Attention to the Unseen

Middle East Eye reports: The US is reducing staff levels at its embassy in Iraq on security concerns, US officials told several media outlets on Wednesday, as Iran threatened US bases if conflict breaks out. “Based on our latest analysis, we decided to reduce the footprint of our mission in Iraq,” a US official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Meanwhile, The Financial Times reported that US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth authorised the voluntary departure of military dependents throughout the…

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Middle East Eye reports: Israeli opposition leader Avigdor Lieberman has accused Israeli forces, under the approval of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of arming “crime families” in Gaza. The accusations add weight to the claim that Israel has used Palestinian gangs to disrupt the distribution of aid in the besieged enclave. “Israel has provided assault rifles and light weapons to crime families in Gaza, on Netanyahu’s orders,” Lieberman, the head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party and a former finance minister and…

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The Guardian reports: Russia is at war with Britain, the US is no longer a reliable ally and the UK has to respond by becoming more cohesive and more resilient, according to one of the three authors of the strategic defence review. Fiona Hill, from County Durham, became the White House’s chief Russia adviser during Donald Trump’s first term and contributed to the British government’s strategy. She made the remarks in an interview with the Guardian. “We’re in pretty big…

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The New York Times reports: Nearly one million Russian troops have been killed or wounded in the country’s war against Ukraine, according to a new study, a staggering toll as Russia’s three-year assault on its neighbor grinds on. The study, published on Tuesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that close to 400,000 Ukrainian troops have also been killed or wounded since the war began. That would put the overall casualty figure, for Russian and…

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The Guardian reports: Donald Trump has warned that if Vladimir Putin attempts to conquer all of Ukraine, it will lead to the “downfall” of Russia, while also criticising Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a Sunday night post on Truth Social. “I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!” Trump wrote in a social media post, adding, “I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just…

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Mairav Zonszein writes: On May 12 an American-Israeli dual citizen and Israeli soldier, Edan Alexander, was released from Hamas captivity in Gaza after direct U.S.-Hamas negotiations that sidestepped Israel. The images that accompanied his release looked like an American operation that just happened to take place in Israel. It was a U.S. hostage negotiator, Adam Boehler — who conducted direct talks with Hamas in March — who accompanied Mr. Alexander’s mother on the flight from her home in America to…

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The Wall Street Journal reports: On a call Monday, President Trump told European leaders that Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t ready to end the war in Ukraine because he thinks he is winning, according to four senior European officials familiar with the conversation. In what the officials characterized as a rambling and at-times contradictory call, Trump also said he believed Putin ultimately desired peace, albeit on Russia’s terms, they said. The Europeans’ takeaway was that Trump didn’t believe that a…

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  Investigative journalist and editor of The Insider, Michael Weiss, tells Times Radio‘s Fergus Macphee how despite Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s 2 hour long phonecall, no real progress has been made to ending the war.