Announcement: This month, we will bring you special Situation Reports on the substantive hearings in the ‘Walid case’ concerning Human Trafficking for Ransom from Eritrea through Ethiopia, Sudan and Libya, held in The Netherlands Walid hearing background (per 3 November 2025) Substantive hearings have started today, 3 November 2025, in the case against the alleged […]
Trial against alleged Eritrean trafficker ‘Walid’ will start in The Netherlands on 3 November
Substantive hearings are about to begin in Zwolle, the Netherlands, in the important case against Eritrean national Tewelde Goitom (also known as “Walid” / “Welid”). The hearings are set to run across the month of November. Walid is accused of leading an international criminal network that detained, tortured, raped and extorted Eritrean refugees in Libya. […]
UN Experts Urge Germany to End Crackdown on Palestinian Solidarity Protests
By Jaya Ramachandran GENEVA | 17 October 2025 (IDN) — A group of United Nations human rights experts has called on Germany to stop criminalising and using police violence against pro-Palestinian activists, warning that Berlin’s actions risk undermining fundamental democratic freedoms. In a strongly worded statement, the five independent experts said they were “alarmed by […]
Germany Redefines Development Cooperation with the Global South
A Legacy of Nobel Peace Laureate Willy Brandt By Ramesh Jaura This article was first published on https://rjaura.substack.com BERLIN | 14 October 2025 (IDN) — More than forty years ago, former German Chancellor Willy Brandt—winner of the 1971 Nobel Peace Prize—warned that prosperity in the North and hardship in the South were two sides of […]
Suspending US-Kosovo Dialogue — A Rude Awakening for Kurti
By Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK | 19 September 2025 (IDN) — Although Trump does not necessarily follow logical and practical foreign policy to frame US relations with other countries, his decision to suspend the US-Kosovo dialogue was not entirely misguided. Prime Minister Kurti has failed to demonstrate statesmanship in steering the country in the right […]
Is the West accepting Azerbaijan to hold political prisoners?
By Benoit Lannoo* ANTWERP (Belgium) | 02 September 2025 (IDN) — For two years, at least twenty-three Artsakhis are jailed in Baku. Their crime: wanting to be what they are, namely Artsakhis. And what does the European Union do? Nothing! Today, it is Independence Day in Artsakh. But there is nothing to celebrate, since the […]
From Guernica to Gaza, Mass Killers Have Been Above It All
By Norman Solomon / TomDispatch SAN FRANCISCO | 31 August 2025 (IDN) — Killing from the sky has long offered the sort of detachment that warfare on the ground can’t match. Far from its victims, air power remains the height of modernity. And yet, as the monk Thomas Merton concluded in a poem, using the […]
Seizing the Global Momentum for a Two-State Solution
Palestinians and Israel, with the unwavering support of the US, must seize on the growing international momentum in support of an independent Palestinian state by heeding France’s and Saudi Arabia’s call, initiated in the recent United Nations High-Level Conference. By Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK | 9 August 2025 (IDN) —The unfolding horror in Gaza has galvanized […]
French-Saudi UN Initiative: Awakening the International Community
By Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK | 27 July 2025 (IDN) — Hamas’ savage October 2023 attack and Israel’s horrific war of retaliation have reignited the call for a two-state solution. I applaud the joint French-Saudi UN initiative in support of a two-state solution in the hope that it will awaken the international community and end […]
From Ceylon to Palestine: Ethnic Conflict and Its Role in Cold War Proxy Dynamics – Part Two
This is the second of a two-part series. Click here to read part one By Darini Rajasingham Senanayake* COLOMBO, Sri Lanka | 24 July 2025 (IDN) — There are remarkable patterns of history, organised violence, and Disinformation between events leading to the pogrom and forced population displacements in Sri Lanka in 1983, and British occupied […]