A FRAGILE ceasefire was announced by US President Donald Trump on June 24, following 12 days of Israeli attacks on Iran. Israel had launched its offensive on June 13. The boldness of the assault stunned many, especially given that the US and Iran had appeared to be engaged in sincere negotiations. The Israeli offensive effectively derailed these talks. The US directly joined the attacks on June 22, deploying B-2 bombers to strike Iranian nuclear sites with bunker-busting bombs.

BURKINA FASO is a small country in the Sahel region of Northwest Africa, with a population of 20.9 million (2.1 crore). It has recently made headlines for defeating an imperialist-sponsored coup against the current government led by Ibrahim Traoré. Just a few years ago, Traoré himself, then an army officer, led a coup that brought down the previous government. To understand the differences between these two coups, we must delve into the country's history.Burkina Faso was formerly a French colony known as Upper Volta.

JOSÉ "Pepe" Mujica, the former president of Uruguay, passed away on May 13, 2025, at the age of 89. He is survived by his wife, Lucía Topolansky, a fellow former guerrilla and senator. Mujica’s life was a remarkable journey – from guerrilla fighter to becoming a president, from years of solitary confinement to earning global recognition as a man of the masses. The Latin America he once led, and the Latin America he leaves behind, are not the same. Mujica was born on May 20, 1935, in Montevideo, Uruguay, into a middle-class family.

A WAR zone is an ugly place. It is a place of noise and dust, the language of blood written on walls, a place of young men mostly who are afraid and allow that fear to produce the adrenaline necessary to kill or be killed; and if they cannot generate sufficient adrenaline, then they turn to captagon (a mixture of amphetamine and theophylline) or some other narcotic to dull their anxiety and their fear. Guns are not fired by the young working-class that is sent to war necessarily out of duty or patriotism; guns are mostly fired out of fear.

TWO years ago, the fragile but hopeful peace in Sudan was broken when the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) both arms of the Sudanese state – went to war against each other. The second-year anniversary of the war was commemorated on April 11, 2025 with a ghastly attack by the RSF on the Zamzam refugee camp in the province of northern Darfur. ‘The bombs were falling on the hospital’, said Hawa, a mother of three who was inside that hospital. ‘Those of us who survived left with only our children on our backs’.