US President Donald Trump's order to assassinate Iran's General Qassem Suleimani while on an official mission to Iraq was widely hailed in Trump's jingoistic Republican Party. Government-sanctioned murders of foreign officials, clerics, and journalists are commonplace nowadays. Yet there is somethi
On the most important issue in the United Kingdom's modern history - whether to leave the European Union (EU) or remain - the UK's electoral system produced an absurd result. A majority of the UK (United Kingdom public wants to remain in the EU, and actually voted accordingly in the parliamentary e
Wall Street hedge funds and lawyers have turned an arcane procedure of international treaties into a money machine, at the cost of the world's poorest people. The latest shakedown is a $5.9 billion award against Pakistan's government in favour of two global mining companies - Antofagasta PLC of Chi
Three of the world's more affluent cities have erupted in protests and unrest this year. Paris has faced waves of protests and rioting since November 2018, soon after French President Emmanuel Macron raised fuel taxes. Hong Kong has been in upheaval since March, after Chief Executive Carrie Lam pro
With Donald Trump due to visit Europe again for the G7 summit later this month, European leaders have run out of options for dealing with the US president. They have tried to charm him, persuade him, ignore him, or agree to disagree with him. Yet Trump's malevolence is bottomless. The only alternat
How did the world's two most venerable and influential democracies - the United Kingdom and the United States - end up with Donald Trump and Boris Johnson at the helm? Trump is not wrong to call Johnson the "Britain Trump" (sic). Nor is this merely a matter of similar personalities or styles: it is
National politics in the United States has become enslaved to macroeconomic indicators that have little bearing on true wellbeing. For many commentators, the snapshot growth rate of 3.2 per cent for the first quarter of 2019, coupled with a decline in the unemployment rate to 3.6 per cent in April,
President Donald Trump's announced withdrawal of US forces from Syria has met with near-universal condemnation by Democrats and Republicans alike. That says less about Trump than it does about the US foreign policy establishment's blinkered vision. The mainstream of both political parties exhibits
