The Brics summit in Brazil last week revealed a loose alliance of emerging powers becoming more complex – and perhaps more consequential. For Brics, heft matters. It now counts 11 member states – including Indonesia, which joined this year – representing half the world’s population and 40% of the global economy, outpacing the G7 by $20tn. Yet its size hides its contradictions. The grouping’s call for more inclusive global institutions sounds welcome, but there is a preponderance of autocracies within its own ranks. Brics is right that international law should…
Tag: Iran
US attacks on Iran redraw calculus of use of force for allies and rivals around globe
For US allies and rivals around the world, Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran have redrawn the calculus of the White House’s readiness to use force in the kind of direct interventions that the president said he would make a thing of the past under his isolationist “America First” foreign policy. From Russia and China to Europe and across the global south, the president’s decision to launch the largest strategic bombing strike in US history indicates a White House that is ready to employ force abroad – but reluctantly and under…
US writers at growing risk of crackdown on free speech, says PEN America
Writers in the US are at growing risk amid a worldwide crackdown on free speech that has begun to spread to countries previously renowned for unfettered expression and openness, according to a leading writers’ advocacy group. PEN America said it was concerned about an emerging threat from the Trump administration as it published its annual Freedom to Write index report, which showed that the number of writers jailed worldwide had jumped for the sixth year running to 375 in 2024, compared with 339 the year before. Covering a period ending…
China, Iran, Russia hold joint naval drills in Middle East
TEHRAN, IRAN — China, Iran and Russia conducted joint naval drills Tuesday in the Middle East, offering a show of force in a region still uneasy over Tehran’s rapidly expanding nuclear program and as Yemen’s Houthi rebels threaten new attacks on ships. The joint drills, called the Maritime Security Belt 2025, took place in the Gulf of Oman near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of the world’s crude oil passes. The area around the strait has in the past…
The new world disorder: how the Gaza war disrupted international relations
Not long ago a picture circulated from inside Gaza showing smoke billowing from the explosion of a US-supplied bomb, and discernible in the background was the outline of eight black parachutes dropping US aid in precisely the same neighbourhood. It was suggested that the picture would make an ideal cover for any book about the confused world disorder that the six-month war in Gaza have spawned – a disorder that as yet has no dominant player, value system or functioning institutions. The great powers compete, coexist or confront one another…
‘Reglobalization’ to the Rescue?
Russia, China, Iran and their allies, by contrast, tend to use the term to describe a new world order in which they play a greater role, said Benedikter, who first heard “reglobalization” at a 2017 conference in Russia. Since then, he said, the term has gained traction as the global supply chain has experienced shocks from the pandemic, Russia’s war on Ukraine and attacks by Houthi rebels on commercial ships in the Red Sea. To Harold James, a Princeton economic historian, the term describes the constantly shifting relations in global…
Biden Issues Executive Order to Restrict Personal Data Sales to China and Russia
President Biden issued an executive order Wednesday seeking to restrict the sale of sensitive American data to China, Russia and four more countries, a first-of-its-kind attempt to keep personally identifying information from being obtained for blackmail, scams or other harm. The president asked the Justice Department to write rules restricting the sale of information about Americans’ locations, health and genetics to China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, as well as any entities linked to those countries. The restrictions would also cover financial information, biometric data and other types…
Hackers for China, Russia and Others Used OpenAI Systems, Report Says
Hackers working for nation-states have used OpenAI’s systems in the creation of their cyberattacks, according to research released Wednesday by OpenAI and Microsoft. The companies believe their research, published on their websites, documents for the first time how hackers with ties to foreign governments are using generative artificial intelligence in their attacks. But instead of using A.I. to generate exotic attacks, as some in the tech industry feared, the hackers have used it in mundane ways, like drafting emails, translating documents and debugging computer code, the companies said. “They’re just…
Two Cases Aim to Cut Off China and Iran From U.S. Technology
The U.S. government announced charges in two separate cases on Wednesday aimed at enforcing laws blocking the transfer of critical technologies, part of a broader campaign to hamper military efforts and weapons production in rival countries. One of the complaints was against a U.S. citizen born in China who has been arrested and accused of stealing trade secrets from a private company. The technology, according to court documents, “would be dangerous to U.S. national security if obtained by international actors.” A Justice Department complaint filed in U.S. District Court in…
U.S. Hits Back at Iran With Sanctions, Criminal Charges and Airstrikes
In the hours before the United States carried out strikes against Iran-backed militants on Friday, Washington hit Tehran with more familiar weapons: sanctions and criminal charges. The Biden administration sanctioned officers and officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Iran’s premier military force, for threatening the integrity of water utilities and for helping manufacture Iranian drones. And it unsealed charges against nine people for selling oil to finance the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah. The timing seemed designed to pressure the Revolutionary Guards and its most elite unit, the Quds…