By Maria Kalamatas — August 29, 2025 MILTON KEYNES, UK — August 29, 2025. The warehouse doesn’t sound like a warehouse. No clanging metal, no forklift horns, no barked orders. Just a steady electronic hum and the quiet whirr of wheels. Hundreds of squat orange robots zip across the floor, slipping...
By Maria Kalamatas — August 29, 2025 CHENNAI — August 29, 2025. The campus of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras is usually filled with students rushing between lectures, not logistics executives in suits. But this week, FedEx parked one of its branded vans right at the entrance of the engineering...
By Maria Kalamatas — August 29, 2025 HONG KONG — August 29, 2025. Freight forwarders opened their inboxes this week to a wave of notices with familiar wording: “capacity adjustment,” “schedule revision,” “sailing withdrawn.” As China’s Golden Week approaches, container carriers are preparing to pull departures with little or no warning,...
By Maria Kalamatas — August 27, 2025 BAGHDAD — August 27, 2025. On a dusty highway outside Basra, convoys of trucks lined up under the morning sun, their trailers marked for Dubai, Doha, and beyond. This week, Iraqi officials confirmed the first successful trial of a multimodal trade corridor linking Iraq,...
By Maria Kalamatas — August 27, 2025 BIRMINGHAM — August 27, 2025. On the edge of Birmingham’s motorway ring, a brand-new warehouse the size of several football pitches has just opened its doors. Inside, conveyor belts snake across the floor, while robotic arms lift parcels with a precision that seems almost...
By Maria Kalamatas — August 27, 2025 COLOMBO — August 27, 2025. On the tarmac at Bandaranaike International Airport, ground staff moved in quick rhythm, forklifts weaving between pallets of textiles, electronics, and seafood bound for Europe and the Middle East. Amid the bustle came the news: SriLankan Airlines will build...
By Maria Kalamatas — August 27, 2025 TOKYO — August 27, 2025. In a modest conference room overlooking Tokyo Bay, officials from Japan and the United States signed an agreement that could reshape the way goods flow across the Pacific. The deal, brokered between Japan’s TradeTech consortium and U.S.-based TradeWaltz, aims...
By Maria Kalamatas — August 27, 2025 YOKOHAMA — August 27, 2025. On a muggy summer afternoon, shoppers in central Yokohama paused as a boxy, knee-high robot hummed past. Its lid blinked with small LED lights, and a faint electronic chime announced its presence. Some people pulled out phones to take...
By Maria Kalamatas — August 25, 2025 BRUSSELS — August 25, 2025. In a decision that stunned small exporters overnight, several European postal operators have suspended parcels bound for the United States after Washington scrapped its long-standing $800 de minimis exemption. The change means every shipment, no matter how small, now faces...
By Maria Kalamatas — August 25, 2025 NEW YORK — August 25, 2025. The quiet removal of a single customs rule in Washington has triggered ripple effects stretching from Shenzhen factories to European warehouses. By eliminating the $800 de minimis threshold — the duty-free allowance that kept small cross-border parcels flowing...
