With the U.S. and Iran arriving at a “memorandum of understanding” to end hostilities, President Donald Trump seems to think petroleum prices will come down immediately. “Let the oil flow!” he wrote on social media. But while average gas prices did fall just below $4 per gallon after the deal was signed, economists say extended relief from high prices could take much longer to arrive.

When will gas prices come down?

Drivers might expect that oil prices will start to lower as soon as the deal with Iran is inked, but they will “probably have to wait weeks or longer to see meaningful improvement,” said The New York Times. Gas prices often fluctuate in an “up-like-a-rocket, down-like-a-feather” manner, meaning gasoline costs “quickly rise alongside the price of crude oil but are slow to follow its descent.” Gas stations tend to lose money when the price of gas goes up, so when oil starts to “go down, station owners are slow to bring retail prices down to make up for their poor financial performance on the way up.”

Trump is also hopeful that the reopening of the long-contested Strait of Hormuz, and the reactivation of its oil-shipping lanes will help ease the price burden. But there is a “big difference between reopening the Strait of Hormuz on paper and actually resuming the flow of oil through it,” said The Atlantic. While a small number of ships have started traversing the strait, the U.S. and Iran are “far apart on crucial issues, including Iran’s nuclear program,” which could “dissuade oil producers from resuming operations, insurance companies from reducing currently sky-high rates and ‘Ships of the World’ from starting their engines.”

Once ships do start moving again, there will be a “gradual process of resuming east-west traffic, with international actors providing additional support,” Gregory Brew, a senior analyst on Iran and oil at the Eurasia Group, told Intelligencer. But it will “take longer — probably between three and four months — for the region to return to normalcy.” Many countries in the Middle East aside from Iran have had their oil production affected. In Saudi Arabia, virtually “all oil production has been shut in” or capped, said Brew. So a “full return to prewar production and refining levels is likely to take weeks, months or even years,“ said Reuters.

What is the bigger picture?

Fas prices presumably staying high for a while could affect more than just the gas itself. Republicans are “hopeful prices will soon ease near pre-war levels” because the midterms are on the horizon, said Politico. Even if prices go down, voters may carry negative thoughts about Trump’s economy with them into the voting booth.

Other economic elements that rely on petroleum will still be affected as well, most notably airline travel. Aviation experts “have spent months warning that even if the war ended, travelers should not expect airfares to go down immediately,” said The Associated Press. Airlines often buy fuel in advance and adjust their schedules according to demand, meaning “lower oil and jet fuel prices can take weeks or months to get factored into the cost of commercial flights.”

Fuel prices remaining elevated will also affect the grocery aisle. Fuel accounts for 15% to 30% of the total price of food, according to the Independent Grocers Alliance. It “can take months for an energy shock like the one caused by the Iran war to wind through the food supply chain and raise grocery prices,” said the AP. Food, much like gas and travel, may be expensive for a long time to come.

What happened

President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding to open the Strait of Hormuz, allow Iran to sell oil on the global market and start unfreezing its assets. The deal also kicked off 60 days of negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program and “at least” $300 billion for Iran’s “reconstruction and economic development.”

The text of the 14-point agreement was read to reporters by a U.S. official, and Iran later released a similar version. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key mediator, said the agreement was in “force with immediate effect.”

Who said what

The truce will mostly “restore the status quo before the war,” The Associated Press said. However, the text suggests Iran might “negotiate some permanent way to exercise sovereignty” over the strait, including new shipping “fees,” after 60 days, said The New York Times. The Iranians have “emerged from a confrontation with the world’s most powerful military” intact and “with much to celebrate.”

“Everything we sought to achieve through military action, we obtained several times over through negotiation,” Iran’s lead negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on state television. The deal is “very strong,” Trump told reporters at the G7 summit in France. “Most people seem to be very happy.” Critics, including many Republicans, are “stupid and bad people,” he said. But “if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs.”

What next?

Instead of the planned signing ceremony in Geneva on Friday, Vice President JD Vance and other Trump envoys will “attend three days of negotiations with their Iranian counterparts,” The Wall Street Journal said.

The internet is awash with jokes about the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, which is now riddled with algae.

The Trump administration spent more than $14 million (£10.5 million) draining the pool and painting the bottom “American flag blue” in time for the 250th anniversary of US independence. The president had described the reflecting pool – the scene of Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I have a dream” speech – as “filthy” and “dirty”, and promised to transform it into something “beautiful”. Instead, residual algae has “proliferated” in warm weather, said The Guardian, turning the pond “Wicked” green.

But beyond the schadenfreude, toxic algae blooms are a worldwide phenomenon that can harm humans and devastate marine life. And as the climate crisis warms the water, the problem is growing.

‘Underwater phantom’

“Algal blooms are a rapid, explosive growth of algae,” said pharmacology researcher Ian Musgrave on The Conversation. Blue-green algae, known as cyanobacteria, naturally occur in inland waters, estuaries and the sea. They often contain multiple species, some of which produce toxins. The “bewildering variety” can cause many effects in humans, from nausea and skin irritation to increased asthma symptoms and even liver failure. Those that don’t produce toxins can “suffocate fish” by damaging the gills and reducing oxygen.

For a year now, a toxic algal bloom in South Australia has had “devastating effects” on wildlife. “At my local beach, walks were a sad parade of dead sea life,” said Musgrave.

Since last March, algae have “flared at hotspots” along the coastline, causing “stinging eyes, coughing, rashes, headaches and breathing difficulties” among surfers, said ABC. One swimmer was hospitalised with severe gastroenteritis. “It was like razor blades in my gut,” he said. “I was rolling around on the floor in the emergency room, coughing and spewing blood.”

Along the “jagged coastline”, it has become “an underwater phantom”, and researchers are “not entirely sure why”, said The New York Times. Beachgoers are “horrified by the dead animals washing ashore”. Since February last year, a crowdsourced platform has recorded more than 100,000 instances of dead sea life. “It was literally just like an underwater bushfire,” said a recreational fisherman.

Recent citizen science data suggests the bloom affected nearly 8,000 square miles. Last October, state agency scientists estimated the algae had impacted about a third of South Australia’s coasts. The psychological effect is enormous: in a survey of South Australians last July, nearly 70% said “they were repeatedly thinking about the bloom”, said researcher Brianna Le Busque, from Adelaide University. Some compared seeing the washed-up marine life to “the death of a loved one”.

‘Visible from space’

Harmful algal blooms stalk shores far beyond Australia. In Southern California last year an “unprecedented, multi-toxin event” killed hundreds of seabirds, sea lions and dolphins, said the Public Policy Institute of California.

Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland, the UK’s largest freshwater lake, has also been blighted by blue-green algae for years. This “majestic landscape of water and sky”, the inspiration for Seamus Heaney’s prize-winning poetry, is “choking on recurring toxic algal blooms”, said The Guardian.

The algae feed on high levels of nutrients in the water, mainly from agriculture (farm run-off, fertiliser and livestock waste), as well as “inadequate wastewater treatment”. Global warming has also increased the temperature of the lough, encouraging the abundant blooms. Last year, there were 243 detections of cyanobacteria growths, according to Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs: a record.

In some places, the green sludge – “so widespread it is visible from space”, said The Guardian – forms “patterns and swirls redolent of Gustav Klimt”. But far from picturesque, the blooms “coat the surface, kill wildlife, unleash stenches and make the lake all but unusable”. The impact on wildlife and tourism is “incalculable”.

“Lough Neagh is dying in front of our eyes,” said Claire Hanna, leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party. “Images of fish and eels gasping for life on the surface are not just shocking – they are a stark warning of total ecological collapse.”

Emmanuel Macron has home-field advantage during the ongoing G7 summit in the resort town of Évian-les-Bains, and the French president wants the involved countries to help him deal with Chinese trade, which he feels is unbalanced. Though China isn’t a G7 member, it has an advantage of its own given its power in the global trade market. So Macron may have to perform a delicate balancing act.

What did the commentators say?

The French president largely expects the G7 nations to “converge on the need to tackle a flood of subsidized Chinese exports that is disrupting global markets,” said Politico. But it is becoming increasingly clear that “credible action is one deliverable he won’t be able to land.” Macron is pushing for Europe and the U.S. to come together for a solution, but meetings are “unlikely to deliver answers to the problem.”

The problem is two-pronged: Beijing is “curling its lip” at Macron, while Europe and the U.S. are “diverging on how to contain China’s $1.2 trillion trade surplus,” said Politico. Macron wants the EU to present a unified front on China, and Europe has “made strides on its China policy since the Covid-19 pandemic” but “still struggles to align internally,” said The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. And the “squeeze is tightening from both directions.”

France and Macron’s ultimate goal during the summit is to “make the reduction of global imbalances and inequalities the priority and position the G7 as a space for dialogue among the major advanced industrialized democracies,” said the Chicago Council. Macron also believes that talks between China and France “signal a ‘new willingness’ by China, the U.S. and Europe to coordinate economic approaches,” said Bloomberg.

The American factor also looms large, as President Donald Trump appears to be “ready to use the G7 stage to berate allies for what he views as inadequate support,” said the Council on Foreign Relations. With this in mind, Macron’s “challenge may be less about advancing his personal initiatives than managing the summit itself.” He may find himself “confronting two sets of competing summit agendas: the one it planned and the one that geopolitical events — and Trump — have created.”

What next?

The Évian-les-Bains summit will be Macron’s last; his term as French president expires in 2027, and he is ineligible to run again. The United States is hosting the next G7 summit, meaning Macron “will seek to keep the flame alive as he passes the torch to the United States,” said the Council on Foreign Relations. China, meanwhile, maintains that it is ready and willing to engage in economic cooperation with the EU, even as these discussions come “against the backdrop of talks in Europe over possible new restrictions to counter China’s export surge,” said Bloomberg.

“All countries should uphold openness and cooperation, take an objective view of the comparative advantages of different countries, foster a free and facilitative trading environment and practice true multilateralism,” Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing said during a conference call with France, according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua. He also “called for prioritizing development, improving global governance and promoting inclusive growth of the world economy.”

What happened

Hungary’s parliament on Monday approved a constitutional amendment barring prime ministers from serving more than eight years in office. The amendment, which passed 135 to 50, was “written to apply retroactively,” effectively blocking former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán from returning to power, Politico said.

Who said what

The amendment, pushed through by Prime Minister Peter Magyar’s Tisza party, also “paves the way for the dissolution” of tools created by Orbán to consolidate his power, Reuters said, including a Sovereignty Protection Office that “stigmatized opposition figures and journalists” and public trust foundations that transferred valuable “state assets” to Orbán’s political party and allies. The legislation was part of Magyar’s promised “crusade for ‘regime change’” after 16 straight years of Orbán rule, Politico said, but would also put a “significant limit on Magyar’s own power, as he vows to restore liberal democracy in Hungary.”

What next?

The bill now goes to President Tamás Sulyok, an Orbán appointee who has refused Magyar’s calls to resign. Sulyok “could attempt to block the measure,” said Ukrainian outlet United24 Media, but Tisza’s two-thirds parliamentary supermajority “has the power to override a veto.”

What happened

Vice President JD Vance said Monday that he and President Donald Trump had “digitally” signed an interim peace agreement with Iran and expected the text of the memorandum of understanding to be released before a ceremonial signing in Geneva on Friday. The potential breakthrough “drew cautious optimism and frustration” in Congress, where “even some Republicans were reluctant to praise a deal whose terms the administration has yet to disclose,” The New York Times said. “If it’s a secret deal, then how can I take it seriously?” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said to reporters.

In Israel, people “from across the political spectrum reacted angrily” to news of the deal to end the war that their government launched alongside Trump, The Associated Press said. And they directed their “fury at one man: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Who said what

It’s unclear if Trump’s deal is “one that Netanyahu will stomach — or one he will seek to derail,” The Washington Post said. Politically, he “has every incentive to continue fighting, especially in Lebanon.” For Trump, “this is his decision,” Netanyahu told reporters. For Israel, “the struggle has not ended.”

What next?

“Early signs of bumps ahead” included Netanyahu’s insistence that Israeli forces would remain in Lebanon and Iran saying it “intended to charge ‘fees’ but not ‘tolls’” to ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the Times said. But “for all the confusion,” oil prices “tumbled, and Iranians expressed wary optimism that a war that has killed thousands could soon end.”

What happened

Swiss voters on Sunday rejected a referendum that would have capped the country’s population at 10 million by limiting migration. The initiative, proposed by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, was voted down 55% to 45%, with 59% of voters participating. About 30% of Switzerland’s 9.1 million residents are foreign-born.

Who said what

Immigration “has long been a sensitive issue in Europe, as nations grapple with an aging population and increasing anti-foreigner sentiment,” The Associated Press said. But unlike in other European countries, most “foreigners in Switzerland are Europeans.” The Swiss People’s Party “favors limits on migration,” The New York Times said, but it “broadened the measure’s appeal by focusing on kitchen-table issues like housing costs and traffic congestion” in a bid to “appeal to centrist voters who otherwise view immigration positively.”

The referendum “was closely watched in Brussels,” Politico said. “A ‘yes’ vote would have set Switzerland on a collision course” with the European Union, jeopardizing free-movement and trade agreements.

What next?

The size of the referendum’s defeat “appeared larger than most analysts had expected,” the Times said. Still, its “relatively narrow margin” will “heap pressure on the government to take more concerted action to address the public backlash to immigration,” Politico said.

What happened

President Donald Trump and Iran said Sunday they had reached a preliminary deal to end hostilities and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Neither side released the text of their memorandum of understanding, but it was slated to go into effect on Friday after a signing ceremony in Geneva and last for 60 days while they negotiate Iran’s nuclear status and the lifting of U.S. sanctions.

Who said what

The deal with Iran “is now complete,” Trump said on social media. “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” He later said implementation had been pushed back to Friday “for purposes of mine removal.”

The U.S. and Iran “offered conflicting accounts” of what happens after the deal is signed, CNN said. Iran’s deputy foreign minister said negotiations would begin after the U.S. releases billions in frozen funds, a claim rejected by U.S. officials. Trump told The New York Times the agreement would assure that the Strait of Hormuz was “permanently toll-free” and that Iran “cannot develop or purchase a nuclear weapon.” In both cases, Trump “appeared to be celebrating” a “return of the prewar status quo” or “Iranian concessions that the country has not yet made,” the Times said.

What next?

The interim deal, if signed, likely “returns the region to a status that existed before the war, but with Iran having proven its ability to disrupt shipping in the strait,” The Associated Press said. Solving the Iranian nuclear impasse in 60 days is also a “tall order,” Axios said, given how “difficult it was to reach the much less detailed memorandum of understanding.”

What the US is trying to do in Kenya reeks of “neo-colonialism”, said The Daily Nation (Nairobi). To protect Americans from the deadly Ebola outbreak that is thought to have already killed at least 91 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Trump administration has decreed that no one with the disease may enter its borders, even if they’re a US citizen. Any American unlucky enough to have contracted the virus in DRC should instead be sent for treatment hundreds of miles away to a specially commissioned Ebola health centre in Kenya.

Cue outrage in Nairobi. “Kenya is NOT America’s biohazard dumping ground,” fumed a spokesman for one of Kenya’s doctors’ unions, echoing widespread fury at the proposal to set up a 50-bed quarantine facility at Kenya’s Laikipia Air Base. And hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Nanyuki, the town closest to the air base, fearing the disease might spread to their community. They blocked roads and set fire to tyres, and police had to fire tear gas to disperse them.

According to some reports, two people were shot dead. Yet despite the uproar, and a temporary court order blocking the site’s construction, Kenya’s President William Ruto has vowed to press ahead with it.

Potentially ‘catastrophic’

The debacle in Kenya is far from the only mistake the US has made over the Ebola crisis, said The East African (Nairobi). “Epidemics are best fought collectively”, but under Trump the US has withdrawn from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and shut down USAID, scuppering the international response needed to stem the current outbreak, which has now spread to Uganda.

Trump’s decisions have been disastrous, said Craig Spencer in The New York Times. Over the past year, critical surveillance networks in DRC have been dismantled, with the result that US officials only learnt of the first Ebola death a month after it happened, making it inevitable that the outbreak would turn “catastrophic” in scale.

To put this in context, the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak, which broke out in Guinea in 2014, went on to kill 11,300 and infect 28,600 others. That outbreak was first detected when there were around 40 to 50 cases; for this one, that number was 400 to 500. And to make matters worse, rapid tests and vaccines do not exist for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola that is behind this latest epidemic.

“We are not getting ahead of this virus. We are running after it,” said Denis Mukwege in Le Monde (Paris). It’s already the third-largest outbreak in history, and could well become the deadliest ever.

Deep mistrust

The challenges facing teams on the ground are immense. For a start, the epicentre of the outbreak is war-torn eastern DRC, where conditions make contact-tracing almost impossible. And as the US has cut aid to the DRC from $1.34 billion in 2024 to just $428 million in 2025, local responders have “far fewer resources” than in any comparable recent crisis.

To add to the crisis, front-line health workers are “deeply” mistrusted by the local population, said The Economist. Look what happened two weeks ago in the small town of Mongbwalu in northern DRC, where a group of young men made four different attacks on the local hospital in a bid to retrieve the body of an Ebola victim for burial. The day before that, townsfolk had torched an isolation unit.

The crucial requirement is for the response to be consolidated under a single actor, just as it was for the 2014 outbreak when the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) took charge, said Anthony Banbury in The Washington Post. Congolese health workers and international NGOs have done an excellent job so far, but the lack of coordination has been a serious hindrance. “It is like going to war with scattered, independent military units, but no central headquarters directing the overall effort.”

In the absence of a body like UNMEER to devise and oversee a strategy for containing the outbreak, this epidemic could “spin out of control”. And then the world would be in real trouble.

While the East Wing is being transformed into a ballroom, a less permanent, octagonal structure has appeared on the South Lawn of the White House.

It is the stage for an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event this weekend, which is supposed to be part of the celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the US. But the “only milestone that actually falls on 14 June is Donald Trump’s 80th birthday”, said Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy, a US politics expert from Sciences Po university in Paris, on The Conversation. There were also suggestions that France adjusted the G7 schedule to avoid a clash, said Politico.

UFC – the “world’s leader in professional mixed martial arts”, which is led by Dana White, a close friend of the president – has become the “de facto sport of Maga”, said Esquire. Bringing the UFC to the White House “isn’t just Trump flexing whatever power he thinks he has, but overwhelming it”. It is “true UFC style”.

What is UFC Freedom 250?

The event will take place in a 26-metre-high octagonal cage – nicknamed “The Claw” – that has been constructed on the South Lawn at the White House. Though Trump promised there would be a crowd of 20,000 to 25,000, only around 4,500 will be there. Around 1,000 tickets will be distributed at the president’s discretion. Thousands more spectators will be able to watch the fights from the Ellipse, 52 acres of parkland south of the White House.

And Trump has hinted that the arena might not be temporary. “Many don’t know that in Paris, France, the Eiffel Tower… was supposed to be taken down immediately after the World’s Fair, and then they said, ‘You know, we sorta like it, let’s leave it up a little bit longer’”, he said. Since the UFC structure is “quite attractive”, “maybe we’ll never, ever take it down”.

The highlight on the Freedom 250 card is the bout between two-time interim UFC lightweight champion Justin Gaethje and the UFC lightweight champion Ilia Topuria, said The Times. There is also a “highly anticipated” bantamweight fight between Aiemann Zahabi and Sean O’Malley, alongside five other fights. No women fighters feature.

Who is Dana White?

White – the UFC CEO and president – has run the organisation for more than a quarter of a century. But the prospect of an event at the White House marks his “career capstone”, said Time.

He has managed to turn a sport “so savage” that it “wasn’t even carried on pay-per-view in many places” into a company that was bought for $4 billion (£2.9 billion) in 2016, reportedly earning White “some $360 million” (£269 million). UFC was bought by Endeavor in 2021.

Last year, Paramount, fresh from a merger with Skydance and owned by David Ellison, another close friend of Trump, bought the UFC’s media rights for $7.7 billion (£5.2 billion) over seven years.

How close are White and Trump?

At first glance, White, a “Connecticut-born amateur boxer-turned-businessman, and Trump, a New York real-estate mogul-turned-TV personality-turned-president, seem like an odd pairing”, said The Times. “But their friendship has spanned decades.”

The UFC has effectively “functioned as the sporting arm of the Maga movement”, said CBC. Fighters and the organisation itself have “pledged incredible support” to the president, and Trump has reciprocated and become a “ringside fixture at fights”.

Has it faced any difficulties?

The list of celebrities who have declined invitations to Sunday’s event at the White House is “lengthening”, said The Times. Adam Sandler, Jared Leto and Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson are all believed to have turned down offers to attend.

And two people from Virginia have filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the event. They claim the octagon was “authorised without congressional approval or environmental review”, said CNN. The UFC is also selling VIP packages for “between $1 million and $1.5 million” (£746,000 and £1.1 million) and the individuals claim White and Trump are using the opportunity for financial gain.

Has it been popular?

There is one way the “majestic” arena could be improved to get “maximum use”, said Marina Hyde in The Guardian. The various “hardmen” among Trump’s appointees “should be made to fight each other in the White House octagon”. Since he has been able to make them walk around in shoes that don’t fit, “he can surely order the likes of Hegseth and Vance to fight – or at least wrestle – in his Craposseum”.

The president could even learn something from this episode, said Bhumika Tharoor in The Atlantic. “Martial arts are practised”, “studied” and “rooted in humility”. At their core, there is “deep respect for one’s opponents, with the understanding that ego is an impediment to winning”. “Serious fighters understand the rules of the bout; they respect their opponents; they fight to win – and then they accept the outcome”.

For the people of Gaza, “fear is no longer linked only to what falls from the sky”, but also to “what crawls from below”, said Prospect.

Rats and other rodents have “taken over everything in a frenzy” and, with summer approaching, their numbers are expected to soar even higher.

Physical and psychological threats

A “plague” of rodents is “terrorising” the area, said the Financial Times, as rats and weasels “chew their way into tents, biting children and contaminating food”. A Unicef spokesperson who visited Gaza this month said rodents are becoming “a huge, huge problem because of accumulated rubble everywhere”.

The threat they pose is more than psychological. Rats transmit diseases through urine and waste, causing fever and other illnesses. Diabetic patients are particularly vulnerable to rodent bites, as they may not feel it happening and serious complications can occur.

More than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, and rats began “eating human bodies under the rubble”, Samah al-Dabla, who was displaced from Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, told Al Jazeera.

Rats are now appearing in the tents where many Gazans live. Al-Dabla has tried to buy rat poison but the prices are too high and she already struggles to afford enough food for her family. Any food she manages to obtain tends only to attract more rats.

Mounting problem

Dr Ayman Abu Rahma, director of preventive medicine at Gaza’s Ministry of Health, told Al Jazeera that the problem has three main causes: damage to sewage systems, decomposing bodies under the rubble, and the amount of rubbish building up in the territory. Gaza City’s main landfill site is a “breeding ground for rodents in a densely populated area”, said Al Jazeera.

Local officials want to convert waste into organic fertiliser, but the war has destroyed much of the equipment needed for such a process.

The urgency is clear: rubbish dumps are located close to tents in displacement sites, creating serious “health hazards that will increase as summer temperatures rise”, humanitarian officials and residents told the Financial Times.

Cogat, the Israeli Ministry of Defence body that monitors aid access to Gaza, said that “nearly 170 tons of pesticides and thousands of traps for rats, mosquitoes, and other pests have been brought into the Gaza Strip in recent weeks”.

But Salim Oweis, the Unicef spokesperson who visited Gaza, said the amount allowed in is “barely enough for a few weeks” and “the whole of Gaza” is affected.

What happened

The U.S. struck “multiple targets in Iran” for a second night “in response to Iran’s unwarranted and continued aggression,” U.S. Central Command said late Wednesday. Iran responded by firing missiles and drones at U.S. military targets in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait, and announced that the Strait of Hormuz was closed to all traffic.

Who said what

President Donald Trump is “pivoting back toward a war footing after months of failing to reach a lasting diplomatic resolution” that he has “repeatedly” claimed is close, The Wall Street Journal said. “We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along, they keep playing us for suckers,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. Iran has “taken too long to negotiate,” he said on social media, and “now they will have to pay the price!!!”

Trump and Tehran both “seem to be looking for a way to end the conflict — if they can manage to sell it as a win at home,” The Associated Press said. Trump likely could have “concluded an initial agreement” two weeks ago if he had “accepted the terms his envoys had negotiated,” Axios said. Now, he’s “growing more and more frustrated” as Iran fails to respond to his requested changes amid “negative, even mocking media coverage about his unfulfilled promises of a deal.”

What next?

Trump said the U.S. attacks would resume Thursday if Iran did not capitulate to his demands.

What happened

At least 35 people died and more than 200 were injured after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the southern Philippines on Monday. Multiple buildings collapsed in General Santos City, a major port on the populous island of Mindanao, and the quake also triggered deadly landslides and a 3-foot tsunami that hit neighboring islands’ coasts.

Who said what

The temblor, centered at sea about 20 miles off Mindanao’s southern coast, struck “just as children across the country were getting ready for their first day” of the new school year, said The Wall Street Journal. “Powerful aftershocks” then “rocked the area for about two hours,” said Philippine newspaper The Manila Times. Photos from General Santos City “showed convenience stores crumbling and sheets of concrete layered on top of each other,” CNN said.

What next?

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. canceled school and directed disaster response teams to the affected provinces. “The national government is moving,” he said, “and we will not leave Mindanao behind.” The Philippine Red Cross said it was “evaluating heavily impacted structures” in General Santos City and will provide “emergency assistance, first aid and psychosocial support where needed.”

Henry Nowak would “still be alive today” if Britain and Europe had “stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants”, said J.D. Vance on X. The “proper response – the only response – is righteous anger”.

The “most outspoken member” of an “evangelistic” administration, Vance’s ire does seem to have a “particular focus on the UK”, said The Times. He has commented on protests around abortion clinics, and told Keir Starmer that there have been “infringements on free speech” in Britain.

Vance is now using the Nowak murder to “bolster” his narrative of Britain as a “once powerful nation” “pandering to liberalism”. This could just be a reminder for American voters that the Republican Party retains an “uncompromising approach to wokeism, borders and policing” in the upcoming mid-terms. But if Vance is anointed successor to the Maga movement, comments such as these could be a sign of things to come.

What did the commentators say?

“J.D. Vance is wrong to intervene in the controversy around the murder of Henry Nowak,” said The Telegraph in an editorial. That said, “there is a good deal of hypocrisy on show”: Labour Remainers had no issue with Barack Obama “intervening” in the Brexit debate, and have had “no compunction about condemning Donald Trump over domestic US policy. “Inevitably, politicians welcome foreign interference only if it suits their arguments”, when “it would be far better if each stayed out of the other’s business”.

Vance was “surely right” to call out the “politics of self-hatred” in the British justice system, said Ameer Kotecha in The Spectator. It is “perfectly legitimate” for the US to comment publicly on what is happening in the UK. The government’s reaction, arguing he has “crossed a red line of diplomatic protocol”, has been hypocritical and “frankly pathetic”.

Britain is just as guilty. For instance, the Labour Party sent 100 activists to campaign for Kamala Harris in 2024. “Rather than engage in shameless pearl-clutching, Starmer’s government should listen to what our closest ally is telling us.”

Interventions like Vance’s are “deepening the split between the Trump administration and Britain’s Labour government”, said Dominic Green in The Wall Street Journal. The division is inherent. Where Vance sees a mission to “stabilise values and societies after decades of self-inflicted confusion”, Britain sees “Bible-bashing and race-baiting”, and hears “only atavistic calls to the wrong kind of identity politics”.

This “political opportunism” against Britain goes far deeper than the vice president, said James Schneider in The New Statesman. “The exploitation of Nowak’s death is of a piece with a clear US state strategy, one which turns Europe into a source for American rhetoric.” Vance talks about Britain “not as an equal, but as a provincial outpost of the imperial system, nominally independent and permanently available for correction”.

What next?

Vance’s stance could have implications for the next election on this side of the Atlantic, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. If Vance remains in the White House as vice president, “or even as Trump’s successor” after the US elections in 2028, it’s hard to imagine him “standing idly by” when the UK goes to the polls, likely in 2029.

At best, the reaction to the Nowak intervention shows us that “plenty of Britons still reflexively dislike being lectured by Americans”. Yet, it has also warned us “not to take our political sovereignty for granted. Sooner or later, we may need to defend it.”

“As pervasive as ketchup” on chips, hot pepper sauce is an “obligatory accompaniment” for Caribbean cuisine, said the BBC. But a shortage of the fiery-flavoured condiment is “stifling supply” – both in the Caribbean, and in countries like the US, the UK and Australia, where consumers have developed a taste for its sweet, smoky punch.

It’s all about the main ingredient: Scotch bonnet, a scorching hot chilli pepper with an intense, fruity flavour. Susceptible both to “heavy rain and viruses”, and “walloped” by recent hurricanes, harvests have become devastatingly poor.

‘Confluence’ of issues

“From Jamaican jerk chicken to Haitian beef stew,” the Scotch bonnet pepper is a “foundational element” of Caribbean cuisine, said Chowhound. Not only does it pack a punch, it also adds “sweetness and an unmistakable scent”. It has a “smoky, recognisable spiciness” that has been successfully marketed the world over.

But now it’s “particularly hard to source”, said the BBC. Sauce and seasoning manufacturers such as Jamaica-based Walkerswood have cited a “confluence” of issues, including extreme weather and pests, just when global demand for hot sauce is skyrocketing; Walkerswood now exports “more than 95% of its products”.

It isn’t the first time a hot sauce shortage has had a global impact. Sriracha aficionados felt a “not so pleasant sting” four years ago, said The Guardian, as drought in Mexico resulted in a scarcity of the sauce’s “key ingredient”: red jalapeños.

Too ‘temperamental’

The Scotch bonnet shortage, blamed by many on climate change, “may be lasting” said Semafor. That’s not only a blow to the hot sauce industry but it could also change the landscape of plant growth in the Caribbean altogether. Continually disappointed by the “temperamental” Scotch bonnet, many producers are now turning to “hardier crops”, including sweet potatoes, to make a living instead.

Some parts of the Caribbean do seem to have escaped unscathed, though The island of Barbados has been “marked ‘safe’” from the hot pepper shortage, said Barbados Today. Its crops remain “resilient, pest-free, and available for production”.

What happened

Iran and Israel on Sunday night fired missiles at each for the first time since a U.S.-backed ceasefire took effect in April. Iran said it targeted an Israeli air base in response to Israeli strikes in Lebanon, and Israel said it retaliated by striking military targets in western and central Iran. Israel also said it intercepted a missile from Yemen.

President Donald Trump told Fox News earlier that the U.S. was not involved in Israel’s strike on Beirut’s suburbs and “I’m not happy about it.” After Iran launched missiles at Israel, Trump warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to imperil peace talks by firing back, according to several news reports. “I call all the shots,” Trump told the Financial Times. Netanyahu “doesn’t call the shots.”

Who said what

Trump told Netanyahu to stand down because “we are close to doing something good in terms of a deal,” a U.S. official told Axios, and Netanyahu “pseudo-agreed.” Israel “has responded enough, they don’t need to respond anymore,” Trump told Israeli public broadcaster Kan. “We can achieve peace after 3,000 years.” No “self-respecting country in the world would tolerate such an attack, and neither will Israel,” Israel’s U.S. ambassador, Yechiel Leiter, said on X.

What next?

The tit-for-tat attacks continued Monday morning and “threatened to drag the wider Middle East back into a regional war,” The Associated Press said.

Jared Kushner’s goal to open a luxury resort on Albania’s coast has hit a speed bump. Albanian investigators have begun digging into the private equity firm spearheading the project, the first son-in-law’s Affinity Partners. And mass public protests over the proposed resort are a flashpoint for broader civic frustrations. What began as a “local land dispute on Albania’s southern coast,” said France 24, has now become a forum for “wider grievances” over “corruption, arrogance of power and disgruntlement with the ruling government.”

‘Flamingo revolution’

The proposed luxury resort project is slated for construction on the “uninhabited Adriatic island of Sazan” and hundreds of acres of the Vjosa-Narta protected site, a “sensitive coastal wetland area home to flamingos, seals and sea turtle nesting sites,” said Politico. Protesters gathered outside Prime Minister Edi Rama’s office this week “using a pink flamingo as their emblem,” said the BBC.

The symbol “echoes the deployment of a yellow duck” used in Serbian civic protests, but here “reflects the protesters’ very specific concerns” about the project’s environmental impact. “Hence,” said France 24, “why the movement has now been nicknamed Albania’s ‘flamingo revolution.’” Asher Abehsera, Kushner’s “business partner” on the project, claims the development will focus on “responsible stewardship” and “enhancing the environment,” as well as on creating “jobs and value for local communities,” said the BBC.

‘Total lack of transparency’

Initially a local development dispute, the project has spiraled into a “national political crisis,” said the Tirana Times, “triggering mass protests” and calls for Rama’s resignation. In addition to opposition to Kushner’s involvement in the construction, the endeavor has “drawn scrutiny” over “disputed land titles, unclear ownership structures and the involvement of powerful domestic business interests.”

“From start to finish, there has been a total lack of transparency,” said leading Albanian conservationist Aleksander Trajce to The Guardian. “We have seen no public consultation or public documentation regarding permits.” If Albanian authorities “remove the bulldozers, remove the fence and restore the habitats to what they were, then we can start talking.”

Prime Minister Rama has hailed the project as a “milestone in the Balkan country’s trajectory from Stalinist state to high-end holiday destination,” The Guardian said. While he has offered to “meet protesters in an attempt to break the logjam,” Rama also “stuck to his guns,” declaring last week that “there is absolutely no chance that the investment will stop as long as I am here.”

Broader frustrations

“No longer only about a resort,” the growing protests are now a “vehicle for wider anger” over Albanian civic society, said the Tirana Times. “It’s more or less everything” at the protests, said Albanian Ornithological Society President Taulant Bino to The New York Times. “You find people from the left, people from the right, people from different religious beliefs.”

Now, investigators from Albania’s Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime anti-corruption office are digging into “controversial changes in the area’s protected status and land ownership in 2024,” said Politico. The office operates “independently of the national judiciary” and is “currently the most trusted institution in the country, according to several independent polls.”

How Kemal Atatürk – founder of modern Turkey, the man who transformed the decrepit Ottoman monarchy into a modern secular republic – must be “turning in his grave”, said Jonas Roth in Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zurich).

Last week, Turkish riot police stormed the headquarters of the CHP, the social democratic party Atatürk set up in 1923, to flush out the party’s current leader, Özgür Özel. For three days, Özel and a group of party officials had barricaded themselves inside the building in protest at a highly controversial court ruling that had just ordered Özel to stand down, claiming there had been voting irregularities at the CHP party congress that elected him leader in 2023.

Using batons, tear gas and rubber bullets, the police rushed in to evict him; Özel emerged to address the cheering crowd outside and then led a march to the parliament building.

‘No longer unbeatable’

It isn’t hard to detect the hand of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan behind all this. For 13 years, from 2010 to 2023, the CHP under its former leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroglu, had proved an ineffectual opposition, losing every single election, local and national, to Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). But under Özel, the CHP has been transformed into a political force capable of ending Erdogan’s 23-year rule.

So the fact that the judiciary, which Erdogan has made his tool, should now have ordered Özel to be replaced by the perennial loser Kılıçdaroglu, speaks for itself. The crackdown on the CHP began in earnest after it inflicted a “historic defeat” on the AKP in local elections in 2024, said Ecehan Balta in Xekinima (Athens). Holding Erdogan responsible for the economic crisis that had seen inflation rise above 80%, voters turned en masse to Özel’s party, which won 35 provinces to the AKP’s 24. This was a huge blow to the president, a sign that his political machine, for all its grip on state institutions and the media, was “no longer unbeatable”.

And, since then, hundreds of CHP officials have been arrested, notably Ekrem Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul, who was detained last March on the same day that he was chosen as his party’s next presidential candidate.

Hope not lost

What happened to Imamoglu was a travesty, said Raphael Geiger in Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich): he faces up to 2,352 years in jail, if convicted of corruption and espionage. But the dethroning of Özel is even worse. It “eliminates everything that remains of Turkish democracy”, effectively snuffing out “the faint hope” of a different government being elected.

Indeed Turkey, now lacking a genuine opposition, is closer than ever to “one-man rule”, said The Economist. Özel could try and found a new party, but without the “powerful brand” of the CHP behind him, he is unlikely to succeed. In any case, Erdogan is expected to call a snap election before the next scheduled vote in May 2028. In doing so, he would be exploiting a loophole which allows him to stand again if he doesn’t fully complete his current presidential term, which the constitution mandates should otherwise be his last.

All hope is not lost, though, said Dogan Ertugrul on Turkish Minute. Imprisoning your main challenger and sowing chaos in the ranks of their party is a sign not of strength, but of insecurity.

And these risky political steps could well backfire. Look at the Gen Z-led protests that have erupted across the country since Imamoglu’s arrest. They are still going strong and have Erdogan worried, said Giorgio Brizio in La Repubblica (Rome). On the same day police raided the CHP’s offices in Ankara, thousands of students and staff staged a demonstration at Bilgi University in Istanbul, a bastion of liberal thought that the president had just closed down. In scenes “unthinkable” until a few years ago, police burst onto the campus, targeting protesters with batons and pepper spray. Many of the students were arrested; but they stood firm, and soon after Erdogan issued a decree to reopen the university. The students’ victory is clear proof that Erdogan is not invincible.

The death of a British soldier in Iraq has refocused concerns over the UK’s military presence in the Middle East.

Lance Corporal James Stewart Freeman died in northern Iraq on Sunday during a training exercise, the Defence Secretary John Healey has said. The US has confirmed that the Briton, and an American soldier, died at a US-controlled base in Erbil, in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region near the Iranian border.

The UK’s position on the Iran war is to participate in “defensive action” only. But after Iran began retaliating against US-Israeli strikes, the UK deployed more personnel to the region, bringing the total number to about 1,000.

The heightened risk to British troops

Northern Iraq has been “one of the most dangerous places for British troops” since Iran launched retaliatory attacks on Gulf countries, said The Times. Tehran has been targeting “US strongholds” across the border in Iraq; specialist soldiers stationed in Erbil have “shot down more than 100 kamikaze drones” since the US and Israel started the war. British personnel “have been within a few hundred feet of successful Iranian strikes”. There is a “heightened risk” that Iran or its proxies could “hit coalition bases in the Middle East”.

The US has about “two dozen significant air bases, naval facilities and outposts scattered from Turkey to Oman”, said The Independent. About 50,000 US service personnel are stationed across the Middle East, many in Arab Gulf countries such as Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar and the UAE – “all of which are at risk of Iranian retaliation with short-range weapons”. There are also about 200 British service personnel deployed in Iraq, involved in “training and supporting Iraqi and Kurdish security forces”.

Oman has been a “strategic hub” for the UK since the Royal Navy opened a “joint logistics support base” at Duqm port. The MoD said Duqm gives the UK a “strategically important and permanent maritime base east of Suez, but outside of the Gulf”. The UK also has two Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus: Akrotiri and Dhekelia. A string of drone attacks, presumably by Hezbollah, appeared to target the RAF Akrotiri base in March.

Britain: an unwilling participant?

“The UK’s armed forces have long had a presence across the Middle East,” said Geraint Hughes, military historian at King’s College London, on The Conversation. The UK’s naval support facility, which supports the Royal Navy’s “longstanding maritime security mission” in the Persian Gulf, has been in Bahrain since the 1980s. The base and its 300 personnel were “close to the Iranian missile strike” targeting the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in February. That shows that British military personnel “could potentially be at risk from an Iranian attack, even if indirect”.

Keir Starmer maintains that the UK will not join in “offensive action”, and that military assets are only being used to “support the defence of the Gulf states”. But Iran is “unlikely to acknowledge this distinction between ‘defensive’ operations and more ‘offensive’ ones”. As part of the Five Eyes alliance, Britain also “closely coordinates its eavesdropping operations” with the US.

Fundamentally, said Hughes, the regime in Iran is “profoundly Anglophobic”. It presumes the US and Britain will “always collaborate” – as they have done in the Middle East in the past. Iran may have “assumed British complicity in the launching of Operation Epic Fury”, and may “target the UK’s military assets in the Gulf and beyond”. Whatever Labour’s intentions, the UK “may find itself drawn into a war it had no say in starting”.

When is a ceasefire not a ceasefire?

Agreements have been announced in recent months “to great fanfare” in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, said PBS News, yet fighting continues. So the term “ceasefire” is “rapidly losing its meaning”.

What is happening?

Israeli forces have captured more territory in Gaza, contravening the US-brokered truce with Hamas in October, and at least 900 Palestinians have died in strikes, according to the strip’s ministry of health. Israel has also been increasingly bombarding Lebanon and making deeper incursions across the border, while Hezbollah has kept up rocket fire into northern Israel. The US and Iran have also continued to trade fire since the agreement in April, as they try to reach a permanent truce.

Advantages of an imperfect ceasefire

Ceasefires “often seem to be just smoke and mirrors that precede another round of fighting”, but “even when they don’t hold, they still have value”, said academics Avishay Ben-Sasson-Gordis and Simon Frankel Pratt on Foreign Policy.

They can “establish new bargaining baselines that, over multiple iterations, can become a ladder to a more permanent peace agreement”. The Northern Ireland peace process was primarily driven by two ceasefires in 1994, which ultimately paved the way for the decisive Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

Even a partial decrease in fighting can save lives, reduce injuries and limit the destruction of infrastructure and homes. A ceasefire that cuts violence by 50% is often preferable for many than no ceasefire at all.

Truces can also help with humanitarian access because aid organisations can deliver food, medicine, fuel and other supplies to affected populations. Civilians may be able to evacuate dangerous areas. Even brief pauses in fighting can enable exchanges of detainees, recovery of bodies, or arrangements for missing persons. Meanwhile, observers can assess conditions on the ground.

What are the disadvantages?

Sceptics argue that imperfect ceasefires allow forces to regroup militarily. They can be exploited for propaganda, or they may create a false impression that a conflict is being resolved.

So “cynics begin to see ceasefires as jokes from the start, while the naive fall into a cycle of optimism and despair”, said Ben-Sasson-Gordis and Frankel Pratt. Diplomacy “starts to look false and pointless”.

An imperfect ceasefire can create long-term problems if policymakers do not have a clear objective. After the first Gulf War in 1991, the US stumbled into a “decade-long trap of its own making”, said academics Daniel Chardell and Samuel Helfont on Foreign Affairs.

Washington “crafted a cease-fire agreement” with Iraq that led to ongoing tensions, repeated military confrontations and a long-term containment strategy rather than a durable peace. Subsequent US presidents were unwilling to accept Saddam Hussein remaining in power or fully commit to removing him.

The US enforced no-fly zones, sanctions, military patrols and repeated air strikes, effectively becoming a policeman. Meanwhile, international support eroded and frustration grew in Washington. Ultimately, the ceasefire became a stepping stone to the larger war in 2003.

What happened

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar on Wednesday announced a deal with Ukraine that should clear the way for Kyiv to begin the process to join the European Union. Magyar’s predecessor, Viktor Orbán, had “fiercely opposed Ukraine’s EU accession,” Politico said, and had used Hungary’s veto in the 27-member bloc to thwart Ukraine and Moldova’s “twinned” membership bids in a decision “ostensibly over minority rights for Hungarians living in Ukraine.”

Who said what

Hungary’s “shift in position unfolded suddenly” on Wednesday during a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels, Euronews said, and after weeks of negotiations between Hungary and Ukraine. Magyar later said on social media that Kyiv had agreed to expand the “linguistic, educational, cultural and political rights of the 100,000-strong Hungarian minority” in Ukraine’s western Transcarpathia region.

What next?

With Hungary’s objections lifted, accession negotiations are expected to “officially move to the next stage” at a June 15 meeting between the EU, Moldova and Ukraine, Politico said. However, Magyar “reiterated his opposition to fast-track Ukraine’s accession,” Euronews said. “If Ukraine manages to close all 33 accession chapters within 10 or 15 years,” he said, Hungary “will hold a legally binding referendum on the issue.”

The European Union could soon add a 28th member to its ranks, as Iceland is set to vote on potentially joining the bloc this summer. But not all Icelanders support EU membership, with polls split down the middle, and what happens in the referendum could have ripple effects on the international order.

‘Important for international security’

Icelanders will not be voting on whether to join the EU but on whether Iceland should resume negotiations about joining. If the referendum passes, a second vote would be held to officially make Iceland an EU member.

Icelanders are mostly at a stalemate on the issue. According to a recent survey “on behalf of the foreign ministry, 42% of Icelanders are in favor of reopening accession talks and 39% are opposed,” said The Guardian.

Icelanders who are in favor of restarting talks view joining the EU as “important for international security and an opportunity for better integration in Europe,” said The Guardian. There have been considerations for a while about Iceland joining the bloc, but the turbocharged referendum is “in part motivated by threats from the U.S., a longtime close ally of Iceland, to forcibly acquire its closest neighbor, Greenland.” The “international order that underpinned our security and prosperity for decades is under serious pressure,” said Icelandic Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir to the outlet.

The EU has “intensified a rethink of its Arctic strategy since Trump’s rhetoric over Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, reached a peak earlier this year,” said Mari Novik at the Financial Times. Iceland was previously at an impasse with the EU over regulations regarding fishing, a major industry in the country, but the organization could “offer Iceland a carve-out on fishing policy to accelerate the country’s potential bid to join the bloc.”

‘Half the country will be upset’

Not all Icelanders are eager to join the EU. Some feel the country is “locked in an existential fight for Iceland’s soul, where extreme measures might be justifiable,” said Elías Þórsson at Icelandic news magazine The Reykjavík Grapevine. Politics in Iceland “tend to be rather benign,” but there’s “something about the EU debate that stirs the pot" of public opinion. “About half the country will be upset with the result” of the referendum, no matter what side wins, according to polls.

Those who oppose becoming part of the EU hark back to a “well-known refrain in Icelandic political discourse” that the nation is “being betrayed, that some kind of treason is underway, that foreigners are being allowed to come and run everything in Iceland,” said political scientist Ólafur Harðarson to the Grapevine. Some feel that EU membership means “giving up Iceland’s sovereignty,” said Þórsson.

The aforementioned fishing industry may be what the referendum ultimately comes down to. Icelanders have “watched with alarm as Ireland, an EU member, has endured cuts to fishing quotas that have devastated its coastal communities,” said Amelia Nierenberg at The New York Times. And the citizens are fearful the EU could do the same thing to Iceland without a carve-out.

“People feel that they might be forced to pick a side,” said Eirikur Bergmann, a politics professor at Iceland’s Bifrost University, to the Times. And then there’s “really only one side to pick.”

‘Why people stopped having kids’

Shadi Hamid at The Washington Post

“Contrary to popular belief,” mothers “aren’t necessarily having fewer children compared with a decade or two ago,” says Shadi Hamid. It’s “that fewer women are becoming mothers in the first place.” A “fertility-rate crisis is a marriage crisis — and a marriage crisis is a dating crisis.” Houses of worship “have been a way for like-minded young people to partner up.” But the “catch is that even religiously conservative societies cannot fully escape the forces of secularization and modernization.”

Read more

‘Remembering Muhammad Ali’s message of peace’

Amina J. Mohammed at Al Jazeera

“Ten years after the world said goodbye” to Muhammad Ali, his “voice still echoes,” says Amina J. Mohammed. Ali “wrote words that still stop me in my tracks: ‘Service to others is the rent we pay for our room here on Earth.’” People “are living in a moment when peace feels increasingly fragile,” but Ali “speaks to something disarmingly simple: Peace remains possible, but only if we are willing to make it our personal responsibility.”

Read more

‘There are only four great powers’

Brendan Simms at Foreign Policy

In the “new era of great power competition, it’s important to identify the competitors,” but it has “always been easier to speak about the great powers than to define them,” says Brendan Simms. People can “distinguish the great powers by a set of common characteristics.” While the “United States and China are economically and militarily far ahead of Russia and the United Kingdom, all four states have attributes that mark them out from the next rung of major actors.”

Read more

‘America’s warcraft are aging and often mismatched to the task’

Robert Jordan at The Dallas Morning News

The war in Iran has “exposed significant weaknesses in America’s military industrial base,” says Robert Jordan. Part of the “problem is our dependence upon sophisticated systems that rely on supply chains with uncertain availability, especially considering the Iran war.” If the United States is “going on a wartime footing we can expect pressure to spend more,” and “for a nation already $39 trillion in debt, that could lead to significant fiscal challenges.”

Read more

Colombian mercenary troops trained on United Arab Emirates (UAE) bases participated in atrocities committed by the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group during the ongoing Sudanese civil war, according to reports from the nonprofits Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Conflict Insights Group last month. Global Security Services Group, an “Abu Dhabi-based security company,” hired “hundreds of Colombian private military contractors” who allegedly aided the RSF’s assault on the North Darfur capital of El Fasher, where rebels “took over the city and committed widespread killings and rape,” said Human Rights Watch. The UAE has denied the reports, as rights groups call for further investigations and action.

What links the UAE with Colombian mercenaries?

HRW’s report is the latest evidence that the United Arab Emirates is “financially and militarily aiding the Rapid Support Forces” that have been “widely accused of committing atrocities amounting to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide,” said The Associated Press. The report alleges “hundreds” of Colombian mercenaries were “trained by Emirati nationals at a military base” more than a hundred miles outside the capital of Abu Dhabi. They were then given further training “at another facility in Abu Dhabi, before being deployed to Sudan to fight alongside the RSF.”

The UAE has “long denied supporting the RSF,” said the BBC. The Conflict Insights Group’s report is the “first research where we can prove UAE involvement with certainty,” said the group’s Director Justin Lynch to the outlet. The investigation, which used “data obtained from tracking the mobile phones of the Colombian fighters,” makes public “what governments have long known. There is a direct link between Abu Dhabi and the RSF.”

The deployment of Colombian mercenaries is part of a “broader pattern” for Abu Dhabi, said Human Rights Watch researcher Joey Shea in an interview with Democracy Now!. The UAE has been “intervening in neighboring conflicts for over a decade” to “project its political and economic influence abroad.”

What is the broader context?

The beleaguered Sudanese government is “protecting Africa from external plots” by “confronting foreign interference” in the ongoing civil war, said Foreign Minister Mohieldin Salem to Al Jazeera in February. Sudan’s conflict “involves a large number of mercenaries and significant external intervention through funding and advanced weaponry.”

Last year, journalists investigated a captured convoy of weaponry intended for RSF forces featuring arms “manufactured in Bulgaria and bought by an Emirati company,” said France 24. Before their confiscation by allies of the Sudanese government, the weapons had passed through an eastern Libyan zone “controlled by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, an ally of the UAE.”

Researchers have also found “clear evidence that sophisticated Chinese-made guided bombs and howitzers have been used in Sudan,” said Amnesty International. The presence of Chinese munitions adds to a “growing body of evidence showing extensive UAE support to the RSF, in violation of international law,” said Brian Castner, the head of crisis research at Amnesty International.

Will there be consequences?

“Evidence collected” by humanitarian groups shows “UAE-supported mercenaries from Colombia in and around El Fasher as the town fell,” said the nonprofit Refugees International. The reports suggest the UAE backed “enhanced drone capabilities that helped the RSF to carry out deadly attacks on civilians.” The organization has since called for “immediate accountability” by strengthening existing embargos and treaties, asking that “prominent companies and organizations like the NBA, Disney and Warner Bros.” stop their business with the UAE “until it has ended its armed support for the RSF.”

This week, Britain’s Sky News ended its participation in a joint TV news venture with the UAE. Network executives have grown “increasingly concerned about the editorial position Sky News Arabia has taken on news in the region,” said The Guardian. Coverage of reported atrocities committed by the RSF was “accused of whitewashing genocide.” The network “produced a report claiming the security and humanitarian situation had stabilized” in El Fasher and filed stories “suggesting there was no evidence on the ground supporting satellite imagery and testimony from survivors of the atrocities.”

Sky will cede “full strategic and operational control” of the network to its Emirati partner, International Media Investments, said Middle East Eye. IMI, which will temporarily be allowed to continue using Sky News branding, is owned by Emirati Vice President and Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Monday said Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to stop their fighting, hours after Iran signaled it was ending peace talks over Israel’s escalating campaign in Lebanon and Israel said strikes on Beirut were imminent. After a “very productive call” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “a very good call with Hezbollah” through “highly placed” intermediaries, Israel’s troops “turned back” from Beirut and Hezbollah “agreed that all shooting will stop” if Israel doesn’t “attack them,” Trump said on social media.

Who said what

Trump initially responded to reports Iran was abandoning peace talks by telling CNBC he “couldn’t care less” and thought they had “started to get very boring.” But he then said Iran’s “problem is with Israel” and he would ask Netanyahu “what’s going on with Lebanon.” Trump then “lashed out” at Netanyahu in an “expletive-laden call,” Axios said, citing three sources. One U.S. official summarized Trump’s remarks: “You’re f---ing crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”

What next?

Lebanon’s embassy in Washington confirmed that Hezbollah had agreed to the U.S.-proposed truce. Netanyahu said Israeli forces “will continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon” and “will attack terror targets in Beirut” if “Hezbollah does not cease attacking our cities and citizens.”

Donald Trump “lashed out” at Benjamin Netanyahu last night in an “expletive-laden call” with the Israeli PM about the country’s actions in Lebanon, according to US officials speaking to news site Axios. The official paraphrased Trump’s remarks as: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”

Trump himself described the call as “very productive”, saying he had demanded Israel abandon plans for a “major raid” and that Netanyahu had “turned his troops around” as a result.

The Israeli prime minister is caught between Donald Trump’s demands to end the bombardment of Lebanon, which threatens peace talks with Iran, and domestic pressure to escalate the campaign against Hezbollah, which has seen the Israeli army moving deeper into Lebanon and escalating air strikes.

What did the commentators say?

Since the 7 October attacks, Netanyahu has “struggled to assure Israelis he will keep them safe” against Iran and its proxies, said The Times. There was already “mounting frustration in Israel at the failure to defang Hezbollah”, said the Financial Times’ Jerusalem correspondent, James Shotter. Most polls suggest Israelis “favour more aggressive action” against the group, and Netanyahu’s “climbdown” to Trump provoked criticism from “across the political spectrum”.

National security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, of his own coalition, urged him to ignore Trump’s demands and ratchet up the campaign against Hezbollah. “This is the time to tell our friend, President Trump – ‘no’,” Ben-Gvir wrote on X. Naftali Bennett, the right-wing former prime minister “widely regarded as one of Netanyahu’s main rivals” in the crucial upcoming election, accused him of “losing control over Israeli sovereignty”.

Netanyahu is also worried that any US-Iran deal will “leave Israel’s core concerns – Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, its ballistic missile program and regional proxy network – largely unaddressed”, said Tal Shalev of CNN’s Jerusalem bureau.

For more than three decades, Netanyahu has “defined himself as the leader who would confront Iran’s nuclear ambitions”. But a recent poll from Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies found that 45% of Israelis believe the situation with Iran has worsened compared to before 7 October; only 31% believe it has improved. Nearly half believe Israel will probably not win, or has already lost, the war against Iran.

“It’s hard to overstate how deeply Netanyahu views this moment as a possible personal and political defeat,” Danny Citrinowicz, senior researcher at the institute, wrote on X. “Mr. Iran” may be forced to accept an agreement that “not only legitimises the very regime he sought to weaken but also exposes the collapse of his long-standing Iran doctrine”.

Ultimately, Netanyahu has to defend his own citizens, said The Jerusalem Post in an editorial. Northern Israel is “under constant rocket and drone fire”. Hezbollah had used the ceasefire as a “tactical opportunity” to regroup and rearm. It has “no intention of genuinely ending hostilities”; its purpose remains the destruction of Israel. The ceasefire “prioritised a quick diplomatic achievement for Washington” over the security needs of Israel; extending it further would mean “trading Israeli lives for a few more days of quiet”. The US negotiations with Iran over Lebanon “are certainly not worth the lives of Israeli citizens”.

What next?

Just hours after Trump announced the ceasefire agreement, Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon resumed. At least eight people have been killed today, according to Lebanese state media.

In a statement, Netanyahu said that he had told Trump that Israel would continue its operations. “Our position remains the same,” Netanyahu wrote. The Lebanese government, which wants Hezbollah to disarm, has begun direct negotiations with Israel today.

Iran continues to insist that any ceasefire between the US and Iran hinges on peace in Lebanon, with a senior military officer saying today that resumption of war with the US is “inevitable”.

What happened

Israel on Sunday said its military had captured Beaufort Castle, a 900-year-old hilltop fortress in Lebanon that served as an Israeli base from 1982 to 2000. The seizure of the strategic Crusades-era fortress was a “dramatic step” toward Israel’s new goal to “deepen and expand our grip on the places that were under Hezbollah’s control,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Who said what

Israel made its “deepest incursion inside Lebanon” since its 2000 withdrawal “despite a nominal U.S.-brokered ceasefire” and the first direct Israel-Lebanon talks in decades, The Associated Press said. Israel’s advance is also “complicating negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, which has made an end to fighting” in Lebanon “one of its conditions for a deal,” The Wall Street Journal. Netanyahu “has come under heavy pressure from critics who say he has allowed the U.S. to tie his hands in fighting” Hezbollah.

Military experts said capturing Beaufort “was unlikely to protect Israeli forces from Hezbollah’s cable-borne drones,” The New York Times said. And despite the “increasing domestic pressure to ramp up Israeli attacks in Lebanon,” Netanyahu’s options appear “limited to avoid totally derailing the talks with Iran,” a “higher priority” for President Donald Trump.

What next?

France requested an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Monday. “Nothing can justify the prolongation of Israeli military operations in Lebanon and its increasingly deep occupation of Lebanese territory,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said.

Investigators have raided the headquarters of Spain’s governing party as part of a probe into the alleged misuse of party funds, the latest in a “blizzard of corruption scandals” to hit the reign of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, said Politico.

“Scandal after scandal” involving political allies and relatives of Sánchez have left him “on the ropes”, said the outlet.

What are the scandals? 

An investigating judge has accused the former PM, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, of leading a criminal network that used his influence to arrange a €53 million Covid-era government bailout for the Spanish Plus Ultra airline. He is accused of receiving a total of €2.6 million from the network, and has been charged with criminal organisation, influence peddling and falsifying documents.

Zapatero, who denies the charges, is a close ally of Sánchez, who was in government when the airline was bailed out, so the scandal has embroiled the current PM.

Sánchez’s number three, Santos Cerdán, and another party figure, José Luis Ábalos, have been caught up in a public contract kickback scheme. To make it worse, evidence also emerged that Ábalos paid prostitutes. Both men deny involvement in the kickback scheme.

In a separate case last autumn, the attorney general, Álvaro García Ortiz, a government selection, was found guilty of revealing secrets.

And a party operative, Leire Díez, has been accused of being paid to “carry out a campaign of misinformation” with the intention of “impeding” the legal cases connected to the party, said the BBC. She has also denied any wrongdoing.

What about his family?

Last month, Sánchez’s wife Begoña Gómez was charged with embezzlement, influence peddling, corruption in business dealings and misappropriation of funds. She denies the charges and Sánchez has described this case as an “obscene farce”.

His brother, David, is on trial along with 10 other defendants, in an unrelated case, on charges of influence-peddling in his appointment to a musical director post in 2017. He denies the charges.

What does this mean for Spain?

Sánchez originally came to power on an anti-corruption ticket in 2018, after a corruption scandal brought down the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy. Although Sánchez has not been directly implicated in any of the investigations, questions over whether he knew about, tolerated, or benefited politically from the alleged actions of those around him are particularly damaging to his standing.

The tensions between the government and opposition parties on the matter are creating even deeper polarisation. With allegations that party operatives tried to undermine police officers or judicial investigations, broader questions are being raised about institutional independence and public trust in the courts, police and political parties.

Crucially, it is “increasingly awkward” for Sánchez’s allies to “stick with him” as the “scale” of the alleged corruption “comes into focus”, said Politico. Although officially Spain does not have to hold elections until next August, the prime minister “may be forced to move earlier”.

Meanwhile, he has dismissed the allegations as a right-wing plot to undermine his coalition, but the opposition conservative People’s Party said the government “stinks” of corruption.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell last year to its lowest level since 2019, according to a report from the MapBiomas monitoring network.

The findings are “good news” for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who made the “fight against deforestation” a “central tenet” of his reign, said France24. But how good is the news overall?

Breathtaking destruction  

South America's biggest country lost 985,000 hectares (2.4 million acres) of native vegetation in 2025, down 20.6% from 2024, the report found. Deforestation in the Amazon alone fell by 23.5%, while reductions were recorded across Brazil’s six major ecosystems.

“Even so”, said France24, the “rate of destruction” remains “breathtaking”. In the Amazon, the world's largest rainforest, five trees are still chopped down every second.

The “hardest-hit” biome last year was once again the Cerrado, a “vast, biodiverse savanna” south of the Amazon, which accounted for more than half of the deforestation.

The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest on the planet and it absorbs more than a billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to offset the effects of human-caused emissions. But agriculture, wildfire, logging and mining are stripping it of its powers. Agriculture accounted for 99% of vegetation loss across the country.

If deforestation and global warming “continue unchecked”, the Amazon could “begin a gradual transition” to a “degraded, grassland-like ecosystem” in “just a few decades”, said the New York Times.

The “consequences” of an “Amazon tipping point” are “catastrophic for the entire planet,” Bernardo M. Flores, an ecology researcher at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain told the broadsheet, so “we need to be careful not to get anywhere near those risks”.

Reality on the ground

Part of the problem with protection is the region is the chasm between theory and reality. A “protected area” may “exist in law” and “appear on maps, in international pledges, and in official counts of how much of Brazil is under protection”, said Mongabay.

But “on the ground” the reality depends on “staff, fuel, boats, radios, boundary markers, fire brigades, monitoring, community work”, and “the ability to respond when illegal miners, loggers, poachers, or land-grabbers arrive”.

Brazil has created of the world’s “most important protected-area systems”, but the most federal protected areas are still underfunded, with the largest shortfalls in the Amazon.

The Amazon’s protected areas are “expensive to manage” because “many are vast” and “some are difficult to reach”, so a field visit can “require a river journey, a flight, or both” and enforcement could involve “long patrols” with a single manager “responsible for an area larger than some countries”.

He’s a “thin, limpish, bespectacled 94-year-old grandfather” whose revolutionary days are long gone, said Daniel DePetris in The Telegraph, yet he’s a wanted man in the US for all that. Raúl Castro has been a dominant figure in Cuba’s communist regime since his brother Fidel seized power in 1959.

Cuba’s defence chief from 1959 to 2008 and its president from 2006 to 2018, he still wields great influence behind the scenes. So it’s quite something that the US attorney general has now charged him with a murder he’s said to have been involved in back in 1996 – the fatal downing of two civilian planes over the Straits of Florida.

The four victims of that attack, three of them US citizens, had been working for Brothers to the Rescue, an NGO dedicated to helping Cuban refugees and dropping anti-communist leaflets over the island. Castro is accused of having instructed his fighter pilots to “knock them down into the sea when they show up”.

‘Warning for a deaf regime’

You could see this coming, said Diario de Cuba (Madrid). The Trump administration has been demanding that Havana open up its economy and end political repression; yet despite heavy US sanctions and an oil blockade imposed in January, the regime has made no more than limited concessions – allowing Cubans in exile to found companies back home, for example. So the indictment of Raúl Castro is a “warning for a deaf regime”. And quite possibly an effective one.

The regime was badly shaken when, in January, Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro was captured by US forces in a surprise raid on Caracas. And US Attorney General Todd Blanche has hinted something similar might occur in Cuba. Asked how he intended to bring Castro to trial in America, he cryptically replied there are “all kinds of different ways”.

Bringing in Castro would be a major blow to the regime, said CNN (Atlanta). Regarded as his late brother’s “more disciplined and discreet” enforcer, Raúl Castro remains “the power in the shadows”. And his family holds immense economic as well as political clout: GAESA, the military-run conglomerate Castro founded in 1995, controls 70% of the economy on some estimates: Cuba’s tourist industry is just one of the sectors it dominates.

Markets empty, prices soaring

That economy is now suffering its “greatest crisis” since the collapse of its close ally the Soviet Union, said The Washington Post. The oil embargo has driven it to the brink. “Havana looks like a bombed-out city,” said Yunior García Aguilera on 14YMedio (Havana). Its buildings, crumbling from decades of neglect, are “split open like broken ribs”. With no petrol to run dustbin trucks, rubbish is being burnt in the streets. People wade through “toxic clouds”, side-stepping sewage and hopping over pot-holes. “Plastic, rotten food and patience are all ablaze.”

And with no imports reaching the island, Cubans have to eat what’s grown locally, said CiberCuba (Valencia). Which isn’t much. Rice production had plummeted even before the fuel crisis. Without fuel for crop dusters, tractors or irrigation, farmers have “reverted to using oxen, buffalo, horses, windmills, and solar pumps”. Markets are empty, prices are soaring. Most Cubans have begun skipping meals.

The US hopes such suffering will spark a “mass uprising” and cause the regime to implode, said Fabio E. Fernández Batista in El Salto (Madrid). But such is the repressive nature of the regime, that seems unlikely, which is why not a few Cubans now hope that “Saint Donald” will come to the rescue, even “if it means bombs falling” on their homeland.

And the US appears “increasingly willing” to seek regime change in Cuba through military means, said Nahal Toosi on Politico (Washington) – by an air strike or possibly even a ground invasion. The signs are all there: there’s been a reported spike in US surveillance flights off Cuba, and last week the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz was sent to the Caribbean. Some assume the ongoing failure of his war in Iran will hold the US president back. Don’t bet on it. It’s never a good idea “to predict what the capricious Trump will do”.

“Suddenly, say those who live there, the mood in Moscow feels very different,” said Adrian Blomfield in The Telegraph. Ever since Ukraine’s counteroffensive stalled in 2023, Russia’s capital had “exuded confidence. Its residents could either bathe in the patriotic glory of war or ignore it altogether”. But lately, “bombast” has given way to fear, and to a longing for the conflict to end; and this feeling became more acute this month, when Moscow and its wider region came under fire from a barrage of Ukrainian drones.

It was “one of the most sustained aerial attacks of the conflict” so far. Three people were killed; all four of Moscow’s airports had to close; an oil refinery and residential buildings were hit. “Muscovites listening to drones buzz overhead and air defences firing into the night” were given a “glimpse of life in Kyiv – and they did not like it”.

‘Completely unravelling’

Events have not been in the Kremlin’s favour lately, said the Financial Times. Ukraine has upped its use of long-range drones to target energy and military facilities deep in Russia. On the front line, Russia is “scratching out meagre territorial gains at a devastating human cost”: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently asserted that it is “losing 15,000-20,000 soldiers a month. Not injured. Dead.”

The Russian economy, meanwhile, is ailing: some analysts reckon that inflation is running well above the official 5.6%; and interest rates are at a punishing 14.5%. Vladimir Putin has tried to bury bad news by tightening state control over the internet, said Phillips Payson O’Brien in The Atlantic. Even so, videos have increasingly been circulating in which Russians express “shock at their capital’s vulnerability”. His long-standing narrative, that the conflict in Ukraine is a “special military operation” that needn’t trouble Russia’s elites or middle classes, is “completely unravelling”.

‘Most challenging period’

Putin’s calculus on the war in Ukraine has not changed, said Pjotr Sauer and Shaun Walker in The Guardian. He remains determined to “press on” in the (surely misguided) belief that Moscow can capture the whole of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region by the end of the year. Such “bravado”, however, is doing little to ease the disquiet inside Russia; and speculation is growing that Putin’s regime could be toppled from within.

There have been reports that Sergei Shoigu, the former defence minister, could emerge as a threat to his former boss’s grip on power. The likelihood of an imminent Kremlin coup may be remote; but there’s no doubt that, at 73, Putin is entering “the most challenging period of his long rule”.

What happened

U.S. and Iranian negotiators on Thursday reached a tentative agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and extend the ceasefire for another 60 days while thornier issues like Iran’s nuclear program and U.S. sanctions are hashed out, U.S. officials said. “We’re not there yet, but we’re very close,” Vice President JD Vance told reporters, adding that it’s “still TBD” if and when President Donald Trump “can endorse the agreement.” Tehran did not comment.

Who said what

The “emerging memorandum of understanding came as the fragile ceasefire” appeared to be “wavering,” The Associated Press said. Several “brief exchanges of fire” this week have added “pressure on negotiators,” The New York Times said. Meanwhile, Trump’s “seemingly haphazard approach to the conflict is bewildering allies” as he “veers between diplomatic dealing, military strikes and increasingly far-fetched ideas” to clinch some sort of victory.

Trump “finds himself in a bind,” Reuters said, as he “seeks to end the war” and secure a “quick solution to high gas prices” while avoiding a “potential backlash from Iran hawks” over “any concessions to Tehran.” Those “competing demands” leave him “little room to maneuver.”

What next?

Trump was “leaning toward signing off on the deal” as of Thursday afternoon, Axios said, citing senior U.S. officials. But he “wants to wait another few days” to “make sure Iranian officials would sign” and to “see how the domestic political debate around the deal plays out.” In Iran, officials “said Tehran is concerned Trump will scuttle the deal under Israeli influence,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Iran has signalled that any peace deal must include an end to Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. But it’s unclear if the US could get Israel to agree to that, even if it wanted to.

Despite last month’s ceasefire, Israel has continued to pound Lebanon with airstrikes, killing at least 608 people, according to the World Health Organization. Yesterday, in response to a Hezbollah attack on its military posts, Israel launched one of its most intense waves of bombings, saying it had hit more than 100 Hezbollah targets. “I have ordered an even greater acceleration of our operations,” Benjamin Netanyahu said. “We will intensify our blows, increase our firepower, and we will crush them.”

What did the commentators say?

“Lebanon is in danger of becoming an overlooked but increasingly deadly sideshow”, as both Israel and Hezbollah violate the ceasefire, said Tom Kington in The Times. Israeli troops are occupying swathes of southern Lebanon, and won’t withdraw unless Hezbollah disarms. But the Iran-backed group says it won’t stop attacking Israeli positions until Israel withdraws. “The result has been a stand-off.”

Hezbollah is “waiting for a cue from Iran, which in turn depends on how Iran’s talks with the US go”, Michael Young, of the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, told The Times. “If Iran emerges stronger from its clash with the US, Hezbollah will feel reinvigorated.” They will “be able to say they resisted and claim victory”. Meanwhile, Israel will be trying “to torpedo any deal”.

Washington is “pressuring” Lebanon’s leaders to disarm Hezbollah or else “face more Gaza-style destruction”, said Rami G. Khouri, a policy analyst at the American University of Beirut, in Al Jazeera. It has also “tied financial support” for the country’s reconstruction to “Beirut’s compliance with US-Israeli terms”. The Lebanese government faces “a disgruntled, deeply impoverished population, exasperated by relentless Israeli attacks”.

April’s ceasefire agreement heralded “weakened US-Israeli positions in the region”, as well as dealing “deep political blows” to Netanyahu and gifting “new diplomatic leverage” to Iran and Hezbollah. Having survived their “existential” battles and now pressing for permanent ceasefires, they could “weaken Israeli postures and help reshape Lebanon’s internal dynamics”.

“But far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition are pushing him to challenge” Donald Trump on the “ceasefire with Hezbollah”, said The Guardian’s chief Middle East correspondent, Emma Graham-Harrison. “It is time for the prime minister to bang on Trump’s table and inform him that we are returning to war in Lebanon,” said Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, on social media. “There is an urgent need to put an end to the threat posed by Hezbollah’s explosive drones,” the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, posted on Telegram. Hezbollah has “ignored repeated requests to stop firing at Israel”, a US official told Reuters. Israel will never “​passively absorb attacks on its forces and civilians”.

But Tehran won’t accept such attacks on its proxy, either, Danny Citrinowicz, a Middle East expert at the Atlantic Council, told The New Yorker. Lebanon is of “real strategic importance” to Iran; Hezbollah is “a vital element” of its “so-called Axis of Resistance”. So Trump “has a mountain to climb”. If he wants an agreement with Iran, he will have to “force Netanyahu’s hand on Lebanon”.

What next?

On Friday, delegations from Israel and Lebanon will meet for direct talks in the US, in preparation for further negotiations on 2 and 3 June.

The shaky US-Iran ceasefire, meanwhile, is under increasing strain: Iran has said US strikes near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday were a “gross violation”, and validated its “deep suspicion”. The US said its attacks were “defensive”.

But “even if Lebanon is part of a US-Iran peace deal, the Lebanese people will be wary”, said Kington in The Times. After all, April’s Pakistan-brokered ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran, supposedly included Lebanon – but Israel “denied this was the case and launched 100 attacks in a few minutes”.

Nearly six years to the day after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked racial protests across the United States, something similar is happening across the pond. The death of a Congolese man in Dublin led people throughout the Irish capital to take to the streets, in what many are calling the country’s own George Floyd-like reckoning.

What happened?

The protests began over an incident on May 15, when Yves Sakila was detained by “several security guards who suspected him of shoplifting at Arnotts, Ireland’s oldest and largest department store, in the heart of Dublin” after he “allegedly stole a bottle of perfume,” said The Associated Press. Sakila, a 35-year-old native of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was seen on video “struggling and crying out in distress as he was held down by several men for nearly five minutes.”

At least two of the guards “held his face to the ground and at one point one of ​them appeared to kneel on his head or neck for a few seconds,” said Reuters. Police eventually arrived on scene, and Sakila was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Sakila’s death was seen by many as reminiscent of the murder of George Floyd, who died in 2020 “after being arrested by police outside a shop in Minnesota, prompting widespread protests under the Black Lives Matter banner,” said The Times.

How has Ireland reacted?

The incident has caused anger and protests in Ireland, with many demonstrators calling for racial justice. Following Sakila’s death, at least “several hundred people attended a rally” in Dublin organized by Black Coalition Ireland, said The Irish Times. The protesters are demanding “proper transparent investigation into his death,” Black Coalition Ireland spokeswoman Cllr Yemi Adenuga told The Irish Times, as well as “racial training for all gardaí,” referring to Ireland’s national police force.

The protesters additionally called for an “end to the ‘demonizing rhetoric’ used by politicians or would-be politicians against ethnic communities and equal treatment for all communities, not just on paper but in practice,” said The Irish Times. The Democratic Republic of the Congo “remains steadfastly committed to establishing the full truth” of Sakila’s death, the country’s foreign affairs ministry said in a translated post on X. Irish government officials are also getting involved, with Ebun Joseph, Ireland’s Special Rapporteur on Racism and Racial Equality, calling for an investigation.

The footage of Sakila’s death has “caused profound distress, fear and outrage across many communities, particularly among Black and minority ethnic communities who already experience heightened anxiety regarding racial profiling, excessive force, unequal treatment and over-policing in public spaces,” Joseph said in a statement, per Irish broadcaster RTÉ. His death raises “urgent and serious questions which require comprehensive examination.” Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin, the country’s prime minister, has also called for an investigation.

The incident will likely cause tensions to grow in a country that “continues to grapple with increasing political tension around immigration, following anti-immigrant protests and riots that erupted in Dublin in 2023,” said The Grio. Many are continuing to push for changes. “We call this a George Floyd moment,” David ​Kaliba, a former high school classmate of Sakila, said to Reuters. “I can’t believe ​it happened in America in 2020 and happened in Ireland in 2026.”

What started as online satire has spiralled into a mass movement for India’s disaffected youth.

The parody Cockroach Janta Party launched earlier this month and quickly amassed more than 22 million followers on Instagram – more than twice that of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the world’s largest political party.

Rotten places

The Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, was created by Abhijeet Dipke, a public relations student at Boston University in the US. The 30-year-old launched the CJP via social media accounts and a website, inspired by comments from India’s Chief Justice Surya Kant, in which he compared unemployed young people to cockroaches.

While Kant later clarified his remarks, saying they only referred to some people acquiring fraudulent degrees, his comments drew “considerable ire”, said Al Jazeera, “mainly from Gen Z internet users, as they battle large-scale unemployment, inflation and bitter religious divides” following 12 years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

“Those in power think citizens are cockroaches and parasites,” Dipke told the news site. “They should know that cockroaches breed in rotten places. That’s what India is today.”

With a cockroach as its symbol, the CJP has exploded across social media fed by “memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction” that turned “absurdist humour into protest”, said The Associated Press. One million people have signed up to join the movement in the past week with “its tongue-in-cheek membership criteria” including “being unemployed, lazy, chronically online and capable of ranting professionally”.

“I don’t expect CJP to become a functioning political party, but its rapid growth sends a message to the ruling party that many, especially the youth, are unhappy with corruption and the economy”, 29-year-old digital marketer Oindrila Mohinta told The Telegraph India.

Neither side listening

After the CJP’s X account was blocked as a result of a “legal demand”, supporters flooded social media with claims the Indian government was behind the suspension, suggesting the movement had “rattled” the “establishment”, said The Times of India. Dipke has accused the government of trying to take down the movement’s official website, and claimed his personal Instagram account had also been hacked.

However, “the opposition should be careful before celebrating the CJP as a ready-made, anti-BJP youth wave”, said Rasheed Kidwai for NDTV. “Gen Z’s irritation with the ruling establishment is real” but “it does not automatically convert into faith in the opposition”.

“The viral success of the Cockroach Janata Party should not be seen only as a dissent against the ruling party but also a mirror to the opposition,” poll strategist Naresh Arora wrote on X. “India’s Gen Z youth feel neither side is listening to them.”

The CJP as an entity “may disappear within months”, said Vivek Surendran in The Indian Express. “Internet movements often burn intensely and collapse without consequence”. However, the message to the political establishment is that “inspirational” messaging is no longer cutting through with cynical younger voters: “what large sections of young Indians want is recognition of their exhaustion”.

The New York Times has accused Israeli prison guards and soldiers of systematic sexual abuse of Palestinians, said Rachel O’Donoghue in National Review—but its “shocking” allegations aren’t credible. In a report two weeks ago, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof purported to document widespread rape of Palestinian prisoners by Israeli jailers, which he claims is condoned by the Israeli government. His describes men raped with batons and carrots and the sexual abuse of children, and “adds a grotesque flourish:” the rape of prisoners by dogs trained for that purpose. This shoddy report relies on “dubious sourcing.” Most of the 14 victims cited aren’t named; the two he does name have changed the stories they’ve told. Kristof repeatedly cites claims by a Geneva-based human rights group with ties to Hamas and “a history of promoting inflammatory and unfounded allegations against Israel.” Given how canine biology works, the dog-rape claim “doesn’t pass the most basic smell test,” said Douglas Murray in the New York Post. So why would the Times print it, except to portray Israelis as “absolute monsters”?

This “backlash” to the ugly truth is utterly predictable, said Yuli Novak in The Guardian. Pro-Israel voices assailed the Times, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to sue over the “blood libel.” But Kristof’s report is hardly unique: The torture and rape of Palestinians has long been reported by dozens of former detainees and documented by my own Israeli human rights group. As with its brutal policies in Gaza and the West Bank, Israel’s detention system is built “on the denial of Palestinian humanity.” In assessing the credibility of Kristof’s report, said Andrew Sullivan in his Substack newsletter, it’s important to remember the horrors Americans inflicted at Abu Ghraib—including using dogs to sexually humiliate naked Iraqis. When enemies come to see each other as subhuman, “the darkness is deep.”

After Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis, it was the Palestinians and their defenders who adamantly denied horrific reports of rape and sexual torture, said Emily Tamkin in The Forward. A new investigation has documented that Hamas’ sexual assault of Israelis was “widespread.” Why do “we automatically believe that yes, this side carries out sexual violence, but no, that side doesn’t?” When you dismiss any allegations that go “against the side you root for,” you’re “not just denying the alleged victims their humanity. You risk robbing yourself of your own humanity, too.”

What is a third-country deportation?

It’s the removal of a migrant or asylum seeker to a country with which he or she has no legal or personal ties. While only about 17,500 of the more than 800,000 people deported so far during President Trump’s second term have been sent to third countries, those removals are a key part of his immigration agenda. His administration has brokered transfer deals with at least 33 nations—most of them poor and corruptly run—and has paid at least $44 million to those countries in connection with the deportation agreements.

The Department of Homeland Security argues the policy is needed to remove migrants who are “so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won’t take them back.” But most third-country deportees have no criminal record, and most have been granted some form of legal relief that bars the government from shipping them home, where they may face torture, persecution, or death. Some migrants have been removed suddenly from detention centers and flown to countries in Africa, Latin America, or Central Asia with abysmal human rights records. “They took us, they put us on a plane, and they chained us by our hands and feet,” said one Colombian deportee, who didn’t know until mid-flight that his destination was the Democratic Republic of Congo, an active war zone. The U.S., said Nicole Waddersheim of the nonprofit Human Rights Watch, “is doing enforced disappearances.”

Where are deportees being sent?

About 90% have been transferred to Mexico under a Biden-era agreement that let federal agents at the southern border turn back migrants during the 2021–23 immigration surge. But Trump has tried to speed up the pace of deportations by shipping migrants to any country that will take them. In February 2025, 200 people— including 81 children—from countries including Iran, Afghanistan, Angola, and China were flown on two planes to Costa Rica; many of those deported had tried to claim asylum in the U.S. Weeks later, Homeland Security shipped 261 mostly Venezuelan men to the brutal CECOT prison in El Salvador; many reported being tortured and sexually assaulted at the facility. The administration paid El Salvador more than $4 million to hold the men, whom it accused on scant evidence of being gang members. After four months at CECOT, the Venezuelans were sent to their home country. The administration then began looking farther afield for third-country destinations, striking deals with countries including Eswatini, Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, and South Sudan.

Is this policy legal?

That’s being contested in federal court. The Immigration and Nationality Act outlines a procedure for third-country deportations, and in June 2025 the Supreme Court ruled the administration could deport migrants to countries other than their own without giving them a “meaningful opportunity” to raise fear-based claims of torture. The following month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said officers could “immediately” begin sending migrants to “alternative” countries, with as little as six hours’ notice. Other courts, though, have rejected the agency’s legal justifications for specific removals: A U.S. district judge last week ordered the Trump administration to return to the U.S. a 55-year-old Colombian asylum seeker with diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and hypothyroidism who was deported to Congo—even after the country refused to accept her because it couldn’t provide sufficient medical care. The plaintiff “meets the standard for irreparable harm,” said Judge Richard Leon, “up to and including death.”

What conditions do deportees face in third countries?

Some have described landing in tropical locations without receiving the appropriate vaccinations and then being locked up by local authorities. Those sent to Eswatini, Africa’s only absolute monarchy, were immediately ferried to a moldy, bug-infested maximum-security facility where, one Laotian migrant told his lawyer, he felt “like a caged animal.” At least two of 26 migrants sent to Cameroon contracted malaria, and journalists who have tried to contact them have had their phones and laptops confiscated. In Equatorial Guinea, deportees are held under armed guard at a remote hotel; some have contracted typhoid fever. Weeks after 11 deportees arrived in Ghana, 10 were driven to its border with Togo and told to cross over on foot. That was especially terrifying for two of the female deportees.

Why was that?

Because they were Togolese and had fled to the U.S. to escape the threat of genital mutilation and forced marriage. “In this country, nobody can help me,” said one of the women, who is now in hiding in Togo. U.S. law prohibits asylum seekers from being sent to their home country if their “life or freedom would be threatened.” But there’s no legal mechanism to stop a migrant from being deported to a third country, which then transfers them home. In November, 50 humanitarian parole recipients from Ukraine were flown to Poland and then escorted across the border to their wartorn homeland. One man on the plane “was a 36-year-old who came to America as a child 20 years ago,” said a deportee. “He hardly speaks any Ukrainian.”

Are more deportations in the works?

The Trump administration is drawing up plans to send 1,100 Afghan nationals currently housed at a U.S. military base in Qatar to Congo. The group includes former interpreters and special forces that fought alongside U.S. troops. Here in the U.S., more than 24,000 migrants have received third-country removal orders and are awaiting deportation. “It is a country I don’t know, I have no family there, I don’t speak their language,” said Bolivian asylum seeker José Yugar-Cruz, 37, who is set to be deported to Congo. “I keep thinking it’s a nightmare that I will wake up from.”

What happened

The U.S. military on Monday night said it had “conducted self-defense strikes” on Iranian missile sites and “boats attempting to emplace mines,” interrupting a weekslong ceasefire after a weekend of positive signals about an imminent peace deal. Earlier, President Donald Trump said talks on ending the war were “proceeding nicely.” An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said a “large portion of the issues” had been resolved but no “agreement is on the verge of being signed.”

Who said what

The emerging framework indicates that Trump’s “mixture of threats and limited military operations” in Iran hasn’t “decisively shifted” Tehran’s negotiating stance, The New York Times said. After Republican hawks “slammed the contours of the deal,” The Wall Street Journal said, Trump “expanded the scope of his diplomatic ambition,” saying Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Muslim countries must normalize relations with Israel as part of any agreement. Trump posted Monday that it “should be mandatory” for all of them to “simultaneously” sign the Abraham Accords.

What next?

Trump’s Israel normalization push could give him a way to cast any peace deal “as a larger regional success story instead of a climbdown,” the Journal said. But it’s “highly unlikely to be heeded” by the Saudis or Qataris, given Israel’s intransigence on Palestinian rights.

Donald Trump’s claim that the US and Iran are closing in on a peace deal has already been met with widespread criticism within his own Republican party.

The details haven’t been made public but Iran is said to have agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, without charging tolls, and dispose of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. In return, the US would cease hostilities, unfreeze billions of dollars of assets, and gradually remove economic sanctions.

But Republican Senator Ted Cruz said it would be a “disastrous mistake” to leave Iran “able to enrich uranium and develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz”. And Senator Roger Wicker, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned that the emerging deal “would not be worth the paper it is written on”.

What did the commentators say?

The “grim reality” is that, by closing the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has “leverage” over peace talks, said the Financial Times’ chief foreign affairs columnist Gideon Rachman. And now the US seems poised to agree to a deal that “threatens to leave Iran in a stronger position than before the war began”. Trump likes to “deride” the nuclear non-proliferation agreement that Barack Obama negotiated with Iran in 2015, but this looks in many ways “worse”. Perhaps the US president “should have reread” his book, “The Art of the Deal”.

Eli Groner, a former director-general of Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, said Iran’s knowledge that it can now close the Strait of Hormuz at any point “is a victory far deeper and more strategic than any point-scoring military achievement”. His summary? “Disaster.”

The framework of the deal described by US officials would be “a series of compromises, well short of the capitulation that Trump sought”, said David Ignatius in The Washington Post. Iran hasn’t accepted his demand that its highly enriched uranium be delivered to the West, nor has it agreed to give up its “right to enrich” in the future. But Trump “doesn’t appear to have any better options” to escape what has become “a military morass and a strategic dead end”. Tehran “can claim victory simply by having survived” the US assault.

Some Republicans are arguing that “peace could bring a pay-off for voters” by lowering petrol prices and easing inflation as oil tankers start to move through the Strait of Hormuz again, said CNN’s Stephen Collinson. But recovery from the strait’s closure will take time and won’t “immediately improve global economic prospects or affordability in the US”. Trump “can’t win politically”: given that a majority of Americans oppose the war, he would face a huge “backlash if he ordered new strikes”.

There’s no way to spin this humiliating “catastrophe”, Middle East expert Danny Citrinowicz, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, told The New Yorker. Rather than toppling the Iranian regime, the US and Israel have “ended up strengthening” it. It’s hard to imagine Tehran will just “give up its nuclear material” – to Trump or anyone else – because “they’re so much in the driver’s seat” here. Iran is already rebuilding its missile capacity and still has most of its launchers. Now we have “a more radicalised regime that can rush into a nuclear bomb and still have a conventional missile capacity. It’s a shit show.”

What next?

We have “reached a conclusion on a large portion of the issues under discussion”, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqai told a news conference in Tehran yesterday. “But to say that this means the signing of an agreement is imminent – no one can make such a claim.” The two sides were not discussing Iran’s nuclear programme “at this stage”, he added.

This is “not a final settlement”, said the BBC; this “memorandum of understanding” seems simply to involve a 60-day extension of the ceasefire and a plan for further negotiations on “some of the thorniest issues”, including the nuclear one. That timeline seems “rather compressed, given the complexity of the issues”, said CNN’s Collinson. “History shows Iran would love to drag the United States into a prolonged period of inconclusive diplomacy that lasts months or years.”

Not long ago he was regarded as virtually Ukraine’s co-president, said Jamie Dettmer on Politico. Now, less than six months after being forced to resign as President Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak finds himself in custody.

He was arrested last Thursday on suspicion of helping to launder $10.5 million (£7.7 million) via the construction of four luxury homes near Kyiv, some of the funds reportedly being part of the proceeds of a $100 million (£77 million) kickback scheme on contracts signed at Energoatom, the state’s atomic energy agency.

A man with outsize influence

Many of Zelenskyy’s allies have already been implicated in the wider case, including his former business partner Timur Mindich, who fled to Israel last year, and the former energy minister German Galushchenko, who was arrested in February while trying to flee the country. But Yermak’s arrest brings the matter to the very heart of the president’s inner circle, fuelling speculation about what Zelenskyy himself “may have known – or ought to have known”.

Yermak’s arrest could prove disastrous for Zelenskyy, said Steve Gutterman on Radio Free Europe (Prague). In voters’ minds, there’s an “inseparable” link between the two men. They met in 2011 when both were working in television, and their close friendship and Yermak’s “outsize influence” as an unelected adviser mean that any stain on him could well “bleed over onto Zelenskyy”. The scandal also puts at risk Kyiv’s bid for fast-track EU membership, as one of Brussels’ key demands has been that Ukraine’s notorious corruption must be curbed.

Room for optimism

Zelenskyy has stayed “tight-lipped” since the Energoatom scandal broke in November, said Kateryna Denisova in The Kyiv Independent, but it may prove harder to downplay things this time round. He hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing himself, but ever since the name Vova (a diminutive for Volodymyr) popped up in a recently leaked audiotape conversation of two corruption suspects discussing a property development outside Kyiv, rumours about him have started to swirl.

Given the ongoing war with Russia, all these allegations feel particularly egregious, said Paul Niland in the Kyiv Post. However, there is room for optimism. The $10.5 million (£7.7 million) mentioned in the Yermak case is a “far cry” from the $10 billion (£7 billion) thought to have been stolen each year from 2010-14 under the former president, Viktor Yanukovych. Ukraine’s two anti-corruption agencies have been so determined to win the fight against graft that theft on that sort of scale is no longer possible. And there’s no clearer sign of that than the arrest of someone as powerful as Yermak.

A rare event occurred last week, said Fred Kaplan on Slate: President Trump posted a completely accurate observation on social media. Commenting on Iran’s response to a US ceasefire proposal, he declared it “totally unacceptable”.

He’s right about that. Iran’s statement – which included no concessions and a long list of demands, including war reparations, the lifting of all sanctions and Iran’s continued control over the Strait of Hormuz – read like something “the winner of a war would issue”. The question is, what can Trump do about it?

He has repeatedly threatened to resume bombing Iran if the regime rejects his peace proposals, but it’s hard to see what that would achieve. If the 38 days of devastating air strikes that began on 28 February failed to bring Tehran to heel, what difference would obliterating a few more targets make?

‘Wiggle out of this conflict’

“If this isn’t checkmate, it’s close,” said Robert Kagan in The Atlantic. Trump halted the bombing campaign on Iran “not because he was bored, but because Iran was striking the region’s vital oil and gas facilities”. If he’s not willing to accept the risk of more such retaliation, or to mount a full-scale ground and naval war to remove the Iranian regime, “walking away now could seem like the least bad option”.

Trump, to his credit, shows no sign of wanting to “wiggle out of this conflict” or sign some meaningless deal, said Noah Rothman in National Review. He’s rightly determined to stop Tehran getting a nuclear weapon. But to succeed, he’ll need to solicit the public’s support for this project, which requires showing a bit more patience and “humility”. He’s not going to win people over by branding all critics “stupid”, or dismissing the inflationary effects of the war. He recently claimed that he was motivated only by the nuclear issue, saying “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation at all”. That quote is going to be used against him in countless Democratic campaign adverts.

‘We will all reap the whirlwind if Iran comes out of this stronger’

Trump’s rudeness and arrogance has also made Nato allies very disinclined to come to America’s aid, said Thomas L. Friedman in The New York Times. Which is too bad, as the administration could really do with their help. The reality is that it’s in all of our interests to fix the Iran situation. It will be terrible for Europe if Tehran is allowed to decide who can and who can’t pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

And it will be worse still for the Arab Gulf states that rely on the channel, endangering their modernising, pluralistic reforms. “The Dubai model is precisely the one Tehran wants to destroy.” It’s understandable that Nato allies are loath to help Trump, but make no mistake: “we will all reap the whirlwind if Iran comes out of this stronger”.

On 28 April, the UAE, which produces about 4% of the world’s oil, thanked the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) for “five decades of cooperation”, then resigned.

Opec is an intergovernmental group that imposes production quotas on members to keep oil prices “fair and stable”, it says; economists see it as a classic example of a cartel, a group that collaborates to reduce competition and raise prices.

Why did the UAE leave Opec?

The UAE is thought to have left because it wants to increase production, against the wishes of Saudi Arabia, Opec’s de facto leader, but it had also recently been attacked by another member, Iran. In theory, the UAE could now export more oil, lowering the commodity’s soaring price. But thanks to the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz (through which over half of the UAE’s oil and all of its gas usually passes), and the chaotic state of the peace negotiations between the US and Iran, energy markets barely moved. Some analysts, however, called it “the beginning of the end of Opec”.

Why was Opec created?

From the 1930s until the 1970s, a group of seven Anglo-American companies known as the “Seven Sisters” – the ancestors of today’s BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell – dominated the world oil market. They had secured long-term concessions across the Middle East, as well as in Venezuela and Indonesia, which meant they controlled over 80% of world supplies.

Producer nations were initially given only modest payments in return. After the Second World War, oil-producing countries increasingly chafed under the Seven Sisters’ grip, often demanding a larger share of revenues. In 1951, Iran nationalised its oilfields, which was reversed by a US- and British-orchestrated coup.

Around the same time, Saudi Arabia negotiated a 50:50 revenue-sharing deal with Aramco, the (then) US-owned Saudi oil company; this model soon spread. Even so, the Seven Sisters retained control over prices and production, as well as refining and distribution. Opec was created in response.

How did it come into existence?

In early 1959, in response to growing Soviet oil production, the Seven Sisters cut prices by 10%, infuriating the oil ministers of Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, who started making plans that year in Cairo. In September 1960, shortly after another price cut, Opec was founded in Baghdad by Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, in an effort to reshape the system in the producers’ interests.

The first international organisation led by what was then called the Third World, Opec worked incrementally at first, driving “participation agreements”, which gradually transferred ownership of oil companies to host governments. But it also expanded its membership: Qatar, Libya, Indonesia, Algeria and Abu Dhabi (the largest emirate) joined in the 1960s; Nigeria joined in 1971. By 1973, when an oil crisis shook the world, Opec controlled more than half of global oil production.

What happened in 1973?

In October, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia and his Arab allies – enraged by US support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War against Syria and Egypt, and Israel’s continuing occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank – convinced Opec to hike the price of oil from around $3.01 to $5.12 per barrel; the Arab nations also imposed an oil embargo on the US and other nations that backed Israel.

By early 1974, the price had risen above $12 per barrel – a 300% increase. Although the embargo only lasted until March 1974, it triggered a two-year global economic crisis, creating oil shortages and spiralling inflation, and bringing the West’s postwar boom to an end, with all manner of long-term consequences.

The long tail of the 1973 oil crisis

It’s hard to overstate the effects of the 1973 crisis and the “stagflation” that ensued, which exposed the great vulnerability of Western nations, raised unemployment sharply and accelerated deindustrialisation. It has been plausibly linked to everything from a great shift in the world financial order to the invention of punk rock.

In the UK, it speeded up the development of North Sea oil and gas fields (discovered in 1965), and the adoption of natural gas for home heating; France pivoted sharply to nuclear power. Energy conservation only became a priority as a result of the crisis.

In the US, it permanently changed the car industry, opening up the market for lighter, more fuel-efficient – often Japanese – vehicles. This, in the long run, helped make the Toyota Corolla the bestselling car of all time.

There were also unanticipated consequences in Saudi Arabia, where the monarchy used the great oil wealth created to promote a puritanical, fundamentalist version of Islam. (Among the beneficiaries of the ensuing construction boom around holy sites were the bin Laden family.) This was partly to counter the spread of left-wing ideas in the Arab world, though King Faisal, a pious man, was said to be sincerely horrified by “the spiritual dangers of easy affluence”.

Did the strategy work?

The embargo’s main objective was to pressure the US into making Israel leave the Palestinian territories it had occupied in 1967. This didn’t happen, but Opec kept prices high through the 1970s: the decade saw one of the largest transfers of wealth in history, as “petrodollar” infusions from industrialised nations to nationalised oil firms allowed Opec members to fund massive infrastructure projects, build up their militaries, and establish welfare states.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 also kept prices up. At the same time, rich countries took steps to become less dependent on oil; while soaring prices encouraged new exploration, from Alaska to the North Sea, and the Soviet Union became a major producer.

What effects did this have?

The resulting “oil glut” in the 1980s meant that Opec’s power drained away. Opec decreased oil production quotas to stabilise prices, but members failed to comply, producing above their limits; while non-Opec producers pumped out more to fill the gap. Saudi Arabia, frustrated and losing market share, opened the spigots in 1986, crashing the oil price. In the years after, quotas were largely restored – but Opec’s ability to affect world prices was relatively limited, and poorer members often chafed at the restrictions.

What is the situation today?

US shale fracking technology meant that, in 2018, it overtook Saudi Arabia and Russia as the world’s largest producer. Partly in response to these changes, Opec+ had been formed in 2016. A looser group that includes big producers such as Russia and Mexico, it controls about 40% of the world’s output; but the complex, diversified global system limits its power, while smaller Opec members complain that policy is decided by the “Big Two”, Saudi Arabia and Russia. This was one reason why Qatar left Opec in 2019, damaging the image of a unified Middle Eastern bloc; Angola and Ecuador have also left.

The UAE’s departure is on a different scale: it was the cartel’s third-largest producer. The immediate effects are limited by the Iran crisis. But without its “swing” capacity to increase production fast, Opec’s ability to act as a “global central bank for oil” is diminished.

For months, the Trump administration has increased pressure on Cuba through harsher sanctions, a crippling oil blockade and threats to “take” the island.

Now Washington has sharply escalated tensions by indicting the 94-year-old former Cuban president, Raúl Castro (brother of Fidel). The US Justice Department said the charges relate to the 1996 downing of two unarmed civilian planes by the Cuban military, when Raúl was armed forces minister. The incident, which killed four people, triggered one of the worst crises in US-Cuban relations since the Cold War.

Following the US capture and ousting of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro following a similar indictment, which deprived the Cuban Communist Party of a key ally, many fear the indictment suggests Donald Trump’s desire for regime change in Havana is intensifying.

Who is Raúl Castro?

Alongside Fidel, Raúl helped lead the guerrilla war that toppled the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, and launched the Cuban communist revolution.

As Fidel’s defence minister for decades, Raúl built a “powerful base within the military and Cuban state”, said Reuters. He also helped defeat the US-organised Bay of Pigs invasion. After Fidel became ill in 2006, Raúl stepped in as acting president before formally taking over in 2008. Although he resigned as president in 2018 and leader of the Communist Party in 2021, he is widely considered one of the most powerful men in the country, and one of the fathers of the revolution.

He retains the official title of “army general” and holds “significant influence” over the Communist Party and armed forces. The current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, is “widely seen as relying on ​Castro’s guidance for major decisions”.

What happened to the planes in 1996?

After the collapse of its main financial supporter, the Soviet Union, Cuba suffered an “extreme economic emergency” of blackouts, and shortages of food and fuel, said BBC News Mundo – much like today. Thousands fled to Florida on rafts. A Miami-based group of Cuban exiles, Brothers to the Rescue, tried to help the migrants, and dropped anti-regime leaflets over the island. Havana “began denouncing the air incursions”, branding the group “terrorists”.

In 1996, Cuban fighter jets shot down two of the group’s planes, killing all four men on board – three of whom were US citizens. The attack sparked “strong international condemnation”, including against Raúl, and the US “significantly tightened” sanctions. Most organisations say the planes were in international airspace, although Cuba has always insisted otherwise. Many analysts believe Fidel was trying to “prevent a possible rapprochement with the US”, which could “spur political and economic reforms” that would “jeopardise his absolute power”. The case still “retains enormous symbolic and political weight” for Cubans, on and off the island.

What is the significance of the indictments?

Families of the four pilots who were killed “cheered the indictments, which they had been demanding for three decades”, said NBC News. It is a “politically powerful decision”; Florida’s large, politically active population of Cuban émigrés exert “outsized leverage” on US presidents, particularly Trump. Miami’s members of Congress would have the White House “do the same to Castro” as it did to Maduro, said The Miami Herald.

And the decision to unseal the indictments on 20 May “carries particular significance”, said The New York Times. On the same date in 1902, the US formally ended its years-long military occupation of the former Spanish colony. Many in the US still celebrate it as Cuban independence day. But for others, said Michael Bustamante, director of Cuban American studies at the University of Miami, the Trump administration is “hearkening back to this moment when the US did treat Cuba as its backyard”.

Will it lead to war between the US and Cuba?

This indictment could “doom any lingering chance of a deal to avoid armed conflict”, said CNN’s Havana Bureau Chief Patrick Oppmann. Trump claims Cuba is “desperate” to make a deal, but “he said the same about Venezuela and Iran”.

The charges have “fired up” the anti-Castro Cuban exile community in Miami. Many hope Fidel’s revolution is “crumbling”, with Trump’s oil blockade pushing the island “closer to the brink”. They are arguing “against any accommodation with Havana”. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American and “staunch foe of the Castros”, said the leadership “needs to go”.

The charges “lay the groundwork for a possible military operation by the US to extradite him”. But unlike in Venezuela, where Maduro’s military “quickly fell in line with Trump’s demands”, Cubans are “likely to react far more belligerently”. There is “little chance” that Raúl will be going anywhere, “much less a Miami courtroom”. Díaz-Canel has said US action would trigger a “blood bath”; the regime “may choose to go down fighting”. After all, in Cuba, every official speech “ends with the cry of ‘Fatherland or death!’”

What happened

The Justice Department on Wednesday unsealed criminal charges accusing former Cuban President Raúl Castro of murder and conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens. The indictment, approved by a grand jury last month, stems from Cuba’s 1996 downing of two planes operated by the anti-communist Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue. Castro, now 94, was the defense minister at the time.

Who said what

The charges are an “extraordinary escalation of the Trump administration’s multifaceted pressure campaign” against Cuba, The New York Times said. Without Cuba’s cooperation or “aggressive action” by the U.S., said The Washington Post, the “indictment is likely to remain symbolic.”

There is an arrest warrant for Castro, so “we expect that he will show up here, by his own will or by another way,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said during a ceremony at Miami’s Freedom Tower. Cuba shot down the “narco-terrorist” aircraft “in legitimate self-defense, within its jurisdictional waters,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said on social media Wednesday. The indictment is a “political maneuver” to “justify the folly of a military aggression against Cuba.”

What next?

President Donald Trump “has been threatening military action in Cuba” since the military raid in Venezuela that captured Nicolás Maduro, so the “charges pose a real threat” for Castro, The Associated Press said. But with the White House “occupied by the Iran war,” CNN said, there is “little belief that another military operation is imminent.”

The “vulnerability” of the civilian energy infrastructure was exposed this week when a drone strike on the United Arab Emirates cut off power to a nuclear reactor, said Bloomberg.

It’s the first time a fully operating nuclear power plant has had to rely on back-up generators because of a military attack, but reactors in Ukraine and Iran have also been threatened by recent conflicts.

Why would a nuclear site be targeted?

A country might target a nuclear power plant to cripple an enemy’s power grid, or to force a surrender through the psychological terror of threatening a radiological disaster. An attack on such facilities could also be used to delay a nation’s ability to enrich nuclear material.

Alternatively, armies may attack, or occupy, a nuclear plant to seize control of a strategic geographic corridor or to prevent defending forces from using the area.

What does international law say?

Under the Geneva Conventions, civilian structures, including nuclear power plants, “are protected against attack”, but the treaties also state that they can be hit “for such time as they are military objectives”. This is a “loophole” that “aggressor states” have “interpreted widely”, said Dan Sabbagh, The Guardian’s defence and security editor.

Attacking a nuclear power plant also breaks legal resolutions passed by the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors.

What would happen if a site were hit?

An attack on a nuclear site would not necessarily lead to a mushroom cloud or an immediate release of radiation because modern plants are built with multiple safety systems that can shut down reactors and contain damage.

But the reactor’s core could continue to heat up after a strike. This could lead to a build up of hydrogen gas, which could cause further explosions and damage. If the reactor began to degrade, radioactive material could be released and that can remain in the environment for years or even decades. It could potentially spread across borders and enter water systems or settle into the soil.

There are other consequences. Attacks on nuclear installations “risk undermining the emerging nuclear renaissance” in Western economies as an alternative to fossil fuels, said Bloomberg. Politicians and the public are “highly sensitive to radiation emergencies”, so an incident in one country “tends to dampen enthusiasm” for nuclear power elsewhere.

An attack on a nuclear plant would also be a hugely symbolic moment. Although conventional power plants have been “repeatedly bombed” by Russia during the Ukraine war, said Sabbagh, Kyiv’s three functioning nuclear plants have “remained relatively unscathed” because Moscow regarded a direct attack on them to be “taboo”.

Russian forces last month lost more territory to Ukraine than they were able to capture. The first of such occurrences in nearly two years, this marks an ignominious milestone and potential turning point in Moscow’s years-long invasion effort. At the same time, Russia is losing soldiers faster than it can recruit and deploy them. While the Ukraine front remains an active war zone that has left deep scars on both nations, there is a growing sense among observers that momentum has shifted in Kyiv’s favor.

What did the commentators say?

Russia’s conspicuously “diminished” Victory Day parade this month “signaled its vulnerability,” said The Economist. That sentiment was an “accurate reflection of Russia’s battlefield setbacks,” as well as the country’s “fear of the growing effectiveness of Ukraine’s long-range strikes.”

Russia’s weakened position can be traced to a confluence of three factors, said The Economist, citing research from the Institute for the Study of War: Ukrainian “ground counter-attacks and mid-range strikes,” the end of Russia’s “illicit use of Starlink terminals in Ukraine” and the Kremlin’s “paranoid throttling of the Telegram messaging app at home.” At the same time, Russia’s “exaggerated territorial ambitions and aggressive territorial demands” have run “completely counter to battlefield reality,” said the Institute.

May marks the fifth consecutive month in which Russia has lost “more soldiers than it can replace,” said National Security Journal. Ahead of an expected fifth summer of violence, Russia’s invasion “continues to falter” as the “fortunes of the war” seem to be “trending less and less in Russia’s favor.” Ukraine’s military technological advances have “not been the only key element” in Kyiv’s “recent battlefield gains.” Rather, they come amid Russia’s “growing command-and-control problems within its own military.”

Communications failures “contributed significantly to Russia’s problems” on the battlefield, said the Atlantic Council. After SpaceX “cut the Russian army’s illicit access to the satellite-based Starlink system” this spring, some Russian commanders were “forced to rely on inaccurate maps” showing “exaggerated gains.” In other cases, clusters of Russian troops were deployed “without adequate communication tools or coordination,” leaving them “highly vulnerable to Ukrainian counterattacks.”

All this comes as the public mood within Russia is “souring,” said Alexander Baunov at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. The Putin government has “unceremoniously violated” the terms of its social trade-off offered to the public — that “you can live outside of the war, but you cannot be against it” — and now “society is angry.” Russian authorities have also banned the use of “popular foreign messaging apps” because they are “nontransparent” and boosted the “homegrown” Max app as an alternative. But the “implication” of Max’s transparency “has not gone unnoticed, and people feel their privacy has been rudely invaded.”

Russians “increasingly chafe” at the “restrictions on their liberties” imposed “in pursuit of a battlefield victory that now appears to be unattainable,” said Noah Rothman at the National Review. Moscow lacks “freedom of action” in the theater of battle and has “lost the ability to dictate the tempo of events,” while its economy contracts “following several years of war-driven growth.”

What next?

The Russian military’s “recent communications problems” are “unlikely to persist in their current form indefinitely,” said the Atlantic Council. Moscow has already explored a “range of alternatives, including relay drones and satellite links.” But it will probably take a “number of years for the Russian military to replicate the same level of efficiency previously provided by Starlink.”

Russia’s flagging battlefield progress is a problem for Putin, who has “insisted that Russia’s victory in the war is inevitable,” said CNN. That promise has “always been flawed,” given how “slow and incredibly costly the Russian advances have been.” Still, the momentum shift of late “feels like an inflection point in the war,” said Sir Lawrence Freedman, an emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London, to The Economist. “If the Russians have nothing to show for their efforts, I would not be surprised if in some places things start crumbling.”

Rising Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are ringing alarm bells across a region still scarred by previous outbreaks of the highly contagious viral disease. The World Health Organization has declared a “public health emergency of international concern”.

At least 540 suspected cases and 131 suspected deaths have been reported by DR Congo’s health minister, and two cases have been confirmed in neighbouring Uganda. But the WHO’s initial sampling suggests the outbreak is potentially much more widespread.

And what makes this outbreak “extraordinary”, said the WHO, is that it’s caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus. This has a lower fatality rate (about 35%) than the more common Zaire or Sudan strains (up to 90% and 50% respectively) but there is no licensed Bundibugyo-specific vaccine or treatment – and the tests for it do not appear to work very well.

What did the commentators say?

Experts are alarmed that this outbreak “has been able to spread for weeks undetected across a densely populated ​area”, said Reuters. It took weeks to identify it as the Bundibugyo strain and then pinpointing cases was “slowed by limited diagnostic capacity”, with only six tests possible per hour.

The lack of a vaccine is why I am in “panic mode”, Jean Kaseya, the director-general of Africa-Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, told Sky News. And ongoing attacks by Islamic State-backed militants in Ituri, the province at the centre of the outbreak, are “restricting surveillance and rapid response operations”.

Ituri is “rebel-held territory”, close to “porous borders” with Uganda and South Sudan that communities cross constantly, said The Times. That’s certainly one factor that’s “making containment so difficult”. Bundibugyo is also “among the least studied of the Ebola strains”: this is only the third outbreak on record.

We reached a “critical moment”, said the BBC’s health correspondent James Gallagher. Most Ebola outbreaks are small but specialists are still “haunted” by the largest, which started in 2014 and killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa. This time, there is a “significant threat” not only to DR Congo and Uganda but also South Sudan and Rwanda. But that doesn’t mean we’re “in the early stages of a Covid-style pandemic”. The risk to the rest of the world “remains tiny”.

DR Congo has “extensive experience in dealing with Ebola outbreaks”, and its response is “significantly stronger today than it was a decade ago”, Daniela Manno, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, told the BBC’s Gallagher. But recent US-led foreign-aid cuts have taken their toll. Containing the 2014 outbreak “relied on US leadership from USAID”, said Devi Sridharm, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, in The Guardian. But “the USAID team dedicated to Ebola-like diseases was cut by Elon Musk”. Since Donald Trump withdrew the US from the WHO, the organisation’s emergency-response budget has shrunk by 37%. UK foreign-aid funding has also “fallen to its lowest level in two decades”.

The worry “is less about this becoming a global pandemic” (unlikely, as Ebola only spreads through contact with infected body fluids), and more about “the devastation it can cause” to the region and its “already fragile” healthcare systems. But this is an “interconnected world”: “if your neighbour’s house is on fire, you don’t wait and watch; you help to put it out before the fire spreads to yours.”

What next?

The WHO is sending a team of experts to Congo and, on Friday, will host an emergency scientific consultation of researchers, clinicians, public health bodies and funders. “The cash-strapped organisation has already released almost $4 million (£3 million) to combat the outbreak,” said the BBC, “but much more may be needed.” Public health officials are also considering using a combination of the existing approved vaccines for the Zaire and Sudan strains.

But communities in the region “have little trust in government or external aid agencies”, said Sridhar. If Ebola spreads to a major urban hub, it will be “much more difficult to stop”.

“I don’t think that, in two months, we will be done with this outbreak”, Anne Ancia, the WHO’s representative for the DRC, told reporters in Geneva at the World Health Assembly. The 2014 Ebola outbreak took two years to end.

People across Europe were enraptured when the potential bones of the soldier Count d’Artagnan — the inspiration for the legendary fourth musketeer from Alexandre Dumas’ iconic 1844 novel, “The Three Musketeers” — were unearthed in the Netherlands in March. But genetic testing to prove the bones belong to d’Artagnan has run into several problems that could make getting a definitive answer difficult.

Where were these bones found?

The completed skeleton was found under the chapel floor of St. Peter and Paul’s Church in the Dutch village of Wolder. Potentially locating d’Artagnan’s remains here wasn’t exactly unexpected, as the church for “centuries was rumored to be the final resting place” of the fourth musketeer, said The New York Times.

The bones were “buried with a 17th-century coin and a musket ball,” and the discovery has drawn a “deluge of unaccustomed attention” to the village, said the Times. The count was a “close aide to France’s Sun King Louis XIV” and later “killed during the Siege of Maastricht in 1673,” said the BBC. D’Artagnan’s life and legacy were “immortalized in the adventure stories” of Dumas as a “friend of the Three Musketeers.”

Why has confirming the identity been a problem?

Since the bones were found, there has been a push to confirm their identity using DNA testing. But “genetic verification to prove whether the skeleton is that of d’Artagnan has run into bureaucratic troubles,” including a potential illegal excavation and a slew of “scientific obstacles that cast doubt on whether the bones’ identity will ever be known,” said National Geographic.

Also, the “first samples collected from the skeleton were too degraded to be used,” according to several reports, which forced scientists to use different samples, said National Geographic. And the municipality of Maastricht, where the church is located, alleges that the “initial excavations were improper,” because “under Dutch law, the church is a heritage site.” The municipality “intervened to ensure that the situation was handled in accordance with applicable archaeological standards,” said a spokesperson for the local government to National Geographic.

However, factors are working in the archaeologists’ favor. The skeleton, for example, does “match history,” said Nat Geo. D’Artagnan was killed when a “musket ball struck him in the throat,” and the grave “contained fragments of a musket ball near the skeleton’s chest,” said National Geographic.

And yet despite the history lining up, genetic testing could be difficult. D’Artagnan has living descendants, but “French nobility often had extramarital affairs,” so it’s “at least possible that they are not biologically related to the musketeer,” said the Times.

Scientists are striving for a definitive answer. At least one “sample taken from the skeleton’s jawbone is on its way to Germany for DNA sequencing,” and anthropologists will “examine the skeleton for clues about how old the person was when they died,” said Ars Technica.

Even with all the obstacles, most scientists believe there’s a “decent chance” it’s d’Artagnan buried under the church, said Ars Technica. “I have been researching d’Artagnan's grave for 28 years,” said Wim Dijkman, an archaeologist on the excavation, to the BBC. “This could be the highlight of my career.”

Just days after he waved goodbye to Donald Trump, Xi Jinping is hosting another world leader, a man the famously opaque Chinese leader has described as his “best friend”.

Vladimir Putin arrives in Beijing today for the two-day summit, their second in less than a year and their 40th, at least, overall. Their “carefully cultivated friendship” is defined by “highly personal rituals” involving vodka, lakeside tea, sports events and even making pancakes, said the South China Morning Post.

It’s obvious what a war-fatigued and internationally isolated Russia seeks from China, on whom it relies for drones and economic support. But it’s less obvious what the now far more powerful China wants from its unstable neighbour.

What did the commentators say?

The timing of Putin’s visit, days after Trump’s, “sends an unmistakable signal”, said The Economist. Xi is emphasising that even if he can “stabilise relations” with the US, it won’t “come at the expense of his ‘no limits’ partnership” with Putin. Those ties could “grow deeper yet” because of the US war in the Middle East. Xi and Putin could share intelligence about Trump’s military action against Venezuela and Iran, whom both count as allies.

Xi could “exploit his newfound leverage” – the balance of power has “shifted dramatically” since Russia’s full-scale invasion – to “secure more sensitive military technology and know-how”. China now produces most of its own weapons, many based on Russian designs; it could now seek “more high-end assistance” in nuclear and ballistic missile areas. Russia is “thought to have been sharing” drone data and expertise garnered from its experience in Ukraine.

A “key aim” for China is “more reliable and sustainable energy supplies”, said Deutsche Welle. China is concerned about dependence on seaborne imports, which account for about 90% of its oil. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the global disruption to supplies make Russian oil a “more attractive” prospect, and Western sanctions on Russian exports mean China can “secure Russian energy at a discount”.

“China and Russia are like a couple in the same bed with different dreams,” said Claus Soong of the Mercator Institute for China Studies. A weakened Russia, or even the collapse of Putin’s regime, would “pose immediate strategic risks for Beijing”. There are signs of cooling since the unlimited friendship they proclaimed in 2022, before Russia invaded Ukraine, but “Russia still has more to offer” than Europe.

Any deals will likely be on Chinese terms, Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center think tank, told the BBC. “Russia is fully in China’s pocket, and China can dictate the terms.”

But despite the asymmetry of power, the pair share vital interests – security along their 2,670-mile (4,300km) border, and China’s market for Russia’s oil, gas and other materials, said Ankur Shah, BBC Global China Unit editor. Russia’s war in Ukraine is also an “asset to Beijing as it considers its options for a potential invasion of Taiwan”. Russia still has some niche military technologies it can sell. But Moscow’s “big advantage” is “its ability to stand its ground”. Russia “may be the junior partner, but it’s also a proud one”.

What next?

Xi’s meeting with Trump, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and cooperation across energy, trade and security are all expected to be part of the discussions tomorrow, said CNN’s senior China reporter, Simone McCarthy.

Both Beijing and Moscow are “weighing up whether to play any role in helping to end a US-Iran conflict”. This could “potentially win each goodwill” with the US, but both also want to use Trump’s actions to “advance their own vision of a world that’s not dominated by American power”.

Any concrete agreements, however, are “unlikely to be made public”, said The Economist. “As during previous visits, announcements are likely to be broad in scope but thin on detail.”

Hearing that a “sought-after” London dealer was offering an “international” and “decadent” product that customers must pay for “by weight” may ring alarm bells for some, said Elizabeth Paton in the Financial Times. Yet, for the “initiated”, procuring “delicious and extremely expensive” Alphonso mangoes is a yearly challenge.

However, this year’s crop is proving more expensive than ever for aficionados. These prized mangoes “have complex supply chains that spread all over the world, from Dubai to London, Hong Kong to San Francisco”. And these are now increasingly fragile as a result of global unrest, climate change and a host of imitators.

‘Prized’ fruit

Known as the “king of mangoes”, for their “sweetness, rich flavour and distinctive aroma”, Alphonso mangoes – originally from India – are typically only found in the UK “between April and June”, said the BBC. However, the tropical fruit may not appear as frequently on stalls this year as supply chain issues have hit traders hard. But despite “higher costs”, demand “remains strong”, with customers from across London queueing up at stalls to get their hands on an Alphonso.

All across the world, “faithful” Indian mango devotees are “leaving work meetings, stalking WhatsApp groups and paying lobster prices” in the hopes of securing “their fix of the sweet delicacy”, said The Wall Street Journal. In the US, customers can expect to pay “$50 to $60” (£37 to £48) for a box “usually holding 10-12 mangoes” – a substantial “jump” from the $40 to $45 price tag typically charged last year.

A ‘sizable drop’

The scarcity of top-quality mangoes has been primarily attributed to the disruption caused by global warming. India’s place as the “world’s largest mango producer is a source of great pride”, said Time Out Mumbai, but this year’s “erratic weather patterns, extreme heat and rainfall shocks” have totally upended the industry in the Konkan region (Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka). The result is a “sizeable drop”, one “projected to be as bad as 50-90% less yield” than expected.

More immediately, “highly unstable” conditions in the Middle East since the outbreak of the Iran war are causing contractors across Asia to “walk away from agreements”, with “uncertainty surrounding exports” rife, said Dawn. And in Pakistan, “unending orchard diseases” mean owners have been forced to “work laboriously to reap a better harvest”.

Suppliers must also grapple with the threat of “counterfeits” from other sources who seek to fill gaps in the market, said Bloomberg. Imitators are on the rise, not just within India but also from “other continents”. A failure to increase yields means consumers may soon see a “Ghana Alphonso taking New York by storm”.