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News

Joint Iran-Afghanistan committees have been established to address border problems and improve goods flow across the frontier.

Japan Petroleum Exploration has issued a press release warning of the impact on its business from escalating tensions in the Middle East, indicating that higher LNG procurement costs and suspended oil production are expected to weigh on earnings.

An Israeli soldier has been sentenced to 30 days of military detention after being photographed decapitating Jesus on a cross statue.

Russia's State Duma has passed a crypto regulation bill in its first reading creating a legal framework for cross-border cryptocurrency settlements, with the legislation set to come into force on July 1 if approved.

Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov says Moscow expects positive news on the resumption of diplomatic efforts around Iran, offering to mediate between the Arab Gulf monarchies and Tehran on regional security.

Tech

China's Alipay has launched an AI Pay service enabling autonomous AI agents to complete purchases and payments on a user's behalf.

Iran’s digital economy has suffered around $1bn in losses since February 28 as the country remains offline for more than six weeks.

Russian gamers are facing growing payment and access problems amid the government crackdown on circumvention tools like VPNs.

The control of Russia’s internet, including the latest escalation of the war on VPNs, has reportedly shifted to the Federal Security Bureau’s (FSB) Second Service unit.

Anthropic's Claude Mythos AI model has triggered emergency meetings among finance ministers and top bankers after demonstrating an ability to find and exploit cybersecurity weaknesses across banking and IT systems.

Opinion

Expectations that Budapest will pivot sharply away from Russia and back a more assertive European Union policy on Ukraine post-election may prove misplaced, says commentary by Carnegie Politika.

The Middle East conflict halted growth momentum. The right policies and stronger global cooperation are needed to contain the damage.

Former Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov has emerged as a political leader in his own right.

With a ceasefire in place, recent intelligence points to Tehran once more looking to replenish its depleted air defences and China potentially preparing more shipments of offensive systems including shoulder-fired missiles.

Landslide election win for Tisza reflects deep domestic frustration rather than foreign policy concerns, but could pave the way for a reset in relations with the EU, analysts told an ECFR webinar.

Data

For the first time in the history of transatlantic polling, more Europeans view the United States as a threat to their continent than view China in the same light — a seismic shift in public sentiment.

Japan has forecast tsunami waves of up to 3m for Pacific coastlines of central Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate after a magnitude 7.4 quake off Sanriku, with the first wave of 0.4m observed at Miyako.

Several Middle Eastern economies are expected to contract in 2026 in the wake of the war in Iran, which broke out in late February, according to the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook, reports Statista.

Russia’s economy slowed in the first quarter of 2026 broadly as policymakers had anticipated, but the Central Bank of Russia now faces a more complex task as persistent domestic price pressures collide with fresh geopolitical risks abroad.

South Korea’s real GDP per capita is projected to fall more than $10,000 behind Taiwan’s within five years, underscoring a widening divergence between the two export-led economies.

Features

Iran is not a superpower in any honest reading of the term. But the Hormuz closure has rendered the "middle power" framing absurd. Tehran now occupies a tier of its own, and the diplomatic vocabulary has not yet caught up to the reality.

For over a century, the geographical gap between the southern coast of Iran and the bustling ports of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was less a barrier and more a bridge

Is Russia’s virtual economy reappearing thanks to the sky high interest rates and economic slowdown?

Squeezed by a sanctioned Russia to the north and a war prone Middle East to the south, the Middle Corridor that runs through Central Asia and the Caucasus is back in play as the main route connecting Europe to Asia by land.

Europe is drawing up plans for a new Nato without the US and will hold its first military exercises very soon to see how it works in practice. So far it is little more than a paper tiger.

Blogs

Party leader Ozgur Ozel has so far proven so ineffective that president Erdogan finds him entirely tolerable outside of a prison cell.

As Taiwan’s opposition leader, Cheng Li-wun leads a delegation across China the fine line between opposition outreach and quasi-diplomacy is being blurred. It is an issue that should concern anyone with a stake in Taiwan’s democratic integrity.

Iranians remain split in the early hours of the two-week ceasefire between their government and US and Israel on the otherside, but as things stand any return to normality is better than nothing.

Nikol Pashinyan made unusually blunt comments to Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to Moscow.

Superficially the war in Iran has dealt Ukraine a huge blow. The White House is now completely distracted, and the Trump administration seems to have abandoned, or at least paused, the ceasefire negotiations with Russia.

bneGREEN

Much of this has been underpinned by falling technology costs and a hard fought push for energy security in which the pace of expansion over the past 12–18 months has been particularly notable.

Tehran has entered its sixth consecutive year of drought with rainfall down 35%, as the capital's water utility warns dam levels remain fragile and calls on residents to cut consumption ahead of summer.

Iraq's environment minister says authorities have contained a Tigris river pollution crisis caused by sediment from water releases, days after a mass fish die-off in Wasit province killed over 1,000 tonnes of fish.

Germany has extended a €200mn concessional loan to South Africa to support grid expansion & renewable energy, reinforcing European backing for the country’s just energy transition as transmission constraints continue to limit new power capacity.

Russian drone attack against a hydropower plant on the territory of Ukraine blamed for pollution of Dniester River.

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