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Category: War

Mirroring Gaza, Israel is destroying towns and villages in southern Lebanon

Mirroring Gaza, Israel is destroying towns and villages in southern Lebanon

NPR reports: The center of the village lies in ruins. A row of single-story shops blown out, goods scattered on the ground, glass shattered along the sidewalk. Homes and buildings are crumpled into themselves, unrecognizable. The mosque is blackened and burned, the minaret split in two. A Lebanese civil defense emergency vehicle is crushed next to the rubble, its windshield smashed. Mansouri, a small village in the undulating hills of Lebanon’s south is about six miles from the country’s ‘s…

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Trump’s Iran war reaches Iraq- and Vietnam-era disapproval levels, poll finds

Trump’s Iran war reaches Iraq- and Vietnam-era disapproval levels, poll finds

The Washington Post reports: President Donald Trump’s war in Iran is as unpopular among Americans as the Iraq War during the year of peak violence in 2006 and the Vietnam War in the early 1970s, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, amid growing economic pain and fears of terrorism as a result of the military campaign. Sixty-one percent of Americans say that using military force against Iran was a mistake, with fewer than 2 in 10 Americans believing that…

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Supreme Leader says Iran is planning for ongoing control of Strait of Hormuz

Supreme Leader says Iran is planning for ongoing control of Strait of Hormuz

The New York Times reports: Iran’s supreme leader issued a rare statement on Thursday saying that the United States had no place in the future of the Persian Gulf region and making clear that his country planned to manage the strategic Strait of Hormuz waterway going forward. In the defiant message, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei also vowed that Iran would retain its nuclear capabilities. The lengthy statement from the Iranian leader, who has not been seen in public since he was…

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Trump family set to profit from Iran war through major drone deal

Trump family set to profit from Iran war through major drone deal

The Daily Beast reports: The Trump family is officially set to cash in on the president’s war on Iran by selling drones to the Air Force. Donald Trump’s elder sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, joined the board of drone-maker Powerus after a golf club company they backed merged with it in March to take it public. Powerus, based in West Palm Beach, the home of Trump International Golf Club, now stands to gain from its links to the first family….

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Pakistan opens up road trade routes into Iran amid Hormuz blockade

Pakistan opens up road trade routes into Iran amid Hormuz blockade

Al Jazeera reports: Pakistan has opened six overland transit routes for goods destined for Iran, formalising a road corridor through its territory as thousands of containers remain stranded at Karachi port because of the United States blockade of Iranian ports and ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The Ministry of Commerce issued the Transit of Goods through Territory of Pakistan Order 2026 on April 25, bringing it into immediate effect. The order allows goods originating from third…

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Demand destruction: How the Iran war could rattle or break the U.S. economy

Demand destruction: How the Iran war could rattle or break the U.S. economy

CNN reports: At its linguistic core, the two-word phrase “demand destruction” feels severe, harsh, maybe even violent. In practice, that’s not far off: It means that the magnitude of a price shock can be so large, so persistent and so painful that spending behaviors shift – sometimes to the point where they permanently alter the course, the structure and the stability of a sector or an entire economy. Earlier this month, the International Energy Agency warned that in the wake…

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Iran’s latest AI Lego video reaches out to American people instead of taunting U.S. military

Iran’s latest AI Lego video reaches out to American people instead of taunting U.S. military

Iran’s latest AI Lego video marks a significant pivot. Instead of taunting the US military, it reflects a new chapter in which Tehran will seek peace by reaching out directly to the American people, bypassing the US government. It's a mirror image of the US strategy of the past… pic.twitter.com/wywq3DWsxZ — Trita Parsi (@tparsi) April 30, 2026

Trump’s call to reduce U.S. troops in Germany shocks Pentagon

Trump’s call to reduce U.S. troops in Germany shocks Pentagon

Politico reports: President Donald Trump’s announcement Wednesday that he was considering pulling some U.S. troops out of Germany stunned defense officials, who scrambled to figure out if the president was serious about following through on his threats this time. Trump’s social media post was the first that many had heard of a potential new push to take hundreds, if not thousands, of American troops out of Germany, according to three defense officials. It strongly contrasts a recently concluded monthslong review…

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Trump tells aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran

Trump tells aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran

The Wall Street Journal reports: President Trump has instructed aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran, U.S. officials said, targeting the regime’s coffers in a high-risk bid to compel a nuclear capitulation Tehran has long refused. In recent meetings, including a Monday discussion in the Situation Room, Trump opted to continue squeezing Iran’s economy and oil exports by preventing shipping to and from its ports. He assessed that his other options—resume bombing or walk away from the conflict—carried…

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Iran’s Revolutionary Guard seizes wartime power, weakening Supreme Leader’s role

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard seizes wartime power, weakening Supreme Leader’s role

Reuters reports: Two months into a war with the U.S. and Israel, Iran no longer has a single, undisputed clerical arbiter at the pinnacle of power — an abrupt break with the past that may be hardening Tehran’s stance as it weighs renewed talks with ​Washington. Since its creation in 1979, the Islamic Republic has revolved around a supreme leader with final authority on all key matters of state. But the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day…

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‘There’s a day of reckoning coming’: Energy experts expect another spike at the pump

‘There’s a day of reckoning coming’: Energy experts expect another spike at the pump

Politico reports: Energy experts say another oil price spike is coming — and it may be made worse by the president’s social media posts. President Donald Trump has repeatedly spurred temporary dips in oil prices by claiming on Truth Social that the Iran war is near an end and that U.S. oil production would ensure sky high gas prices would soon retreat. The jawboning has mostly worked. Even as the global price of oil has crept up over $100 per…

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Middle East crisis could cost world $1 trillion while oil firms make ‘obscene’ profit, analysis finds

Middle East crisis could cost world $1 trillion while oil firms make ‘obscene’ profit, analysis finds

The Guardian reports: The Middle East oil and gas crunch will impose as much as a trillion dollars of additional costs on the global economy while petroleum companies rake in spectacular profits from elevated fuel prices, analysis has revealed. The uneven distribution of risk and reward comes amid rising concern that the US-Israeli attack on Iran is worsening inequality, poverty and hunger across a world that has become dangerously dependent on fossil fuels. Even if the strait of Hormuz swiftly…

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How the UAE’s decision to leave OPEC could recast the Middle East

How the UAE’s decision to leave OPEC could recast the Middle East

Patrick Wintour writes: The United Arab Emirates’ decision to walk out of Opec is a political as much as business decision, and will reignite the simmering rows between the UAE and Saudi Arabia – which had been covered up by their shared anger with Iran over its attacks on the Gulf states since the start of the US-Israel war on Tehran. In the short term, leaving the oil producing cartel it joined in 1967 gives the UAE the freedom to…

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Vance doubts Pentagon’s depiction of war in Iran. Germany’s chancellor says U.S. is being ‘humiliated’

Vance doubts Pentagon’s depiction of war in Iran. Germany’s chancellor says U.S. is being ‘humiliated’

The Atlantic reports: In closed-door meetings, J. D. Vance has repeatedly questioned the Defense Department’s depiction of the war in Iran and whether the Pentagon has understated what appears to be the drastic depletion of U.S. missile stockpiles. Two senior administration officials told us that the vice president has queried the accuracy of the information the Pentagon has provided about the war. He has also expressed his concerns about the availability of certain missile systems in discussions with President Trump,…

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So you want to negotiate with Iran …

So you want to negotiate with Iran …

Nahal Toosi writes: President Donald Trump recently dismissed claims he’s anxious to end the Iran war, insisting on Truth Social that he’s “possibly the least pressured person ever to be in this position” and has “all the time in the World.” If only. Trump and his aides could use some more time to think through what they want to accomplish in discussions with Tehran’s Islamist regime. The administration’s preparations for launching the war were … not great, and its negotiating…

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The U.S. started the war against Iran. The rest of the world is suffering the consequences

The U.S. started the war against Iran. The rest of the world is suffering the consequences

The New York Times reports: The fallout from two months of war in Iran is shuttering textile mills in India and Bangladesh, grounding airplanes in Ireland, Poland and Germany, and prompting energy rationing in Vietnam, South Korea and Thailand. The only country, it seems, that has been relatively spared from the economic chaos is the one that started the war: the United States. While warning signs of a recession are flashing across countries in Asia and Europe, the United States…

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