Taiwan

For Masayoshi Son, the AI boom has been both a blessing and a curse for a conglomerate that had lost its way. In June, AI returned SoftBank Group to the top. For the first time in 22 years, Son’s conglomerate...

Choe Son-hui, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, has concluded a four-day visit to Moscow. This marks her second trip to the Russian capital in less than a year. The agenda of the visit...

China’s crude oil imports reversed an earlier decline, rising by 22% from June to an average daily of 8.45 million barrels, or a total of 35.73 million tons, Bloomberg reported today, citing customs data. China slashed its total crude oil...

Three Regional Powers Strengthen Security Cooperation Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan are set to sign a landmark joint defence agreement on Friday, deepening military cooperation among three of the Muslim world’s most influential powers at a time of heightened instability...

The Iliad and Odyssey have shaped Western ideas of heroism for nearly three millennia. Yet despite centuries of debate over whether they reflect historical reality or poetic fantasy, the Homeric world remains an internally consistent universe worth studying on its...

The Iran war has fundamentally reshaped global energy security calculations, forcing fuel importing nations to confront an uncomfortable reality. The disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important energy corridors, has exposed the vulnerability of countries...

Extreme Heat Intensifies Europe’s Prison Crisis As record breaking heatwaves continue to sweep across Europe, prisons in France, Italy and Belgium are facing mounting pressure from overcrowding, ageing infrastructure and inadequate cooling systems, exposing what prison officials, inmates and rights...

It is conceivable that in one blistering campaign, the People’s Republic of China could invade, occupy, and forcibly annex Taiwan. One question would dominate the post-occupation debate: “What more could have been done?” The obvious answers will be better intelligence,...

Russia last month imported some 30,000 metric tons of fuels from South Korea to tackle supply constraints caused by continued Ukrainian drone attacks on refineries. According to a Reuters report citing ship-tracking data from Kpler and Vortexa, at least two...

However, let’s assume that an agreement is reached on Friday and that oil and LNG tankers are allowed to exit the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz. Even if a deal is struck, it will be months, possibly years, before...

The Yemeni Houthis have struck Saudi Arabia’s southern province of Najran in the latest flare-up of Middle Eastern hostilities, killing 11 civilians, Reuters has reported, citing a spokesman for the military coalition led by Saudi Arabia that fights the Houthis...

On October 9, 2025, China’s Ministry of Commerce added five more rare earth elements to its export control list and, for the first time, asserted the right to police how foreign made products containing Chinese sourced materials are used anywhere...

In Ceuta, Israel and the United States are sanctioning Spain for its support of Palestine and its refusal to join the war against Iran. The mass influx into Ceuta became one of the largest migration incidents on the external borders...

Orwell would be proud Since the 2020 onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Malaysia’s Ministry of Communications and its executive arm, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, have metastasized into one of Asia’s largest state information control agencies, raising concerns among civil...

Nature offers unexpectedly good lessons in strategy. As a child, I was fond of bamboo shoots, though none grew in our farmland. My mother, noticing my enthusiasm, suggested that I plant some myself. A neighbor gave me a stalk about...

Although 81 years have passed since the atomic bombing of Japan in August 1945, the rulers of major nations continue their reckless march toward a nuclear holocaust. The nine nuclear powers (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Israel, India,...

Historically, one of the greatest dangers to a major power in the international system is letting smaller allies and clients drag that power into an unwise war. Both the United States and leading European powers seem inclined to make that...

The war in Iran is unlawful and unconstitutional, but in post-World War II America, it is normal. Here is the backstory. When President Donald Trump decided to begin bombing Iran last June, he did not state a coherent or lawful...

Trump’s economic strategy has widely been tied into the weaponisation of tariffs. The US-China trade war, beginning in 2018 during Trump’s first term, culminated in tariffs on American and Chinese goods worth a total of $735 billion, as of August...

Oil prices fell for a second week running thanks to optimism surrounding renewed U.S.-Iran diplomacy to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Monday that talks between Washington and Tehran would resume l, adding that U.S....

Southeast Asia is falling short of its ambitious projects to boost gas-fired power generation to meet growing electricity demand and replace some of the coal use. Fuel availability, volatile prices, and supply chain bottlenecks threaten to drive up costs and...

On 22 July, protesters and police clashed outside the Philippine International Convention Center as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended an ASEAN meeting in Manila. They were protesting American foreign policy—and Pax Silica, the US-led initiative that could turn New Clark...

Drivers in the United Kingdom have started filling up their tanks without paying for the fuel as driving costs surge on the fuel supply crunch driven by the war in the Middle East. The crimes include people driving off after...

The Sudanese military's recapture of the Al Sadarat highway marks its most significant success against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the fourth year of the Sudanese civil war. However, the RSF's shift toward tribal mobilization and the growing role...

Ceva and Actions Technology have expanded their longstanding partnership with the introduction of the ATS296X series, a new family of Bluetooth audio chips designed to bring High Data Throughput technology into commercial wireless products. Powered by the Ceva-Waves Bluetooth HDT...

Intense summer heat waves are threatening energy security across Europe. The continent is facing a scorching and arid summer, causing electricity demand for air conditioning to skyrocket at the same time that rivers warm up and dry out with devastating...

US distillate exports surged to a record last week as global supplies tightened. Disruptions across the Gulf area and various surrounding maritime chokepoints, as well as Ukrainian one-way attack drone strikes that have paralyzed portions of Russia's energy infrastructure, have...

Nearly two years after fleeing Dhaka in disgrace, ousted Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina made her first live public address on Wednesday (August 5). Speaking via audio from an event organized by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia in...

The United States is moving to impose a 15% tariff and a series of price floors on polysilicon and its derivative products, a step designed to push solar panel manufacturers toward domestic raw materials. The proposal follows a national security...

Japan’s successful Tomahawk and Upgraded Type-12 tests mark a decisive shift beyond interception-only defense toward a more assertive counterstrike posture. Last month, multiple media outlets reported that Japan’s Defense Ministry significantly expanded its long-range strike capabilities by conducting two milestone...

Glencore will launch a secondary listing in Australia in the latest blow to London’s ailing stock market as miners continue to eye opportunities away from the UK. The mining and trading juggernaut, which is among the largest companies on the...

Russia increased oil production in July as stronger exports and recovering refinery runs gave producers somewhere to put more barrels. Crude oil and condensate output rose by roughly 100,000 barrels per day from June to more than 9 million bpd,...

Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. ***IranOver the last two weeks, President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened major attacks on Iran. Going into the...

Mexico has ruled out fracking in a key shale basin, drawing a line through a resource-rich area even as the country looks for ways to cut its dependence on U.S. natural gas. President Claudia Sheinbaum said hydraulic fracturing will not...

The outcome of June’s Armenian parliamentary election, in which Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract Party secured re-election, reaffirmed that closer engagement with Europe remains an important part of Armenia’s public and political debate. European Commission President Ursula von der...

BP’s Bumerangue discovery is more than another giant Brazilian oil find: it could become the project that keeps both BP’s upstream portfolio and Brazil’s production boom alive well into the 2030s. With an estimated 2.5 billion barrels potentially recoverable and...