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The U.S. Tries to Repackage What’s Effectively a Zoom Call Into Secretary Antony Blinken’s “Virtual Travel to Africa”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will "embark on his first virtual trip to Africa" on Tuesday as part of an effort to reach out with young people in Kenya and Nigeria. Even though the State Department ...

Quad Queries

I’ve wondered in the past whether ‘the Quad’ – the alliance among the United States, Japan, Australia and India dedicated as a counterweight to China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region – has taken on such prominence simply because the word is so fun to say. Quad quad ...

Why African Energy Exporters Should Be Concerned About CNOOC’s Interest in a Massive Qatari Gas Deal

One of China's three major oil and gas companies, CNOOC, is reportedly interested in joining the world's largest natural gas project in Qatar. The company's CFO Xie Weizhi said CNOOC is exploring the option to invest in the $29 ...

Egypt Approves Sinovac COVID-19 Vaccine for Emergency Use

Egypt's drug authority said on Monday it had granted approval to China's Sinovac coronavirus vaccine for emergency use.  Egypt has so far approved and received shipments of the Sinopharm and AstraZeneca vaccines and has said it is preparing to produce up ...

The Stuff That Goes Into Making a Battery For Electric Vehicles is Getting a Lot More Expensive

Prices for the key commodities needed to produce electric vehicle batteries have been rallying all year on stronger demand for new energy vehicles. They spiked in recent days, following the U.S.-led summit on climate change that took place online last week. ...

Analysis from Cobus van Staden

Revealing Reactions to China’s Festival of Optics

In terms of geopolitical optics, this week was nothing short of a banquet. It served up at least two sets of images that seem to crystallize our historical moment and that will live on in the Wikipedia of history as shorthand for where the world was in 2025.
One is the waves of uncannily synchronized soldiers and a bewildering array of high-tech weaponry gliding down Beijing’s Chang’an Avenue. The ...