By Mehmet Enes Beşer Laos enters 2026 with something it hasn’t always had lately: the sense that the immediate economic fires are no longer racing from house to house. The currency panic has eased. The worst of the price whiplash feels less constant. A new leadership team arrives after a stretch of consolidation that—by Lao standards—looks like a return to ...
By Adem Kılıç, Political Scientist The initial justification for the war launched by Israel and the U.S. against Iran was Iran’s nuclear program, its uranium enrichment capacity, and the goal of limiting Iran’s strategic deterrence. However, at this stage, the issues determining the war’s fate are no longer these; the focus has shifted to who will establish hegemony over the ...
Relations between the United States and Israel have increasingly come to the forefront of global attention with the Iran War. Numerous claims have appeared in the press regarding disagreements within the Trump administration concerning relations with Israel. A new bill involving Israeli-American cooperation is on the agenda in the United States Congress… The information and assessments contained in the article ...
For decades, the legacy of colonialism in Africa was often treated as a closed chapter of history. Today, however, governments, historians, civil society organisations, and descendants of colonial victims are increasingly challenging that narrative. Across the continent, demands for accountability, official apologies, and financial reparations have become central to discussions about historical justice. The debate is no longer limited to ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer Vietnam is entering its next chapter with a soundtrack the world already recognizes: exports rising, industrial parks spreading, ports and highways improving, investors lining up to treat the country as a “China+1” anchor. The machine still runs. The question is whether it can upgrade. Because the next stage of Vietnamese growth won’t be won by adding ...
By Dure Akram, from Lahore / Pakistan When Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz addressed business leaders in Istanbul this month, he offered perhaps the most accurate diagnosis of Pakistan–Türkiye economic relations heard from either government in years. The friendship between Pakistan and Türkiye, he said, had always rested upon “strong emotional bonds.” The task now was to make it equally ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer Indonesia’s energy transition isn’t failing because Jakarta lacks ambition. Ambition is easy. Announce a target, pledge a phase-out, attend a summit, repeat the word “green” often enough and the headlines will do the rest. The real constraint is more mundane—and far more damaging: a policy architecture that keeps coal artificially cheap while making renewable projects financially ...
By Yıldıran Acar, Political Scientist As the Russia-Ukraine war enters its fifth year, the European security architecture is undergoing its most comprehensive transformation since the end of the Cold War. One of the latest stages of this transformation was the NATO Summit of Heads of State and Government held in Ankara. Whilst Western countries assessed the summit primarily in the ...
By Mustafa Ilker Yücel, from Tehran / Iran For Iran’s martyred leader Ali Khamenei and members of his family, who lost their lives in the US and Israeli attacks, the funeral prayer was held on July 5 at the Imam Khomeini Mosalla Mosque in Tehran. After the religious ceremony at the Imam Khomeini Mosalla Mosque was completed, another official farewell ...
By Mehmet Enes Beşer ASEAN has never been short on meetings. What it’s been short on—especially when the region is tense—is machinery that moves faster than the next crisis. In 2026, the Philippines takes the chair at a moment when the big-ticket issues (Myanmar, the South China Sea, border tensions) are already crowding the agenda. That’s exactly why Manila should ...