Sholto Byrnes

After the US attack on Venezuela and capture and extraction of president Nicolas Maduro, one thing is for sure: spheres of influence are back.

Mayhem in the Middle East. Catastrophic disruption to world energy supplies. The risk of future food shortages as crucial fertiliser stocks are blocked behind the Strait of Hormuz.

The repercussions of the Iran war are already being felt around the world, and will continue to do so for months and years to come.

It is also patronising and neo-colonialist to assume wealthy countries have the right to outsource their problems to a developing continent

There will be plenty on the agenda as US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, meet in Beijing: AI, trade, Taiwan and the ongoing crisis in the Gulf, to start with.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the first- and second-order effects of supply chain disruptions – not just to oil, gas and fertiliser, but

Whatever military victories Israel achieves in its current manner will never protect its future

In different parts of the world, diplomacy and dialogue appear to be in full-blown retreat.

It was a line in a recent news report that jumped out at me. In Australia, “the levels of trust in either the US or China to ‘act responsibly' in the world are now almost evenly matched”.

In the past few days, the US has ordered its last aircraft carrier out of Asia and sent it to shore up its fleet in the Middle East, and President