There is a particular kind of diplomatic theatre where the smiles are real, the handshake lingers a beat too long for the cameras, and yet everyone in the room knows the hard questions have simply been postponed. That is precisely what unfolded when Donald Trump and Xi Jinping parted ways after their latest encounter, described
Handshakes Now, Homework Later: The Trump-Xi Truce That Solves Nothing Read More »
There is something quietly unsettling about a court allowing a government to sift through millions of names using a system even its critics call unreliable, and calling that progress. Yet that is precisely what the US Supreme Court has done, permitting the Trump administration to use a contested federal database to check the citizenship status
Democracy’s Data Problem: What the Voter Database Ruling Really Signals Read More »
There is something almost ritualistic about how the United Nations Security Council marks September 11 each year, and this 25th anniversary was no exception. Michael Waltz, representing the United States, stood before the chamber and invoked the memory of nearly 3,000 people killed in 2001, framing the hunt for Osama bin Laden as a collective
Twenty-Five Years On, the UN Still Can’t Agree on Who’s a Terrorist Read More »
Every few years, someone in Tehran reminds the world that a fifth of global oil trade passes through a strait barely 33 kilometres wide at its narrowest point, and markets remember why they should never get too comfortable. This week it was Mohsen Rezaei, a senior Iranian security official with a long history in the
The Hormuz Card: Why Iran Keeps Playing It, and Why the World Keeps Flinching Read More »
There’s something uniquely chilling about watching a journalist mid-broadcast when the ground behind them erupts. That’s what happened this week in Lebanon, when footage circulated showing an Israeli strike landing just meters from a reporter delivering a live update. The clip, widely shared across networks, captures the reporter flinching, the crew scrambling, and the unmistakable
Beirut’s Fragile Calm Gets Another Reminder It Isn’t Real Read More »
Small states rarely get to make grand statements on the world stage, but Kosovo just did. By signing up to the US-led stabilisation force for Gaza, Pristina has placed itself firmly in Washington’s column at a moment when few countries are eager to put boots on the ground in one of the most combustible patches
Kosovo’s Gaza Gambit: A Small State Bets Big on Washington Read More »
There is a particular kind of danger in a crisis that refuses to escalate into full war but also refuses to end. That is precisely where the Iran-U.S. confrontation now sits, and the Strait of Hormuz has become its pressure gauge. According to reporting on the latest exchange of strikes, President Trump’s administration is pursuing
The Strait, the Strikes, and the Slow Bleed of American Strategy Read More »
There is something bitterly familiar about armed women being celebrated as symbols of resistance one decade and quietly written out of the state the next. That is precisely the fate closing in on Syria’s YPJ fighters, the all-female Kurdish units that spent years on the front line against ISIS, only to now find themselves shut
The Women Who Won the War and Lost the Peace Read More »
There is a peculiar kind of voter that political consultants hate because it refuses to behave. It voted for Donald Trump in 2024 and then, less than a year later, helped put a democratic socialist in Gracie Mansion. According to exit polling reported widely in the American press, roughly nine percent of New Yorkers who
The Mamdani-Trump Voter and the Death of Left-Right Loyalty Read More »
A quarter century is long enough for an event to pass from memory into history, and yet 9/11 refuses to make that transition cleanly. This week, as reported by outlets covering the anniversary ceremonies at Ground Zero, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, America once again read out nearly 3,000 names, rang bells at the moments the
Twenty-Five Years On: The World 9/11 Built, and What It Cost Read More »
