Essays & News

  Sanctions imposed by the West act as economic and political tools in international relations; they aim to pressure specific countries or regions to achieve certain geopolitical objectives. These sanctions mostly have negative implications for individual businesses and governments within the targeted economies. They can also adversely impact businesses in the sanctioning states. Western companies […]

  In a matter of days, a rebel alliance in Syria led by the Islamist militia group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) brought vast swathes of the country under its control. Starting with Aleppo, followed by Hama and Homs, they entered Damascus over the weekend. President Bashar al-Assad himself has fled to Moscow. Syria is at […]

  On the campaign trail, now-President Javier Milei promised to replace Argentina’s peso with the US dollar. But, at least so far, he has failed to deliver on that promise. Instead, Milei has implemented a transition plan with the expectation of eventually establishing a more permanent monetary system, which might be something less than full-scale […]

  Conventional wisdom holds that while the United States tends to embrace innovation, the European Union often holds it at arm’s length. Recent events seem to support this: In September, the EU’s General Court ordered Apple to pay 13 billion euros in taxes to Ireland, then later that month the European Court of Justice imposed […]

  In July, the European Commission published its “European Innovation Scoreboard 2024” (EIS), “a comparative assessment of the Research and Innovation performance of EU Member States, other European, and selected third countries.” At first sight, the main results offer a somewhat comforting picture. The scoreboard, overall, shows that the European Union countries do innovate. In […]