Global Pulse

标签： Asia

亚洲

  • Malaysia searches for 14 missing Indonesians after a migrant boat sinks

    Malaysia searches for 14 missing Indonesians after a migrant boat sinks

    Off the coast of Pangkor Island in Malaysia’s central Perak state, a devastating maritime incident has triggered a multi-agency search effort for 14 missing Indonesian people, after an overloaded vessel carrying undocumented migrants capsized and sank earlier this week. According to local maritime officials, the incident unfolded before dawn on Monday, when a passing Malaysian fishing vessel encountered dozens of people floating in open waters after their boat overturned. The fishing crew immediately issued a distress call to authorities, prompting the launch of a formal search and rescue operation that has now stretched into its second day.

    Initial assessments confirm 23 people from the capsized boat have been pulled from the water and rescued. All 23 survivors have since been transferred to Malaysian marine enforcement officials for mandatory questioning over their unauthorized entry attempt. Captain Mohamad Shukri Khotob, chief of Perak’s maritime agency, confirmed Tuesday that authorities estimate 37 people were packed onto the small vessel when it departed its departure point. That total puts the number of unaccounted-for passengers at 14, all of whom are believed to be Indonesian nationals.

    Investigators tracking the route of the doomed vessel have confirmed it left Kisaran, a city in northern Indonesia, on May 9, bound for multiple population centers across Malaysia, including Penang, Selangor, and the capital Kuala Lumpur. The tragedy has shone a fresh light on the long-standing pattern of irregular migration between the two neighboring Southeast Asian nations. For decades, Malaysia has drawn large numbers of Indonesian workers who leave their home country in search of higher wages and better employment opportunities. Indonesians currently make up the vast majority of Malaysia’s foreign labor force, working primarily in labor-intensive sectors including agricultural plantations and the construction industry.

    Many of these workers lack the proper documentation to enter Malaysia legally, so they rely on unregulated human smuggling networks that use old, overcrowded vessels to cross the Strait of Malacca. These unseaworthy boats are often overloaded far beyond their safe capacity, putting passengers at extreme risk of capsizing, sinking, and drowning. Malaysian maritime officials have reiterated that the current search operation will remain active until all 14 missing people are located, regardless of how long the effort takes.

  • Bomb rigged to rickshaw explodes in Pakistan bazaar, killing 9 and wounding more than 2 dozen others

    Bomb rigged to rickshaw explodes in Pakistan bazaar, killing 9 and wounding more than 2 dozen others

    On Tuesday, a devastating improvised explosive device hidden in a rickshaw detonated in a crowded bazaar in northwest Pakistan, leaving at least nine people dead and wounding more than 24 others, local law enforcement confirmed. The blast marks the latest episode in a sharp upward trend of militant violence across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.

    The attack occurred in Lakki Marwat, a rural district located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to Azmat Ullah, the district’s chief of police. Among the fatalities were two serving traffic police officers and one civilian woman, Ullah confirmed. The local police chief noted that traffic police personnel appeared to be the intended target of the bombing, which also left nearby retail shops heavily damaged. The majority of casualties, he added, were ordinary pedestrians and market-goers caught in the blast radius.

    No militant organization immediately issued a claim of responsibility for the attack. In past similar attacks in the region, suspicion has routinely fallen on Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), commonly referred to as the Pakistani Taliban, an insurgent group that has ramped up its militant campaign against Pakistani state security forces over the past several years. While the TTP is operationally separate from Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban government, the two groups maintain close ideological and tactical alliances. Contrary to common assumptions, the TTP issued an official statement Tuesday denying any role in the bazaar bombing, stating that the group had only learned of the incident after the fact and was not involved in its planning or execution.

    Tuesday’s attack comes just four days after a large-scale coordinated assault on a Pakistani security outpost in neighboring Bannu district left 15 police officers dead. That incident, which Pakistan formally blamed on the TTP, prompted Islamabad to summon a senior Afghan diplomatic representative to issue an official diplomatic protest over the violence.

    Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif quickly issued a formal condemnation of Tuesday’s bombing, extending his deepest condolences to the families of those killed in the attack. In an official public statement, Sharif reaffirmed that the Pakistani government and all relevant national security institutions remain fully committed to rooting out terrorism from the country’s territory. He added that militants would not be allowed to derail Pakistan’s progress toward peace and broad-based socioeconomic development. Sharif also directed law enforcement and investigative agencies to move quickly to conclude their probe, identify all actors responsible for the blast, and ensure that the perpetrators face full legal accountability for their actions.

    For years, Pakistani authorities have publicly accused the Afghan Taliban government of providing safe shelter and operational support to TTP militants on Afghan territory. The Taliban-led government in Kabul has consistently rejected these claims, asserting that it does not permit any militant group to use Afghan soil to plan or launch cross-border attacks against neighboring states.

    Pakistan has recorded a dramatic surge in militant attacks across its territory in recent years, a development that has significantly strained bilateral relations between Islamabad and Kabul. Security analysts note that the TTP and other allied extremist groups have grown increasingly emboldened in their operations since the Afghan Taliban retook control of Kabul in 2021 following the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces.

    Cross-border tensions have remained elevated between the two South Asian nations, with repeated armed clashes along the poorly demarcated border killing hundreds of people on both sides since late February 2024. In an effort to de-escalate the crisis, senior diplomatic representatives from Pakistan and Afghanistan held a new round of peace talks in early April, mediated by China. While talks produced tentative agreements to reduce hostilities, sporadic cross-border clashes have continued in the months since, even as violence has dropped to lower levels than seen in the early weeks of 2024.

  • The Kabul rehab centre hit by deadly Pakistani strike

    The Kabul rehab centre hit by deadly Pakistani strike

    A deadly airstrike carried out by Pakistani military forces targeted a rehabilitation center in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, triggering a sharp dispute over the nature of the facility and the legitimacy of the operation.

    According to official statements from Islamabad, the strike was a legitimate counterterrorism operation that destroyed key militant and terrorist infrastructure hidden in the area. Pakistani authorities have framed the action as a necessary measure to defend national security against cross-border militant threats that have long plagued the country’s western border regions.

    However, this narrative has been immediately and firmly rejected by two key groups: the United Nations and the families of those killed or injured in the attack. The UN has challenged Islamabad’s claim that the site housed terrorist assets, while grieving relatives of the victims confirm the location operated as a drug addiction rehabilitation center serving vulnerable local residents.

    The incident has stoked already tense cross-border relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, raising new questions about proportional use of military force, civilian protection, and the human cost of counterterrorism operations. Global observers are now calling for a full independent investigation into the strike to clarify the facts and hold accountable those responsible for any civilian casualties.

  • Pakistan struck a rehab centre and killed 269 Afghans. Their families want to know why

    Pakistan struck a rehab centre and killed 269 Afghans. Their families want to know why

    On a frigid, rain-soaked morning in northwest Kabul, 27-year-old Masooda climbs a sloped hillside cemetery to pay her respects to her 24-year-old younger brother Mirwais — a young man killed two months prior in a Pakistani airstrike. What makes her grief even more agonizing is that she cannot pinpoint his exact burial spot. Mirwais is one of dozens of victims laid to rest in an unmarked mass grave, a patch of land neatly covered with small white stones and crudely marked by rough grey granite slabs, holding the remains of those killed in the deadliest single attack Afghanistan has seen in modern history.

    The target of the March 16 airstrike was the Omid Drug Rehabilitation Hospital, a facility that had operated quietly in Kabul for a decade, treating Afghans struggling with substance use disorder at a time when an estimated three million people across the country battle addiction. On that fateful evening, at 20:50 local time, three bombs slammed into the facility, which sits just a kilometer from major United Nations offices along the Kabul-Jalalabad highway. What followed was a carnage so brutal it has shocked even a nation long hardened by decades of war.

    A doctor on duty that night, speaking to the BBC on condition of anonymity over fears of retaliation from the Taliban government, described the scene of chaos and horror he encountered. “One bomb hit a large hangar that housed newly admitted patients, while two others struck patient quarters, food storage, and administrative offices,” he explained. The bombs also hit the center’s vocational training wings, which were constructed mostly of wood, sparking an intense fire that compounded the death toll. “I walked through piles of bodies searching for anyone still alive, screaming for help. The smell of burning flesh was everywhere,” the doctor recalled. “I have never seen anything this horrific in my life.”

    The United Nations, which was granted full access to the attack site in the aftermath, confirmed Tuesday that it has verified at least 269 fatalities from the strike, but acknowledged that the actual death toll is almost certainly far higher. The Taliban government places the count above 400. Many bodies were burned beyond recognition or torn apart by shrapnel and fire, leaving families with nothing to bury and no closure to their grief. The center’s full patient list was also destroyed in the blaze, turning the search for missing loved ones into a weeks-long nightmare of harrowing uncertainty.

    For Sediq Walizada, that nightmare ended on Eid, the Muslim holiday of celebration, when he and his brothers finally identified the remains of his 35-year-old brother Mohammad Anwar Walizada, who had been admitted to Omid just four days before the attack to treat his addiction to synthetic street drug “Tablet-K.” “We moved from hospital to hospital for days, hoping he had escaped. Not knowing if he was dead or alive was agony,” Sediq said, his voice still thick with trauma. When they finally found Mohammad Anwar’s remains, severed in half by the blast, it was devastating — but still a relief: hundreds of other families leave without ever recovering their loved ones. “He didn’t turn to drugs for fun, he turned to it out of poverty and helplessness,” Sediq said of his brother, a father of six who sold bottled water from a tricycle cart to feed his family.

    Mirwais’s story follows the same pattern. Orphaned young, Mirwais was raised by Masooda like a son. He was studying to become a pharmacist when he developed an addiction to Tablet-K, and had only been in treatment at Omid for 10 days when the bombs fell. “My brother’s body was just a torso. I identified him only by a birthmark he had,” Masooda said, breaking down in tears. “They found barely anything left of him.”

    The airstrike has exacerbated already soaring tensions between neighboring Pakistan and the Taliban-led Afghan government, a conflict that has stretched across months and left hundreds dead, most from Pakistani cross-border airstrikes. Islamabad says the strikes are targeted at militant groups that launch attacks inside Pakistan and are sheltered by the Taliban regime. Kabul has repeatedly denied allowing militants to operate from Afghan soil.

    Pakistan has also pushed back against claims that the strike hit a civilian facility, telling the BBC that “no hospital, no drug rehabilitation center, and no civilian facility was targeted” and that the targets were “military and terrorist infrastructure.” Senior Pakistani military spokesman Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry went further, claiming the center was “most likely a suicide bomber training facility” that used drug addicts as bombers.

    Every victim’s family the BBC spoke to rejected these claims, and the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and independent observers have confirmed the facility was a well-documented drug treatment center, operating openly since 2016 in a former US-NATO military base. The center was so well known that the BBC was granted access to interview patients there in 2023, and UN agencies provided direct support to patients at the facility. “It’s literally about a kilometre away from the main UN offices. We have UN agencies, support to the patients of that hospital. So the site was well known to us,” said Fiona Frazer, the representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Afghanistan.

    Human Rights Watch has labeled the strike an “unlawful attack and a possible war crime,” and there are growing international calls for a full independent investigation into the incident. The Taliban government has echoed these calls, saying the intentional targeting of innocent civilians amounts to a war crime that demands accountability.

    For Afghans, the attack has shattered the fragile relative peace that settled over the country after the end of the 20-year NATO-Afghan war in 2021, sparking widespread fears that the country is being pulled back into sustained, large-scale violence. For the grieving families of Omid’s victims, however, the pain is deeply personal. Most say they hold little hope that anyone will ever be held accountable for the deaths of their loved ones. “We are an oppressed people. We do not have the power to respond,” said one victim’s brother. “We have suffered injustice and brutality. May God bring the perpetrators to justice.”

  • BJP leader back to head India’s Assam state for second time in a row

    BJP leader back to head India’s Assam state for second time in a row

    In a landmark political event held in Guwahati this week, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Himanta Biswa Sarma officially took the oath of office for a second consecutive term as Chief Minister of India’s northeastern state of Assam. The ceremony drew high-profile attendees, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, multiple federal cabinet ministers, and BJP chief ministers from across the country, alongside thousands of supporters gathered from across Assam.

    Sarma’s return to power follows a landslide victory for the BJP-led alliance in the recent Assam Assembly elections, held on April 9. The ruling coalition secured a commanding majority, with the BJP itself winning 82 of the 126 available seats, and its regional allies adding an additional 20 seats to the coalition’s total. This result extends the BJP’s uninterrupted control of Assam, which began when the party first won power in the state in 2016.

    Widely regarded as one of the key architects of the BJP’s explosive growth in India’s northeast, a region once dominated by regional smaller parties and the national Indian National Congress, Sarma has been central to reshaping the state’s political landscape over the past decade. Just 10 years ago, the BJP held less than 12% of the popular vote in Assam; today, that share has climbed to 38%, a shift political analysts largely credit to Sarma’s organizational work and strategic leadership.

    Sarma’s political career has been defined by striking longevity and strategic influence. Representing the Jalukbari constituency on the outskirts of Guwahati, Assam’s largest city, he has held the seat continuously since 2001, even after switching political affiliation. Prior to joining the BJP in 2015, Sarma was a top Congress leader and cabinet minister under former long-serving Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. When he left the Congress alongside dozens of loyal legislators, the departure dealt a crippling blow to the state Congress party that has yet to fully recover, a moment widely viewed as the turning point for the BJP’s expansion across the entire northeast region.

    In the years after joining the BJP, Sarma built his reputation as the party’s most effective behind-the-scenes organizer during former Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal’s tenure from 2016 to 2021, helping the party forge alliances with local groups and extend its influence into neighboring northeastern states including Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Tripura. He first assumed the office of Chief Minister in 2021, and this latest election victory has significantly solidified his standing as one of the most powerful leaders within the national BJP.

    Within the party, Sarma’s success is attributed to his relentless campaigning style, robust grassroots organizational control, and implementation of high-impact public welfare programs. Supporters hail him as a results-driven administrator who has prioritized core infrastructure development, including expanding road and bridge connectivity across the state. One of his most popular initiatives, the Orunodoi scheme, delivers direct monthly financial assistance to low-income women households, earning broad support among marginalized communities.

    However, Sarma’s tenure and political rise have not been without intense controversy. Critics argue that his political messaging has increasingly leaned into divisive rhetoric centered on long-running debates over migration and communal identity, issues that have dominated Assam politics for generations. The state has grappled with political tensions around illegal immigration from neighboring Bangladesh for decades, with debates over language, land rights and indigenous identity shaping every recent election cycle.

    Opposition parties and human rights organizations have repeatedly accused Sarma’s BJP government of systematically targeting religious minority communities, particularly Bengali-speaking Muslims. Policies pursued by his administration related to unregulated Islamic schools and child marriage have sparked fierce political pushback, and earlier this year, a deleted AI-generated deepfake video shared by the state BJP party showed Sarma shooting at images of political opponents wearing traditional Muslim skull caps, drawing widespread condemnation from opposition and civil society groups. Sarma and national BJP leaders have rejected these accusations, framing their policies as necessary measures to protect indigenous Assamese culture and address the ongoing crisis of illegal migration.

    Despite these ongoing controversies, Sarma has emerged as one of the most influential BJP leaders in eastern India, and has become an increasingly prominent campaign surrogate for the party across national elections. Alongside Sarma, four other legislators – two from the BJP and two from its regional alliance partners – were also sworn in as cabinet ministers for the new state government this week.

    Political analysts say Sarma’s winning electoral strategy in Assam rests on three core pillars: identity politics, targeted outreach to key voter blocs, and tangible development progress. “The BJP has worked to bring indigenous communities closer to a broader Hindu identity, while portraying certain minority groups as outsiders,” explained Akhil Ranjan Dutta, a professor of political science at Gauhati University. “At the same time, under Sarma’s leadership the party has effectively engaged women, young voters, farmers and small business owners through targeted welfare schemes and messaging tailored directly to their needs. Development also played a major role – improvements to roads and rural connectivity have significantly boosted the party’s appeal across the state.”

  • UAE secretly joined Israeli-US strikes on Iran: Report

    UAE secretly joined Israeli-US strikes on Iran: Report

    In a stunning revelation published by The Wall Street Journal, the United Arab Emirates has secretly carried out offensive military strikes against Iran, pulling the Gulf monarchy directly into the expanding Israeli-U.S. conflict that has already destabilized the broader Middle East region.

    According to anonymous sources familiar with the operation, Emirati military units targeted a key oil refinery located on Iran’s Lavan Island in the Persian Gulf during the first week of April. The UAE has not issued any public statement confirming or acknowledging its role in the attack. The strike, the Journal reports, ignited a massive blaze at the facility that knocked most of the refinery’s production capacity offline for months.

    The attack comes at a particularly sensitive juncture: just as former U.S. President Donald Trump was pushing for a ceasefire to end a five-week sustained air campaign against Iran, making the covert strike a major escalation of already soaring tensions. Tehran quickly labeled the incident an “enemy attack” and launched an immediate counteroffensive, firing a large volley of ballistic missiles and attack drones at both the UAE and neighboring Kuwait.

    In the weeks since the strike, Iran has concentrated the vast majority of its retaliatory firepower on the Emirates, launching more than 2,800 projectiles – a total that far outpaces the volume of attacks against any other adversary involved in the conflict, including Israel and the United States. This large-scale retaliation has sent shockwaves through the UAE’s economy, disrupting commercial air travel across the country, cutting deep into vital tourism revenue, and triggering widespread instability in the country’s once-booming property market. As the economic fallout spreads across key sectors, dozens of domestic and international companies have implemented mandatory furloughs and begun cutting staff to offset losses.

    By the end of April, data shows more than $120 billion had been erased from the total market capitalization of the Dubai and Abu Dhabi stock exchanges, while more than 18,400 commercial flights to and from the UAE have been canceled amid persistent security risks.

    The Wall Street Journal’s report also confirms that Washington has privately given its approval to the UAE’s decision to join offensive operations, reinforcing widespread analysis that Abu Dhabi is now operating in full coordination with U.S. and Israeli military goals in the region. This deepening alignment, critics argue, has formed a new confrontational axis that has prolonged and intensified the regional conflict, rather than working to de-escalate or contain it.

    In recent years, the UAE has emerged as one of the most hawkish Gulf states, maintaining continuous close military coordination with both the U.S. and Israel throughout the ongoing conflict. This openly confrontational posture has pulled Abu Dhabi directly into the line of Iranian retaliation, despite decades of careful diplomatic balancing by Gulf monarchies seeking to avoid open conflict with Tehran.

    Speculation about direct Emirati involvement in offensive operations against Iran first began circulating in mid-March, after publicly shared footage captured an unidentified fighter jet operating inside Iranian airspace that did not match the markings or design of any known U.S. or Israeli aircraft. Around the same time, independent outlet Middle East Eye reported that Iranian air defenses had shot down a Chinese-made Wing Loong II reconnaissance and attack drone near the city of Shiraz, leading independent analysts to question whether other Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia or the UAE, had joined active offensive operations against Iran.

    Beyond the military escalation, Tehran has moved to exploit existing tensions among Gulf Cooperation Council members to isolate Abu Dhabi. Per The Wall Street Journal, Iran issued explicit warnings to Saudi Arabia and Oman that it would “heavily target” the UAE in response to its participation in the Israeli-U.S. campaign, a move widely interpreted as an attempt to split the Gulf bloc.

    Existing rifts among Gulf powers are already becoming more visible. Long-simmering tensions between the UAE and Saudi Arabia have grown increasingly tense in recent years, and the fallout from the Iran strike has only worsened frictions. The UAE’s recent decision to withdraw from OPEC further strained diplomatic and economic ties with Riyadh, indicating that the ongoing conflict with Iran is deepening historical rivalries rather than uniting Gulf powers against a common perceived threat.

  • Narenda Modi tells Indians to stop buying gold, work from home, as Iran war dents economy

    Narenda Modi tells Indians to stop buying gold, work from home, as Iran war dents economy

    The ongoing US-Israeli military campaign against Iran is now sending ripple effects through the global economy, and India — the world’s fourth largest energy consumer — is already feeling the strain. On Sunday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a public appeal urging citizens across the country to cut back on petrol and diesel usage, halt gold purchases for 12 months, and reduce foreign travel to shore up the nation’s strained foreign exchange reserves and avert widespread energy shortages.

    Up to this point, India has avoided implementing domestic price increases or supply rationing for petrol and diesel, unlike many other emerging economies facing global energy market shocks. However, the government has already moved to raise prices for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), the primary cooking fuel used by hundreds of millions of Indian households. The country sources roughly 60 percent of its total LPG imports from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, and 90 percent of these shipments pass through the Strait of Hormuz — a critical global chokepoint that has been effectively shut down by overlapping US and Iranian blockades amid the ongoing conflict.

    Modi’s public appeal marks a clear shift in policy signaling, indicating New Delhi is preparing for impending energy shortages and broad-based price increases that will extend beyond cooking fuel to transportation fuels. Speaking at an event in the southern state of Telangana, the prime minister outlined concrete steps for households and commuters to reduce consumption. “We have to reduce our use of petrol and diesel. In cities with metro lines, we should try to travel by metro…If we must use a car, then we should try to carpool,” Modi stated.

    Beyond balancing energy supplies, the appeal is rooted in urgent efforts to protect India’s foreign currency holdings, which have come under severe pressure from soaring global energy prices tied to the Iran conflict. “We must also place a strong emphasis on saving foreign exchange, as petrol and diesel have become so expensive globally,” Modi added.

    In a notable departure from typical policy messaging, the prime minister specifically called for a one-year pause on domestic gold purchases, a culturally embedded preference across India where the precious metal is a traditional store of value and a staple gift for weddings and major life events. Like crude oil, global gold transactions are denominated in U.S. dollars, meaning rising domestic gold demand directly draws down foreign reserve holdings. New Delhi previously imposed higher tariffs on gold imports back in 2022 to curb demand and conserve dollars, a policy that has only been partially effective.

    India’s structural reliance on foreign energy sources leaves it uniquely vulnerable to the current Middle East crisis: the country imports 90 percent of its total crude oil needs and 50 percent of its natural gas. Surging global energy prices driven by conflict-related supply disruptions have already eaten into India’s foreign exchange reserves, putting heavy downward pressure on the Indian rupee. While the rupee is not officially pegged to the U.S. dollar, capital outflows and rising import costs have driven the currency to a record all-time low against the greenback just last week.

    To stabilize the rupee, the Reserve Bank of India has already stepped into foreign exchange markets, selling off U.S. dollar reserves to support the rupee’s value. Compounding the pressure, India relies heavily on dollar remittances from Indian workers based in Gulf states, particularly the United Arab Emirates. The conflict has hit regional tourism hard, and that slowdown has already reduced remittance flows into India.

    Modi also called on Indian businesses and workplaces to reinstate the energy-saving remote work policies that were widely adopted during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We should prioritise work from home, online conferences, and virtual meetings again,” he added.

  • Ex-Philippine leader Duterte’s drug war enforcer escapes ICC arrest

    Ex-Philippine leader Duterte’s drug war enforcer escapes ICC arrest

    A high-stakes political and legal standoff is unfolding in the Philippines this week, after a sitting senator who once led the implementation of former President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly anti-drug campaign sought shelter inside the national Senate to avoid an impending arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

    Filipino Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who previously served as national police chief under the Duterte administration, was spotted fleeing into the Senate building on Monday, narrowly evading pursuing agents from the country’s National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). Footage from Senate security cameras, shown to sitting lawmakers, captured NBI officers chasing dela Rosa up multiple staircases and along an internal corridor shortly after he arrived at the complex. Following a hours-long standoff between NBI officials and Senate authorities, the NBI chief announced that law enforcement would not move to detain dela Rosa while he remained under the chamber’s protective custody.

    The ICC unsealed its arrest warrant for dela Rosa hours after he entered the Senate. The warrant charges dela Rosa as an “indirect co-perpetrator” in crimes against humanity linked to the anti-drug campaign, accusing him of direct responsibility for the extrajudicial killings of at least 32 people between 2016 and 2018. Thousands of suspected drug users and dealers were killed nationwide during the crackdown launched by Duterte after he took office in 2016. This development comes two months after Duterte himself was taken into ICC custody in The Hague following his arrest in March 2025.

    Dela Rosa has publicly stated that he will remain on Senate premises and take every possible step to avoid being extradited to the Netherlands to face trial. His legal team has already filed a petition with the Philippine Supreme Court seeking to block his arrest, arguing that no valid domestic judicial warrant has been issued for his detention. On Tuesday morning, the senator addressed supporters who had gathered outside the Senate building, urging them to maintain a continuous vigil outside the complex until the Supreme Court issues its ruling.

    In a direct challenge to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., whose political bloc has been locked in a bitter feud with the Duterte political dynasty, dela Rosa called on Marcos to file domestic criminal charges against him if he believes the senator is guilty of wrongdoing. “If I have an obligation, I will answer it in the local court, not a foreign one,” dela Rosa told reporters, echoing longstanding objections to ICC jurisdiction over Philippine citizens raised by Duterte and his allies.

    The standoff comes at a moment of extreme political tension in the Philippines, as relations between the Duterte and Marcos political clans collapse after three years of uneasy alliance. The two blocs ran together on a unified ticket to win the 2022 national election, but their partnership has fractured entirely in recent months. On Monday, the same day dela Rosa fled into the Senate, the 24-member chamber, which is currently controlled by Duterte allies, elected a new Senate president, Alan Peter Cayetano, who immediately confirmed that the body would only recognize arrest warrants issued by domestic Philippine courts. In contrast, allies of Marcos hold a majority in the country’s lower House of Representatives, which voted earlier on Monday to impeach incumbent Vice President Sara Duterte, Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter, for a second time.

    Sara Duterte, who is currently the leading front-runner in polling for the 2028 presidential election, has publicly accused Marcos of using ICC arrest warrants and impeachment proceedings as political weapons to weaken her ahead of the upcoming vote. Rodrigo Duterte and his allies have repeatedly rejected the ICC’s jurisdiction over the drug war cases, pointing to the Philippines’ 2019 withdrawal from the Rome Statute, the international treaty that established the court. However, judges from the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber rejected that legal argument just last month, ruling that the alleged crimes under investigation took place between 2011 and 2019, a period when the Philippines remained a full member of the court. That ruling cleared the legal path for the court to move forward with arrests and an eventual trial for Duterte and his top aides.

  • New Trump sanctions on Chinese firms: leverage on Xi or overkill?

    New Trump sanctions on Chinese firms: leverage on Xi or overkill?

    Just days ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s scheduled state visit to China, the Biden administration (under Trump’s second term) has rolled out a fresh round of unilateral sanctions targeting multiple companies and individuals linked to mainland China and Hong Kong. Washington accuses these parties of aiding Iran in acquiring components for drones and ballistic missile systems, a move that has already stoked new bilateral tensions just as high-level diplomatic talks are set to begin.

    Announced by the U.S. Treasury Department on May 8, the latest punitive measures are part of Washington’s ongoing “Economic Fury” campaign aimed at disrupting Tehran’s weapons procurement networks. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) placed a total of 10 individuals and entities across the Middle East, Asia, and Eastern Europe on its sanctions blacklist, while the U.S. State Department issued separate designations for four additional entities linked to Iran’s conventional arms programs. Washington claims the operation targets networks that supply critical materials and components for Iran’s Shahed-series unmanned aerial vehicles and long-range ballistic missile programs.

    The China and Hong Kong-linked sanctions cover four distinct categories of alleged activity. First, in the aerospace materials sector, Hitex Insulation Ningbo Co. Ltd. and its legal representative Li Genping stand accused of supplying or attempting to supply millions of dollars worth of carbon fiber, honeycomb fabric, and other high-spec aerospace-grade materials to Pishgam Electronic Safeh Company, an Iranian entity already blacklisted by the U.S. Second, three trading firms — Yushita Shanghai International Trade Co Ltd, Hong Kong-based AE International Trade Co Ltd, and HK Hesin Industry Co Ltd — are alleged to have facilitated procurement for Iran’s Center for Progress and Development, which the U.S. rebranded from its previously designated Center for Innovation and Technology Cooperation. Third, Mustad Ltd is accused of enabling financial transactions tied to weapons procurement worth millions of dollars by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Finally, two Chinese geospatial technology firms — Meentropy Technology Hangzhou Co Ltd (operating as MizarVision) and The Earth Eye Co (Beijing Mumei Starry Sky Technology Co Ltd) — were sanctioned for allegedly providing satellite imagery to support Iranian military operations.

    The designation of the two satellite firms comes on the heels of a separate unproven allegation that Beijing has already publicly denied. On April 15, the *Financial Times* cited leaked Iranian military documents to claim Iran had secretly acquired a Chinese-built satellite called TEE-01B, which it claimed would give the IRGC Aerospace Force improved targeting capabilities for U.S. military facilities across the Middle East. The outlet reported the satellite was launched from Chinese territory and transferred to Iranian control in late 2024. Notably, the May 8 sanctions did not address other recent unconfirmed media reports alleging Chinese shipments of missile-related materials to Iran. In early March, *The Washington Post* claimed two cargo ships owned by a previously sanctioned Iranian shipping firm had departed a Chinese chemical storage port carrying suspected rocket fuel precursor materials bound for Iran. *The Telegraph* followed with an April 3 report claiming five vessels carrying sodium perchlorate — a key precursor for solid-fuel rocket propellant, enough to build hundreds of ballistic missiles — had been sighted at or near Iranian ports.

    This latest round of sanctions marks an escalation from measures imposed by OFAC just weeks earlier. In late April, the agency sanctioned Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Refinery Co Ltd over allegations it purchased Iranian crude oil, alongside roughly 40 shipping companies and vessels accused of moving Iranian crude via a shadow tanker fleet. The May 8 action is far more sensitive, however, because it targets alleged support for Iran’s weapons supply chain rather than just Iran’s oil export revenue. It also comes after Trump issued a blunt warning on April 8 that any country supplying military equipment to Iran would face a 50% across-the-board tariff on all goods exported to the U.S., with no exceptions or exemptions.

    The timing of the announcement carries deliberate political weight. Trump is scheduled to travel to Beijing for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping from Wednesday to Friday, with Iran, cross-Strait relations, trade, and U.S. export controls expected to top the list of sensitive agenda items. Beijing formally confirmed the upcoming visit for the first time during a regular press briefing by Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun on Monday.

    Guo emphasized that the visit will mark the first trip to China by a sitting U.S. president in nearly nine years, noting that “President Xi will have in-depth exchanges of views with President Trump on major issues concerning China-U.S. relations and world peace and development.” He added that head-of-state diplomacy plays a critical guiding role in bilateral relations, and that Beijing stands ready to work with Washington to expand mutually beneficial cooperation, manage differences constructively, and bring greater stability to an increasingly volatile global order.

    Despite Beijing’s constructive framing, many Chinese analysts argue the sanctions have cast a clear shadow over the upcoming summit. “The U.S. seems to believe that with Trump’s visit already locked in, it can impose new sanctions to boost its bargaining position, regardless of how China feels,” wrote a Shandong-based columnist who goes by the pen name Xiaoliu. “But China’s swift, forceful legal countermeasures, paired with Iran’s confident response, make clear that other parties have no intention of following Washington’s script,” she added, referencing Beijing’s recent move banning domestic firms and banks from complying with U.S. sanctions targeting independent Chinese refiners. “Sanctions and counter-sanctions have become a normalized tool in the China-U.S. rivalry. At such a sensitive moment, Washington’s choice to play this card again raises a question: is this a clever tactical calculation, or an arrogant misjudgment that could backfire? When Trump’s plane lands in Beijing, will the shadow of these sanctions hang over the negotiating table?”

    A Guangdong-based commentator surnamed Chen echoed this criticism, noting that this pattern of pre-summit pressure is nothing new. “This is not the first time the U.S. has taken such unilateral action on the eve of high-level exchanges. Ahead of past bilateral meetings, Washington has often used sanctions or tough rhetoric to create leverage. This time, using Iran-related issues to sanction Chinese entities reflects the same game-playing mentality,” he said. Chen added that this approach will not deliver the outcomes Washington wants, and will only erode the foundation of mutual trust between the two powers. If Washington truly wants to use the visit to improve bilateral ties, he argued, it should show sincerity rather than applying coercive pressure ahead of talks.

    The sanctions come as Washington and Beijing have been negotiating a potential trade package to announce during the summit. Reuters reported on May 7 that the two sides are working to establish a new bilateral Board of Trade mechanism, designed to identify opportunities to expand bilateral commerce without compromising either side’s national security or critical supply chains. The proposed deal is also reported to include potential Chinese purchases of U.S. agricultural goods, Boeing commercial aircraft, and American energy exports including coal, crude oil, and natural gas. Observers note that Trump’s ability to secure formal Chinese commitments for increased U.S. purchases could have a direct impact on Republican efforts to retain control of both the House and Senate in November’s midterm elections.

    The dispute unfolds against a backdrop of fragile regional security in the Middle East, where a U.S.-Iran ceasefire brokered by Pakistan remains on shaky ground. The original two-week ceasefire agreed on April 8 was extended as indirect and direct talks continued via Pakistani mediation, but Trump has yet to secure the core outcome Washington has demanded: the permanent elimination or verifiable neutralization of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile.

    In recent weeks, Iran has deepened diplomatic engagement with Beijing. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosted his Iranian counterpart Seyyed Abbas Araghchi for meetings in Beijing on April 23 and again on May 6, where Araghchi briefed Chinese officials on the latest status of U.S.-Iran negotiations and Tehran’s planned next steps. During the April meeting, Wang noted that China and Iran have supported one another for years, deepened political mutual trust, expanded practical cooperation, and stood together against unilateralism and coercive diplomacy, making the strategic value of their bilateral ties more prominent than ever. During the May 6 talks, Araghchi stressed that political crises cannot be resolved through military force, saying Iran will defend its national sovereignty and dignity while continuing to pursue a comprehensive, lasting settlement through peaceful negotiation. He added that Iran trusts China’s role in preventing further escalation and hopes Beijing will continue to work toward advancing regional peace. “China is a trustworthy strategic partner of Iran,” Wang reaffirmed in response. “China is willing to consolidate and deepen political mutual trust with Iran, maintain and strengthen high-level exchanges, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation across all fields, and continue to advance the China-Iran comprehensive strategic partnership.”

    A Jiangsu-based commentator writing under the pen name Jingting Guoji noted that the U.S. had prepped a response even before Araghchi arrived in Beijing on May 5, and would have moved quickly to expand sanctions, intercept shipments, or rally allies to pressure China had Beijing and Tehran struck a new military agreement. But Araghchi adopted a shrewd diplomatic approach, he argued: instead of requesting new weapons, Iran asked Beijing to support the development of a new regional security framework for the Middle East. “Iran showed great diplomatic wisdom by not falling into the ‘military confrontation’ trap set by the U.S.,” Jingting wrote. “Instead, it engaged Washington at the political and diplomatic level, using the balance of power between major powers to win greater strategic space for itself.” He added that Wang’s public response made clear China’s attitude and determination to support a new security architecture for the region.

    For years, Beijing has advanced a proposal for a new inclusive Middle East security framework as a core component of its regional diplomacy. Unlike the U.S.-led security order that relies on military blocs and great power rivalry, Beijing’s approach centers on balancing relations with all major regional powers, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt, to foster collective security through dialogue and cooperation. A commentary from Hong Kong-based pro-Beijing outlet Flamingwheels noted that Pakistan has also played a skillful diplomatic role as ceasefire mediator, noting that in late April, Islamabad passed the *Territorial Transit Goods Ordinance 2026* to open six dedicated land transit routes for third-country goods to enter Iran via Pakistani territory. The new routes not only deliver economic benefits to local Pakistani communities but also give the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the port of Gwadar an expanded strategic role amid the ongoing regional crisis.

    Chinese media reports note that while the U.S. military blockade of Iranian ports has now lasted nearly a month, China continues to ship an estimated 100 to 150 containers of goods to Iran per week via cross-continental rail. The trains depart from Xi’an and travel through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan before reaching Tehran, though this volume accounts for only around 5% of the total seaborne cargo Iran received before the blockade was imposed.

  • Wall Street’s record-setting run halts as AI stocks slump and oil prices rise

    Wall Street’s record-setting run halts as AI stocks slump and oil prices rise

    After a weeks-long stretch of record-setting gains that pushed major U.S. benchmarks to all-time highs, Wall Street’s rally came to an abrupt halt on Tuesday, dragged down by a sudden pullback in red-hot artificial intelligence stocks and growing market jitters over spiking oil prices fueled by the ongoing conflict with Iran.

    The day’s trading ended with a mixed picture across major indexes. The benchmark S&P 500 pulled back 0.2% from the record high it notched a day earlier, dropping 11.88 points to close at 7,400.96. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average bucked the downward trend, adding 56.09 points, or 0.1%, to finish at 49,760.56. It was the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite that bore the brunt of the selling, sinking 0.7% or 185.92 points to close at 26,088.20, retreating from its own recent all-time peak.

    The steepest losses were concentrated among the semiconductor manufacturers and AI-linked equities that have posted explosive gains through 2026, riding the global AI boom to triple-digit year-to-date returns. Intel led the downturn, slumping 6.8% after its share price had already surged more than 200% so far this year. Micron Technology, which entered Tuesday with a nearly 180% gain for 2026, dropped 3.6%, while AI-focused firm CoreWeave fell 6.1%, trimming its year-to-date gain to 60%.

    This pullback in AI stocks actually originated in Asian markets earlier in the trading day. South Korea’s Kospi index tumbled 2.3% down from its own all-time high, as investors reacted to fears that the South Korean government could redistribute excess windfall profits earned by domestic AI companies directly to citizens.

    A second major headwind weighed on U.S. markets on Tuesday: a sharp new jump in global crude oil prices, driven by growing fears that the ongoing conflict with Iran will become protracted and disrupt global energy supplies. Brent crude, the global benchmark, climbed 3.4% to settle at $107.77 per barrel, up from roughly $70 per barrel before the conflict began. The rally came as a fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire grows increasingly tenuous, and the ongoing war has effectively blocked all oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint for global energy trade, leaving millions of barrels of crude stuck in the Persian Gulf unable to reach customers worldwide.

    The rapid run-up in oil prices pushed U.S. inflation higher last month by a larger margin than most economists had projected, according to government data released Tuesday. Even when stripping out volatile gasoline and food costs, core price acceleration outpaced expert forecasts in April, extending a streak of discouraging inflation data. Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management, noted that higher tariffs and unseasonable bad weather have also contributed to upward pressure on consumer prices.

    In response to the hotter-than-expected inflation report, Treasury yields moved higher in the bond market after an early period of volatile whipsaw trading. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 4.45%, up from 4.42% late Monday, and remains well above the 3.97% level it traded at before the Iran conflict began. Rising yields signal that investors now expect the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates higher for longer to bring inflation back under control.

    The U.S. central bank has already delayed any planned interest rate cuts in recent months, as it waits to assess how the Iran war and the Trump administration’s new tariffs will impact inflation trends. Lower interest rates can stimulate economic growth, but they also tend to worsen inflationary pressures. Following Tuesday’s inflation data, traders still overwhelmingly expect the Fed to hold interest rates steady through the end of the year, but CME Group data now shows investors see a better than one-in-three chance that the central bank will actually raise rates by December. Higher interest rates typically put downward pressure on stock valuations while also slowing overall economic growth.

    Even with rising yields, spiking oil prices, and ongoing geopolitical uncertainty tied to the Iran conflict, the U.S. stock market has remained surprisingly resilient in recent weeks, driven largely by better-than-expected corporate earnings across most sectors. Zebra Technologies was the latest S&P 500 firm to top analyst profit forecasts on Tuesday; the company, which helps businesses digitize and automate workflows through barcode scanners and other technology, saw its stock jump 11.4%, and it also released a full-year profit forecast that beat analyst expectations.

    Not all earnings reports were positive, however. Athletic apparel brand Under Armour sank 17% after reporting a larger quarterly loss than analysts had projected. CEO Kevin Plank said the company is moving forward with a plan to “reset the business and restore the discipline required to operate as a best-in-class brand.”

    Outside of earnings, dealmaking news also moved individual stocks. Video game retailer GameStop fell 3.5% after e-commerce platform eBay rejected GameStop’s unsolicited buyout offer, calling the bid “neither credible nor attractive.” eBay noted that GameStop had failed to explain how it would finance the acquisition of the much larger firm, and eBay’s own stock rose 2.1% following the announcement. Homebuilder Beazer Homes USA also fell 7.3% after rejecting an unsolicited takeover bid from Dream Finders Homes, saying that the firm repeatedly undervalued Beazer in its offers, with the latest bid coming in lower than previous proposals. Dream Finders’ stock dropped 13.4% following the news.

    Global markets broadly followed the downward trend on Tuesday, with most major indexes across Europe and Asia closing lower. Along with South Korea’s 2.3% drop, Germany’s DAX fell 1.6% and France’s CAC 40 lost 0.9%, two of the steepest declines outside of Asia. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was a rare outlier, closing 0.5% higher. AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed reporting to this article.