The Economy

Global AI Regulation UN 2026: Why the World Needs an Oversight Body Now

The machines are already choosing who dies. The question is whether humanity will choose to stop them. In the early weeks of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, a targeting system called Lavender quietly changed the nature of modern warfare. The Israeli army marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination using an AI targeting system with limited human oversight and a permissive policy for civilian casualties....

Global AI Regulation UN 2026: Why the World Needs an Oversight Body Now - The Economy In the early weeks of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, a targeting system called Lavender quietly changed the nature of modern warfare. The Israeli army

The Price of Algorithmic War: How AI Became the New Dynamite in the Middle East

The Iran conflict has turned frontier AI models into contested weapons of state — and the financial and human fallout is only beginning to register. In the first eleven days of the U.S.-Israeli offensive against Iran, which began on February 28, 2026, American and Israeli forces executed roughly 5,500 strikes on Iranian targets. That is an operational tempo that would have required months in any previous conflict — made possible, in significant part, by artificial intelligence....

The Price of Algorithmic War: How AI Became the New Dynamite in the Middle East - The Economy The Iran conflict has turned frontier AI models into contested weapons of state — and the financial and human fallout is only beginning to register.

Iran War Brings Fuel Risk to Indonesia Ahead of Eid Travel Surge

As Brent crude climbs above $85 a barrel and the Strait of Hormuz trembles under the weight of geopolitical crisis, Southeast Asia's largest economy is walking a tightrope — and 100 million travellers are about to test it. The Road Home, and the Price of Getting There Every year, in the days before Eid Al-Fitr, Indonesia undergoes a transformation that has no real parallel anywhere on earth....

Iran War Brings Fuel Risk to Indonesia Ahead of Eid Travel Surge - The Economy This year, that journey carries an unfamiliar undercurrent of anxiety. As Eid Al-Fitr falls on 20–21 March 2026, the Iran war and the attendant turbulence in

US-China Paris Talks 2026: Behind the Trade Truce, a World on the Brink

Bessent and He Lifeng meet at OECD Paris to review the Busan trade truce before Trump's Beijing summit. Rare earths, Hormuz oil shock, and Section 301 cloud the path ahead. The 16th arrondissement of Paris is not a place that announces itself. Discreet, residential, its wide avenues lined with haussmann facades, it is the kind of neighbourhood where power moves quietly....

US-China Paris Talks 2026: Behind the Trade Truce, a World on the Brink - The Economy Bessent and He Lifeng meet at OECD Paris to review the Busan trade truce before Trump's Beijing summit. Rare earths, Hormuz oil shock, and Section 301 cloud

How the Middle East Conflict Is Reshaping ASEAN & SAARC Economies

On November 19, 2023, Houthi militants seized a Bahamian-flagged cargo ship in the Red Sea. That single act of piracy — framed as solidarity with Gaza — triggered the most consequential maritime disruption to global trade since the 2021 Ever Given blockage. Two and a half years later, the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb remains a war zone in all but name, the Suez Canal handles barely a fraction of its former traffic, and the economies of eighteen nations stretching from Sri Lanka to the Philippines are absorbing cascading shocks they did not generate and cannot fully control....

How the Middle East Conflict Is Reshaping ASEAN & SAARC Economies - The Economy The Asian Development Bank's July 2025 Outlook modelled three Middle East scenarios. In its most severe case — a protracted conflict with Strait of Hormuz