Last week’s Lebanese elections represented an elusive promise of change, but for change to prevail we have immense work ahead of us.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s relationship with his closest superpower ally, Vladimir Putin, has been going through a complicated patch. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has also struggled to retain Russian affections while not burning his bridges with NATO states.

With scenes of shocking brutality, Israel has yet again succeeded in setting Jerusalem ablaze, with provocatively heavy-handed policing around Al-Aqsa Mosque at a time when this holy city is the focus of worship for festivals of three global faiths.

The received wisdom in the aftermath of Russia’s attack on Ukraine was that it would precipitate a collapse in support for the Kremlin-aligned far right throughout the Western world.

Elections represent a contract between a nation’s people and the governing classes; the people have their say, and bestow a mandate to govern upon those they select. However, in some states this fundamental social contract has been broken beyond repair.

Wherever I am in the world, people tell me they simply no longer know what sources of information to believe. So much of the information we are bombarded with is politicized propaganda that it’s easy to end up buying into, whatever version of reality we’d like to believe.

The World Food Programme is warning of a “wave of collateral hunger” around the world as a result of the carnage in Ukraine. Arab states are likely to be among the hardest hit.