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  Cuba on the Brink Michael J. Bustamante January 1, 2026 Cuban soldiers at a ceremony in Havana, November 2025 Norlys Perez / Reuters MICHAEL J. BUSTAMANTE  is Emilio Bacardí Moreau Chair in Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami and the author of  Cuban Memory Wars: Retrospective Politics in Revolution and Exile . In 2014, after the Obama administration and Cuba’s government announced an agreement to restore diplomatic ties, the world descended on Havana. Everyone from the Rolling Stones to would-be investors rushed to claim a stake in the island’s future. Raúl Castro, the long-serving minister of defense, had assumed power from his ailing elder brother Fidel several years earlier and launched moderate economic reforms: allowing for more small private businesses, loosening rules for foreign investments, and downsizing the state’s payroll. Together, the normalization of relations   with the United States and the government’s internal  actua...
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  About the New Iranian Protests Remember the predictions from so many experts that a military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites would cause Iranians to  rally behind their regime? You can junk that conventional wisdom. As 2026 dawns, the Iranian people are marching in protest only months after the Israel-U.S. attack. The protests began among shopkeepers and merchants in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, but they have spread to other cities and groups. Students in particular have joined, with support from truckers and bus drivers. Economic grievances are in the forefront amid 42% inflation, a currency that has lost 40% of its value against the dollar since the June war, and even a lack of water and reliable energy. Economic protests can easily turn political, and the unrest is dangerous to the regime because deprivation is widespread. “Death to the dictator,” students chanted in the country’s northwest. In Tehran others chanted, “Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon, I give my life for Iran.” The regi...
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  The Hindu Attacks on India’s Christians HOUSES OF WORSHIP By Tunku Varadarajan Since Narendra Modi became India’s prime minister in 2014, the country has seen a breathtaking rise in violence against religious minorities by groups aligned with his Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party. India’s Muslims, who are 14% of the population, have borne the brunt of the most brutal physical attacks. They face active discrimination in employment, education and housing, and are often prevented from voting and pursuing businesses in Hindu-majority areas. They have been ghettoized. But as several ugly events in recent weeks have shown, Christians—a mere 2.3% of Indians, many of whom belong to the poorest sections of society— are also subjected to widespread hatred and thuggery. Although Hindus are 80% of India’s population, radical Hindus are obsessed with the imagined dangers of Christianity. As many as 12 states have laws prohibiting religious conversion by “force, fraud, or allurement”—th...
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  Navigated Menu Back Financial Times Financial Times UK 2 Jan 2026 Buttons.Search Options The costs of China’s ‘eco­nomic fort­ress’ Emboldened by its suc­cess in neut­ral­ising US tar­iffs, Beijing plans to rein­force its dom­in­ance of global man­u­fac­tur­ing des­pite per­sist­ent defla­tion at home and rising ten­sions with other trad­ing part­ners. By Joe Leahy, Tom Hale and Arjun Neil Alim With addi­tional con­tri­bu­tions from Cheng Leng and Wenjie Ding in Beijing Data visu­al­isa­tion by Keith Fray Settings Print Share Listen At a recent high-level gov­ern­ment con­fer­ence in Beijing, senior offi­cials basked in China’s suc­cess over the past year year in its trade war with the US. “Our five-year plan­ning sys­tem ensures policy con­sist­ency and con­tinu­ity — something west­ern politi­cians can never achieve given their con­stant changes of gov­ern­ment,” one senior cadre told the gath­er­ing. For Beijing, the tar­iff war is the clearest evid­ence yet that Pres­id­ent X...
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