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Project Syndicate![]() |
CAMBRIDGE – Power is the ability to get others to do what you want. That can be accomplished by coercion (“sticks”), payment (“carrots”), and...
BRUSSELS – Talk of recession abounds, and it is no secret why. US President Donald Trump’s erratic, beggar-thy-neighbor policies have cast a cloud...
EVANSTON, ILLINOIS – In a famous scene from the hit American television series Succession, the savvy patriarch of a family-owned media empire is...
LONDON – Many fear that America’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement will undermine the international consensus to reduce greenhouse-gas...
ZURICH – On February 28, 2024, Sewell Setzer III, a 14-year-old boy from Florida, killed himself at the urging of a lifelike AI character generated...
PARIS – There is a peculiarly American tradition of commissioning official painted portraits of each president. The National Portrait Gallery in...
HELSINKI – A slowing global economy, rising trade tensions, and increased risks of recession could mean a perfect storm for low- and middle-income...
CAMBRIDGE – When you look at a building, you can see its walls, windows, and decorative flourishes but not the hidden structure that holds...
LONDON – After becoming the first country to cut a new trade “deal” (or at least the framework of a deal) with the United States, British Prime...
LONDON – As Russia’s war on Ukraine rages on Europe’s eastern frontier, the continent’s leaders are finally willing to admit they have the power to...
ISTANBUL – The world’s longest-running armed insurgency has come to an abrupt end. Some four decades after orchestrating its first attack against...
NEW DELHI – Toward the end of the ancient Indian epic the Mahabharata, Krishna’s Yadava clan self-destructs. Many dark omens presage their...
MILAN – An overwhelming majority of economists are convinced that, contrary to what US President Donald Trump apparently believes, tariffs cannot...
GENEVA/LONDON – As many Global North countries turn inward, foreign assistance has become an easy target. The decimation of the US Agency for...
LONDON – In times of political turbulence, leading research universities often become both targets of populist rhetoric and beacons of hope. For...
MILAN – To call the current global economic environment “uncertain” grossly understates the confusion that has taken hold in recent months, and...
SAN DIEGO – In Raiders of the Lost Ark , Harrison Ford gets his biggest laugh when a desert assassin twirls a scimitar with menacing bravado....
WASHINGTON, DC – As Donald Trump parades through the Middle East this week, he will encounter a very different region than the one he experienced...
WASHINGTON, DC – Despite a succession of shocks since 2020, the global economy has held up remarkably well – so far. But the margin for error is...
ISTANBUL – Turkey’s financial markets are still reeling from the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and key members of his team on March...
SYDNEY – Brazil has announced plans to launch a $125 billion fund for the protection of tropical forests. It is a key element of the country’s...
LONDON – In the seventeenth century, Puritan leader and Massachusetts Bay Colony founder John Winthrop described the new settlement as “a city on a...
WASHINGTON, DC – Habemus papam! (“We have a pope!”). Christians around the world rejoiced when Pope Leo XIV was elected to be the 266th...
PRINCETON/PROVIDENCE – For centuries, papal elections were also diplomatic wrangles, with the great city-states of Italy (Milan, Florence, and...
NEW YORK – Negotiators from the United States and Iran have just convened in Oman for their fourth round of nuclear talks. The two sides remain far...
LONDON – The White House announced on Sunday that the United States and China will temporarily suspend or lift the import tariffs they imposed on...
PARIS – The problem of maritime plastic-waste pollution first became apparent in the 1970s. In the half-century since then, the problem has become...