Somali Pirates!
Back again.
“It’s the first thing I read every morning.” — David Barboza, founder of WireScreen and former Shanghai Bureau Chief for The New York Times.
1. Nikkei Asia:
Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a warning about Taiwan to U.S. President Donald Trump in Beijing earlier today, as the leaders kicked off two days of meetings and festivities aimed at showcasing the stability of the rival powers’ relationship.
Huddling for two hours and 15 minutes, Xi told Trump that the Taiwan question is “the most important issue” in their ties, according to a readout published by state news outlet Xinhua.
“If handled well, bilateral relations can maintain overall stability,” Xi was quoted as saying. If “handled poorly,” the two countries risk a “clash” that could push “the entire China-U.S. relationship into a very dangerous situation.”
It was not immediately clear whether the topic of Taiwan was discussed further, or if Trump commented on it. The readout mentioned that the two exchanged views on the Middle East, Ukraine and the Korean Peninsula. (Source: asia.nikkei.com)
2. The US government has sold 30-year debt at a 5 per cent yield for the first time since 2007 amid mounting signs that Donald Trump’s war in Iran has unleashed a new surge in inflation. The Treasury department issued $25bn of new 30-year bonds on Wednesday, with the high yield at auction reaching 5.046 per cent. Earlier in the day, yields on US debt, which move inversely to prices, rose after official data showed wholesale inflation had jumped to 6 per cent in April, its highest level since 2022. “Financing the debt is getting much more expensive,” said Ed Al-Hussainy, a portfolio manager at Columbia Threadneedle. (Source: ft.com)
3. US wholesale inflation accelerated in April to the fastest pace since 2022 on a war-driven increase in energy prices that’s feeding into higher freight transportation costs. The producer price index rose 6% from a year ago, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data out Wednesday. That topped all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The monthly gain was also the sharpest since 2022. A core measure of wholesale inflation that excludes food and energy increased 5.2% from April 2025 — the biggest advance in more than three years. (Source: bloomberg.com)
4. US efforts to end the war with Iran were dealt a setback after a commercial vessel was apparently seized by unauthorized personnel near the United Arab Emirates, increasing uncertainty over control of the critical Strait of Hormuz. The ship, whose identity wasn’t immediately clear, was taken 38 nautical miles off the UAE coast and is now bound for the Islamic Republic, the UK Maritime Trade Operations said in a statement on Thursday. (Source: bloomberg.com)
5. Since April, Somali pirates have launched a hijacking campaign against oil tankers and cargo ships, posing their biggest threat to the Red Sea corridor in over a decade. These activities pose a major threat both to the global economy and to regional security, as they disrupt the oil and derivatives trade and risk enabling al-Qaeda’s Somali affiliate, al-Shabaab, to increase its revenue and strengthen its ties with the Houthis. From April 21 to May 2, Somali pirates hijacked four ships off the coast of northern Somalia’s Puntland state, long the hotbed of Somali piracy—a rate unseen since at least 2012. (Source: nationalinterest.org)
6. Russia unleashed the largest aerial attack on Ukraine over a two-day period since the war began, pounding the capital Kyiv and other cities across the country with hundreds of drones, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Russia had launched more than 1,560 drones since the start of Wednesday. Overnight on Thursday, Moscow fired more than 670 attack drones and 56 missiles against Ukraine, he said. Air defence units shot down 41 missiles and 652 drones overnight, the air force said. (Source: reuters.com)
7. Cuba has completely run out of diesel and fuel oil, the country’s energy minister said on Wednesday, as Havana faces its worst rolling blackouts in decades amid a US blockade that has strangled the island of fuel. “We have absolutely no fuel (oil), and absolutely no diesel,” the energy minister, Vicente de la O Levy, said on state media, adding that the national grid was in a “critical” state. “We have no reserves.” Fuel oil is a product derived from crude oil distillation used to generate heat or power. The minister said blackouts had increased dramatically across Havana, with many neigbhourhoods in the capital without light for up to 22 hours a day. (Source: theguardian.com)
