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Category: Politics

The Strait of Hormuz blockade is as much about China as Iran

The Strait of Hormuz blockade is as much about China as Iran

Javier Blas writes: Over the past decade, China has built the world’s largest oil emergency stockpile — a multi-layered cache of strategic and commercial reserves with more than a billion barrels. Washington probably hopes that Beijing will convince Iran to soften its demands at the negotiating table, as it has done previously: In 2023, it brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran. But most of the leverage Beijing had over Tehran rested on the money it was paying for…

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Iran war escalation could trigger global recession, IMF warns

Iran war escalation could trigger global recession, IMF warns

The Guardian reports: A further escalation in the Iran war could trigger a global recession, spiralling inflation and a sharp backlash in financial markets, the International Monetary Fund has warned. Against an increasingly volatile backdrop, the Washington-based fund said the economic damage from the Middle East conflict was steadily rising as it cut its growth forecasts for 2026 based on the impact from the war so far. In its half-yearly update, the IMF said the UK would suffer the sharpest…

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Italy halts defense pact with Israel

Italy halts defense pact with Israel

Politico reports: Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has suspended Italy’s defense cooperation agreement with Israel as she continues to distance her government from the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran that has enveloped the Middle East. Speaking on the fringes of a wine industry event in the northern city of Verona on Tuesday, Meloni told reporters her government “has decided to suspend the automatic renewal of the defense agreement with Israel in consideration of the current situation.” The 2003 deal concerns the exchange…

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Trump turns against his last ally in Europe

Trump turns against his last ally in Europe

Politico reports: U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday branded Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as “unacceptable” and complained she was “no longer the same person,” a day after she criticized his attack on Pope Leo XIV. In a phone interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Trump said he was “shocked by her. I thought she was brave, but I was wrong.” Asked about Meloni’s comments on Monday — where she branded Trump’s attack on Pope Leo XIV as unacceptable…

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Caught in the crackdown: As arrests at anti-ICE protests piled up, prosecutions crumbled

Caught in the crackdown: As arrests at anti-ICE protests piled up, prosecutions crumbled

By A.C. Thompson, ProPublica and FRONTLINE, and Gabrielle Schonder, FRONTLINE This story was originally published by ProPublica The National Guard soldiers in desert camo piled out of unmarked vans in East Los Angeles last June, cordoning off East Sixth Street, a residential street lined with single family houses, and blocking a nearby road leading to an elementary school. A squad of federal agents moved in flinging flash-bang grenades — explosives designed to disorient — into a small home before storming…

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Trump’s blockade ushers in dangerous new phase of Iran war

Trump’s blockade ushers in dangerous new phase of Iran war

Politico reports: American forces began their blockade of Iranian ports on Monday, even as allies scrambled to understand how it will work — and how the Trump administration will avoid sparking new showdowns with the move. More than a dozen U.S. warships in the region are available to take part, according to one U.S. official, including the USS Tripoli, which has an embarked Marine unit aboard trained to interdict and board ships. Additional details remain scarce — including how long…

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Trump’s attack on a pope he cannot control is really a ‘declaration of impotence’

Trump’s attack on a pope he cannot control is really a ‘declaration of impotence’

The Washington Post reports: After white smoke in the rafters of the Sistine Chapel signaled the rise of a new pope last May, President Donald Trump heralded the first U.S.-born leader of the Catholic Church by declaring the choice “a Great Honor for our Country.” But now the two most influential Americans on the world stage — Trump, the leader of 340 million Americans, and Pope Leo XIV, with a global flock of 1.4 billion Catholics — are locked in…

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Inside Trump’s effort to ‘take over’ the midterm elections

Inside Trump’s effort to ‘take over’ the midterm elections

By Doug Bock Clark and Jen Fifield This story was originally published by ProPublica In mid-December 2020, federal officials responsible for protecting American elections from fraud converged in a windowless, dim, fortified room at the Justice Department’s downtown Washington, D.C., headquarters. They had been summoned by Attorney General William Barr. Over the preceding weeks, Donald Trump’s claims that the presidential election had been stolen from him had reached a crescendo. He’d become obsessed with a conspiracy theory that voting machines…

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How ICE jail echoes life in occupied Palestine

How ICE jail echoes life in occupied Palestine

The Guardian reports: A Palestinian woman who was released last month after spending a year in a Texas immigration detention center told the Guardian in an exclusive interview that she sees “a lot of similarities” between the treatment of people in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody and that of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Leqaa Kordia, who was detained by ICE following her arrest at a protest against Israel’s war in Gaza, says that she will continue to speak…

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U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran show a pattern of ‘double-tap’ strikes

U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran show a pattern of ‘double-tap’ strikes

Chris Osieck and Nilo Tabrizy write: At least 1,700 civilians have been killed since the start of the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activist News Agency. An analysis of a series of strikes by the U.S.-Israeli coalition reveals a pattern of civilian harm — specifically, a number of attacks on infrastructure and facilities in densely populated urban areas, often when bystanders were present. Across multiple verified cases in Karaj and Tehran, New Lines found that…

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Four ways the war against Iran has weakened the United States in the great power game

Four ways the war against Iran has weakened the United States in the great power game

China and Russia view the U.S. grand strategy as increasingly out of focus. AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson Jeffrey Taliaferro, Tufts University “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Napoleon Bonaparte’s maxim may well have been in the minds of policymakers in Moscow and Beijing these past weeks, as the U.S. war in Iran dragged on. And now that a 14-day ceasefire between Tehran and Washington is in effect – with both sides claiming “victory” – Russian and…

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What once seemed preposterous is now a palpable possibility

What once seemed preposterous is now a palpable possibility

Pervez Hoodbhoy writes: When Trump, echoing Gen. Curtis LeMay’s 1965 threat toward North Vietnam, threatened to “obliterate” Iran and bomb it “back into the Stone Age”—rhetoric repeated by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—he wasn’t just posturing. In fact he was signaling that in an administration which respects no norms, mushroom clouds may be acceptable. The “how” and “when” remain open questions, but if the ceasefire ceases to hold the crosshairs are likely fixed on the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant or, just…

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‘Everything is gone’: Israel destroys entire villages in Lebanon

‘Everything is gone’: Israel destroys entire villages in Lebanon

The Guardian reports: The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery…

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U.S. to blockade ships entering or exiting Iranian ports. Free movement of other ships unlikely

U.S. to blockade ships entering or exiting Iranian ports. Free movement of other ships unlikely

U.S. Central Commanded tweeted on Sunday afternoon: U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces will begin implementing a blockade of all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports on April 13 at 10 a.m. ET, in accordance with the President’s proclamation. The blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. CENTCOM forces will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels…

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Trump says gas prices may remain high through November midterm election

Trump says gas prices may remain high through November midterm election

Reuters reports: U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the price of oil and gasoline may remain high through November’s midterm elections, ​a rare acknowledgement of the potential political fallout from his decision to attack Iran six weeks ago. “It could be, or the same, or maybe a little ‌bit higher, but it should be around the same,” Trump, who is in Miami for the weekend, told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo” when asked whether the…

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Viktor Orbán’s defeat shows illiberalism is not inevitable

Viktor Orbán’s defeat shows illiberalism is not inevitable

Anne Applebaum writes: In the end, the defeat of Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s autocratic prime minister, required not just an ordinary election campaign or new messaging but rather the construction of a broad, diverse, and patriotic grassroots social movement. And by building exactly that, Hungary’s opposition changed politics around the world. Orbán’s loss brings to an end the assumption of inevitability that has pervaded the MAGA movement, as well as the belief—also present in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric—that illiberal parties…

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