Our Everyday Essentials By Ramesh Jaura This article was first published on https://rjaura.substack.com BERLIN | 13 December 2025 (IDN) — Human Rights Day has arrived with a strange, almost jarring double exposure. In UN conference rooms and on official social feeds, the language is familiar: dignity, equality, universality. Outside those rooms, the world feels harsher—war […]
Should the UN go into Battle in Congo?
By Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden | 10 December 2025 (IDN) — There is a new peace agreement (as there have been many) between the government of the Congo and the rebels in the east, which includes the notorious and murderous M23 rebel movement. It captured Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, and Bukavu, the capital […]
Democrats in Congress Are Out of Touch with Constituents on Israeli Genocide
By Norman Solomon* SAN FRANCISCO, USA | 5 December 2025 (IDN) — Last month, some House members publicly acknowledged that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza. It’s a judgment that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch unequivocally proclaimed a year ago. Israeli human-rights organizations have reached the same conclusion. But such clarity is sparse in Congress. And no wonder. Genocide […]
A Troubling Message from Guinea-Bissau
By Azu Ishiekwene The writer is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP and the author of the new book Writing for Media and Monetising It. ABUJA, Nigeria | 4 December 2025 (IDN) —None of the three Guineas is thriving, but in Guinea-Bissau. This country sits on Africa’s map like a tongue of fire, recent events are twisting […]
“If I Were Secretary-General…”
By Stephanie Hodge* NEW YORK | 2 December 2025 (IDN) — If I were the Secretary-General, I would stop pretending that the UN is a delicate Swiss clock that needs a light polishing. It’s not a clock. It’s an old mansion with leaky pipes, faulty wiring, and a family upstairs arguing about who forgot to […]
Can Global Climate Diplomacy Still Deliver?
COP30 and the Amazon Reckoning This article was first published on https://rjaura.substack.com By Ramesh Jaura BERLIN | 28 November 2025 (IDN) — When world leaders arrived in Belém for COP30 on 10 November, the symbolism was clear. Delegates entered a city where the air is thick with humidity, the scent of river mud blends with […]
A Revolution is Vital for Planetary Health and Food Systems
By Gilles-Eric Séralini and Gérald Jungers* PARIS | 26 November 2025 (IDN) — Since the Second World War, we have been increasingly contaminated by chemicals that enter our bodies through dust, which is stable down to the infinitesimally small. Acting like long-term spam, these substances generate chronic diseases, cancers, and nervous system degeneration, among other […]
Hiroshima Takes Centre Stage Again
Time for Peace, Dialogue and Nuclear Disarmament By Ramesh Jaura This article was first published on https://rjaura.substack.com BERLIN | 24 November 2025 (IDN) — At a moment of rising nuclear danger, scientists, diplomats, and a global Buddhist community converged on Hiroshima and Tokyo in search of a different future for humanity. From 1 to 5 […]
Naval Nuclear Propulsion: A Two-Track Solution for IAEA Safeguards Integrity
By Tariq Rauf* VIENNA | 19 November 2025 (IDN) — More than four years have elapsed since the matter of the proliferation of nuclear-powered submarines reemerged after a gap of nearly four decades to place the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) squarely in the cross-hairs of a serious policy and legal conundrum. It also highlighted […]
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 […]