In the second quarter of 2022, China processed the least crude oil since the first quarter of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic had the strongest effect on China’s economic activity. The resurgence of COVID-19 cases since March 2022 and China’s policy of localized mobility restrictions explain China’s reduced demand for petroleum products, and as a result, reduced refinery activity, in […]

Amid an intensified terror campaign by the Islamic State Khorasan (ISK) group in Afghanistan which has killed dozens of civilians this week, Taliban authorities claim they have captured the group’s liaison for Europe. On Tuesday, the Taliban’s intelligence agency released a video confession of an alleged ISK member who says he helped foreign nationals join the terrorist group in Afghanistan. […]

A suicide bomber struck at a center of Taliban power Wednesday, setting off a blast at a government ministry in the Afghan capital of Kabul and killing at least four people. The explosion went off in the afternoon as workers and visitors were praying inside a mosque of Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry, which is responsible for security and law enforcement in […]

An explosion hit a mosque in Afghanistan’s capital near the interior ministry compound on Wednesday, killing four people and wounding 25, a ministry spokesman said. The government did not immediately say what caused the blast in Kabul. “The mosque was used by visitors and sometimes by interior ministry employees,” said interior ministry spokesman Abdul Nafi Takor, who confirmed the casualty […]

The US Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West met Pakistan’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar on Wednesday and discussed issues of mutual interest, as well as, Afghanistan’s situation. The two sides reaffirmed their commitment to a peaceful, prosperous, and stable Afghanistan. They emphasized the need to improve the Afghan economy and prosperity. US Ambassador to Pakistan […]

Annexation and Mobilization Make Nuclear War More Likely On September 30, following a series of sham referendums held in occupied territory in Ukraine, the Russian government declared that four Ukrainian regions were now officially part of Russia. The annexation came amid a “partial” Russian mobilization that is in fact rapidly becoming a large-scale one and that has left many Russians […]

Security at Home, Influence Abroad In April 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a speech on foreign policy at the Boao Forum for Asia, an annual conference of business executives and world leaders in Hainan Province. In it, he proposed what he called Quanqiu Anquan Changyi, or the Global Security Initiative (GSI), which he framed as “promoting the common security […]