2023 Texas Book Festival presents Reflections on Mountaineering (Fifth Edition) by Alan V. Goldman

The war with Iran revealed just how much influence the world’s biggest oil importer has over prices and other countries’ supplies of jet fuel, gasoline and diesel.

The Bank of Japan’s widely expected move followed an unusual campaign by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for tighter monetary policy.

U.S. intelligence agencies have warned in internal reports that China could acquire or steal U.S. warplane technology if F-35 jets are sent to Saudi Arabia.

For fishermen like Joey Marabe in the Philippine province of Zambales, the geopolitical contest playing out in the South China Sea can be measured in dwindling catches and shrinking incomes, as the presence of Chinese vessels around a contested shoal increasingly limits where they can work. “It’s a huge drop. Before, a lot of us who could go out to Scarborough Shoal used to bring home around 15,000 pesos (US$238) a week, a comfortable amount for our families,” said Marabe, a resident of Masinloc...

Australia’s major airlines have backed a proposal to close Sydney Airport’s control tower overnight to free up air traffic controllers, the latest step to address a persistent labour shortage that is disrupting flights and raising safety concerns. “It sounds like an opportunity we should absolutely explore,” said Stephen Beckett, chief executive officer of Airlines for Australia & New Zealand, the group that represents Qantas Airways, its low-cost carrier Jetstar, and Virgin Australia Holdings....

A Singaporean climber died on Nepal’s Mount Manaslu, the world’s eighth highest peak, expedition organisers said. Lau Wee Seng, 50, felt unwell as he was descending from Camp II at around 6,000 metres after an acclimatisation rotation, according to The Himalayan Times newspaper. “He passed away this morning; arrangements have been made to airlift his body,” Pemba Sherpa of 8K Expeditions said on Thursday. The mountaineer had arrived in Samagaun on September 7 as part of a team aiming to scale...

Poland’s delivery of Black Hawk helicopters to the Philippines has given Warsaw a foothold in Manila’s defence market as it seeks to expand exports from its growing defence industry, with analysts saying drones, air defence and potentially co-production could pave the way for a broader partnership. Polish deputy foreign minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski said on Tuesday that Warsaw was keen to pursue further defence partnerships with the Philippines, as Poland poured US$50 billion into...

As technological developments augur an era of renewed space exploration, China is aiming to become a major player. In the second part of this two-part series, Wency Chen and Ben Jiang examine the country’s strategy and progress on reusable rockets – a field where the US has a tremendous lead. US commercial space firm SpaceX has been eager to tout its deployment of reusable first-stage rocket boosters, claiming to have flown more than 600 missions with the cost-cutting launch components. Despite...

The Himalayan disaster that tore through the China-Nepal border last month was a human calamity before it became a media story. A torrent of ice, rock, mud and debris swept through valleys, destroying key infrastructure, severing roads and communications, and leaving families desperate for news. In Gyirong county in the Tibet autonomous region, the disaster hit a major border crossing and created a rescue environment as physically difficult as any imaginable. The human toll extends beyond the...

Mistakes that led to the deaths of more than a hundred children “went beyond negligence,” investigators said. They also cited a separate strike the same day that killed a reported 22 civilians.

The conflict underscored the distance between world powers over the United States’ pressure campaign on Iran.

A jury had split on whether Mohammad Sharifullah was to blame in a deadly bombing but found him guilty of aiding the terrorist group ISIS-K.