The Maldives, that necklace of coral atolls tossed across the Indian Ocean like a billionaire’s broken bracelet, has always punched above its weight in the apocalypse sweepstakes. While other nations merely flirt with existential doom, the Maldives brings a dowry of 1,192 islands, an average elevation you could clear with a decent jump shot, and…
Helldivers: The Globe’s Newest Export in Controlled Democracy and Friendly Fire Diplomacy By J. M. St. Croix, International Affairs Correspondent Somewhere between a NATO wargame and a fraternity hazing ritual sits Helldivers 2, the Swedish-made multiplayer shooter that has quietly become the planet’s most efficient soft-power delivery system since Netflix discovered Korean dramas. In the…
**The Beautiful Game’s Not-So-Beautiful Truth: When Saudi Rivalry Meets Global Sportswashing** In the oil-rich Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, where temperatures soar high enough to make Hell’s HR department issue heat warnings, two football clubs prepare for a dance that’s about as friendly as a cobra mating ritual. Al-Ettifaq versus Al-Ahli isn’t just another Saturday…
Karachi, Wednesday, 3:47 a.m.—While half the planet doom-scrolls through another night of inflation alerts and celebrity divorces, a 22-year-old left-handed opener named Saim Ayub is quietly threatening to rewrite one of the few remaining instruction manuals that still brings the human race together: how to play Twenty20 cricket. From the floodlit graveyard shift of the…
Tesla’s share price has always moved like a sports car in ludicrous mode—except the road is iced, the driver is tweeting, and half the planet is riding shotgun. This week, as the stock ricocheted another 12 % on “delivery optimism” (read: a leaked e-mail and a photo of Elon high-fiving workers in Shanghai), the reverberations…
**The Eternal Return of Beto O’Rourke: America’s Political Groundhog Day Goes Global** In the grand theater of American politics, where sincerity and performance art have become indistinguishable, Beto O’Rourke has achieved something remarkable: he’s become the political equivalent of that friend who keeps announcing they’re “really leaving this time” at a party, only to be…
PARIS—Somewhere between the Seine and the sixth reboot of the Fast franchise, the planet paused its usual apocalyptic doom-scroll to watch Tyler Perry unveil Beauty in Black, his latest Netflix colossus. The eight-part melodrama drops just as COP28 delegates are still coughing up desert dust, BRICS+ drafts yet another currency plan nobody asked for, and…
Ego Nwodim and the Global Comedy Supply Chain: How One Nigerian-American Woman Became a Rare Export the World Still Buys By the time the satellite feed reaches Lagos, the laughter has already been compressed, monetised and tax-optimised in Delaware. Somewhere in that digital crate sits Ego Nwodim—SNL’s current longest-tenured featured player, biochemistry degree politely gathering…
Marc-André Fleury and the Great Geopolitical Face-Off By our man in the crease, watching the world slide five-hole MONTREAL—While diplomats in Geneva trade barbs over whose turn it is to nearly start World War III, a 38-year-old goalie from Sorel-Tracy, Quebec, has quietly become the most reliable border guard on the planet. Marc-André Fleury’s latest…
London, Once Again, Shows the World How to Lose Gracefully By Our Man in Terminal 5, nursing a £7.50 flat white and residual jet-lag LONDON—This foggy island capital has always been a reliable barometer for global mood swings, and the latest needle twitch is characteristically British: equal parts polite panic and theatrical indifference. In the…
Fatal Frame 2: A Global Séance in Pixels, or How Japan Taught the World to Fear Its Own Camera Roll By Our Bureau Chief of Supernatural Trade Relations, currently hiding in a Kyoto capsule hotel that still smells of 2003. Kyoto, Japan – While the rest of the planet was busy inventing selfie sticks and…
A micro-cap company from Plano, Texas, just reminded the planet that the twenty-first-century gold rush isn’t in the Yukon—it’s in whatever widget happens to rhyme with “artificial intelligence” this week. Rezolve AI (ticker: RGTI, formerly the less glamorous “Armada Acquisition Corp.”) has become the latest contestant in the global sweepstakes where venture capitalists, pension funds,…
