OPINION

By Gordon Brown EDINBURGH – On January 27, US President Donald Trump’s second withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement will finally take effect. This follows his announcement on January 7 that the United States would leave an additional 66 international organizations, including 31 United Nations entities and 35 non-UN bodies, …

By Dorji Dhradhul (Creativity Catalyst) A Convergence of Vision, Evidence, and Timing Taken together, the survey findings do not merely endorse Bhutan’s past choices; they validate its future direction. They confirm that the values embedded in HVLV, mindfulness, regulation, respect, and responsibility are increasingly shared by a global constituency of …

By Jayati Ghosh NEW DELHI – There is a method behind the apparent madness of US President Donald Trump’s transactional, spheres-of-influence approach to geopolitics and the global economy. Nowhere has this logic been clearer than in his administration’s illegal abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and its ongoing efforts to …

By Dorji Dhradhul (Creativity Catalyst) An international perception survey was undertaken between April and June 2025 to assess the global relevance of Bhutan’s High Value, Low Volume (HVLV) tourism policy in the context of mounting challenges facing tourism worldwide. These challenges include the accelerating climate crisis, over-tourism and mass tourism …

By Shlomo Ben-Ami TEL AVIV – One year into his second presidency, Donald Trump has established himself as the most revolutionary US president in recent history. Whereas “America First” once seemed like an isolationist posture (not least to Trump’s MAGA base), it is now clear that it embraces a Hobbesian …

By Yuen Yuen Ang WASHINGTON, DC – For a mathematician, 2025 might stand out for being a “perfect square”: 45 multiplied by 45, a rare symmetry. But its significance goes far beyond numerical elegance – it marks the year the postwar global order expired, and a new one was about …

By Yanis Varoufakis ATHENS – This was the year that the remaining pillars of the late-20th-century order were shattered, exposing the hollow core of what passed for a global system. Three blows sufficed. The first was Russia’s impending victory in Ukraine over Europe’s combined leadership. For almost four years, the …

HONG KONG – For the past two years, the dominant narrative about AI has been one of boundless possibility. Larger models, trillion-token training runs, and record-breaking capex (capital expenditure) cycles have reinforced a sense of uninterrupted acceleration. But technological change is rarely so straightforward, and this time is no exception. …

By Tshering Tobgay We must not allow our limitations to overshadow the sacred duty we owe to our children. When some regions have more teachers than they need while others struggle with acute shortages, the problem is not a lack of qualified educators, it is a failure in planning, coordination, …

By Shashi Tharoor NEW DELHI – US President Donald Trump’s doubling of tariffs on a wide range of Indian goods, from a steep 25% to a catastrophic 50%, is reshaping India’s export economy. Half of what India sells to the United States – its largest trading partner – is now …