03 World
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Northern Nigeria is facing an ascendant ISIS insurgency, drawing Washington into the fray.
Since the jihadist insurgency in northern Nigeria began 13 years ago, the conflict has drastically changed in scope, amid concerted counterterrorism efforts from the Nigerian government, countless jihadist ideological splits, and international interventions. The 2020s began with ISIS and other terrorist groups on the back foot, but a change in tactics and fortunes has sent them back on the offensive in the last couple of years, turning the country into one of the foremost fronts in the Global War on Terror.
Alexander Palmer, a fellow in the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Washington Examiner that ISIS in Nigeria is “on the march, they are increasingly active, and they’re increasingly threatening military targets,” with a large-scale military campaign ISIS calls “Camp Holocaust.”
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The U.S. military said Monday that it carried out “self-defense” strikes in southern Iran, including on missile launch sites and boats placing mines, even as President Donald Trump said on social media that negotiations with Tehran were “proceeding nicely.”
The strikes were done “to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces,” but the military was “using restraint during the ongoing ceasefire,” Capt. Tim Hawkins, the spokesman for the U.S. military’s Central Command, said in a statement.
Further details were not immediately available, including more specifics on the threats from Iran and what this means for negotiations. There was no official response from Iran, which had sent its parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf to Qatar for negotiations over the possible deal with the U.S.
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Iranian authorities on Tuesday executed a man after convicting him of cooperation with and espionage for Israel’s Mossad spy agency, the judiciary said.
“Gholamreza Khani Shakarab was executed on charges of intelligence cooperation and espionage in favour of the Zionist regime,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported, adding that his sentence had been upheld by the Supreme Court.
The Tuesday hanging is the latest in a string of executions by the Islamic republic for security-related cases following the outbreak of war with Israel and the United States on Feb. 28.
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Iran’s Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei declared in his first major public statement since taking office that regional countries would no longer serve as staging grounds for US military bases, after US Central Command acknowledged carrying out strikes on missile sites and boats in southern Iran overnight.
In a 14-page written message marking the Eid al-Adha holiday and the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Khamenei said the US “in addition to no longer having any safe haven in the region for aggression and the establishment of military bases, is moving further and further away from its former position with each passing day.”
“The hands of time will not turn backwards, and the nations and lands of the region will no longer serve as shields for American bases,” he added.
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Cuba’s acquisition of more than 300 attack drones from Iran and Russia since 2023 underscores the regime’s deepening alignment with Washington’s adversaries. Cuban planners have reportedly discussed strikes against Guantanamo Bay, U.S. naval vessels, and even Key West, Florida. While these systems provide Havana with a limited harassment and asymmetric strike capability, they do nothing to narrow the overwhelming gap between Cuban and American military power.
Yet, Cuba poses a direct threat to American homeland security through migration waves, narcotics transshipment, espionage, and now drone threats. Over 600,000 Cubans have attempted or reached U.S. shores since 2021, surpassing the Mariel boatlift and the 1994 rafting crisis combined, straining resources and creating security vulnerabilities. Pentagon contingency planning intensified this month with the USS Nimitz carrier group deployed to the Caribbean, underscoring the urgency.
Cuba fields 50,000 active troops, 40,000 reserves, and approximately 1.1 million personnel in its Territorial Troops Militia. Its air force operates roughly 20 aircraft. The army possesses around 300 aging T-55 and T-62 tanks, Soviet-era artillery, and surface-to-air missile launchers upgraded by Belarus in 2025. Global Firepower ranks Cuba 65th globally, a position that conceals obsolescence and systemic decay
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A US journalist, Thomas Pauken II, faces charges for allegedly acting as an unregistered agent for China. Federal authorities claim he prepared confidential political reports for Chinese intelligence, intended for President Xi Jinping. Pauken, who lived in China for over a decade, denies espionage, stating he only performed professional work without proper paperwork….
Thomas Pauken II, a commentator and author who lived in China for more than a decade, is accused of carrying out activities on behalf of Chinese government-linked contacts without properly registering with the US attorney general, according to federal court documents reported by Politico.
The Nigerian government rescued 92 Nigerian Christians, including seven children, from jihadists who appeared to be attempting to enslave them.
Nigeria’s military spokesperson Sani Uba said, “Converging on the terrorists in a well-coordinated pursuit toward the Mangari-Dora general area, Operation HADIN KAI troops engaged the insurgents and forced them to abandon their captives and flee in confusion.”
A bid by the conservatives to get the Canadian parliament to pass a resolution recognizing private property rights in the wake of “First Nations” claims was rejected by the majority liberal party.
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Thousands of demonstrators marched through central Madrid calling on Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to resign over corruption allegations involving members of his political circle.
Video showed large crowds carrying Spanish flags and chanting slogans against the socialist leader as they moved through the streets of the capital.
Organisers claimed around 120,000 people attended the rally, while government officials estimated the turnout at closer to 40,000.
The protest comes amid mounting political pressure on Sánchez and growing tensions between Spain’s government and opposition parties over several ongoing corruption investigations.
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In a surprise reversal of efforts to reduce the American military footprint in Europe, President Donald Trump said Thursday that the US will now be deploying an additional 5,000 troops to Poland.
The declaration came just days after the Trump administration said it would withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany and follows the Pentagon’s abrupt cancellation of a large training exercise in Poland.
The announcement also came on the heels of a Pentagon memo signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth temporarily halting the deployment of the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team to Poland.
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We currently face an Ebola epidemic in Africa, and it doesn’t help that health facilities are being attacked by mobs. The region where this latest outbreak occurred has long been neglected by government officials, so the increased attention has triggered hostile reactions from locals, some of whom suspect hidden motives. Yes, some believe the Ebola outbreak is a hoax, while others are secretly upset that they can’t bury their loved ones. The latter is how patient zero spread this pathogen. Now, we have dozens of those infected with Ebola roaming free after fleeing these facilities (via NBC News):
Doctors operating on the front lines of the fight against Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, already grappling with shortages of basic supplies, are now also having to deal with attacks on their facilities and fleeing patients as the virus spreads rapidly.
At least three such incidents have occurred in the northeastern province of Ituri where the first Ebola cases were reported, including two at the weekend targeting the same hospital that permitted more than two dozen patients to run away.
The attacks recall the widespread violence targeting health facilities during a 2018-2020 outbreak in eastern Congo that killed more than 25 health workers.
Some were perpetrated by civilians who were angry about not being able to bury their loved ones or were convinced that the outbreak was a hoax. The influx of money and manpower into an area that had felt neglected during decades of conflict and humanitarian crisis has spurred local suspicions about the real motives for the sudden spike of interest.
A similar dynamic seems to be playing out now, said Dr. Richard Lokodu, medical director of the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, which came under attack first Saturday and again Sunday.
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President Donald Trump said Monday that six Muslim-majority nations must join the Abraham Accords if they want to participate in an agreement currently being negotiated with Iran.
In a Memorial Day post on Truth Social, Trump said the negotiations with Iran were “proceeding nicely” but added that he had made normalization with Israel a condition for several regional governments seeking involvement in the deal.
Trump said he spoke Saturday with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey and Jordan and told them they should formally recognize Israel through the Abraham Accords framework.
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Cuba’s acquisition of more than 300 attack drones from Iran and Russia since 2023 underscores the regime’s deepening alignment with Washington’s adversaries. Cuban planners have reportedly discussed strikes against Guantanamo Bay, U.S. naval vessels, and even Key West, Florida. While these systems provide Havana with a limited harassment and asymmetric strike capability, they do nothing to narrow the overwhelming gap between Cuban and American military power.
Yet, Cuba poses a direct threat to American homeland security through migration waves, narcotics transshipment, espionage, and now drone threats. Over 600,000 Cubans have attempted or reached U.S. shores since 2021, surpassing the Mariel boatlift and the 1994 rafting crisis combined, straining resources and creating security vulnerabilities. Pentagon contingency planning intensified this month with the USS Nimitz carrier group deployed to the Caribbean, underscoring the urgency.
Cuba fields 50,000 active troops, 40,000 reserves, and approximately 1.1 million personnel in its Territorial Troops Militia. Its air force operates roughly 20 aircraft. The army possesses around 300 aging T-55 and T-62 tanks, Soviet-era artillery, and surface-to-air missile launchers upgraded by Belarus in 2025. Global Firepower ranks Cuba 65th globally, a position that conceals obsolescence and systemic decay.
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Pope Leo XIV called Monday for robust regulation of artificial intelligence and for its developers to work for the common good rather than profit, issuing a sweeping manifesto on safeguarding humankind as the technology impacts everything from work to war.
“Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), Leo’s first encyclical, has been eagerly awaited ever since history’s first U.S.-born pope announced days after his election that he considered AI to be the biggest challenge facing humanity today.
In the text, Leo denounced the “culture of power” driving the AI race, especially in developing ever more sophisticated methods of remote warfare. He declared that it was “not permissible” to entrust irreversible, lethal decisions to AI systems, setting up another flash point between the American pope and the Trump administration, which has worked aggressively to deregulate AI development.
“Artificial Intelligence now demands to be disarmed, freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion and death,″ the pope told a special Vatican presentation of the encyclical, one of the most authoritative types of teaching documents a pope can issue.
Experts in the tech industry, academia and Catholic morality said the document will likely become a benchmark in the debate over AI, a point of reference for policymakers, researchers and ordinary folk alike. It comes as the near-daily developments in the technology trigger concerns over AI replacing human jobs and even human intelligence.
Taylor Black, a Microsoft AI executive and director of Catholic University of America’s AI institute, said the document would prompt people “at the forefront of these tools” to ask questions such as “What does it mean to be human?”
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In a post to Truth Social, Donald Trump said talks with Iran are “proceeding in an orderly and constructive manner”, adding that he has told his representatives to not “rush” into a deal because time is on their “side”.
The US president said the blockade on Iranian ports will remain in “full force” until an agreement is reached. “Both sides must take their time and get it right. There can be no mistakes!” he wrote.
Echoing the comments given to the media earlier by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, Trump said Iran cannot “develop or procure” a nuclear weapon or bomb under any circumstances.
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Iran has agreed in principle to dispose of highly-enriched uranium in negotiations with the U.S., although a deal likely won’t be signed this weekend, a senior Trump administration official said Sunday morning.
The official said the U.S. believes Iran’s supreme leader has approved the template for a deal, but a final agreement still needs to be made before anything is signed. They said it is still an open question as to whether that will come to fruition.
Even before Operation Epic Fury, the Iranian system was “frustratingly slow and opaque,” the official said, and it has only become more so since.
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U.S. intelligence shows that Iran’s supreme leader is effectively holed up in an undisclosed location with little access to the outside world and is only reached by a labyrinth of couriers, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter.
The Iranian officials authorized to work with the Trump administration have been having a difficult time communicating inside of their own government system — and it’s a central reason why the details of a potential deal with Iran and past agreements have been slow to emerge,
When the U.S. sends proposed details, the difficulty in reaching the supreme leader means there can be a long delay before the U.S. receives a response, two of the officials said.
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Netanyahu was referring to a conversation between the two leaders on Saturday night, which Trump had earlier said “went very well”.
“President Trump and I agreed that any final agreement with Iran must eliminate the nuclear threat entirely. This means dismantling Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities and removing enriched nuclear material from its territory,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
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Chinese AI startup DeepSeek just made one of the boldest pricing moves in the artificial intelligence race so far. The company announced it is permanently slashing the cost of its flagship V4-Pro AI model by 75%, bringing prices down to just a fraction of what developers were paying only weeks ago. AI companies worldwide have been facing two major problems: high infrastructure costs and limited access to high-end AI chips. So when a company suddenly cuts prices this aggressively — and permanently — it usually signals something important is changing behind the scenes.
DeepSeek says usage costs for V4-Pro now range from 0.025 to 6 yuan per million tokens, depending on workload type, down sharply from the previous pricing range of 0.1 to 24 yuan per million tokens. For developers building AI apps, agents, and services, that kind of drop could significantly lower operating costs.
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The Israeli prime minister wrote on X: “I spoke last night with President Donald Trump about the memorandum of understanding to reopen the Straits of Hormuz and the upcoming negotiations toward a final agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.
“I expressed my deep appreciation to President Trump for his unwavering commitment to Israel’s security, including during Operation Roaring Lion and Epic Fury, when American and Israeli forces fought shoulder to shoulder against the Iranian threat.
“President Trump and I agreed that any final agreement with Iran must eliminate the nuclear danger. That means dismantling Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites and removing its enriched nuclear material from its territory.