Iran
BUSINESS
Prediction Takes Politics: Prophets and Polymarkets Collide
As 11 Peruvian shamans predicted Nicolás Maduro's fall on 29 December 2025, crypto traders were placing similar bets online—five days before U.S. forces extracted the Venezuelan leader to New York.
BUSINESS
Meloni in Manama: The Sakhir Declaration and Gulf Security
Missiles over Doha have turned the Sakhir Declaration from standard diplomacy into a survival blueprint, pushing the Gulf toward self-reliance and Europe ties.
WORLD
Yazd, Iran: Where Wind, Clay, and Faith EndureÂ
Tehran opens a metro station named for the Virgin Mary in Yazd. Another city in Iran takes quieter, deeper steps toward preservation.
BUSINESS
Iran’s Hidden Drone Ring: U.S. Sanctions Companies in China, Turkey, and the UAE
U.S. sanctions on companies supplying Iran’s drone program hit firms in China, Turkey, and the UAE—disrupting trade, finance, and supply chains.
Gaza War
The Language of War: Europe Braces for Iran-Israel Rerun
Iranian diplomats walked away from another meeting room in Istanbul last month, leaving European officials staring at empty chairs and dwindling hopes.
Popular
Winter Storm Research Rewrites a Witch Trial Tragedy
As new research published in Smithsonian Magazine this week connects a 1617 Arctic storm to Norway's deadliest witch trials, climate historians reveal how weather shock fed decades of persecution.
Prediction Takes Politics: Prophets and Polymarkets Collide
As 11 Peruvian shamans predicted Nicolás Maduro's fall on 29 December 2025, crypto traders were placing similar bets online—five days before U.S. forces extracted the Venezuelan leader to New York.
Mladenov Takes Over Gaza Board After Regional Veto
Nickolay Mladenov becomes Gaza peace board head after Arab states blocked Tony Blair, raising questions about whose interests guide Washington's selection.
Abu Dhabi Rebuffs British Universities Over Campus Radicalisation
The world’s wealthiest patrons now view Western campuses as hazards, forcing a costly inversion of the traditional hierarchy that once defined global education.
Bury the Lead: MTV ‘Death’ and the Way We Read Now
As MTV continued broadcasting across the United States and most of Europe on 1 January 2026, millions of social media tributes mourned a channel that had never actually shut down.
