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Iran vows continued support for Palestine, says foreign ministry adviser

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Iran vows continued support for Palestine, says foreign ministry adviser

Ali Safari, adviser to the spokesperson of Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said on Monday that the Palestinian cause remains a priority for Iran, stressing that Tehran will continue to support Palestine.

In an exclusive statement to Safa news agency, Safari said Iran would continue efforts to end the war in the Gaza Strip and focus on stopping what he described as Israeli crimes and violations against Palestinians.

He said support for Palestine is a “fundamental and principled” position for Iran, adding that Tehran “will continue to support the Palestinians and make use of any opportunity to assist them”.

Regarding the terms of the agreement with the United States, Safari said both sides had agreed to end the war on all fronts linked to the confrontation between the United States, Iran and its allies, particularly the Lebanese front, followed by 60 days of negotiations.

READ: Hamas welcomes US-Iran truce deal, calls for end to Gaza and Lebanon attacks

He added that the agreement includes establishing mechanisms to manage the Strait of Hormuz through cooperation between Iran and Oman only, as well as the release of frozen Iranian funds and the lifting of the naval blockade on Iranian ports.

Safari said the nuclear file and related issues would be discussed during the negotiation period, stressing that Iran’s missile programme and Tehran’s relations with its regional allies are not part of the talks.

He also said that any continuation of the Israeli war in southern Lebanon would be considered a violation of the agreement, warning that such breaches could affect the course of negotiations. 

He added that Iran would retain the right to respond to any violation of the deal.

READ: US-Iran agreement gave region a ‘sigh of relief,’ says Turkish president

Good news—we have extra time before the Sun ends life on Earth

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Good news—we have extra time before the Sun ends life on Earth

It’s a bit worrying when a scientific paper begins, “How long will life on Earth survive?” But in this case—a study by Jacob Haqq‐Misra of Blue Marble Space and Eric Wolf at the University of Colorado Boulder—the billion-plus-year timeline under consideration shouldn’t cause you too much existential panic.

The context for this question is that we understand the Sun will brighten as it eventually matures into a red giant that swallows the Earth in a solar furnace. So, where along that 5 billion-year path will life on Earth, in fact, be cooked?

Weathering and the weather

This isn’t just a question of incoming radiation. Among the thermostat-like stabilizing feedback loops in Earth’s climate, the cycling of CO2 through the solid Earth is a major factor over timescales this long. The weathering of silicate rocks at the surface converts atmospheric CO2 into carbonate that ends up on the seafloor, where it can be subducted into the mantle with tectonic plates. (And eventually, it can cycle back out to the atmosphere through volcanoes.)

The weathering of bedrock depends, in part, on temperature. Warmer temperatures and a more active hydrologic cycle mean an increased rate of weathering, which pulls more CO2 out of the atmosphere. That slows rising temperatures. But in this scenario, it could also lead CO2 to fall to extremely low levels—and photosynthesis requires CO2.

This far-future puzzle has been the focus of many model simulations over the past few decades. With a steadily brightening Sun, when does the Earth either get too hot or too CO2-starved for the base of the food chain to survive?

Some of those models have been relatively simple equations. Others have been more complex one-dimensional layer models, representing an ocean and an atmosphere separately in the math, for example. This new study brings a 3D model to the party and uses a pair of scenarios that mark opposite ends of a spectrum.

The difference between the scenarios is based on extreme views of the temperature/carbon relationship described above. That was done in part because the idea that CO2 would eventually fall to very low levels has been challenged recently, based on some evidence of a much weaker relationship between bedrock weathering and global temperature. So in one scenario, the researchers held the planet’s temperature constant (equal to today’s) and let CO2 drop to compensate exactly for the brighter Sun. This is a world where strong weathering acts as a perfect thermostat. In the other scenario, CO2 is instead held constant at a modern value while temperature increases, representing a very weak weathering thermostat.

Too hot to handle

With weak weathering, the world is around 21° C (38° F) warmer 1.5 billion years from now, and it jumps an additional 40° C (72° F) between then and 2 billion years. Even with CO2 remaining at 400 parts per million, those temperatures would wipe out land plants on Earth.

Specifically, the physiological limits of most land plants are crossed by 1.68 billion years, and the rest are toast at 1.87 billion. (Boiling off the oceans and losing our water to space wouldn’t be far behind.)

In the strong weathering scenario, the temperature doesn’t change. But after 1 billion years, CO2 drops to about 34 parts per million, and after 2 billion years it falls to less than 1 part per million. The limit for most land plants is around 150 parts per million, while the much less common C4 plants could survive down to 3–10 parts per million. The latter limit gets hit between 1.35 and 1.64 billion years in.

A few plants, like cacti as well as some marine life, can cheat by using bicarbonate in the water if dissolved CO2 is low. They can probably make it down to 1 part per million. That would buy them a little more time, and they’d make it to about 1.84 billion years.

Two charts showing when model simulations cross thresholds for land plants.

Model timelines for the weak and strong weathering scenarios. Temperature in the top plot is in kelvins—a change of 1 kelvin is equivalent to 1 °C. Carbon dioxide in the bottom plot is on a logarithmic scale. (101 is 10 parts per million, 102 is 100 parts per million, etc.)

Credit: Haqq-Misra and Wolf/JGR Atmospheres

Model timelines for the weak and strong weathering scenarios. Temperature in the top plot is in kelvins—a change of 1 kelvin is equivalent to 1 °C. Carbon dioxide in the bottom plot is on a logarithmic scale. (101 is 10 parts per million, 102 is 100 parts per million, etc.) Credit: Haqq-Misra and Wolf/JGR Atmospheres

That’s optimistic?

The, uh, good news about these estimates for the demise of complex life on Earth is that they’re actually a bit more optimistic than most previous studies. That’s down to the 3D model producing a little less warming for a brighter Sun, the expectation that CO2 declines more slowly over time, and a slight expansion of the CO2 range believed to be survivable by plants. Many previous estimates had put life’s expiration date at less than 1 billion years from now.

Obviously, there are a bunch of additional considerations that could significantly alter this story, and the researchers mention a few. If civilization persists long enough to see some of these changes, geoengineering would certainly be an option—like spreading aerosols in the stratosphere to reflect sunlight, for example.

There are even some wilder suggestions out there, like moving Earth’s orbit farther from the Sun or removing some of the Sun’s mass to tame the red giant. (We have a billion years to work on the logistics, after all.)

Less speculatively, evolution could have a say in the physiological limits of Earth’s plants. Any adaptations that expand the range of survivability would extend the timeline.

Ultimately, the point of modeling this kind of thing is not to make a confident prediction. Apart from the simple natural curiosity about what will happen to our world, this is also relevant to wondering about the potential for life on other worlds. The window of time during which life on Earth is possible tells us something about where to look outside our Solar System.

Land plants have been present on Earth for almost 500 million years, and if this new estimate is right, they could stick around for almost 1.9 billion more. As was the case for a few billion years early on, microbial life might again have the place to themselves for a while after that.

JGR Atmospheres, 2026. DOI: 10.1029/2025JD045586 (About DOIs).

Father Shot Dead in Front of His Family After Barbershop

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Father Shot Dead in Front of His Family After Barbershop


A Birmingham father was gunned down in front of his own family after an argument outside an Alabama barbershop spiraled into deadly violence, police said.

The shocking shooting happened Saturday, June 13, just after 3:30 p.m. outside La Vida Barberia Spa y Estilismo on West Valley Avenue in Birmingham.

Authorities identified the victim as 34-year-old Jorge Fonseca, a Birmingham resident.

According to investigators, Fonseca and the suspected shooter knew each other and got into a physical fight outside the barbershop. During the altercation, police said, the suspect pulled out a gun and shot Fonseca.

Police and medical crews rushed to the scene after receiving a report that a man had been shot. Paramedics tried to save Fonseca’s life, but he was pronounced dead on the sidewalk outside the shop.

The tragedy was made even more horrifying by who was there to witness it.

Several customers were inside the barbershop when the deadly fight broke out, including members of Fonseca’s family, according to AL.com. Witnesses were later brought in for questioning as investigators worked to piece together what led to the fatal shooting.

Police said the shooter ran from the scene after the gunfire but was taken into custody about 15 minutes later.

The suspect’s identity has not yet been released.

Indonesia’s nickel-rich Halmahera becoming a Chinese company island

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Indonesia’s nickel-rich Halmahera becoming a Chinese company island

aerial photo taken on April 18, 2025 shows smoke rising at Weda Bay Industrial Park (WBIP), a major nickel processing and smelting hub, in Lelilef Sawai, Central Halmahera, North Maluku. Image: YouTube Screengrab

Halmahera, the largest island in Indonesia’s North Maluku province, is unlikely to be familiar to most readers outside Southeast Asia. Yet this forested island, located between Sulawesi and New Guinea, has become one of the most important places in the global energy transition.

Home to some of Indonesia’s largest nickel deposits and the world’s largest nickel mine, Halmahera now sits at the center of rapidly expanding supply chains that support electric-vehicle and battery manufacturing.

Over the past decade, billions of dollars in investment have flowed into the island, much of it linked to large-scale industrial projects backed by Chinese capital.

The China-led transformation has been dramatic, giving rise to bountiful new economic opportunities. Industrial activity has expanded rapidly. Infrastructure has improved in areas that had long struggled to attract public or private investment. Many of these changes have brought real benefits to local communities.

Earlier this year, Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park (IWIP), owned by three Chinese companies, and Weda Bay Nickel, majority owned by China’s Tsingshan Holding Group, began construction of a water treatment facility to provide clean water to villages in Central Halmahera, marking a tangible improvement in villagers’ daily lives.

To be sure, these contributions deserve recognition. But the growing role of corporations in community life raises an important question: What happens when foreign companies become more visible and effective than the government for delivering public services?

This is not a criticism of any particular Chinese or other foreign company operating in Indonesia. Nor is it an argument against foreign investment in public infrastructure. Rather, it is a warning about a pattern that has appeared repeatedly in resource-rich regions around the world.

A major industry arrives. Investment flows in faster than the government’s capacity to expand. Companies begin supporting infrastructure, education programs, health initiatives and community services.

Initially, these efforts are welcome because they address real needs. Over time, however, a subtle shift can occur. Communities begin looking to corporations rather than public institutions for solutions to public problems. When that happens, the balance between private influence and public responsibility begins to change.

Halmahera risks becoming what might be called a “company island”: a place where a single industrial ecosystem becomes so influential that it shapes not only employment and economic growth, but also the provision of services and the direction of development itself.

A strong state should welcome responsible private investment while remaining visibly present in people’s lives. Roads, water systems, schools and healthcare should not depend on the continued success of a particular industry or the goodwill of a particular company. Public services should remain public responsibilities.

This distinction matters because corporations and governments play fundamentally different roles in society. Corporate leaders may act in good faith, but their primary responsibility is to their businesses.

Governments carry a different obligation. They are responsible for the long-term welfare of all citizens, including those who do not directly benefit from industrial growth. As Halmahera’s role in the global energy transition grows, this distinction will become increasingly significant.

The island is often discussed today in terms of nickel, batteries and industrial parks. Yet Halmahera is more than a strategic asset in a global supply chain. It is home to hundreds of thousands of people, diverse Indigenous and customary communities, rich marine ecosystems and livelihoods that extend far beyond mining.

Its future should not be defined solely by the needs of the global battery industry.

Saving Halmahera does not mean rejecting investment. It does not mean opposing industrial development. The island’s residents deserve economic opportunities, better infrastructure and rising living standards.

But development should strengthen public institutions, not substitute for them.

The measure of success in Halmahera should not be how many tons of nickel leave its shores each year. It should be whether local communities feel that their future is being shaped by accountable public institutions capable of serving the public interest.

The world’s energy transition will require places like Halmahera. The question is whether that transition will leave behind stronger societies or merely stronger corporations.

For Halmahera, the answer depends on whether the government remains at the center of development. An island can welcome foreign investment without surrendering its future. It can benefit from corporate involvement without becoming dependent on it.

That is the balance Halmahera must preserve if it is to avoid becoming a company island.

Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is director of the China-Indonesia Desk at the Jakarta-based Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS) independent research institute. Yeta Purnama is a researcher at CELIOS.

Users cry foul after AMD stripped memory crypto from its consumer CPUs

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Users cry foul after AMD stripped memory crypto from its consumer CPUs

A decade ago, AMD added a protection to its high-end CPUs to protect them against cold boot attacks and other types of physical exploits that siphon sensitive data out of the connected memory chips. Short for Transparent Secure Memory Encryption, TSME encrypts the entire contents stored in memory, making the data useless to physical attackers.

Over time, AMD added TSME to lower-end processors, including the consumer version of its Ryzen chips, a CPU that costs less than the Pro version. Over the years, users of these lower-end chips have gotten used to the added security. Recently and without warning or notice, this lower-end line of AMD chips suddenly dropped the protection, and did so in a way that was impossible to detect on Windows machines and required a fair amount of technical work when using Linux.

Now you see it, now you don’t

AMD has yet to say why TSME worked on these CPUs, or even to confirm the change. AMD declined to answer questions sent by email other than to say TSME “is a security feature only applied to PRO CPUs as part of AMD PRO Technologies.” The statement is the first known time the chipmaker has explicitly made this restriction public.

In April, Ben Kilpatrick, who describes himself as a “privacy-conscious Linux hobbyist,” was installing a new OS on his machine running a Ryzen 7 9700X from the Zen 5 architecture. To check that all security protections were enabled, he had his machine run Host Security ID (HSI), an auditing feature that evaluates the firmware and hardware security configurations.

To his surprise, HSI showed TSME was no longer possible, as indicated by the “encrypted RAM: not supported” line near the bottom of the screenshot below. A few lines lower, the HSI indicates that previously, TSME had shown as “encrypted.” This made no sense to Kilpatrick because he had enabled TSME in his BIOS settings all along.

HSI output showing that his Ryzen CPU once provided TSME but no longer does. AMD pulled the feature for consumer CPUs without notice or an easy means for users to know.

Credit: Ben Kilpatrick

HSI output showing that his Ryzen CPU once provided TSME but no longer does. AMD pulled the feature for consumer CPUs without notice or an easy means for users to know. Credit: Ben Kilpatrick

This sent Kilpatrick into a monthslong investigation to figure out what had happened. After sending an inquiry to both the support and engineering teams at MSI, the manufacturer of his motherboard, he finally convinced company engineers to run tests.

They found that consumer versions of Ryzen running on MSI and Gigabyte motherboards had TSME enabled when an older firmware version, available exclusively through the AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA), described here, was used during the boot process. When the firmware in a newer AGESA, specifically version 1.2.7.0, ran instead, TSME showed as “not supported.” Pro versions of the Ryzen CPU supported TSME across both motherboards and AGESA versions.

“The big outstanding question is whether this is a deliberate policy decision by AMD to restrict TSME to PRO chips, or an unintentional regression that was introduced in AGESA 1.2.7.0,” Kilpatrick told Ars. He continued:

The reason that distinction matters is that if it is deliberate policy, AMD made a conscious decision to remove a working feature from consumer hardware and restrict it to enterprise customers. If it is an accidental regression, it is a firmware bug that AMD should fix. Either way the silicon is capable, either way the change happened in AGESA, and either way AMD has declined to explain it. But the two scenarios imply very different things about exactly what happened.

As part of his investigation, Killpatrick filed a bug report on AMD’s public engineering GitHub repository. Two AMD engineers engaged directly.

Tom Lendacky, an AMD fellow software engineer, replied that he didn’t know what caused the change. He suggested disabling and then re-enabling the option in the BIOS. “If that doesn’t work, my guess would be that it is a BIOS issue and you would want to contact MSI,” (It was this suggestion that led Kilpatrick to prevail upon MSI engineers to run the tests mentioned earlier.)

Mario Limonciello, AMD senior principal software engineer and maintainer of the fwupd version of HSI, then chimed in. He, too, suggested disabling and re-enabling the BIOS settings. “If it still doesn’t work; then yes please report it to your board vendor to debug,” he said.

I have nothing more to share, AMD engineer says

Six weeks later, Kilpatrick resumed the discussion. After getting the results of MSI’s investigations, he reported them to the AMD engineers.

“MSI’s product marketing team has informed me that AMD officially communicated to MSI that TSME is exclusively supported on PRO series processors,” he wrote. “They [MSI support personnel] also conducted controlled testing on an Asus X870E motherboard with a Ryzen 9800X3D (consumer) and a Ryzen 9945 (PRO), finding tsme_status = 1 on the PRO processor and tsme_status = 0 on the consumer processor with the same board and BIOS.”

A setting of 1 indicated TSME was enabled. A status of 0 meant it was off.

Next, Kilpatrick turned the engineers’ attention to results from memory captures from the AMD Boot Loader. Typically abbreviated as ABL, it’s a component within AGESA that initializes the hardware prior to the OS loading. MSI’s engineering team found that a string indicating the status of TSME early in the boot process was never enabled.

The memory capture showed that DfIsTsmeEnabled, an internal AGESA flag that controls whether TSME is activated during the firmware initialization process, showed that it was not turned on. The ABL memory dump comparisons returned different values depending on whether the Pro or consumer CPU version was used. The flag showed FALSE for consumer processors and TRUE for PRO or EPYC processors when TSME was enabled in the BIOS.

“Their BIOS engineer also provided ABL dump comparisons showing DfIsTsmeEnabled returning FALSE for the 9800X3D regardless of whether TSME is set to AUTO or ENABLED in BIOS,” Kilpatrick reported, “while the 9945 returns TRUE when TSME is ENABLED.”

Kilpatrick went on in the thread to remind Lendacky that in 2020, the engineer had confirmed TSME was supported on a Ryzen 3700X (a consumer CPU). After more back-and-forth discussion, Kilpatrick asked bluntly: “is DfIsTsmeEnabled being set to FALSE on consumer SKUs a silicon-level limitation, or is it a firmware policy decision within AGESA? The distinction matters quite a bit from a user perspective, since one is fixed and the other is potentially changeable.”

Limoncello promptly replied: “My apologies; but I don’t have any more information to share on this topic.” With that, the discussion and Kilpatrick’s inquiry were over.

The Lendacky comment in 2020 Kilpatrick referred to came in this thread discussing encryption features available in AMD CPUs. Lendacky said that the Ryzen 3700x, a consumer CPU, “should support TSME.” In a 2025 comment in the same thread, the engineer followed up on his comment concerning the 3700x.

“I recommend using TSME (Transparent SME), but it is a BIOS option that needs to be exposed by your BIOS provider,” Lendacky said in response to the question about the consumer chip.

There’s no indication that AMD ever advertised or marketed TSME as being available in consumer CPUs. AMD has long said that a related memory protection, Secure Memory Encryption (SME), is available only in the Pro and Epyc CPU tiers. SME is OS-managed. It uses a single key and allows the OS to selectively encrypt individual memory pages. TSME is firmware-managed. It encrypts all RAM with no OS involvement. When active, it provides protection against physical attacks, including cold boot exploits, DRAM interface snooping, and memory module removal. It activates silently when enabled in the BIOS, making it the more practically useful of the two protections.

AMD engineers’ comments, such as those mentioned above, and the years of TSME working just fine in the lower-cost tier processors, have understandably conditioned Kilpatrick and other users to reasonably regard it as an expected part of the chip package. AMD quietly removing it and providing no acknowledgment or explanation strikes these users as something of a betrayal.

“They could have not realized they did it leading to their cagey responses, or they could have done it intentionally and tried to get away with it, leading to the same cagey responses,” Joe Fitzgerald, an expert in silicon-level security, said in an interview, referring to AMD’s potential motivations for withdrawing TSME. “But I really feel like an explanation should be in order, even if it was ‘TSME was never supposed to be supported. We did ship some firmwares that erroneously enabled it, but you shouldn’t use them since we can’t guarantee it’ll work properly.’”

Beyond oil: Iran war may have transformed Asia’s trade architecture

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Beyond oil: Iran war may have transformed Asia’s trade architecture

The initial market reaction to US and Israeli military strikes on Iran was familiar: Brent crude surged in early Asian trading, equity markets slipped and headlines focused on the energy shock to come.

But months later, the conflict appeared to become much more than an energy disruption — it served as a stress test for Asia’s trade architecture, exposing vulnerabilities that run far deeper than elevated oil prices alone.

For corporates, logistics providers and policymakers across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the seemingly more consequential story unfolded in shipping lanes, compliance departments, export control registers and trade finance desks.

How the region responds could influence not just its near-term economic outlook, but the structure of Asian trade for years to come.

When Hormuz closes, Asia is among the first affected

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly a third of global seaborne crude oil and around 20% of global liquefied natural gas shipments pass — had near-term consequences for Asia’s most commodity-dependent economies.

Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong all import more than 80% of their domestic energy needs. Nearly 90% of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exported through the Strait flows to Asian buyers. Asia generates two-thirds of global GDP growth and accounts for 40% of world trade while remaining heavily dependent on imported energy.

The disruption extended well beyond energy. A third of global seaborne fertilizer trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz, meaning that as gas prices rise, fertilizer costs follow and food prices with them. Some Asian exports have also faced delays or rerouting. India’s agricultural exports to Gulf markets have reportedly slowed as freight and insurance costs spike.

In addition, Qatar is the world’s second-largest producer of helium — a critical input for semiconductor manufacturing — and reports of disruptions at LNG facilities have raised the risk of interruptions in helium production.

A prolonged disruption could have tightened global helium supply and raised costs for the semiconductor industries of Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, adding a technology-supply-chain vulnerability for a region that anchors global electronics output.

Singapore: exposed hub, strategic position

Like its Asian counterparts, Singapore felt the strain from the disruption caused by the conflict. About 95% of the country’s electricity is generated from imported natural gas, and more than 40% of its LNG supply came from Qatar last year.

Singapore’s Energy Market Authority had warned that fuel prices will likely remain elevated in the foreseeable future. Business and market sentiment have declined, with companies across manufacturing, services, transportation and construction pulling back on investment and expansion decisions. Inflation pressures are building, raising the prospect of a tighter monetary policy response.

As one of the world’s leading trade, shipping, commodities finance and bunkering hubs, Singapore sits at the operational center of several supply chains currently under pressure. Its energy and chemicals sector is the country’s second-largest manufacturing industry.

Singapore’s financial institutions provide trade finance, commodity hedging and logistics credit to counterparties across Asia and the Gulf. As a result, disruptions affecting the Strait can be transmitted through Singapore’s logistics and financial ecosystem, with pressures likely to increase if the conflict persists.

Pivot away from Gulf dependency

For manufacturing-intensive economies in Asia, the conflict may accelerate a strategic recalibration that, in some cases, was already underway.

Some governments with large industrial bases — South Korea being a prominent example — have begun to explore alternative energy sources in response to Gulf supply disruptions.

As part of a longer-term strategy, this may create additional impetus to diversify reliance on a single source of energy amid heightened volatility. The environment may also contribute to a rise in demand for defense equipment and heightened security investment among regional governments, particularly those with close security ties to Washington, as evolving risks to US-linked assets and facilities sharpen threat calculations.

The policy responses emerging across the region illustrate the scale of the adjustment now underway. South Korea has imposed its first fuel price cap in nearly three decades. Japan has begun releasing oil from national reserves. Taiwan has spent over $600 million securing spot LNG cargoes.

Meanwhile, governments from Thailand to Indonesia are introducing fuel subsidies, price caps and demand management measures to cushion their populations from the shock. For many Asian economies, a medium-term priority may be to accelerate diversification across energy sourcing, trade routes and supplier relationships.

A shifting compliance landscape

Beyond the immediate risk to oil and gas supplies from the Gulf, one broader concern is how the conflict may influence trade behavior across Asia. As military actions intensify, countries may, in some cases, align their trade and export control policies more explicitly with geopolitical positioning.

The implications are significant. Exporters and logistics providers across ASEAN could face a tightening environment for dual-use goods controls, as governments respond to heightened secondary sanctions risk.

Customs scrutiny could intensify. Informal boycotts and selective export restrictions — driven not by formal policy but by geopolitical signaling — could disrupt established trade relationships.

Financial institutions may encounter growing pressure around counterparty transparency, including more rigorous requirements to identify and verify ultimate beneficial ownership across complex supply chains.

Over time, these non-tariff barriers could, for some sectors, prove as disruptive to regional supply chains as any physical interruption to the supply of oil and gas from the Gulf.

For Singapore-based trade finance providers, commodity traders and logistics companies, this presents an operational challenge that will likely place additional strain on compliance infrastructure, legal resources and risk appetite in the months ahead.

Singapore’s strategic moment

In this environment, Singapore’s role as a regional hub represents both a point of exposure and a source of strategic value.

The country’s deep institutional relationships, its sophisticated legal and regulatory framework, and its expertise in trade finance and compliance position it to play a stabilizing role for businesses navigating a more fragmented global trade environment.

Singapore’s LNG terminal infrastructure and fiscal buffers are also critical advantages, allowing the city-state to access world markets even as supply tightens, although they offer little buffer against the inflationary consequences of elevated global prices.

A key question for Singapore’s policymakers and business community is not simply how to absorb the shock, but whether and how to use this period to deepen the capabilities — in compliance, risk management, energy transition and supply chain resilience — that could shape the next era of Asian trade.

Doing so will likely require clear-eyed leadership and a willingness to pursue structural change that outlasts the current crisis. While transit through the Strait of Hormuz may soon normalize, the broader fragmentation pressures it has exposed may prove harder to unwind.

Choon Hong Chua is a senior director at Moody’s.

UK Court of Appeal Upholds Palestine Action Terrorist Designation 

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UK Court of Appeal Upholds Palestine Action Terrorist Designation 


The UK Court of Appeal has ruled that the government’s designation of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization is lawful, reversing a previous High Court decision and concluding that the group’s activities fall within the definition of terrorism under British law. 

The ruling overturns a February judgment in which the High Court found the proscription unlawful. At the time, judges determined that the ban on the direct-action group was “disproportionate.” 

In its latest decision, the Court of Appeal found that the Home Secretary acted lawfully when proscribing the organization. Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr and fellow appeal judges concluded that Palestine Action openly promoted violence amounting to terrorism and operated through covert, cell-like methods rather than transparent civil disobedience. 

The British government first designated Palestine Action as a terrorist organization in July 2025 under the Terrorism Act 2000 following direct-action protests and property damage at defense-related sites. 

Anne Herzberg, Legal Advisor of NGO Monitor, welcomed the decision. 

“The Court of Appeals made the right decision to uphold the government’s proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization. Since October 7, the group has gotten more and more extreme, vandalizing insurance companies, the BBC, and defense company offices.” 

The group broke into the offices of Israeli military technology company Elbit Systems, Herzberg recounted, causing more than a million pounds of damage and fracturing the spine of a policewoman. Four of the perpetrators were sentenced last week to years in prison. 

In addition,  a year ago, Palestinian Action broke into a UK air force base, damaging planes at a critical juncture in Western security defense, Herzberg explained: “The group has long had shadowy organizing structure and financing. Their actions go far beyond any definition of peaceful protest. It is no surprise that those defending the group and decrying the court decision are also some of the loudest voices promoting antisemitic rhetoric and apologizing for the terrorism of Hamas and Hezbollah.” 

The Court of Appeal’s ruling reinstates the government’s position that the group’s activities justify proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000. 

A Chinese rocket breaks apart dangerously close to the Starlink constellation

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A Chinese rocket breaks apart dangerously close to the Starlink constellation

The upper stage from a commercial Chinese rocket that launched last week has broken apart in space, spreading debris in a heavily trafficked part of low-Earth orbit home to the International Space Station and a significant portion of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband network.

The breakup occurred shortly after the Zhuque-2E rocket reached orbit on June 9 with two satellites providing direct-to-cell communications, perhaps around the time the upper stage was expected to perform a disposal burn. The US Space Force confirmed the breakup event in a post on space-track.org, a website used by the military to distribute orbit data to the public.

“The tracked pieces are being incorporated into routine conjunction assessment to support spaceflight safety,” the Space Force wrote in an advisory. “There are currently no threats to human spaceflight. Analysis is ongoing.”

Counting the pieces

So far, the Space Force has not added any of the debris fragments to the official catalog of human-made space objects. Darren McKnight, a senior technical fellow at the orbital intelligence company LeoLabs, told Ars the fragmentation event likely generated 100 to 150 pieces of debris.

In one piece, the second stage of the Zhuque-2E rocket, made by a Chinese company called LandSpace, measured between 25 and 30 feet (about 8 meters) long and 11 feet (3.35 meters) in diameter. The main body of the rocket’s upper stage is now orbiting between 208 miles and 263 miles (335-by-424 kilometers) at an inclination of 54.5 degrees to the equator.

The uppermost part of this orbit crosses the orbit of the International Space Station, but aerodynamic drag will quickly pull all the debris fragments below the ISS. The debris could pose a greater threat to hundreds of Starlink satellites, particularly those providing direct-to-device connectivity and newly launched satellites, which fly at lower altitudes than the bulk of the Starlink constellation.

The good news is that this altitude is low enough for aerodynamic drag to cause most of the Zhuque-2E debris to reenter the atmosphere within a matter of months. Most of the material will burn up during reentry. The worst-case scenario is a debris-generating event over 400 miles (650 kilometers), where it will take decades or longer for an object to naturally fall back into the atmosphere.

The bad news is that the Zhuque-2E’s breakup is the latest chapter in China’s growing contribution to the space junk problem. After decades of leaving spent rocket bodies in orbit, launch operators in most countries now reserve enough fuel to steer their upper stages back to Earth for controlled reentries. Rocket bodies attributed to Russia and the former Soviet Union account for the bulk of the launch-related debris in long-lived orbits, followed by China and the United States.

But the Russian and American numbers are declining or holding steady, while the mass of Chinese rocket bodies in these long-lived orbits has grown by more than 150 percent in the past five years, according to a new analysis by Space Domain Awareness expert Jim Shell. The increase comes as China ramps up launches of its own megaconstellations designed to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink. Ars reported on these numbers last month.

Rocket bodies are the most concerning sources of space debris because they are typically fairly large in size and mass, often with residual propellant and high-pressure gases that can trigger an explosion. There is no way to maneuver or dispose of them if left abandoned in orbit after releasing their payloads.

McKnight characterized the recent breakup of the Zhuque-2E rocket as a “slight space safety issue,” but the trend is not good. China’s Long March 6A rocket has an especially bad track record, including two explosions that littered a higher-altitude low-Earth orbit with more than 1,000 debris fragments, where they will remain for decades or centuries.

“Three of the top four breakup events in LEO are of Chinese origin, with two of these events being from Chinese (rocket body) explosions in the last four years,” McKnight said.

US-India relations aren’t as abysmal as they seem

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US-India relations aren’t as abysmal as they seem

I’ve read that the Indian commentariat and foreign policy establishment are more wary of the United States than at any time this century.

Maybe so. But 26 years is not a particularly long time, and it often seems that there’s a “manic” aspect on the Indian side when considering the bilateral relationship.

Perhaps people get a little too excited when things are going well, and a little too depressed when the occasional hiccups happen. But is the India-US relationship really off track? Even if it’s currently in a “down” moment, look back 40 years, and things still look pretty good. Here are a few things to consider:

First, the US ambassador to India is a lot better than his predecessor. Ambassador Sergio Gor chose India out of any number of possible postings — or positions within the Trump administration. He’s not in India for a three-year holiday. Even more, Ambassador Gor can call the White House and President Trump will answer. Very few ambassadors can do this.

Second, it’s not as if the US has forgotten about India or is giving it the cold shoulder. Notice Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited last month. He didn’t choose India at random.

And Rubio is not only the most consequential Secretary of State since George Schultz, but he’s also the National Security Advisor. His visit is a gauge of the importance the Trump administration assigns to India.

Third, the India-US military-to-military prelateship is stronger than ever. The two forces conduct frequent exercises, India has become a maintenance and logistics hub for the US Navy and arms sales are robust.

India also gets a degree of special treatment regarding technology exports — although there is room for improvement.

As for trade? A bilateral trade deal is in the works, which might assuage the shock felt by many countries of having blanket tariffs imposed on them.

Yes, it would have been nice if tariffs had been applied more carefully, but the Trump administration was dealing with a problem that had built up over many decades, and felt a sledgehammer was needed to shift things in the right direction.

India’s resentment is understandable, but it’s not unique. Indeed, Japan could feel even more aggrieved — given its 70 years as a loyal treaty ally and the deep military and economic ties with America — and the consistent political support it has provided.

Instead, Tokyo bit its tongue, ensuring that resentment didn’t get the better of strategic interests. “Biting one’s tongue” is perhaps sometimes the better part of statesmanship —provided one reckons the relationship is valuable enough.

And at the end of the day, Indian and American strategic interests align — as the world enters a struggle between free, consensually governed nations and expansionist totalitarian ones.

Yes, it’s China that I’m mostly talking about. India, in fact, recognized the “China threat” far earlier than did the US, which has belatedly woken up. Regardless, by their very existence, India and the United States are a rebuttal of China’s dictatorship and repression.

However, from some Indian quarters its claimed Trump doesn’t see China as a threat and is aiming to “sell out” to Beijing.

Trump’s maneuvering room is constrained by US dependence on China for critical minerals, pharmaceuticals and manufactured goods. But the president has no illusions about the People’s Republic of China as a rival, if not an enemy, and Xi Jinping is clearly unhappy about US policies towards the PRC.

But isn’t Trump “transactional”— as often said as an insult? I should hope so. And Trump isn’t unique in this regard.

Every president, and one might suggest every world leader, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is “transactional.” They all expect some benefit for whatever they do, and their citizens do as well.

What about the US and Pakistan?

I understand why India is irked — though this issue has existed in the India-US relationship for many years, even while it improved over the last couple of decades.

The Pakistanis played a double game against the United States from the beginning of its time in Afghanistan. And Pakistan is too close to China for comfort, and indeed is effectively a PRC proxy state.

Even more, the evidence is conclusive that Pakistan has and does sponsor and direct terrorism against India. Perhaps keep in mind that while it’s not a perfect comparison, in some respects India’s ties with Russia are similarly exasperating to the United States.

Is the US challenging India’s ‘strategic autonomy’?

This expression is used a lot, and all nations want to have “strategic autonomy”, but sometimes it seems more an excuse for India to avoid doing anything it doesn’t want to do — even if it should do it.

The Japanese use “the Constitution” in a similar fashion to beg off complying with US requests when it suits themselves.

A few suggestions

Make yourself “useful” — and distinguish yourself from the crowd.

Do this no matter who is in the White House. Trump is just more likely than his predecessors to openly ask what a particular country has done for the US.

India already has one huge selling point for the Trump administration: It is serious about its defense and is willing to fight — indeed, it is fighting — to defend itself.

This is almost a litmus test with the Trump administration and India has passed it. Few other countries have. Remind the Americans of this — repeatedly.

India might also help out in the Indian Ocean. The US is finally paying closer attention to the region, having woken up in recent months when the British attempted to hand over Diego Garcia and its strategic military base (America’s only one in the region) to Mauritius.

The US has few good options from a basing and access perspective in the region. Give it some. India might even get the Americans to pay for it, including Indian port refurbishments.

And keep the Quad going. This writer doesn’t believe that head-of-state Quad meetings are essential. Rather, solid continuous ties at lower and working levels and actually accomplishing things matter more than get-togethers between the Quad’s top dogs.

India’s recent agreement with Australia on maritime security is a good one, as are deepening Indian defense ties with Japan. Not everything has to be a “four-way” effort. Perhaps consider moving ahead with increased Quad use of the Andaman Islands for maritime patrol and security, and anti-submarine warfare operations.

The Americans would also appreciate India’s help in the Pacific Islands that are currently facing sustained Chinese political warfare. India can make useful contributions in areas such as medical, tourism, education, scholarships and investment.

And help the US break the Chinese stranglehold on rare earth minerals and pharmaceuticals, while diversifying energy sources. In other words, buy more US oil and gas — and less from Russia.

If you want to get noticed by the Trump administration, explain yourself — and not just to the DC think-tank crowd. Have the ambassador and his staff regularly head out to “flyover country” outside Washington and explain why India matters to Americans.

This advice applies just as much to more longstanding allies such as Japan, Great Briain, and Australia, though they seldom follow it.

A few final notes

This piece is written as a US perspective of what India ought to do to improve the India-US relationship. This is, of course, a two-way street.

The writer believes most Indians in the commentariat and official class can rattle off a dozen things America must do to fix the relationship. The American side’s perspective may not get heard so often.

And some final advice to any foreigner (and even other Americans) when it comes to Trump: Always remember that Trump is a New Yorker, on top of being a real estate man.

I am from Virginia. And even we have to brace ourselves when dealing with New Yorkers. Grow an extra layer of skin. It’s nothing personal on their part. Remember this and you can avoid getting wrapped up in resentments — even if not entirely avoiding them.

Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine officer and former US diplomat. He was the first Marine liaison officer to the Japan Self Defense Force, and is a fellow at the Center for Security Policy and the Yorktown Institute. He is the author of the book, “When China Attacks: A Warning To America.”

This article first appeared on The Sunday Guardian and is republished here with the author’s kind permission

Imperial Iran in the Eighteenth Century: Identity and State Formation under Nader

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Imperial Iran in the Eighteenth Century: Identity and State Formation under Nader

In July 1732, Nader Shah Afsharid, established a religious endowment in the Afghan city of Herat shortly after conquering it. In the preface to the deed, it was written that Nader was a ‘loyal servant of Ali’s household and…the defender of Shi’i lands (belad) and of the Shi’a, Nader-Qoli Khan, viceroy of Khorasan and ruler of the realm of Iran.’ What is striking about the passage is who it doesn’t mention, the Safavid ruler Tahmasp is missing from the excerpt and more brazenly, the text asserts that the lands of Iran belong to Nader himself. Nader Shah had no rightful claim to the throne when viewed through the lens of classical kingship, he had no royal bloodline and was born a commoner, who climbed the ranks of the Safavid military and found himself in an increasingly powerful position. The fateful Afghan invasion of Isfahan in 1722, not only proved pivotal in bringing Nader Shah to power, but also triggered a general existential crisis among Safavid elites who began to think about what Iran is and what Iranianness meant. This new book by Mohammad Amir Hakimi Parsa Imperial Iran in the Eighteenth Century: Identity and State Formation under Nader tells the story of how a new idea of Iran came to be. 

The Afghan Hutakids, who had sacked the Safavid capital in Iran, sought to subdue much of the empire and emphasised the shared Iranianness of both Sunni Afghans and Shia Iranians. The Hutakids also sought to govern in much the same way as the Safavids before them and create a continuity in rulership. Crucially, they seceded certain Safavid territories to the Ottomans, which would anger the elites whom the Hutakids wanted to control. The reaction of the elites created a number of intellectual camps who would go on to define what Iran ought to be. One discourse that emerged called for the restoration of a Shia state in Iran with some even calling for the removal of the Safavids altogether. One work produced in 1726, the Mokafatnameh, mourned the loss of Iran’s honour and blamed the Safavids for its demise. ‘The Mokafatnameh strove to ideologically dismantle it [the Safavid state] and those identities loyal to it.’ A core concept of the work was the restoration of Shiism and the guidance of the prophetic household as the key component of Iranianness. The author prayed for the Prophetic Imams to place a legitimate ruler to govern Iran. Mirza Zaki Mashhadi, a poet, went much further than this and wrote that Imam Ali should be the legitimate sovereign himself. The Safavid supporters had to respond by producing their own tracks, where they emphasised the Shia identity of Iran and their right to rule. 

BOOK REVIEW: A Daring Enterprise: A US-Egyptian Partnership and the Case for Soft Power

Nader Shah appeared during this timeframe initially as a servant of the Safavids and whose conquests temporarily restored Safavid rule. But Nader also gained power himself, and his supporters began to build the base for his legitimacy. As a commoner, his rise to prominence bore a resemblance to Timur’s rise as a vassal to the Mongol Chaghatayid Chinggisid line. He was keen to utilise Mongol traditions and connections to Timur for his own ends. Much like Nader Shah, Timur gained legitimacy through his conquests, which was seen as divine favour. The reporting of dreams that connected Nader Shah to Timur was also used to help cement his legitimisation. In one dream, Nader discovered Timur’s hidden treasure in Kalat Fortress, after a light emanating from the foot of a hill appeared leading Nader to confronting a dragon stationed near a well. Upon killing the dragon, Nader found the well was full of treasure and an inscription left by Timur himself, which read that whoever entered this location would be his prodigy and a world conquer. Timur as well as the Shia Imams fused together as part of Nader Shah’s legitimising claims.  

When Nader Shah finally ended Safavid control and established himself the ruler of Iran, his coronation ceremony wielded new concepts of Iranianness. The ceremony made clear, ‘Nader’s kingship would save Iran by restoring its faith through the non-sectarian Ja’fari creed, reconciling Shi’i and Sunni, and thus achieving a lasting peace with fellow Muslims.’ This move established himself as a legitimate Shia ruler to satisfy the old religious elites, but also enabled him to appear a legitimate ruler in the eyes of the Sunnis in his domain and also positioned them as part of the new Iran too. The most interesting aspect of the ceremony was the signing of the mochalga, a document that binds the signatories to loyalty to Nader Shah. The document uses the first-person plurals and uses words like ‘we’ and the people of Iran. The document was signed during a public ceremony, where both nobles and commoners gathered to elect Nader as the new shah. What was significant is that the attendees got to debate what was in the document and for the first time in Iranian history, sovereignty was given a popular mandate. ‘The result was the election of a low-born man to imperial sovereignty.’ 

Imperial Iran in the Eighteenth Century offers a fascinating view on the pivotal moment in Iranian history, where the old notion of right to rule breaks down and a new idea of Iranianness emerges. As today’s Iran reflects on the relationship between the government and its people, war and legitimacy, looking back at a previous existential crisis that altered the way the country identifies itself offers us a sense of where Iran has been in the past. Those interested to understand Iran’s past and how it emerged as a nation will find this book insightful and worth a read. 

BOOK REVIEW: Private Sins, Public Crimes: Policing, Punishment, and Authority in Iran

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