Beijing Tightens Grip on Critical Minerals: As Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping prepare for a landmark meeting later this month, China has announced comprehensive export controls on rare earth minerals, strengthening an already tight hold over materials essential to global technology, defense, and green energy production. Beijing’s …

Gold has always been more than just a metal. It’s been a story—one that people keep telling themselves about safety, wealth, and permanence. Empires have risen on it, wars have been fought over it, and currencies have been backed by it. Yet, like every story people overbelieve, gold …

Madagascar’s president has fled the country, as confirmed by the leader of the opposition and other officials. Siteny Randrianasoloniaiko stated that President Rajoelina left on Sunday after army units joined the protesters. His current location is unknown. The president’s office, which had announced a national address for Monday, …

It was thought that after the US declared a ceasefire, halting their bombing of Houthi rebels in return for a halt to attacks on US ships, this would see a curtailment of the Houthi threat and disruption in the Red Sea. Yet civilian commercial ships in the Red …

On October 12, 2025, President Donald Trump began his visit to the Middle East. This marks his second trip to the region, following his first visit in May, which took place shortly before he ordered airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. This time, Trump’s itinerary includes Israel—a long-standing ally …

Dimitra Staikou Sun Tzu’s timeless maxim — “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting” — aptly captures China’s current approach to Taiwan. Rather than engaging in open warfare, Beijing is waging a multidimensional campaign of pressure and control — a hybrid war fought through cyberattacks, …

The Return of Strategic Uncertainty The Middle East has returned to center stage in US foreign policy. Donald Trump’s return to politics has already been preceded by spectacle, bombastic language, and real shifts in US military deployments. To Washington, the Gulf is geopolitically irreplaceable: it offers nearly half …

The Art of War by Sun Tzu has been the basis of all strategy in the hundreds of years before and even in modern times, specifically in schools of warfare. Its classic values, such as deception, intelligence, restraint, and speed, are still the pillars of war. The character …

With the advent of 21st-century technology advancements, the world has been reshaped in a way that extends beyond traditional human capabilities. Among these innovations, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) stand out as transformative forces that change how we think, learn, and work. In academia AI tools now …