Lebanon, the party and the crisis
Benjamin Netanyahu has his way of dealing with those he perceives as Israel’s enemies. He may have accepted the Gaza ceasefire, but that does not mean that he has to suspend what...
Can AI be Asia’s next growth engine?
Two decades after globalization fueled a global economic boom, growth has shifted to a more subdued path, where it is likely to remain for the foreseeable future. Beyond the immediate shock of...
Voting with their feet: Why more Israelis are leaving
There is hardly any long-standing ethos dear to the country and society that the current Israeli government has failed to damage or destroy. Recent data released by the country’s Central Bureau of...
Azerbaijan a strategic addition to the C5
At a meeting in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, last Sunday, the leaders of the five Central Asian states — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — made an important decision that could have geopolitical...
Global challenges must be a priority at G20 Summit
The 2025 G20 Summit, to be hosted by South Africa on Saturday and Sunday, offers a critical opportunity for global leaders to coordinate action on several significant and systemic challenges that are...
A historic day for Saudi Arabia and the US
The reception that greeted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Washington was exceptional even by American standards. Full state honors, a 21-gun salute, mounted guards on horseback and fighter jets overhead signaled...
The sin of omission in the court’s Sde Teiman investigation ruling
The justices opened the door to political intervention in criminal investigations, leaving out the larger context that warns how democracies die
Exceptional, extreme, unprecedented, complex,...
UN climate summit sends a message of global ‘mutirao’
About 50,000 delegates from more than 190 countries descended on the Brazilian city of Belem earlier this week for COP30, the annual UN climate change conference, with the two-week negotiations likely to...
SF: From Stabilization Mechanism to Explicit Statehood Horizon?
Last week, Washington circulated a draft UN Security Council resolution to establish an International Stabilization Force (ISF) for Gaza. At the time, reporting suggested that elements of the Trump 20-Point Plan were...
Lessons from Spain’s urban and tourism transformation
When Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Tourism Ahmed Al-Khateeb stated during this week’s UN Tourism General Assembly in Riyadh that “the cities of the future will be built for visitors, not just for...