Geopolitics & international affairs
China answered Washington’s trade measures on Wednesday with a package aimed at the parts of the technology relationship where it holds leverage, and the list shows how the two economies are now fighting with their industrial systems rather than their tariff schedules. The Commerce Ministry cut off Chinese organizations and their nationals from any dealings […]
Four warships, three Chinese and one Russian, took the long way around Japan last week. The People’s Liberation Army Navy sent the cruiser Anshan, the destroyer Kaifeng and the fleet oiler Kekexilihu; the Russian Navy sent the corvette Rezkiy. Japanese surveillance spotted them near Cape Inubo, on Honshu’s eastern shore, and then roughly 300 km […]
France is building more nuclear weapons and changing the map they are meant to cover. In March, President Emmanuel Macron announced a new doctrine he called forward deterrence: an expanded arsenal, closer cooperation with European allies, and the ability to strike from places France has never launched from before. The question now is what Europe […]
For nearly five hours on the afternoon of April 22, Israeli drones circled above two women in the village of al-Tiri in southern Lebanon. The women were journalists. Amal Khalil, 42, a correspondent for the newspaper al-Akhbar, and Zeinab Faraj, 21, a freelance camerawoman, had come to document the aftermath of an Israeli strike. By […]
Iran has announced a deal with Oman that would open a shipping lane through the Strait of Hormuz, and has taken care to say the deal is not peace. The route exists on paper, its coordinates agreed and a joint statement in its final drafting stage. What would make it real, Tehran insists, is still […]
NATO’s secretary general promised Ukraine air defenses on Thursday, and the promise ran straight into the arithmetic of the war. Russia fired 24 ballistic missiles at Ukrainian cities overnight. The attack killed at least 17 people. Ukrainian air defenses caught 98 of the 115 drones and none of the ballistic missiles. Through July, Kyiv was […]
Brazil has decided that one yuan bond is not enough. It wants to borrow in the Chinese currency every year, not once, a senior treasury official said Wednesday, in what would make the renminbi a standing part of Brazilian public finance rather than a one-off gesture. The plan is still provisional. Brasilia cannot guarantee the […]
The United States has canceled the visa of Brazil’s ambassador, the sharpest move yet in a feud between Washington and Brasilia that comes down to one thing: Brazil’s election in October. The State Department revoked the diplomatic visa of Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, Brazil’s ambassador in Washington, on Tuesday. The move has precise limits. Viotti […]
The Washington Post reported this week that shortages of missiles and air defenses had stopped President Trump from launching fresh strikes on Iran. Within hours, Trump was online denying that any shortage exists and threatening the people who talk about it with prison. On Truth Social he wrote that the country has massive amounts of […]
Japan’s first live firing of a Tomahawk cruise missile has drawn an answer from the top of North Korea’s ruling family. Kim Yo Jong, sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said in a statement carried by state media on Wednesday that Pyongyang would set up additional military options in response to Japan’s expanding strike capabilities. […]
