Editorial As voting entered its most consequential moment, Donald Trump may have recognised the political damage awaiting his party. On Election Day, he announced that the United States would end its annual
An analysis of communism delivered by a naked pop star while receiving a massage may sound like an unlikely scene from a music documentary. Yet it captures something essential about Wham!’s extraordinary
More
As Donald Trump continued his attacks on Iran earlier this month, a potentially transformative security agreement was quietly taking shape in Saudi Arabia. On 7 August, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey signed
More
This week marks five years since the fall of Kabul to Taliban rule, an anniversary that closes one chapter of Afghanistan’s modern history while highlighting the unresolved consequences of the country’s isolation.
More
At 4am, Yogi Adityanath rises from a hard wooden bed. Two hours of meditation and prayer follow, then a simple vegetarian breakfast. The routine is austere, but the day that follows belongs
More
Iran has considered attacking US military targets in Europe if President Donald Trump escalates the war, according to people close to the Iranian regime, in a sign that Tehran is assessing options
More
A striking contradiction is emerging at the heart of the Trump administration’s attempt to dismantle America’s federal greenhouse gas reporting system: major oil and gas companies are seeking weaker requirements for measuring
More
At 22, Sarah Omari has exchanged her police uniform for the management of Austria’s largest brothel, a transition that raises questions about work, privilege, safety and the changing sex industry. On a
More
Editorial This is not new. This is precisely how the hunger for power works. Mahinda Rajapaksa tried it through the infamous 18th Amendment; Anura Kumara Dissanayake is now attempting something different in
More
The month he turned 50, my father, Mervyn de Silva, and my mother, Lakshmi, were in Havana watching Fidel Castro take over the chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement at its 6th Summit.
More
The language of Russia’s war in Ukraine is changing, creating a vocabulary in which ordinary words and numbers have acquired stark new meanings. Terms such as “meat”, “arrival”, “zero” and “business trip”
More
US President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” an annual round of joint military exercises with South Korea, arguing that the drills are costly and send an inappropriate and
More
China’s first national rules governing emotionally engaging AI seek to prevent chatbots from replacing human relationships, as millions of users increasingly turn to artificial companions for intimacy, reassurance and companionship. For Yuan
More
Note From the Editorial Team Nineteen years ago today, on 16 August 2007, we began. Nineteen years after we began during Sri Lanka’s civil war, governments have changed, crises have multiplied and
More
Pakistan is experiencing one of its deadliest periods for terrorism in more than a decade, with violence in 2026 increasing in both frequency and lethality. July alone recorded more than 600 deaths,
More
This article is adapted and abridged from a speech delivered by the author at the Sarmaya Art Foundation, Mumbai, on 8 August 2026. The text is based on the author’s two books
More