Debates surrounding Africa’s economic development have spanned the field of development economics for decades. Different approaches and metrics have been used to explain the economic failures of these countries. This article argues that most metrics used to analyze African development pathways fail to address the underlying challenges and issues that need to be resolved.
In December 2025, Cambodia’s central bank shut down Huione Group, one of the world’s largest hubs for laundering criminal money. They laundered more than $4 billion since 2021, from “pig-butchering” scams to North Korean cyber heists. Yet Huione was no underground operation. It was a polished, licensed financial institution whose legitimate business masked a vast laundering network. Why did it take so long? The answer exposes an anti-money laundering system built, almost by design, to miss exactly this kind of institution. Huione’s shutdown is being called a victory, but is it real reform, or compliance under pressure?
The 2026 review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) resulted in a U.S. decline to renew and a major departure from North American trade policy. Points of contention quoted in the U.S. decline of negotiation included strict rules of origin, rising trade deficits, and trade policy on non-regional goods. This article examines the reasons behind the decline and how the decline of the renewal will affect North American economic integration.
The potential of the Italian-German cooperation represents not only a valuable opportunity for the two countries involved but for the entire European Union. Given the two countries’ similar industrial landscape and integrated value chains, they still represent one of the main industrial bastions of the EU and their partnership can bring considerable results in key manufacturing and innovation sectors.
As artificial intelligence increasingly transforms societies, economies, and political systems, questions of ethics, human dignity, and social cohesion gain renewed importance. This paper explores the potential role of Vatican diplomacy in addressing these challenges. Drawing on Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas” (2026), it argues that the Holy See represents a unique source of moral authority and soft power in a rapidly changing world. Unlike actors relying on military or economic influence, Vatican diplomacy promotes dialogue, mediation, and human-centered development. In an age shaped by competing technological futures, it may help foster alternative narratives grounded in solidarity, peace, and human dignity.
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The Middle East and North Africa remain among the world’s largest arms-importing regions, driven by geopolitical tensions, proxy conflicts, and rapid military modernization. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Morocco, and Egypt are expanding their defense capabilities through advanced aircraft, drones, missile systems, and strategic partnerships with powers including the United States, France, China, and Russia. At the same time, regional actors are increasingly investing in domestic defense industries and drone technologies, reshaping modern warfare across conflicts in Libya, Yemen, Syria, and beyond. The proliferation of unmanned systems, combined with illicit arms transfers and ongoing rivalries, continues to intensify instability throughout the region.
Beyond the usual rhetoric, the restored CCP–KMT meeting after a decade raises questions about Beijing’s cross-strait strategy and what the KMT under Cheng Li-wun is trying to achieve politically.
Hungary’s April election was closely watched as test case for illiberalism’s survival, and it presented a sea-change to domestic, foreign, and European policy more broadly.
The United States and China are increasingly locked in a competition over the future of artificial intelligence, but they pursue fundamentally different strategies. While the US channels massive private investment into the race toward artificial general intelligence (AGI), China focuses on three core pillars: maintaining political control over AI systems, achieving technological self-reliance in semiconductor production, and promoting open-source AI models as global alternatives to Western platforms. Through initiatives like the AI+ program and its latest Five-Year Plan, Beijing aims to integrate AI deeply into industry, infrastructure, and national security rather than concentrating solely on frontier AI research.
European leaders are gradually heeding Mark Carney’s call for divested links to the U.S.
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