On World Press Freedom Day, the issue in MENA is no longer only whether journalists can publish, but whether they can still reach audiences, verify facts, and remain visible in a digital public sphere shaped by pressure, fear, and restriction.

Bahrain used the opening of its U.N. Security Council presidency to press its case against Iran, defend a Hormuz draft resolution and signal concern over regional instability. But questions from journalists exposed a deeper issue: the region still lacks a clear political mechanism to move from escalation management to a credible path toward de-escalation.

The Strait of Hormuz alliance shift did not emerge from a naval deployment, but from a recalibration in Washington. Japan and key European powers moved closer to U.S. strategic expectations, signaling alignment without full military commitment as the burden of securing Hormuz begins to redistribute.

As artificial intelligence reshapes power, the United Nations is struggling to keep pace. In a candid exchange, the Secretary-General acknowledged that global institutions lack leverage over technology powerful enough to influence elections, conflicts and societies. The result is an ambitious effort to set norms and warn of risks, even as enforcement remains beyond reach.

Europe’s response to Trump’s pressure over Greenland marks more than a diplomatic dispute. It reflects a deeper shift in transatlantic relations, as trust erodes, strategic autonomy rises, and long-standing assumptions about American reliability are increasingly questioned.

Every major foreign policy decision collides with the machinery of American governance. Congress debates and blocks. Courts intervene and delay. Agencies interpret and resist. Career officials shape implementation. Allies react based on their own interests, not Washington’s slogans. The result is often slower, messier, and more constrained than the rhetoric that precedes it.

Washington is no longer pursuing dramatic regime change. It is reshaping power from within. Across Venezuela, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran, the pattern is clear: exiled figures are sidelined while insiders with institutional control are favored. The goal has shifted from democratic idealism to stability and manageability. This approach may bring short-term order but risks delaying deeper political reckoning.

A doctrine revived: President Donald Trump, the Western Hemisphere, and the Caribbean energy corridor converge as U.S. power reshapes the region’s fragile energy balance. By Ahmed Fathi NEW YORK — When U.S. forces moved to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a cross-border operation on January 3rd, the White House described the action as a law-enforcement measure—part of a broader effort to dismantle what it characterized as a criminal state apparatus. But outsi

In April 2013, Venezuela stood at a crossroads after the death of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro’s razor-thin victory. More than a decade later, revisiting that moment reveals what early analysis got right about legitimacy, power, and economic decay—and what it underestimated about time, endurance, and the ability of systems to survive by hardening.

The man accused of recruiting Colombian mercenaries for Sudan’s brutal war has a name, a face, and a global footprint. U.S. sanctions and Colombian investigations point to Álvaro Andrés Quijano Becerra as a central figure in a network that empowered the RSF — raising new questions about how modern conflicts are outsourced and sustained.