It is “one of the strangest conundrums in modern zoological history”, said The Guardian: “what to do with the descendants of Pablo Escobar’s hippos?”

The animals, which the drug kingpin imported into Colombia, were left to “roam free” and multiply after Escobar was killed in 1993. Now the “feral” pack has become “such an environmental blight, they are facing a mass extermination”.

But they may have found “an unlikely stay of execution”: Anant Ambani, son of the Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, has once again offered them shelter.

Narco-pets

In the 1980s, the infamous Colombian drug lord illegally imported a plethora of exotic animals to fill his private zoo, including four hippopotamuses – dubbed the “cocaine hippos”, said The Independent. After Escobar’s death, most of the menagerie were relocated, but the enormous hippos were “left behind because they were difficult to move”.

They were abandoned to “go feral on the cocaine baron’s vast private Naples estate”, said The Times. But they multiplied, and spread “far beyond” the hacienda to “the lush river banks of Colombia’s Magdalena River”. An estimated 200 are now “roaming the muddy basin, attacking fishermen and steadily devastating the fragile ecosystem”.

Colombia made various attempts to control the population, including castration, but “to no avail”, said the BBC. The dearth of predators in the “fertile and swampy Antioquia region” provided “the perfect conditions” for them to thrive. Experts say the hippos, believed to be the biggest herd outside Africa, constitute “an invasive species”.

In 2023, the local authority proposed relocating 60 to Ambani’s private animal sanctuary, Vantara, in the Indian state of Gujarat. But “the logistical problems of capturing and moving the hippos” – who weigh up to two tonnes each – stymied the plan, said The Guardian. Taking them to their natural habitat in Africa isn’t feasible, given their limited gene pool and chance of carrying diseases.

After warnings that numbers could swell to more than 1,000 in the next few years, Colombia announced this month that the herd would “begin to be formally hunted and culled”.

‘Living, sentient beings’

Ambani, the son of a telecoms tycoon (and India’s richest man), said this week he’d appealed to the Colombian government to reconsider its decision, and allow the “safe, scientifically led translocation” of nearly half the herd to his private zoo.

“These 80 hippos did not choose where they were born, nor did they create the circumstances they now face,” Ambani wrote in a letter published on the zoo’s Instagram. “They are living, sentient beings, and if we have the ability to save them through a safe and humane solution, we have a responsibility to try.”

Colombia has not commented on the offer. But Vantara, which describes itself as “the world’s largest wildlife rescue centre”, has been the subject of repeated controversy.

The sprawling complex is home to 150,000 animals of 2,000 species, including elephants, tigers, lions and bears – but no hippos. Conservationists say the zoo is unsuitable for some species given the climate; temperatures in the Jamnagar region can soar above 40C. Vantara has also been accused of illegally acquiring and mistreating animals. Last year India’s Supreme Court ordered an investigation into the allegations, and claims that the sanctuary was “being used as a ‘private vanity project’,” said The Telegraph.

Indonesia, Qatar, Ecuador and Angola have all departed the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in recent years. But the loss of the UAE, one of its longest-serving and most influential members, is seen as a major blow to the cartel.

The UAE said on Tuesday that quitting Opec and the broader Opec+ alliance next month reflects its “long-term economic vision” and desire to speed up investment in energy production. But Emirati officials had threatened for years to leave, blaming Opec’s production quotas for unfairly curtailing its oil exports. (The UAE has repeatedly been accused of exceeding those limits.)

Rising tensions with Saudi Arabia, Opec’s de facto leader, have also been greatly exacerbated by the Iran war; the UAE has criticised its Gulf neighbours for failing to defend it from Iranian retaliation. The question is whether the blow to Opec of losing its third-biggest oil producer will be a knockout one.

What did the commentators say?

This is “the beginning of the end of Opec”, energy analyst Saul Kavonic told the BBC. The group “loses about 15% of its capacity and one of its most compliant members”. Saudi Arabia “will struggle to keep the rest of Opec together”. This means “a fundamental geopolitical reshaping of the Middle East and oil markets”.

Opec’s ability to influence oil prices will be “clearly weakened”, said former International Energy Agency official Neil Atkinson. The UAE “will attempt to sell as much oil as they can to as many people as possible”. That “will run up against any attempts” Opec makes to “keep prices high”.

But when the UAE announced its decision, “oil markets merely shrugged”, said the Financial Times. The “muted” reaction is “a symptom of Opec’s declining relevance”. It was a “major power” in 1973 when its Arab members carried out a “devastating” embargo on countries supporting Israel. But despite its expansion to include 10 nations in Opec+, its influence has “waned” as non-members, particularly the US, boosted oil production.

Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz is “a further blow to Opec’s ability to control the market”. Tehran showed it could halt most of the flow of oil from the Gulf – more than half the cartel’s oil production. “It completely dilutes Opec’s market power and puts Iran in control of the vast majority of Opec’s exports,” said Joel Hancock, senior commodities analyst. Opec “effectively becomes an instrument of Iran’s foreign policy”.

The UAE’s departure would probably not be “fatal” for Opec, said Raad Alkadiri of the Center for Strategic and International Studies – unless Venezuela, Iraq or Iran also quit.

And that’s “only a matter of time”, said Damien Phillips in The Spectator. “Opec has always been a tenuous and fractious alliance that just about holds together when convenient and nearly falls apart when it isn’t.” It has always been “beset by chronic quota cheating” and “wildly inconsistent” compliance. There are “endless disputes over baseline production levels”, which often lead to “full-blown price wars”. Membership has also become “increasingly toxic”; the West sees Opec’s attempts to tighten oil supply as “helping to fund Russia’s war effort and immiserating ordinary consumers”.

The UAE understands “energy security and abundance” is now a global priority. In a world of “drill, baby, drill”, “price-fixing relics like Opec are being left behind”. Opec members “can see that the end is nigh”.

What next?

Opec’s remaining 11 members, and 10 more in Opec+, will still account for about 40% of global oil output. But Kazakhstan and Iraq are seen as most likely to “soon start creeping toward the door”, said MarketWatch. Both have excess crude-production capacity that could “incentivise them to leave”. Kazakhstan, like the UAE, has been “chafing” under Opec’s production quotas.

The UAE, meanwhile, is “splashing cash on production infrastructure”, aiming to increase production from the current 3.6 million barrels a day to 5 million by 2027, said The Economist. But any increase in exports depends on when the Strait of Hormuz reopens. The UAE’s departure from Opec, long a “bugbear” of Donald Trump, may “endear” it to the US, but it will “further sour its relations with Saudi Arabia”.

Saudi Arabia “might respond with an oil price war” that poorer Opec members might not be able to withstand, said the BBC’s economics editor Faisal Islam. “Much depends” on their response. Emirati officials also talk of building new pipelines from the Abu Dhabi oil fields towards “the underused port of Fujairah”, bypassing the strait entirely. If they do so, “Emirati oil will flow like never before”. “It will have little effect on the current blockades. It could change everything afterwards.”

The U.S.-Israeli war in Iran has had a tangible effect on the economy in the Middle East, and the conflict is also making things more expensive for Americans at home. Increasing oil prices resulting from the war have cascading consequences, and while things like gasoline are most obviously affected, other products are also getting pricier.

Clothes

Supply chain issues with crude oil are raising the cost of the oil’s building blocks, called petrochemicals. Six of these petrochemicals are the “major foundations of plastics and synthetic materials like nylon and polyesters,” said The Associated Press. When petrochemicals become more expensive, it is often accompanied by a spike in clothing prices.

To make a button-down shirt, for example, the “materials account for 27%-30% of the cost a manufacturer incurs,” Andrew Walberer, a partner at the global strategy and management consultancy Kearney, told the AP. Experts are “warning consumers to budget for price increases of 10 to 15%” in clothing if the petrochemicals’ costs continue to rise, said the South China Morning Post.

Condoms

People may not assume safe sex would be impacted by the war, but the world’s largest condom manufacturer, Karex, is planning to “raise prices by 20% to 30% and possibly further if supply chain disruptions drag on due to the Iran war,” said The Guardian. Karex, a Malaysian company, supplies more than 5 billion condoms annually to global manufacturers, including major brands sold in the U.S. like Trojan and Durex.

Karex is being forced to raise its prices because the company “has seen a cost increase for synthetic rubber, nitrile, ‌aluminum foil and silicone oil,” said Inc. magazine. While still seeing high demand, the company is “currently faced with rising freight costs and shipping delays, leading to its customers carrying lower stockpiles” of Karex’s products.

Cosmetics

The war in Iran is even “seeping into the cosmetics supply chain, pushing up the cost of everything from plastic jars and ​lipstick tubes to transport, and reminding the beauty industry that even a tub of face cream depends on fragile ‌global trade routes,” said Reuters. The most notable sector being affected is the Korean beauty industry, which has a large following in the United States.

Due to the unstable cost and raw material prices of petrochemicals, the “unit prices of most products will inevitably be increased,” cosmetics company Luxepack Korea said in a press release, per The Washington Post. Many similar cosmetic brands “aren’t sure how much longer they can absorb rising production costs.”

Gasoline

This one is probably the most obvious: spiking oil prices are causing costs at the pump to skyrocket. On April 29, gas prices “hit a fresh record since the start of the war with Iran, rising to an average nationwide of $4.23 per gallon,” said NBC News, citing data from AAA. The price of Brent crude, the benchmark for international petroleum, also “stands at $114.60, up nearly 25% from the recent low seen April 17.”

It may be unlikely that gas prices will come down anytime soon. President Donald Trump has “told aides to prepare for a long blockade to throttle Iran’s economy by blocking Iranian oil shipments,” said The Guardian. The number of ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz is “now at its lowest level since the start of the war.”

Toys

Like clothes, many stuffed plush toys are “made with polyester and acrylic, synthetic fibers derived from petroleum,” said the AP, so rising prices could similarly impact the toy industry. Suppliers in China have notified Aleni Brands, the company behind popular plush lines like Bizzikins, that “getting the materials already was costing them 10% to 15% more.”

Notable production hurdles are also being experienced by a “cluster of manufacturers in Shantou, a city located 190 miles northeast of Hong Kong, which produces a third of the world’s toys,” said The New York Times. Other child-adjacent products, including crayons, are additionally facing shortages due to petrochemical supply chain issues.

What happened

The United Arab Emirates on Tuesday announced it was withdrawing from OPEC and Russian-led OPEC+ on Friday, weakening the oil cartel’s leverage to set and stabilize oil prices. The UAE, which joined OPEC in 1967, is the cartel’s third-biggest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Who said what

The UAE’s exit “had been rumored as a possibility for some time, as it pushed back in recent years” against production limits enforced by OPEC to influence oil prices, The Associated Press said. In the short term, the decision “doesn’t really matter,” Semafor said, because with the “Strait of Hormuz closed, Gulf oil producers can’t hit their production targets anyway.” But “in the long term,” The New York Times said, the UAE’s move “could contribute to greater volatility” in the oil markets.

What next?

Free from the cartel’s “rigid quotas,” the UAE “gains the flexibility to aggressively increase its oil production on its own terms,” The Wall Street Journal said. Its departure could “spur more defections” from other members who have similarly “chafed at Saudi Arabia’s dominance.” This is the “beginning of the end of OPEC,” MST Financial energy analyst Saul Kavonic told the BBC.

What happened

Iran has proposed a deal to open the State of Hormuz provided the U.S. and Israel cease their attacks and the U.S. ends its naval blockade of Iranian ships and ports. Tehran’s nuclear program and enriched uranium would be discussed at a later date. The proposal, passed to the U.S. through Pakistan on Sunday, followed an Iranian offer to suspend its uranium enrichment that President Donald Trump rejected.

Who said what

Trump is “unhappy with Iran's proposal as he wants nuclear issues dealt with from the outset,” Reuters said, citing a U.S. official. The proposal was “subject to a vigorous debate inside the administration” over which side “has more leverage,” The New York Times said, “and which country is better positioned to endure the economic hardship” from the strait’s closure.

Iranian officials are “serious about getting themselves out of the mess that they’re in,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Fox News. The Americans “have achieved none of their goals, and this is why they are asking for negotiations,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters in Russia. “We are now considering it.” Leaders of European nations also weighed in: the U.S. “quite obviously went into this war without any strategy” and has “no truly convincing strategy in the negotiations either,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Monday. “A whole nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership.”

What next?

The “tense stalemate” has “entered a Cold War-like phase of financial sanctions, gunboat interdictions and talks about having talks,” with “no immediate end in sight,” Axios said. With the midterms six months away, a “frozen conflict is the worst thing for Trump politically and economically,” said a source close to the president.

The Trump administration’s threat to review its position on Britain’s claim to the Falkland Islands could have a significant impact on the future of the South Atlantic British Overseas Territory, analysts have said.

A leaked internal Pentagon memo published last week by Reuters revealed that, as punishment for not supporting Donald Trump’s war against Iran, the US could reassess diplomatic support for longstanding European “imperial possessions”, such as the ⁠Falkland Islands, which have been administered by Britain since 1833 but are still claimed by Argentina.

Argentina’s President Javier Milei is “upbeat about the prospects”, said Reuters, after the Trump ally told a radio show that “we are doing everything humanly possible to bring the Falkland Islands back into Argentine hands”.

On Monday, his vice president, Victoria Villarruel, ramped up rhetoric further by calling for Falkland Islanders to go back to England.

What did the commentators say?

Donald Trump “has repeatedly demonstrated his desire to use transactional diplomacy to pressure both allies and adversaries”, said the BBC. The Falklands are a “pressure point for the UK but irrelevant to the US”, making them a perfect target for this kind of “leverage”.

Given the current state of Britain’s armed forces, the UK would “struggle to defend the Falkland Islands if Donald Trump followed through on threats to withdraw American support for British sovereignty”, said The i Paper.

But while the loss of American backing for UK control of the islands would “make it easier for Argentina to press its claim more assertively”, said Dr Johanna Amaya-Panche, senior lecturer in international relations and politics at Liverpool John Moores University, an invasion remains unlikely.

“Argentina is not capable of retaking the islands militarily, and there is no credible indication that it intends to try,” but the Milei government “may adopt a more assertive diplomatic or legal strategy, seeking to internationalise the dispute and mobilise external support”.

Downing Street has insisted that the Falkland Islands’ status will remain unchanged, with the prime minister’s spokesperson saying “sovereignty rests with the UK and the islanders’ right to self-determination is paramount”.

“Such robustness is a welcome surprise,” said The Telegraph in an editorial. The government will be hoping the state visit by King Charles will help defuse tensions with the White House. The reality is that “casting doubt over the ownership of the Falklands would hardly be in Washington’s interests”. Even in 1982, the Royal Navy “had to leave other missions unresourced in order to retake the islands” and today its numbers are “so shrunken that it could never act meaningfully in the South Atlantic and in support of the US simultaneously”.

What next?

If the US did change its position to one in which it supported Argentinian claims over the islands, that would be “pretty significant”, Ed Arnold from the Royal United Services Institute security think tank, told the BBC, as “it might cause other countries to move that way as well”.

“You could potentially see a situation where Argentina pushes for some intervention at the UN and the US may support or just not actively block.”

“A change of US policy towards the sovereignty of the Falklands will not mean we will face a repeat” of the 1982 war with Argentina, said former defence secretary Penny Mordaunt in The Express. “But it should be a reminder that the world can change fast” and that “we owe it to all Brits, whether they reside in the UK or in her territories, that we are capable of defending them and their interests.”

The case of an “off-grid” Anglo-Australian couple whose children were removed by authorities has divided Italy. Nathan Trevallion, a British former chef, and Australian ex-horse trainer Catherine Birmingham were raising three children in a stone farmhouse in the woods of the mountainous Abruzzo region. But the children were taken into care last year, when the family ended up in hospital after eating poisonous foraged mushrooms.

The couple have been battling to get their children back, filing an appeal with the court in regional capital L’Aquila. In the meantime, the family has become a cause célèbre for the far-right, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressing her “alarm” and declaring that “children are not of the state”.

Remote ‘paradise’

The couple moved to a two-room cottage in Abruzzo’s “remote woodland” in 2021, said The Times. They hoped to “build an off-grid paradise”, growing their own food and homeschooling their daughter, Utopia Rose, now eight, and twins Bluebell and Galorian, seven.

The family would “draw water from a well” and “produce electricity from solar panels”, said The Telegraph. Their house is surrounded by wildlife, including wolves. They slept in one room and used a lavatory in a wooden outhouse, but had a car for shopping in the nearby village of Palmoli, as well as a computer and mobile phones.

But in 2025, when the entire family was hospitalised after eating poisonous mushrooms, their “woodland existence” became known to authorities. Police officers who inspected their home reported the family to social services, who described the farmhouse as “a dilapidated ruin” that was unacceptable for young children. The family “fled to Spain”, then to Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, before returning to their “little patch of wilderness”.

Five months ago, a juvenile court in L’Aquila ordered that the children be put into care. Prosecutors said the children were being raised in “challenging and harmful” environment, without sanitation, formal education or medical supervision. Their mother was initially allowed to live in a room in the same building as her children. But she was “ejected in March”, said The Times, “accused of turning them against staff”.

Cause célèbre

The decision to remove the children “sparked a fierce debate in the country over alternative lifestyles”, said The Guardian. Both parents have given interviews “generating support from thousands” who want the family kept together, and backlash against the magistrate who ordered the children’s removal.

“We live outside of the system, this is what they’re accusing us of,” Trevallion told La Repubblica. “They are ruining the life of a happy family.” Birmingham told a press conference: “This has been by far the cruellest thing I have experienced and personally seen done to children in my life.”

The Italian far-right has “seized upon the case in the name of educational freedom”, said Le Monde, with deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini likening the case to a kidnapping. Trevallion and Birmingham, “foreigners without clear professional activity, not integrated into Italian society and living in informal housing”, have become improbable “victims to be defended” by a faction that is usually “less sympathetic to such profiles”. But, for Salvini's party, which is linked to Donald Trump and Tommy Robinson, the “forest family” has become “a top priority”, used to “fuel its anti-judge rhetoric, portraying magistrates as enemies of family liberties”.

The couple are currently renovating the farmhouse, adding running water and electricity to comply with social services’ requirements. They are also considering moving into an apartment on the edge of the woods that was offered free by the mayor, as a temporary solution. A decision on whether they can have their children back is possible as soon as next month.

What happened

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Russia on Monday morning after a weekend of diplomatic trips to Pakistan and Oman, but no direct talks with the United States. President Donald Trump on Saturday called off an announced trip to Islamabad by his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, saying it would be a waste of time given Iran’s lack of commitment to meet with them.

Who said what

“If they want to talk, they can come to us, or they can call us,” Trump told Fox News on Sunday. With U.S.-Iran talks “derailed, at least for now,” The New York Times said, “Tehran and Washington are sinking into an awkward limbo of neither peace, nor war,” with each projecting confidence they can “outlast the other in a standoff with drastic stakes for the global economy.” Pakistani officials said “indirect talks” were ongoing even as they “scrambled to reignite” direct negotiations, The Associated Press said.

What next?

Trump was “expected to hold a Situation Room meeting” on Monday after receiving an Iranian proposal to “reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war,” Axios said, “with nuclear negotiations postponed for a later stage.”

The government is finalising plans to allow airlines to consolidate flight schedules, in a bid to stave off a summer of travel disruption caused by a shortage of jet fuel.

With the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz restricting global jet fuel supplies, and demand sending prices soaring, there is significant concern that shortages could cause last-minute cancellation of flights in the busy holiday season.

How bad is the shortage?

Refineries in the Middle East usually supply around 75% of Europe’s jet fuel, but production is “basically now almost zero”, Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency said last Thursday. The week before, he’d warned that the continent had “maybe six weeks of jet fuel left”, if supplies remain blocked.

European countries are trying to replace supplies from the Gulf with imports from the US and Nigeria but, if they cannot do so in sufficient quantity, energy experts predict shortages at some airports, resulting in flight cancellations. The European Commission has said there is “no evidence of fuel shortages” in the EU, but has acknowledged there could be supply issues “in the near future”.

Many airlines had already secured much of their summer-season jet fuel before the Iran conflict doubled the market price. But others are now having to take emergency measures to counter spiralling fuel costs. “Airlines normally run at a single-digit operating margin and spend anywhere from 20 to 40% of revenues on fuel,” so rising fuel prices can quickly push them “into operating losses,” Alex Irving, a senior European transport analyst at financial-research firm Bernstein, told CNBC. German carrier Lufthansa, Scandinavian SAS, and Dutch airline KLM have already announced they are cancelling thousands of short-haul flights over the summer.

What is the UK government doing?

The British government is trying to get ahead of any peak-season flight disruption by giving airlines “rare freedoms to change flight schedules” well in advance, said The Times.

The plan is to temporarily relax laws that require airlines to operate part-full flights from UK airports or risk losing their lucrative take-off and landing slots. Doing this allows airline to consolidate flight schedules now, “before any potential fuel shortages”, minimising disruption and last-minute cancellations in the summer. Of course, it “may mean fewer available flight options than normal” but those flights are “less likely to be cancelled”.

On Friday, the Department for Transport said it was “working closely with the aviation industry to monitor risks and minimise disruption” and there was “no current need for passengers to change their travel plans”.

When will the threat to air travel end?

Even if the US and Iran were to reach a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz today, “the die is cast for summer travel”, because it will take months to resume jet fuel supplies, said CNN. “It’s going to take until at least July,” Matt Smith, an energy analyst for commodity platform Kpler told the broadcaster. “And even that may be optimistic at this point.”

Should US/Iran hostilities restart or the Strait of Hormuz remain completely blocked to shipping through the summer, then the landscape completely changes, said Politico. In this “worst-case scenario”, there would be outright fuel rationing, and many, many more flights would be cancelled.

Japan could soon be selling more arms overseas after it lifted a ban on exporting lethal weapons, including fighter jets. It’s the country’s biggest overhaul of defence export rules for decades and a “major shift” to Japan’s “post-World War II constitution”, said Al Jazeera.

Pacifist nation no more

“Pacifist restraints” have “shaped” Japan’s post-war security policy, said Reuters. The previous rules, introduced in 1967 and enacted in 1976, restricted military exports to non-lethal arms, such as those used for surveillance and mine sweeping.

There was a partial easing in 2014, when then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lifted the self-imposed ban on arms exports and defence industry cooperation. Then, last year, Australia sourced advanced frigates from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a deal that meant Japan began to emerge as a “major arms exporter”, said Newsweek.

Now, the five export categories that had limited military exports to rescue, transport, warning, surveillance and mine-sweeping equipment, are being removed. Instead of banning exports of lethal arms outright, ministers and officials will assess the merits of each proposed sale.

Some export principles will remain: strict screening, controls on transfers to third countries, and a ban on sales to countries involved in conflict. But the government said exceptions could be made when deemed necessary for national security.

It’s thought that nations interested in buying Japanese-made weapons include Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Indonesia. Sources told Reuters that warships for the Philippines may be among the first exports.

“With this amendment, transfers of all defence equipment will in principle become possible,” the PM, Sanae Takaichi, posted on X, adding that “recipients will be limited to countries that commit to use in accordance with the UN Charter”.

New rules for a new world

Explaining the shift in policy, Takaichi said that “in an increasingly severe security environment, no single country can now protect its own peace and security alone”.

Takaichi, who is regarded as a China “hawk” and often referred to as Japan’s “Iron Lady”, is among a number of recent Japanese leaders to have “pushed back against the country’s pacifist stance”, said Al Jazeera.

There is an “increasingly severe security environment”, said the Japan News. So her government feels that the regional environment has become significantly more dangerous, because of China’s growing military power and tensions over Taiwan, North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs, Moscow’s activity in the region, and the knock-on effect of tensions in the Middle East.

So it wants to deepen military cooperation with friendly countries and share the burden of regional security, instead of relying almost entirely on Washington. There’s also an economic dimension: Japan hopes to scale up production, attract revenue, innovation and investment.

We “shouldn’t underplay how important this will be”, William Yang, a senior analyst on north-east Asia at the International Crisis Group think tank, told The Telegraph, because “over the last few decades, Japan has been secluded from the global defence and arms supplies markets”.

The S&P 500, the benchmark US stock index, hit a record high on Wednesday. This is being mirrored in other major stock markets across Asia and Europe, despite growing concerns over global fuel and energy prices as a result of the war in Iran and the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz.

“There’s a lot of risk out there and yet asset prices are at all-time highs,” Sarah Breeden, deputy governor of the Bank of England, told the BBC’s business editor Simon Jack. “We expect there will be an adjustment at some point”, she said. What “really keeps me awake at night is the likelihood of a number of risks crystallising at the same time”.

As Jack said: “It is unusual for a senior figure at the Bank to be so forthright on market movements.” With confidence fluctuating around peace talks, and reverberations in energy markets continuing, what has gone up could just as easily come down.

What did the commentators say?

“Nothing, it seems, can dent the almost inexplicable optimism coursing through financial markets,” said the ABC’s chief business correspondent Ian Verrender. In the past, stock markets would “shudder” and “tumble”, then spend a decade recovering from economic “calamity”; nowadays the recovery time is cut down to weeks, “if they bother to react at all”.

Investors are not “oblivious” to what is happening in the world, said Joe Rennison, financial markets reporter for The New York Times. They are just attuned to “what exactly the markets are measuring”, looking beyond the “immediate upheaval from the war” to concentrate on its “long-term effects on corporate profits”. Americans may be struggling to afford fuel for their cars, but companies have been “very profitable indeed” for “quite a while now”. Big tech is “riding a wave of enthusiasm”, and it is these bigger companies, like Microsoft and Meta, who have been shielded from the war and tend to influence the market more profoundly.

Although the market “rapidly rebounded – and then some” after Trump’s ceasefire announcement, having been on a steady slide for most of March, investors are “not simply taking Trump at his word” that the war is “almost over”. Instead, they are responding to the White House’s “apparent eagerness” to find an end to the combat. “Investors might not believe Trump, exactly, but they do seem to believe that the worst of the war has already passed.”

After “years of headline-driven volatility” and a “dip-buying mindset”, investors have learned not to “stay bearish for too long”, said Bloomberg. The current pattern echoes the “Ukraine-war playbook from early 2022, when an initial equities sell-off and commodity price surge” soon reversed to normal.

“It is never easy to price uncertainty,” said Tej Parikh in the Financial Times. Investors have long relied on “ebitda”, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, to ascertain the “core value of a business”. But it now appears they have changed their tune, relying on “earnings before Iran, tariffs and dubious announcements”.

What next?

Since the war in Iran began, analysts have “actually raised their expectations for upcoming profits” for S&P 500 companies, said The Associated Press. Major companies such as PepsiCo and GE Vernova have either “stuck by” or “raised” their revenue forecasts for the year, which were initially published before the start of the war. S&P 500 profits could “accelerate to 20% in the second quarter, and companies aren’t giving them many reasons to reconsider”.

Of course, the US stock market “can easily return to falling”. If US-Iran peace talks break down, or if oil supplies cause greater concern, Wall Street’s mood could “swing quickly back to fear”. If oil prices, in particular, stay elevated for long enough, that could “erode” profits and raise costs, not to mention “weaken the spending power” of consumers around the world.

Hungary’s ousting of longtime Prime Minister Viktor Orbán this month sent shockwaves across Europe and beyond. In Moscow, Hungary under Orbán had been a rare ally amid an adversarial EU. In Kyiv, Orbán’s intransigence had scuttled various European initiatives to aid Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government in the country’s with Russia. But with Orbán out, Hungary will seemingly focus on repairing and normalizing EU ties. Ukraine stands to benefit from this emerging era in Eastern Europe, even as it faces a host of risks.

What did the commentators say?

Over the past four years of war with Russia, Hungary has been a “persistent source of irritation” for Ukraine, The New York Times said. Orbán’s government “maintained friendly relations” with Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin while “blocking critical European Union funding” for Kyiv’s war effort and “stalling Ukraine’s path toward integration into the bloc.” Orbán’s ousting means “this sort of Trojan horse for Russia within the EU may disappear,” said Andreas Umland, a policy fellow with the European Policy Institute in Kyiv, to the Times.

Orbán’s “vociferous recalcitrance” toward Ukraine allowed him to cast himself as “virtually the only opponent of aid to Ukraine in the entire EU,” said the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “In reality,” Orbán was “simply willing to wield his veto and absorb all the backlash,” allowing other antagonists to “remain in the shadows.”

The victory of Hungary’s incoming Prime Minister Péter Magyar “clears the way for greater European support for Ukraine,” said the Council on Foreign Relations. Already, that shift has seen Hungary lift a hold it placed on a 90 billion euro loan to Kyiv, which Orbán coupled with what he claimed was Ukraine’s destruction of the Druzhba oil pipeline (Ukraine contends the pipeline was damaged in a Russian strike). The “spat” over the Druzhba pipeline also blocked a round of Russian sanctions the EU had hoped to “adopt to mark the fourth anniversary” of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in late February of this year, the CBC said.

With Orbán’s hold lifted, Ukraine is expected to make short work of the initial EU loan payments, the first of which are supposed to arrive in Kyiv “as soon as next month,” said The Telegraph. To date, Ukraine has been “reliant on donations from allies to plug the gap left by the Hungarian veto” and will use the newly released funds toward “U.S.-made Patriot air-defense interceptors to protect against incoming Russian ballistic missiles, new-fangled drone technologies produced in Ukraine and other legacy weapons, such as British Storm Shadow missiles.”

Ukraine is also taking Orbán’s ousting as an “opening to expand its energy footprint in Europe and displace Russian crude oil in Eastern Europe,” said Politico’s E&E News. Ukraine’s state-owned Naftogaz oil company is “eying plans to ship about 100 million barrels of oil a year” from a Black Sea port to neighboring countries, including Hungary, which could “supplant the Russian deliveries.”

What next?

Although the “dramatic change in tone” from Hungary is “certainly encouraging,” Ukrainians are “well aware that Hungary is not likely to become a major supporter,” said the Atlantic Council. Incoming Hungarian leadership has already “ruled out” arming Ukraine and “underlined” opposition to “fast-tracking the country’s EU accession process.”

While Magyar is “expected to take conciliatory steps toward Ukraine,” said the Russia Eurasia Center, “expectations may be overstated.” Ukraine’s inclusion in the EU is “increasingly unpopular in the bloc’s eastern part,” where countries like Poland and Bulgaria see Kyiv as a “direct competitor for European subsidies, jobs and agricultural markets.” Ukraine is also seen by some of its neighbors as an “obstacle to accessing Russian energy supplies.”

Removing Hungary’s vetoes on Ukrainian aid improves the EU’s “decision-making capacity,” said Zsuzsanna Végh, an analyst at the German Marshall Fund think tank, to The Telegraph. But Hungary won’t contribute to the EU funds directly, as Magyar’s Tisza party is “unlikely to embrace expansive military support.”

Ukrainians saw Orbán as the “hostile actor,” said Kyiv Independent reporter Tim Zadorozhnyy to the Lowy Institute, “not Hungary itself.” With Magyar’s promises of eased tensions and EU backing, he “now has all the cards in his hands.”

The EU has finally signed off a €90 billion (£78 billion) loan to Ukraine after Hungary dropped its veto. The loan – agreed in December but blocked for months by Hungary in a row over an oil pipeline – is “a question of our life, of surviving”, said Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Without the money, his country was struggling to manufacture the number of weapons it was capable of producing, he told CNN.

“Ukraine really needs this,” said EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas. “It’s also a sign that Russia cannot outlast Ukraine.”

What did the commentators say?

“European officials had found ways” to get some funds to Ukraine during the delay but this no-interest loan provides “far more substantial financial support”, as Moscow’s full-scale invasion extends into a fifth year, said The New York Times. Ukraine will only need to repay the loan if a future peace deal includes Russia paying reparations.

Having finally secured the loan, Zelenskyy has renewed calls to restart peace talks with Vladimir Putin, said The Independent – although US mediators are currently “preoccupied with the conflict in Iran”.

A resumption of talks seems unlikely any time soon. Only a few weeks ago, the Russian president gathered key oligarchs behind closed doors and asked them to contribute financially to the war, said independent Russian news outlet The Bell. “We will keep fighting,” its sources reported Putin as saying. “We will push to the borders of Donbas.”

And it’s the question of Donbas that led to the most recent peace talks being “placed on hold”, said political scientist Samuel Charap and military analyst Jennifer Kavanagh in Foreign Affairs. Donald Trump’s administration had “centred the talks on a core bargain”: that Ukraine cede the roughly 20% of the Donbas region it still holds to Russia “in exchange for security commitments from the US and Europe”. This approach exaggerated “the significance of territory for Russia and the importance of Western assurances for Ukraine”. It also neglected to “address the key challenge in ending any war”: convincing each side that “its enemy will really commit to peace”.

What next?

A Kremlin spokesperson has been reported as saying Putin would only meet Zelenskyy “for the purpose of finalising agreements”, said The Guardian. Instead, Russia wants the US to send Trump’s delegates Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – who “have repeatedly listened to Putin’s maximalist demands” – to Moscow.

While the EU loan is “sorted”, there is now “another issue altogether”: Ukraine gaining membership of the EU, said Henry Foy in the Financial Times. Zelenskyy has long seen this as key to securing Ukraine’s long-term security and prosperity. “Belligerent public opposition” to the idea from outgoing Hungarian president Viktor Orbán had long “provided a useful shield for many other EU leaders to huddle behind” but, with his departure, “they will be forced to clarify their positions”.

Before 2000, single fathers by choice were “virtually unheard of”, said The Atlantic. But in the past few years, this population has been growing “notably”.

English law changed in 2019 to give single parents the same rights as couples over surrogate children. Since then, the number of men applying to become sole parents of surrogate babies has tripled, according to data cited in The Times. The number is still “a tiny percentage” of the total applications, but it reflects “a growing trend”.

‘Go it alone’

There aren’t many reliable figures documenting the number of men “deciding to go it alone”, said The Guardian. Most surveys don’t differentiate single fathers by choice from widowers, or separated/divorced men. But according to the Office for National Statistics, about 15% of the UK’s single-parent households are headed by dads.

“We are seeing more men wanting to adopt than in recent years,” said Natalie Gamble, a lawyer specialising in surrogacy law. Since 2019, “the options are opening up. More British surrogates are willing to be matched with fathers.”

Many applying to become single fathers by surrogacy are gay – but not all. Some have either “struggled to find a relationship” or left partners because of “incompatible approaches to having children”, said The Telegraph. This is a “family type that does seem to be on the rise”, said Catherine Jones, a family psychology expert at King’s College London.

The “main hurdle” for surrogacy is “money rather than stigma”, she said. In the UK, it is illegal to advertise for a surrogate, or that you’re willing to become one. Single men often look to Cyprus or Belarus to find surrogate mothers. Many complain that the law in the UK is “yet to catch up with the fact that single men can now much more easily pursue fatherhood in this way”.

The increasing number of single men becoming surrogate parents has caused concern among some campaigners. “The checks on single men undertaking surrogacy are not remotely comparable to those we see in cases of adoption,” said Helen Gibson, from campaign group Surrogacy Concern.

But some single men turn to surrogacy because they were turned down by adoption agencies, said ABC News. “I called five different agencies and every one of them told me that either I would not be considered or that I would be at the bottom of the list because I was a single father,” said Peter Gordon.

“Who is going to give their kid to a 50-year-old bachelor living in SoHo, you know?” said Steven Harris, who was also rejected by adoption agencies. “I wouldn’t.”

The promise of meaning

The trend shouldn’t be surprising given that singlehood has been increasing for years, “more steeply among men than women”, said The Atlantic. The gay community has also recovered from the Aids pandemic; a new generation has “made it through” to adulthood with more financial security and societal acceptance than before.

But the fact that some men are “paying extravagantly for egg donation and surrogacy” might suggest “just how important fatherhood is” for many today. Multiple professionals described the pandemic as a “turning point for a lot of single fathers by choice”. Men came out of the pandemic wanting to “spend those moments with their loved ones before it was too late”.

And in a moment when “many of the traditional trappings of manhood” are no longer guaranteed, fatherhood can be “an answer” to questions of identity. For many single men, fatherhood “dangled a promise of deeper meaning in life”.

But in a society that is “set up to regard women as primary caregivers”, single fatherhood can be alienating, said The Guardian. “Men get questions asking whether it’s Mum’s day off,” said Sophie Zadeh of University College London, who has been researching single fathers by choice. “People assume they can’t parent properly because they are male.”

Her research also suggests men are scrutinised more than women by healthcare visitors, and can be viewed with suspicion. “They’re seen as that bit more unusual.”

Prosecutors in El Salvador have opened a mass trial of 486 alleged members of the infamous MS-13 gang on charges ranging from homicide and femicide to extortion and arms trafficking.

They have been accused of more than 47,000 crimes between 2012 and 2022, including an estimated 29,000 homicides. These trials encapsulate President Nayib Bukele’s “iron-fist approach” to fighting organised crime, said The Associated Press, in a country that has been in a state of emergency for four years.

But mass trials have been criticised by human rights organisations, including a group of UN experts who claim they “undermine the exercise of the right to defence and the presumption of innocence of detainees”. Many are held in custody for years before their trial, facing blanket rulings from unknown judges.

What is MS-13?

The MS stands for Mara Salvatrucha, thought to be a combination of “Mara” (“gang”), “Salva” (a shortening of Salvador) and “trucha” (“which translates roughly into street smarts”), said the BBC. “The 13 represents the position of M in the alphabet.”

The gang was formed “on the street corners of Los Angeles” in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants who had fled civil war, said Sky News. It only spread to Central America when the members were deported from the US.

Donald Trump designated the group a terrorist organisation last year and made “deportation agreements” with El Salvador to “exchange prisoners affiliated with the gang and others”.

The main aim of the mass trial is to target the “ranfla” – the “highest echelon” – of the gang, said The Times. Alongside its rival gang, Barrio 18, MS-13 at one stage controlled up to 80% of El Salvadoran territory through “extortion, drug dealing, contract killings and arms trafficking”. Prosecutors allege that the gang’s attempts to gain complete control amounted to a “parallel state, undermining national sovereignty”.

“Over three decades” Bukele’s government estimates the gangs have killed around 200,000 people, including many listed as disappeared.

Has a trial like this happened before?

The first “collective” trial of this magnitude took place in March 2025, said AP. At its conclusion, 52 members of Barrio 18 were convicted, with one individual sentenced to 245 years in prison.

In November, a similar trial found 45 members of a rival faction, Barrio 18 Sureños, guilty of several crimes and “handed down a 397-year prison sentence to one leader”.

What is the criticism?

Bukele’s “crackdown has drawn sharp criticism from human rights organisations”, said The Times. There is significant risk that, given the limited evidence specific to individuals, mass trials risk convicting innocent people.

Human Rights Watch estimated that El Salvador’s prison population has reached 118,000, “more than double the country’s capacity”. Set against “significantly worsening already poor prison conditions”, nearly 2% of the country’s entire population was incarcerated, “among the highest rates in the world”.

More than 500 people have already died in state custody under Bukele, and there have been reports of torture, said Agence France-Presse. Bukele has also acknowledged that “at least 8,000 innocent people” have been arrested under the crackdown, and have since been released, said AP.

Who is behind this?

President Bukele’s stance on criminal gangs has “made him the most popular elected head of state in the world”, said The Times. According to official figures released by his government, the rate of homicides fell from 7.8 per 100,000 people in 2022 to 1.3 last year, said Reuters.

Trump is a close ally. He said he had “the best relationship” with Bukele after the El Salvador president’s visit to the White House in 2025, said The Telegraph, despite previously accusing Bukele of sending MS-13 gang members to the US. Trump also signed a deal with Bukele last year, paying El Salvador between $6 million (£4.5 million) and $15 million (£11.3 million) to hold deportees in its prisons – “seemingly with little due process”.

What will happen next?

At the beginning of the trial, the judge stated that armed groups had disturbed “the peace of the Salvadoran population and the security of the state” for decades, and would be tried “with the full force of the law”.

Of the defendants, 413 of them are being held at the Terrorism Confinement Center (“Cecot”) in Tecoluca, and will watch proceedings on a screen. Cecot, a maximum-security prison built by Bukele in 2023, has “become a symbol of his controversial security policies”, said AP. The other 73 remain at large and will be tried in absentia.

Prosecutors say they have “overwhelming evidence” and will seek the maximum permitted sentence, said The Times. The trial could last up to six months.

With the Russo-Ukrainian War in its fourth year, both sides are dealing with critical troop shortages, and Ukrainian officials think they’ve found a solution. The country has started using remotely controlled robots in combat to account for these shortages and also reduce casualties. But some experts are also downplaying the effect these robots could have on the war.

‘Seize Russian positions solely with automated weapons’

The robots, which often feature mounted machine guns, can “help Ukrainian troops carry gear, lay mines, evacuate the wounded and attack Russian positions,” said Business Insider. At least 280 companies are working to develop these robots, many of which are used to transport ordnance because they can “carry more than roughly 10 servicemen can,” Oleksandr Yabchanka, the head of robotic systems for Ukraine’s Da Vinci Wolves army regiment, told Business Insider.

The robots are a key part of Ukraine’s fight because of their offensive capabilities. One video during combat, filmed last summer, showed several Ukrainian robots that “each carried 66 pounds of explosives,” said The New York Times. One of these robots drove into a Russian stronghold and “blew itself up, while the others held back, monitoring the position.” Several Russian soldiers surrendered, and these kinds of attacks show “that the Ukrainian military can now seize Russian positions solely with automated weapons.”

Of course, human soldiers remain the key demographic on the battlefield, but Ukraine is “eager to highlight its advances to show Western partners that its outnumbered army can stay in the fight,” said the Times, while also promoting the country’s “homegrown defense industry.” During the first three months of 2026, Ukraine’s ground robots “carried out more than 22,000 missions on the front lines,” said Business Insider, citing data from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

‘The reality is more nuanced and far less futuristic’

There are drawbacks to using robots, as they “can still fall prey to enemy drones and also face challenges in traversing battle-scarred landscapes,” said Ars Technica. Though they may be good for frontline combat, at least one Ukrainian battalion reported that robots “attempting to evacuate wounded soldiers failed to reach the positions in four out of five cases due to complicating factors.” Ukraine’s efforts are also in “competition with the Russian military, which has similarly increased its use of robots on the frontlines.”

The narrative has largely been that Ukrainian robots will eventually supersede most of the country’s soldiers, but the “reality is more nuanced and far less futuristic,” said the Kyiv Post. The expansion of these battlefield robots is mostly part of an effort to “support troops not replace them.” And even though the stories of killer robots dominate the headlines, much of the “work performed by these robots remains logistical,” encompassing the delivery of “supplies, including food, ammunition, water and equipment, to frontline positions.”

But even non-offensive missions using robots “can save lives, as they replace tasks that would otherwise require soldiers to move on foot under fire,” a senior operator of ground robotic systems from Ukraine’s 13th Brigade told the Kyiv Post. It remains “far better to send a robot on a mission. If it is destroyed, you lose equipment. But if you send two or three soldiers and they are killed, it is a much greater loss, both emotionally and for the unit’s combat capability.”

President Lee Jae Myung warned earlier this month that the conflict in Iran represented a “war-like situation” for South Koreans. As oil reserves continue to dwindle, even if normal service in the Strait of Hormuz were to resume, it would take a long time for supplies to catch up.

The war is “serving as a significant turning point” for South Korea to shift to renewable energy, South Korea’s Minister of Climate, Energy and Environment Kim Sung-hwan told CNBC. We must undergo a “fundamental energy transition” and “turn this challenge into a blessing in disguise”.

Rising oil prices, and the weakening of the won against the dollar, are “dealing a double blow” to the Korean economy, said The New York Times. But reliance on oil has also highlighted the domestic tussle for green energy action in a divided South Korean system.

‘Draconian’ measures

The “brightly illuminated” satellite images of South Korea at night, compared to the “sea of blackness” in the North, have long been seen as a “wider triumph of capitalism and democracy”, said Christopher Jasper, transport industry editor, in The Telegraph. However, due to the Iran war, these lights could be extinguished “in a matter of weeks”.

Compared to fellow developed countries, South Korea is “almost uniquely lacking in natural resources”, relying on imports to meet “90% of its energy needs”. Around 70% of its crude oil shipments, in addition to 20% natural gas, come from the Gulf. The country has seen fuel prices increase by a fifth, a ban on driving one weekday in five for individuals, and calls to reduce shower times and to charge electric cars and phones only in the daytime. Much more “draconian” measures could be just weeks away.

South Korea must face a “difficult home truth”, said David Fickling in Bloomberg. Behind the “sleek modern society” is an “insatiable appetite for fossil fuels that’s undermining its economy”. But this appetite presents a climate and “strategic” threat. State utility Korea Electric Power Corporation’s (Kepco) “huge” generation plants provide “tempting targets for rocket attacks”, and its proximity to North Korea and China leaves the South exposed to mine threats, should the conflict expand.

A ‘catalyst’ for energy reform?

The fossil-fuel vulnerability highlighted by the war in Iran could be the “catalyst for a faster clean energy system”, said The Guardian. South Korea’s energy targets long predate the current war, aiming to generate 20% of electricity from renewables by 2030 and phase out coal by 2040.

As with most renewable energy, there must be the infrastructure to support it. The power generated by new energy is “colliding” with the grid’s capacity, meaning it is “in effect going to waste”. There is hope in the form of Kepco building high-voltage transmission lines to Seoul, but a decade-long wait and “resistance” from locals are taking the shine off the progress.

On top of the energy opportunities, this is a “fresh opportunity” to “strengthen Seoul’s hand” against North Korea, said Jenni Marsh in Bloomberg. According to Finance Minister Koo Yun Cheol, Middle Eastern countries are “lining up” to buy Korea’s missiles, with their 90% success rate and “affordable price tag” an attractive proposition for buyers. The crisis has also fuelled government investment into nuclear-reactor restarts to “maintain grid stability”. As North Korea’s Kim Jong Un “plays hard to get” with the US, and “refuses talks” with Lee, improving defence capabilities “looks like an increasingly smart option”.

President Lee’s “catnip” calls to transition to renewables due to the war in Iran have “no chance of being met”, said Fickling in the same outlet. For instance, Kepco has “effectively banned” all new generators in the “renewables-rich” east until 2032, all because its “crumbling grid is supposedly incapable of accepting new connections”. Decisions such as these will do “nothing to advance South Korea’s energy transition”. Society as a whole needs to fight against those who have kept them “hooked on polluting power”.

Former Bulgarian President Rumen Radev will soon have a new title, and with it a whole lot of new power. Radev won Bulgaria’s parliamentary elections on Sunday and will become the country’s next prime minister. But while the election victory by Radev’s newly created Progressive Bulgaria party could represent a fresh beginning for a nation fraught with political strife, some people are concerned about Radev’s ties to Russia.

Radev’s beginnings

Radev, 62, was born in Dimitrovgrad, Bulgaria, and his early career was dedicated to military service. He is an ex-fighter pilot and former commander in the Bulgarian Air Force, and received several military merits before turning his attention to politics. Radev has often used his “daredevil flying skills to build his political brand,” said Politico. When he first ran for president in 2016, the Bulgarian Air Force “heavily promoted his loop-the-loops in a high-profile air show.”

Upon winning the ceremonial role of the presidency in 2017, Radev “quickly made up for his lack of political experience, capitalizing on his military background to cultivate the persona of a fearless patriot uncorrupted by party politics,” said Politico. In January 2026, after anti-corruption protests toppled the government, he became the first Bulgarian head of state to step down from the presidency and announced his candidacy for prime minister. During his campaign, Radev “cast himself as an opponent of the country’s entrenched mafia and its ties to high-ranking politicians,” said The Associated Press.

‘A more pro-Russian stance’

Radev has largely “positioned himself as the populist standard-bearer for anti-corruption protests that brought down the government in December,” said The Washington Post. But many in Europe are concerned about his potential friendliness with the Kremlin. During his campaign, Radev made it clear his government will take a “more pro-Russian stance, consistently opposing aid to Ukraine and saying he wanted to restore relations with Moscow.”

The new prime minister has also criticized the European Union and “called for a new security architecture in Europe, echoing a key Kremlin drive,” said the Post. If tensions were to continue rising between Bulgaria’s new government and the EU, it could cause financial strain in the country, as “Bulgaria’s economy is heavily dependent on EU funding.” Radev’s easy victory in the election could also “strengthen his hand in opposing a proposed EU ban on imported Russian energy supplies.”

Other analysts believe that Radev’s Russian coziness is more of a political tactic. Radev will probably be “unlikely to seek to be disruptive in relations within the European Union,” Vessela Tcherneva, the deputy director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said to The New York Times. In the “coming economic crisis, he would not risk the freezing of EU funds.” Radev’s EU criticism, particularly “regarding financial and military support for Ukraine or sanctions against Russia,” will be “aimed primarily at the domestic audience” and may not translate into action, Maria Simeonova of the European Council on Foreign Relations told the Times.

Some pro-democracy activists feel that Radev’s win could give Bulgaria its “best chance in recent history to do away with the stranglehold of corruption and the weak, unstable governments that have plagued it for decades,” said the Times. Radev’s 44% margin of victory may allow him to create a strong coalition, which could “enact structural and constitutional reforms to tackle the corruption that has stymied Bulgaria’s institutions.”

For weeks, the Trump administration has waged a brutal war on Iran. But now that Iran has successfully shifted the conflict’s nexus to the oil-shipping bottleneck in the Strait of Hormuz, the White House has a new plan to inflict maximum pressure: economic warfare, the “financial equivalent” of a bombing campaign, said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a White House briefing last week.

What did the commentators say?

Blocking Iranian ports and shipping lanes and pivoting from “kinetic to economic warfare” is an attempt to “end the conflict without a new U.S.-Israeli onslaught,” said CNN. Per the White House’s “rationale,” the “ruinous financial and humanitarian consequences” of being unable to ship and sell oil leave Tehran with “no choice but to accept U.S. terms” to end the conflict.

Although focused on Iran specifically, the administration’s threats stretch beyond the Islamic Republic to those who would do business with it. Countries that are “buying Iranian oil” or hold Iranian funds in their banks now risk “secondary sanctions, which is a very stern measure,” Bessent said on PBS News. Iranians themselves will feel the “financial equivalent of what we saw in the kinetic activities.”

Bessent’s threat came one day after his Treasury Department notified “financial institutions in China, Hong Kong, the UAE and Oman” that they are at risk of secondary sanctions for “allowing Iranian illicit activities to flow through their financial institutions,” said The Associated Press. The “argument being made to Trump” is that no matter if the Iranians think they can “weather the storm,” any inability to pay their “loyalists” could “pressure Iran to the table.”

Approximately one-third of the oil Iran exports through the Strait of Hormuz “directly funds the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” said The Foundation for Defense of Democracies Senior Fellow Miad Maleki on Fox News. Bessent’s threats will “shut down a lifeline that the regime desperately needs right now to keep its economy on some life support.”

Trump himself has been a “heavy user of financial sanctions” targeting “countries, individuals and companies,” The Washington Post said. At the same time, his administration seems to have been “caught unawares” when rivals like China and Iran “weaponized their economic advantages.”

While sanctions have long been the “instrument of choice for applying pressure on Iran,” the White House’s pivot toward “more kinetic forms of economic coercion” blurs the line between “financial restriction and military intervention,” said Harsh Pant, an international relations professor with King’s India Institute at King’s College London, at The Economic Times. “By physically interdicting maritime traffic” with its naval blockade, Trump is showing a willingness to enforce America’s “economic objectives through direct control of global commons.”

What next?

In many ways, the “damage” caused by economic weapons is already “sparking a response,” with nations that depend on the Strait of Hormuz “making plans to reduce their vulnerability to a future closure,” the Post said. But critics warn that attempts to impose other financial consequences on Iran could ultimately backfire on the United States and its allies. Much of the previous phase of war has “helped Iran’s economy,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), per the AP. Imposing further economic conditions is simply an attempt by Bessent to “mop up the mess that Donald Trump has created by initiating this war.”

The administration could still be making a “sound bet,” said CNN. Iran’s economy has been “shattered by sanctions” and could “quickly suffer critical food shortages, hyperinflation and a banking crisis” that would push Tehran to settle with the Trump administration. But this hope shared by “U.S. officials, conservative editorial pages and analysts” may ultimately “rest on an assumption” that has “led the U.S. astray in the Middle East” many times in the past.

What happened

U.S. Marines boarded and took control of an Iranian cargo ship on Sunday after it breached President Donald Trump’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Central Command said. An Iranian military spokesperson warned that Iran “will soon respond and retaliate against this armed piracy.”

The seizure followed a weekend of mixed signals on the status of the strait and mutual accusations of violating the fragile ceasefire set to expire Wednesday. Trump said that his envoys would meet with Iranian negotiators in Pakistan on Tuesday, but Iran’s Foreign Ministry later said that Tehran had “no plans for the next round of negotiations” and has made “no decision” on further talks.

Who said what

Trump on Sunday said the U.S. was “offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL” to Iran, but if it did not accept, he would “knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!” Iran’s state media said Tehran saw “no clear prospect for productive talks” given the Trump administration’s “excessive demands” and shifting, “unrealistic requests.”

Both sides have “triggered a swirl of confusion over the status of peace talks,” The Wall Street Journal said, though Iran “made similar threats ahead of participating in the previous round of negotiations.” Pakistan “appeared to be preparing for the talks,” Reuters said, and U.S. “security equipment and vehicles” landed at an airbase in Islamabad over the weekend.

What next?

All the uncertainty “sent oil prices rising again,” The Associated Press said, and Iran this morning “warned it could keep up the global economic pain” and keep “inflicting political pain on Trump.”

India has an “entrenched culture of outsourcing household work”, said Reuters, with domestic help traditionally organised through word of mouth and paid in cash. But new apps are changing the practice and turning the system digital.

Although the start-ups offer attractive fees for clients alongside competitive earnings for workers, concerns around safety will be harder to pay off.

Attractive numbers

Start-ups like Urban Company, Pronto and Snabbit are offering on-demand bookings in cities for short tasks, entering a “vast, largely unregulated market” that boasts an estimated 30 million domestic workers. It includes many women with “few formal job options”, said the BBC.

The model of the agencies works a bit like Uber: the helpers get bookings, pointing them to jobs in homes in designated neighbourhoods on their apps. They press a countdown timer in the app before they start work.

The numbers are currently attractive for both clients and workers: companies are “betting big” and “burning millions of dollars” to “lure busy professionals” with charges of less than 99 rupees (79p) an hour that “have no global parallel”, said Reuters. For instance, similar services can cost around £22 an hour in the US, and around £5 in China.

In a country with a per capita income of around £2,200, workers on these apps can see annual earnings reach £3,700 by working eight hours a day. “My income has roughly doubled,” a 32-year-old from West Bengal, who worked through Snabbit, told the Indian Express.

Greater risks

So far, so good. But the “craze” is “tempered by concerns” about women’s safety in a ⁠country with “high rates of sexual harassment”. Unlike delivery drivers who spend “just brief moments at doorsteps”, the workers may spend hours inside private homes, “exposing them to greater risks”, said Reuters.

Pronto and Snabbit have an SOS button within the app that alerts area supervisors in case of emergency. Pronto also offers self-defence training for workers. Urban Company says it offers a women-only safety helpline and an SOS app feature.

But a women’s rights activist noted that while the companies run extensive background checks on workers before hiring them, they don’t vet the credentials of customers, who can simply log in on apps to book home help.

In between bookings, the workers “have only the cold, dusty sidewalk to sit on” and for some, the uniforms they wear are “visible identifiers that they’d rather not have”, said The Indian Express. One worker said there “should be a place for us to change back into regular clothes” because “many of us don’t want everyone to know what we do”.

It would be to the advantage of the platforms if they could “successfully crack the safety protocols” because they will “earn the deepest consumer loyalty” and “the most sustainable market returns”, Soumya Chauhan, a principal at Dutch e-commerce investor Prosus, which has a stake in Urban Company, told Reuters.

What happened

A 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon took effect at midnight local time on Friday, though Hezbollah has not committed to the truce. President Donald Trump announced the ceasefire on Thursday after a flurry of diplomatic wrangling. The pause in fighting, if it holds, would remove one of the sticking points in U.S. peace talks with Iran, Hezbollah’s main backer.

Who said what

The State Department said Israel, as a “gesture of goodwill,” had agreed to pause “offensive operations” against Lebanese targets while reserving the “right to take all necessary measures in self-defense.” Lebanon was expected to take “meaningful steps” to prevent Hezbollah from attacking Israel.

Trump’s ceasefire pressure put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “in an awkward position,” The New York Times said. His “goal to gut Hezbollah is far from fulfilled, and he was swiftly assailed by his allies and critics” for agreeing to the truce. Israel’s security cabinet “heard about Trump’s announcement several minutes into” an “urgent conference call” Netanyahu had convened “to discuss the ceasefire and vote on it,” Axios said.

Netanyahu said in a subsequent statement that Israeli forces would remain in a 6-mile-deep “security zone” spanning southern Lebanon, “and we are not leaving.” Hezbollah said “Israeli occupation of our land” gave them “the right to resist it,” and it will act “based on how developments unfold.”

What next?

The temporary truce “will bring immediate relief” to war-ravaged Lebanon, The Wall Street Journal said. But “without Hezbollah at the negotiating table,” peace is “on shaky ground.”

Confusion reigns over whether there will be further direct talks between Lebanon and Israel.

Galia Gamliel, a member of Israel’s security cabinet, announced that Benjamin Netanyahu would be speaking to Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun today, following historic talks earlier this week.

However, a spokesperson for Aoun said they were “not aware of any call” taking place between Aoun and the Israeli prime minister. Aoun did confirm that a ceasefire is the “natural starting point for direct negotiations”, and called the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the country an “essential step towards consolidating” such a ceasefire.

As Israeli air strikes destroyed the last remaining bridge connecting southern Lebanon to the rest of the country, and civilians continue to flee their homes, diplomatic talks appear somewhat hopeless as Israel’s aims remain unclear.

What did the commentators say?

It is “hard to imagine much change resulting from the meeting” between Israeli and Lebanese officials in Washington on Tuesday, said The Economist. As things stand, Israel has an “overwhelming military advantage”, and Netanyahu has demanded Lebanon presents a “comprehensive plan for disarming Hezbollah” and “establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries”.

But the Lebanese government is “too weak” to disarm the militant group and has faced “thinly veiled threats of a violent coup” should it try. Even if Beirut were able to strive for “political consensus” in its “deeply fractured society”, it is “unlikely” Netanyahu would “give them the necessary time” to capitalise on it.

For most countries affected by war, ceasefires are a “welcome development”, but for Israel’s “maximalist” leaders, they are often “seen as getting in the way of efforts to finish the job”, said Mairav Zonszein in The New York Times. Just as the ceasefire was announced, the Israel Defense Forces hit 100 Lebanese targets in 10 minutes, killing 350 and wounding “well over 1,000, many of them civilians”. War, as seen in Gaza and now Lebanon, is “increasingly the state’s go-to response to geopolitical challenges – not just the strategy but the norm”.

Israelis’ problem is that their “definition of victory” is “framed by a distorted reality” that threats “can and must be eliminated through invasion and occupation”. The media rarely provides an insight into civilian casualties, and practically no one in the domestic political landscape is challenging the country’s tendency to “treat war as a tool of first resort in statecraft”. This could end badly for all sides involved: “when war becomes the norm, everyone loses”.

“Israel’s primary goal is simple: weaken Hezbollah,” said Daniel Byman from the Center for Strategic & International Studies. Its ongoing campaign against the group displays a “familiar but intensified strategic objective”: that of “mowing the grass”; so “not the elimination of Hezbollah, but its sustained degradation”.

Yet there are “enduring risks” with this strategy. Even a wounded Hezbollah can disrupt life in northern Israel and “escalate unpredictably”. “Ultimately, Israel appears to accept that the conflict with Hezbollah will persist as a recurring feature of the region’s security landscape.”

For Netanyahu himself, the “rhetoric about the war on Lebanon is simple”, said Ori Goldberg on Al Jazeera. He wants to be the leader who “emerged as clearly and absolutely triumphant” from the “longest war in Israeli history”.

After alienating much of the Western world – except for his closest ally Donald Trump – it seems removing Hezbollah is his “only remaining opportunity to claim victory” on the world stage and secure a legacy. In the region, and on the domestic front, tackling the “fictitious invasion” by Hezbollah is the “only political promise Netanyahu hopes he can fulfil for future voters” in the elections expected this autumn.

What next?

Though these talks should be welcomed, “significant hurdles remain”, said Bilal Y. Saab from Chatham House. Given the “deeply rooted” Hezbollah problem, both sides need to take “more concrete action”.

In order to preserve ties with the Lebanese government, Israel must “avoid further attacks on state infrastructure”, particularly in Beirut, to destroy Hezbollah’s “narrative of resistance”. The Lebanese government’s focus, however, is internal. It should consider “expelling Hezbollah ministers from the cabinet”, confiscate arms, “outlaw all of Hezbollah’s financial activities” and “arrest anyone endangering civil peace”.

There are hopes this would lead to a formal peace deal. “It’s a long and winding road, but there’s no better alternative.”

What happened

The U.S. on Tuesday hosted the first direct meeting between Israel and Lebanon since 1993. Israel, which is occupying southern Lebanon as it attacks Hezbollah, continued trading strikes with the Iran-backed militia during the meeting. Israeli attacks have killed at least 2,124 people in Lebanon in six weeks of war, including 168 children and 88 health workers, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Israel said 13 soldiers and at least two Israeli citizens have been killed.

Who said what

Tuesday’s two-hour Washington, D.C., meeting “concluded with encouraging words and talk of further meetings,” The New York Times said, but “no firm commitments and no change in Israel’s refusal to halt its punishing military campaign” in Lebanon. Israel’s U.S. ambassador, Yechiel Leiter, said he and his Lebanese counterpart, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, had agreed “that the evil of Hezbollah must be eradicated.” Moawad said she had “underscored the need to preserve our territorial integrity and state sovereignty” and “called for a ceasefire.”

The Lebanese government’s “capacity to confront Hezbollah” is “limited,” the BBC said. Hezbollah said it won’t abide by any agreements from the bilateral talks. “What does Lebanon have to offer on a negotiating table?” a Lebanese government official said to The Washington Post. “Nothing.”

The Israel-Lebanon talks are “a process, not an event,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters. “Hezbollah and Israel have always helped each other to destabilize the government of Lebanon,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said. “It’s time for Israel and Lebanon to be working together.”

What next?

The U.S. State Department said Israel and Lebanon “agreed to launch direct negotiations” at an unspecified “time and venue.”

India’s programme to reintroduce cheetahs to the country is “flourishing”, but mounting opposition to “Project Cheetah” from local farmers has “teeth”, said The Times.

The big cats were declared extinct in India 70 years ago because of habitat loss, prey reduction and “rampant Raj-era poaching for luxury fashion”, but now they are back, and causing plenty of division.

Ambitious vision

India’s links with the “world’s fastest land animal date back centuries”, and the word cheetah itself comes from Sanskrit citra, meaning spotted. Royals “kept them as pets”, and in the 12th century they became a “popular hunting animal” and the Mughal emperor Akbar was believed to have collected some 9,000 of them.

Legend has it that the last three cheetahs in India were shot dead by the Maharajah of the historical state of Koriya, on a nighttime drive in 1947. Sightings were reported “intermittently” after that but the big cats were declared extinct in the country in 1952.

Then, in 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, launched an ambitious scheme, with the aim of re-establishing the cheetah within its historical territory in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. The government claimed the project would aid global conservation and “improve livelihood options for local communities through ecotourism”, said The Hindu.

Re-establishing a cheetah population initially relied on importing cheetahs from countries like South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. Last month, “nine wild African cheetahs were tranquillised in Botswana’s savannah, quarantined for a few weeks in the country, and then taken on a 10-hour flight over the Indian Ocean by the Indian Air Force” before being delivered by helicopter to a national park in Madhya Pradesh.

The latest arrivals from Africa bring the total number of cheetahs in India to 53, 33 of which are native-born cubs. In December, the government said India was on course to have a self-sustaining population of cheetahs by 2032.

Land grab

But the project has had its “hiccups”, said The Times. Several cheetahs went into septic shock and died during a monsoon. Others perished from climate stress and parasitic infections as a result of their transition from Africa’s savannahs to India’s “scrub forest ecosystems”.

The new population of predatory carnivores is also proving a headache for local livestock farmers. One villager in Chak Kishanpur said she had lost her goats, worth 10,000 to 15,000 rupees (£90-£120) each, and is now forced to harvest wheat in a nearby field instead.

Some scientists are also opposed: conservationists have called for a ban on importing cheetahs, demanding that the most recent batch should be the last, citing an “abysmal lack of habitat and prey”, said The Hindu. The project is currently entirely based in the Kuno National Park, which will become more and more crowded if the free-ranging cheetah population continues to multiply.

This is a land grab in the name of conservation, Nitin Rai, a fellow at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, told the outlet. Pointing to past conflict between state-led conservation efforts for tigers and the land rights of Indigenous communities, Rai said that “the cheetah, like the tiger, is being used as a proxy for territorial control of land and to move out forest dwellers.” The officials behind the cheetah scheme have “run roughshod over local opinions, understanding and histories of landscape change”.

People across the United States are making their opinions known as the war in Iran enters its seventh week, and perhaps none more so than military members. Active-duty soldiers and veterans are experiencing an array of emotions connected to the conflict, with some in support and others vehemently against it. The differing feelings come as tensions in the Defense Department grow.

‘Powerful motivator’

Some soldiers are angry that the Iran conflict has been run with “strategic incoherence” because the “president hasn’t really been able to say with clarity to the American people what exactly this war is about,” Marine veteran Elliot Ackerman said to WBUR News. The war “leaves this question, okay, ‘So is this tool we have, the U.S. military, is that a tool that we can use to create that better future for our country and for Iran?’” It is important to “articulate a very clear plan if we’re going to put American service members’ lives in jeopardy.”

The number of people looking to leave the military had already been increasing, and the “war against Iran has been a powerful motivator,” Kat Lonsdorf and Tom Bowman said at NPR. Many soldiers are “airing their concerns and frustrations,” Bill Galvin, who helps run the GI Rights Hotline for military discharge, said to NPR. Most of the callers are “asking how to apply to become a conscientious objector,” and nearly all of them “mention the bombing of a girls’ school in Iran on the first day of the war.”

Many veterans also remember the effects of years-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When it comes to the war in Iran, the “U.S. is creating a new generation of anti-American sentiment in Iran and across the region,” Chris Sarson, who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, said to WBUR News. Soldiers who served during these conflicts became “acutely aware of the heavy costs that civilians pay for war.”

‘Many acknowledge the role Iran played’

Though many in the Armed Forces feel the conflict might become another “forever war,” others have more complex feelings. Some soldiers are largely against war but “also acknowledge the role Iran played behind the scenes” assisting other regional nations in Middle East wars, Jeff Schogol and Patty Nieberg said at Task & Purpose. Wars in the Middle East have “caused a lot of moral injury and PTSD amongst the veterans’ community,” but “at the same time, Iran again has been a party to this conflict over the last 25 years,” Alex Plitsas, a former Army staff sergeant and Iraq veteran, said to Task & Purpose.

Some veterans feel that the war means Iran is “finally being held accountable,” said Schogol and Nieberg at Task & Purpose. “I’ve flown combat missions against the very terrorists funded and directed by the Iranian regime, and I’ve seen firsthand the threat Iran poses,” Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), an Air Force veteran, said in a press release when the war began. The conflict has been “coming for the ayatollahs, who have no regard for human life or peace.”

Many younger soldiers are also “excited to deploy” to Iran because the war is “what needs to be done,” Army veteran Juan Munoz said to The Associated Press. Other soldiers support the war thanks to their positive feelings about President Donald Trump. There “had to have been some reason” for Trump “to bomb them,” Army veteran Edward Bauman told the AP. “I don’t think he would have just went out of his way to just, ‘I’m going to bomb these people.’”

What happened

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party secured a majority in Parliament on Monday after winning three special elections to fill vacant seats. The party last year fell short of the 172 seats needed for a majority in the House of Commons. But following five defections from opposition parties in the past five months and last night’s victories, the Liberals now hold 174 seats, allowing them to legislate without other parties and keeping Carney in office through at least 2029.

Who said what

Carney’s election win last year was “fueled by public anger over President Donald Trump’s annexation threats” and trade war, The Associated Press said. With his new majority, Carney will have “broader latitude with his legislative agenda, which is focused on reducing Canada’s dependency on the United States,” The New York Times said. “No modern majority government in Ottawa has ever been built” through defections before, Politico said, and while opposition parties keep “hammering Carney over high grocery prices” and a “nationwide housing shortage, ‘Carneymania’ continues to sweep the nation.”

What next?

Now that he has a majority, it’s “important for Carney to actually deliver,” McGill University politics professor Daniel Béland told The Wall Street Journal. The “first move of Carney’s majority government,” Politico said, will “be to announce relief for Canadian consumers facing skyrocketing gas and diesel prices” from Trump’s Iran war.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz after peace talks with Iran in Pakistan failed to produce a breakthrough. The U.S. Navy will blockade “any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait,” he said on social media. But U.S. Central Command had a different interpretation of Trump’s order, saying it would block only vessels entering or departing “Iranian ports and coastal areas,” starting this week.

Who said what

A U.S. naval blockade would cut off a “key source of financing for Iran’s government and military operations,” CNN said. But a blockade could be a “blow to the rest of the world as well,” exacerbating the “war-driven global energy crisis” and raising U.S. gas prices, The Washington Post said.

The problem for Trump is that “Americans have a much lower threshold of pain than the Iranians,” Andreas Krieg, a security expert at King's College London, said to The Associated Press. The Iranians “can sustain this for far longer than the world economy” and “the Americans,” and Trump doesn’t have “any tool in the toolbox in terms of the military lever” he can use “to get his way.”

What next?

The face-to-face peace talks, led on the U.S. side by Vice President JD Vance, “were the highest-level negotiations between the longtime rivals” since 1979, the AP said. Iran said it was open to continuing the talks, and “neither indicated what will happen after the ceasefire expires on April 22.”

What happened

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán conceded defeat Sunday night after his far-right populist Fidesz party lost decisively to Péter Magyar and his center-right, pro-Europe Tisza party. Turnout was a post-Communist high of nearly 80%. As of Monday, Magyar’s alliance is on track to win 138 of the 199 seats in Parliament, exceeding the two-thirds supermajority needed to “change the constitution and unravel key pillars” of the “illiberal democracy” Orbán built over his 16 years in power, Politico said.

Who said what

“The election result is painful for us, but clear,” Orbán told supporters at Fidesz’s campaign offices. “We have liberated Hungary,” Magyar told cheering crowds gathered on the banks of the Danube in Budapest. “Hungarians said yes to Europe today, they said yes to a free Hungary.” European leaders, long frustrated by Orbán, rushed to congratulate Magyar.

Orbán was a “lodestar for MAGA culture warriors and right-wing populists in Europe,” The New York Times said. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin both supported Orbán’s candidacy and offered financial backing if he won. But Trump’s “several personal endorsements,” backed by a visit from Vice President JD Vance, could “do nothing to swing a contest that was shaped by growing public frustration over Hungary’s ailing economy, and the corruption and cronyism associated with Orbán,” Politico said.

What next?

Magyar called on Fidesz loyalists in key state positions, including the president, to step down or face expulsion by his parliamentary supermajority. “We will never again be a country of no consequences,” he said, vowing to set up an “office for the restoration of national wealth” to investigate and recover looted state assets and prosecute corruption.

Viktor Orbán once described Hungary under his premiership as a “petri dish for illiberalism”. The end of his 16-year reign is, for many in the West, a sign that his Maga-style politics is on the way out. But Hungary’s future under new prime minister Peter Magyar, once a staunch Orbán loyalist, is far from certain.

Magyar only joined the centre-right Tisza party in 2024. “He has built an opposition movement at amazing speed,” Gábor Győri of Budapest think tank, Policy Solutions, told The Guardian. “Never”, since the fall of Soviet-based communist rule in 1989, has Hungary “seen a party rise this quickly”.

What the commentators said?

“Short of offering a bonanza of free oil,” it’s hard to see how Donald Trump could have done more to “shore up” Orbán, his “closest ideological ally in Europe”, said Oliver Moody and Michael Evans in The Times. He promised to strengthen Hungary with “the full economic might” of the US, and even parachuted J.D. Vance into Budapest to stand at Orbán’s side. But Hungary’s rejection of Orbán is a reflection of the broader sentiment across Europe, as “the populist right is either distancing itself from Trump or suffering by association with his brand”.

“There is no question that Orbán’s downfall is a loss for Maga-style politics,” said Alexander Burns on Politico. But “the sharpest message from Budapest should be for the Democrats” in the US. Orbán’s defeat is “a new triumph for a particular brand of disruptive politics”, in which reformists “launch new parties and blow up old ones, winning elections by rendering traditional political structures obsolete”. Currently, “there is no equivalent figure among Trump’s American opponents”.

There are warnings, too, for those in Europe who see Magyar’s win as a victory for liberal politics. Orbán’s fall “​​does not mean that Hungarian voters have rejected his tough-on-immigration, pro-natalist or Brussels-critical policies”, said The Telegraph’s deputy comment editor Michael Mosbacher. A former member of Orbán’s Fidesz party, Magyar is a social conservative who “on effectively every issue” comes down “firmly on the right of European politics”. Orbán may have been the EU’s bête noire over financial support for Ukraine, but his successor has said in the past that he is against sending weapons to Kyiv and opposes Ukraine’s push to join the EU.

What next?

“Despite more than two years of campaigning and a 240-page election manifesto, the details of what exactly Magyar will do remain vague,” said The Guardian. “He is very much a dark horse,” Győri told the paper. “We don’t know much about him.”

“There are both question marks and exclamation marks” about the consequences of Magyar’s victory, said Ákos Hadházy, an independent Hungarian MP and a long-time critic of Orbán. “But Hungarian society has accepted this.”

“WE GOT HIM!” Donald Trump’s announcement on Sunday that the second of two US airmen had been rescued from “deep inside” Iran struck a “triumphant” tone, said Jonathan Sacerdoti in The Spectator – and no wonder.

The rescue brought to an end an episode that had begun on Friday, when a US air force F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down over southwestern Iran – the first time a US fighter jet had been downed by hostile fire since the 2003 Gulf War. Both crew members had “ejected safely”. But while one was quickly recovered by US forces, the second, a weapons systems officer, was stranded for 36 hours, as the two sides raced to find him.

Iran, eyeing a propaganda victory, offered a £50,000 reward for his capture, said Paul Nuki in The Telegraph. Washington, in turn, was desperate to avoid a humiliation evoking memories of the botched US attempt to rescue 53 embassy staff held hostage by Iran in 1980. In the end, Trump was able to celebrate what he called “one of the most daring search and rescue operations in US history”.

“Deep behind enemy lines”, seriously hurt, and armed only with a pistol, the officer had been in a terrifying position, said Guy Adams in the Daily Mail. But his “survival, evasion, resistance and escape” (SERE) training kicked in, and he scaled a 7,000ft ridge in the Zagros Mountains, before hiding in a crevice and using a satellite device to report his location.

The CIA, meanwhile, hatched a “deception plan”, spreading word in Iran that it was moving the airman out of the country on the ground, said Greg Jaffe in The New York Times. Then, on Saturday night, the US launched a “vast and complex” rescue mission. Two MC-130 troop planes carrying more than 100 special forces commandos landed on a disused airfield near Isfahan, which they used as a forward operating base. Drones and jets provided air cover, striking Iranian forces that came near. Then commandos used mini-helicopters to reach the mountains, extract the weapons officer, and fly him back to the airfield.

It was here that a major hiccup occurred, said Dan Sabbagh in The Guardian. The troop carrier planes became bogged down in the soil and had to be destroyed by the US to avoid them falling into enemy hands, while new planes were flown in. Although the US did get all its troops out, suffering no casualties, it lost hardware worth about $250 million (£185 million). The episode as a whole was a reminder that, for all America’s military superiority, Iran “can fight back” – and it would only need to “get lucky once” in this asymmetric conflict to secure a major propaganda victory.

Might the war in Iran “do what even Vladimir Putin couldn’t and blow up the North Atlantic Treaty alliance”, asked The Wall Street Journal. It’s “no longer an idle question”. Last week, President Trump vented his deep frustration with Nato, dismissing it as a “paper tiger” and declaring he is now “strongly considering” pulling the US out. If he does, it would be the “dumbest alliance breakup in modern history” – and it would be Europe’s fault.

‘Two-way street’

Spain and Italy blocked US military flights from their bases and Emmanuel Macron prevented use of France’s airspace. “Add its reluctance to help clear the Strait of Hormuz, and Europe is playing into every Maga stereotype about a one-sided Western alliance.” Europe’s reluctance to get involved is understandable, given Trump’s erratic policies and his failure to consult allies about the war. But it could have been more helpful. After all, it has its own interests to protect in the Middle East, and it would have shown that the alliance is “a two-way street”.

Our so-called “allies” have spent decades “free-riding on the US security umbrella”, said Josh Hammer in Newsweek: Trump is just saying so plainly. The “imbalance is staggering”: US defence spending accounts for 60% of Nato’s total. It’s clear that the “status quo is no longer defensible – and deep down, everyone knows it”.

Despite America’s frustrations, maintaining the alliance is still in its interests, said Con Coughlin in The Daily Telegraph. Nato gives the US access to a large network of naval, air and ground force bases – Nato’s top commander in Europe, an American, has gone so far as to say that US power projection depends on its European allies. Nevertheless, European leaders must convince the Trump administration that it is in Washington’s interests to stay in.

Damage is done

The severity of the threat should not be underestimated, said Roland Oliphant in the same paper. The US is not just the biggest member, it is “the lynchpin”, around which the whole edifice is constructed. It has capabilities, in satellite and signals intelligence, in missile defence, that the rest rely heavily on. If it abandons the alliance, the chances of Putin taking a gamble on attacking Europe “would increase substantially”.

“In literal terms, it would be near-impossible” for Trump to leave Nato, said The Independent. In 2023, Congress passed a law that means the US can only leave with the approval of the Senate, and there is little appetite among Republicans for this. But that wouldn’t prevent the US from “quiet quitting”. It could withdraw troops from Germany or simply “ignore its Article 5 duties to defend, for example, Estonia”.

The damage is already done, said Rafael Behr in The Guardian. Trump hasn’t just undermined Nato’s collective security guarantee; he has betrayed Ukraine and threatened to invade Greenland. “Trust is gone.” Europe must build up its own security arrangements immediately. There is no guarantee that Europe “will have an ally across the Atlantic” again any day soon.

Nationwide fuel protests in Ireland are now in their fourth day – and the government has put defence forces on standby to help police clear vehicles blockading roads and fuel depots.

The protestors, primarily farmers, hauliers, and others who drive for a living, are causing “significant disruption” that threatens “critical supplies”, said The Independent. They are angry at the sharp rise in diesel and petrol prices, caused by the conflict in the Middle East, and are demanding “immediate government intervention” to protect the risk to their livelihoods.

With the International Monetary Fund warning that the world will experience diesel and jet fuel shortages “for some time”, there are signs, and concerns, that the protests in Ireland are spreading beyond its borders.

What did the commentators say?

The Irish government finds itself “locked in a highly polarised debate with an implacably opposed group”, said Johnny Fallon in The Journal. The protestors see it as a “straightforward”: they can’t afford fuel, and any “lack of political will” to cut costs means the government is “corrupt” or “misallocating funds”. But the government needs “sustainable, fact-based, long-term solutions rather than short-term fixes”. The wider public, “though sceptical of the protests”, is growing “impatient” for “meaningful government action.”

Over in Britain, the markets are “already reacting as if shortages are coming”, said Hannah Barnes in The New Statesman. “If they do materialise, they are likely to spread through the economy in ways that go far beyond queues at petrol stations”. And “the longer the disruption continues”, the bigger the impact on food prices, in particular. Some experts are already predicting a challenging winter ahead, with protests more than a possibility.

Protests at fuel shortages and rising prices for diesel have already spread to France, said Radio France Internationale. Landscaping firms have blockaded ring roads around Nantes, road-freight firms have organised protests in Lyon and Clermont-Ferrand, and fishermen in Corsica have been blocking the island’s six main ports. Nearly one in five French petrol stations were temporarily out of at least one type of fuel after the Easter weekend.

Last month in Germany, a “convoy of around 50 trucks drove through” Cottbus in protest, said Agnieszka Kulikowska on Trans.INFO. “Tensions are also becoming increasingly visible in Italy”, where truckers have protested in Ravenna.

What next?

“A situation that not long ago was described as difficult is now being openly called an existential crisis by many business owners,” said Kulikowska on Trans.INFO. “The protests that are just beginning may only be the start of a broader movement.”

If governments and industry regulators do not ease pressures on businesses, the next steps could be “far more radical”. “One thing is certain: road transport – the lifeblood of the European economy – has reached a critical point.”

Several thousand people have been killed in Iran since the U.S.-Israeli war broke out, and the conflict has created an additional humanitarian crisis: delays and shortages of medical supplies. Hospitals and health care clinics throughout the Middle East are reporting critical lapses in supplies, which experts fear could lead to a surge in deaths even as the U.S. agreed to a temporary ceasefire.

What did the commentators say?

With the war in a state of flux, humanitarian centers “across the Middle East, Asia and Africa are facing the risk of running out of basic medication and food” due to the “restriction of shipments in the Strait of Hormuz,” said NPR. Some of this food, especially dry and canned goods, can “be stored for a long time,” Bob Kitchen, the vice president of emergencies and humanitarian action with the International Rescue Committee, said to NPR. But health care supplies are a different story, as most of the “medicines or treatments for malnutrition will expire.”

Many of these countries rely almost entirely on foreign aid for medical supplies. Sudan, for example, has “no manufacturing capacity and is entirely dependent on imported medication,” Omer Sharfy of Save the Children in Sudan said to NPR. This means health care workers “won’t be able to find alternatives in the local market.” The war has also “disrupted the movement of medical supplies from WHO’s global logistics hub in Dubai,” said the World Health Organization. By March 11, just 12 days into the war, over “50 emergency supply requests, intended to benefit over 1.5 million people across 25 countries,” were “affected, resulting in significant backlogs.”

Even countries far away from the conflict are bearing the brunt of these scarcities. Fears of syringe and IV shortages in South Korea are “spreading through Korea’s health care sector, prompting authorities to urge medical providers to refrain from stockpiling,” said The Korea Times. The problem is not that the Persian Gulf countries are “major drug producers. They’re not,” said health care news nonprofit Healthbeat. But these nations do “form ‘a critical pharmaceutical transit hub,’ where drugs and their basic ingredients from India, Europe and China routinely pass before heading to Africa, Asia and the United States.”

What next?

Some are hopeful that the two-week ceasefire, announced by President Donald Trump and initially agreed to by Iran, will allow the flow of medicine to restart. But while the U.S. has backed a ceasefire, Israel has continued its assault on the region, carrying out a series of strikes in Lebanon. Iran reclosed the strait in “response to Israeli attacks against the Hezbollah militant group,” said The Associated Press. Iran later accused the U.S. of also violating the deal and claimed that a long-term ceasefire was “unreasonable.”

Even before the strait was closed again, experts say it is unlikely its opening would have made a huge difference in moving global medical supplies. The ceasefire deal would not lead to a “‘mass exodus’ of ships through the Strait of Hormuz,” said The Guardian. The deal also allows Iran and Oman to “charge a fee of up to $2 million a ship on vessels transiting through the strait,” which could further limit the amount of supplies that are able to pass.

With no end to the larger skirmish in sight, fears persist that the shipment of medical supplies could remain at risk. All of these events are happening in an industry that was “decimated by funding cuts from the United States and Europe last year,” said The Washington Post, and is “now straining to meet demand that grows with each additional day of war.”

What happened

The two-week ceasefire announced by President Donald Trump and Iranian officials earlier this week faltered Wednesday as the U.S., Iran and Israel argued over whether it covered the Israel-Hezbollah fight in Lebanon. Iran also accused the U.S. of violating several tenets of the agreement, and closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israeli strikes on Lebanon that killed at least 254 people and wounded 1,100 more.

Who said what

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key mediator of the ceasefire, said it applied to “everywhere, including Lebanon.” Israel said Lebanon was not included, and President Donald Trump agreed Wednesday. U.S. allies, including the leaders of France, Australia and Spain, said Lebanon needed to be covered by the ceasefire.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Lebanon was included, and the “ceasefire terms are clear and explicit: the U.S. must choose — ceasefire or continued war via Israel.” Vice President JD Vance called the dispute a “legitimate misunderstanding.” Iran likely “thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t,” he told reporters, adding that Israel nonetheless “actually offered to be — frankly, to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon.”

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “faced swift criticism from political opponents on the left and right” over the U.S.-Iran deal, Politico said. “The ceasefire stopped the Israeli military campaign much sooner than Israel wanted,” and while Netanyahu had “no choice but to go along,” he can claim ongoing Lebanon strikes “as a victory with the Israeli public.”

What next?

Despite Wednesday’s “dueling threats to resume attacks if the ceasefire fell apart,” The New York Times said, Trump “seemed determined to plow ahead” with diplomacy, saying Vance would lead a delegation to Islamabad for peace talks starting Saturday.

After five weeks of war, Donald Trump has claimed “total and complete victory” over Iran. Tehran begs to differ. Agreeing to the conditional two-week ceasefire, Iranian officials said their country had dealt a “crushing historic defeat” to the US and Israel.

Meanwhile, commentators are pointing to real, quiet wins for both China and Pakistan, whose behind-the-scenes roles in pushing for the ceasefire have increased their global standing.

What did the commentators say?

Benjamin Netanyahu “looks set to be the biggest loser” of the conflict, said The Guardian’s senior international correspondent, Peter Beaumont. Pressuring Trump to agree to his decades-long goal of neutralising Iran has “turned out to be a bust”. The “political consensus” between Israel and the US is “visibly crumbling”, and there’s “domestic fallout” for Netanyahu in the run-up to an election.

Trump has also emerged as a “strategic loser”, said the South China Morning Post. Washington failed to achieve regime change in Tehran, and Iran retained control of the Strait of Hormuz, the conflict’s “most strategic asset”. Meanwhile, the US has used up “sophisticated air-defence missiles” intercepting “far cheaper Iranian drones and projectiles”. Iran’s nuclear programme has survived, along with the “stockpile of enriched uranium” from which it could “potentially produce a viable weapon”, said The Times’ Middle East correspondent, Samer Al-Atrush. That “will not be given up easily”.

Tehran’s blocking of the Strait of Hormuz was a “high-risk” strategy that “paid off”, said DW. It “secured a ceasefire without conceding defeat”, which it “can present as proof that it withstood the US and all its military might”. The Iranian regime “survived, and bought time to try to shape” the phase of negotiations “on more favourable terms”.

In the longer term, it is actually Beijing that most “stands to gain”. America has “moved many military assets to the Middle East to protect shipping”, which “leaves fewer resources for the Indo‑Pacific, where Washington and Beijing compete for influence”. China has also had the chance to present itself “as a responsible global actor”, with its power brokers widely credited with pushing Iran to agree to the ceasefire.

China is “shaping up to be the big winner”, said Roger Boyes, The Times’ diplomatic editor. Unlike the US, it expected Iran to seize the strait and “amassed large oil reserves”, making itself “more resilient” to an energy crisis. “As a significant exporter” of other goods, it was still initially “hit hard” by the strait’s closure but then the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ordered that China-bound vessels could pass through “toll-free”.

Pakistan’s credentials have been burnished, too. Its role in brokering the ceasefire was “unexpected” but the Islamabad Accord is the country’s “most consequential diplomatic moment in a decade”, said former UN peacekeeper Anil Raman on NDTV. Capitalising on its good relations with both the US and Iran, Islamabad will “press hard to consolidate” this “return to global relevance”.

What next?

J.D. Vance is due to lead a US delegation in negotiations with Tehran in Pakistan this weekend. The White House said the ceasefire between the US and Iran has created an “opening for a diplomatic solution and long-term peace”.

But the specifics of the terms to be discussed “remain murky”, said the BBC, “as is the current state of shipping traffic” through the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian forces have warned that ships would be “destroyed” if they tried to sail through without permission.

The United States under President Donald Trump is, for the time being, the brightest star in a growing network of ultra-nationalist governments hoping to reshape the global order in their authoritarian mold. While MAGA America is the powerhouse, it’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Hungary that has been the backbone of the worldwide lurch rightward. Yet as Hungarians prepare to vote on April 12, Orbán and his Fidesz party seem headed for an electoral upset that could send shock waves across hard-right spheres.

Government ‘revered by authoritarians everywhere’

A “pro-Kremlin, anti-EU strongman” who has spent nearly two decades “building a template for Christian nationalist rule,” Orbán is now the “cornerstone of President Trump’s vision for Europe,” Axios said. In the 16 years since he was first elected, Orbán forged a “state apparatus — courts, media, election administration — loyal to his party” and has “never lost under the system he built.”

As the “center of the Trump administration’s shifting policy toward Europe,” Orbán’s Hungary “firmly” aligned itself with “far-right parties and immigration restrictionists in countries such as France and Germany,” said Al Jazeera. While this has “mired relationships in Europe,” it has also been a “source of inspiration for the U.S.”

“Whatever Hungary decides will resonate throughout Europe,” said Argentine President Javier Milei, a South American nationalist, during his address at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Budapest. Orbán is a “beacon” for those who “refuse to accept that the West’s destiny is one of managed decline.”

CPAC-Hungary, where Milei spoke, has become an “important calendar event for Euro-Atlantic hard-right networking,” said Balkan Insight. The event hosted “667 foreign guests from 51 countries” who heard from “prominent European political figures” such as far-right Dutch PVV leader Geert Wilders and Alice Weidel of Germany’s ultra-nationalist AfD. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while initially scheduled to appear in person, instead sent a “warm message of support” in pretaped remarks played on the conference’s first day, Cleveland Jewish News said.

Orbán is “revered by authoritarians everywhere,” said Salon. But as a “path-breaking autocrat” who has demonstrated a “new soft fascism,” his potential loss is making many of those same authoritarians “nervous.”

Effects that would ‘reverberate well beyond Hungary’

Should Orbán’s government fall, the “dreams” of his authoritarian admirers in the MAGA movement “might be shattered” as well, said Vox. As a “close Russian ally,” Orbán’s loss would be a “considerable boon to the Ukrainian war effort — and a significant blow to the Kremlin.” Cumulatively, then, Hungary’s elections are “not just like any other vote,” and could end up as “one of the most significant elections of the entire year, and perhaps even the decade.”

An Orbán loss would prompt authoritarian allies to ask “what it could mean for them,” said Salon. “After all,” his “anti-democratic” domestic policies were designed to “not only prevent a defeat from happening” but to “keep people from ever wanting it to happen.” Such a defeat would “reverberate well beyond Hungary,” calling into question the “durability of a political system” marked by “hardline nationalism and an erosion of democratic checks” and “touted as a blueprint for reshaping Western democracy” by many conservatives, said Reuters.

“I am here for a simple reason,” Vice President JD Vance said at a pro-Orbán rally in Budapest this week: “I admire what you are fighting for.” But Vance’s visit may have ultimately done “more harm for Orbán than good,” The Guardian said. By asserting that the Trump administration would work with any eventual Hungarian elected leader, the vice president seemingly undercut Orbán’s campaign promise that “he — and his connections — were the only means of keeping Hungary safe in a volatile world.”

For some observers, Vance’s visit is unlikely to change the electoral calculus in Hungary, where “domestic issues such as the ⁠cost of living dominate the election,” said Reuters. No matter what happens in Hungary’s immediate future, Orbán’s global footprint will surely be felt for years to come.

What happened

Ben Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most decorated living veteran, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with two counts of “war crime — murder” and three counts of abetting such crimes, according to documents presented in court on Wednesday. The charges relate to the killings of five unarmed civilians while he was the patrol commander of an elite Special Air Service Regiment in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2012.

Who said what

Roberts-Smith is “only the second Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign to be charged with a war crime,” said The Associated Press. He has “consistently denied all wrongdoing,” said the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. But his “public image was shattered in 2018,” when several newspapers published articles accusing him of killing Afghan civilians, The New York Times said. He sued for defamation and lost. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said in a statement that the five Afghans at the center of the charges were unarmed, “under the control” of the Australian military and “not taking part in hostilities at the time of their alleged murder.”

What next?

Roberts-Smith’s trial could become the “most consequential military prosecution” in Australian history, said the Times. The maximum penalty for each charge is life in prison.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening said he had agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran, subject to a “COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz.” The announcement defused his threat from earlier in the day that “a whole civilization will die tonight” absent a deal.

Iran said it would abide by the ceasefire, proposed by Pakistan, but maintain control of the Strait of Hormuz. Israel also agreed to stop attacking Iran, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday morning the “ceasefire does not include Lebanon,” contradicting an earlier statement from Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Who said what

Iranian state TV said Trump had accepted Iran’s terms in a “humiliating retreat.” Trump told APF that the ceasefire was “100%” a “total and complete victory” for the U.S. His “apocalyptic threat” of civilizational erasure “certainly helped him find” the “offramp he had been seeking for weeks,” said The New York Times. But his “down-to-the-wire tactical victory” resolved “none of the fundamental issues that led to the war.”

The ceasefire’s terms were “clouded in uncertainty,” The Associated Press said. Trump said on social media that Iran’s 10-point plan was “a workable basis on which to negotiate.” But that plan appears to cross several of Trump’s red lines. Notably, Iran and Oman “plan to charge transit fees for vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz,” CNN said, something that wasn’t in place before the war. Iran’s caveat that “safe passage” through the strait was contingent on “coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces” and “technical limitations” means Iran will keep the “power to speed up passage, or slow it down,” The Wall Street Journal said. The U.S. will be “helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump posted. “Big money will be made,” and “Iran can start the reconstruction process.”

What next?

The “ceasefire appeared shaky in its early hours,” Politico said, with Iran firing missiles at Gulf Arab countries and Israel continuing to strike Iran. The U.S. and Iran “are expected to hold peace talks on Friday in Islamabad,” Axios said.

Donald Trump’s threats to wipe out a civilisation and Israel’s alleged use of white phosphorus in Lebanon have once again shone a spotlight on the rules of war.

“Collective punishment on a population and the targeting of protected civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international law,” legal experts told ABC News of Trump’s threats, while his promises to take the country’s oil, “which could amount to pillaging” is also “barred under the law”.

In Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said it was able to verify that Israel was again using the “notorious weapon”, “reigniting accusations that it is breaking the laws of war”, said The Guardian.

When asked whether his threats constituted a war crime, Donald Trump answered, “You know the war crime? The war crime is allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon”.

So what constitutes a ‘war crime’?

War crimes are “violations of international humanitarian law” that, unlike genocide and crimes against humanity, “always take place in the context of an armed conflict, whether international or not”, said the United Nations.

These include cases of murder, torture, pillage, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and non-combatants such as humanitarian aid workers, as well as the deliberate targeting of religious and educational buildings, hospitals and, in some cases, vital infrastructure such as power stations and key transport links.

The use of weapons banned by international conventions, such as chemical weapons or cluster munitions, can also be considered a war crime.

What are the major conventions and treaties?

The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols introduced in subsequent decades are international treaties that serve as the “most important rules limiting the barbarity of war”, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Ratified by all 196 UN member states, in times of war they protect non-combatants, such as civilians, medics, aid workers, and those who can no longer fight, including the wounded, sick or prisoners of war.

There are also additional conventions banning the use of biological weapons (1972), certain conventional weapons (1980), chemical weapons (1993), anti-personnel mines (1997), and cluster munitions (2008).

What happens if someone breaks the rules?

The International Criminal Court (ICC), established under the Rome Statute in 2002, “investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression”.

“Champions of the court say it deters would-be war criminals, bolsters the rule of law, and offers justice to victims of atrocities,” said the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) think tank. Yet it has, since inception, also “faced criticism from many parties” and has been fundamentally weakened by the refusal of several major powers to join.

As well as the US, Russia and China, non-signatories include India, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Sudan, Syria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Recent arrest warrants for national leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have “generated mixed reactions from Washington and raised questions over the future of the court”, said the CFR.

As “no formal ICC jurisdiction applies” to countries that have not signed up to the ICC, the “more immediate legal framework” remains the Geneva conventions of 1949 onwards, said The Guardian.

The Conventions and their Protocols contain stringent rules to deal with those who commit what are known as “grave breaches”, who must be pursued and tried or extradited, whatever their nationality.

The key point here, said Professor Andrew Clapham in OpionioJuris, is that the rules for offences deemed war crimes under the Geneva code apply to “everyone irrespective of whether their state has ratified the ICC Statute, and they can be tried in multiple states around the world, irrespective of whether those states are parties to the ICC Statute”.

“The idea that anyone can avoid accountability for grave breaches by sticking to non-ICC states for one’s trips is fallacious when that person is alleged to have committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.”

Russian commanders are charging “up to £30,000 to spare soldiers from the front lines in Ukraine”, said The Telegraph. Recruits unwilling or unable to pay are “reset” – a “euphemism for sending them to their deaths” in large-scale offensives with astronomical casualty rates.

Wounded soldiers must “pay thousands” to be declared unfit for active service, said PBS. Those who do not are “forced to literally limp into battle”. Seth Jones, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that injured soldiers, sometimes on crutches, are being “used as bait” to “draw fire” from hidden Ukrainian artillery.

Estimates put the number of Russian casualties in the war against Ukraine since 2022 at around 1.2 million, according to the CSIS. Ukrainian officials have also claimed that in March Russia suffered its highest number of losses – more than 35,000 killed or seriously wounded – since the launch of Ukraine’s “Army of Drones” programme last year, said the UK Defence Journal.

‘System of extortion’

“Corruption and slave labour have long been features of the Russian and Soviet armies,” said The Economist. Soldiers are not just seen as “grunts” – serving as “cannon fodder” for their superiors – but more troublingly as a “source of enrichment”.

There is a “system of extortion and punishment” in the Russian ranks, where infantry soldiers must “buy their own” military gear. Other collections begin “under the pretext of raising money for drones, equipment or food”, but payments are expected to continue. “Soldiers who refuse to pay may be thrown into dug-out pits for torture.”

In extreme cases, sources have reported that commanders “requisition troops’ bank cards and PIN codes” before sending them into battle. “The dead are declared missing, and commanders withdraw the money they earned from their bank accounts”. As one soldier was told by a new commanding officer, survival is “not a matter of luck, but of ability to pay”.

In the Russian military, “men learn quickly to fear their commanders more than their foe”, said PBS. Videos appear on social media depicting the “horrific punishments” faced by soldiers if they fail to pay up, with reports of some “being locked in cages, electrocuted and sexually assaulted”. According to the independent Russian station Radio Echo, nearly 12,000 complaints were filed over six months last year, accusing commanders of “corruption and violence towards their own men”.

‘Public resentment’

The Russian military recruitment drive has “poured blood and money into the system, resulting in a vast battlefield economy”, said The Economist. The front line has become a “marketplace where everything has a price: drones, medals, home leave and life itself”.

The problem is widespread, said The New York Times. In the last two years, “at least 12 high-ranking Russian military officials and generals, as well as dozens of lower-ranking officers, have been indicted on corruption charges”.

Most recently, Lieutenant Colonel Konstantin Frolov – known as “Executioner” – has been put on trial in a military court, facing charges of fraud, bribery and weapons trafficking. He is accused by the Investigative Committee (Russia’s equivalent of the FBI) of leading a scheme where “more than 30 soldiers and medics” in his regiment “used weapons to shoot themselves in order to obtain payouts for battlefield injuries”. The plot reportedly defrauded the army of “200 million rubles, or $2.6 million”.

This case in particular has “fed public resentment of the economic and social privileges” of high-ranking officials, who are accused of perpetuating the war “only for the money”.

What happened

The U.S. military over the weekend rescued two airmen whose F-15E was shot down over Iran last week. U.S. forces quickly rescued the pilot deep in hostile territory, but the second crew member was not exfiltrated until early Sunday following a “sprawling, high-risk rescue mission” involving about 100 Special Operations commandoes, the CIA and dozens of military aircraft, The Wall Street Journal said, citing President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials.

Who said what

The F-15E crew member, a weapons system officer, was injured when he ejected from the jet, but was able to climb about 7,000 feet and wedge himself into a crevice to evade the Iranian forces searching for him, officials said. The “almost cinematic mission” also “faced major obstacles,” The Associated Press said. Iran said it shot down at least two MH-6 helicopters during the rescue, and the U.S. bombed two of its own MC-130Js to protect sensitive technology after the $100 million stealth transport planes got stuck on a makeshift runway in remote Iran.

What next?

The rescue mission gave both Iran and the U.S. “a new narrative as the war enters its sixth week,” the Journal said. Tehran “portrayed the downing of the jet as proof that the U.S. could be bloodied” and did not have full “air superiority,” while Trump called the operation an “Easter miracle” in “triumphant interviews and posts” as he “seeks to mobilize flagging public support for the war.”

The EU’s longest-serving current head of government has turned his country from a liberal democracy into something quite different. Orbán has been variously described as a populist strongman, an authoritarian capitalist, a “soft autocrat” and a “21st-century dictator”.

He himself announced in 2014 that he was building an “illiberal state”, parting from “Western European dogmas” and learning from Turkey, Russia and China. By then his Fidesz party had already rewritten Hungary’s constitution, modified its electoral system, and packed the courts and other institutions with party loyalists. Orbán's Hungary is seen as an inspiration to the populist Right across Europe and in the US, particularly to Donald Trump.

What is Orbán’s background?

Born in 1963, in a village some 35 miles west of Budapest where his father worked on a collective farm, he went on to study law in Budapest, and political philosophy at Oxford, on a scholarship. A former member of the Young Communists, he became a fierce critic of communist rule, co-founding Fidesz – originally a liberal centre-left youth movement – which demanded free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops.

In 1998, he led Fidesz to electoral victory, becoming Europe's youngest prime minister. A year later, Hungary joined Nato. By then, Orbán had already set about transforming Fidesz into a conservative nationalist party; but in 2002, he lost his re-election campaign to a Socialist coalition. According to his biographer, he resolved to return to power and change “the rules of the game” so that he’d never lose again.

How did he do that?

Fidesz was elected in 2010 with 53% of the vote, but quirks of seat distribution gave it a two-thirds majority – giving Orbán, as PM, considerable power to reshape the country. Ahead of the 2014 election, Fidesz passed a new electoral law that cut the number of seats from 386 to 199; districts were redrawn behind closed doors to favour Fidesz's rural strongholds. Voting rights were granted to ethnic Hungarians living in neighbouring countries, who voted over 95% for Fidesz.

He quickly muzzled the free press. In 2010, a new law created a media council with the power to levy heavy fines on outlets for “unbalanced” anti-government reporting. The biggest opposition newspaper, Népszabadság, was bought then shuttered in 2016 by a company linked to one of the PM's allies; TV and radio stations and websites also came under the control of friendly oligarchs. It’s estimated that today, Fidesz directly or indirectly controls 80% to 90% of the media.

Did Hungarians approve of this?

To a large extent, yes. Elections are free, if not fair, in the sense that opposition politicians are allowed to run, and ballots are counted correctly. And Fidesz has won three more general elections since 2010, never gaining less than 49% of the vote. Orbán has tried to unite the nation against perceived enemies, external and internal: refugees, particularly during the 2015 migrant crisis; the EU, with its “oppressive”, “imperial” system; gay people; “globalists” such as George Soros, the Hungarian-born US financier who has funded liberal causes across the world (and who paid for Orbán’s Oxford scholarship); and, more recently, Ukraine.

Orbán portrays Hungary as a “Christian democracy” under continual, existential threat – a canny policy in a country with a long history of foreign domination at the hands of Ottomans, Habsburgs and Soviets. Fidesz ideology is based on the pillars of “God, Nation and Family”: LGBTQ+ rights have been curtailed, and pro-natal tax breaks have been given to incentivise women to have children.

How are his relations with the EU?

Orbán's flouting of democratic norms has meant constant conflict with Brussels. In 2022, the EU parliament passed a symbolic resolution declaring Hungary to be a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy”. Brussels has frozen billions of euros in EU funding, and has launched legal challenges against laws passed by Fidesz; but has so far stopped short of invoking the “nuclear option” of suspending its voting rights in the European Council. Orbán has continually sought to hobble EU action against Russia, a close ally that provides nuclear technology, and low-priced oil and gas to Hungary.

In February, Orbán used veto powers to block a €90 billion EU aid package to Ukraine, which he blames for disrupting oil supplies, and also claims to view as a military threat. He said this month that Hungarians should “fear the EU more than Russia”.

Why is his rule under threat now?

In the elections on 12 April, Orbán faces a challenge from Tisza, the centre-right opposition party led by Péter Magyar, formerly of Fidesz.

The “Orbán model” relied on delivering rising living standards in return for political dominance; but the economy has stagnated and living standards have declined. Magyar’s politics are not dissimilar to Orbán's, but he paints the PM’s rule as corrupt and “feudalistic” – with some justification. Hungary is often described as a kleptocracy. A circle of oligarchs tied to Orbán dominates the economy and lucrative public contracts. Orbán’s son-in-law is one of Hungary's richest men. A recent scandal concerns György Matolcsy, the former national bank chief, who spent €210 million renovating the bank, and had a deluxe bathroom made for himself, complete with a golden toilet brush. The golden toilet brush has become a symbol of Orbán’s elite.

Will Orbán lose?

Tisza is leading by at least 10 percentage points in independent polls, probably enough to offset Fidesz’s structural advantages. However, while Orbán and Fidesz retain control of much of the media and the machinery of state, the outcome, and the PM’s willingness to accept defeat, are far from certain.

From his podium at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Donald Trump reminded his base how he differed from past presidents. “It turned out that I was able to stop wars from happening,” he said.

That was in 2024, said Natalie Allison at The Washington Post. A year later, the newly installed president was back at CPAC, boasting about being “a peacemaker, not a conqueror”.

Notable absences

This year, Trump skipped the jamboree for the first time in a decade: he was too busy managing the war with Iran he’d launched a month earlier. And he wasn’t the only high-profile no show, said Katy Balls in The Sunday Times. At the last event, J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio spoke, and Elon Musk ramped up the carnival atmosphere by brandishing a chainsaw on stage; this time, one attendee noted that there were more journalists present than politicians. That the event was rather more subdued than usual was due to several factors – including its relocation from DC to Texas; but the lack of buzz was indicative of the troubled state of the GOP as it gears up for the midterms.

A little over a year into his second term, Trump is discovering that for all his efforts to extend his authority, there are still constraints on what he can do, said Gerard Baker in The Times. Public revulsion has forced him to temper his migrant deportation policy; the Supreme Court has struck out his signature tariffs policy; the markets are squealing about the war in Iran. And even in his own backyard, the voters are restive: in late March, a Florida Democrat seized a red seat that takes in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

Base betrayal

The die-hards remain intensely loyal, said Elaine Godfrey in The Atlantic, but polls show that Trump is losing support among the coalition of younger Americans and Latinos that gave him his victory in 2024. Many already felt betrayed by his attempt to block the Epstein files and by the impact of his Big Beautiful Bill on the deficit. Now, they’re furious that he has taken the US into a war that is costing billions and further driving up the cost of living.

In the manosphere, prominent voices who rallied behind his “anti-woke” rhetoric in 2024 are complaining that Americans were duped. The podcaster Joe Rogan has called the war “insane, based on what [Trump] ran on”. There is dissent within Maga too, some of which has veered into antisemitism: Tucker Carlson and others have been peddling the line that Israel manipulated Trump into the war. Disenchanted Trump fans are unlikely to vote Democrat in November; but they might easily just tune out of the election – and so inadvertently deliver a “blue wave”.

As Donald Trump’s war wears on, it becomes increasingly clear that he has no “overarching strategy” and is now fighting a war of attrition, said The Guardian.

America is still striking at Iranian targets while building up troops in the region. Iran, in turn, keeps attacking Israel and the Gulf states. Last week, it hit a US airbase in Saudi Arabia, injuring 12 US personnel and causing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of damage. Tehran’s allies in Yemen have now entered the fray. The Strait of Hormuz remains shut. And while his officials talk about peace being “weeks, not months” away, Trump is still warning of far worse to come as he “searches for leverage”.

This week, the president said that the US could capture or “obliterate” Iran’s oil export hub, Kharg Island, and possibly even target Iran's energy and water systems – “war crimes by another name”.

Miles apart

Trump threatened to destroy Iran’s energy infrastructure last month, said Andrew Neil in the Daily Mail, only to row back, saying there would be no strikes for ten days to allow time for talks. That deadline elapses on Monday, but all the evidence suggests that he had no plan and was simply “playing for time”. And while he claims that Tehran is “begging for a deal”, the Iranians seem to think they have him “on the run”, and deny talks are even taking place.

Even if meaningful negotiations were on the horizon, the two sides are miles apart, said Richard Spencer in The Times. Iran is demanding not only an end to sanctions, but “an end to all attacks, including Israel’s, on Hamas, Hezbollah and other arms of the ‘resistance’”. It also wants reparations, and “sovereignty” over the Strait of Hormuz – a hint that it plans to charge for access, as Egypt does with the Suez Canal. The US, in turn, insists that Iran end its nuclear programme; give up its enriched uranium; and cut off support to its proxies.

When it comes to Trump’s rhetoric, a pattern is emerging, said Emily Maitlis in The i Paper. He reserves his most bellicose threats for the weekend, when the financial markets are closed, then starts talking up the possibility of peace so that the outlook seems more positive by the time traders are back at their desks. The markets, though, are getting wise to this tactic.

‘Escalate or talk’

As for Tehran, it seems unmoved by Trump’s threats. The fact is, Iran is far more capable than the US of both withstanding and inflicting pain, said The Economist. While the world counts the economic costs of this war, the regime is “making a mint” from sanctions-busting oil sales. Domestically, its hardline Revolutionary Guards remain in control. And overseas, its proxies continue to do its bidding: last Saturday, the Houthis provided a stark reminder of their capacity to ramp up the chaos when they fired missiles at Israel.

Trump, by contrast, is flailing. “Despite operational successes and his nonsensical claim of having already changed the regime in Tehran, he has yet to win any substantive gains from the fighting.” His choice now is to “escalate or talk”.

Given the risks of escalation, Trump will probably seek a deal to reopen Hormuz, said Gideon Rachman in the FT. But any outcome that leaves Iran with practical control over Gulf energy exports would be deeply unpopular with those states. It has even been suggested that the UAE and Saudi Arabia could “join the conflict rather than accept that outcome”.

‘The regime is hurting’

Trump will find the Iranians to be very tough negotiators, said Matthew Gould in The Times. The regime has shown its capacity before to withstand “repeated blows”, and is determined to stay in power no matter how much pain it causes its people. By contrast, Trump will be worrying about popular opinion ahead of the midterms. He is reportedly already “bored” with the conflict. And if it chooses, Tehran can use its trigger-happy proxies to derail the talks at any moment. That said, Iran has a habit of overplaying its hand and, “for all its bravado, the regime is hurting”.

Pakistan, in its role as mediator, has intensified its diplomatic efforts over the past week, said Saeed Shah in The Guardian; but Tehran is so far refusing to engage in face-to-face talks with US officials. Trump began the war confident that it wouldn’t take long to topple the Iranian regime, said Steve Bloomfield in The Observer. Its nuclear programme had been weakened, its allies had been hobbled, so the US and Israel seized the moment. Yet in the past five weeks, the mullahs have actually tightened their grip on power; and it’s the ordinary Iranians, who Trump promised to save, who will pay the price for this war. If it ends soon, other economies will bounce back. Iran could feel the impact for generations to come.

Almost from the moment she was elected in 2022, Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first female prime minister, has seemed “in complete control”, said Hannah Roberts on Politico. The working-class girl who grew up in a down-at-heel Roman suburb, and shot to power as leader of the hard-right Brothers of Italy party, had – until last week – been shrouded in “an aura of political invincibility”.

Her centre-right coalition – dominated by her own party in alliance with Matteo Salvini’s populist party, Lega, and the late Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia – has proved the most stable government Italy has had in years. But that invincible aura has now been shattered by her decision to call a referendum on her proposed judicial reforms, a flagship policy she claimed was needed to end supposed political interference by the courts.

The decision backfired spectacularly: in a vote last week that many considered a plebiscite on her leadership, some 54% of Italians opposed the constitutional amendment, which, among other things, would have separated the career paths of judges and public prosecutors, and reconstituted the bodies that oversaw them.

To Meloni’s critics, this proposal was a threat to judicial independence, and Italy’s three largest cities – Rome, Milan and Naples – all convincingly rejected it. In Naples, where the “No” vote received 71% support, dozens of lawyers and judges revelled in her resounding defeat: at the headquarters of the National Magistrates’ Association they sung the famous anti-fascist song “Bella Ciao” as they quaffed champagne. Her defeat has also given the opposition reason to be cheerful: Italy’s “torpid politics suddenly look competitive again”.

‘Spirit of vengeance’

The PM’s big mistake was to politicise the reforms, said Mario Orfeo in La Repubblica (Rome). Italy’s judicial system is in desperate need of overhaul, not least on account of its routine staff shortages and excessively long trials.

Rather than attempting to make it more efficient, however, Meloni was driven by “the spirit of vengeance”. For decades, the Italian Right has raged about the court’s perceived left-wing bias, a rage stoked by the “Mani pulite” (“Clean Hands”) investigations of the 1990s, in which hundreds of politicians were accused of corruption and had to stand down. The outrage grew under the premiership of media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, who had to face dozens of lawsuits over his business dealings, and who damned the judicial system as “a cancer of democracy”.

It’s in that spirit that Meloni and her allies – enraged by judicial rulings that have blocked plans to send asylum seekers to Albania and to build a $13.5 billion bridge to Sicily – approached this referendum. A “parallel Mafia”, is how the justice minister, Carlo Nordio, depicted prosecutors. Italy will be flooded with illegal immigrants and rapists, warned Meloni, if the “Yes” vote loses.

‘Surprisingly clumsy’

Meloni, who has immense political talents, has prospered by being pragmatic and forming viable alliances, said Luzi Bernet in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zürich). But on this occasion she was “surprisingly clumsy”, foolishly assuming that her parliamentary majority would guarantee a simple victory.

But it wasn’t just hubris that led to her defeat, said Christian Rocca on Linkiesta. That “heavy blow” should also be put down to her close relationship with the “radioactive” Donald Trump: in Italy, where fears of rising petrol and electricity prices are rife, Trump’s Iran war is deeply unpopular.

This defeat marks a “major political turning point”, said Le Monde (Paris). Meloni is now weakened: the opposition Democratic Party, the Five Star Movement and the Italian Socialist Party, all smell blood. They are hamstrung, though, by a “glaring lack of leadership”. But a defeat like this will expose the PM to internal attacks and “sow doubt in the ranks”, said Federico Capurso in La Stampa (Turin). So ahead of the 2027 general election, Meloni will have to spend a year “in the trenches”. She may claim nothing has changed: the reality is that “everything has already changed”.

India has long recognised a “third gender” and was one of the first countries to allow people legally to self-identify as transgender. But its parliament has just passed controversial amendments to such laws, which remove the right to self-identification and narrow the definition of ‘transgender’.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government got the bill through both houses last week, despite a boycott by opposition parties and widespread protests by the LGBTQ+ community.

Virendra Kumar, minister for social justice and empowerment, says the amendments still protect people who “face severe social exclusion due to their biological condition”. But Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi called it a “brazen attack” on transgender rights.

‘Third gender’

People of a “third gender” have been recognised in India for thousands of years. They feature heavily in Hindu holy texts – the half-male, half-female deity Ardhanarishvara, for example – and were often revered under Muslim rulers of the Mughal Empire.

The most common third-gender group in South Asia are the hijras: often born male, they dress in traditionally female clothing, and many choose to undergo castration; others are born intersex. Hijras were traditionally “treated with both fear and respect”, said Harvard Divinity School but that “did not survive” colonial rule. The British, “shocked by third-gender people”, classified them as criminals in 1871. Criminalisation was repealed shortly after independence, but years of stigmatisation “took a toll”.

Hijras are expected to perform ritual roles at Hindu births and weddings but are otherwise “often treated with contempt” and “almost always excluded from employment and education”. They are “often stricken by poverty” and “victims of violence and abuse”.

But in 2014, India’s Supreme Court “officially recognised third-gender people as being citizens deserving of equal rights”. And that paved the way for the 2019 Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, which included the hijras and the kinnars, another third-gender group, along with transwomen and transmen in a more inclusive definition of transgender people. The act also affirmed the right to self-identify as transgender or non-binary.

‘A major reversal’

The new amendments to the 2019 law remove those rights to self-identify, requiring instead a medical certification of gender reassignment. It also limits the definition of transgender to intersex people and those from socio-cultural groups such as the hijras.

The government argues that the changes protect those facing “extreme and oppressive” discrimination, and strengthen laws against exploitation and trafficking. They say the definition of transgender is “too vague” and makes it difficult to identify the most marginalised; a narrower definition would help welfare benefits “reach those who need them”.

But critics say the new bill will exclude many, and that mandatory medical certification for those undergoing gender transition “undermines dignity and autonomy”. The amendments “appear to contradict the 2014 ruling”, which held that “requiring medical procedures for recognition was both unethical and unlawful”, said Delhi-based journalist Namita Singh in The Independent.

“It has shattered our identity,” transgender rights activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi told reporters. India’s last census in 2011 recorded nearly half a million people in the “other” gender category. The true number is likely far higher; some estimates reach six million.

If India’s president signs the bill into law, it will be “a major reversal” of “hard-won rights”, said Jayshree Bajoria, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. It also puts people at risk by introducing additional offences of “coercing or alluring” people to be transgender. That’s “reminiscent of the colonial-era laws” that criminalised hijras.

This law, said N Kavitha Rameshwar in The Times of India, “seeks to be that one rogue wave that will wash away” a decade of progress in transgender rights, “as if it were all but a castle of sand”.

Much has been made of the closing of the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran war, given that the passage is a major lifeline for the global economy. But it is just one of five major waterways that play a significant role in world trade — several of which have their own history of conflicts.

Panama Canal

As the only entry in this list located in the Americas, the Panama Canal is a vital waterway for one main reason: It connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. This shortcut lets ships “avoid the lengthy and hazardous voyage around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America,” said the International Trade Administration. Not forcing ships to circumvent an entire continent “contributes to the reduction of carbon emissions and helps mitigate the environmental impact of global maritime transportation.”

President Donald Trump has pushed for the U.S. to gain full control of the canal, but the “facts are that Panama has managed the canal incredibly well,” said the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. The “revenues generated by the canal are important for Panama, representing about 4% of their GDP. They represent less than 1/10,000 of the U.S. GDP.”

Strait of Hormuz

The strait, which cuts between Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, is one of the “world’s busiest oil shipping channels,” said BBC News. It is used by almost all of the world’s major oil companies, and in 2025, about “20 million barrels of oil and oil products passed through the Strait of Hormuz per day,” equivalent to nearly $600 billion of energy production per year.

The recent closure of the waterway could impact more than just gas prices, as the strait is also a “vital channel for imports to the Middle East, including food, medicines and technological supplies,” said BBC News. If it is not reopened soon, the ripple could “go far beyond the region, affecting energy markets, maritime transport and global supply chains,” said the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development.

Strait of Malacca

Like the Panama Canal, the Strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia is a passage between two oceans: the Indian and the Pacific. It represents “one of the most strategically, economically and politically significant maritime chokepoints in the world,” said The National Bureau of Asian Research. The strait is important to the nations around it as well as “great powers with interests in the Indo-Pacific.”

But climate change is leading to “increasing heavy rainfall and extreme flood heights” around the strait, said a study from World Weather Attribution. This could threaten the strait’s “densely populated regions,” particularly near heavily populated countries like Sri Lanka.

Suez Canal

The Suez Canal is the “only place that directly connects the waters of Europe with the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the countries of the Asia-Pacific,” said CNN, making it an essential waterway for cargo. If the canal didn’t exist, ships in the region would have to “traverse the entire continent of Africa, adding hefty costs and substantially extending their journey times.”

An example of the canal’s importance was seen in 2021, when a cargo ship became stuck across the waterway, cutting off the shipping lane. Any disruptions “can have outsized impacts on global commerce and energy markets,” said the Atlantic Council, given that over $1 trillion goods are transported through the Suez annually.

Turkish Straits

The two Turkish Straits hold “strategic importance as the only waterway connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea,” said Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But crossing these two straits, the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, is not easy, as “strong currents, sharp turns and unpredictable changes in weather conditions make it all the more difficult to navigate safely.”

During a war, the straits also become vital due to a 1936 treaty regulating their passage, which “states that, at times of conflict, ‘vessels of war belonging to belligerent powers shall not pass through the Straits,’” said Arab News. The implication of this treaty has often demonstrated Turkey’s “ultimate say over any warship if it deems its movement to be a security threat.”

As AI adoption across personal and professional vectors increases so do the risks the industry takes on in the name of commercial growth and financial dominance. Mere weeks into the Iran war, the conflict has laid bare many of the fault lines upon which the AI industry has built its foundations. The result is a potentially perfect storm of intersecting factors that could pop the artificial intelligence industry bubble.

What did the commentators say?

The sprawling artificial intelligence industry has “propped up global trade and investment” and “pushed stock markets from the U.S. to Asia to record highs” for the past three years, said the Financial Times. But as one of the most “power-hungry inventions ever,” with a “slick chip production line that can cross more than 70 borders before reaching the final consumer,” the “fragilities in the AI supply chain” are now at particular risk from the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. “Hidden behind the fury” of the war have been new insights into AI and its mass adoption that will be “felt by all of humanity,” said Bhaskar Chakravorti, the dean of global business at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, at Foreign Policy.

Admitting he’s been an “AI enthusiast since 1991,” Chakravoriti said that while research suggests AI “can be transformational in a breadth of areas,” he is now “placing a high probability on an AI doomsday.” Multiple distinct “horsemen” of possible disaster range from an “epistemic crisis” to “wars, hot and cold.” Industry observers have “fretted publicly about an AI bubble” for the “better part of the past year,” said The Atlantic. But where fears of an AI crash leading to a “chain reaction across the financial system” once “felt hypothetical,” they now seem “plausible and, to some, almost inevitable.”

The Iran war has particularly unveiled a “paradox” for AI, said Bloomberg. The war could “destabilize” significant monetary investment in AI from Gulf State allies, while “surging energy costs threaten to make data centers far more expensive to run.” The resulting “aftershocks of the conflict” seem “less likely to kill the AI boom entirely” than to “cleave the market in two,” leaving juggernauts like Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon the “most exposed to the shifting financial landscape.” High-profile startups like OpenAI and Anthropic, conversely, are poised to be “more insulated” from the fallout.

If the Iran war is what truly “brought conflict to Silicon Valley,” said Fox News, then the industry “was not ready” for what this conflict would expose. “Consider the threat receiving almost no attention,” which also carries perhaps the “greatest economic consequence for Americans at home”: helium production, a third of which takes place in Qatar. “No helium. No chips. No AI.” Without these elements, the “military edge carrying this war degrades.” The Middle East conflict “is proving, in real time” that the large-scale data centers used to power AI platforms can themselves be “wartime targets.”

What next?

The present day AI industry is “not made for the turbulence its leaders have helped usher in,” said The Atlantic. Even if AI manufacturers are “merely forced to slow down,” the “viability” of the enormous amounts of money leveraged to support the industry will “likely be called into question” in ways that could be “devastating for many.”

Although the war, as it currently stands, won’t see hyperscalers “walking away” from their existing infrastructure in the Middle East, it may “impact future investment in the case of drawn-out hostilities,” said CNBC. The war could “reduce the region’s appeal” as an AI data center hub, said the Financial Times, while national sovereign wealth funds might move to “redirect planned AI investments to local security needs.”

What happened

Israel’s parliament on Monday gave final approval to legislation that makes death by hanging the default punishment for West Bank Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis. The Knesset approved the bill 62-48 amid condemnation from human rights groups, Palestinians and several European governments.

Who said what

“From today, every terrorist will know, and the whole world will know, that whoever takes a life, the State of Israel will take their life,” far-right National Security Minister Ben-Gvir, the driving force behind the bill, told lawmakers. Capital punishment was already legal in Israel, but only two people have been executed in 78 years, most recently Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1962.

“In theory, Jewish Israelis could also be executed under the law,” the BBC said, but the law’s language precludes that in practice. “The intent is clearly for the law to apply to Palestinians and not to Jewish terrorism at all,” Yoav Sapir, the former head of Israel’s public defender’s office, told The New York Times.

What next?

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has already asked the Supreme Court to annul the law. The court will likely strike it down over its discriminatory provisions, Sapir told the Times.