From Market to Movement: The Role of the Bazaar in Iran’s Protests
Cover Image: Unsplash (Javad Esmaeili) Iran’s protest wave began with an economic shock that hit the country’s commercial core. When bazaar merchants, long a stabilizing pillar of the Islamic Republic, closed their shops in late December 2025, they transformed currency collapse and price volatility into a nationwide political crisis. The bazaar’s shift marked a historic rupture in its alliance with the […]
The Artisanal Gold Rush: Where Prospecting Propels Uncertainty
Cover Image: by Brasidas Group As gold reaches all-time highs, windfalls from artisanal mining fund regimes and conflict zones. In Venezuela, artisanal mining enables the Maduro government’s purchases of Iranian arms and oil products. In Sudan, it fuels the fighting of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF), as gold flows to […]
Covert Threats: Chinese, Russian, and Iranian Espionage and Sabotage in Germany
Cover Image: https://montrealethics.ai/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/christian-lue-G6RE_to6Lus-unsplash-768×512.jpg Germany faces escalating espionage and sabotage threats from China, Russia, and Iran, targeting its political stability, critical infrastructure, and intellectual assets. A surge in arrests and cyberattacks reveals deeply embedded foreign networks exploiting legal loopholes, academic openness, and industrial vulnerabilities. While Russian operations include sabotage and proxy violence, China leverages economic infiltration, […]
Türkiye Steps into the Void:Replacing Iran in Post-Assad Syria
Türkiye is aggressively leveraging its presence in post-Assad Syria to establish regional hegemony but faces intensifying competition and external resistance that jeopardize its strategic ambitions. The Post-Assad Power Vacuum and Türkiye’s Move The collapse of the Assad regime in late 2024 has created a scramble for influence, prompting a reshuffling of the regional balance of […]
Zero Covid Protests in China Uncovers Growing Discontent
In addition to Tehran, Beijing is experiencing one of the largest grassroots protests in the People’s Republic’s history. Like Iran, the Chinese protests shortly followed China’s authoritarian approach to stamp out the COVID-19 virus. A so-called “zero-COVID” policy has led many in the People’s Republic to become frustrated with the current Chinese Communist Party (CCP) […]
Renewable Energy Supply Chain Concerns
2022 has seen calls have increased from governments and citizens worldwide to transition to cleaner alternative energy sources, driven by consumer demands and high fossil fuel prices. Growing human rights and supply chain concerns may stymie those drives as Western governments attempt to respond to pervasive human rights concerns in the industry. Xinjiang Issue and […]
Iranian Protests : A Women’s Rights Movement Sparks National Unrest
On 16 September 2022, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, was pronounced dead in a hospital in Tehran due to a skull fracture she obtained while in police custody. Amini had been arrested by the Guidance Patrol, an Islamic police force tasked with enforcing the country’s strict Islamic dress code. She was arrested for wearing […]
Brazilian Presidential Election and Political Turmoil as Lula Returns to Power
On 1 January 2023, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (more commonly known as Lula) is scheduled to return to the office of the Presidency in Brazil, more than a decade after he left the office in 2010. His first two terms of the Presidency (2003-2010) was plagued by corruption scandals, most notably the Mensalao vote-buying […]
EU Ban on Russian Oil: Can the Kremlin Raise its Fuel Revenue following an Embargo?
At a meeting in Brussels held on 30 May 2022, leaders of the European Union (EU) agreed to cut 90 percent of Russian oil imports to the EU by the end of this year. The aim is to deprive the Kremlin of its main source of funding for the war in Ukraine. The remaining 10 […]
Ukraine Conflict: A Shift in Corporate Behavior
While corporations tended to differentiate trade and state affairs in the past, the Ukraine-Russia conflict has prompted their increasingly active role in geopolitics and altered corporate behavior in general. The conflict has exacerbated the challenges facing the global economic and political structures, forcing multinational corporations to adapt their business strategies to a new set of […]
