Yakzan Takki

Warnings about the risks associated with the development of artificial intelligence are mounting and, with increasing urgency, are overtaking every other threat in the news, whether war, environmental and climate concerns, or financial collapse. Progress in this field is advancing at such a rapid pace that there seems to be no turning back, with machines emerging from laboratories every day that are capable of moving independently, working in teams, and making complex decisions. This technological revolution now threatens to give rise to an ideology of its own, a form of technological totalitarianism carrying immense promises and dangers that cannot be ignored. Most recently, images of robots in the streets breaking free from control and seizing the power of their developers have sounded alarm bells in more than one quarter. How can a robot trained in a laboratory escape and kill humans? Is it not dangerous to continue manufacturing robots equipped with increasingly powerful guns, such as the “ThunderMax 9000,” which is to equip the future “Death-Machine-8,” currently in the testing phase? Likewise, should laboratories really continue designing highly capable, extremely autonomous, and heavily armed defense systems? And should financial interests ever be allowed to prevail over humanity’s ethical imperatives?

As world leaders gather this week in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, they face a central problem: the world has become more interconnected than at any other point in the history of international relations since the fifteenth century. Yet, at the same time, it has become more fragmented and polarized, with power increasingly dispersed. National economies are deeply intertwined, technology connects billions of people across borders, while capital, goods, data and ideas move at speeds unimaginable when the United Nations was founded in 1945. Global trade reached a record $35 trillion last year, while six billion people, nearly three-quarters of humanity, are now connected to the Internet.

The ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran, along with the struggle over the Gulf’s strategic waterways, has once again brought to the fore the question of militias as actors operating in the Middle East outside the framework of the state and international relations. The world had expected the war against Iran to mark a turning point: striking the center of regional patronage was supposed to weaken the “militia” model, pave the way for the return of the state and political settlements, and perhaps bring an entire chapter in the region’s history to a close. Yet what is happening so far appears to point in the opposite direction. The war has not ended the age of militias. It has brought them back into diplomatic calculations themselves.

The death of French photographer Jean-François Leroy offers an opportunity to explore the passion that drew him to the image. Not as a cold document, but as a means of approaching human beings in moments of their greatest vulnerability, as a sensory expression of human thought and the human psyche through the physiology of perception. This is what made his experience different. He was more than a mere witness to events. He ventured into that sensitive space, fascinated by life as it appeared in its utmost fragility, with a particular ability to express the autonomy of the image and what distinguishes it from other symbolic manifestations.

Lebanon is taking an important step toward safeguarding the individual right to life by abolishing the death penalty, at a time when the region lives to the rhythm of news of war, death and destruction, in a reality that at times resembles the collective execution of human beings. The abolition of the death penalty is not merely a legal amendment or a legislative measure. It is a human-rights act that places the right to life above the state’s right to punish and sides with the individual against the power to inflict death. From this perspective, Lebanon’s decision to embark on this path carries significance beyond the legal text itself by strengthening the protection of the individual. Abolishing the death penalty thus amounts to recognizing that the state should not kill in the name of the law, even as wars, conflicts and political and social collapse turn death into a daily practice both within and outside the law.

Superman is known as the Man of Steel, dressed in a tight-fitting suit and a red and blue cape, a figure who takes things seriously and bears on his shoulders, like a policeman, the responsibility of saving the world. This is the man embodied by David Corenswet in his modern Hollywood incarnation: he stops villains and intervenes to save lives threatened by wars, fires, or drowning. This American film also gives rise to another figure of Superman: a character who constantly intervenes in world affairs without stopping to consider the consequences of intervening in other countries’ conflicts. Such a geopolitical approach may seem ill-suited to the values of superheroes. Yet this is what U.S. President Donald Trump appears to suggest through his spectacular moves to reshape the world, in a metaphorical evocation of the villainous figure alluded to by the film’s director in the “MAGA,” without naming it, through the businessman character or others such as Lex Luthor. It is, in other words, a new version of America in an evil world ruled by predatory capitalism, an image of arrogant businessmen reminiscent of Gordon Gekko in the film “Wall Street.”

Anthropologists were hardly pleased to see their discipline portrayed as a hotbed of “bad political groupthink,” or to read that “scientific neutrality” is, at best, an illusion and, at worst, a political dictate. They reacted angrily to the Report on the State of Scholarship in the Humanities and the Humanistic Social Sciences , commissioned by Vanderbilt University and Washington University in St. Louis and prepared by a group of ten scholars. Recently released, the report presents anthropology as an example of a discipline experiencing a widespread decline in scientific standards, accompanied by a corrosive intellectual climate in which reasonable disagreement on politically controversial subjects is suppressed and punished.

Escalating tensions in the Gulf are heightening global concerns over a new disruption to navigation in the Red Sea. Such a development would impose new constraints on an already costly global maritime trade network while triggering another supply crisis in areas close to the conflict zones surrounding the Strait of Hormuz and the geopolitical risks associated with them in the Middle East, should the conflict drag on. The same scenario has repeated itself so often that it has become almost predictable. President Donald Trump has raised his threats to their highest level. Washington is openly discussing the possibility of a large-scale strike, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks of alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz. Markets have begun pricing in the prospect of a regional war. Oil prices surge, stock markets retreat, and the region slips deeper into uncertainty.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup ended on a high note for FIFA, the United States, and football fans alike. Tournament revenues are expected to reach $13 billion, making this edition the most profitable sporting event in history. The result further strengthens Gianni Infantino’s position ahead of his bid for re-election as FIFA president next year. This World Cup also ranked among the most expensive sporting events ever staged in the United States. On the secondary market, ticket prices soared, with an average purchase price of $10,800 and individual tickets fetching as much as $32,000. Whether that is good or bad news depends entirely on whether one is buying… or selling.

Salman Rushdie’s The Eleventh Hour is not a novel in the conventional sense, but a collection of five interconnected stories published after the assassination attempt against him in 2022. It stands among his most contemplative works, exploring old age, mortality, identity, and freedom. The “eleventh hour” is more than a moment in time. It is a sign. It evokes a civilization that senses it has reached its final test: the rise of populism, the erosion of democratic values, violence against free expression, and the identity crisis unsettling a globalized world. In this sense, the eleventh hour becomes a metaphor not merely for an individual stage of life, but for an entire civilization confronting itself.