Ruth Pollard

High school teacher S. Jeeva has spent two days in the baking sun lining up for cooking gas in the north of Sri Lanka’s capital. He’s been standing with thousands of others waiting for a delivery that, so far, hasn’t come. Meanwhile, many of his students, who will sit for important national exams…

It has been eight decades since the Battle for Guadalcanal was fought between Allied Forces and the Japanese Imperial Army. Today, the Solomon Islands are again at the center of a Pacific power game — one that pits the US and its strategic partners against their latest adversary, China. News…

Ukraine has most of the world on its side. It now has as many as 20,000 foreign fighters, too. From former members of the US, British and Canadian militaries to citizens from Japan, Jamaica and Europe and an Edinburgh grandfather, volunteer soldiers from across the globe have signed up — at the…

For those shocked by images of Ukrainian civilians targeted by Russian air strikes, I have one word for you: Syria. Moscow’s indiscriminate bombing campaign in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal war against his own people — including attacks on hospitals, schools,…

The pandemic has already given the future a distinctly dystopian look. And then there’s this: the burgeoning of the “second drone age.” That’s how experts are describing the international drone market — which ranges from tiny startups selling $1,000-to-$2,000 off-the-shelf technology that can be…

We’re just six weeks into the Taliban’s second shift as Afghanistan’s rulers, and the picture could not be bleaker. Bodies hang in public squares and women are banned from their jobs. High schools are closed to girls, the women’s ministry has been replaced by the Ministry for the Promotion of…

China won’t be rushing into Afghanistan any time soon — not to fill the political and security void left by the US and not to expand President Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road project. However decisive the Taliban’s victory looks right now, the country is far too fragile for Beijing to…

The spillover has already begun, before the Taliban have even reached Kabul. City after city is falling as the insurgents draw closer to the capital. And it will only get worse from here as the conflict expands beyond Afghanistan’s borders. Extremist groups based in the country, some with…