Headlines

Iranian FM mocks Trump talk about guarding strait for 20% fees

The Iranian foreign minister on Monday mocked President Donald Trump’s announcement that he was renewing the US blockade of Iran and that he expected a 20% fee from commercial vessels for “guarding” the key waterway. “POTUS is absolutely right,” the minister, Seyed Abbas

Asia

The dying nationalist fantasy of an ethnically pure Ukraine

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and their militant Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) wing — which carried out genocide against ethnic Poles and others in pursuit of an ethnically pure state — are considered by many the founding fathers of post-Maidan Ukraine.

Asia

The crumbling foundations of Indonesian competitiveness

JAKARTA – Indonesia fell to 48th place out of 70 economies on this year’s International Institute for Management Development’s (IMD) World Competitiveness Ranking, down from 40th in 2025 and far below its peak position of 27th in 2024. The decline is no mere temporary setback

Asia

Sam Neill, Jurassic Park star, dies at 78

WELLINGTON, July 13 - Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor best known for playing paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in dinosaur blockbuster \"Jurassic Park\" and whose career included more than 50 movies, has died at the age of 78.

Asia

Why US won’t win with force alone in the Strait of Hormuz

Iranian attacks on Gulf vessels trying to transit via Omani sovereign waters have once again pulled the region into a tit-for-tat spiral of escalation. The US responded by canceling the waiver permitting Iranian oil exports. Two nights of punitive airstrikes by the US Air Force

Asia

Dwindling US firepower doesn’t shrink China’s Taiwan trap

As the US keeps fighting in Iran, China is watching not only what the US can destroy, but how quickly it can replace what it fires. Yet depleted US stockpiles do not make an invasion of Taiwan any less perilous for China. Multiple media outlets reported that the US launched

Asia

Gwadar’s missing cargo and fast-closing window

Nineteen years ago, on February 6, 2007, Pakistan signed away Gwadar Port’s commercial future for four decades. The government would build the roads, the airport, the expressway, and the breakwater. A private concession-holder would run the port, fill the Free Zone, bring in

Asia

Vietnam too slow, too timid to defuse its demographic time bomb

Vietnam is one of the most rapidly graying countries in the world, aging at a stage of development that leaves it far less room to adapt than many of its regional peers. Vietnam’s total fertility rate (TFR) fell from 2.11 children per woman in 2021 to 1.91 in 2024, the third

Asia

What Canada’s TKMS sub deal means for the Indo-Pacific

During the July 2026 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Ankara, Prime Minister Carney announced Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) as Canada’s primary supplier for 12 diesel-electric Type 212CD submarines over the Republic of Korea (ROK)’s Hanwha

Asia