Global Pulse

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  • Iran says it won’t negotiate with ‘erratic’ Trump

    Iran says it won’t negotiate with ‘erratic’ Trump

    A rapidly unfolding crisis in the Persian Gulf’s strategic Strait of Hormuz has sent global shockwaves, after a series of escalatory moves from both the United States and Iran have pushed regional security and global energy supplies to the breaking point. What began with incendiary rhetoric from US President Donald Trump has now devolved into armed confrontation at sea and a complete breakdown of planned diplomatic negotiations, raising grave fears of a broader regional war.

    On Sunday, Trump opened the week with an extreme public threat against Iran: if Tehran refused to sign a new US-brokered deal, he warned, “the whole country is going to get blown up.” Minutes later, conflicting claims emerged over a maritime confrontation in the Gulf of Oman. According to Trump’s account, US forces opened fire on an Iranian-flagged vessel, which he claimed ignored repeated warnings before being seized and disabled during operations to enforce a US naval blockade on Iranian ports. Iran’s account directly contradicts this narrative: state media affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says IRGC forces repelled US troops and forced them to retreat from Hormuz waters following the clash.

    The maritime incident is the latest flashpoint in a crisis that erupted after Trump unilaterally announced plans for a new round of talks set to take place Monday in Islamabad, Pakistan, saying the US delegation would be led by Vice President JD Vance, senior advisor Jared Kushner, and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. Iran’s official government news agency IRNA swiftly refuted the announcement, calling the claim of planned talks “not true” and dismissing it as “a media game and part of the blame game to pressure Iran.”

    Iran’s position has long been clear: it will not enter negotiations with the US while the naval blockade of its ports remains in place, a measure Tehran considers a direct violation of the temporary ceasefire agreed between the two nations earlier this month. When Trump confirmed the blockade would continue, Iran acted Saturday to close all shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, just one day after reopening the route following a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel.

    An anonymous senior Iranian official familiar with Tehran’s internal decision-making told Drop Site News that the collapse of talks stems from what Iranian leaders see as Washington’s unworkable approach to diplomacy. “Washington’s excessive demands, unrealistic expectations, constant shifts in stance, repeated contradictions, and the ongoing naval blockade” have convinced Iran to pull back its negotiating team, the official explained. While Iran remains open to a future agreement that would secure its right to enrich uranium, deliver meaningful sanctions relief, and establish a long-term non-aggression pact, Trump’s erratic leadership and maximalist demands – including the full surrender of all Iranian enriched uranium – have destroyed any trust that he could be a reliable negotiating partner.

    “Our assessment is that Trump effectively lacks both a coherent plan and the capacity to secure even a temporary agreement,” the official said, adding that Trump’s decisions are consistently shaped by daily Israeli security and political input. The official also noted that during the first round of Islamabad talks that produced the earlier two-week ceasefire, Iran explicitly warned the US delegation that public threats to destroy “Iranian civilization” would not be tolerated. Even before Sunday’s new threat, Iran had refused to commit to another round of talks.

    Should Trump choose to continue military escalation rather than pursue good-faith diplomacy, the official warned, Iran will suspend all diplomatic channels indefinitely and prepare to impose far greater costs on US interests across the region. “Tehran is prepared for a long war,” the official added.

    Tehran-based political analyst Mohammed Sani confirmed that Iran has used the two-week ceasefire to dramatically upgrade its military readiness. “The Americans have been bringing in more troops and equipment to prepare to attack, but the Iranians have also not been resting during these two weeks of ceasefire,” Sani told Drop Site News. “They have been preparing, repairing the underground missile cities, bringing in new air defenses, missiles, and drones. Iran is at a high standard of readiness right now. If there is another round of negotiations sometime later in the future, after another round of American attacks against Iran fail, the Iranian conditions for peace will be much tougher.”

    Foreign policy experts say Trump’s reliance on coercive threats is self-defeating, pushing Iran further from the negotiating table even as the president claims he wants an exit from the conflict that has already triggered economic upheaval and dragged down his already low approval ratings. Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, noted that Trump has prioritized public optics of victory over tangible diplomatic progress. “Due to poor discipline, Trump ends up prioritizing the optics of victory over actually getting a deal,” Parsi said Sunday. “Instead of using deescalatory signals from Iran to get closer to a deal, he declares victory and seeks Iran’s humiliation, and by that, he undermines his own diplomacy.”

    Global attention is now fixed on the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical chokepoints for global energy supplies, with market and diplomatic observers bracing for further escalation as both sides maintain hardline positions.

  • Israeli soldier filmed smashing Jesus statue in Lebanon

    Israeli soldier filmed smashing Jesus statue in Lebanon

    A widely circulated image posted to social media Sunday has ignited international anger after appearing to show an Israeli soldier using a jackhammer to destroy a crucifix statue of Jesus in a Christian village in southern Lebanon. The incident comes just days after a ceasefire took effect Friday, ending Israel’s military offensive launched against Lebanon on March 2 that has left much of the southern part of the country under Israeli occupation.

    According to local Christian community leaders, the statue stood in Debel, a majority Maronite Christian village positioned roughly six kilometers northwest of Ain Ebel and just five kilometers from the Israeli border town of Shtula. Officials with Debel’s municipal government confirmed the statue was located within the village when contacted by Agence France-Presse, though they stopped short of verifying the extent of damage shown in the photo.

    The image quickly spread across major social platforms, drawing condemnation from unexpected quarters, including prominent former allies of former US President Donald Trump aligned with the MAGA movement. Former Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has broken ranks with Trump in recent months over his handling of the Epstein files and his support for Israel’s push for conflict with Iran, shared the image sarcastically on platform X. She wrote, “’Our greatest ally’ that takes billions of our tax dollars and weapons every year,” a sharp rebuke of the decades-long US policy of robust military and financial aid to Israel.

    Fellow former Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz echoed the criticism, calling the scene captured in the image simply “horrific.” Political analysts note this public backlash from key MAGA figures threatens to erode Israel’s standing among one of its most loyal support bases in the United States: white evangelical Christian voters, who have long backed Israel as a core part of their ideological beliefs.

    Regional commentator Muhammad Shehada highlighted the hypocrisy he sees in the incident, captioning the viral post “’Judeo-Christian values’ in Israel” — a direct reference to the framing Israeli leaders often use to win support from Western audiences by highlighting shared cultural values with Europe and the United States.

    This incident is not an isolated case, rights observers and religious leaders emphasize. Over recent years, Christian communities living in Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank have faced a steadily rising tide of anti-Christian attacks, ranging from routine street harassment to the deliberate destruction of religious sites and symbols. Clergy report multiple instances of being spat on and physically assaulted by extremist groups, while churches, cemeteries and other Christian landmarks have been repeatedly vandalized. Most of these attacks have been tied to ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups, religious nationalist extremists and Israeli settlers in occupied territories, and human rights groups say the vast majority of these incidents have gone unpunished. Israeli police have repeatedly been accused of failing to intervene to stop attacks or hold perpetrators accountable.

    In response to growing outcry over the viral image, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson did not explicitly dispute the photo’s authenticity. In a post on X, the spokesperson said that “If this photo is indeed real and recent,” then the actions shown do not align with the Israeli military’s official values.

    This report was originally published by Middle East Eye, an outlet that provides independent, on-the-ground coverage of the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding regions.

  • Hit reality show helps rev up Japan’s delinquent youth subculture

    Hit reality show helps rev up Japan’s delinquent youth subculture

    Decades after Japan’s iconic 1980s delinquent subculture faded from the streets, a surprise global hit reality dating series on Netflix has sparked a resurgence of fascination with the ‘yankii’ counterculture, drawing both new fans and enduring criticism across the country. Today, young Japanese enthusiasts like 15-year-old Reona are embracing the iconic aesthetic of the original yankii movement: towering Elvis-inspired pompadours, altered school uniforms that emphasize a rebellious silhouette, and baggy trousers designed to project an imposing, tough persona. For Reona, the allure lies in the unapologetic boldness of the 1980s generation of rebels. ‘I think their hardcore manliness on full display is so cool,’ he told reporters, drawing a sharp contrast between the original yankii movement and the shallow, online-focused delinquency that dominates modern youth culture. Born from the economic boom and social unrest of 1980s Japan, the original yankii movement was defined by hot-blooded teens who rejected rigid social conformity through reckless motorcycle rides, inter-school clashes, and large-scale street brawls. The movement’s signature ‘bosozoku’ motorcycle gangs, flamboyant custom bikes, and embroidered military-style ‘tokkofuku’ jackets became cultural symbols, alongside widely celebrated traits like loyalty to friends, chivalry, and unfiltered straightforwardness. Despite longstanding disapproval from Japan’s generally conformist mainstream society, yankii culture has remained a staple of Japanese pop fiction, spanning hit anime, manga, and feature films. Now, Netflix has broken new ground by bringing the subculture out of fiction and into unscripted reality with its series *Badly in Love*, which follows 11 young people with past delinquent ties, including former bosozoku members, as they navigate dating. To coincide with the show’s viral success, a yankii-themed exhibition is currently running in Tokyo, recreating the chaotic energy of the 1980s movement through displays of custom motorcycles and authentic tokkofuku garments. The resurgence of interest in classic yankii culture comes as many young Japanese people openly dismiss modern youth delinquency as cowardly and unprincipled. Unlike the 1980s rebels, who fought openly and faced consequences for their actions, modern delinquents are often criticized for chasing TikTok clout through petty pranks, engaging in online bullying, and running ‘black market part-time jobs’ that scam vulnerable elderly citizens. High-profile incidents like the so-called ‘sushi terrorism’ pranks, where teen customers posted viral videos of unhygienic stunts at conveyor-belt sushi restaurants, have drawn particular condemnation from classic yankii fans. ‘Getting arrested for riding around your motorcycle may have some honour, but getting arrested for those sushi pranks is plain lame,’ Reona said. Even many parents of young yankii enthusiasts draw clear lines between embracing the subculture’s aesthetic and endorsing harmful behavior. Hirotaka Sotooka, a 43-year-old Tokyo resident whose 8-year-old son has developed a fascination with gangster-style yankii fashion, says he tolerates the aesthetic and even appreciates the culture’s focus on loyalty, but sets firm boundaries. ‘I don’t want him to bully the weak, be violent toward women or do anything purely evil,’ Sotooka explained during a February visit to the Tokyo yankii exhibition, where he watched his son pose for photos in front of a vintage bosozoku-style motorcycle. ‘Otherwise it’s his life to enjoy.’ While interest in the yankii aesthetic has grown, the actual bosozoku biker gangs that defined the 1980s movement have all but disappeared. Official Japanese police data shows the total number of bosozoku members has plummeted nearly 90% from the 1982 peak, dropping to just 5,880 active members in 2024. Kenichiro Iwahashi, a former bosozoku biker who now works as a delinquency researcher, says widespread surveillance is the biggest driver of the decline. ‘Surveillance cameras are now everywhere and everyone films you on an iPhone and leaves proof of your act,’ he explained. As a result, the hardcore, unlicensed, helmet-free bosozoku gangs that dominated 1980s streets are ‘almost non-existent today.’ In mainstream Japanese society, real-world yankii culture still remains deeply stigmatized, with many critics arguing that it normalizes rule-breaking and can lead to lifelong criminal activity. Satoru Saito, a popular 33-year-old comedian who performs under a yankii persona complete with a towering quiff, shaved eyebrows, and authentic tokkofuku, says he regularly faces online harassment from people who condemn his ‘anti-social’ aesthetic. ‘For some people, this is a hard no,’ he said. ‘Most of these yankii folks are doing things like fighting or committing crimes, and the act of riding motorcycles at midnight can be extremely noisy, so I get why they are hated.’ That stigma makes *Badly in Love* a particularly audacious project that no mainstream Japanese TV network would have agreed to produce, according to veteran entertainment journalist Motohiko Tokuriki. While yankii-themed fiction like *Tokyo Revengers* and *Crows* has long been popular as escapist fantasy, airing unscripted content featuring real former delinquents would have ‘risked exposing TV stations to criticism from the public that they are endorsing the yankii culture,’ Tokuriki explained. Aware of the public backlash risk, Netflix took extra steps to avoid sensationalizing or glorifying delinquency, going far beyond basic legal compliance to contextualize cast members’ past mistakes. ‘We had extensive internal discussions… to ensure the production would not be perceived as glorifying or condoning the violence,’ said Dai Ota, the show’s executive producer. The gamble has paid off: *Badly in Love* has spent weeks on Netflix’s global top 10 most-watched list, earning large audiences across South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other international markets, with a second season set to premiere later this year. Ota says the show’s core goal is not to celebrate delinquency, but to humanize young people who have long been marginalized as social outcasts. ‘Our hope was to show that these young people — who have often been marginalised or labelled as ‘social outcasts’ — are simply youths who worry, struggle and genuinely grow,’ he explained. For many cast members, that framing aligns with their own perspective on their pasts. Otoha, a 23-year-old Season 1 participant who has the tough, heavily tattooed exterior stereotypical of yankii culture, says she is actually an introvert who now sees her past delinquent behavior as embarrassing. ‘I’d like people not to admire us, but take us as their anti-role model,’ she told reporters.

  • Nahid Rana takes five wickets as Bangladesh beats New Zealand to level ODI series

    Nahid Rana takes five wickets as Bangladesh beats New Zealand to level ODI series

    On a sluggish, low-bouncing pitch in Mirpur, Bangladesh, young pace bowler Nahid Rana delivered a career-defining performance on Monday, claiming a spectacular 5 wickets for just 32 runs to power the hosts to a six-wicket victory over New Zealand in the second One Day International. The result levels the three-match series at one win apiece, setting up a highly anticipated decider scheduled for Thursday in Chattogram.

    New Zealand captain Tom Latham won the toss and made the call to bat first, a decision that quickly came under pressure as Nahid’s blistering express pace – clocked at a maximum of 144.7 kilometers per hour – tore through the visitors’ top order on the slow playing surface. The 22-year-old seamer notched his first breakthrough early, dismissing Henry Nicholls, and followed up with a second wicket in consecutive overs to remove Will Young. By the middle of the innings, New Zealand’s batting lineup was in disarray, with only opening batter Nick Kelly able to withstand Bangladesh’s bowling attack.

    Kelly, playing in just his third ODI, notched a maiden half-century and went on to score an 83 off 102 balls, laced with 14 fours, to anchor New Zealand’s innings and drag the side to the brink of a 200-run total. But he received almost no meaningful support from the rest of the batting order: no other New Zealand batter managed to cross the 20-run mark, leaving the tail exposed to Bangladesh’s pace attack. Nahid continued his rampage through the middle and lower order, clean-bowling Jayden Lennox for a duck to secure his second five-wicket haul in his short international career. He came close to a sixth wicket when Will O’Rourke survived a close review, but Taskin Ahmed cleaned up the innings soon after, leaving New Zealand all out for 198 in 48.4 overs. Fellow Bangladeshi pacer Shoriful Islam chipped in with two key wickets – including Kelly, removed by a well-directed short delivery – to finish with figures of 2 for 32.

    Needing just 199 runs to level the series, Bangladesh got off to a rocky start that gave New Zealand a faint glimmer of hope. Pacers Nathan Smith and Will O’Rourke removed openers Saif Hasan and Soumya Sarkar (returning to the side in place of Afif Hossain) for single-digit scores, leaving the hosts reeling at 21 for 2 after just four overs. But a transformative 120-run third-wicket partnership between opener Tanzid Hasan and captain Najmul Hossain Shanto flipped the match entirely in Bangladesh’s favor.

    Tanzid played a fluent, aggressive innings, reaching 76 runs off just 58 balls, while Shanto built a patient innings to anchor the chase. Just after Shanto hit his 12th career ODI fifty – his first since February 2025 – a sudden muscle cramp forced him to retire hurt, but by that point Bangladesh held unchallenged control of the run chase. Left-arm spinner Lennox did manage two late wickets, removing Tanzid and Bangladesh wicketkeeper Litton Das (playing his 100th ODI) for 7, but it was too little too late. The hosts reached the winning target of 199 with four wickets in hand and 87 overs remaining, closing out the win and setting the stage for a series decider in Chattogram later this week.

  • New Zealand declares state of emergency in Wellington as floods hit

    New Zealand declares state of emergency in Wellington as floods hit

    Just one week after Cyclone Vainau swept through New Zealand’s North Island, the region is facing another extreme weather disaster: record-breaking torrential rain that has triggered catastrophic flash flooding and widespread landslides, prompting official authorities to declare a full state of emergency across the capital city of Wellington.

    Viral footage circulated across social and online platforms has captured the full scale of the destruction: passenger vehicles are fully submerged in swollen floodwaters, mature trees have been ripped from the ground by surging currents, and multiple residential properties have sustained severe damage after being hit by debris-heavy landslides. According to Wellington Mayor Andrew Little, the capital saw an unprecedented 77 millimeters (3 inches) of rainfall fall in less than 60 minutes on Monday, a rainfall rate that overwhelmed local drainage systems far beyond their design capacity.

    In the wake of the downpour, local emergency management officials have issued urgent guidance for Wellington residents: stay indoors and shelter in place as additional rain is projected to continue over the next 36 hours. All non-essential travel has been strongly discouraged, and residents living in low-lying or historically flood-prone neighborhoods have been advised to relocate to the homes of friends or family members for a minimum of 24 hours to avoid risk.

    Disruptions to daily life have been widespread across the region. Multiple commercial flights in and out of Wellington International Airport have been canceled, and dozens of local schools have closed their campuses to protect students and staff from hazardous travel conditions. More than 12 local residents have already been evacuated from high-risk areas, and emergency teams are currently searching for a 60-year-old man who was reported missing in Wellington’s Karori suburb. As of the latest update, no fatalities have been confirmed.

    Little described the ongoing unfolding crisis in a video posted to his official Facebook page, noting “The wild weather continues. We’ve had flooding, slips and evacuations… The flooding has been strong enough to move cars, and many manhole covers have been lifted” by the force of the surging water. To support residents displaced by the disaster, the Wellington City Mission has been activated as an official emergency shelter for anyone in need of a safe place to stay amid the ongoing bad weather.

  • Australian businesses urge government to slash $160bn red tape burden

    Australian businesses urge government to slash $160bn red tape burden

    A coalition of almost 30 leading Australian business industry groups is pushing for sweeping regulatory reform ahead of the federal government’s upcoming budget, warning that crippling red tape currently costs the national economy $160 billion annually and is pushing struggling businesses to the breaking point.

    Leading the coalition’s pre-budget submission, Business Council of Australia chief executive Bran Black told reporters that businesses of all sizes, just like household consumers, are grappling with mounting cost pressures amid global economic uncertainty. He laid out the startling example of overburdened licensing requirements that illustrate the scope of the problem: cafes in New South Wales must secure 25 separate permits just to operate and serve a basic cup of coffee, while Victorian food service businesses are forced to obtain 37 distinct licences to open their doors.

    “We’re seeing that there are extraordinary costs that businesses are incurring right across the economy, and it doesn’t matter if you’re in farming or in retail or in small business, you’re seeing those challenges,” Black said.

    Black is calling on the federal government to adopt an official national target to cut unnecessary red tape by 25% by 2030, a goal aligned with ongoing regulatory reform efforts across European nations that have struggled with their own bureaucratic bloat. He emphasized that the timing for reform is critical, as global economic volatility driven by ongoing conflicts such as the crisis in the Middle East has amplified existing cost pressures for Australian businesses.

    Wes Lambert, director of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBA), echoed Black’s urgency, noting that small operators across the country are “drowning” under overlapping bureaucratic requirements that show no sign of easing despite government claims of progress. Lambert cited research from the Australian Institute of Company Directors, which confirms that overlapping rules and regulations from local, state and federal levels of government combine to create the $160 billion annual drag on Australian business output.

    Black added that the upcoming May federal budget represents a make-or-break opportunity to address longstanding complaints about regulatory burden, a demand the business community has raised for years but that has grown more urgent amid global market instability.

    In response to the coalition’s proposal, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher confirmed that the current government plans to prioritize targeted regulatory reform in the upcoming budget, but rejected calls for broad, across-the-board cuts. “One of the things about regulatory reform is the government’s keen to do something where it makes sense, where it improves outcomes, where it delivers better regulation,” Gallagher told ABC Radio on Monday. “It’s not just a ‘cut all regulation and see how it goes’, so we’re working with their ideas as well as ideas across the government.”

  • French prosecutors summon Elon Musk over allegations of child abuse images and deepfakes on X

    French prosecutors summon Elon Musk over allegations of child abuse images and deepfakes on X

    PARIS — French law enforcement has called on Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest individual, to appear in Paris this week for voluntary questioning as part of a sprawling investigation into serious misconduct allegations tied to his social media platform X. The probe covers a range of damaging content hosted on the platform, from child sexual abuse material to Holocaust-denying output from X’s integrated AI chatbot Grok.

    Alongside Musk, former X CEO Linda Yaccarino has also been summoned for a voluntary interview. Multiple other X employees are scheduled to give witness testimony throughout the week, confirmed by the office of the Paris prosecutor. Yaccarino led X from May 2023 through July 2025, and both she and Musk are being questioned in their capacities as top platform executives during the period covered by the investigation. As of Monday morning, it remains unclear whether the two executives will comply with the summons. A representative for X declined to respond to media inquiries from the Associated Press, and eMed, Yaccarino’s current employer, also did not answer a press request for comment.

    The investigation traces its origins back to January 2025, when the Paris prosecutor’s cybercrime unit first opened the case following allegations from a French lawmaker claiming X’s biased algorithms improperly manipulated automated data processing systems. The scope of the probe expanded dramatically after disturbing content emerged from Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot built by Musk’s xAI and accessible exclusively via X. The chatbot prompted global outrage earlier this year when it generated hundreds of non-consensual sexually explicit deepfake images in response to user requests. It later drew further condemnation for a widely shared French-language post that repeated classic Holocaust denial tropes, falsely claiming the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau were built for typhus disinfection rather than mass murder. Grok later walked back the claim, deleting the post and acknowledging that historical evidence confirms Zyklon B was used to kill more than 1 million people at the camp.

    Today, investigators are examining multiple formal allegations, including complicity in the distribution and possession of child sexual exploitation imagery, spread of non-consensual explicit deepfakes, denial of crimes against humanity, and algorithmic manipulation as part of an organized criminal scheme.

    In a statement, prosecutors noted that the voluntary interviews are designed to let senior leaders lay out their side of the story and outline any compliance changes they intend to adopt. “At this stage, the conduct of this investigation is part of a constructive approach, with the ultimate objective of ensuring that platform X complies with French law, insofar as it operates within the national territory,” the statement read. When asked whether Musk would face legal consequences for failing to appear, prosecutors declined to comment.

    The investigation has already sparked cross-Atlantic tension. In March, French prosecutors notified two top U.S. agencies — the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission — of a separate bombshell allegation: the controversy surrounding Grok’s explicit deepfake output may have been intentionally orchestrated to inflate the valuations of X and xAI ahead of a planned 2026 public listing of the merged SpaceX-xAI entity. Prosecutors noted the scheme was alleged to have been launched at a time when X was facing declining market momentum.

    That request for U.S. cooperation has been rejected, according to the *Wall Street Journal*. The U.S. Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs sent a two-page letter to French authorities last week stating it would not facilitate the investigation, accusing France of misusing its legal system to interfere in U.S. business operations. The letter, quoted by the *Wall Street Journal*, argued that the French probe “seeks to use the criminal legal system in France to regulate a public square for the free expression of ideas and opinions in a manner contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.” It added that France’s request for assistance “constitute[s] an effort to entangle the United States in a politically charged criminal proceeding aimed at wrongfully regulating through prosecution the business activities of a social media platform.” French judicial officials have not issued any public response to the U.S. rejection.

    Adding another layer to the legal pressure on X, press freedom advocacy group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) recently filed an additional complaint against the platform with Paris’s cybercrime prosecution unit. The new complaint targets X’s content moderation policies that RSF says enable widespread disinformation to spread unchecked, in violation of the public’s right to access accurate information. “Disinformation campaigns are flooding X, some of which have accumulated several hundred thousand views. Although the staff at Elon Musk’s platform are well aware of the situation, this has not stopped them from responding to RSF’s repeated alerts with automated refusals to remove the content in question,” the group said in a statement. “This is a deliberate policy instated by X, and it is incompatible with the public’s right to reliable information.”

  • AFL 2026: St Kilda CEO Andrew Bassat defends Ross Lyon’s media style

    AFL 2026: St Kilda CEO Andrew Bassat defends Ross Lyon’s media style

    A fresh controversy has erupted in Australian Football League (AFL) circles following a fiery post-match exchange between coach Ross Lyon and reporters, with St Kilda’s top executive stepping forward publicly to back the embattled coach. The drama unfolded after the Saints suffered a gut-wrenching one-point defeat to Adelaide on Saturday night, where Lyon pushed back against media questioning in a tense press conference that quickly divided opinion across the football community.

    In the tense press briefing, Lyon stood by his claim that the St Kilda side had shown clear improvement despite underwhelming early season results that leave the club with a 2-5 win-loss record halfway through the opening round of fixtures. The coach went as far as pressing reporters to recall the final ladder positions of each of the Saints’ opponents from the previous season, a standoff that sparked widespread debate across the sport.

    The criticism reached a peak when former AFL player and prominent player agent Liam Pickering called on sports journalists to boycott Lyon’s future press conferences in response to the coach’s confrontational approach. But St Kilda president Andrew Bassat has doubled down on the club’s support for Lyon, defending both the coach’s stance and his unfiltered style of media engagement in an interview with ABC Melbourne on Monday.

    “Ross is a fascinating guy, and I personally love working with him. He’s incredibly driven, hungry to win, and has that relentless edge every top coach needs,” Bassat explained. “It’s worth remembering just how unforgiving the position is: we walked away from a one-point heartbreaker, with almost no luck down the stretch, and immediately he has to stand in front of a room of reporters to answer questions.”

    Bassat acknowledged that Lyon reacts very differently depending on the quality of questioning he receives, confirming that the coach’s famous line — “ask stupid questions, win stupid prizes” — is a genuine reflection of his approach to media interactions. “He’s far more responsive when the questions are intelligent and fair, that’s no secret. I’ve been on the receiving end of that sharpness myself when I’ve asked a question he thinks misses the mark,” Bassat said. “The truth is, he’s just more honest than most coaches when he thinks a question isn’t worth answering. That’s just who he is.”

    Beyond the controversy over the press conference, Bassat also opened up about his mixed views on the AFL’s new Opening Round concept, which gave selected clubs early starts to their home-and-away season this year. St Kilda was chosen to feature in the opening round, drawing the club’s largest ever home-and-away crowd for a match against Collingwood at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The big turnout was a win for the club, even if they walked away with a loss, but Bassat still has lingering reservations about the restructured opening to the season.

    “I’m a bit torn on the whole idea, to be honest,” Bassat admitted. “I don’t love that it creates an uneven start to the season for different clubs and messes with the structure of bye rounds later in the year. That said, if the league is going to have an Opening Round, we absolutely wanted to be part of it — we asked the AFL for a spot, and they agreed. It gave us a fantastic chance to play in front of a huge crowd, even if we didn’t get the result we wanted. If I’m being honest, I’d rather we didn’t have the concept at all, but if we’re going to have it, I’m glad we were included.”

  • US funding helps Cyprus upgrade military bases for its role as a regional safe haven

    US funding helps Cyprus upgrade military bases for its role as a regional safe haven

    In the strategically vital eastern Mediterranean, the island nation of Cyprus is undertaking a major upgrade of its core military infrastructure, backed by U.S. taxpayer funding, to solidify its growing role as a secure evacuation hub and humanitarian logistics center for conflict-plagued regions of the Middle East.

    The Associated Press secured rare exclusive access to the restricted military sites, where National Guard spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Paris Samoutis outlined the scope of the improvements. Located just 229 kilometers off the coast of Lebanon, Cyprus’ primary Evangelos Florakis Naval Base will gain a new heliport financed by U.S. European Command. The facility is engineered to accommodate large heavy-lift rotorcraft such as Chinook transport helicopters, designed to streamline the evacuation of civilians and displaced people out of active conflict zones. Beyond the heliport, the naval base will also see extensive renovations to its port infrastructure, allowing it to berth larger vessels including frigates that bring advanced radar and missile-based air defense capabilities to protect incoming and outgoing humanitarian missions.

    On the island’s southwestern coast, the Andreas Papandreou Air Base will undergo expansion to add a new aircraft apron. This dedicated space will cut turnaround times for refueling and maintenance of dozens of heavy-lift military transport aircraft, which ferry personnel and emergency equipment to support regional humanitarian response operations. A regional wildfire coordination center, designed to assist neighboring Middle Eastern nations in combating large-scale seasonal blazes, is also set to open at the air base next month.

    While exact total project costs have not been publicly released as final cost assessments are still ongoing, the U.S. has already committed 500,000 euros ($588,000) to develop the detailed expansion plan for the air base. Construction on both projects is scheduled to break ground next year, as part of a broader multi-site infrastructure upgrade initiative across Cyprus’ military facilities. The U.S. funding is explicitly earmarked to help Cyprus scale up its capacity to handle large-scale humanitarian crisis response operations.

    This deepened security cooperation between Washington and Nicosia would have been unthinkable a decade ago. For decades, Cyprus maintained a strict policy of non-alignment in global geopolitics, but it has gradually shifted its diplomatic orientation firmly toward the West. That shift accelerated after President Nikos Christodoulides, an American-educated leader, took office in 2023. Under his administration, diplomatic outreach to the U.S. reached unprecedented levels, resulting in the end of a decades-long U.S. arms embargo on Cyprus and opening new doors for bilateral economic opportunity.

    Christodoulides has consistently leveraged Cyprus’ unique geographic location to make the case to European Union and U.S. leaders that the island is the ideal hub for Western diplomatic, economic, and humanitarian engagement with the volatile Middle East. “As a conscientious and responsible partner, Cyprus remains a credible and safe harbor,” Christodoulides stated in a December address.

    For years, the U.S. military relied on the two British sovereign base areas that the U.K. retained on Cyprus after the island gained independence from colonial rule in 1960. However, that arrangement was upended in early March, when a Shahed drone—confirmed by Cypriot officials to have been launched from Lebanon—struck an aircraft hangar at RAF Akrotiri, the first drone attack on EU territory tied to the wider Iran-Israel regional conflict. The upgrades to Cyprus’ own national military installations now provide Washington and other Western partners with alternative, sovereign infrastructure to support regional operations.

    Cyprus has already built a proven track record of facilitating humanitarian and evacuation operations in recent years. In April 2023, it served as a primary transit point for the repatriation of third-country nationals fleeing the conflict in Sudan. When regional tensions escalated following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, Cyprus again acted as a safe way station for foreign nationals leaving Israel and for Israelis stranded abroad to return home. In 2024, the island launched the Amalthea maritime corridor, which delivered thousands of tons of emergency humanitarian aid to war-torn Gaza—first directly, then via the Israeli port of Ashdod.

    Dozens of EU member states and other nations have already pre-positioned civilian personnel, military units, helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft in Cyprus to support potential future evacuation operations for their citizens. In 2024, the U.S. deployed a marine contingent and a fleet of V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft to Cyprus’ Paphos Air Base specifically to assist with evacuation operations out of Lebanon.

    A core red line has remained clear from the Cypriot government: all use of the upgraded military installations will be restricted exclusively to humanitarian operations, and will never be used for offensive military action. Echoing President Christodoulides’ core governing mantra for the island’s regional role, Samoutis emphasized: “Cyprus remains part of the solution, not the problem.”

  • Starmer admits mistake in appointing Mandelson as UK ambassador

    Starmer admits mistake in appointing Mandelson as UK ambassador

    LONDON – A mounting political crisis has engulfed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer this week, after revelations that former U.S. ambassador Peter Mandelson took up one of the nation’s most critical diplomatic posts despite failing mandatory national security vetting – a critical detail that senior government officials never brought to the prime minister’s attention, Starmer told lawmakers Monday.

    Addressing the House of Commons amid growing pressure to step down, Starmer acknowledged his appointment of Mandelson was a misjudgment, but stressed he would never have greenlit the nomination had he been informed of the failed security clearance. He placed full responsibility for the oversight on senior Foreign Office leadership, saying, “The fact that Mandelson’s vetting process ruled against security clearance could and should have been shared with me before he took up his post.”

    The controversy stretches back months, long before the vetting failure came to light. Starmer, who led the center-left Labour Party to a landslide general election victory in July 2024, selected Mandelson – a veteran former Labour politician and ex-European Union trade commissioner with deep ties to global political and business elites – for the Washington ambassadorship in late 2024, even after his own internal aides warned that Mandelson’s long-running personal friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, posed severe reputational risk. Additional alarms were also raised over Mandelson’s past business connections to Russia and China, but officials ultimately prioritized his diplomatic experience and existing relationships with figures connected to U.S. President Donald Trump’s second administration.

    Mandelson was ultimately removed from his post in September 2025, less than nine months after taking office, when new evidence emerged that he had lied about the true scope of his ties to Epstein. A batch of Epstein-related documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice in January 2025 included 2009 emails suggesting Mandelson shared sensitive, market-moving British government information with Epstein in the wake of the global financial crisis. British police launched a criminal investigation into the allegations and arrested Mandelson in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office; he has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, has not been formally charged, and faces no allegations of sexual misconduct connected to Epstein.

    The explosive new revelation of Mandelson’s failed security vetting was first published by *The Guardian* last week, and it has sparked immediate, widespread calls for Starmer’s resignation from all major opposition parties. Within hours of the report, Starmer dismissed Olly Robbins, the top civil servant at the Foreign Office, which holds oversight over all diplomatic appointments. Allies of Robbins have pushed back against the blame, however, claiming the senior official was never permitted to share sensitive vetting information directly with the prime minister. Robbins is set to present his own account of the appointment process to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday.

    Starmer has repeatedly maintained that what he believed was proper due process was followed during the appointment, but says he is now “furious” that the vetting panel’s negative recommendation was hidden from him. Opposition leaders have rejected his framing: Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch wrote in the *Mail on Sunday* that Starmer “misled Parliament over Mandelson, misled the country and is taking the public for fools.” Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, the United Kingdom’s third-largest party, called the appointment an act of “catastrophic misjudgment.”

    Senior members of Starmer’s own cabinet have publicly defended the prime minister, with Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy affirming that “he would never, ever have appointed him ambassador” if the failed vetting had been disclosed. But unrest is growing among backbench Labour lawmakers, who already face grim national poll ratings less than a year into the new government. Starmer previously defused one uprising over the Mandelson controversy in February, when a small group of MPs called for him to step down. The upcoming May 7 local and regional elections are widely viewed as a midterm referendum on Starmer’s premiership, and political analysts expect the prime minister could face new internal pressure to resign if Labour suffers heavy losses at the polls.

    Critics have framed the Mandelson fiasco as the latest in a string of missteps for Starmer’s government, which has struggled to deliver on campaign promises of accelerated economic growth, repair overstretched public services, and bring down the cost of living for British households. The prime minister has already been forced to reverse multiple key campaign pledges since taking office, and the ongoing crisis has deepened questions about his leadership judgment at a critical moment for British domestic and foreign policy.