Dear friends,

The government of Japan is rapidly building a war posture against China. It began in Okinawa and Amami in the mid-2010s, and has expanded to Kyushu, western Japan, and the whole country. Since 2026, Japan has begun deploying long-range missiles capable of reaching mainland China.

Resistance to Japan’s growing ‘war posture’ against China: The Sixteenth Asia Newsletter (2026)

Originally published: Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research on August 26, 2026 by Hiroyuki Takai

In the 1970s, during an era of energy price shocks, NASA began designing a new type of liquid battery.

The iron-chromium redox flow battery contained no corrosive elements and was designed to be easily scalable, so it could store huge amounts of solar energy indefinitely.

Several years later, in Australia, a young chemical engineer at UNSW in Sydney named Maria Skyllas-Kazacos started studying these new kinds of flow batteries.

Within years, she and her research team developed another kind of flow battery, one that used vanadium instead of iron and chromium.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday delivered a speech at the 26th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan.

Here is the full text of his speech.

Toward Higher-Quality Development of The Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Your Excellency President Sadyr Japarov,

Colleagues,

It is a great pleasure to join you in Bishkek. I would like to thank President Japarov for the thoughtful arrangements for our meeting. Since assuming the chairmanship, Kyrgyzstan has, under the theme "Together Toward Sustainable Peace, Development, and Prosperity," held a variety of activities with remarkable success. China highly commends all this.

On August 22, acclaimed novelist Richard Flanagan delivered a powerful 45-minute speech in Sydney condemning the escalating persecution in Australia of opponents of Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians in Gaza. He called for a determined fight to defend freedom of speech and basic democratic rights.

Prize-winning writer Richard Flanagan denounces escalating pro-Zionist attacks on democratic rights in Australia

Richard Phillips

MAKING AMERICA THE LEADER IN DIGITAL ASSETS: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law, a historic piece of legislation that will pave the way for the United States to lead the global digital currency revolution.

• The GENIUS Act prioritizes consumer protection, strengthens the U.S. dollar’s reserve currency status, and bolsters our national security.
• The GENIUS Act will make America the undisputed leader in digital assets, bringing massive investment and innovation to our country.

PROTECTING CONSUMERS IN THE DIGITAL MARKET: President Trump supports the GENIUS Act because it protects consumers from nefarious actors in financial markets.

From terrorism to mutiny, France is testing, one by one, all of its instruments of terror against Niger

Mohamed Lamine KABA

The French destabilization strategy in the Sahel and the Macronian figure of modern cynicism effectively confirm the barbaric nature of the neo-colonial imperial spasm.

From hybrid warfare to nocturnal convulsions

In a speech that meandered from complaints about losing out on a contract to renovate the headquarters to recounting what he saw as his foreign policy successes, the president painted a picture of the U.N. as an outdated, ineffective organization and said he’s worked to end “seven wars” without any help.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Representative Andrew Clyde (GA-09) and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the End EPA Abuse Act, legislation to amend the Clean Air Act to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from abusing its regulatory authority.

Rep. Clyde, Sen. Lee Introduce End EPA Abuse Act

Washington, June 25, 2026

The Global Farce: How Trump’s Imperial Ambitions Buried U.S. Hegemony in the Strait of Hormuz

Muhammad Hamid ad-Din

The Donald Trump administration, acting with the peremptoriness of a capricious landlord, has carried to its logical conclusion a policy that many analysts are already calling “imperial suicide.”

The endless debate over immigration and housing numbers is long on rhetoric and short on facts; political point-scoring dominates. Monte Dwyer reckons he has the answer.

Right, pay attention please. I’ve crunched the numbers, and I reckon I’ve worked out how we solve the housing crisis with immigration capped at 130,000.

A Fool’s Guide to the housing and immigration dilemma

by Monte Dwyer

First, though, credit where it’s due: I’ve nicked the idea from One Nation MP David Farley, who’s come up with the genius hack of adding more categories as required. If there isn’t room for enough tradies, backpackers, and health workers to service rural areas under the 130,000 cap, just sneak in an extra 100,000 as a job lot and

The West is losing the Ukraine War big time. But that does not mean the NATO lunatics are willing to give up their plans for total global domination. On the contrary, some of them are only getting started.

Professor Jeffrey Sachs joins Pascal Lottaz to argue that the Ukraine war is a long-running US proxy conflict with Russia. He discusses NATO expansion, post-Cold War policy, US power and elite interests, Europe’s economic costs, and the risks of escalation. Sachs also outlines what he sees as a path to peace: Ukrainian neutrality, no further NATO expansion, and ending US wars.

NATO's New Plans To Destroy Russia | Prof. Jeffrey Sachs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgM_Aj7EESw

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July 21, 2026

There has long been significant undercounting of Palestinians deaths as the Genocide continues.

The widely ‘accepted’ figure for Palestinian deaths in Gaza is 73,000. It is much more.

In July 2024, one of Britain’s most respected medical journals, The Lancet, published correspondence estimating that the eventual death toll could reach 186,000 or more. Al Jazeera reported that estimate.

John Menadue

From April 9 to 12, 2026, 128 of the world’s most influential figures gathered at the Salamander Washington DC Hotel, on the Southwest waterfront a short walk from the National Mall, for what has become the most scrutinized private conference on the planet. The 72nd Bilderberg Meeting continued its tradition of bringing together political leaders, business executives, military commanders, intelligence chiefs, academics, and media figures for off-the-record discussions on pressing global issues—this time in the seat of American power itself.

The United Nations remains the only and irreplaceable space where humanity comes together to overcome common challenges, the place where States, despite their legitimate differences, work daily to understand one another. In times of difficulty, as today, we must seize every opportunity for collaboration to advance towards peace and people’s well-being.

BY Michelle Bachelet Jeria — former President of Chile and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). She is a candidate for United Nations Secretary General, and this essay is her vision statement.