Headlines

Russia torn between wooing Taliban and protecting Central Asia

Russia is courting the Taliban with one hand and arming the Taliban’s neighbor with the other. Moscow was the first country to recognize the Taliban, a diplomatic coup it has since tried to turn to its advantage. Now it is rushing weapons and border equipment to Tajikistan to

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Chasing foreign phantoms in Prabowo’s embattled Indonesia

Indonesia’s leaders promise that the country will be a world power by 2045, the centennial of its independence. Yet when shares plunge or smoke drifts abroad, officials reflexively blame foreigners. That blame game asks nothing of those in charge. Who really owns our listed

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Anthropic’s record $2tn IPO could bring global risks to a head

Anthropic, developer of AI chatbot Claude, has filed its prospectus and is expected to go public on Wall Street in November at a valuation of up to US$2 trillion. That would make it the highest-valued initial public offering (IPO) ever, ahead of SpaceX’s $1.77 trillion listing

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How Lula turned the tables on Brazil’s Trump-inspired right

A leader who stood up to US President Donald Trump just won an election in Latin America’s biggest country, reversing a trend of new right-wing governments in the region over the past two years. Incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, having narrowly lost to Flavio Bolsonaro in

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Combo interceptors best bet for US drone and missile defense

The US needs to creatively combine two counter-drone capabilities it already has and do it quickly to deal with swarm attacks of drones and cruise missiles. The Russians are already doing it. Counter-drone warfare is changing as the push for solutions gains momentum in the

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