the uae wants you to see luxury towers, space missions, and humanitarian aid. but behind the scenes, it’s funding militias, backing warlords, and quietly helping reshape wars across the middle east and africa.

in this episode, we look at how the united arab emirates became one of the most influential and destabilizing actors in the region. from arming the rsf in sudan’s civil war and enabling genocide in darfur, to supporting separatists in yemen and building covert drone bases, the uae’s foreign policy isn’t about peace, it’s about control.

this is about power, ports, and profit. and the cost is being paid by people in sudan, yemen, libya, and beyond.

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in september 2024, albania’s prime minister announced a plan to create a new sovereign state inside tirana, the capital of the country.

a spiritual microstate, run by the bektashi order, a sufi-inspired religious group. it sounded symbolic. maybe even strange. but it was real.

in this episode, we break down what the bektashi proposal actually is, where it came from, and why it’s raising questions. about power, corruption, religious identity, and what happens when politics uses faith to sell a bigger story.

most people in mongolia's capital ulaanbaatar don’t live in apartments, they live in ger districts.

entire neighborhoods built from traditional yurts, often without sewage, piped water, or reliable heat.

in this episode, we look at how the collapse of the soviet union, climate disasters, and decades of underinvestment led hundreds of thousands to settle on the city’s edge, and why those areas are still waiting for the basics.