The Global Eye is in partnership with SIOI – Società Italiana per l’Organizzazione Internazionale
Australia – South Asia – Nuclear
(Simran Keshwani – Lowy The Interpreter) For decades, Australian nuclear policy towards South Asia revolved around one problem: India. New Delhi had built nuclear weapons outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and Canberra worried that civil nuclear cooperation would weaken the rules it was trying to defend. That framing is now obsolete. South Asia’s nuclear order is no longer an India–Pakistan problem with China in the background. It is an interconnected China–India–Pakistan nuclear triangle, shaped by arsenal modernisation, emerging technologies, territorial competition and deepening civil nuclear relationships. What happens inside this triangle increasingly affects the wider Indo-Pacific. Australia has just acquired a new entry point. In July, Canberra and New Delhi finalised the administrative arrangement that operationalises their civil nuclear agreement and enables long-term Australian uranium exports to India for peaceful purposes under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. Australia should treat this not as the end of an old non-proliferation argument, but as the beginning of a more ambitious South Asia nuclear policy. India and Pakistan remain outside the NPT. China is a recognised nuclear-weapon state under it, yet its nuclear modernisation feeds directly into Indian calculations, which in turn affect Pakistan. Pakistan’s civilian sector is also deeply connected to Beijing, with six operable Chinese-supplied reactors and another under construction. For Canberra, defending the NPT and managing nuclear risk in South Asia are not identical tasks. Treaty architecture alone cannot encompass a regional nuclear balance in which two weapons states sit outside the treaty and the third is simultaneously a global and regional strategic competitor. Australian foreign policy should therefore shift from a politics of nuclear eligibility to a strategy of nuclear enmeshment: building additional layers of safeguards, transparency, industrial accountability and risk reduction around the nuclear relationships that already exist. That makes India the logical starting point. – The nuclear triangle in South Asia and Australia’s opening | Lowy Institute
China
(Haiqing Yu, Joanne Kuai – Lowy The Interpreter) Would you accept US$15 to let an AI company use your face in artificial intelligence generated content? In China, this is becoming a real proposition. A recent Rest of World article reports that people are paid from between US$15 to US$700 to license their facial likenesses for AI-generated microdramas and advertisements produced for mobile phone viewing. China’s mobile entertainment industry is already enormous – and the use of AI-generated content is growing. More than 95% of microdramas released in China during the first three months of 2026 reportedly used AI somewhere in their production. The industry needs more faces – celebrities and ordinary people – to meet the demand for fast-paced, audience-driven microdrama production. One response has been straightforward: pay people for their faces. At the same time, regulators and platforms are cracking down on harmful and pirated content, unauthorised digital likeness, and homogeneous AI-generated characters. Licensing might be “legal” rather than simply scraping somebody’s photographs or reproducing their likeness without permission. But it creates a new problem for AI governance. An agreement might authorise one advertisement. But could the same AI facial model later appear in 100 advertisements? A romance or a political drama? Could it be aged, sexualised or made to say things you would never say? Generative AI transforms the question of facial rights. It is no longer only about protecting people from having their identity stolen. It is about governing what an authorised digital likeness can be made to do – potentially forever. – Losing face? Licensing and governing AI content in China | Lowy Institute
Climate Action
(UN News) The ocean is rising faster now than at any point in recorded history. The impacts are already being felt and the threats are growing. Land is being inundated, homes are flooding, livelihoods are being lost, driving significant hardships on people in search of a more secure future. It is not just the environment that is being affected, rising sea levels also have a significant impact on human rights, economic development, health, culture, the future of many countries and basic human dignity. Everyone and pretty much everywhere are affected across developed and developing nations. The ability to act and adapt today will prove decisive for whether rising seas become a manageable challenge or a generational crisis. – Rising seas, rising stakes: What increasing sea-levels mean to humanity | UN News
India – Myanmar
(Saima Afzal – Lowy The Interpreter) Reports that New Delhi is considering a small territorial exchange along the India–Myanmar frontier raise a question much larger than the disposition of a few square kilometres: what does a bilateral boundary agreement mean when the government signing it does not control all the territory it claims? Indian officials have confirmed that discussions are underway over unresolved sectors of the 1,643-kilometre frontier, following reports that New Delhi is considering an exchange of roughly 1.4 square miles (3.6 square kilometres) around boundary pillars 65 to 68 in Manipur’s Chandel district. India’s Ministry of External Affairs has not confirmed that a territorial exchange has been agreed. India’s rationale is clear. It wants to complete border demarcation, facilitate fencing and to curb insurgent movement, trafficking and irregular migration. But Myanmar’s fragmented political geography makes implementation considerably more complicated. Formal sovereignty and operational control are increasingly different things in Myanmar. Myanmar is the only ASEAN country sharing both land and maritime boundaries with India and remains the principal overland gateway connecting India’s northeast with Southeast Asia. New Delhi therefore needs functioning channels with Naypyitaw on border security, trade and connectivity. Yet the Arakan Army controls large parts of Rakhine State, while resistance and ethnic armed organisations hold territory elsewhere, including parts of Chin and Kachin states. India’s flagship Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project passes through areas where Naypyitaw’s capacity to guarantee security or implementation is limited. – India can redraw the border with Myanmar – but who controls it? | Lowy Institute
Indonesia
(Adhimas Muzakki – East Asia Forum) Indonesian women remain systemically excluded from the green workforce because of occupational segregation, unequal care burdens and inaccessible capital. Despite Vice President Gibran’s explicit emphasis on providing women green jobs during the 2024 election, employment numbers are lagging behind the promises and the Prabowo administration has largely failed in connecting gender and the green jobs agenda. The New Energy and Renewable Energy Bill represents a rare opportunity to fix this and bolster Indonesia’s green transition through women’s participation. – Indonesia must centre women in its green economy agenda | East Asia Forum
(Deni Friawan – East Asia Forum) Danantara’s successful international bond debut suggests that investors remain willing to back Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund. But the institution is being asked to maximise commercial returns, finance structural transformation and implement government policy simultaneously. Unless these functions are separated through distinct portfolios, performance measures and reporting requirements, developmental and political objectives may erode commercial discipline and obscure risks ultimately borne by Indonesia’s public sector. – Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund faces an impossible trinity | East Asia Forum
PNG – Australia – Indonesia
(Serena Sasingian, Hilman Palaon – Lowy The Interpreter) Australia has enduring ties with Papua New Guinea as its largest development partner, a major source of investment and skills, and now a formal security ally. This relationship will remain central to PNG’s future. Yet if PNG is to accelerate its ambition of building a PGK 200 billion / AU$64 billion economy, creating one million jobs and improving the quality of life of its citizens, it needs to look to the broader neighbourhood as well. PNG has spent much of its history looking south. But its geography makes its northern horizon matter economically. Indonesia is the obvious place to start, offering something Australia cannot: a peer development journey. It is PNG’s closest large neighbour and part of the same regional economy. Beyond it lie some of the world’s fastest-growing markets, manufacturing capabilities, digital technologies and supply chains. – PNG wants a bigger economy – Indonesia shows how | Lowy Institute
Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan – ASPI The Strategist) The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit, taking place on 31 August and 1 September, will be another opportunity for China and Russia to try to promote an alternative to Western-led international institutions. But the organisation, now in its 25th year, faces internal rivalries and tensions that are becoming ever more difficult to sweep under the rug. The SCO appears to be high on geopolitical symbolism and low on genuine relevance, at least on the political and security front. Despite its Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure and the Peace Mission military exercises between SCO member countries, the organisation’s security agenda has been weak with very little to show in terms of actual results. It is not a security treaty, and it has had little effect in diluting the political and military tension between its major players. – After 25 years, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization faces an uncertain future | The Strategist
Singapore
(Hwee Kwan Chow – East Asia Forum) With its high exposure to imported inflation, Singapore uses the exchange rate, rather than an interest rate target, as its primary instrument of monetary policy. The Monetary Authority of Singapore’s policy tightenings in April and July 2026, despite still-subdued inflation, reflect a forward-looking approach that responds to rising imported cost pressures before they become entrenched. Exchange rate policy is reinforced by macroprudential measures, proactive fiscal policy and a flexible labour market toolkit, helping Singapore weather external shocks while preserving price stability and economic confidence. – The enduring logic of Singapore’s monetary policy | East Asia Forum
Uganda
(UN News) On the shores of Nkondo, in Uganda’s Kikuube district, the day begins before sunrise. Fishers enter the lake to fish, while families around Lake Albert rely on its waters for food, income and daily survival. But, behind these daily activities lies an increasingly visible threat: plastic waste and other debris entering Lake Albert. Leaders of the local fishing community are warning that without urgent action, pollution could endanger fish stocks and, as a consequence, the lives of future generations. Like the local fishers, the UN has also warned of the decline of freshwater species due to pollution and environmental degradation in recent decades. Surface water bodies are shrinking or being completely lost in areas home to 93.1 million people, while more than a quarter are becoming increasingly cloudy because of pollution, according to a 2024 report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and UN-Water. In celebration of World Lake Day, marked annually on 27 August, Solomon Wamara, the chairperson for fishers on Lake Albert, said the community cannot continue to view the lake as a source of livelihood while allowing it to be filled with waste. “It is a good time to highlight the threats facing this lake that is our lifeline,” he told UN News. – ‘The lake is our life’: Protecting a shared lifeline in Uganda | UN News
War in Iran
(Haley Britzky, Zachary Cohen, Mohammed Tawfeeq – CNN) Iran and the United States traded attacks for the first time in over a month overnight into Monday, in an exchange that risks reigniting the damaging conflict after weeks of relative military calm. Iran fired missiles toward US military targets in Jordan in retaliation for a strike on Iranian rocket launchers that the US said were trying to launch sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz –– the key shipping route that’s become the center of regional tensions and diplomatic efforts. Six months into the festering conflict, the two nations have been locked in battle over control of the waterway, critical to global energy supplies, with Tehran asserting its claimed right to manage it with regular strikes on vessels, and the US determined to keep traffic flowing by guiding ships and a military blockade of Iranian ports. The exchange came just days after President Donald Trump declared the strait free from mines, and is a break with Washington’s recent shift in focus to maximizing economic pressure on Iran rather than military actions. – US and Iran trade attacks, marking first major military escalation in a month | CNN Politics
