It’s February 2026, and I don’t know about you, but I feel like the ground beneath our feet isn’t just shifting: it’s cracking open. We aren’t just “consuming” the news anymore; we’re forced witnesses to the tectonic plates of the old world order grinding against each other until they snap. You can feel it in the air, can’t you? That heavy mix of fear, total exhaustion, and the cold, sick realization that the “stability” we were promised was just a mask for something much older and more predatory.

The New Face of Empire

The year started like a punch to the gut. The “snatch and grab” of Nicolás Maduro in Caracas felt like a scene from a movie we weren’t supposed to see. Whether people call it “Operation Absolute Resolve” or a literal kidnapping, the mask is off. Don’t get me wrong. I am no Maduro fan but I am not a fan of another country interfering (without provocation) into the affairs of the others. One thing is clear though: The era of “strategic patience” is dead, replaced by a raw, naked display of power.

But look at the cost. Look at Cuba. Already gasping for air, they’ve lost their lifeline. With Maduro gone and the U.S. choking off the oil, Havana is staring into a pitch-black abyss. This isn’t just “geopolitics.” This is Neo-Colonialism standing on our doorstep with a megaphone. We aren’t conquering lands with flags anymore; we’re conquering “dependencies” under the lie of “supply chain stabilization.” It’s the same old resource capture, just with a cleaner PR team.

No Sanctuary Left

Even the quiet corners of the earth are being carved up. Greenland, the last symbol of pristine, cold isolation, is now a bargaining chip. Watching the U.S. push through deals for mineral rights and that “Golden Dome” missile system feels like a betrayal of the planet itself. It’s not about the environment; it’s about the new military frontier. When the world starts fighting over the Arctic, you know the old maps are being burned in real-time. How much longer before the fight for Antarctica begins, you think?

The Blood and the Silence

My heart breaks for Iran. The “2026 Massacres” have left a scar that will never heal. My Iranian friends live in utter shock, unable to speak to their family & counting their dead. To think that 30,000 people, our fellow humans, could be wiped out in January while the government cut the internet to hide their screams… it’s unbearable. It’s that same, haunting cycle: people asking for a shred of dignity and getting met with lead.

And then there is Palestine. We are two years into a nightmare that the world: the UN, the human rights groups, all of us with eyes, is openly calling a genocide. The ceasefire is a ghost. The blockade on aid is a slow-motion execution. The “rules-based order” they talk about in high-rise offices feels like a cruel, sick joke when you watch children starve and freeze to death in high-definition on your phone every single day.

The Rot at the Top

While the world bleeds, the rot at the top just keeps festering. The release of those three million pages from the Epstein files this week? It’s a staggering, disgusting confirmation of what we’ve always felt in our bones. 2,000 videos, 180,000 images… it’s a web of “billionaire colonialism” where the ultra-wealthy operated entirely outside the law. To see the names of the very people lecturing us on ethics littered through those files makes the skin crawl.

These billionaires are the new sovereigns. They don’t just influence the world; they own the “truth” because they buy the media and the algorithms that tell us what to think.

AI’s Hunger

And let’s talk about the “cloud.” We’re told AI is this clean, ethereal thing, but it has a relentless, physical hunger. It’s eating the world’s resources. By 2030, these data centers will consume more electricity than entire nations like Germany. The Global North gets the “intelligence,” while the Global South provides the cooling water and the minerals. It’s the same extraction model, just with a new name. As India prepares for the AI Impact Summit, I can’t help but wonder: are we the architects, or just the “digital serfs” feeding the machine?

Between My Two Homes: India and Australia

For me, this isn’t just global—it’s deeply personal.

In India, my home, everything feels sharply confrontational. The air is thick with political friction as we head into elections in Bengal and Tamil Nadu. The government is playing a high-stakes game, buying Russian oil, eyeing China, trying to be its own pole in a broken world. But at what cost? The internal fractures are deep, and you can feel the tension in every conversation.

And here in Australia, my current home, the war has literally marched to our front door. The visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog this month has been a lightning rod. After the trauma of the Bondi attack, the government wanted a “gesture of solidarity,” but it has set the country on fire. Seeing the “National Day of Protest” fill the streets of Sydney and Melbourne… it’s surreal. People are screaming that our government is welcoming a leader accused of genocide.

The Shift

From Canada’s Mark Carney trying to dodge U.S. tariffs to China securing the world’s rare minerals, everyone is retreating into their own corners. We’re building walls—tariffs, firewalls, missile domes. People are more scared, more hateful, and so much more certain that “the other” is the enemy.

The world order isn’t just shifting; it’s being dismantled and rebuilt into something we don’t recognize yet. It’s a heavy, heavy time to be alive and watching. But we have to keep our eyes open. We have to keep feeling it, even when it hurts.