Oil soared past $115 and European natural-gas prices surged more than 20% as attacks on Middle Eastern energy infrastructure fueled anxiety over supply.
Qatar said early Thursday that Iranian ballistic missiles caused extensive damage at its Ras Laffan industrial area, which houses a major hub for liquefied-natural gas. Those strikes came in response to an Israeli attack on a large Iranian gas field, South Pars, which prompted Iran’s president to warn of “uncontrollable consequences, the scope of which could engulf the entire world.”
is a strategic coral island in the northern Persian Gulf that serves as the "economic backbone" of Iran, handling roughly 90% of the country's crude oil exports.
On March 13, 2026, the island became a central flashpoint in the U.S.–Iran conflict when U.S. forces conducted a large-scale precision strike that "obliterated" approximately 90 military targets on the island.
Current Strategic Status (March 2026)
Military Strike: President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. targeted military installations, including naval mine and missile storage bunkers, to stop Iranian interference with shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Oil Infrastructure: The island's critical oil export facilities were intentionally spared during the strike "for reasons of decency". However, the U.S. warned it would reconsider this decision if Iran continues to block international shipping lanes.
Ongoing Operations: Despite the military strikes, oil operations have continued, with tankers observed loading crude shortly after the attack.
Key Infrastructure & Capacity
Kharg Island is indispensable because much of Iran’s mainland coastline is too shallow for massive supertankers.
Export Volume: Historically handles 1.5 to 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd).
Loading Capacity: Features long jetties and deep-water berths capable of loading up to 10 supertankers simultaneously. Its maximum theoretical capacity is reported as 7 million bpd.
Storage: The island has storage tanks capable of holding approximately 30 million barrels of crude oil.
Geography & Administration
Location: Situated roughly 15 miles (24 km) off the coast of Iran and 34 miles (55 km) northwest of Bushehr.
Dimensions: Approximately 8 km (5 miles) long and 4–5 km (3 miles) wide.
Restrictions: Often called the "Forbidden Island," it is heavily fortified and administered by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Access is strictly limited to oil workers and military personnel, though a restrictive special tourist permit was introduced in 2026.
Resources: It is one of the few islands in the Persian Gulf with its own natural freshwater supply, which supports a local population of over 8,000 people and a population of wild gazelles.
Historical Significance
Archaeology: Home to a 2,400-year-old Achaemenid cuneiform inscription (discovered in 2007) that is central to the Persian Gulf naming dispute. It also contains ruins of a 7th-century Christian monastery and various rock-cut tombs.
Colonial History: Controlled by the Portuguese in the 16th century and the Dutch East India Company in the 18th century, who built Fort Mosselstein.
Iran-Iraq War: During the 1980s, the island was repeatedly bombed by Iraq in an attempt to cripple Iran's economy, leading to extensive damage that was later rebuilt.
Markets in Asia and Europe tumbled on Monday, and U.S. futures were down, as a spike in oil prices reflected global fears of a prolonged U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Meanwhile, Iran projected defiance by naming a son of its slain supreme leader as his successor. Oil prices briefly surged early Monday to almost $120 per barrel, their highest level since the Covid pandemic, as President Trump’s plans for the next steps in the war, let alone its endgame, remained unclear, and Iran showed no sign of bowing to his demand for unconditional surrender.
Despite upgrades in targeting technology and a wealth of access to consumer data, why haven’t you been able to shake irrelevant ads? Research from the University of Florida Warrington College of Business finds that ad agency incentive structures are part of the problem.
“Recent developments in ad technology have enabled ad publishers to sell individual consumer impressions (eyeballs) as they arrive in the website,” said Woochoel Shin, Brian R. Gamache Professor and co-author of the research. “This process potentially leads to an efficient delivery of relevant ads but ad agencies, in their effort to deliver the promised number of ad impressions to their clients, may distort the efficient match.”
Shin and his co-author Jiwoong Shin from the Yale School of Management used a model to replicate the ad purchasing process for an ad agency serving multiple clients. With each client, the ad agency is contractually obligated to allocate an impression, or an ad view, but are limited by the number of ads available in the market and each client’s budget. In the common scenario in which one advertiser is more mainstream than the other, an agency faces a tradeoff.
“It can allocate the first impression to the mainstream advertiser who, generally, has a higher match probability,” Shin writes. “Or it can save this advertiser for a future impression, which may have an even higher match probability. This tradeoff arises because the ad agency needs to serve both advertisers who have a budget constraint.”
The researchers find that when the asymmetry between two advertisers is either extremely large or small, the ad agency is more likely to allocate the ad impression to the more niche advertiser, whose match probability with an impression is generally low. It’s in this scenario that you see more irrelevant ads across your digital platforms.
“The agency essentially ‘dumps’ the current impression to a less relevant (or even completely irrelevant) advertiser,” Shin explains. “The agency’s strategic consideration creates this inefficiency, manifested most obviously in completely irrelevant advertising for consumers even in the presence of perfect targeting accuracy.”
While the advertiser doesn’t have complete control over which audiences see their ads when working with an ad agency, it can play a role in helping address irrelevant targeted ads. Shin and his co-author recommend that it begins with advertisers recognizing the distinction between agency-induced irrelevant advertising from error-based irrelevant advertising.
“For example, advertisers may choose to contract with the agency that also serves advertisers with a similar level of appeal to the consumer population or even avoid the agency serving other advertisers with potentially overlapping consumer segments,” Shin shared.
There are several ways to answer this question, depending on how one interprets the terms “lose” and “war.” All of the arguments have merit, and readers may choose which one seems most persuasive to them.
The conventional view remains that the United States lost the Vietnam War because our opponent, North Vietnam, conquered the side we backed, South Vietnam, which surrendered in April 1975. Although the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong sustained enormous casualties — upward of a million killed by wounds, disease and malnutrition — the communists eventually prevailed.