Opinions

Major portions of the Arabian Peninsula are already exceeding 2°C above pre-industrial and likely headed for a staggering temperature rise over the coming decades. This disturbing news comes via a major new study by Saudi Arabia’s most prestigious university. The…

Biblical accounts teem with violent episodes. Just a few days ago, we read in the synagogue the story of Jacob’s two sons, Levi and Simeon, massacring the entire male population of a city in a devious scheme using a religious…

The progressive regional current, the “Pink Tide,” could be better called “troubled waters” in 2024. The tide had already slackened by 2023 compared to its rise in 2022, when it was buoyed by big wins in Colombia and Brazil. Then,…

The United States, Turkey and Israel all responded to the fall of the Assad government in Damascus by launching bombing campaigns on Syria. Israel also attacked and destroyed most of the Syrian Navy in port at Latakia, and invaded Syria from the…

After decades of hiatus, Bangladesh and Pakistan have made a major step toward a new era of regional cooperation in South Asia, riddled with suspicion, distrust, disrespect, and lack of neighbourliness among the eight countries. When Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad…

The definition of alarm: “A warning of danger” (Merriam-Webster) according to The State of the Climate Report 2024, 25 of 35 vital signs are at record extremes. By all accounts, this is an over-the-top alarm that’s setting off bells and…

Too many decades have been lost to the myth that liberal democracies will deliver. The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States has consolidated what appears to be a swing towards citizens voting right-wing, authoritarian politicians into…

The Center Did Not Hold About 100 years ago, William Butler Yeats wrote a poem called “The Second Coming” which has become one of the most well known and oft quoted poems of the 20th and 21st centuries.(1) In the…

In certain respects, the Currier Museum’s Jean Michel Basquiat and Ouattara Watts: A Distant Conversation may be regarded as a modest exhibition, as it features only six works by Basquiat and seven large paintings by Watts. But the power and…

Much has been said about tyrants by Shakespeare, who described them well. The ancient Greeks said even more. And look at what they do to stay in power, or what various ambitious half-mad individuals do to rise to power. By…