International

The Kingdom That Keeps Renting Its Lifelines: Lesotho Between a Tariff Shock and a Dam

Economic and Social Transformation 

A growth line that fell off a cliff

Few African economies have had their trajectory rewritten as abruptly as Lesotho's. According to the African Development Bank's June 2026 country outlook, real GDP growth slowed to 1.4 percent in 2025 from 5.2…

A Cheque With a Condition Attached: Trump Promises Every American Adult $5,000 — If Republicans Keep Congress

World Politics 

Background

The Republican National Committee did something this week that no American party committee had done before: it held a full-scale national convention in a midterm year. The two-night gathering in Dallas, staged on 9 and 10 September, was built to the template…

Security Council Blesses Libya's Election Deal — and Starts the Clock on Its First Real Deadline

Tripoli 

The United Nations Security Council has formally welcomed the agreement struck 11 days ago between Libya's rival power centers, calling it "an important step" toward the country's first national elections in more than a decade. But the endorsement, issued in a statement on Tuesday, lands at…

A 45-Minute Phone Call Israel Cannot Prove Happened: Netanyahu Sues Haaretz as October 7 Returns to the Ballot

JERUSALEM

The most consequential document in Israel's election campaign this week is not a manifesto or a poll. It is a phone log that, according to the Prime Minister's Office, contains nothing at all.

On Tuesday, Haaretz published an investigation drawn from a forthcoming book by two of its reporters…

'I Will Still Be Around': Mnangagwa Floats Nine More Years, Two Months After Signing Away Zimbabwe's Presidential Vote

Masvingo, Zimbabwe  

President Emmerson Mnangagwa told an audience in Masvingo on Thursday that he expects to be in office nine years from now — a remark delivered as a joke, received with laughter and applause, and immediately read by allies and critics alike as something considerably…

Drones Over Tigray, a Mediator Both Sides Distrust: Ethiopia Becomes the First Test of the AU's New Early-Warning Machinery

Addis Ababa / Mekelle 

Less than two weeks after African leaders met in Luanda and pledged to close the gap between early warning and early action, northern Ethiopia is presenting the African Union with exactly the case it said it was preparing for — and one of the world's largest human rights organizations…