Global Pulse

分类： politics

  • Taiwan lawmakers approve $7.6 bn drone budget as China threat grows

    Taiwan lawmakers approve $7.6 bn drone budget as China threat grows

    Against a backdrop of rising cross-strait tensions and growing international pressure to bolster asymmetric defense capabilities, Taiwan’s legislative body has greenlit a $7.6 billion budget to develop and manufacture domestically produced drones, a move central to the island’s efforts to counter mounting military threats from mainland China.

    For years, Taiwan has steadily expanded its military investment, prioritizing the growth of a domestic defense industry that can produce critical equipment and ammunition locally rather than relying exclusively on foreign imports. This push comes as China continues to claim the self-governing island as an inalienable part of its territory and has repeatedly threatened to take control of it by force if necessary.

    The approved budget proposal, backed by the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), advanced through parliament after the administration of President Lai Ching-te saw its original drone spending plan rejected. President Lai’s administration had sought to allocate NT$210 billion ($6.6 billion) in a special five-year budget overseen by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, aiming to build a domestic drone output capacity sufficient to repel a potential Chinese incursion. The original plan covered development of multiple drone variants, including coastal surveillance models, attack drones, and surface drones.

    Negotiations over drone spending have been marked by repeated clashes between Lai’s ruling government and opposition blocs, which hold a legislative majority. Disagreements centered on total funding amounts, budget structuring, and allocation timelines. The KMT, which advocates for closer economic and political ties with mainland China, joined the TPP to put forward an alternative plan totaling NT$240 billion ($7.6 billion) spread over six years integrated into the regular annual budget process. After initially holding firm to an annual spending cap of NT$40 billion, the KMT compromised to introduce flexible spending allowances and agreed to let the defense ministry lead the drone procurement and development process.

    When pressed by reporters on whether he would sign the opposition-drafted legislation, Premier Cho Jung-tai, head of Taiwan’s executive Cabinet, emphasized that national security remained his top priority. “What I care about is whether the legislation meets the nation’s needs — whether it aligns with our indigenous defense strategy and the various requirements for developing our drone and unmanned vehicle industries,” Cho stated, adding that officials would conduct a careful review based on national security and broader national interests.

    KMT lawmaker Hsu Chiao-hsin framed the budget as a critical step to growing Taiwan’s domestic defense industrial base ahead of the vote, noting that Taiwan “must genuinely encourage localisation and domestic production” to mature the sector. She added that the policy prioritized supporting established local manufacturers that operate outside of Chinese supply chains, guarantee robust cybersecurity standards, and sustain consistent long-term growth.

    The approval of the drone budget comes amid growing pressure from the United States, which has repeatedly called on Taiwan to ramp up its defense spending and domestic arms production to deter Chinese aggression. In recent weeks, U.S. calls for swift passage of the drone legislation grew increasingly urgent: during a visit to Taipei last month, U.S. Republican Representative Young Kim stressed that “time is short” for Taiwan to build up its drone capabilities. Pointing to ongoing combat in Ukraine and the Middle East, Kim noted that “the wars over Ukraine and Iran show that Taiwan needs to buy and build drones at a huge scale.”

    Taiwan currently relies heavily on U.S. arms sales to maintain its defense deterrent, and Washington has repeatedly pushed the island to take greater financial and industrial ownership of its own security. Lessons from the war in Ukraine have reshaped Taiwan’s defense planning, with military leaders concluding that small, agile systems such as drones are a critical asymmetric advantage against a far larger and better-resourced Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

    The approval caps a period of extended legislative wrangling over national budgets: Taiwan’s 2026 general annual budget passed earlier this month after a record-setting delay, while the 2027 general budget has already been finalized. President Lai’s administration has proposed a record NT$1.1 trillion defense budget for 2027, which would push defense spending above 3% of Taiwan’s total GDP, marking the highest share of output allocated to national defense in decades.

  • Norway’s royal family gathers at King Harald’s bedside as his condition worsens

    Norway’s royal family gathers at King Harald’s bedside as his condition worsens

    Oslo, Norway – Norway’s royal household has confirmed that 89-year-old King Harald V, Europe’s longest-serving and oldest sitting head of state, is currently in extremely serious health condition at Oslo University Hospital, prompting the entire royal family to convene at his bedside and forcing key senior royals to scrap all scheduled public duties.

  • Chinese foreign minister calls for US and China to ‘overcome obstacles’ ahead of presidential summit

    Chinese foreign minister calls for US and China to ‘overcome obstacles’ ahead of presidential summit

    BANGKOK – As anticipation builds for a highly anticipated high-level summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump slated for next month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has emphasized that the two global powers must work proactively to dismantle long-standing barriers standing in the way of productive dialogue.

    China’s state-owned national broadcaster CCTV released details of Wang’s closed-door meeting with David Perdue, the U.S. Ambassador to China, which took place on Wednesday, with public comments shared Thursday. During the discussions, Wang called for both Beijing and Washington to reframe their engagement around shared priorities, steer through existing disagreements with careful diplomacy, push back against outside interference, and clear away barriers that threaten to undermine upcoming high-level exchanges between the two governments.

    In his official remarks carried by CCTV, Wang openly acknowledged that bilateral relations between China and the United States continue to confront a wide range of significant risks and unresolved challenges that could derail progress ahead of the summit.

    The two heads of state first met earlier this year in May in Beijing, where both leaders issued public pledges to maintain stability in bilateral ties and uphold a fragile, hard-won trade truce that had been negotiated to ease escalating economic tensions. Following that meeting, President Trump extended a formal invitation to President Xi to hold a second round of talks in the United States, originally penciled in for September 24. To date, however, Chinese officials have not formally confirmed the exact date of President Xi’s visit to the U.S.

    In the weeks following the Beijing meeting, the diplomatic thaw failed to hold, as both sides continued to roll out targeted economic measures against one another. These reciprocal actions include a U.S. ban on imports of Chinese-made robotics technology, as well as retaliatory restrictions implemented by Beijing that bar certain American entities from conducting trade and other commercial activities within Chinese borders.

  • Memory wars: Election clash over Germany’s Nazi past as AfD eyes power in east

    Memory wars: Election clash over Germany’s Nazi past as AfD eyes power in east

    As eastern Germany’s Saxony-Anhalt region prepares for state elections on September 6, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) holds a substantial lead in polling, putting it on the cusp of becoming the first post-war far-right party to control a German state government. Its campaign, centered on a sweeping “patriotism” agenda that seeks to downplay Germany’s Nazi past and reshape national memory, has ignited fierce national debate over the country’s long-standing moral commitment to confronting its 20th-century atrocities.

    At the core of the AfD’s platform is a rejection of Germany’s established culture of remembrance, Erinnerungskultur, which the party dismisses in its official manifesto as a harmful “guilt complex.” If it wins a parliamentary majority, the party has pledged to overhaul state school history curricula, shifting focus away from the crimes of the Nazi regime to highlight centuries of pre-World War II German history, framed as a legacy of “poets and thinkers.” While AfD leaders insist education on National Socialism will remain part of the curriculum, the party’s blueprint sums up its approach as “More Bismarck, less Hitler” – a reference to 19th-century German unifier Otto von Bismarck. Additional policy pledges include daily flying of the German flag at public schools, expanded preservation of German war memorials, and cuts to public funding for art the party labels “anti-German.”

    On the campaign trail in the small town of Querfurt, long-time AfD supporter Gerd, 70, summed up the view held by many of the party’s backers. Attached to the handlebars of his mobility scooter is a frayed German flag, a deliberate display of national pride that Gerd says modern Germany has suppressed for too long. “You can’t wipe away history, but the Second World War has nothing to do with us any more,” he told reporters, arguing that younger and even post-war generations should not carry perpetual collective responsibility for Nazi crimes, and that the nation should embrace its full historical legacy with pride.

    Ulrich Siegmund, the 35-year-old AfD candidate who would become Saxony-Anhalt’s state premier if the party wins a majority, defended the agenda in an interview with the BBC. A former air freshener salesman who has risen to become one of the party’s most popular figures thanks to his energetic campaigning and savvy social media strategy, Siegmund framed the push for renewed national pride as an entirely ordinary, unremarkable goal. “We want to get that back,” he said. “We have a diverse history, stretching back many hundreds of years, and we want to teach that history in its entirety, with all its highs and lows but with pride and a positive outlook.” Siegmund dismissed widespread allegations of extremism against the party, and denied ongoing connections to Austrian far-right activist Martin Sellner, who has a documented neo-Nazi past. Siegmund said he only met Sellner once at a 2023 gathering outside Berlin, and has had no contact since.

    Critics, however, warn that the AfD’s agenda amounts to dangerous historical revisionism that echoes the cultural control tactics of the Nazi regime itself. For Frank Martin Widmaier, director of a state-funded regional theatre in Eisleben, the party’s pledge to cut funding for “anti-German” art echoes the 1937 Nazi “Degenerate Art Exhibition,” where the regime labeled and banned works it deemed ideologically unacceptable. “How can somebody say it’s not German enough, and what does it mean?” Widmaier asked, noting that most German cultural institutions rely heavily on state funding. “This is playing with Nazi propaganda. To threaten people, to threaten the institutions.” Widmaier rejected the AfD’s core claim that Germany’s culture of remembrance has created a national guilt complex, arguing that confronting the Nazi past is a core part of modern German national identity, not a source of shame for generations born after the war. “You don’t have to feel guilty,” he said. “But you have to deal with all of that to make it never happen again. That’s part of our DNA in Germany.”

    The AfD has long faced official scrutiny: German domestic intelligence has classified the Saxony-Anhalt AfD branch as a right-wing extremist anti-democratic movement permeated by racist ideology, a designation the party dismisses as a politically motivated smear. All major established German parties have ruled out entering any coalition government with the AfD, meaning the party’s only path to power is winning an outright majority in the state parliament – a historic outcome that polls indicate is possible, though not guaranteed. If successful, the victory would give the AfD control over core state portfolios including education, policing, and cultural policy, allowing it to implement its full agenda for the first time.

    The growing popularity of the AfD’s nationalist agenda is not limited to Saxony-Anhalt: the party currently leads national polling as well, though its advantage at the federal level is less dramatic. The September 6 election is widely viewed as a watershed moment for post-war German politics, marking the first real test of whether a far-right party committed to rewriting Germany’s founding post-war moral consensus can seize state power.

  • Zelenskyy’s direct plea helped unlock Russia sanctions in the Senate. What’s next is uncertain

    Zelenskyy’s direct plea helped unlock Russia sanctions in the Senate. What’s next is uncertain

    On a singular day in Washington that blended mourning and urgent diplomacy, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived at the U.S. Capitol just hours after the funeral of the late Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham to make a direct, personal appeal for sweeping new sanctions against Russia — a last legislative effort spearheaded by Graham to cut off Moscow’s war-fighting revenue.

    A rare show of bipartisan attention greeted the Ukrainian leader: half of all U.S. senators packed into a closed-door meeting, setting aside their usual mobile phone distractions to focus on Zelenskyy’s briefing. Joined by House members, attendees heard Zelenskyy lay out Ukraine’s ongoing strategy in its years-long defensive war against Russia’s full-scale invasion, detailing how Kyiv’s forces have held back Russian advances and even taken offensive action while outlining urgent unmet needs. Those needs include additional Patriot interceptor missiles, expanded access to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet, updated defense licensing agreements, and, most pressingly, immediate passage of the sanctions package Graham spent a full year negotiating to advance.

    Zelenskyy made the stakes clear to lawmakers, according to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “He said, ‘We need this legislation,’” Shaheen recalled in an interview, adding that the bill’s passage is critical to the morale of both Ukraine’s frontline troops and its civilian population.

    Multiple lawmakers in attendance described a palpable shift in the room, buoyed by Zelenskyy’s quiet confidence in Ukraine’s ability to persevere. “You could feel palpably in the room a sense that — Zelenskyy’s confidence of their ability to hold and to persevere,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer, Maryland’s veteran Democratic congressman and former House Democratic leader. “There was a sense in the room that, look, we can be successful.”

    The legislation, later named the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act, marks the most ambitious pro-Ukraine policy initiative from Congress since Donald Trump reclaimed the White House in 2025. After two years of gridlock on Ukraine policy — the last major congressional action was 2024’s supplemental aid package — the bill advanced out of the Senate the very night of Zelenskyy’s visit, with the Ukrainian leader taking an unprecedented seat in the Senate chamber to observe the vote. Lawmakers smiled, waved, and gave encouraging gestures as they cast their ballots, and the bill ultimately passed days later by a lopsided 86-11 margin, sending it to the House of Representatives for consideration.

    Despite that strong Senate showing, the bill’s future remains deeply uncertain. House Speaker Mike Johnson leads a narrow Republican majority overwhelmingly reluctant to commit to new overseas initiatives aligned with U.S. foreign policy goals. Even among many Democratic lawmakers who have long supported Ukraine, concerns have emerged about the bill’s structure: it grants Trump sweeping authority to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on any country that continues to import Russian energy, with no explicit congressional checks on how that power is used.

    At its core, the legislation is designed to cut off the Kremlin’s primary source of funding for its war machine by pressuring major Russian energy customers including China and India to halt purchases of Moscow’s oil and gas. But critics across the Democratic caucus warn the open-ended tariff authority gives the Trump administration too much unregulated power, which could be used against U.S. allies and ultimately raise costs for American consumers.

    “It’s important not to underestimate symbolically what this would mean,” said Daniel Balson, a policy advocate with Razom for Ukraine, a pro-Ukraine pro-democracy organization. Balson urged Congress to maintain momentum on the bill, arguing that passage would send a critical message to Kyiv that “hiccups and all, there is still an international alliance that stands behind Ukraine’s fight.”

    Zelenskyy’s 2025 Capitol Hill visit marks the latest chapter in a years-long diplomatic outreach to U.S. lawmakers that has seen dramatic high points and deep periods of uncertainty. In March 2022, just days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Zelenskyy addressed Congress via a dramatic private video call, pleading for warplanes to defend Ukraine’s skies. That December, he traveled to Washington for a historic Christmas address to Congress, drawing comparisons to Winston Churchill’s World War II visits to Washington to rally allied support.

    But by 2023, as then-Republican front-runner Trump aligned with critics of continued aid, congressional Republicans abandoned plans for a new round of Ukraine funding. After Trump won the 2024 election and returned to the Oval Office in 2025, all progress on new Ukraine aid ground to a halt. A high-profile Oval Office meeting saw Trump publicly berate Zelenskyy, blaming the Ukrainian leader’s opposition to Putin for blocking a negotiated peace. As Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, a former Air Force brigadier general, put it: Republican support for the bill is largely held back by Trump’s stance. “This has largely hinged on President Trump,” Bacon said, noting that more Republicans would back Ukraine publicly if Trump signaled his approval.

    Graham, who spent a full year negotiating with the White House to win Trump’s backing for the sanctions package, shared the news of his breakthrough with colleagues at the NATO summit in Turkey last month, before traveling on to Kyiv for a final visit to Ukraine. He died just days after returning to Washington, from an apparent torn aorta. His Democratic partner on the bill, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, recalled that Graham called winning Trump’s approval a “BFD” — a nod to how critical the breakthrough was for the legislation.

    Top House Democrats have already raised formal objections to the bill’s open-ended tariff provisions. House Foreign Affairs Committee top Democrat Gregory Meeks of New York and Ways and Means Committee top Democrat Richard Neal of Massachusetts have both publicly pushed back on the language. More than 30 Senate Democrats supported a failed amendment to rein in the president’s tariff authority before the bill’s passage.

    “This is not so much a sanctions bill as it is a massive backdoor authority for President Trump to impose more tariffs, including on our European allies, that hurt American families,” Meeks said in a statement. Even so, Hoyer, who worked with Meeks on a separate pro-Ukraine security bill that passed the House earlier this year over Johnson’s objections, is urging lawmakers not to let the opportunity slip. He argued that existing congressional and judicial checks are sufficient to limit any potential abuse of the tariff authority, and that passing the bill is critical to sending a message of support to Ukraine.

    “You know there was so much negative vibes that we were sending,” Hoyer said. “We’ve got to send a letter to these courageous Ukrainians that we’re with them.”

  • ‘Come on’: Pauline Hanson, Nationals leader Matt Canavan clash over Barnaby Joyce

    ‘Come on’: Pauline Hanson, Nationals leader Matt Canavan clash over Barnaby Joyce

    A high-stakes public confrontation between One Nation founder Pauline Hanson and new Nationals leader Matt Canavan unfolded this Thursday at the annual Bush Summit in Dubbo, located in New South Wales’ Central West. The two senior conservative politicians went head-to-head on two divisive issues: former Nationals deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce’s late 2023 defection to One Nation, and Australia’s long-running net-zero emissions policy debate.

    Canavan, who took over the Nationals leadership earlier this year from David Littleproud, opened discussion on Joyce’s party exit, acknowledging that he still considers the long-serving New England MP a personal friend. “He openly said he left because he didn’t like David Littleproud,” Canavan told the panel audience. While Canavan expressed personal disappointment in Joyce’s choice, he emphasized that his political work prioritizes policy impact over personal relationships, noting he spends long stretches away from his wife and five children to advance his policy goals. “I don’t think that’s a reasonable basis to leave a political party who put you there … the hundreds of thousands of volunteers that stayed out in the winds, out in the cold to get you elected,” he added.

    Hanson immediately interjected to defend Joyce, her party’s newest lower house member, pushing back on Canavan’s framing of the defection. “Come on, Matt. He didn’t leave The Nationals party just because of David Littleproud,” she said. Canavan ultimately conceded a second core motivation, acknowledging Joyce also cited the Nationals’ adoption of a net-zero emissions target as a driving factor — though he noted the party had already scrapped that policy before Joyce left.

    The confrontation quickly shifted to the broader net-zero debate, where Hanson pushed back hard against what she framed as suggestions she and One Nation are irrelevant to Australian climate politics. “It just annoys me, you know, to make me as if I’m irrelevant in this, as if I’ve got nothing to offer politics,” she said. Hanson also pushed back on the narrative that net-zero is a policy pushed by progressive parties, pointing out that ambitious renewable energy targets were first introduced under Liberal former prime minister John Howard, and the formal net-zero commitment was made under Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison — a point Canavan interrupted to clarify did not include the Paris Climate Agreement, which Hanson has long opposed. Hanson reaffirmed she has opposed Australia’s net-zero target from its inception, noting the Labor government has only continued the existing framework laid out by the previous Liberal government.

    Beyond climate policy, Hanson also addressed ongoing confusion over One Nation’s controversial migration policy, which calls for cutting net overseas migration to a cap of 130,000. She clarified that One Nation’s recent lower house MP David Farley misspoke when he claimed the party’s total migration numbers would not differ greatly from the current Labor government’s targets. Hanson explained that the 130,000 cap does not include seasonal farm workers brought into Australia under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, arguing these workers fill critical labor gaps that keep regional Australian agricultural and abattoir sectors operational. Unlike permanent migrants and student visa holders, PALM workers are provided accommodation directly by their employing farms and businesses, Hanson said, so they do not add pressure to Australia’s strained national housing market. When pressed, she confirmed that total annual migration, including PALM scheme workers, would exceed the 130,000 net cap, framing the separate scheme as a necessary exception for rural Australia.

    The public clash highlights growing tension between the Nationals and One Nation, as the smaller right-wing party targets regional-held Nationals seats ahead of Australia’s next federal election, leveraging voter discontent over climate policy and migration to win over regional electorates.

  • Return of US diplomats to Middle East seen as reducing risk of return to war

    Return of US diplomats to Middle East seen as reducing risk of return to war

    After months of widespread evacuation and downsizing triggered by escalated military conflict against Iran, the Trump administration has initiated the process of returning US diplomatic personnel to key embassy and consulate posts across the Middle East, multiple major media outlets have confirmed. This diplomatic shift signals a clear assessment by Washington that it does not expect an immediate resumption of large-scale intense warfare that forced the drawdown of US diplomatic presence across the region earlier this year.

    According to a Tuesday report from Axios, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has informed foreign diplomatic counterparts that the US will refrain from launching new offensive strikes against Iran “for the time being”, and instead will prioritize ramping up punitive economic pressure on the Islamic Republic to advance its policy goals. For the hundreds of evacuated diplomatic personnel and their families, the decision brings an end to months of uncertainty that left them in administrative limbo while the White House weighed whether and how to restaff regional missions.

    Many evacuated diplomats were forced to relocate back to the United States alongside their spouses and children, creating significant personal disruption as families prepared for the new academic year, unsure whether they would need to enroll children in US schools or arrange for schooling in the Middle East.

    The New York Times reports that the facilities targeted for partial to full staffing restoration include diplomatic missions in Israel, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Iraq and Kuwait, with the first wave of returning diplomats heading to the US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Under the new staffing plan, diplomatic posts in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Lebanon will cap personnel levels at 85% of their pre-evacuation strength, while missions in Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain will operate at 75% capacity. Persistent security concerns have led the State Department to maintain existing restrictions on family members accompanying staff to Lebanon and Iraq, and to implement new limits on dependent travel to Gulf Cooperation Council states, reflecting ongoing US caution about regional security risks.

    Tensions have remained elevated in the Gulf since the region came under heavy retaliatory missile and drone strikes from Iran following the joint US-Israeli offensive against the country. Smaller Gulf states including Kuwait and Bahrain have been identified as particularly vulnerable to cross-border attacks and retaliatory strikes.

    Earlier this month, The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is actively evaluating a full withdrawal of US military forces from the broader Gulf region, in response to repeated Iranian drone and missile attacks that have exposed security risks at large US military bases in the area. This ongoing review corroborates a June 2024 report from Middle East Eye, which cited multiple current and former US officials confirming that the war with Iran had forced Washington to undertake a fundamental reassessment of its decades-long military basing strategy across the Gulf.

  • Another former Malaysia prime minister faces criminal charges after leaving office

    Another former Malaysia prime minister faces criminal charges after leaving office

    KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – A new chapter of political and legal turbulence opened in Malaysia this week, as former Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakib became the third former Malaysian head of government to face criminal charges after leaving office. The 66-year-old, who led the country as its ninth prime minister for just 15 months between 2021 and 2022, entered a not guilty plea Thursday to a charge under Malaysia’s anti-corruption legislation.

    The charge stems from a January 2025 notice issued by Malaysia’s anti-corruption agency, which alleges Ismail failed to submit a full declaration of his personal assets. Court documents list large unreported holdings of both domestic and foreign cash, as well as significant stocks of gold and silver. If found guilty on the charge, Ismail faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of up to 100,000 Malaysian ringgit, equal to roughly $24,810.

    Ismail’s path to the premiership was an unusual one: he unexpectedly took office without a general election, emerging as a cross-party consensus candidate amid a period of severe political instability in 2021. His 15-month tenure makes him the shortest-serving prime minister in Malaysia’s modern history, holding office from August 2021 until the November 2022 general election that ended his administration.

    This is not the first time Ismail has been questioned by anti-graft investigators. Since leaving office, he has faced repeated questioning over potential misconduct related to millions of dollars in public funds allocated for government publicity during his time in office. Prior to Thursday’s indictment, the anti-corruption agency had already seized gold bars and approximately $40 million in cash from properties connected to the former leader.

    The original charging hearing scheduled for August 7 was delayed after Ismail was admitted to hospital to undergo a pacemaker procedure to treat an ongoing heart condition. Following Thursday’s court appearance, Ismail was released on bail. His defense lawyer, Amer Hamzah Arshad, told reporters that the former prime minister maintains his innocence and will fight to clear his name, calling the charges against him completely baseless and unfounded. The next court hearing is set for September 29, when prosecutors are scheduled to share additional evidence and case details with the defense team.

    Ismail’s indictment marks a continuation of an unprecedented pattern of criminal proceedings against former Malaysian prime ministers. He follows two predecessors who have also faced serious graft charges:
    Najib Razak, who preceded Ismail’s immediate predecessor Muhyiddin Yassin in office, is currently serving a reduced six-year prison sentence stemming from his 1MDB corruption conviction. Last year, he was sentenced to an additional 15 years in prison following the conclusion of his second and largest 1MDB-related graft trial, and still faces multiple ongoing legal proceedings tied to the multibillion-dollar looting of the 1MDB state investment fund.
    Muhyiddin Yassin, Malaysia’s eighth prime minister, is currently on trial on charges of corruption and money laundering.

  • China deploys record number of ships around Taiwan as pressure grows

    China deploys record number of ships around Taiwan as pressure grows

    In a sharp escalation of Beijing’s pressure campaign against Taipei, official data from Taiwan’s Coast Guard confirms a historic surge in Chinese government-affiliated maritime vessels operating in waters surrounding the island, with numbers hitting an all-time high in July 2026. The revelation has sparked new warnings over growing regional instability and expanded Chinese military preparation in the strategically critical waters off Taiwan’s coast.

    Data shared exclusively with Agence France-Presse (AFP) by Taiwan’s Coast Guard shows that 244 Chinese vessels—including coast guard patrol craft, scientific research ships, and other government-operated boats—were detected around Taiwan’s main island in July. This marks a dramatic jump from 55 vessels recorded in June, 30 in May, and just 58 in July 2025. The monthly total averages out to nearly eight Chinese vessels operating in the area every single day. Even through the first 21 days of August, the service had already counted 152 additional vessels. Roughly 60 percent of the vessels detected are Chinese coast guard ships, with research vessels and other government craft making up the remaining share. The total does not include Chinese military warships, which Beijing deploys on near-daily patrols around the island on a consistent basis.

    Since May of this year alone, the cumulative number of Chinese vessels detected around Taiwan and its outlying islands has reached 1,247, according to full Coast Guard figures. A senior anonymous Taiwanese Coast Guard official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on media engagement, confirmed the rapidly deteriorating security landscape. “When we say the situation is becoming increasingly severe, we mean that the number of their government vessels in the waters surrounding Taiwan has increased, and there was a marked increase in July,” the official said. Reaffirming Taipei’s position on sovereignty, the official added that the Chinese Communist Party “has never ruled Taiwan for even a single day” and that “without sovereignty over land, it has no right to claim economic zones at sea.”

    Beijing has long maintained that Taiwan, a self-governing democratic island, is an inalienable part of Chinese territory, and has repeatedly refused to rule out the use of military force to annex the island. It also claims full jurisdiction over all waters surrounding Taiwan. This expanded maritime presence is part of what analysts and officials describe as China’s “grey zone” tactics: incremental actions to assert territorial claims that fall short of open armed conflict, a strategy Beijing has already deployed widely in the contested South China Sea where it competes with multiple neighboring countries for sovereignty over disputed waters and features.

    Beyond general pressure on Taipei, experts warn the growing fleet of Chinese research vessels is conducting critical seabed and oceanographic surveys to build out Chinese military databases for submarine and anti-submarine warfare operations—preparations that would give Beijing a key strategic advantage in any future conflict over the island. Taiwan’s Coast Guard has previously tracked 41 Chinese research vessels operating in its territorial waters, out of more than 120 oceanographic research craft China operates overall. In May, the Chinese research vessel *Tong Ji* completed a full circumnavigation of Taiwan, tracking the edge of the island’s restricted waters and ignoring repeated orders from Taiwanese authorities to leave the area. The Coast Guard confirmed the vessel was almost certainly conducting oceanographic sampling and seabed mapping, work that directly feeds into China’s anti-submarine warfare data collections.

    This activity has been paired with a string of new incursions into previously less contested areas east of Taiwan. In June, Beijing conducted its first officially declared law enforcement patrol in waters east of the island, and earlier this August, China announced temporary traffic control measures in the Taiwan Strait under the cover of Typhoon Dolphin’s approach to the region. A senior Taiwanese security official recently accused Beijing of “authoritarian expansionism,” warning that China is “constantly pushing the limits through an incremental salami-slicing approach” to erode Taiwan’s sovereignty.

    Ryan D. Martinson, an expert on Chinese maritime strategy at the U.S. Naval War College, noted that while Chinese research vessels are formally owned and operated by civilian academic institutions, all data they collect is shared with the People’s Liberation Army. Speaking to AFP in an email, Martinson—who noted he was commenting in a personal capacity—explained that “That kind of data/knowledge is highly useful for Chinese naval forces, which will operate in these waters in the event of a conflict. It is especially important for anti-submarine warfare and submarine warfare.”

    Martinson emphasized that while Chinese research vessels have operated around Taiwan for years, the current scale of activity is unprecedented. “In the past couple of months, I had observed a ‘very large increase’ in the number of Chinese research vessels operating around Taiwan, especially to the east of the island,” he said. “This is not a new ‘play’ in its ‘playbook’. Rather, the novel aspect is that the scale of these operations around Taiwan is unprecedented.”

    New observations from maritime analysts also highlight increasingly coordinated operations between different Chinese maritime actors. Taiwanese Coast Guard officials confirmed that Chinese research vessels are now regularly operating alongside Chinese coast guard patrol craft. In August, the Chinese research vessel *Xiang Yang Hong 03* was detected operating within the exclusive economic zones of both Taiwan and Japan, traversing deep sea trenches that are home to critical international telecommunications cables, according to Jason Wang, chief operating officer of ingeniSPACE, a firm that analyzes satellite imagery and ship tracking data. Wang added that the research vessel was escorted by a Chinese coast guard ship and a fishing vessel affiliated with China’s civilian maritime militia—a first for operations in Taiwanese waters.

    Wang said China’s goal in this latest deployment is twofold: to gather updated hydrographic data of the Ryukyu Trench and East Taiwan Trench for anti-submarine warfare planning, and to block U.S. and allied research vessels from conducting similar surveys in the region. For analysts like Martinson, all of these interconnected actions add up to a clear shift in Beijing’s approach to Taiwan. “They represent a clear escalation in Beijing’s efforts to exercise jurisdiction over the waters surrounding Taiwan, putting pressure on the country’s leadership and undermining its sovereignty and sovereign rights,” he said.

  • Trial date set for alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

    Trial date set for alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

    Nearly 25 years after the deadliest terror attack on modern U.S. soil, a long-awaited legal milestone has finally been set: the military trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks, will begin in June 2028. The date was announced this week by U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Michael A Schrama, the presiding military judge, who rejected prosecutors’ request for an earlier 2027 start as unfeasibly rushed.

    Alongside Mohammed, three co-accused alleged accomplices – Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi – will also stand trial on the same date. In his ruling, Schrama explained that the two-year timeline was intentional, designed to give all parties sufficient time to resolve pre-trial procedural disputes, particularly over the admissibility of evidence, a sticking point that has delayed proceedings for decades.

    The road to this trial has been marked by repeated delays, legal reversals, and decades of pre-trial detention. Mohammed, a U.S.-educated engineer, was first captured alongside al-Hawsawi in Pakistan in March 2003, three years after the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people across New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. He has been held in military detention at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba since September 2006, and has previously publicly claimed he planned the 9/11 operation “from A to Z”. Prosecutors allege Mohammed developed the plot to train hijacker pilots to fly commercial aircraft into prominent U.S. targets, and personally presented the plan to al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.

    Most recently, a 2021 plea deal that would have spared Mohammed the death penalty in exchange for a guilty plea and a sentence of life without parole collapsed last summer, after a federal appeals court struck down the agreement. The deal, negotiated over two years and signed by a Pentagon representative appointed by then-U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, caught Austin off guard, and he moved to revoke it almost immediately after it was finalized.

    Next month will mark 25 years since 19 al-Qaeda hijackers seized four commercial airliners, crashing two into the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York, one into the Pentagon outside Washington D.C., and a fourth into a rural field in Pennsylvania after passengers revolted against the hijackers. The attack remains the deadliest criminal act on U.S. soil in modern history, and the prolonged detention and legal process at Guantanamo Bay – which opened just six months after the attacks, and still holds 15 detainees today – has been one of the most contentious legacies of U.S. counterterrorism policy in the post-9/11 era.