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The American era has ended on April 7 night US time with the Trump administration toddling its way into a ceasefire agreement with Iran. The day before, American president Donald Trump had threatened to wipe out to extinction a civilisation — Iran’s.

It seems that President Trump’s Tuesday morning Truth Social post, which threatened “a whole civilisation will die tonight” and raised the spectre of nuclear war, has jolted the American lawmakers, and it has begun a chorus of calls either for Trump’s impeachment or for his removal via the invocation of the 25th Amendment.

Oil markets have responded to the Iran ceasefire in the way they often react to any pause in conflict near a critical supply artery: with visible relief, but not full conviction. Prices have pulled back sharply from their war-risk peaks as traders moved to price in a temporary easing of immediate geopolitical danger. That retreat, however, should not be mistaken for a return to calm. The ceasefire has lowered the temperature, but it has not removed the heat source. What the market is now grappling with is the difference between a short-term de-escalation and a durable restoration of security in one of the world’s most sensitive energy corridors.

Global waste generation is faster than we are able to handle. It reached 2.56 billion tonnes in 2022, according to the new World Bank report “What a Waste 3.0” as against projected 2.59 billion tonnes by 2030 by “What a Waste 2.0” of 2018. Under business as usual scenario, global wage generation is expected to grow to 3.86 billion tonnes by 2050. The increase in low income countries is expected to more than double by that time, with the fastest growth projected in Sub-Saharan Africa and in South Asia. India being the most populated country in the world and in South Asia, it has much to worry as to how it is going to handle the situation.

NEW YORK: While ordinary Americans watch gas prices climb, someone with a lot of money—and apparently the right connections—appears to have made a fortune in a single minute.

China and Russia are the two major countries which are going the wholehog in boosting the Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing who has just been elected as the new President following national elections which were rigged, according to the international poll observers. India also exercised its diplomatic pragmatism by doing away with morals and ethics by agreeing to send the Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh to attend the inauguration of the new President of Myanmar on April 10.

The energy crisis gripping South Asia in 2026 is not simply the fallout of a distant geopolitical confrontation; it is the clearest evidence yet of a systemic fragility that policymakers have long acknowledged but persistently under-addressed. The disruption of the Strait of Hormuz—through which roughly 20 per cent of global oil and a significant share of liquefied natural gas flows—has once again demonstrated how deeply the region’s economic stability is tethered to external supply chains. What makes this moment particularly consequential is not just the scale of the shock—Asian LNG prices spiking by over 140 per cent, crude briefly breaching $119 per barrel—but the speed with which it has translated into domestic distress: fuel queues, fertiliser shortages, power outages, and rising inflation that is already eroding fragile post-pandemic recoveries.

China, no doubt, is having success in restraining production and capacity management, an important aspect of which is to progressively increase the share of electric arc furnaces (EAF) in the country’s steel production. The rapid promotion of EAF based steel production will help the country in reducing its unacceptably large share of over 60% of the global steel industry’s greenhouse gas emissions. Since in the process of making 1 tonne of finished steel, the carbon emission in China at 2.33 tonnes is considerably higher than the global average of 1.92 tonnes and the country has the target to become carbon neutral by 2060, it has to along with rapidly building EAF capacity, the mills armed with BF-BOF will have to be comprehensively modernised.

For six decades, Dubai International Airport was the ultimate proof of concept: that a city conjured from desert sand could outshine every rival simply by wanting it more. Sheikhs poured billions into terminals before demand materialized, groomed Emirates into a flying empire, and draped the transit halls in marble and duty-free excess.

LONDON: The main cost of the Iran War will be in human death toll. There is also the question of the national sovereignty of Iran, as the recent destruction of nations such as Syria, Iraq and Libya testifies.