Young mothers wait to weigh their children on 14 February 2018, at the maternity centre in Boali, which has no running water, and only one doctor. In Central Africa, one in 24 children dies during its first month of life, the second worst neonatal death rate in the world, according to a report released by UNICEF

Africa’s Demographic Challenges

‘The main reason why Africa has barely been affected by the demographic transition is to be found in its historical circumstances. The continent only joined the capitalist world system in the mid-to-late nineteenth century—the latest of all the important global regions. As a result, the typical consequences of adopting this model were significantly delayed in Africa.’

Caspar David Friedrich, The Abbey in the Oakwood (1809–1810). Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany

Crisis? What Crisis?

‘Just as liberalism did not succeed in transforming people after socialism, neither did the competing anti-liberal, post-Christian, nihilistic trends. The solution is certainly not political or movement-based: those had already failed by the middle of the twentieth century.’

Vladimir Putin chairs an online meeting on the situation in Belgorod, Kursk and Bryansk regions following an incursion of Ukrainian troops in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict.

On the Highway to Hell

There are a number of conventional weapons whose appearance in US adversaries’ hands can cause serious damage to American interests all around the world. It is not difficult to imagine the threat of hypersonic anti-ship weapons, barely interceptable by contemporary air defence weaponry, on commercial ships, not only on the Red Sea. Arming let’s say Mexican drug cartels with modern anti-tank equipment could also seriously hamper US efforts to block the flow of drugs into the country.

Kamala Harris in February 2020

For Someone in the Lead, Kamala Harris Copies Trump a Lot

Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris blatantly copied Donald Trump’s proposal for eliminating taxes on tips, as well as including a very similar plan for child tax credit in her economic agenda to what JD Vance proposed during a TV interview. That is despite the fact that she is currently leading the national polling aggregate on RealClearPolitics.

People in pirogues navigate their way in the slum community of Makoko in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital, on 19 October 2022

The Geopolitics of the Demographic Shift

‘The demographic shift also suggests a move towards an increasingly multipolar world order. Not bipolar, but multipolar. While the West’s demographic weight is rapidly declining, so is that of its main opponent, China, and to such an extent that its aspirations to take over the role of global hegemon from the United States no longer seem feasible, and its economy may even slide into stagnation.’

Chinese President Xi Jinping (CL) and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (CR) stand in front of the Carmelita Monastery in Budapest prior to their official talks on 9 May 2024.

Why Is Hungary Turning to China? A Cultural Theory

‘It seems to me that Orbán sees his people as having a greater chance of surviving the disintegration of the West by forming ties to China. He might be proven wrong by history. But make no mistake: the dilemma facing Viktor Orbán is a lot like that facing Grand Prince Géza: How to strengthen the position of the small Hungarian nation amid the struggle of powerful states and empires? Géza’s geopolitical decision to baptism his son as a Latin Christian set the course of Hungarian history for a millennium. The stakes may well be as high for Orbán today.’