Global Pulse

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  • Russian missile and drone barrage in Ukrainian capital region kills at least 15

    Russian missile and drone barrage in Ukrainian capital region kills at least 15

    On the overnight period leading into Wednesday, a new wave of Russian missile and drone attacks targeting Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and its adjacent suburban regions left at least 15 civilians dead and 42 more injured, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service confirmed in an official statement. The assault marks the most recent installment of a steady string of large-scale ballistic missile strikes that Moscow has launched with growing regularity across Ukraine throughout the summer months.

    Ukraine’s defense capabilities face a critical gap in defending against these repeated barrages: the country currently holds only a limited stock of interceptor missiles for its U.S.-manufactured Patriot air defense systems, the only weaponry in Kyiv’s arsenal capable of intercepting incoming ballistic missiles. This shortage has left Ukrainian forces unable to fully stop large coordinated attack volleys like the one carried out this week, even as Ukraine has ramped up its own deep cross-border strikes targeting Russian oil refineries and key domestic energy infrastructure in recent weeks.

    Across the broader Kyiv Oblast surrounding the capital city, 14 of the total fatalities were recorded, with another 27 people sustaining injuries. Multiple large fires broke out across the region’s Brovary, Bucha and Fastiv districts following the strikes. In Brovary, massive blazes consumed large commercial warehouses, with additional large warehouse fires breaking out in the neighboring villages of Velyka Dymerka, Kvitneve and Peremoha. Emergency response teams in Fastiv District successfully extinguished a blaze that broke out at an industrial enterprise that had ignited among parked vehicles. In Bucha District, fire crews contained a warehouse fire in the village of Chaiky after first extinguishing a separate blaze at a logistics hub in Sofiivska Borshchahivka.

    Within Kyiv city limits, the strikes claimed one additional life and left 15 residents wounded, according to the Kyiv City Military Administration. Responders have already fully extinguished all fires sparked by the attacks across the capital’s Obolonskyi, Sviatoshynskyi, Holosiivskyi and Desnianskyi districts.

    Serhii Beskrestnov, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy focusing on defense technology development, framed the assault as a sign that the ongoing war of attrition between the two nations has shifted into a new, more destructive phase. Speaking in a public post to Facebook, Beskrestnov noted that Russian forces are now targeting all types of civilian and infrastructure sites without distinction. “The enemy is attacking everything indiscriminately — retail warehouses, food storage facilities, logistics hubs, enterprises, building materials warehouses,” he wrote.

  • Five toddlers among seven injured in devastating house fire in Queensland

    Five toddlers among seven injured in devastating house fire in Queensland

    A destructive residential blaze in Queensland’s Southern Downs region has delivered a story of extraordinary luck, after seven people — including five young children between the ages of three and five — managed to escape the engulfed two-storey home on Wednesday morning.

    Emergency services confirmed that first responders were dispatched to Leslie Parade in Stanthorpe shortly after 8:40 a.m. following reports of a structure fully engulfed in flames. When crews from the Queensland Fire Department arrived on scene, they found the two-storey brick home already burning heavily, with the fire confirmed to have originated in the property’s stairwell, a critical escape route for the occupants inside.

    At the time the fire broke out, all seven residents were inside the home: the five young toddlers, a 26-year-old woman, and an 80-year-old man. Against significant odds, every person managed to evacuate the burning building before firefighters could gain entry to conduct search and rescue operations.

    Local paramedics immediately provided on-site first aid to all seven evacuees. The five young children received initial assessment and treatment at the scene before being transferred to Stanthorpe Hospital for further observation. The 26-year-old woman was treated for two separate conditions: a soft tissue injury to her arm and smoke inhalation, while the 80-year-old man also received medical care for smoke inhalation.

    To bring the blaze under control, fire crews were forced to remove a section of the home’s roof to access hidden hotspots and fully extinguish the fire. No further injuries were reported among first responders, and investigations into the exact cause of the fire are ongoing.

    The incident marks the second residential fire escape making headlines in Queensland in recent days, following a separate event where seven children escaped an e-bike-related house blaze.

  • Australian teen who killed UK woman has reduced sentence overturned

    Australian teen who killed UK woman has reduced sentence overturned

    In a landmark ruling that has resonated across Queensland and beyond, Australia’s High Court has overturned a previous reduced sentence for a teenage killer who stabbed British-born mother Emma Lovell to death during a 2022 home invasion, restoring the harsher penalty handed down in the original trial.

    Lovell, a 41-year-old originally from Suffolk in the United Kingdom, relocated to Australia with her husband Lee in 2011, settling in Brisbane to build a life with their two teenage daughters. Her life was cut short in a brutal attack on Boxing Day 2022, when she and Lee confronted two teenage intruders who had broken into their suburban Queensland home. During a violent struggle that unfolded after the couple forced the intruders out into their front garden, the then-17-year-old offender stabbed Lovell in the heart. Emergency responders performed emergency open-heart surgery at the scene as Lovell’s daughters watched helplessly, but she did not survive her injuries and died shortly after being transported to hospital.

    The case sparked widespread public anger and became a catalyst for Queensland state government to introduce controversial stricter youth crime legislation, amid growing community concern over violent youth offending. The second teenager involved in the break-in was acquitted of murder, and ultimately received an 18-month detention sentence on lesser charges of burglary and assault.

    In the 2024 original trial, the judge ruled the teenager’s murder was “particularly heinous”. While the court acknowledged the offender’s unstable childhood and other mitigating personal circumstances, the judge found these factors did not offset the extreme severity of the crime. The teenager was sentenced to 14 years in prison, with a requirement to serve 70 percent of the sentence — a minimum of nine years and nine months — before becoming eligible for parole.

    The teenager launched an appeal against the sentence the following May, arguing the original penalty was “manifestly excessive”. Queensland’s Court of Appeal sided with the offender, cutting the required non-parole period from 70 percent to 60 percent of the total sentence, a reduction of 17 months, citing the defendant’s early guilty plea, claims of genuine remorse, and potential for rehabilitation as justification for the lighter sentence.

    That reduced sentence was immediately challenged by Queensland Attorney-General Deb Frecklington, who brought the case to the High Court of Australia in April 2025. On Wednesday, the High Court quashed the appeal court’s ruling, determining that the lower appeal court had no legal standing to alter the original trial judge’s sentence decision.

    Following the announcement of the High Court’s verdict, Frecklington said she was pleased with the outcome, noting she had pursued every possible legal pathway to protect what little justice had originally been granted to the Lovell family. Queensland Premier David Crisafulli called the ruling a “big win” for Lovell’s relatives, while acknowledging that no sentence could ever bring Emma back or undo the pain the family has endured.

    For Lee Lovell, the ruling delivers a long-awaited sense of validation. Speaking to reporters shortly after the decision was handed down, he said the outcome confirms “Emma’s life did matter”, and that his eldest daughter was “pretty pleased” with the result. Even with the ruling in hand, he acknowledged that the upcoming Boxing Day — which will mark four years since Emma’s killing — will remain a difficult anniversary for the family. “It feels like a few months ago that it happened,” he said, adding that after years of drawn-out court proceedings, he hopes the family can now begin to rebuild some semblance of normal life. Lovell’s parents, who traveled from the United Kingdom to be in Australia for the ruling, are set to return home on Thursday.

  • This organ will play one composition until 2640. It’s redefining how slowly music can be played

    This organ will play one composition until 2640. It’s redefining how slowly music can be played

    In the medieval ruins-turned-arts space of Burchardi Church in Halberstadt, eastern Germany, an extraordinary experimental art project that redefines the boundaries of musical performance continues its glacial journey. Nearly 25 years after the first note resonated through the stone walls, the world’s slowest ongoing concert has hit a rare milestone: a manual chord change that brings the 639-year performance to roughly 4% completion.

    The ambitious initiative, known as the John Cage Organ Project Halberstadt, stages John Cage’s iconic experimental composition *ORGAN²/ASLSP (As SLow aS Possible)*, a work that demands the piece be played as slowly and softly as the interpreters choose. While project planning began in 2000, the performance officially launched on September 5, 2001, what would have been the avant-garde American composer’s 89th birthday, opening with a 17-month silent pause that stretched all the way to February 5, 2003, when the first chord finally echoed through the church. This week’s chord shift, which added an A4 pipe to expand the harmony from seven notes to eight, marks only the 17th sound adjustment in the work’s more than two-decade history. The next change is already scheduled for October 5, 2027, when an E4 pipe will be removed to alter the chord once again.

    The 639-year timeline, set to conclude on September 4, 2640, was not chosen arbitrarily. According to Anneli Borgmann, chair of the project’s board of trustees, the duration was selected as a tribute to the world’s oldest playable historic organ, which was constructed in Halberstadt in 1361 — exactly 639 years before the project was first organized in 2000. The organ itself, powered by a continuous electric blower system to sustain unbroken sound, has been engineered for extreme longevity. Master organ builder Johannes Hüfken, who crafted the new A4 pipe installed this month, confirms that all components are built to survive at least another 500 years, ensuring the performance can outlive multiple generations of stewards.

    What began as a radical experimental art concept has also reshaped the Burchardi Church itself. Before the project launched, the structure sat largely in ruins, but funds raised for the initiative paid for a new roof and critical structural repairs, saving the historic site for future generations. For visitors, the experience is unlike any traditional concert: the sustained chord resonates through the entire empty stone sanctuary, and shifting just a few feet dramatically alters how the sound is perceived, leading Jeffrey Lependorf, executive director of the New York-based John Cage Trust, to observe: “I think it really is the organ playing the church and not the other way around.” Lependorf, who has followed the project for years, says the deep, sustained vibrations of the organ are felt across the entire body, creating an immersive experience that cannot be replicated in modern performance settings.

    Beyond its artistic innovation, the project acts as a provocative meditation on intergenerational responsibility and long-term thinking, a reminder to plan for futures far beyond any single person’s lifetime. “This John Cage project is a good example of thinking ahead for the next generation — thinking outside the box, beyond the completely normal and traditional,” Hüfken noted. Curators and stewards regularly grapple with questions that stretch centuries into the future: Will the church still stand when the final chord sounds in 2640? Will Halberstadt, a city that has already survived two world wars, endure the accelerating impacts of climate change? To lock in access for the final performance, the project has already begun selling inheritable “final tickets” for the 2640 closing event, priced at 2,640 euros (approximately $3,045) apiece, that can be passed down through families for more than six centuries.

  • Oil prices ease and Asian shares gain on hopes for Mideast deal, as companies report strong profits

    Oil prices ease and Asian shares gain on hopes for Mideast deal, as companies report strong profits

    BANGKOK – Global financial markets kicked off mid-week with widespread gains on Wednesday, as a record-breaking rally on Wall Street fueled investor optimism across Asia, paired with sliding oil prices lifted by growing hopes for diplomatic progress that could de-escalate conflict tensions in the Middle East and reopen a critical global oil chokepoint.

    The wave of buying swept across major East Asian benchmarks, with all three top regional indexes posting gains exceeding 3%, led by a powerful resurgence in semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI)-focused companies that have dominated market momentum this year. Japan’s Nikkei 225 climbed 3.3% to close at 66,068.24, with memory chip manufacturer Kioxia jumping 6.3% and chip testing gear producer Advantest soaring 6.9% by the closing bell. In South Korea, the Kospi notched an even steeper 4.4% gain to reach 6,642.02, led by a 6.7% increase for top memory chipmaker SK Hynix, while tech conglomerate Samsung Electronics added 4.1% to its value. Taiwan’s Taiex advanced 3.1%, with world-leading contract chip manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) rising 3.5% to support the broader index.

    Neil Newman, head of strategy at Astris Advisory Japan, noted that AI-linked stocks are the clear engine behind the day’s rally. “Clearly today the market is rallying on the back of AI stocks. You look across the other sectors, there’s a bit of activity here and there but really the focus has been back on semiconductors, technology and AI,” he explained.

    Gains extended across other regional markets as well, though at a more moderate pace. China’s Shanghai Composite Index picked up 1.3% to finish at 3,873.56, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index edged up just 0.1% to 25,881.20. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.7% to close at 9,209.00.

    Alongside the AI boom, sliding crude oil prices also gave markets a broad boost, as growing diplomatic hopes for a resolution to tensions blocking the Strait of Hormuz eased concerns about global energy supplies. The international benchmark Brent crude fell 1.2% to $78.43 per barrel in early Wednesday trading, following a 5.3% plunge on Tuesday that came as reports emerged of progress toward a deal between Iran and Oman to reopen the strategic strait – a passage through which roughly 20% of the world’s daily oil supply transits. That deal is reportedly contingent on the United States lifting its current blockade on Iranian ports. Through July, oil prices swung wildly between $72 and $102 per barrel, driven by persistent uncertainty over when Middle East tensions would ease to allow unimpeded crude exports from the Persian Gulf. U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude also slipped 1.1% to $74.96 per barrel on Wednesday.

    The positive momentum in Asia followed a record-setting session on U.S. markets Tuesday, where stronger-than-expected corporate earnings across a wide range of sectors helped ease investor jitters. The broad S&P 500 jumped 1.8% to surpass its previous all-time high set in June, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.7% to extend its own record high set a day earlier. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite led the U.S. rally with a 2.6% gain.

    Strong second-quarter earnings reports have helped reassure investors that sky-high valuations for AI-focused companies are grounded in actual growing profits, easing fears of an overinflated stock bubble driven by AI hype. Data analysis and AI firm Palantir Technologies led the earnings winners, surging 29.5% after the company reported a 93% year-over-year revenue jump that CEO Alex Karp described as an “otherworldly” quarter. Heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar also outperformed analyst expectations for both profit and revenue, climbing 5.6% – the company is also benefiting from the AI boom via rising orders for turbines that power energy-hungry AI data centers. Top U.S. semiconductor stocks also notched broad gains: Nvidia added 2.6%, Broadcom jumped 6.6% and Micron Technology rose 7.6%.

    Not all U.S. stocks moved higher, however: Chipotle Mexican Grill shares tumbled 9.7% after the chain removed jalapeño peppers from a number of locations following a linked salmonella outbreak, sparking investor concerns over near-term profit impacts. The company noted that Minnesota public health officials no longer have active concerns related to its operations.

    New economic data released this week also reinforced the resilience of the U.S. economy, even as inflation remains above policymakers’ target levels. The U.S. Labor Department reported that employers posted nearly 7.4 million open job positions at the end of June, a small slowdown from May’s level but broadly in line with economist forecasts, signaling ongoing labor market stability.

    In currency trading early Wednesday, the U.S. dollar edged slightly lower to 157.48 Japanese yen, down from 157.74 yen in the prior session. The euro inched up to $1.1540 from $1.1532 against the U.S. dollar.

    Summarizing the market mood, Newman noted that while risks remain, the outlook has brightened considerably: “All in all, it’s looking much brighter. We’re still not completely out of the woods yet, but I think we’re seeing some route out of this now and it’s been reflected in the markets.”

    Reporting contributions came from Matt Ott in Washington, Stan Choe in New York, and Mayuko Ono in Tokyo.

  • Russian barrage on Ukraine kills 15, wounds dozens more

    Russian barrage on Ukraine kills 15, wounds dozens more

    In a devastating new wave of violence that has pushed civilian casualty counts to their highest point since the 2022 full-scale invasion, overnight Russian missile and drone strikes across Kyiv and its adjacent regions have killed at least 15 civilians and left dozens more wounded, Ukrainian officials confirmed Wednesday.

    More than four years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion, Russia has ramped up its deployment of ballistic missiles against Ukrainian targets, a shift that has left Kyiv urgently lobbying its Western allies for additional American-made Patriot air defense interceptors to fend off incoming attacks. The latest assault began shortly after midnight local time, following official warnings from Ukraine’s air force of incoming ballistic missiles. AFP correspondents on the ground in Kyiv documented multiple explosions, and hours after the strikes, thick black smoke hung over impacted areas, with the acrid stench of burning material lingering across residential neighborhoods.

    Kyiv’s military administration confirmed in a Telegram post that the combined barrage of missiles and drones hit multiple residential buildings and several commercial warehouses. “The enemy is once again deliberately striking civilians and civilian infrastructure,” the statement read. In the capital itself, one woman was killed and at least 24 other people were injured, after the strikes sparked large fires across four of Kyiv’s administrative districts.

    The death toll climbed sharply when regional authorities outside the capital reported 14 additional fatalities and more than 20 wounded in surrounding communities of the Kyiv region. “Kyiv region experienced one of its most tragic enemy attacks yet again tonight,” Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv regional military administration, wrote on Telegram. “Russia has once again brought death and destruction to our land, taking the lives of civilians. Just accountability will certainly follow for every such crime.”

    The assault marks the third deadly overnight strike on the Kyiv area in just one week. On Saturday alone, similar Russian strikes on Kyiv and its suburbs killed 10 people and wounded more than 30, coming the same day that Ukrainian drones sank a large Russian container ship in the Black Sea.

    An AFP analysis of recent military activity confirms both sides have stepped up long-range offensive operations over the past month, with Russia more than doubling its monthly missile usage in July compared to earlier periods. Ukraine has matched the escalation by increasing its own cross-border drone attacks on Russian territory, targeting energy infrastructure and military logistics hubs.

    Just one day before the latest Kyiv assault, a Ukrainian drone strike on logistics facilities in Russia’s Moscow region killed five people and wounded 10 others, with one of the targets being a depot operated by major Russian e-commerce firm Wildberries. On Wednesday, Moscow’s mayor confirmed that Russian air defenses had intercepted and destroyed at least 10 drones bound for the capital. Further south, the governor of the Tula region reported that Russian defenses shot down 107 Ukrainian drones in the area overnight. The governor confirmed that two apartment buildings sustained damage, and one downed drone crashed on the grounds of a Wildberries logistics facility, igniting a large fire that prompted a precautionary evacuation of the site. Ukraine has previously accused Wildberries of storing drone components and supporting the Russian military, claims the company has not publicly addressed.

    In a separate development that has drawn international condemnation, Ukraine has publicly denounced a newly circulated video showing a civilian being chased by a drone in the southern city of Kherson, calling the incident a deliberate “hunt” and “safari” targeting unarmed civilians.

    United Nations human rights monitoring teams have already issued warnings about the sharp upward trend in civilian fatalities across Ukraine, noting that current casualty numbers are at their highest point since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly stressed that the critical shortage of anti-ballistic missile interceptors directly enables Russia’s ongoing deadly assault campaign. “A lack of ballistic missile interceptors only encourages Russia to launch such attacks that take human lives,” Zelenskyy said. Just last week, Zelenskyy met with former U.S. President Donald Trump to push for American approval of licenses to allow domestic production of Patriot interceptors inside Ukraine.

    Russia has defended its recent strikes, claiming all attacks target legitimate military sites. After Saturday’s assault on Kyiv, Moscow said it hit military-industrial complex facilities and logistics centers. That strike damaged multiple non-military sites, including Lithuania’s embassy in Kyiv and a five-story residential apartment building.

  • South Korea police raid Starbucks HQ over ‘Tank Day’ fiasco

    South Korea police raid Starbucks HQ over ‘Tank Day’ fiasco

    On Wednesday, South Korean law enforcement carried out a raid on the national headquarters of Starbucks Korea, the local operator of the global coffee giant confirmed to Agence France-Presse. The action comes in the wake of widespread public outrage over an ill-judged advertising campaign that stands accused of defaming pro-democracy activists killed in the 1980 Gwangju uprising.

    The controversy erupted in May this year, when Starbucks Korea launched its ‘Tank Day’ promotion to coincide with the annual anniversary of the historic 1980 pro-democracy movement. The campaign centered on marketing a new line of extra-large tumblers, named to reference the large volume of coffee they could hold, timed to drop on May 18. For South Koreans, this date carries profound national meaning: it marks the day a military dictatorship deployed tanks to Gwangju to crush the popular pro-democracy uprising, a crackdown that left at least 165 civilian protesters dead. Those who lost their lives in the movement are widely revered as national martyrs across South Korea.

    Critics quickly condemned the promotion for trivializing one of the most significant and traumatic events in modern South Korean history, and for insulting the memory of the fallen. A complaint was formally filed by a local civic group and family members of the Gwangju victims, who accuse senior leaders of Shinsegae Group — the South Korean conglomerate that holds the license to operate Starbucks Korea — of defamation and insult against the uprising’s victims and their surviving relatives.

    “The Seoul police raided the headquarters of Starbucks Korea this morning as part of the ongoing investigation,” a spokesperson for Shinsegae Group told AFP, declining to share additional details on the search operation. Seoul police have only confirmed that the investigation into the company is ongoing, and have also declined to comment further on the specifics of the raid.

    The formal complaint names two high-profile executives: Shinsegae Group chairman Chung Yong-jin, and Son Jung-hyun, the former CEO of Starbucks Korea who stepped down from his position in the immediate aftermath of the public furore. Further controversy also emerged when it was revealed that the campaign also used language that echoed phrases used by former authoritarian officials to dismiss claims that they had tortured a student activist to death during the uprising period.

    South Korea is Starbucks’ third-largest market globally, trailing only the chain’s founding home the United States and China, making this controversy particularly high-stakes for the brand. Within weeks of the scandal breaking in May, Starbucks Korea issued a formal public apology, and took the extraordinary step of temporarily closing all more than 2,000 of its locations across the country for a one-time staff education event focused on the history of the Gwangju uprising in June.

    Shinsegae Group previously conducted its own internal audit of the controversy, which found no evidence that the campaign was intentionally harmful. However, the conglomerate acknowledged that the internal probe faced significant limitations, most notably that the executive in charge of planning the ‘Tank Day’ promotion refused to hand over their mobile phone for investigation.

    According to reports from South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency and national public broadcaster KBS, Wednesday’s police raid is aimed at gathering evidence that was not turned over or uncovered during the company’s internal investigation. The fallout from the controversy has already hit Starbucks Korea’s bottom line: Shinsegae confirmed that the chain saw a ‘sharp decline in sales’ in the first weeks after the scandal broke, and data from local platform provider IGAWorks shows that combined credit and debit card payment volume at Starbucks locations fell 17 percent between May and June.

  • Young woman killed, second fights for life after horror crash in coastal Adelaide suburb

    Young woman killed, second fights for life after horror crash in coastal Adelaide suburb

    A devastating two-car collision at a well-documented high-risk intersection in an Adelaide coastal suburb has left one young woman dead and a second fighting for survival, with local residents warning this outcome was a preventable tragedy long in the making.

    Emergency dispatchers received multiple calls shortly after 10 p.m. on Tuesday, rushing first responders to the junction of Barramundi Drive and Lonsdale Road in Hallett Cove, where a Nissan station wagon carrying three women in their 20s had collided head-on with a Subaru sedan driven by a 27-year-old man. The force of the impact was so severe that one of the vehicles was sliced clean in half, turning the quiet residential intersection into a chaotic crash scene.

    Among the three passengers in the Nissan, a 21-year-old Hallett Cove resident was pronounced dead at the scene. A second 20-year-old passenger was airlifted to a nearby major trauma center in critical condition, where medical teams continue to fight to save her life. The 21-year-old driver of the Nissan, a resident of Morphett Vale, sustained only non-life-threatening injuries and was treated on-site by paramedics before being transported to hospital for observation.

    The deafening impact of the crash echoed through the surrounding neighborhood, drawing local residents outside to the disaster-strewn street. Seventy-seven-year-old Roger Hand, who was watching television at the time of the collision, described the sudden jolt of the event. “I was watching TV and all of a sudden there was this big bang. It is so sad,” he told local outlet The Advertiser.

    Neighbors have long flagged this particular intersection as a persistent danger point for road incidents, with frequent minor crashes leading to repeated calls for infrastructure changes. Local resident Kevin Schwartz explained the root of the intersection’s poor safety record, noting: “There’s a lot of prangs because they try to beat cars doing 80 while going across.”

    This latest fatal crash brings the total number of road fatalities on South Australian roads to 73 so far in 2026, a grim statistic that averages out to one road death every three days across the state.

    South Australian Police have issued a public appeal for any members of the community who witnessed the collision, or who have dashcam footage captured in the area around the time of the crash that could aid the official investigation, to contact Crime Stoppers immediately on 1800 333 000 or submit information via the organization’s official website.

  • Saudi Aramco reports bumper profits as it bypasses Strait of Hormuz

    Saudi Aramco reports bumper profits as it bypasses Strait of Hormuz

    Escalating geopolitical tensions and sustained conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran centered on the Strait of Hormuz have delivered a massive windfall to Saudi Aramco, with the state-owned Saudi energy giant reporting a 33% year-over-year jump in second-quarter 2025 profits, the company announced Tuesday.

    Adjusted net income for the April-to-June period climbed to $33.4 billion, up from $25.1 billion in the same quarter last year, as persistent fighting and shipping disruptions through the world’s most critical energy chokepoint pushed global crude prices higher while Saudi Arabia’s unique infrastructure allowed it to keep exporting at near-normal levels.

    Though a temporary ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was reached in April and extended in June, low-intensity conflict has continued unabated. Iran has stepped up efforts to assert dominance over the 21-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of global oil supplies transit daily, and has attacked dozens of commercial vessels attempting to pass through the waterway via Oman’s territorial waters. In retaliation for Iranian attacks, the U.S. has carried out airstrikes on Iranian targets, and Iran has responded by striking infrastructure in U.S.-aligned Gulf states including Kuwait and Bahrain. These sustained disruptions pushed Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil prices, above $100 per barrel in both May and July, with refined petroleum products — including diesel, jet fuel, and gasoline — seeing even steeper price jumps. Multiple Gulf oil producers including Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar have been forced to cancel energy shipments or drastically cut export volumes as a result of the chaos.

    Unlike its regional neighbors, Saudi Arabia has maintained steady exports, moving roughly two-thirds of its pre-conflict production capacity to global markets via the East-West Pipeline, a strategic infrastructure asset that connects the kingdom’s major eastern oil fields directly to the Red Sea export terminal of Yanbu, completely bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.

    In an official press statement accompanying the earnings release, Aramco CEO Amin Nasser highlighted the critical role of this pre-planned infrastructure in enabling continuous operations through the crisis. “Despite the unprecedented supply disruption through the Strait of Hormuz, we continued to demonstrate our ability to maintain business continuity by capitalising on our diverse asset base and multi-decade planning, including strategic infrastructure such as the East-West Pipeline, storage capacity, and export terminals,” Nasser said.

    Aramco’s successful use of the bypass pipeline has spurred regional governments to accelerate plans for their own alternative energy transit infrastructure, with industry analysts projecting tens of billions of dollars in new infrastructure investment across the Middle East over the coming years to reduce reliance on the Strait of Hormuz.

    Artem Abramov, deputy head of analysis at energy research firm Rystad Energy, told Middle East Eye that regional governments have undergone a major shift in priority after the crisis. “When we speak to our customers in the region, they say they never want to deal with this again,” Abramov said. “These bypass projects will move forward.”

    Already, the United Arab Emirates is constructing a second pipeline to the Gulf of Oman port of Fujairah, which will double the country’s non-Hormuz export capacity by 2027. OPEC’s second-largest producer Iraq, meanwhile, signed a deal with Syria in July to rehabilitate an existing pipeline connecting Iraq’s northern oil fields to Syria’s Mediterranean coast, a project first revealed by Middle East Eye that has received backing from the U.S. government.

    Saudi Aramco is far from the only energy major to profit from the ongoing conflict: U.S. oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron also reported blockbuster second-quarter earnings. ExxonMobil’s profits doubled compared to the same period last year, while Chevron posted the highest quarterly profit in its 145-year history.

    The record profits have sparked political backlash in the U.S., where former President and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is facing growing public anger over elevated retail gasoline prices amid his administration’s handling of the Iran conflict. Speaking to reporters Monday, Trump called out the two companies for excessive profiteering and demanded they pass savings to consumers. “Chevron: too much money. ExxonMobil: too much money,” Trump said. “They’re going to give some of that back to the public and they better cut the retail price, the consumer price.”

    Crude prices have retreated roughly 8% since Sunday, falling to $79 per barrel, after Trump walked back a recent threat to launch what he described as the “biggest bombing campaign since World War II” against Iran. On Tuesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that peace talks are progressing, telling reporters that the U.S. and Iran are close to reaching a comprehensive deal to end hostilities and fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping.

  • AFL 2026: Carlton vice-captain Sam Walsh careful not to comment on Josh Fraser’s future

    AFL 2026: Carlton vice-captain Sam Walsh careful not to comment on Josh Fraser’s future

    As Carlton Football Club stands on the cusp of securing a spot in the AFL finals, one of its star leaders has declined to weigh in on the permanent future of the man who turned the team’s season around. Sam Walsh, the Blues’ vice-captain, took a diplomatic, non-committal stance when questioned about caretaker head coach Josh Fraser’s potential bid for the full-time role in a press briefing this week.

    Fraser stepped into the top job earlier this season after the club parted ways with former senior coach Michael Voss, and the interim appointment has delivered far beyond initial expectations. In his first 11 matches at the helm, Fraser has led the Blues to nine wins, transforming the side from mid-table also-rans into legitimate finals contenders. This Sunday night, Carlton will get a golden chance to lock in their place in the post-season when they face off against 11th-ranked St Kilda at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium.

    While Walsh stopped short of publicly backing Fraser to take the role permanently, he did not hide his respect for the caretaker’s work. “Frase is made of the right stuff,” Walsh told reporters. “I put all my support behind anyone who is going to have a crack at being the head coach of Carlton. I will back in his decision making and the club’s too. When you get in the nitty and gritty of it, we’re not seeing what coaches present behind the scenes, the deeper lens of the recruitment and planning process. We all know how quickly the coaching change happened, so he’s sort of just come in and empowered a lot of the assistant coaches, so it’s a group effort on that point of view. I don’t think I can really speak on it too much more. It’s up to the individual really to see whether he thinks he wants to do the job.”

    Beyond the coaching search and upcoming finals fight, Walsh also shared his enthusiasm for this weekend’s unique match scheduling, which pairs Carlton’s AFL round 21 clash with the AFLW season opener between the same two clubs. Walsh said the combined double-header brings a welcome jolt of energy to the club late in the men’s season, and he expressed hope for even more expansive combined events down the line.

    “We’re pumped, we’ve admired how the girls have gone about it in particularly the last 12 to 18 months,” Walsh said. “It’s nice this time of the year to have a sense of energy for a new season starting. It probably makes you feel alive at the footy club still even when we’re in round 21. I think it’s unreal for the double-header. I think even in the future for a triple-header and try and get the VFL involved to make it a big day. I am really excited for what the girls are going to bring this season.”