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ISLAMABAD: The foreign ministers of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, T&uuml;rkiye, and Egypt will meet in Ankara on Friday, a press release issued by Pakistan&rsquo;s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday.&nbsp; The foreign ministers of the four nations met last month in Islamabad for consultations aimed at de-escalating the ongoing conflict involving Iran and the US. The meetings highlighted Pakistan&rsquo;s expanding diplomatic outreach as regional powers intensified coordination to contain the conflict affecting security, humanitarian conditions, and global economic stability. In a press release issued today, the foreign office said that in a follow-up consultative meeting, senior officials of the respective foreign ministries met today in Islamabad. The Pakistan delegation to the meeting was led by the Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Tahir Andrabi, and the delegations of T&uuml;rkiye, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia were headed respectively by Deputy Foreign Minister Ambassador Musa Kulaklikaya; Assistant Foreign Minister Ambassador Nazih El Naggari; and MFA Director General Prince Dr Abdullah bin Khalid bin Saud Al-Kabeer AlSaud. The deliberations of the meeting held in Islamabad will be submitted for consideration at the forthcoming meeting of the four foreign ministers on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum (ADF). The senior officials also made a joint call to the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Foreign Secretary Ambassador Amna Baloch.

Foreign Affairs

The foreign ministers will participate in the Antalya Diplomacy Forum; foreign office says officials of the respective foreign ministries met today in Islamabad.

Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Egypt to meet in Ankara on Friday

DHAKA: About 250 people, including children, were feared missing after a boat carrying Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals capsized in the Andaman Sea, the United Nations said on Tuesday.&nbsp;&quot;The trawler, which departed from Teknaf in southern Bangladesh and was on its way to Malaysia, reportedly sank due to heavy winds, rough seas, and overcrowding,&quot; the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement.&nbsp;Thousands of Rohingya, Myanmar&#39;s persecuted Muslim minority, risk their lives every year fleeing repression and civil war in their country by sea, often aboard makeshift boats.&nbsp;The Rohingya on board the boat were likely leaving huge camps in Bangladesh&#39;s Cox&#39;s Bazar, where more than a million refugees forced to flee Myanmar&#39;s western state of Rakhine live in squalid conditions.&nbsp;Rakhine state has been the scene of fierce fighting between the military and the Arakan Army, an ethnic minority rebel group, over control of the territory.&nbsp;The exact circumstances surrounding the latest incident were unclear, but preliminary information indicated that the vessel was carrying 280 people and left Bangladesh on April 4.&nbsp;&quot;This tragic incident reflects the dire consequences of protracted displacement and the absence of durable solutions for the Rohingya,&quot; the UNHCR statement said.&nbsp;It was also &quot;a reminder of the efforts urgently needed to address the root causes of displacement in Myanmar and create conditions that would allow Rohingya refugees to return home voluntarily, safely and with dignity,&quot; it said.&nbsp;The Andaman Sea stretches along the western shores of Myanmar, Thailand and the Malay Peninsula.&nbsp;Last year, the UNHCR said that 427 Rohingya were feared dead at sea in two shipwrecks off the Myanmar coast in May.

Asia

The United Nations says about 250 people, including children, are feared missing after a boat carrying Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals capsizes in the Andaman Sea.

About 250 people feared missing after boat capsizes in Andaman Sea: UN

UNITED NATIONS: The UN secretary-general on Tuesday called for the resumption of &quot;serious negotiations&quot; to end the war in the Middle East, saying the crisis has &quot;no military solution.&quot;&nbsp;Antonio Guterres also told journalists at United Nations headquarters in New York that international freedom of navigation must be respected &quot;by all parties&quot; in the Strait of Hormuz.&nbsp;&quot;There is no military solution to this crisis. Peace agreements require persistent engagement and political will. Serious negotiations must resume,&quot; he said.&nbsp;Guterres said the ceasefire between the United States and Iran &quot;must be preserved&quot; -- referring to the two-week truce agreed last Wednesday after mediation by Pakistan.&nbsp;The two sides held talks in Islamabad at the weekend but failed to reach an agreement. US President Donald Trump told the New York Post on Tuesday that a second round of Iran talks could happen in Pakistan &quot;over the next two days.&quot;&nbsp;The UN chief welcomed the start Tuesday of the first direct talks in decades between Israel and Lebanon -- a dialogue being held in Washington and opposed by pro-Iran Hezbollah, which is battling Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.&nbsp;&quot;Nobody expects that these talks today will solve all the problems, but I think it will be very important if these talks create the conditions to a change in the way the actors have been developing their activities,&quot; Guterres said.&nbsp;&quot;Until now, the truth is that Hezbollah and Israel have always helped each other to destabilize the government of Lebanon,&quot; he said.&nbsp;Guterres also made a broader appeal for diplomacy and &quot;restraint and responsibility,&quot; and for respect for international law which was being &quot;trampled&quot; around the world.&nbsp;The UN chief warned that &quot;lawlessness breeds chaos,&quot; suffering and destruction.&nbsp;

Middle East

The UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres calls for serious negotiations to end the Middle East war, saying no military solution exists, urging ceasefire preservation, respect for Hormuz navigation, and renewed diplomacy between involved parties.

UN chief says 'no military solution' for Mideast crisis 

WASHINGTON: The IMF cut its 2026 global growth projection Tuesday, warning that the world economy could be &quot;thrown off course&quot; by war in the Middle East as the conflict roils commodity markets and sparks higher prices.&nbsp;The global economy is set to grow by 3.1 percent this year, said the International Monetary Fund in its World Economic Outlook report, released during its spring meetings in Washington.&nbsp;This is down from 3.3 percent forecast in January before hostilities erupted as US-Israeli strikes against Iran starting on February 28 prompted Tehran&#39;s retaliation and sparked a broader conflict in the region.&nbsp;&quot;We were planning to upgrade growth for 2026 to 3.4 percent&quot; if not for the war, IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas told AFP.&nbsp;Prices of oil, gas and fertilizers have surged due to the conflict, as Iran virtually blocked traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for shipments. US President Donald Trump has also ordered a naval blockade around Iran&#39;s ports.&nbsp;The fund expects higher inflation this year at 4.4 percent, 0.6 percentage points above its January forecast.&nbsp;After this the &quot;disinflation path&quot; of the past few years should reassert itself, Gourinchas said.&nbsp;But these projections assume a relatively short-lived conflict with temporary energy market disruptions.&nbsp;&quot;We have to be very concerned about the potential for this to become a major energy crisis,&quot; he warned.&nbsp;In more adverse scenarios where energy prices remain steep for the year, global growth could slow to 2.5 percent or even around 2.0 percent.&nbsp;&quot;Since 1980, it&#39;s basically been four times when growth has been at two percent or below,&quot; said Gourinchas.&nbsp;These included periods such as the 2008 global financial crisis and Covid-19 pandemic.&nbsp;&quot;This latest shock comes less than a year since the shift in US trade policies, and the transition to a new international trade system is still ongoing,&quot; the IMF said.&nbsp;A year ago, Trump unleashed sweeping tariffs on US trading partners, rocking financial markets and snarling supply chains.&nbsp;A swath of these tariffs has been struck down by the Supreme Court, but uncertainty lingers as Trump moves to reimpose duties via other means.&nbsp;Uneven impactAlthough overall revisions to global growth and inflation appear modest, the IMF cautioned that the war has taken a bigger toll on the Middle East and &quot;vulnerable economies&quot; elsewhere.&nbsp;&quot;The impact on emerging market and developing economies would be almost twice that on advanced economies,&quot; the fund said.&nbsp;Higher energy and fertilizer costs could bring steeper food costs, mainly hitting low-income energy importers, Gourinchas said.&nbsp;Growth projections this year for the Middle East and central Asia were cut by around half to 1.9 percent.&nbsp;Saudi Arabia, the Middle East&#39;s biggest economy, is set to see 3.1 percent growth this year, down 1.4 percentage points from January&#39;s expectation.&nbsp;Among the world&#39;s two biggest economies, US growth is still set to accelerate to 2.3 percent this year, although the pace of growth was revised slightly lower.&nbsp;&quot;The US at the margin is benefiting from higher energy prices,&quot; Gourinchas said. But gasoline prices have also jumped for consumers.&nbsp;China&#39;s growth is anticipated to cool to 4.4 percent, a touch below the January forecast, too.&nbsp;The IMF flagged an underlying &quot;unevenness&quot; in both economies.&nbsp;Domestic activity lags behind exports in China, while a strong showing in the United States has been accompanied by low employment growth.&nbsp;Euro area growth was revised 0.2 percentage points down to 1.1 percent for 2026.&nbsp;UK growth saw a bigger downshift by 0.5 percentage points, to 0.8 percent this year.&nbsp;While the IMF does not expect inflation expectations to go off-track, there is concern that they may not be as well-anchored as before.&nbsp;Past inflation episodes remain fresh in the public&#39;s minds, and firms might act to restore margins more quickly than before.&nbsp;&quot;If that happens, then you can get much more persistent inflation going on, that would be reflected in higher inflation expectations,&quot; Gourinchas said.&nbsp;If so, central banks might need to step in and raise interest rates to cool the economy, despite the ongoing negative supply shock.

The International Monetary Fund cut 2026 global growth to 3.1% due to the Middle East war, warning of energy shocks, rising inflation, and slower growth especially in vulnerable economies with risks of a deeper global slowdown.

IMF cuts 2026 global growth forecast on Mideast war

ISLAMABAD: Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the Trump administration has been unable to conduct the kind of disciplined, technically grounded diplomacy needed for negotiations on Iran&rsquo;s nuclear program. She was responding to a question during a recent interview on MSNBC&rsquo;s talk show Morning Joe.&nbsp; Clinton said negotiations are a slow, highly specialized process that requires officials with real expertise in nuclear weapons and verification, contrasting that with what she portrayed as the administration&rsquo;s reliance on a small inner circle to handle several major crises simultaneously. &ldquo;When I was Secretary of State, I began secret negotiations with Iran to try to reach a nuclear weapons deal to prevent it from ever having a nuclear arsenal. It was a very slow, deliberative process,&rdquo; she said. The former secretary said that the US would need to &ldquo;bring in people who actually know something about nuclear weapons.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;We had physicists and nuclear weapons practitioners at the table when our administration was negotiating the Joint Plan of Action [pact with Iran]. You need people who know something and know the history,&rdquo; she said. She was sharply critical of the administration&rsquo;s strategic judgment, saying she was stunned by reports that President Trump had not anticipated Iran could try to close the Strait of Hormuz.&nbsp; Clinton said that in the military exercises she attended while in government, closing the strait had long been seen as one of the most immediate risks in any confrontation with Tehran.&nbsp; She said she supported Trump bombing Iran&rsquo;s nuclear sites in June of last year because she thought that was an appropriate and limited strategic objective. &ldquo;[But] I opposed his incoherent attack on Iran,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;I know from personal experience how Netanyahu has tried to get every American president to agree to have an open-ended war with Iran, because I had many hours-long conversations with him and his war cabinet about this and refused to go along with a very inchoate desire to do something to Iran that, you know, with no real end state,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I think you&#39;ve got to get back into hard negotiations with the right people at the table who know what they are doing. And I think you&#39;ve then got to make it very clear that we want our allies involved. We don&#39;t want to be dissing our allies because they have a big stake in this,&rdquo; she said. In her interview, Clinton urged Congress to assert its constitutional role and place limits on presidential war-making before lasting damage is done to American authority.

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a recent interview, says the US is in a ‘very weak position’ in its dealings with Iran, arguing that Washington has lost the leverage and initiative it once possessed.

US needs technically grounded diplomacy on Iran: Hillary Clinton

ISLAMABAD: Rockstar Games, the studio behind the forthcoming Grand Theft Auto VI, recently confirmed that hackers accessed company data through a third-party breach and issued a ransom ultimatum: pay up or face a public data dump. The hacker group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the intrusion, setting April 14 as its deadline. By the end of the day, a GTA countdown account on X reported that stolen files had appeared on the dark web, including financial data detailing GTA Online&#39;s revenue. Rockstar&#39;s response was measured. &quot;We can confirm that a limited amount of non-material company information was accessed in connection with a third-party data breach,&quot; a company spokesperson said. &quot;This incident has no impact on our organization or our players.&quot; Cybersecurity outlet The CyberSec Guru reported that ShinyHunters exploited Anodot, a SaaS cloud-cost monitoring tool Rockstar uses, to penetrate the company&#39;s Snowflake data warehouse. The hackers did not crack Snowflake&#39;s encryption. Instead, they obtained authentication tokens from Anodot&#39;s system and used them as digital passkeys to access Rockstar&#39;s Snowflake instance. &quot;If you give a tool like Anodot broad read permissions on your Snowflake warehouse and that tool gets compromised, the data is gone. Snowflake isn&#39;t the weak link here; the integration policy is,&quot; The CyberSec Guru said. Snowflake confirmed that a breach occurred on its platform, saying only a handful of customers were affected. ShinyHunters sent a direct message to Rockstar: &quot;Your Snowflake instances were compromised thanks to Anodot.com. Pay or leak. This is a final warning to reach out by 14 Apr 2026 before we leak along with several annoying (digital) problems that&#39;ll come your way. Make the right decision. Don&#39;t be the next headline. FINAL WARNING PAY OR LEAK.&quot; ShinyHunters is a prolific group of English-speaking cybercriminals, believed to be teenagers, who specialize in data theft and extortion. The BBC, which spoke directly with the group, noted that they had previously claimed responsibility for a breach at the ticketing giant Ticketmaster. Since January, according to several media outlets, the group has expanded its reach amid a wave of SaaS data thefts, targeting companies including Panera Bread and Salesforce. The stakes are considerable. GTA 6 is due for release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S on Nov. 19, with a reported budget of approximately $3 billion. Leaked data could expose marketing timelines, unreleased trailers, or financial details, providing insider knowledge to betting markets tracking the game&#39;s release schedule. Rockstar&#39;s framing of the accessed data as &quot;non-material&quot; suggests the company does not expect a damaging GTA 6 content leak six months before launch, nor any disruption to its release plans. This is the third major security incident Rockstar has faced in recent years. In 2022, more than 90 videos and images from an early build of GTA 6 were leaked online by the hacking group Lapsus$, an intrusion that cost Rockstar nearly $5 million. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick called the incident &quot;really frustrating and upsetting to the team.&quot;&nbsp; In December 2023, the first GTA 6 trailer leaked on X less than 24 hours before its scheduled premiere, forcing Rockstar to release it on YouTube ahead of schedule. &quot;In terms of the leak, that&#39;s always disappointing for the team, but ultimately, I don&#39;t think it hurt us,&quot; Zelnick said at the time. Whether the current breach carries similar consequences remains unclear. Rockstar has not indicated it will pay the ransom.

Video Game

Rockstar Games confirms a limited data breach via a third-party tool, as hackers ShinyHunters claim responsibility and leak files online, issuing a ransom demand ahead of GTA 6’s planned release.

GTA 6 maker Rockstar breached: Hackers demand 'pay or leak'

NEW YORK: Iran slammed a US blockade around its ports on Monday as a &quot;grave violation&quot; of its sovereignty, as Washington and Tehran&#39;s belligerent rhetoric rattled a fragile truce. &quot;The imposition of a maritime blockade constitutes a grave violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran,&quot; Iran&#39;s ambassador to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani wrote to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, in a letter seen by AFP. The &quot;unlawful&quot; blockade also &quot;constitutes a serious violation of the fundamental principles of the international law of the sea,&quot; Iravani added. US President Donald Trump ordered a blockade of ships entering or leaving Iranian ports and coastal areas in the Gulf Sunday, following the failure of peace talks over the weekend, warning that any Iranian attack boats that challenged the blockade would be destroyed. The blockade came into force at 1400 GMT Monday, despite the United States and Iran agreeing to a two-week ceasefire days earlier, with mediator Pakistan and Gulf state Qatar continuing calls for it to be respected as diplomatic efforts continue. Guterres on Monday called on &quot;all parties&quot; to respect freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, after Iran and subsequently the United States blocked passage through the critical waterway. The strait, through which a fifth of global oil and gas flows, has become a key flashpoint as the US and Iran attempt to gain leverage over each other during ceasefire negotiations. Iravani said the &quot;unlawful&quot; blockade &quot;poses a grave threat to international peace and security and obviously exacerbates the risk of escalation in an already highly volatile region.&quot; In a second letter, the UN envoy called on Middle Eastern countries hosting US military bases to &quot;cease their internationally wrongful acts.&quot; Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan should pay &quot;compensation for all material and moral damage sustained,&quot; he said.

The narrow Strait of Hormuz lies between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, separating Iran (north) from the Arabian Peninsula (south). (NASA)

Iran condemned a US maritime blockade as violating sovereignty and international law, after Washington enforced restrictions near Iranian ports, escalating tensions despite a ceasefire and raising risks to global energy flows.

Iran slams US blockade as 'grave violation of sovereignty'

LONDON: Wisden has criticised Indian political interference in global cricket administration, labelling the current situation &quot;increasingly Orwellian&quot;. The UK-based Wisden Cricketers&#39; Almanack, which dates back to 1864, is an annual record of all major cricket worldwide and is regarded as the sport&#39;s &quot;Bible&quot;. In its 163rd annual edition, to be published Thursday, editor Lawrence Booth highlighted what he sees as an unhealthy and politicised Indian dominance of the global game. The International Cricket Council has an Indian chief executive, Sanjog Gupta, and an Indian chairman, Jay Shah, who is the son of Amit Shah, India&#39;s minister of home affairs and a longstanding ally of the prime minister, Narendra Modi. Wisden describes the Board of Control for Cricket in India, which Shah led before taking over at the ICC, as &quot;the sporting adjunct of India&#39;s ruling BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party)&quot;. Booth also highlighted how politics intruded upon the 2025 Asia Cup, which took place against a backdrop of a brief military conflict between India and Pakistan, leading to the players refusing to shake hands when the border rivals played each other. &quot;Was there a clearer indictment of the game&#39;s governance in 2025 than Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Mohsin Naqvi&#39;s assertion that &#39;politics and sport can&#39;t go together&#39;?&quot; Booth wrote. &quot;Presumably he had forgotten he was also his country&#39;s interior minister.&quot; Booth added: &quot;It was obvious long before this latest grandstanding that the BCCI were the sporting adjunct of India&#39;s ruling BJP. &#39;Indian exceptionalism&#39;&nbsp; &quot;But the relationship became explicit when India captain Suryakumar Yadav dedicated the first of India&#39;s Asia Cup wins over Pakistan to the armed forces. &quot;And the idea that cricket was now a legitimate proxy for more lethal activity was hammered home on X by India&#39;s prime minister, Narendra Modi, after his country beat Pakistan in the final: &#39;Operation Sindoor on the games field. Outcome is the same India wins!&#39; The real-world Operation Sindoor had left dozens dead, on both sides of the border.&quot; Booth also cited the case of Bangladesh fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman, who was released from a $1 million deal with Indian Premier League franchise Kolkata Knight Riders - amid rising tensions between the two nations following the murder of Hindu men in Bangladesh. Mustafizur&#39;s exit from the IPL sparked a chain of events that led to Bangladesh&#39;s removal from this year&#39;s men&#39;s T20 World Cup, after their government refused to let them travel to India. &quot;The sport&#39;s governance grows ever more Orwellian, pretending that Indian exceptionalism comes without consequence, and blaming those lower down the food chain for lashing out. &quot;Predictably, almost no prominent voices in the Indian game addressed the root cause of the carnage: the politicisation of a sport that, whatever Naqvi may say, has never been untouched by the real world, yet never more poisoned by it either.&quot;

Gujarat Titans' captain Indian cricket player Shubman Gill reacts after playing a shot during the 2026 Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 match between Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans at the Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow on April 12, 2026.

India

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack criticizes growing Board of Control for Cricket in India and political influence over global cricket, warning it is becoming dangerously politicized and “Orwellian.”

Wisden laments India's 'Orwellian' control of world cricket

ISTANBUL: An ex-student opened fire at his former high school on Tuesday in Turkey, where school shootings are rare, wounding 16 people, including students, before killing himself, officials said. Special security forces were deployed to the school in southeastern Turkey&#39;s Sanliurfa province, where students were evacuated, the local governor, Hasan Sildak, told reporters. Television footage showed ambulances standing by outside the school in the Siverek district as students fled the building in panic. Sildak identified the attacker as a former student at the school, born in 2007. &quot;He took his own life when cornered by police,&quot; the governor said. &quot;We have evacuated the school and will carry out a thorough investigation into this tragic incident,&quot; he added. Local media reported that most of the wounded were students.

This handout photograph, taken and released on April 14, 2026, by Turkish news agency DHA (Demiroren News Agency), shows an injured student evacuated as special force security surrounds the school in southeastern Turkey. (AFP)

Europe

Special security forces were deployed to the school in southeastern Turkey's Sanliurfa province, where students were evacuated, the local governor, Hasan Sildak, told reporters.

Turkey school shooting wounds 16, attacker dead

ISLAMABAD: The United States and Indonesia announced a new Major Defense Cooperation Partnership on Monday, strengthening military ties as the strategic significance of Southeast Asia&rsquo;s sea lanes gains increased attention.&nbsp;The agreement was unveiled at the Pentagon after US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth met with Indonesian Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, with both sides saying the framework would deepen operational collaboration, defense modernization, training and interoperability.&nbsp; According to a US-Indonesia joint statement, the new partnership rests on three pillars: military modernization and capacity building, training and professional military education, and exercises and operational cooperation.&nbsp; The two sides said they would explore initiatives in maritime, subsurface and autonomous systems, cooperate on maintenance and repair support, and expand joint special forces training.&nbsp; <div class="fr-embed"><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; line-height: 2;"><iframe id="twitter-widget-2" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" title="X Post" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-2&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=2043819323601342697&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fmain.d1wrm1qseko1cp.amplifyapp.com%2Flogin%2F&sessionId=695618f6f280be58ce22ef01cddd46d57957413f&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 672px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</iframe></div></div>Hegseth said the two countries already conduct more than 170 military exercises together each year.&nbsp; Jakarta stressed that any arrangement would protect Indonesian sovereignty and comply with national law. One of the world&rsquo;s major chokepointsThe significance of stronger defense ties with Indonesia extends well beyond bilateral military cooperation.&nbsp; Indonesia sits across some of the world&rsquo;s most important maritime routes, including the Strait of Malacca and the alternative Sunda and Lombok passages.&nbsp; The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) says Malacca is the primary chokepoint in Asia, while a major chokepoints database at the research institute, Strauss Center, lists it among the world&rsquo;s eight major chokepoints.&nbsp; In the first half of 2025, the Strait of Malacca handled an estimated 23.2 million barrels of oil per day, making it the world&rsquo;s largest oil transit chokepoint, accounting for 29% of global maritime oil flows.&nbsp; China was the single largest destination for crude and condensate moving through the strait, receiving 7.9 million barrels per day, or 48% of import volumes, while Russian volumes were much smaller at about 0.4 million barrels per day.&nbsp; Malacca is also one of the world&rsquo;s most vulnerable bottlenecks. At its narrowest point in the Phillips Channel, it is only about 1.7 miles wide.&nbsp; Earlier EIA analysis found that more than 90% of crude oil passing through the South China Sea transited the Strait of Malacca, while about 90% of China&rsquo;s maritime crude imports moved through the South China Sea, underscoring Beijing&rsquo;s long-standing &ldquo;Malacca dilemma&rdquo; and the broader strategic value of Indonesia&rsquo;s geography.

Americas

The two countries launch a major defense partnership, deepening military ties through training, modernization and joint operations.

Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Egypt to meet in Ankara on Friday

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Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Egypt to meet in Ankara on Friday

About 250 people feared missing after boat capsizes in Andaman Sea: UN

UN chief says 'no military solution' for Mideast crisis

IMF cuts 2026 global growth forecast on Mideast war

US needs technically grounded diplomacy on Iran: Hillary Clinton