When the Dow Jones Industrial Average sneezes, the world doesn’t just catch a cold—it starts Googling funeral arrangements and debating which national anthem to play at the wake. Across time zones, from the glass sarcophagi of London’s Canary Wharf to the neon temples of Shanghai’s Lujiazui, traders watch those thirty American blue-chips like anxious relatives…
Scotland vs Belarus: Two Cold Places, One Lukewarm Game, and the Entire Planet Pretending to Care By Our Man in the Departure Lounge, somewhere between Glasgow and Minsk Let us begin with the obvious: there are only so many ways two mid-table nations can disappoint their citizens on a Tuesday night, yet Scotland and Belarus…
North Macedonia has spent the last thirty years being politely asked to re-introduce itself at every diplomatic cocktail party on the planet. The country—formerly “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (try fitting that on a lapel pin)—finally settled on the name “North Macedonia” in 2019 after Greece threatened to veto its NATO dreams. Athens insisted…
Broadcom’s Surge: How a Silicon-Valley Chipmaker Became the World’s Quiet Loan Shark By Our Man in Singapore, who has watched empires rise on smaller margins than Broadcom’s licensing fees. HONG KONG—While diplomats bicker over tariffs and TikTok, the real global power play is happening inside a beige box in San Jose. Broadcom Inc., the company…
The World: A 24-Hour Spin Cycle on the Cosmic Laundromat by our roving correspondent, still waiting for his lost sock in the dryer of destiny Yesterday, at 2:17 p.m. GMT—give or take the eternal lateness of airline schedules—Planet Earth completed another smug lap around the sun. Somewhere between the Indian Ocean and a cloud of…
The continent that once carved the planet into colonies with the enthusiasm of a chef slicing truffles now finds itself an elegant, slightly anxious dinner guest at the global feast it once catered. Europe, that antique mosaic of kingdoms, republics, and tax shelters, is busy rehearsing humility while the rest of the world scrolls past…
**The World’s Most Dangerous Reality Show: Ukraine’s Geopolitical Theater** Two years into Europe’s most unnecessary war since someone decided the Habsburgs needed a slight nudge in 1914, Ukraine has become the planet’s most depressing reality television series—except the contestants can’t vote themselves off the island, and the producers are nuclear powers with questionable impulse control….
Lego Star Trek: When the Final Frontier Gets Bricked and the World Holds Its Breath Geneva—In a dimly lit side hall of the Palais des Nations, delegates from 193 countries have spent the week arguing over sanctions, carbon credits, and the precise shade of diplomatic taupe that should color next year’s briefing folders. Yet every…
Kathmandu, Nepal – While the rest of the planet was busy live-tweeting the implosion of yet another tech mogul’s ego, Nepal quietly reminded everyone that altitude can still trump attitude. The Himalayan republic—sandwiched between two nuclear frenemies who can’t agree on whose map is more delusional—just pulled off two feats that actually matter: it wrapped…
The Straits Times: Singapore’s Little Red Dot That Reads Like a Cold Shower to the World’s Hot Mess By the time you finish your first espresso in Paris, The Straits Times has already delivered four breaking-news alerts, two ministerial Facebook posts, and a stern op-ed on the perils of chewing gum. For a newspaper headquartered…
KATHMANDU—While the rest of the planet obsesses over which billionaire will colonize Mars first, a modest Himalayan republic the size of Arkansas keeps quietly demonstrating how to survive the twenty-first century without losing its soul—or its sense of irony. Nepal, population 30 million and falling off the map every time Google’s servers hiccup, has become…
The Bigger Tantrum: How Israel Became Everyone’s Favorite Emotional Support Conflict If the planet were a badly lit bar at 3 a.m., Israel would be the patron standing on a stool, waving a half-empty flag and explaining—loudly—why everyone else is ruining the evening. The rest of us, nursing watered-down geopolitics and existential dread, keep ordering…
