Archive
Pieces
DECODING: North Korea releases dam water without warning, Seoul gets ready
South Korea's Unification Ministry announced on July 28, 2026 that it has readiness measures in place for sudden, unannounced water releases from the Hwanggang…
FACT CHECK: Treasury drops 84 targets from its sanctions list, a North Korean firm among them
The U.S. Treasury Department removed 84 targets from its sanctions list on July 27, 2026 , a decision announced by the Office of Foreign…
ANALYSIS: Australia signs a fourth mutual defence treaty, this time with Fiji
On July 6, 2026, Canberra signed a mutual defence treaty with Suva, hours before China test-fired a long-range ballistic missile in the South Pacific.
DECODING: Congress wants to unlock AUKUS just as a missile lands near Tuvalu
Representative Bill Huizenga , a senior Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee , introduced H.R. 9517 , the "UNLOCK AUKUS Act," on…
ANALYSIS: Wang Yi and Lavrov shake hands again, and the friendship gets restaged
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Friday, July 24, 2026 , on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation…
DECODING: A Himalayan pass reopens, and India quietly walks back toward Beijing
Six years after being shut at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic , the Nathu La pass, on the border between India and China…
INVESTIGATION: A leaky Hong Kong server exposes an AI-powered Chinese spy ring
An open directory on a Hong Kong server contained, at the moment of its discovery, 2,431 files and 80 subdirectories : victims' source code,…
INVESTIGATION: Beijing turns rare earths into a snitch line, and Washington answers with chips
On July 1, 2026 , China's Ministry of Commerce brought Announcement No. 26 of 2026 into force, a public reporting mechanism for violations of…
ANALYSIS: Washington eases the chip leash on China, under strict conditions
A case-by-case review , not a blanket ban and not an open door: that is the exact posture Washington adopted on July 27, 2026…