Robin Scher

Robin Scher is a writer based in South Africa. He is a graduate of the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at New York University. Find him on Twitter @RobScherHimself.

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 Impact of Plastic on Human Health

July 13, 2023

Human Rights

In 2019, the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks published a statement that identified 14 emerging health and environmental issues. Right near the top of that list was plastic waste.

Across Africa, Water Conflict Threatens Security, Health, and the Environment

November 22, 2022

Columns

Water is a finite resource on our planet. We can only rely on what we have, which translates to about 2.5 percent of drinkable fresh water. Of that amount, only 0.4 percent currently exists