Showing 1 - 10 of 19
Region must not abandon Myanmar
News, Sally Tyler, Published on 16/02/2026
» A particular confluence of events pertaining to Myanmar -- the fifth anniversary of its latest junta, elections early this month widely seen as illegitimate, and the beginning of a case on charges of genocide brought by Gambia at the International Court of Justice -- should have brought increased international scrutiny to the beleaguered nation.
Arab fraternity weakens and hegemons rule
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/11/2025
» 'This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper," wrote T S Eliot in 1925, probably responding to the profoundly unsatisfactory aftermath of World War I (although with a poet, you never really know). At any rate, it's happening again, this time in the Middle East.
Shape of new climate politics emerges
News, Sam Geall, Published on 07/06/2025
» Only a few months ago, a headline like "United States sets tariffs of up to 3,521% on solar panels from Southeast Asia" could have been dismissed as satire. Today, it's nothing special, one of many published amid an uninterrupted fusillade accompanying Donald Trump's first 100 days in power. Yet it's also part of something bigger, as axes of economic power shift, technological changes surge, and popular sentiments reconfigure and metastasise. Amid that fracturing world order, how should we consider the climate crisis?
Zelensky-Trump clash spurs rethink by US allies
News, Peter Apps, Published on 10/03/2025
» As they watched Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky evicted from the White House last week after an unprecedented live televised quarrel with President Donald Trump and his Vice President JD Vance, some of America's closest allies began to swiftly reappraise decades of foreign and defence policy.
Feb 28 was the day diplomacy died
News, Philip Cunningham, Published on 03/03/2025
» What do we make of the Oval Office meltdown that led to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky being politically ambushed and then rushed out of the White House? How do we best interpret Donald Trump's rude, bullying behaviour, reinforced by his trusty sidekick Vice President JD Vance?
Musk’s lost boys and Trump’s mean girls
News, Maureen Dowd, Published on 12/02/2025
» Tom Stoppard wrote in The Real Thing, his enticing play about infidelity: “To marry one actress is unfortunate. To marry two is simply asking for it.”
US friends and foes buckle up for 'America First'
News, Peter Apps, Published on 01/02/2025
» Less than 24 hours after US President Donald Trump was sworn into office on Monday, new Secretary of State Marco Rubio met foreign minister counterparts from America's closest allies in the Indo-Pacific -- the so-called "Quad" with Australia, India and Japan, as aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson finished its first big 2025 training exercise in waters near the Philippines.
Over in Canada, PM Trudeau bites the dust
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/01/2025
» Donald Trump excels in every field, including surrealism. Leonard Cohen sang "First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin!", but it's completely outclassed by Mr Trump's "First we take Greenland, then we take Canada!" And he's going to take the Panama Canal too!
Ukraine War: South Korea to the rescue?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 20/11/2024
» The consensus assumption is still that Donald Trump will force Ukraine to yield to Russia as soon as he takes office on Jan 20. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself said on Friday that once Mr Trump becomes president the war with Russia will "end sooner" than it would otherwise have done.
Democracies uniting to counter global populism
News, Jan-Werner Mueller, Published on 22/08/2024
» Think back to late June and early July. The French far right was favoured to win a snap parliamentary election. Trumpist judges in the United States were conveniently resolving the legal woes of the former president, who seemed to be gliding to victory after President Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance. And while Britain was getting a Labour government, a new anti-immigration party led by the chief Brexiteer, Nigel Farage, had made unprecedented gains. Faced with it all, pundits warned that a wave of populist, "anti-incumbency" rage was sweeping across the world's democracies.