Nepal has one of the highest social media usages per capita in South Asia, so when the government announced its plans to ban 26 social media platforms including X and Facebook, the nation erupted. Primarily youth protesters flooded the streets to vent their anger. After two days of political unrest and smoke-filled cities, a new interim Prime Minister was elected to serve at the hands of the people. Many are hopeful for change, but the unrest will merely be redoubled if prote

Though AI safety is often perceived as an overly nihilistic field of study, it has become an increasingly prevalent feature  of international policy debates ranging from its use in courts and parliaments to the defence industry. AI safety has entered public discourse in the context of spurring on unemployment, AI misuse, and the potential for critical systems failures or bias. In a European context, the EU is explicitly seeking  to develop a uniquely European approach to deve

Though I cannot recall quite how, I recently stumbled across a fascinating POLITICO  article by former Harvard lecturer John F. Muller titled “ Halloween Is More Political Than You Think ”. It discusses trick-or-treating in America, focusing specifically on Milwaukee, and the surprising observations Halloween brings to the table in discussions on both racial and class divisions. Muller explores how poor, inner-city ethnic minorities often travel to affluent white suburbs duri

For the Senate Judiciary Committee to work, there must be a gap between the requisite information and the Senate’s ultimate decision. The committee should have a concentrated body of senators to discover information about a candidate to make a just decision. Pam Bondi’s recent hearing  would need to reveal something the Senate did not already know, and that new knowledge would have to play a decisive role in the political judgment.  As expected, this did not occur. Instead, w

Introduction In a country positioned at the crossroads of East and West, the battle for hearts and minds is increasingly fought not on the battlefield, but in the media. Once the frontrunner of the so-called “Associated Trio,” Georgia now finds itself among the most vulnerable to foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) and broader information disorders, as media freedom and freedom of speech face growing threats. Amid ongoing protests, political unrest, and s

Czech billionaire turned populist politician and former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš has won a plurality in this month's elections  in the central European country, defeating incumbent Prime Minister Petr Fiala's centrist coalition and falling 20 seats short of an overall majority. Nicknamed the ‘Czech Trump’, Babiš made his return on the back of the Czech Republic's economic woes.  The central European state had seen one of the worst inflation rates  in Europe and had borne t

Until September, Angela Rayner was a key figure in the British government, serving as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, and Deputy Prime Minister. This was until Rayner resigned  after she was found to be underpaying a property tax on her second home. By American standards, the scandal is relatively minor. In fact, Rayner is one of several British politicians to have stepped down over matters that would barely

A generation born online, coming of age under curfews, censorship  and increasingly choosing exit over engagement. Some books really fit the evolving dynamics of a country, and Stephen P. Cohen’s The Idea of Pakistan  is one such work. Building an argument that Pakistan’s political future cannot be forecasted without reckoning with the oversized role of its security establishment, Cohen also intertwines the long shadow this system casts over civilian life. The idea in between

Given the limelight on Donald Trump’s oration this year at the UN General Assembly, one would be forgiven for thinking it will not go down in history books as a stage from which was delivered a rousing paean to multilateralism, democracy, and the rule of law. Yet to the world assembled in New York that day, the session began with exactly that , from Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, who preceded Trump onto the stage to give the first oration of the Assembly’s mo

It’s very easy to get attention in business news by printing a headline with words to the effect of “Leading Investor X Warns of Impending Recession”, “InvestWithUs CEO Thinks Current Market is A Bubble”, or my personal favorite: “Michael Burry Just Sold All His Stocks.” The fact you’re reading this is somewhat proof of this.  In a shockingly high number of cases, these events never materialise, at least not in the way they were predicted to, and we’re rarely called out on ou

It often seems that the next general election is a matter of months away, with seemingly no escape from Nigel Farage’s 24/7 media coverage and gleeful references to Keir Starmer and Labour’s abysmal polling. Elon Musk continues to interfere with UK politics, most recently by appearing via video link at the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march and proclaiming that parliament must be dissolved . Meanwhile, Starmer's government endured a late-summer of internal crises  and the Prime Minist

In the shadows, Putin’s intelligence services have been leaving civilian casualties, sabotaged infrastructure, burnt out buildings and downed planes in their wake for over three years. A ravaged Europe lies almost completely unresponsive. For sixty heartstopping minutes, a full-to-capacity Falcon 900LX jet circles above Bulgaria in a state of panic. The pilots and security detail are frantically scrambling over paper maps and charts, desperate to plot a safe route to the grou

The public murder of Charlie Kirk rattled the American political establishment , and was met with a variety of responses from its pundits, journalists, and elected officials. For many in the Republican Party and on the right of American politics more broadly, Kirk’s death was the pretence required to pursue an official clampdown  on freedom of speech, as opposed to the less systematic, yet no less brazen , attacks the White House had been carrying out up to that point. Citize

A few months ago, I published part one of this article , when Spain’s housing reforms were still nascent. I am glad now to see that, fulfilling previous promises, the Spanish PM has honoured his word and taken substantial steps towards implementing public housing policies. From making the purchase of houses for non-residents more difficult, to facilitating young people’s renting and buying of residences, and unifying countrywide and regional initiatives, much has been done re

The sudden announcement of a new left-wing party led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana shook UK politics. The new movement has already achieved a record breaking membership, reaching over half a million people . Yet, almost imminently, the party faced inner party divisions, causing the co-founders to face mass criticism across the media and on the left. Understandably, the potential of “Your Party’ is now somewhat marred. Could it fragment the left vote, creating opportuniti

In most Western schools, children were often asked in Geography class: “Which is the largest ocean in the world?” To us, the Pacific looked like empty space — a vast stretch of blue that separates continents. But that cartographic illusion hides the truth: the Pacific is not empty at all. It is a constellation of nations, languages and histories, now standing at the fault line of global power. However, much like the game of chess that was the Cold-War, is the Pacific slipping

In the latest move to curb immigration fears in the face of Reform UK’s extraordinary polling performances, the government has announced plans to introduce mandatory digital ID cards. The scheme will be rolled out “by the end of parliament,”  and has done little to improve the government’s reputation for cracking down on civil liberties. The digital cards will be needed to prove a person’s right to live and work in the UK but will not have to be carried all the time. Plans pu

“Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination …” An apropos quote from The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a longtime prisoner of the gulag and dissident from Soviet Russia. The insights that we have today from the Cold War, whether Soviet gulag prisoners or those struck down in the hysteria of McCarthyism, have become crucially important in the United States of late, as T

It was supposed to be a morning of celebration on their most holy of days. Instead, it became the epicentre of the day that antisemitism...

The USA’s modern food security policy can be traced to 1943 when President Roosevelt initiated the United Nations Conference on Food and...