China
FBI Investigates Deaths of 10 Scientists as Officials Dispute Connection Claims
Federal inquiry into pattern of deaths and disappearances among defence and aerospace researchers reveals no evidence linking cases, despite congressional alarm.
Mali coordinated strikes expose Sahel power vacuum as Russian, Chinese influence fractures
JNIM-separatist assault on Bamako and five cities marks tactical shift beyond fragmented insurgency, threatening West African energy corridors and regional stability.
Google’s $40B Anthropic Bet and the Strait of Hormuz Blockade Reshape AI and Energy Markets
The largest AI investment on record collides with history's biggest energy disruption as geopolitical and technological fault lines deepen.
China’s Rare Earth Chokehold: Processing Monopoly Exposes U.S. Strategic Vulnerability
Beijing controls 90% of refining despite holding only 37% of reserves, creating a minerals-based leverage point across defense and clean energy supply chains that billions in reshoring investment struggle to overcome.
Hormuz Closure Cements US Energy Leverage While Accelerating Dollar Alternatives
Iran conflict removes 17 million barrels daily from global markets, reinforcing petrodollar through US crude absorption even as yuan-denominated energy flows gain structural traction.
Castelion’s $105M Navy Contract Marks U.S. Pivot to Operational Hypersonic Deployment
Silicon Valley startup challenges Lockheed-Raytheon duopoly with mass-producible Blackbeard missile as Pentagon races to match China's operational lead.
Inside the Sanctions-Evasion Network Fueling Russia’s War Machine
Investigative evidence reveals how China, Russia, and North Korea operationalize forced labor, alternative payment systems, and energy-for-weapons barter to circumvent Western sanctions—exposing critical gaps in economic statecraft.
Asia Edition: DeepSeek Shocks Infrastructure Markets as Hormuz Crisis Tightens
China's efficiency breakthrough collides with Gulf energy paralysis, forcing simultaneous repricing of AI capex assumptions and geopolitical risk premiums.
DeepSeek’s $6M Training Cost Threatens $650B AI Infrastructure Thesis
Chinese lab's efficiency breakthrough and Huawei chip debut force urgent reassessment of whether hyperscaler capex ROI assumptions survive the post-scale paradigm.
DeepSeek V4 Launch Challenges Western AI Dominance as $20B Funding Talks Signal China’s Capability Surge
Chinese startup's 1-trillion parameter model with million-token context arrives alongside doubled valuation, demonstrating resilience against US chip export controls.
DeepSeek V4 Release Exposes Limits of US Chip Export Controls as China Claims Frontier AI Parity at 1% of Cost
Open-source model running on Huawei chips challenges proprietary AI pricing while signaling strategic failure of semiconductor containment.
Asia Edition: Strait Tensions, Semiconductor Strikes, and the Industrial-Scale AI Theft Dragnet
Energy markets price escalation as Trump authorises lethal force in Hormuz, while Samsung's labour standoff threatens DRAM supply amid White House allegations of systematic Chinese AI model extraction.