Mizuho Securities economist Yasuhisa Irie warned that prolonged Middle East infrastructure repairs keeping energy prices elevated could trigger a temporary spike in Japan’s imports in H2 2026. Government trade data released Wednesday showed progress diversifying crude supply away from the Strait of Hormuz: overall oil imports fell 28.5% while US crude imports rose 663.4%, offering some relief to households.

Iranian state media said a Microsoft AI called Claude, normally used for answering user queries, was repurposed in operations against Iran to identify and prioritize military targets. Tehran alleged the tool analyzed large volumes of satellite imagery, location data and communications signals to enable US and Israeli forces to select targets and recommend weapons in under a second. Iran said the system depended on cloud infrastructure provided by Amazon and Microsoft and that events in Tehran, Gaza and Lebanon exposed what it described as close ties between those tech firms and US/Israeli military operations.

聯想集團(00992.HK)：擬發行於2033年到期的20億美元美元零息可換股債券；擬同步購回於2029到期的6.75億美元2.50%可換股債券；擬根據股份回購授權於市場上進行股份回購。