Dispatches and analysis from across the globe.
After Japan's prime minister spoke about Taiwan, China tightened rare earth export controls in two escalating rounds within a single month. Japan is responding with deep-sea mining and its first new refinery since 2008.
Chinese satellite access and Russian intelligence feeds have shaped Iran's targeting of US bases. The war is the clearest real-world test yet of how far the three countries' cooperation actually extends.
Brazil's Lula calls it unacceptable. Colombia's Petro says he'd 'take up arms.' Regional bloc CELAC couldn't even agree on a joint statement. How the region is actually responding to Trump's revived Monroe Doctrine.
European nations are absorbing the inflation, energy costs, and military risk of a war they didn't help shape. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says allies opened their bases anyway — but not all of them.
OPEC production fell more than 30% during the Strait of Hormuz closure, the UAE quit the group entirely, and a symbolic output increase couldn't cover the gap. What the crisis revealed about OPEC's actual leverage.