Over the course of a few short weeks , a grim new reality has taken shape in Ukraine. Russia has shown that it need not conquer and occupy Ukraine’s entire Black Sea coastline to turn that country into the equivalent of...
Global Voices
In the summer of 2023, gearing up for his bid for a second term, President Joe Biden gathered with a cadre of wealthy donors at a $7.5 million mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. As the $25,000-a-seat fundraising dinner began, the president...
The change of regime in Damascus has led to a reassessment of the status of Russia’s key military facilities, with a compromise between Moscow and Sharaa emerging as the only viable solution. Russia Has Chosen the Syrian People Russia and Syria have...
Hormuz tensions are flaring again as Iranian exports collapse, pushing Brent toward $87 and raising the risk of another run toward $100. China’s Crude Drawdown Puts Iranian Barrels Back in Demand - Shrinking crude inventories in China might spur a...
Ukraine’s military claimed another drone attack on an oil refinery in Russia in the early hours on Tuesday as Ukrainian forces continue to target Russia’s energy producing and exporting infrastructure in an escalation of drone attacks at key oil refining...
On August 2nd, Italian commandos rappelled from a helicopter onto the deck of the Toa Payoh, a Russian-linked crude carrier, in the Mediterranean. It was the second sanctioned “shadow fleet” tanker an Italian-led EU naval force had boarded in under...
Neighbors are busy rehabilitating the diplomatic standing of Myanmar’s junta-chief-turned-president Min Aung Hlaing just as his regime openly shreds the regional bloc’s peace plan. Min Aung Hlaing may have traded his general’s uniform for civilian clothes and a practiced smile...
The US House of Representatives moved to advance a sweeping Russia and Iran sanctions package on August 10, just days after the Senate approved it by an overwhelming 86-11 vote, opening the next phase of a congressional push to squeeze...
Trump’s Attack on American Democracy
Full ArticleThe first two years of Donald Trump’s presidency have had a dismal, yet undeniable, impact on democracy. He has inflicted considerable damage on U.S. political institutions, and this has shattered the confidence people have in the rule of law nationwide. Recent...
The national oil company of the United Arab Emirates has issued its eighth spot tender since June, trade sources told Reuters on Tuesday, as the Gulf producer that has just left OPEC pushes to sell increased crude volumes to international...
The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, signed on August 7, 2026, by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan, marks an important development in the evolving security architecture of the Middle East. The agreement commits the three countries to treating an armed attack...
There were many new agentic design flows introduced at DAC this year. Some from mainstream providers and others from new startups. The increased level of activity around this technology was good to see. Most of the approaches presented at the...
Every investor pricing artificial intelligence as a chip story is missing the real bottleneck. A chip can be designed and shipped within roughly two years. A power grid cannot be rebuilt on anything close to that timeline. This gap, not...
OPEC’s total oil production jumped by 1.17 million barrels per day in July from June as many Gulf producers restored some output that was shut in for three months due to the closed Strait of Hormuz. Output at the 11-member...
Former U.S. infectious disease chief Anthony Fauci is expected to give testimony that could clear the way for Washington to pursue trillion-dollar claims against Beijing. Republicans Fail to Break Fauci The U.S. Senate questioned former chief infectious disease official Anthony Fauci over...
Vessel traffic at the Strait of Hormuz continues to decline as last week’s hopes of negotiations of a U.S.-Iran deal began to fade, yet again. On Monday, only six commodity vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz in either direction, down...
Japanese electric vehicle (EV) makers have fallen so far behind BYD and other Chinese competitors, and been so brightly outshone by Tesla, that it is easy to forget that the Nissan Leaf was the world’s first mass-market EV. People might...
Uniper on Tuesday reported more than doubled adjusted net income for the first half of 2026 from a year earlier as Germany has launched a sales process to privatize the energy giant it bailed out during the 2022 crisis. Uniper...
Syria’s court sentenced ousted leader Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia on Tuesday, convicting him of killings, torture and arbitrary arrests committed during the country’s nearly 14-year war. The ruling marks the first conviction against Assad, who was removed from...
China’s independent refiners are likely to return to buying higher volumes of Iran’s crude oil this month as stockpiles in Shandong, home to the independent Chinese refiners, have dropped to the lowest level this year after the biggest estimated monthly...
Air Attacks Increased Before Election Myanmar’s military intensified aerial attacks on civilians in the months before an election held in December and January, while all sides in the country’s civil war were accused of war crimes and serious abuses including...
When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, the U.S. government was the unrivaled patron of American science. It funded nearly two-thirds of the nation’s research and development — much of it for defense — defining the early Cold War....
Global orders for gas turbines have hit a record high as demand for power generation surges, according to JP Morgan. New gas turbine orders in the second quarter stood at 38 GW, which was 29% higher than orders in the...
Obstetric Violence: Syrian Women Speak Out
Full ArticleSyrian women speak out about obstetric violence while giving birth. Credit: Sonia Al-Ali/IPS By Sonia Al Ali ALEPPO, Syria, Aug 11 2026 (IPS) The abuse 30-year-old Nour Al-Badawi experienced in an Aleppo public hospital while giving birth resulted in her having two major...
Stronger Food System Offers Cushion Against El Niño Near-record food inventories, advances in agricultural technology and the emergence of major exporters such as Brazil and Russia have made the global food system more resilient to this year’s potentially powerful El...
Nine countries now possess nuclear weapons. Arms control agreements painstakingly built over decades have collapsed. Geopolitical competition is intensifying rivalries between nuclear-armed powers. North Korea continues expanding its arsenal and delivery systems. China is on a trajectory to go from...
Chinese robot maker Unitree has priced its Shanghai initial public offering at 150.80 yuan per share, seeking to raise 6.1 billion yuan ($904 million) in a deal that would make it the first mainland-listed humanoid robot manufacturer. The IPO has...
The deadlocked Middle East war gave birth last week to a defense alliance among Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan that represents a vivid backlash to the failures of heavy American bombing of Iran and President Donald Trump’s spasmodic diplomacy to...
The White House has the right instinct on AI. Its June 5 National Security Presidential Memorandum commits the government to putting the most capable models in the hands of national security professionals “without delay.” The military version of that bet...
Political Pressure Puts Fed Independence Back in Focus Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s efforts to keep the central bank insulated from political pressure have become more difficult after President Donald Trump renewed his push to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook....
Resilience Is Not Enough: OCHA Sounds Alarm on Underfunded Humanitarian Crisis in Afghanistan
Full ArticleRepeated climate shocks, mounting debt and low employment prospects put greater pressures on families in Afghanistan that were “struggling to get by”. Credit: UN Photo/Luke Powell By Oritro Karim UNITED NATIONS, Aug 11 2026 (IPS) “Mainly, people tell me they’re exhausted. They’re exhausted...
Palestinians Urge Foreign Diplomats to Pressure Israel to Halt Settler Attacks and Settlement Expansion
Full ArticleBETHLEHEM, West Bank / PNN / Palestinian officials and residents are urging European and other foreign governments to move beyond diplomatic visits and statements of condemnation and take concrete action to pressure Israel to halt escalating settler attacks against Palestinians. Palestinian officials...
Palestinian church official urges global Christian leaders to act over attacks on Christians
Full ArticleRAMALLAH, West Bank / PNN / A senior Palestinian church affairs official has called on Christian leaders around the world to take concrete action over what he described as escalating attacks, land confiscations and restrictions targeting Palestinian Christians and the wider...
Libya’s National Oil Corporation may declare force majeure on exports from the Zawya oil terminal as a result of drone attacks on the facility. The Zawya terminal has a daily capacity of 120,000 barrels, sourced from the country’s largest oil...
Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan Forge Mutual Defence Pact, as Iran Pursues New Shipping Framework
Full ArticleGeography of the Makkah Defence Agreement, illustrating the strategic triangle formed by the capitals of the three signatory states—Ankara, Türkiye, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Islamabad, Pakistan. Credit: Maximilian Malawista By Maximilian Malawista UNITED NATIONS, Aug 11 2026 (IPS) In Makkah, the Kingdom of...
China’s test of a nuclear-capable missile into the Pacific has exposed the growing divisions among Pacific island nations over the increasing militarisation of a region they have sought to preserve as an “Ocean of Peace”. The July launch, China’s first...
Oil prices rose on Tuesday as negotiations between the United States and Iran over a peace deal and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz reached an impasse, while Asian stocks moved cautiously amid persistent uncertainty over global inflation. U.S....
The issue of migration has become one of the most significant humanitarian and political issues today. People risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean in their pursuit of safety and dignity. Spain, which is one of...
Nobody gets accused of privateering. Nobody gets expelled. The tools changed; the underlying function, mobilizing domestic resources on behalf of a foreign government’s preferred policy outcome, did not. Citizen Genêt’s fatal error, as established in Part I, was sincerity. He...
Crude oil prices moved higher today as the chances of a lasting peace between the United States and Iran shriveled following Iran’s release of six conditions earlier this week and President Trump’s unsurprising reaction to them. At the time of...
Time is a stern teacher of nations. It changes the character of alliances, reshapes national priorities and repeatedly reminds states that geography is destiny only when political wisdom knows how to use it. Countries may differ in ideology, resources and...
Over the course of a few short weeks, a grim new reality has taken shape in Ukraine. Russia has shown that it need not conquer and occupy Ukraine’s entire Black Sea coastline to turn that country into the equivalent of a...
The first proposed Trump-class battleship now has a price tag: $23 billion. This cost, as assessed by the Congressional Budget Office, will garner a lot of attention. But the primary concern for policymakers and citizens alike should be the complexity of...
In early August, the top U.S. special operations commander for Africa signed a security agreement with the president of Puntland — a semi-autonomous region in northeastern Somalia — to expand the American military installation there. The deal surfaced through a short...
In the final days of July 2026, Vietnam’s coastline hosted an unusual sequence of guests. On 26 July, a Russian Navy flotilla – including the submarine RFS Ufa and the submarine rescue ship Igor Belousov – arrived at Cam Ranh...
When U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told an interviewer this weekend that the Strait of Hormuz would “become irrelevant” within two years — with more than half the energy now crossing it rerouted through underground pipelines — he was indulging...
On July 30, Donald Trump said his Board of Peace had reached what he called a monumental step toward disarming Hamas. The weapons are not the part Tokyo should study. The gate the deal opens is. Disarmament is conditions-based, and...
University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer on Sunday delivered a harsh reality check to US President Donald Trump over the state of his illegal war with Iran. In an interview with Australian journalist Tom Switzer, Mearsheimer was asked why Trump seemed willing to...
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