Global Pulse

标签： Asia

亚洲

  • A magnitude 7.1 earthquake shakes part of southern Japan and a tsunami advisory is issued

    A magnitude 7.1 earthquake shakes part of southern Japan and a tsunami advisory is issued

    A powerful preliminary magnitude 7.1 earthquake jolted the Kumamoto region on Japan’s Kyushu Island, the country’s southernmost main island, during late Tuesday afternoon, according to an official announcement from the Japan Meteorological Agency. Following the seismic event, authorities promptly issued a tsunami advisory for a coastal area adjacent to the quake’s epicenter.

    The warning specifically covers Ariake Bay, which sits along Kumamoto’s western shoreline. The affected region sits roughly 900 kilometers, or 560 miles, to the southwest of Japan’s capital city of Tokyo. In the immediate aftermath of the tremor, Japanese nuclear regulators launched urgent inspections of local nuclear energy facilities to assess any potential damage.

    Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority confirmed after preliminary checks that no irregularities or safety issues have been detected at three nuclear power plants located in the vicinity of the earthquake. The 2016 Kumamoto earthquake holds a grim place in Japan’s recent disaster history: that massive seismic event claimed the lives of more than 50 people, injured an additional 1,800 residents, and left tens of thousands of residential structures damaged or completely destroyed, leaving many communities displaced for months and years afterward.

  • UN says nearly 500 Afghan civilians have been killed in Pakistan-Afghanistan fighting since October

    UN says nearly 500 Afghan civilians have been killed in Pakistan-Afghanistan fighting since October

    Months of persistent cross-border hostilities between Pakistan and Afghanistan have left nearly 500 Afghan civilians dead and more than 1,200 injured between October last year and the end of June this year, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) confirmed in a major new human rights report released Tuesday.

    The devastating casualty count, compiled through UNAMA’s on-the-ground documentation, lays bare the human cost of a conflict that has persisted despite repeated international calls for de-escalation. One of the most striking examples of civilian harm documented in the report occurred in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktia Province on June 28, when two successive airstrikes hit a residential building. After the first strike killed several people, local residents rushed to the site to pull trapped survivors from the rubble. A second strike hit the area as the rescue effort was underway, killing 22 civilians – five of them children – and wounding 185 more, with most casualties coming from the second, unprovoked attack. “International humanitarian law provides special protections for medical personnel and humanitarian workers, including first responders. Attacks against them while performing their duties are strictly prohibited,” said Fiona Frazer, UNAMA’s human rights director.

    The deadliest single incident of the cross-border fighting came in March, when a Pakistani airstrike targeted a drug treatment center in the Afghan capital Kabul, killing hundreds of civilians. Last week, global human rights group Amnesty International called for the bombing to be investigated as a potential war crime, a call Pakistan has since rejected. Islamabad has consistently denied targeting civilian infrastructure, asserting in its official response to UNAMA’s report that all of its military operations are directed exclusively at militant hideouts and infrastructure linked to groups that carry out attacks inside Pakistan. Pakistan’s foreign ministry also reiterated its longstanding claim that the Taliban-led Afghan government continues to allow militant groups to operate freely from Afghan territory, an accusation Kabul has repeatedly denied.

    Cross-border tensions between the two neighbors flared dramatically in February, after Afghan forces launched a cross-border retaliatory raid against Pakistan, which had carried out earlier airstrikes inside Afghanistan. Following the exchange, Islamabad publicly declared it was in an “open war” with Afghanistan. Pakistan’s core grievance centers on the presence of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, a militant group that has carried out thousands of deadly attacks across Pakistan over the past decade. The TTP maintains close ideological and operational ties to the Afghan Taliban, which seized control of Afghanistan in 2021 amid the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition forces. UNAMA’s mandate only allows it to monitor casualties and human rights abuses inside Afghanistan, so the report does not include any tally of civilian casualties from the fighting on Pakistani territory.

    Beyond the cross-border conflict, the UN report also shines a light on the deepening human rights crisis inside Afghanistan, particularly for women and girls under Taliban rule. The Taliban government has imposed sweeping, draconian restrictions on women’s public life: a ban on secondary and higher education for girls, prohibitions on women working in most sectors, a mandatory full hijab rule that requires women to cover their entire bodies, including their faces, and a requirement that all women be accompanied by a male chaperone when in public. These rules are enforced by the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, and enforcement is often arbitrary, with varying interpretations of what counts as compliance leading to sudden detentions and punishment.

    In June, a crackdown on alleged dress code violations in the western Afghan city of Herat led to the arrest of at least 30 women. When rare public protests broke out against the detentions, security forces opened fire on the crowd, killing at least one protester and wounding multiple others. UN investigators also found that vice and virtue officials have been visiting health clinics and retail shops across the country, ordering staff to turn away any woman who arrives without a male chaperone. The report also notes that new marriage regulations in Afghanistan implicitly sanction child marriage, by arranging for marriage contracts to be legally recognized for underage minors.

  • AI race loss fears behind Trump’s planned September hosting of Xi

    AI race loss fears behind Trump’s planned September hosting of Xi

    As the September 24 meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington approaches, discussions around mitigating risks posed by cutting-edge frontier artificial intelligence models and resolving long-running intellectual property disputes have emerged as the core items on the bilateral agenda.

    This planned first official U.S.-China AI dialogue under the Trump administration, first disclosed by Reuters on July 21, will be led on the American side by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Trump later confirmed the report on July 23, noting that the two leaders first broached the topic of AI collaboration and competition during his May visit to Beijing, where the pair met on May 14, 2026.

    Chinese state observers and media outlets point out that the Trump administration’s push for the summit stems from growing anxiety over China’s rapid progress in the global AI race. This concern intensified after China secured new AI development partnerships with 28 countries, mostly from the Global South, at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference held in Shanghai this past July. Within Chinese policy and tech circles, there is a widespread consensus that further U.S. export restrictions and regulatory curbs on China’s AI sector will only accelerate domestic efforts to achieve technological self-sufficiency and build an independent, sustainable AI ecosystem.

    The upcoming talks will center on regulating high-capacity AI models that carry far-reaching implications for global security and economics: these systems could rebalance global military power, enable devastating cyberattacks on critical national infrastructure, and cause widespread disruption to global labor markets. Trump has repeatedly framed AI as one of the most transformative technologies in human history, warning that the nation that leads the global AI race will hold unmatched strategic and economic advantage. “Whoever wins that race is probably going to win,” he stated in his confirmation of the September talks.

    Washington’s push for dialogue comes against a backdrop of dramatic breakthroughs by Chinese AI developers over the past 12 months. Leading domestic firms including DeepSeek, Zhipu AI and Moonshot AI have launched a wave of low-cost, high-performance frontier models that match or even outperform U.S. industry leaders OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude on key industry benchmarks.

    A key strategy that has allowed Chinese firms to deliver strong results at a fraction of the cost of Western competitors is knowledge distillation, a process where new models learn pattern recognition and reasoning by studying outputs from existing Western AI systems, rather than building foundational capabilities from scratch. This approach eliminates the need for massive purchases of expensive cutting-edge AI chips. Chinese developers have also paired distillation with two efficiency-focused architectural innovations: mixture of experts (MoE), which routes individual queries only to the most relevant subset of the model’s parameters rather than activating the entire system, and sparse attention, which lets models focus only on the most contextually relevant sections of input text. Both techniques drastically cut computing requirements without sacrificing output accuracy.

    In a July 26 commentary, the Global Times, a publication under China’s People’s Daily, noted that China’s open-source AI ecosystem has expanded dramatically in power and influence over the past two years, enough to trigger alarm among leading U.S. AI research labs. “Two years ago, names like Zhipu AI and Moonshot AI barely registered in the American tech press. Now their models are going toe-to-toe with those from Anthropic and OpenAI,” the commentary read. “The United States’ panic makes sense.”

    The publication added that Washington has adjusted its strategy in the AI contest with China: rather than seeking to rapidly displace China from the global AI market, the U.S. is now focused on extending its current lead for as long as possible. “The failure to eliminate China doesn’t mean the contest is over. On the contrary, as knocking China out becomes less feasible, the AI race between the US and China simply shifts to more specific and hard-fought fronts,” the commentary said. “As long as China stays true to a development path suited to its own realities, it will earn the standing it deserves in shaping AI’s norms, rules and standards of access.”

    That reference to “China’s realities” speaks to the long-running impact of U.S. export controls that have constrained China’s access to advanced chip manufacturing technology and high-end AI hardware, a topic rarely addressed directly by Chinese state media until recently. The U.S. first blocked Dutch chip equipment giant ASML from selling extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines to China in 2019, extended restrictions to cover cutting-edge deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography systems in October 2023, and banned exports of high-end Nvidia AI graphics processing units (GPUs) to China starting in October 2022.

    In response to these restrictions, Chinese firms initially adapted by sourcing second-hand mid-tier DUV machines for domestic AI chip production, routing imports of Nvidia chips through smuggling networks and shell companies, and training large models at overseas data centers in Southeast Asia. As controls tightened further, however, firms pivoted to the cost-effective distillation strategy that has now enabled their competitive breakthroughs.

    For its part, the Trump administration has raised formal concerns over intellectual property practices in China’s AI sector. Speaking on July 21, Treasury Secretary Bessent said the administration has gathered evidence indicating that leading Chinese AI models draw heavily on foundational development work from U.S. systems, emphasizing that Washington does not tolerate what it frames as intellectual property theft.

    Chinese analysts and policymakers have framed their country’s AI strategy as fundamentally different from the U.S. approach. Zhu Min, former deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, outlined China’s priorities during a June World Economic Forum panel, noting that Beijing’s top goal is to integrate AI across China’s massive industrial economy, with a particular focus on manufacturing applications.

    “China’s greatest advantage was never about building the largest model. It lies in having more use cases, more factories, more diverse industries and cost-conscious business owners,” Zhu explained. “The real winners will not be the AI model makers but those doing deployment, integration and process restructuring. The vendors installing factory systems, connecting data pipelines, retraining workers and collecting annual fees will pocket more than anyone.”

    Zhu emphasized that manufacturing offers the clearest return on AI investment in China: every small improvement in production yield directly boosts profits, every avoided unplanned outage cuts avoidable losses, and every shortened delivery cycle increases business turnover. By contrast, he noted, U.S. investment capital overwhelmingly focuses on backing a small number of top-tier foundational model developers, betting that a handful of firms will capture the bulk of the global AI market. Chinese investment, meanwhile, flows disproportionately to application layers and industrial integration, targeting returns from the vast network of domestic factories, niche use cases and commercial orders.

    Not all observers expect major breakthroughs from the September talks. Shandong-based political commentator Chen Xia argues that the U.S. is unlikely to make meaningful concessions on core issues China cares about, including easing export controls and expanding access to advanced technology. “The most likely outcome is a handful of toothless risk management clauses. On the issues China truly cares about, including access to technology and the easing of export controls, the US will not compromise on any of them,” Chen said. “The US only wants to walk away with maximum political gain at minimum cost.”

    Chen also frames Trump’s outreach for AI talks as a tactical political move ahead of U.S. midterm elections in early November, where Trump’s Republican Party is fighting to defend its narrow majorities in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. After the election, Chen argues, Washington’s underlying strategy of containing China’s AI development will become more explicit. He added that the U.S. is using the dialogue process to push for global AI governance rules that advance its own strategic interests and lock other nations into a disadvantaged position, while China seeks to secure a more equitable voice in shaping global AI rules.

  • Survivors rise to 48 with more missing after Vietnamese ship sinks in South China Sea

    Survivors rise to 48 with more missing after Vietnamese ship sinks in South China Sea

    A coordinated multinational search and rescue operation is underway in the highly contested Spratly Islands after a Vietnamese cargo vessel sank in rough weather over the weekend, with 48 crew members pulled from the water to date and 14 still unaccounted for, authorities confirmed Tuesday.

    The vessel, identified as the *Khoi Nguyen 18*, went down late Saturday near Fiery Cross Reef, a feature of the Spratly archipelago that China has reclaimed into a man-made island and military outpost. Vietnam refers to the broader waterbody where the incident occurred as the East Sea.

    Vietnamese officials announced Monday that three additional survivors had been rescued, bringing the total number of saved crew to 48 of the 62 people originally on board. No further operational details were released alongside that update. By Tuesday afternoon, search teams from Vietnam, China, and the Philippines remained actively scouring the area for the 14 missing crew members, rescue spokespeople confirmed.

    All 48 recovered survivors have already been transferred to Vietnamese jurisdiction, according to the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry. The agency added that survivors are receiving emergency medical attention before being transported back to the Vietnamese mainland. Vietnam launched rescue mobilization immediately after the sinking incident, the ministry noted, and has maintained close coordination with all international partners participating in the search.

    Philippine authorities confirmed their involvement Tuesday, saying they deployed a coastal patrol vessel and a search aircraft in response to an official assistance request from Hanoi. The Philippine Coast Guard emphasized that the operation is being conducted in full compliance with international maritime conventions and existing bilateral cooperation frameworks between Manila and Hanoi. Chinese rescue assets, including surface vessels and helicopters, also joined the search effort in the nearby area.

    Beyond the rescue operation, the incident spotlights the long-running territorial tensions surrounding the South China Sea, one of the world’s most geostrategically critical waterways. China claims sovereignty over nearly the entire South China Sea, a route that carries roughly $5 trillion in global maritime trade annually and is thought to hold massive untapped reserves of offshore oil and natural gas. Multiple other governments including Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan hold overlapping, competing claims to different parts of the waterway and its island features.

    This report was originally gathered by the Associated Press, whose climate and geopolitical coverage receives philanthropic funding from independent private foundations. The AP retains full editorial control over all its reporting, and a full list of supporters and editorial standards for philanthropic partnerships is available on the AP’s official website.

  • Hong Kong activist allowed to stay in UK after deportation threat

    Hong Kong activist allowed to stay in UK after deportation threat

    A weeks-long entry uncertainty for former Hong Kong pro-democracy opposition leader Wu Chi-wai has reached a resolution, with UK border authorities reversing an initial deportation order and approving a six-month stay for the 63-year-old to reunite with his family already based in the country.

    Wu, who stepped down as leader of the now-disbanded Democratic Party and was one of the most prominent figures in Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy movement, arrived at London Heathrow Airport last Wednesday. He told BBC Chinese that upon landing, border officials detained him for nearly 10 hours and initially blocked his entry. After initial processing, officers gave him only a one-week temporary leave to remain, ordering him to report back to the airport ahead of a scheduled deportation.

    In a turn of events on Monday, Wu confirmed that UK Border Force had reversed its initial decision, approving his entry under the standard visa-free terms for eligible travelers and granting the full six-month stay he was originally due to receive.

    Wu is one of the 47 high-profile pro-democracy figures collectively known as the “Hong Kong 47”, who were convicted in a widely debated national security trial following the 2019 protests. He was released from prison in June this year after serving more than five years behind bars on charges including subversion.

    The veteran opposition figure’s goal for the trip has long been family reunification: his wife and son relocated to the UK in 2022 and 2023 respectively, and Wu told reporters he had only been able to connect with them via monthly letters and phone calls since their departure. Ahead of his travel, Wu said he contacted staff at the British Consulate General in Hong Kong to confirm whether his entry would face any barriers related to his criminal record. He added that consular representatives assured him there would be no issues, and agreed to pre-notify UK Border Force of his criminal history and travel itinerary.

    Despite early media speculation that Wu planned to seek political asylum in the UK, he has repeatedly denied that claim. Initial border pushback came after officials questioned whether he qualified as a “genuine visitor” solely entering the country to see family, Wu said.

    Human rights advocacy group Hong Kong Watch, which had publicly called on UK authorities to approve Wu’s entry, welcomed the final decision in a Monday statement. “This is the right outcome, and it should never have taken this long,” said Megan Khoo, the group’s policy director. “He should never have faced the prospect of removal back to the city that jailed him.”

    Wu entered the UK using a British National (Overseas) passport, a special travel document issued to Hong Kong permanent residents before the city’s handover to Chinese rule on July 1, 1997. BNO passport holders are typically eligible for six months of visa-free entry to the UK under existing rules.

    In 2021, following the Chinese central government’s implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law and a sweeping crackdown on pro-democracy activism that saw dozens of opposition figures jailed or forced into exile, the UK government launched a special BNO visa pathway. The program allows eligible BNO holders to gain the right to live, work and study in the UK, with a clear path to British citizenship after a multi-year residency period.

    Official UK government data shows that as of recent reports, more than 230,000 Hong Kong BNO holders have been approved for the special visa, with nearly 170,000 already completing their relocation to the UK.

    When contacted by BBC Chinese for comment on Wu’s case, the UK Home Office, which oversees the Border Force, said it does not issue public comments on individual immigration cases. It added that “the UK government remains steadfast in its support for the Hong Kong community in the UK.”

    A spokesperson for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government also told the outlet that the administration has not received any request for consular assistance from Wu related to the trip.

  • Asian shares slip and South Korea’s Kospi index sinks 10% on heavy selling of chipmaking stocks

    Asian shares slip and South Korea’s Kospi index sinks 10% on heavy selling of chipmaking stocks

    A wave of widespread selling swept through Asian equity markets on Tuesday, driven by growing investor jitters over the future trajectory of the red-hot artificial intelligence boom, which sent South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index plummeting more than 10% by midday trading. The sharp downturn, heavily concentrated in top domestic chipmaking stocks that have led recent regional market gains on AI demand optimism, triggered an automatic temporary trading halt as the index slid to its lowest level since April.

    By midday session, the Kospi stood 10.5% lower at 6,051.19, with industry giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix leading the collapse. Samsung’s share price tumbled 12% from Monday’s close, while SK Hynix dropped an even steeper 12.7% as investors rushed to exit positions in AI-linked semiconductor assets.
    Market analysts point to shifting competitive dynamics in the global chip sector as a core catalyst for the sudden selloff. Fears are growing that rising competition from Chinese AI startups and domestic memory chipmakers could erode the outsized profit gains that have pushed share prices of global chip giants to record highs during the 2023-2024 AI frenzy. These concerns were amplified by a blockbuster trading debut for Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) on Monday, when its share price surged 466% on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s STAR Market, a tech-focused board for innovative domestic firms. CXMT raised at least $8.6 billion through its initial public offering, marking one of the largest global tech listings of the year and underscoring the rapidly growing scale of China’s homegrown semiconductor industry.
    The selling pressure spilled across most of the Asia-Pacific region on Tuesday. Japan’s Nikkei 225, which has also rallied sharply on AI optimism in recent months, dropped 4% to 62,350.18, while Taiwan’s Taiex — home to many of the world’s top contract chip manufacturers — slid 3.9%. Mainland China’s Shanghai Composite Index lost 1%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index edged a modest 0.1% lower to 25,178.21. Bucking the regional downward trend, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.6% to close at 8,944.40.
    Beyond equities, global oil prices extended their retreat, falling more than 1% amid easing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. For three consecutive days, neither the United States nor Iran has launched new military strikes, and regional mediators report incremental progress in pushing the two sides toward renewed negotiations. By Tuesday afternoon, Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil prices, fell 0.8% to $85.16 per barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude dropped 0.9% to $81.86 per barrel.
    U.S. equity futures showed little change in early Tuesday trading, pointing to a muted open on Wall Street following a mixed close in the previous session. On Monday, the S&P 500 gained less than 0.1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.2% to mark its fourth consecutive daily loss.

  • Rape and assault case against British YouTuber Yung Filly heading to jury in Australia

    Rape and assault case against British YouTuber Yung Filly heading to jury in Australia

    PERTH, Australia – After weeks of testimony and evidence presentation, legal teams delivered their final closing statements on Tuesday in the high-profile sexual assault trial of British YouTube creator and rapper Yung Filly, real name Andres Felipe Valencia Barrientos. The 30-year-old entertainer faces multiple serious charges stemming from an alleged incident at a Perth hotel in September 2022, following a live music performance in the city.

    Barrientos has entered a formal not guilty plea to all 10 counts brought against him: six counts of rape, three counts of assault causing bodily harm, and one count of choking. The complainant, who was 20 years old at the time of the alleged encounter, cannot be publicly identified under Australian law.

    Testifying in his own defense before the court on Monday, Barrientos pushed back against most of the accusations leveled against him. He told the District Court of Western Australia that he never slapped or choked the woman, but acknowledged he did bite her repeatedly during their interaction. The artist, who was born in Colombia and built his career in the United Kingdom, described the bites as what would commonly be called “love bites” in England, claiming the encounter was entirely consensual.

    “There was kissing in between; I would give her a love bite and then kiss her,” Barrientos told jurors from the witness stand. “I don’t recall any blood.” Prosecutors, however, presented photographic evidence to the court showing the accuser with prominent bruising and bite marks across her face and neck.

    Prosecutors have laid out their case arguing that while the woman initially agreed to sexual activity with Barrientos after they met at a nearby Perth nightclub post-performance, she later withdrew her consent after becoming fearful for her safety. Barrientos refuted this narrative, saying the accuser never repeatedly told him to stop or that he was causing her pain. He described the pair’s initial interaction at the nightclub as positive, telling the court “The vibes were good and she had a really good energy about her.”

    The case has also centered on the removal of the woman’s phone by Barrientos’ security guard before she entered the hotel room. Barrientos confirmed the action took place, but rejected the prosecution’s claim that the phone was seized to trap the woman, saying it was standard protocol for high-profile public figures to protect their personal privacy in such encounters.

    With more than 1.8 million YouTube followers, Barrientos was on an Australian national tour when the alleged incident occurred. He had already performed in Sydney and Melbourne ahead of the Perth stop, and was en route to the final tour show in Brisbane when he was arrested by police days after the encounter. Jurors are expected to retire to begin deliberating on a verdict on Wednesday once both the prosecution and defense teams wrap up their closing remarks.

  • US Senator Graham offered military support for Israeli war on Lebanon, new footage shows

    US Senator Graham offered military support for Israeli war on Lebanon, new footage shows

    As Washington prepares to lay longtime Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to rest just 24 hours ahead of his scheduled funeral, explosive unpublished footage from a three-year documentary project has laid bare the South Carolina lawmaker’s unfiltered private enthusiasm for the US-backed Israeli war on Iran, including a shocking unilateral offer of direct American military intervention to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for an expanded conflict in Lebanon.

    The never-before-seen clips were captured by British documentary filmmaker Alex Holder, who embedded with Graham between 2021 and 2024 to produce a film examining Graham’s close political ties to former President Donald Trump and Netanyahu. According to a Monday report from *The Wall Street Journal*, Holder was granted extraordinary access to Graham’s closed-door staff meetings on Capitol Hill, as well as private conversations between the senator and global leaders, including Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

    In one of the earliest clips, filmed five days after the US-Israeli invasion of Iran was launched, Graham can be seen watching Trump’s press briefing with his Capitol Hill staff, visibly elated as he reacts to the start of the conflict. “I almost cried. How long have we been pushing this?” Graham asked his team. He went on to praise Trump’s handling of the war, noting that many within the former president’s own administration had pushed back against launching military action. “Trump loves blowing stuff up. There were a lot of people inside that didn’t want to do it, so I’ve had my challenges. When he gets into the zone, he listens, asks good questions, no tweeting… He’s been a great wartime president.” Graham went on to compare the Trump-Netanyahu partnership to the iconic World War II alliance of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, calling the pair “the right two guys to confront this evil.”

    A second, even more controversial clip captures Graham during a speakerphone call with Netanyahu in his Senate office, where he extended a unilateral offer of direct US military participation in a potential Israeli offensive against Lebanon, amid heightened cross-border escalation between Israel and Hezbollah that accompanied the Iranian invasion. “I’m just so impressed, glad to be your friend,” Graham opened the call. “I’m going to meet with the president this weekend at Doral, Trump’s golf club in Florida. I’m going to try to get him to join with y’all in Lebanon, maybe fly some missions with you. Would you like that?” Netanyahu declined the overture, responding that Israel’s immediate military focus remained fixed on Iran, warning that a full-scale attack on Hezbollah would force the militant group into an all-out confrontation that would not serve Israeli interests. Graham accepted the rejection, framing the proposal as merely an exploratory idea and thanking Netanyahu for his input.

    A third clip, recorded as Graham rode in a vehicle, captures him on a call with former White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan laying out a sweeping timeline for the collapse of Iranian resistance. “To be honest with you, I think in three to four weeks we should have them in a spot where they start losing control of some cities,” Graham said of Iranian government control. “What we’re trying to do is just get a few cities to fall in the next month. Get the Arabs more openly involved by the end of the week, and just have almost irreversible momentum.” Five months after that call was recorded, that anticipated momentum has still failed to materialize, the Journal noted.

    The report also detailed behind-the-scenes friction between Graham and other senior Trump administration officials, outlined in unreleased conversations. Graham repeatedly criticized Trump’s top negotiators—Middle East peace envoy Steve Witkoff and the former president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner—arguing the pair were unfit to lead talks on Gaza and Iran. “I can’t do it with Jared, and I can’t do it with Witkoff. They’re just too conflicted. It’s gotta be Rubio,” Graham is quoted as saying, referencing Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

    Holder told the Journal that Graham enjoyed closer personal and political ties to Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman than any other sitting US official, and that he was extended royal-level treatment every time he traveled to Israel to meet with Netanyahu and leadership of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Graham privately complained repeatedly that most of Trump’s inner circle opposed the war on Iran and pushed for a negotiated settlement, creating constant obstacles to his long-held policy goals. “Very few people are out selling this war from the administration. I’m shocked,” he reportedly told the filmmaker. At the same time, he reveled in the heightened media attention he received after the war— which he had advocated for decades—began, telling the crew, “We could do a media show every two seconds.”

    Graham, 71, died suddenly earlier this month from an acute aortic dissection, just over 22 years after he was first elected to the US Senate in 2002. Over his two-decade Senate career, he established himself as one of the most vocal proponents of interventionist US foreign policy in Washington, drawing intense international criticism for his unwavering pro-war stance and staunch support for Israeli expansion. He was a consistent leading advocate for increased US military aid to Israel, including backing funding for Israeli illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israeli leaders have publicly hailed Graham as one of the country’s closest friends in Washington, with President Isaac Herzog emphasizing that his support for Israel never wavered.

    Throughout Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza, which has been labeled genocidal by multiple international human rights bodies and legal scholars, Graham repeatedly defended Israeli military actions and blocked congressional efforts to restrict US military aid to the country. His public comments repeatedly drew fierce condemnation from Palestinian rights groups, human rights organizations, and Muslim civil rights groups. In a July 2024 social media post that sparked widespread outrage, Graham described Gaza’s Palestinian population as “the most radicalized population on the planet who are taught to hate Jews from birth.” The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the comments as hateful, absurd, and a promotion of dangerous racist stereotypes against Palestinians. Graham also drew heavy criticism for suggesting Israel should consider using military tactics comparable to the US atomic bombings of Japan in World War II, a remark opponents decried as dangerously inflammatory.

    In a 2019 visit to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Graham declared Israeli security and prosperity to be a core US national interest, and publicly called on the US to formally recognize Israeli sovereignty over the territory, which it seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War. Earlier this year, he publicly blamed Saudi Arabia for refusing to join the US-Israeli coalition against Iran, and warned of unspecified “consequences” for any nation that declined to back military action against Tehran.

  • US looks to boost anti-China spending worldwide by hundreds of millions, documents say

    US looks to boost anti-China spending worldwide by hundreds of millions, documents say

    Months after rolling back a slate of international initiatives amid sweeping budget and personnel cuts, the Trump administration is moving to dramatically expand funding for programs targeted at countering China’s expanding global footprint, multiple U.S. government sources and official documents confirm.

    In a formal notification sent to Capitol Hill late last week, the White House outlined plans to allocate $175.8 million to replace aging, obsolete undersea telecommunications cables across the Caribbean and Central America. The explicit goal of the project, dubbed the “Countering CCP Control of Caribbean and Central America Undersea Cables project,” is to block Chinese firms from gaining a strategic foothold in the region’s digital infrastructure, according to the notification, a copy of which was obtained by the Associated Press on Monday.

    The Trump administration has repeatedly raised alarms over China’s growing economic and diplomatic activity in the Americas, pushing back against Chinese ownership of port facilities at both entrances of the Panama Canal, opposing infrastructure projects developed under China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and scrutinizing Chinese investment in the region’s telecommunications sector.

    A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on discussing the policy publicly, argued that China’s infrastructure and investment offerings across the Western Hemisphere pose tangible risks to U.S. national security and long-term economic prosperity. The official noted that while Chinese projects often appear more affordable upfront, they frequently end up costing host nations far more over time due to unanticipated cost overruns, hidden long-term maintenance fees, and substandard construction and performance.

    The undersea cable initiative is just the first visible component of a far broader administration push to revive counter-influence programs that were cut last year. Internal State Department planning documents reviewed by AP show the White House is considering allocating an additional $340 million to fund more than 50 separate counter-China projects across the Western Hemisphere, Africa, and Asia, bringing total new proposed spending to hundreds of millions of dollars.

    The renewed push comes even as the Trump administration prepares for a high-profile meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York this coming September, with top diplomats already holding pre-summit talks. Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a regional security conference in the Philippines to lay groundwork for the leaders’ meeting. President Trump has long taken an inconsistent approach to his relationship with Xi, vacillating between public criticism and expressions of amity even as Beijing advances global priorities that run counter to the Trump administration’s strategic goals.

    Last year, the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) implemented deep cuts to federal government spending and staffing that dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and eliminated hundreds of diplomatic positions worldwide. Those cuts also put on hold dozens of previously approved projects, many of which were explicitly designed to counter Chinese influence across the globe. The new proposal would resurrect many of these paused initiatives.

    A senior U.S. official, granted anonymity to discuss internal administration planning, confirmed the White House’s intent to boost funding for counter-China programs but declined to share specific details, noting that most projects remain in the proposal and discussion phase.

    Beyond the Caribbean and Central American undersea cable project, the proposed new spending covers a wide range of activities, documents show. Funding is set to benefit projects in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Haiti, though the U.S. will not work directly with the Nicaraguan government due to strained bilateral relations.

    Other proposed initiatives include building new cyber security operations centers in Argentina and Belize to monitor what the U.S. frames as Chinese threats to regional critical infrastructure and digital networks. Additional programs would work to protect Ecuador, Jamaica, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay from alleged Chinese attempts to infiltrate national port operations, gain unauthorized access to critical mineral reserves, and conduct unregulated offshore fishing.

    The planning documents also outline more globally focused efforts, including developing specialized secure communications and intelligence collection technology to counter Chinese influence over the selection of a successor to the Dalai Lama. Other proposed projects aim to reduce international support for China’s space program and block Chinese technology firms from exporting surveillance and censorship tools to governments worldwide. Details of most of these initiatives remain undisclosed in the document.

    The Trump administration has prioritized countering Chinese influence in the Western Hemisphere alongside its other foreign policy priorities, which currently include ongoing conflict with Iran and diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions in Gaza and Lebanon. In recent months, the administration has captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, ramped up pressure on Cuba’s socialist government, and imposed sweeping sanctions on the Nicaraguan government.

    China’s embassy in Washington, D.C. has not yet issued a response to requests for comment on the proposed new funding initiative. The full impact of the proposed programs, if approved, will not be clear for many months or even years, as projects are rolled out and implemented across multiple regions.

  • Israeli election campaign billboards in Cyprus spark debate

    Israeli election campaign billboards in Cyprus spark debate

    A controversial campaign billboard for Israeli opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot placed near Larnaca Airport in Cyprus has ignited widespread outrage, stirring debates over foreign political influence and national sovereignty on the Mediterranean island. The out-of-home ad, printed entirely in Hebrew for the upcoming Israeli national elections, greets passengers exiting the airport with the message: “Israelis, enjoy! You deserve it!” alongside a portrait of Eisenkot. A second billboard, positioned for travelers heading to departures, reads: “Have fun? Now come back and win!”

    The incident was first brought to public attention by Cypriot Member of the European Parliament Fidias Panayiotou, who shared photos of the billboards on social media on July 26, 2026. “This photo was not taken in Israel, but in my country, Cyprus,” Panayiotou wrote in his post. “This is simply not right. We must defend Cyprus’s sovereignty.” In a follow-up TikTok video, Panayiotou described the move as “particularly concerning” and “unacceptable,” and has proposed new legislation that would ban non-European Union countries from running domestic election campaign advertisements on Cypriot soil.

    The controversy comes amid shifting demographic and economic trends that have already fueled local unease. Cyprus has long been a top vacation spot for Israeli travelers, who made up the island’s second-largest group of international visitors in 2025. Following Israel’s military campaigns in Gaza, Iran and Lebanon, the island has recorded a sharp rise in both Israeli tourism and permanent relocation, with a growing number of Israelis purchasing residential and commercial property across coastal regions including Limassol, Paphos and Larnaca. The spread of Hebrew-language real estate advertising across public spaces has already drawn quiet concern from local communities, and the political campaign billboard has pushed those anxieties into the public mainstream.

    Melanie Steliou, a Cypriot actress and political activist, framed the debate as a question of reciprocal norms. “At a time when concerns are growing over the large-scale purchase of land and property by Israelis in Limassol, Paphos and Larnaca, this image raises legitimate questions about the limits of foreign economic and political influence in the public space of the Republic of Cyprus,” she wrote. “Would anyone expect to see a campaign billboard for a Cypriot or Greek politician on a motorway in the UK, Germany, Spain or Ireland?”

    Critics of the billboards are not limited to Cypriot communities. The ad has also drawn pushback from Israeli social media users, many of whom have criticized Eisenkot for bringing Israeli domestic political campaigning onto foreign territory. One Hebrew-language post commented: “This sign is… only fueling the conspiracy that Israel is ‘conquering’ Cyprus. Take down the sign.”

    In a statement on the incident, Niche Advertising, the Cypriot company that owns and leases the billboard space, clarified that it does not endorse Eisenkot or his political party, noting that the booking was processed as a standard commercial transaction.

    For context, Eisenkot is a former chief of the Israeli Defense Forces and previously served as a cabinet minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government between 2023 and 2024. He is best known as the architect of the widely condemned Dahieh Doctrine, a military strategy that advocates for the use of disproportionate force against civilian populations and infrastructure in areas where armed groups are believed to operate. Eisenkot launched his campaign for prime minister in June 2026 as the leader of the new Yashar (Straight Ahead) party, running on a platform that criticizes the Netanyahu government’s handling of security after the October 7 2023 Hamas attacks, promises a formal public inquiry into the attacks, and calls for universal mandatory military service that would end longstanding exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and extend service requirements to Israeli Palestinian citizens.

    Recent polling has positioned Eisenkot as the frontrunner in the upcoming October elections: a Channel 12 survey found that 43 percent of Israeli voters view him as their preferred prime minister, compared to just 34 percent supporting incumbent Netanyahu. Forecasts project Yashar will take 23 seats in the 120-member Knesset, while Netanyahu’s Likud party is projected to win 22 seats. Last week, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the Netanyahu administration is exploring measures to restrict voting access for Israeli citizens residing abroad, over fears that this demographic will overwhelmingly back opposition parties. With the election race tightening, courting Israeli voters traveling or living abroad has become a key strategic battleground for both major factions.

    Cyprus and Israel have deepened bilateral political, security and economic ties in recent years. The two nations signed a trilateral military cooperation agreement with Greece earlier in 2026, and Cyprus grants the Israeli military access to its airspace for training exercises. The growing Israeli economic presence on the island, particularly in the real estate sector, has become an increasingly divisive issue among Cypriot voters in recent months.

    As of publication, Middle East Eye had not received a response to requests for comment from Eisenkot’s campaign or the Cypriot High Commission in London.