Asian thermal coal has risen since the Iran war began, but the move has been relatively restrained because the region has not yet shifted into a full-scale coal-for-gas substitution cycle. Newcastle high-grade coal ended the week to May 1 at $130.81 a ton, up 12.6% from before the war, while mid-grade Australian coal rose 11.7% to $96.79 and lower-grade Indonesian coal gained 11.6% to $61.82.

Those are meaningful moves, but they are modest compared with the 2022 shock after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when coal prices surged as much as 78%. The key reason is that the LNG shock has been absorbed unevenly across Asia rather than triggering a universal scramble for replacement cargoes. Much of the decline in Asian LNG imports since the war began has been concentrated in China, which has leaned more heavily on domestic gas, pipeline imports, and domestic coal.

Macron’s Nairobi summit was an attempt to recast France’s Africa policy around investment, infrastructure and strategic partnership at a time when Paris’ older security-centered model has lost much of its authority. The symbolism was deliberate. By co-hosting the Africa Forward Summit with Kenya’s William Ruto, far from France’s former colonial sphere in West Africa, Macron was signaling that France wants a broader, less militarized relationship with the continent.

More than 30 African leaders attended, and that Macron announced a large package of French-backed investment alongside a proposal for a first-loss guarantee mechanism to draw private capital into African infrastructure. The headline numbers are significant, though they should be read carefully. Reports put the total summit commitments at around $27 billion, including roughly €14 billion from French public and private sources and additional African commitments.

India has moved to deepen its electronics manufacturing base by clearing 22 component-sector investment proposals totaling roughly $4.6 billion (about ₹41,863 crore). The approvals sit under a dedicated electronics components program run by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, with the government projecting the projects could support production worth about ₹2.58 trillion over time.

In practice, this is an attempt to shift India’s electronics story from “final assembly at scale” toward “value-added manufacturing,” by expanding domestic capacity in the sub-assemblies and parts that determine cost, resilience, and technological control across phones, telecom gear, consumer devices, automotive electronics, and IT hardware.