Critical aid urgently required as catastrophic conditions unfold in Gaza.

MSF Calls for Urgent Humanitarian Assistance in Gaza This section details the ongoing humanitarian situation in Gaza and the imperative for increased support from international communities. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is advocating for sustained assistance amid severe restrictions. MSF requests a massive scale-up of lifesaving assistance. Israeli authorities are being called upon to comply with international humanitarian law. Global governments must ensure the respect of International Court of Justice…

Who’s Who in the U.S.-Iran Crisis Power Struggle

The United States–Iran crisis is not a two-player standoff. It is a layered confrontation running from Washington and Tehran through a lattice of militias, allies, maritime chokepoints and nuclear facilities. Understanding who the main actors are—and what levers they control—clarifies why the standoff persists, where it can flare and how it might be defused. The U.S. presidency is the cockpit of American policy, blending deterrence with limited diplomacy. The White House sets risk tolerance, balances support for Israel,…

Ukraine’s Kharkiv adjusts as war becomes the city’s daily routine

In Kharkiv, life threads through air-raid sirens as a city adapts to war’s long grind Kharkiv moves with a calm that belies its proximity to the frontline. Air-raid alerts roll across the snow and concrete, their whirling tone carried by loudspeakers and phones, yet buses, trams and the metro keep time. Pedestrians navigate the city’s broad, winter-bright boulevards as if the sirens were just another layer of weather. Four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kharkiv has become a study in endurance. City…

Succession Struggle: What’s Next for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel?

CJNG leader ‘El Mencho’ killed in raid; unrest erupts across Mexico as succession fight looms Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the elusive boss of Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel, died in custody after an early-morning shootout with Mexican special forces, authorities said, in an operation aided by U.S. intelligence. The capture and killing of the crime boss, known as “El Mencho,” was hailed as a major breakthrough in Mexico’s long war with drug gangs. U.S. officials have accused the CJNG of trafficking cocaine, heroin,…

Loud blasts reported in Dubai, Doha, Manama and Jerusalem

Fresh blasts rattled Dubai, Doha and Manama on Sunday morning, and air raid sirens wailed over Jerusalem, a day after Iran launched widespread strikes across the Gulf in retaliation for U.S. and Israeli attacks, officials and witnesses said. Thick black smoke rose on the southern horizon of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where two people were injured after shrapnel from intercepted drones fell onto two houses, according to a Dubai Media Office statement. Similar blasts were reported in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, and in…

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: hardline revolutionary leading Iran’s Islamic Republic

Trump claims Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is dead after reported strikes; claim unverified Former U.S. President Donald Trump said on his Truth Social platform that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is dead, calling him “one of the most evil people in history.” Trump’s post came as he described a massive wave of U.S. and Israeli strikes targeting sites across Iran, including Khamenei’s compound in Tehran. The claim could not be independently verified. Khamenei, 86, has dominated Iran’s political and…

Trump threatens Iran with unprecedented military response amid rising Middle East tensions

When Donald Trump threatens Iran with “force never been seen before,” the words do more than light up headlines. They signal a strategy of coercive diplomacy that has defined the most fraught chapters of U.S.-Iran relations this century, raising the stakes across a Middle East already primed for miscalculation. Rhetoric at that volume can deter, but it can also lock leaders into escalatory paths, unsettle markets and embolden hard-liners on both sides who thrive on grievance and spectacle. The central question is not whether…

War Divides Trump Coalition as U.S. and Iran Spar at UN

NEW YORK — The United States launched a sweeping series of strikes against Iran over the weekend under the banner of Operation Epic Fury, jolting a country that had not been primed for war and igniting a rapid clash of narratives at home and at the United Nations. Many Americans awoke to the news with confusion and unease. “No one in my circle ever talks about Iran,” a New Yorker told RTÉ News, adding he felt less safe and was unsure about gathering in public spaces. President Donald Trump addressed the Iranian public…

Trump hails Iranian leader’s death, pledges military strikes will continue

Trump claims Khamenei killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes as Iran fires missiles and drones across Gulf; Tehran denies WASHINGTON and ABU DHABI — President Donald Trump said U.S.-Israeli airstrikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and vowed operations would continue, even as Tehran denied the claim and launched waves of missiles and drones that hit targets across the Gulf, killing at least two people in Abu Dhabi and injuring dozens in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait. Trump, monitoring the operation…

Pakistan carries out cross-border airstrikes in Afghanistan as minister declares ‘open war’

Pakistan bombed Taliban government forces in Kabul and Kandahar overnight in the first direct strikes on Taliban military sites since the group returned to power in 2021, a sharp rupture between the neighboring Islamic nations that Islamabad’s defense minister described as “open war.” The escalation raises the risk of a broader conflict along the 2,600-kilometer (1,615-mile) frontier and deepens a crisis already fueled by cross-border militant attacks. “Our cup of patience has overflowed. Now it is open war between us and…