Asia Pacific

Dan Steinbock        The Ebola crisis in Central Africa has crossed another dangerous threshold. What began as an outbreak in DR Congo has spread across national borders, exposed weaknesses in international preparedness, and the management of emergency assistance. On October 20, Nigeria confirmed an imported case in Abuja. …

Alexis Nexus The next frontier of military competition may not be found only in hypersonic missiles, autonomous drones or artificial intelligence. It may lie within the human body itself—in the vast microbial ecosystem that helps regulate digestion, immunity and metabolism. As synthetic biology advances, researchers are exploring ways …

When the intelligence academy of a leading regional power publishes a report called “The Anatomy of Israeli Expansionism”, the message goes beyond scholarship. Turkey’s National Intelligence Academy issued the report on October 23rd, according to Noon Post. Its central claim is that Israeli expansion is not a response …

Maya Berri The relationship between the United States and Israel has long been described as exceptional, built on strategic cooperation, military assistance, shared political interests and close personal ties between leaders. Yet beneath that partnership lies a persistent tension: how far should either country go in influencing the …

There are moments when events move faster than politics can understand them. States then become prisoners of the images they built of their rivals, explaining the present with tools from the past, even after the balance of power has shifted and the map has been redrawn. Few relationships …

Dr. Nessrine Mesto-Assaad Imagine you are taking a picture in a small café in Egypt overlooking the Nile River. You keep the picture on your cloud server, and say to yourself, “I will not share it with anyone; I will keep it to myself.” This personal, spontaneous image …

Tamara Berro When Chinese President Xi Jinping met Donald Trump in May, Taiwan was at the centre of the most difficult question in the relationship between the world’s two largest powers. Xi described the island as the most important and sensitive issue in Sino-American relations. He also warned …

Dr. Shehab Al-Makahleh George Orwell’s 1984 is often read as a warning about dictatorship. It is also a study of something subtler: how institutions and ordinary people can gradually adapt themselves to a political system they once regarded as unacceptable. The machinery of Orwell’s Oceania does not depend …

In just five months, Syria’s Banyas port has been transformed into a new outlet for Iraqi energy. In April 2026, Baghdad began moving fuel oil through Syria for export from the Mediterranean. By September, it was using the same route in reverse — importing gasoline through Baniyas and …