Latest Updates

Is Russia’s virtual economy reappearing?

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

Read Story

Israel's atrocities in Southern Lebanon and Gaza mount as it seeks a buffer zone

There are widespread reports of IDF targeting of ambulances and health workers, which it claims are being used to ferry military supplies by various terrorist organisations.

Read Story

Euro Nato plans and Article 42/7

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.

Read Story

Argentina's Milei cements Israel alliance as self-declared world's most Zionist president

Argentine President Javier Milei signed a sweeping bilateral framework agreement with Israel and declared his unequivocal support for the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran during a three-day state visit to Jerusalem.

Read Story

UPDATE – Radev sweeps Bulgaria election, ending three decades of coalition rule

Progressive Bulgaria won a decisive victory in Bulgaria’s snap parliamentary election on April 19, securing the country’s first single-party majority in nearly three decades.

Read Story

IMF: War Darkens Global Economic Outlook and Reshapes Policy Priorities

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

Read Story

UPDATE: Magnitude 7.4 earthquake hits off northern Japan, tsunami warning issued for Hokkaido and Tohoku regions

A magnitude 7.4 earthquake has struck off Japan's Sanriku coast at a depth of 10km, prompting a tsunami warning for Pacific coastal areas of Hokkaido and Tohoku with shindo 6 lower recorded in Aomori Prefecture.

Read Story

India’s renewable surge hits critical mass as solar drives structural shift

Japan remains vigilant despite easing of tsunami threat

India-South Korea summit unveils new agreements

India’s renewable surge hits critical mass as solar drives structural shift

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.

Japan remains vigilant despite easing of tsunami threat

The Meteorological Agency took the unusual step of highlighting a 1% likelihood of a magnitude 8 tremor occurring soon, a risk level ten times higher than the standard baseline.

India-South Korea summit unveils new agreements

South Korea has also formally joined the India led International Solar Alliance and the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative, and reciprocally India has agreed to join the Global Green Growth Institute.

Latest Updates

News

IntelliNews tracking showed two Iranian aircraft as the only flights over Iran on April 21, heading east to Pakistan as Vance arrives in Islamabad for talks and the Pakistan-brokered ceasefire expires.

Russia has been manipulating economic data to project resilience against wartime pressures and Western sanctions, while potentially misleading even President Vladimir Putin about the true state of the economy, according to Swedish intelligence.

PSD votes overwhelmingly to withdraw political support for Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, raising the prospect of a government collapse.

Peter Magyar, leader of the Tisza Party, named seven ministers and a further nine ministries in his incoming government in a two-hour press conference in Budapest on April 20.

Trump has called for regime change in Iran in a Truth Social post, comparing the situation to Venezuela and complicating Pakistan-brokered ceasefire talks 48 hours before the truce expires.

Tech

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.

The Kazakh-based brokerage-turned-fintech company Freedom Holding Corp is building an app, which is not just a banking service, it is supposed to organise your whole life.

In a development that could reshape modern warfare, Ukrainian forces have, for the first time, captured a Russian position using only unmanned systems – a coordinated assault carried out entirely by drones and ground-based robots.

Clip then shows bloodied US leader knocked into fiery pit of hell.

Opinion

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.

Bosnia & Herzegovina’s long and troubled path towards European Union membership risks drifting further into irrelevance, warns EPC policy brief.

Western Balkan frontrunners Montenegro and Albania must do more to convince sceptical EU member states of their value or risk delays to their 2030 accession ambitions, a Carnegie Europe paper says.

Data

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.

Iranian authorities have announced tax exemptions for families with three or more children born after October 2021, with a 15% increase in annual tax relief per eligible child under the youth population law.

Features

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.

When Europe finances Ukraine, it does so through a complex web of institutions: the European Commission — via the Ukraine Facility, macro-financial assistance and potentially the new €90 billion Ukraine Support Loan for 2026-2027.

While president Volodymyr Zelenskiy maintains a show of defiance, Ukraine is being steered towards a difficult postwar period by the new presidential office chief who might also rule the country one day.

Orbán is gone. His media empire is not. Unpicking 16 years of state capture will test Magyar's historic majority to its limits.

International investors unnerved by events in the Gulf may look to relocate. Turkey might seem a good choice – but things are rather more complicated than that.

Blogs

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.

Strong pro-Palestine sentiment in Slovenia causes alleged interference by Israeli private security firm ahead of general election to backfire.

bneGREEN

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.

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

A recent report by energy think tank Ember says that declining battery storage costs have reached a level where it makes it economically viable for solar power to supply most of India’s electricity demand.

Argentina’s Congress has approved a reform to the country’s glacier protection law, relaxing restrictions on mining in high-altitude regions in a move aimed at attracting billions in investment, while drawing criticism from environmental groups.

Follow Us On

Most Read

Podcasts

Nato General Secretary Mark Rutte warned that the West needs to prepare of the possibility that Chinese President Xi Jinping will ....

Reports

Cookies on the bne IntelliNews website