Tag Archives: Opinion

Everyone came together in the days after the attacks, but in hindsight 9/11 looks like the moment when everything started to fall apart. Was 9/11 the beginning of the end for America? In the 22 years since the attacks, I’ve begun to worry that the answer to that question is …

Last week, Saudi Arabia invited Syria, long excluded from multilateral formats in West Asia, to this week’s meeting of the Arab League. This was followed on Monday with the United Arab Emirates asking Damascus to attend the COP28 climate summit at the end of this year, giving the embattled country …

The Americans claim there is “unsafe and unprofessional” activity where they have no right to be The US military, with the help of its Kurdish allies, occupies a third of Syrian territory with no legal basis and is now complaining about Russia antagonizing its troops. Although Moscow has been invited …

Explosive weapons can be highly inaccurate and are not meant to be used in densely populated areas. For almost two weeks now, vicious fighting has been going on in Sudan. Both sides of the conflict, the Sudanese army, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have resorted to shelling in densely …

Macron’s recent statements have shown the erosion of Washington’s ‘zero-sum’ diplomacy compared to Beijing’s ‘win-win’ approach Over the course of the weekend, French President Emmanuel Macron unleashed political shockwaves by visiting China and declaring that the European Union must make itself less dependent on the United States, while urging Western …

Despite Washington’s campaign to isolate Beijing, it has shown itself capable of steering global politics towards its goals The past few weeks have seen a comprehensive show of diplomatic force by China. Shortly after Xi Jinping completed a successful trip to Moscow, where he met with Vladimir Putin, Beijing announced …

A bipartisan Senate resolution wades into the Sino-Indian conflict to further drive a wedge between two Asian giants Washington is inserting itself into the ongoing Sino-Indian border conflict in an effort to both win political points with India while further skewering China. The recent bi-partisan Senate Resolution introduced in the …

Ukraine and Russia face obstacles to peace talks, but pressure to negotiate will inevitably increase. More than a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the war appears to have reached a deadlock. Since the liberation of Kherson by Ukrainian forces last November, both sides have been engaged in positional …

Since the Bank of England’s announcement a few weeks ago that it would be developing a digital currency quickly nicknamed “Britcoin,” central bank digital currencies, or Govcoins, as they are sometimes known, have been all the rage. Supposedly, the British government will take on responsibility for the maintenance of a …

At the global plastics treaty talks, we, the people, need to speak louder than the plastic-addicted corporations. In March, there was a collective cheer when United Nations member states adopted a historic resolution to end plastic pollution during the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi. Governments agreed to start work on …

The current turmoil in British politics can lead to disastrous consequences. It also mirrors the current state of the wider West Even fervent believers in the stability of Western democracies must surely have had their faith shaken last week by the extraordinary economic and political crises created by the newly-minted …

The international community should move now to prevent another disaster in a country already devastated by war.

Whether Macron or Le Pen ultimately emerges victorious, Islamophobic persecution is bound to intensify French President Emmanuel Macron and his challenger, Marine Le Pen, have qualified for the final round of the election, echoing their 2017 duel. French Muslims, many of whom had backed the defeated left-wing candidate, Jean-Luc Melenchon, …

Russian President Vladimir Putin held extensive talks with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, earlier this week, with the two world leaders agreeing on plans to establish a new shared international financial framework. China and Russia have been gradually moving towards such an arrangement since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 …

If Julian Assange were a Chinese journalist and publisher, he’d have the Nobel Prize, be the centerpiece of Human Rights Day, and this week his portrait would’ve been planted atop President Joe Biden’s Democracy Summit. Assange’s name would’ve been the first on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s list of …

RAF Menwith Hill, America’s largest overseas spy base, located in the UK, is to be expanded, and for reasons, we can only guess at – although they’re unlikely to be positive. A planning application by the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) that was recently submitted to a borough council in …

How Israel keeps its foes and friends on the defensive. Israeli hyperbole is as old as the Israeli state. It is tautological, serving as the raison d’être and modus operandi of Israel, the garrison state. It is farcical, fantastical, and also dangerous in the way it surpasses mere rhetoric to …

The COVID-19 global death toll has just passed another grim milestone: more than 5 million people have now died from the disease. However, most experts agree that number is hugely underestimated and the real figures could be two to four times that. Vaccines have hugely slowed the death rate but …

MENA countries are on the cusp of important regional integration initiatives that will provide much-needed efficiency gains, diversification, trust-building, and green growth. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a region of abundant human and natural resources, shared culture and languages, and a well-established heritage of skill in trade. …

Just weeks after AUKUS was hailed as a game-changer in Western efforts to contain China, we now see reports of Beijing testing hypersonic missiles. It’s clear that the US should underestimate China at its peril in the arms race. Over the weekend, a report appeared in the Financial Times – …