tag

Chinese construction of a runway on Antelope Reef in the Paracels archipelago is well underway with analysts estimating it could be completed by mid-2027, strengthening Beijing's military control over the disputed South China Sea.Satellite images reviewed by Reuters show grading work, piles of gravel and concrete, and compaction cranes in operation to build a full-scale runway that military attaches and security analysts say could be one of China's most important offshore bases in the region.The images, taken on September 25 by commercial satellite imagery provider Vantor, also show a fully loaded gravel barge heading to a newly built wharf.A completed base at Antelope would be China's most significant military expansion in the South China Sea in a decade, extending the reach of Chinese naval ships and military aircraft in a waterway that is an increasingly militarised arena of competition between Beijing and the United States and its allies over Taiwan."If Fiery Cross is the guide, I'd expect the runway paved in the first half of 2027 and a first landing by mid-2027, possibly earlier," said Ben Lewis, founder of the open-source data platform PLATracker, referring to a 3km (3,280-yard) runway built on a reef in the disputed Spratly Islands further south in 2015."They've had 10 years to get faster at this," he said.Lewis said he had yet to note signs of excavation for possible ammunition and fuel storage, which a base of this scale would need.China's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.China has yet to acknowledge construction of a new military base, while state media have said Antelope will serve civilian needs such as weather forecasting and maritime and scientific research.Vantor imagery analysts and open-source intelligence tracker Damien Symon, who first highlighted dredging at the reef in early January, also described the cranes as ones used to compact reclaimed or loose earth into foundations before paving.In the northern part of the South China Sea, a future Antelope base would help extend deployments of a wide range of Chinese naval ships and military aircraft and help protect the approaches to Hainan Island, where China keeps its nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines.Reuters reported in late August that new installations have been sighted on a smaller islet near Antelope but analysts have yet to gauge definitively the likely function of the three-pronged construction on Yagong Island.The entire Paracels is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. China drove out the forces of then-South Vietnam from bases in the Paracels in a brief battle in 1974 and has occupied them ever since over Hanoi's objections. The Vietnamese foreign ministry and Taiwan's defence and foreign ministries did not immediately respond to Reuters' questions.The progress on Antelope comes as China this week confirmed the creation of a new joint military support facility in neighbouring Laos that could deepen Beijing's presence in Southeast Asia. 

Iranian drone attacks on CIA facilities in the Gulf have prompted US intelligence analysts to investigate whether Russia assisted by providing targeting information or advanced drone technology, said four people familiar with US intelligence.These people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters, said US intelligence officials have not yet reached firm conclusions about the possible Russian involvement in the attacks on CIA facilities. But they cited the strikes' effectiveness and apparent precision, as well as Russia's broader technical support for Iran, as possible evidence.Reuters and other media have reported - and US officials have acknowledged - that Russia has provided targeting and other support for Iran in its strikes on US targets in the Gulf region generally, but the intelligence community's investigation of possible Russian involvement in supporting the CIA facility attacks has not been previously disclosed. At least two CIA sites were struck in March, Reuters and other outlets have reported. One of the facilities was the CIA station in Saudi Arabia, which is located in the U.S. embassy in Riyadh, and a separate site was located in eastern Iraq. Some of the sources said additional CIA sites had been hit, but they did not disclose details.One internal memo from a Western intelligence agency, described by an official in the region with access to the document, concluded Russia has likely played a role in targeting regional CIA facilities. The official discussed the memo on condition that its precise authorship not be disclosed.Two Western officials in the Gulf who were briefed on intelligence reports said analysts thought the Saudi attack involved a pair of Russian-enhanced versions of Iran's Shahed drones. One of the aircraft blew a hole through a vulnerable part of the embassy's exterior and the second flew through the opening and detonated, they said. No deaths or injuries were reported. While Russian assistance for Iran is longstanding, given the countries' close ties, specific targeting of sensitive CIA sites would indicate Moscow is willing to go further in disrupting US operations as Washington struggles to bring the Iran war to an end. Concerns that Russia could be providing targeting data to Iran intensified this weekend after strikes on a US air base in Jordan, where Iran struck army barracks with ballistic missiles, killing two soldiers.The White House referred a request for comment to the CIA, which declined to provide one.Iran's mission to the UN, the Russian Defence Ministry and the Saudi government did not respond to requests for comment.The two Western officials in the region said Russia has helped Iran improve its Shahed drones' ability to reach targets, and said analysts suspected that Iran used these versions in its strike in Riyadh.Russia, said a separate source, has helped Tehran improve the accuracy of its Shahed-136s by supplying a satellite navigation system - the Kometa-M - that experts say is far more accurate and harder to jam than the one produced by Iran.The Wall Street Journal first reported in March that Russia has provided the Kometa-M to Iran. The Kremlin denied the report, calling it "fake news."CIA facilities overseas include the agency's main offices in individual countries that traditionally are housed in embassies and are called stations. Additionally, the CIA maintains offices, safe houses, logistics hubs and sites involved in surveillance or other operations.The locations of those sites are closely guarded secrets.The sources declined to disclose the exact number or locations of CIA facilities hit by Iranian drones. One source put the number at "more than one and fewer than a dozen." A second source said several facilities were hit.US intelligence analysts have been looking into whether Iran relied on Russian targeting data for the embassy attack, said the sources.Doubts remain, however. Some of the sources warned that Iran could have been aiming for the US embassy generally and by chance struck the CIA station.Some analysts have concluded that few nations beyond Russia would have the means to acquire and the interest in weaponising such sensitive targeting intelligence against the US, according to the sources.Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA station chief and undercover operations officer, said it would not be surprising for Moscow to help Tehran target CIA facilities given their close strategic partnership."They share an interest in trying to reduce or eliminate US influence altogether in their self-designated spheres of influence," he said. 

The strongest earnings season in years is coming to a close, and the Wall Street analysts who focus on individual companies have rarely been this bullish.They raised their stock price targets at the fastest pace since the Iran war began as results poured in and continually beat expectations. Cumulatively, they now indicate that the S&P 500 Index will rise 18% from here.Meanwhile, an aggregate of analysts’ profit estimates implies that, at current multiples, the S&P 500 will jump 19% from Friday’s close to end the year above 8,800, amounting to a full-year gain of 29%, which would make it the best year for the index since the 1990s, data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence show. And there’s only one firm in the S&P 500 with a consensus sell rating.But for the Street’s macro market strategists, who take a broader view of where indexes should be relative to the global economy and external risks, it’s a different story. To them, the war in Iran, a troubling inflation outlook and weak consumer sentiment are crucial metrics that weigh heavily on their predictions. Taken together, they see the S&P 500 ending 2026 at 7,625, up just 3.3% from where it is now after Friday’s selloff.Historically, a massive difference between the two Wall Street camps foreshadows problems for investors. The trouble this time could be that after a dazzling earnings season where S&P 500 companies posted almost 30% profit growth, blowing past expectations of 12%, single-stock analysts who apply a “bottoms-up” fundamentals-based technique are overlooking key risks that could affect their conclusions.“The bottoms-up analysts are hearing from the CEOs comments like, ‘If we had more compute, there’d be unlimited demand’ or ‘we could make more money, but there’s bottlenecks.’ said Christopher Cain, with Bloomberg Intelligence’s global equity strategy team. “That’s getting the bottoms-up people very bullish.”Rarely have single-stock analysts been this enthusiastic about the S&P 500 relative to their macro-focused counterparts. Even the highest macro strategist forecast for the S&P 500 doesn’t come close to that level of bullishness expressed by the analysts, with Ed Yardeni seeing the S&P at 8,250 by year-end, followed by Oppenheimer’s John Stoltzfus, 22V Research’s Dennis DeBusschere and Citigroup’s Scott Chronert at 8,100.Part of the issue is analysts are historically overly optimistic about the companies they cover. Since 1985, single-stock analysts have predicted annual earnings growth of 13% for their stocks, when in reality S&P 500 firms delivered 7% annual profit growth, according to Owen Lamont, senior vice president and portfolio manager at Acadian Asset Management. Today, those analysts are forecasting 20% growth, he added.“Times when analysts predict high growth are typically bad times to invest in the stock market,” Lamont wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday. “The ideal time is when we observe pessimism, not optimism.”Admittedly, this is a difficult environment for single-stock analysts to be anything but bullish. The race to build computing infrastructure for artificial intelligence has tech giants flooding the market with trillions of dollars in cash over the next several years, leading to booms in everything from chipmakers, memory providers and old-school technology hardware manufacturers, to the industrial companies that will build the new data centers and the utilities that will power them.“When we see profit margins and earnings accelerations of this magnitude, it’s hard to have an objective view,” said Marta Norton, chief investment strategist at Empower Personal Wealth.That’s why some Wall Street researchers expect gap to narrow somewhat as some macro strategists rework their full-year estimates to account for much stronger earnings and based on the S&P 500 already beating their earlier expectations.“A big reason why we raised our target was because earnings growth has been much stronger than expected,” said Ed Clissold, chief US strategist at Ned Davis Research Inc., who lifted his year-end target for the S&P 500 to 7,950 from 7,100 on Tuesday. That implies a 7.7% advance for the rest of the year.There’s also a timing effect at play: Company analysts generally like to publish reports within hours of earnings calls, sometimes raising or lowering price targets right then. Strategists, however, publish less often and are more resistant to changing full-year targets, typically updating their views around midyear. This year, they will likely have to take into account the unexpected earnings strength, said Keith Lerner, chief market strategist and chief investment officer at Truist Advisory Services.“You will start to see changes in estimates because the bottom line is estimates were one thing coming into the year and now earnings are much higher,” he said. “It’s going to be tough for people to bet that earnings are coming down, because they’ve been so strong.”That being said, analyst price target cuts outnumbered raises this week for the first time since mid-April, just the fifth week in 2026 where cuts outnumbered raises over the last year.For macro-level strategists, the overall picture doesn’t warrant the level of optimism expressed by the so-called bottoms up analysts, according to Rob Haworth, senior investment strategy director at US Bank Wealth Management, which is revisiting its year-end S&P 500 forecast given the blockbuster earnings season. His issue is their figures assume companies will keep putting up near perfect earnings growth and the stocks will receive market multiples that are several points higher than where the S&P 500 currently trades.“We have more downside scenarios than what the bottoms-up analysts are seeing,” he said. 

French analysts and experts have affirmed that the Israeli attack targeting residential headquarters of several Hamas leaders in Doha on Tuesday is unjustifiable and contradicts all international conventions, treaties, and diplomatic norms. In exclusive statements to Qatar News Agency (QNA), the analysts stressed that such "aggressive acts" committed by the Israeli occupation at this critical time undermine the peace process and inflame tensions in the Middle East.They pointed out that the State of Qatar is a reliable compass in the geography of diplomacy, based on a culture of respect, cooperation, solidarity, and peace. For this reason, they stated that Qatar deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, not this unjust and treacherous attack.In this context, a strategic political analyst specializing in French and European affairs Yves Sintomer said that condemning this Israeli attack on Doha is the least any rational, peace-loving person can do, adding that what Israel has done is unjustifiable and contradicts all international treaties and diplomatic norms.This unjust attack comes at a critical time and undermines the peace process in the Middle East, especially with the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and considering Qatar's role as a serious and reliable peace mediator in the region, Sintomer said. Sintomer stressed the need for the international community to act to review the mechanisms for upholding international law and preventing violations, especially in light of this attack and the repeated violations committed by Israel in Gaza, Palestine, Lebanon, and other neighboring countries in the Middle East.Strategic expert in international relations and former director of the Africa and Middle East region at the French Development Agency Jean-Bernard Veron condemned the Israeli attack targeting the residential headquarters of several Hamas leaders in Doha, describing it as a new addition to a series of violations committed by Israel in the Middle East, disregarding even the most basic rules of international law.He said that if repeated Israeli violations of international laws continue, then these laws and treaties will lose their meaning and value, and will be repeatedly violated and disrespected by other nations, which will ultimately drag the region in the near future into endless conflicts, violence, and dangerous wars whose consequences and results are unknown.In a related context, Veron emphasized to QNA the significant role that the State of Qatar played and continues to play in mitigating tensions and conflicts in the Middle East, Asia, and even Africa through its effective contributions to the peace process and its promotion of a culture of dialogue and solidarity. For his part, financial and economic analyst and expert at Sorbonne University Dr. Camille Sari said that the Israeli attack on Doha is a rash and reckless reaction.It clearly demonstrates the confusion of Netanyahu and his extremist government, and their attempt to escape through the systematic killing, genocide, and starvation they are practicing in Gaza, he added. They also attempt to drag the region into a wider war and an endless wave of violence, because they know and are well aware that as soon as the war in Gaza ends, they and their extremist government will be tried and held accountable, he pointed out.He explained that the majority of Israeli society opposes Netanyahu's violations of international law, the Israeli army's genocide and starvation in Gaza, and the repeated attacks on Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries, including the recent treacherous attack on Doha.They also want the war to end.Dr. Sari emphasized that Qatar plays a pivotal role in advancing the peace process not only in the Middle East but also globally, as evidenced by US President Donald Trump himself. He further said that Israel is a criminal and rogue state that has no respect for international law or treaties, and therefore does not hesitate to do anything to demonstrate its strength and arrogance. He pointed out that the most prominent evidence of this is its cold-blooded and deliberate killing of children and journalists, without any fear of accountability.