Automation has shaped governments for decades, but new AI-driven systems are taking on functions from warfare to welfare. Promising speed and efficiency, their growing influence over decision-making complicates political accountability and risks autonomous governance being beyond human control. Miami-Dade fully autonomous patrol vehicle -- image via news video screenshot By John P. Ruehl In April, the General Services Administration announced plans to automate 1 million work

Trump arrives in Beijing -- image via the White House on X By Tings Chak From Beijing this week, the first US state visit to China in nine years is being staged for the world to see. The Great Hall of the People is open to Donald Trump, who has traveled with eighteen US executives—Apple, Tesla, BlackRock, Boeing, and Nvidia among them. A state banquet on Thursday, followed by tea and lunch on Friday. On the streets of Beijing, ‘the Beast‘ has been securing the motorcade route

The administration of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has given rise to a proposal we might call the ‘Bukele Model,’ in which, on the surface, has managed to politically seduce large majorities in our region to the point of making them prefer extreme authoritarianism in exchange for supposed public safety. Thanks to effective propaganda, this model may establish itself as a regional phenomenon in a ‘Our America’ marked by structural violence, where the promise of immedia

From child labor to incarceration, U.S. laws often treat youth as disposable rather than nurturing their potential. Youth line up in prison in a US jail -- image via a Change.org petition By Colin Greer and Reynard Loki [Editor’s Note: This article is the second installment of “Does Your Community Care About Children?”, a four-part series by Colin Greer and Reynard Loki that examines overlapping crises facing vulnerable youth in America—including poverty, child labor, juvenil

Poor health, hunger, and malnutrition are not just symptoms of poverty—they are barriers to education, socialization, and hope. Aaron Burden aaronburden, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons By Colin Greer and Reynard Loki In Peoria, Illinois, children living in federally subsidized housing have been getting sick in the very places meant to shelter them. An investigation by ProPublica documented that apartments at the city’s Taft Homes were plagued by mold, water damage, pest infestati

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi campaigning in Kerala, March 11, 2026 -- Prime Minister's Office (GODL-India), GODL-India, via Wikimedia Commons By Vijay Prashad In India, over 123 million people voted in the four states of Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal (home to 290 million people) for their state assemblies. These are influential states: two in the south, one in the east, and one in the northeast. The next national parliamentary election is not scheduled unt

Human ecology offers a framework for understanding how social systems in Nordic countries and New York shape participation, trust, and collective well-being. Skogn folkehøgskole folk high school, Norway -- Ragnhild Lovli, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Sandra Ericson The United States is a nation of extraordinary wealth and extraordinary contradiction. Tens of millions of Americans live in material insecurity, while aggregate wealth continues to expand. Institutional

US President George W. Bush speaks with Ghana President John Agyekum Kufuor during their meeting at Osu Castle, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008 in Accra, Ghana By Vijay Prashad In February 2008, beneath the harsh afternoon sun of Accra, US President George W. Bush stood before a small gathering of journalists and dismissed swirling rumors with a chuckle. The United States, he claimed, had no intention of building military bases in Africa. “That’s baloney,” he said. The casual, dismi

A dangerous right-wing solution to homelessness is to hide the unhoused in out-of-sight detention camps. Image via X By Sonali Kolhatkar A 2024 Treasury Department report articulated the leading cause of homelessness in the United States: “For the past two decades, rents and house prices have been rising faster than incomes across most regions of the United States.” The logic of this claim—based on documented evidence—is straightforward. People aren’t earning enough to pay re

Keiko Fujimori speaking on April 13 -- news video screenshot By José Carlos Llerena Robles On Sunday, 12 April 2026, Peru held presidential and parliamentary elections for the 2026–2031 term. The deepening political crisis in which Peru has been mired since 2017, the social and economic crisis—recently characterized by issues of public safety and rising fuel prices, respectively—and the return to a bicameral legislature (Senate and Chamber of Deputies) signaled that we were i

Tax the Rich placard -- Yuri Keegstra from Milwaukee, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Gary M. Feinman Political debates about democracy often focus on culture, leadership, or polarization. But history points to a more prosaic—and more powerful—driver of political outcomes: how governments raise revenue. Across thousands of years of human history, the strongest predictor of whether power is shared or concentrated is not population size, technological sophistication

Noboa on March 7 -- Presidencia de la República del Ecuador, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Pilar Troya Fernández After losing the 16 November 2025 referendum—when the Ecuadorian people rejected the government’s four questions, including the one that opened the door to foreign military bases—Daniel Noboa’s regime accelerated its assault on democracy. In the weeks that followed, it launched a multi-pronged operation that, taken together, constitutes a semi-dictatorshi

A scene in Tehran, March 4, 2026 -- Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Ali Abutalebi On April 7, the Prime Minister of Pakistan posted on X a call for an ‘extension of the deadline,’ following Donald Trump’s threat to destroy Iran’s ‘civilization.’ Shortly afterward, diplomatic sources announced that U.S. and Iranian authorities had agreed to a ‘ceasefire’ and to resume talks in Islamabad. These developments came after 40 days of unprovoked aggression aga

Signs at a protest in Minneapolis on January 23, 2026 -- Chad Davis, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Carmen Navas Reyes From the raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at U.S. airports to the approval of the controversial Return Regulation in the European Union, the world is witnessing an ‘ ICE-ization ‘ of migration policies. This ‘ICE-ization’ is characterized by the externalization of borders, prolonged detention, and the criminalization of undocumente

Gathering in Tehran on April 7 in memory of the Minab students killed on the first day of the war -- Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Carlos Ron and Vijay Prashad The United States has agreed with Iran to cease hostilities for two weeks. The illegal US and Israeli imposed war has not ended but has a break, although not in Lebanon which was supposed to be part of the deal. Just before the ceasefire was announced, the Iranian authorities released a ten-p

Trump with Pete Hegseth on March 23 -- public domain image By Vijay Prashad US President Donald Trump has increasingly become unhinged as the war on Iran has not gone as he imagined. Both the United States and Israel felt that a series of domination strikes against Iran would decapitate the leadership of the country and force the remaining mid-level leaders into surrender. The miscalculation of the Trump-Netanyahu agenda has been total: a depth of wartime leadership has emerg

Göbeklitepe dig, 2015 -- public domain image By Erdem Denk In the heart of Ankara, less than a kilometer apart, stand two pillars of Turkish academia: the Faculty of Political Science ( Mülkiye ) and the Faculty of Language and History-Geography ( DTCF ). Mülkiye was established in 1859 to navigate the Ottoman Empire’s diplomatic relations with the West, while DTCF was founded by the first president of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in 1935 to create the historical and lingui

Trump addresses the nation, April 1, 2026 -- public domain image By Dae-Han Song Trump is infamous for his cavalier disregard for the truth. So, we, in South Korea, should inspect his words and claims critically. In fact, many of the claims in his recent 1 April (US time) address are false and constitute disinformation. So, let’s cut through the fog of war: Lie One: The US is Winning the War Against Iran. The US might have air and naval superiority, but Iran’s control of the

Protestors outside of the federal courthouse in Manhattan, March 26, 2026 -- image via news video screenshot By Celina della Croce Venezuelans in the News On the morning of 26 March 2026, two crowds gathered outside of the federal courthouse in Manhattan where President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores sat awaiting their trial, set to begin at 11AM that day. On one side was a group of protestors gathered behind a large yellow banner that read “Free President Maduro

Coup president Jorge Rafael Videla assuming power in 1976 -- public domain image By Julián Bokser It has been fifty years since the coup d’état of 24 March 1976, one of the most tragic chapters in Argentina’s recent history: a dictatorship that combined state terrorism with a structural transformation of its economy. Throughout the 20th century, the country experienced six interruptions of its democratic order—in 1930, 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966, and 1976—but the last coup ushere