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Global Power Shifts

@globalpowershifts

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🌍 Decoding a changing world.
🎙️ GPS Conversations, hosted by @jimstenman @kianpourworld
🗞️ Newsletters: Horn Horizons, Caucasus Crossroads

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Back in Washington and in the corridors of power. 🇺🇸🎙️

GPS co-host @KianpourWorld just hosted a Creator Bill of Rights reception and interviewed Congressman @RepRoKhanna, with creators and digital strategists in the room debating what respect, protection, and visibility should actually look like in the creator economy.

The focus was simple and overdue: creators being heard, seen, and respected.

Strong start to 2026 for her @HelmetToHeels platform where foreign policy meets fashion, with real thought leadership behind it. Well done, Suzanne. 👏✨

#GlobalPowerShifts #CreatorEconomy #DigitalRights #TechPolicy #WashingtonDC #HelmetToHeels taken in Washington, D.C. by @globalpowershifts

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9 months ago

Great to see #GlobalPowerShifts 🎙️ co-host Suzanne Kianpour (ex-BBC; CEO, @HelmetToHeels) on Fox News 📺 this weekend — spotlighting our latest interview with Venezuelan MP-in-exile Armando Armas.

His on-the-ground look at how #Venezuela’s sanctioned oil economy ties to cross-border smuggling and Colombia’s drug trade 🇻🇪➡️🇨🇴 comes at a critical moment for U.S. policy.

Kudos to Suzanne — fresh off our episode with a sitting Ethiopian minister that topped 200k views amid Horn of Africa tensions. These appearances matter when so much of President Trump’s worldview is shaped by cable news. 🌍

#GlobalPowerShifts #Geopolitics #Venezuela #Colombia #ForeignPolicy #Media #Business #LatinAmerica by @globalpowershifts

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a year ago

As Mehdi Hasan’s interview with Getachew Reda on Al Jazeera sparks debate in Ethiopia 🇪🇹 over questions of genocide, we are revisiting @JimStenman’s conversation with the former Tigray president from September.

In this clip, Getachew Reda, now Ethiopia’s Minister of East African Affairs, describes the moment the Tigrayan leadership realised it was losing the war against federal forces, a conflict estimated to have killed up to 600,000 people and marked by accusations of serious human rights abuses on all sides.

Watch the full episode on YouTube, link in bio ▶️ by @globalpowershifts

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a year ago

Trump called Somaliland "a totally different country" at a recent Ohio rally, and Hargeisa is treating it as a win, hoping Washington will follow Israel and recognize it. But actual US policy hasn't moved.

Swipe through to see what's still blocking recognition, and what could come first.

Full analysis in the latest Horn Horizons newsletter, part of the Global Power Shifts network. Link in bio.

#Somaliland #HornOfAfrica #RedSea #Berbera #Somalia taken in Dubai, United Arab Emirates by @globalpowershifts

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4 days ago

Supply chains and security look shaky across the Gulf, especially after last week’s Houthi attacks on Riyadh’s airport. Ethiopia faces its own trouble, with fighting back in the north.

@JimStenman had a virtual coffee, or buna, with Gabriel Negatu, a former African Development Bank director general for Eastern Africa, on what it means for investors. Negatu thinks few foreign companies will leave Ethiopia, but new money will wait.

Swipe for five things investors should know. Full interview, link in bio.

#Ethiopia #HornOfAfrica #RedSea #SupplyChains #GlobalPowerShifts taken in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia by @globalpowershifts

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6 days ago

Seven armed groups from across Ethiopia, among them the TPLF from Tigray and Fano from Amhara, announced an alliance on 20 September to overthrow Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and two days later fighting broke out in Tigray, Amhara and Afar. Tigray's leaders say a new war has begun.

Fano fought alongside the federal government against the TPLF in the 2020 to 2022 war, which killed an estimated 600,000 people and ended with the Pretoria peace deal. The deal was never fully carried out, and in May the TPLF took back control of Tigray's regional government, which the federal government says breaks the agreement.

@JimStenman spoke to Cameron Hudson on 29 September. Hudson is a former CIA analyst who went on to direct African affairs at the White House National Security Council under George W. Bush. He says Abiy has spent the year consolidating power: Tigray was excluded from the June election, and opposition parties and armed groups rejected the national dialogue that was meant to settle the disputes, so the people left outside the process have organised against the government.

The neighbours matter because Tigray borders both Eritrea and Sudan. Days before the interview, Ethiopia's army chief accused Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of backing the rebels without offering evidence. Sudan called the claim baseless and says Ethiopia is backing the militia its army is fighting. Hudson suggested outside backing for Tigrayan forces may be stepping up and that Ethiopia could be drawn deeper into Sudan's war, but he hedged and none of it is confirmed. Eritrea fought alongside Ethiopia against Tigray last time and is now at odds with Abiy over his push for a Red Sea port.

Full conversation on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Link in bio.

#GlobalPowerShifts #Ethiopia #Tigray #HornOfAfrica #sudan taken in Washington, DC by @globalpowershifts

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14 days ago

Would Egypt, Eritrea and Sudan benefit from a destabilized Ethiopia?

Cameron Hudson, a former CIA Africa analyst, says none of them would be upset, and the coordination between them has been "on full display for many months." 🎙️

Full interview, link in bio. Who gains from the chaos?

#Ethiopia #HornOfAfrica #Tigray #RedSea #GlobalPowerShifts taken in Washington, DC by @globalpowershifts

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17 days ago

Last week, I hosted a morning panel discussion in Dubai’s financial district about a region that increasingly feels like it’s being pulled in five directions at once. 🌍

Hormuz is still effectively closed, and the UAE is building its way around it. The Houthis are disrupting shipping through the Red Sea. Saudi pipelines are getting hit. An AI researcher quit and told the world his industry might end the world as we know it.

That doomsday scenario aside, the thing I keep coming back to is the US. 🇺🇸

Its bases are a big reason the Gulf ended up taking Iranian fire in the first place. CNN reports the Pentagon wants to pull back from the region, which some will be tempted to see as a good thing. However, you don't have to look further than the current situation with the Houthis and Saudi Arabia to realize that US military presence is wanted and needed by these countries.

The question is, though, what are American guarantees actually worth to the Gulf today, when that presence has also helped drag the region into the current conflict with Iran?

Alas, I'm not a military strategist and have more questions than answers.

Scroll right for some of the things I chatted through with Caroline Faraj (@cjfaraj) of CNN Arabic, Tim Falconer of FTI Consulting, and Nicholas Lyall of Trends Research & Advisory. Great to have their perspectives on what's happening and what may be next.

#Geopolitics #MiddleEast #Hormuz #UAE #AI #Dubai #GlobalPowerShifts taken in ICD Brookfield Place by @globalpowershifts

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a month ago

Congratulations to our co-host Suzanne Kianpour (@kianpourworld) and her colleagues at @timesradio on their AIB shortlist for coverage from inside Iran during the protests and the US-Israeli airstrikes.

One conversation sits with us from that period. Rouzy Vafaie trusting Suzanne with his account of IRGC detention he genuinely did not expect to survive. We co-released that episode with Times Radio. His willingness to speak plainly about what he witnessed inside the Islamic Republic did the rest.

Full episode on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. He got out. The IRGC expected something in return. Link in bio. taken in London, United Kingdom by @globalpowershifts

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a month ago

As America marks 25 years since September 11, remains recovered from Ground Zero are still being identified. More than a thousand families are still waiting.

Donald Alway worked the evidence recovery in New York in the spring of 2002, part of a 27-year FBI career that ended as Assistant Director in Charge of Los Angeles. "Those operations are not concluded," he says.

He joined Suzanne Kianpour and guest co-host Jamie Angus for the anniversary. Full episode on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Link in bio.

#GlobalPowerShifts #911 #September11 #NeverForget #FBI #GroundZero #Podcast #Geopolitics by @globalpowershifts

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a month ago

One year ago, Trump gathered the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House to end four decades of conflict. They've since nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. The treaty? Still unsigned.

But the money hasn't waited. Washington quietly doubled its corridor fund to $402 million, survey crews are on Armenian ground, and Azerbaijan's railway is nearing the border.

For Georgia Today, the country's leading English-language newspaper, GPS's own Jim Stenman dug into the true status of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, or TRIPP, speaking with a former US ambassador, a veteran Georgian logistics executive and a Tbilisi-based geopolitical analyst.

Swipe for the findings. Full analysis at the link in bio 👆

Follow Caucasus Crossroads, a sister publication of Global Power Shifts, on Substack and LinkedIn for weekly analysis of the corridor.

#SouthCaucasus #Georgia #Armenia #Azerbaijan #MiddleCorridor #Tbilisi #Geopolitics #Trump #Caucasus by @globalpowershifts

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2 months ago

They are calling it “Morocco’s Palestine.”

Verónica Muñoz (@ajournalistvlog) was born and raised in Ceuta, and when @kianpourworld put that narrative to her, she didn’t hesitate: “That is really sad… we have nothing but sympathy towards Moroccan people. They are saying that we are colonizers.”

Then came the history. Phoenicians in the 7th century BC, more than 700 years under Islamic dynasties, Portugal in 1415, and Spanish, she says, for some 600 years, longer than Morocco’s ruling dynasty has existed. The UN has never listed Ceuta for decolonization.

And one detail undercuts the whole argument: Ceuta is EU territory, but a ferry and a passport check separate it from mainland Spain, and almost nobody who crossed wants to stay. “My town is so small. The main goal is to go to Europe.”

Full conversation with @kianpourworld and @jimstenman: link in bio.
Also on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

#Ceuta #Spain #Morocco #Migration #Geopolitics taken in London, United Kingdom by @globalpowershifts

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2 months ago