The Writing Maven

I keep going back to that passenger manifest from Riyadh. Four Saudis. Two Bangladeshis. One American. One Egyptian. One Jordanian. One Syrian. One Palestinian. One Sudanese. Twelve people. Seven countries. One terminal at King Khalid International. Same minute. Same blast. 309 injured, some still critical, some probably will not make it through the week. I keep reading the list because I can't get past how ordinary it is. How unimportant these people were supposed to be. In the best sense of that word. Not soldiers. Not a base. Not a ministry building. Travelers. If you've ever been in that airport you know what that hall looks like. Low light, too cold from the AC, that smell of coffee and cleaning fluid. People dragging suitcases with busted wheels. Kids asleep on backpacks. Workers in line to go home to Dhaka after a two-year contract. An American contractor probably in a polo shirt, laptop bag. A Palestinian with a transit visa trying to get to somewhere that will let him ...

I was in my kitchen this morning. Coffee going cold on the counter, phone in my hand, scrolling. And I had that feeling again — the one I keep having lately. None of this adds up unless you stop believing the old story. The old story was that America led by building things that lasted. Alliances. Trust. Showing up for your friends even when it cost you something. At least pretending there was a difference between us and the strongmen we were always warning everyone about. But look at the headlines this week. It doesn't read like a superpower. It reads like a pawn shop. New visa bonds for people from dozens of countries. You want to come here to see your kid, to close a deal, to attend a wedding? Put money down first. Prove you’ll leave. More carrier groups to the Middle East. Always more ships. Trade deals that, if you read the fine print, still have Russian diesel floating around in them. And then the big one — a trade truce with China pushed all the way to early 2027. Convenientl...

There's something about the way we consume the news that has been bothering me for a long time. Some wars become impossible to ignore. They're on our phones when we wake up, on television during dinner, and all over social media. We see the same images every day. We learn the names of cities, recognise the faces of leaders and start to feel like we're watching history unfold in real time. Then there are wars happening at the same moment that barely get a mention. And I keep asking myself why. According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, the world recorded 61 active armed conflicts involving at least one state in 2024, the highest number since its records began in 1946. Eleven of those conflicts reached the threshold of war, meaning at least 1,000 battle-related deaths in a year. Nearly 160,000 people died in organised violence during 2024. <Cite refs={["turn458724search2"]}/> That's a staggering amount of suffering. Yet most of us couldn't name ev...

  There's a question I keep coming back to whenever I read the news about international law. Why is it that some people can be accused of the most serious crimes in the world and still carry on as if nothing has happened, while others end up in court, in prison, or fighting for their lives? I've been thinking about it while following the stories about the ICC, the sanctions, the arrest warrants and the deals being made behind closed doors. And the more I look at it, the harder it becomes to ignore an uncomfortable reality. International law is supposed to apply to everyone. But the ability to enforce it often depends on how much power someone has to resist it. I know that sounds cynical. And I don't want this to become one of those arguments where we shrug our shoulders and say the whole system is corrupt, so there's no point trying to fix it. I don't believe that. But I also don't think we should pretend that everyone is treated equally under a system where som...

  So let me get this straight. For the past three years, the US has been telling the world that buying Russian oil helps fund Putin's war in Ukraine. It imposed sanctions, pushed price caps and pressured other countries to stop buying Russian energy. The message was simple: don't give Russia money that can be used to keep the war going. And now, apparently, that's no longer the message. Trump has announced a deal to buy Russian diesel. More than 300,000 metric tonnes to begin with, followed by another 500,000 in November and a further million tonnes after that. The US Treasury has also issued a temporary waiver allowing Russian diesel imports until April 7. I read that and honestly wondered if I'd missed something. Because how do you spend three years telling the world that buying Russian fuel is helping finance a war, only to turn around and buy it yourself? And the timing makes it even harder to understand. Just last month, Trump signed a sweeping sanctions law target...

  I've been trying to write about this story, but every time I come back to it, I get stuck on the same detail. The child. Last Thursday, during visiting hours at El Castillo prison in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, a fight broke out. By the time it was over, nine inmates and one visitor were dead. Sixteen other prisoners were taken for medical treatment. Then I read that one of the people killed was a two-year-old boy. And suddenly, all the numbers felt different. The boy had come to the prison with his father. His father survived. His son didn't. A two-year-old. At a prison. During visiting hours. He was there to see someone. Maybe he was too young to understand where he was or what was happening around him. Maybe, to him, it was just another visit with family. We'll probably never know what his last moments were like. And honestly, I don't know if I want to imagine them. I just keep thinking about how a child that small ended up being one of the victims of prison violence. He di...