World View

Six months ago, at the end of Iran’s presidential election, I finished an article by speculating the long-lived theocratic dictatorship in Iran might be a lot closer to its end than its beginning: "If you can plausibly say ‘This cannot go on forever’, you are also saying ‘Some day this will come to an end’."

One week in, the ceasefire in Lebanon seems to be holding, but everything is connected: only three days later, the civil war in Syria started up again after a de facto four-year truce.

The indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza has triggered a great deal of public moralising, both pro and con.

The consensus assumption is still that Donald Trump will force Ukraine to yield to Russia as soon as he takes office on January 20.

Two weeks ago Iran, in response to Israel’s assassinations of the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas, its most important allies in the Arab world, fired 181 ballistic missiles at Israel.

"No-one can stop the wheel of history," said China’s President Xi Jinping on the 75th anniversary of the day when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) proclaimed the creation of the People’s Republic of China.

Will Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, really launch a full-scale war against Lebanon-based Hizbollah when Israel is still fighting Hamas in Gaza? Of course he will.

It's hard to know who ruined Sri Lanka, because there are so many plausible candidates.

A bit behind the curve (it was first posted last April), I have stumbled across the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness.

Six Jewish hostages were murdered by Hamas last week just before the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) reached them, and a controversy has erupted in Israel about whether Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu should have done more to save them.