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U.S. and Israeli military strikes against Iran have intensified into a sustained, multi-front confrontation marked by Iranian ballistic counterstrikes, a partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz and combat spillover into Lebanon. The campaign has driven sharp moves in oil and gas markets and raised the risk of a protracted regional war with wide economic and strategic fallout.

NATO Secretary‑General Mark Rutte has said the alliance will not participate in any US or Israeli military action against Iran, though individual member states may choose to support such operations bilaterally. The move keeps NATO institutionally detached while leaving room for ad hoc cooperation by allies.

President Emmanuel Macron has ordered an increase in France's nuclear warhead inventory and announced that Paris will stop publicly reporting warhead totals. He argued the move is necessary amid rising international tensions, stressed that the decision to use nuclear weapons remains solely with the French head of state, and said eight European countries have shown interest in French extended deterrence proposals.

Political constraints in Washington, hedging by Gulf states and the daunting logistical, geographic and asymmetric-defence challenges inside Iran make a large-scale US–Israeli ground invasion unlikely in the short term. Expect a continued reliance on airstrikes, naval control efforts and limited operations rather than a full-scale occupation unless Iran’s internal stability collapses.

A People’s Armed Police unit in Heilongjiang has turned a simple, continually updated notebook into a formalised system for tracking recruits’ backgrounds, wellbeing and training needs. The practice aims to improve morale and readiness by converting informal care into an accountable, proactive process that leaders now plan to digitise and integrate with psychological services. The initiative signals a broader pattern in China’s military modernisation: granular personnel management designed to boost cohesion and capability, with attendant questions about data use and command control.

Iran’s IRGC says it struck a U.S. air base in Bahrain at dawn with 20 drones and three missiles, claiming destruction of the command building and a fuel depot fire. The claim has not been independently verified, but if confirmed it would represent a notable geographic escalation with serious military and diplomatic implications for U.S.-Iran tensions and Gulf security.

President Trump publicly criticised UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer for initially refusing U.S. use of the Diego Garcia base and for what he called mishandling of the Chagos sovereignty transfer, saying US‑UK relations are no longer what they once were. Starmer defended his stance as governed by law and Britain’s national interest after London agreed to allow limited defensive use of the base.

State media’s framing of this year’s Two Sessions as a call to “race to lead” signals Beijing’s emphasis on rapid implementation and visible results at the start of the new term. The approach could accelerate policy delivery and reassure markets, but it also carries risks of short-termism and local fiscal strains.

Two police stations in Fushun and Changsha are reviving the memory of Lei Feng — a Communist‑era moral exemplar — to fuse political pedagogy with modern community policing. Their cooperation combines ritualised party education with practical innovations such as cloud‑based training, rapid case responses and services for vulnerable residents, raising questions about governance, legitimacy and civil oversight.

Xu Yanli, a recently retired PLA medic, intervened twice in one day to stabilise a fainting airline passenger and assist a collapsed commuter at a railway station. Her actions underscore the practical value of military medical training in civilian emergencies and highlight gaps in equipment and bystander preparedness in public transport settings.

A four-day campaign of US and Israeli strikes on Iran has expanded into Lebanon and the Gulf, with Tehran and its proxies mounting reciprocal missile and drone attacks. The confrontation has disrupted regional stability, prompted embassy closures and evacuation orders, and drawn widespread international condemnation, raising the risk of a wider, protracted conflict.

ST Huluwa, a Chinese paediatric drug manufacturer, saw 23.9 million shares (about 5.97% of equity) sold at a judicial auction after a major-shareholder pledge triggered creditor action. Buyers included private funds and individuals; Huluwa Investment remains the largest shareholder but its stake fell to 35.79%. The sale highlights acute liquidity, governance and regulatory problems at the company and the broader risks that share pledges pose in China’s markets.

Roborock posted a 55.9% revenue increase for 2025 but saw net profit drop by 31.2% after margin pressure, higher sales expenses and losses from new product lines. Intensifying competition from DJI and appliance giants, combined with insider share sales and investor exits, has knocked the company’s market value down by roughly RMB 60–65 billion from its 2021 peak.

AMD shares fell about 5% on March 3 amid a wider pullback in semiconductor stocks, even as some brokers maintain bullish price targets. The move underscores investor sensitivity to AI‑hardware demand, macro risks and sector rotation, leaving AMD vulnerable to near‑term volatility until clearer demand signals emerge.

U.S. markets opened sharply lower with the Nasdaq down about 2%, driven by broad tech weakness and marked selling in semiconductors. Unexpected declines in gold‑mining stocks compounded the rout, underscoring a generalized risk‑off mood across global markets.

Jack Ma visited a Hangzhou school with Alibaba and Ant executives to press the urgency of AI and argue for education reform that prioritises curiosity, empathy and judgement. The gathering also showcased Alibaba’s push to integrate chips, cloud and large models into a full‑stack AI capability aimed at rapid commercialisation.

Google has launched Gemini 3.1 Flash‑Lite, a cheaper, lightweight variant offered to developers via Google AI Studio and to enterprises via Vertex AI. Priced at $0.25 per million input tokens and $1.50 per million output tokens, the release targets high‑volume, latency‑sensitive applications and signals a push to broaden adoption by lowering operational costs.

At MWC 2026 ZTE and ByteDance showcased a preview of the Nubia M153 Doubao AI phone, highlighting system-level voice and multimodal automation. The device is a China-only engineering sample already sold out, displayed abroad for technical exchange rather than immediate international sales. The demo arrives as global smartphone shipments slow and memory prices surge, prompting OEMs to seek higher‑value use cases to reignite demand.

Apple’s new M5 MacBooks deliver significant on‑device AI and GPU performance gains enabled by TSMC’s SoIC‑MH packaging, while the company has raised base storage and retail prices by cutting lower‑capacity SKUs. The strategy appears designed to absorb rising NAND and DRAM costs, protect margins and push more customers toward higher‑priced configurations.

A claimed closure of the Strait of Hormuz by an adviser to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard triggered a sharp rise in oil prices and broad volatility across Chinese markets, boosting oil and shipping stocks while dragging major indices lower. The shock coincides with Chinese policy moves—from Shenzhen consumer subsidies to tougher online protections for minors—and fresh tech sector disputes over open‑source licensing and AI commercialization, amplifying short‑term economic uncertainty and regulatory complexity.