Global Voices

Kevin Rideout, who was abducted by unknown assailants in Niamey, said to be in good health and in care of US officials An American missionary who was kidnapped in Niger in October has been released, his organisation has said. Kevin Rideout “is...

Subscribe now with a one-month trial for only $1, then enjoy the first year at an exclusive rate of just $99. Germany’s spies get powers once reserved for policeDiego Faßnacht reports that Germany’s intelligence overhaul would blur the postwar separation between...

Low U.S. gasoline prices are the top priority of the Administration amid the war in Iran, Vice President JD Vance said, as the U.S.-Iran deadlock persists and the U.S. vowed to keep the blockade on Iran indefinitely. “I know that...

The deaths of a Bulawayo mother and her daughters spark calls for an urgent action on gender-based violence The three white coffins were draped in white lace and topped with small sprays of flowers. The mourners who filled a Bulawayo church...

On a scorching summer day, Israeli settlers gathered around a pool in the occupied West Bank that Palestinians say was created by diverting water from a spring that had long irrigated their crops. The spring near the village of Fasayil...

Tankers moving along the Strait of Hormuz dwindled further this week, with only five crossings on Wednesday and nine crossings on Thursday, down from a monthly average of 12 crossings, according to data from Kpler, as cited by Reuters. Five...

China on Friday condemned Taiwan’s annual Han Kuang military exercises as a “wasteful charade”, accusing Taipei of stoking fears of war as the island conducts 10 days of drills simulating a potential Chinese attack. The comments were China’s first official...

European shares were little changed on Friday but remained on track for a weekly decline as investors weighed stalled U.S. Iran peace efforts, rising oil prices and upcoming euro zone economic data. The STOXX 600 edged up 0.05% to 659.65...

A large-scale blast hit an ammunition factory in the Italian town of Colleferro, near Rome, on Aug. 13, local authorities and regional media reported. The factory is operated by KNDS Ammo Italy, a subsidiary of the French-German defense firm KNDS ....

Water and energy infrastructure have become one of Iran’s main levers of deterrence against the United States. Iranian Foreign Minister Aragchi recently made it clear to Gulf states that if the U.S. military renewed large-scale strikes on Iran, their critical...

Vietnam’s sovereign AI relies heavily on open-weight models developed in the United States. However, as Washington and Beijing are moving to restrict access to these technologies, Hanoi’s bamboo diplomacy offers little protection to its AI ambitions. In mid-July, Vietnam approved...

Saudi Arabia is turning to regional defence alliances as it faces growing attacks from Iran and its network of regional allies, while trying to avoid being pulled into a wider Middle East war. Riyadh is pursuing several new security arrangements,...

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Friday that he plans to endorse a candidate for the country’s 2028 presidential election, but said he has not yet decided who will receive his backing. Marcos is constitutionally limited to a single...

NEW YORK – US Treasury yields are pressing against their highest levels since 2007, and Asia’s policymakers know what that usually means: turbulence ahead. This week’s $42 billion auction of 10-year notes cleared at 4.683%, the richest yield since the...

This week brought two Indonesia stories that sat side by side but pointed in different directions. In Jakarta, US Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby met Indonesia’s defense minister, Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, as part of a Southeast Asia tour...

Crude oil imports from Russia accounted for over 50% of India’s total import volumes last month. This was the highest share of Russian oil in India’s import mix, Reuters noted in a report that cited unnamed trade sources. Russia exported...

North Korea has intensified its criticism of Japan’s military expansion and its growing security cooperation with the United States and South Korea, portraying the developments as a threat to regional stability. More than a dozen North Korean state media attacks...

Crude oil prices were on course to add 4% this week, as the United States and Iran indicated they are no closer to a peace deal than they were at the start of the war. At the time of writing,...

Without a credible political solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Gaza will continue to oscillate between fragile ceasefires and devastating wars, leaving lasting peace out of reach. The Illusion of a Gaza Breakthrough Declaring last week’s announcements on Gaza a ‘breakthrough’...

Nvidia’s newly unveiled plan to mobilize more than US$500 billion in third-party financing for artificial intelligence (AI) data centers is expected to deepen its global dominance and reduce the competitiveness of Chinese chips in global markets. The company said on...

By: Khanh Vu Duc Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Tô Lâm’s visit to Australia and New Zealand may look like routine diplomacy. It is better understood as a marker of Hanoi’s evolving strategy in a more contested Indo-Pacific. Vietnam is not abandoning...

Eighteen Years, Zero Texts On July 28, the UN General Assembly did what it has done every year since the effort began: it rolled Security Council reform talks into another session without resolving anything, this time pushing the process into...

To Lam’s visit to Canberra on August 11 was the first state visit to Australia by a Vietnamese head of state since the 1975 reunification and the first meeting between the two leaders. Since taking the presidency in April, To...

“The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness… They conferred against the Government the right to be let alone — most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.” ~ Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941)...

Two men, one word. Next Monday, at Kingston Crown Court in London, a 72-year-old grandfather goes on trial for terrorism; the evidence is a tweet of seven words, and the maximum sentence is 14 years. Nine months ago, a man...

Amid geopolitical changes, Red Sea security has attained new developments, creating heightened maritime tensions, while the Gulf States race to control the region. By a simple geographical definition, the Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying...

For years, U.S. President Donald Trump has openly displayed his disdain for the clean energy and electric vehicle sectors. In the early days of his second term, Trump stalled funding for EV charging infrastructure while pushing fossil fuels. In July...

A family of Iranian legal permanent residents was abducted and confined to an ICE prison after US government-backed regime change activist Masih Alinejad campaigned for their deportation. The family committed no crime, and was only targeted by Alinejad for their...

Mexico’s push for fuel self-sufficiency has run into a stubborn problem: Pemex has built and upgraded refining capacity faster than it has learned to operate it reliably. The state oil company is being asked to send more crude into domestic...

With the July 8, 2026, resumption of hostilities between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, what attracts attention more than the strikes themselves is the pattern of target selection. In conventional warfare, military assets are normally prioritized....

U.S. demand for electricity is expected to hit an all-time high both this year and next, driven by the data center buildout of Big Tech. This is the latest in a series of record-demand projections by the Energy Information Administration....

A single bug on a full-chip SoC can pull engineers off roadmap work for days or even weeks. It involves massive waveforms, thousands of files of RTL and UVM, and dense specs that aren’t always perfect. Finding these bugs have...

China has driven the world’s solar energy deployment, adding capacity at such a blistering rate that the nation’s existing and planned wind and solar generation nearly doubles the rest of the world put together. However, China’s deployment of supportive infrastructure...

Romania has shut down its only nuclear power station because of extremely low water levels in the Danube river caused by prolonged hot weather affecting much of Europe. The Cernavodă plant, where two reactors produce about 20% of Romania’s electricity, is...

In 2007, nearly two decades ago, I wrote an article called “The Future Is Solar.” At the time, my argument was largely based on efficiency. I had been comparing biofuels with direct solar energy and noted how much more effectively...

Washington is putting real money behind advanced nuclear. The US Department of Energy is gearing up to hand X-energy another $1 billion for its planned nuclear project with Dow in Texas, bringing total federal funding available for the project since...

Russia’s diesel and gasoil exports crashed in the first seven days of August to just 80,000 barrels per day (bpd), the lowest in many years, as Moscow extended restrictions on diesel exports amid a fuel crisis triggered by incessant Ukrainian...

Oil supply disruptions, high fuel prices and faster battery innovation could give electric vehicle adoption a fresh push, with consequences for oil demand, power grids and metals markets, Wood Mackenzie said Thursday. Wars affecting oil-producing Russia and Iran have exposed...

A Room in Vienna That Washington Did Not Book In July, in a private room in Vienna, three men who used to run European foreign policy sat down with a former Kremlin official whose name has still not been made...

A strong commercial space industry is an important partner for the U.S. government, as it contributes to building more robust space and defense capabilities and facilitates innovation more broadly. As competition between the United States and China heats up, both...