US President Donald Trump should send large amounts of weapons to Iranian civilians in order to spark a civil war in the country, Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the biggest cheerleaders of the US-Israeli war on Iran, has suggested. 

Speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday, the South Carolina war hawk Republican framed the proposal as a “Second Amendment solution” for the Islamic Republic and an alternative to deploying American ground troops. 

“If I were President Trump and I were Israel, I would load the Iranian people up with weapons so they can go to the streets armed and turn the tide of battle inside Iran,” Graham said.

Hannity noted in the interview that Washington had already tried this approach in the past. Last month, Trump confirmed that the US had sent “a lot” of firearms to Iranian protesters during the nationwide unrest that erupted in late 2025. However, the guns were supposedly stolen, according to Trump, and Washington’s efforts to spark regime change in the country have consistently failed, even after assassinating Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in February. 

The South Carolina senator’s latest call to orchestrate mass social unrest within the Islamic Republic comes after years of him advocating the destruction of Iran’s government, demanding that the US military “destroy the air force, sink their navy,” urging not to “underrate killing them all,” and calling for the country to be blown “off the map.”

Meanwhile, geostrategic analyst Christopher Helali, who recently returned from inside Iran, told RT on Sunday that the US and Israel’s ultimate goal is “not about liberating the Iranian people” but about “destroying Iran’s future,” pointing to the deliberate strikes on civilian infrastructure, including medical facilities, schools, and universities.

Ties within Western blocs are becoming increasingly strained, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has admitted, after he sparred with US President Donald Trump over the Iran war on several occasions.

Starmer made the remarks at the European Political Community (EPC) summit in Yerevan, Armenia, on Monday, saying that “there is more tension in the alliances than there should be and it’s very important that we therefore face up to this as a group of countries together.”

While Starmer did not single out the reason for growing friction, the remarks come against the backdrop of a rapidly souring relationship with the White House. In early March, Trump declared that the US-UK “special relationship” was “obviously not what it was” and branded Starmer “no Winston Churchill” after London refused to join the US-led war on Iran.

Trump also fumed over Starmer’s January trip to Beijing – the first such visit by a British prime minister in eight years, and which resulted in a series of trade agreements – with the US leader branding it “very dangerous.”

Despite the apparent tensions, Starmer called on European partners to increase their military spending inside NATO, echoing an argument long made by Trump. “I feel very strongly that the European countries now need to step up and do more on defense and security to have a stronger European element of NATO,” he said, insisting that the UK continues to work “very closely with the US on all issues to do with defense and security.”

Starmer also said it is in the UK’s “national interest to be closer to Europe,” while declining to comment on a Times report that the EU has demanded £1 billion ($1.35 billion) a year in financial contributions in exchange for a wider trade deal.

The report, however, triggered a backlash at home, with Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel accusing Starmer of “unpicking Brexit and planning another undemocratic hit job on British taxpayers.”

The White House is weighing the possibility of reviewing new artificial intelligence models before official release, marking a potential shift from its current hands-off approach, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing sources.

According to the outlet, the administration of US President Donald Trump is mulling the creation of an AI working group that brings together officials and tech executives to explore oversight options, including a possible formal review process.

Sources say the push aims to avoid political fallout from a potential AI-enabled cyberattack, while also giving officials early access to new models to assess whether they could offer cyber capabilities useful to the Pentagon.

The system could give the government early access to advanced models, though not necessarily the power to block them. Officials reportedly discussed the plans last week with representatives from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI.

It remains unclear how the reviews would work or which agencies would run them. Any mechanism would likely be introduced via executive order, though no timeline has been set.

Requiring formal reviews would mark a reversal in Trump’s AI policy. Since returning to office, he has championed minimal regulation, calling AI “a beautiful newborn baby” that is key to competing with China and warning against “politics or stupid rules” that could hinder its growth.

The debate also follows a row between Anthropic and the Pentagon, after the firm refused to loosen safeguards on surveillance and autonomous weapons. The Department of War labeled it a “supply-chain risk,” sidelining it from contracts – a move Anthropic is now challenging in court.

The Pentagon has been rapidly expanding AI use in its operations, recently securing deals with Google and OpenAI for classified models.

Concerns over AI risks have been mounting in the US for some time. A Pew Research Center poll last year found 50% of Americans were more concerned than excited about AI, up from 37% in 2021. A March Gallup poll showed Gen Z sentiment turning more negative, with optimism falling and anger rising.

Colombian citizens who travel to Ukraine to fight as mercenaries are “dying for nothing,” President Gustavo Petro has said.

The Colombian leader took aim at Kiev’s use of foreign fighters in a post on X on Tuesday. He was reacting to a Ukrainian media report praising what it described as 7,000 Colombians involved in the conflict with Russia.

“There are 7,000 Colombian men, trained for combat, fighting in a foreign war and dying for nothing in Ukraine,” Petro wrote, adding that Colombia does not intend to “export death.”

Kiev has been actively seeking foreign recruits – described by Ukrainian officials as ‘volunteers’ – since the escalation of the conflict with Russia in February 2022. Colombia, given its long history of internal armed conflict and counterinsurgency operations, has become a significant source of foreign fighters.

Colombians treated as ‘second-class’ in Ukraine

Petro stressed that mercenary activity is illegal under Colombian law. In late March, the country ratified the UN Mercenary Convention amid a surge in recruitment that has reportedly drawn around 10,000 Colombians into foreign conflicts worldwide.

Public attention in Colombia was drawn in October 2025 to the case of around 40 nationals stranded in Ukraine. According to Semana magazine, they attempted to exit military service and leave the country, but were allegedly abducted while traveling toward Poland.

At the time, Petro shared a video said to show the Colombians in Ukrainian custody and accused Kiev of treating them as “second-class” individuals.

Los ucranianos tratan a los Colombianos como raza inferior. pido a los Colombianos mercenarios,, que los están manejando como carne de cañón, llevados por empresas guiadas. desde Miami, que regresen de inmediato al país pic.twitter.com/gGlDnGMMy9

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) October 8, 2025

“I call on Colombian mercenaries who are being used as cannon fodder by companies operating out of Miami to return home immediately,” the president said.

Ukraine facing troop shortages

The Russian military has said it targets positions held by foreign fighters supporting Kiev, though it rarely provides detailed accounts. In 2024, the Defense Ministry published a breakdown of foreign fighters by nationality, placing Colombia behind Poland, Georgia, the US, and Canada.

Since then, Ukraine’s manpower challenges have worsened, leading the authorities to adopt increasingly harsh mobilization practices to compel reluctant men of fighting age into the army. The government has acknowledged that the often violent actions of press gangs are a major source of tensions in Ukrainian society.

The system of ‘international legions’ within the Ukrainian military was reportedly dissolved last year, sparking discontent among foreign fighters who were subsequently ordered to integrate into regular military units.

US-Israeli strikes on Iran have failed to push back the timeline for Tehran potentially acquiring a nuclear weapon, Reuters reported on Monday, citing intelligence sources. Tehran could still reportedly produce a bomb in roughly a year – the same estimate as after last June’s attacks on its key nuclear facilities.

While US officials have insisted that their key objective in the war has been to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, the timeline for a nuclear breakout remains “broadly unchanged,” the report says. It added that derailing Tehran’s nuclear effort would require destroying or removing Iran’s remaining stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

“Iran still possesses all of its nuclear material, as far as we know,” Eric Brewer, a former senior US intelligence analyst, told Reuters. “That material is probably located in deeply buried underground sites where US munitions can’t penetrate.”

Last June, powerful US strikes hit nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan, with US intelligence estimating that the nuclear breakout timeline was put back to about nine months to a year, Reuters sources said. Around the same time, a New York Times report said, citing a classified assessment, that US strikes had set Iran’s program back by only “a few months.” 

US President Donald Trump at the time dismissed the allegation as “fake news,” saying that “monumental damage was done to all nuclear sites in Iran.”

Iran has consistently denied ever seeking nuclear weapons and rejected demands to surrender its enriched uranium stockpile. Last year, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi stated that “we do not have any indication that there is a systemic program in Iran to manufacture a nuclear weapon.”

Despite this, US and Israeli officials have for years sounded the alarm about Iran’s nuclear aspirations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been issuing warnings since at least 1992, and at the 2012 UN General Assembly, he famously brandished a cartoon bomb diagram with a red line drawn near the 90% enrichment threshold.

A small single-engine Embraer 721C plane crashed into a residential building in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte on Monday, according to local officials and firefighters.

The aircraft, which had five people on board, reportedly took off from Pampulha Airport at 12:16 PM and crashed minutes later in the Silveira neighborhood. Emergency services were called to the scene at around 12:25 PM.

Footage circulating online shows the plane flying low over the area, seemingly attempting to avoid taller buildings, before smashing into the side of a four-story residential building.

Moradores gravaram o local antes do isolamento, é 4km da cabeceira próxima da Cristiano Machado pic.twitter.com/as6hFk0Z2p

— AEROIN (@aero_in) May 4, 2026

The aircraft hit the stairwell between the third and fourth floors, avoiding the apartments themselves.

Update - CCTV footage of the light aircraft that impacted a building in Belo Horizonte (Brazil)

According to preliminary info pilot declared difficulties during the initial climb moments after departure. The aircraft subsequently collided with a building and fell into the… https://t.co/SzW0VUp3LY pic.twitter.com/YqKg1HNCWM

— Francisco Cunha (@OnDisasters) May 5, 2026

No residents of the building were reported injured. According to another graphic video, they tried to help one of the survivors, who suffered a gruesome leg fracture.

Brazil Plane Crash: Aircraft Hits Building in Belo Horizonte, 2 Dead

A small aircraft carrying four people crashed into a building in Belo Horizonte, southeastern Brazil on Monday.#Brazil #PlaneCrash #BreakingNews https://t.co/RaHsSwqyJg pic.twitter.com/mYJWizj2KC

— Atulkrishan (@iAtulKrishan1) May 5, 2026

The fatalities included the pilot, identified by Globo News as Wellington Oliveira, 34, and passenger Fernando Moreira Souto, 36, the son of the mayor of Jequitinhonha. Three survivors were rushed to the hospital in serious condition, but one of them later succumbed to their injuries.

Brazil’s air accident investigation authorities, including the Center for Investigation and Prevention of Aeronautical Accidents and regional investigators from SERIPA III, were sent to the site. Minas Gerais Civil Police also opened an investigation into the cause of the crash.

‘Stay Free Alberta’ activists have submitted almost 302,000 signatures to the election authorities in a bid to trigger a referendum on whether Canada’s oil-rich western province should leave the country.

A convoy of trucks delivered the signatures to the Elections Alberta office in Edmonton on Monday, as more than 300 supporters gathered outside, waving provincial flags and chanting “Alberta strong.”

The figure is well above the 177,732 signatures required under Alberta’s citizen-initiative rules, equal to 10% of the total number of votes cast in the previous provincial election.

The authorities have yet to verify the signatures for the petition – titled ‘A Referendum Relating to Alberta Independence’ – to move forward. The initiative was backed by the Alberta Prosperity Project, a pro-sovereignty nonprofit.

The proposed question asks: “Do you agree that the Province of Alberta should cease to be part of Canada and become an independent state?” The activists hope it will be added to a provincial referendum ballot in October.

Recent polling suggests that independence remains a minority position in Alberta, with an Angus Reid Institute survey in February finding that 65% of respondents would vote to stay in Canada, while 29% would vote to leave.

The push comes amid long-running tensions between Alberta and Ottawa over energy policy, taxation, environmental regulations, and access to export markets for the province’s oil and gas. Alberta is Canada’s key energy-producing region, producing over 80% of the country’s crude oil and 60% of its natural gas output, and has the highest per-capita GDP among Canadian provinces.

The independence push also faces a legal challenge from Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, which argues that Alberta’s potential secession would violate treaty rights with indigenous peoples. The First Nation has asked a court to halt the process, saying the province has no right to leave Canada or take treaty territory with it.

Palantir Technologies reported a blowout first quarter, saying revenue rose 85% year-on-year to $1.63 billion as its US business more than doubled, driven by rapid growth across both commercial and government customers.

The company said in its Q1 report, published on Monday, that US revenue jumped 104% to $1.28 billion, with commercial revenue up 133% to $595 million and government revenue up 84% to $687 million. The results beat Wall Street estimates, and the company also raised its full-year guidance, saying it now expects 2026 revenue of up to $7.66 billion, implying annual growth of around 71%.

CEO Alex Karp, who has increasingly framed Palantir’s AI tools as central to Western military and industrial power, said the “twin pistons of our US business are now firing in sync.”

Palantir reports Q1 ‘26 U.S. revenue growth of 104% Y/Y and revenue growth of 85% Y/Y; raises FY ’26 revenue guidance to 71% Y/Y growth and U.S. comm revenue guidance to 120% Y/Y, crushing consensus expectations.

Q1 U.S. commercial revenue grew 133% y/y and adjusted operating… pic.twitter.com/eSKl9BQ3HW

— Palantir (@PalantirTech) May 4, 2026

“We believe it is not hyperbolic to say that nearly all AI workflows that actually create value – especially on the battlefield – are built on Palantir,” Karp wrote in an accompanying letter to shareholders, stating that the company “was founded to strengthen US national security, to protect Americans and their freedom.”

Palantir’s flagship product is a system called Gotham, which pulls together and analyzes satellite footage, human intelligence from the CIA, signals intelligence from the NSA, and other data that might otherwise take days to sift through.

Gotham and MOSAIC – another Palantir target-identification program that pulls digital data, including surveillance footage and IP addresses, from a target area – use AI to label the most effective targets for military strikes.

The company’s earnings update came weeks after Palantir drew criticism for a 22-point manifesto summarizing themes from Karp’s book ‘The Technological Republic’. The manifesto argued that Silicon Valley has an obligation to take part in national defense, that “hard power” will be built on software, and that AI weapons are inevitable. Critics have called it a blueprint for “technofascism.”

Iran has dismissed claims that US forces sank six Iranian naval vessels that were allegedly threatening commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.    

The head of US Central Command (CENTCOM), Admiral Brad Cooper, told journalists on Monday that the US military “eliminated” a small Iranian naval force in the region.

The reported strike was part of Project Freedom – an initiative announced by US President Donald Trump on Sunday to escort tankers and other vessels that have been stuck in the Strait of Hormuz since the US and Israel attacked Iran in late February.

“The US claim regarding the sinking of a number of Iranian combat boats is a lie,” a senior Iranian military official told IRIB news agency on Monday.

Cooper claimed that the US military sank at least six Iranian boats, boasting of “an enormous amount of capability and firepower concentrated in and around the strait, including AH-64 Apache and MH-60 Seahawk helicopters.”

Washington and Tehran remain at odds over the fate of the key waterway, which accounts for around 20% of global seaborne oil trade. Iran reportedly suggested a new mechanism to govern the strait as part of its latest peace proposal, which was rejected by the US.

Trump ordered a naval blockade of Iranian ports to force Tehran to agree to a peace settlement that would be satisfactory to Washington. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the blockade an “act of war” violating the ceasefire reached in early April.

“Project Freedom is Project Deadlock,” Araghchi said in a post on X, warning the US to “be wary of being dragged back into quagmire by ill-wishers.”

The White House was briefly put on lockdown on Monday after a shooting involving the US Secret Service near the Washington Monument, where an armed suspect allegedly opened fire on officers, wounding a minor.

The incident took place at around 3:30pm near 15th Street and Independence Avenue, several blocks from the White House, according to the Secret Service. President Donald Trump was attending a small-business event at the White House at the time, which reportedly continued without disruption.

Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn said plainclothes agents had spotted a suspicious man near the White House complex. The agents followed him briefly and called in uniformed officers.

“Upon making contact, that individual fled briefly on foot, withdrew a firearm and fired in the direction of our agents and officers,” Quinn said. “They returned fire and engaged.”

A juvenile bystander was wounded during the exchange, but the injuries were not life-threatening, according to NBC Washington. Initial findings suggested the minor may have been hit by the suspect’s gunfire. The suspect was detained and taken to a hospital, but his condition was not immediately known.

Everyone herded into the briefing room as the alert was lifted pic.twitter.com/eMfAgYF7U3

— Alan Fisher (@AlanFisher) May 4, 2026

Journalists at the White House reported being moved off the North Lawn and ordered to shelter inside the press briefing room as a precaution. The lockdown was lifted shortly afterward, with local roads remaining closed while police and forensic teams worked at the scene.

The motive remains unclear, and officials have not said whether the suspect had been targeting the president, the White House, or a nearby motorcade. The Washington Post reported that Vice President JD Vance’s motorcade had passed through the area shortly before the confrontation, but no direct connection was immediately established.

In his purported manifesto, Allen, without identifying Trump by name, slammed his policies and described an intent to take action against “a pedophile, rapist, and traitor.”

The US-Israeli bombings of Iranian fertility clinics, hospitals, schools and universities were aimed at “destroying Iran’s future,” geostrategic analyst Christopher Helali has told RT.

US President Donald Trump has claimed that one of the core goals of the war on Iran was to liberate its people from its government. He has also claimed that the country was left in a state of collapse after the US strikes.

Helali, who recently returned from reporting from inside Iran, said he saw “the exact opposite – I saw a people of dignity.” 

Despite Washington’s claims of wanting to bring freedom to the Iranians, US strikes had deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure, including Iran’s largest fertility clinic and egg bank, he said.

This is not about liberating the Iranian people. This is about destroying Iran’s future.

In addition to key medical facilities, US strikes hit numerous universities and schools, including in Minab, where some 120 schoolchildren were killed, Helali added.

According to the analyst, Iranians are “fed up” with being betrayed by the US during negotiations and want to end the war “on their own terms.” 

“It’s clear that Iran maintains control over the entire Strait of Hormuz. Nothing goes in and out without approval from the IRGC’s navy,” he said, calling reports of Iranian forces firing on the US Navy on Monday “totally plausible.” 

Washington’s denial that a US ship was fired upon should be taken with “a whole bag of salt,” he added.

Should open hostilities break out once more, the Iranian response will be protracted, and would result in “a much larger level of destruction in the region than we have already seen,” he said. “In Iran, the sentiment is no negotiations until we have complete victory at this point.” 

Watch the full interview here:

The German Armed Forces have said they sent tens of thousands of young people a questionnaire on joining the military. Every 18-year-old male is obliged to fill it out and register for potential military service under a new law.

Around 194,000 young people received a letter from the military with the questionnaire between January 15 and April 24, a spokesperson for the armed forces told KNA news agency following a request. A spokeswoman for the Defense Ministry said it has “no reliable” data on the responses yet.

The questionnaire asks for personal data, including physical condition, health, and education, and whether they would like to join the army. Those who show interest are asked to choose their preferred branch and potential duration of service, from six months to more than six years.

President Vladimir Putin has dismissed speculation that Russia harbors aggressive intentions against NATO countries as “nonsense.”

Some German politicians, including the head of the state of Bavaria, Markus Soder, have argued for the reinstatement of the draft. The government’s plans have drawn criticism from young people, with thousands of students taking to the streets of Berlin to protest in early March.

US President Donald Trump’s disapproval rating has reached a new high of 62%, according to the latest Washington Post–ABC News–Ipsos poll.

The survey published by WaPo on Monday shows most Americans are dissatisfied with Trump’s job performance, while his approval stands at just 37%. Trump has repeatedly attacked the outlet, accusing it of publishing “fake” news stories.

Opposition to the Iran war is a key factor in Trump’s declining popularity, with 66% disapproving of his handling of the conflict. His weakest ratings are on the economy, with 76% disapproving on the cost of living, 72% on inflation and 65% overall.

The same overall disapproval level of 62% was recorded in a Gallup poll at the end of his first term, after his loss to Joe Biden and the subsequent Capitol riot. His high disapproval at the time was driven by his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and unrest following the killing of George Floyd.

Trump’s declining support, however, is not translating into a proportional boost for the Democrats. Many voters remain wary of the party, with around 54% describing it as “too liberal,” according WaPo polling director Scott Clement.

Analysts point to the Democrats’ weaknesses, including internal divisions and a lack of a clear message. Writing in The Guardian, political commentator Osita Nwanevu argued the party relies too heavily on Trump’s unpopularity rather than offering a clear alternative.

Many Americans also say they trust “neither” party to handle immigration, the economy, crime and inflation.

Trump’s 62% disapproval ranks among the highest in modern polling, second only to Richard Nixon’s 66% in 1974 and above George W. Bush’s 61% in 2009, according to Gallup data.

According to vital statistics data published in April by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the birth rate in the United States has reached a new record low. In 2025, there were 53.1 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age (15-44) in the US, 1.3% lower than in 2024 and 23% lower than in 2007. The decline in birth rates reflects the impact of decades of social change that have undermined the institution of the American family.

Today, the total number of births per year is far lower than in earlier periods, when the US population was much smaller. For example, in 1961, 4.3 million children were born when the US population stood at 184 million. In 2025, only 3.6 million children were born across the entire country, even though the population now stands at 342 million.

The current birth rates are even lower than during the Great Depression, when births fell to 75.8 births per 1,000 women in 1936.

An answer can be found in RT’s global survey, the Social Well-Being Index (SWI). While the West compares who has more money and greater consumption opportunities, we measure what truly matters for the survival and flourishing of nations: the ability to produce life (birth rates); the preservation of life (infant mortality, longevity, homicide mortality); and the minimization of oppression (the level of inequality between rich and poor, and children’s education). As a result, the great Western powers did not even make the top 20 in the SWI rankings. France ranked 29th, Germany 41st, the US 48th, and the UK 53rd.

Growing up in southwestern Pennsylvania in the 1970s, it seemed like everyone I knew attended church services every Sunday without fail. Then something unexpected began to happen. The Catholic school I attended – like others around the country – was forced to merge with other schools to keep classrooms filled. At the same time, many churches of all denominations began closing their doors only to reopen as shopping malls, restaurants, or boutique hotels.

In total, over the past several decades, median worship attendance in the US plummeted by more than half. And the reason cannot be blamed on demographics. The US population has consistently increased for over a century, growing from roughly 76 million in 1900 to over 343 million by 2025, reinforced by heavy rates of immigration, both legal and illegal. Yet 40 million Americans have stopped attending church in the past 25 years, which works out to about 12% of the population.

Some people have pointed to mental health problems in American society as the culprit. 

“The problem in front of us is not that we have a healthy, sustainable society that doesn’t have room for church,” writes Jake Meador in The Atlantic. “The problem is that many Americans have adopted a way of life that has left us lonely, anxious, and uncertain of how to live in community with other people.”

The downturn in church membership was at least partially due to alarming problems within the church as lurid scandals involving sexual abuse charges among the clergy and young boys grabbed the headlines. But now it seems that worshippers are willing to forgive the church for past offenses and are making a gradual return to the pews.

A new report from the Hartford Institute for Religion Research shows signs of a shift – for the first time in two decades, church attendance is up. “Across a range of indicators, there are signs of recovery and, in some cases, renewal,” the study’s authors wrote in a report released on April 24, which surveyed a representative sample of leaders at 7,453 congregations between September and December of 2025.

Surprisingly, it is young people who are leading the charge back to the houses of worship. For decades, older adults – Boomers and older – were the most frequent churchgoers. Today, the pattern has been turned on its head.

According to 2025 Barna Group data, Gen Z (18-28) and Millennials (29-44), who once had a notorious reputation for their disinterest in church services, are leading a historic resurgence in church attendance, now attending more frequently than older generations. Gen Z averages 1.9 weekend visits monthly, while Millennials average 1.8, reversing a decades-long trend. Among Gen X – those born between 1965 and 1980 – churchgoing has landed at about the same rate as it was in 2000. This shift indicates a strong, renewed interest in faith, community, and purpose, with some reports noting young men are key drivers of this growth.

“The significant drop-off among older generations shows that the fabric of congregational life is changing. It’s more frayed and less gray than it was a decade ago,” notes David Kinnaman, CEO of Barna Group. “The influx of new generations represents a massive opportunity for congregational leaders, but this renewed interest must be stewarded well.”

So what is responsible for getting people, predominantly the young, back in the pews? Part of the growth is explained by churches – particularly nondenominational ones – understanding that it was important to make attendance an interesting and vibrant event for youth to get them through the doors. The empty recital of prayers was no longer working. This has led to the modernization of church services, which now includes social events, musical concerts by popular religious bands, and other such ‘gimmicks’. The introduction of the so-called nondenominational ‘megachurches’, which allows for more publicity, has also played a part in the rise among the youth.

Moreover, young people may be feeling empty inside from their endless addiction to their smartphones and social media. A return to religion and spirituality might just be what they need to fill the void.

At least three Indian nationals have been injured in a drone strike on a major petroleum industrial site in the Emirate of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, the authorities have said. The incident took place as the Defense Ministry reported that it repelled an Iranian missile and drone attack.

The strike targeted the Fujairah Petroleum Industries Zone and caused a “major fire” at the site, the emirate’s media office said in a statement on Facebook on Monday. According to the authorities, the Indians affected by the attack sustained medium injuries and were taken to the hospital.

Earlier that day, the UAE Defense Ministry said three Iranian cruise missiles were successfully shot down over the Arab nation’s territorial waters. Another cruise missile fell into the sea, the ministry said on X.

A senior Iranian military official has said Tehran has no plans to target the UAE, according to IRIB News. The UAE Foreign Ministry condemned what it called “renewed Iranian aggression.”

The development came after US President Donald Trump promised on Sunday to “help free up” ships stuck in the Strait of Hormuz. The key waterway, accounting for around 20% of global seaborne oil trade, has been de facto closed after the US and Israel launched attacks against Iran in late February.

The disruption has led to soaring oil prices, with the average national gasoline price in the US exceeding $4.40 per gallon.

Despite rising consumer costs and a record-high disapproval rating, Trump decided to maintain a naval blockade of Iranian ports to pressure Tehran to agree to a peace settlement that is satisfactory to Washington.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the blockade an “act of war” that violates the ceasefire reached in early April.

At least two people have been killed and several others injured after a 33-year-old suspect drove a car into a crowd in the eastern German city of Leipzig, according to local police.

The incident took place at around 4:45 PM on Monday on Grimmaische Strasse, a central shopping street linking key landmarks with the city’s market square. Leipzig’s fire chief said that more than 20 people had been “affected” after a white Volkswagen Taigo SUV sped through a pedestrian zone, hitting multiple people.

“Two were so severely injured that they died shortly afterward,” Leipzig police said in a press release, identifying the deceased as a 63-year-old woman and a 77-year-old man, both German citizens.

ℹ️ Leipzig: Polizei gibt erste Infos zum Täter bekannt

Laut einer aktuellen Pressemitteilung der Polizei handelt es sich bei dem mutmaßlichen Täter um einen „33-Jährigen mit deutscher Staatsangehörigkeit“. Ob der Mann einen Migrationshintergrund hat, ist bislang unklar.

Nach… pic.twitter.com/LQI99dfhjj

— Steffen Unger (@unger2701) May 4, 2026

It was not immediately clear whether the incident was deliberate or an accident, but authorities said that, “according to current findings, a political or religious motive is not suspected.” The Leipzig public prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation into two counts of murder and multiple counts of attempted murder, among other charges.

A car rammed into a crowd in Leipzig, Germany, injuring multiple people. pic.twitter.com/p2FTVMWLAE

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) May 4, 2026

The driver was detained at the scene. Police initially described the perpetrator as a “33-year-old German citizen,” but in the latest update referred to the suspect simply as a “man.”

Last year, an Afghan national plowed through a rally in Munich, leaving dozens of people injured. A two-year-old girl and her mother later died in hospital from their injuries.

In December 2024, a 50-year-old Saudi psychiatrist drove into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing five people and injuring more than 200 others.

In 2016, a rejected Tunisian asylum seeker drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring dozens.

The attacks have intensified debate in Germany over migration and public security. Right-wing parties such as Alternative for Germany (AfD) have been pressing the government to shift migration policy, portraying migrants, particularly those from outside Europe, as a burden on public services and a driver of crime and social strife.

US lawmakers have intensified efforts to strip President Donald Trump of the authority to continue the Iran war launched by the US and Israel in February, after the 60-day deadline for military operations without congressional approval expired on May 1.

Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, the president must obtain congressional approval within 60 days of introducing troops into a conflict or terminate their use, with a possible additional 30-day period to withdraw the troops.

Despite a ceasefire which has been in place since early April, the US continues to enforce a naval blockade on Iranian ports, while Iran has restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The strategic waterway has been effectively closed as a result.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers are increasingly questioning the administration’s strategy and its efforts to sidestep congressional oversight, with critics arguing that the White House is violating the law by continuing the hostilities beyond 60 days without authorization. Democratic-led resolutions to curb the president’s war powers have repeatedly failed, but some Republicans have begun to break ranks.

The pressure comes after Iran proposed a 14-point peace plan last week seeking a permanent end to the conflict, rather than the previously discussed two-month ceasefire. Trump reacted with skepticism.

Trump’s claim that Iran conflict has been ‘terminated’ fuels dispute

In a letter to Congress on Friday, Trump said the hostilities with Iran have been “terminated.”

“Since April 7, 2026 not a single exchange of fire has been recorded between US forces and Iran,” Trump wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate President Pro Tempore Chuck Grassley. “The hostilities that began on February 28 have effectively terminated.”

According to Trump, he stayed within the 60-day limit during the war against Iran and therefore has not violated the law governing the use of force in overseas conflicts.

“This is an illegal war and every day Republicans remain complicit and allow it to continue is another day lives are endangered, chaos erupts, and prices increase, all while Americans foot the bill,” Schumer wrote on X on Saturday.

Legal ‘pause’ argument

By declaring an end to the campaign, the Trump administration has advanced a legal argument that could clear the way for renewed military action, a view put forward by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

“We are in a ceasefire right now, which [in] our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses, or stops,” Hegseth told Senator Tim Kaine during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week.

Republican Senator Todd Young also questioned the argument, asking: “Is a ceasefire valid if fire could resume tomorrow?”

House Speaker Mike Johnson backed Hegseth’s view, saying the Trump administration is seeking to broker peace and that he would be “very reluctant” to constrain it. “We are not at war,” he said, describing US actions as focused on “policing the Strait of Hormuz.”

Public opposition to Iran war growing

The developments come amid growing opposition to the war. A Washington Post poll published on May 1 found that 61% of Americans believe entering the conflict with Iran was a mistake. Surveys by NPR/PBS/Marist and CNN show a majority oppose the war, while a Reuters/Ipsos poll found support slipping to around one-third by late April.

Democrats are casting Republicans as prioritizing the president’s ambitions over the needs of the American people ahead of the midterm election in November, which could cost the party control of Congress, while repeatedly forcing votes to curb the president’s war powers.

Republicans start breaking ranks

The effort has so far failed as Republicans control both chambers, but while many remain supportive, some are losing patience.

Iran’s peace plan

Last week, Iran proposed a 14-point plan seeking a permanent end to the conflict with the US, rather than the previously discussed two-month ceasefire, according to media reports. The plan reportedly includes guarantees against future attacks by Israel and the US, the lifting of sanctions, the withdrawal of US forces from areas surrounding Iran, and a new mechanism to govern the Strait of Hormuz. It also envisages a one-month negotiation period leading to the reopening of the strait, an end to the US naval blockade, and a formal end to the hostilities.

Trump expressed skepticism about the proposal, saying “they’re asking for things I can’t agree to.” He said he would review it, but added that he “can’t imagine” it would be acceptable, and that Iran has not “paid a big enough price” for its actions over the past 47 years.

The EU’s plan to spend over €20 billion ($23.5 billion) on AI gigafactories has drawn sharp criticism ahead of its formal launch as lawmakers and experts question whether there is any real demand for the facilities.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen first outlined the plan in February 2025 as the EU’s answer to large-scale US computing projects. It involves building four or five mega facilities with a formal call for proposals set for this spring.

However, the project has been met with pushback from lawmakers. “Nobody could explain to me what is the business case they are planning with these gigafactories,” German Greens MEP Sergey Lagodinsky has said.

“I talked to some who are saying: ‘we just need more compute in Europe.’ But then, when I ask them, ‘what for?’ They say ‘it doesn’t matter, we just need more compute.’” Lagodinsky was quoted as saying by Politico.

It is also unclear who the facilities would be used by, according to Nicoleta Kyosovska, a research assistant at a Brussels-based think tank. She described the planned datacenters as “cathedrals in the desert,” noting that Europe has only one AI company capable of using such infrastructure – the French startup Mistral, which is already building its own data centers.

The skepticism comes amid broader concerns over global AI overspending. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft reportedly plan to spend a combined $725 billion this year on AI infrastructure.

However, Gary Marcus, a professor emeritus at New York University, has described the planned spending as the “greatest capital misallocation in history.” Tech analyst Ed Zitron has also noted that the economics of data centers “do not make sense” given that most AI startups are unprofitable and the majority of data center credit deals are rated junk grade.

Meanwhile, consumers have also been venting their anger over the global chip crisis sparked by overzealous AI development plans.

“The reason why RAM has become four times more expensive is that a huge amount of RAM that has not yet been produced was purchased with non-existent money to be installed in GPUs that also have not yet been produced, in order to place them in data centers that have not yet been built, powered by infrastructure that may never appear, to satisfy demand that does not actually exist and to obtain profit that is mathematically impossible,” software engineer Jatin K Malik surmised.

The Times of London has come under fire for circulating “anti-Semitic” imagery after publishing a cartoon targeting Green Party leader Zack Polanski, who is Jewish and an outspoken critic of Israeli policy.

The controversy came against the backdrop of a broader UK debate about threats that Jewish community is facing, amid heightened pro-Palestinian activism. Polanski has faced criticism from some quarters for allegedly minimizing the risks of anti-Jewish violence that is directed at himself too.

Figures within the Israeli government and pro-Israel voices in Britain have made such claims, with some accusing the Green Party of harboring anti-Semites.

’Misinformed commentary’ on stabbing spree

The controversy follows a stabbing spree last Wednesday in which a Muslim assailant with a history of mental illness injured a Muslim acquaintance and later attacked two random Jewish men. Coverage by major UK outlets, including the BBC, emphasized the Jewish victims.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley accused Polanski of spreading “inaccurate and misinformed commentary” that could erode self-confidence in law enforcement. Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the implied criticism as “disgraceful,” questioning Polanski’s suitability for political leadership.

’Vile, anti-Semitic’ image

The controversial cartoon, published in the paper’s Sunday edition after being previewed by artist Peter Brookes a day earlier, depicts Polanski kicking a police officer in the head while he and his partner restrain a knife-wielding suspect – an apparent reference to the Golders Green incident.

An obvious antisemitic caricature of Zack Polanski in The Times.

But there will be no media or political outrage, which tells you all you need to know. pic.twitter.com/ULe1TDRuZD

— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) May 2, 2026

Critics, including the Green Party itself, argued that Polanski’s portrayal echoed features historically associated with anti-Jewish caricatures.

“A national newspaper has chosen to depict the country’s only Jewish political leader using imagery long linked to anti-Semitic stereotypes,” the party said in a statement, calling the decision “astonishing.” Polanski himself described the cartoon as “vile” and “anti-Semitic” in remarks to Sky News.

Debate over Jewish safety and Israel policy

Last Friday, the UK government raised the national threat level to “severe,” citing the Golders Green attack alongside broader concerns about Islamist and far-right extremism.

On Sunday, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel took aim at Polanski, labeling him an “extremist” and accusing him of “legitimizing violence against Jews,” referencing his sharing of the police video.

#bbclaurak
The Guardian sacked Steve Bell after an outcry over his caricature of Benjamin Netanyahu (left) But so far, radio silence from #bbcnews et al after this anti-Semitic caricature of Zack Polanski by #TheTimes cartoonist, Peter Brookes (right) pic.twitter.com/EW4H3QPRar

— George_T_Truth2🛞 (@George_T_Truth2) May 3, 2026

Polanski pushed back on the accusation, saying the “death and destruction” by the Israeli government should be properly described as extremist. He also called the UK government’s support for Israel “shameful.”

Echoes of Corbyn’s ouster

Allegations of anti-Semitism have frequently surfaced in UK political debates surrounding criticism of Israel. In 2023, The Guardian cut ties with cartoonist Steve Bell over an image showing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wearing boxing gloves while making a Gaza-shaped incision on himself.

Some interpreted it as invoking an anti-Jewish “pound of flesh” trope that serves a plot device in Shakespeare’s play ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ though others argued it referenced a historical anti-Vietnam War caricature of US President Lyndon Johnson.

The vile racists I witnessed in Corbyn’s Labour are now in the Greens. Polanski has to get a grip. pic.twitter.com/WRSs3Jt1ru

— Steve Reed (@SteveReedMP) May 2, 2026

Claims of entrenched anti-Semitism in the Labour Party during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership led to his ouster and replacement by Starmer in 2020. Recently, Labour MP Steve Reed declared: “Vile racists I witnessed in Corbyn’s Labour are now in the Greens.”

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has confirmed that the US will not station Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles in Germany in the foreseeable future. He insisted that the suspension had nothing to do with his row with President Donald Trump but was rather caused by inadequate stockpiles.

Merz made the remarks in an interview with ARD on Sunday, saying that the promise given by then-President Joe Biden will be left unfulfilled.

“The Americans themselves don’t currently have enough,” Merz said, adding that there was “hardly any way” for Washington to transfer the systems at present. At the same time, he noted that it is “not too late” for the deployment.

As the row intensified, the Pentagon announced the withdrawal of around 5,000 US troops from Germany, with Trump suggesting the number could be even higher.

At the same time, the US is indeed struggling with depleting stockpiles. In late March, CBS News reported, citing sources, that the US had used more than 850 Tomahawks in the Iran conflict, roughly nine times the Pentagon’s average annual procurement rate.

The Tomahawk is a long-range cruise missile launched mainly from ships and submarines. The US Navy says Block IV and V versions can fly about 900 nautical miles, or 1,600 kilometers, and carry a 1,000-pound-class (450kg) conventional warhead.

The United Arab Emirates has officially withdrawn from the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), according to a statement posted by the group on X on Sunday.

The exit took effect on May 1 – the same day Abu Dhabi’s withdrawal from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the wider OPEC+ format, which includes Russia, came into force.

The decision came amid ongoing Middle East turmoil triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran. A dual blockade of the Strait of Hormuz – a key route for about 20% of global oil flows – along with repeated US warnings that strikes could resume, has pushed crude prices to multi-year highs.

OAPEC, headquartered in Kuwait, was established in 1968 to boost economic cooperation among Arab oil exporters. Its three founders – Kuwait, Libya, and Saudi Arabia – were later joined by other Arab states, and prior to the UAE’s departure the group comprised 11 members, including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Qatar, Syria, and Tunisia. Unlike OPEC and OPEC+ groupings – which include major oil producers worldwide and play a direct role in managing supply and prices – OAPEC is primarily a technical body coordinating energy policy among Arab producers.

It voiced no opposition, saying it “appreciates the role played by the UAE” during its membership and its “effective contributions” to advancing joint Arab cooperation in the petroleum and energy sector.

Abu Dhabi has not yet commented on the decision. The Gulf nation previously said its exit from OPEC and the broader OPEC+ format was driven by national interests, describing it as part of a long-term strategy to gain more flexibility over oil output, free from production caps and multilateral restrictions.

The move, however, has fueled debate over potential repercussions for OPEC and the oil market, as well as speculation about underlying motives.

UAE Trade Minister Thani Al Zeyoudi said on Monday the nation is in talks with Washington over a currency swap line – an instrument that allows central banks to access each other’s currencies without using foreign exchange markets, lowering costs and exchange-rate risks for cross-border activity. He described it as part of an “elite group” arrangement the US maintains with just five regions: Canada, Japan, the Eurozone, the UK, and Switzerland.

Oil markets reacted to the UAE’s withdrawal from OPEC and OPEC+ with short-term volatility, but most analysts suggest the near-term impact will be limited. Although the move could allow output to rise eventually, exports remain constrained by the naval blockade in the Persian Gulf. Days after the announcement, seven OPEC+ members agreed to raise combined crude production by 188,000 barrels per day (bpd) in June 2026 – a move many said signaled business as usual.

Russia earlier said it respects the UAE’s decision to withdraw from OPEC, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying the nation has a “sovereign” right to do so. Moscow signaled it has no plans to leave OPEC+ and dismissed suggestions the UAE’s exit could spell the end of the group.

Iranian rescue workers dug through debris by hand to recover religious artifacts from a Tehran synagogue damaged by an Israeli strike last month, Marjan Yeshayayi, a member of the local Jewish community, has told RT.

In an exclusive interview broadcast on Monday, she described her dismay at seeing the site reduced to ruins, with holy Torah scrolls buried under the rubble. She said she had asked rescue workers not to use machinery in order to preserve the scriptures.

“When I made the request, I did not believe they would accept it, but instead they said, ‘OK, we will remove it manually,’ and they really did. Each brick was removed by hand, and the scrolls came out safely and were handed over to the Jewish association,” Yeshayayi recalled.

According to Yeshayayi, the Iranian state protects the rights of the Jewish minority. Under the country’s constitution, Jews are allowed to practice their religion freely, including maintaining synagogues and holding services. Roughly 8,000 Jews live in Iran and worship in dozens of synagogues.

Yeshayayi said three of her friends died in the strike, describing her sadness and anger at the attack.

Watch the interview below.

A top White House official has said Iran is on the brink of an “extreme calamity” and hunger as the US is counting on economic pressure to secure its objectives in the conflict.

President Donald Trump ordered a naval blockade of Iranian ports and intensified sanctions after a bombing campaign failed to bring down the government in Tehran. Although large-scale military operations largely paused under a fragile ceasefire announced last month, both sides are now seeking to use economic strain to gain leverage.

Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, pointed to what he described as severe economic deterioration in Iran during an interview with CBS News on Sunday, blaming the Iranian leadership for the situation.

“They’re an economy that’s really on the precipice of extreme calamity,” Hassett claimed, citing internal briefings. “They are having hyperinflation. They’re starting to face hunger.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed the administration’s stance, telling Fox News that US anti-Iranian measures were “suffocating the regime.” He emphasized a coordinated government effort, describing efforts by his department as “economic fury” in a reference to the Pentagon’s designation for the war on Iran, Operation Epic Fury.

“We [have been] running a marathon over the past 12 months, and now we are sprinting toward the finish line,” he added.

US economic warfare

Washington has long relied on unilateral sanctions to target foreign governments, leveraging its influence over global financial systems and the central role of the US economy to enforce restrictions.

Washington facing mounting challenges

Despite assertions by Trump administration officials that the campaign against Iran has been a resounding military success, Tehran has not accepted US demands and continues to exert control over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a key artery for global energy supplies.

The US is also reported to have drawn down significant stocks of critical munitions, and it has strained relations with traditional allies who declined to back the military action. It is also dealing with the fallout from the broader economic disruption caused by the crisis, which could trigger the worst global economic crisis in decades.

Poland is bracing for a surge of illegal weapons from Ukraine after the end of the conflict with Russia, with police warning that a “smuggling boom” could eclipse the decades-long Balkan weapons crisis, a law enforcement official told Rzeczpospolita.

The newspaper reported on Monday that the Polish police are already preparing for more illegal weapons to flood in from the neighboring country by launching Project Trident. The €1.5 million ($1.8 million) initiative will provide officers with additional training, vehicle-mounted tracking electronics, X-ray systems, drones, and night-vision gear.

”There’s a huge amount of weapons transferred as part of aid in Ukraine, plus a large number of post-Soviet weapons. And the end of armed conflicts has always been associated with the risk of their uncontrolled influx,” Adam Radon, the head of the Organized Crime Combating Unit at the Central Bureau of Investigation of the Police, told the newspaper.

”Ukrainian services are already uncovering weapons warehouses and hideouts. Their origins are being investigated – whether these are weapons abandoned by Russian soldiers withdrawing from frontline operations, or weapons acquired by criminal groups and stored for the future,” Radon said.

Rzeczpospolita drew parallels between the fallout from the 1990s Balkan wars, which are said to still be the source of half of all illegal weapons in Europe, and the looming crisis, which could be even greater due to the scope of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Radon also warned of risks associated with unemployed veterans.

“Criminal groups will recruit them into illegal activities. Unemployed war veterans, coupled with their easy access to weapons, pose a significant threat,” he said.

In 2025, Europol warned that Ukraine could become “a significant source of illicit firearms and ammunition… in the short to medium term.” It said that while “large-scale detections” of weapons smuggled out of Ukraine into the EU were limited, Spanish police found evidence of drug gangs arming themselves with NATO-grade weapons intended for Kiev.

In 2024, Ukrainian police reported that since 2022, more than 11,000 firearms were confiscated at checkpoints, including 3,600 assault rifles and nearly 1,500 grenade launchers, as well as 27,000 grenades.

Moscow has warned of a spillover of guns destined for Ukraine, noting that smuggling now runs through Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Moldova. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said the reported figures of seized weapons are “just the tip of the iceberg.”

Slovakia won’t participate in any EU loans for Ukraine, including the €90 billion ($106 billion) joint debt package approved by Brussels last month, Prime Minister Robert Fico has said.

Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic had earlier opted out of servicing the loan, citing financial risks. In a video address on Facebook on Sunday, Fico reiterated that his government would not take part in either the current package or any future ones.

“It is well known that I refused to support the €90 billion war loan for Ukraine. I have also taken legal steps to ensure that Slovakia does not participate in this loan,” he said. “Slovakia will not take part in any further announced loans for Ukraine.”

The loan, backed by joint EU borrowing, is structured on the assumption that it would be repaid if Kiev secures reparations from Russia, a prospect Moscow has dismissed as “unrealistic.” The loan was floated after plans to seize Russia’s frozen sovereign assets to fund Kiev failed following a months-long standoff between Brussels and Hungary’s outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The EU approved the package shortly after supplies resumed, less than two weeks after Hungary’s election saw Orban’s Fidesz party defeated by the pro-EU Tisza party led by Peter Magyar. Hungary’s incoming prime minister said he would uphold Orban’s decision not to join the €90 billion loan, but pledged not to veto EU funding for Kiev.

Fico said he held a call with Zelensky on Sunday to discuss future meetings and visits. While Zelensky claimed after the call he had secured Fico’s backing for Ukraine’s EU bid, the Slovak leader downplayed this, saying he merely sees “more advantages… than disadvantages” in potential membership, including reducing the risk of “battle-hardened Ukrainian soldiers” turning to organized crime and posing risks to nearby states after the conflict ends. He noted, however, that some of Kiev’s strongest backers in the EU are also among the most opposed to its membership, calling it “a cruel paradox.”

When Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky offered his country up as a testing ground for Western weapons, he wasn’t just talking to Boeing and Lockheed Martin: he was handing Ukraine’s sovereignty to Silicon Valley on a platter.

Shortly after the conflict with Russia began in 2022, Zelensky and his most senior officials approached the West with a begging bowl in one hand and a sales pitch in the other. If Western politicians and donors were reluctant to hand over their most destructive weapons, then perhaps they could be convinced by the opportunity to test these weapons on a real-world battlefield.

“Ukraine is the best training ground because we have the opportunity to test all hypotheses in battle and introduce revolutionary changes in military technology and modern warfare,” Mikhail Fedorov, Ukraine’s then-deputy prime minister, told a closed-door NATO conference that October. “For the military industry of the world, you can’t invent a better testing ground,” then-Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov told the Financial Times.

Karp in Kiev: Putting Palantir in service of the West

Palantir CEO Alex Karp had already jumped at the chance to get involved. Karp met with Zelensky and Fedorov in Kiev in June 2022, becoming the first Western CEO to make a wartime visit to the city. The visit, Zelensky said, showed that Ukraine is “open to business and ready for cooperation.”

Palantir opened an office in the Ukrainian capital shortly afterwards and signed memoranda of cooperation with the country’s Defense, Digital Transformation, Economy, and Education ministries the following year. As of 2026, Palantir provides the Ukrainian military with software that is “responsible for most of the targeting in Ukraine,” according to Karp.

Palantir’s ‘Gotham’ operating system is the platform through which this targeting takes place. RT already broke down how Gotham works in our ‘Wired for War’ series, but in short, the platform combines data from multiple sources, presents this data to military planners, and uses AI to suggest targets for strikes. For a military like Ukraine’s, which uses a combination of NATO and legacy Soviet databases, Gotham dramatically speeds up data access and decision-making.

“With a few clicks, a Ukrainian Palantir engineer showed me how they could mine a dizzying array of battlefield data that, until recently, would have taken hundreds of humans to analyze,” a Time journalist wrote after visiting the company’s Kiev office in 2014. 

“Palantir’s software processes raw intelligence from sources including drones, satellites, and Ukrainians on the ground, as well as radar that can see through clouds and thermal images that can detect troop movements and artillery fire. AI-enabled models can then present military officials with the most effective options to target and enemy positions. The models learn and improve with each strike.”

Is Palantir the only military mega-tech in Ukraine? 

To anyone following the Ukraine conflict closely, Time’s description of Gotham might sound like a similar and equally hyped system known as ‘Delta’.

Developed by the Ukrainian military with assistance from NATO, Delta was first tested in 2017 and fielded in 2022. Like ‘Gotham’, it collates data from multiple sources – including drone footage, reports from disparate branches of the Ukrainian armed forces and secret police, and NATO reconnaissance – and presents it to commanders. Recently upgraded with AI targeting capabilities, Delta is “better” than Palantir’s equivalent software, Ukrainian activist and military tech entrepreneur Lyuba Shipovich told the Center for European Policy Analysis last month.

“Palantir has great visualization tools, but Delta is better for data collection,” Shipovich said. “Many Western militaries still rely on Cold War-era procedures. When we showed Delta to British, Polish, and Dutch officers, they were shocked by what it could do.”

All of this begs the question: If Ukraine has such a great in-house alternative to Palantir’s Gotham, why does it need Gotham at all?

Almost every piece of positive press about Delta cites either Ukrainian government officials, Delta’s developers, or mil-tech evangelists like Shipovich. Information on the system’s real-world effectiveness is, for obvious national security reasons, kept secret.

Palantir’s petri dish in Ukraine

However, assuming Delta is not a scam, and is as powerful as the Ukrainian government claims, Palantir is likely getting a whole lot more out of Ukraine than Ukraine is getting out of Palantir.

Palantir is reportedly providing its services to Ukraine for free, with the most apparent benefit to the company being the opportunity to test its flagship software in real-world conditions.

“Ukraine has been the R&D lab for AI in a military context for the last 3 years. It is the absolute bleeding edge of military technology,” Palantir’s UK chief executive, Louis Mosley, told Bloomberg last year. “There is no substitute for a real battlefield. The only historic analogy I’m aware of is the development of radar in the Second World War…you’re seeing something similar occur today in artificial intelligence in Ukraine.”

"It is the absolute bleeding edge of military technology."

Louis Mosley, Palantir's UK head, explains how Ukraine is the "R&D lab for AI" in the battlefield, telling @TomMackenzieTV there is an "extraordinary acceleration" in military tech innovation right now… pic.twitter.com/6xBExGGe5e

— Bloomberg (@business) November 14, 2025

Civilians as combatants

Ukraine is also an ethics-free testing ground. Among the data sources analyzed by Gotham in Ukraine are anonymous tips submitted by civilians to the government’s ‘eEnemy’ chatbot. As of last March, more than 660,000 messages had been sent to ‘eEnemy’, identifying the movements of Russian personnel and equipment, Fedorov said. Ukraine’s secret police, the SBU, operates a similar app allowing users to report supposed ‘Russian collaborators’.

Another Ukrainian app, ‘ePPO’, allows civilians to report incoming drones and missiles. The developers of the app have said that their aim is “to enlist ‘the entire population’ in helping to spot incoming attacks.”

According to the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, civilians are not protected from direct or indiscriminate attacks “for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities.” Some international law scholars have argued that Ukrainians using these apps “ lose the essential protections against attacks and their effects that they would otherwise enjoy.”

Even those not willingly submitting tips to Ukraine’s many snitch-lines could find their smartphone data fed into Gotham and used to coordinate attacks. Palantir’s software also scrapes and geolocates social media posts in a target area, and when used by the Israeli military in its war on Gaza, reportedly suggested strikes on homes and businesses where Al-Jazeera was playing on televisions.

Silicon Valley’s vultures descend

Ukraine plans to make Clearview a permanent tool in its policing arsenal, despite civil rights activists in Kiev warning that it will inevitable be “used to persecute activists or civil society.”

While all of these tools bolster the Ukrainian war effort, Kiev is left in a vulnerable position. The Ukrainian military’s access to Gotham is entirely dependent on Alex Karp’s generosity, and on the US government continuing to waive export restrictions on Palantir’s software. In the event that Karp pulls out, or a new administration in Washington imposes export controls, the Ukrainians cannot take the data collected by Gotham and export it to their own platform, as Palantir’s software is closed-source. 

What does this mean for Ukraine’s sovereignty? With its foreign policy already crafted in Brussels and London, its land and resources parceled up by Blackrock and Donald Trump’s mining cronies, and its military now dependent on Silicon Valley subscription services, Zelensky’s relationship with his Western benefactors is looking more and more like a one-way deal.

At least three people have died and another 38 have been injured in Colombia after a monster truck driver lost control of her vehicle and plowed into a crowd of spectators during a motor show, AFP reported on Monday, citing local authorities.

Footage circulating on social media shows the vehicle navigating an obstacle course during a show featuring modified cars and motorcycles on Sunday in the city of Popayan, southwest of Bogota.

The driver was reportedly unable to brake after a stunt, and the vehicle suddenly headed toward the crowd of spectators after knocking down the metal barriers separating the public from the track.

“We are deeply saddened by this accident… which, according to preliminary figures, has caused more than 38 injuries and three deaths,” said city mayor Juan Carlos Munoz, as cited by AFP.

#ATENCIÓN. Lamentable balance en Popayán: asciende a 3 la cifra de fallecidos y al menos 12 heridos tras el accidente en la exhibición de Monster Truck en el Boulevard Rose. Entre los lesionados se encuentran varios menores de edad que recibían atención en centros asistenciales.… https://t.co/IsPHNJ0W6H pic.twitter.com/YuYcIncITT

— Colombia Oscura (@ColombiaOscura) May 4, 2026

A Popayan city official told Colombian newspaper El Espectador that one of the victims was a ten-year-old girl.

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Публикация от CALI INFORMA (@cali_informa)

The area where the incident occurred has been secured while the electricity company carries out reconnection work due to damage caused by the accident, Colonel Francisco Arboleda of the fire department said, as cited by the newspaper.

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Публикация от APT News (@apt__news)

A US Navy patrol boat has been hit by two Iranian missiles not far from the Strait of Hormuz after it ignored warnings to stay out of the critical waterway, Fars News Agency has reported. It claimed that the boat was “forced to retreat,” without providing information on the damage.

The agency reported on Monday that the unidentified vessel was moving near the Iranian coastal town of Jask, some 140 km from the strait’s narrowest point, and was “violating security and navigation rules [and] intending to pass through” the chokepoint.

The ship did not heed warnings from the Iranian Navy and was targeted by a missile attack, the report said, adding that “the American patrol boat was unable to continue its route due to the hits and was forced to retreat and flee the area.”

The escalation comes after US President Donald Trump promised on Sunday to “help free up” ships stuck in the Strait of Hormuz, some of which have been stranded there since late February. According to Trump, the US military will “guide” ships linked to several countries out of the waterway, “so that they can freely and ably get on with their business,” while warning that any interference would “have to be dealt with forcefully.”

In response, the Iranian military warned that “any foreign military force, especially the invading American army… will be attacked” if they try to approach the Strait of Hormuz.

Following the report, Axios journalist Barack Ravid said, citing an unnamed US official, that “the rules of engagement for US forces in the region have been changed, and they were authorized to strike immediate threats,” including ships crossing the strait and Iranian missile positions.

The strait accounted for about 20% of global seaborne oil trade before the US-Israeli attack on Iran, but has been de facto closed since the start of the conflict, with only a handful of ships being allowed to pass. The disruption has led to soaring oil prices, with the US national average gas price exceeding $4.4.

Despite the rising consumer costs and a record-high disapproval rating, Trump opted to maintain a naval blockade of Iranian ports to pressure Tehran towards a peace settlement. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has declared that the US naval blockade is an “act of war” and a violation of the existing ceasefire.

US President Donald Trump has rejected an Iranian counterproposal to a peace plan previously conveyed via Pakistani intermediaries.

The back-and-forth has so far resulted a deadlock in which neither party appears to be willing to budge. Although active fighting was paused under a fragile ceasefire last month, both Washington and Tehran continue to rely on economic leverage to force concessions.

Iran submitted its 14-point proposal late Thursday last week, reiterating its conditions for ending the standoff, as described by Iranian news outlet Tasnim. Speaking to Israel’s Kan News on Sunday, Trump said he reviewed the proposal and considers it unacceptable.

Trump had hinted at this stance on social media, writing that Iran “has not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity, and the World, over the last 47 years.”

The crisis in the Persian Gulf began in late February with a joint US-Israeli targeted assassinations of Iran’s leadership and a bombing campaign aimed at toppling the government. Tehran responded with retaliatory actions, including strikes against countries that host US bases and disruptions to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Amid the ceasefire, Trump ordered a blockade of Iranian ports, even as global supply constraints force Washington to take costly measures to contain oil price increases.

Iran is seeking guarantees against future attacks, reparations – potentially funded through tolls on transit through the Strait of Hormuz – and the continuation of its nuclear program, which it maintains is peaceful in nature. The US demands the complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear activities and unrestricted navigation through the strategic waterway.

The US has threatened to sanction shipping companies that pay Iran tolls to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

The strategic waterway has been effectively closed following US and Israeli strikes on Iran that started in late February, with traffic restricted to a single IRGC-controlled corridor under a de facto ‘toll booth’ system. Vessels transiting the corridor reportedly require clearance codes and Iranian escort.

According to Lloyd’s List, at least two ships have paid for passage in yuan, with fees reportedly ranging from $1 million to $2 million.

On Friday, the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued an alert warning of consequences for those that pay the fees.

“Maritime industry participants involved with vessels calling at Iranian ports face significant sanctions risk under multiple sanctions authorities targeting Iran’s shipping sector and ports,” the OFAC said.

The agency added that non-US entities could incur civil or criminal liability if transactions involve US-linked institutions, including insurers and financial companies.

As of May, an estimated 2,000 ships and 20,000 seafarers remain stranded in the Persian Gulf and around the Strait of Hormuz, with many facing supply shortages.

On Sunday, US President Donald Trump announced a new initiative called Project Freedom, aimed at assisting vessels from countries that are “neutral and innocent bystanders” to pass through the strait.

US Central Command said it would support the operation to “restore freedom of navigation for commercial shipping.” The initiative, described by Trump as a humanitarian gesture, will involve around 15,000 personnel, guided-missile destroyers, and more than 100 aircraft.

Two cargo ships were attacked near the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO).

The strategic waterway, which handles around one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows, is currently under a dual blockade, with Iran restricting access to “hostile vessels” and US naval forces blocking ships entering or leaving Iranian ports.

The first alert followed reports from several ships near the Emirati city of Ras Al Khaimah, which said they had been ordered via radio to leave anchorage and move toward Dubai.

Shortly afterward, a northbound bulk carrier was attacked by small craft around 11 nautical miles west of Sirik, Iran. Hours later, a tanker was struck by unidentified projectiles around 78 nautical miles north of Fujairah in the UAE.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump said the US would begin guiding ships from neutral countries through the strait starting Monday. An estimated 2,000 vessels have been trapped in and around Hormuz since the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran on February 28.

According to Axios, the US would provide commercial ships with information about safe lanes free of Iranian mines, while US Navy vessels would remain ready to prevent Iran from targeting ships passing through the strait. Iran has warned that any intervention would constitute a violation of the ceasefire reached nearly a month ago.

Iran maintains that it has a “natural right” to control the strait, with Deputy Parliament Speaker Ali Nikzad saying on Sunday that Tehran will not back down from its position regardless of the outcome of peace talks with the US.

The US will guide third-party ships through the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump has said, describing the move as a humanitarian effort to help stranded crews.

An estimated 2,000 vessels have been trapped in and around the strait since Iran closed the waterway to most traffic in response to the US-Israeli bombing campaign launched on February 28. The US has since imposed its own naval blockade on Iranian ports.

In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump said the initiative – Project Freedom, which is set to begin on Monday – is aimed at helping countries that are “neutral and innocent bystanders” in the conflict.

“For the good of Iran, the Middle East, and the United States, we have told these countries that we will guide their ships safely out of these restricted waterways, so that they can freely and ably get on with their business,” Trump wrote.

The Wall Street Journal, citing a senior US official, described the initiative as a process through which countries, insurance companies, and shipping organizations can coordinate traffic through Hormuz. The official said it would not involve US warships escorting vessels.

Axios, also citing US officials, said US Navy ships would be “in the vicinity” in case they need to prevent Iran from attacking commercial vessels crossing the strait. The official added that the Navy would provide merchant ships with information about lanes that have not been mined by Iran.

Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the Iranian parliament’s national security commission, dismissed Trump’s “delusional posts,” saying any intervention in the strait would constitute a violation of the ceasefire.

Iranian media has released previously unseen footage showing the immediate aftermath of a strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab that killed at least 175 people, most of them children.

The Shajareh Tayyebeh school in southern Iran was hit on February 28 in the early days of the US-Israeli bombing campaign. The building was located near a naval base but separated from military facilities by a fence visible in satellite imagery.

A disturbing video shared by SNN TV on Sunday shows two frightened young girls in what appear to be dust-covered school uniforms. One girl has bloodstains on her face and headscarf. Several people are seen running toward a building engulfed in smoke.

A video taken immediately after the explosion at Shajareh Taybeh Minab School in Iran has emerged. pic.twitter.com/e07UMRS1e8

— 1880 News (@1880News) May 3, 2026

US President Donald Trump has denied that US forces were responsible. However, investigations by media outlets and analysts have concluded that the school was likely hit by a US-made missile, with evidence pointing to a Tomahawk strike.

Iran has described the strike as a war crime; the UN called it “a grave assault on children, on education, and on the future of an entire community.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged US President Donald Trump to carry out a regime change operation in Iran for many years, former US National Security Adviser John Bolton has told Afshin Rattansi, the host of New World.

West Jerusalem wanted Trump to launch an attack against Iran during his first presidential term and continued lobbying for it during his second term, Bolton said, who served as national security adviser from 2018 to 2019.

“I urged that our objective be regime change, so did Netanyahu,” he told Rattansi, explaining that “There is no change in what Trump has been hearing from” the Israeli prime minister over the years. He nevertheless denied that Trump’s decision to launch the attack in late February was influenced by Israel.

Bolton criticized the president for what he called the lack of a clear goal in his campaign against the Islamic Republic and said Trump failed to “make the case to the American people” about “why regime change in Iran is necessary” – despite being a “very compelling one.”

Watch the full interview here:

The Pentagon has ordered the withdrawal of approximately 5,000 troops from Germany, with US President Donald Trump warning that the pullout could only be the beginning.

The move comes amid a sharp divide between the Trump administration and European NATO members over the Iran war, Washington’s calls to increase defense spending, and a bitter aftertaste from the dispute over Greenland.

‘Cutting a lot further’

The withdrawal was announced on Friday, with the Pentagon signaling that the process would be over within the next six to 12 months. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said that the “decision follows a thorough review of the Department’s force posture in Europe and is in recognition of theater requirements and conditions on the ground.”

In addition, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz confirmed that the US dropped a Biden-era plan to deploy a US battalion with long-range Tomahawk missiles to Germany.

Germany is home to America’s largest military presence in Europe, currently hosting more than 36,000 active-duty US personnel. It is also home to critical training, logistics, and medical infrastructure, including Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest US military hospital abroad. In total, there are over 80,000 US troops in Europe, with many having been redeployed to the continent by the Biden administration after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

Iran war looms over the decision

The announcement came days after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz once again criticized the US-Israel war on Iran, saying that Washington “obviously has no strategy,” adding, referring to the US, that “an entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership.”

According to Reuters, the current transatlantic rift has also been exacerbated by Trump’s simmering anger over European pushback to his attempt to annex Greenland this winter.

US ‘schizophrenic’

According to an AP source, the US military was not been warned of the decision to pull troops from Germany and learned about it “in real time,” though the Pentagon disagreed, saying that the move “follows a comprehensive, multilayered process” with input from the European command and other top officials.

US lawmakers have also protested the withdrawal announcement, with Republican chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services committees saying they were “very concerned” by the drawdown.

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama urged the Pentagon to redeploy the troops eastward rather than send them home – to countries that “have made substantial investments to host US troops” on NATO’s front line – warning the decision risked “undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal” to Russia.

Military buildup as planned

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius played down the news, calling the drawdown “foreseeable.” The Defense Ministry spokesperson also said the development showed “we must strengthen the European pillar within NATO.”

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk was blunter, saying that the greatest threat to NATO is not its external enemies, but rather its “ongoing disintegration[...] We must all do what it takes to reverse this disastrous trend.”

Still, the overall trend of the US detachment from Europe barely comes as a shock, with European NATO members looking to ramp up military spending. The rearmament drive was partly driven by Trump himself, who pushed other NATO members to invest 5% of GDP annually in core defense and defense-related spending by 2035.

On top of that, the European Commission unveiled its Readiness 2030 plan, which aims to provide more than €800 billion ($938 billion) in defense spending across the EU. Germany alone has embarked on a historic military buildup, committing to spend more than €500 billion on defense by 2029.

Moscow has consistently rejected speculation that it could attack NATO as “nonsense,” suggesting that European nations are using “propaganda” to portray Russia as an enemy to mask its own crises.

NATO is holding closed-door consultations with TV and film industry professionals across Europe and the US, The Guardian reported on Sunday. The move has prompted accusations that the bloc is working to leverage the arts for “fear mongering” and “propaganda,” it added.

The military bloc has held three private meetings with directors, producers and screenwriters in Los Angeles, Brussels and Paris, and is planning to convene with members of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) in London next month, the newspaper wrote.

The upcoming meeting will be overseen by the British think tank Chatham House and will discuss the “evolving security situation in Europe and beyond,” according to the report. NATO cyber and innovation technology deputy head James Appathurai is expected to attend, among other officials, the newspaper added.

So far, the conversations have partly “inspired” at least “three separate projects,” The Guardian wrote, citing an internal WGGB e-mail.

“I think there’s fearmongering throughout Europe at the moment that our defenses are down,” he reportedly said, adding that he has seen a media and government push in Ireland “to present NATO in a positive light and align ourselves with them.”

Other screenwriters were “pretty offended that art would be used in a way that was supporting war” and believed they were being asked to “contribute towards propaganda for NATO,” he said, according to the newspaper.

The greatest threat the bloc currently faces emanates not from “external enemies,” but rather its “ongoing disintegration,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Saturday.

Several hundred people have taken part in an ‘Immortal Regiment’ march in Washington, commemorating those who fought for the Soviet Union in the Second World War, the Russian Embassy in DC has said.

The marches were first held in the Siberian city of Tomsk in 2012. In the past, WWII veterans had been honored guests at Victory Day parades commemorating Hitler’s defeat, but their numbers had dwindled, so local organizers came up with the idea of inviting their loved ones to march instead, holding their portraits. Since then, the idea has spread across Russia and to other nations.

The marches are traditionally held on May 9 in Russia, when the country celebrates Victory Day. In Washington, however, it was staged on Saturday, a week before the 81st anniversary of the end of the bloodiest conflict in history.

The demonstrators walked past the White House carrying portraits and red Victory Banners, and made their way towards the World War II Memorial on the National Mall, where they laid flowers, the embassy said in a statement.

The Russian diplomats thanked the organizers of the ‘Immortal Regiment’ march and all those who participated in what they described as an “important initiative, aimed at countering attempts to rewrite history and whitewash the Nazis and their collaborators, who are now being honored in some countries.”

Last year’s procession in the US capitol was marred by provocations from pro-Ukrainian activists. No incidents have been reported during the current event.

An ‘Immortal Regiment’ march also took place in New York City on Saturday, with several dozen people gathering outside the office of the Russian Permanent Mission to the UN.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has signed a contract with a private security firm to locate migrant children who arrived in the US without their parents, although the company is facing accusations of ‘torture,’ The Guardian has reported.

The agency, which is part of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), hired the Virginia-based company MVM in mid-April to assist with its expanding effort to track down minors who had been released into communities pending immigration court proceedings, the paper said in an article on Saturday.

A one-year deal was signed between ICE and the contractor, which provides detention and transport services to federal immigration agencies, it added.

MVM is currently being sued over the separation of two Guatemalan fathers from their respective children in 2017. The lawsuit, which had been filed in a California court two years ago, alleges “torture, enforced disappearance and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment” on the part of the company.

Its employees “physically took thousands of children away from their parents” before transporting them “using unmarked vehicles, commercial airlines, and makeshift detention centers,” the document read.

“The primary focus of this initiative is to conduct welfare checks on these children to ensure thaat they are safe and not being exploited or abused,” the spokesperson stressed.

The Guardian said that it had reviewed an internal ICE document last year, which suggested that it actually runs an operation aimed at deporting the children or pursuing criminal cases against them or the adults providing for them.

"Accusations that ICE is ‘targeting’ and arresting children are false and an attempt to demonize law enforcement,” the DHS spokesperson insisted.

Democratic lawmaker Delia Ramirez, who is of Guatemalan descent, has called upon Congress to monitor the arrangement between ICE and MVM.

Iran is seeking a decisive and permanent end to the conflict with the US, rather than a previously proposed two-month ceasefire, RT correspondent Saman Kojouri has reported from Tehran regarding a 14-point peace plan put forward by the Islamic Republic.  

Tehran has submitted a new peace proposal to Washington via Pakistani mediators in response to a US offer, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi confirmed on Saturday, adding that “the ball is in the US court.” 

RT’s Saman Kojouri said key provisions of the plan include guarantees against future attacks by Israel and the US, the lifting of sanctions, the withdrawal of American forces from areas surrounding Iran, and a new mechanism to govern the Strait of Hormuz. “The plan includes a demand to resolve all issues and end the war within 30 days,” says Kojouri, adding that “the space for compromise between Tehran and Washington is narrowing.” 

Watch the full report of by RT’s Saman Kojouri on the latest peace efforts to end the war in Iran:

Israel’s ultranationalist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir celebrated his 50th birthday this weekend, treating guests to slices of a cake featuring a noose. Attendees included several top law enforcement officials.

The cake was an apparent allusion to Ben Gvir’s advocacy for legislation that would introduce the death penalty for Palestinians found guilty of “terrorism.”

At the Saturday night celebration at Villa Space in Moshav Emunim in southern Israel, Ben Gvir’s wife, Ayala, presented him with a cake featuring a noose and the words: “Mazel tov to Minister Ben Gvir, sometimes dreams come true.”

Hamas celebrates killing Israelis.

Ben Gvir celebrates killing Palestinians.

Unless this stops, how will there ever be peace? https://t.co/kTxuMoaIdx

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 3, 2026

The celebration featured another tall birthday cake bearing the image of Israel, Ben Gvir’s portrait, two guns, and a golden noose.

ניצב בדימוס סיגל בר צבי, לשעבר ראש אגף המבצעים במשטרה, על חגיגות יום ההולדת של השר בן גביר בהשתתפות שוטרים רבים: "לא כזה נוח, זה אירוע די חריג. בין דרג ממונה שהוא פוליטי ובין המבצע צריך שיהיה מרחק שהדרג המבצע הוא יוכל לעשות את העבודה שלו באופן נקי ובלי השפעה זו סיטואציה בעייתית,… pic.twitter.com/IQoI79Vs2o

— 103FM (@radio103fm) May 3, 2026

The noose paraphernalia was an apparent allusion to the Death Penalty for Terrorists Law, which was passed by the Knesset in March by 62 votes to 47. The legislation mandates that Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks in military courts be sentenced to hanging — a provision that critics say effectively exempts Jewish Israelis.

Sentences are to be carried out within 90 days of the ruling, with no right of appeal. The sentence could be mitigated to life imprisonment only under some unspecified “special circumstances.”

The law has sparked international condemnation, with Germany, France, the UK, Italy, New Zealand, and Australia expressing “deep concern” over the legislation and urging Israel to abandon it. UN experts also warned that the new rule violates international law, contend that it “effectively singles out Palestinians for execution.”

The guest list stirred nearly as much controversy as the cakes. Senior commanders in attendance included Jerusalem District Commander Avshalom Peled, Judea and Samaria District Commander Moshe Pinchi, and Prison Service Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi. Cabinet ministers, including Defense Minister Israel Katz and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana were also present.

Police Commissioner Danny Levy permitted only the most senior command staff to attend, warning all lower-ranking officers to stay away. The directive came despite widespread fears that Ben Gvir could put pressure on law enforcement and undermine police independence.

Ben Gvir is known for his inflammatory views regarding Palestinians, and once boasted that he would do his best so that “the terrorists [in prison] receive the minimum of the minimum” in food. The minister has been sanctioned in the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain.

The Jewish community in the UK is facing its greatest threat, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Mark Rowley has said in the aftermath of a recent stabbing in London.

On Wednesday, two Jewish men were wounded in a knife attack by a British national of Somali origin in the city’s Golders Green area. The suspect, who was subsequently detained, had also attempted to kill his friend of 20 years the same day. Police say he has a history of serious violence and mental health issues.

In his interview with the Times on Saturday, Rowley said that “every racist or extremist or terrorist group has a list of people they hate, because they all create an ‘other’ who they want to blame everything on,” invoking a concept developed by 20th century French psychologist Jaques Lacan.

According to the police chief, the British Jews “are on everybody’s list, all of those hateful groups, whether you’re extreme right, whether you’re extreme left, whether you’re Islamist terrorist, whether you’re right-wing terrorist, and some hostile states as well now, with some sort of Iranian-related threats.”

“There’s a ghastly Venn diagram that they’re at the middle of,” he added.

The commissioner said he intends to recruit 300 more officers to protect the Jewish sites in London.

Following the Golders Green incident, the UK terrorism threat level was raised to “severe,” which means that an attack is “highly likely.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said earlier that the stabbing was “not a one-off” and that Jewish people in the UK are “scared to show who they are.” He vowed to do everything to “stamp this hatred out.”

The UK has seen an increase in anti-Semitic incidents since Israel began its military operation in the Gaza Strip in response to a deadly incursion by the Palestinian armed group Hamas on October 7, 2023.

Last month, a group of young men torched four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity in Golders Green, the same neighborhood where Wednesday’s stabbings occurred.

China has compared Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te to a “rat crossing the street” after he secretly boarded an Eswatini government aircraft and flew to the small southern African kingdom on an unannounced state visit.

The rebuke was issued by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office on Saturday, which lashed out at Lai over the visit, which Beijing views as a direct challenge to the one-China principle.

Lai’s visit had originally been scheduled for late April, but was called off at the last minute after the Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar revoked overflight permits for the Taiwanese leader’s charter aircraft – a move Taipei blamed on Chinese pressure.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office branded Lai a “troublemaker” and accused him of abandoning the island’s residents in the wake of a significant earthquake to fly to Eswatini.

“Lai Ching-te's despicable actions, like a rat crossing the street, will inevitably be ridiculed by the international community... Lai Ching-te’s disregard for the safety of the people and his wanton deception of the public will surely be spurned by the vast majority of Taiwanese compatriots. The so-called ‘diplomatic achievements’ that Lai Ching-te painstakingly fabricated are nothing but trickery and a laughing stock,” the body charged.

Lai pushed back, writing on X that Taiwan “will never be deterred by external pressures,” adding that the island “will continue to engage with the world – no matter the challenges faced.”

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council also hit back, branding Beijing’s rebuke “fishwife’s gutter talk” which it said was “boring in the extreme.”

China considers Taiwan a part of its sovereign territory. While Beijing has said it seeks peaceful reunification with the island, it signaled in 2022 that it “would not renounce the use of force” to accomplish this goal.

China’s Ministry of Commerce has instructed domestic companies not to comply with US sanctions targeting refiners allegedly linked to the Iranian oil trade.

Late last month, the US Treasury warned banks against dealing with so-called “teapot” refineries, privately owned companies which it said account for the majority of the oil China buys from Iran. “This revenue ultimately benefits the Iranian regime, its weapons programs, and its military,” the Treasury said in its notice.

China’s government and major state-owned companies have denied direct purchases of Iranian crude, while customs data have not recorded imports from Iran since 2023.

Beijing has argued that sanctions imposed without a UN mandate are illegal under international law. In a statement on Saturday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said the restrictions interfere with normal trade between its firms and third parties and banned compliance with the sanctions, citing “national sovereignty, security and development interests.”

A government spokesperson said the move would not affect China’s international obligations or its protection of foreign-invested firms.

Oil prices have surged since the US and Israeli attacked Iran in late February, prompting the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint handling about one-fifth of global oil and LNG flows.

While Iran has kept the vital waterway closed to “hostile ships,” the US Navy has maintained a blockade of Iranian ports in the Persian Gulf.

Despite a ceasefire declared nearly a month ago, prospects for a peace deal remain uncertain, as both sides have accused each other of pressing unacceptable terms. Oil prices surged past $120 per barrel this week for the first time since 2022.

The war has also pushed US President Donald Trump’s approval rating to record lows and deepened his rift with European allies, whose governments have refused to back operations against Iran.

Negotiations between Ukraine and Greece over the joint production of naval drones have stalled because Kiev wants to retain control over how Athens can use the technology, local media have reported.

According to Greek Reporter, the countries agreed last November that Ukraine would supply components for drones to be built at shipyards in Greece, while Greek companies would manufacture electronic and optical systems. The end result would have been an improved version of the Magura-type attack drones which Kiev uses against Russia.

The newspaper Kathimerini reported on Thursday, however, that Ukrainian officials had demanded that Kiev retain a say over how the Greek military would use the drones, a condition Athens rejected. Greece believes Ukraine set these terms to “maintain a balance” with its longtime rival Türkiye, the newspaper said.

Türkiye hosted Russian-Ukrainian peace talks in 2022 and 2025, presenting itself as a neutral mediator in the conflict.

Ankara also condemned Ukrainian attacks on Russian-linked tankers near the Turkish coast last year.

Tehran has submitted a comprehensive new peace plan, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said on Saturday, adding that “the ball is in the US court.”

Both the US and Iran have previously accused each other of putting forward unacceptable terms, as a ceasefire reached nearly a month ago has failed to produce an agreement.

Negotiations have been further complicated by the twin Iranian and US blockades of the Strait of Hormuz and the resumption of Israel’s bombing campaign in Lebanon.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has submitted its plan to Pakistan as the mediator with the aim of permanently ending the imposed war, and now the ball is in the US court to choose between a diplomatic solution or a continuation of the confrontational approach,” Gharibabadi said, as quoted by Press TV.

Iran is also reportedly seeking compensation from the US and a new framework for the Strait of Hormuz.

In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, US President Donald Trump said he would review the plan soon but added that he could not “imagine that it would be acceptable.” The president previously told journalists that he was “not satisfied” with Iran’s terms and threatened to “blast the hell out of them and finish them forever.”

The US has demanded that Iran completely abandon its nuclear program and surrender its enriched uranium stockpiles, a condition Tehran has flatly rejected, insisting that its nuclear program is for civilian use only.

While the prospects for a peace deal remain uncertain, oil prices surged past $120 per barrel this week for the first time since 2022.

Residents of the eastern German city of Schwedt have told the Ruptly video agency they fear being thrown back “to the 19th century” if oil supplies to the local refinery are disrupted. Their comments come after Russia announced it can no longer deliver oil from Kazakhstan directly to Germany via the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline.

The PCK refinery in Schwedt supplies around 90% of the fuel to Berlin, as well as to the state of Brandenburg. The plant previously relied on Russian oil via Druzhba but switched to Kazakh supplies in 2023 after Berlin banned Russian pipeline imports.

Last week, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak announced a halt to Kazakh oil transit via Druzhba starting May 1, citing a lack of “technical capacity.”

“If the lights go out at PCK, the city dies,” a Schwedt resident told Ruptly. “We do not want to go back to the 19th century.” Another resident warned that a fuel price hike if the flow stopped could even spark “unrest.”

Transporting oil by sea would mean the plant would have to operate at 65% to 70% capacity, the refinery’s council member, Danny Ruthenburg, told German broadcaster ARD, citing limited infrastructure at the port of Rostock. “That would mean we would have to shut down individual production lines, which would inevitably lead to staff reductions,” he said.

Kazakh Energy Minister Yerlan Akkenzhenov linked the changes to continued Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory. “That is most likely connected to the recent strikes on Russian infrastructure,” he said on the sidelines of an ecology forum in Astana.

The Ukrainian military has repeatedly targeted critical Russian infrastructure using drones, including oil refineries and transit hubs. Last month, it struck a hub operated by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) in the Russian port of Novorossiysk, which is used to transport Kazakh oil to Europe and Asia.

The son of two senior Norwegian diplomats under investigation over ties to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has taken his own life, Norwegian newspaper VG reported earlier this week, citing lawyers for the family.

Edward Juul Rod-Larsen, 25, was found dead in Oslo days after French and Norwegian police reportedly launched a joint investigation into his parents, Mona Juul and Terje Rod-Larsen. The probe is centered around allegations that the disgraced US financier had helped the couple purchase an apartment, and left $5 million to each of their two children in his will.

The probe is part of widening international fallout from the latest release of millions of Epstein documents, which have triggered criminal investigations, arrests, and resignations across politics, business, and even royalty.

Epstein, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting sex from a minor and served 13 months of an 18-month sentence, was arrested again in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges. He died by suicide in his jail cell ahead of his trial.

The US Department of Justice has gradually released materials related to the case under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed into law by US President Donald Trump.

The released documents mention numerous high-profile figures, linking some to Epstein’s network or questionable financial dealings. The disclosures have triggered resignations, probes, and reviews worldwide, with many acknowledging contact but denying wrongdoing, with some charges brought in a limited number of cases.

In the US, the release has placed renewed scrutiny on former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Both have been deposed about their associations with Epstein, but have denied knowledge of his trafficking operation.

Commenting on the disclosures, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described the scandal as exposing the “pure Satanism” at the heart of the collective West, accusing Western elites of inventing threats from Russia to distract from their own “monstrous crimes.”

Kiev has no plans to punish the perpetrators of the Odessa massacre, with Moscow’s victory in the Ukraine conflict being the only way to assure justice for its dozens of victims, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said on the 12th anniversary of the tragedy.

On May 2, 2014, clashes erupted in the Black Sea port city of Odessa between Ukrainian nationalists and the opponents of the violent Western-backed coup that had taken place in Kiev earlier that year.

The unrest culminated in ultra-right militants setting fire to the local trade unions building, which anti-government activists had been chased into following a demonstration outside, leading to 48 people being killed and more than 200 others wounded.

In a statement published on the Foreign Ministry’s Telegram channel on Saturday, Zakharova said that photos and videos from the scene prove that what happened in Odessa was “a Nazi intimidation action.”

Attempts by some in the West to present it as a spontaneous altercation between two groups of peaceful demonstrators with polarizing views on Ukraine’s future are hypocritical, she stressed.

Kiev repeatedly promised to complete the investigation into the tragedy, but it apparently “has no time for justice,” she argued. The very word has “turned into an oxymoron considering... the lawlessness and rampant corruption in modern Ukraine,” she added.

However, despite this fact, the foreign backers continue to provide military and financial support to the government of Vladimir Zelensky, Zakharova said.

”It's clear that in modern Europe, encouraging Nazism and financing terrorism has become a tradition,” she insisted.

The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that “the successful implementation of the goals and objectives” that Russia set for itself in the Ukraine conflict “will guarantee justice for the victims of the monstrous crime,” the spokeswoman stressed.

There will be much talk this May about the so-called “strategic triangle” of Russia, China and the United States.

US President Donald Trump is expected in Beijing first, followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Whenever the leaders of the three most influential powers meet, speculation inevitably follows. What if they strike some grand bargain? What if the world suddenly becomes more orderly?

Such expectations are misplaced. The restructuring of the global system is already under way, and it isn’t a process that can be halted or reversed by summit diplomacy. Even so, turning points in history can unfold in different ways; carefully managed, or recklessly accelerated. That’s what makes the coming meetings significant.

Both Russia and the United States are now deeply involved in large-scale military confrontations. The importance of these conflicts lies not only in their scope, but in their broader consequences for the international system. China, by contrast, has historically kept its distance from such entanglements. Yet it is becoming increasingly clear in Beijing that it can’t remain insulated from their effects. Discussions at the recent Valdai Club conference in Shanghai suggested that China is reassessing its position.

At the center of this reassessment is a simple question: what, if anything, is still possible in relations with Washington?

That assumption has now collapsed.

By the late 2000s, dissatisfaction in Washington was already evident. The United States increasingly viewed the arrangement not as a source of shared gains, but as a structural imbalance. Over time, the accumulation of tensions, economic and strategic, reached a point where incremental adjustments were no longer sufficient. What followed was a qualitative shift in the system itself.

For several decades, the global order operated largely in the interests of the United States as the leader of the Western bloc. Its gradual erosion now threatens those advantages. Washington’s response has been to use the current period of transition to secure as much of a head start as possible for the future.

Donald Trump has become the most visible embodiment of this approach. His rhetoric, openly transactional and even boastful, may appear unconventional, but the underlying logic predates him. The objective is clear: maximize immediate gains and build up national capacity as quickly as possible. Then use that accumulated strength to dominate the next phase of global competition.

This represents a sharp departure from the earlier American strategy, which prioritized long-term investments in the international system. Those investments didn’t always produce immediate returns, but they reinforced a framework that ultimately benefited the United States more than anyone else. Today, the emphasis has shifted toward short-term advantage, even at the risk of longer-term instability.

For other major powers, including China, this has profound implications. The idea of a comprehensive “big deal” with the United States, one that stabilizes the global system for years to come, has effectively become unrealistic.

Trump’s frequent use of the word “deal” is revealing. In his vocabulary, it’s more than a mere strategic concept but a commercial one. A deal is “big” not because it is durable or all-encompassing, but because of the scale of immediate gain it delivers. And like any commercial transaction, it can be abandoned if a more desirable opportunity presents itself.

Under such conditions, long-term agreements on the structure of world order are impossible. Washington is unlikely to commit to any arrangement that limits its flexibility before it has secured what it considers a sufficient advantage.

This is not necessarily a product of malice or arrogance. It is, in its own way, a rational response to a period of extreme uncertainty. The United States is seeking to preserve the foundations of its future dominance by acting decisively in the present.

If key players conclude that stable agreements with Washington are unattainable, their behavior changes. Military capability becomes more important as a safeguard against pressure. At the same time, interest grows in alternative forms of cooperation. That is, frameworks that operate independently of the United States and are insulated from its influence.

This logic isn’t new, but it’s gaining urgency. Russia has been advocating for such arrangements for several years. China, by contrast, has approached the idea with caution, hoping instead to preserve some form of mutually beneficial relationship with the United States. That hope now appears to be fading.

The upcoming visits to Beijing will provide a useful indication of how far this shift has progressed.

The meeting between Trump and Xi will likely define the limits of a temporary accommodation between two powers that remain economically intertwined, yet increasingly distrustful of one another. The question is no longer whether a comprehensive agreement is possible, but what narrow, short-term arrangements can be reached, and how long they will last.

Putin’s subsequent talks with Xi will address a different issue: the extent to which Russia and China are prepared to develop mechanisms of cooperation that bypass the United States altogether. Moscow has been moving in this direction for some time. Beijing now appears to be considering whether it must follow.

May will not produce a grand bargain. But it may show, more clearly than before, how the world is adjusting to the absence of one.

The Pentagon has said that it has reached deals with major artificial intelligence firms to integrate their advanced AI capabilities into the agency's classified networks.

The US Department of War has been actively negotiating with the industry’s leaders since the start of the year as it is trying to expand the application of AI in military operations and diversify the range of companies that provide the technology.

It is going ahead with the push despite concerns among experts regarding the ability of the AI to reliably operate within the existing laws of war and its possible use to invade the privacy of civilians in peacetime.

Agreements have been struck with SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, NVIDIA, Reflection, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and Oracle to deploy their AI systems for “lawful operational use,” the Pentagon said in a statement on Friday.

Artificial intelligence will be integrated into the Department of War’s Impact Level 6 and Impact Level 7 networks to “streamline data synthesis, elevate situational understanding, and augment warfighter decision-making in complex operational environments,” the statement read.

Separately, the US Navy has awarded San Francisco-based AI company Domino Data Lab a $100 million contract to aid in combating Iranian mines in the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively blocked since the early days of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

“The Navy is paying for the platform that lets it train, govern, and field that AI at a speed required for contested waters,” Domino CEO Thomas Robinson told Reuters in an interview on Friday. Washington is betting on the speed of AI in analyzing a wealth of data from multiple sensor types to rapidly improve mine detection in US underwater drones, the outlet said.

The Department of War responded by designated Anthropic a “supply-chain risk,” a rare label typically reserved for entities linked to Washington’s foreign adversaries, effectively sidelining the firm from any future contracts.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth branded Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei an “ideological lunatic” during a US Senate hearing earlier this week. Hegseth compared the company’s reluctance to agree to Pentagon’s terms to “Boeing giving us airplanes and telling us who we can shoot at.”

Anthropic is currently challenging the Pentagon in court to have the “supply-chain risk” label dropped.

German schoolmasters of an earlier dispensation indulged the cruel sport of asking pupils in final examinations which disease had carried off Julius Caesar. The trap was designed to expose as a fool the candidate who could not answer, proof enough that Caesar’s assassination remained common knowledge long after antiquity itself had vanished.

In the postmodern age of unbounded electronic warfare, extrajudicial killing has assumed a more sinister, revolutionary form: not a mere relapse into barbarism, but a novel, mutant paradigm of violence that exceeds even the egregious transgressions of pagan antiquity.

Ex ante execution: The grammar of a novel transgression

There are pivotal moments in geopolitics when language itself begins to signal a deeper rupture. Israel’s lethal rhetoric emerges as a revealing instance.

Along a fatal arc of escalation, the Jewish State has crossed from killing subordinate commanders to eliminating the very apex of its adversaries’ leadership – first in Lebanon, then in Gaza, and ultimately in Iran, where sovereignty was reduced to a target and the supreme leader to a mark.

More ominous still are the announcements: Jerusalem has signaled that succession itself would not be spared, that even those yet unchosen are already slated for death.

A declaration that a state will kill not merely its enemies, but its enemies-to-be, that is, future officeholders not yet chosen, not yet acting, not yet accountable, inaugurates a moment of disjunction in the form of a stark conceptual shift: from targeting individuals to targeting roles, and the very idea of succession.

At its core, Israel’s posture can be characterized as a doctrine of pre-emptive or anticipatory assassination: Whoever becomes the next leader is treated as a legitimate target, regardless of his identity or individual conduct.

Yet the novelty of what may be termed “expectant extrajudicial elite execution” (EEEE) lies not in the removal of senior decision-makers as such, but in the extension of that logic forward in time, rendering the future occupant of the supreme office a present target.

This is where the standard security frameworks start to fray. Because once the threat applies not to a person but to a position, it becomes something more radical: anonymous role-based targeting.

In the case of such proleptic condemnation, violence is no longer justified by what a concrete individual has done, but by what future helmsmen are presumed to become. It is an institutionalized policy of unconstrained assassination and collective punishment transposed to leadership in the abstract, because the threat attaches not to a specific actor, but to the office itself.

From a legal standpoint, especially under human-rights law, such a posture can be categorized as an especially grave form of state-sponsored terrorism, precisely because such extrajudicial killing not only bypasses due process, but also severs punishment from individual culpability.

Supporters, however, invoke a different vocabulary, reducing such depersonalized, role-based assassination to mere deterrence signaling or psychological warfare: an attempt to make supreme authority so hazardous that no aspirant of ordinary prudence would accept it.

On this account, the strategic logic of elite deterrence seeks to magnify the hazards of political ascendancy to the point where succession itself becomes unstable. If holding an office carries an implicit death sentence, potential successors may simply refuse to assume power, and, ultimately, governance may wither.

Even those intrepid enough to accept the targeted office are thought to be diminished: forced into concealment, deprived of personal contact, and unable to project the charismatic presence on which power and influence often depends. Leadership then becomes spectral – formally present, yet politically half-absent – until followers may begin to wonder whether a leader exists at all.

Yet alongside these intended effects lie significant risks, especially if organizations replenish leadership faster and more adeptly than expected: Martyrdom may harden resolve, and successors may prove more formidable and radical than those they replace.

What appears in theory as a sequence of clean decapitations may, in practice, yield a hydra-like reality: like the mythic monster whose severed necks gave rise to new heads, each slain commander may generate successors more numerous, more elusive, and more lethally adept than the one removed.

Classical tyrannicide: The person, not the placeholder

Athens could dedicate an altar to the “unknown god”; it did not designate unknown tyrants for death.

Even before the advent of Christian moral thought, Greek and Roman debates on tyrannicide remained tethered to the person of the ruler, whose conduct, however contentiously judged, furnished the grounds for punitive action.

Judgment turned on imputed deeds, not on the office itself. The verdict was often disputed and divisive, yet still anchored in what the ruler had allegedly done and whether it warranted death.

What is at issue now is the radicalization of that logic: The future holder of an office, as yet unknown, is condemned in advance, irrespective of act or accountability. Such a paradigmatic leap, from striking down a tyrant to pre-emptively threatening any successor, would have strained even the comparatively permissive moral horizons of pagan antiquity.

The doctrine of tyrannicide has its roots in classical antiquity, where it was construed, however controversially, as a defense of the political community against unlawful rule.

In the Greek world, the killing of Hipparchus by Harmodius and Aristogeiton in 514 BC in Athens during the Panathenaea – the city’s sacred festival of Athena – was canonically enshrined as the founding myth of tyrannicide.

The conspirators’ violent deed came to be hallowed as an act of civic virtue, even as philosophers continued to dispute its moral warrant.

Plato’s Socrates warned that injustice must not be answered by injury, nor the city’s laws overthrown by private violence. Aristotle, less intent on moralizing tyrannicide than on diagnosing tyranny’s self-destruction, observed that the tyrant summons the very conspiracies that undo him, as his unjust treatment of his subjects breeds fear, contempt, anger, hatred, and revenge.

In truth, the deed that immortalized Harmodius and Aristogeiton belonged less to the assembly-ground of politics than to the theatre of passion.

As Thucydides stresses in the History of the Peloponnesian War (6.53–59), the joint deed sprang from private grievance rather than public principle; though premeditated, it was carried out in panic, and claimed not the ruling tyrant, Hippias, but his brother, Hipparchus.

Only later was this act of personal vengeance transfigured into a noble but deceptive legend. The narrative recast an impulsive killing as the iconic archetype of conscientious tyrant-slaying, thereby sanctifying an ignoble deed that sprung from private affront rather than public cause.

As an early illustration of extrajudicial killing’s perverse effects, this pseudo-tyrannicide neither ended the tyranny nor liberated Athens; it merely hardened the regime: Fear drove Hippias to intensify repression by putting many citizens to death.

Murder and memory: From the Peisistratids to the Ides of March

Taken together, the very genealogy of tyrannicide, corrupt before it became canonical, is tainted at the source: disreputable in motive, impious in setting, disastrous in consequence, and mendacious in memory.

Within the economy of the posthumous discourse, the exculpatory and legitimating myth functions as a stark foil, supplying the positive pole of a Manichaean opposition. This interpretive emplotment is ideologically useful precisely because it suppresses ambiguity, turning a muddled act of private violence into a metanarrative morality play of liberty against tyranny. For latter-day liberals in decadent Western circles, the erotic bond between Harmodius and Aristogeiton only deepens the aura of civic sanctity woven around the celebrated Tyrannicides.

Against this morally entangled backdrop, Thucydides’ nuanced judgment is all the more striking: The Peisistratid tyranny, he observes, was marked by unusual moderation: It taxed lightly – at a mere five percent, a rate that would make many modern taxpayers wistful – adorned Athens, secured its defense, endowed the temples, and otherwise left the city’s established laws largely intact, save for the dynastic precaution that a member of the Peisistratid family should always hold office.

Posterity schooled in the Whig myth of liberty smiled more readily on the Alcmaeonids, the rival aristocratic house, because democracy claimed them as ancestors.

Yet the record is less moral than memorial, for the Peisistratids were tyrants with achievements, while the Alcmaeonids were retrospectively anointed liberators with a stain: the old Cylonian sacrilege and curse, that is, the miasmatic slaughter of suppliants under the divine protection of Athena after Cylon’s abortive coup, an affair conventionally, though not securely, dated to 632 BC.

From Athens, the historical arc bent next to Rome, where political killing widened from the personal tyrant-slayer’s blow to the bureaucratic terror of proscription and, ultimately, to the most famous assassination of antiquity: the killing of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BC.

The death of the dictator perpetuo remains so deeply lodged in cultural memory that German schoolmasters of a bygone age, formed in the venerable humanist tradition, forged ignorance of it into a badge of intellectual disgrace, taking for granted that every pupil – save the irredeemably obtuse – knew Caesar had not died of disease.

[To be continued]

US President Donald Trump has said he would consider withdrawing some American troops stationed in Italy and Spain, after making a similar threat toward Germany amid a deepening rift with Washington’s European allies over the war with Iran.

Trump threatened earlier this week to reduce the number of US troops in Germany, continuing to deride NATO as a “paper tiger” following the refusal of other member states to back the US-Israeli bombing campaign in the Middle East. On Friday, the Pentagon said it would withdraw around 5,000 of the roughly 36,000 active-duty service members from Germany.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the US decision was “to be expected.” He maintained that intensive military cooperation between the two nations would continue, adding that the continued US military presence on German soil “is in our interest.” The minister also urged European NATO members to “assume greater responsibility” and said that Berlin was “on the right track” by seeking to enlarge its army and procure more weapons.

Asked by a reporter in the Oval Office on Friday whether he would consider removing troops from Spain or Italy, Trump replied: “Yeah, probably. Look, why shouldn’t I?”

Spain denied the use of a naval base near Cadiz for attacks on Iran and closed its airspace to US planes involved in the campaign. Italy similarly refused to allow the US to use an air base in Sicily.

Trump reiterated that he considers NATO ungrateful for US military support to Ukraine. “We helped them with Ukraine. You know, they made a mess out of Ukraine, a total mess,” he said.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has strongly criticized the bombing of Iran. “From my point of view, this war is illegal, it is a big mistake,” he said last month. In a recent op-ed in Le Monde diplomatique, Sanchez again condemned “the unilateral attempts by the United States to engineer regime change in Venezuela and now Iran – all without seeking even a veneer of international approval.”

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said the war with Iran has added to instability in the Middle East and driven up energy prices. She also criticized Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo XIV over his opposition to the conflict as “unacceptable.”

US President Donald Trump has joked that American forces are behaving like pirates as he boasted about the capture of tankers and cargo ships attempting to breach the blockade of Iranian ports.

Oil prices surged past $120 a barrel this week for the first time since 2022, while Trump’s approval rating fell to 34%, a record low in Reuters/Ipsos polling.

Speaking at the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches dinner in Florida on Friday, Trump recalled how a destroyer fired at the Iranian-flagged cargo vessel Touska near the Strait of Hormuz on April 19 before it was boarded by US Marines.

“We took over the ship. We took over the cargo, took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business. Who would have thought we were doing that? We’re like pirates. We’re sort of like pirates,” Trump said, prompting laughter in the audience.

Trump on US Navy Seizing Ships:

It’s a very profitable business. We’re like pirates. pic.twitter.com/erWDQmJWnw

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 2, 2026

Iran has condemned the seizure as illegal, with a government source telling Press TV this week that US “piracy and banditry” would be met with an “unprecedented” response.

Trump said on Friday that he was “not satisfied” with Iran’s latest peace proposal and hailed the blockade as “incredible.”

An RT crew has filmed an airstrike in southern Lebanon as the Israeli military continued to pound targets despite a ceasefire declared last month.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck the town of Habboush on Friday, killing six people, including a woman and a child, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

“This comes just one day after Israel killed eight civilians in south Lebanon. Four of them were women, and two of them were children. All of this is happening during the ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel,” RT’s Ali Rida Sbeity said, reporting from Lebanon’s Tyre District.

Sbeity said IDF aircraft and drones were flying at low altitude, and an airstrike was carried out near the area where he was reporting. Israel has previously issued evacuation orders for 24 villages in the area.

IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said on Wednesday that there was “no ceasefire” with the armed group Hezbollah despite the US-mediated truce between Israel and Lebanon which was reached on April 16.

Under the agreement, Israel promised to halt offensive operations in Lebanon but reserved the right to defend itself against “planned, imminent, or ongoing attacks.”

Hezbollah, which boycotted the negotiations last month, has demanded that the IDF halt all troop movements and return to positions it held before early March, when it began firing rockets at Israel in support of Iran.

An Israeli soldier was killed and three others were wounded in a Hezbollah drone attack in southern Lebanon on Thursday.

The US has warned several European countries, including the UK, Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia, to expect delays in deliveries of American-made weapons because the war with Iran has depleted stockpiles, the Financial Times reported late on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The reported move comes as US President Donald Trump has become increasingly critical of NATO for refusing to back the American-Israeli war with Iran.

The UK, Poland, and the Baltic states have been among the most vocal supporters of Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.

Poland and the Baltic states also rely on foreign military aid as part of what they describe as efforts to strengthen the bloc’s eastern flank. Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, has said that his country would not attack a NATO member unless it is attacked first.

Trump has lashed out at European leaders, including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, for criticizing his war effort and refusing to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“We got no help – zero! – from NATO. You know, we spent trillions of dollars on NATO – we got no help. We didn’t need it, but we got none,” Trump said in a speech in The Villages, Florida, on Friday. He went on to describe NATO as a “paper tiger,” and dismissed claims that the US was not winning the war with Iran as “treasonous.”

Russian journalist Vladimir Solovyov has accused Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of betraying the interests of her own voters by following the EU line on Ukraine and Russia in an interview with Il Fatto Quotidiano published on Wednesday.

“I don’t have any problem with Signora Meloni,” Solovyov said. “Italian people, they have problem with Signora Meloni. Donald Trump, he has problems with Signora Meloni.”

The TV host claimed Meloni had “changed her position on Russia and Ukraine completely” after winning the election. He argued that Rome’s current policy has hurt Italian businesses, tourism, and consumers.

“What’s in the best interest of Italian people?” Solovyov asked, pointing to “high oil prices,” a “bad economic situation,” and the loss of Russian markets and tourism. “Is it worth it?”

He also questioned whether Italy remains “the Italy of Berlusconi” or has become “the Italy of immigrants” who “don’t respect your culture, your history, your language,” asking whether this is “the right price to pay for European Nazi solidarity.”

The interview followed Solovyov’s sharp criticism of Meloni on his show earlier in April. His remarks prompted a strong response in Rome, where Italy’s Foreign Ministry summoned Russian Ambassador Aleksey Paramonov to lodge a formal protest, describing the comments as “extremely serious and offensive.” Paramonov, in turn, called the move unusual, stressing that Solovyov was speaking in a personal capacity and does not represent official Russian policy.

Watch the full interview here:

The US-Israeli war on Iran has already been “terminated,” and the Trump administration believes it does not need an extension from Congress to continue the fighting, the Associated Press has reported, citing sources.

The report comes as a deadline mandated by the 1973 War Powers Act rapidly approaches. The legislation limits any military action launched by the president without congressional authorization to 60 days. 

The White House insists that, for the purposes of the law, “the hostilities that began on Saturday, February 28, have terminated,” an unnamed senior administration official told AP on Friday. Tehran and Washington reached a two-week ceasefire on April 7, with the truce extended indefinitely since then.

The assessment echoes the stance voiced by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth during hearings in the Senate on Thursday. The Pentagon chief said the conflict has been “paused” since the ceasefire was implemented, arguing that in the administration’s “understanding” the 60-day period was on hold as well.

That unorthodox view of the 1973 legislation, however, has been backed by some experts. Richard Goldberg, a former official with the National Security Council during Trump’s first term and current senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington-based think tank, claimed the interpretation was viable.

Launching a new operation later would help to circumvent the congressional approval requirement, Goldberg claimed, stating that the move “solves it all” in his opinion. A new attack on Iran “would inherently be a mission of self-defense focused on reopening the strait while reserving the right to offensive action in support of restoring freedom of navigation,” he suggested. 

Since the ceasefire was announced, Washington has been pouring additional troops and hardware into the Middle East, prompting widespread concern that the truce is only a pause prior to the renewal of the hostilities. Three aircraft carrier strike groups, as well as multiple marine expeditionary groups, are currently active in the region, with some of the units enforcing Trump’s naval blockade of Iran, and others appearing to be on standby.

US President Donald Trump has announced 25% tariffs on EU-made cars and trucks, accusing the bloc of breaching a trade deal reached last summer but yet to be fully ratified by EU lawmakers.

The move constitutes a 10% hike from current 15% levies on the automotive industry. Announcing the decision, Trump urged European car makers to move their manufacturing to the US, saying that such cars would not be subjected to increased tariffs.  

“I am pleased to announce that, based on the fact the European Union is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal, next week I will be increasing Tariffs charged to the European Union for Cars and Trucks coming into the United States. The Tariff will be increased to 25%,” Trump wrote on his TruthSocial platform.

While the deal between the US and the EU was agreed last July following a brief trade war, it ended up left in the bloc’s bureaucratic limbo. The EU Parliament voted at the end of March to advance the agreement, having twice delayed it before. However, the deal has not yet been fully ratified by the process known as the “trilogue.” To be fully implemented, the agreement must be approved not only by the legislature, but also by the EU Commission and the council of EU leaders.

Trump’s announcement prompted an immediate reaction in the EU, with the Parliament’s international trade committee head, Bernd Lange, lamenting Washington’s untrustworthiness and mulling retaliation.  

“This is no way to treat close partners. Now we can only respond with the utmost clarity and firmness, drawing on the strength of our position,” Lange stated without providing any insights on potential countermeasures.

The Berlin youth wing of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) has suggested abolishing marriage in Germany in favor of cohabiting partnerships.

At present, marriage enjoys constitutional protection under Article 6 of the Basic Law.

The motion titled ‘Down with the patriarchy, even if it feels romantic’ was presented late last month ahead of a conference of the SPD’s Berlin branch scheduled for May 8 to May 9. According to the Berlin Young Socialists (Jusos), marriage is a key institution of patriarchy that secures the “oppression of women by cis-men” and “restricts freedom and self-determination through its claim to permanence.”

“Marriage serves the chauvinistic, capitalist nation-state as an instrument for enforcing misogynistic, anti-queer, classist, and racist policies,” the proposal argues.

In order to establish a so-called “community of responsibility,” individuals would merely need to file a joint written application at the registry office, with the union considered valid upon submission. Exit from such a partnership could be effected through a written request at any time, “without the consent of others,” the Jusos proposed.

According to German media, the motion will likely not be discussed at the upcoming state party conference but rather postponed until 2027.

Meanwhile, a YouGov poll last month indicated that only 13% of respondents would vote for the SPD in a hypothetical election – the Social Democrats’ worst showing since December 2019.

By contrast, the opposition right-wing Alternative for Germany party (AfD), which campaigns on family values, among other points, has seen its popularity rising tangibly over the past year.

A Bild/INSA survey suggested last week that the AfD would win a hypothetical election with 28% of the vote – a new record high for the party.

An open neo-Nazi associated with the notorious Azov regiment, Yan ‘MacGregor’ Klishayev, has been spotted among a group of 15 Ukrainian veterans enrolled in a new leadership program at Yale University.

The meet-and-greet photo surfaced online on Thursday, showing Klishayev among the veterans posing alongside Timothy Snyder, Professor of History and Global Affairs. The militant has been long associated with the notorious neo-Nazi Azov regiment, which has been rebranded as the 3rd Assault Brigade after suffering a crushing defeat from the Russian military during the battle of Mariupol early in the Ukraine conflict.

Today Prof. Timothy Snyder welcomed a group of 🇺🇦veterans to Yale University.

Among them was neo-Nazi Yan "Macgregor" Klishaiev from the Third Assault Brigade (rooted in the Azov movement).

I have some questions:

🟥Why didn’t Yan wear his favorite Wolfsangel T-shirt — that… pic.twitter.com/mBXSxMOGo1

— Marta Havryshko (@HavryshkoMarta) April 29, 2026

The leadership program for Ukrainian veterans at Yale was announced last week by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, a charity set up by one of the wealthiest Ukrainian oligarchs. Pinchuk is known for actively supporting Kiev’s war effort, having supplied the country’s military with drones and other equipment.

The Pinchuk Foundation said the program was “aimed at developing leadership potential through access to world-class educational practices,” and the first group of 15 veterans is set to participate in the “pilot phase” of the project and receive “intensive training” in the US.

Kiev has long been in denial that it has any issues with the rise of neo-Nazi groups in the country, dismissing such assertions as “Russian propaganda.” Mounting evidence, however, shows otherwise, with individuals displaying neo-Nazi symbols and tattoos repeatedly making it into official propaganda materials featuring Ukraine’s leader, Vladimir Zelensky. The need to “denazify” Ukraine has been named by Moscow as one of its goals in the military operation against the country, and it has repeatedly reiterated its commitment to that objective.

Sovereignty, as defined in international law, is both crucial and complex. In the real shark-pool world of geopolitics, it is not hard to spot: if you have the ability to rule at home and resist attack from outside (any outside), then you are sovereign. Otherwise not. No exceptions.

That’s why Iran has sovereignty, but Germany does not. Iran has withstood two months of a devious and brutal war of aggression waged by the US and Israel, which in turn is “merely” the culmination of decades of assaults levied via economic warfare, assassination campaigns, and subversion.

However, Iran has not only successfully foiled the current Israeli-American blitzkrieg-and-regime-change scenario, but also put the attackers on the backfoot. Tehran’s achievement is already historic. It has changed and will change the course of history.

Germany, by contrast, cannot even defend its own vital infrastructure, as the Nord Stream sabotage and its aftermath have demonstrated. What is even worse, its governments have had no will to do so. On the contrary, they have been rewarding the Ukrainian attackers with untold billions to feed Kiev’s ultra-corruption. Their backers – certainly including the US and Poland, and most likely Great Britain, too – need not worry about any trouble from Berlin either.

Case closed: Iran is sovereign, Germany is not. If you are German and find this uncomfortable, complain to Berlin.

Against this backdrop, it is oddly fitting that it is Iran which is now exerting a powerful influence on German politics despite not having any deliberate designs to do so, whereas German calls on Tehran (or, for that matter, Moscow or Beijing) to do this and leave that – as articulated by Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul with an almost comical lack of self-awareness – come across as embarrassing: sad spectacles of an impotence that doesn’t even know itself.

Iran, on the other hand, has now had a palpable impact on what unfortunately remains Germany’s single most important foreign-policy relationship. Indeed, as the current, post-1990 “unification” (really, expansion, and that’s still a polite term) Germany is really the old Cold War West Germany writ large (and going to seeds, too), the relationship with the US is more than just important. Historically, it was literally foundational.

But it is over Iran that things have now come to a head: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has openly criticized Washington’s conduct of the war, and US President Donald Trump has launched one of his social media rampages, going after Merz and Germany with, as Secretary of War (Crimes) Pete Hegseth would put it, “no quarter” given.

Trump has even threatened, in effect, to withdraw the almost 40,000 US troops from Germany. It would be stupid and self-damaging for the US to do so, but then, this is the Trump administration. Full disclosure: As a German, I hope they go ahead.

Trump has also told Merz off for wanting Iran to have a nuclear weapon (false on two counts: Iran isn’t building one, and Merz is a compliant client leader who would never dare dissent from the US and Israel) and for being bad at running Germany, which must rankle, because most Germans agree. Merz has just earned himself the worst poll ratings of any German chancellor ever.

He has made things even worse – yes, Merz can do that – by releasing an exceedingly masochistically timed interview to complain that, in essence, no one likes him. True, but saying so has only triggered a national tsunami of mockery: now he is not only vastly unpopular but derided as a wimp, who loves to dish out harsh admonishments and mean austerity but can’t take the response.

All of this because Merz was making remarks about the Iran War. But make no mistake: Friedrich Merz, still infamous for applauding Israeli “dirty work” (“Drecksarbeit”) in Iran last summer, has not discovered a conscience. Listen attentively to his recent statements, made before a group of high school kids, and you realize, the chancellor’s real beef with America is that Washington hasn’t done its current “dirty work” quickly and, above all, successfully. No one loves a loser, not even, it turns out, Friedrich Merz, whose prior obsequiousness toward Trump had raised eyebrows even in Germany.

Yet whatever Merz’s sordid motives, take a step back and look at this picture from the point of view of history-in-the-making: Here is the German chancellor, who claims to be ready to make his country lead Europe (yes, not a great idea, but let that pass for now), whose government is presiding over the greatest German debt-and-armament splurge since World War Two (and that against a background of profound economic crisis), and he is stumbling over Iran. So much for the rise of multipolarity and the decline of Europe.

Not because that was Tehran’s aim. As a matter of fact, the Iranian leadership probably has very little time to think about Berlin – except noting for the future that, in practical terms, it is serving as a loyal accomplice in the American-Israeli war of aggression. No, the reason Iran now impacts and shakes the American-German relationship is that Tehran has been defeating the US, and so the client state Germany is registering the public “humiliation” of America (Merz’s term) by showing immediate signs of faltering compliance.

Who in this picture is reshaping things? And who is being shaped? Here’s another way to define sovereignty. And Germany still loses.

A shell company backed by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump has agreed to a merger with a mining group that secured up to $1.6 billion from the US government in 2025 to facilitate the extraction of tungsten in Kazakhstan, the Financial Times has reported.

The agreement between Skyline Builders group, in which US President Donald Trump’s sons hold a stake, and Cove Kaz Capital group was signed on Thursday. The newly-formed entity will trade on Nasdaq as Kaz Resources, according to a statement.

Cove Kaz currently controls 70% of the Northern Katpar and Upper Kairakty tungsten deposits in central Kazakhstan, believed to be one of the largest in the world. Last year, the federally-funded US Export-Import Bank and the Development Finance Corporation committed to invest heavily in the development of both projects.

The statement didn’t mention Trump’s sons, but the FT reported on Friday, citing informed sources, that they bought into Skyline last August via a special purpose vehicle run by a subsidiary of Dominari Securities. The size of their investment was not disclosed, but they increased it by $24 million in October.

American Ventures, of which Dominari is a member, said that Donald Trump Jr. “has no operational involvement in the company” and “does not interface with the federal government on behalf of any company he invests in.” Eric Trump didn’t respond to a request for comment from the FT.

The Democrats have repeatedly sounded the alarm over potential conflicts of interest arising from the investments by Trump’s family members in companies that have secured lucrative government contracts. The president’s kin made more than $1 billion in pre-tax profits last year by getting involved in cryptocurrency, AI, drones and critical minerals projects, according to FT.

The entire international jury of the Venice Biennale has tendered their resignations amid pressure caused by the Italian cultural exhibition’s decision to allow Russia and Israel to participate.

In early March, the Venice Biennale Foundation unveiled the line-up of the 2026 art fair, which runs from May 9 through November 22. Russia was included in the list for the first time since 2022, with its “The tree is rooted in the sky” exhibition. The event organizers noted, however, that the display would be strictly closed to the general public.

Nevertheless, the decision to allow Russia to participate has provoked harsh criticism from the Italian government and EU officials.

According to a press release published on Thursday, jury president Solange Farkas, as well as Zoe Butt, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Marta Kuzma, and Giovanna Zapperi handed in their resignations.

In their resignation letter, the jury members cited their previous statement last week, in which they refused to consider the works that represent “countries whose leaders are currently charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.” While not mentioning any nations directly, the jury was evidently referring to Russia and Israel, whose leaders are subject to ICC arrest warrants – something both countries have rejected.

In the wake of the jury’s resignation, the Venice Biennale organizers have announced that the awards ceremony, originally slated for May 9, would instead be held on November 22, given the “exceptional nature of the ongoing international geopolitical situation.”

Meanwhile, last Thursday, European Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier confirmed that Brussels would carry through on its previous threat to withhold a €2 million ($2.34 million) grant from the Venice Biennale.

Mikhail Shvydkoy, a Russian presidential aide for international cultural cooperation, characterized the commission’s decision as “disgraceful,” with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova similarly denouncing it as a “relapse into anti-culture.”

Speaking to the press, Russian art critic Elizaveta Likhacheva described the sum in question as too insignificant for the Venice Biennale’s organizers to pay attention to.

Earlier this week, Italian media reported that the country’s Ministry of Culture had sent inspectors to check on the event organizers’ compliance with EU sanctions against Russia.

As for Israel, the country did not take part in last year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, citing renovations to its pavilion. This year, however, the Jewish state is among the nations invited to the art fair.

In mid-March, some 178 artists participating in the event signed an open letter calling for Israel’s exclusion, citing its ongoing military campaign in Gaza, which has been marked by widespread civilian casualties.

Late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s purported suicide note has remained locked up at a courthouse for years, out of reach of investigators, the New York Times has reported.

The message was allegedly discovered by Epstein’s cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, in July 2019 after the disgraced US financier had been found unresponsive with a strip of cloth around his neck at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, the paper said in an article on Thursday.

Epstein survived that incident, but was found dead in his cell on August 10 the same year. The convicted sex offender apparently hanged himself with his bedsheets, but skeptics continue to insist that he was murdered to cover up for the powerful individuals supposedly implicated in the case.

Tartaglione, a former police officer serving four life sentences for a quadruple murder, told the NYT on the phone that the suicide note was written on a piece of yellow paper ripped from a legal pad and tucked into a graphic novel that Epstein used to read.

Tartaglione claimed that he had given the paper to his lawyers, suggesting that it could have been useful to counter claims made by Epstein after the July 2019 incident that he had been attacked by his cellmate.

The note eventually ended up being sealed by a federal judge as part of Tartaglione’s criminal case and still remains locked up in a New York courthouse, the NYT said. This means that the investigators, who looked into Epstein’s death, lacked what could have been a key piece of evidence, it added.

A spokesperson for the US Justice Department confirmed to the paper that the agency hasn’t seen the note. It was also not found among the massive trove of Epstein files published by the DOJ earlier this year, according to the article.

The US has delivered 6,500 tons of munitions and equipment to Israel within 24 hours, West Jerusalem has said.

The announcement coincided with media reports claiming that the head of US Central Command, Brad Cooper, has briefed US President Donald Trump on a plan for the potential renewal of military action against Iran in a bid to pressure it to consent to a more favorable peace deal.

According to Fox News, what Cooper described as the “final blow” against Tehran could include a “short and powerful wave of strikes” targeting Iran’s “remaining military assets, leadership and infrastructure.”

The ceasefire in the US-Israeli war against Iran was announced on April 8 after more than a month of fighting, but attempts by Washington and Tehran to reach a diplomatic settlement to the crisis have so far been in vain. The control of the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian nuclear program reportedly remain the main stumbling blocks between the sides.

The hardware was loaded onto hundreds of trucks and moved to Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bases across the country, the statement read.

According to Defense Ministry data, Israel has already received over 115,600 tons of military equipment, via 403 airlifts and 10 sealifts since the US-Israeli attack on Iran began on February 28.

Semafor reported in mid-March, citing American officials, that Israel had informed the US that it was running “critically low” on air defense interceptors amid Tehran’s retaliatory strikes. The IDF rejected the claim.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday that West Jerusalem supported Washington’s diplomatic efforts, but warned that it “may soon be required to act again” against Iran to make sure it will “not return to being a threat.”

Pakistan has launched the first of eight Chinese-built Hangor-class submarines, expanding its undersea fleet, as Islamabad deepens defense cooperation with Beijing.

The move follows the induction of Chinese-made J-10C fighter jets, which Pakistan says were used in combat for the first time during its 2025 conflict with India.

President Asif Ali Zardari attended the commissioning ceremony in the southern Chinese port city of Sanya, alongside Pakistani Navy Chief Admiral Naveed Ashraf and other senior officials from both countries. Zardari, who is on an official visit to China, described the induction as a “historic milestone” for the navy.

The Hangor-class is based on China’s Type 039A submarine design and is a diesel-electric platform with air-independent propulsion. It can carry a crew of up to 38 and is equipped with torpedoes and anti-ship missiles. Under a deal signed in 2015 and estimated at being worth about $5 billion, four submarines are being built in China and delivered to Pakistan, while the remaining four will be constructed domestically.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China accounted for approximately 81% of Pakistan’s arms imports in 2020–2024. Their joint venture projects include the Hangor as well as the JF-17 fighter jet.

Earlier this week, Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh accused Pakistan of supporting terrorism and said that New Delhi is ready to respond to any threat, underscoring ongoing tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

India has not commented on the latest commissioning, but its navy has previously said it is closely monitoring China’s supply of submarines to Pakistan, while stepping up efforts to expand its own undersea fleet, citing Beijing’s expanding naval presence in the Indian Ocean. New Delhi is also advancing its nuclear and conventional submarine programs in order to strengthen its maritime capabilities.

The US Department of Justice has released new high-quality CCTV footage showing Cole Tomas Allen, who has been charged with attempting to assassinate US President Donald Trump, allegedly rushing past security and opening fire.

The incident took place on Saturday at the Washington Hilton, which hosted the White House Correspondents’ Dinner attended by the president, First Lady Melania Trump, White House officials, and journalists.

The footage, which has no sound, shows the suspect walking down a hallway before dashing past a metal detector screening area.

At one point, he points a shotgun at a security guard, while another guard fires several shots from a sidearm.

🚨#BREAKING: Newly released footage shows 31-year-old Cole Allen of California walking around The Washington Hilton in washington DC then soon opening fire on a U.S. Secret Service officer during an attempted attack targeting President Donald Trump and others at the White House… pic.twitter.com/ytHWUPlRxT

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) April 30, 2026

The suspect was tackled and restrained before reaching the ballroom where the president was seated. According to the DOJ, a Secret Service officer wearing a bulletproof vest was shot once in the chest.

Allen reportedly left a manifesto in which he, without identifying Trump by name, criticized his policies and described his intent to take action against “a pedophile, rapist, and traitor.”

The international advocacy group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has accused Israel of kidnapping journalists traveling on board the Gaza-bound activist flotilla, which was intercepted by the Israeli Navy on Thursday.

Israeli forces seized 22 of the 58 boats of the pro-Palestinian Second Sumud Flotilla near the Greek island of Crete, detaining 175 people, according to West Jerusalem. The organizers, meanwhile, said that 211 activists were “kidnapped.” 

The boats sailed from the Spanish port of Barcelona on April 12 with the intention of breaching the Israeli naval blockade of the Palestinian enclave. 

“RSF condemns the Israeli army’s abduction of three journalists in international waters: Hafedh Mribah (French) & Mahmut Yavuz (Turkish) from Al Jazeera, and Alex Colston (American), a contributor to the outlet Zeteo,” the group wrote on X on Thursday. “The Israeli army is responsible for their safety,” the RSF added.

Israel announced it had taken control of 21 out of 58 vessels from the Gaza-bound flotilla, in a piracy operation carried out in international waters about 1,000 km off the coast of occupied Palestine. pic.twitter.com/Gpa6NOxn3Q

— Eye on Palestine (@EyeonPalestine) April 30, 2026

The passengers included Margaret Connolly, a physician and a sister of Irish President Catherine Connolly, who told The Journal over the phone on Thursday that the interception of the boats was “absolutely illegal.” 

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, a frequent critic of Israel, accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of violating international maritime law and called on the EU to suspend a trade agreement with the country. 

Netanyahu thanked the Navy for intercepting a flotilla of “Hamas supporters.” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar dismissed the flotilla as a “PR stunt,” adding that all activists “who were taken off the vessels were taken off unharmed” and would be set ashore in Greece. 

Israel has intercepted several such flotillas in the past, including dozens of boats in June 2025, whose passengers included climate activist Greta Thunberg and French politician Rima Hassan. 

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz should focus on resolving the Ukraine conflict and deal with problems at home instead of questioning Washington’s strategy in the war against Iran, US President Donald Trump has said.

Trump was responding to the chancellor's comment on Monday that the US was being “humiliated” by Iran and that the Trump administration lacked a clear strategy in the conflict.

In a post on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump wrote that the “Chancellor of Germany should spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!), and fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy, and less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran Nuclear threat.”

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Berlin has been the second-largest supplier of weapons to Kiev, having allocated nearly €20 billion ($23 billion) in military aid between January 2022 and October 2025, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Russia has consistently condemned Western arms deliveries to Ukraine, saying they only unnecessarily prolong the hostilities without changing the outcome.

Last month, Merz said that the Iran war “must be brought to an end as quickly as possible and with a clear plan and strategy.” He also rejected German participation in the conflict, noting that “this war is not a NATO matter.”

Trump criticized European NATO member states for refusing to back the US and Israel in the conflict after they rejected his call to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Politico claimed last week that the White House had compiled a NATO “naughty and nice” list, based on each country’s contribution, or lack thereof, to the war against Iran.

US President Donald Trump has said his administration will declassify and release government files on unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the near future, describing some of the material as “very interesting.”

The Pentagon has recently said it is reviewing and consolidating related records before any public release, citing security concerns. Trump signed an executive order in February instructing the Department of War to disclose “any and all information” related to UFOs and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP).

“I think we’re going to be releasing as much as we can in the near future… some of it is going to be very interesting to people,” Trump told reporters during a White House briefing late Wednesday, adding that public interest in the topic had built up “for a long time.”

“I interviewed some pilots – very solid people. And they said they saw things that you wouldn’t believe,” he said.

Trump’s order on UFO files followed a widely shared podcast appearance by former President Barack Obama, who said he believed aliens were real but insisted the US government was not hiding any proof. Obama referred to Area 51, a classified US Air Force site in Nevada long at the center of conspiracy theories alleging the government conducts secret research there and stores extraterrestrial materials and technology.

REPORTER: “Do you have an update on the UFO files?”

PRESIDENT TRUMP: “I think we're going to be releasing as much as we can in the near future…I've interviewed people my first term primarily, but I interviewed some pilots, very solid people, and they said they saw things that… pic.twitter.com/CNKvIhgvH7

— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 29, 2026

Trump later claimed Obama had disclosed classified information and said the planned document release was intended to meet “tremendous interest” from the American public. US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said he will learn “alongside” the public whether his department holds records proving the existence of alien life.

The American authorities have been collecting reports of UFO and UAP sightings for decades, with the Pentagon now running an All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) for the purpose. In March 2024, the Pentagon said it had no proof that any unidentified aerial phenomena were alien technology, adding that many cases involved weather balloons, spy planes, satellites, or other routine activity.

In a report released in late 2024, the department stated it had received 757 UAP reports between May 2023 and June 2024, of which 21 “merit further analysis” because of “anomalous characteristics and/or behaviors.”

The American authorities have been collecting reports of UFO and UAP sightings for decades, with the Pentagon now running an All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) for the purpose. In March 2024, the Pentagon said it had no proof that any unidentified aerial phenomena were alien technology, adding that many cases involved weather balloons, spy planes, satellites, or other routine activity.

In a report released in late 2024, the department stated it had received 757 UAP reports between May 2023 and June 2024, of which 21 “merit further analysis” because of “anomalous characteristics and/or behaviors.”

The US Central Command has requested that long-delayed Dark Eagle hypersonic missiles be deployed to the Middle East, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.  

The new munition, also known as the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), has been in development since 2018, with the Pentagon pouring over $12 billion into the program meant to catch up with Russia and China, which have already fielded hypersonic weaponry. The program has been lagging well behind schedule, and the system has not been declared fully operational yet.

The request for the LRHW deployment is based on intelligence suggesting that Iran moved its ballistic missile launchers out of range of the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg. No decision has been made on the request yet, according to the source.

While the US military still has some PrSM missiles in stock, the supply could prove to be insufficient if the conflict with Iran reignites. The Pentagon had ordered 130 before the 2024 fiscal year and a further 250 in 2025, but it remains unclear how many munitions were delivered.

The missile became a source of controversy during the US-Israeli attack on Iran, with the PrSM believed to be involved in at least one mass-casualty incident. According to the New York Times, a PrSM missile was likely used in the February 28 strike on a school and sports hall in the southern Iranian city of Lamerd, which killed at least 21 people. 

The Pentagon denied any involvement, insisting that it had not targeted any sites in Lamerd on that day, claiming the munition visible in the footage of the attack was an Iranian Hoveyzeh cruise missile. The NYT, however, doubled down on its initial assessment earlier this month, citing experts who said the munition looked like a PrSM and lacked any features of the Iranian-made projectile.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has come under fire again in the European Parliament, as lawmakers are accusing her of double standards in foreign policy and failing to shield EU citizens from soaring energy costs.

MEPs from multiple factions voiced their frustration during Wednesday’s debate on EU strategy for the Middle East and energy security, pointing to what they described as a lack of clear direction and coherence in the bloc’s response.

Belgian lawmaker Kathleen Van Brempt questioned the bloc’s credibility, which she said was being undermined by Brussels’ “double standards in our foreign policy” – imposing sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine conflict while staying “silent” over Israel’s actions in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. 

Italian MEP Roberto Vannacci likened the EU’s inactive policy on the Middle East to “cockroaches that freeze and play dead when the predator arrives,” arguing that if the EC had “applied lockdown to itself” instead of to member states, Europeans would have been spared “a lot of damage and a lot of pain.”

Portuguese MEP Joao Oliveira accused von der Leyen of “staying quiet because of pressure” from US President Donald Trump. “Von der Leyen doesn’t say a word to condemn the aggression against Iran and Israel’s actions, the invasion of Lebanon, the killing of Lebanese people and more than 1.2 million displaced in Lebanon,” he said.

Oliveira also accused Brussels of backing a policy “under the leadership and guidance of multinationals,” saying “We must put an end to the neoliberal control of the energy sector,” and argued that “not one measure has been taken to control prices and to support farmers.”

Austrian Green MEP Thomas Waitz said the EU remained trapped in recurring dependency cycles, warning that shifting reliance between external suppliers amounted to “a dead-end street” rather than a long-term solution. “It’s bad for the economy, it’s bad for people, it’s bad for energy prices,” he argued.

Polish MEP Grzegorz Braun, who has repeatedly said that Brussels’ policies are dragging the bloc into a war, used highly charged language, dubbing von der Leyen “Madame Reichsführerin,” a reference to Nazi-era ranks. He argued that the energy crisis was not temporary but the result of “deeply wrong decisions.”

US President Donald Trump has called on his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.

Indicted in 2019, Netanyahu has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. The trial, which began in 2020, has seen numerous delays and is expected to drag on for several more years.

Trump reportedly told Axios on Tuesday that Netanyahu, a long-time ally who co-launched the unprovoked war on Iran with him, has complained that he will have to appear in court instead of concentrating on the conflict that is strangling the global economy. The US president reportedly expressed incredulity, saying “In the middle of a war? Give me a break!”

According to the publication, Trump went on to claim that he likes Israeli President Herzog and that he “will be a national hero if he gives Bibi a pardon.” The US president recently derided Herzog as “weak and pathetic” for not pardoning Netanyahu.

“Bibi is a wartime prime minister. He can’t have this hanging over his head,” Trump reportedly argued in his latest interview with Axios. He also suggested that Netanyahu’s trial makes Israel “look bad.”

Commenting on the prospect of a deal that will likely require an admission of guilt, Trump said that Netanyahu “can’t take” a settlement and needs a full pardon, as quoted by Axios.

Late last year, the outlet claimed that the Israeli prime minister had asked the US president for more help in his push for a pardon.

A month earlier, Trump sent an official letter to the Israeli president, insisting that “the ‘case’ against Bibi… is a political, unjustified prosecution.”

“I hereby call on you to fully pardon Benjamin Netanyahu,” the US president wrote at the time.

In June 2025, Trump similarly characterized the charges against his Middle Eastern ally as a “WITCH HUNT.”

Although the United Arab Emirates has tried to present its upcoming exit from OPEC and the wider OPEC+ framework as part of its sovereign energy strategy and long-term economic planning, its timing and regional context suggest that this is a political act.

With its exit, the UAE is challenging the authority of Riyadh, strengthening its own strategic autonomy, offering Washington a useful instrument for influencing energy prices, and moving closer to a regional make-up where the US and Israel remain central actors in the pressure campaign against Iran. It’s a signal that Abu Dhabi no longer wishes to behave as a secondary participant in a Saudi-centered order that has shaped the Gulf oil system for decades.

Economic ambitions

The economic explanation is the most visible one, since the UAE has spent years building production capacity that the OPEC+ framework did not allow it to use fully. Abu Dhabi’s production capacity is estimated at around 4.85 million barrels per day (bpd), while the country has been moving toward a target of 5 million bpd by 2027, although before the latest regional shock it was producing around 3.4 million bpd and remained close to its effective OPEC+ ceiling. This created a growing contradiction, because Abu Dhabi had already built the industrial, financial, and logistical architecture for a larger role in the oil market, while the collective rules of the cartel forced it to operate as though its ambitions and capabilities were still limited.

The first and most cautious scenario is a gradual release of restrained supply, in which the UAE, once export routes are stabilized and infrastructure disrupted by the Iran war is restored, could add several hundred thousand bpd to the market without immediately provoking a full-scale price war. Such a path would allow Abu Dhabi to demonstrate that leaving OPEC+ produces real commercial benefits, while still avoiding a direct collision with Saudi Arabia, softening prices without collapsing them, and testing the limits of its new freedom without burning all bridges with Riyadh and other producers.

The more ambitious scenario would emerge if regional conditions calm and Asian demand remains strong, allowing the UAE to move toward 4.2 million or even 4.5 million bpd within 12 to 18 months, while the most aggressive scenario would involve a push close to 5 million bpd and the addition of roughly 1.3 million to 1.5 million bpd compared with its previous constrained position. In a tight market, such volumes could stabilize prices and provide relief to consumers, but in a softer market they could intensify downward pressure, undermine OPEC+ discipline and force Saudi Arabia to decide whether it is prepared to tolerate the political symbolism of Emirati barrels entering the market outside Saudi-led restraint. The real danger for OPEC+ is therefore not only a lower oil price, but the loss of confidence that collective discipline remains stronger than national ambition.

Yet the economic argument, however important it may be, explains only the surface of the decision, while the deeper meaning is political. Abu Dhabi is not merely seeking a larger export quota, nor is it simply trying to correct a technical imbalance between capacity and production limits, but is using oil to redraw its position inside the Gulf hierarchy. For decades, Saudi Arabia has treated OPEC as an extension of its regional leadership, while Riyadh’s ability to convene producers, manage scarcity, and influence prices has served as one of the foundations of its claim to leadership in the Arab and Islamic worlds.

The UAE’s exit challenges this architecture, implying that Abu Dhabi no longer accepts a system in which Saudi Arabia sets the rhythm and others are expected to adjust their ambitions accordingly. This makes the whole issue a dispute over who has the right to define the economic and political order of the Gulf.

Competition between the UAE and Saudi Arabia has been building for years and has long gone beyond oil. The two states may remain partners when they face external threats, and they may continue to cooperate in selected areas where their interests overlap, but they are increasingly rivals when the question becomes who will shape the future of the Gulf, who will attract global capital, who will dominate logistics, and who will become the main regional gateway between East and West.

Saudi Arabia is trying to transform itself into a financial, logistical, entertainment, and investment hub under its Vision 2030 initiative, while the UAE already occupies many of these spaces through Dubai’s commercial networks, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign-wealth power, Emirati airlines, ports, free-trade zones, and investment platforms. Because both states are attempting to sell themselves as the indispensable center of the post-oil Gulf economy, their rivalry is structural.

The role of oil

Saudi Arabia needs high oil prices to fund its vast transformation agenda, while the UAE can often tolerate lower prices more comfortably because its economy is more diversified and its fiscal break-even level has historically been lower. This gives Abu Dhabi more room to favor volume over price, while Riyadh is more inclined to defend a price floor that protects the financing of its domestic transformation.

This difference does not automatically make conflict inevitable, but it makes compromise more difficult, since the two countries are no longer simply discussing quotas within a shared framework. They are defending different models of Gulf power, different visions of economic transformation, and different ways of turning oil wealth into political influence.

The risk goes beyond just a price war – Saudi Arabia still has weight in the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Arab League, Islamic diplomacy, and the wider oil system. If the UAE’s move is seen as serving American and Israeli strategy at a moment of confrontation with Iran, Riyadh may find ways to portray Abu Dhabi as a state that is destabilizing the Arab consensus for the sake of its own narrow advantage.

A boon for Trump

The UAE’s exit gives the US, and specifically the administration of President Donald Trump, a potential strategic advantage. Trump has long criticized OPEC for restraining supply and supporting high oil prices, and a UAE decision to leave the cartel and eventually raise production gives Washington a friendly Gulf producer that can help soften energy prices without requiring a direct American confrontation with Riyadh.

This gives Trump an opportunity to argue that pressure on OPEC has worked and that America’s partners in the Gulf are helping stabilize the market. If additional Emirati barrels eventually reach the global market, Washington may be able to claim a political victory at home, even if the underlying regional situation remains unstable and dangerous.

Unshackled Emirati oil supplies would also provide Trump with additional political breathing room at home, easing energy-price pressures such as inflation and transport costs and alleviating public anger and voter dissatisfaction.

This would make Abu Dhabi an invaluable partner, in turn giving it political leverage in Washington. In essence, this is a political transaction where barrels are exchanged for strategic importance.

However, the UAE’s decision makes strategic sense only if the US-Iran conflict over the Strait of Hormuz remains in a cold phase without escalating into a wider regional war. If Hormuz is fully closed, if insurance costs become unbearable, or if Gulf infrastructure remains under constant threat, Abu Dhabi’s spare capacity becomes much less useful. The UAE needs stability, but not necessarily peace, because what it requires is a managed confrontation in which Iran is pressured, shipping is controlled, American and Israeli coordination remains active, and Emirati exports can gradually recover.

Frozen conflict is the perfect state of the US-Iran war for the UAE’s current ambitions – a situation where it can benefit from the pressure applied on Tehran, but oil infrastructure does not become part of the active battlefield. The UAE wants the presence of American and Israeli power, but it does not want to be part of a shooting war. It wants OPEC+ market discipline weakened, but it does not want total market chaos. Its strategy is therefore a balancing act between confrontation and continuity, because Abu Dhabi seeks to profit from instability without being consumed by it.

The Israeli dimension is also important, especially because, since the normalization of diplomatic relations with Israel via the 2020 Abraham Accords, the UAE has developed a new regional identity as a state that has openly integrated Israel into its diplomatic, technological, and security calculations, and in the context of confrontation with Iran, this matters enormously.

The UAE can present itself to Israel as a partner capable not only of intelligence and diplomatic coordination, but also of energy-market influence. If Abu Dhabi can help stabilize prices while Iran faces pressure, then Emirati oil policy becomes part of the wider anti-Iranian front.

This carries risks inside the Arab and Muslim worlds. Even states that distrust Tehran may not want the Gulf order to be openly reorganized around Israeli and American strategic needs, especially if such a reorganization weakens Arab collective mechanisms and deepens divisions among Gulf states. Saudi Arabia in particular may not oppose pressure on Iran in principle, but it will resist any arrangement in which the UAE becomes Washington’s preferred Gulf energy partner at Saudi Arabia’s expense, especially if that arrangement appears to combine energy policy, Israeli cooperation, and pressure on Iranian regional influence.

The view from Russia

OPEC+ was built as a Saudi-Russian mechanism for stabilizing the global oil market, and Moscow has benefited from the predictability that this format provided. The UAE’s departure does not automatically create a crisis in Emirati-Russian relations, especially given the broader economic and political ties between Moscow and Abu Dhabi, yet it may cool the atmosphere around energy coordination.

If Emirati production eventually puts pressure on prices or weakens discipline among other producers, Moscow may view the move as a step that complicates the very framework through which Russia and the Gulf states managed oil volatility in recent years, adding a layer of mistrust and cautious calculation to the dialogue between Abu Dhabi and Moscow.

The worst scenario for the UAE would combine several pressures at once, with Saudi Arabia responding aggressively, Russia becoming more cautious, Iran escalating in the Gulf, export infrastructure remaining constrained, and Trump failing to provide the expected level of political and security support. If, in addition to all this, energy prices fall too far to reward the UAE’s extra production, the Emirates may find themselves in a difficult position in which they have weakened OPEC+ without gaining enough from the US, challenged the Saudis without neutralizing their influence, and exposed themselves to Iranian pressure without securing full protection.

American support is both the most vital and the most uncertain part of the UAE’s calculation. Trump may welcome the weakening of OPEC+ and the possibility of lower prices, but his domestic and international room for maneuver is not unlimited. If pressure inside the US grows, if Congress resists deeper regional commitments, or if American voters become tired of Middle Eastern entanglements, the UAE may discover that Washington’s promises are less durable than its own strategic exposure.

OPEC was created to give producers more control over their resources and more collective power against outside consumers, while OPEC+ was built to extend that control into a wider system that included Russia and other non-OPEC producers. The UAE’s exit reverses that, weakening producer solidarity and giving major consumers, especially the US, more leverage.

Abu Dhabi may gain autonomy, but the oil-producing world loses coherence. It is a breach in the idea that oil producers can still act collectively when their national projects, foreign-policy alignments, and strategic ambitions begin to diverge. The UAE is betting that autonomy will be more valuable than discipline, that partnership with the US and Israel will bring greater strategic returns than deference to Saudi Arabia, and that Moscow will treat the issue carefully enough to preserve broader relations with Abu Dhabi. It is also betting that Iran can be contained without turning the Gulf into a wider battlefield, and that the conflict can remain cold enough for oil to move while staying hot enough to keep pressure on Tehran. Each of these bets depends on conditions that Abu Dhabi does not fully control.

The exit from OPEC and OPEC+ is the beginning of a political test. The UAE has chosen to convert barrels into leverage and capacity into sovereignty, while also choosing confrontation over compromise and strategic autonomy over cartel discipline. The coming months will show whether Abu Dhabi has opened a path toward a new energy architecture, or whether it has underestimated the price of breaking the old one.

A new European task force formed to crack down on “violence as a service” has made 280 arrests in its first year, the EU’s police agency, Europol, has said in a statement.

The unit, dubbed GRIMM, was formed last April to tackle the growing trend of outsourced violence, sometimes described “gig economy” terrorism, in which criminals hire individuals via social media to carry out acts ranging from assaults to murder. The task force involves police from several EU countries, alongside the UK, Norway, and Iceland.

”Violence is no longer confined to… local dynamics. It is increasingly offered as a service: accessible, scalable and driven by online ecosystems that enable recruitment, coordination, and execution across borders,” read the statement released on Wednesday. More than 1,400 people linked to these activities have been identified, it added.

”This phenomenon is spreading like a wildfire across Europe,” Andy Kraag, head of Europol’s European Serious Organized Crime Center, told Dutch TV programme Nieuwsuur.

The report comes amid a push in Europe to restrict social media for minors due to growing concerns over mental health, online safety, and addictive platform design. France has passed an age-verification bill for under-15s, while Germany is debating a ban for under-14s. The UK is weighing restrictions for under-16s alongside limits on addictive features, and the European Parliament has backed a non-binding proposal for a bloc-wide minimum age of 16.

Messaging and gaming platforms have come under increasing scrutiny. Telegram, which has fewer than 45 million users in the EU, is facing a criminal investigation in France over alleged failures to curb illegal content, while Russian authorities have imposed restrictions on the service citing security concerns.

The Pentagon’s latest cost assessment of the war against Iran is a lowball figure that does not include the extensive damage to US military bases during the conflict, CNN has reported, citing three people familiar with the matter.

On Wednesday, senior Pentagon official Jules Hurst gave lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee the first official statement on the controversial war’s price tag, estimating it to be around $25 billion. 

However, sources told CNN that the true cost is significantly higher when factoring in the expense of rebuilding damaged US military installations across the Middle East. One source put the real figure closer to $40-50 billion.

The estimate has also been challenged by Tehran. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the real cost to the US is far higher, accusing the Pentagon of underreporting the financial impact of the conflict. Writing on X on Friday, he cited two charts on the US economy and claimed that “Netanyahu’s gamble has directly cost America $100 billion so far, four times what is claimed.” “Indirect costs for US taxpayers are FAR higher. Monthly bill for each American household is $500 and rising fast,” Araghchi added, concluding that “Israel First always means America Last.”

As reported by CNN, Iranian strikes across the Gulf during the conflict damaged at least nine US military sites, including facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Several US radar systems were reportedly destroyed, including components linked to an American THAAD battery in Jordan and similar installations at two sites in the UAE. The outlet added that a US Air Force E-3 Sentry was also destroyed in a strike on a Saudi air base.

Hurst noted that most of the $25 billion had been spent on munitions. War Secretary Pete Hegseth refused to say whether the figure included repairs to damaged US bases.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Democratic and some Republican lawmakers grilled Pentagon officials, with Representative Ro Khanna calling the $25 billion estimate “totally off” given that they had previously told Congress the conflict cost roughly $11 billion in just the first six days.

Hegseth was also scrutinized over the war’s economic impact, rising gasoline costs, and misleading justifications for the conflict. The war secretary pushed back, calling Democrats “reckless, feckless, and defeatist,” and insisting the cost was justified to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

The US-Israeli war on Iran, launched in late February and initially expected to last several weeks, has left more than 1,300 civilians dead and has triggered a global energy crisis due to the ongoing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has charged that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman “stole a charity” and called himself a “fool” for funding the company, claiming that the ChatGPT maker had strayed from its original nonprofit mission.

Musk sued OpenAI in 2024, alleging he was misled when he co-founded and funded the company in 2015 on the understanding it would remain a nonprofit. The AI firm, now valued at about $85 billion, has since restructured, with a nonprofit parent retaining a stake in its for-profit arm, including ChatGPT.

Testifying on Wednesday, Musk said OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, had broken that founding commitment by shifting toward a profit-driven model, according to court proceedings.

He said he continued financing OpenAI after receiving assurances from Altman that it would remain a nonprofit.

“I was a fool who provided them free funding to create a startup,” Musk told a federal court in Oakland. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said he contributed $38 million from December 2015 through May 2017, believing he was supporting a charitable venture.

Musk’s lawsuit alleges OpenAI abandoned its founding agreement by pivoting to a for-profit model and seeks to remove Altman and Brockman, reverse the shift and secure damages for the nonprofit arm. He described his view of OpenAI’s leadership in three phases, moving from “enthusiastic support” to a loss of confidence and finally to a belief that “they’re looting a nonprofit.” 

Under cross-examination, Musk clashed with OpenAI lawyer William Savitt. When pressed for simple answers on emails discussing a for-profit structure, Musk pushed back. “Your questions are not simple,” Musk said. “They are designed to trick me essentially.” 

OpenAI has rejected the allegations, arguing that leaders never promised the organization would remain a nonprofit forever. The company contends Musk’s legal challenge aims to undercut OpenAI’s rapid growth and bolster his rival AI startup, xAI.

Musk left OpenAI in 2018 due to disagreements with Altman, bought Twitter (now X) in 2022, and launched his own artificial intelligence firm xAI the following year.

The trial in California started on Monday and is expected to last about four weeks.

Britain and other north European states will create naval force outside of NATO to counter Russia, first sea lord and chief of naval staff in the UK, General Gwyn Jenkins, has said.

Moscow has repeatedly denied what it calls ‘hysterical’ claims it plans to attack NATO states or anywhere in Western Europe, arguing that they are being made by Western politicians to distract the public from problems at home and justify increased military spending. It also says that Russia will only fight NATO if it is attacked first.

During his speech at the Royal United Services Institute on Wednesday, Jenkins announced that members of the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (Jef), which has been in place since 2014, signed a statement of intent last week to set up a new “multinational maritime force.”

The Jef includes the Netherlands, all five Nordic nations (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) and the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.)

The naval force will be commanded from London and serve as a “complement to NATO,” according to Jenkins. It will see the fleets of the ten nations training and preparing together to be ready to “fight immediately if required, with real capabilities, real war plans and real integration” by 2029.

“Russian incursions into our waters has jumped by almost a third in the last two years,” the British naval chief claimed, adding that Britain expects this activity by surface vessels and submarines to intensify.

Moscow began deploying frigates to escort its oil tankers after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer threatened to seize them in late March. Since then, almost a hundred tankers have passed through British waters unimpeded, according to the Guardian.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, reiterated on Thursday that the Kremlin “has no aggressive plans” regarding Europe.

US President Donald Trump’s envoy for South Asia, Sergio Gor, is visiting Nepal on Thursday, hoping to clinch a meeting with a prime minister averse to meeting to junior officials from foreign countries, local media has reported.

Recently elected Nepalese Prime Minister Balendra Shah refused to meet visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Samir Paul Kapur earlier this month, Kathmandu Post reported on Wednesday.

Gor is reportedly seeking a meeting with Shah on Friday or Saturday at any time of his convenience, according to the report.

As of Wednesday evening, the prime minister had reportedly not given any indication he would see the US diplomat, the paper added.

Sergio Gor is the highest-ranking diplomat to visit Kathmandu since the Rastriya Swatantra Party government headed by Shah was sworn in on March 27.

The report, citing multiple sources at the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Shah had not decided to meet Gor, despite suggestions through various channels.

Gor will meet with Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle, Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal, Foreign Secretary Amrit Bahadur Rai, and some other local officials and leaders, an aide to the prime minister said.

The Himalayan nation’s PM reportedly wants to set a benchmark of meeting only ministers or higher-level officials from foreign countries.

Gor met with outgoing Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh multiple times. He has also met King Jigme Khesar Namgyel and Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay of Bhutan, and Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu cancelled his meeting with Gor in protest against the US-Israel war on Iran.

Though this is Gor’s first visit to Kathmandu in his official capacity, he has engaged with the ruling Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP). Following the party’s victory in the March 5 election, Gor had a telephone conversation with RSP president Rabi Lamichhane on March 25 to congratulate the party on its electoral victory.

The US is set to pitch foreign governments on a new initiative for controlling the Strait of Hormuz, with participation explicitly excluding “adversaries” Russia and China, according to media reports.

The proposal was outlined in a cable sent on Tuesday by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to US embassies, which were instructed to present the plan to host governments. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the cable, with Reuters later confirming its contents.

The initiative, known as the Maritime Freedom Construct (MFC), would be jointly managed by the State Department – serving as a “diplomatic operations hub” – and the Pentagon through its regional command, CENTCOM.

“Your participation will strengthen our collective ability to restore freedom of navigation and protect the global economy,” the message to prospective partners states. “Collective action is essential to demonstrate unified resolve and impose meaningful costs on Iranian obstruction of transit through the Strait.”

Trump has previously berated NATO members for declining to support the US-Israeli air campaign aimed at effecting regime change in Tehran. Reports suggest the White House has compiled a list of European members of the military bloc that could face repercussions for their lack of backing – or for openly opposing the operation, which was Spain’s position.

In response to the late-February attack, Iran throttled shipping through the Strait of Hormuz – a key artery for global oil flows – and carried out attacks on Arab countries hosting US military bases. A fragile ceasefire was announced in early April. However, tensions persisted, with Trump later declaring a naval blockade of Iranian ports after Pakistan-mediated talks failed to produce a breakthrough.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has stated that Americans support the US operation against Iran, a claim that stands at odds with multiple national surveys showing most adults in the nation oppose the conflict.

The war, which began with a US-Israeli bombing campaign in February and was initially expected to last several weeks, has dragged on at a cost of $25 billion, leaving more than 1,300 civilians dead and triggering a global energy crunch after the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, with no clear US gains.

Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday in his first major public appearance since the war began, Hegseth lashed out at Democrats and some Republican lawmakers who criticized the conflict and accused them of “handing propaganda to our enemies.”

He accused Democrats of being “reckless, feckless, and defeatist” and questioned their loyalty. “Who are you cheering for here? Who are you pulling for?”

“I know the American people support that mission, despite your loose talk and words like ‘quagmire,’” Hegseth said during questioning that turned into hours of contentious debate over the Iran war.

Recent polls, however, suggest otherwise. The Harvard CAPS/Harris poll cited by Trump found 52% support for US airstrikes on Iran, but that same survey showed support split along party lines, with 79% of Republicans backing the strikes compared to only 26% of Democrats and 46% of independents.

Surveys by NPR/PBS/Marist and CNN show a majority of Americans oppose the military action, while a Reuters/Ipsos poll found support slipping to about one-third by late April.

Hegseth’s testimony comes as Trump’s approval rating has fallen to record lows, recent polls show, with his Iran policy dividing allies. While hawks urge tougher action, business leaders warn that disruption to the Strait of Hormuz and rising energy prices could pose political risks for Republicans ahead of the midterm elections.

Meanwhile, Democrats are reportedly considering legal action against Trump over the war. They argue the White House has violated federal law by failing to seek approval for the ongoing operation.

King Charles III has gone to Washington, ostensibly to help the transatlantic cousins celebrate getting rid of his predecessor George III 250 years ago. But being a royally gracious loser is, of course, only a pretext.

In reality, as The Economist, the premier British mouthpiece of transatlantic orthodoxy, has deplored, Charles’s mission is to salvage what’s left to be salvaged from the sinking “special relationship” between Washington and London.

That the relationship is in very bad shape is obvious from the compulsive manner in which Britain’s leader Keir Starmer keeps insisting that it still exists, while also emphasizing that he “will remain laser-focused on what is in the British national interest.”

Indeed, the abysmally unpopular Starmer has been subjected to so much typical Trump hazing that, as The Guardian notes, he may be enjoying “a vanishingly rare moment of public approval for his relatively robust response.”

Historically, the “special relationship” has certainly seen better days. It goes back a long way, even if the term itself was coined as late as 1946, when Winston Churchill needed a polite way of suggesting a political friendship with benefits: The British Empire was bankrupt and shrinking, and London was ready to submit to its former colonists in America in return for a new place as their permanent privileged sidekick in the beginning Cold War crusade against the Soviet Union.

Historically, the moderately sized island realm off Europe’s shores had laid the foundations for the continental behemoth across the Atlantic, even if – to be fair to the British – not deliberately but by strategic blunder. The bloody divorce between the rebellious colonists and the obstinate mother country – in many respects really a war between competing oligarchies, including plenty of slave holders and traders – has been imaginatively baked into the bedrock of US self-glorification as a war of independence and revolution.

It is true that, at first, the British were very cross indeed and returned in 1812 to burn the White House. When the Americans went to war with each other in the 1860s, Britain’s upper classes mostly rooted for the South, that is, for the break-up of the US. But even then, London was already cautious enough to maintain official neutrality.

True, considering the consequences of that defeat and its shortsighted mismanagement by the victors, you don’t have to like the Kaiser’s Germany to wonder if Europe – and the world – would not have been better off if the Americans had stayed out, as eminent historian Dominic Lieven has long pointed out.

In any case, as things happened in the real world, there was a second German (and, this time, also Japanese) try for primacy, much worse than the first. Again, in the Second World War as well, over-extended Britain and the booming US were not only on the same side but formed a particularly close if unequal relationship.

The pattern continued during the subsequent Cold War and beyond, with American and British spies and soldiers often in cahoots to topple sovereign governments and replace them with authoritarian vassal regimes, including Iran in 1953, Chile twenty years later, Iraq in 2003, and Syria only recently, to name only a few cases.

Churchill’s very own American dream, in short, came true: While shedding its empire, a much-diminished Britain – really a middling power with debilitating manufacturing-base weakness – kept punching above its economic and geopolitical weight, due in large measure to having found a new niche as America’s junior accomplice.

There have been partial exceptions and mishaps. Britain, for instance, refused to send troops to help the US in Vietnam. Hardly remembered now, in other ways London did, however, consistently support Washington’s brutal and futile war, if on the sly. The greatest single debacle was, of course, the Suez in 1956, shorthand for a British-French-Israeli imperialist Blitzkrieg on Egypt that went sour when the US – and the Soviet Union – put the Zionist-colonialist marauders in their place. Then as well, a British monarch, Charles’s mother Elisabeth II, ended up making a very delicate trip to Washington.

There are many differences between the Suez in 1956 and the current war on Iran, too. What matters with regard to the American-British special relationship is that this time, it is the US that has gotten badly stuck in a failing war of aggression waged together with Israel. Britain has by no means “refused to take part,” as the New York Times has misinformed its readers. In reality, in letting the US use it as a launching pad for bombing Iran, London is the ever-trusty accomplice again, no better than Germany.

Yet the Starmer regime is trying to have it both ways by engaging in what are really shyster sophistries to mask its deep involvement, while rejecting Washington’s demands for even more collaboration. The upshot is that Starmer has tied himself into a pretzel to please Washington as much as he can without fearing for his own political skin, but that is not enough to satisfy America’s Donald Trump. “When we needed them, they weren’t there,” the president-in-dire-straits has growled.

There are other issues of discontent and sore spots between the “special relationship” partners: London is not amused at all that the Trump administration has cast doubt over its sovereignty over the Malvinas (AKA Falklands), an empire-remnant of some geopolitical significance that is much closer to Argentina (which also lays claim to them) than Britain. London’s plans for the Chagos Islands, home to British and American bases, have run into US opposition.

Britain used to have some special oomph being America’s poodle inside the EU, but Brexit put an end to that. At the same time, Washington does see London as part of Europe whenever Europe fails to satisfy Trump’s every whim, as over his urge for Greenland. In the US, it is precisely with the most MAGA Americans that Britain tends to have the worst image, caricatured as a hotbed of Islamism and anarchy, whereas in reality it’s an increasingly authoritarian hub of Zionist influence.

So, there’s much that is rotten in the “special relationship” between the former global empire and its current successor on its own trajectory of decline and decay. But that is not the only reason why things give off a fetid odor. The worst irony of them all is the fact that the US and Britain still do have important things in common, but they are even worse than what sets them apart. Both Washington and London have cultivated a pathologically close relationship with Israel, supporting the war-addicted apartheid state to the detriment of their own societies, countries, and national interest.

In the same vein, the elites of both London and Washington are, moreover, at the heart of the scandal around the pedophile criminal and conspirator – clearly on behalf of Israel – Jeffrey Epstein. King Charles and President Trump could exchange notes on how to spin the fall-out from the Epstein files, both for the royal family and for the American president himself. Indeed, one of the many recent bust-ups between the British government and Trump has been about Starmer’s criminally negligent – at the very best – appointment of yet another Epstein “customer,” the sinister powerbroker Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US.

Think about it: with all the bad blood between London and Washington, they still converge on complicity with a genocide and the state perpetrating it, and they can commiserate with each other over being stuck up to their necks in the worst, most disgusting, most politically disruptive scandal of the century. The “special relationship” stinks of corruption, whether in agreement or disagreement.

The price of Brent crude oil rose to $126 on Thursday as US-Iran talks stalled and reports that US President Donald Trump may extend the blockade of Iranian ports.

It hit $126.3 for the first time since March 2022, when the Ukraine conflict escalated. Prices later eased to $125.30. The price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil also rose 10.5% to $110.5 per barrel, as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz continues to face disruptions.

On Wednesday, media reports, citing White House officials, said Trump ordered a plan to prolong the blockade of Iranian ports “for months” in a bid to pressure Tehran to consent to a more favorable peace deal.

The Iranian authorities insisted that they will keep preventing vessels from the US and its allies from going through the Strait of Hormuz, which accounts for some 25% of global crude trade, for as long as the country is being harnessed.

Later in the day, the head of US Central Command, Brad Cooper, is reportedly set to present plans for a potential renewed military action against Iran to US President Donald Trump. On Thursday, Axios reported, citing sources, that the moves by the Pentagon could include a “short and powerful” wave of strikes on the Islamic Republic’s infrastructure and other targets, the use of ground force to capture parts of the Strait of Hormuz to unblock shipping, and an operation by special forces to seize Iran’s enriched uranium.

There have been no direct meetings between the Americans and the Iranians since the failed talks in Islamabad in mid-April. Another round of negotiations had been expected to take place in the same location at the weekend, but Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reportedly declined to meet Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

According to Pakistani sources, the sides continue to exchange messages aimed at working out a potential deal to end the conflict, which broke out after the US-Israeli attack on Iran on February 28.

US President Donald Trump has said he could withdraw some American troops stationed in Germany amid a public spat with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the war in Iran.

“The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of troops in Germany, with a determination to be made in the near term,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.

In 2020, near the end of his first term in office, Trump planned to withdraw around 12,000 of the roughly 36,000 American service members stationed in Germany at the time. Former President Joe Biden later deployed additional troops to Germany, citing the Ukraine conflict.

More than 36,000 active-duty troops and 1,500 reservists are currently stationed at bases across Germany, according to CBS.

Trump has chided European allies for refusing to back the US-Israeli war with Iran and declining to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran closed to “hostile” shipping in February. The conflict has also prompted the president to revive his longstanding criticism of NATO, which he described this month as “a paper tiger.”

Speaking to students at a German school on Monday, Merz argued that the US was being “humiliated” by Iran and that the Trump administration lacked a clear strategy in the conflict. He also stressed that Germany was being hit hard by energy price increases caused by the war.

Merz sought to downplay the feud on Wednesday, saying his personal relationship with the US president “remains good.”

“I simply had doubts from the start about what was begun with the war in Iran. That is why I have made that clear,” Merz said, as cited by Reuters.

Meanwhile, oil prices rose above $120 on Wednesday, the highest level since 2022, with uncertainty continuing over the prospects for US-Iranian negotiations.

Italy’s Culture Ministry is investigating the Venice Biennale, the world's most prestigious art festival, after event organizers announced that Russia would be allowed to return to the event after a 4 year ban, Italian media reported on Wednesday.

Russia’s group exhibition, “The Tree Is Rooted in the Sky,” will be accessible to the press and industry professionals during the Biennale’s preview. Despite being scheduled to run from May 9 to November 22, the exhibition will be closed to the general public, organizers said.

Most Western cultural institutions have cut ties with Russia since February 2022 over the Ukraine conflict. Artists, performers, and conductors, as well as globally recognized Russian theatrical, orchestral, and ballet works, have been removed from theater programs in what the Kremlin has dismissed as a pointless attempt to “cancel” Russian culture.

According to Corriere della Sera, following the announcement that the Russian pavilion would reopen, and the EU’s subsequent withdrawal of $2.3 million in funding for the event, inspectors were dispatched to the Biennale Foundation to examine documents and financial records related to the planned reopening. Newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano reported that no “irregularities” were found in terms of compliance with sanctions imposed on Russia.

The European Commission condemned the decision to allow Russia reopen its national pavilion – a complex designed and built in 1913-14 using 17th and 18th Century Russian architectural motifs – that was last year handed over to the event “for cooperation and visibility for activities dedicated to universities, schools, families, and the general public as part of La Biennale’s Educational program.”

Italian Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli said he would not attend the opening of the festival on May 9. Last week, the Biennale jury said it would exclude Russia and Israel from award consideration. 

Biennale Foundation chief Pietrangelo Buttafuoco pushed back against the criticism, comparing the institution to “the UN of art, from which no nation can be excluded.”

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini argued that the arts should not fall victim to politics. “I am not for the exclusion of anyone, so I invite the Biennale to go ahead,” he said, as quoted by Euronews.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticized the EU's funding cut, calling it “a relapse into anti-culture, a condition that the West has been suffering from in recent years.” In remarks made to TASS, she warned: “Unless they cure it, they’ll remain uncultured forever.”

Police have released bodycam footage showing officers detaining a suspect who allegedly stabbed two Jewish men on the streets of London on Wednesday.

Both victims are in stable condition, while the suspect, a 45-year-old British national of Somali origin, remains in custody, the Metropolitan Police said.

“The suspect also attempted to stab police officers and was Tasered before being arrested. No officers were injured,” police said, adding that the attack had been declared a terrorist incident.

Police are also investigating whether the suspect was involved in a separate stabbing earlier that day in southeast London, which left one person lightly injured.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the incident as an “utterly appalling” attack and thanked the police and Jewish volunteer security guards for their response. “Attacks on our Jewish community are attacks on Britain,” he wrote on X.

The UK has seen an increase in anti-Semitic incidents since Israel invaded Gaza in 2023. Last month, a group of young men torched four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity in Golders Green, the same neighborhood where Wednesday’s stabbings occurred.

The dramatic events of the first months of 2026 offer a useful lens through which to assess the evolving role of the world’s major powers. Among those often cast as architects of a new international order, China stands out, arguably even ahead of Russia and the United States, both of which remain preoccupied with their rivalry in Europe.

For decades, China’s rise has been one of the central forces shaping global change. As far back as the late 20th century, Henry Kissinger argued that China’s growing importance would prove more consequential than even the end of the Cold War. That judgment now appears prescient. Drawing on vast domestic resources and sustained inflows of foreign investment, Beijing has, in a remarkably short time, established itself as a leading economic power and a confident political actor on the global stage.

A decisive step in this transformation came with the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013. This ambitious project was designed not only to expand China’s economic reach but to position Chinese capital and infrastructure as the engine of development across entire regions. For many countries in the Global South, it offered an alternative to Western-led models, which have often been accompanied by political conditionality.

In parallel, Beijing has advanced broader concepts such as a “community of shared future for mankind” and new approaches to international security. These ideas have found receptive audiences among a wide range of states in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, particularly as China has deepened its investment presence and become an indispensable economic partner.

Against this backdrop, China has increasingly been viewed as a credible alternative to the United States and the West more broadly. Western powers, after all, have long been accused of cloaking self-interest in the language of liberal economic ideals. China, by contrast, has emphasized non-interference and support for political stability in partner countries. Whether entirely accurate or not, this perception has strengthened Beijing’s appeal.

By the time the current phase of global restructuring began, China was widely seen as a power comparable to the United States in its ability to influence events far beyond its borders. Yet recent developments suggest a more cautious reality.

In the face of escalating international tensions, China has consistently refrained from intervening where its core interests are not directly at stake. These interests, it is increasingly clear, are concentrated primarily in its immediate neighborhood. Beijing’s response to events in 2026 illustrates this approach. It reacted calmly to the US strike on Venezuela, despite close ties with the country’s leadership. It has also avoided significant involvement in Cuba’s deepening crisis, even as the island faces unprecedented external pressure.

The same pattern is visible in the Middle East. Following US and Israeli actions against Iran, China has maintained a notably restrained position. This is striking given Beijing’s reliance on Iranian energy and Iran’s membership in organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS. Rather than confronting Washington directly, China has focused on maintaining dialogue and protecting its broader strategic interests.

For some observers, this restraint raises questions about whether China is living up to the expectations placed upon it. But from another perspective, it reflects a deliberate and coherent strategy. China appears intent on avoiding direct confrontation with the United States, instead seeking to outmaneuver its rival over the long term.

At the same time, China’s current posture invites a broader reconsideration of how great powers define their interests. One of the enduring principles of international relations is that the greatest threats to major powers tend to come from within, rather than from external actors. From this perspective, China’s focus on internal stability and sustained economic growth is both logical and necessary.

Indeed, by maintaining domestic cohesion and economic momentum, China may ultimately draw other states into its orbit, not through coercion, but through the force of example and opportunity. Yet this strategy has its own vulnerabilities. Unlike Russia or the United States, China lacks abundant domestic energy resources and remains dependent on external supplies. This dependence introduces a degree of fragility into its broader geopolitical position.

Ultimately, for a power of China’s scale, the disruption of foreign economic ties could prove deeply destabilizing. A loss of geopolitical standing that limits access to global markets and resources would go beyond simply weakening China externally, it could undermine the internal stability that its leadership prioritizes above all else.

In this sense, China faces a fundamental dilemma. To withdraw too far into its own sphere of influence risks exposing the limits of its economic self-sufficiency. But to engage too deeply in global conflicts carries the danger of overextension.

For now, Beijing has chosen caution. Whether this strategy will prove sustainable in an increasingly volatile world remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that China’s dependence on the global economy will shape its choice, and their consequences, for years to come.

This article was first published by the Valdai Club and edited by the RT team.

A Democratic-led effort to limit US President Donald Trump’s authority to use military force against Cuba without congressional authorization has failed in the Senate.

The Republican-majority Senate’s vote on the measure on Tuesday narrowly dismissed it as out of order in a 51-47 tally on grounds that there are no active hostilities with Cuba.

Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat who introduced the war powers resolution in March, said it was needed as Trump’s blockade of the island had caused “humanitarian crises across Cuba,” including disruptions to medical care, shortages of clean water and rising food prices.

Trump imposed an oil blockade on Cuba in February, tightening the decades-old US embargo by threatening sanctions against countries and companies that ship crude to the island. He has repeatedly hinted at possible regime-change operations against the socialist government in Havana, pledging “a new dawn for Cuba” and warning that it is “next” after he is “finished with this,” in reference to the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran.

Cuba has faced nationwide blackouts and severe fuel shortages in recent months, after Venezuela – once its main oil supplier – halted shipments under US pressure.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez condemned Washington’s “ferocious blockade” of fuel supplies, calling it a “brutal onslaught” on the country’s economic system.

The Irish government has agreed to put in motion a plan to terminate government-provided accommodation for Ukrainian migrants, as well as cut benefits for those living in rentals.

An estimated 125,000 Ukrainians have received temporary protection in Ireland since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. According to local media reports, Dublin has spent more than €438 million ($516 million) on housing support for roughly half of them.

The government sealed the scheme to cut housing benefits for Ukrainians who arrived in Ireland before March 2024 on Monday. The move is set to affect some 16,000 Ukrainian migrants living in state-provided accommodation, save for those unable to live on their own and “highly vulnerable.” 

Asked on Tuesday what exactly constitutes the latter category, Prime Minister Micheal Martin admitted that the government was still fleshing it out, adding that it would likely include “women and children and people with disabilities and so forth, elderly or frail people who need support.”  

Apart from ending state-provided accommodation, the government opted to sharply reduce the Accommodation Recognition Payment Scheme from €600 to €400. The move, expected to be implemented in September and completed by March of next year, will affect a further 42,000 Ukrainians residing in hosted accommodation.

The government plans have been harshly criticized by pro-migrant groups and opposition politicians, who slammed them as “immoral and unethical” and bound to become “really problematic” for many Ukrainian families.  

Last week, Irish Migration Minister Colm Brophy said the government has been considering offering payouts to Ukrainians to encourage them to leave and repatriate. The minister argued that Dublin had offered unique benefits to Ukrainians, pointing out that no other EU states had such programs.  
 
An estimated 4.35 million Ukrainians are registered for temporary protection across the bloc. In recent months, numerous EU states, including the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Poland, and Hungary, have moved to curb social programs for Ukrainian migrants.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call with his US counterpart Donald Trump on Wednesday, during which the two discussed issues including the Ukraine conflict and the crisis in the Persian Gulf, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov has said.

During the conversation, Putin expressed his support to Trump in light of the latest attempt on the US president’s life at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday. The Russian leader “strongly condemned” the incident, underlining that “political violence was unacceptable in any form,” Ushakov told journalists.

The Russian president backed Trump’s decision to extend the ceasefire with Iran, warning against renewed hostilities between the US-Israeli side and Tehran. Moscow is ready to mediate in the standoff and maintains contact with all the sides, Putin said, according to Ushakov.

“At the same time, the Russian president emphasized the inevitable, extremely dire consequences not only for Iran and its neighbors, but for the entire international community, should the US and Israel resort to the use of force again. And, of course, a ground operation on Iranian territory is regarded as a completely unacceptable and dangerous option,” the aide stated.

Putin and Trump also extensively discussed the Ukraine conflict and efforts to bring the hostilities to an end, Ushakov said. The two presidents “expressed essentially similar assessments of the behavior of the Kiev regime led by [Vladimir] Zelensky,” which has been “incited and supported by Europeans” to prolong the conflict at any cost, the official added.

During the conversation, which lasted over 90 minutes and was initiated by the Russian side, the US leader praised the recent Easter truce announced by Moscow. Putin, in turn, proposed declaring a temporary ceasefire with Kiev during the upcoming Victory Day celebrations, Ushakov said.

“Trump actively supported this initiative, noting that the holiday commemorates our shared victory over Nazism in World War II,” he added.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said he had a “very good conversation” with Putin, “mostly about Ukraine.” 

“I think we’re going to come up with a solution relatively quickly, I hope. I think [Putin would] like to see a solution, I can tell you, and that’s good,” the US president said.

Footage appearing to show Israeli soldiers looting homes in southern Lebanon and filming themselves “joking around” while damaging property has emerged on social media.

The images come amid the fallout from the report by Haaretz last week alleging that looting by Israeli troops was widespread, with commanders turning a blind eye. The outlet cited testimonies from soldiers who described troops taking “significant amounts of civilian property,” including televisions, furniture, and motorcycles.

The incidents allegedly took place during Israeli ground operations in southern Lebanon following renewed fighting with Hezbollah earlier this month.

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has said “if” these incidents occurred, they would run contrary to the values of the IDF.

Watch the full report by RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij below.

The United Arab Emirates has announced its withdrawal from OPEC and the OPEC+ format effective May 1, 2026, ending nearly six decades of membership. This marks the largest institutional disruption to the oil production coordination system since the establishment of the expanded OPEC+ format in 2016 and is perceived by the market as a step towards weakening the group’s ability to influence global oil prices.

At the same time, the move reflects Abu Dhabi’s strategic course towards maximizing its own production and increasing its market share, while maintaining its image as a ‘responsible supplier’ and relying on the long‑term growth of global energy demand.

The UAE’s withdrawal objectively leads to the potential growth of global oil production, and as a consequence, to downward pressure on prices in the medium term – especially after the unblocking of the Strait of Hormuz. It is already being described as one of the most notable institutional shifts in the energy market over the past decade. The Emirati authorities present this step as a “strategic re‑evaluation project” aligned with national economic interests, rather than a one‑off conflict over quotas.

From an economic perspective, the issue is not just about how many barrels Abu Dhabi and Dubai will produce but about the very architecture of global oil coordination. OPEC and OPEC+ are ceasing to be a monolith even in the formal sense: One of the largest and most flexible producers is moving into ‘independent mode’, transforming the market from a quota‑cartel structure into a more fragmented and sensitive one – a market driven not only by economics but also by geopolitics.

Why the UAE wanted out

In recent years, tensions have been building up between the UAE and Saudi Arabia over the issue of quota allocation within OPEC+. The UAE invested in expanding production capacity but was restricted in its ability to monetize it due to collective commitments to cut output. In fact, even before the official announcement in 2026, the UAE repeatedly signaled dissatisfaction with the level of its quotas and a desire for greater autonomy in making production decisions.

Official statements from the UAE government and Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei stress that the decision to withdraw from OPEC constitutes a sovereign political decision in the field of energy policy, adopted following a “prolonged and thorough review” of the national strategy. The official wording highlights several key motives:

• Alignment with the UAE’s long‑term strategic and economic vision and the evolution of the country’s energy sector.
• Primary emphasis on national interests and strategic priorities, ensuring the continued perception of the country as a responsible and reliable supplier.
• The anticipated sustainable growth of global energy demand in the medium- and long-term perspective justifies the expansion of the UAE’s own production and investments in the capacity foundation.

The key economic factor behind the decision is the significant expansion of the UAE’s production capacity and the drive to fully monetize it outside the constraints of a rigid quota system.

It should be noted that the UAE’s current production stands at around 3.4-3.5 million barrels per day (bpd), with plans to increase capacity to 5 million bpd by 2027 through investments in upstream projects.

For the UAE, where GDP growth and fiscal sustainability are closely tied to hydrocarbon exports, the ability to more aggressively ramp up production as global demand recovers and grows is seen as a way to accelerate the monetization of resources ahead of a potential structural shift in demand towards low‑carbon sources. In this context, leaving OPEC is perceived by Abu Dhabi as a means of protecting national revenue from external constraints and the asymmetry of interests within the organization.

The primary economic motive for the UAE’s exit from OPEC can be summarized briefly: The country no longer intends to keep its production capacity within the limits set by the collective system when it believes it can produce and export more than the quotas allow. This has been explicitly stated by UAE officials, who point to the need to “revise production policy and strengthen autonomy in managing the oil and gas sector.”

The medium-term goal is to increase production by more than 30% and strengthen the UAE’s position as a key supplier to fast-growing Asian markets, including China and India. The authorities stress that OPEC quotas, at a time when the country is completing large-scale investment cycles in oil and gas projects, begin to look like an artificial brake on potential.

Against this backdrop, leaving OPEC appears to be part of a broader diversification strategy. The UAE is simultaneously developing traditional oil export flows, natural gas, petrochemicals, and low‑carbon sectors, including renewable energy. In this model, oil and gas are not an end in themselves but a source of capital for further diversification. Consequently, any restrictions on export volumes automatically slow down progress along this trajectory.

The financial benefits are clear. In the short and medium term, the country gains the opportunity to ramp up exports when prices are favorable, reallocate flows towards more solvent markets, and accelerate the implementation of infrastructure and petrochemical projects, using waves of high prices as a ‘capital catcher’.

This could lead to a significant increase in export revenue and faster accumulation of foreign exchange reserves – which is particularly important for an economy actively participating in global financial flows.

However, the economic risks are also significant.

Firstly, leaving OPEC weakens the collective market-stabilization mechanism, which increases price volatility. In an environment where oil prices become more erratic, budget planning becomes more challenging: Revenues fluctuate sharply, and fiscal buffers and reserve funds must be designed to accommodate a wider range of scenarios.

Secondly, the UAE partially loses the political weight and institutional influence that OPEC+ membership provided. Instead of jointly taking part in shaping the rules of the game, the UAE becomes a major but standalone player whose decisions are perceived by the market as an external factor rather than as part of an institutional consensus. This raises the risk that, in times of crisis, the UAE could be viewed as a destabilizing factor – which in turn could increase pressure from partners and regulators.

The exit from OPEC carries not only economic but also symbolic significance: It demonstrates the UAE’s readiness to pursue its own course amid the fragmentation of the regional security architecture and energy coordination.

Impact on global oil trade

From a supply-side perspective, the UAE’s departure implies the potential introduction of additional volumes into the market in the medium term – 1 to 1.5 million bpd – as production expands and transportation infrastructure is restored. Combined with a possible reaction from other producers, this leads to the following:

• a reduction in the market’s overall fear of a supply deficit, and as a consequence, downward pressure on forward quotations.
• a weakening of the influence of OPEC+ signals and strengthening of individual producers’ strategies.
• a further shift in the market’s center of gravity towards competition among major independent players (the US and others).

From a short‑term perspective, the market could react to the UAE’s exit as a ‘risk shock’. Any news about quota revisions, increases in production volumes, or disruptions in logistics in the Strait of Hormuz area will amplify volatility. At the beginning of this scenario, both upward and downward price spikes are possible as market participants revise their forecasts regarding future supply levels and prices.

In the medium term, the key question is whether other producers will follow the UAE’s lead and whether real discipline will be maintained among the remaining OPEC+ members. If so, relative stabilization is possible – albeit with higher baseline volatility. If not, the market could shift to a mode in which supply is driven not by coordination but by individual decisions, leading to more frequent and severe price fluctuations.

For the global economy, this implies increased uncertainty in energy costs, more complex planning of investment programs, and higher risk premiums in financial markets. In importing countries, rising oil price instability exacerbates challenges in managing inflation and jeopardizes the sustainability of budgets and the balance of trade.

Russia’s challenges and opportunities

From a geoeconomic perspective, the UAE’s exit from OPEC fits into a broader trend of fragmentation in global energy governance and the growing role of regional and bilateral ties. For Russia, this creates both risks to budget revenues and an opportunity to deepen bilateral energy and financial-investment cooperation with the Emirates within the evolving architecture of the global oil market.

Regarding Russia’s reaction to the UAE’s withdrawal, the initial public response came from Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, who directly linked it to the prospect of increased global production and lower prices in the future. According to him, the UAE’s departure means the country will be able to produce as much oil as capacity allows and bring it to the market without restrictions. If other OPEC countries begin to act in a similar way, total supply will rise and prices will fall.

Among the key challenges are the potential drop in oil prices, which directly affects budget revenues and development financing capabilities, and the weakening of collective coordination mechanisms through which Russia has been able to influence the market via OPEC+.

The opportunities include: Deepening energy, investment, and financial cooperation with the UAE as an increasingly independent geoeconomic player interested in diversifying its partners; developing joint projects in logistics (bypassing the Strait of Hormuz and using alternative routes), oil, and petroleum product trade, as well as in the area of sovereign wealth funds and payment infrastructure, with a focus on de-dollarization; Using the bilateral format to align approaches to market stabilization during critical moments – complementing, rather than replacing, formal OPEC+ mechanisms.

The UAE’s exit from OPEC and OPEC+ should not be interpreted as a collapse in prices or the outright disintegration of the cartel. Rather, it represents a transition to a new regime in which the role of collective quotas diminishes and the importance of national economic interests, geopolitical games, and individual market decisions increases.

For Russia, the key challenge is to adapt its budgetary and energy policies to a potential decline in prices amid rising supply, while simultaneously deepening strategic partnerships with the UAE and other major exporters in Asia and the Middle East. In the context of growing fragmentation in global energy governance, it is the combination of flexible domestic policy and active geoeconomic diplomacy that can mitigate risks and transform the structural shift into sources of additional influence and resilience.

The beginning of fuel loading at the first unit of the Russian-build Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant has paved the way for the start of experimental production of nuclear energy in Bangladesh.

Reporting from Rooppur, RT India correspondent Rujuta Thete notes that the nuclear power plant will supply 10% of national needs once it becomes fully operational.

Fuel loading at the first unit is expected to be completed within the next 45 days, officials said. After that, the reactor will be brought to a minimum controlled power level, followed by a gradual increase in output. Electricity will then be generated on a trial basis and fed into the national grid.

With a planned capacity of 2,400 megawatts across two reactors, the facility will add Bangladesh to the list of more than 30 nations operating nuclear power reactors, Rosatom noted in a statement. The estimated project cost is about $13 billion, with Russia providing a state loan covering 90% of that amount. The Russian side has also undertaken long‑term obligations for nuclear fuel supply, technical maintenance, and management of spent nuclear fuel.

Bangladesh’s Science and Technology Minister Fakir Mahbub Anam said that the plant’s first reactor is expected to begin commercial operation in August, with an initial supply of about 300 megawatts. Full‑scale production is expected by December this year or early 2027.

The project is seen as a potential game‑changer for a country facing a severe energy crisis amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Bangladesh heavily relies on energy imports for its electricity and industrial needs, sourcing roughly 95% of its oil and gas from Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, and Iraq. India is also a major electricity supplier, providing around 15-17% of Bangladesh’s power through grid connections and supplying diesel via pipeline.

More than 500 British police officers have raided the headquarters of an Islamic sect in Cheshire, arresting nine members of the so-called Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light – a fringe Shia-inspired movement that relocated to Britain from Sweden in 2021.

Cheshire Police said the investigation began in March 2026 after officers were made aware of allegations of serious sexual offences, forced marriage and modern slavery, reported to have taken place in 2023. The alleged offences all involved one victim – a woman who was a member of the group at the time. 

At around 8.50am on Wednesday, officers executed three search warrants, including at Webb House, a former orphanage that serves as the sect’s headquarters. According to Cheshire Police, six men and three women of American, Mexican, Italian, Spanish, Egyptian, and Swedish nationalities were detained.

The Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light is a secretive movement founded in the late 1990s by followers of Shia Islam. It is believed to be active in over 40 countries and claims around 7,000 adherents.

The group had previously faced scrutiny in Sweden, where immigration authorities issued deportation orders against 69 of its members before it moved to the UK in 2021. It is also understood to be under investigation by the Home Office over its use of skilled worker visas. The group has denied any wrongdoing.

The raid also comes amid continued pressure on the British government to address the issue of grooming gangs where men, mostly of Pakistani origin, who have systematically raped thousands of vulnerable young British girls over the past two decades. 

In June, Prime Minister Keir Starmer authorized a new national inquiry into the matter. In London alone, police have been reviewing some 9,000 child sexual exploitation cases, with an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 involving grooming gangs.

Saudi Arabia’s petroleum and natural gas giant Aramco is suspending liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) through May due to damage at its main export facility, Bloomberg has reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The company’s key LPG export hub, the Juaymah terminal located in the Persian Gulf, suffered structural damage in February, shortly before the US-Israeli attack on Iran. At the time, the company said a support structure collapsed at the site, cutting off fuel supply and prompting a halt in overseas shipments. The facility accounts for about 3.5% of total global waterborne LPG exports, according to market analysts.

The conflict in the region left the company unable to fix the damage, and the facility remains shut. Earlier this month, the Saudi Energy Ministry said that the site also suffered fires during Iran’s retaliatory strikes on its US-aligned neighbors. The ministry did not disclose the extent of damage inflicted by the attacks.

On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that Aramco notified its customers that the deliveries will remain suspended through May.

The key waterway continues to face disruptions amid the stalled talks between the US and Iran, which have been unable to agree on key issues, including the fate of Tehran’s nuclear program. The US administration has been reportedly weighing an extended blockade of Iranian ports, regarding it as a preferable option to active hostilities or a retreat and hoping it would pressure Tehran towards a more favorable peace deal. 

The LPG shortages, caused by the disruption of Hormuz and the Juaymah terminal closure, have been primarily felt throughout Asia. India, where LPG is widely used for cooking, has been hit particularly hard by the issue, prompting a surge in firewood use and repeated conflicts between the country’s citizens over scarce supply.

Sixty days into the US-Israeli war on Iran, peace talks are stalled and the world is bracing for yet more economic pain. RT asks how we got here, and who – if anyone – is really winning in the Persian Gulf?

April 29 marks 60 days since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran. The initial hours of the conflict were marked by extreme brutality. An American missile strike killed more than 160 schoolgirls at an elementary school in Minab and dozens of the Iranian political and clerical elite were killed along with their families in missile attacks. A quick and decisive victory, it seemed, was at hand for Washington and West Jerusalem. 

Things did not go according to plan. Iran struck back against US bases and Gulf energy infrastructure, blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, and with its government still intact, now insists that any peace deal leave its nuclear program off the table. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump’s approval rating is in freefall and his NATO ‘allies’ have deserted him while struggling to deal with the economic fallout at home.

Following the announcement of a US-Iran ceasefire deal, Israel launched a brutal invasion of Lebanon, killing hundreds of people in attacks on urban areas within minutes, invading the south of the country and triggering another spiral of violence where dozens of people are killed every day despite the announcement of a truce.

Did Israel drag the US into war with Iran? 

Trump and his cabinet struggled from the outset to describe both their objectives and their rationale for attacking Iran. Trump initially told the public that the US faced “imminent threats from the Iranian regime,” later claiming that Tehran was “two weeks away” from developing a nuclear weapon. Six months earlier, Trump proclaimed Iran’s nuclear program “totally obliterated” after US strikes on several key nuclear sites in Iran.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the US knew that Israel was going to attack Iran with or without American support. The US joined in the attack, he said, believing that “if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

Has the US achieved its objectives in Iran?

The US’ military goals – as laid out by Trump – remain unchanged since February 28: “obliterate Iran’s missiles and production, annihilate its navy, sever its support for terrorist proxies, and ensure it never acquires a nuclear weapon.”

Prior to the first attacks on Iran, the CIA predicted that Khamenei would be immediately replaced by a successor, and that hardliners within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would strengthen their position in Tehran, Reuters reported. This prediction has been proven correct.

Trump has claimed that Iran’s navy is “completely obliterated,” while Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has described Iran’s missile arsenal as “functionally destroyed” and “combat ineffective for years to come.” However, US and Israeli military officials believe that around half of the Islamic Republic’s missile launchers and thousands of one-way attack drones are still operational, and roughly 60% of its navy – mostly fast-attack speedboats – is intact.

Iran’s support for Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement is degraded, but not severed. Meanwhile, the status of Tehran’s nuclear weapons program remains unchanged: both Iran and US intelligence assessments maintain that it has been paused since 2003.

How has Iran defended itself?

Iran has, in the words of Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, “had two decades to study defeats of the US military to our immediate east and west,” and has “incorporated lessons accordingly.”

We've had two decades to study defeats of the U.S. military to our immediate east and west. We've incorporated lessons accordingly.

Bombings in our capital have no impact on our ability to conduct war. Decentralized Mosaic Defense enables us to decide when—and how—war will end. pic.twitter.com/E4jrdnDapb

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) March 1, 2026

The most valuable of these is the concept of “mosaic defense” where commanders of Iran’s regional military districts are empowered to conduct strikes without approval from Tehran. This has allowed the IRGC to order attacks on Israeli and Gulf targets despite dozens of its senior leaders in the Iranian capital being killed.

Iran responded to the US-Israeli attacks by launching ballistic missiles at Israel and at American bases and interests in the Gulf region. Israel’s military censorship regime makes assessing the damage to the Jewish state difficult. A combination of satellite footage, media reports, and social media footage makes, it possible to confirm that the following US bases have been hit, often more than once:

• Naval Support Activity, Bahrain

• Erbil International Airport, Iraq

• Al-Asad Airbase, Iraq

• Victory Base complex (Baghdad International Airport area)

• Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, Jordan

• Ali Al-Salem Air Base, Kuwait

• Camp Buehring, Kuwait

• Camp Arifjan, Kuwait

• Mohammed Al-Ahmad Naval Base, Kuwait

• Al-Udeid Air Base, Qatar

• Al-Dhafra Air Base, UAE

• Jebel Ali Port, UAE

• Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia

These facilities account for more than half of the US’ temporary and permanent military bases in the region, which together host between 40,000 and 50,000 American troops at any given time. 

Iran’s target selection appears methodical, with radar installations prioritized in the early days of the conflict. Among the equipment hit was an AN/FPS-132 early warning radar system at Al Udeid Air Base, one of only six worldwide, and an AN/TPS-59 radar dome at Naval Support Activity Bahrain. 

Iran has also struck energy infrastructure in Gulf states hosting the US military. Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura oil refinery and Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG hub were both hit by drones on March 2. Production at Ras Laffan has since been indefinitely halted, wiping out a fifth of the world’s LNG supply. Iran broadened its campaign of energy strikes after an Israeli attack on its Pars gas field on March 18, and has since struck dozens of refineries, pipelines, and extraction sites in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, while its allied militias have struck oil fields and refineries in Iraq.

How has the US military performed against Iran?

Despite inflicting severe damage on Iran, the Pentagon suffered several humiliations in the opening weeks of the conflict: fires and plumbing failures aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford; the forced retreat of two aircraft carriers – the Ford and the USS Abraham Lincoln – out of range of Iranian missiles; the evacuation of tanker aircraft from Al-Udeid and Prince Sultan airbases under Iranian fire; the downing of five fighter jets; and a series of ‘friendly fire’ incidents that Tehran claims were concocted to conceal the US’ true losses.

Damage to American bases in the region is far more extensive than publicly acknowledged by the Pentagon, and may take several years and “up to $5 billion to repair,” NBC News reported in late April.

At least 15 US service personnel have been killed and more than 520 wounded since February 28, although the Pentagon has been accused of manipulating casualty lists to hide its true losses. 

Which Iranian elites did the US and Israel target?

At least 48 senior Iranian political, clerical, and defense officials have been assassinated, including seven Defense Ministry and IRGC leaders killed at the same Iranian Defense Council meeting on February 28. The list of officials includes:

• Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

• Iranian Defence Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani

• IRGC Commander-in-Chief Mohammad Pakpour

• Iranian Armed Forces Chief of the General Staff Abdolrahim Mousavi

• Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh

• Head of the Military Office of the Supreme Leader Mohammad Shirazi

• Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani

• Intelligence Minister Esmaeil Khatib

Several officials were killed along with their families. Khamenei’s daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter were killed alongside the supreme leader, while former Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi and IRGC budget chief Jamshid Eshaghi, among others, lost their wives and children to US and Israeli missiles. 

According to Tehran’s figures, almost 3,500 people have been killed and 26,500 wounded in Iran since the conflict began, just under half of them civilians. 

What is the situation in the Strait of Hormuz?

The Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway through which just under a third of the world’s seaborne oil and a fifth of its LNG flows, has been de-facto closed since the beginning of the conflict. Iran formalized the blockade on March 4, with the IRGC announcing that it alone would decide which ships could pass through the 34km-wide strait. In late March, passage was opened up to shipping from neutral countries willing to pay tolls, but shut down again in April after the US imposed its own blockade on the strait.

The American ‘double blockade’ is Trump’s latest strategy to resolve the crisis. Within the span of two weeks Trump declared the strait open, begged his NATO “allies” and China to help open it, threatened to unleash “hell” on Iran if it did not allow shipping through, before settling on imposing a blockade of his own on the Strait on April 13.

Iran maintains that it is able to export its oil by other means, and insists that the US must lift its blockade or bear responsibility for the wider economic damage resulting from the closure. “One cannot restrict Iran’s oil exports while expecting free security for others,” Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref wrote on X on April 19. “The choice is clear: either a free oil market for all, or the risk of significant costs for everyone.”

What kind of economic damage has the war caused?

Global energy markets have been thrown into chaos. The closure of Hormuz is the main bottleneck but it isn’t the only problem: key pieces of energy infrastructure in the Middle East have sustained damage that will be expensive and could take years to repair.  

Meanwhile, shortages have emerged across numerous petroleum products, from naphtha to diesel and jet fuel. Rationing has been introduced in some countries, especially in Asia. Around one-third of the global fertilizer trade passes through the region, making this disruption a particularly ominous one for food prices.   

Analysts warn of a slow-moving hurricane stalking the global economy as supply chains are pressured, inventories run low, and the specter of inflation returns. Although a global recession would eventually reach all corners of the globe, the effects so far have been disproportionately felt in Asia, which is more reliant on energy flows through Hormuz.  

Oddly, stock markets have in many cases surged to new highs. This has led some analysts to talk about a disconnect between financial markets and physical reality. Such a disconnect is also evident in the often vast spread between the spot price of oil (for physical cargoes) and the much lower futures price. On the other hand, a new bout of inflation would be bullish for stocks – as long as the economic carnage is contained. 

How are peace talks progressing?

A ceasefire between the US and Iran took effect on April 8, with Israel and Hezbollah entering a fragile truce a week later. Talks between Washington and Tehran, however, have shown little sign of a breakthrough. Iran wants an immediate end to hostilities, security guarantees, and the lifting of the US blockade, while the US wants any deal to involve restrictions on Iran’s nuclear enrichment.

Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi has spent the last week meeting with mediators in Pakistan and Oman, and shoring up diplomatic support in Moscow. According to Reuters, however, Trump is unhappy with Tehran’s latest proposal, and talks remain at an impasse.

Pleased to engage with Russia at the highest level as the region is in major flux.

Recent events have evidenced the depth and strength of our strategic partnership. As our relationship continues to grow, we are grateful for solidarity and welcome Russia's support for diplomacy. pic.twitter.com/I1VyDSfxET

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) April 28, 2026

What happens next?

Two months since the war began, the US is bogged down in a conflict that Trump predicted would be over four weeks ago, with few of its objectives achieved. Washington’s European allies have refused Trump’s pleas and admonishments for help, American warplanes are banned from NATO airbases in multiple European countries, and even former backers of Trump, like Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, have distanced themselves from the US president.

Israel has continued to wage war on Lebanon, regardless of the insistence by two parties to the negotiations that the Jewish state was bound to a ceasefire agreement. 

Iran has been significantly damaged, but has emerged in control of the Strait of Hormuz and therefore much of the world’s oil supply. Although the US is now preventing Iranian vessels from transiting the strait, Tehran – sanctioned for decades by the West – is betting that it can withstand more economic pain than Trump and his allies can.

Trump now faces an unenviable choice: cut his losses, take a deal, and retreat, or drag the US and the world economy into the kind of Middle Eastern quagmire he once swore he’d never end up in.

Almost daily, there are updates on brutal attacks by armed Israeli settlers – really, colonists – against Palestinians. They shoot or ferociously beat – sometimes to the point of murder – Palestinian civilians, male and female, young and old, including entire families.

These attacks have been occurring for decades. I’ve written about them many times, including what I saw in different regions of the West Bank during my eight months there in 2007. Back then, the violence was already horrific. Now, the attacks are exponentially more frequent. The end goal is clear – drive the Palestinians permanently off their own land.

While many rightly note the increase of such attacks since 2023, and even more so following the Israeli-US attack on Iran, the drastic increase in colonist attacks began in 2021 and has continued to increase up to the present.

In November 2021, the Israeli publication Haaretz noted a 150% rise in settler attacks from 2019. A United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) report posted in September 2023 likewise showed an increase in attacks from 2021 and throughout 2022. It noted, “Three settler related incidents per day occurred on average in the first eight months of 2023 compared to an average of two per day in 2022 and one per day the year before. This is the highest daily average of settler-related incidents affecting Palestinians since the UN started recording this data in 2006.”

The independent human rights organization and legal center Adalah reported in October 2023 on new regulations passed by the Israeli Knesset enabling still more Jewish Israelis to acquire and carry guns, an initiative put forth by National Security Minister Ben-Gvir. This is on top of the fact that illegal Jewish colonists have already carried and used guns against Palestinian civilians for decades.

Adalah noted, “By labeling Palestinians as ‘enemies’, Ben-Gvir, who does not conceal his racist views towards Palestinians, seeks to legitimize the blanket impunity granted to both Israel’s armed forces and ruthless Jewish-Israeli vigilantes for killing and injuring Palestinians.”

Arson crimes committed by colonists in recent months include setting fire to homes and vehicles in the southern community of Susiya; to homes in the Jenin region; setting fire to and burning the emergency room of a Palestinian Medical Relief clinic in the Nablus area; torching homes and vehicles in Tayasir village east of Tubas (and slashing open the forehead of a Palestinian resident) – to list just a handful of cases. Back in 2014, colonists kidnapped and deliberately burned a young teenager alive. In 2015, they firebombed a Palestinian home and burned to death a year-old infant inside.

In March, swarms of Israeli colonists raided Palestinian villages near an illegal colony between Nablus and Jenin, setting homes, vehicles, and property ablaze, according to Palestinians from the region who also said Israeli forces prevented the entry of firefighters and ambulances.

“Israeli forces’ jeeps came with the settlers. Israeli forces chased people and opened fire on them to ensure they couldn’t fight off the settlers,” an older resident testified.

From inside his burnt-out house, another man said, “The settlers surrounded the house, burned it by throwing Molotov cocktails. Israeli forces were nearby, a drone was filming. This went on for 30 minutes. I was on the roof with my children, under attack, while the house was burning.”

Israeli NGO Yesh Din noted in January 2026, “Ideologically motivated violence by Israeli citizens against Palestinians has reached a record high over the past two years; attacks against Palestinians and their property, some deadly, throughout the West Bank now occur daily.”

Since 2005, the organization has been documenting offenses committed by Israeli civilians, settlers, and others, against Palestinians in the West Bank. They noted, “Over twenty years of monitoring of the outcomes of investigations into ideologically motivated crime against Palestinians reveals that the State of Israel breaches its obligation under both Israeli and international law to protect Palestinians in the West Bank from harm.”

According to Yesh Din, since 2005, only 3% of the investigation files opened into such crimes against Palestinians led to full or partial convictions. They rightly maintain that this isn’t mere oversight, but rather “evidence that Israel intentionally enables the violence perpetrated against defenseless civilians.”

By mid-April, Yesh Din reported 378 incidents of “extremist settler violence against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank,” resulting in eight Palestinians shot dead and 200 injured by colonists during the 40 days of the US-Israeli bombardment of Iran alone.

Masafer Yatta: One region under sustained colonist attacks

I spent several months in the village of Susiya, in the Masafer Yatta region in South Hebron Hills, back in 2007. The tent settlement (an inadequate ramshackle replacement for the homes Palestinians were unjustly evicted from in the ’80s and ’90s) was constantly under attack from both Israeli settlers and soldiers. One of the elderly Palestinian grandfathers had been brutally beaten by a gang of seven in 2006, the attackers badly injuring his leg. In 2008, he and his wife were again savagely attacked and beaten by colonists, his wife hospitalized for several days as a result. The assailants were caught on video but were never held accountable.

Fast forward to recent years, and the attacks are more brazen and brutal, the army and police more complicit.

Palestinian activists from the region have filmed some of the extremely violent attacks. In July 2025, a gun-wielding colonist was filmed shooting wildly at Palestinians. Were the situation reversed, the shooter would be dead or rotting, tortured, in an Israeli prison. In February 2026, footage shows what locals said were more than 30 armed colonists carrying out a coordinated, attack on Palestinian families in Susiya, “throwing explosives at a home with a family inside, and smashing security cameras with stones to hide the crime.”

It is undeniable such attacks are an unofficial policy for Israeli illegal expansionism, as Yesh Din noted in January 2026, stating, “settler violence serves Israel’s objectives to expand its control over the occupied territory by terrorizing and exercising violence against Palestinians.”

The 2021 Haaretz article also cited a senior Israeli security figure saying, “These are not attacks by bored children. You have to call things by their name. In some of the cases it’s simply Jewish terrorism.”

Complete impunity

Palestinian Christian human rights advocate Ihab Hassan, in an April 2026 post about Israeli colonist attacks, noted, “If a Palestinian tries to defend his home from these terrorists, he will be killed or imprisoned for life. If settlers shoot and kill Palestinians in their own homes, nothing will happen to them. What should we call a system that punishes victims and grants criminals full impunity based on religion, race, and nationality?”

Indeed, in April, Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem reported on an Israeli colonist invasion of a Palestinian village “as part of ongoing efforts to take it over,” noting, “Residents who tried to fend them off with stones came under heavy fire from a settler on military reserve duty who joined his friends as reinforcement. One of the bullets fatally hit Ali Hamadneh, 23, in the back while he was running away and posed no danger, as is evident in footage of the incident.”

B’Tselem noted that the Israeli army spokesperson later claimed that a reservist soldier carried out a “suspect-arrest procedure that included firing in the air and then firing at one of the stone-throwers.”

Recently, the Italian magazine L’Espresso published a disturbing cover photo featuring a sneering Israeli soldier taunting a Palestinian woman. Aptly titled ‘Abuse’, the image was widely shared on X, sending indignant Israeli propagandists into overdrive. They tried to claim the image was fake, but that matter was settled when L’Espresso released the accompanying video of the soldier menacing the woman.

The Israeli ambassador to Italy claimed the photo was “anti-Semitic.” This claim was widely contested with still further examples of crazed-looking Jewish colonists harassing Palestinian civilians.

For Palestinians who have been enduring the hateful, often deadly, settler attacks for decades, it is good that the wider world is finally becoming aware of both the settlers’ crimes and the Israeli police and army’s complicity. But awareness isn’t enough. Israel will never hold them accountable, much less stop them. They do the dirty work of Israeli expansionism.

In January 2026, Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Evangelical Lutheran pastor in Ramallah and director of the Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice, posted, “Yesterday, Zionist settler thugs attacked the village of Birzeit, near Ramallah... When one woman from the village dared to shout at them and confront them, the settlers attacked her.” The woman ended up in intensive care and was eventually stabilized. But, according to Isaac, instead of arresting the attackers, Israeli forces arrested her son, who tried to defend his mother. Isaac then writes: “Let us call this what it is: Zionist terrorism. The problem is not only the settlers. The problem is the system that empowers them. The problem is the immunity they enjoy. Lord, have mercy.”

He is correct. It is the system which enables and encourages illegal Israeli colonists to attack, maim, and kill Palestinian civilians. The question is when, or if, these criminals will ever be stopped, much less held to justice.

Google has struck a deal to provide the Pentagon with its AI models for classified use, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

The agreement came despite internal company protests and ongoing disputes over military applications of the technology. The Pentagon has been rapidly securing access to advanced AI through similar deals with major developers since last year.

The deal reportedly expands a $200 million contract signed in 2025, allowing Google’s Gemini AI to operate on classified networks. The tech-giant confirmed the agreement but provided no further details.

“We are proud to be part of a broad consortium… providing AI services in support of national security,” the company’s spokeswoman Jenn Crider said, adding that the company remains committed to ensuring AI is not used for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weapons without human oversight.

The agreement has triggered backlash inside Google. In an open letter this week, more than 600 employees, including senior staff, urged CEO Sundar Pichai to halt military use of the company’s AI, warning it could be used in “inhumane or extremely harmful ways.” They called for a moratorium on such contracts, greater transparency, and an ethics board to oversee military partnerships.

Other firms have taken a different approach. OpenAI recently struck its own deal to deploy models on classified Pentagon networks, while Musk’s xAI has integrated its systems into the military’s internal AI platform, GenAI.mil, used by millions of personnel.

The Pentagon’s AI push has sparked protests from tech workers and activists, who warn the technology could be used in military settings without proper accountability. Demonstrators last month gathered outside OpenAI offices with slogans such as “No AI surveillance state” and “Orwell warned us.”

US President Donald Trump has ordered a plan to prolong the blockade of Iranian ports in a bid to pressure Tehran towards a more favorable peace deal, despite his approval rating hitting record lows, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing sources.

Unnamed officials told the paper that Trump has told aides to prepare for an extended blockade, seeing the option as risky but preferable to renewed bombing or a full-scale retreat from the conflict.

The paper described the policy as “a high-risk bid to compel a nuclear capitulation” of Iran, which has long rejected US demands to dismantle its atomic program and hand over its enriched uranium stockpile.

According to the WSJ, Trump saw Tehran’s overture as a sign that it is not negotiating in good faith. The paper also suggested that the proposal would allow Iran to set terms for an off-ramp. In addition, a senior US official told the outlet that the blockade is “demonstrably crushing Iran’s economy,” adding that the mounting pressure was the reason behind the latest Iranian proposal in the first place.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll on Monday suggested that Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 34%, down from 36% earlier in April and from 47% when he took office in January 2025. Only 22% of respondents approved of his handling of the cost of living crisis, the poll added. The president, however, has said that he does “not care about polling” and that he has “to do the right thing.”

As traffic through the Strait of Hormuz continues to face disruptions, the US national gas price average has reached $4.2 per gallon, with the Brent benchmark oil price at that $115 mark, compared to around $70 before the war.