Global Pulse

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  • Pope making first papal visit to Algeria to launch Africa trip and honor locally born St. Augustine

    Pope making first papal visit to Algeria to launch Africa trip and honor locally born St. Augustine

    VATICAN CITY (Rewritten Report) — History is being made this week as Pope Leo XIV, the first American-born pontiff in Catholic history, touches down in Algeria on Monday for the first-ever papal visit to the North African nation. The two-day stop kicks off an ambitious 11-day, four-country tour across Africa — a region increasingly recognized as the dynamic growing heart of the global Catholic Church — that will also take him to Cameroon, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea.

    Upon arrival at Algiers’ international airport, Pope Leo was scheduled to be welcomed by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, followed by an official meeting at the El Mouradia presidential palace. The first day of the itinerary includes an address to national authorities, a visit to Algiers’ iconic Great Mosque, an interfaith gathering at the landmark Our Lady of Africa basilica, and a solemn prayer vigil at a nearby monument honoring migrants who lost their lives in shipwrecks while attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

    The 19th-century Roman-Byzantine basilica, constructed during France’s colonial rule of Algeria, will host a unique interfaith gathering bringing together a Catholic nun, a Pentecostal worshiper, and a Muslim representative to share testimonies ahead of the pope’s remarks. The trip’s official motto, drawn from Pope Leo’s standard opening greeting for all his public engagements, is “Peace be with you,” and Vatican officials have confirmed that advancing interfaith harmony between Christians and Muslims and a global message of peace will serve as the visit’s core themes, particularly amid rising religious and geopolitical conflict around the world.

    Vatican statistics show Algeria is home to a tiny Catholic community of roughly 9,000 people, most of whom are foreign residents, living alongside a majority Sunni Muslim population of nearly 47 million. Remarkably, Algiers Archbishop Jean-Paul Vesco, a French cardinal, noted that nine out of 10 daily visitors to the Our Lady of Africa basilica are Muslim, a quiet demonstration of everyday coexistence in the country. “It’s wonderful to be able to show that we can be brothers and sisters together, building a society despite our different religions,” Vesco told the Associated Press on the eve of the pope’s arrival. “And that is what our church has been doing since this country gained independence.”

    Despite this grassroots harmony, the visit takes place against a backdrop of ongoing international scrutiny of religious freedom in Algeria. The U.S. government has included Algeria on its special watch list for severe religious freedom violations, noting that while the country’s constitution recognizes faiths other than Islam and permits private worship that adheres to public order regulations, proselytizing to Muslims by non-Muslims is a criminal offense, and multiple independent Christian denominations have faced government pressure including forced church closures. Some Algerian citizens have raised questions about the long-term impact of the papal visit on religious minorities: “I imagine it’s a good thing that a pope is visiting Algeria,” said Selma Dénane, a student in the coastal city of Annaba. “But what will it change afterward? Will Christians be able to say, ‘I am a Christian’ without fear or stigmatization?’”

    The trip also includes a powerful tribute to religious martyrs of Algeria’s brutal modern history. Three decades after winning independence from France, the country descended into a 1990s civil war known locally as the “black decade,” which killed an estimated 250,000 people as government forces battled an Islamist insurgency. Nineteen Catholics were among those killed, including seven Trappist monks from the Tibhirine monastery south of Algiers, who were kidnapped and murdered in 1996, as well as two nuns from Pope Leo’s own Augustinian religious order. On Monday, the pope will pay homage to the 19 martyrs, all of whom were beatified in 2018 in the first such ceremony ever held in the Muslim world. He will also meet with remaining Augustinian nuns who operate an interfaith social services program out of the Algiers basilica that supports people of all religious backgrounds.

    Archbishop Vesco pointed out a striking coincidence: Pope Leo was elected to the papacy on May 8, which is the Catholic feast day of these 19 Algerian martyrs. Vesco extended an invitation to visit immediately after Leo’s election, and the pope has long drawn inspiration from the community: he has adopted a phrase from Christian de Chergé, the martyred prior of the Tibhirine monastery, as a personal mantra — speaking of “unarmed and disarming peace” — and has cited the line repeatedly since the night of his election. “Obviously he will speak a lot about peace, it’s urgent and current,” Vesco said.

    Beyond its interfaith and pastoral goals, the Algeria visit is a deeply personal pilgrimage for Pope Leo, a lifelong member of the Augustinian order. The order draws its founding inspiration from St. Augustine of Hippo, the 5th-century theological and philosophical giant of the early Christian church, who was born in what is now Algeria and spent nearly all his life in the region. On Tuesday, the pope will travel to Annaba, the modern city built on the site of ancient Hippo where St. Augustine served as bishop for 30 years, to walk in the saint’s footsteps.

    From his first public address after his election, Pope Leo has introduced himself as a “son of St. Augustine,” and has referenced the early church father repeatedly in speeches, homilies, and official documents over his first year in office. Paul Camacho, associate director of the Augustinian Institute at Villanova University — Pope Leo’s Augustinian-run alma mater near Philadelphia — noted that references to St. Augustine are a consistent throughline in the pope’s teaching. “I don’t know if I have seen a statement, a homily, an apostolic letter or exhortation that doesn’t reference Augustine,” Camacho said. “The shadow that he casts on Western thought, not just the Roman Catholic Church but on Western thought more broadly, is very, very long indeed.”

    This reporting was compiled from original on-the-ground contributions by Ouali and Santalucia in Algiers, Algeria.

  • Already under financial pressure, Midwest soybean farmers are squeezed further by tariffs, Iran war

    Already under financial pressure, Midwest soybean farmers are squeezed further by tariffs, Iran war

    As 60-year-old fifth-generation farmer Doug Bartek stepped into a Nebraska grain bin this spring, shoveling soybeans toward a conveyor amid gusty plains winds, the weight of mounting industry stress was far heavier than any load of grain. For Bartek, who chairs the Nebraska Soybean Association and runs a 2,000-acre operation near Wahoo where three-quarters of the land is rented, this planting season has brought a tangled web of crises that have left many American soybean producers trapped between skyrocketing input costs and stagnant, depressed crop prices.

    Bartek’s anxiety is far from unique. Across the U.S. Midwest, which produces the bulk of the nation’s soybean crop, thousands of commercial grain farmers are grappling with overlapping economic pressures that have pushed many toward negative margins, cash flow crunches, and even the risk of bankruptcy. What began as a gradual trend of rising costs and oversupplied global markets has been compounded in recent months by trade policy fallout and geopolitical conflict in the Middle East, creating a perfect storm for an industry that forms the backbone of American agriculture.

    Soybeans have grown from a minor crop to one of the United States’ most valuable agricultural exports over the past 60 years. Driven by rising international demand, particularly from China, production exploded in the 1990s, and today soybeans and corn are the two dominant row crops across U.S. farm country. But even before recent geopolitical and trade disruptions, farmers faced systemic financial headwinds. Global soybean production has consistently hit new record highs in recent years, largely fueled by expanded output from Brazil, which overtook the U.S. as the world’s top soybean producer years ago. The resulting global supply glut has kept soybean prices stubbornly low for nearly a decade.

    At the same time, every major cost associated with farming has climbed steadily, and in many cases sharply. U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows overall farm production expenses, including seed, pesticides, equipment, and land, have trended upward for decades, with soybean operating costs remaining elevated since 2020 and projected to rise again by 2026. For many Midwest farmers who rent at least part of their land — a common arrangement across the region — rising rental rates have added an extra layer of strain. Bartek notes that many absentee landowners, unfamiliar with the struggles of on-the-ground farming, are hiking rents to cover their own rising property taxes, passing that cost directly onto producers.

    Paul Mitchell, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says the combination of low commodity prices and bloated input costs has left many farmers in a critical liquidity crunch. Long-term industry consolidation has amplified this pressure: the number of U.S. farms has shrunk for decades, as larger, more capital-intensive operations have absorbed smaller struggling farms. Today’s modern commercial farm requires far more financial reserves than it did a generation ago, leaving producers far more vulnerable to sudden market and cost shifts.

    Market forces are not the only drag on farmer profits. In 2025, sweeping tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Chinese goods triggered a full-scale trade war, with Beijing responding by placing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. soybeans — China was the top global buyer of American soybeans at the time, representing a critical export market for Midwest producers. The result was an immediate collapse in soybean prices that left farmers who needed to sell to cover operating costs and mortgage payments facing devastating losses.

    While the two nations reached a trade deal later that year, with China committing to large annual soybean purchases and the Trump administration rolling out a $12 billion emergency aid package for affected farmers, industry experts and producers agree the damage was lasting. Even with federal aid, the American Soybean Association estimates farmers still lost nearly $75 per harvested acre of soybeans from the 2025 crop. More importantly, the trade war pushed China to permanently shift its purchasing toward competing suppliers, primarily Brazil, accelerating the long-term decline of U.S. soybean market share in China. Today, U.S. soybean exports remain 15% to 20% below pre-trade war levels, a gap that has never been filled by other global markets, according to Iowa State University agricultural economist Chad Hart.
    “We’re not nearly as dominant in the world export market as we used to be,” explained Joseph Glauber, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Global competitors have reaped permanent benefits from the trade shift caused by the dispute, he added.

    The most recent shock to hit soybean farmers came from the February 2026 Iran conflict, after joint U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran triggered a near-total shutdown of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global chokepoint for energy and commodity trade. The shutdown sent global oil prices soaring, pushing up the cost of gasoline and diesel that farmers rely on for planting, harvesting, and transporting crops. More critically, the disruption cut off access to key fertilizer exports from the Persian Gulf: roughly half of the world’s traded urea, a widely used nitrogen fertilizer, comes from the Middle East, which is a top supplier of U.S. fertilizer imports.
    While soybeans do not require nitrogen fertilizer, nearly all U.S. soybean farmers also grow corn, which depends heavily on nitrogen inputs. The result was an immediate, dramatic spike in fertilizer prices that has not fully abated.
    A two-week ceasefire was reached in early April that called for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, but ongoing tensions over related conflicts have kept shipping slow, and fertilizer prices remain far higher than pre-conflict levels. While many farmers locked in fertilizer prices last fall by purchasing ahead of planting season, producers short on cash last year are now facing unmanageable input costs, according to Dave Walton, an Iowa farmer and vice president of the American Soybean Association. The conflict also damaged critical energy and chemical export facilities in the Middle East, and supply chain disruptions for crop chemical inputs will persist long after the ceasefire, according to Seth Goldstein, senior equity analyst at investment research firm Morningstar.
    For many corn and soybean farmers like Chris Gould of Maple Park, Illinois, the cumulative effect of higher fuel and fertilizer costs makes a negative return nearly inevitable this growing season. “It’s hard to say if I’m gonna come out ahead or behind on this whole deal,” Gould said. “But I suspect I’m going to come out behind.”

    The cumulative strain of these overlapping crises is already showing up in national farm health metrics. While still relatively low by historical standards, farm bankruptcies continued to climb in 2025, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. A late March survey of 400 U.S. farmers conducted by Purdue University’s Center for Commercial Agriculture found that nearly half of respondents reported their operations were in worse financial shape than one year prior. Goldstein warns that if input costs continue to outpace crop price growth, the U.S. will see more bankruptcies in coming months.

    For Bartek, who has farmed Nebraska soil for 43 years, the thrill of spring planting remains — but the uncertainty about the future has never been heavier. He has watched neighbors lose their farms to bankruptcy or forced retirement auctions, and even heard of farmers dying by suicide amid unmanageable financial stress. Today, he questions whether he made the right choice in helping his son purchase his own farm just a few years ago. Like many of his peers across the Midwest, Bartek compares modern commercial farming to a high-stakes gamble, where producers bet millions of dollars on an unpredictable growing season, with increasingly little guarantee of a return that will cover their costs.

  • In their words: How leaders reacted to Viktor Orbán’s defeat in Hungary’s election

    In their words: How leaders reacted to Viktor Orbán’s defeat in Hungary’s election

    BUDAPEST, Hungary — After 16 years of dominating Hungarian politics and carving out an outsize role in global conservative movements, Viktor Orbán’s tenure as prime minister has come to an abrupt end following a crushing landslide defeat in Sunday’s national election. The political shakeup, which saw opposition challenger Péter Magyar secure an overwhelming mandate from Hungarian voters, is sending ripples across Europe and beyond, as leaders from Kyiv to Brussels react to the end of an era defined by Orbán’s controversial illiberal agenda.

    During his four consecutive terms in office, Orbán built a global following among right-wing populists, who replicated his political playbook: systematically restructuring state institutions to consolidate ruling party power, rolling back protections for minority groups, narrowing the space for independent media, and positioning himself as a fiery champion of national sovereignty against what he framed as the overreach of globalization and uncontrolled migration. To his critics across the European continent, however, Orbán represented a direct threat to European democracy, eroding the bloc’s core shared commitments to human rights, the rule of law, and institutional accountability.

    Ultimately, Hungarian voters delivered a clear verdict that it was time for political change, handing Magyar a decisive victory that has reshaped the European political landscape. The outcome carries particularly profound stakes for Ukraine, as Orbán maintained the closest ties to the Kremlin of any European Union leader, repeatedly blocking bloc-wide aid packages to Kyiv amid Russia’s full-scale invasion.

    Within hours of the election results being confirmed, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy extended an olive branch to the new Hungarian administration, emphasizing Kyiv’s longstanding goal of building constructive, good-neighborly relations across the continent. “It is important when constructive approach prevails. Ukraine has always sought good-neighbourly relations with everyone in Europe and we are ready to advance our cooperation with Hungary,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media. “We are ready for meetings and joint constructive work for the benefit of both nations, as well as peace, security, and stability in Europe.”

    For the European Union, Orbán’s defeat has been met with widespread relief, ending years of diplomatic gridlock and public friction between Budapest and Brussels. Despite Hungary receiving billions of euros in structural development funding from the bloc, Orbán consistently attacked EU institutions and its policy agenda, often deriding top EU leaders in public remarks.

    Minutes after Orbán delivered his concession speech, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — a frequent target of Orbán’s criticism — issued a celebratory message on X: “Europe’s heart is beating stronger in Hungary tonight.”

    Top leaders from Europe’s largest major powers quickly echoed the sentiment. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the election outcome “an historic moment, not only for Hungary, but for European democracy. I look forward to working with you for the security and prosperity of both our countries.” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz extended warm congratulations to Magyar, writing “Let’s join forces for a strong, secure and, above all, united Europe. Gratulálok, kedves Magyar Péter!” French President Emmanuel Macron added that “France welcomes the victory of democratic participation, the Hungarian people’s commitment to the values of the European Union, and Hungary’s commitment to Europe.”

    Meanwhile, populist leaders and far-right parties that counted Orbán as a close ideological ally have reacted with measured, careful rhetoric following his defeat. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who aligned closely with Orbán on a range of EU policy issues, thanked her “friend Viktor Orbán” for their past collaboration, noting “I know that even from the opposition he will continue to serve his Nation.”

    In France, the far-right National Rally — which is gearing up for a 2025 presidential run to unseat Macron and long supported Orbán’s agenda — struck a cautious tone. Party leader Jordan Bardella wrote that “This result, respectfully welcomed by Viktor Orbán, shows that the incessant accusations by European institutions in recent years against Hungarian democracy were unfounded.”

    The election result marks one of the most significant political shifts in Europe in recent years, with implications for EU policy, Ukraine’s war effort, and the future of global populist politics. As Magyar prepares to take office, leaders across the continent are waiting to see how his new administration will reshape Hungary’s place in Europe.

  • Election loss for Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán has ripple effects for Trump, US conservatives

    Election loss for Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán has ripple effects for Trump, US conservatives

    Half a globe away from Washington D.C., a small European nation delivered a seismic political upset over the weekend that is already reshaping conversations about authoritarianism, democratic resilience, and Donald Trump’s global influence on the modern right. After 16 years in power, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — a towering icon of global conservative illiberalism with deep ties to leading U.S. right-wing figures — was ousted from office in a result that carries sweeping implications for both transatlantic politics and U.S. domestic discourse.

    Orbán’s rise to long-term power was built on a deliberate, well-documented project of authoritarian consolidation. First elected as an anti-communist activist in 1998, he shifted sharply to the nationalist right after losing office in 2002. Returning to power in 2010 amid the global recession, Orbán and his Fidesz party leveraged a parliamentary supermajority to rewrite Hungary’s constitution, restructuring the judiciary to stack courts with party loyalists, redraw legislative districts to lock in electoral advantages, and pressure independent media outlets to sell to allies of the ruling party. He embraced a brand he called “illiberal democracy”, built a massive border barrier to block migration from Africa and Asia, cracked down on LGBTQ+ rights, stifled press freedom, and undermined judicial independence — moves that led the European Union to formally classify Hungary as an “electoral autocracy”.

    For years, Orbán has been a beloved figure among large swathes of the U.S. conservative movement. Donald Trump, who has long drawn parallels between his own political agenda and Orbán’s approach to consolidating power, openly backed the incumbent’s re-election bid. In a high-profile move that highlighted the depth of that support, Trump dispatched Vice President JD Vance to Budapest just one week before the election — while the U.S. was already engaged in active conflict with Iran — to campaign on Orbán’s behalf. Leading conservative organizations have also cultivated close ties to the Hungarian leader: the American Conservative Union, chaired by Matt Schlapp, hosted the first European iteration of its Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest and has made the country a regular stop for conservative gatherings, with Orbán even headlining CPAC’s 2022 conference in Dallas.

    But Orbán’s defeat has exposed growing limits to Trump’s ability to sway outcomes for allied politicians abroad, analysts and political figures say. The ongoing Iran war, which has roiled global energy markets and sparked widespread public anger across Europe, eroded whatever advantage Vance’s last-minute campaign visit could deliver. Even with a heavily rigged electoral playing field that gave Orbán’s ruling party enormous structural advantages, Hungarian voters — frustrated by soaring inflation, economic stagnation, and the fallout of the ongoing regional conflict — delivered a clear vote for change. This outcome aligns with a broader global trend of voter discontent that has hurt incumbents across the ideological spectrum in recent elections.

    The result has drawn reactions from across the U.S. political spectrum, with many lawmakers from both parties celebrating Orbán’s ouster. Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska used the moment to criticize overt U.S. interference in foreign democracies, writing on X: “Don’t fiddle-paddle in other democracies’ elections.” Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi added: “The freedom-loving people of Hungary have voted decisively in favor of democracy and the rule of law.” Even Schlapp, a long-time Orbán ally, acknowledged the public desire for change, noting that the economic and energy turmoil spurred by the Iran war significantly hurt the incumbent’s standing. “The people of Hungary were saying, ‘We’re having a difficult time with inflation, the economy and the war. Let’s try the new guy,’” Schlapp said. Far-right Romanian European Parliament member Diana Sosoaca went further, calling Vance’s pre-election visit a “big mistake” given widespread European anger over the conflict.

    For U.S. democracy watchers and political observers, Orbán’s defeat carries particularly sharp lessons for American politics, given the well-documented parallels between Orbán’s consolidation of power and Trump’s own political ambitions. For years, Democrats have warned that Trump has sought to use executive power to tilt electoral outcomes in his favor, pointing to his 2020 attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory and his ongoing efforts to reshape election rules for 2028. Ian Bassin, executive director of nonpartisan anti-authoritarian group Protect Democracy, framed the Hungarian result as a reassuring signal for U.S. voters: “Even a guy who rigs the system can be defeated when the people unite and turn out against him.”

    Democratic lawmakers have echoed that framing, drawing direct parallels between Orbán’s project and Trump’s efforts in the U.S. “He was essentially doing what Donald Trump is trying to do here in the United States,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. “My read of the election is that the people of Hungary rejected that, just like people in the United States are rejecting that here at home.” Rep. Ro Khanna of California even used the upset to jab Vance directly, writing on X: “Your ally Orban conceded. In 2028, will you @JDVance follow suit if you lose?”

    Some experts, however, warn against overstating the lessons of Orbán’s defeat for U.S. democracy. Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky, co-author of *How Democracies Die*, noted that while the result proves oppositions can win even on a tilted playing field, Trump has already taken steps toward authoritarian consolidation that Orbán never attempted. He pointed to Trump’s use of the Justice Department to target political opponents and fatal shootings of protesters by U.S. immigration authorities as steps beyond what Orbán’s government enacted. Still, Levitsky noted the broader global takeaway: “Democracies are facing many challenges in many parts of the world, but so are autocracies.”

    Beyond U.S. politics, Orbán’s ouster carries immediate geopolitical implications for the war in Ukraine. Orbán was the European leader closest to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and he repeatedly blocked European Union military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine following Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. As of Sunday, Trump had not issued any public comment on Orbán’s defeat.

  • UK could adopt EU single market rules under new legislation

    UK could adopt EU single market rules under new legislation

    Four years after the UK completed its full exit from the European Union’s economic structures, a contentious new legislative proposal from the opposition Labour Party has reignited fierce debates over the country’s post-Brexit trade relationship with its largest trading partner. Under the plan put forward by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, the UK government would gain new powers to adopt updated EU single market regulations for specific trade sectors, most notably food safety and product standards, without requiring full parliamentary votes for each new rule.

    This framework, known as “dynamic alignment,” is designed to streamline UK-EU trade by ensuring British rules match evolving EU standards in areas covered by existing negotiated agreements. If enacted, any new regulation drafted in Brussels would be brought into UK law via secondary legislation, a procedural mechanism that typically does not allow for amendments and is generally approved without a full floor vote in Parliament, leaving MPs with only limited opportunities for formal scrutiny.

    Labour insiders argue the reform is a pragmatic solution to long-standing post-Brexit trade frictions. The party frames the change as a way to cut unnecessary operational costs for British businesses and eliminate what it calls the “Brexit paperwork tax,” a hidden burden that pushes up everyday grocery prices for UK households. A Labour source emphasized that the plan does not reverse the UK’s Brexit departure, noting the party has consistently ruled out rejoining the single market or customs union. Instead, the source framed the proposal as a sovereign choice: the UK would voluntarily enter into agreements that lower trade barriers, while Parliament still retains a formal role in the process.

    The government further argues the reform will unlock a UK-EU food and drink trade agreement estimated to add £5.1 billion annually to the economy, support domestic British jobs, and cut through burdensome red tape for farmers, food producers and small businesses across the country. A government spokesperson added that the full bill itself will undergo the standard parliamentary passage process, and any new wider treaties or trade deals with the EU will still face full parliamentary scrutiny before approval.

    But the proposal has drawn fierce pushback from across the political spectrum. The Conservative Party’s shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith condemned the plan, arguing it would reduce Parliament to a mere spectator while EU regulators in Brussels set the trade rules that govern British businesses. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, one of the most prominent architects of the original Brexit campaign, has pledged to oppose the legislation at every stage, dismissing it as a backdoor attempt to bring the UK back under EU regulatory control.

    Even pro-EU opposition parties have raised concerns over the erosion of parliamentary sovereignty. Liberal Democrat MP Munira Wilson told the BBC’s *Westminster Hour* that while her party supports closer economic ties with the EU, any alignment must go hand in hand with full parliamentary democratic scrutiny.

    The legislative proposal comes as the UK and EU continue ongoing negotiations to update post-Brexit trade arrangements, including a targeted deal on food safety, animal and plant health standards. Full text of the bill is expected to be introduced to Parliament later this year, ahead of a scheduled UK-EU summit that Starmer has signaled will be more ambitious than the 2025 meeting, where the two sides struck a landmark agreement covering fishing rights, trade, defense and energy cooperation.

  • US military is poised to blockade Iranian ports, while Tehran threatens ports in the Mideast

    US military is poised to blockade Iranian ports, while Tehran threatens ports in the Mideast

    Tensions between the United States and Iran have escalated to a dangerous new standoff in the Persian Gulf, following the collapse of weekend ceasefire negotiations that has left the global energy market bracing for severe disruption and raised fears of a resumption of active conflict.

    The crisis traces back to late February, when the United States and Israel launched joint military strikes against Iran, igniting a regional conflict that has already claimed more than 5,000 lives across six nations. A fragile ceasefire has held in recent weeks, but marathon talks hosted in Pakistan aimed at reaching a permanent peace deal failed to produce an agreement this past Saturday, clearing the way for the U.S. military’s vow to impose a full naval blockade on all Iranian ports starting Monday.

    The core sticking points in the collapsed negotiations align with longstanding U.S. demands: Iran has rejected Washington’s non-negotiable red lines, which require Tehran to permanently abandon any pursuit of a nuclear weapon, end all uranium enrichment activities, dismantle key enrichment infrastructure, surrender existing stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, reopen the Strait of Hormuz to unimpeded global shipping, and cut funding for regional armed proxies including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. For Iran, the main barriers to a deal are U.S. demands on its civilian nuclear program, demands for war reparations from Tehran, and the removal of crippling Western sanctions, according to Iranian ambassador to India Mohammad Fathali. U.S. Vice President JD Vance confirmed the talks stalled after Iran refused to accept Washington’s nuclear terms, while Iran has repeatedly maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful energy and medical purposes only, despite advancing enrichment to near-weapons-grade levels and developing long-range delivery systems.

    As the Monday deadline for the U.S. blockade arrived, clarity on the operation’s actual start remained murky. Just minutes before the 10 a.m. EDT deadline, the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency, which monitors regional maritime security, issued a notice to mariners confirming the restrictions would cover the entire Iranian coastline, including all commercial ports and national energy infrastructure. The agency clarified that transit through the Strait of Hormuz to or from non-Iranian destinations would not be blocked under the current measures, but warned commercial vessels to expect heavy military presence throughout the waterway.

    U.S. Central Command, the military command overseeing Middle East operations, later confirmed the blockade would apply to all vessels of any flag seeking to enter or depart Iranian coastal areas across both the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. The current framework represents a partial walk-back of an earlier, more extreme threat from former President Donald Trump to blockade the entire strait, a concession that reflects growing concern over global economic backlash. Shortly after the deadline passed, Trump posted a message to social media claiming Iran’s conventional navy had been “completely obliterated” and lies at the bottom of the sea, but warned that any remaining Iranian fast attack craft that approach the U.S. blockade line would be immediately destroyed.

    Iran has responded with sweeping reciprocal threats, vowing that no regional ports belonging to U.S.-allied nations will remain safe if Washington follows through on its blockade. “Security in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman is either for everyone or for NO ONE,” the Iranian military and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in an official statement carried by Iran’s state broadcaster. Top Iranian officials have dismissed the U.S. blockade threat as empty posturing, but warned of overwhelming retaliation if hostilities escalate. “It will make the current situation (Trump) is in more complicated and makes the market — which he is angry about — more turbulent. And we may also reveal other cards that we have not used in the game,” Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesperson for the Iranian parliament’s National Security Commission, wrote in a post on X. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf issued a direct warning to Trump: “If you fight, we will fight.”

    The showdown already has had immediate ripple effects across global commodity markets. Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly 20% of the world’s traded oil flows in peacetime — after the outbreak of war, sending energy and commodity prices soaring worldwide and pushing up costs for gasoline, food, and basic consumer goods far beyond the Middle East. Tehran has allowed limited passage for vessels perceived as friendly, but charges steep transit fees, a practice that has drawn widespread accusations that Iran is holding the global economy hostage. As of Monday, international benchmark Brent crude rose 7% to trade near $102 per barrel, up from roughly $70 per barrel before the outbreak of conflict. The latest Iranian threats have already halted the limited commercial traffic that resumed through the strait during the ceasefire, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence. Before the war, an average of 100 to 135 commercial vessels transited the strait daily; that number dropped to just over 40 per week since the ceasefire took effect, and has now ground to a near-halt.

    Analysts have cast significant doubt on the effectiveness of a U.S. blockade, questioning whether military pressure alone can force Iran to reopen the strait, and warning of severe risks to U.S. naval forces deployed to the region. The standoff has become a test of political and economic endurance: will a full blockade push Iran’s already battered economy to collapse, forcing Tehran to concede to U.S. terms? Or will the resulting spike in global energy prices create enough domestic pressure in the U.S. to force the Trump administration to back down?

    The current ceasefire is set to expire on April 22, and neither Washington nor Tehran has signaled whether it will be extended, or when negotiations might resume. Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, whose country hosted the failed talks, has said Pakistan will continue working to facilitate a new round of dialogue in the coming days, while Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan — whose country has led regional mediation efforts — has proposed extending the ceasefire by 45 to 60 days to create space for further negotiations. European leaders have also moved to address the crisis, with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announcing he will host a summit this week with French President Emmanuel Macron to coordinate international action to reopen the strait and end the conflict, with Starmer insisting the waterway must be reopened with no conditions and no transit tolls.

    The conflict has already taken a heavy human toll: at least 3,000 people have been killed in Iran, 2,089 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel, and more than a dozen across Gulf Arab states, with widespread infrastructure damage across half a dozen regional nations.

  • Mass resignations in Victorian government, as three Ministers quit

    Mass resignations in Victorian government, as three Ministers quit

    Seven months out from Victoria’s November 2026 state election, the state’s ruling Labor government has been hit by a wave of high-profile departures, with three senior cabinet ministers handing in immediate resignations on Monday. The sudden exits come on the heels of former Government Services Minister Natalie Hutchins’ resignation from the frontbench in December, opening up four vacant cabinet positions that the Labor caucus will vote to fill during a scheduled meeting on Tuesday. Premier Jacinta Allan is expected to formalize a full cabinet reshuffle as soon as this week. The departing ministers are Finance Minister Danny Pearson, Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas, and Skills and TAFE Minister Gayle Tierney. All three will complete their current parliamentary terms as backbenchers before the election goes to poll in November. The mass resignation echoes a similar shakeup ahead of the 2022 Victorian state election, when four senior ministers, including the deputy premier, stepped down from Daniel Andrews’ government just five months before voting day. Each departing minister offered personal reasons for their exit, while reflecting on decades of combined public service. Ms Thomas, a lower house Labor leader and close political ally of Premier Allan, who stepped into the health portfolio mid-way through the global COVID-19 pandemic, cited a desire to step back from seven-day workweeks to spend more time with family, including her 91-year-old mother, and attend St Kilda AFL matches. First elected to parliament alongside Mr Pearson in 2014, Ms Thomas said it had been the greatest honor of her life to serve in both the Andrews and Allan Labor governments. She highlighted landmark women’s health reforms as a signature achievement, noting that abortion rights would always remain protected under Labor governments, adding that “women’s rights are under attack from conservative political forces around the world.” Mr Pearson, who has represented the seat of Essendon since 2014 and entered cabinet in 2020, told reporters he entered parliament in 2014 knowing he would not spend his entire working life in politics, and said he had not yet settled on his next career move. An emotional Pearson teared up during Monday’s press conference, saying he was proud of his work delivering major WorkCover reforms, overhauling the state’s digital public services, and implementing Victoria’s groundbreaking ban on engineered stone, a policy expected to prevent hundreds of future cases of life-threatening silicosis. He lightened the mood with characteristic wit, joking that he and Ms Thomas would occupy the “Nosebleed Section” of the backbench, in a nod to Australian hip-hop group Hilltop Hoods, and quipped “We might be volunteers. I can tell you now our families are conscripts.” Reflecting on his tenure, he added, “I feel an enormous sense of gratitude to have played a bar of music in the great Labor concerto of government.” For Ms Tierney, the departure marks the end of 36 years in elected public office, and nearly two decades in the Victorian state parliament. “For me it is simply time to pass the baton,” she said. Premier Allan paid tribute to the three departing ministers, emphasizing their lasting legacy for Victorian communities. “All three have worked tirelessly, and I thank them for the service. These are friends and colleagues who have served the parliament and the Victorian community for a period of time, and it is now their time to say farewell to their life of public service,” Allan told reporters on Monday. In an official statement, she expanded on her praise, noting each minister had left an indelible mark on the state. She highlighted that Pearson’s engineered stone ban would save lives, that Thomas had steered the public health system through the most challenging public health crisis in a century while always supporting frontline health workers, and that Tierney had spent her decades in office fighting for working-class Victorians. Allan struck an optimistic tone about the upcoming reshuffle, expressing confidence that the vacant posts would be filled by new candidates with fresh ideas. She touted the Labor Party’s internal unity, contrasting it with what she framed as an extreme, divided opposition focused only on austerity cuts. “My Labor team has a unity of purpose that is guided by our values. We can renew and refresh because of this. Unlike our opponents who are extreme, divided and have one solution – to cut,” Allan said. The announcement also included word that Steve McGhie will step down from his role as cabinet secretary, a position he has held since 2022, and Allan thanked him for his service. The opposition has seized on the mass resignations to attack the Allan government, with Opposition Leader Jess Wilson dismissing the upcoming reshuffle as nothing more than rearranging deckchairs on a sinking ship. “What we see in terms of the Premier’s reshuffle in the coming days doesn’t change the fact this is a tired government,” Wilson said. “To shuffle the deckchairs is going to do nothing to actually change the direction of this state. These are the same people who have sat around the cabinet table, who have been part of the Labor Party for a decade. They have overseen the decline of Victoria. The only way to get a fresh start here in Victoria is to change the government this year.” According to preliminary reports from the *Herald Sun*, four sitting Labor MPs have been identified as top candidates for promotion to the vacant frontbench posts. Former Rail, Tram and Bus Union state secretary Luba Grigorovitch, a member of the party’s Right faction, is widely expected to claim one spot. Three remaining spots reserved for members of Labor’s Left faction will be contested by MPs Paul Edbrooke, Tim Richardson, Michaela Settle, and Paul Hamer.

  • Trump says ‘not a big fan’ of Pope Leo after his anti-war message

    Trump says ‘not a big fan’ of Pope Leo after his anti-war message

    A public rift between U.S. President Donald Trump and the newly seated Pope Leo XIV has burst into the open, after Trump publicly declared he is “not a big fan” of the Catholic leader over the pontiff’s repeated anti-war messaging and stance on Iran’s nuclear program. The sharp rebuke comes amid already simmering disagreements between the Holy See and the Trump administration on a range of policy issues, despite both sides moving quickly to dismiss earlier reports of a hostile behind-the-scenes confrontation.

    Trump made his critical remarks to reporters during a press gaggle at Maryland’s Joint Base Andrews on Sunday. The president framed the pope as an overly progressive figure whose policy priorities do not align with global security needs, saying, “He’s a very liberal person, and he’s a man that doesn’t believe in stopping crime.” He went further to accuse Pope Leo of softening his stance on nations pursuing nuclear capabilities, claiming the pontiff was “toeing with a country that wants a nuclear weapon.”

    Shortly after his in-person comments, Trump doubled down on the criticism in a post to his social media platform Truth Social, writing, “I don’t want a Pope who think it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”

    The clash follows a series of public disagreements that stretch back weeks. The 70-year-old American pontiff, who made history as the first U.S.-born leader of the Catholic Church, used a public address to thousands of worshippers at St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday to deliver a ringing plea for global peace. In an unflinching rebuke of modern conflict and power politics, he told the crowd: “Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!”

    The confrontation escalated earlier that same week, after the Free Press published a report claiming that a top Pentagon official had delivered a “bitter dressing-down” to the Vatican’s envoy to the U.S., Cardinal Christophe Pierre, during a January meeting at the Pentagon. According to the report, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby told the cardinal that the United States “has the military power to do whatever it wants — and that the Church had better take its side.”

    Both U.S. and Vatican officials quickly moved to discredit the account. The Pentagon dismissed the report as “distorted,” while Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni issued a formal statement saying “the account presented by certain media outlets regarding this meeting does not correspond to the truth in any way.” Both sides have also maintained that the January meeting was cordial and productive.

    Even so, open disagreements between the Holy See and the White House have been on full display for months. The pope has publicly denounced the Trump administration’s hardline mass deportation policy as “inhuman,” and he has repeatedly criticized the administration’s willingness to use military force in global hotspots including the Middle East and Venezuela. Tensions flared most recently after Trump made what was widely labeled a genocidal threat against Iran earlier this month, telling the public “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Pope Leo swiftly condemned the comment as “truly unacceptable” and called on all parties to return to diplomatic negotiations.

    Earlier this month, the pope did welcome a temporary ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran as a “sign of real hope,” but high-stakes peace talks wrapped up abruptly in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad on Saturday. After a marathon negotiating session, U.S. Vice President JD Vance told reporters that Washington had put forward its “final and best offer” to Iran, leaving the future of diplomatic negotiations uncertain.

  • Five emerging themes for the Indo-Pacific from Trump’s Iran war

    Five emerging themes for the Indo-Pacific from Trump’s Iran war

    The phrase “this is not our war” has become a major source of friction within the Trump White House, after dozens of European leaders invoked it to explain their refusal to deploy military forces alongside the U.S. and Israel in their ongoing attacks on Iran. This public rift has thrown the future of the post-WWII transatlantic alliance into renewed uncertainty, even as the ripple effects of the Iran conflict extend far beyond the Middle East to reshape global security and economic assumptions. While the war itself remains unresolved, following the breakdown of April 11 negotiations hosted in Islamabad, early trends indicate that five major long-term global shifts are already taking shape, affecting every region from the Indo-Pacific to the Persian Gulf.

    Financial markets have so far reacted with muted volatility to the conflict, as investors hold out hope for a rapid end to hostilities. This bet aligns with the reality that the dramatic disruptions of open war can fade as quickly as they emerge once active combat ceases. Still, analysts have identified clear emerging themes that will outlast any near-term ceasefire, starting with the greatest long-term risk: accelerated nuclear proliferation across the globe.

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has openly argued that his country’s decades-long investment in nuclear weapons, begun by his father and grandfather, has insulated Pyongyang from the same type of attack Iran is now facing. Many experts agree that this example is not lost on Iran’s ruling regime, which is now widely believed to regret moving more slowly toward a nuclear weapons program. While some observers argue the war could deter proliferation by highlighting the risk of American intervention for nuclear aspirants, this logic falls apart for states that can leverage great power protection, like North Korea’s close relationship with China that makes a large-scale U.S. attack too risky to contemplate.

    In the Indo-Pacific, this new calculus has already pushed Japanese officials into open, unprecedented discussions about abandoning the country’s long-held nuclear taboo. These talks stem from two overlapping fears: that South Korea and other regional states could move quickly to develop their own nuclear arsenals, and that the U.S.-promised “extended deterrence” nuclear umbrella can no longer be counted on to protect regional allies. That doubt around American deterrence forms the second major shift laid bare by the Iran conflict.

    The war has put U.S. military power on full display, but it has also revealed alarming vulnerabilities. In a conflict against an already heavily weakened Iran, which had sustained significant damage from Israeli and American strikes in June of last year, the U.S. military rapidly depleted a large share of its stockpiles of advanced precision weapons and cutting-edge missile defense systems. This has raised urgent questions across the Indo-Pacific: if the U.S. can exhaust its stockpiles in weeks of fighting a weaker adversary, how would it fare in a prolonged conflict against a far stronger peer competitor like China?

    Compounding these concerns is the fact that the Iran war has forced the U.S. to reallocate critical military assets—including warships, entire Marine regiments, and layered missile defense systems—from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East. While the immediate capability gaps created by this shift are not the primary worry, regional strategists cannot discount the risk that China or North Korea could choose to exploit this opening, even if the probability remains low. The far bigger concern is that despite an annual defense budget approaching $1 trillion, the U.S. military has already become severely overstretched after just a short conflict in Iran. This confirms long-held warnings about U.S. defense production capacity constraints, and suggests that current spending prioritizes fixed overhead costs like global basing over the flexible assets and stockpiles needed for modern conflict.

    The third key takeaway from the war is a global reevaluation of air and missile defense doctrine. The Gulf monarchies—the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia—have faced repeated barrages of Iranian missiles and drones, and their existing defense systems have failed to stop these attacks effectively. Part of this failure stems from the global shortage of advanced, costly interceptors for U.S.-made Patriot and THAAD systems, a supply crunch that was first exposed by the war in Ukraine. Another factor is that most countries had not adapted their defense strategies to counter the swarms of low-cost drones that have become a staple of modern warfare, until the Iran conflict forced a reckoning. As a result, demand for the type of low-cost, mass-deployed anti-drone defenses Ukraine has honed is set to surge across the globe, not just in the Middle East.

    Fourth, the conflict has underscored the urgent need for diversified energy supply chains and expanded strategic stockpiles of critical commodities. For years, analysts have warned that global trade chokepoints could become tools of leverage during open conflict, but the U.S. largely downplayed or even ignored the strategic risk of the Strait of Hormuz, despite the fact that roughly 20% of the world’s annual oil supply passes through the narrow waterway shared by Iran and Oman. After the collapse of the Islamabad talks, the world now faces a high-stakes game of brinkmanship between Trump and Iran over control of the strait. Trump’s recent declaration that U.S. warships will blockade the strait to block Iran from levying transit tolls is a direct challenge to Tehran, a bold gambit that carries a major risk of reigniting full-scale hostilities.

    Beyond the immediate crisis, the Hormuz standoff makes clear that nations need to diversify trade routes and build up larger strategic reserves to reduce the leverage chokepoints can give to adversarial powers. For Taiwan, this lesson hits particularly close to home: the island’s still-small strategic energy and commodity stockpiles leave it extremely vulnerable to a potential Chinese blockade.

    The fifth and final emerging shift centers on the future of American global alliances. The Iran war has laid bare Trump’s extreme sensitivity to any perceived lack of support from U.S. allies, even as he spent much of the past year publicly insulting and alienating those same partners. Already, the rift over European refusal to join the war has increased the odds that Trump could withdraw the U.S. from NATO in a fit of pique. While the Indo-Pacific alliances have not yet faced the same existential risk, the conflict confirms that U.S. foreign policy is now heavily concentrated in the hands of a single individual: the president. Though Trump is scheduled to leave office in less than three years under current constitutional rules, he has already made dozens of deeply personal, unilateral decisions that will reshape global order in that time, and no country can insulate itself from the consequences of his actions.

    This article is an updated version of an original piece published by Mainichi, appearing in Bill Emmott’s Substack column Global View.

  • Trump announces closure of Hormuz Strait as Iran talks falter

    Trump announces closure of Hormuz Strait as Iran talks falter

    In a sudden Sunday announcement via his Truth Social platform, U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered an immediate military blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a move that comes after Vice President JD Vance’s negotiation team failed to secure the trust of Iranian officials amid already heightened tensions between the two nations. Iranian negotiators, who have a long history of broken agreements with the United States, have refused to compromise on their sovereignty over the country’s nuclear program, derailing the first direct high-level talks between Washington and Tehran since 1979.

    Trump’s early morning post framed the closure as a response to what he called “world extortion” by Iran, claiming the country has leveraged unconfirmed claims of hidden mines in the strategic waterway to extract illegal tolls from commercial shipping. Prior to the Trump administration’s launch of the latest conflict, the strait — which carries roughly 20% of global oil trade — remained open to all vessels. “At some point, we will reach an ‘ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO IN, ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO OUT’ basis, but Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying, ‘There may be a mine out there somewhere,’ that nobody knows about but them,” Trump wrote. “THIS IS WORLD EXTORTION, and Leaders of Countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted.”

    The U.S. president went on to outline the parameters of the new blockade, stating he has instructed the U.S. Navy to interdict any vessel in international waters that has paid the so-called toll to Iran — a provision that was reportedly part of a draft ceasefire agreement Trump approved just last week. “No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas. We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the Straits. Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!” he added. Trump doubled down on his hardline stance, warning that Iran will not be permitted to profit from what he calls illegal extortion, and reiterated that the U.S. military is “locked and loaded” to complete the destruction of remaining Iranian military infrastructure if necessary, citing Iran’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities as a core casus belli.

    The announcement sparked immediate pushback from peace advocates, policy experts, and Iran-focused analysts across the political spectrum. Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war organization CodePink, highlighted the contradictory logic of Trump’s policy in a post on X, writing, “So get this. Trump wants to open the Strait of Hormuz by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Blow up the world economy to punish Iran. Make sense?” Ryan Costello, policy director for the National Iranian American Council, went further, noting that a blockade qualifies as an act of war under international law. “Trump is announcing he will reenter the US into a war has been illegal under domestic and international law and has been disastrous for US interests, regional security, and the people of Iran,” Costello added. Independent journalist Séamus Malekafzali called the policy one of the most reckless in modern U.S. history, saying “I have legitimately never heard of a more insane, designed-to-backfire policy under this administration; maybe ever. Not only attempting to blockade Iranian ships, but ANY ship that goes through the Strait of Hormuz by paying the toll.”

    While Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended a high-profile Ultimate Fighting Championship event in Miami, Vance led the collapsed talks with Iranian officials in Islamabad, Pakistan. Speaking to reporters after the negotiations concluded, Vance reaffirmed the White House’s core demand: “We need to see an affirmative commitment that [Iran] will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon. That is the core goal of the president of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.”

    Contextualizing the collapse of trust, Iranian officials note that Tehran was open to sweeping nuclear concessions before the U.S. and Israel launched a joint bombing campaign against Iran on February 28. Notably, every U.S. administration former President George W. Bush’s term — including Trump’s first term — has concluded that Iran is not actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Iran previously committed to permanent non-proliferation under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the landmark nuclear deal brokered during the Barack Obama administration. Trump unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in 2018 during his first term, despite widespread confirmation that Iran was in full compliance with its terms.

    Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf publicly blamed the U.S. for the failed talks, confirming that Iranian negotiators refused to trust Vance’s team despite Tehran putting forward new, forward-looking proposals. The Iranian negotiating delegation was named “Minaab 168” in honor of 168 children and school staff killed in a U.S. cruise missile strike on the town of Minaab on the first day of the current war. “Before the negotiations, I emphasized that we have the necessary good faith and will, but due to the experiences of the two previous wars we have no trust in the opposing side,” Ghalibaf explained on X. He added that “America has understood our logic and principles, and now it’s time for it to decide whether it can earn our trust or not.”

    This is not the first time talks have collapsed amid accusations of bad faith from Tehran: just hours before Trump ordered the start of bombing in February, Omani mediators — who have facilitated backchannel talks between the two sides for years — announced a peace deal was within reach, leading Iranian officials to accuse Washington of walking away from a near-agreement to launch hostilities. Similar accusations arose when the U.S. and Israel launched offensive strikes against Iran in summer 2025, mid-way through an earlier round of nuclear negotiations.

    As of Trump’s blockade announcement, the U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign against Iran has entered its 43rd day. Coalition forces have struck more than 13,000 targets across Iran, assassinated dozens of senior political and military leaders — including former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — and killed more than 3,000 Iranians, hundreds of whom are women and children, according to Iranian medical officials. Concurrent Israeli bombing operations in Lebanon have killed hundreds of additional civilians, and the Israeli campaign in Gaza has killed and maimed over 250,000 Palestinians, leading to an ongoing genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Trump has previously publicly vowed to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages” and “destroy Iranian civilization.”

    Despite major military losses, Iran retains strategic leverage in the conflict, a reality Trump has rejected in his public statements. “The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways,” Trump wrote on Truth Social as Vance departed for negotiations in Pakistan. “The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei struck a measured tone in response to the collapse, advising that breakthroughs do not come after a single round of talks. “Naturally, from the beginning we should not have expected to reach an agreement in a single session,” Baghaei said. “No one had such an expectation.”