Abdiwahab Ahmed

A fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran faces a pivotal test in Islamabad, where the two sides are holding their highest-level talks in years in a Pakistan-brokered effort to turn a two-week pause in fighting into a durable end to a war that has shaken global energy markets. Here are five things to know about the Islamabad talks. The conflict that set the stage On 28 February, the US and Israel carried out coordinated strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and hit Iran's military and nuclear…

Shielded from the freezing void outside their spacecraft, the Artemis II astronauts still face one of deep space travel’s most persistent threats: radiation. NASA is now waiting closely for data that could reveal how much exposure the crew endured and what it means for future missions. The four astronauts traveled farther into space than any humans before them, venturing more than 1,000 times farther from Earth than the International Space Station. In low Earth orbit, the planet’s magnetosphere helps blunt some of the…

Fresh uncertainty hung over planned peace talks in Pakistan after Iran said negotiations cannot begin unless blocked Iranian assets are released and a ceasefire in Lebanon is firmly in place. Iran's parliament ⁠speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said on X that both conditions had already been agreed with the US and said the talks would not go ahead until they are met. Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi repeated that message and likewise demanded an end to Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon. Pakistani sources said both Mr Qalibaf and Mr…

Global development aid plunged by a record 23.1% in real terms last year, the OECD said, describing the drop as a historic setback driven largely by a sharp pullback in US support amid mounting budget pressures and geopolitical strain. Preliminary figures from the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development showed that official development assistance (ODA) from members of its Development Assistance Committee totaled $174.3 billion last year, marking a second straight annual decline. "This is the largest…

With Earth drawing closer and a fiery homecoming ahead, the four astronauts aboard NASA’s Artemis II mission reflected on a voyage unlike any before it, describing the strain, wonder and emotion of preparing to plunge back through the atmosphere during their first press conference from space. The Artemis II crew have been travelling in their Orion capsule since lifting off from Florida last week, and are scheduled to splash down off the southern California coast tomorrow after reaching the Moon earlier this week. Their route…

With a ceasefire now taking hold between the United States and Iran, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is pressing for Washington to restore full energy sanctions on Russia, arguing that the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz removes the rationale for easing pressure on Moscow’s oil exports. "Now a ceasefire is beginning in the Middle East and the Gulf. And I am waiting for sanctions on Russian oil to be fully reimposed, as they were before," Mr Zelensky said. Last month, the United States relaxed some sanctions on…

Tensions are mounting around a fragile two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran, with Washington accusing Tehran of failing to honour commitments on the Strait of Hormuz and Israel launching strikes on Lebanon that Iran says breach the truce. There was still no indication that Iran intended to ease its near-total blockade of the strait, a choke point that has triggered the most severe disruption ever seen in global energy supplies. Iran pointed to Israel's continuing assault on Lebanon, including what were described as the…

Pressure mounted on Hungary on Thursday after new reports alleged Budapest shared sensitive EU material with Moscow, prompting Brussels to demand that the government “explain itself as a matter of urgency”. Last month, a consortium of Eastern European outlets — The Insider, VSquare and Delfi — reported that Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto had given Russia “direct-line” access to “strategic information on crucial issues”. In a follow-up investigation published Wednesday, the outlets alleged that Mr Szijjarto…

For a month, the UK and its allies shadowed a Russian attack submarine and two spy submarines in the North Atlantic before the vessels eventually pulled back, Britain's defence minister John Healey said. Speaking at a press conference in Downing Street, he said that in recent weeks — even as attention was focused on the crisis in the Middle East — the UK, working alongside Norway and other allies, had responded to what he described as "increased Russian activity" in the Atlantic north of the UK. That activity, he said,…

In one of the war’s few recurring acts of coordination, Moscow has returned the remains of 1,000 soldiers to Ukraine, according to a source in Russia's negotiating delegation, while Kyiv handed back the bodies of 41 dead Russian troops. The exchanges of war dead have continued even as the four-year conflict, unleashed by Russia's full-scale invasion, has killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers and left little room for cooperation elsewhere. Footage published by Russia's state-run Ruptly video agency showed men wearing white…