Global Pulse

分类： politics

  • One Nation increases lead on Coalition months after Sussan Ley dumped

    One Nation increases lead on Coalition months after Sussan Ley dumped

    Fresh political polling data from Roy Morgan has revealed that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has expanded its gap in primary voter support over the Liberal-National Coalition, marking the widest divide between the two right-aligned political forces since the chaotic leadership spill that ousted Sussan Ley and elevated Angus Taylor to the party’s top role.

    Conducted between May 18 and 24 via text-based surveys with more than 1,600 registered Australian electors, the poll puts One Nation’s primary support at 25.5%, leaving the Coalition trailing at just 23% of intended primary votes. This milestone caps three straight weeks of One Nation outperforming even the federal Labor Party in primary vote tracking, a surge that followed the controversial announcement of negative gearing and capital gains tax adjustments in the 2026-27 federal budget.

    Beyond voter intention, the poll also records a steep three-point drop in national government confidence, which now sits at a worrisome low of 65. A clear majority of 60.5% of respondents believe Australia is heading in the wrong direction, with only 25.5% holding the view that the country is on the right track. Analysts attribute the plummeting public confidence to ongoing fallout from fuel shortages and a broader national energy crisis, developments that have been amplified by the fragile current ceasefire between the United States and Iran in the Middle East.

    In a public address addressing fuel market pressures on Monday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese warned Australian households that the economic ripple effects of the Middle East conflict will continue to be felt domestically long after active hostilities end. “These are volatile and uncertain times, and I want to make it clear that when the conflict ends, that doesn’t mean that the economic tale concludes,” Albanese told reporters.

    The poll indicates that if a federal election were held today, the incumbent Labor government would hold onto power, but would see its current parliamentary majority cut significantly. Even with its own drop in primary vote support, Labor still leads the Coalition 53% to 47% on a two-party preferred basis.

    However, the data points to a major structural shift in Australian politics: poll analysts note that the next competitive federal election contest is increasingly shaping up to be a race between One Nation and Labor, rather than the traditional Labor-Coalition matchup. Modeling of head-to-head scenarios found that a One Nation contest against either major party would almost certainly result in a hung parliament, a outcome that would reshape legislative negotiation and governance in Canberra.

  • Lithuania suspects foreign involvement in data leak of over 600,000 national register entries

    Lithuania suspects foreign involvement in data leak of over 600,000 national register entries

    VILNIUS, Lithuania – In a major cybersecurity incident that has escalated regional security concerns, Lithuanian national authorities have activated top-level alert protocols following the unauthorized exfiltration of over 600,000 records from the country’s official state data registers. Investigators have confirmed that a foreign state is suspected of orchestrating the breach, which has come amid heightened tensions from Russian hybrid operations targeting the Baltic nation.

    The General Prosecutor’s Office of Lithuania publicly confirmed the details of the breach on Friday, noting that the leaked data was drawn primarily from the country’s national real estate and legal entity registers. According to official statements, the attackers gained unauthorized access by exploiting valid login credentials belonging to public institutions that are legally permitted to access the registry datasets. In the wake of the security failure, Adrijus Jusas, head of the State Enterprise Centre of Registers, the government body that oversees management of the national data systems, stepped down from his post on Monday.

    Immediately following the discovery of the breach, Lithuanian cybersecurity and law enforcement bodies rolled out a series of emergency defensive measures. These included locking the accounts linked to suspicious access activity and enforcing mandatory credential updates for all authorized users to restrict further unauthorized entry, prosecutor officials confirmed.

    While investigators have pointed to foreign state involvement as the leading hypothesis, authorities have not publicly named the specific country suspected of carrying out the operation. However, the context of regional security puts the incident in a stark light: as a small European Union and NATO member state with a population of just 2.9 million, Lithuania has long been identified as one of the most frequent targets of Russia’s hybrid warfare campaign against Western Europe, which encompasses everything from sabotage and property destruction to disinformation and influence operations. This history has left the country acutely sensitive to large-scale cross-border cyber intrusions.

    Laurynas Kasčiūnas, a leading Lithuanian opposition politician, publicly claimed on social media this Sunday that the data theft is an operation carried out by Russian intelligence, though he has not released any evidence to back up the assertion. Kasčiūnas warned that the compromised dataset may include personal addresses and sensitive identifying information for active intelligence officers, military service members, Lithuanian diplomats, and national political leaders. If confirmed, the leak would give perpetrators actionable intelligence that could enable surveillance, targeted harassment, or coercive pressure operations against the exposed individuals.

  • Rubio says ‘solid’ Iran deal may come on Monday

    Rubio says ‘solid’ Iran deal may come on Monday

    During a press briefing while on an official visit to New Delhi, India, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has confirmed that negotiators from the United States and Iran have put forward a substantive draft framework for a preliminary agreement, with a possible announcement as early as Monday.

    Rubio emphasized that the agreement remains an unfinished work, telling reporters that while a solid proposal outlining the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is already on the table, Washington is still awaiting a formal response from Tehran. “I wouldn’t read too much into it, it takes a little while to hear back from Iran,” Rubio noted.

    The reported tentative deal centers on three core components: a 60-day extension of the existing ceasefire, the full reopening of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, and a structured roadmap for future negotiations on the long-standing dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. The Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s daily oil and liquefied natural gas supplies transit, has been effectively blocked by Iran since the outbreak of the latest conflict in the region, sending global energy markets into volatility.

    The update comes just days after U.S. President Donald Trump contradicted earlier hints of an imminent deal by publicly instructing his negotiating team to avoid rushing into an agreement. Behind the scenes, the talks have been delayed by a major communication barrier, according to reporting from CBS News, the BBC’s U.S. news partner. U.S. intelligence assessments indicate that Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who took power after his father and predecessor was killed in an Israeli strike on the first day of the war, has been hiding in an undisclosed location after sustaining injuries in the same attack. This isolation has slowed decision-making and communication between Khamenei and his negotiating envoys, a factor that has extended the timeline of talks.

    Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei struck a measured tone over the weekend, acknowledging that the two sides are simultaneously “very close and very far” from sealing an agreement. Crucially, the proposed deal is not a final comprehensive resolution, but instead a confidence-building stepping stone that pushes the most intractable issues to subsequent negotiations. These thorny outstanding questions include the scope and timeline for lifting U.S. economic sanctions on Iran, the release of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets held overseas, and Washington’s core demand that Iran permanently curb its nuclear enrichment activities.

    The prospect of the deal has already created a deep schism within Trump’s own Republican party, with several high-profile senators coming out publicly against the framework, arguing it is far too lenient toward Tehran. Senator Ted Cruz has called the potential agreement “a disastrous mistake”, while Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker claimed that a 60-day ceasefire would erase all gains from the U.S.-Israeli military campaign Operation Epic Fury, saying “everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught!” Even Lindsey Graham, a long-time close ally of Trump, has criticized any deal that would leave Iran perceived as a dominant regional power, asking “It makes one wonder why the war started to begin with.”

    Trump pushed back hard against his intra-party critics on his Truth Social platform, dismissing them as “losers, who are critical about something they know nothing about”. The president insisted that any deal he finalizes with Iran will be a strong, positive agreement for the United States, writing “If I make a deal with Iran, it will be a good and proper one.” He also reaffirmed his red line that Iran cannot be permitted to develop a nuclear weapon, a demand that Tehran has repeatedly pushed back on, with Iranian officials consistently maintaining that their nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful civilian energy and medical purposes.

    Some unconfirmed U.S. media reports suggest that the draft deal includes a provision for Iran to eventually transfer its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to third-party oversight. At the outbreak of the war in late February, U.S. estimates placed Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% purity at roughly 440 kilograms, a level just one small processing step away from the 90% purity required to build a functional nuclear weapon. In recent comments to Iranian state television, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tehran was ready to “assure the world that we are not after a nuclear weapon.”

    Beyond the political wrangling in Washington and Tehran, news of the potential deal has already moved global markets. On Monday, international crude oil prices dropped sharply amid growing optimism that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen, while equity markets across Asia posted significant gains. Still, industry analysts warn that even if a deal is announced in the coming days, it will take months for global shipping and energy supply chains to return to their pre-crisis state. Lars Jensen, chief executive of Vespucci Maritime and a former senior director at shipping giant Maersk, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that shipping firms will remain cautious even after a deal is signed. “Should a deal between Iran and the US be announced in the coming days, the industry would still remain ‘cautious and hesitant’ to make any ‘major operational changes’,” Jensen explained, adding that it could take months for supply chains to return to the physical condition they were in before the crisis began.

    To contextualize the current talks: the latest Middle East conflict began on February 28, when the United States and Israel launched widespread military strikes against Iranian targets, triggering retaliatory attacks from Iran on Israel and U.S. allied states in the Gulf. Iran’s subsequent decision to close the Strait of Hormuz sent global oil prices soaring to multi-year highs. A preliminary ceasefire was reached in early April, after which the U.S. imposed a full naval blockade on Iranian ports, a measure that Trump says will remain “in full force and effect until an agreement is reached, certified, and signed.”

  • Drone attacks raise fears as Colombians vote to elect a new president

    Drone attacks raise fears as Colombians vote to elect a new president

    JAMUNDI, Colombia — For 70-year-old Potrerito villager Gladys Marín, the route to Colombia’s upcoming presidential polling station is only a short cross-street walk away. Yet even this trivial trip feels like an enormous risk, as growing insecurity has left her questioning whether casting a ballot is worth endangering her life.

    Marín’s southwestern home sits less than 100 meters from the local police station — a site that has become a repeated target for drone-borne explosive attacks carried out by a dissident rebel faction that rejected the 2016 peace accord with the Colombian government. “You have to stay alert every minute, because we live right next to the police station,” Marín explained from her porch, 470 kilometers southwest of the capital Bogotá.

    On May 31, Colombians will head to the polls to elect a new president and vice president, in a contest widely framed as a public referendum on the policies of incumbent President Gustavo Petro. The most debated topic at the heart of the race is Petro’s signature “total peace” initiative, a bold policy designed to end decades of internal conflict by negotiating disarmament with the country’s remaining illegal armed groups.

    Across the country, rising violence linked to these armed factions has intensified under Petro’s administration, creating fear and uncertainty that extend directly to the electoral process. Colombia’s Electoral Observation Mission estimates that 386 municipalities — roughly one-third of the country’s total local jurisdictions — face high risk of interference and harm from illegal armed groups. Independent analysis from the Bogotá-based think tank Ideas for Peace Foundation adds that approximately 27,000 combatants remain active under arms across the nation.

    In recent years, the proliferation of modified drones carrying explosives has fundamentally reshaped the landscape of conflict in Colombia, creating new risks for both security forces and civilian populations. This tactical shift is particularly visible in Jamundi, where neighboring Robles town has blocked all streets leading to the local police station with makeshift barricades. Officers stand watch in sandbag-reinforced sentry posts draped in black fabric, constantly scanning the sky for incoming hostile drones.

    Eucaris Zamora, a Robles resident who was forced to abandon her home after a cylinder bomb from a drone destroyed half the building last October, says constant dread has become part of daily life. “You pass the police station always looking up, dreading that you’ll run into a nasty surprise,” she said.

    Guillermo Londoño, security secretary for the Valle del Cauca department where Jamundi is located, notes that armed groups have evolved their drone tactics to increase casualties and chaos. Instead of launching single drone attacks followed by reloading, groups now carry out coordinated “swarm-style” simultaneous strikes that overwhelm defensive positions.

    Colombia’s Defense Ministry data underscores how rapidly this threat has grown: 333 drone attacks were recorded across the country in 2025, a more than fivefold increase from just 61 incidents in 2024. As of early 2025, the Colombian army has documented 107 drone strikes that have already killed two soldiers, with the highest concentrations of attacks along the Venezuelan border, northern Bolívar province and southwestern coastal regions.

    Local officials frame the rising violence in Valle del Cauca as a direct failure of Petro’s “total peace” strategy, which was designed to end one of the world’s longest-running internal armed conflicts. Petro has publicly acknowledged that the initiative has failed to deliver the rapid disarmament of illegal networks he initially promised, and has recently hardened his approach: negotiations with several non-compliant groups have been frozen, while dialogue continues with other factions that have adhered to ceasefire commitments.

    The election has exposed a sharp ideological divide among presidential candidates over how to address the country’s security crisis. On one side, candidates aligned with Petro’s administration, including ruling movement Sen. Iván Cepeda, advocate for continuing negotiated dialogue to end the conflict. On the opposition side, candidates like Sen. Paloma Valencia of the right-wing Democratic Center and Abelardo de la Espriella — an open admirer of Salvadoran hard-line President Nayib Bukele — have pledged to abandon negotiations entirely and prioritize full-scale military pressure to dismantle illegal groups.

    International crisis analysts warn that escalating military pressure could backfire and lead to even more bloodshed. “Right-wing candidates propose a hard-line response that could exacerbate violence, because armed groups will respond to state military pressure with terror attacks against civilian and security targets,” explained Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst for the International Crisis Group. “They lack the capacity to fight a conventional symmetric war against the army, so they will turn to asymmetric attacks to sow fear.”

    Even in communities that have born the brunt of rising violence, many residents still hold out hope for a peaceful future. Last December, a large-scale gun assault on the police station in the small southern town of Buenos Aires left multiple officers injured, destroyed a local bank and reduced dozens of nearby homes to rubble. Among the wrecked properties was the home of 89-year-old Celimo Enrique Aguilar. When asked if he still believed Colombia could achieve lasting peace, Aguilar said: “I haven’t lost faith that someday, we’ll all be able to live without fear.”

  • Rubio’s visit to India focuses on US trade tensions, the Quad alliance and sightseeing

    Rubio’s visit to India focuses on US trade tensions, the Quad alliance and sightseeing

    On his first official visit to India as U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio has arrived in New Delhi with a clear mission: to repair frayed bilateral relations and reinforce long-standing strategic and economic partnerships between Washington and New Delhi, even as lingering trade disputes create friction between the two major Indo-Pacific powers.

    During Sunday’s high-level talks, which included meetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Rubio outlined shared priorities for deepened collaboration across four key areas: trade, energy, defense, and maritime security. He reaffirmed that the two nations remain strategically aligned, and voiced public optimism that negotiators will be able to hash out a long-stalled comprehensive bilateral trade agreement in the near future. As a key diplomatic gesture, Rubio also delivered a formal invitation from U.S. President Donald Trump for Modi to make an official state visit to Washington later this year.

    The roots of recent bilateral tension stretch back to new tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on a wide range of Indian exports, a move driven in large part by U.S. disapproval of India’s continued purchases of discounted Russian crude oil following the outbreak of the Ukraine war. The steep tariffs sparked outrage among Indian officials and eroded trust in Washington’s commitment to the relationship, raising questions about U.S. reliability as a long-term partner for New Delhi. While the two sides eventually reached an interim trade deal that rolled back some of the most punitive tariffs and expanded India’s purchases of American energy and other goods, negotiations on a broader, full-scale trade agreement have yet to reach a successful conclusion.

    Despite these frictions, the United States has continued to view India as a critical geopolitical ally and a key counterweight to growing Chinese influence across the Indo-Pacific, leading to steady expansion of defense and technology cooperation in recent years. That regional focus will take center stage later in Rubio’s four-day trip, when he is set to join talks with foreign ministers from the other three Quadrilateral Security Dialogue member nations: Australia, India, and Japan. The Quad, an Indo-Pacific strategic alliance, has emerged as a central coordination platform for member states to advance cooperation on maritime security, resilient global supply chains, and aligned regional strategy, as China expands both its military footprint and economic clout across the region.

    The alliance has repeatedly pushed back against Chinese activities in the South China Sea, accusing Beijing of aggressive militarization of disputed island territories. For its part, China has long framed the Quad as a deliberate effort to obstruct its peaceful rise and contain its growing regional influence. Recent trade tensions between the U.S. and India, paired with Trump’s high-profile recent visit to China, have sparked new scrutiny of the alliance’s future role and cohesion.

    Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, noted that India’s growing global strategic weight is closely tied to its utility as a counterbalance to Chinese regional power. Any major shift in U.S. policy toward Beijing, he argued, would directly reshape New Delhi’s strategic value to Washington. “If the U.S. changes its approach towards China, it will diminish India’s importance,” Donthi explained.

    Beyond geopolitics and trade, the ongoing conflict in Iran has added new layers of pressure to bilateral negotiations, particularly on energy security. The war has disrupted critical shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz, the main transit route for more than a third of India’s crude oil imports, stoking fears of prolonged supply disruptions and driving up global fuel prices. Rising energy costs have in turn placed new strain on India’s already fragile economy, making energy diversification a top policy priority for New Delhi.

    Speaking after Sunday’s talks, Jaishankar affirmed that India will continue expanding its energy imports, including from the United States, while pursuing a deliberate strategy of diversifying supplier nations to keep domestic markets stable and fuel prices affordable for Indian consumers. He added that New Delhi supports open, unconstrained global energy markets as a core requirement for sustained global economic growth. During his meetings, Rubio echoed that push, emphasizing Washington’s desire to deepen energy cooperation and encouraging India to continue ramping up purchases of American oil and natural gas.

    Alongside his packed schedule of official diplomatic engagements, Rubio has incorporated cultural and ceremonial stops into his four-day itinerary. He opened the trip in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, where he visited the global headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity, the charitable organization founded by Mother Teresa. He also took part in a gala reception in New Delhi celebrating the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence. Before concluding his visit, Rubio is scheduled to travel to two of India’s most iconic tourist destinations: Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, and Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan known for its historic forts, royal palaces, and vibrant cultural heritage.

  • ‘Uninformed or dishonest’: Negative gearing question the government can’t answer

    ‘Uninformed or dishonest’: Negative gearing question the government can’t answer

    A fierce political clash has erupted at a Senate estimates hearing in Australia, centering on conflicting government statements around pre-election policy modelling for upcoming negative gearing and capital gains tax reforms. Liberal Senator Jane Hume has launched a scathing rebuke of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, arguing his public denial of commissioning the policy modelling ahead of last year’s election leaves the Prime Minister with only two unflattering explanations for his comment.

    The controversy traces back to Albanese’s remarks during a 2024 ABC leaders’ election debate, when he asserted that internal modelling of potential changes to negative gearing rules – reforms that were only formally unveiled as part of the federal government’s budget earlier this month – “certainly wasn’t commissioned by us”. Just days after the budget was released, however, Treasurer Jim Chalmers confirmed that the federal Treasury had been working on modelling for both negative gearing adjustments and cuts to the capital gains tax discount as far back as September 2024, contradicting the Prime Minister’s earlier public statement.

    During the tense, hour-long grilling on Monday, Hume pressed Industry Minister Tim Ayres and attending departmental officials repeatedly to clarify whether Albanese was aware of the ongoing modelling work before he made his debate claim. She said bluntly, “When the Prime Minister said this modelling certainly wasn’t commissioned by us, he was either uninformed or dishonest. And, I’d like to know which one he was.”

    Ayres responded by citing longstanding conventions around protecting the confidentiality of cabinet deliberations, noting he was limited in what details he could share about internal government discussions. He told the hearing that there would be future opportunities to question Treasury officials directly about the matter, adding “In terms of which meeting were particular changes canvased I’m not in a position to offer anything more than I already have.”

    When pressed further on the lack of clarity around the timeline and decision-making process for the reform shift, Ayres pushed back, emphasizing that the government had publicly owned the policy change, with full explanations delivered by both the Prime Minister and Treasurer following the budget announcement. “We announced in the budget the Tuesday before last, in the most public way that you can imagine, the approach that we’re taking on this set of questions,” he said. “We have been very clear with the Australian people and with the parliament.”

    Hume rejected this defense, however, arguing that Ayres failed to answer basic questions about when the government decided to reverse its previous position on negative gearing reform and what internal discussions led to the change. After an official told the hearing they would take a question about whether any official had followed up with Albanese about his debate comments on notice, Hume accused the government of deliberate stonewalling. The heated exchange saw Hume interrupted multiple times by the committee chair as she pressed her line of questioning. The controversy is set to continue when Treasury officials appear before future estimates hearings, where opposition senators have pledged to press for full transparency around the government’s pre-election policy work.

  • MP, staffers hacked in WhatsApp attack by ‘foreign state actor’, inquiry told

    MP, staffers hacked in WhatsApp attack by ‘foreign state actor’, inquiry told

    A coordinated cyberattack that successfully compromised WhatsApp accounts linked to one unnamed Australian parliamentarian and three parliamentary staff members was orchestrated by a foreign state actor, top parliamentary technology officials have confirmed during a recent Senate estimates hearing.

    Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) Chief Information Officer Mike Webb told the committee on Monday that the breach, which unfolded on March 6, was part of a deliberate, targeted phishing operation focused specifically on Australian parliamentary personnel. All four compromised accounts — connected to both personal devices and devices managed by the DPS — were hijacked using identical tactics, according to Webb’s testimony.

    In response to the confirmed breach, DPS implemented a temporary block on WhatsApp Web starting March 9, a measure made necessary because most of the compromised accounts were personal profiles that the department does not administer or monitor. The temporary restriction was lifted the following Sunday once initial security assessments were completed, Webb added.

    When questioned about the attribution of the attack, Webb confirmed that available intelligence points to a foreign state actor as the perpetrator. He noted that state-sponsored phishing campaigns targeting government officials via WhatsApp have been widely documented in public reporting, with multiple governments across the globe — including Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States — having already issued formal warnings about this exact style of cyber threat. “This is targeting our parliamentarians, but this is a genuine, global issue,” Webb told the hearing.

    At the time the temporary block was put in place, cybersecurity officials had not yet mapped the full scope of sensitive communications that may have been exposed via the compromised personal accounts. Webb outlined the common tactic used in the phishing scheme: attackers masquerade as a trusted contact — such as a fellow senator — to trick targets into granting access to their accounts.

    The hearing also shed light on the broader scope of persistent cyber threats facing the Australian parliament. DPS Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer Nicola Hinder told the committee that between late March and the time of the hearing, security systems had detected 46 instances of malware, blocked more than 20,000 separate phishing attempts, and responded to 1,458 distinct cyber alerts — most of which were attempts to disrupt or breach parliamentary websites.

    Hinder noted that the volume of cyber threats against the Australian parliament fluctuates over time, with periods of heightened activity followed by lulls when global attention shifts to other priorities. Webb added that parliamentarians will always remain high-value targets for cyberattacks regardless of the communication platform they use. The hearing also confirmed that while intelligence attributes this recent hack to a foreign state actor, pinpointing the exact group or responsible nation remains extremely challenging, described by officials as near impossible.

  • GOP hawks alarmed as Trump mulls deal to end his Iran war

    GOP hawks alarmed as Trump mulls deal to end his Iran war

    Over the recent weekend, former U.S. President Donald Trump made public that he is actively considering a negotiated agreement to bring an end to the ongoing U.S. war with Iran, a development that has sparked urgent pushback from hardline, pro-conflict factions within the Republican Party.

    Per a Sunday report from The New York Times, critical details of the prospective peace deal remain deeply unclear, most notably the future of Iran’s enriched uranium program, whose status is still unresolved. Compounding the uncertainty, official statements from both U.S. and Iranian representatives have offered conflicting accounts of what the agreement would entail, confirming that extensive negotiations still lie ahead before any final pact can be reached.

    Even before a full draft of the deal has emerged, three of the Senate’s most prominent Republican Iran hawks moved on Saturday to outline sharp objections to the emerging framework. The lawmakers warned that any agreement that leaves Iran strategically stronger than it was before Trump launched military operations in late February would be unacceptable for U.S. national security.

    Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who repeatedly pressured Trump to launch military strikes on Iran in the lead-up to the war, argued that a deal that allows the Iranian government to retain power and grow its influence over time would only exacerbate existing instability across the Middle East. “If it is perceived in the region that a deal with Iran allows the regime to survive and become more powerful over time, we will have poured gasoline on the conflicts in Lebanon and Iraq,” Graham wrote. He added that an agreement that lets Iran maintain future control over the Strait of Hormuz would supercharge the capabilities of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iranian-aligned Shia militias operating in Iraq.

    Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, another longstanding advocate of hardline policy toward Iran, said he is “deeply concerned” by early details of the proposed deal, singling out the risk of sanction relief for Iran while it retains the capacity to close off the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global oil chokepoint. “If the result of all that is to be an Iranian regime – still run by Islamists who chant ‘death to America’ – now receiving billions of dollars, being able to enrich uranium and develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, then that outcome would be a disastrous mistake,” Cruz said.

    Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi went even further in his rejection of the reported agreement, calling the rumored 60-day ceasefire that would precede final negotiations a fundamental mistake. “The rumored 60-day ceasefire – with the belief that Iran will ever engage in good faith – would be a disaster,” Wicker wrote. “Everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught.”

    That claim drew immediate pushback from foreign policy critics of the war, starting with Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama. Rhodes flatly rejected Wicker’s assertion that the U.S. military campaign had achieved any meaningful gains. “Nothing was accomplished by Operation Epic Fury,” Rhodes wrote, “except putting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in charge of Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.”

    Rhodes’ critique was echoed by Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who wrote that “everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury is already for naught.”

    Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, pushed back against the hawks’ core argument that continued military pressure would force Iran to surrender. Vaez noted that hardline policymakers have already secured two wars, sweeping international sanctions, and a naval blockade that has disrupted global energy markets, yet still demand further escalation to achieve their goals. “DC’s Iran hawks got two wars, nearly every conceivable sanction designation, a blockade, threw a wrench in global economy,” Vaez wrote, “and will still claim that just a little more pressure and a touch more bombing will magically yield the concessions they still won’t be satisfied with.”

  • Turkey riot police use tear gas to take opposition party HQ

    Turkey riot police use tear gas to take opposition party HQ

    On a tense Sunday in Ankara, hundreds of Turkish riot police officers launched a dramatic incursion into the national headquarters of Turkey’s largest opposition bloc, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), deploying tear gas to break through barricades erected by defiant party members just days after a court ordered the removal of the party’s democratically elected leadership. The violent raid marks the latest escalation in a sustained crackdown on political opposition led by long-serving President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, intensifying fears over the erosion of democratic norms in Turkey ahead of the 2028 national elections.

  • RAF jet carrying defence secretary has signal jammed near Russian border

    RAF jet carrying defence secretary has signal jammed near Russian border

    A Royal Air Force aircraft carrying UK Defence Secretary John Healey suffered a deliberate GPS signal jamming attack while flying near the Russian border earlier this week, in an incident that has further inflamed already fraught tensions between the West and Moscow.

    The disruption occurred Thursday as Healey returned to the United Kingdom following a working visit to Estonia, where he met British troops deployed as part of a NATO military exercise close to the Russian frontier. The Times was the first outlet to break news of the incident, multiple defense sources familiar with the matter confirmed.

    Intelligence assessments point to Russia as the perpetrator of the attack, according to initial reporting. The jamming disabled the aircraft’s primary GPS navigation system for the entire three-hour duration of the flight, forcing pilots to switch to backup alternative navigation technologies to complete their journey safely. Notably, this is not the first such incident recorded in the region: in 2024, another RAF jet transporting then-Defence Secretary Grant Shapps also experienced GPS jamming while operating near Russian territory.

    At the time of writing, it remains unclear whether Healey was specifically targeted for the attack. The Times noted that the flight’s planned route was publicly visible on commercial aircraft tracking platforms prior to departure, leaving open the possibility that the jamming was part of broader, unspecified Russian activity along the border rather than an intentional strike against the UK’s top defense official. The UK Ministry of Defence has not yet released an official statement on the incident, and declined to comment when contacted by reporters.

    The jamming incident comes just one day after new details emerged of a dangerous, separate air encounter between Russian and British military aircraft over the Black Sea last month. On that occasion, two Russian warplanes carried out repeated, aggressive interceptions of an RAF Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft in international airspace.

    According to the UK Ministry of Defense, the interception was the most aggressive Russian action against British aircraft since 2022, when a Russian pilot fired an air-to-air missile near a British Rivet Joint in the same area in a widely condemned incident. Last month’s encounter saw a Russian Su-35 fighter approach the British surveillance jet close enough to trigger the RAF plane’s onboard emergency systems and knock out its autopilot. A second Russian Su-27 fighter conducted six dangerous low-altitude passes directly in front of the RAF aircraft, coming within just six meters of the plane’s nose at its closest point.

    During his visit to Estonia earlier this week, Healey publicly addressed the Black Sea incident, praising the “outstanding professionalism” of the RAF crew that handled the unsafe interception, while condemning Russia’s “unacceptable” aggressive behavior in international airspace.

    Estonia, a Baltic member of NATO, hosts a contingent of British troops as part of the alliance’s collective defense posture along its eastern flank, deployed in response to heightened security threats following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. British service members are currently participating in large-scale NATO military exercises in the region designed to deter further Russian expansion, making the jamming incident a clear show of force amid ongoing standoff between Moscow and the Western alliance.