Showing 1 - 10 of 17
Authoritarians' brave new cities
Oped, Robert Muggah & Carlo Ratti, Published on 23/09/2025
» Few policy ideas are as radical -- or as misleadingly packaged -- as "freedom cities". Championed by Silicon Valley's techno-libertarian elite and recently embraced by right-wing politicians like Donald Trump, the idea is to create digitally powered, master-planned enclaves of deregulated innovation.
Future utopias stumble over governance
Oped, Joe Mathews, Published on 20/08/2025
» In 2020, the rapper Akon declared he would build his own eponymous city on the site of the coastal village of Mbodiène, Senegal.
Chasing 'sovereignty partnerships'
Oped, Marc Abensour, Published on 04/06/2025
» In 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron laid the foundations for France's strategy for the Indo-Pacific, a region that is becoming the new centre of gravity of the global economy but is also experiencing growing tensions and increased competition between major powers. As a resident nation in both the Indian and Pacific Oceans through its overseas territories and communities, France has a direct stake in the region's stability and development. In this context, France wants to act as a stabilising force and to promote effective multilateralism based on the rule of law, inclusivity and respect for sovereignty.
Lack of data plagues Asia's 'long Covid' patients
News, Annie Banerji and Mariejo Ramos, Published on 03/03/2025
» From blackouts, a racing heart, extreme fatigue and brain fog, to severe depression and anxiety, DVL Padma Priya was hit with a constellation of symptoms in 2020, just months after recovering from Covid-19.
The crisis in West's AI industry needs attention
News, Charles Ferguson, Published on 10/02/2025
» The release of the Chinese DeepSeek-R1 large language model, with its impressive capabilities and low development cost, shocked financial markets and led to claims of a "Sputnik moment" in artificial intelligence. But a powerful, innovative Chinese model achieving parity with US products should come as no surprise. It is the predictable result of a major US and Western policy failure, for which the AI industry itself bears much of the blame.
The world really needs a techno-realist manifesto
News, Nicholas Agar & Stuart Whatley, Published on 04/12/2024
» 'It's actually going to be easy to cure ageing and cancer," insists David Sinclair, a researcher on ageing at Harvard University. Similarly, Elon Musk continues to claim that he will soon land humans on Mars and deploy robotaxis en masse. Major corporations have set carbon-neutrality targets based on highly optimistic forecasts about the potential of carbon-removal technologies. And, of course, many commentators now insist that "AI changes everything".
Are all of us ready for AI creative destruction?
Oped, Daron Acemoglu, Published on 24/04/2024
» The ancient Chinese concept of yin and yang attests to humans' tendency to see patterns of interlocked opposites in the world around us, a predilection that has lent itself to various theories of natural cycles in social and economic phenomena. Just as the great medieval Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun saw the path of an empire's eventual collapse imprinted in its ascent, the twentieth-century economist Nikolai Kondratiev postulated that the modern global economy moves in "long wave" super-cycles.
Student journalists need bigger seat at the table
News, Amanda Little, Published on 06/01/2024
» Last year dealt heavy blows to the American news industry -- with turmoil in legacy newsrooms, local papers disappearing, the collapse of BuzzFeed and other digital news giants, and major firings and record-low audiences at cable news outlets.
When private corporations subvert states
Oped, Jayati Ghosh, Published on 12/12/2023
» Imagine a scenario where a private company effectively creates and controls its own jurisdiction within a sovereign country. This company introduces its own currency, enacts laws, and establishes courts, prisons, police forces, and even intelligence services. It formulates its own tax, labour, and environmental regulations (or lack thereof), regardless of their compatibility with national laws.
France's latest crude, culinary counter-offensive
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 08/09/2023
» The French government has just published a decree banning the use of terms like "steak", "spare ribs" and "ham" on plant-based foods. Sausages and "poultry nuggets" will escape the ban so long as the plant protein content is less than 6%.