Laura Thomas

Laura Thomas is the Chief of Staff and Strategic Initiatives at quantum technology and manufacturing company, Infleqtion. Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer and Chief of Base. Visit her website at www.lauraethomas.com

September 12, 2026

Diplomacy/Geopolitics

Can BRICS Break the China-India Blockade?

The 18th BRICS Summit will be held in New Delhi, India, on September 12-13. This is already India’s fourth time assuming the BRICS rotating chairmanship, and the international community is closely watching

Diplomacy/Social

Sex, Violence and the Death of the Modern Man

David Szalay is a quiet man, seemingly comfortable with solitude and silence, whose existence has been somewhat unsettled by winning the Booker Prize. As El País reports in its interview with the writer, Szalay, born in Montreal in 1974, now

September 12, 2026

AI’s Insider Warning: The Race May Be Outrunning Control

Editor's Choice/Geopolitics

Inside Anthropic, two words have reportedly circulated in corridors and private chats: “crunch time” and “endgame”. The first refers to the year or two

50 Years of Buddhist Service Honoured in the United States

Social/Sri Lanka/United States

Venerable Dr. Walpola Piyananda and Venerable Dr. Madawala Seelawimala have been honoured in the United States for what organisers described as 50 years of

The Country Mothers Walk Toward

May 11, 2026

Sri Lanka Guardian Essays

An image I’ll never forget: a woman passing her baby over the wall at the Kabul airport compound. It was August 2021 and the Taliban was sweeping back into Afghanistan. All I

Espionage is a Man’s World: Sex, Lies, and the CIA

August 26, 2023

Defence/Diplomacy

Action: A) If you are applying to CIA because you hope you’ll be a sex object, please withdraw your application. B) If you’ve thought about applying to CIA but hesitate because you