History does not repeat, but it does have patterns, and there are disturbing similarities.

Maesaiah Thabane, wife of Prime Minister Thomas Thabane and therefore First Lady of Lesotho, is charged with ordering the murder of his previous wife three years ago, and he’s accused of being her accomplice.

The whistleblowers are among our last remaining checks on the contemptuous ease with which those who control the information seek to manipulate the rest of us.

This could end up as a major war, and since Turkey can easily block Russian ships heading for the Mediterranean, Russian victory would not be quick or easy. But they would win in the end, as they always do.

The Japanese planners were foolish to put four reactors on the coast in a region where earthquakes and consequent tsunamis were to be expected from time to time.

This political revolution is not driven by Irish nationalism. Few of the people who voted for Sinn Féin cared much about the North, or unification, or any of that old stuff.

A black swan is an unforeseen event that has a huge impact on the normal course of events. The SARS epidemic in 2002-03 was a black swan: it knocked about two percentage points off China’s economic growth that year.

Bernie Sanders may frighten as many voters as he excites.

There was no need to have any Palestinians at the great unveiling of the Trump-Netanyahu ‘peace deal’ on Jan. 28. Palestinian consent is not necessary, and when they reject it they can be vilified for rejecting ‘peace.'

The Chinese doctors will do their duty, as always, but it would be nice if China had its political act a bit more together before then.

Even if we finally start taking serious measures against global warming now, a lot of people are going to die from the damage that has already been done: millions at least, and possibly a great many more than that.

Russians sometimes call themselves 'Italians of the North,' and they don’t mean it in a good way. So he wants a strong state, run with a firm hand, even after he has retired, which means that a clear succession.

The deadline between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan passed on Jan. 15. Now the dispute goes to the three heads of government to agree on a mediator—and if they can’t agree, maybe we’ll see our first real 'water war.'

All these shoot-downs are fundamentally a political and military phenomenon, not a technical malfunction or mere human error.

Donald Trump is belatedly frightened by the potential consequences of his impulsive order to kill Qassem Soleimani, and he’s trying to threaten his way out of an open U.S.-Iran war.

Stalin was a complete idiot to trust Hitler, but went on supplying Germany with oil and various other scarce goods until the day before Germany invaded Russia in June 1941. It’s not a story that reflects well on Russia, so it’s no wonder that Putin keeps trying to change the narrative.

The best that can be said about COP25 is that they stopped a concerted attempt by the biggest emitters, led by Brazil and Australia, to gut the proposed rules for a global carbon market.

The relationship will stay very cool, because Russian popular opinion would never allow Putin to hand back Crimea.

It has now become clear that Saudi Arabia is never going to win.

The alleged Russian threat is still the glue that holds the alliance together, but French President Emmanuel Macron doesn’t believe in that.

Which way will it go? Impossible to say, but a major obstacle to a negotiated outcome is that the protesters have deliberately avoided having recognized leaders.

Governments have been making these promises since the early 1990s, and they are never kept because the political pressures are far stronger from those who profit in the present.

Maybe the fossil fuel industries can at least deflect and divert the pressure for effective action on climate change on to targets that do not directly threaten the sales of their products.