Global Morning Briefing is a roundup of international news compiled by Seoul Economic Daily.
Oracle posted record first-quarter revenue and record cloud revenue for fiscal 2027, driven by rapid growth in its artificial intelligence data center business. The company is increasingly seen as having transformed itself from a software firm into an AI infrastructure provider, handling the training of OpenAI's latest model.
Oracle said on the 10th that first-quarter revenue for the June-August period rose 30% from a year earlier to $19.35 billion, or about 26.14 trillion won, beating market expectations of $19.14 billion. Net profit climbed 60% to $4.76 billion, and adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.92, above the $1.74 analysts had expected. Cloud revenue rose 62% to $11.6 billion, with infrastructure-as-a-service revenue surging 121%. Infrastructure revenue totaled $7.4 billion, exceeding forecasts of $7.09 billion.
Data center capacity expanded by 850 megawatts during the quarter. Co-Chief Executive Clay Magouyrk said OpenAI's new model, GPT-6 Astra, was trained at Oracle's facility in Abilene, Texas, where the company supplied 131,000 GPUs. Magouyrk added that Oracle signed more than $30 billion in new AI-related contracts without raising additional capital. Remaining performance obligations stood at $664 billion as of the end of August, above expectations of $630.6 billion.
Capital spending, however, jumped to $28.5 billion from $8.5 billion, lifting debt to $125 billion, while negative free cash flow widened to $5.4 billion from $362 million. Operating cash flow rose 184% to a record $23 billion. Chief Financial Officer Hillary Maxson stressed that most of the revenue from new contracts does not require large cash outlays. Oracle shares have fallen 22% this year but rebounded as much as 7% in after-hours trading following the earnings release.
Houthis Seize Red Sea Strait, Threatening Hormuz Detour Route
Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi rebels have taken control of a strategic Red Sea port, securing command of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. A blockade of Bab el-Mandeb, which has served as an alternative route to the Strait of Hormuz, would ripple through Middle East politics and global maritime logistics.
Reuters and AFP reported on the 10th that the Houthis captured Mocha, a Red Sea coastal city that serves as a bridgehead to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Mocha lies about 70 to 80 kilometers north of the strait, and the Yemeni government said the Houthis have effectively completed their takeover of the area around it. The Houthis seized the key stronghold a month after declaring an end to a cease-fire last month, and Yemeni government forces and allied Saudi Arabian troops were unable to halt the offensive.
The operation was directed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to reports, with Tehran providing the Houthis with additional funding and weapons and instructing them to escalate their attacks. A U.S. advisory team of up to 200 personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia provided real-time battlefield and targeting intelligence but with little effect, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, is said to have asked U.S. President Donald Trump to strike the Houthis.
The Houthi takeover of the strait, combined with Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, has raised concerns that global energy shipments now face a double chokepoint, leaving Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, dependent on detours through the Suez Canal and around the Cape of Good Hope. Iran earlier struck a U.S. Air Force base in Jordan with missiles, and Trump responded by saying the United States had sunk nine Iranian oil tankers.
Republicans Win U.S. Redistricting Fight, Gaining Edge in Nine Seats
Republicans have effectively come out ahead in the redistricting battle waged before U.S. midterm elections in November, according to an analysis. Taken together, the congressional maps redrawn by individual states give Republicans an advantage over Democrats in as many as nine districts.
The New York Times reported on the 10th that redistricting carried out since the 2024 presidential election has handed Republicans an edge of about nine House seats, building a bulwark that would hold even if Democrats won the national popular vote by about 5 percentage points. The shift is the result of gerrymandering, the practice of redrawing district boundaries to favor one party. Republicans secured 16 districts with improved odds of victory, but that fell to 15 after a Supreme Court ruling scuttled one seat they had targeted in Missouri, while Democrats gained an advantage in six, leaving a net gap of nine. The House currently stands at 218 Republicans to 214 Democrats, a narrow margin that has drawn attention to the impact of the redrawn maps. With encouragement from Trump, Republicans pushed an unusual strategy of redrawing districts in states where they already hold the upper hand, such as Texas, and Democrats countered in states including California, but Republicans are seen as having gained more overall.
Vice President JD Vance, speaking at a Republican convention in Dallas the same day, sharply criticized Democrats, saying the party "is no longer the party of Franklin Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy, but a party that despises America and those who founded it." Vance, who is mentioned as a candidate for the next or subsequent presidential election, delivered a speech widely seen as his 2028 campaign debut, with the crowd chanting "48," a reference to the 48th president. He struck a modest note, saying the party "must first do what needs to be done in the November midterms," and appealed to moderates by saying he was not asking them to agree with every policy but to recognize the difference from the radical left and to acknowledge the achievements of the past 18 months.
