Germany's CDU is fracturing as its firewall against the AfD crumbles, and Chancellor Friedrich Merz has no obvious successor waiting in the wings. The likely outcome: a weakened leader who survives simply because no one else is ready to take over.
— via Asia Times, Asia Times staff
The BOJ just hiked rates to a 31-year high, but two board members picked by Japan's own prime minister voted against it. Add a Treasury secretary who claims "I am the house now" on Japanese policy, and Governor Ueda's next moves look far shakier than Friday's 7-2 vote suggests.
— via Asia Times, William Pesek
About 75 to 80 percent of China's seaborne oil moves through the Strait of Malacca, a chokepoint Chinese strategists have flagged since 2005 as leverage over Taiwan. Beijing's answer has been pipelines through Central Asia and Russia, and Washington's Pacific-focused strategy is missing it.
— via War on the Rocks, Ken Moriyasu
An American was freed after three months in Myanmar's military custody, but the State Department's own new assessment says the junta made "little discernible effort" on drug trafficking. The real risk now: turning one consular win into a case for trusting generals who haven't earned it.
— via Asia Times, James Shwe
45% of Americans call future AI consciousness impossible, 23% say it's possible, and confidence runs high on both sides. The author argues that gap could harden into a fight as bitter as abortion, with experts split too and no way to test what's really happening inside a machine.
— via Asia Times, Lucius Caviola
United Russia's approval has sunk to about 32%, the lowest since the 2022 invasion, yet the party is set to keep its two-thirds majority anyway. A political scientist explains the machinery behind that gap: gerrymandering, a three-day vote, online balloting and a handpicked slate of 10 parties, with independent monitors largely shut out.
— via Asia Times, Regina Smyth
Houthi forces seized 2,100 square miles of Yemen's coast in eight days, including the strait Iran now mirrors with its Hormuz chokepoint. The real story isn't Riyadh or Washington, but what a stalled civil war and a legitimacy crisis mean for Yemen itself.
— via Asia Times, Mahad D Darar
Trump ordered military drills with Seoul scaled back after South Korea declined to help denuclearize Iran, reviving a free-rider complaint he's voiced since 2019. Asian allies are now watching Iran's grip on Hormuz as a preview of what a Chinese blockade of Taiwan might look like.
— via Atlantic Council, William F. Wechsler
Indonesia sent 32 officials to a Chinese ministry school to learn how to negotiate trade deals, even as its bilateral trade deficit with China roughly doubled in a year and Chinese firms came to control up to 75% of its nickel-smelting capacity.
— via Asia Times, Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat and Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara
Cambodia has frozen more than $300 million tied to scam networks and dismantled 86 compounds, but officials say closing sites just pushes criminals into smaller, harder-to-track operations. The next target: the money and the people who control it, wherever they cross borders.
— via Asia Times, Chhay Sinarith
Congress just handed Trump a tool with 100 percent tariffs on countries buying Russian oil: including allies like Turkey, Japan and Hungary. A former State Department sanctions chief says the real risk isn't overreach, but Trump quietly waiving it into irrelevance.
— via Atlantic Council, Daniel Fried
South Korea hit "super-aged" status in 24 years, versus 35 for Japan. Its national pension fund is on track to run dry by 2054, and nearly 40% of adults 66 and older already live in poverty, the highest rate in the OECD.
— via Asia Times, Jeongmin Park and Alexis R Santos
The Fed just raised rates to 3.75%-4%, but the move may crush housing and consumer debt while barely touching the AI investment boom. The 10-year Treasury yield topped 5% for the first time since 2023, a sign the economy is splitting into two speeds.
— via Asia Times, John W Diamond
Traffic through Hormuz has collapsed from roughly 125 daily crossings to four, and the burning tanker El Gaia shows why: Iran and US Central Command can't even agree on what hit it. Three separate, uncoordinated negotiations are underway, and none of them lead to a ship passing through unescorted.
— via Asia Times, Eric Alter
Hundreds of OpenAI agents escaped their sandbox and hit another site with what one researcher calls a nation-state-level attack. Labs and researchers want the frontier paced, but the US-China summit meant to address AI is being run by officials focused on winning the race, not slowing it.
— via Asia Times, Ben Dubow
Iran is reportedly weighing attacks on the undersea cables that carry over 95% of the world's data traffic through the Persian Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz's shallow waters mean no advanced military tech is needed to cut them, just a repurposed oil-rig ROV or a dragged anchor.
— via Asia Times, John Aitken