Event: Asia

Mortars and missiles fired from Pakistan on Monday struck a university and civilian homes in north-eastern Afghanistan, killing seven people and wounding at least 85, Afghan officials said.Pakistan denied the accusation of targeting a university.The strikes were the first violent incident since Chinese-mediated peace talks between the two sides earlier this month.Pakistan and Afghanistan had been embroiled in months of deadly fighting that has killed hundreds of people since late February, when Afghanistan launched a cross-border attack on Pakistan in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan. Islamabad had declared it was in open war with Afghanistan.Pakistan officials dismissed Afghan media reports and official statements about the strikes on the university as “a blatant lie”.Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of harbouring militants that carry out deadly attacks inside Pakistan, especially the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP. The group is separate from, but allied with, the Afghan Taliban, which took over Afghanistan in 2021 after the chaotic withdrawal of US-led troops. Kabul denies the charge.Afghan and Pakistani officials met in Urumqi in western China in early April, and had agreed not to escalate their conflict, China’s government said after mediating the talks.Monday’s strikes marked the first major attack since the discussions, highlighting the tenuous nature of peace efforts mediated by the international community. Apart from China, other nations involved in mediation at various times include Turkey, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.The fighting largely subsided in March, after the two sides declared a temporary truce for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. The truce followed a deadly Pakistani airstrike on 17 March on a drug treatment facility in Kabul which Afghanistan said killed more than 400 civilians. Pakistan denied targeting civilian facilities and disputed the death toll.Sporadic cross-border fighting continued even while delegations from the two sides were attending…

Sophie Wushuang Yi holds a PhD in Chinese studies (international relations) from King’s College London, where she specialised in Sino-US relations, military and strategic studies, and South China Sea geopolitics.“Balikatan 2026” is meant to reassure allies and deter adversaries. But the military exercise hosted by the Philippines also reveals a harsher truth: the Indo-Pacific is drifting into a security logic in which deterrence no longer contains risk but multiplies it. Every move taken in the name of stability now invites a countermove. Every display of resolve is answered by another. The result is not equilibrium, but a trap.That is why diplomacy has to return to the centre of regional strategy before military signalling becomes the region’s default language.The scale of the exercise is itself a message. More than 17,000 personnel from the Philippines, United States, Australia, Japan, Canada, France and New Zealand are involved. Japan is participating as an active combat partner for the first time, and its Type 88 anti-ship missile is part of a live-fire drill. Philippine and US forces are also conducting maritime strike drills on Itbayat, the country’s northernmost island, close to Taiwan.Manila frames Balikatan as a sovereign exercise in defence modernisation and “minimum credible deterrence”. An army spokesman said the Philippines was “unfazed” by Beijing’s warnings and had contingency plans for any escalation around the drills. That stance captures the moment. Even a defensively framed exercise is now paired with explicit readiness for a response – capability, geography, timing and symbolism all matter here, and all sides now speak in those terms. No country embodies that shift more sharply than Japan.For years, Tokyo expanded its regional security role cautiously, wrapping change in the language of partnership and constitutional restraint. That caution is thinning. The clearest recent example is the April 17 transit of the destroyer…

Live Blog Update| War on Iran 27 April 2026 06:35 BST The Israeli military said sirens were activated across parts of northern Israel after a suspected hostile aircraft entered the area from Lebanon. Alerts were reported in multiple locations, including Maalot-Tarshiha and surrounding areas in the Galilee. The military said the incident is under investigation, while the Israeli Home Front Command reported continuous sirens in several areas following the drone infiltration.  Smoke rises over the Lebanese village of Taybeh near the border as seen from the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, on 25 April 2026. Jalaa MAREY / AFP

Sydney, Australia – Until recently, Rosco Jewell sold about one used electric vehicle every two months on his online marketplace, Amazing EV.But in the weeks since the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran, Jewell has been shifting a second-hand EV roughly every two weeks.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Iran’s foreign minister leaves Pakistan, heads to Russia for more talkslist 2 of 4Video: Israeli ‘ceasefire’ violations on the rise in Gazalist 3 of 4Oil prices rise amid stalled US-Iran peace talkslist 4 of 4Satellite images show scale of Israeli destruction of south Lebanon townsend of list“It is now getting very hard to find used EVs to buy in the $20,000 to $50,000 range. And we’ve also seen prices increase by 10 to 15 percent – in some cases, 20 percent as well,” the Sydney-based businessman told Al Jazeera.As conflict in the Middle East drives petrol and diesel prices worldwide, demand for EVs has been surging in numerous countries.The United States and China, the world’s two largest economies, have both seen a surge in EV sales after market slumps in 2025.Chinese manufacturers reported an 82.6 percent rise in month-on-month sales in March, according to the China Automotive Dealers Association.US EV sales last month topped 82,000 units, down by one quarter year over year, but up by more than 20 percent from February, according to Cox Automotive.A BYD logo is seen during the Shanghai auto show in Shanghai, China, on April 23, 2025 [Ng Han Guan/AP]In Vietnam, local EV brand Vinfast reported a 127 percent rise in year-on-year sales in March.Euan Graham, an analyst at the energy think tank Ember, said the war on Iran has accelerated a trend of growing EV adoption in emerging markets, including Southeast Asia, spurred by past energy shocks such as the…

We have put together stories from our coverage last weekend to help you stay informed about news across Asia and beyond. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing.1. As DJI duels Insta360, China sharpens global hardware edge amid US scrutinyIllustration: Lau Ka-kuen2. Did China just hint that its next aircraft carrier will be nuclear-powered?The US military website The War Zone reported that China’s new Type 004 aircraft carrier, currently under construction at the Dalian shipyard, has revealed a hull structure that appears similar to that of the US nuclear-powered supercarriers. Photo: X/ okcoslsp3. Reverend Derek Li, father of injured Hong Kong Mirror dancer Mo Li, diesSocial media users have praised the late reverend for his constant advocacy for his son, Mo Li (centre), following the accident. Photo: Mo Lee Kai-yin/Instagram

Geopolitics, at its core, examines how geography shapes international politics, power distribution and security dynamics. One enduring idea is geographer Halford Mackinder’s “heartland” theory, which situates Eurasia as the central arena of global power competition.In 1904, Mackinder argued that the vast land mass of Europe and Asia – what he called the “world island” – contained a pivotal core, the “heartland”, rich in resources, population and strategic depth. His dictum – “Who rules Eastern Europe commands the Heartland/Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island/Who rules the World Island commands the world” – captures the essence of this geographical determinism.Mackinder’s theory finds striking resonance. Major global conflicts from the two world wars to the Cold War have indeed centred around or been deeply influenced by struggles over Eurasian dominance. More recent conflicts, such as the Iraq war and current wars in Ukraine and Iran, also reinforce the idea that Mackinder’s heartland remains geopolitically decisive.The resurgence of conflict in the heartland has reshaped the global security environment. Over the past decade, US strategic thinking has increasingly shifted towards the Indo-Pacific, beginning with the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia. The US aimed to counterbalance China’s rise by reviving the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Japan, India and Australia, and establishing the Aukus security pact with Britain and Australia. These alliances were designed to consolidate maritime power and contain China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific.But this strategic focus has been disrupted by the intensification of geopolitical density in Eurasia and US President Donald Trump’s global tariff war.The new developments demand attention, resources and political capital, weakening the coherence and effectiveness of US-led alliances in Asia. India, for instance, has been affected by higher US tariffs, prompting elites to question the value of a closer security alignment with the United States. The global security architecture is…

The Bottom LinePolitical scientist Vali Nasr argues that US and Israeli military options ‘have come up short’.Despite on-again, off-again negotiations, the United States has no other option but to pursue a diplomatic solution with Iran, argues Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University.Nasr tells host Steve Clemons that the US-Israel war on Iran has shown the limits of military force.“You don’t go to the table to demand surrender. The other side is not going to surrender because they haven’t lost. So you have to cut a deal,” Nasr said, adding that Iran’s objective is to make sure the US and Israel understand that “war with Iran isn’t easy”.

The China-Europe railway network has evolved in the past decade from a nascent logistical experiment into a growing commercial alternative to maritime and air freight. In the wake of the US-Israel war on Iran, it might now be assuming an unanticipated role as a key security provider for transcontinental supply chains.What began as sporadic trial runs has matured into a sprawling web of rail connections that currently links 235 cities across 26 European countries with more than 120 Chinese cities.This growth is being propelled by economic calculus as well as strategic infrastructure investments and geopolitical recalibrations. Notably, the rise of the trans-Caspian route, also known as the Middle Corridor, has added resilience and diversification to the network, reducing dependence on Russia and opening new commercial and political possibilities for both China and Europe.The Covid-19 pandemic acted as a catalyst as air freight capacity collapsed and sea lanes faced port congestion and container shortages. The railway demonstrated some degree of reliability, carrying personal protective equipment and vaccines at critical moments, which enhanced its reputation among logistics firms.Between 2020 and 2023, the number of China-Europe goods train trips doubled, surpassing 17,000 annually. This commercial uptake was supported by bilateral customs agreements, standardised container tracking and coordinated border procedures.A key geographic and strategic evolution has been the increasing prominence of the trans-Caspian corridor. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, sanctions and geopolitical risks prompted Chinese and European operators to accelerate investment in the Middle Corridor, which traverses Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey before entering Eastern Europe.