America’s Syrian gamble rewards brutality, betrays the Kurds and reveals how cheaply Donald Trump trades in memory. In the space of two days, Syria’s map has been redrawn with a speed and savagery that would have seemed unthinkable just a year ago. Government forces, backed by tribal militias of dubious pedigree, have pushed the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) out of large parts of northern Syria they had controlled since the darkest days of the Islamic State. Raqq

As Asia’s balance of power tilts and American certainty fades, Japan confronts the limits of pacifism in a nuclear neighbourhood. East Asia is once again reminding Japan that geography is a destiny that cannot be revised. China’s pressure on Taiwan has settled into a permanent condition rather than a passing crisis; North Korea continues to refine missiles meant to deter rather than merely alarm; and Russia, shunned by Europe, is tightening its strategic embrace of Asia, even

By treating Greenland as a piece of real estate, America risks turning the high north into its next geopolitical wound. Greenland, the world’s largest island and one of its smallest political communities, has spent most of its modern history trying to escape being someone else’s chessboard. That is why Jens-Frederik Nielsen’s blunt declaration in Copenhagen - that if forced to choose between Washington and Copenhagen, Greenland would choose Denmark - matters far beyond the 57

A Saudi–Emirati rift, not Yemen’s civil war, is now shaping the fate of the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest state. Yemen has never lacked for factions, but rarely have its internal quarrels so nakedly mirrored the rivalries of its foreign patrons. The latest drama in the south where forces loyal to Yemen’s internationally recognised government have pushed out the Southern Transitional Council (STC) from the vast provinces of Hadramout and al-Mahra seems like a routine reshuffling

When Beijing and Islamabad lecture the world on bullying, the joke is not lost on Asia. China and Pakistan have discovered a new cause in jointly opposing “hegemonism,” “bullying behaviours” and the formation of “small circles.” Their joint communiqué, issued after the seventh round of their foreign ministers’ strategic dialogue in Beijing, was a sermon on multilateral virtue aimed squarely at India and its partners in the Quad. It was also a masterclass in geopolitical hypoc

America’s strikes on Islamic State militants reveal a country fracturing anew under the weight of history, sectarian fear and geopolitical neglect. A year after the fall of Bashar al-Assad and half a decade after the Islamic State lost its caliphate, American forces are still hunting jihadists across Syria. The killing or capture of roughly 25 ISIL operatives over the past few days, that was triggered by the deaths of two American soldiers and a civilian interpreter, was pres

Somalia’s flirtation with universal suffrage promises democratic renewal but risks entrenching elite power in a country where the state remains perilously thin. For the first time in more than half a century, residents of Mogadishu queued up to choose their municipal leaders by direct vote. To foreign diplomats and Somalia’s own weary reformers, the images carried a powerful symbolism of a country long synonymous with state collapse gingerly reclaiming the rituals of democrac

The murder of Sharif Osman Hadi comprehensively exposes a Bangladesh that tolerates disorder, indulges radicals and misreads its neighbours. Bangladesh is in accelerating disorder. Mob violence, attacks on minorities, and the vandalism of temples and historical sites are no longer exceptional events but recurring markers of a political order under strain. The immediate trigger for the latest bout of frenzied violence was the killing of Sharif Osman Hadi, a key anti-India figu

Washington’s oil squeeze of Venezuela risks collective punishment without significant political gain. US President Donald Trump’s declaration of a “total and complete blockade” of Venezuelan oil shipments marks a sharp escalation in America’s long-running campaign against Nicolás Maduro. Framed as an enforcement action against sanctioned tankers and ‘ghost ships,’ the move in effect threatens the single remaining artery of Venezuela’s economy. Oil, besides being Venezuela’s p

The Epstein files test whether Donald Trump will confront the machinery of power or quietly manage it. Jeffrey Epstein’s afterlife is being managed with care. The latest disclosure in form of 19 photographs from Epstein’s estate with faces blacked out and meaning suspended, serves as a reminder that the real test lies ahead, when the state must decide how much of the truth it is prepared to tolerate. What matters is not whether Americans will once again gawp at images of pres

A Cold War–style naval partnership returns to the North Atlantic, as Britain and Norway prepare to guard the arteries of the modern world from a resurgent Russia. The recent Lunna House pact between Britain and Norway is a telling marker of how Europe’s northern flank is being quietly remilitarised by necessity amid the steady shadow of Russia’s submarines. The deal allows the Royal Navy and the Royal Norwegian Navy to operate a joint fleet of British-built Type-26 frigates,

Benjamin Netanyahu’s bid for clemency tests Israel’s rule of law and entangles Gaza, Syria and Washington in a perilous political bargain. Presidential pardons have long been a lubricant of American politics, applied with weary regularity at the end of administrations. In Israel, by contrast, clemency is rare, freighted with moral meaning and constitutional consequence. That is what makes Benjamin Netanyahu’s formal request for a pardon from President Isaac Herzog so seismic.

Venezuela’s embattled strongman resurfaces amid rising American pressure as an old oil war returns in new form. After several days of unexplained absence that had fuelled fevered speculation in Caracas and beyond, President Nicolás Maduro chose an unlikely venue to reappear: a specialty-coffee awards ceremony in eastern Caracas. Slipping back into public view by pinning medals on farmers and sipping espresso before cameras, he spoke not of warships or sanctions but of resilie

Bangladesh’s unelected regime has converted the law into a blunt instrument to eliminate the pro-India Sheikh Hasina. Bangladesh’s interim rulers have finally delivered the spectacle they seemed to crave: a death sentence for Sheikh Hasina, handed down by a tribunal whose credibility is as hollow as the government that convened it. The former Prime Minister, who is in India at present, was tried in absentia by the International Crimes Tribunal - an institution once created to

Trump’s lavish welcome for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman lays bare a US–Saudi partnership driven by deals in billions of dollars and a blind eye to murder. President Donald Trump meets Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office of the White House on Tuesday. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s return to Washington this week - his first since Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in 2018 - was choreographed with all the extravagance of a state visit. Preside

Washington’s courtship of Syria’s former jihadist-turned-president reveals how swiftly geopolitics can turn enemies into partners. America’s foreign policy in the Middle East has always had a flair for reinvention. Its latest experiment in welcoming Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa into the global coalition against the Islamic State may be its boldest yet. Barely a year ago, the United States branded the man a terrorist and placed a bounty on his head. Today, he is feted at the White

Boko Haram’s enduring insurgency and the failure of Nigeria’s “resettlement peace” reveal a state caught between illusion and exhaustion. When the authorities in Nigeria’s Borno State recently began sending displaced families back to their villages, it was meant to signal ‘victory.’ Governor Babagana Zulum’s ‘stabilisation’ strategy promised to rebuild homes, restore livelihoods and reassert control over a region ravaged by jihadist terror. But the illusion of progress has pr

It seems the Britain of 2025 no longer confronts violence but accommodates it. The latest episode of horror, where knife-wielding attackers stormed a London-bound train in Cambridgeshire, slashing passengers and leaving an elderly man bleeding as he shielded a girl, ought to have convulsed the nation in collective outrage. Instead, the government prefers to sigh in weary denial. Within hours, police ruled out ‘terrorism.’ This ritual of minimisation has become a national refl

Brazil’s deadliest police raid exposes the futility of a decades-long war on drugs and the inequality that sustains the racket. The police operation in Rio de Janeiro that killed more than 130 people this week was the deadliest in Brazil’s history. What authorities hailed as a ‘success’ against the Red Command – Rio’s most powerful gang - has instead exposed the brutality, impunity and political convenience that sustain Brazil’s cycle of urban violence. Over 113 alleged membe

As former President Andry Rajoelina loses both power and citizenship, Madagascar’s turbulent waltz between democracy and military rule repeats itself with echoes of a lingering colonial past. Few African nations embody political déjà vu quite like Madagascar. The Indian Ocean island, famed for its unique biodiversity, has long been equally fertile ground for political upheaval. Earlier this month, the military once again stepped into the presidential palace in what is its sev