Taiwan

Oil prices hit nearly $110 per barrel on Thursday for the first time since July, with no end in sight for the Middle East conflict. The IRGC announced on Wednesday that it had attacked and heavily damaged eight oil tankers...

China can leverage its membership in the BRICS group and its direct investments in Africa as complementary tools to build growing economic influence that gradually translates into sustainable political, security, and strategic influence. Although Beijing consistently emphasizes that its partnerships...

South Korea and Indonesia this year have been working on elevating their relationship. Both countries are vulnerable to the changing geopolitical currents of our times. From a security perspective their situations are different: Korea has long maintained a close treaty...

This week’s oil price surge sharply raised the odds of a Fed interest rate hike next week and re-launched the recession conversation, for the first time since the early weeks of the Iran war. The price spike this week saw...

The United States’ existing dams could produce an additional 15.2 terawatt-hours of electricity per year, enough to power more than 1.4 million homes across the country. A new study from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory found that...

On February 1st, the G7’s price cap on Russian crude oil quietly reset itself to $44.10 a barrel — down from $47.60, and a long way from the $60 ceiling the coalition set with great fanfare back in December 2022....

Jensen Huang’s declaration that “AGI has arrived” is less a scientific verdict than a compressed statement about infrastructure, economics and momentum. His evidence is OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra, reportedly trained on more than 100,000 Nvidia Grace Blackwell NVL72 systems, followed by...

Construction on a trade corridor seen as the lynchpin of the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal is facing a delay, according to a top Azerbaijani official. The provisional peace agreement was signed in Washington in August 2025. At that time, the Trump...

Egypt can leverage the US-China rivalry and its strategic partnership with Beijing to bolster its national security and its position as a global logistics hub through several strategic avenues: 1) Enhancing its status as a global logistics and trade center,...

Samsung might be the most unusual company on earth because it is difficult to decide what kind of company it actually is. To most consumers, Samsung means smartphones, televisions, refrigerators. Yet the name also appears on apartment towers, cargo ships,...

The United Kingdom has dramatically increased its wind energy capacity over the last decade, producing record levels of wind power in 2025. With several more projects in the pipeline, wind power is expected to contribute a significant share of the...

Nissan Maskil, PhD, is the CEO and co-founder of Qarakal Quantum, established in 2024. Nissan brings 40 years of national technology program experience to Qarakal Quantum, where they’re working to enable researchers and enterprises to run larger and more meaningful...

A decade of financial sanctions barely dented China’s discounted-Iranian-oil trade. Physical strikes on the tankers themselves might close it within months — because Beijing has a legal playbook for ignoring a Treasury designation, and none for re-floating a struck ship....

When pesticide proved no match for the insect, desperate Phyllis Nvuda tried a new way to save her infested orchard For two decades, Phyllis Nduva, 72, has grown mangoes and citrus in Wote, a town in Kenya’s eastern Makueni County. In...

Why ecosystem diffusion may matter as much as frontier supremacy On 3 September, two announcements offered different views of AI power. OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra, and company president Greg Brockman closed the briefing by declaring, “Welcome to the AGI era.”...

The AfD’s victory in Saxony-Anhalt reflects Europe’s rightward drift, driven predominantly by domestic causes. Yet the West, ironically glossing over its own playbook and turning a blind eye to its own 20th-century interference in other states’ affairs, predictably pins the...

General Secretary and President To Lam’s official visit to France on September 10, 2026, was significant not simply because it produced a new round of agreements between Hanoi and Paris, but because it illustrated how Vietnam is adapting its foreign...

China is heavily utilizing its economic tools and infrastructure financing to build deep strategic influence in Africa, integrating the continent’s nations into its Belt and Road Initiative. This economic and logistical presence represents a key means for China to expand...

Islam Times - The Oman meeting could open a new arena for consolidating Iran’s neighbor-centered diplomacy and moving the region toward indigenous security. This path is based on dialogue, convergence among littoral states, acceptance of realities on the ground and...

Perhaps we all neglected to read the footnotes. When Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey unveiled their grand architecture of collective defense in Mecca, the language was magnificent: fraternity, deterrence, solidarity, common security. An attack on one, the world was told,...

There is a particularly dark irony, at least from our perspective, in seeing the port of Mocha change hands again. This is the town that gave the world its coffee, where ancient Yemeni beans used to be loaded onto Ottoman...

By: Pham Phan Long On paper, the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) mechanism is a success. Since its launch in 2016, trade between China and Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam has risen sharply, reaching a record $500.9 billion in 2025 – 150...

Oil producers, traders, and refiners are bracing for a prolonged war between the United States and Iran in the Persian Gulf with little to no hope of a quick resolution. By extension, they are also preparing for higher prices for...

Human rights organizations used the opening week of the UN Human Rights Council’s 63rd session to press delegates on a conflict they say has been deliberately set aside, calling for an independent investigation into chemical weapons allegations in Sudan and...

Electricity theft is a global problem, and it’s getting more dire all the time. While the problem is most common in developing countries, where grid infrastructure is limited and utilities and state authorities have lower oversight capacities, developed countries are...

Photo: Creative Commons The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon has resulted in a catalogue of self-inflicted disasters for the US. It was exploited by the worst elements of our political system to create a surveillance society, increase...

Nuclear power is growing in popularity once again as governments worldwide look to diversify their energy mix and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Several countries are now looking to develop or expand their nuclear energy capacity over the coming decades....

The People’s Republic of China achieved a historic and unprecedented participation in the second edition of the El Alamein International Aerospace Exhibition (EIAS 2026), which was held at El Alamein International Airport from September 8 to 10, 2026. The Chinese...

Heat pumps are becoming an increasingly popular alternative to gas-powered central heating systems and are increasingly being used in new construction, often driven by government incentives. A heat pump uses technology similar to that found in a refrigerator or an...

Alleged members of Black Axe criminal network that swindled US women out of $6m flown from South Africa Six Nigerian nationals linked to an organized criminal network that allegedly swindled American women out of more than $6m through online romance scams...

The BRICS group of nations adopted a joint declaration on Saturday, showing “deep concern” about the Middle East war. They called for maximum restraint and emphasized the need for a “multilateral approach” that respects different national views. This declaration was...

Saudi Arabia has closed its East-West oil pipeline due to a drone attack linked to Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. This pipeline is crucial for Saudi Arabia, as it allows the country to bypass the congested Strait of Hormuz, which has...

Good things are happening! Conservationists score two teaspoons of triumph, workers pour a tall glass of solidarity, attorneys general assemble for vital healthcare, and buffalo regain their home on the range. You Love To See It is a benefit of a...

Islam Times - A Wall Street Journal report on an Iran-linked group’s use of U.S.-developed artificial intelligence against American warships has revealed a deeper layer of the conflict: the United States and Israel miscalculated Iran’s technological capabilities. They were able...

Islam Times - What has leaked from a private meeting at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) points, on the one hand, to the excessive optimism of the architects of economic pressure and, on the other, to the doubts...

As artificial intelligence, digital platforms and rapidly evolving technologies reshape the way societies receive and share information, strategic communication is becoming an increasingly important pillar of diplomacy, governance and national resilience. This was the focus of a high-level panel discussion held...

GAZA/ PNN/ The death toll from Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip has risen to 73,783 Palestinians, with 174,738 others wounded since Oct. 7, 2023, according to Palestinian medical sources. The sources said Gaza hospitals received the bodies of 10 Palestinians killed...