Analysis & Opinion

In May last year, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that his country would soon provide safe and effective vaccines as a “global public good”, especially to the developing world.

You’re underwater and you are responsible for 100 people, and a nuclear reactor, and you’re operating in an environment that is fundamentally hard, Britain’s second sea lord said recently, discussing his former role as a commander of a nuclear submarine. “If you make a mistake, you will sink and you will die, and everybody else will …

However grim and difficult life these days is, I’d still prefer to be sitting on dry land in lockdown than trying to do a three-point turn on the Suez canal with a 400-metre cargo ship under my control. Wouldn’t you? The grounding of the Ever Given container vessel in the Suez canal has provoked both hilarity and genuine concern.

The way our cities and towns look and work reflects political priorities. In mid-19th century Paris, when Baron Haussmann was seeking public money for building his boulevards, he told the government that wide, open avenues would make it harder to riot and build barricades. In an age of urban insurrections at the heart of the French capital, that quickly opened up the public purse.

If Harry and Meghan can leave ‘The Firm’ and build a new and ‘authentic’ life as adults, why can’t I and millions of other Canadians do the same?

An astonishing global shift is under way: 127 countries have now stated that by mid-century their overall emissions of carbon dioxide will be zero. That includes the EU, US, and UK by 2050 – and China by 2060. Companies are enthusiastically signing up to similar “net zero” goals.

The global COVID-19 vaccine roll-out is creating a “vaccine apartheid”. As of February 24, approximately 216 million people have been vaccinated against COVID-19 globally. Only 8.4 percent of these are in low and lower-middle-income countries, which are home to nearly half of the world’s population.

The conviction of an intelligence official in Germany marks the end of impunity – but will more senior figures be held accountable?

Only the formation of a single decolonised state encompassing the entire territory of historical Palestine can put an end to Israel’s colonial ambitions.

In 2011, I, like most Egyptians at the time, had little hope that Hosni Mubarak’s regime would ever end. His 30 years in power had been set apart by systematic human rights violations. His pathological concern with his own security had given rise to a vast autocratic and bureaucratic state, with little civil or political freedom.