Flagship

US, Israel ramp up Iran war efforts

The Iran war intensified as Washington and Tehran focused their attention on the Strait of Hormuz and showed little sign of easing their aerial campaigns. Iran has reportedly begun laying mines in the crucial maritime trade route and UK authorities said three ships off Iran’s coast were hit by projectiles, while US forces reported destroying 16 Iranian mine-laying vessels. Tehran has in effect established dominance over the waterway, closing it to all but its own naval traffic: Remarkably, Iran is exporting more oil through the Strait than before the war began. In an effort to allay whipsawing energy markets, Western powers are considering an International Energy Agency proposal for the largest-ever release of oil reserves.

Iran war risks food price surge

The Iran war could send food prices surging globally, as fertilizer and other prices skyrocket. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz — through which a third of the world’s fertilizer travels — is driving up the costs of energy, transport, and planting essentials such as sulphur, potentially resulting in intensified “cost-of-living pressures, particularly for the most vulnerable,” a new UN report warned. Farmers in China are worried that a shortfall of ingredients necessary to make fertilizer comes just as the spring planting season gets underway, while those in the US are pushing for a bailout: “If you’re growing something in the ground right now, you’re losing money,” one Republican senator acknowledged.

Lebanon facing humanitarian crisis

Israeli strikes targeting the Iran-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon amplified a displacement crisis that aid groups warned could become a humanitarian disaster. Mass evacuation orders and a bombing campaign have driven nearly 700,000 people, including 200,000 children, from their homes, the UN said. The conflict was sparked by Hezbollah targeting Israel after the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, breaking a 2024 ceasefire that in any case had largely failed. Though both sides have traded fire, “the suffering has been hugely disproportionate,” Al Jazeera said, with almost 600 people killed in Lebanon compared to two Israeli soldiers. A UN official noted that the broader Middle East conflict also risked distracting from crises elsewhere where “needs were already great.”

Vance’s Iran silence in spotlight

US Vice President JD Vance will soon kick off a domestic fundraising tour, marking a reemergence amid reported frustration among allies over his silence about the Iran war. In Oct. 2024, he argued for “not going to war with Iran,” but since the Iran and Venezuela operations, “Vance has been conspicuously quiet,” Politico noted, apart from one brief interview. Anti-interventionist voices in Washington are reconsidering their expectation that Vance — among the top contenders for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination — would stand up against more hawkish instincts. A longtime Vance ally wrote in UnHerd that the US right had undergone a fundamental shift on foreign policy: “The neoconservative hawks… have emerged as the winners of the Trump era.”

Asian nations boost defense spending

Indonesia said it would buy an Indian missile defense system, part of a broader push by Asian nations to upgrade their military arsenals amid tensions with China and eroding trust with the US. The Asia-Pacific region was second only to Europe in arms imports between 2021 and 2025, according to new research. Japan and Taiwan recorded the highest increases in East Asia, driven by “fears over China’s intentions” and Beijing’s growing military capabilities. That, coupled with doubts over Washington’s status as a reliable partner — South Korea’s president voiced his opposition to the US moving air defense systems from there to the Middle East — is shifting regional attitudes towards defense; critics worry that Japan could weaken its pacifist principles.

South Africa GDP growth falls short

South Africa’s GDP grew 1.1% last year, below expectations, with the war in the Middle East piling on yet more pressure. Growth in Africa’s biggest economy has flatlined, and the IMF forecasts it will remain below 2% this decade. Repeated energy crises and persistent corruption have contributed to years of poor performance — youth unemployment stands at around 50% — eroding voter confidence in the African National Congress party and forcing it into a coalition for the first time since the end of apartheid. Soaring energy prices sparked by the Iran war are complicating matters further, upending Pretoria’s budget and leaving South Africa “at the mercy of shocks caused by events beyond its control,” Semafor’s Tiisetso Motsoeneng wrote.

Chile’s right-wing leader takes office

A conservative firebrand will be sworn in today as the president of Chile, the latest Latin American nation to shift rightward. José Antonio Kast rose to power amid growing dissatisfaction over rising crime and slowing growth, the same conditions that have boosted the popularity of conservative candidates elsewhere in the region. Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of a former Brazilian president jailed on corruption and insurrection charges, is now tied in the polls with incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. And in Colombia, rightist Paloma Valencia’s surprising primary performance has made her a favorite to replace leftist Gustavo Petro in elections due in May. As voter dissatisfaction rises, “what people want are results,” a Latin American consultant said.

Bilt Rewards launched in 2019 with a simple idea. If you can get credit-card rewards for buying a round of drinks, why can’t you get them for paying your rent? After a shambolic and short-lived partnership with Wells Fargo, the company is back with bigger ambitions: to be the platform powering 12% of the economy — housing services — plus a big chunk of what people spend on dining, workouts, health care, and other local services. On this week’s episode of Compound Interest, co-hosts Liz Hoffman and Rohan Goswami sit down with Bilt CEO Ankur Jain to unpack the company’s Amex-Shopify-Square ambitions — and why every company wants to be a membership club.

Listen to the latest episode of Compound Interest now.

War boosts nuclear energy revival

Soaring energy prices caused by the war in the Middle East are helping propel a resurgence of nuclear power. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said yesterday that Europe must reconsider its energy policy, arguing that moving away from nuclear power was a “strategic mistake.” Nuclear energy is also back in vogue in Japan, 15 years after the Fukushima disaster; voters now overwhelmingly support the industry. South Korea too has vowed to speed up its reactor restart. And in a Semafor column, former US Secretary of State John Kerry urged the US to take up nuclear at scale, though he warned of too many projects remaining just “announcements rather than deployments.”

Shifting China’s poverty parameters

China should adjust its poverty threshold to reflect the country’s improved economic realities, experts said, arguing that a large share of its population still struggles to get by. Beijing has long boasted of having improved the economic conditions of hundreds of millions. While experts recognize the country’s astounding progress, many say Chinese authorities must now measure poverty using the higher threshold applicable to middle-income nations, and not the one designed for low-income ones that Beijing clings to. Under the higher threshold, almost a fifth of China’s population would be