View Articles

The 56th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), held in Davos from 19–23 January 2026 under the theme “A Spirit of Dialogue,” took place against a highly charged backdrop of strained global trade relations. Actions taken by the U.S. President Donald Trump fundamentally altered the established framework of cooperation among nations.

NEW YORK: The United States is forcing an oil boycott against Cuba through pressure on Mexico — a targeted blow aimed at bringing the island to its knees economically and forcing a regime change. The decision by the Mexican government to no longer ship oil to Cuba threatens to initiate a countdown to the island’s economic collapse.

The meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday, January 29 in Beijing assumes special significance at a time when Britain is fighting its transatlantic ally U.S. over the sovereignty of Greenland and President Trump has mentioned security threat from China and Russia in Arctic as the major reason for U.S. move for takeover of the island.

KOLKATA: Despite protests from South Asian countries to various US authorities, there has been no noticeable improvement in the treatment of illegal immigrants as the official 'search, detect and deport' drive continues in full strength. During the last few days, two planeloads of 50' illegals' each, their cuffs and shackles duly in place, were despatched to Nepal and Bangladesh.

HANOI: Over the last half decade, Vietnam has emerged as a growing middle power in the world. Its economy is one of the fastest—if not the fastest—growing in the world. But just over 40 years ago, before embarking on a set of economic renewal policies known as Đổi Mới, Vietnam was among the poorest countries on earth. Since then, millions of Vietnamese have been lifted out of poverty, and Vietnam has become an economic powerhouse under a socialist-oriented economy.

Gold pushing decisively past the $5,000-a-troy-ounce threshold at the same moment the US dollar slides to a four-month low is not just a dramatic coincidence of charts. It marks a psychological rupture in global markets, challenging assumptions that have underpinned portfolio construction and macroeconomic thinking for decades. What once belonged to the realm of tail-risk scenarios has arrived in real time, forcing investors, policymakers and central banks to confront a reassessment of US political credibility, policy coherence and the role of traditional safe havens in an increasingly fragmented global system.

After nearly two decades of stalled negotiations, missed deadlines and political hesitations, India and the European Union on Monday announced the conclusion of a sweeping free trade agreement that both sides say could reshape global commerce at a moment when the world economy is fragmenting along geopolitical lines.

There is something faintly theatrical about the Washington Post’s recent report claiming that a U.S. diplomat in Dhaka openly told Bangladeshi journalists that Washington wants to cultivate relations with Jamaat-e-Islami and views Hefazat-e-Islam through a pragmatic lens. The report is built around alleged audio recordings from a closed-door meeting. It is presented with the authority of quotation marks and the confidence of a paper that has made its reputation by puncturing power. Yet the story collapses the moment one asks a basic question: if an American diplomat had truly said these things, why would the audio ever see the light of day?

With the purge of General Zhang Youxia, until now the vice-chairman of China’s all-powerful Central Military Commission, there remains just another member in the traditionally seven-member top body controlling China’s vast military outfit following the latest purges by the President Xi Jinping.

Though the South Asia is well positioned to move from ad hoc bilateral coordination to more structured, institutionalized forms of regional collaboration, the region is facing numerous challenges in strengthening Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). Trust remains a critical enabler for both DPI adoption and interoperability across South Asia—but currently, trust in digital systems is fragile. Countries are experiencing infrastructure that is not resilient, data protection frameworks that are weak and outdated, unclear institutional accountability, uneven cybersecurity readiness, and lack of awareness. Multiple actors are pursuing piecemeal cybersecurity projects, awareness drives, and legal reforms without a shared framework that are weak and outdated, clear sequencing, or mutual recognition. This leaves critical gaps and risks embedding trust as an afterthought rather than a design principle.