Global Pulse

标签： Asia

亚洲

  • China braces for a powerful typhoon after a week of deadly storms

    China braces for a powerful typhoon after a week of deadly storms

    As East Asia braced for a new round of severe weather on Friday, powerful Typhoon Bavi was tracking steadily toward China’s eastern coastline, arriving on the heels of a catastrophic week that has already claimed dozens of lives across multiple regions of the country.

    The storm, which currently boasts maximum sustained winds of 162 kilometers per hour (101 miles per hour), was initially projected to pass north of Taiwan, bringing intense, prolonged rainfall to the island’s 23 million residents starting Friday evening and continuing through Saturday. In preparation for the incoming bad weather, Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, suspended all classes for Friday, while hundreds of fishing vessels have been secured and berthed closely together in northern Taiwanese ports. According to Taiwan’s Central News Agency, dozens of commercial flights bound for Japan, Hong Kong and other regional destinations have been canceled through Saturday, though a small number of services remain operational as of Friday.

    Following Bavi’s current northwest trajectory, the storm will first pass over remote Japanese islands before skirting the northern edge of Taiwan on Saturday. Forecasters predict the typhoon will make landfall Saturday night south of Shanghai, near the provincial boundary between Fujian and Zhejiang, two populous eastern Chinese provinces.

    Local officials have already enacted sweeping emergency preparedness measures to mitigate potential damage. Official state news outlet Xinhua News Agency reported that more than 17,000 residents have already been evacuated from high-risk coastal and low-lying areas in Zhejiang, while 170,000 professional rescue workers have been placed on high standby to respond to emergencies. In Fujian, authorities have suspended multiple inter-island and cross-strait ferry routes due to dangerous wind speeds and choppy seas, and issued an urgent order for all ocean-going fishing vessels to return to sheltered ports before the storm arrives.

    Bavi has weakened significantly since earlier this week, when it raged as a category 5 supertyphoon that brought destructive, life-threatening winds to Saipan and other U.S. Pacific territories.

    The approaching storm marks the third major weather-related disaster to hit China in seven days, after two separate deadly events that have already claimed 50 lives. On Thursday, southern Chinese authorities confirmed 39 people had been killed in widespread flooding triggered by Tropical Storm Maysak, which dumped record-breaking rainfall across large swathes of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region over several days. The torrential rainfall overwhelmed local water infrastructure, causing multiple reservoir breaches and the dramatic partial collapse of a dam in Hengzhou. The failure sent fast-moving muddy floodwater surging through surrounding communities, trapping hundreds of residents on the second floors and higher levels of buildings for days, many cut off from electricity, before search and rescue teams could reach them.

    A further 11 people lost their lives in central China’s Hubei province after severe thunderstorms and tornadoes swept through the region on Monday night, leaving widespread destruction in their wake. In a separate, non-storm-related tragedy, a sudden landslide killed 21 forestry workers working in the mountainous terrain of northwestern China’s Gansu province on Tuesday.

  • Nvidia chips, soybean orders signal thaw before Xi-Trump summit

    Nvidia chips, soybean orders signal thaw before Xi-Trump summit

    As anticipation builds for a planned meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the upcoming United Nations General Assembly in New York, Beijing has rolled out a series of confidence-building overtures to Washington, spanning technology, agriculture and diplomatic goodwill.

    The most high-profile of these steps is Beijing’s preliminary approval for Chinese technology giants including Alibaba and ByteDance to import Nvidia’s H200 artificial intelligence processors, according to reporting from technology outlet The Information. While initial discussions have floated a potential ceiling of 200,000 units, industry insiders note the final approved quota is likely to land below that figure — less than half of the total volume domestic Chinese firms requested earlier this year. Chinese regulators have also mandated that all imported H200 chips must be reserved exclusively for training cutting-edge AI models, with routine inference operations required to rely on domestically manufactured alternatives.

    Though the H200 is two generations behind Nvidia’s current top-tier flagship chips, industry analysts point out it still outperforms existing Chinese-designed AI processors. A limited allocation of H200 imports will not fully close China’s gap in high-end computing capacity, but it will ease near-term supply pressures and accelerate the development of domestic large language models, a columnist for Chinese technology news site PCPop.com explained.

    The path to H200 imports has been months in the making. Trump first approved H200 exports to China last December, and Reuters reported as early as January that ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent had already secured preliminary clearance to purchase a combined 400,000 units. However, no chips were shipped in the first half of 2026, after Beijing encouraged domestic firms to prioritize homegrown semiconductor development, creating widespread uncertainty in the market. That uncertainty prompted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to join Trump on Air Force One for a diplomatic visit to China in mid-May to push for progress on the issue.

    Many global affairs observers frame Beijing’s latest greenlight for partial H200 imports as a conciliatory gesture amid escalating U.S. chip export restrictions. In late May, the U.S. Commerce Department moved to close a longstanding loophole that allowed Chinese firms to acquire advanced Nvidia chips through overseas subsidiaries based in Singapore and Malaysia. The new rules require a government license for any export of advanced AI processors to entities ultimately controlled by Chinese headquarters, a restriction that also applies to rival chipmaker AMD.

    Beyond the semiconductor space, Beijing has made two additional notable goodwill moves to warm bilateral ties ahead of the planned leadership meeting. At Trump’s request, China released detained Chinese pastor Kim Myeongil, who led the country’s largest evangelical underground church before his arrest in October 2024, and allowed him to travel to the United States, a U.S. official confirmed.

    In agriculture, Chinese state-owned grain trader CofCO has booked at least six cargoes of U.S. soybeans for shipment between September and October 2026, Bloomberg reported. U.S. Department of Agriculture data later showed Beijing purchased 472,000 metric tons of U.S. soybeans in a single daily transaction — the largest single-day volume of soybean sales to China since November 2025. These purchases align with pledges Xi made during a May summit with Trump in Beijing, where the two leaders agreed to expanded U.S. agricultural imports to China, alongside tighter fentanyl enforcement, increased Chinese rare earth exports to the U.S., and a Chinese commitment to purchase 200 Boeing commercial aircraft.

    Discussions to expand low-risk trade cooperation are also advancing. The two countries announced in late June that they would establish a new bilateral trade council focused on agricultural cooperation, with plans to roll out reciprocal tariff cuts for roughly $30 billion worth of non-sensitive goods on both sides. Under the proposed framework, China will increase imports of U.S. beef, fruit and grain, while the U.S. will ease import restrictions on Chinese dairy products, ornamental potted plants, aquaculture goods and poultry. A columnist for China’s Commerce Ministry-run International Business Daily noted that while $30 billion is a small share of overall bilateral trade, starting with agricultural goods creates a pragmatic pathway to expand tariff liberalization in future negotiations. The U.S. has already extended a one-year truce in the bilateral tariff war that keeps U.S. levies on Chinese goods at roughly 30% through November 10, 2026.

    Trump announced Monday that the meeting with Xi is on track to take place around September 24, coinciding with the UN General Assembly session in New York. Trump tied the planned visit to his push for a new White House ballroom, citing the expected high-level visit as a key justification for the construction project. Trump is scheduled to address the General Assembly on September 22, and typically remains in New York for several days to hold bilateral meetings with other global leaders; Xi has only attended the UN General Assembly once since taking office in 2012.

    Not all outstanding bilateral issues have been resolved ahead of the meeting: Trump has raised the case of Jimmy Lai, the jailed Hong Kong media mogul, but Beijing has not agreed to release him. Tensions also remain over the proposed $14 billion U.S. arms sale to Taiwan, which includes High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, howitzers, Javelin anti-tank missiles, loitering munitions and Army Tactical Missile Systems.

    During a late June call between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Wang explicitly warned that the Taiwan issue is a core red line for Sino-U.S. relations, urging Washington to approach the topic with extreme caution. “Both sides should always uphold the spirit of equality, respect and mutual benefit, and translate the consensus reached by the two heads of state into concrete policies,” Wang stated during the call. “To do so, both sides need to expand the cooperation list and create a more positive agenda, while narrowing the list of problems and managing various risks. A slight move on the Taiwan issue could affect the whole situation.”

    U.S. officials have offered conflicting updates on the arms sale: acting U.S. Navy Secretary Hung Cao said in late May that the sale was being paused to reallocate weapons to the ongoing conflict with Iran, but Rubio clarified during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in early June that the sale has not been halted, remains under review, and that U.S. policy toward Taiwan remains unchanged.

  • Hong Kong eateries welcome dogs as city relaxes ban

    Hong Kong eateries welcome dogs as city relaxes ban

    After nearly 30 years of strict restrictions, Hong Kong has rolled out a landmark policy change that opens the doors of hundreds of local eateries to domestic dogs, marking the city’s most visible step yet toward building a more inclusive, animal-friendly community.

    Since 1994, Hong Kong’s food safety regulations only permitted service animals such as guide dogs and working dogs on official duty inside restaurant dining areas. That rule officially changed on Thursday, when the first phase of the relaxed policy went into effect, granting access to dogs at more than 900 government-approved food establishments across the city. This update is part of a broader series of reforms to accommodate pet owners across the region: in recent years, Hong Kong has already allowed pets on select ferry routes and rural metro lines, and public hospitals now permit supervised pet visits for palliative care patients to support patient well-being.

    Official government data underscores the growing need for pet-inclusive policies: more than 240,000 households across Hong Kong, roughly 9% of all private households in the city, own more than 400,000 cats and dogs combined, making pet-friendly public spaces an increasingly urgent public demand.

    For local business owners and pet parents, the change has been widely welcomed. Kelvin Chan, owner of Wan Land Cafe, was quick to display a new dog-friendly welcome poster at his establishment. Before the rule change, Chan could only allow dogs in his cafe’s outdoor seating area, a restriction that proved particularly uncomfortable for four-legged visitors during Hong Kong’s hot, humid summer months. Though Chan does not expect the policy to drive a dramatic surge in customer numbers, as a dog owner himself, he frames the change as a critical step toward shifting cultural attitudes. He acknowledges that the adjustment may feel challenging for diners unaccustomed to sharing dining spaces with dogs, but he hopes that responsible behavior from pet owners will gradually help non-pet owners embrace the shift. “Inclusivity for pets is a progressive move, and it could become a normal part of our daily lives,” Chan explained.

    Franco Li, a regular customer at Wan Land Cafe who owns a Shiba Inu named Piku, says the new rule has already transformed his routine. Now, Piku can join Li at the dining table and socialize with other dog companions during outings. “This is such a great step forward for civilization,” Li said while holding Piku in his arms.

    To help dogs adapt to their new dining environment, many owners have turned to specialized training ahead of the policy change. Heyton Lee, a professional dog trainer with 19 years of experience, saw a sharp increase in demand for his dog dining etiquette workshops in the weeks leading up to the policy launch. His two-hour training programs simulate full restaurant settings, walking owners through how to help their dogs stay calm in busy social spaces, avoid overexcitement when encountering other dogs, and get comfortable with passersby. Lee also teaches hand signals to reinforce good behavior, noting that dogs that spend most of their time at home often become nervous or defensive in public when unfamiliar people approach. The core goal of the training, he says, is to help dogs integrate smoothly into human public spaces.

    The new policy comes with clear rules to uphold food safety and public comfort: all dogs must be kept on a leash no longer than 1.5 meters (5 feet), held by an adult or secured to a fixed fixture. Dogs are not permitted on dining tables, and they cannot eat directly from reusable human tableware. Dogs classified as fighting breeds under local government guidelines are banned from participating restaurants entirely, and eateries are prohibited from cooking food for dogs, though they are allowed to offer pre-packaged pet treats and meals.

    Many local restaurants have invested in upgrades to welcome their new furry guests, and some business owners are optimistic the change will lift their bottom line. Old Fung Teahouse, a popular dim sum restaurant, spent more than 10,000 Hong Kong dollars (approximately $1,276 USD) on preparations: the venue installed new air purifiers, added simple partitions to create a separate dog-friendly dining zone, and offers complimentary access to pet strollers and pet-safe cleaning supplies for owners. The restaurant’s operators estimate that opening to dogs could boost their monthly revenue by as much as 15%. The proactive approach has already won praise from visitors, including Ma Ke, a tourist from mainland China. “By separating an area for dogs and their owners, this restaurant is managing the situation well, because it makes it easier for customers who are not that used to being with dogs to accept the situation,” Ma noted.

  • Australia’s domestic Twenty20 cricket league to open its season in Chennai, India

    Australia’s domestic Twenty20 cricket league to open its season in Chennai, India

    In a landmark move that redefines the scope of Australian domestic cricket, the Big Bash League (BBL), Australia’s premier Twenty20 competition, will kick off its upcoming season with an unprecedented opening match hosted on Indian soil. The December 12 clash between the Melbourne Renegades and Perth Scorchers, set to take place at Chennai’s iconic MA Chidambaram Stadium — a venue with a 38,000-spectator capacity — was officially confirmed Friday during a special ceremony held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

    The announcement, co-flagged by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ends weeks of swirling industry speculation about the cross-border fixture. It marks the first time in BBL history that a regular season match will be contested outside of Australia, a strategic shift aimed at expanding the league’s global footprint and tapping into one of the world’s largest cricket fanbases.

    Organizers have arranged the scheduling to align with ongoing international cricket action: the evening start time of the match in Australia translates to an afternoon kickoff in India, and the fixture will get underway immediately after the conclusion of play on the fourth day of the Test match between Australia and New Zealand in Perth, Western Australia. BBL officials have expressed confidence that the historic fixture will draw a full house at the Chennai venue, capitalizing on India’s enduring passion for elite short-format cricket.

  • Erdogan gifts revolvers to Nato leaders, prompting customs and security questions

    Erdogan gifts revolvers to Nato leaders, prompting customs and security questions

    Following a recent NATO summit held in the Turkish capital Ankara, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan surprised alliance leaders with an unconventional, attention-grabbing souvenir: personalized, domestically produced Gumuşay .357 Magnum revolvers complete with live ammunition, Reuters has confirmed. The unexpected gesture was crafted as a deliberate showcase of Turkey’s rapidly expanding domestic defense manufacturing sector, which has become a central pillar of the country’s modern foreign policy and national export strategy.

    Photos released by the office of Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda offer a clear view of the gift: each revolver is housed in a polished wooden box emblazoned with both the Turkish national flag and the official NATO logo. A placard inside the packaging explicitly labels the Gumuşay as “the first revolver-type handgun produced in our country,” highlighting Turkey’s milestone in domestic small arms production. A spokesperson for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez confirmed all attending leaders received the same model, engraved with their individual names to add a personal touch.

    In the days following the summit, leaders and their administrations across the alliance have navigated a patchwork of national customs regulations, gun laws, and security protocols to manage the unusual gifts, with outcomes varying widely by country. Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever only discovered the revolver and its ammunition in his personal luggage after returning to Brussels, and immediately surrendered the item to police at Brussels Airport for secure storage. An aide to Polish President Karol Nawrocki told local outlet Radio RMF FM that the Polish gift remains held at Warsaw Airport pending customs clearance, and will ultimately be placed in secure storage, with the aide noting “certainly no one will be shooting it.”

    The revolvers gifted to the prime ministers of the Netherlands and Sweden remain at their respective countries’ embassies in Ankara, as officials work through import requirements. The Dutch revolver is scheduled to be permanently deactivated, while the Swedish unit awaits completion of import paperwork. A Downing Street source confirmed that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer received his revolver alongside a cleaning kit and 500 rounds of ammunition; additional reports indicate Starmer was unable to bring the firearm into the United Kingdom due to strict national gun regulations, and has left the weapon in Ankara to be decommissioned.

    In contrast, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has already had her personalized revolver transferred to secure storage at Palazzo Chigi, the official headquarters of the Italian government, where it will join other historical state gifts received by past and sitting leaders. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen plans to donate her revolver to a military museum, while Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis intends to gift his to Athens’ national war museum for public display.

    The unusual gift has sparked widespread discussion online, with some social media users reading political symbolism into Erdogan’s choice of gift, particularly in light of the strict gun control regulations enforced by many European Union member states. One prominent social media post framed the gesture as a deliberate playful provocation of EU governments over their anti-gun policies. For the most part, however, official spokespeople across allied countries have framed the situation as a straightforward matter of navigating customs procedures and diplomatic protocol, rather than a deliberate provocation.

    Beyond the social media chatter, the gift draws renewed attention to Turkey’s deliberate push to position its defense industry as a leading global exporter. Data from the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey cited by Reuters places Turkey as the world’s third-largest exporter of small arms between 2019 and 2024, trailing only the United States and Italy, with total small arms exports reaching roughly $3 billion over that five-year period. In recent years, Turkey’s defense sector has recorded dramatic growth, with Turkish drones, armored vehicles, and small arms gaining significant international visibility and market share across global defense markets.

  • Iran fast-tracks 11 million barrels of oil as Trump threatens blockade

    Iran fast-tracks 11 million barrels of oil as Trump threatens blockade

    Escalating military tensions between the United States and Iran have triggered a rushed evacuation of Iranian crude oil exports, with Tehran deploying six tankers carrying a combined 11 million barrels of crude over a 24-hour window to avoid a potential new blockade of its key ports, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

    According to Bloomberg’s real-time vessel tracking data, five of the six departing tankers have already moved into open water: four have signaled their positions in the Gulf of Oman, while a fifth is currently transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical chokepoint for global oil trade.

    The urgent dispatch of the vessels came immediately after a second consecutive day of U.S. military strikes targeting Iranian territory. Iranian Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour confirmed that the airstrikes hit civilian infrastructure including railway bridges, leaving 14 people dead, 78 injured, and 47 people still undergoing hospital treatment as of Thursday.

    The resumption of large-scale offensive strikes has put the recently signed Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which was meant to de-escalate tensions around the strategic waterway, at severe risk of collapsing. Already, commercial maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has slowed to a cautious standstill as shipping companies reroute vessels to avoid the conflict zone.

    The escalating conflict has already sent shockwaves through global energy markets. Oil prices have jumped nearly 9% this week, trading close to $79 per barrel by Thursday trading sessions. The 11 million barrels of crude being rushed out of Iran is roughly equivalent to the volume of Iran’s total pre-conflict weekly crude exports, though market analysts note it remains unclear if pre-negotiated buyers are lined up to take delivery of the cargoes.

    Tensions flared earlier this week after the Trump administration revoked a 60-day sanctions waiver that had temporarily allowed unrestricted Iranian oil sales. The waiver was canceled after Iran launched attacks on commercial vessels off the coasts of Qatar and Saudi Arabia earlier this week, which halted tens of millions of barrels of Iranian crude already in transit.

    On Thursday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy issued a stark warning in response to the U.S. airstrikes and attempts to redirect commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC statement said U.S. actions were disrupting the temporary reopening of the waterway, and any further American intervention would be met with a “crushing response.”

    In a significant shift from years of tension centered on Iran’s nuclear program, the Strait of Hormuz has now emerged as the primary flashpoint for conflict between Washington and Tehran.

    The now-fragile Islamabad MoU was reached in June, after Iran’s earlier blockade of the strait inflicted widespread economic damage that pushed the Trump administration to agree to a 60-day ceasefire extension. Speaking on the sidelines of the G7 summit ahead of the signing, Trump noted he “didn’t want to see an economic catastrophe,” and the White House framed the agreement as a first step toward permanent peace through follow-up negotiations.

    Under the terms of the MoU, the Strait of Hormuz would remain open and toll-free for 60 days, with long-term governance of the waterway to be negotiated later. The framework left open the possibility of future transit fees and granted Iran more control over the strategic waterway than it had held in decades. A formal Iranian briefing confirmed that Tehran planned to coordinate future waterway management with Oman and other Persian Gulf littoral states in line with international law.

    The U.S. oil sales waiver, which was tied to progress in ceasefire talks and set to expire on August 21, was the biggest sticking point in negotiations between the two sides. Its revocation earlier this week followed Iran’s attacks on commercial vessels, ending the temporary de-escalation.

    Trump had foreshadowed the current collapse of the agreement back in June, when he downplayed the durability of the MoU in public remarks. “It’s a memorandum of understanding. And if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs on their head,” Trump said at the time. “If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, OK?”

  • ‘We must now do more’: Andy Burnham apologises for Labour’s response to Gaza

    ‘We must now do more’: Andy Burnham apologises for Labour’s response to Gaza

    As Andy Burnham prepares to take office as the United Kingdom’s next prime minister, he has broken with past Labour Party positioning to issue a public apology for his party’s earlier response to the ongoing crisis in Gaza, signaling a potential shift in Britain’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    In a frank public statement, Burnham acknowledged widespread public frustration with Labour’s early stance after Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza. “I know many people feel that at the start of Israel’s military action in Gaza, my party didn’t get it right, and I am sorry about that. The response has too often not been good enough. We need to do better,” he said.

    Burnham described the ongoing “unbearable suffering” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza as a “scar on our collective conscience,” and hit out at Israel’s steady expansion of occupied territory in the blockaded enclave. “We’ve got to do more to put pressure on the Israeli government,” he added.

    The prospective prime minister did recognize incremental progress made under the current Keir Starmer-led administration, highlighting the UK’s formal recognition of Palestinian statehood, sanctions targeting far-right Israeli cabinet ministers, and the newly implemented ban on the export of British-made arms and ammunition to Israel. “We have taken some important steps,” he said. “But let’s be honest, the UK was too slow to call for a ceasefire. And we must now do more to strengthen our approach.”

    Burnham pointed to ongoing violations of existing ceasefire agreements by Israel, as well as a sharp escalation in violent attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. He argued that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government is deliberately working to eliminate any possibility of a negotiated two-state solution to the conflict.

    To back up his commitment to a harder line, Burnham pledged that a government led by him would explore additional punitive measures, including expanded sanctions against violent Israeli settlers and a full ban on trade with Israeli settlements built illegally on occupied Palestinian land.

    Burnham’s comments have drawn intense global scrutiny, as political observers widely expect him to assume the role of UK prime Minister when a new leadership is confirmed next month. A well-known former mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham only returned to the House of Commons last month, winning the Makerfield constituency by-election following a sudden vacancy. MPs are scheduled to convene later this month to formalize the nomination of the next party leader and prime minister.

    In a bid to balance his stance, Burnham explicitly condemned the October 7, 2023 attack led by Hamas against southern Israel, and also joined in condemning a recent rise in antisemitic attacks across the UK.

    While Burnham’s sharp criticism of Israeli policy marks a clear shift away from the more cautious language used by Starmer’s government, political analysts note it is unlikely to satisfy the many pro-Palestinian activists and voters in the UK who have long criticized Britain’s close, decades-long ties to Israel.

    Notably, Burnham stopped short of endorsing the global consensus that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, a designation already recognized by the United Nations, dozens of leading human rights organizations and hundreds of international human rights experts. More than 73,000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza since the start of Israel’s military campaign. On the question of genocide, Burnham only said that mounting evidence points to potential war crimes having been committed, adding that determinations on legal labels should be left to international judicial bodies rather than elected politicians.

    That position echoes longstanding UK policy, even as the International Criminal Court (ICC) went forward in November 2024 to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, charging both with crimes against humanity committed against the population of Gaza. A 2025 investigation by Middle East Eye uncovered that former British Foreign Secretary David Cameron privately threatened ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan in April 2024, promising to cut British funding and withdraw the UK from the court entirely if it moved forward with the arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.

    This article was originally published by Middle East Eye, which provides independent, in-depth coverage of the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding regions.

  • Ireland makes 9 changes to its starting side for Nations Championship match against Japan

    Ireland makes 9 changes to its starting side for Nations Championship match against Japan

    Leading into a highly anticipated Nations Championship test match this Saturday in Newcastle, Australia, two national rugby sides have finalized their match-day rosters, with Ireland rolling out a heavily reshuffled starting lineup and Japan retaining a standout young playmaker who turned heads in his international debut last week.

    Only six players who featured in Ireland’s narrow 33-31 win over the Wallabies in Sydney last Saturday will retain their starting spots for this week’s neutral-venue clash, played roughly an hour’s drive north of Sydney. The holdovers are backs Stuart McCloskey, Jamie Osborne and Jimmy O’Brien, plus forwards Tom O’Toole, James Ryan and Jack Conan. Irish head coach Andy Farrell announced a total of nine changes to the starting 15, headlined by lock Tadhg Beirne’s first appointment as captain of the senior national side.

    The match will also mark a string of firsts for emerging Irish talent: back-rower Sean Jansen is set to earn his first senior start at the number 8 position, while three other young players — Billy Bohan, Sam Illo and Bryn Ward — will all join the match-day squad for the first time, with Bohan and Illo in line to make their international debuts as replacement forwards. Farrell expressed clear enthusiasm for the opportunity to blood new talent against Japan, noting that even one debut is a special milestone, and four first-time call-ups makes this encounter all the more meaningful.

    For the Japanese side, head coach Eddie Jones has opted to keep faith in 21-year-old university flyhalf Ryunosuke Ito, who made his maiden international appearance last week and delivered an impressive performance in Japan’s 27-10 victory over Italy in Tokyo. Jones, who returns to the sideline this week after serving a four-match suspension, will keep Ito in the starting lineup alongside starting halfback partner Naoto Saito. Speaking about the young playmaker, Jones emphasized that Ito will inevitably face growing pains at the international level, but the entire squad is prepared to support his development, and the coaching staff is encouraging him to play his natural game. Japan made just one adjustment to its starting roster from last week’s win, with Taira Main stepping in to replace Kippei Ishida on the left wing.

    The full confirmed rosters for both sides are as follows:
    Ireland starting XV: Jamie Osborne; Jimmy O’Brien, Robbie Henshaw, Stuart McCloskey, Jacob Stockdale; Ciarán Frawley, Craig Casey; Tom O’Toole, Rónan Kelleher, Thomas Clarkson, Tadhg Beirne (captain), James Ryan; Jack Conan, Nick Timoney, Sean Jansen. Irish reserves: Tom Stewart, Billy Bohan, Sam Illo, Cormac Izuchukwu, Bryn Ward, Nathan Doak, Harry Byrne, Bundee Aki.
    Japan starting XV: Takuro Matsunaga; Kazuma Ueda, Dylan Riley, Yuya Hirose, Taira Main; Ryunosuke Ito, Naoto Saito; Takato Okabe, Mamoru Harada, Shuhei Takeuchi, Harry Hockings, Warner Dearns (captain), Ben Gunter, Kanji Shimokawa, Jack Cornelsen. Japanese reserves: Hayate Era, Sojiro Otuska, Keijiro Tamefusa, Michael Stolberg, Michael Leitch, Tiennan Costley, Itsuki Kamimura, Sam Greene.

  • Tofu vendor delivers much more than healthy food to an east Tokyo neighborhood

    Tofu vendor delivers much more than healthy food to an east Tokyo neighborhood

    On narrow, winding residential streets in eastern Tokyo, 53-year-old Akiko Sugaya pushes her signature pink cart, straw hat perched on her head and a small brass bugle at the ready. The familiar toot of her horn signals her arrival for locals, who know her not just as a seller of fresh, protein-rich tofu and prepared groceries, but as a trusted guardian and friend in a community grappling with Japan’s growing crisis of aging and social isolation.

    For 23 years, Sugaya has filled a role that goes far beyond traditional street vending. Her weekly three-hour routes, which she runs rain or shine three afternoons a week, weave through the Ojima neighborhood, an area dotted with cramped single-family homes and sprawling mid-rise apartment blocks. Where modern convenience has replaced face-to-face interaction with app-based deliveries and contactless checkout, Sugaya has kept the vanishing tradition of neighborhood roaming vendors alive, while quietly stepping in to address a gap that formal social services have not fully filled: checking on isolated elderly residents who live alone.

    Sugaya knows her customers’ routines as intimately as if they were her own family. Over decades of rounds, she has spotted the subtle warning signs that something is wrong: piling uncollected newspapers left on porches, laundry that hangs untouched for days, a usually regular shopper who fails to appear when she sounds her bugle. Sadly, she has on multiple occasions been the first person to discover the bodies of elderly customers who died alone — a tragedy that has become increasingly common in Japan, which holds the title of the world’s oldest population, with more than 29 percent of residents aged 65 or older.

    “In a neighborhood like this, many long-time residents leave their doors unlocked, and landlords will grant me access if I haven’t seen someone in a few days,” Sugaya explained in an interview at her small brick-and-mortar shop, which operates as a takeout lunch spot by day and a small dine-in restaurant in the evening. “These small, tight-knit streets let me see the signs of trouble easily, but even in large apartment blocks that hide those clues, I know to check in on anyone I haven’t seen in a while.”

    What many see as a quiet act of community service has also been a life-changing healing journey for Sugaya herself. Before starting her vending work, she faced years of rejection and trauma: she was bullied relentlessly in school, and was fired from multiple jobs as an adult, leaving her with crippling low self-esteem. It was only when she began pushing her tofu cart through the neighborhood that she found a sense of purpose and belonging that had long eluded her.

    “Selling tofu from my cart taught me that it’s okay to just be myself,” she said. “I was put down over and over again for years, but this work let me build my self-esteem back up. I used to be so nervous around people my own age, but when I’m with the elderly, their warm smiles make me feel safe. This job didn’t just give me work — it saved me.”

    Long-time regular Shinji Saito, who lives with epilepsy and visits Sugaya’s shop every day, describes her open, accepting nature as “magical.” Another customer, 78-year-old Toshi Niiyama, says she intentionally waits for Sugaya to come through her street even when she could buy tofu at a local supermarket or convenience store. “Cart selling is such a disappearing craft,” Niiyama said. “We used to have a vegetable vendor who came around here too, but he retired years ago and nobody took his place. I wouldn’t buy my tofu from anyone else — waiting for Ako-chan is as much about seeing her and chatting as it is about the food.”

    Sugaya has watched firsthand as Japan’s modernization has eroded casual daily social interaction. What were once routine moments of human connection — a newspaper carrier stopping to say hello, a street vendor chatting about the weather — have been replaced by algorithm-driven delivery apps and contactless self-checkout at convenience stores, where customers can complete a purchase without exchanging a single word with another person.

    “You can spend an entire day now without having a single verbal conversation with another person,” Sugaya noted. “You go to a convenience store, tap a screen, grab your item, and leave. It’s fast, but it leaves you feeling empty inside. That’s what I see a lot with the elderly who live alone — that emptiness just gets bigger every day.”

    Unlike many of the roaming vendors that once defined Japanese neighborhood life, Sugaya has no plans to stop her rounds. She sticks to a fixed weekly schedule: one route on Mondays, a second on Thursdays, and a third on Saturdays, and she never skips a day even when the rain is pouring. For her, it’s not just a business — it’s a promise to the community that gave her back her life. “My customers expect me,” she says simply. “They don’t just want tofu. They want someone to talk to. And I’ll be there.”

  • Against Trump’s will, Iran dragging the US into a long war

    Against Trump’s will, Iran dragging the US into a long war

    After months of a fragile truce that held from an initial April ceasefire through a mid-June bilateral memorandum of understanding, armed conflict between the United States and Iran has reignited, with Washington launching a wave of targeted strikes against Iranian assets in response to Tehran’s harassment of commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This escalation marks the most severe breach of the June 17 agreement, and has led former U.S. President Donald Trump to formally confirm what many regional analysts had feared: the months-long truce is definitively over.

    The root of the latest breakdown in tensions is a high-stakes dispute over strategic control of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical global energy chokepoints. Under the terms of the now-defunct memorandum, Iran committed to using its best efforts to guarantee unimpeded, toll-free passage for commercial vessels through the strait for a 60-day period. Almost immediately, however, tensions flared over competing shipping routes through the waterway. The U.S.-backed corridor hugs the Omani coast, relies on international maritime coordination, and remains outside direct Iranian oversight. Tehran, by contrast, has pushed aggressively to force all commercial traffic to use an alternative route that runs along Iran’s territorial coast, where it can enforce strict monitoring and full control. At its current width, the strait cannot support two separate controlled corridors without Iran resorting to force or credible threats of force to deter use of the U.S.-endorsed route, and Tehran has already deployed live fire to push ships away from the Omani corridor.

    Analysts note that the lopsided balance of strengths between the two nations has made a lasting ceasefire nearly impossible to achieve. The U.S. retains overwhelming conventional military superiority over Iran, but lacks the domestic political will to commit to a prolonged conflict or a large-scale ground invasion that would force regime change in Tehran. Washington has made clear it has no interest in expending military resources or shifting its global defense priorities to focus on a long-term war with Iran, even as it retains the capability to inflict widespread damage on Iranian military and infrastructure targets.

    For Iran, the opposite dynamic holds: the regime boasts unwavering political resolve to assert its regional dominance and ensure its own survival. Since the outbreak of the current war that saw key Iranian political and military leaders killed early on, the regime has grown increasingly hardline and militaristic, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) cementing its grip on national power. Ideologically driven, strategically shrewd, and willing to use ruthless tactics to achieve its aims, Tehran has prioritized demonstrating its control over the strait over the economic benefits it would gain from concessions, including a promised $300 billion post-conflict reconstruction fund and relief from crippling international sanctions. To enforce its claims, Iran has deployed low-cost, effective tactics including weaponized drones and fast attack craft to threaten civilian shipping, a strategy that lets it assert control without matching U.S. military power. Even so, Iran’s greatest vulnerability remains its fragile economy, which has already suffered massive damage from months of conflict and could not withstand a prolonged U.S. blockade or sustained air campaign against critical infrastructure.

    Domestic political pressures on both sides have further pushed the truce toward collapse. In Iran, any leader that entertains talks with the U.S. or makes concessions on the Strait of Hormuz risks being branded a traitor by hardline IRGC factions, a danger highlighted by historical precedents: the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, both killed for making peace deals with rivals deemed unacceptable by domestic hardliners. For Trump, domestic opposition rules out a return to full-scale all-out war, but pressure from foreign policy hardliners in the U.S. who oppose walking away from the conflict without progress on Iran’s nuclear program and leaving Tehran in full control of the strait has forced his hand to launch retaliatory strikes after Iran’s attacks on shipping. Analysts point out that Trump significantly underestimated Tehran’s commitment to asserting regional dominance and control over the strait, relying instead on the promise of economic benefits to force compliance with the memorandum.

    Looking ahead, the most likely outcome is not a return to the all-out full-scale war that preceded the April ceasefire, nor is a lasting permanent peace agreement on the horizon. Instead, the region is set to return to the precarious status quo that held between the April 8 initial ceasefire and the June 17 memorandum: a frozen conflict that falls below the threshold of all-out war, but offers no path to substantive peace. Over the coming months, experts expect tit-for-tat strikes to continue, with the Strait of Hormuz remaining partially closed and maritime security in the waterway highly uncertain.