The west front of the United States Capitol, Washington, D.C. Photo: Architect of the Capitol, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
OPINION · AMERICAS · POLITICS & SOCIETY
Historical development dictates that social consciousness must align with economic strength.
OPINION · EUROPEA Continent Contained: How Economic Suffocation Ignited Europe’s Youth RebellionAs skyrocketing rents and crumbling public services push a generation past its breaking point, Europe faces a dangerous inflection point where economic exhaustion has rapidly turned into volatile cross-border rebellion.
OPINION · MIDDLE EAST & N. AFRICACan Saudi Arabia Build a Third Pole Amid the US-China Technology Rivalry?Saudi Arabia is leveraging Vision 2030, AI investment, and its strategic energy advantages to position itself as an independent technology hub amid intensifying U.S.–China competition.
OPINION · SOUTH ASIAIndia’s Rise as a Global Power: Reality or Myth?A contributed paper on India’s economic ambitions, the lessons of Singapore and China, and the author’s case for Narendra Modi’s leadership in turning international influence into lasting national prosperity.
ANALYSIS · AFRICASub-Saharan Africa’s Economic Integration MomentumSub-Saharan Africa’s economic growth is gaining momentum, but deeper regional integration, productive transformation, and financial connectivity will determine whether the region can translate that growth into greater influence in the global economy.
ANALYSIS · RUSSIA & EURASIAHow Sanctions Deals With the Lukashenko Regime Are Changing U.S. InterestsPrisoner-release deals have brought sanctions relief for Belarus. As American commercial interests expand, each agreement can change Washington’s incentives in the next negotiation.
OPINION · MIDDLE EAST & N. AFRICAThe Iran War: Another Costly War on America’s HeadWho Pays the Price, Who Profits, and Who Controls the Economic Fallout?
ANALYSIS · INDO-PACIFICRussia’s Warship Diplomacy (Opening Economic Doors Amid Competition Among Three Global Powers)Russia’s naval visits to Southeast Asia reveal how maritime diplomacy can create new economic opportunities for Moscow while testing ASEAN’s ability to balance its relations with China, the United States, and Russia.
ANALYSIS · AFRICATanzania Expands Gas Exploration as Vice President Witnesses TPDC Licence Signing Following Major Mnazi Bay DiscoveryFour new exploration licences expand TPDC’s role in Tanzania’s gas industry following the announcement of an estimated 223 billion cubic feet at Mnazi Bay.
OPINION · MIDDLE EAST & N. AFRICADanantara Syariah: Building an Indonesia–Middle East Economic BridgeIndonesia can turn its growing halal economy into a global force by connecting its production capacity with Middle Eastern capital, technology, and markets through the proposed Danantara Syariah.
OPINION · AMERICASTrump’s Diesel Deal and What Lies Behind ItThe protracted conflict in Ukraine and the military escalation in the Persian Gulf have dealt a significant blow to the US economy.
OPINION · AFRICAAfrica, Indo-Pacific and the Emerging Indian Ocean ArchitectureAs the Indian Ocean transforms into the primary highway for global competition, the strategic alliance between Africa and the Indo-Pacific is rewriting the rules of global trade, maritime security and resource competition.
OPINION · SOUTH ASIAWhy Has Latin American Integration Remained Limited? Lessons from ASEANLatin America can move beyond fragmented regional cooperation by building cross-border production networks, strengthening infrastructure, and applying practical lessons from ASEAN's experience in economic integration.
ANALYSIS · EUROPEThe Triple Lock: A Liability on Britain's Finances or an Imperative for Pensioners?The Labour Government's timely decision to reform the triple lock, effective in April 2030, to fund a National Care Service fostered discord from opposition parties, consequently leaving Britain in a precarious position.
ANALYSIS · SOUTH ASIAIndia’s Agricultural Trade Is Not Just About Protection or Free TradeIndia’s trade talks with the United States reveal a key challenge: protecting farmers while keeping animal feed affordable. Selective imports could help feed producers but may also increase competition for Indian crop farmers.
OPINION · AFRICAThe Growth and Welfare Paradox: A Note on the IMF’s High GDP Growth Projections for AfricaSub-Saharan Africa’s projected economic growth masks persistent challenges in poverty, inflation, employment, and public debt, raising the question of how economic growth translates into people’s welfare.
OPINIONLCT and Dollar Face-OffThis article examines how local currency transactions and regional payment networks are expanding cross-border settlement options, even as the US dollar retains its central role in the global financial system.
ANALYSIS · INDO-PACIFICThe US–China Truce Is Held Together by Hostages, Not TrustEach extension of the US–China trade truce is shorter than the last. What keeps it alive before Shenzhen is not a deal but two chokepoints, China's rare earths and America's aircraft parts, each held as a hostage by the other side.
OPINIONDanantara’s Global Ambition: From Sovereign Fund to Investment NetworkDanantara’s expanding global investments and strategic partnerships could transform it from a sovereign investment vehicle into a network connecting Indonesian capital, assets and business with global markets.
ANALYSIS · SOUTH ASIAThe Twenty-Year War That America Lost in VictoryAfghanistan: The Human, Economic, and Strategic Cost to America, Its Allies, Pakistan, and the Region
OPINION · INDO-PACIFICASEAN Economic Security AlarmASEAN’s strong economic growth is masking widening disparities in technology, investment and productive capacity, raising a critical question: can the region turn growth into genuine economic security for all its members?
OPINIONBMKS: Can Indonesia Turn Nickel Power into Leadership in Asia’s Electric Motorcycle Battery Market?Indonesia’s planned Strategic Minerals and Commodities Exchange could help turn its dominance in nickel production into a competitive advantage in Asia’s electric motorcycle battery industry through stronger price discovery.
OPINION · AMERICASSignals of a Global Geo-economic and Geopolitical ShiftBarrack's statement signals a shift in the global order, as America's enduring economic and financial dominance faces growing geopolitical competition from China and other rising powers, pushing the world toward a more multipolar system.
ANALYSISIslamic Finance Must Deliver More Than Transaction FiguresIndonesia's growing Islamic finance industry must look beyond financing volumes and business commitments to measure its real impact on productivity, market access, and inclusive economic growth.
OPINION · INDO-PACIFICFrom China+1 to ASEAN+1: Building a Regional Production NetworkAs global supply chains shift beyond China, ASEAN has an opportunity to strengthen regional economic integration by connecting its complementary manufacturing, investment, and logistics capabilities.
ANALYSIS · SOUTH ASIAPakistan's Mineral Wealth: A Geological Fortune, A Governance Failure and A Geopolitical ContestWhy a Resource-Rich Nation Has Yet to Transform Its Underground Wealth into Broad-Based Prosperity
OPINION · AMERICASUS Inflation Is Surging: An Alarm for the Global Economy?Rising US inflation, driven by surging energy prices and persistent cost-of-living pressures, threatens to reshape global financial conditions and create new economic challenges for emerging markets.
ANALYSIS · SOUTH ASIAThe Bhagiratha Wager: Why India's AI Sovereignty Needs the River-Interlinking IdeaThe two projects are not rivals for the same rupee. They are the same wager made at two scales: that a civilisation-state must be able to sense, model and steer the large systems on which its life depends.
OPINION · EUROPEAs Europe Negotiates with China: A Test for the US and a Strategic Opportunity for ASEANEurope's trade negotiations with China test transatlantic economic coordination while creating a strategic opportunity for ASEAN to strengthen its role in global trade.
ANALYSIS · EUROPEEurope's Diesel Dependence Is Now a Strategic LiabilityWashington's Russian diesel waiver is not simply an American sanctions reversal. It exposes Europe's dependence on imported fuel and the limits of a common Western policy when the United States changes course.
ANALYSIS · MIDDLE EAST & N. AFRICABangkok's Debt Test: Who Pays for the Iran War?The IMF and World Bank arrive in Bangkok as the Iran war drives up fuel and fertilizer costs. The crisis is not only about supply. It is about which governments still have room to protect their people, and which are being forced to pass the bill on.
ANALYSIS · SOUTH ASIADelhi’s Barricades and the ‘Vote Theft’ Claim: What the SIR Record ShowsThe October 10 protest put two different questions on the same street: whether the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision has been conducted transparently, and whether a political slogan can turn a disputed roll exercise into proof that an election was stolen. The first deserves an answer. The second still lacks the evidence it claims.
ANALYSIS · EUROPEThe EU Signed Four Trade Deals in Nine Months. None of Them Solves Its Problem.Between January and March 2026, the European Union concluded trade agreements with Mercosur, India and Australia, and began implementing the framework it struck with the United States the summer before. A steel and aluminium deadline arrives on 31 December. This brief asks whether the deals amount to a strategy or a shopping list.
ANALYSIS · AFRICASudan's Civil War and the Regional Balance of PowerSudan's civil war is drawing in regional powers whose competing security and economic interests could make a settlement harder to reach.
ANALYSIS · AFRICAThe Congo's Cobalt Export Ban Looks Like a Sovereignty Move. Its Own Design Says Otherwise.This analysis examines whether the DRC’s cobalt export restrictions represent genuine resource sovereignty or primarily expanded regulatory control. It argues that the 2025 quota system largely preserved the dominance of foreign-owned producers because its base allocation relied on historical export shares. While the state gained greater discretion over export rights in 2026, the clearest fiscal benefit still comes through existing mining royalties, rather than a substantial redistribution of cobalt rents.
ANALYSIS · AFRICAThe Lobito Corridor Isn't an Alternative to China's Railway. It's China's Railway, Re-engineered for a Western Strategic Era.The Lobito Corridor is widely described as the West's infrastructure answer to China in Africa's critical minerals race. This analysis finds a more precise pattern: the railway's physical core was rebuilt by Chinese financing and contractors between 2006 and 2015, and what the United States, the European Union and regional development banks have financed since 2022 is the operating concession and modernization of that existing line, not a newly built alternative. The one genuinely new piece, a Zambia-Angola extension, has fallen behind its own timeline, while China has already signed a comparable concession to modernize its own competing corridor.
OPINION · SOUTH ASIAThree Myths the West Gets Wrong About CPECBeyond the headlines: why calling a $62 billion trade corridor a "debt trap" misses what is actually happening on the ground.
ANALYSIS · AFRICAThe Sahel Didn't Replace France. It Unbundled It.Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are often described as having swapped France for Russia. The record shows something narrower: the security layer of France's presence was replaced quickly, through Wagner and Turkish drones, while the development finance, monetary architecture and institutional access that came with it were not replaced at comparable scale by anyone.
ANALYSIS · AFRICAThe G20 Common Framework Fixed Who Sits at the Table. It Never Fixed the Clock.The Common Framework brought China and the Paris Club into one restructuring process for the first time. It left the timeline open-ended, and the IMF and World Bank have since called the missing standstill and deadline design gaps. The delay, not the generosity of each settlement, has been its most underpriced cost.
ANALYSIS · SOUTH ASIAAfghanistan After NATO: When the Balloon Economy Lost Its AirFrom the pre-9/11 battlefield to two decades of foreign-funded state-building — and now a search for economic survival
ANALYSIS · SOUTH ASIAWhy AI Power Will Be Claimed in the Next Thirty Months, and by WhomIndia and Russia cannot win the race for capacity. They can contest the race for standing, and standing has a shorter clock.
ANALYSIS · RUSSIA & EURASIAThe Price Cap Didn't Stop Russian Oil. It Created a Toll Booth.The price cap was meant to cut Russia's revenue while keeping its oil on the market. Its enforcement built a parallel shipping system whose costs are shared unevenly by exporters, shipowners, insurers, traders and refiners.
ANALYSIS · MIDDLE EAST & N. AFRICAThe Sandals Gatekeepers: How a Houthi–Horn Axis Could Redraw Red Sea PowerIn September the Houthis stopped being an insurgency and became a landlord. With al Shabaab on the opposite shore, the Red Sea faces a dual chokepoint squeeze.
ANALYSIS · AFRICAThe UAE Doesn't Buy Africa's Goods. It Buys the Gates.Emirati influence in Africa is better measured by position than by pledges: ports, gold markets and farmland place the UAE at the points where African goods change jurisdiction or form.
ANALYSIS · MIDDLE EAST & N. AFRICAThe Middle East’s New Firestorm: The Houthis, Saudi Arabia and the First Test of the Makkah PactThe pact's most important test may not be whether Pakistan and Türkiye enter the Yemen war, but whether the three countries can strengthen Saudi Arabia's defence while preventing the conflict from widening.
ANALYSIS · AFRICAEgypt Didn't Fix Its Foreign Currency Problem. It Rented a Solution.The $35 billion Ras El-Hekma deal with the UAE, not structural reform alone, most immediately eased Egypt's foreign-exchange crisis, arriving just as Houthi attacks collapsed Suez Canal revenue.
ANALYSIS · SOUTH ASIAThe Cost of Partition: What the Subcontinent Lost in 1947What was the economic, political and social price of dividing an integrated subcontinent?
ANALYSIS · INDO-PACIFICKazakhstan’s Agricultural Machinery RevolutionHow Astana Is Turning Foreign Competition into Industrial Power
ANALYSIS · AFRICAThe Migration Management Trap: No Victims, No Criminals—Only ManagersMigration is neither a threat nor a tragedy. It is a system of management—and everyone is a manager.No recent analysis for this region on the front page. See the topic pages or the full archive.
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