Global Voices

State department informs Congress of planned closures in Canada, Grenada, Japan, Indonesia and Cameroon The US state department is to shut five foreign consulates and missions across Asia, Africa, North America and the Caribbean, drawing criticism that it is leaving a...

The Strait of Hormuz, the Middle East’s main choke point, is effectively closed as Iranian attacks on vessels continue, and the ripple effect is tearing through global supply chains. While crude oil and natural gas disruptions have grabbed headlines, liquefied...

ALBAWABA- The United States has lifted counterterrorism sanctions on three Iranian airlines and two aircraft previously designated for alleged links to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in a move that coincides with ongoing negotiations over the reopening of the...

Uzbekistan, one of Central Asia’s economic drivers, is experiencing a significant expansion of Chinese economic influence. Bilateral trade during the first half of 2026 grew to $7.7 billion, according to official Uzbek government data, making China by far Uzbekistan’s largest trade...

Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and efforts to extract payments for safe passage — plus, more recently, the Houthis’ move to attack Saudi shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — have highlighted the risks of maritime chokepoints to...

India’s ONGC is poised to take over operation of two Venezuelan oil projects from state-owned PDVSA, which would give the Indian producer direct operational control over assets of the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves. Reuters exclusively reported Wednesday that...

A visit by FBI Director Kash Patel to Moscow, the first by the head of the bureau in a decade, could prove to be far more than a symbolic gesture of cooperation. It may also become part of a broader...

The semiconductor industry is entering an extraordinary growth phase, driven primarily by artificial intelligence infrastructure and the severe supply constraints surrounding advanced logic and memory devices. According to the McClean Report’s June 2026 update , the global semiconductor market is...

While most media are focusing on the financial windfall due to the geopolitical turmoil (Iran war), Saudi Aramco's second-quarter 2026 results hide risks facing the Kingdom. The world’s largest oil producer’s adjusted net income has reached $33.4 billion, taking first-half...

In 2020, BP unveiled a “major, necessary step in support of our purpose to reimagine energy for people and our planet.” The new strategy – “performing while transforming” – would see the firm “significantly scale-up our low carbon energy business”...

Oil markets are awaiting a decision from Iran’s supreme leader after Iranian and Omani negotiators reportedly completed a draft agreement that could reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the main export route for Persian Gulf oil and LNG. Two regional officials...

Just a day after details emerged of India’s plans to expand strategic crude oil storage, new reports claim New Delhi is considering a new funding mechanism that would shift part of the cost of a far larger, $42-billion strategic fuel...

In 2027, India will conduct an exercise of almost unimaginable scale. Hundreds of millions of people will be counted in what the government describes as the country’s first fully digital census. Alongside information about education, migration, fertility and employment, enumerators...

China is now chasing decades of unpaid tax on money its wealthiest citizens moved offshore, in some cases reaching back as far as 25 years. Call it what it actually is: a state deciding, after the fact, that wealth it...

No one denies that the occupation, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the war have delivered severe blows to tourism in Bethlehem. However, reducing the crisis to these factors alone means avoiding part of the truth that we must confront. Tourism is not...

Crude oil inventories in the United States saw an increase of 2.5 million barrels during the week ending July 31, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Wednesday. The increase brings commercial stockpiles to...

Several Indian refiners have recently bought crude from Oman and West Africa via tenders, trade sources told Reuters on Wednesday, as term supplies from the Middle East remain choked by the shipping constraints at the Strait of Hormuz and Bab...

Five months into what historians will likely call the 2026 Iran war, Washington finds itself in a posture it has occupied before, in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan: too deep in to walk away cleanly, not deep enough in to...

Russian overnight drone and ballistic missile strikes killed at least 17 people in Kyiv and the surrounding region, as Ukraine warned of critical air defense shortages and urged allies to hasten deliveries of urgently needed Patriot air defense missiles and...

Citizen Lab researchers Siena Anstis, Marcus Michaelsen, and Kate Pundyk write for the Foreign Policy Centre that the increasingly restrictive migration policies of democratic countries are incompatible with their claims of countering transnational repression. The authors argue that “host states cannot...

An old Iraq-to-Syria oil pipeline that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz could be up and running within three years, a senior Syrian official has said. The Hormuz crisis that cut off most of Iraq’s crude oil exports has accelerated plans...

As wireless communication systems evolve toward 6G, satellite connectivity, advanced radar, and high-performance sensing applications, the integration of heterogeneous semiconductor technologies has become a critical challenge. Silicon CMOS remains the dominant platform for digital processing and system control,… com/chiplet/370236-imec-unlocks-system-level-iii-v-chiplet-integration-on-si-cmos-with-advanced-300mm-rf-silicon-interposer-platform/">Imec Unlocks...

The Iran-aligned Houthi group in Yemen on Wednesday claimed a “precise hit” on a Saudi oil tanker in the Red Sea, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said. “The Yemeni Armed Forces conducted a military operation targeting the Saudi oil tanker...

Commodity producing and trading giant Glencore booked a $4.4-billion net income for the first half of the year, a jump of $5 billion from a loss a year earlier, as the oil and copper price rallies and volatility boosted revenues...

For decades, the United States has viewed China and Russia as its principal strategic competitors. Successive administrations have accused both countries of cyber espionage, election interference, intellectual property theft, and efforts to undermine American interests around the world. Cooperation between...

The Bureau of Industry and Security at the U.S. Department of Commerce is moving to restrict for one year the exports of black mass and tungsten waste and scrap without a license to ensure domestic supply of the critical metals....

Japan’s government has approved Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s flagship proposal to sharply reduce the consumption tax on food, despite growing concerns over the country’s already stretched public finances. The cabinet endorsed the plan after receiving unanimous approval from the ruling...

An India-flagged tanker reportedly carrying Saudi oil has sunk off the coast of Yemen in the Red Sea after it was hit by a projectile. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday condemned the attack on the India-flagged commercial...

Electricity demand in much of China hit a record this week due to scorching summer temperatures, driving grid loads to all-time highs, the State Grid Corporation of China said today, as cited by Reuters. On Monday and Tuesday, the company...

The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that a powerful El Niño weather event could push nearly 49 million more people into acute food insecurity by the end of next year, raising the global total to 274 million across some...