Nancy meeting you here: a tetchy Taiwan trip

The industrial arms race is on. For many political reasons, countries with the means are throwing billions of dollars into local industries. But when will leaders realise that it might harm their econ...

3 Aug 202325min

The former American president is facing a new set of unprecedented legal challenges linked to his claims that he won the 2020 election. These charges are perhaps the most serious ones yet, but how wil...

2 Aug 202324min

The country is not new to seclusion, but under the aegis of the pandemic, Kim Jong Un tightened borders even more. His regime has enjoyed the extra control, but are things finally opening up? The worl...

1 Aug 202322min

Following years of military takeovers in the region, Niger is the West’s last solid ally in the Sahel. But with this coup, and growing alignment with Russia, these relations are in jeopardy. Why is a ...

31 Jul 202323min

A country that was not long ago gripped by gang violence and crime is slowly emerging from fear, thanks to a brutal roundup of young men by a wildly popular, social-media-savvy president. The streets ...

28 Jul 202325min

Russia’s axeing of the Black Sea grain deal reveals a war machine running out of options. We explore how to get the deal back on track. A month-long mystery surrounding China’s absent foreign minister...

27 Jul 202324min

Military types need not wait until mass movements of troops to know a conflict is coming. We examine a raft of subtle and not-so-subtle market moves that would precede a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Fr...

26 Jul 202326min

A seemingly small change to the Supreme Court’s powers to adjudicate “reasonableness” represents a significant risk to the country’s democratic functioning—and 30 weeks of popular protest about it wil...

25 Jul 202321min