Event: Southeast Asia

Brent crude rises more than 1 percent despite Tehran’s offer to reopen waterway in exchange for deferral of nuclear talks.Oil prices are continuing to climb despite Iran’s proposal to end its effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for deferring nuclear negotiations with the United States.Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose more than 1 percent on Tuesday as Tehran’s offer failed to assuage traders’ concerns about the blockade of the waterway critical for global fuel supplies.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Death toll after train crash near Indonesia’s Jakarta rises to 14list 2 of 4What’s driving the coordinated attacks across Mali?list 3 of 414 killed in South Sudan plane crash near capital Jubalist 4 of 4Italy extradites Chinese cyber-espionage suspect to USend of listBrent stood at $109.42 per barrel as of 03:30 GMT, up 11 percent from Tuesday last week, and the last time the benchmark closed below $100.The latest rise came as Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi shared proposals to reopen the strait with interlocutor Pakistan amid stalled peace negotiations between Washington and Tehran.The US has not commented publicly on the Iranian proposal, which would set aside the thorny issue of Iran’s nuclear programme to a later date.Iran’s threats against commercial shipping have reduced maritime traffic in the strait to a trickle over the past two months, paralysing a significant portion of the world’s oil and natural supplies.Only eight vessels crossed the strait on Sunday, down from 19 transits the previous day, according to ship tracking data monitored by maritime intelligence platform Windward.Before the US and Israel launched their war on Iran on February 28, an average of 129 vessels passed the strait each day, according to the United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD).The blockade and attacks on regional energy infrastructure have reduced global oil…

Mexican special forces have arrested Audias Flores, known as “El Jardinero”, one of the top commanders of the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), as well as his chief financial operator, Mexico’s Security of Security ⁠Omar Garcia Harfuch said.Videos shared by ‌Garcia Harfuch on social media on Monday showed aerial footage of the arrest of Flores as helicopters hovered overhead during the arrest operation, which the Mexican Navy said followed months of surveillance and involved more than 500 troops, six helicopters and several planes.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Italy extradites Chinese cyber-espionage suspect to USlist 2 of 4Death toll after train crash near Indonesia’s Jakarta rises to 14list 3 of 4King Charles III arrives at White House for four-day US visitlist 4 of 4Bahrain strips 69 people of citizenship over Iran supportend of list“Audias Flores Silva, alias ‘El Jardinero’, was detained in Nayarit. He has an arrest warrant in Mexico and is also sought by United States authorities for extradition purposes. For his capture, the US government offered a reward of 5 million dollars,” Garcia Harfuch said in a post on social media.Flores, a regional commander in control of swaths of CJNG territory along Mexico’s Pacific coast, was considered a potential successor to Nemesio Oseguera, alias “El Mencho”, who ran the feared cartel and was killed by security forces in February.Later on Monday evening, the security secretary said that Flores’s financial operator, Cesar Alejandro “N”, alias “El Guero Conta”, was arrested in a joint security operation in the central Mexican city of Zapopan.“‘El Guero Conta’ is accused of laundering funds from illicit activities through companies and frontmen, as well as acquiring aircraft, vessels, houses, ranches, and investing in tequila production companies,” the minister said.Mexico’s Navy said in a statement that special forces surrounded a cabin in El…

A heatwave sweeping across Southeast Asia is making offices even warmer, as workers continue to adjust to energy-saving measures put in place by governments due to the war in Iran.Many countries have imposed temperature controls at government workplaces since the war began, among other measures to conserve energy. As the prolonged shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz drains energy reserves, relief does not look to be coming any time soon, with parts of the region set to bake in abnormally hot conditions in the months ahead.Among the hardest-hit countries is Thailand, where temperatures soared to above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in recent weeks and the Bangkok government has issued multiple “dangerous” heat warnings. In March, the Thai government ordered public sector offices to set air conditioner temperatures at 26-27 degrees.“Sometimes it even feels hard to breathe,” said Pornpimol Sirimai, who works at the health ministry and has bought electric fans to cool down. “The canteen and even the 7-Eleven downstairs are cooler than our office, which is why people end up gathering there.”The onset of the El Nino weather system in the summer could make it even worse.Southeast Asia faces a “double whammy”, said Emi Gui, adjunct associate professor at Monash University in Malaysia. “El Nino is likely to recreate extreme heat conditions, increasing the likelihood for both droughts and floods, threatening lives and agricultural activities.”

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Monday entrusted a letter addressed to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is slated to visit the Southeast Asian nation this week.Amid lingering tensions in the Middle East, Takaichi hopes to speed up work on beefing up Japan's cooperation with the Philippines in the fields of energy and other matters.The Philippines serves as this year's chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations."I'll be visiting (the Philippines) as a special envoy of the prime minister," Kishida told reporters after his meeting with Takaichi. "I hope to hold concrete discussions on boosting the energy resilience of the economy," he added.During his tenure as prime minister, Kishida spearheaded moves for the launch of the Asia Zero Emission Community (AZEC) framework, a decarbonization initiative involving mainly Southeast Asian countries.Kishida and lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party who are members of an intraparty league promoting the AZEC initiative will visit Manila for three days from Thursday to exchange views with Marcos and other Philippine government officials as well as representatives of local companies.Marcos is set to visit Japan as a state guest in late May.

A woman wearing a kokoshnik, a Russian traditional headdress, is seen at the fair of folk and arts craft of Russia in central Moscow on March 4. | AFP-JIJI Moscow – At a cooking school in Moscow, Yulia Fedishova was preparing a "smetannik": a traditional Slavic layer cake with a sour-cream topping.The "Lunch a la Russe" master class she was attending on the secrets of classic Russian dishes is just one example of how many Muscovites are trying to reconnect with their ancestral "roots" amid the war in Ukraine.The push is encouraged by the Kremlin as Russia faces deepening isolation from the West. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.By subscribing, you can help us get the story right. SUBSCRIBE NOW

Across Southeast Asia, governments are seeking Russian oil and gas to ease fuel shortages triggered by the continuing chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, a crisis that has sent energy prices higher and forced import-dependent countries to look beyond their usual suppliers.But analysts say the scramble for Russian fuel also raises a bigger question for the region: whether Moscow can turn a short-term role as an emergency energy supplier into longer-term influence there.Member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have pursued separate efforts to procure fuel supplies from Russia to shore up domestic reserves, using a temporary US sanctions waiver for some Russian oil transactions even as Moscow remains under broader Western sanctions over its war in Ukraine.A tugboat guides the Russian oil tanker Anatoly Kolodkin as it arrives at a port in northwestern Cuba on March 31. Asean members have turned to Russia to secure oil supplies. Photo: AFPThe move by Asean members – including Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Myanmar – to seek Russian oil could lead to the “reshaping of regional alliances to achieve supply chain resilience”, Chester Cabalza, founder and president of the Manila-based think tank International Development and Security Cooperation, said.Cabalza said there was a high probability that Russia could use its role as an “energy lifeline” in the region as an opening to secure the “currency of influence” in Asean, with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continuing to place pressure on a region dependent on imports from the Gulf for over half of its oil and gas needs.Southeast Asia produces 2 million barrels of oil of its daily requirement of 5 million barrels, forcing it to import the remainder to meet its energy demands, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Meanwhile, data from the US Energy Information Administration…