Taiwan

TODAY’S NUMBERS: $97.19 (Brent crude, a six-week high) · $5.85 (US retail diesel, a record) · 4.79% (US 10-year Treasury yield) War in the Gulf is repricing oil and diesel, while a hot jobs report keeps a Fed rate hike...

The Trump administration has revived its diplomatic drive to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, as US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled from Moscow to Kyiv in a high-profile effort to lay the groundwork for another round of negotiations....

Despite serious geopolitical challenges, the intensification of confrontational trends globally, and the overall deterioration of the international situation, India is successfully and worthily conducting an active chairmanship of this major and authoritative association of Global South states. On September 12–13,...

The renewed rally in crude oil and LNG prices and the higher freight costs are pressuring the marketing margins of India’s oil and gas sector, which has to contend with the fallout of the Iran war on global oil and...

It was around seven o’clock in the evening when we arrived at a church in the city of Hama, Syria, to attend the wedding of a friend. As guests gradually filled the courtyard, music began to echo through the building....

Saudi Aramco's 400,000-barrel-per-day Jizan refinery was hit in a new attack Monday, threatening a major Red Sea refining hub while Saudi Arabia is moving more oil west to avoid the Strait of Hormuz. The Financial Times reported that the facilities...

Iran said Monday that it is preparing to sign an agreement with Oman establishing a new shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz under Iranian control, with vessels required to coordinate with Tehran to enter a new restricted maritime zone...

India’s average crude import price soared to above $100 per barrel at the end of last week and is set to further rise this week as international crude prices rallied amid intensified hostilities in the Middle East. The so-called Crude...

The Kremlin said Monday that it does not rule out restarting trilateral peace talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States, although it stressed that there is currently no agreement on when or where negotiations could resume. The comments followed...

Indonesia is once again dominating headlines across Southeast Asia as dense plumes of toxic haze drift into neighboring skies. Latest satellite monitoring data from the Ministry of Forestry’s SiPongi system confirms that over 202,000 hectares of forest and land have...

After International Energy Agency executive director Fatih Birol labeled the ongoing global energy turmoil the “biggest energy security threat in history” in April, events over the summer vindicated his warning. The United States authorized the grid operator Southwest Power Pool,...

Oil prices could surge to as much as $120 per barrel if attacks on shipping in the Middle East intensify, according to Goldman Sachs. “Events over the last few days do suggest that the risk of shipping disruptions broadening and...

Half a dozen empty liquefied natural gas carriers are en route to Qatar in what may be a sign that QatarEnergy is preparing to restart loadings, Bloomberg has reported, citing ship-tracking data from Kpler. The data showed six tankers with...

Torrential rain causes widespread damage; while north-west South Africa hit by thunderstorms and central-southern US faces oppressive heat Typhoon Saudel brought days of torrential rain to Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian and Guangdong provinces in south-east China last week. The city of Putian,...

Iran says it will announce a new restricted zone in the Gulf and publish maps for a new shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz in the coming days, adding another layer of tension around one of the world’s most...

Editor’s note: This is the tenth article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader national security, politics, and society. This series will run for several weeks to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary,...

North Korea and Russia have opened their first road bridge across the Tumen River, marking another step in the rapidly expanding relationship between the two countries. The bridge is located near the existing Friendship Bridge, a rail crossing that has...

On August 5, two years to the day after a mass uprising drove Sheikh Hasina from power, she announced from India that she would return to Bangladesh in December. Read as a forecast, the statement is implausible. Read as a...

When Israeli warplanes struck the Abu al-Duhur airbase in Syria on Aug. 18, 2026, the smoke rose over the demolition of an old geopolitical assumption about the Middle East. This time, Israel directly targeted a strategic sphere of influence where...

South Korea has reportedly agreed to invest $22.3 billion in a gas-fired power plant in Texas as part of its trade deal with the Trump administration. The investment would be South Korea’s first under the trade deal, Reuters noted in...

Arms trafficking in the Caribbean has soared in recent years, with many states now ranking firearms trafficking as the number one public safety and security threat. As new methods of arming individuals and gangs emerge across the Caribbean, gun violence...

China’s WZ-X points to a future in which stealth, endurance, surveillance and strike converge in a new class of unmanned aircraft built for sustained operations across the vast distances of the Pacific. This month, The War Zone (TWZ) reported that...

China’s humanoid robot industry has moved beyond flashy demonstrations of robots running, boxing and dancing. A Reuters review of more than 100 Chinese military procurement notices, academic studies, patents, government records and defence industry materials found that China’s military is...

They fled a brutal civil war to reach safety in Egypt, but now many Sudanese women and girls are falling prey to sexual exploitation Sudanese women who fled to Egypt to escape the war in their country are facing increasing levels...

Somewhere between the White House press briefing and the smoke rising over Khan Younis lies the gap that defines the current phase of the Gaza war. The ceasefire announced on 10 October 2025, hailed by US President Donald Trump as...

Figs mean summer — they represent the summer heat, where the sweet scent of fig trees mingles with the chirping of crickets and the singing cicadas. The scent of fig leaves on sleep-inducing lazy afternoons and the indescribable honey-like taste...

Western coverage of Chinese artificial intelligence still tends to treat the competition as a model contest: can a Chinese company match the best American system? China is certainly in that race. But it is also pursuing a quieter route. Chinese...

China’s endorsement of Egypt’s right to protect its water and food security marks a significant diplomatic development in the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) dispute. It does not amount to a formal rejection of Ethiopia’s dam, but it gives Cairo’s...

Oil prices edged higher in early Asian trade on Monday following another weekend of escalation in the U.S.-Iran war. At the time of writing, WTI was trading at $92.14 per barrel, up 0.72% on the session, while Brent had risen...

One problem with following innovation is that the extraordinary now arrives disguised as the weekly. A frontier model trained on more than 100,000 GPUs, several leading AI services stumbling in the same morning, a camera-chip company redesigning itself around edge...

Vučić’s threat to divert the Ibar River is not a Kosovo policy — it is manufactured leverage aimed at three audiences at once: Brussels, where Serbia’s own accession has stalled while Ukraine and Moldova pull ahead on the EU’s own...

Islam Times - After 286 days on deployment and months of continuous time at sea, sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln arrived in Pattaya, Thailand, where a series of alleged crimes and misconduct has triggered a new scandal for the...

Islam Times - Trump calls the war with Iran a “military conflict” and “small potatoes” and, in an attempt to mislead American public opinion ahead of the November election, claims that the Strait of Hormuz is becoming less important and...

In a war, length is far more important than ferocity. Trying to keep a war from escalating might seem like a prudent thing (and academic theory, which simply does not understand history, says as much). However, clamping down on escalation...

By: Andy Wong Ming Jun US-South Korean bilateral ties have come under increasing strain, with months of political bickering now spilling into the operational sphere. President Donald Trump’s decision to scale back the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise between South Korean...

The jury took just two hours. Tony Greenstein – Jewish socialist, anti-Zionist – had faced fourteen years under the Terrorism Act for three social media posts and a blog article opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Crown called it “inviting...

American bombs are now falling on Tehran, and while Donald Trump ultimately pulled the trigger, administrations before him—Republican and Democrat alike—constructed the gun, and even loaded it. In 1995, US president Bill Clinton issued executive orders banning US investment tied...

Russia’s Northern Sea Route (NSR) is about to become a game-changer for Eurasian energy trade, and Europe’s January 2027 ban on Russian LNG is pushing Moscow to bring it to life sooner than planned. LNG will remain its foundation, while...

When a Treasury secretary reaches for Normandy to describe a sanctions package, the mission has already outgrown its sales pitch. Scott Bessent’s new Financial Times essay is more than a case for tightening pressure on Iran. He says American force...

An Oakland Institute analysis challenges claims that a large increase in mining is an unavoidable cost of replacing fossil fuels. Using International Energy Agency (IEA) data, Oakland calculated that wind, solar, renewable-power networks, grid batteries and electric vehicles accounted for...