INTRIGUE’S LATEST
The global affairs briefing you’ll actually look forward to reading.
Who just leaked US intelligence on Israel?
A couple of highly classified US intelligence documents somehow landed in the media over the weekend, with a pro-Iran site first highlighting them on Friday. What happened? Some of the coverage has breathlessly described the leaked docs as Israel’s “plans” to attack Iran, so you’d be forgiven for thinking maybe they were some kind of Looney Tunes […]
Mercenaries are still a thing
Earlier this week, a Russian court sentenced US citizen Stephen Hubbard to nearly seven years in prison on mercenary charges. The court alleges Hubbard signed a contract with a territorial defence unit after moving to Ukraine in 2014, and earned around $1,000/month to fight with Ukrainian troops defending against Russia. He was then detained in […]
Will Google be split up?
The US justice department announced on Tuesday it’s considering asking a federal judge to force Google to sell off parts of its business, potentially resulting in the corporate breakup of one of the biggest tech companies in the world. In practice that could look like ordering Google to divest from Chrome (its web browser), Android (its operating […]
Latest Articles
The top three topics at the ASEAN summit in Laos
Laos is now hosting its neighbours for the latest ASEAN summit — that’s the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, comprising the above 10 members plus an 11th on the way (Timor Leste). Way back when the group first emerged in ‘67, its foreign ministers called the forum ‘sports-shirt diplomacy’ as they ironed out the deets from a beach […]
Separatist group rocks China-Pakistan ties
Just a week before Pakistan welcomes Shanghai Cooperation Organisation leaders for a summit, a suicide attack on a convoy of Chinese investors and engineers has now left at least two dead and another 10 injured near Pakistan’s major Karachi airport. Within hours of Sunday night’s attack, the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) had claimed responsibility, […]
The Middle East, one year on
It’s now been a year since the Hamas attacks on Israel left 1,200 dead, so let’s take a look at how our world has changed since October 7, through the eyes and words of some of the main protagonists who’ve all made public statements in recent days. Netanyahu made that pledge yesterday (Sunday), and it not only […]
The most intriguing US bases in the Indo-Pacific
Just as we smashed that ‘send’ button yesterday, London announced a new deal to cede sovereignty of the remote Chagos Islands to Mauritius after 13 rounds of negotiations.
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Geopolitics
This week at the UN
Ever wondered what the diplomacy equivalent of Disneyland would be? Oh, okay. Well just in case you change your mind, the answer is the UN General Assembly.
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Can the UN be saved?
Just shy of a week out from the annual UN General Assembly, when world leaders, diplomats, and spies swarm on New York, the US ambassador to the UN (Linda Thomas-Greenfield) has touched on the touchiest of topics: reforming the UN Security Council (UNSC).
The international intrigue of private jets
If we had to identify the one place with the highest per-square-inch density of raw and undiluted international intrigue, there’s a decent chance we’d end up pointing at a private jet. It’s where so much wealth and power can often intersect.
A surprise US meeting with Xi Jinping
While US President Joe Biden kicked off Labor Day early on Rehoboth Beach, he kept his team busy by sending his national security advisor (Jake Sullivan) on a three-day trip to Beijing.
Modi’s high-stakes game of musical chairs
In the global game of musical chairs, Modi has chosen to hover politely between seats. Sometimes (like last month) that means a hug with Putin the same day Putin’s missiles hit a children’s hospital in Kyiv. Other days (like today, Friday), it means arriving in Kyiv after a quick visit to one of Ukraine’s top backers (Poland).
ECONOMICS
The geopolitics of tourism
Oh the dog days of the northern summer — out-of-office messages on, vacation mode activated, and noise-cancelling earphones packed. Once you switch into destination bliss, vacationers expect it to be good times galore, right?
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Milei drags his reforms through the senate
With protests roaring outside, 13 hours of debate came to an end inside Argentina’s senate yesterday (Thursday) when Vice President Victoria Villarruel broke a tie, passing a package of watered-down economic reform bills, 37-36.
The geopolitical risks for the world’s top 10 brands
We’re normally pretty suspicious of anyone who substitutes their ‘s’ with a ‘z’ to look cool, but we’ll give the UK-based ‘Kantar BrandZ Report 2024’ a pass (or is it ‘pasz’?).
The intriguing ties between geopolitics and markets
If you close your eyes and picture an old-school trading floor, you can almost feel the chaos — the trades lost, the prices shouted, the egos stroked. But despite all that thrill, markets really want nothing more than to anticipate events.
Yellen’s three key messages to Europe
While picking up an honorary degree, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also dropped a speech in Germany yesterday (Tuesday) ahead of this week’s G7 finance ministers meeting.
Technology
Who just leaked US intelligence on Israel?
A couple of highly classified US intelligence documents somehow landed in the media over the weekend, with a pro-Iran site first highlighting them on Friday. What happened? Some of the coverage has breathlessly described the leaked docs as Israel’s “plans” to attack Iran, so you’d be forgiven for thinking maybe they were some kind of Looney Tunes […]
More Articles
Will Google be split up?
The US justice department announced on Tuesday it’s considering asking a federal judge to force Google to sell off parts of its business, potentially resulting in the corporate breakup of one of the biggest tech companies in the world. In practice that could look like ordering Google to divest from Chrome (its web browser), Android (its operating […]
Will the world’s top chipmaker defy the sceptics?
There was a short but veeeery intriguing piece in Bloomberg over the weekend suggesting the world’s most advanced chipmaker (Taiwan’s ‘TSMC’) is enjoying trial ‘yields’ at its $65B Arizona site that are “on par” with results back in Taiwan.
France detains Telegram CEO
War bloggers and small-time weed dealers alike will have woken up this morning to some pretty bad news for their favourite messaging app.
Musk to close Twitter office in Brazil over ‘disinformation’ feud with judge
In the late hours of Saturday as you were fast asleep or deep in a Negroni haze, Elon Musk was closing shop on X’s Brazil offices, putting the blame squarely on one man – Brazilian supreme federal court judge, Alexandre de Moraes.