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1 week ago | 
scmp.com | Alex Lo
You know the situation in Gaza has become utterly indefensible when even Germany, Israel’s staunchest supporter after the United States, now voices a rare rebuke and threatens to restrict weapons supplies. The country’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said he felt compelled to speak out because “international humanitarian law is really being violated” in Gaza.
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1 week ago | 
scmp.com | Alex Lo
When asked during a US Senate hearing about the meaning of habeas corpus, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem gave a jaw-dropping reply. “Well, habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country,” she said.
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1 week ago | 
scmp.com | Alex Lo
It’s long been the dream of every ambitious Chinese parent to send their children to study at Harvard University. Now, many are no doubt having second thoughts. What’s the point of investing millions in your child’s education if he or she could be ejected from the United States at the whim of an erratic president? Inexplicably, Donald Trump has declared war on the nation’s most prestigious higher education institutions, not just Harvard.
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2 weeks ago | 
johnmenadue.com | Alex Lo
However, Beijing’s foreign policy and economic agenda are at cross purposes, with nations in the bloc suffering from chronic trade deficits. President Xi Jinping toured Southeast Asia last month to drum up support from such countries as Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia in the face of Washington’s tariff war. The regional tour was meant to showcase China as a force for stability, free trade and co-operation. By contrast, Donald Trump’s “America first” agenda was portrayed as their common threat.
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2 weeks ago | 
scmp.com | Alex Lo
Long a staple of the North American far-right’s racist ideology, the so-called white genocide in South Africa has made it into mainstream politics. That’s thanks to Donald Trump, and his one-time bestie the billionaire Elon Musk. This week, the US president tried to repeat the fireworks that greeted Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office by blindsiding visiting South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with slides showing alleged atrocities against white farmers.
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2 weeks ago | 
scmp.com | Alex Lo
President Xi Jinping toured Southeast Asia last month to drum up support from such countries as Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia in the face of Washington’s tariff war. The regional tour was meant to showcase China as a force for stability, free trade and cooperation. By contrast, Donald Trump’s “America first” agenda was portrayed as their common threat. But Beijing’s foreign policy and trade agenda seem to be at cross purposes.
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2 weeks ago | 
scmp.com | Alex Lo
Ageing dictators, we are told, almost always hide the true state of their declining health. Even after their deaths, courtiers jockeying for power may delay releasing the news. It seems that such a practice has also been common among US presidents, with Joe Biden being the latest example. This shouldn’t be surprising because US presidential powers in fact resemble those of a dictator, albeit with a term limit of four years – or eight if he or she is elected a second time.
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2 weeks ago | 
scmp.com | Alex Lo
A sketch from the late 2000s British comedy show That Mitchell and Webb Look became one of the internet’s most viral memes. In the skit, a Nazi officer suddenly realised the cause he had been fighting for might not be good after all. “Are we the baddies?” he asks in astonishment. I wonder if US senators Dan Sullivan, Jeff Merkley and John Curtis or House representatives Young Kim and Jim McGovern have ever seen it. It probably makes no difference, though.
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3 weeks ago | 
scmp.com | Alex Lo
One good thing about Toronto’s suburbia is that you can throw away your unwanted furniture, no matter the size – bulky or small, heavy or light – on your front kerb. But considering the municipal garbage disposal charge they make you pay it’s hardly a perk. So now, there she sits, my beloved sofa waiting to be collected and crushed into pieces, looking sad and lonely, unwanted, abandoned, almost tragic. I can see it as I type these words from my front window.
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3 weeks ago | 
scmp.com | Alex Lo
Stephen Miran, chairman of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, has made a whole career out of claiming the US dollar is overvalued. It doesn’t matter whether that’s really so, it’s enough that practically all the big economic honchos working for Donald Trump 2.0 believe it, or act like they do. So they want to do a Plaza Accord 2.0, and many have taken to calling it the Mar-a-Lago Accord. But that’s just laughable.
