In December 2021, United States intelligence claimed China was helping Saudi Arabia develop ballistic missiles. Washington feared the Saudis were abandoning them in pursuit of a closer partnership with China. For some US policymakers, this pointed to the growing threat of China displacing the United States as the principal external power in the …

On December 6, TSMC held the opening ceremony for the arrival of the first batch of machines and equipment at its Arizona wafer fab. The event was attended by some of the most important personalities in the U.S., among whom were President Joe Biden, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, members …

Will Russia survive until 2084? Readers may recognize the query as an allusion to Andrei Amalrik’s historic 1969 essay, “Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?,” which itself was an allusion to Orwell’s famed novel. As with Amalrik’s question about the Soviet Union’s future, this query focuses on Russia’s future …

EU energy ministers reached a deal on Monday (19 December) to limit excessive gas prices, following months of debate over whether or not to implement a price cap on imports into Europe. Under the agreement, gas prices on the EU’s main trading hub will be capped should they exceed €180 per megawatt-hour (MWh) for …

Investors are on the edge of their seats for any sign that Fed central planners will someday “pivot” to cutting interest rates, instead of raising them. They forget that recessions and major stock bear markets have occurred after the Fed started cutting rates and the yield curve spread shifted from negative to …

An OPEC+ decision taken in October to cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day turned out to be the right one for supporting the stability of the oil market despite being described as “very risky” and “unfortunate” at the time, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said on Tuesday. Speaking to the …

Russian military forces and civilians operating under their orders pillaged thousands of valuable artifacts and artworks from two museums, a cathedral, and a national archive in Kherson, before withdrawing after an 8-month occupation of the city, Human Rights Watch said. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, its forces …

While the Kremlin stubbornly contends that the Russian defense industry will have no issues in replenishing those munitions that have been heavily depleted in Ukraine, closer analysis of the production rates within the industry reveal otherwise. First and foremost, Russia’s heavy shelling of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure has led to a …

On Dec. 1, Aleksey Korostelyov, the host of Russian opposition TV channel Dozhd (TV Rain) broadcasting from the Latvian capital Riga invited his viewers to share testimonies about Russia’s mobilization process and problems in the Russian army. At the same time he expressed hope that “we also helped many military personnel, namely …

Much has been said about the problematic implications of cybercurrencies like Bitcoin for contemporary security environments. After all, they provide unsupervised conduits for the cross-border circulation of money in ways that can conceal the identities of those responsible. Needless to say, such advantage can be useful for the various financial …