Vijay, the Mononym that Ate the World By Our Correspondent, still jet-lagged in three time zones PARIS—In the duty-free labyrinth of Charles-de-Gaulle last week, a Chinese tourist asked me if “Vijay” was a new airline. Ten minutes later, a Senegalese street vendor in Montmarte offered bootleg T-shirts emblazoned with the same single word, right between…
Raheem Mostert and the Mirage of the American Dream, Observed from 34,000 Feet Above the Atlantic By Dave’s Locker International Desk Somewhere between Shannon and Reykjavik, the seat-back screen froze on a looping NFL highlight: Raheem Mostert slicing through the Cowboys’ defense like a tax lawyer through a loophole. The cabin lights dimmed, the flight…
Dubai, Thursday, 04:17 a.m. local—The phrase “UAE vs India” usually conjures a cricket scorecard, but the real match is being played in boardrooms, oil futures pits, and WhatsApp family groups scattered from Sharjah to Silicon Valley. One side fields sovereign wealth funds the size of small nations’ GDPs; the other dispatches humans in roughly the…
The Global Kindergarten: How the World Outsources Its Toddlers and Calls It Progress From Reykjavík to Rio, a silent consensus has formed: the most valuable mineral of the 21st century is not lithium but a qualified grown-up willing to watch someone else’s offspring for less than the price of a Manhattan martini. Welcome to the…
Manila, Philippines – At the precise moment delegates in Glasgow were pledging to phase out coal, the Philippines was quietly signing yet another 20-year sweetheart deal to import more of the black stuff. This, in a country already blessed with enough sunshine to tan the entire planet and enough wind to blow every politician’s promises…
