World

Food security has become one of the most consequential strategic questions facing the Arab world. Heavy reliance on imported grain, seeds, and agricultural inputs, combined with limited control over pricing and distribution, has left the region exposed to decisions made far beyond its borders.

For over two decades, The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) stood as the clearest example of what concentrated donor power could do: one country's political will, translated into billions of dollars a year, credited with saving more lives than any single global health program in history. That era is now ending, not through a managed transition but through an abrupt, largely unplanned withdrawal that began within days of the second Trump administration taking office in January 2025. The story that follows is not simply about cuts to HIV/AIDS funding, but it is about what happens when the architecture of global health financing loses its dominant pillar, who scrambles to fill the resulting vacuum, whether the countries left exposed can build the fiscal and institutional capacity to stand on their own, and whether the system that emerges is more fragile or more resilient than the one it replaces. The transition is already producing real costs: closed clinics, disrupted treatment, and rising infections in countries that had spent years bringing their epidemics under control. Besides, it is also accelerating financing reforms, regional cooperation, and domestic manufacturing that donor dependence had, for twenty years, made largely unnecessary. Both of these things are true at once, and this analysis traces both.

The theatrical performance of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey in July 2026 is a useful lens on a broader shift in media economics, though the film's box office alone cannot prove a structural thesis. While popular discourse frames the film's financial momentum as an isolated creative triumph, a microeconomic and corporate finance reading suggests a more durable market reallocation is underway: in an entertainment ecosystem saturated by digital abundance and on-demand streaming, consumer and studio spending appear to be reallocating toward physically differentiated experiences that are difficult to replicate digitally. This is best treated as a working hypothesis supported by suggestive evidence, not an established fact, one blockbuster’s run is not, by itself, proof of structural change.   This migration is commercially relevant to IMAX Corporation (NYSE: IMAX), whose model separates a broadly scalable global digital network from an ultra-scarce fifteen-perforation seventy-millimetre analogue footprint. Distinguishing these two tiers helps isolate how digital commoditization pressures studio differentiation strategy, shifts consumer willingness to pay, and concentrates box-office economics within a small number of specialized network operators, while also, exposing IMAX to risks that a purely optimistic reading tends to omit.

Smart glasses are no longer an experimental technology waiting to prove whether consumers will adopt them. They are already spreading rapidly, with Meta having sold more than 7 million pairs of its Ray-Ban smart glasses and daily use reportedly tripling year over year in early 2026. At the same time, the technology is becoming more capable, combining cameras, microphones, AI, translation, navigation, audio, and visual recognition in an object designed to remain on the user's face throughout the day. As manufacturers expand the technology and the market continues to grow, restaurants, theatres, workplaces, conferences, and other venues are increasingly questioning whether existing rules governing photography and recording are adequate.   The question, therefore, is no longer whether smart glasses will become part of everyday life, but what their expanding adoption will do to privacy and public space. Unlike smartphones, which normally require a visible gesture to record, smart glasses can capture and interpret their surroundings while their wearer continues to behave normally. As adoption expands, surveillance power is consequently shifting beyond governments, companies, and security systems towards ordinary individuals. This raises broader questions about who controls the information collected, who owns it, how it can be used after capture, and whether privately generated recordings could become another source of institutional surveillance.

Since Egyptian diplomat Boutros Boutros-Ghali left office as UN Secretary-General in 1996, after a US veto blocked his bid for a second term, no Arab has held the organisation's highest office for nearly three decades. This prolonged absence is neither a matter of chance nor, as some suggest, the result of a lack of Arab diplomatic expertise or competence. Rather, it stems from the interplay between the UN's complex selection process and the calculations of global powers, which together create a barrier to the emergence of new Arab candidates for the organisation's leadership.   The roots of this problem lie in the UN's regional group structure and the rules governing geographic rotation. The selection process does not treat Arab states as a single geographic bloc, but divides them between the "African Group" and the "Asia-Pacific Group". This division dilutes Arab voting strength. When it is Africa's or Asia's turn to put forward candidates for the post, Arab contenders must compete with major states that wield considerable political influence and demographic weight within their respective regions, making it difficult to secure the regional backing and consensus required for a successful candidacy.   Alongside this internal division, divisions among the major powers on the Security Council play a decisive role. The Middle East and North Africa is a key arena of great-power competition, subjecting any Arab candidate to intense political scrutiny by the five permanent members. Since securing the post necessarily requires avoiding a veto from any one of them, identifying a candidate acceptable to all the competing powers becomes exceptionally difficult, particularly as each contender is assessed in light of their country's international relationships and global alignments.   This analysis therefore seeks to unravel the reasons behind this prolonged absence. Does the reluctance of Arab capitals to enter the race in recent decades reflect a retreat and an acknowledgement of diplomatic limitations, or does it instead represent a tactical withdrawal and a calculated strategic decision to avoid electoral contests whose rules are structured in ways that effectively exclude candidates from regions at the fault lines of intense geopolitical rivalry?

Countries are increasingly shifting toward making themselves indispensable in a specific area. China controls rare-earth minerals, Taiwan pioneers in semiconductor manufacturing, the United States leads in artificial intelligence and advanced technologies, and the Gulf, particularly the UAE, positions itself as a global logistics hub.   This new era introduces the concept of “strategic irreplaceability or indispensability”, in which countries no longer focus solely on maximizing their national power but instead become experts in a specific field, making them an indispensable bottleneck in the global system.

The international system is undergoing one of its most significant periods of transformation since the end of the Cold War. Intensifying geopolitical competition, prolonged armed conflicts, growing tensions between major powers, and mounting criticism of international institutions have all raised fundamental questions about the future of global governance. 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} 50%{ opacity:.22; } } @keyframes bg-flow{ to{ stroke-dashoffset:-320; } } main, footer, .hero, .intro{ position:relative; z-index:1; } @media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce){ .scroll-cue .line{ animation:none !important; } .bg-anim .ring-group, .bg-anim .ring-group.reverse, .bg-anim .node, .bg-anim .link{ animation:none !important; } } Pulse Survey Series The New World Order The old system is fracturing — and no clear successor is in sight. Findings from Al Habtoor Research Centre. Read the findings The international system is undergoing one of its most significant periods of transformation since the end of the Cold War. Intensifying geopolitical competition, prolonged armed conflicts, growing tension between major powers, and mounting criticism of international institutions have all raised fundamental questions about the future of global governance. As confidence in the post-1945 order declines, debates over multipolarity, the effectiveness of multilateral cooperation, and the legitimacy of international organizations have moved to the center of global political discourse. This Pulse survey examines how the public reads that shift — their trust in institutions, their view of recent great-power behaviour, and their expectations for who, if anyone, leads next. 87%say Trump's positions have hurt international bodies 75%see multilateral cooperation as weaker than a decade ago 43%expect a multipolar world of major powers Confidence in institutions has collapsed 56.5%say bodies like the UN, WHO and World Bank are no longer as reliable as they once were Only 4.3% of respondents still describe these institutions as trustworthy and dependable. A further 39.1% express just moderate confidence — a qualified trust that, combined with outright distrust, means 96% of respondents now hold some degree of reservation about the institutions built to anchor the post-war order. International institutions derive their effectiveness from broad public confidence in their impartiality. When that confidence is this thin, it points to a legitimacy challenge rather than a passing mood — and it sets the baseline against which future Pulse surveys will track whether the erosion is cyclical or structural. How much confidence do you currently have in international institutions? The "Trump effect" reads as corrosive, not neutral 87%view Donald Trump's recent positions as a negative influence on international institutions Positive, neutral, and unsure responses are essentially tied at 4.3% each — a rare degree of consensus in an otherwise divided survey. Respondents appear to read the "Trump effect" as more than disagreement with one leader: when the world's most influential power openly questions or selectively engages with international institutions, it creates permission for other states to do the same. Over time, that dynamic risks weakening respect for international law, reducing compliance with multilateral rules, and accelerating the fragmentation of the global governance system this survey documents throughout. How do you view recent Trump positions on international institutions? No successor to the current order is in sight 43.5%believe no clear leader will shape global governance in the years ahead Emerging powers are the next most likely candidate at 29%, while the United States (13%) and regional coalitions (14.5%) trail closely behind — essentially split. Rather than a single successor to the current order, respondents anticipate a diffusion of influence. The absence of a dominant choice suggests people don't expect a straightforward handover from one hegemon to the next, but a more fluid, contested environment where power is dispersed among multiple actors without a universally accepted leader. Who is most likely to shape global governance in the future? A decade-long slide in multilateral cooperation 75.4%say multilateral cooperation is weaker today than a decade ago Only 8.7% believe it has strengthened; 15.9% see it as roughly unchanged. This perception reinforces the broader narrative running through the survey: a system seen as increasingly fragmented and less able to coordinate collective action — on security, public health, climate, or economic governance. If this view persists, it may further erode public expectations that international institutions can manage the next global crisis. Cooperation vs. a decade ago Multipolarity is the expected — not the feared — outcome 43.5%expect power distributed among several major states; another 36.2% expect regional coalitions to lead instead Together, multipolar and coalition-led futures account for close to four-fifths of all responses. Just 17.4% remain unsure, while a return to unipolarity (2.9%) draws only marginal support. The post–Cold War unipolar moment, in the public's view, is ending — not in favour of a new single power, but of a system with multiple centres of influence and greater reliance on flexible coalitions. Which future model of global order is most realistic? "Respondents don't simply believe the existing order is weakening — they expect the emerging one to be more fragmented, more competitive, and less predictable." Managing diffusion, not replacing a hegemon Taken together, the five findings point to one conclusion: the challenge for global governance in the coming years is less about which power replaces the last one, and more about managing a world where power is increasingly diffused across multiple, uncoordinated actors — with public trust in the referee institutions already running low. 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What if the sea lanes were no longer free? For seventy years, the assumption that ships pass through the world's strategic straits without permission, payment, or political approval has underpinned global trade so completely that it was rarely stated, let alone defended. In 2026, that assumption stopped being safe. In one of the world's most critical waterways, passage is now vetted, priced, and rationed by political alignment. At another, a price for safe transit has been openly announced. Along the polar routes, permits and fees are already the law, and older managed regimes are quietly expanding. These are not isolated crises. Taken together, they form the early signal of something larger: the transformation of maritime chokepoints from global commons into sovereign assets, and with it, the quiet repricing of the geography on which world trade depends.

Since mid-2025, a growing number of organizations that aggressively automated human work with artificial intelligence have begun reassessing those decisions. High-profile cases, including Ford Motor Company, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), IBM, and Klarna, demonstrate a common pattern: AI systems proved highly effective at handling routine, high-volume work but struggled with tasks requiring contextual judgment, tacit expertise, ethical reasoning, and complex customer interaction. Rather than abandoning AI, these organizations have reintroduced or redesigned human roles to complement automated systems.   This paper argues that these developments should not be interpreted as evidence that AI has failed, nor that widespread automation is reversing. Aggregate labor market data points in the opposite direction: AI continues to drive significant workforce reductions across many industries. Instead, the evidence suggests that many early adopters overestimated the extent to which entire jobs, not individual tasks, could be safely automated. The result has been a period of organizational recalibration in which firms are redefining the boundary between machine efficiency and human judgment.   Drawing on these company case studies together with a broader empirical base spanning Orgvue, Forrester, Robert Half, Careerminds, Gartner, and McKinsey, this paper develops a framework of task-conditional complementarity. Under this framework, AI increasingly performs standardized, repetitive, and predictable components of work, while humans concentrate on specialized oversight, exception handling, and continuous system optimization.   The paper also examines important boundary conditions. Not every organization has experienced this recalibration. Firms such as Amazon, Salesforce, and Shopify have not publicly demonstrated comparable reversals, suggesting that industry characteristics, workflow design, organizational maturity, and the pace of AI adoption may all influence automation outcomes. Similarly, Duolingo and JPMorgan illustrate alternative organizational responses, including policy correction and internal redeployment, that differ from direct rehiring.   The central conclusion is that the future of work is unlikely to be defined by either wholesale human replacement or resistance to AI adoption. Instead, competitive advantage will increasingly depend on accurately distinguishing which tasks can be automated, which require sustained human expertise, and how organizations redesign work to combine both effectively. The firms most likely to succeed will be those that treat AI implementation as an exercise in organizational redesign rather than simply a strategy for reducing headcount.

Global food security has rarely faced two simultaneous structural shocks of this magnitude. The February 2026 closure of the Strait of Hormuz, triggered by the escalating US-Israel-Iran conflict, severed the world's most critical maritime corridor for energy, fertilizer, and food trade in a single blow. Thousands of miles away, El Niño, a periodic warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean that triggers droughts, weakens monsoons, and disrupts growing conditions across the globe, is intensifying at a pace forecasters warn could make it one of the most severe events since records began.   Each shock alone would constitute a serious test for global food systems. Together, they converge on a region structurally designed to withstand neither. In 2026, both shocks are unfolding simultaneously, stacked on top of fertilizer markets already in crisis — a compounding that no previous El Niño episode has faced. The question is no longer whether they will converge, but how severe the consequences will be for a region structurally unprepared for either.

International institutions have traditionally operated as the primary arbiters of global security and coordinators for transnational crisis management. However, their recent inability to effectively mediate pressing crises has exposed deep structural flaws, sparking what is widely observed as a profound crisis of trust. Yet, framing this dynamic merely as a "decline" misses the broader strategic shift occurring in global governance. This crisis of trust, rooted in outdated power distributions and systemic inequities, is not simply the decay of the post-World War II liberal order—it is a market correction. Driven by a widening representation gap and the selective enforcement of international law, emerging and middle powers are no longer merely seeking institutional reform; they are engaging in active "institutional hedging." This analysis argues that rather than witnessing the end of multilateralism, the global system is transitioning into a competitive marketplace of governance, where states bypass legacy bottlenecks in favor of agile, interest-based minilateral blocs and alternative institutional architectures.

In February 2025 the AI researcher Andrej Karpathy named something programmers had already started doing: describing what they wanted in plain English and letting an AI model write the code, rather than reading and understanding it themselves. He called it "vibe coding." A year later, a version of the same habit turned up somewhere far less forgiving of error. A recent Economist report on "vibe lawyering" describes how ordinary people, guided by AI chatbots rather than legal training, are drafting complaints, contesting disputes, and pursuing litigation they would once have needed a lawyer for. Research cited in that report, by Anand Shah at MIT and Joshua Levy at USC, examined 4.5 million federal civil cases and found that the share of self-represented litigants, flat at around 11% for two decades, climbed to 16.8% by fiscal year 2025, while the number of self-filed suits roughly doubled. The chatbots involved don’t just help people write; they tend to invent case law outright, encourage litigation, discourage settlement, and inflate people’s sense of how likely they are to win. Courts have started responding in kind: nearly a thousand reprimands have gone out over improper AI use in filings, and a federal appeals court recently suspended two lawyers over fabricated citations.   Law makes an unusually good case study, because courts keep a public, searchable record of what happens when confidence outpaces competence. But it is a case study, not the whole story. The same dynamic, a fluent AI answer standing in for judgment someone doesn’t actually have, is turning up wherever people now use AI to make decisions they used to need real expertise for. That is what this piece is actually about: not litigation specifically, but what AI does to a person’s sense of their own competence once it is quietly doing part of the thinking for them, and what that could mean as the pattern spreads well past the courtroom.