By Hervé Verhoosel* GENEVA | 17 July 2026 (IDN) – FIFA must now demonstrate through its actions that football’s greatest strength lies not in yielding to political pressure, but in its unique ability to make a positive difference in the world. I have never been a footballer. Yet during nearly twenty years at the United […]
EEPA reports on RSF responds to peace proposal
BRUSSELS | 16 July 2026 (IDN | EEPA) — The following are the situation reports on Sudan, Ethiopia, Company operating RSF supply aircraft linked to US and migrant boat capsizes in the Mediterranean. Situation in Sudan (per 16 July) Military sites and an electricity substation in Al-Dabbah, in Northern State, were targeted by a drone […]
Truth Before Power: Shakespeare on Judgment
By Sam Ben-Meir* NEW YORK | 16 July 2026 (IDN) – Few literary works have generated as many competing interpretations as Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Psychoanalytic critics have found an Oedipal drama. Existentialists have found a meditation on freedom and death. Feminist critics have found a tragedy of patriarchal domination. The feminist reading has become particularly influential in […]
We Should Question US “Soft Power”
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 15 July 2026 (IDN) – Is the world being captured by what the late Harvard academic, Joseph Nye, has termed American “Soft Power”? President Donald Trump says he’s pushing for this. The debate about American influence on the world at large is not new. Charles Dickens, the great British […]
EEPA reports on Hemedti sentenced to death by the court in Sudan
BRUSSELS | 13 July 2026 (IDN | EEPA) — The following are the situation reports on Sudan, Ethiopia, Young Tigrayans prevented from leaving Tigray by bus and EU Parliament resolution on Sudan. Situation in Sudan (per 13 July) The leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), together with two of his […]
Power, Fear, and Submission
By Dr. Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK | 10 July 2026 (IDN) — How is it possible that the Republican Party, at the peak of American power and at the new dawn of the country’s 250th anniversary, became a cult of personality around a leader they know to be a felon, a liar, and a danger […]
EEPA reports on Special Rapporteur mandate on Eritrea extended
BRUSSELS | 9 July 2026 (IDN | EEPA) — The following are the situation reports on Sudan, Ethiopia, the Special Rapporteur mandate on Eritrea extended and Attack on Tigray orthodox church archbishops. International and regional situation (per 9 July) The mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea has […]
South Pacific – Samoa: When the Ocean Moves Closer
By Thomas George Tofaeono APIA, Samoa. 8 July 2026 (IDN/Wansolwara) — Waves no longer appear in the usual areas they used to in many Samoan Villages, and the lands that connect our homes to the sea are becoming smaller. This raises concerns about how we should fight this threat. After heavy rainfall, it is saddening […]
Russia’s Power Is Not Weapons, It’s Culture
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 8 July 2026 (IDN) — Observers say that what drives President Vladimir Putin is to make Russia respected. But perhaps Putin underestimates how much power Russia already has. He has overlooked which trumpets to blow. It is not his “hang tough” policies in military affairs. It is Russia’s culture. […]
In Search of More ‘Participatory’, ‘Deliberative’, and ‘Egalitarian’ Forms of Democracy
By Jan Servaes BRUSSELS | 8 July 2026 (IDN) — For the average global citizen, the level of democracy today has regressed to that of 1978. This means that all the democratic gains of the so-called ‘third wave of democratization’—which began with Portugal’s Carnation Revolution in 1974—have either vanished or been significantly eroded. This is […]