INTRIGUE’S LATEST
The global affairs briefing you’ll actually look forward to reading.
Is oil’s centre of gravity shifting West?
With oil prices now at their highest since 2022, it might be hard to shift your gaze to the Caribbean, but it’s now home to two brewing storms that are worth your attention: First, there’s the regional uproar after Venezuela’s Delcy Rodríguez pointedly wore a pin while in Barbados, asserting Venezuela’s claims over Guyana’s oil-rich […]
The real reason the UAE just ditched OPEC
Some love stories are so powerful, you remember when they end. Like when Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck broke up in 2004, or when Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck broke up in 2025, or when the United Arab Emirates announced they’re breaking up with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, aka OPEC. That last […]
The art of influencer diplomacy
215,000 subscribers on YouTube is a solid haul for a guy who calls himself Wheelsboy and does nothing but showcase China’s tech-laden EVs to curious Western audiences. Like virtually every other YouTube success, Ethan Robertson (aka Wheelsboy) does paid colabs, and is now even leading personalised Beijing Auto Show tours for $399 a pop! Why […]
Latest Articles
How embassies are reading that attempt on Trump
After the latest presidential assassination attempt saw Saturday night’s White House Correspondents Dinner cancelled, we know at least one G20 ambassador who ended up hosting fellow envoys back at his official DC residence for pizza! You think they chatted about the cherry blossom bloom? The latest Nationals MLB wobbles? Or the ‘omg have you tried […]
This week on Chinese social media: personality tests, amateur football and ancient artefacts
Spend too much time monitoring the situation, and you soon forget about normal life. So we thought it’d be both fun and insightful to explore three things now trending behind China’s Great Firewall, starting with… Mmmkay, but why are you writing about personality tests? That’s exactly what we thought when we spotted an article in […]
Deep dive: Palantir’s manifesto
Tech bros get enough attention, but when they start minting mass contracts with the Pentagon, the Department of Agriculture, Poland’s defence ministry, and even French intelligence, all while becoming a swear word hurled during protests… it’s worth a look. Throw in a new 22-point manifesto outlining Palantir’s worldview, triggering more debate than whether a hot […]
Why governments are panicking about prediction markets
All-staff emails tend to announce a) the big meeting’s leftover sandwiches are now available in the conference room, b) we’re signing a birthday card for Barry from accounts, or c) a friendly reminder to complete those mandatory e-learning modules haha. But every now and then, an all-staff email will stop us in our tracks, like […]
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Geopolitics
The art of influencer diplomacy
215,000 subscribers on YouTube is a solid haul for a guy who calls himself Wheelsboy and does nothing but showcase China’s tech-laden EVs to curious Western audiences. Like virtually every other YouTube success, Ethan Robertson (aka Wheelsboy) does paid colabs, and is now even leading personalised Beijing Auto Show tours for $399 a pop! Why […]
More Articles
How the Pope found himself in Trump’s crosshairs
WASHINGTON — You may have noticed Pope Leo is having his moment in the sun this week — both literally in the Algeria-Cameroon-and-Angola sense, but also figuratively in the Trump Tirade™ sense. Since Italian journalists are on strike, we’re in the pulpit to fill you in. First, the cast of characters: While the Vatican is […]
Three high stakes elections in Hungary, Peru and Djibouti
It’s April, which means about three years have passed since January 1st 2026. And because we may or may not be binge-rewatching F.R.I.E.N.D.S eps to cope, we’ve used the F.R.I.E.N.D.S episodic style to label April’s three big elections, starting with… Hungary (pop. 10 million) might not ordinarily dominate your front pages, but this election is […]
Why the US is going back to the Moon
If everything goes to plan (pretty big ‘if’ these days), NASA’s Artemis II mission will take off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre aboard a 98m (322ft) rocket during a two-hour window later today (Wednesday), from 18:24 ET. Destination? The Moon. It’s a fly-by rather than landing, but still significant for a couple of reasons: But […]
Spy chiefs take the hot seat
DC’s intelligence chiefs have stepped out of the shadows and into the congressional spotlight for their annual grilling this week. Sure, it’s all tied to the unclassified Annual Threat Assessment, and spooks love to defer spicy answers to the off-camera closed-door briefings, but it’s still pretty revealing. So here are the week’s top five spymaster […]
ECONOMICS
Why the IMF might be done and dusted… or not
It was a week ago that International Monetary Fund (IMF) head Kristalina Georgieva kicked off the Fund’s DC ‘spring meetings’ with an ominous note — “trade policy uncertainty is off the charts”. You could feel it in the DC air, with Intrigue sources confirming delegations from every corner of the globe were scrambling for meetings with […]
More Articles
The central bank war for independence
US stocks and the US dollar plunged again on Monday after the president colourfully called on Jerome Powell, the Fed Chair, to cut rates. Anyway, while this monetary soap opera plays out on the world stage, it’s reignited a debate that everyone thought was resolved decades ago: the notion that central banks must be independent from politics. Why? The […]
A moron premium in the US?
We’ve been writing about bonds before they were the flavour of the week. And events now dictate that we revisit bonds again. Who are we to argue with events, dear Intriguer? Typically if US stocks tank, spooked investors will shift their cash over into bonds — the ultimate safe-haven. Why? When you buy bonds (loan the US government money), […]
Did Trump just blink?
Just after our last edition hit your inbox, Donald Trump decided to: Of course, markets breathed a semi-sigh of relief. But… did Trump blink? Here are the three main arguments you need to know: Treasury Secretary Bessent argues this was all part of Trump’s successful strategy, with 75 countries now reportedly lining up to negotiate […]
Trump and Xi play chicken
We’ve already explored Trump’s tariffs, but it’s worth a quick recap of his rationale before we tour today’s wild ripple effects: And while he’s now slapped tariffs on everyone (otherwise he says China just reroutes via third countries), the big kahuna tariffs are now really on China. Building on earlier tariff rounds during Trump 1.0 and Biden… The […]
Technology
Deep dive: Palantir’s manifesto
Tech bros get enough attention, but when they start minting mass contracts with the Pentagon, the Department of Agriculture, Poland’s defence ministry, and even French intelligence, all while becoming a swear word hurled during protests… it’s worth a look. Throw in a new 22-point manifesto outlining Palantir’s worldview, triggering more debate than whether a hot […]
More Articles
Big Tech is in Big Trouble
Think you had a rough week? Imagine being a top lawyer at Meta or Google, who got their meditation session in the team offsite mindfulness pod interrupted by news that US juries just handed down two landmark rulings with global implications. First, a New Mexico jury just ordered Meta (Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp) to pay $375M […]
Spy chiefs take the hot seat
DC’s intelligence chiefs have stepped out of the shadows and into the congressional spotlight for their annual grilling this week. Sure, it’s all tied to the unclassified Annual Threat Assessment, and spooks love to defer spicy answers to the off-camera closed-door briefings, but it’s still pretty revealing. So here are the week’s top five spymaster […]
The fight tearing AI and defense apart
News recently broke that the Pentagon had used Anthropic’s Claude AI tool to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. Cue the memes about Secretary Hegseth prompting AI with something like “hey Claude, go seize Maduro without US casualties, make no mistakes”. But this was all apparently news to Anthropic itself, which reportedly sought clarification. The AI firm […]
The massive supply chain shortage you didn’t know about
You’d think 2026 already had enough on, but no — someone has gone out and helpfully coined an entirely new genre of Armageddon: not nuclear, not biblical, but supply chain: So what’s driving this impending RAMageddon? Intrigue’s hard-core nerds will forgive us when we casually split chips into three families: First there are the compute […]