Our Monday News Analysis | What the World THINKS Now!

Living Words from John Paul II | ‘The Dream of God. The Dream of Humankind.’

At every stage of their spiritual journey,
people seek God through the visible world toward the unseen.

Each of us can echo the Psalmist’s words:
“Your face, Lord, do I seek; hide not your face from me” (Psalm 27: 8-9)

This is the dream of all humankind.

There is no longer Jew or Greek in Christ, nor slave or free;
all are now one (Galatians 3: 28).

Everyone is called to share in God’s life

This is the dream of God.

Saint Pope John Paul II
Apostolic Journey to Paris
Mass for 12th Youth Holiday
Paris, 24 August 1997

Building the Bridge Foundation

FROM THE BRIDGE| Build the Bridge Before the World Burns

By Abraham A. van Kempen
Founder and Chairman
28 September 2026

A personal plea to Presidents Trump, Xi, and Putin: sit down, lower the temperature, and turn rivalry into responsibility before history becomes irreversible.

I am writing this from The Hague because this city understands something the world keeps forgetting: peace is not weakness. Peace is architecture. It is built beam by beam, call by call, treaty by treaty, corridor by corridor, until frightened people can cross from danger into daylight.

And right now, the bridge is missing.

Look around: the map glows red as wars ravage cities, missiles outrun diplomacy, families sleep beside packed bags, and children learn sirens before safety. Behind every “red line” are a mother awaiting a call, a soldier clutching a photograph, and a doctor rationing dwindling medicine.

That’s why the Building the Bridge Foundation urged Presidents Donald J. Trump, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir V. Putin to create a permanent Great-Power Bridge Forum for Peace. On January 28, 2026, it nominated all three for the Nobel Peace Prize—not to celebrate their power, but to spur them to act, sound an urgent warning, and pose a moral challenge. Time is running out for the 2026 prize—but no worries! The Building the Bridge Foundation will nominate them again in January 2027, hoping they can share the 2027 Nobel Peace Prize. It’s never too late to become a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

So yes: build bridges, not bunkers. Open channels, not graves. Choose catalytic diplomacy before cataclysmic war chooses for us.

Here is the hard truth: unchecked rivalry among great powers is no mere political inconvenience; it is a planetary emergency. Mutual deterrence holds the world by the throat. It feels like living in a gas-filled house while powerful men argue over matches. Either great powers learn to keep humanity alive together, or we may all lose together.

This isn’t naiveté; it’s seriousness. Trump, Xi, and Putin needn’t like one another—only recognize that a world on permanent hair-trigger alert isn’t strong; it’s sick.

The Great-Power Bridge Forum for Peace must be practical, not theatrical. It should make five commitments: 1) test military, nuclear, cyber, and space hotlines monthly; 2) appoint negotiators within 30 days to discuss arms control covering nuclear weapons, drones, hypersonics, cyberattacks, battlefield AI, and space security; 3) open humanitarian corridors for prisoner exchanges, medical evacuations, and grain and energy deliveries to civilians most in need; 4) protect student visas and religious, scientific, journalistic, sporting, cultural, and youth exchanges; and 5) give smaller nations, aid workers, victims, and frontline communities permanent seats at the table.

Reignite Free Trade

Above all, reignite free trade. Free trade merits reconsideration. Today’s economic “hiccups” stem less from trade than from conflict, fragmentation, sanctions, protectionism, supply-chain bottlenecks, and policy uncertainty. Reopening trade channels can ease these pressures. The world should renew its commitment to free trade, not restore borderless globalization, but use open commerce to relieve self-inflicted economic and logistical congestion, lower costs, diversify supply chains, support growth, and foster cooperation.

That’s why the Nobel nomination matters: not as a coronation, but a contract with history. Leaders who can terrify the planet and command arsenals can also calm it and exercise restraint.

Trump could prove that putting a nation first need not push the world toward a last resort. Xi could prove that a multipolar world need not devolve into fortified silos. Putin could prove that security concerns can be addressed without making civilians pay the price. Each has a choice: use power to harden fear, or use it to build a passage out.

Abraham Lincoln’s wisdom endures: the boldest way to defeat an enemy is to make a friend, not by forgetting crimes or flattering power, but by refusing to turn hatred into policy.

Bridge-building is survival craft, not softness. Hotlines alert sleeping cities; ceasefires hold doors open in burning houses; grain delivered before famine puts bread on tables before anger sparks revolution. These are civilization’s load-bearing beams, not sentimental gestures.

Palaces alone cannot build peace. Citizens, faith communities, scholars, diplomats, veterans, journalists, students, parents, and peacebuilders must champion bridge-building. Peace must take root in classrooms, sanctuaries, refugee centers, boardrooms, and kitchens; not just in communiqués.

The nomination is the opening bell: convene the forum, publish the agenda, appoint envoys, test hotlines, set deadlines, protect civilians, verify compliance, and report publicly. Cool tensions before another spark sets the house alight.

Trump, Xi, and Putin need not resolve every conflict first; they must act before conflicts resolve us. Humanity cannot survive a century of unmanaged rivalry. The noblest victory over enemies is not annihilation, but the hard work of becoming partners in survival.

Build the bridge now: functioning hotlines, lasting treaties, open corridors, verified inspections, humanizing exchanges, and mercy that comes before vengeance. Above all, reignite free trade. Build it for grieving families, soldiers seeking to return whole, and children who deserve songs, not sirens.

Presidents Trump, Xi, and Putin: Don’t wait to rebuild from the ashes. Sit down, ease tensions, and create the Means, Methods, and Mechanism for Many to Move Mountains before disaster strikes.

We’re clear on that, right?

If Trump, Xi, and Putin build bridges, future generations may remember this not as catastrophe’s prelude, but as the moment power listened and chose life. Perhaps a child raised amid sirens will one day hear birdsong instead of drones.

And someone will answer: at the edge of the abyss, a few people finally chose to build a bridge. That is the bridge worth building and the prize worth earning.

We’re on our way to Yalta in peace, slowly but surely.

To be continued on Friday, 02 October 2026.

With every good wish to you, I am,

Sincerely yours,

Abraham A. van Kempen, Founder and Chairman
Building the Bridge Foundation, The Hague
Bridging Differences to Heal a Broken Humanity

PS: If you just joined us, please read the editorial from our Friday News Analysis on September 25, 2026, excerpted as follows:

Building, not burning, bridges is a practical geopolitical foreign policy. We’re clear on this, right?

CNN Illustration/Getty Images

From Start to Finish?

The Building the Bridge Foundation started 12 years ago as a mere hobby and grew into an internationally recognized geopolitical research group, credentialed by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee to nominate Presidents Trump, Xi, and Putin to share the 2026 or 2027 Nobel Peace Prize.

When we cross the finish line, will we stop to celebrate? Not a chance! We’re only getting started. So, where do we go from here? I’d like you to consider joining the Light Among Nations. In our editorial last Monday, titled ‘A word on faith, nationalism, human dignity, and the courage to choose compassion over domination,’ I invited the world, especially Presidents Trump, Xi, and Putin, to join us in the quest to peacefully coexist, each as a light among nations.

This global conflict is unavoidable. My heart goes out to the families, relatives, and friends of the 1.7 million Ukrainians, the 100,000 Russians, and the 200,000 Palestinians who lost their lives in a seemingly futile war. [Based on personal reports and discussions, not government propaganda, with people in the know.]

Look around: Europe, the Middle East, East Asia — the same storm is gathering on every horizon. This is not just politics. It is a struggle between unipolar autocracy and multipolar autonomy, between domination and dignity, between a world ruled from one center and a world where many peoples can stand upright. And let us be honest with one another: this war did not start in 2014. It began centuries ago, in old empires, broken promises, stolen lands, wounded identities, and the endless hunger to control what should belong to free people.

If we do not stop it now — if we do not nip it in the bud with courage, wisdom, and solidarity — it may haunt our children, and their children, for another hundred years. So the question is no longer abstract. It is personal. What kind of world do we want to leave behind: a garden of many voices, or a wasteland glowing with the ashes of our silence?

Remember! Diplomacy is catalytic—transformative —while military action is cataclysmic—destructive and catastrophic.

When faced with the options to be good, bad, or ugly, let’s build bridges, not burn them. After all, mutual deterrence reigns.

JUST ONE (1) IN FOUR (4) AMERICANS APPROVE OF TRUMP’S IRAN WAR HANDLING, NEW POLL FINDS

A new CNN/SSRS poll finds just 26% of Americans approve of Donald Trump’s handling of the Iran conflict, down from 33% in March. Even among Republicans, approval has fallen as more Americans question the war’s direction and costs.

Trump’s Iran war faces low public approval ahead of midterms, poll finds. Photograph: (AFP)

WION India
By Moohita Kaur Garg
24 September 2026

US President Donald Trump's popularity continues to take a nosedive, with the latest poll finding that less than 30 percent of Americans approve of his administration's handling of the conflict with Iran.

A CNN/SSRS poll of 1,206 US adults conducted September 16–17 found 26% approve of Trump's handling of Iran, while 73% disapprove. A majority say the conflict has harmed the United States.

That is down from 33 percent approval in a CNN/SSRS poll conducted in March, shortly after the conflict began.

A separate Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week found Trump's overall approval at 32 percent, while 34 percent approved of his handling of the strikes on Iran.

The numbers come ahead of the November midterms, and as Trump made the Iran conflict a central part of his foreign policy while addressing the United Nations General Assembly this week.

Republican support has also slipped

The shift extends beyond Trump's Democratic opponents: 60 percent of Republicans approve of his handling of Iran, down from 73 percent in March, CNN's survey analysis shows. Disapproval reaches 53 percent among Republicans and Republican-leaning adults under 45, and 53 percent among Republicans outside the MAGA movement.

Republicans remain considerably more supportive of the war than Democrats and independents. The poll found that 55 percent of Republicans believe the war has been worth the toll in American lives and the financial burden on the government. Among Democrats, 97 percent said it was not worth the costs, while 82 percent of independents said the same.

Asked whether the US is winning the war, 70 percent of Republicans said yes, compared with 31 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats.

Americans question where the war is heading

The survey also points to uncertainty about the conflict’s direction. Seventy-five per cent of Americans said Trump lacks a clear plan for handling the situation in Iran, while 25 percent said he does.

Even more, 78 percent said Trump was not doing enough to bring the war to an end. And 69 percent said a long-term military conflict between the US and Iran was likely, including 32 percent who considered it very likely.

When asked whether the war was worth the toll in American lives and the financial burden on the US government, 76 percent said it was not, compared with 24 percent who said it was worth the costs.

Foreign policy numbers hit a new low

Trump's broader foreign-policy numbers are also weak in the survey. Only 29 percent approve of his handling of foreign affairs, against 71 percent who disapprove. That is down from 39 percent approval in January and 36 percent in March.

The poll also found that just 20 percent believe Trump's foreign-policy decisions have helped America's standing in the world. By contrast, 65 percent say those decisions have hurt the country's standing.

IRAN LAUNCHES MASSIVE MISSILE BARRAGE AND DECLARES HORMUZ IS THEIRS – W/ MATTHEW HOH

• Brandon Weichert’s discussion with Matthew Hoh presents escalating U.S.-Iran tensions as symptoms of wider imperial dysfunction, strategic incoherence, and institutional decay.
• In a critical exchange about the limits of military power, nuclear risks, NATO politics, and domestic instability, the speakers depict Washington’s foreign policy as increasingly erratic and dangerous, detached from achievable goals and accountability.

Watch the Video Here (60 minutes, 48 seconds)

Host Brandon J. Weichert
Nawfal
28 September 2026

Editor’s Note | All parties embroiled in the current global conflict have lost more than they’ve gained. Nonetheless, all parties can still gain more than they lose. For now, we’re stuck in a sandbox of quicksand as the bullies lose ground. It’s time to review, reevaluate, and reassess where we are and where we’re headed.

Until Friday, 2 October 2026

SUNSETS AND REBIRTHS: TOWARDS A PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM

The Decline of the West (Oswald Spengler), Civilisation and Its Discontents (Sigmund Freud), In the Shadow of Tomorrow (Johan Huizinga), The Crisis of the Modern World (René Guénon), The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (Edmund Husserl), and others…

“Destruction,” from The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole, 1836.

By Luca Siniscalco
ARKTOS JOURNAL
28 SEPTEMBER 2026

The “literature of crisis” from the early 20th century — along with its extensive “history of effects” (Wirkungsgeschichte) — calls for detailed examination, to which numerous scholars have already devoted themselves, body and soul, recognizing the urgent need for such reflection. Indeed, this reflection is no mere matter of philology, but of destiny.

It is plain to all that we have not yet emerged from this transitional phase. We are still in the interregnum, in that Zwischenreich which the authors of the Conservative Revolution skilfully identified and brought to light through their convergent dissonance.

Without delving into the conceptual and metaphorical debate surrounding the imagery of “sunset” (“decline”) and “crisis”, with all its similarities and differences, it is clear that the notion of a “great” and “tragic” transformation in the way we humans inhabit and interpret the world prevails. As early as Ecce Homo, Nietzsche proclaimed the advent of

               “a crisis the like of which has never been known on earth, the memory of the most profound clash of consciences, and the passing of a sentence upon all that which theretofore had been believed, exacted, and hallowed.”

His words have proven prophetic.

On this journey toward nothingness, blind faith in progress accompanied the development of our Zivilisation for a considerable time, until it plummeted to its ultimate outcomes: the “culture of narcissism” (Christopher Lasch) and the “culture of complaint” (Robert Hughes).

This utopian cult is rooted in a naïve Rousseauian anthropology and driven by technocratic politics, the political theology of New Age techno-spirituality. This led to the famous concept of the “end of history”, which was developed by Francis Fukuyama in his celebrated and much-debated 1992 essay, The End of History and the Last Man. In this essay, Fukuyama asserts that liberal-capitalist modernisation and the teleology of historical development are one and the same.

In this context, the end of history does not represent the death, disappearance, or erasure of the historical dimension, but rather its fulfillment. However, the realisation that historical development can no longer be perfected logically leads to its cessation. Humankind is cast out of the flow of historical time, having tragically lost the means to access the ritualised time of myth. Demythologisation rises from the depths of theology (Rudolf Bultmann) to the plane of common sense. The “disenchantment of the world” (Max Weber) nihilistically crushes any system of values. Alexander Dugin says in The Fourth Political Theory:

               “At this stage, liberalism ceases to be the first political theory and becomes the only post-political practice. Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ arrives, economics in the form of the global capitalist market replaces politics, and states and nations are dissolved in the melting pot of world globalisation.

               Having triumphed, liberalism disappears and turns into a different entity — into postliberalism […] This is the source of the thesis about post-industrial society: ‘economics as destiny.’”

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BUILDING THE BRIDGE! | A WAY TO GET TO KNOW THE OTHER AND ONE ANOTHER

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanisms for Many to Move Mountains

Photo Credit: Abraham A. van Kempen, our home away from home on the Dead Sea

By Abraham A. van Kempen
Senior Editor
Updated 19 January 2024

Those who commit to 'healing our broken humanity' build intercultural bridges to learn to know and understand one another and others. Readers who thumb through the Building the Bridge (BTB) pages are not mindless sheep following other mindless sheep. They THINK. They want to be at the forefront of making a difference. They're seeking the bigger picture to expand their horizons. They don't need BTB or anyone else to confirm their biases.

Making a Difference – The Means, Methods, and Mechanisms for Many to Move Mountains

Accurate knowledge fosters understanding, dispels prejudice, and sparks a desire to learn more about the subject. Words have an extraordinary power to bring people together, divide them, forge bonds of friendship, or provoke hostility. Modern technology offers unprecedented possibilities for good, fostering harmony and reconciliation. Yet, its misuse can cause untold harm, leading to misunderstandings, prejudices, and conflicts.

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The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of the Building the Bridge Foundation