Cross-strait tensions, the One-China policy and regional security around Taiwan and China.
Cogs of War
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America faces a well-defined industrial base problem. Whether it’s a hypothetical Taiwan invasion wargame run two dozen times, the current Iranian conflict, or the Russo-Ukrainian War, the same result repeats: Magazines…
Commentary
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The standard explanations for why Taiwan is so important to the Chinese Communist Party are familiar: territorial integrity, credibility of deterrence commitments, great power competition with the United States, the…
Featured
A group of UN Staffers outside the Secretariat. Credit: United Nations By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Oct 13 2026 (IPS) The United Nations has once again revived a longstanding problem that has been left lingering behind…
Ukraine War
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The deal struck by Donald Trump with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on October 9 to allow Russia to sell millions of tonnes of diesel is a major departure from US policy and runs counter to Ukrainian and…
Europe
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The arrests near RAF Fairford on September 27 are still surrounded by uncertainty, but the incident has already raised a wider question for Britain and other European countries that host American military forces. When a…
Armed Conflicts
By Jomo Kwame Sundaram KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct 13 2026 (IPS) The protracted demise of dollar-gold convertibility and associated fixed exchange rates did not end dollar hegemony. With crucial and timely help from…
Opinion
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Famous Indian author Shashi Tharoor was famously quoted as saying: “Everything in India is recycled, even the dreams “ In October 2010, The Economist ran a cover titled “How India’s growth will outpace China,” citing…
Ukraine
Britain is clamping down even harder on critics who consider Western foreign policy to have been a catastrophic failure. We are fast approaching the point where expressing an alternative opinion can land you in jail. On…
Iran-war
Republicans could be looking at a major wipeout in the midterm elections. Their tiny House majority was always going to be difficult to maintain, but the Senate should not be in play at all. Yet it surely is, with…
Europe
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For most of the past two decades, the Iran nuclear file was where Europe proved it could do geopolitics. Britain, France and Germany opened talks with Tehran in 2003, kept them alive through years of American scepticism…
Piracy at sea
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At first the idea of mercy was something that helped me through the ordeal. But would real forgiveness be a form of Stockholm syndrome? I knew Mohamed Tahlil as a gentle pirate who oversaw a team of guards during the…
Military
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While the US is arming its long-serving B-52 with potent ship-killing missiles to take on China’s expanding navy, severe munition constraints and operational vulnerabilities could undermine its strategic impact. This…
Larry C. Johnson
Karl Miller’s new assessment: a seven-to-ten-year rebuild, a trillion-dollar bill, and a diesel crisis that Saudi Arabia can no longer cushion For most of this war, Saudi Arabia has been the shock absorber of the world…
Southeast Asia
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When Australia’s Lowy Institute think tank released the 2025 edition of its Southeast Asia Aid Map in July last year, it projected that Western aid cuts would shift the region’s development finance toward Asian partners…
ASIA NARRATIVES China Systems Weekly: Political, Economic and Social Narratives Oct 5–Oct 11, 2026 Executive Assessment The developments from October 5–11 reveal a common structural shift: economic interdependence is…
Opinion
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The United States and Britain, hoping to devise a winning formula for Ukraine, have decided to spend another half a billion dollars on a new military project called Sceptre. That is the name of a projectile which…
By: Cameron Magusic Photo from Georgetown University Acclaimed Uyghur poet and human rights advocate Abduweli Ayup has been invited to give a presentation at the Sorbonne University in Paris on Oct. 24, documenting…
Uncategorized
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Just after midnight on New Year’s Day 2024, a man and his two children stood near the harbor in the Danish town of Gråsten, watching fireworks over the water a short walk from the house where the children had been…
Uncategorized
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On October 9th, the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize Was awarded to Navi Pillay, the South African international lawyer who defended Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid political prisoners on Robben Island, and went on to serve…
External
In this issue: 1. Guidelines for developing new quality productive forces 2. Outcomes from EU-China trade talks 3. Improving new car design safety and quality 4. Cracking down on food safety violations The Feed…
Iran
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Islam Times - Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, has announced that Tehran has documented the involvement of certain neighboring countries in facilitating the recent…
US-China
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The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is moving to bar every Chinese lab from testing electronics for the US market, a sector China dominates. And Chinese media and commentators say that Beijing, having already…
Geopolitics
While European leaders appear unified in beating the drums of war, many workers in the supply chain do not seem so convinced, with strikes rocking some of the defence industry’s key producers. John Rees is a Visiting…
CEO Interviews
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Dr. Zakir Syed is Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of ClockEdge, where he has played a central role in developing specialized simulation technology for advanced semiconductor clock networks. He brings more than 30…
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
If the AI hype is true, we won’t need to worry about fiscal deficits because growth will solve all problems. If they are wrong and the AI bubble bursts, interest rates will fall sharply. Dean Baker is the senior…
Economics
A new play exalts economist John Maynard Keynes as a prophet of the good life, but was he really? Michael Roberts is an Economist in the City of London and a prolific blogger . Cross-posted from Michael Roberts’ blog by…
Crime & Justice
By Frans Viljoen PRETORIA, South Africa, Oct 12 2026 (IPS) The awarding of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to distinguished South African jurist and international judge Navanethem “Navi” Pillay is about more than just the…
Americas
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A Licence Signed Before the Ink Was Dry On 9 October, three weeks after Donald Trump signed the most sweeping Russia sanctions statute of his presidency, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (the agency that…
Labor
In the decade between 1987 and 1997, Thailand’s economy was red hot, leading the pack of the so-called Southeast Asian tiger cubs with an average GDP growth rate of 8 per cent. Then came the apocalypse. On July 2, 1997…
“Go to college,” I was told, as many of you were. We were lectured on the importance of college and the implication was clear, even if you were fortune enough not to have it spelled out for you: failure to go to college…
American Arabs
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Maria Pappas shares immigrant roots, personal tragedies and lessons of faith at Arab American community book signing Cook County official Maria Pappas shares emotional stories of her Greek-American upbringing, struggles…
AI
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As artificial intelligence (AI) workloads migrate to endpoint hardware, edge AI devices face immense pressure to deliver real-time inference within highly restrictive power and thermal envelopes. Traditional silicon…
Opinion
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Poor Donald Trump. For the last 21 months he had to do a great deal of lying. He had to pretend at times that he really cared about the people dying in the Russo-Ukraine War, that he really wanted a deal that was good…
EDA
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Keysight Technologies is opening a new route for artificial intelligence into radio frequency engineering. Announced on October 6, 2026, its latest software capabilities let engineers connect their own AI agents and…
Opinion
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The most unsettling failure in digital payments may not be a black screen. Imagine a fraud-detection model that remains online but suddenly flags thousands of legitimate transfers as suspicious. Banks may see functioning…
Opinion
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I write from Dubrovnik, a historic and heavily touristed city on Croatia’s Adriatic coast. Visiting here and other parts of Croatia and its next-door neighbor Slovenia, I’m reminded that the Balkan countries used to be…
Democracy & Governance
I recently asked a Palestinian friend what she thought about the upcoming Israeli elections. “It’s like we’re on a train speeding toward a cliff,” she said, “and we’re being asked whether we’d prefer a conductor who…
Art and design
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Ibraaz, London Too controversial for the Venice Biennale, this haunting video and audio work commemorates murders and genocides with an angry act of mourning The sound of mourning spills out into the streets. A single…
Asia-Pacific
Photos of the Rasuwa flood missing line the walls of the Teaching Hospital, Tribhuvan University. Credit: Brandon Kohrt By Diwash Gahatraj KATHMANDU, Oct 12 2026 (IPS) Nearly three decades ago, in the final stretch of…
Cogs of War
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For years, ground autonomy lagged well behind its counterparts in the air. That gap is starting to close. Jonathan is joined by Ryan Hartman (Ondas Sentinel) and Scott Philips (Forterra) to examine what it takes to field…
Commentary
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The American team thought it was signaling restraint. The Chinese team saw preparations for combat. In a closed-door Sino-American crisis simulation I helped organize in the 2010s — which the U.S. military funded as part…
Armed Conflicts
Religious leaders, representatives of international organizations and Kazakh officials gather for the 24th Secretariat meeting of the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions at the Palace of Peace and…
#Culture
While the caravan struggles along a muddy riverside path, tempers fray, Chen catches fish, merchants risk their necks for pistachios, and Darius waits anxiously for Ahmed and Weili to return. Read Part 1 | Part 2 | Part…
Military
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The Houthi attack mixed together suicide drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. Because these weapons travel at significantly different speeds, the drones were launched first, followed by the cruise missiles and…
Arts & Life
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For centuries, the environs of Didim in Mid-Aegean Türkiye have carried the whisper of prophecy. It was here, at the monumental Temple of Apollo, that pilgrims once walked the Sacred Way from ancient Miletus to consult…
Technology
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Artificial intelligence is rapidly making its way into national defense. Reconnaissance, early warning, target detection, mission planning—everywhere, machine-learning systems promise faster analysis, faster responses…
Trump’s Unlikely October Surprise The Russian Diesel Deal The agreement to import up to 1.8 million metric tons of Russian diesel is a transaction where the numbers, logistics and geopolitics overwhelmingly favour…
Military
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The Russia-Ukraine War has become a real-time laboratory for the Chinese military, spurring rapid defensive modernization while exposing deep friction between its centralized command hierarchy and the decentralized…