Project Syndicate

By Chelsea Hodgkins WASHINGTON, DC – In July, the Serbian government reinstated the permits for Rio Tinto’s lithium mining project, after canceling them in 2022 following public protests.

By William Ruto NAIROBI – The recent, record-breaking $100 billion replenishment of the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) is a significant milestone.

By Galip Dalay OXFORD – In September 2015, Russia intervened militarily in Syria’s civil war, propping up Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship as it teetered on the brink of collapse.

LONDON – Groundbreaking weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have understandably generated a lot of excitement, bringing hope to the hundreds of millions of people grappling with obesity.

By Jorge G. Castañeda MEXICO CITY – There is no question that immigration was a defining issue in last month’s US presidential election.

By Nathalie Alvarado and Ana María Ibáñez WASHINGTON, DC – Violent crime in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has for decades taken a steep toll on lives and livelihoods.

By Mauricio Cabrera Leal BOGOTÁ – Fueled by the clean-energy transition and surging gold prices, demand for critical minerals and metals is rising at an unprecedented pace.

By  Diego Gambetta and Thomas Hegghammer TURIN/OXFORD – Israel’s detonation of thousands of pagers held by Hezbollah fighters and loyalists in mid-September will be remembered as one of the most ingenious plots in the history of spycraft.

By Justina Nixon-Saintil NEW YORK – With artificial intelligence poised to reshape industries worldwide, a paradox is emerging.

By Ellen Johnson Sirleaf MONROVIA – As Africa’s first democratically elected female president, I am more familiar than most people with the significance of breaking the glass ceiling.

By Shashi Tharoor NEW DELHI – When US President-elect Donald Trump vows to deport millions of illegal immigrants, India might not be the first source country that comes to mind.

By Shlomo Ben-Ami TEL AVIV – The swift collapse, after 54 years, of Syria’s al-Assad dynasty has just transformed the Middle East’s geopolitical landscape.

By Guillermo Ortiz MEXICO CITY – After winning the US presidential election last month, it did not take Donald Trump very long to announce that he will impose import tariffs of 25% on all goods from Mexico and Canada, as well as adding ten percentage points to all existing tariffs on goods from China.

By Daoud Kuttab RAMALLAH – Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election was no surprise to people in the Middle East.

By Joseph S. Nye CAMBRIDGE – Prediction is always difficult, but doubly so in the case of the US president-elect.

By Nina L. Khrushcheva MOSCOW – Unlike during his first term in the White House, US President-elect Donald Trump appears determined to keep many of his campaign promises.

By Sławomir Sierakowski WARSAW – When Angela Merkel left the German chancellorship in December 2021, after 16 years in power, she had a credible claim to being one of the greatest politicians of the twenty-first century (so far).

By Joseph E. Stiglitz NEW YORK – As the shock of Donald Trump’s victory sinks in, pundits and politicians are mulling what it means for the future of the United States and global politics.

By Harold James PRINCETON – In 1987, the historian Paul Kennedy published his influential bestseller, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which dwelled on the theme of imperial overreach and concluded with a look at the Soviet Union and the United States – the two great powers of the time.

By Moisés Naím WASHINGTON, DC – When asked by a journalist what might derail his government, Harold Macmillan, Britain’s prime minister between 1957 and 1963, famously replied, “Events, dear boy, events!”