The only reason Thailand isn't in a deep red on this list is because the government froze prices and is paying out the nose to subsidize. This is gonna be bad.

As the US-Israel war on Iran continues, Tehran has said the Strait of Hormuz is open to all except the US and its allies. So far, only a small number of ships from certain countries have passed through the strategic waterway. #Infograph

Today is #LongCovidAwarenessDay Long Covid changed my life beyond recognition. I got ill. I never recovered. Lost my job. Became housebound. I rely on others to do things for me. I lie on my bed most of the day. Watch the Guardian's short film about my life with #LongCovid 👇

This is a very strange moment, in how obvious it is that a major crisis is approaching, and how calmly and clearly people are observing it come. www.ft.com/content/3647...

*TRUMP: MORE IMPORTANT TO ME IRAN IS STOPPED THAN HIGH OIL PRICE *TRUMP: US MAKES A LOT OF MONEY WHEN OIL PRICES GO UP

Iran war causes biggest disruption in oil markets, IEA says @seekingalpha

The volume of international transfers of major arms in 2021–25 was 9.2% higher than in 2016–20. This was the biggest increase in global arms flows since 2011–15. Read the fact sheet ➡️ doi.org/10.55163/OSM... #ArmsTransfers #GlobalArmsTrade #ArmsData #SIPRIData #Peace

Germany overtakes China to become the world's forth largest exporter of major arms.

Blowing up an oil facility next to a city of 8 million people is essentially the same as deliberately targeting civilians with chemical weaponry

Airwars, a non-profit group tracking civilian harm in conflict, found that the initial days of the U.S.-Israeli campaign in Iran hit significantly more targets per day than any campaign in recent decades. The targets also map heavily onto the highest populated areas. airwars.org/record-pace-...

Why is the Korean economy SOOOOOO affected? Because it imports more of its energy than almost any other country...

“.. the politics are a lot better if the Israelis go first and alone and the Iranians retaliate against us, and give us more reason to take action,” said one of the people familiar with discussions. @politico.com #OOTT www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

Hyperscaler butterfly effect: memory shortage --> lower smartphone sales in Africa www.idc.com/resource-cen...

Was the global decline of extreme poverty only due to China? The share of the world population living in extreme poverty has never declined as rapidly as in the past three decades.

everything you read about AI is someone's FORECAST. To date, there is no evidence it has raised economy-wide productivity or destroyed jobs (even among graduates). Even the impact of the capex on GDP - which is a real thing - has been wildly overstated for the past 12 months

Dangote signs $400 mln equipment deal with China's XCMG to speed up refinery expansion reut.rs/4roanOJ

This piece written in 2000 predicted US trade deficits would become unsustainable in "two or three years," and the author is on the BoE monetary policy committee today. Economics has a real accountability problem www.imf.org/external/pub...

‘Lower-income households devote almost two-thirds of their earnings to education; the authors call it “a tax on China’s poor”.’ @izading.bsky.social on China’s university entrance exam, the gaokao. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Exclusive: Mexican officials are evaluating how to send fuel to Cuba to help meet basic needs such as electricity without triggering reprisals from Washington, which threatened tariffs against countries supplying fuel to Cuba, sources told Reuters reut.rs/4r6E5Yk

Read Tabitha Speelman's essay on China's independent bookstore scene: chinabooksreview.com/2026/01/29/b...

China sees most high temperature days on record in 2025 reut.rs/4t4d5dg

Global investment in the energy transition climbed to a record $2.3 trillion in 2025, defying fears that the shifting political landscape and economic uncertainty would halt the world’s clean energy progress. Findings from a new BloombergNEF report with a gift link www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"Single ship load of solar PV – which can ultimately deliver 170 terawatt hours of PV once installed, is now worth 120 coal carries, or 57 LNG tankers"

🚨 NEW RECORD | China exported a RECORD 455 GW equivalent of solar PV products in 2025 – about TWICE the total solar capacity in the US ☀️ 🇨🇳's solar exports in 2025 grew 29% from 354 GW in 2024, with cell exports DOUBLING year-on-year. Explore the data: https://loom.ly/QN9barE

In a newly published paper, we find that in 2025 human emissions of greenhouse gases added around 23 billion trillion joules of heat to the world's oceans – 39 times as much as the annual energy produced by all human activity on Earth. link.springer.com/ar...

What urban areas in the world have the longest existing/under construction metro networks per capita? In a quick analysis using Transit Explorer & EU GHS-UCDB 2024 data, the top urban areas are: 1—Chengdu 2—Hangzhou 3—Ningbo 4—Xuzhou 5—Stockholm 6—Zhengzhou 7—Singapore 8—Xi'an 9—Hamburg 10—Changsha

The latest Duke CFO survey shows that the vast majority of CFOs are seeing no impact from AI on labor productivity, decision-making speed, customer satisfaction, or time spent on high-value-added tasks Torsten at Apollo

China said it has reached a deal with the European Union on exports of Chinese made electric vehicles to the bloc. The EU will be issuing guidelines on minimum pricing for Chinese auto exporters, the Commerce Ministry in Beijing said.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has finalized a deal exempting U.S. multinational corporations from paying more corporate taxes overseas.

Trump, Rubio & Miller are directing a foreign policy increasingly defined by big apparent violations of international law Govt experts on that law are quitting or feeling silenced: www.huffpost.com/entry/state-... www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-... For US personnel + US influence, huge risks here..

Nice chart

Quite like this. Thinking about how to think about economics of structural transformation where formal models offer little help academic.oup.com/oxrep/articl...

key line here "The requirements are relaxed for advanced chip production lines, where domestically developed equipment is not yet fully available" www.reuters.com/world/china/...

The affordability crisis is an inequality crisis. When prices spike in key sectors, it's not just inflation—it's a massive redistribution shock that hits poor households hardest. In our **new working paper**, we identify the sectors that matter most. A thread 🧵 scholarworks.umass.edu/entities/pub...

Reminder that Beijing isn't all-powerful: ""It's a sensitive area ... But people who get cheap electricity are still mining." www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...

The contrast with China is also interesting. Coal generation is also down so far this year in China, but electricity demand is still growing strongly. robbieandrew.github.io/china/

Harvard's endowment now has almost $443 million invested in BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF

Dani Rodrik in the NYT the other day with a pretty compelling argument about making service sector jobs into good jobs www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/o...

Its all subjective/positional of course, but this piece accords well with my own sense of the vibe in China right now sinocities.substack.com/p/visiting-c...

This paper shows: the 2022 energy crisis led to record global profits for fossil fuel companies. The US gained the most, with claims on US$301 billion, exceeding its US$267 billion investment in low-carbon energy. Half of profits went to the top1%, mainly through stock ownership

Taiwan says it expects no significant impact from China's new export controls on rare earth minerals, as it uses different rare earths in chip manufacturing (Ben Blanchard/Reuters) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

The @metoffice.gov.uk use weather station observations to reconstruct changes in UK average temperature since 1884. @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social produce the ERA5 reanalysis which reconstructs global weather every hour back to 1950 using a weather forecast model. Their estimates agree. Just sayin'.

Belgium just flipped the switch on what’s billed as mainland Europe’s largest battery storage project — a big win for grid reliability and renewables. ENGIE + Sungrow Europe have commissioned 100 MW/400 MWh at Vilvoorde (first phase of 200 MW/800 MWh due end-2025). www.ess-news.com/2025/10/01/l...

📢 Pessimistic social media posts may now be targets of a fresh crackdown by the Chinese government.

A fantastic photo essay about photographing the vanishing Third Front factories of China.

China, the world’s largest carbon polluting nation, has announced a new climate fighting goal to cut emissions by 7% to 10% by 2035.

📢 The first treaty to protect marine diversity in international waters will come into force early next year after being ratified by the 60th nation, Morocco. 👉 欢迎告知问题、提出建议

A United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had incited these acts reut.rs/46nAyvo