Project Syndicate

By Nate D.F. Allen and Nanjira Sambuli WASHINGTON, DC/NAIROBI – Last year, Google’s Equiano undersea cable began conveying terabytes of data per second to and from African shores.

By Ralph Gonsalves, Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa, and Wavel Ramkalawan KINGSTOWN/APIA/VICTORIA – It is too early to tell whether all the talk about reforming development finance at this year’s International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring Meetings will translate into meaningful policy action for the Global South.

By William Ruto NAIROBI – Last year in Berlin, the great Kenyan long-distance runner Eliud Kipchoge broke the world marathon record, clocking 02:01:09 and beating his previous time by 30 seconds.

By Florence Gyembuzie Wongnaah STOCKHOLM – When Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was found to be safe and effective in 1955, following a successful trial involving nearly two million American children, it marked a turning point in the fight against a highly infectious disease causing incurable paralysis or even death.

By  Cédric O PARIS – On March 22, the Future of Life Institute published an open letter calling for a six-month moratorium on the development of generative artificial intelligence systems, citing the potential dangers to humanity.

By Hippolyte Fofack CAIRO – The US Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates by 475 basis points over the course of 12 months, in a bid to curb inflation, was bound to be perilous.

By Ricardo Hausmann CAMBRIDGE – Spoiler alert: I am not going to talk about how ChatGPT responds when prompted about economic-development strategies.

By Richard Black BERLIN – Judging by the growing number of companies vowing to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions to zero these days, it may seem like the corporate world is finally taking the climate crisis seriously.

By Cristina Donini and Doreen Akiyo Yomoah GENEVA – Over the past three years, the COVID-19 pandemic has dominated headlines and spurred scientific research, with experts around the world focusing resources and any potentially useful technology on the problem.

By Chris Patten LONDON – The Communist Party of China has a way of flattering foreign leaders into supporting its policies, or at least remaining mum about them.

By Robert Skidelsky LONDON – In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, scientist Victor Frankenstein famously uses dead body parts to create a hyperintelligent “superhuman” monster that – driven mad by human cruelty and isolation – ultimately turns on its creator.

By Jon Hyman and Shannon Kellman WASHINGTON, DC – Since 2017, Islamic State-affiliated insurgents have wreaked havoc on Mozambique.

By Masatsugu Asakawa MANILA – We live in a world assailed by crisis, with war, disease, and economic hardship taking a terrible toll on human welfare in recent years.

By Shashi Tharoor NEW DELHI – The sentencing of Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition Indian National Congress, to two years in prison, and his disqualification as a lawmaker in the Lok Sabha (the lower house), has sent shockwaves through India’s political system.

By Jorge G. Castañeda and Carlos Ominami NEW YORK – Recent years have not been good ones for democracy in Latin America.

By Mark Leonard BERLIN – By all accounts, Chinese President Xi Jinping has had a successful few weeks.

By Kenneth Rogoff MILAN – The spectacle of the US Congress grilling TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on March 23 could one day be remembered as a turning point in the history of globalization.

By Beniamino Callegari and Per Espen Stoknes OSLO – An easy way to start a long, heated debate is to mention global population.

By George Soros LONDON – It is exactly one month ago that I gave a speech on the eve of the Munich Security Conference.

NEW DELHI – Since the dawn of international politics, smaller states have faced the formidable challenge of navigating great-power rivalries.