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The U.S. State Department announced Wednesday that it will keep pressing China to resume talks with the Dalai Lama, following the death of a Tibetan man who set himself ablaze near the United Nations headquarters in New York last week.

The man succumbed to severe burns approximately one week after the incident near the UN building. Tibetan exile activists and a media organization called Voice of Tibet identified him as Lobga Rangzen. According to Voice of Tibet, he “self-immolated outside the U.N. headquarters in New York after a live appeal for Tibetan independence and unity.”

In an official statement, a State Department spokesperson declared: “The United States is committed to supporting the unalienable human rights and aspirations of Tibetans to celebrate and preserve their unique culture, language, and religion without fear of interference.”

The spokesperson went on to say, “The United States will continue to call on China to return to direct dialogue, without pre-conditions, with the Dalai Lama and his representatives, and with the democratically elected Tibetan leaders, to resolve differences and achieve meaningful autonomy for Tibetans.”

Support for Tibetan human rights has been a consistent position of the U.S. government, maintained through both Republican and Democratic administrations over the years.

China pushed back on the American statement. At a regular news conference on Thursday, Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, said: “We urge the U.S. side to honor its commitments to recognize Tibet as a part of China and not support Tibet independence, and to stop using Tibet-related issues to interfere in China’s internal affairs.”

Following the man’s death, China reiterated that Tibet has been an inseparable part of its territory since ancient times and indicated that it expects “relevant countries will handle the matter in accordance with domestic laws.” Beijing has previously stated that Washington is in “no position” to criticize China on matters related to Tibet.

China, which is working to strengthen its grip on Tibet, considers the Dalai Lama a separatist figure and insists it holds the authority to choose his successor, pointing to a centuries-old tradition. The Dalai Lama — the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate — has told his followers to reject any successor selected by Beijing.

China took control of Tibet in 1950, describing the takeover as a “peaceful liberation” from feudalistic serfdom. Human rights organizations and Tibetan exiles have long condemned what they characterize as oppressive Chinese rule in Tibetan regions, a characterization China firmly denies.

Ethnic minority issues remain a deeply sensitive subject within China, where Tibetans and other minority groups face heavy surveillance over any perceived signs of “separatism.”

The International Campaign for Tibet reports that 159 Tibetans inside Tibet have set themselves on fire since 2009. The organization’s data also shows that 11 such incidents have taken place among Tibetans living in exile.

PAMPLONA, Spain — Every year, the northern Spanish city of Pamplona transforms into one of the world’s most electrifying party destinations as the San Fermín festival takes over the streets. The celebration, which centers around a daily running of the bulls, attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the globe and stands as one of Spain’s most recognized cultural events.

Beyond the famous bull runs, the festival is packed with parades, live music, religious observances, and street festivities that continue around the clock throughout the event’s duration.

The celebration gained international recognition largely thanks to American author Ernest Hemingway, who depicted the festival in his 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises.” That landmark work is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, adding an extra layer of significance to this year’s festivities.

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian drones carried out a new round of attacks Thursday, targeting oil infrastructure across Russia and igniting two oil tankers in the Sea of Azov — just one day after U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to give Ukraine the rights to manufacture Patriot air defense systems.

Ukraine’s repeated strikes on Russian oil refineries and related infrastructure have sparked a serious fuel crisis inside Russia, with gasoline shortages and rationing reported across multiple regions. Drivers in some areas have reportedly waited hours just to fill their tanks.

Early Thursday morning, a Ukrainian drone strike set off a fire at an oil depot in the city of Tver in western Russia, according to acting regional Gov. Vitaly Korolyov.

In the southern Stavropol region, Gov. Vladimir Vladimirov reported that Ukrainian drones had set oil reservoirs on fire in Vyazniki. He said officials ordered the evacuation of residents from several nearby apartment buildings as the blaze grew larger.

Out on the Sea of Azov, Ukrainian drones struck and set two oil tankers on fire, according to Rostov Gov. Yuri Slusar. He noted that one vessel was still burning and that crew members had been safely evacuated. The strike is the latest in a string of recent attacks on tankers in the region, which Ukraine says is aimed at cutting off fuel deliveries to Russian-occupied Crimea.

Russia’s Defense Ministry reported that its air defenses shot down 73 Ukrainian drones between late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning.

Ukraine’s Air Force, meanwhile, said Russia launched 94 long-range strike drones and two ballistic missiles at Ukraine overnight. Of those, 72 drones were either jammed or intercepted — but 19 drones and both missiles caused damage at 13 different locations.

The drone exchanges came on the heels of a notable diplomatic moment. During Wednesday’s NATO summit in Turkey, President Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and announced that the U.S. would license Ukraine to produce Patriot air defense systems — a major victory for Kyiv, which has long sought access to the technology to defend against Russian missile attacks in their more than four-year war.

The tone of Wednesday’s meeting stood in sharp contrast to a tense and widely-watched confrontation between the two leaders at the White House back in February 2025. This time, Trump spoke warmly of Zelenskyy, praising his willingness to pursue a peace deal and saying the Ukrainian leader has “done an amazing job” and “been very effective.”

Firefighters in Greece were working to contain a fire Thursday morning that broke out at a business location roughly 15 kilometers — about 9 miles — northwest of Athens, leaving at least two people with serious injuries, according to the country’s fire brigade.

A large response was mounted at the scene, with approximately 75 firefighters, 20 vehicles and engines, and a helicopter all dispatched to fight the blaze. The fire ignited early in the morning and produced a heavy column of black smoke visible in the area.

Rescue crews pulled one severely injured man from the site, the fire brigade reported. A second man who sustained serious burns had already been transported to a hospital prior to that rescue.

Greece’s public broadcaster ERT reported that four additional individuals were receiving treatment for injuries connected to the fire.

Authorities called on people in the surrounding area to leave as a precaution. Officials noted that a fuel truck was located on the business property, though one fire brigade spokesperson indicated the truck was believed to be empty at the time.

A top official at the International Criminal Court says a major “breakthrough” has been achieved in the ongoing investigation into crimes committed during Sudan’s war in the Darfur region — evidence that could connect the atrocities directly to those in command.

The ICC has been investigating attacks on the cities of al-Geneina, which occurred in 2023, and al-Fashir, which was targeted last year. United Nations experts have determined that forces from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces carried out crimes bearing the “hallmarks of genocide” against people from non-Arab tribes in those areas.

“We have got additional evidence, strong evidence, linking what is occurring in Darfur with leadership levels. And we are very, very pleased to say that this is a breakthrough for us,” said deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan, speaking to Reuters after traveling to eastern Chad to meet with victims of the attacks.

Khan did not identify which forces the leadership belongs to, and under ICC rules, she was unable to confirm whether arrest warrants had been sought or were being pursued.

“We are confident that there are going to be results in at least a reasonable time,” she added, without specifying a timeline.

In international war crimes proceedings involving political figures, one of the biggest hurdles is establishing a direct connection between high-ranking leaders and the specific crimes carried out by those beneath them. Prosecutors must gather what is known as “linkage evidence” — typically insider testimonies or documented records showing that leadership was informed of operations and plans on the ground.

Al-Geneina and al-Fashir experienced the worst violence during the war between Sudan’s national army and the RSF, a conflict that has now stretched on for more than three years. The RSF currently controls both cities. In January, Khan told the UN Security Council that the paramilitary group had refused to cooperate with the investigation. The RSF has maintained that it did not deliberately target civilians and has pledged to hold individual wrongdoers accountable.

A Reuters documentary examining the fall of al-Fashir identified several RSF leaders who were either committing or present near attacks, based on interviews and analysis of videos shared online. Khan confirmed that ICC investigators have gathered similar testimony in their own probes.

Witnesses in those investigations described executions and acts of sexual violence. “We will ensure [their stories] are also told in the course of our proceedings,” Khan said.

Although Sudan has not signed the Rome Statute and is therefore not an ICC member, the UN Security Council granted the court authority to investigate atrocity crimes committed in Darfur starting in 2005. Sudan’s army-led government has cooperated with investigators regarding the most recent attacks, but has not surrendered several former senior officials who face accusations of genocide and other crimes from an earlier phase of the conflict. No public arrest warrants have been issued in connection with the current war, which began in April 2023.

When asked whether nations alleged to be supporting the commission of these crimes — including the United Arab Emirates, which has been named in expert filings to the court as backing the RSF — could face legal consequences, Khan explained that the court’s authority covers individuals who contribute to crimes, not nations themselves. She said the court’s current focus is on crimes committed within the two cities in order to produce concrete outcomes. The UAE has denied any involvement in the conflict.

Three nations in West Africa’s Sahel region — Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso — announced last year their intention to withdraw from the Rome Statute. The ICC confirmed on July 1 that all three had submitted formal letters initiating that process, which takes one year to complete.

“I hope they change their minds because I see a great virtue in being part of the Rome Statute family. I think it protects the world,” Khan said.

Khan and other ICC staff are currently subject to U.S. sanctions, imposed after the court issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders on charges of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

CAIRO (AP) — He is the grandson of a prominent Shiite cleric, born in Qom — the center of religious scholarship in Iran — and raised in a devout family that embraced the country’s theocratic system. But by the time he reached his late 20s, he had abandoned prayer and lost faith in clerical rule. Today, he can barely hold a conversation about politics or religion with his own siblings and father.

The tech worker, now in his mid-30s, says Iranian society is fractured to its core — even among those who oppose the Islamic Republic — and he places the blame squarely on one person: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The supreme leader who governed Iran for more than three decades was laid to rest Thursday, following his death at the outset of the war.

Massive funeral processions carrying his coffin through Tehran and other Iranian cities drew enormous crowds of loyalists, a show of force by hard-liners at the heart of the Islamic Republic, who celebrated him as a champion of clerical authority who had defied the West and Israel.

Yet beneath that display runs a deep current of resentment — built up over decades of violent crackdowns, international sanctions, and economic failures — that has intensified since authorities killed thousands of anti-government demonstrators in January.

“A gap has opened up in homes across the country that is really remarkable,” the tech worker said by phone from Tehran, where he currently lives. Like other Iranians who spoke with The Associated Press about Khamenei’s rule, he asked to remain anonymous due to fears for his safety.

Khamenei’s death, caused by Israeli strikes on February 28, has been framed by Iran’s leadership and his supporters as a martyrdom that crowns his legacy. Reflecting the rhetoric of ultra-hardliners who reject any negotiations with the United States, some funeral attendees called for the killing of U.S. President Donald Trump in retaliation.

“Our goal is to prove to the world that we will not submit to oppression and tyranny, and that we will avenge the blood of our leader,” said Hossein Akbari, a 60-year-old mourner attending the funeral in Tehran.

Khamenei assumed power in 1989 following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — the commanding ideologue who had led the revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah a decade before and inspired a vast popular movement.

Under the banner of resistance to the West, Khamenei pushed forward Iran’s nuclear program, expanded its missile capabilities, and strengthened its network of militant allies across the Middle East — all while defying international sanctions.

Inside Iran, he cemented hard-line clerical authority by largely dismantling the reform movement. He granted the Revolutionary Guard sweeping military, political, and economic influence. As younger generations sought greater freedoms, he worked to maintain rigid control over personal behavior and dress codes.

A pivotal moment came in 2009, when protests erupted over allegations of vote-rigging in that year’s presidential election. Dozens were killed as authorities crushed what was then the largest protest movement the country had seen.

That crackdown produced a widespread sense of hopelessness, according to an Iranian activist and former political prisoner who contributes to a reformist-leaning publication in Tehran.

A senior aide to Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledged last month that the country was “severely polarized” between die-hard supporters of the Islamic Republic and those seeking its complete collapse. But Ali Rabiei said a significant portion of society exists between those “two poles” — people the government could rely on to push for change within the existing system. His comments were reported by the state news agency IRNA.

Reliable polling does not exist in Iran, but election results offer some indication of public sentiment. Voter turnout in the country’s most recent presidential election fell to near-record lows, widely interpreted as a sign that millions who wanted change saw little point in participating. Even so, the hard-line candidate received 13.5 million votes, while Pezeshkian, the reformist, earned 16.3 million.

A string of protest movements since 2009 have each been met with brutal government crackdowns. January’s was the most deadly, when security forces killed thousands of people to suppress nationwide demonstrations that began over economic grievances and grew into calls for Khamenei’s removal from power.

The sister of a protester who was shot and killed on January 9 in Tehran summed up Khamenei’s legacy in a single word: injustice.

For working-class families, Iran’s already struggling economy has deteriorated further since the war began. “Workers can barely afford to buy bread, everything is so expensive,” she said.

“Since my sister died, mentally, financially, our life has fallen apart. All we do is look at photos and videos of my sister and cry. What do we have left?” she said from her home in eastern Iran.

A quiet form of resistance surfaced over the past month as Iranians observed the sacred period of Ashoura — marked by funeral-style marches honoring a martyred Shiite saint from the 7th century. Videos shared on social media showed some participants in the processions carrying photographs of family members who were killed during January’s crackdown.

One element of Khamenei’s legacy is the Islamic Republic’s demonstrated ability to endure both his death and a massive assault by the United States and Israel. The leadership came out of the conflict having reached an interim agreement with the U.S. that delivered some immediate benefits. That deal also holds out the prospect of a larger reward — the lifting of sanctions — should Iran and the U.S. finalize a nuclear agreement, though the outcome remains uncertain.

“It’s a victory for the Islamic Republic,” said a 35-year-old woman who took part in the January protests, referring to the deal. But “for Iran’s people, until we see the results, we won’t know if it is.”

She expressed concern about the deep divisions within Iranian society and the rifts among those who oppose the theocracy — some of whom hope for its rapid collapse, while others believe gradual reform from within is possible.

“The space for dialogue is very closed, and I don’t mean only the government, I mean the people,” she said.

A 33-year-old Tehran resident who also joined the January protests and has since lost his job at a technology company said his primary worry is the devastated economy, where both unemployment and prices have soared. Many of his friends are now out of work, and his wife’s employer drastically cut salaries.

“All of us, frankly, are just trying to stay alive and all of our struggle is taken up with meeting basic needs like rent and food,” he said.

Rebin Rahmani, a Kurdish activist who was once imprisoned in Iran and now lives in Paris, said the theocracy under Khamenei had no real solution to its mounting political and economic crises — only more repression.

“Its insistence on iron-fisted, security-driven approaches will only trigger further unrest,” said Rahmani, a director at the Kurdish Human Rights Network. Protests are “reigniting every few years with renewed force.”

Pezeshkian and other pragmatists within the Iranian system are hoping to use negotiations with the U.S. to lift sanctions and revive the economy. For now, they appear to have tentative backing from Khamenei’s son and successor, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who remains in hiding but offered qualified support for the talks in a written statement.

The true test of the elder Khamenei’s legacy may come in peacetime, said Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group, as competing factions fight to shape the future direction of the Islamic Republic.

“Wartime gave the system a degree of cohesion under shared duress. But the governance challenges remain just as stark.”

LONDON (AP) — The race to replace Keir Starmer as Britain’s prime minister got underway Thursday as the Labour Party officially opened nominations — and it appears there will be only one person in the running.

Former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has begun gathering signatures from fellow Labour lawmakers. He needs a minimum of 80 to officially enter the contest, a threshold he is widely expected to surpass with ease.

Every other politician who had been considering a run has since stepped aside. Former Defense Minister Al Carns, who had been weighing whether to enter the race, announced late Wednesday that he would not stand against Burnham.

“I’d hoped a leadership contest would give us the opportunity for a proper debate,” Carns said in a statement. “But months of internal Labour politics isn’t what the country needs right now. We’ve got to get on with the job. Andy Burnham’s earned this and he’s got my full backing.”

The nomination window closes July 16. Burnham is expected to be declared the new Labour leader the very next day, and is set to officially become prime minister following an audience with King Charles III on July 20.

Starmer announced last month that he would step down once his center-left party selected a replacement. He won the prime ministership by a wide margin in July 2024, but chose to leave after two years in office that were clouded by missteps and poor judgment calls that damaged his reputation within his own party and among the broader public.

Burnham spent nearly ten years governing Manchester in northwest England before returning to Parliament last month after winning a special election. He has pledged bold change, promising to reverse nearly two decades of sluggish economic growth dating back to the 2008 financial crisis. His plan, which he calls “Manchesterism,” centers on combining private and public investment in areas such as transportation, housing, and infrastructure.

Still, Burnham will inherit many of the same difficult challenges that plagued Starmer — a slow-moving economy, struggling public services, and an ongoing cost-of-living crisis facing everyday citizens.

On foreign affairs, Burnham has pledged to stay the course, writing in The Times of London that the government’s “commitment to NATO and the U.K.’s nuclear deterrent will remain absolute.” He also stated that Britain will continue to stand firmly alongside the United States and remain a strong backer of Ukraine.

Australia and India have broken a long-standing deadlock, signing an administrative agreement Thursday that clears the path for Australia to supply uranium to India for peaceful energy use. The announcement came following a face-to-face meeting in Melbourne between Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

While the two leaders confirmed the deal jointly, neither provided specifics on how much uranium would be exported or when shipments might begin. The move resolves a years-long impasse that had blocked a 2014 export agreement, which had been frozen due to fears the nuclear material could potentially be diverted for weapons development.

Australia sits on the world’s largest known uranium reserves, though the country itself uses no nuclear power and operates no nuclear weapons — meaning all uranium it mines is sold abroad. India, home to 1.4 billion people and a rapidly expanding middle class, has set an ambitious goal of reaching 100 gigawatts of nuclear power capacity by 2047, a level that would generate enough electricity to power roughly 60 million Indian homes annually. Despite doubling its nuclear power output over the past decade, nuclear energy still accounts for only 3% of India’s total electricity supply.

A key complication has been India’s status outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which only recognizes the United States, China, Britain, France, and Russia as legitimate nuclear weapons states. Australia, as a treaty signatory, has traditionally refused to sell uranium to countries that haven’t signed on. India has argued the treaty is unfair because it only acknowledges nations that tested nuclear devices before January 1967, a cutoff that permanently excludes India. The country faced international sanctions and uranium trade restrictions following nuclear tests it conducted in 1998.

A turning point came in 2008, when the Nuclear Suppliers Group — which includes the U.S. — granted India a special waiver, allowing it to purchase uranium from member nations. Since then, India has worked to establish bilateral agreements with individual countries. It signed a similar deal with Canada in March.

Australia’s position on the matter gradually softened over the years. While Canberra had long insisted India must sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty before any uranium sales could happen, the country agreed in 2014 to allow exports under conditions including International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards and a clear separation between India’s civilian and military nuclear programs. Thursday’s administrative agreement was designed to remove the remaining barriers to putting that earlier deal into action.

Modi’s visit to Australia is part of an annual summit between the two nations’ leaders. In a joint statement, both Modi and Albanese committed to deeper defense and security cooperation throughout the Indo-Pacific region, describing it as representing “a step-change in the depth and ambition” of the bilateral relationship.

The announcement of stronger security ties came just days after Australia publicly criticized China for test-firing a long-range ballistic missile from a nuclear-powered submarine into the South Pacific Ocean — a region covered by an anti-nuclear treaty. However, neither leader mentioned China by name during Thursday’s statements, and both declined to take questions from reporters afterward. Thousands of people gathered in Melbourne hoping to catch a glimpse of the Indian prime minister during his visit.

India ranks as Australia’s fifth-largest trading partner. Two-way trade in goods and services between the two countries reached 54.4 billion Australian dollars — approximately $37.7 billion U.S. — during the 2024-2025 financial year, based on Australian government data.

Modi began the week with a stop in Indonesia and is scheduled to travel to New Zealand on Friday, marking his first visit to that country. India and New Zealand finalized a free trade agreement in April.

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s Supreme Court has confirmed a seven-year prison sentence for former President Yoon Suk Yeol, marking the first of his several criminal cases tied to his short-lived martial law declaration in 2024 to reach the nation’s highest judicial body.

The court backed an April decision by the Seoul High Court, which had found Yoon guilty on several counts: violating Cabinet members’ right to participate in deliberations before the martial law declaration, falsifying the official proclamation to conceal that procedural failure and later destroying the document, and directing presidential security personnel to unlawfully obstruct law enforcement officers attempting to arrest him following his impeachment.

The martial law declaration lasted only a matter of hours. Lawmakers managed to push past a line of heavily armed soldiers and police stationed outside Seoul’s National Assembly, and once inside, voted to strike down the decree — forcing Yoon’s Cabinet to formally lift it.

Yoon was not present for Thursday’s ruling, which is final and carries no further avenue for appeal. He remains in detention and continues to face proceedings in separate cases. Among them, he has appealed a life sentence handed down on the most serious charge against him — rebellion.

Following the ruling, Yoon’s legal team issued a statement expressing “deep regret,” arguing that the justices had reached a conclusion in a significant case without conducting a thorough enough review.

The Supreme Court’s decision is consistent with the position taken by South Korea’s Constitutional Court, which removed Yoon from office in April 2025, determining that his martial law decree lacked legal justification and was not carried out according to required procedures.

Yoon summoned 11 Cabinet members to his office shortly before going on late-night television to announce the martial law declaration on December 3, 2024. However, several of those present — including then-Prime Minister Han Duck-soo — have testified that Yoon simply informed them of his decision rather than opening the floor for any discussion. The Seoul High Court also found that Yoon violated the rights of nine additional Cabinet members by either not calling them to the meeting at all or notifying them too late to participate.

Although the martial law period was brief, it sent South Korea into a serious political crisis, bringing high-level diplomacy to a standstill, freezing key political functions, and unsettling financial markets. The situation did not stabilize until Yoon’s liberal political rival, Lee Jae Myung, won a special presidential election held in June 2025.

Beyond his rebellion sentence appeal, Yoon is also contesting a separate 30-year prison term. That case centers on allegations that he ordered drone operations in 2024 with the deliberate intent of escalating tensions with North Korea, thereby manufacturing conditions that could justify imposing martial law domestically. His legal team has argued the drone flights were a direct response to North Korea sending thousands of balloons carrying trash across the border into South Korea.

A Rotterdam museum is paying tribute to a recently deceased Dutch artist in a most unusual way — by covering its floor with more than 800 pounds of peanut butter, enough to make roughly 15,000 sandwiches.

The installation honors conceptual artist Wim T. Schippers, who passed away last month at the age of 83. Schippers originally created the work, known as the Pindakaasvloer — or peanut butter floor — back in 1969. Starting Friday, visitors can view the recreation at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, where it will remain on display for two months.

Beyond his visual art, Schippers was also known as the Dutch voice of both Ernie and Kermit the Frog on the Netherlands’ version of “Sesame Street.” His body of work was known for being absurd and playful, often poking fun at traditional notions of what art should be.

“Isn’t it fantastic that we are all standing here looking at peanut butter?” Schippers once said to reporters at the Central Museum in Utrecht in 1997, when the piece was shown there for the second time.

The peanut butter floor was part of a larger series Schippers called his Floor Covering Series, which also featured floors blanketed in glass shards and salt.

Food photographer and writer Mieke Weismann, who attended the 1997 exhibition as a teenager, recalled the experience vividly. “The thing I remember is the smell,” she told The Associated Press, describing how the sharp scent of peanut butter drifted through the entire museum.

To prepare the current installation, two museum workers spent several days using drywall trowels to spread 40 buckets of peanut butter across a hexagonal area measuring 25 square meters — about 270 square feet — applying it to a depth of roughly 2 centimeters, or about 0.8 of an inch.

Schippers never set strict guidelines for the work, leaving the size, shape, thickness, and type of peanut butter open to interpretation. For this version, Dutch peanut butter brand Calvé donated tubs of smooth peanut butter for the project.

The artwork has had its share of memorable moments over the years. During a 2011 showing, several visitors accidentally stepped into the sticky surface. And in 1997, a group of people placed 12 slices of bread along with several bags of hagelslag — the chocolate sprinkles commonly eaten on bread for breakfast in the Netherlands — directly onto the floor in what was considered an act of vandalism.

Schippers, however, seemed unbothered. “It doesn’t look bad,” he told Dutch newspaper Volkskrant at the time. “The sprinkles have been applied with a sense of proportion and a skillful hand.”

Authorities overseeing Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh launched a major relocation effort Thursday, using loudspeakers, volunteers, and community leaders to move residents out of dangerous areas after a series of landslides claimed at least 13 lives in recent days.

The deadliest single incident occurred Wednesday, when monsoon rains triggered a landslide that tore through an Islamic school at a camp in Cox’s Bazar — home to more than one million Rohingya refugees who fled neighboring Myanmar. At least five children perished in that collapse.

A Quran teacher at the school, Begum Jahan, described the moment the building gave way. Students had been getting ready for class when part of the structure suddenly caved in. “Those of us who were on the western side managed to get out, but everyone on the eastern side was buried under the debris,” she said. “Some suffered broken arms, and some of the girls lost their lives.”

Residents of the camp began pulling survivors from the rubble before emergency crews arrived on the scene. Dollar Tripura, who heads the local fire service and civil defense, confirmed Thursday that emergency personnel later took over rescue operations, treating the injured and recovering the bodies. The search was officially called off Wednesday evening.

Jamal Hossain, a Rohingya volunteer who participated in the rescue, said those pulled from the wreckage were transported to a hospital. He noted that all of the fatalities were women, but expressed concern that additional victims may still be buried. “We do not know whether there are any more bodies buried underneath,” he said.

Cox’s Bazar officials said they are moving refugees away from vulnerable hillside areas, with more than 1,000 people already relocated. Authorities acknowledged that many refugees are hesitant to abandon their makeshift shelters, even when warned of danger.

The Bangladesh weather office has warned that additional rainfall is expected in the coming days.

Earlier in the week, landslides struck the same camp area overnight Sunday into Monday, killing at least eight people. Local media, including the Bengali-language daily Prothom Alo, reported that at least 22 people across Bangladesh — a delta nation of 170 million — have died in landslides and wall collapses over the past three days, including the deaths at the Cox’s Bazar camps.

Bangladesh has long pressed the international community to support efforts to repatriate the Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, but those efforts remain at a standstill.

He’s far-right, freshly released from prison, and now partnering with a man who believes serious criminals should “rot” behind bars — yet Italy’s Gianni Alemanno has become one of the country’s most surprising advocates for prisoners’ rights, trying to strike a balance between a hard line on crime and a genuine concern for human dignity.

The 68-year-old has spent decades on the right side of Italian politics. He got his start in the youth wing of the post-fascist MSI party, later served as agriculture minister under the late Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and held the office of Rome’s mayor from 2008 to 2013.

On June 24, Alemanno walked free from Rebibbia prison in Rome — one of Italy’s largest and most run-down facilities — after 18 months of incarceration following a conviction for influence-peddling and abuse of office, charges he had denied.

During his time inside, Alemanno kept a detailed social media diary of what he witnessed, shining new attention on Italy’s neglected prison system. The country’s prisons rank among the most crowded in all of Europe, with an occupancy rate approaching 140%.

“Only those who have spent time inside, or have relatives inside, understand the issue with prisons. Others do not understand it, they don’t see it at all,” Alemanno said in an interview with Reuters.

Alemanno also recalled a much earlier stay at Rebibbia — a 10-month sentence in 1982 for throwing a Molotov cocktail at the Soviet embassy during a far-right protest. Remarkably, he ended up in the very same cell when he returned on December 31, 2024. “From that cell, I watched Italy win the football World Cup in 1982,” he reflected.

Upon his release, Alemanno aligned himself politically with Roberto Vannacci, a former army general and vocal anti-woke campaigner whose new far-right party has been climbing in opinion polls. Vannacci, however, holds views on punishment that are anything but lenient.

On the night Alemanno was freed, Vannacci met him and made his position crystal clear, drawing on the Biblical story of Cain and Abel — in which Cain murders his brother. “Between Abel and Cain, I’m with Abel, and Cain should rot in prison,” Vannacci told reporters. “For serious crimes, people definitely deserve a rigorous, serious, and prolonged sentence.”

While locked up, Alemanno built a reputation by co-authoring a Facebook diary with a fellow inmate serving time for complicity in murder, documenting what he described as abuses and failures within the prison system. The two plan to turn those posts into a book.

Alemanno spoke out about filthy living conditions, understaffing in the judiciary, suffocating red tape, petty regulations, and the near-total absence of educational or vocational opportunities for inmates who genuinely want to change their lives. He argued the system is essentially designed to keep criminals criminal.

“Those who want to misbehave have a wide-open path and can do whatever they please; those trying to find a different way, on the other hand, face a multitude of difficulties,” he said.

Last July, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government promised to add up to 15,000 new prison spaces and make it easier to transfer inmates with addiction issues to treatment facilities in order to reduce overcrowding. So far, no new spaces have materialized, and a proposed law addressing inmate transfers remains stalled in parliament, at risk of dying if it isn’t passed before the current legislative term concludes in 2027.

With polling showing Meloni’s coalition running even with the center-left opposition, and facing pressure from Vannacci on crime and public safety, it remains unclear whether the prime minister will choose to spend political energy on prison reform.

Still, Alemanno expressed cautious optimism — even without Vannacci’s backing on this particular issue. “It is a bipartisan battle, which must bring together left and right,” he said.

South Korea’s Supreme Court on Thursday confirmed a seven-year prison sentence for former President Yoon Suk Yeol, stemming from his efforts to prevent authorities from detaining him after his brief and controversial declaration of martial law in 2024.

The decision came after the Seoul High Court increased Yoon’s original five-year sentence to seven years back in April, following a determination that he was guilty of additional offenses beyond the original charges.

In issuing its ruling, the Supreme Court stated there were no errors in how the lower court interpreted the law.

The nation’s highest court also affirmed the appeals court’s conclusion that Yoon was guilty of forging official documents, failing to follow required legal procedures — which mandate that martial law be formally discussed in a cabinet meeting — and providing false information to foreign news organizations.

Following Thursday’s decision, attorneys representing Yoon announced their intention to pursue further legal action. “We will challenge the constitutionality of this ruling through constitutional review procedures, including a constitutional complaint,” one of Yoon’s lawyers stated.

Prosecutors, who had pushed for a 10-year sentence in the case, argued that Yoon abused his presidential authority and caused harm to the public.

The 65-year-old former leader is already facing a separate life sentence handed down in February, connected to charges that he orchestrated an insurrection related to the martial law declaration. Yoon has been held in custody since July 2025 and is currently facing seven additional trials.

Chinese authorities announced Thursday that Tropical Storm Maysak has left 39 people dead after catastrophic flooding struck southern China.

The bulk of the fatalities — 26 in total — were the result of a dam breach in Nanning, a city in the Guangxi region. Ding Wei, the city’s vice mayor, shared those details during a news briefing.

Maysak delivered record-breaking rainfall to the region, overwhelming reservoirs and leaving residents stranded for days inside homes and other structures. Prior to Thursday’s update, officials had reported only six deaths.

A large-scale relief effort has been launched, with drones and thousands of boats deployed to reach those still trapped by floodwaters. Approximately 130,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas.

HONG KONG — Asian stock markets fell and oil prices surged Thursday as the conflict between the United States and Iran deepened, with both sides launching new attacks.

U.S. stock futures moved slightly higher.

The United States carried out additional airstrikes targeting Iran, and Iran retaliated by launching attacks against Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar. The escalation came one day after President Donald Trump announced that a temporary ceasefire between the two countries was “over.”

Japan’s Nikkei 225 recovered some ground lost earlier in the week, climbing 1.6% to close at 67,849.98. Technology stocks provided much of the lift, with chip equipment manufacturer Tokyo Electron jumping 5% and artificial intelligence-focused investment firm SoftBank Group adding 0.4%.

South Korea’s Kospi index ended 0.1% higher at 7,255.09, bouncing back after falling 5.4% on Wednesday. Samsung Electronics dropped 1.3% on Thursday, while memory chip manufacturer SK Hynix posted a 3.6% gain.

China’s Shanghai Composite index dipped 0.5% to 3,952.49. The decline followed a report showing China’s producer price index rose 4.1% in June compared to the same time last year, up from May’s 3.9% increase. Some economists are linking that accelerating inflation to rising costs tied to the ongoing Iran war.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 0.8% to 24,011.61. Shares of Apple supplier Luxshare fell 5% on its first day of trading in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Chinese artificial intelligence company Zhipu, also known as Z.ai, surged 11.5% after announcing plans to raise approximately $4 billion through a share sale.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.5% to 8,745.20. Taiwan’s Taiex finished flat, and India’s Sensex gained 0.7%.

Oil prices were on the rise early Thursday. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was up 1.1% at $78.88 per barrel. It briefly crossed $80 on Wednesday before giving back some of those gains. Before the Iran war started, Brent crude was trading near $72 a barrel. A period of optimism surrounding an interim peace agreement had recently pushed prices back down to pre-war levels.

U.S. benchmark crude was also up 1.1%, trading at $74.32 a barrel.

Commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey of ING offered this assessment: “The oil market has continued to rally as the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran appears to be on life support.”

The two analysts noted that vessel tracking data shows tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — a critical passage for global oil shipments — has declined in recent days, rekindling investor worries about oil supply disruptions.

On Wednesday, Wall Street’s S&P 500 closed down 0.3% at 7,482.71, having fallen as much as 1.1% following Trump’s ceasefire comments. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.1%, settling at 52,348.39. The technology-focused Nasdaq composite edged up 0.2% to 25,870.65 after recovering from an earlier decline.

U.S. chipmaker Broadcom jumped 4.8% after Apple announced a multiyear partnership with the company.

In currency markets, the U.S. dollar slipped to 162.45 Japanese yen from 162.59 yen. The euro rose to $1.1430 from $1.1417.

SINJIL, West Bank — On a cool June evening, roughly 15 Palestinian men from the West Bank town of Sinjil stood watch on a hilltop, scanning darkened valleys below for any movement that could signal an incoming settler attack.

The men are part of a community-organized volunteer group — one of several like it across the West Bank — that has taken it upon themselves to shield their town from a surge in settler violence that Palestinians say neither the Israeli military nor their own governing authority has been willing or able to stop.

“We have been left on our own. You are facing settlers supported by their government,” said volunteer Fadi Alwan. “We have nobody. So we are forced to stay here and protect this town.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government has approved hundreds of new settlements and settler outposts across the West Bank. The smaller outposts, officials note, have frequently served as launching points for violence that has driven thousands of Palestinians from their homes.

The Israeli government has stated that the strategic positioning of settlements is intended to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state centered in the West Bank — an outcome central to the two-state solution that has long been supported by major world powers.

The vast majority of the international community views Israel’s settlement activity in the West Bank as a violation of international law. Israel rejects that position. The West Bank is a territory where the Palestinian Authority holds limited self-governing powers while the Israeli military operates without restriction.

Palestinians report that when they contact Israeli police or the military for help, responders either arrive too late or intervene on behalf of the settlers carrying out the attacks. The Israeli military denies those claims.

“The army protects them and doesn’t stop them. We call the army. We call the police. It’s useless,” Alwan said.

When asked specifically about Sinjil and the pattern of attacks described by residents, the Israeli military said soldiers are deployed to break up confrontations, but that responsibility for the conduct of Israeli civilians in the West Bank falls under the jurisdiction of the Israeli police. Israeli police did not respond to a request for comment.

Searchlights and WhatsApp

On the night of June 26, as volunteers gathered around a fire on a Sinjil hilltop, one member swept a searchlight across the surrounding hills looking for settlers. Others drove patrol routes through the town, all connected through community WhatsApp groups where residents can quickly alert one another to potential danger. Similar messaging networks exist in other West Bank communities, though the organized patrols in Sinjil appear to be more structured than most.

“If they get close to the houses, we go confront them, we send (messages out) on the WhatsApp groups,” Alwan said.

Just days before that night, Alwan said he was struck by a settler armed with a spiked club during a daytime assault while he was trying to harvest wheat. He pulled up his shirt to reveal a wound that had not yet healed.

He also recalled an incident from the previous year in which settlers fired live rounds at a tent the volunteers had set up as a watch post, narrowly missing the young men inside. He said Israeli troops arrived the following day and tore the tent down.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions about allegations that soldiers dismantled the watch tent.

Alwan and other residents said they believe most of the settlers responsible for attacks on their town come from six outposts situated on the hills surrounding Sinjil. The Yesha Council, an organization representing settler communities, did not respond to a request for comment on the situation in Sinjil or what local regional councils are doing to address the violence.

A Town Increasingly Cut Off

Sinjil lies along the main road connecting the Palestinian population centers of Ramallah and Nablus, with settlements and outposts scattered across the hills to the north.

Local officials say the Israeli military has closed four of the town’s five entry points and erected a metal barrier around the community, cutting residents off from approximately 2,000 acres of privately owned land.

Moataz Tawafsha, the head of Sinjil’s municipality, said settler attacks intensified after the war in Gaza broke out in October 2023, forcing the town to find a way to protect itself on its own.

“We really feel as if we are living in a collective prison,” Tawafsha said. “As a result, the municipality has taken primary responsibility for providing protection.”

Since October 2023, settler violence has claimed two lives and forced more than 100 members of a Bedouin Palestinian community living on town land to flee, according to Tawafsha. An additional 20 families have been displaced from their homes within the town itself during the same period, he said.

Community Steps In

Some residents say the volunteer protection network has saved lives.

Abed Foqahaa reinforced his home with metal bars on the windows and erected a tall metal fence around his yard after settlers threw a Molotov cocktail through his window about two years ago while he and his family were inside.

“The fire broke out and we couldn’t control it. We tried to save the house, but all of us suffered from the smoke,” Foqahaa said.

He used the town’s WhatsApp group to call for help. Young men from the community — initially held back by the Israeli military — eventually reached the house and helped carry out Foqahaa’s father, who uses a wheelchair.

“God bless them, they really helped us,” Foqahaa said.

In the southern Italian region of Calabria, more than 200 Cuban medical professionals are keeping hospitals running — and the regional government is refusing U.S. demands to send them home.

Cuba has operated international medical missions for decades, deploying doctors to developing nations across the globe. Calabria, the poorest region in Italy, became one of the latest recipients of that program when Cuban physicians began arriving in January 2023. Their presence filled a critical void left by a severe shortage of locally trained healthcare workers that had forced some hospital departments to shut their doors entirely.

“It was a disaster. I was keeping the emergency room open all by myself,” said Francesco Moschella, the chief physician at Polistena hospital, describing the situation before the Cuban doctors arrived.

The arrangement caught the attention of U.S. officials, who visited the region this year. Washington has long taken aim at Cuba’s international medical missions, calling them a financial lifeline for the Cuban government — one the Trump administration has worked to cut off through sanctions and diplomatic pressure.

Several Caribbean and Central American countries have already canceled their agreements with Cuba under that pressure. Jamaica ended a 50-year medical cooperation agreement in March, displacing nearly 300 healthcare workers. Honduras expelled more than 150. But Calabria’s governor has held firm.

Calabria ranks last among Italy’s 20 regions in access to public healthcare, according to the country’s health ministry. For 17 years until April, the region operated under special government administration because of chronic budget deficits, corruption scandals, and organized crime infiltration — all of which hampered investment in healthcare. Many newly trained Italian doctors chose to build their careers in the wealthier north rather than stay.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Cuba dispatched doctors to several parts of Italy. Calabria kept the arrangement going long after the pandemic ended.

Emergency medicine specialist Zoila Yakelin Arevalo Cruz is one of those doctors. She left her young son behind in Cuba in mid-2023 to work in Polistena. The emergency room where she works treats 30,000 patients each year, and six Cuban doctors make up half of its staff.

“For a first-world country, Europe, we had a completely different idea. We didn’t think that the shortage of doctors was so serious,” said Arevalo Cruz, 38. “In this hospital there were lines that lasted up to eight or 12 hours. Now, thanks to our work, in less than an hour a doctor visits you.”

During a recent visit by the Associated Press, Arevalo Cruz carried out her duties in fluent Italian — a language she says she even picked up traces of in the local dialect through conversations with grateful former patients who stop by just to say hello.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has labeled the Cuban missions a “form of human trafficking,” pointing to the Cuban government’s practice of keeping a large portion of the doctors’ salaries and allegedly confiscating passports in some cases.

“Cuban medical brigades are a key source of hard cash for the failing regime,” the State Department told the AP, adding that it was sharing information with partner nations about “the sobering realities of Cuban medical brigades to which they might otherwise be unaware.”

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum pushed back in March, defending the program as essential care for underserved communities.

Cuba’s government has said it has 22,000 medical personnel working across 55 countries as part of what it describes as a “mission of solidarity.”

Calabria’s governor, Roberto Occhiuto, makes for an unlikely champion of the Cuban program. He is a senior figure in a political party with deep anti-Communist roots — yet he has embraced the Cuban doctors as a practical necessity.

The deal even earned coverage in Cuba’s Communist Party newspaper, Granma. “Can you imagine, I got my photo in Granma?” Occhiuto said with a smile.

The arrangement also drew a direct visit from U.S. officials. The charge d’affaires to Cuba, Mike Hammer, flew to Calabria in February along with the U.S. consul-general in Naples. While the talks were described as cordial, Hammer made it clear that Washington would prefer Calabria find alternative sources of international medical staff.

“I had some pressures also during the Biden administration. But pressure grew under Trump,” Occhiuto said. He told Hammer his government is working on incentives to bring Calabrian-born doctors back home.

“But at the same time, I have also reiterated to the U.S. Ambassador Hammer that I needed to keep hospitals open and that I intend to keep the Cuban doctors who are currently in Italy in their posts,” Occhiuto said.

He told the AP he would like to expand the Cuban medical workforce to around 1,000 but has held back on doing so to avoid further friction with Washington.

Rather than funneling payments through the Cuban government agency that oversees medical missions, Calabria structured individual contracts directly with the doctors and deposits their pay into Italian bank accounts. Even so, Cuban doctors told the AP they voluntarily send as much as half their earnings back to the Cuban government.

“We are all aware of the economic situation Cuba is going through. It’s a contribution that we make voluntarily because Cuba trained us, educated us and made us doctors,” Arevalo Cruz said.

Cuban cardiologist Daisy Luperon Loforte rejected the characterization of the doctors as victims: “We do not consider ourselves modern-day slaves at all, as somebody called it. We love our country, we give an economic contribution and we are happy to do so.”

Occhiuto also confirmed that 63 Cuban doctors — some of whom had previously participated in Cuba’s international mission — recently applied to work independently within Calabria’s healthcare system. The Cuban government declined to comment on those applications.

For local patients, the diplomatic tensions are largely invisible. “They’re smart, they have empathy and they’re also humble — something you don’t often see with Italian doctors,” said area resident Maria Morano. “We are lucky they came, otherwise our hospital would have been closed.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — American forces carried out a sweeping new round of airstrikes against Iran in the early hours of Thursday, striking approximately 90 targets across the country. Iran wasted little time firing back, launching attacks against three Gulf Arab nations — Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar — in an escalation that put a fragile interim peace agreement in serious jeopardy.

The latest military exchange followed President Donald Trump’s declaration that recent Iranian attacks on shipping vessels in the Strait of Hormuz had effectively ended the ceasefire. Just a day earlier, U.S. forces had struck Iranian military sites and port facilities after Iran targeted multiple merchant ships off the coast of Oman, which also prompted Iranian retaliation at the time.

Thursday’s fighting appeared to be on a larger scale. Air raid sirens went off at least twice in Bahrain, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters. No immediate reports of damage emerged from the three targeted Gulf nations. Kuwait’s military announced it was actively working to intercept incoming drones and missiles, while Iran’s Revolutionary Guard publicly claimed responsibility for the strikes on Bahrain and Kuwait.

The U.S. military’s Central Command released black-and-white video footage appearing to show strikes on an airport runway and missile launch sites. In a statement, Central Command declared: “U.S. forces remain vigilant, lethal, and prepared to execute operations directed by the Commander in Chief.”

American officials stated the strikes were designed to further weaken Iran’s capacity to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — a waterway through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas trade flowed before the war began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on February 28.

Iranian state media reported explosions at multiple locations, including Bushehr, where Iran’s nuclear power plant complex is located, as well as the southern port cities of Chabahar, Konarak, Bandar Abbas, and Sirik. In Iranshahr, local authorities said a firefighter at an airport was killed in a strike.

In what appeared to be the first such action since April, U.S. strikes also appeared to target Iranian bridges. State media reported a hit on a railway bridge in Iran’s northeastern Golestan province. The Revolutionary Guard separately said two bridges had been struck along the route to Mashhad, where officials were planning to bury the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday. It was unclear whether the Golestan strike and the Guard’s account referred to the same incident.

After departing a NATO summit in Turkey, Trump shared videos on his social media platform that he said showed explosions inside Iran, along with a stark warning to Tehran. “This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!” Trump wrote.

Earlier Thursday, Trump suggested the renewed fighting would not lead to prolonged military engagement. “Anything that happens is going to happen very fast,” he said, though he also hinted that the U.S. military might “just finish the job.” He also revived earlier threats to strike Iranian civilian infrastructure — including power plants and desalination facilities — and to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s primary oil export hub, through which about 90% of Iranian oil passes.

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, a key figure in negotiations toward a permanent peace agreement, took a defiant tone on social media Thursday morning. “America still hasn’t learned that bullying and breaking promises are no longer cost-free. Let me put it plainly: if you strike, you’ll get hit,” he posted on X.

Trump openly cast doubt on the ceasefire’s survival. “For me, I think it’s over,” he said when pressed on the agreement’s status, though he added that U.S. negotiators could continue talks. “They can talk, but I think they’re wasting their time,” he added. Oil prices surged following his remarks, reflecting market fears that a full resumption of the conflict could shut down energy shipments through the strait once again.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, also a senior negotiator, pushed back on X, writing that Trump’s comments “are not a sign of power but an admission of the failure” of Washington’s approach toward Iran.

Analysts suggest the renewed attacks on shipping may reflect a split within Iran’s own leadership — with hard-liners seeking permanent control over the strait as leverage against the West, while pragmatists favor a lasting peace deal that would lift international sanctions and provide economic relief to a struggling Iranian economy.

Formal negotiations toward a final settlement had been scheduled to begin after the funeral for Ayatollah Khamenei, who was killed on February 28 at the outset of the war. The funeral period, which concludes Thursday, was supposed to be a time of reduced hostilities. The planned talks were expected to address the most difficult issues, including fully reopening the strait and reining in Iran’s contested nuclear program.

WELLINGTON — New Zealand is weighing whether to become a member of a newly formed defence alliance between Australia and Fiji, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced Thursday.

Australia and Fiji formalized the agreement, known as the Ocean of Peace Alliance, on Monday. Under the treaty, each country pledges to assist the other if either faces an attack, as Australia seeks to push back against China’s expanding presence in the region.

The alliance is a historic first for Fiji, which has never before entered a formal military pact. For Australia, Fiji becomes its fourth official ally, joining the United States, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea. The agreement also includes a provision allowing other Pacific nations to become members.

New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters noted in a statement that Pacific leaders have long followed a principle of allowing Pacific nations to lead responses to regional security matters — and said this alliance reinforces that tradition.

“Elevating our long-standing relationship with Australia and Fiji — and other Pacific nations — to the next level through an alliance would mean we become even closer partners,” Peters said.

At present, New Zealand counts only Australia as a formal ally, though it participates in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network and maintains a close partnership with NATO.

According to the statement, the New Zealand government will now open discussions with Australia and Fiji about the possibility of joining, with any official decision ultimately resting with the cabinet.

The announcement comes in the wake of China’s military test-firing of a missile launched from a nuclear-powered submarine into the Pacific Ocean on Monday — a move that has drawn expressions of concern from leaders throughout the region.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — American forces launched a fresh wave of airstrikes against Iran in the early hours of Thursday, prompting Tehran to strike back at three Gulf Arab nations — Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar — in a dangerous escalation that has thrown a fragile ceasefire into serious doubt.

The latest strikes came just hours after President Donald Trump declared that recent Iranian attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz had effectively ended the shaky peace agreement that had been in place. Earlier in the week, U.S. forces had already struck Iranian military installations and port facilities following Iran’s targeting of multiple merchant vessels off the coast of Oman, which also triggered Iranian retaliation at the time.

Thursday’s round of fighting appeared to be larger in scale. Air raid sirens sounded at least twice in Bahrain, where the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet is headquartered. No immediate reports of damage emerged from the three Gulf nations, though Kuwait’s military announced it was actively working to intercept incoming drones and missiles.

U.S. military officials stated in a social media post that the goal of the strikes was to “further degrade” Iran’s capacity “to threaten freedom of navigation” through the strait. Before the war began on Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli attacks, roughly one-fifth of the world’s traded oil and natural gas moved through that waterway.

Iranian state media reported explosions at multiple locations, including Bushehr — where Iran’s nuclear power plant complex is located — as well as the southern port cities of Chabahar, Konarak, Bandar Abbas, and Sirik.

After departing a NATO summit in Turkey, Trump shared videos on his social media platform that he said showed explosions inside Iran and issued a stern warning to the country. “This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!” Trump wrote.

Earlier Thursday, Trump suggested the ongoing fighting would not lead to prolonged military involvement. “Anything that happens is going to happen very fast,” he said, while also hinting the U.S. military might “just finish the job.” He also repeated past threats to strike Iranian civilian infrastructure — including power plants and desalination facilities — and to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s primary oil export hub.

Trump cast serious doubt on the ceasefire’s survival, saying the interim agreement to pause the fighting was “over,” though he left the door open to continued diplomacy. “For me, I think it’s over,” Trump said when asked about the status of the deal. He added that U.S. negotiators could keep talking, but expressed skepticism: “They can talk, but I think they’re wasting their time.”

Trump has previously threatened to take Kharg Island, including last month when he questioned whether the U.S. “has the stomach for it.” Approximately 90% of Iran’s oil exports flow through the island.

Analysts suggest the renewed attacks on shipping — even amid ongoing negotiations — may point to a split within Iran’s leadership. Hard-line factions are believed to want permanent control over the strategically vital strait, while more pragmatic leaders are seeking a lasting peace agreement that would lift international sanctions and provide much-needed economic relief to the country.

Peace talks aimed at reaching a final settlement had been scheduled to begin following the funeral of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on Feb. 28 at the very start of the conflict. The funeral concludes Thursday and was supposed to mark a period of reduced hostilities. The planned negotiations were set to tackle the most difficult issues, including fully reopening the strait to international shipping and addressing Iran’s contested nuclear program.

Oil prices climbed on Thursday after the United States carried out additional military strikes against Iran, dimming hopes for a negotiated end to the conflict and casting doubt on whether the Strait of Hormuz — a vital passage for roughly one-fifth of global pre-war oil supplies — would fully reopen anytime soon.

Brent crude futures gained 78 cents, or about 1%, reaching $78.80 per barrel as of 0054 GMT. Meanwhile, U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed 74 cents, or 1.01%, to $74.26 per barrel.

Both major oil benchmarks — WTI and Brent — had already jumped more than a dollar during after-hours trading on Wednesday, once the U.S. military began its latest round of strikes. Earlier that day, the benchmarks had closed at their highest levels in more than two weeks, following threats from President Donald Trump that new strikes could come as early as Wednesday night.

The U.S. military announced the new offensive was aimed at keeping the Strait of Hormuz open to commercial vessel traffic. The strikes came just hours after President Trump declared that a temporary agreement to end the war was effectively “over.”

IG analyst Tony Sycamore noted in a written assessment that the surge in oil shipments through the strait seen in recent weeks has now come to a halt, with vessel owners expected to adopt a more cautious approach going forward.

According to U.S. officials, the latest attacks were a direct response to Tuesday’s assault on three tankers that were passing through the strait. The strikes reverberated across multiple cities along Iran’s southern coastline, leaving some areas without electricity.

Iran, for its part, said Wednesday that it had struck U.S. military installations in Bahrain and Kuwait in retaliation for earlier American attacks on Iranian infrastructure.

Insurance industry sources confirmed Wednesday that some war risk underwriters have urged shipping companies to hold off on trips through the Strait of Hormuz, while others are re-examining their policy terms following Iran’s renewed attacks on vessels.

At 6 a.m. on Wednesday, as the sun rose over the mountains of central Mexico, cartel drones began dropping bombs on a cluster of rural communities known as Guajes de Ayala.

For weeks, residents of those communities had been reaching out to law enforcement in the state of Guerrero, alerting them to growing threats from the advancing cartel La Nueva Familia Michoacana. But those warnings were ignored as World Cup celebrations dominated major cities including Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey.

Twenty-four-year-old Marilu Solorio found herself huddled inside a nearby abandoned medical clinic alongside 70 other women, children, and elderly residents, listening to the relentless sounds of drone explosions and gunfire as the cartel clashed with the community’s self-defense group.

“While some are celebrating goals, others are getting massacred by drones carrying bombs,” Solorio said by phone from her makeshift shelter. “Instead of protecting people in the places where they’ve been playing the World Cup, (Mexico’s government) should be protecting people like us, who have never done anything wrong.”

Mexican authorities quickly moved to deny the attacks were happening in the violence-plagued Guerrero region — even as locals livestreamed video showing gunfire and plumes of smoke rising from mountain lookout posts residents had established to watch for cartel movements.

The violence erupted amid months of effort by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to confront widespread criminal violence across the country. While homicide rates have dropped under her leadership, pressure has intensified over the past year as Mexico worked to present an image of safety and stability ahead of the World Cup. That pressure was compounded by a wave of violence in February in the host city of Guadalajara, along with threats from U.S. President Donald Trump to take military action against cartels and various internal political tensions.

In response, Mexico deployed 100,000 security personnel primarily to the three World Cup host cities — Mexico City, Monterrey, and Guadalajara. The portion of the tournament held in Mexico concluded Sunday without any major security incidents.

But while soccer fans filled city streets and social media buzzed with celebration, cartel violence continued unabated in many other parts of the country.

Mexican security analyst David Saucedo connected the Guajes de Ayala attacks to the government’s World Cup security approach.

“There was heavy security in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey. Lots of military and National Guard officers from other states were transferred to fortify World Cup hosts,” Saucedo said. “But in doing that, they also left a number of regions that weren’t host cities unprotected.”

Violence elsewhere in the country underscored the point. In northern Sinaloa, weekend clashes between criminal organizations left one naval officer and 10 suspected gang members dead. The previous week, authorities in southern Veracruz announced the discovery of the body of a kidnapped journalist, believed to have been killed by criminal groups. On Wednesday in Chiapas — a southern state increasingly gripped by cartel power struggles — eight bodies were found together bearing cartel messages.

Residents of Guajes de Ayala had not only called authorities with their concerns but also posted videos online showing cartel drones flying over their community and tracking the movement of cartel fighters approaching their homes. They feared an attack was imminent. According to Solorio, no assistance ever came.

When the assault finally began Wednesday morning, Solorio and her group took cover in the abandoned clinic while others fled to local churches for shelter.

Local and federal officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. However, after the Associated Press reached out for information, Mexico’s Security Cabinet posted on the social media platform X stating that “events described in news articles have been ruled out” by authorities. The post also said state security forces were heading to the area to assess conditions and bolster their presence.

Authorities had previously rejected claims that they abandoned the Guerrero communities, but a recent visit to the region by the AP found no state security presence anywhere near the affected communities.

La Nueva Familia Michoacana has been pushing deeper into Guerrero for years. The Trump administration designated the cartel — along with other Mexican cartels and several Central and South American gangs — as a foreign terrorist organization last year.

Faced with ongoing attacks and what residents described as an absence of government protection, hundreds of people have fled their homes in recent years. Men remaining in the community formed a vigilante group to defend against the cartel. That group was armed by rival cartels competing with La Nueva Familia Michoacana for territory, and carried military-grade weapons smuggled from the United States, grenades, and drones used to track the encroaching cartel’s movements.

For the people of Guerrero, a region long scarred by warring criminal factions, residents have said for years that another attack was never a matter of if — only when.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi touched down in Melbourne, Australia on Wednesday evening, receiving a red-carpet welcome ahead of a high-profile meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese scheduled for Thursday.

The two leaders are expected to cover a broad range of topics, including critical minerals, trade, defence cooperation, and security matters. Modi had previously made a visit to Australia in 2023.

According to a report published Wednesday by the Australian Financial Review, the two countries may finalize an agreement on uranium exports to India. While both nations reached a nuclear cooperation agreement back in 2014, actual uranium exports have remained limited due to concerns over ensuring the nuclear fuel is used exclusively for peaceful purposes, such as generating electricity.

When reporters asked Albanese about the possibility of a uranium export deal, he offered a measured response. “I’ll have more to say about that with Prime Minister Modi,” he said, adding, “But we’ve engaged constructively, and so I look forward to — there’ll be a range of announcements that we make together.”

India ranks as Australia’s fifth-largest trading partner, behind China, Japan, the United States, and South Korea. Approximately one million people living in Australia claim Indian heritage.

On Thursday evening, Modi is expected to attend an event at one of Melbourne’s largest sports stadiums, where thousands of expatriate Indians are anticipated to gather. Australian media reported that security has been increased near the venue following word of potential protests.

Modi has a well-established tradition of drawing massive crowds at overseas events, having addressed packed stadiums in the United Kingdom, the United States, and other countries home to large Indian diaspora communities. During his last Australian visit three years ago, thousands of supporters packed one of Sydney’s largest indoor arenas.

Before arriving in Australia, Modi made a stop in Indonesia, where he signed a series of agreements covering agriculture and defence, including a deal involving the BrahMos cruise missile system. He is scheduled to depart for New Zealand on Friday afternoon before heading back to India.

CARACAS — The death toll from a pair of earthquakes that struck Venezuela has climbed to 3,811, according to updated figures presented Wednesday by lawmaker Jorge Rodriguez.

The new numbers also show that at least 16,740 people sustained injuries in the disaster. Additionally, the count of those left without homes has grown to 17,907, underscoring the widespread destruction caused by the twin quakes.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun announced Wednesday that his planned trip to Washington is designed to push forward efforts to end the ongoing conflict between Lebanon and Israel through diplomatic negotiations. He expressed optimism that discussions with President Donald Trump would lead to meaningful results.

In a statement released by the Lebanese presidency, Aoun said, “I expect that my upcoming visit to Washington and my meeting with US President Donald Trump will bring positive outcomes for Lebanon … to find a permanent solution to the cycle of wars and Israeli attacks on our country.”

Aoun described the goal of the negotiations as stopping Israeli military operations in Lebanon and bringing an end to what he referred to as the “Israeli occupation.” He also noted that most Lebanese citizens are in favor of pursuing a negotiated resolution.

American officials confirmed Tuesday that Aoun will travel to the White House on July 21. The visit will be his first official trip to Washington since he assumed the presidency.

The announcement comes as diplomatic activity between Israel and Lebanon continues to build. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar stated Tuesday that the next round of talks between the two countries is set to be held in Rome next week.

The most recent round of negotiations took place in Washington in late June and wrapped up with a framework agreement aimed at reinforcing the ceasefire and easing tensions along the border shared by Lebanon and Israel.

A team that would have seemed almost unthinkable in Caracas just weeks ago has arrived in Venezuela: Israeli army officers, engineers, and Foreign Ministry staff from a nation that has had no formal diplomatic relationship with Venezuela since 2009.

Leading the delegation is Yoed Magen, Israel’s ambassador-designate to Mexico, who told The Media Line the group includes roughly 30 Israelis on the ground — most from the military and Foreign Ministry. An additional 20 specialists are working remotely from Israel, reviewing field data and helping develop recommendations for a national emergency response plan. The team is expected to remain in Venezuela for approximately 10 days.

Magen said the delegation’s role is not traditional search-and-rescue. Instead, their focus is on answering a critical question for local authorities and displaced residents: which buildings are still safe? Drawing on the Israel Defense Forces Home Front Command’s experience in disaster zones around the world, the team is conducting a structure-by-structure assessment — identifying which buildings can be re-entered, which pose a collapse risk, and which may be salvageable once engineers determine what repairs are needed.

Magen characterized the Israeli presence as humanitarian in nature and was careful not to frame the visit as a political gesture. He acknowledged that the two countries have no diplomatic ties, but said the scale of the disaster made some form of cooperation unavoidable.

Much of the team’s work has been concentrated in Caracas, but Magen said the coastal city of La Guaira, just north of the capital, presents a different and more severe picture. Entire neighborhoods show damage from one building to the next. Some structures have been completely destroyed, others remain standing but are severely compromised, and thousands of families are still waiting to learn the fate of missing loved ones. Magen said the number of missing could be in the thousands, possibly higher.

Venezuelan authorities have released sobering official figures: 3,535 people killed, 16,740 injured, and close to 18,000 left without homes. Officials have also recorded 855 damaged buildings and 189 total collapses.

Prof. Shmuel Marco, a geologist at Tel Aviv University, explained to The Media Line that the destruction stemmed from a combination of geological, structural, and human factors. He noted that what struck Venezuela was not a single earthquake but two, occurring roughly 40 seconds apart.

“This was a double earthquake, and that means the ground was hit twice in a very short period of time,” Marco said. “The second shock came before buildings, infrastructure and people had any real time to recover from the first.”

Marco added that Caracas sits in a valley that can amplify seismic waves, compounding the damage. He also pointed to the direction of the forces involved as a key factor.

“The most destructive waves are the horizontal ones,” Marco said. “Buildings are naturally designed to resist gravity, but earthquakes push them sideways. If a structure is not designed for that kind of force, it can fail very quickly.”

Looking at photographs and aerial images, Marco observed that many buildings appeared to have toppled in a single direction, similar to a collapsing stack of cards — a sign, he said, that they lacked reinforcement against strong lateral movement. He noted that Venezuelan geologists had long warned that a major earthquake near the Boconó fault system, north and west of Caracas, was a matter of when, not if. “This earthquake was expected and yet surprising,” Marco said. “Venezuelan geologists had warned for years that this kind of event was likely, but the country was not ready for it.”

Marco was quick to add that no nation could have easily managed a disaster of this magnitude. He drew a comparison to a much smaller building collapse in northern Tel Aviv years ago, where recovering just two bodies from a parking structure took roughly a week, about 100 workers, and heavy equipment. In Venezuela, that challenge is replicated across hundreds of buildings. “No country in the world can respond immediately and fully to hundreds of collapsed buildings,” Marco said. “Even wealthy and well-prepared countries would struggle with a disaster on that scale.”

The Israeli government delegation represents only one piece of a broader Israeli and Jewish humanitarian effort. Rabbi Yosef Garmon, former Chief Rabbi of Guatemala and CEO and President of the International Humanitarian Coalition, began mobilizing contacts as soon as the earthquakes struck — reaching out to the same networks he had activated after disasters in Nepal, Haiti, Turkey, Syria, Mexico, and Central America. Some volunteers were trained through ZAKA International; others came from Jewish volunteer networks in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Colombia.

The first contingent from Central America arrived in Venezuela just two days after the quake. Teams from Colombia followed, including physicians connected to the local Jewish community. From Colombia alone, Garmon said, volunteers brought more than a ton of supplies. They partnered with local organizations including the Central University of Venezuela.

By the time the volunteers arrived, Garmon said, the window for live rescues had largely closed. The focus shifted to providing food, tents, medicine, masks, gloves, and other essentials to people left without shelter — and in some cases, helping families with the painful task of recovering the remains of those who had died. “Sadly, by the time we arrived, we were no longer rescuing people alive,” Garmon said. “But families still needed help recovering the bodies of their loved ones. Some of them told us, with tears in their eyes, that they never imagined brothers from Israel would come to help them in that moment.”

Garmon described the response as operating on three levels: the Venezuelan government, which helped facilitate access and security; ordinary Venezuelan citizens, who greeted the Israeli and Jewish teams with unexpected warmth in the streets, at universities, and online; and the local Jewish community, which opened its institutions and became an active part of the relief operation.

Over one Shabbat, the Jewish community hosted Israeli state officials, uniformed IDF soldiers, and Jewish volunteers from multiple countries together — a gathering that Magen said carried special significance given how long such a meeting would have been unthinkable. Garmon noted that Club Hebraica opened its doors, community members organized a large donation collection center, and Venezuelan Jews of all ages pitched in to prepare supplies for earthquake-affected families.

Garmon was clear that the official Israeli government mission and the volunteer efforts serve different purposes. “The official Israeli delegation has a different mission,” he said. “They are looking toward Venezuela’s future reconstruction. Their work and ours are separate, but they complement each other.”

Other organizations have also been part of the response. IsraAID has concentrated on psychological support, children’s needs, and water and sanitation, while additional Israeli and Jewish groups have contributed supplies, expertise, and volunteers.

“For us, there is no difference between Jews and non-Jews,” Garmon said. “We help human beings. Wherever there is a need, that is where we try to be.”

The diplomatic backdrop makes this moment particularly striking. Venezuela severed ties with Israel in January 2009 under Hugo Chávez during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, and that rupture continued under Nicolás Maduro. For years, Caracas maintained one of Latin America’s most openly hostile official positions toward Israel while strengthening its relationship with Iran. Against that history, a public statement from acting President Delcy Rodríguez drew considerable attention. She thanked the Israeli team, credited coordination to the local Jewish community and Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Cohen, and acknowledged the Israeli delegation’s role in launching the infrastructure assessment and rehabilitation process.

Magen said both Venezuelan authorities and the general public have been extremely welcoming. Even so, Israeli officials are not portraying the mission as a formal diplomatic turning point. The message from Jerusalem remains measured: cooperation is happening because the situation demands it, and Israel is there because Venezuela is facing a humanitarian emergency. Any deeper political significance, officials say, is premature to discuss.

The earthquake did not restore relations between Israel and Venezuela. It forced the two sides to work together amid the wreckage. For Venezuelan families still waiting for answers about their homes and their missing, that distinction may feel secondary. For Jerusalem and Caracas, it may carry far greater weight down the road. For now, the most honest description of what is happening is also the most restrained: a humanitarian mission, an uncommon public opening, and a moment of contact between two countries that had almost none.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has scrapped a planned trip to Israel following a fresh outbreak of military hostilities between the United States and Iran, according to CNN.

Hegseth was attending the NATO summit in Ankara alongside President Donald Trump when the visit was called off. He had been scheduled to sit down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz — meetings that would have marked his first trip to Israel since assuming his role.

One of the central topics on the agenda was Israel’s strong objection to a potential American sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey. In a CNN interview, Netanyahu said he had personally urged Washington to block the deal, warning that it would upset the balance of power across the region.

Netanyahu also used sharp language to describe Turkey, calling it “a regime that’s infected with the Muslim Brotherhood, which hates the United States.”

Relations between Israel and Turkey have been strained since the Hamas-led assault on Israel on October 7, 2023. In the aftermath, Turkey halted all trade with Israel, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened military action, and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan referred to Israel as a “burden humanity can no longer bear.”

At the NATO summit, President Trump signaled that the U.S. was open to revisiting the fighter jet sale, speaking warmly about Turkey’s relationship with Washington. Trump called Turkey “loyal” and said ties between the two nations were stronger than ever, hinting that the strong relationship could pave the way for the sale to move forward.

The cancellation of Hegseth’s Israel visit came as military tensions between Washington and Tehran escalated. The friction was triggered by the U.S. decision to reimpose sanctions on Iranian oil following Iranian attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The standoff quickly turned into direct military exchanges, with U.S. Central Command announcing strikes against Iranian targets while Tehran claimed it had launched its own attacks on American military installations.

As of now, no new date has been announced for Hegseth’s visit to Israel.

Pakistani authorities launched a search operation Wednesday after a cargo aircraft carrying five crew members vanished off the coast of Karachi while traveling from the United Arab Emirates, officials confirmed.

According to Pakistan’s airport authority, the Boeing 737 lost contact with air traffic controllers at 9:21 p.m. local time (4:21 p.m. GMT) Tuesday, shortly after departing Sharjah bound for Karachi. Officials reported the plane dropped rapidly in altitude before all communication was cut off.

Just before the aircraft disappeared, a problem with its navigation system had been reported. Flight-tracking data from Flightradar24 showed the plane experiencing dramatic swings in altitude before entering a steep downward descent.

Pakistan’s navy and air force have both been deployed to search for the missing aircraft, officials said.

The plane was operated by K2 Airways, a private cargo carrier headquartered in Karachi. In a statement released Wednesday, the airline identified the five crew members on board and said it was cooperating with investigators.

“We continue to pray, earnestly, for the safety of our colleagues,” the airline said in its statement.

K2 Airways also said it was “fully cooperating with the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority and other government agencies” as the search effort pressed on.

As of Wednesday, officials had not identified a cause for the disappearance, and no information was available about the status of the crew members.

The Boeing 737 joined K2 Airways’ fleet in 2024, though the aircraft itself has a long operational history spanning more than two decades. It first took to the skies with Russian airline Aeroflot in 1999, then flew for Garuda Indonesia starting in 2004. The plane was converted to a cargo aircraft in 2012 and later operated under TNT Airways and ASL Airlines before being transferred to the Pakistani carrier.

In its most recent role, the aircraft had been used to haul cargo across the Arabian Gulf and surrounding region.

The search was still ongoing Wednesday as Pakistan’s military and civil aviation officials worked to locate the aircraft and piece together what occurred in the plane’s final moments before radar contact and communications were lost.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney touched down in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, marking the first time a Canadian head of government has set foot in the kingdom in 26 years. The visit is part of Carney’s push to broaden his country’s economic relationships and reduce its heavy reliance on the United States as a trading partner.

During the trip, Carney is scheduled to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — the kingdom’s de facto ruler — on Thursday. He will also speak at the Saudi Arabia-Canada Investment Forum and take part in a signing ceremony.

The journey reflects Ottawa’s broader strategy to diversify trade and draw in new investment at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement have put a spotlight on just how dependent Canada is on its southern neighbor.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, has been working to attract outside investment as Crown Prince Mohammed pursues a sweeping plan to shift the kingdom’s economy away from its reliance on oil revenue.

Nelson Wiseman, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, said that Trump’s unpredictable trade and foreign policies have pushed Carney to reach out “to others in a new and evolving world order.”

Canada and Saudi Arabia only recently repaired their diplomatic relationship, restoring full ties in 2023 after a years-long falling out. That dispute began in 2018 when Saudi Arabia expelled Canada’s ambassador and recalled its own after Canada’s Foreign Ministry publicly called for the release of imprisoned women’s rights activists. In response, Riyadh froze new trade and investment deals, sold off certain Canadian assets, and directed thousands of Saudi students studying in Canada to enroll elsewhere. Those activists have since been freed.

Also in 2018, Crown Prince Mohammed’s international standing took a serious hit following the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. A U.S. intelligence assessment that was declassified in 2021 concluded that the crown prince had likely approved the operation.

Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, said the timing of Carney’s visit carries significance not only because of efforts to “diversify trade and help attract new foreign investments to Canada,” but also “because of the ongoing geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East” and the war in Iran.

“It seems increasingly clear that, for Mark Carney, trade and security are much more pressing concerns than human rights,” Béland said.

Wiseman offered a different perspective, noting that “Carney says he is taking the world as it is.” He added: “It doesn’t mean looking beyond human rights; it means being realistic about what preaching about it to authoritarian leaders can accomplish.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is sending conflicting signals about the state of the U.S.-Iran conflict, declaring the ceasefire finished while simultaneously insisting that fresh military strikes don’t amount to a return to all-out war.

Trump publicly stated he believes the ceasefire agreement has collapsed and suggested he may no longer be interested in reaching a deal, saying American forces might “just finish the job.” Yet the back-to-back military strikes he has authorized are leaving major questions unanswered about where this conflict is heading — particularly given how difficult it was to reach even the initial agreement between the two longtime adversaries just weeks ago.

The rapidly shifting rhetoric could be a calculated pressure tactic aimed at forcing Tehran to stop targeting ships carrying oil and natural gas through the Strait of Hormuz and to comply with U.S. demands on its nuclear program — an approach Trump has employed before.

Whether the statements represent a negotiating strategy or a genuine escalation, mediators are scrambling to rescue the interim deal. The renewed tensions also carry political risks for Republicans, who face midterm elections in November and could be hurt if fuel prices remain elevated.

On Wednesday, Trump warned that another round of U.S. strikes was coming, even while brushing aside comparisons to a full-scale war. Shortly after, the military confirmed it had launched new strikes against Iran aimed at further reducing the country’s ability to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

“Anything that happens is going to happen very fast,” Trump said. “We’re not looking for a long time.”

A regional intelligence official involved in the mediation process described the situation as having reached a critical turning point, with mistrust running high on both sides. Still, high-level communications are continuing around the clock in an effort to preserve the ceasefire, according to the official, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the behind-the-scenes efforts.

The foreign ministers of Pakistan and Qatar, along with Egypt’s intelligence chief, are spearheading those efforts. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — whose country hosted the NATO summit that concluded Wednesday — and Saudi Arabian leaders are also participating, the official said.

According to the official, the U.S. is frustrated over the ongoing ship attacks in the Strait of Hormuz and accuses Iran of stalling on discussions about limiting its nuclear program, which was supposed to be a key next step toward converting the interim deal into a permanent end to the conflict.

Iran, for its part, accuses Washington of violating the agreement related to the strait and failing to ensure that a ceasefire in Lebanon — including an Israeli military withdrawal — is being honored, the official said.

Michael Eisenstadt, a former U.S. military analyst who now leads the Military and Security Studies Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, suggested the situation remains in a negotiating phase despite Trump’s heated language.

“We’re still in negotiating mode, no matter what the president says,” Eisenstadt said. “This is part of negotiating, and declaring that the MOU is over is part of the negotiation as well,” he added, referring to the memorandum of understanding that formed the foundation of the ceasefire.

Trump, however, has been direct in his public statements, saying he has lost interest in keeping the ceasefire alive: “I think it’s over.”

“We can play games, but I’m not sure I want to make a deal,” he said at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, adding that U.S. forces might “just finish the job.”

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who serves as the country’s lead negotiator, accused the Trump administration of repeatedly breaking the terms of the initial agreement, saying Iran had no choice but to respond accordingly.

“The era of bullying and extortion is over. It leads nowhere. We don’t fold,” Qalibaf wrote on X.

Pakistan, one of the countries that helped broker the ceasefire, called renewed conflict “no one’s interest” and urged both sides to honor their commitments. “There is no alternative to continued engagement, dialogue and diplomacy to achieve shared goal of peace in the region,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Trump, meanwhile, dismissed Iran’s leadership in sharp terms, calling them “scum” and “sick people” — a stark reversal from just last month, when he described the same leaders as “very rational” and “nice to deal with,” while also calling them “smart people.”

Vice President JD Vance, who played a central role in reaching the initial agreement with Tehran, spoke at an event in Milwaukee on Wednesday. He said Iran “was well behaved for about a week” before resuming attacks on shipping in the strait. “If they shoot at ships, we’re going to knock the hell out of them,” Vance said.

Before the U.S. and Iran reached their first two-week ceasefire in April, Trump had ratcheted up threats, vowing to bomb Iranian bridges, roads, and power plants. He even posted online, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” He repeated similarly stark warnings before a tentative 60-day deal to end the war was reached last month.

While Trump tends to seek leverage through a position of strength, openly declaring the ceasefire dead could also give Iran more military freedom — which in turn risks disrupting oil prices and rattling financial markets.

Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group, cautioned that escalating threats may carry greater risks this time given what’s at stake domestically and internationally for the U.S.

“It certainly looks like an effort to turn up the military heat without yet closing the diplomatic door. But coercive bargaining is a dangerous game: at some point, a pressure campaign can acquire a momentum of its own and become the war it was ostensibly meant to avoid,” Vaez said.

He noted, however, that Iran still has strong incentives to return to negotiations because the country badly needs the economic relief promised under the interim agreement.

Trump has also sent conflicting messages about the economic fallout. He long maintained that rising gas prices for American consumers had no bearing on his Iran decisions — but later acknowledged that avoiding an “economic catastrophe” was part of why he agreed to the interim deal in the first place. He has since highlighted the drop in oil prices that followed the deal’s announcement.

The president has also renewed his previous threats to strike Iranian civilian infrastructure, potentially including electrical plants and desalination facilities, and even to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s major oil production hub.

“We may take over Kharg Island,” Trump said. “There’s not a thing they could do about it.”

With midterm elections less than four months away — and Republicans hoping to hold onto control of both the House and Senate — renewed uncertainty about the war is likely to keep gas prices elevated for American consumers.

Trump tried to minimize those concerns, saying, “Any time we hit them, it goes up a little bit — $2.” In reality, U.S. oil futures jumped significantly higher and may continue to climb. Trump himself acknowledged, “As oil goes, so goes everything else.”

“If we hit Iran, oil goes up a little bit,” he said, arguing the trade-off was justified to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. “It’s all right.”