is not one of our skill sets. But what is coming next may be a great deal worse than the naïve and incompetently managed American empire of the past eighty years. We may […]
As Rich Countries Poach Their Medical Professionals, Sri Lanka’s Health System Struggles To Help Flood Victims
*By Kalinga Seneviratne COLOMBO, Sri Lanka | 16 December 2025 (IDN) — The ongoing exodus of health professionals to greener pastures abroad has critically weakened Sri Lanka’s healthcare system, and significantly impacted its ability to provide effective medical relief during the recent devastating floods caused by Cyclone Ditwah. The mass migration of doctors, specialist consultants, […]
Modi and Putin Send Clear Message To Trump
By Kalinga Seneviratne BANGKOK, Thailand | 8 Dec 2025 (IDN)– By unveiling an ambitious Economic Cooperation Program aimed at expanding bilateral trade and investment till 2030, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a clear message to the US President Donald Trump that India-Russia relations are iron-clad, no matter what […]
Bandung at 70: A Model for a World Falling Apart
Europe and China Hold the Tools By Ramesh Jaura This article was first published on https://rjaura.substack.com BERLIN | 21 November 2025 (IDN) — “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, […]
Crime and Punishment
By Neville de Silva* LONDON | 16 November 2025 (IDN) — “I’m afraid there is no money”, an outgoing British Labour MP once famously said. Today, in Sri Lanka, there is also a shortage of state funds, which politicians and bureaucrats have pilfered. Some of the loot is lying in banks here and abroad, state […]
Trump, Deterrence, and the Erosion of Nuclear Restraint
By Ramesh Jaura* This article was first published on https://rjaura.substack.com BERLIN | 16 November 2025 (IDN) — Ahead of his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on 30 October at Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea, U.S. President Donald Trump declared he had ordered the resumption of U.S. nuclear testing. His statement shattered more […]
The Taliban Are Erasing Women from Public Life
By Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK | 15 November 2025 (IDN) — Human rights violations are a global scourge that have engulfed scores of countries on every continent. It appears as though violating human rights is a game in which governments of all national stripes take pleasure and even try to outdo each other in their […]
Accessibility to the Disabled isn’t a Luxury – it’s a Necessity
By Tanja B. Sejersen & & Manal Hassan* BANGKOK | 14 November 2025 (IDN) — Imagine being invisible—not because you’re unseen, but because your existence isn’t officially recorded. For millions of children with disabilities across Asia and the Pacific, this is a daily reality. A recent UNICEF report reveals stark disparities in access to rights […]
Has Malaysia Surrendered To America’s “Gangster” Diplomacy?
By Kalinga Seneviratne BANGKOK | 11 November 2025 (IDN) — After the United States President Donald Trump barged into the ASEAN Summit with the Malaysian leader Anwar Ibrahim providing him with Malay dancing music at Kuala Lumpur airport, a trade deal signed between the two countries on the sidelines of the Summit on October 29th […]
East Timor Joins ASEAN — and Now Comes the Hard Part
Challenges and hopes for prosperity and stability. By Ramesh Jaura This article first appeared on https://rjaura.substack.com BERLIN | 3 November 2025 (IDN) — It took half a century, two foreign occupations, a UN peacekeeping mission, and one of the most extraordinary independence struggles of the modern era. But on 26 October 2025, East Timor — […]