perspectives

By Lucas Nahal In the last few weeks, the Islamic Republic regime has undergone its gravest challenge since the revolution of 1979. On December 28 2025, a small group of shopkeepers and merchants in Tehran went on strike to protest Iran’s worsening economic conditions. By the advent of the New Year, the demonstrations had spread to almost every major city, featuring a massive coalition of students, merchants and the previously dormant Iranian middle class. It is estimated tha

By Adrian Khodavardar When Donald Trump withdrew the United States from major international climate frameworks, most notably the Paris Climate Agreement, the decision was widely framed as symbolic: a temporary rupture in an otherwise irreversible global transition. That interpretation understates the damage. The US exit did not merely slow climate action; it reshaped how climate cooperation is perceived, contested, and legitimised across the international system. The United S

“Our wonderful country is sick” and “Britain is Broken” were some of the words spoken by Zahawi and Jenrick, as the two senior Conservatives announced they were joining Farage’s Reform UK over the past week. Tory defections to Reform are now happening at a rate where it is hard to believe the Conservative Party is the longest existing political party in the West. Each week Conservatives once considered stoic and loyal are deserting the party that gave rise to their politic

The Prime Minister holds a press conference in No.9 Downing Street. The room was refurbished after he took office to change the "Tory" blue backdrop, with the Breakfast Room in No.10 used in the interim. Image: Flickr/No.10 “Scumbag journalists” That was how now-Baroness Gray described the media briefing against her to colleagues. The remarks were part of a Whitehall spat that would eventually see her premature departure from Number 10 and as Downing Street Chief of Staff. Sh

By: Meera Nair When Goli Kouhkan, an Iranian child-bride sentenced to death for killing her husband, was spared her life earlier this month, headlines spoke of mercy and hope for other Iranian girls. However, this rare reprieve is not representative of a shift in Iran’s stance on child marriages, nor of the wider humanitarian crisis facing the country, and indeed, other parts of the globe. Although in Iran, forced marriages are illegal, this has not stopped the ongoing trend

By: Lily Hatch On Wednesday, the 3rd December 2025, the Kenyan Parliament’s Departmental Committee on Defence, Intelligence, and Foreign Relations released a 94-page report into the conduct of the British Army Training Unit of Kenya (BATUK) troops. BATUK is a major British military training facility based in Nanyuki, Kenya; However, as Kenya’s report shows, their presence has increasingly become seen as an occupying force by locals. The Unit faces serious accusations of decad

The proscription of pro-Palestinian group Palestine Action earlier this year was met with a myriad of reactions, with some arguing that this was a reasonable response to the group’s high-profile disruption. However, I echo the popular condemnation of their proscription as an Orwellian attempt to quiet dissent to the UK’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The most recent development of eight prisoners, held in prolonged remand related to offences with the group, resorti

By Axel Mallet A lavish arrival awaited Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, at the steps of the White House in mid-November. A procession of soldiers on horseback carrying Saudi flags followed his ascension on the red carpet-laden steps of the presidential residence. Seven years after ordering the murder of a Washington Post columnist, MBS seemed to have little to worry about– except how ridiculously asymmetrical the ‘deals’ with Trump could become

By Will Gibson It’s no secret that the UK judicial system is under immense pressure. Cases are entering the system faster than they can be heard, and it’s clear that something must be done to address the seemingly endless backlog of cases awaiting judgment. The BBC notes delays caused by too few prosecutors, defence lawyers, judges and available courtrooms, with over 78,000 cases waiting to be heard in England and Wales alone, and projections suggesting the number could reach

By Onara Perera A wave of severe floods and landslides have swept across a number of Asian countries, claiming thousands of lives. The distressing effects have been witnessed in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines and even marked as some of the most devastating regional climate disasters in recent decades. These nations have experienced crippling infrastructure that has displaced entire communities, highlighting the growing vulnerability unde