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On Friday, Iran formally announced the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical strategic shipping chokepoints, to all international commercial vessels, a move tied to the newly implemented ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon. The announcement came directly from Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who clarified that open passage would be maintained for the duration of the ceasefire along the pre-coordinated shipping route already made public by Iranian authorities.

The development drew an initial response from former U.S. President Donald Trump, who first extended gratitude to Iran via a post on his Truth Social platform. Just 20 minutes after his first message, however, Trump issued a follow-up post that clarified U.S. policy would remain unchanged on one key front: “THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ IS COMPLETELY OPEN AND READY FOR BUSINESS AND FULL PASSAGE, BUT THE NAVAL BLOCKADE WILL REMAIN IN FULL FORCE AND EFFECT AS IT PERTAINS TO IRAN, ONLY, UNTIL SUCH TIME AS OUR TRANSACTION WITH IRAN IS 100% COMPLETE. THIS PROCESS SHOULD GO VERY QUICKLY IN THAT MOST OF THE POINTS ARE ALREADY NEGOTIATED.”

This multi-front ceasefire framework traces back to an agreement reached on April 7 between the U.S., Iran, and Israel, which established a two-week truce. The deal came together after Trump threatened a catastrophic full-scale attack on Iran, warning that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if an agreement was not reached that same day. All parties have explicitly stressed that the current truce does not mark a permanent end to the broader ongoing conflict across the Middle East.

Friday’s announcement follows the rollout of a tentative 10-day ceasefire between Israeli and Lebanese forces. The 50 days of heavy Israeli bombardment that preceded the truce have left a devastating humanitarian toll in Lebanon: thousands of Lebanese people have been killed or injured, including hundreds of children, and more than one million have been displaced from their homes.

A major unresolved question hangs over the truce: how Hezbollah, the Iran-aligned Lebanese militant group that was not included in the ceasefire negotiations, will respond. Hezbollah has launched ongoing rocket and drone strikes on Israeli territory in retaliation for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and its incursion into southern Lebanon, and the weak Lebanese central government currently lacks the capacity to prevent the group from resuming attacks if it chooses to do so.

The broader conflict that sparked this latest diplomatic push has already had catastrophic consequences across the region. Since the war’s escalation on February 28, thousands of Iranian civilians have been killed or wounded in U.S. and Israeli airstrikes. That same day, a U.S. cruise missile strike on a girls’ school in the Iranian city of Minab killed 168 people, the vast majority of whom were children.

Approximately 30 minutes after his posts addressing the Strait of Hormuz, Trump issued another statement on Truth Social addressing the situation in Lebanon. He wrote: “the USA will, separately, work with Lebanon, and deal with the Hezboolah [sic] situation in an appropriate manner. Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A. Enough is enough!!!”

Within minutes of Trump’s public prohibition on further Israeli bombing, both Lebanese and Israeli media reported that Israel had carried out a new drone strike targeting a motorcycle traveling between the southern Lebanese towns of Kounine and Beit Yahoun, killing one person. The official terms of the ceasefire signed Thursday allow Israel to carry out so-called “defensive” strikes in response to what it frames as planned, imminent, or ongoing attacks. This immediate breach of the truce’s spirit has underscored widespread concerns that the ceasefire is fragile and unlikely to bring a lasting end to violence in the region.

In a development first reported by The Guardian on Friday, three top representatives of the Palestine Football Association (PFA) — including its president Jibril Rajoub — have been blocked from entering Canada, where global football’s governing body FIFA will hold its annual congressional meeting in Vancouver on April 30. This visa rejection comes at a fraught moment for international football, as Canada is set to co-host the 2026 men’s FIFA World Cup alongside the United States and Mexico, and the PFA is already locked in a high-stakes dispute with FIFA over Israeli football activity in occupied Palestinian territory.

Rajoub had been expected to use his speaking slot at the Vancouver congress to publicly raise the issue of Israeli matches being held in the West Bank, a territory universally recognized by the United Nations as illegally occupied by Israel. The PFA has formally called on FIFA to step in immediately to resolve the visa issue and allow its delegation to participate in the gathering, where their presence was already set to put the long-running territorial conflict at the center of global football’s agenda.

When contacted for comment, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada declined to share specific details about the visa applications, citing privacy rules for individual cases. The department only confirmed that all entry applications are assessed individually based on documentation submitted by each applicant.

This latest clash follows months of escalating tension between Palestinian advocates and global football leadership. Earlier this year, the PFA filed a formal complaint over the Israeli matches in the West Bank. After completing a review of the complaint last month, FIFA released a statement arguing that the final legal status of the West Bank remains an unsettled, complex issue under international law, and as a result, the organization would take no disciplinary or regulatory action against the Israel Football Association. That inaction prompted a unprecedented legal challenge: in February, a coalition of six pro-Palestinian human rights and sports justice groups — including Irish Sport for Palestine, Scottish Sport for Palestine, Just Peace Advocates, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, and Sport Scholars for Justice in Palestine — submitted a 120-page complaint to the International Criminal Court prosecutor, The New York Times confirmed. The complaint names FIFA president Gianni Infantino and UEFA (European football’s governing body) president Aleksander Ceferin, accusing both of aiding and abetting war crimes by allowing Israeli clubs to host official league matches on seized Palestinian land.

Beyond the immediate dispute over Palestinian participation in the FIFA Congress, the visa denials also unfold against a backdrop of growing concern over immigration and entry policies for the 2026 World Cup, particularly in the United States. Co-host the U.S. has already faced public backlash over flagging ticket sales driven by exorbitant pricing, as well as widespread fears that foreign visitors and immigrant residents will be targeted by U.S. federal immigration authorities during the tournament.

While there is no publicly confirmed link between U.S. and Canadian immigration decisions on these applications, the two neighboring countries’ border agencies have a long history of sharing intelligence and screening data. Over the 15 months since the Trump administration took office, the U.S. has implemented sweeping new entry restrictions for international visitors, including mandatory social media vetting that requires applicants to share years of personal online activity. Multiple cases have already been documented of visitors being denied entry after border agents found social media content critical of U.S. government policies. Others have been detained for weeks in overcrowded, unsanitary facilities run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — privately operated detention centers that generate profit for their operators based on the number of detainees held — before being allowed to return to their home countries.

Last December, Andrew Giuliani, who leads the White House 2026 FIFA World Cup Task Force, publicly confirmed that the Trump administration could not guarantee that non-U.S. citizens would be safe from ICE raids at World Cup stadiums. That comment came just months after a high-profile incident in July, when ICE agents arrested a father of two at a FIFA Club World Cup match in New Jersey. Human Rights Watch issued a public statement at the time calling for urgent reform of U.S. entry policies, warning that the current regime creates unnecessary risk for visitors and directly undermines FIFA’s stated core values of human rights, inclusion, and open global participation. Giulani later defended the arrest, claiming the man had violated event rules by flying a drone to take a family photo at the match.

Vietnam’s top leader To Lam, who holds dual roles as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee and President of Vietnam, concluded his four-day state visit to China on April 17, 2026, with analysts broadly agreeing the journey will deepen the centuries-old traditional friendship and expand strategic alignment between the two neighboring socialist nations. The joint statement issued jointly by both sides at the end of the visit characterized the trip as a “complete success”, stressing that healthy, sustained development of bilateral China-Vietnam relations carries far-reaching strategic, holistic and historic significance for both peoples and the broader region.

The visit’s itinerary began after To Lam’s arrival in Beijing on April 14, where he first traveled via high-speed rail to tour the Xiong’an New Area in Hebei province, an landmark national-level development project designed to serve as a model for future sustainable urban development in China. The following day, after holding productive talks with President Xi Jinping — also General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee — and other senior Chinese leaders in Beijing, To Lam embarked on a 2,400-kilometer high-speed rail journey south to Nanning, the capital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which sits on China’s border with northern Vietnam.

Over the 10-hour trip, To Lam gained firsthand insight into the scale of China’s territory, the sophistication of its modern infrastructure network, and the rapid momentum driving its national modernization push. During the journey, he toured the high-speed train’s driver cabin to observe operational procedures up close, a reflection of his well-documented interest in China’s high-speed rail development, per a report from China’s official Xinhua News Agency. To Lam remarked that China’s achievements in the rail sector are deeply impressive, noting that only a small handful of countries worldwide can safely operate rail lines at altitudes exceeding 4,000 meters, a feat China has already accomplished.

Since launching its first high-speed rail services in 2008, China has constructed the world’s largest high-speed rail network, accounting for more than 70 percent of all high-speed rail track in operation globally. Official national planning documents project that the country’s total high-speed rail mileage will reach 70,000 kilometers by 2035.

Ge Hongliang, Vice-Dean of the College of ASEAN Studies at Guangxi Minzu University, told the Global Times that To Lam’s focus on experiencing China’s high-speed rail aligns directly with his stated priority of advancing connectivity and infrastructure cooperation as a core pillar of pragmatic collaboration between Hanoi and Beijing. Ge noted that these interactions can provide valuable references for three key initiatives: Vietnam’s own domestic infrastructure expansion, the development of cross-border rail links between the two countries, and long-term planning for the transregional Pan-Asia Railway network. Notably, Vietnam just broke ground earlier this month on its first domestically developed high-speed railway, a 120-kilometer line connecting Hanoi, Bac Ninh province, Hai Phong city and Quang Ninh province with a maximum design speed of 350 kilometers per hour, according to Vietnamese news outlet VnExpress.

During his time in Nanning, To Lam also visited the China-ASEAN Countries Artificial Intelligence Application Cooperation Center, where he tested a pair of AI-powered translation glasses and learned about the latest advances in China’s AI development for cross-cultural and cross-border applications. He later joined a youth exchange gathering at Guangxi University, where more than 800 young representatives from both China and Vietnam gathered to build personal connections and strengthen people-to-people ties. Addressing a broader gathering of roughly 500 Chinese and Vietnamese participants from all sectors of society, To Lam called on both nations to convert the longstanding strength of their traditional friendship into tangible, productive cooperative outcomes, and push bilateral collaboration into deeper, more practical areas of mutual benefit.

To Lam emphasized that the enduring strength of the China-Vietnam “comrades-plus-brothers” relationship stems from the shared work of past generations of leaders from both sides, is deeply rooted in the centuries-old cultural and social ties linking the two peoples, is sustained by consistent strategic guidance from the leadership of both ruling parties and national governments, and is demonstrated by the growing number of positive outcomes from deep, pragmatic collaboration across sectors.

In the joint statement, the two sides formalized agreements to accelerate the alignment of their national development strategies and speed up the connectivity of cross-border infrastructure including railways, highways and port facilities, identifying railway cooperation as a new core focus of bilateral strategic cooperation. The two nations also reaffirmed their shared commitment to upholding free and open trade and investment, and pledged to work together to build more secure, stable regional industrial and supply chains. To advance this goal, the statement announced that a dedicated bilateral working group on industrial and supply chain cooperation will be established to facilitate expanded collaboration in this critical area.

A high-profile trial of six Palestine Action activists charged over a 2024 break-in at an Israeli-owned arms factory outside Bristol has opened with dramatic revelations about serious flaws in the prosecution’s key CCTV evidence, Woolwich Crown Court has heard. The six defendants — Charlotte Head, 29, Jordan Devlin, 31, Fatema Rajwani, 21, Zoe Rogers, 22, Samuel Corner, 23, and Leona Kamio, 30 — all face counts of criminal damage linked to the August 2024 incursion at the facility operated by Elbit Systems, one of Israel’s largest defense manufacturing firms. An additional charge of grievous bodily harm with intent has been leveled against Corner, who is accused of striking a police officer with a sledgehammer during the incident. Giving evidence on the first day of testimony, PC Sarah Grant, a specialist police officer trained in retrieving CCTV evidence from crime scenes, told jurors that the Elbit factory’s closed-circuit television system was functionally unsuitable for evidentiary use. Multiple cameras on the site operated at just 17 frames per second, a far lower rate than standard systems designed to capture clear, continuous footage of activity, Grant explained. During cross-examination, lead defense barrister Rajiv Menon KC drew jurors’ attention to what have been widely described as “perceived gaps” in the footage that the prosecution has entered into the court record. The case has already revealed a chaotic chain of custody for the video evidence: Elbit Systems first provided police with recordings from nine of the site’s 53 total cameras on a USB drive, but the files were incompatible with police computer systems, forcing Grant to travel to the factory site personally to recover the footage directly. Grant told the court that when she arrived at Elbit’s on-site security control room, she was first shown only footage from the original nine cameras, before requesting access to the full suite of 53 cameras displayed across the facility’s video monitoring wall. She attempted to download recordings from all 53 devices, but told the court that the operation would have required a full 24 days to complete, making the task unfeasible. Instead, she elected to download the original nine camera feeds, plus an additional three that were flagged as potentially relevant to the incident. Grant told the court that in her 11-year career working to recover CCTV evidence, she had never encountered a system as difficult to access and download from as Elbit’s. When questioned by the prosecution, Grant maintained that she had secured all relevant footage connected to the break-in. But Menon pushed back on that claim, highlighting that two cameras positioned directly on the factory floor have no surviving footage in the prosecution’s evidence set. When asked whether she had requested Elbit security staff to explain why footage from these two cameras was missing, Grant confirmed she had not asked for any explanation. Menon suggested that Elbit staff may never have shown her the footage from the two cameras at all, a claim Grant rejected, telling the court “I saw all the cameras. I had control and they showed me what I asked them to show.” In a pre-trial email Grant sent to a senior Elbit security manager, who is identified only as Witness A to protect their identity, she explicitly raised concerns about the system’s poor functionality, warning that “there is a huge opportunity for the defence to use the jumps and gaps in the footage to their advantage” — a warning that has been borne out in the defense’s cross-examination strategy. When questioned about the email, Grant reaffirmed that her core point remained that the system was “not fit for purpose.” On the second day of testimony, the court heard harrowing first-hand evidence from PC Kate Evans, the officer Corner is accused of striking with a sledgehammer. Evans told jurors that at the time of the alleged attack, she was on her hands and knees on the ground, facing away from Corner, while adjusting the handcuffs on co-defendant Zoe Rogers. She said she felt the blow from the sledgehammer spread across her entire body, and recalled immediately fearing the worst. “I didn’t know if I could move, or whether I would be paralysed,” Evans told the court. Fellow officer PC Peter Adams backed up Evans’ account, telling jurors that Corner struck the blow with “a considerable amount of force.” Evans did not return to active duty until three months after the incident, and told the court she continues to experience daily chronic pain that limits her to restricted duties at work. Prosecutor Deanna Heer KC drew the court’s attention to a comment Corner made immediately after his arrest, when he told officers: “I was protecting her.” Evans told the court she believes the comment referred to one of Corner’s female co-defendants, though he did not specify which. The court also heard context for the chaos of the incident: at the time of the alleged attack on Evans, Kamio was screaming after being tackled by Adams, who had deployed a taser against her just moments before. Defending Corner, barrister Tom Wainwright highlighted that Adams himself recalled hearing a “horrible scream” in video testimony he gave to police the day after the incident. Wainwright also brought up evidence that another officer, PC Aaron Buxton, had sprayed Corner with PAVA spray, an incapacitating chemical agent, moments before the alleged attack. Wainwright noted that the spray causes acute pain, confusion and disorientation that can persist for an extended period of time, raising questions about Corner’s state of mind and capacity to form intent. The trial of the six activists is ongoing, with further testimony expected in the coming days. Palestine Action, the activist group the defendants are affiliated with, has a long history of direct action protests targeting facilities tied to Israeli arms manufacturers, arguing that such companies profit from human rights abuses against Palestinian civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories.

As the United Kingdom prepares for local elections across 136 councils on May 7, where more than 5,000 council seats will be contested, the Green Party has emerged as a formidable progressive challenger to Keir Starmer’s sitting Labour government — marking the most high-stakes electoral test since Starmer took office in July 2024.

Under the leadership of Zack Polanski, who has headed the party since last summer, the Greens have seen explosive growth in national polling. Their momentum was cemented in February, when the party secured a historic by-election victory in Greater Manchester’s Gorton and Denton constituency, defeating both Labour and the right-wing Reform UK.

In an exclusive interview with Middle East Eye this week, Faaiz Hasan, the Green Party’s national and London elections coordinator, laid out the party’s strategy for the upcoming vote, its policy priorities, and its vision for reshaping UK politics. Hasan, who relocated to the UK from Pakistan in 1997, cut his political teeth as a member of the Labour Party during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, before leaving the party shortly after Starmer took control in 2020. Last year, he served as campaign manager for Mothin Ali’s successful bid to become the Green Party’s co-deputy leader, and he is standing as a candidate in Westminster’s Harrow Road ward this May.

Hasan framed the 2025 local elections as a turning point for British progressive politics, saying the moment has arrived for the Greens to put forward a clear alternative vision that rejects the divisive scapegoating of migrants and racialized groups. Instead, he said, the party centers its platform on addressing the root of national inequality: the concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of a tiny elite. With 70% of the British public already rating Starmer’s performance in office as poor, and the national economy reeling from spillover effects of the US-Israeli war on Iran, the Labour government has been left floundering in the polls, creating an opening for progressive change.

Recalling his campaign work on the ground in Harrow Road, where he stood as a by-election candidate just two years ago and secured second place from a standing start, Hasan said voter attitudes have shifted dramatically. Two years ago, many residents told the party they supported Green policies but did not see the Greens as serious contenders. Today, amid rising poll numbers, increased national media coverage of Green leadership, Labour’s ongoing collapse in support, and widespread public disillusionment with Reform’s poor performance in areas the party controls, voters are increasingly open to backing Green candidates, he said. Hasan projects a major surge in Green support across the country next month.

Across London, the party’s momentum is already visible: Green councillor Areeq Chowdhury’s mayoral campaign in the east London borough of Newham is gaining traction, while former Labour councillor turned Green mayoral candidate Liam Shrivastava is targeting a takeover of Lewisham Council and mayoralty in southeast London, where polls currently forecast no party will win an overall majority. Nationally, polling data suggests the Greens could take control of up to nine councils, including long-held Labour strongholds such as Hackney and Lambeth in London.

The electoral landscape is complicated by the presence of Corbyn’s new Your Party, which has taken a selective approach to the election, backing independent candidates and targeted local groups. In some seats, including Newham, Your Party-backed candidates are standing against Greens. Hasan, who entered politics inspired by Corbyn and still holds him in high regard, said he finds the internal infighting plaguing Your Party disappointing for left-wing politics. While he wished the faction well and hopes it resolves its internal disputes, he noted the electoral timeline leaves no room for delay. Across London, where 1,800 seats are up for grabs, the Greens are contesting 80 to 90% of all seats, and Hasan said the party is the only major left force consistently speaking out against what the party describes as genocide in Gaza and advancing progressive solutions to national issues.

Hasan emphasized the party has no inherent conflict with Your Party or independent left candidates, and said there is substantial room for tactical cooperation in both local ward contests and the 2025 London elections, which include votes for mayor, a constituency seat, and a London-wide Assembly seat. Looking ahead to the next general election, Hasan said formal cooperation between left parties and independents will be essential to defeat Starmer and his centrist allies in their constituencies, echoing recent reporting from Middle East Eye that saw Health Secretary Wes Streeting attack independent left rivals in his east London seat for being “divisive” over foreign policy. In Birmingham, where 101 council seats are being contested and a hung council is forecast, Hasan said he has long pushed for strategic electoral alliances, and expects cooperation in roughly 90% of seats despite limited overlapping candidacies.

Hasan framed the 2025 local elections as a key milestone in a broader permanent realignment of British politics. The long-standing two-party, first-past-the-post system that dominated UK politics for generations is now dead, he argued, noting the two main parties are currently polling at less than 30% combined. He warned that the existing electoral system, which rewards the first-place finisher even with a tiny share of the vote, creates a dangerous democratic deficit: a fragmented field with five parties polling between 15% and 25% could see a candidate win a seat with just 24% to 26% of the vote, granting power that does not reflect the popular will. For that reason, Hasan said the UK must transition to a proportional representation electoral system that ensures representation matches the share of votes parties receive.

On policy, the Green campaign centers domestic working-class issues: the ongoing cost of living crisis, unsustainable household debt, the broken housing market marked by sky-high rents for poor-quality accommodation, and the inability of young people to get on the property ladder. The party also highlights the ongoing pressure on public services caused by the continuation of Conservative-era austerity policies. Local campaigns will also prioritize hyper-local issues specific to their communities, such as anti-social behavior, street litter, and road safety in Hasan’s own central London Harrow Road ward.

Foreign policy is also a core pillar of the Green campaign, with a sharp focus on the impacts of the US-Israeli war on Iran and the Starmer government’s decision to allow the US to use UK military bases to launch attacks on Iranian missile sites. Hasan argued there is no separation between local, national, and international issues: the illegal war in Iran has directly exacerbated the UK’s cost of living crisis, impacting every household in the country, so framing the conflict as a distant problem irrelevant to UK voters is false. The party is also campaigning for local councils to divest pension funds from companies that profit from what it calls genocide in Gaza, as well as from fossil fuel companies and arms manufacturers. Hasan noted that the UK’s continued reliance on oil and gas leaves the country vulnerable to global energy price shocks, and greater investment in renewable energy would insulate UK households from these crises. While Labour has attempted to distance itself from the war by claiming Starmer did not bring the UK into the conflict, Hasan said the Greens will challenge that narrative: Starmer’s decision to allow US bombers to launch attacks on Iran from UK bases makes him complicit, he said, a position that is completely unacceptable to British voters.

On the right, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has led national polls for more than a year, and is targeting a major takeover of local councils in May, with forecasts suggesting the party could win as many as 17 councils and 1,500 council seats. After the Green’s February by-election win in Gorton and Denton, Reform accused the Greens of engaging in sectarian politics. Hasan dismissed the accusation as the complaints of sore losers, noting Reform attacked the Greens for producing multi-language leaflets in English, Bangla and Urdu — a practice that has been common in UK politics since the 1960s. Hasan said the attack stems from Reform’s ongoing targeting of migrant and Muslim communities, and it is no surprise that those communities rejected the right-wing party at the polls. He framed Reform’s complaints as an attempt to discredit democratic outcomes when the party loses, noting the Gorton and Denton seat saw a large Muslim community vote for a white working-class Green candidate led by a Jewish party leader — a demonstration of the Greens’ broad, inclusive appeal.

Hasan also rejected claims that the Green’s focus on the crisis in Gaza is a niche issue only of concern to Muslim voters. He pointed to the enormous diversity of the British pro-Palestine movement, which includes people of all faiths and no faith, all racial backgrounds, all age groups, and large contingents of Jewish and LGBTQ organizers. Framing the issue as a narrow concern is factually wrong, he said, because the crisis impacts every person in the UK through its economic and political ripple effects.