03 World
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Olesya, a resident of the Russian-annexed port city of Sevastopol, Crimea, has resorted to desperate measures to fill up her car’s gas tank. Recently, she and a group of friends spent hours trying to obtain a QR code that would allow her to buy just 20 liters (5.3 gallons) of gasoline.
“There were 10 of us sitting there, hoping one of us would get a code,” Olesya told The Moscow Times, withholding her last name for safety reasons.
Ukraine has stepped up attacks on supply routes and energy infrastructure serving Crimea in recent weeks in what it says is an effort to isolate the annexed peninsula and disrupt military supply lines for Russia’s full-scale invasion.
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Oil prices were slightly higher on Tuesday as energy market participants closely monitored the potential for fresh talks between the U.S. and Iran in Qatar.
International benchmark Brent crude futures with August delivery were last seen up 0.2% at $73.32 per barrel, erasing earlier losses. The contract, however, is on track to end June roughly $19 lower, or 20% lower than the closing session on May 29. Brent crude futures with September delivery, meanwhile, rose 0.5% at $74.29.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures with August delivery traded 0.5% higher at $71.08, putting the contract on course for a $16 drop, or 19% fall, from last month’s closing.
The moves come as oil traders monitor the prospect of U.S.-Iran talks in Doha on Tuesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said talks between the two countries would take place in Qatar’s capital on Tuesday, claiming via social media that Tehran had “requested a meeting” following an exchange of strikes over the weekend.
A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Monday reportedly denied that talks were scheduled over the coming days. They added that an Iranian technical delegation’s visit to Qatar this week was not related to U.S. officials visiting the country.
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More than 100 police and emergency personnel were deployed to the scene of the blast on Monday evening.
Harri Richie, who lives around 100m away from the targeted building, told the BBC she heard an “unbelievably loud explosion” at about 21:00 local time from the underground car park she was in.
She then went up to her 11th floor apartment, where she said she saw emergency services “dragging two people out [from the building] who looked badly injured”.
Emergency services arrived around five minutes after the explosion, she said, adding that there was a helicopter overhead throughout Monday night.
“This is the first time in history, to my knowledge, that such an act has taken place in the principality,” Mirmand, the head of Monaco’s government, said.
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On May 13, 2026, Air Force One landed in Beijing for President Donald Trump’s first state visit to China in nearly a decade. That same morning, the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations published a report titled The Evolving World and the Right Way to China-US Coexistence. The summit dominated global media coverage for two days. The report received almost none.
The Beijing summit produced familiar imagery: honor guards, a state banquet in the Great Hall of the People, and carefully choreographed warmth. Chinese leader Xi Jinping announced that both sides had agreed to “strategic stability” as a framework for the next three years, and both leaders praised the collegial atmosphere.
Beneath the pageantry, China’s premier foreign policy think tank had published its own assessment of the state of bilateral relations. Read against Mao Zedong’s original theory of protracted struggle, its report describes the current moment not as a step toward partnership but as the product of a strategy in which struggle precedes and produces cooperation on terms favorable to Beijing. Treating that stabilization as evidence of strategic convergence, rather than as a single stage within a longer competition, would be a misreading worth correcting.
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It may have taken a few years, but it appears the Department of Justice is finally closing in on one of the more well-known financiers of far-left causes in the United States.
According to multiple reports, Neville Roy Singham — a China-based tech mogul — is being investigated by a federal grand jury over alleged financial crimes.
Citing unnamed sources, Fox News reported that “the grand jury in Manhattan has issued subpoenas as part of a probe launched by U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York.”
The investigation has been authorized by Acting U.S. Attorney Gener
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The rescue comes well after the initial three-day period immediately after the quake during which experts say people trapped under debris have the best chance of being found alive.
La Guaira is one of the hardest hit areas, with many local people trying to carry out rescue efforts themselves.
The UN’s refugee agency said on Tuesday that food shortages were widespread, basic services had broken down and communications had been largely severed in La Guaira.
“Community tensions are rising as access to assistance remains constrained,” the UNHCR said in a statement on its website.
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On Monday, NBC’s Today featured a four-minute report from London-based Molly Hunter obsessing over Prince Harry’s planned visit to his home country to promote the Invictus Games for veterans that he founded. ABC and CBS also offered full reports speculating on Prince Harry’s visit and whether Meghan Markle and their children will also attend.
On June 17, NBC’s Hunter performed a four-minute Today report (complete with “In Depth” graphic) on the Earth-shaking story that 12-year-old Prince George will attend the Eton College private boys’ school in the fall, just as his father and Prince Harry did. To pad the report, she also touted how Princess Kate did a 24-hour mountain climb for charity after her recovery from cancer.
ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, CNN, and MS NOW cannot be bothered for much more substantive British matters, like a recent report on the rape of young girls that came from Member of Parliament Rupert Lowe. The report estimates rape gangs victimized at least 250,000 girls across 149 local British authorities since the 1990s. It says many victims were young teenagers. Some were as young as four years old.
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Audrey Pulvar, the deputy mayor of Paris responsible for international relations, stated in an Instagram post that the United States bears significant responsibility for the extreme heat affecting France due to its greenhouse gas emissions and widespread reliance on air conditioning.
The comments came amid a heat wave that brought temperatures above 40°C (104°F) in parts of the country and led to reports of excess deaths.
Culver made the bizarre suggestion in a post responding to criticism from American tourists and social media users about the limited availability of air conditioning in Paris buildings. “Dear American journalists and social media ‘influencers’: for days, some of you have been
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Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine recently reached a major milestone in that it has now been going on for longer than World War 1. The war has taken a toll on both Ukraine and Russia with hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians dead and billions of pounds worth of buildings destroyed.
However, after Donald Trump took a warmer approach to relations with Russia, it looked like Ukraine might be forced towards a humiliating peace deal.
That has not happened. While there is no sign as yet of Putin looking like he will sue for peace, there is another financial factor to consider. The financial cost to Putin of the soldiers who are dying fighting for Russia, something that is costing his economy billions of pounds.
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Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is facing a new round of violence in the country’s Kurdish-majority west, raising questions about whether a long-simmering Kurdish insurgency is entering a more active phase as fragile talks between Iran and Washington continue, experts say.
The flare-up matters beyond Iran’s borderlands because Kurdish opposition groups were recently viewed as a potential pressure point against Iran during the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran — and now some Kurdish voices fear they could be left exposed as Washington and Tehran return to fragile diplomacy.
In recent days, Iranian security forces have been killed in several reported attacks and clashes across western and northwestern Iran. Four Iranian security personnel reportedly were killed and several others injured in two separate armed attacks Tuesday, reported The Jerusalem Post, in an analysis by Seth J. Frantzman, citing Iraq’s Shafaq News.
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BOGOTA, Colombia — A Colombian senator, who recently lost the nation’s presidential election, said Tuesday he will not recognize his opponent, Abelardo de la Espriella, as the nation’s new head of state, if he does not comply with several demands, including renouncing his U.S. citizenship.
In a statement issued Tuesday, progressive senator Iván Cepeda urged de la Espriella, the winner of June’s presidential runoff, to renounce his U.S. citizenship, arguing that holding it while being Colombia’s president could generate conflicts of interest.
The senator also said that de la Espriella should clarify whether he is an “agent” of the United States, because as a criminal defense lawyer he defended a former paramilitary leader who was an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
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The US government has lifted restrictions on powerful AI models, such as Fable 5 and Mythos 5, according to Anthropic, the AI firm behind
The company will soon begin restoring global access to its most powerful AI models, it said on Tuesday.
Posting on X, Anthropic said: “We’ve received notice that the Department of Commerce has lifted export controls on Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5,” adding, “We’ll begin restoring access tomorrow.”
Earlier this month, US authorities blocked access to the models on national security grounds.
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HAVANA — Talks between Cuba and the U.S. are at a standstill, despite the island recently approving a series of free-market reforms, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez announced Tuesday.
He noted that the newly unveiled reforms were neither mentioned nor discussed in earlier talks between the two nations.
“The recently announced (measures) are a matter of total and absolute sovereignty,” Rodriguez said. “We have neither listened to nor are we interested in the U.S. government’s opinion on them.”
But he said it was striking that they “were met with a new package of unilateral coercive measures … against Cuba.”
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President Vladimir Putin has signaled Russia’s disinterest in new peace negotiations with Ukraine. Instead, he is recharacterizing his war on Ukraine as an imperial restoration project. While he has always viewed Ukraine as a Russian limb, Putin’s rhetoric reflects his need to consolidate Russians amid a failing war effort.
Putin’s latest comments came in an interview with Kremlin propagandist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday. While Putin admitted that escalating Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure were causing fuel shortages, he insisted that these problems were limited. More air defense systems were being rapidly produced to deal with this challenge, Putin said.
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US envoys met with Qatari mediators on Tuesday in Doha to discuss negotiations with Iran, the Gulf state said, after Tehran and Washington agreed a memorandum of understanding this month to halt the Middle East war.
Iran said a team would go to Doha but contradicted US President Donald Trump‘s claim that direct talks would take place.
Qatar also said no high-level meetings or direct talks between the longtime foes were planned.
Here is what we know about the discussions.
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Nearly a week after two back-to-back earthquakes struck northern Venezuela, international rescue teams, including from the U.S., are still working around the clock to save people trapped under the rubble — like 44-year-old security guard Hernan Gil Flores.
Gil Flores has been trapped under a partially collapsed 10-story building in La Guaira for six days.
“It is a very complex rescue,” Manny Sampang, a task force leader from the Los Angeles County Fire Department who is in Venezuela to help with rescue efforts, told CBS News. “I have multiple buildings leaning into that building that we are trying to rescue him from.”
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Oil tankers and cargo vessels are anchored off the coast of Oman after being stranded for days as congestion at Port Sultan Qaboos has prevented them from docking on June 23, 2026 in Muscat, Oman.
Elke Scholiers | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Iran has exported more than 40 million barrels of crude oil since the U.S. removed its naval blockade of Iranian ports, and is now selling oil at prices roughly 20% higher than before the war, parliament speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Tuesday.
The U.S. and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding on June 17 to end nearly four months of war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and set up 60 days of negotiations to work out a permanent peace deal. The two sides briefly traded strikes over the weekend after Iran attacked two transiting vessels.
The ceasefire prompted a surge in crude shipments through the vital waterway where traffic had largely ground to a halt during the conflict, sending oil prices sharply lower.
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Often untethered to unfair foreign trade practices, President Donald Trump’s fetish for tariffs is foolish. Tariffs reduce prosperity and opportunity for the vast majority of the public in order to benefit far smaller numbers of Americans in specific industries. Still, tariffs have value when it comes to penalizing unfair economic activity by U.S. trade partners. Trump is thus right to now threaten new tariffs on the European Union and European nations over their threat to American technology companies.
In a social media post last Friday, Trump warned that European countries were discussing the “imminent” introduction of digital services taxes on U.S. technology giants. He added that any “country that imposes such a Tax will immediately be met with a 100% TARIFF on any and all Goods sent to the [U.S.].” While Trump’s 100% tariff rate is arbitrary, he is right to warn of robust action. Contrary to their claims of justified regulation, the European digital taxes in question serve a simple and wholly unjustified purpose: extorting American companies.
After Andy Burnham handily won the special by-election in Makerfield, Keir Starmer took less than a week to officially announce his intention to resign as Britian’s Prime Minister. Members of his cabinet have been quick to endorse Burnham in the leaders’ race, which is looking more like a coronation at this point.
A 7.5 Earthquake has struck Venezuela, with reports of skyscrapers collapsing and thousands feared dead and missing. The official death toll is rapidly changing. At the time of this report, it had crossed 100 dead and 1,000 injured. The U.S. has pledged aid, as have multiple nations. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted in X that the United States is “immediately deploying search and rescue teams, medical resources, and humanitarian assistance to Venezuela.”
Venezuela earthquake live: At least 164 dead as Caracas buildings crumble in 7.5 quake– www.mirror.co.uk
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Offers of help were made by various governments, including the United States, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama and Uruguay.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on X that the United States is “immediately deploying search and rescue teams, medical resources, and humanitarian assistance to Venezuela”.
Jeremy P Lewin, the US undersecretary of state for foreign assistance, said the State Department had mobilised a disaster assistance team and task force to organise aid in co-ordination with the interim Venezuelan government.
Ms Rodriguez said that Qatar had already sent rescuers who were expected to arrive within the next day, along with rescue personnel from Mexico and El Salvador.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, once diametrically opposed to Venezuela’s government, said in a post on X that he had offered aid. “We send you all our solidarity and our prayers. Stay strong, Venezuela,” Mr Bukele wrote.
A damaged building in Catia La Mar, La Guaira State(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
The Columbian Trump, Abelardo de la Espriella, has won a close election against his leftist opponent, Senator Ivan Cepeda. The victory was by less than 1%. The election is being contested, but the U.S. has already thrown its support behind the pro-U.S. de la Espriella.
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A police officer and a civilian are dead after a long-haired gunman opened fire in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood around 11:30 a.m. ET on Monday.
Some liberal media outfits have narrowly characterized the ideology espoused within the manifesto allegedly left behind by the gunman as “incel” — involuntary celibate — in nature.
‘The essential political conditions of a society in which capitalism/liberalism, and thereby, hypergamy itself, are not part of the established order of things, have mostly already been laid out by Marx, Engels, and others.’
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Representatives from the two sides met in Switzerland last weekend for talks to end the war, which resulted in the US partially lifting sanctions on Iranian oil exports.
The number of vessels crossing the Strait of Hormuz has risen significantly since the MOU was signed, according to maritime intelligence firm Kpler.
Its latest data suggests 284 vessels have made the transit from 18 June, the day after the deal was signed, although that is is still well below the pre-conflict average of some 138 crossings each day.
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Footage filmed from a motorcycle showed residents moving through streets lined with rubble and damaged structures, highlighting the scale of destruction in the port city north of Caracas. La Guaira is home to one of Venezuela’s most important ports and serves as the main gateway between the capital and Simón Bolívar International Airport.
The earthquakes struck on 24 June and caused severe disruption across several regions. Emergency crews continued rescue and recovery operations as authorities assessed the damage.
According to provisional figures reported by authorities and media outlets, at least 32 people were killed and more than 700 injured nationwide. The disaster prompted the government to declare emergency measures while engineers inspected key transport and commercial infrastructure along the Caribbean coast.