Headlines

Oil hits $109/bbl as photos show major damage to Saudi pipeline

Fears of a global energy shortage are rising amid new revelations about damage inflicted last week on a key oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia. According to a Monday report in The Associated Press, Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, which is used to transport oil to the Red Sea, will

Asia

Unable to claim Myanmar’s UN seat, the junta wants to empty it

Asked in New York this weekend to read Naypyitaw’s September 12 broadside against him, Myanmar Ambassador to the UN Kyaw Moe Tun did not express outrage. Rather, he reached for a diagnosis. “If you look at this,” he told the diaspora outlet People’s Spring, “it shows how much

Asia

Japan’s submarine debate signals break from nuclear taboos

Japan is edging closer to a once-unthinkable choice: whether nuclear propulsion should underpin its next generation of undersea deterrence. This month, the Japan Times reported that Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi confirmed that Japan is keeping the option of

Asia

Hormuz crisis forcing Japan to domesticate its energy security

Japan’s Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu phoned his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, on September 8, 2026, to express concern over the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz. It was reportedly the ninth such phone call between the pair since March. Tokyo’s urgency over

Asia

China must be properly scared for an AI slowdown to work

This was the week that AI safety hit the big time. A 27-year-old AI researcher named Jacob Coxon quit his job at Anthropic, declaring that OpenAI and Anthropic are racing to create technology that could destroy the human race: Other researchers echoed Coxon’s concern, stating

Asia