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EXCL: Zubir Ahmed, health minister and another close ally of Wes Streeting, quits calling for Keir Starmer to step aside.
Feels like the Streeting bid could be on
03 World
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Iran warned on Monday that its armed forces were prepared to “teach a lesson” to any aggressor after US President Donald Trump rejected Tehran’s latest counterproposal aimed at preserving the fragile Middle East ceasefire.The sharp exchange further raised tensions in the region and rattled global energy markets already strained by disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical oil shipping routes.Trump, speaking to reporters in Washington, said the ceasefire was on “massive life support” after dismissing Iran’s response to a US-backed proposal as “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE”.
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Two Israeli soldiers were sentenced to several weeks in military prison for desecrating a statue of the Virgin Mary in southern Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said.
Last week, a photo surfaced showing a service member hugging the statue in the predominantly Christian village of Debel, near the Israeli border, and placing a cigarette in the statue’s mouth. The image sparked outrage on social media and prompted an official investigation.
On Monday, IDF spokeswoman Ariella Mazor said the soldier posing with the statue and the soldier filming him were sentenced to 21 and 14 days behind bars, respectively.
“The IDF views the incident with great severity and respects freedom of religion and worship, as well as holy sites and religious symbols of all religions and communities,” Mazor wrote on X.
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Israel’s military has killed six people in an air raid on a house in southern Lebanon, the latest violation of a United States-brokered truce that has only ever existed on paper.
The Israeli attack on Monday night targeted a house in the Kfar Dounin municipality, some 100km (60 miles) south of Beirut, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) said.
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WASHINGTON: The United States government on Monday (May 11) announced sanctions against three people and nine companies, including four based in Hong Kong and four in the United Arab Emirates, for aiding Iran’s shipment of oil to China.
The ninth company is based in Oman.
The Treasury move follows sanctions announced on Friday on individuals and companies aiding Iranian purchases of weapons and components used to make drones and ballistic missiles.
It comes days before US President Donald Trump’s planned meeting with Xi Jinping, where he is expected to press the Chinese leader to help resolve the standoff with Iran and reopen the critical Strait of Hormuz.
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Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said Tuesday she agreed with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to closely coordinate on movements in the currency market during talks held after a recent intervention to stem the yen’s depreciation against the dollar.
The financial chiefs also discussed ways to respond to China’s export controls on critical minerals amid the economic powerhouse’s dominance and the growing cybersecurity threat posed by sophisticated artificial intelligence ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s two-day meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing from Thursday.
“We are in good coordination regarding recent currency movements” amid the Middle East conflict, Katayama told reporters after meeting Bessent at the Finance Ministry in Tokyo, noting that Japan’s stance has been “fully supported.”
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COPENHAGEN: Negotiations between Denmark, Greenland and the United States on the Danish autonomous territory are making progress but a deal has yet to be reached, Greenland’s prime minister said on Tuesday (May 12).
The mineral-rich Arctic island is coveted by US President Donald Trump.
“We are negotiating but we don’t have an agreement,” Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a speech to the Copenhagen Democracy Summit.
“It’s difficult for me to be concrete about the conversations in the working group but we have taken some steps in the right direction,” he said.
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What happens when the Arctic starts to look like the South China Sea?
Historically, a neutral region where cooperation prevailed, the Arctic is quickly becoming a contested space. This is no more evident than in the increasing scope and volume of Russian and Chinese lawfare affecting the region. Through excessive maritime regulations, coordinated challenges to Western continental shelf claims, and the use of shadow fleets to avoid accountability, Russia and China are increasingly coordinating their efforts to exert influence and challenge Western claims to Arctic resources and freedom of navigation. As these tactics continue to converge, the United States and its partners — Arctic and non-Arctic — should establish clear strategies to respond and counter or risk ceding control of this critical region to those who seek to reshape the law in their favor.
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- EU puts sanctions on Israeli settlers after Hungary drops Orban’s veto The Washington Post
- EU diplomats agree to sanction Hamas leaders and Israeli settlers NPR
- EU agrees sanctions on Israeli West Bank settlers, Hamas leaders Al Jazeera
- EU announces sanctions against violent Israel settlers The Guardian
- EU agrees sanctions on Israeli settlers over West Bank violence BBC
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A DEVASTATING explosion has destroyed 10 homes in Brazil, killing one person and injuring several others.
The blast happened in the early hours of Monday morning in western São Paulo.
Authorities said a 45-year-old man was found dead, while three other people were rescued from beneath the rubble.
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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called the nuclear phaseout a “serious strategic mistake” that left Germany short of firm power that turned the Energiewende into the most expensive energy transition on the planet. This is an early marker for a developing worldwide retreat from policies that sidelined nuclear power and demonized coal, oil, and natural gas.
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Canadian citizens are expressing outrage after a woman who was seeking medical attention for back pain was offered euthanasia before she was ever diagnosed. Now, a member of Parliament is citing the story of Miriam Lancaster as proof that Canada needs to stop expanding its euthanasia program.
Miriam told her story in a social media video as well as in a post on The Free Press called, “Never Kill Yourself: When I went to the doctor in Vancouver with back pain, she offered me assisted suicide; instead, I recovered—and went to Cuba!”
It started a year ago when Miriam woke up with back pain and went to the hospital. Before testing her or diagnosing her condition, the hospital staff immediately offered to help her kill herself.
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The government of Bahrain announced Saturday that security authorities arrested 41 individuals allegedly tied to a network linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), marking one of the kingdom’s largest recent crackdowns on suspected Iranian influence operations.
According to a statement from Bahrain’s Interior Ministry, the detainees were identified as central members of the organization’s “main structure” operating inside the country.
Authorities said the arrests followed intelligence operations and investigations conducted alongside public prosecutors into alleged espionage activities involving foreign entities and support for Iranian aggression.
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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is fighting for his job after devastating local election results for his Labour Party spurred dozens of lawmakers to call for his resignation.
Starmer plans to use a speech on Monday to argue that he can change tack and revive his government’s fortunes. But his position is fragile as rivals weigh their options. One lawmaker, Catherine West, said she will try to trigger a leadership contest if she doesn’t like what she hears in the speech.
Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, often seen as a potential challenger, said the party “needs to change,” though she did not explicitly call for Starmer to go.
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US President Donald Trump will arrive in China from May 13 to May 15 for a closely watched state visit that could shape the next phase of relations between Washington and Beijing. The trip marks the first visit by a sitting American president to China in nearly a decade and the first since Trump’s own 2017 visit during his first term.
Despite years of harsh rhetoric on China, Trump has continued to publicly praise Chinese President Xi Jinping. Just last week, he described Xi as a “good man” and a “smart man” with whom he has “a very good relationship”.
But behind the warm language lies mounting pressure. The summit comes at a moment when Washington is struggling to convert its military and economic power into diplomatic outcomes, particularly in the Middle East.
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When Donald Trump visits Beijing this week, the focus of think tankers and pundits will largely be on what the policy outcomes will be, and there is a tendency to lean towards the negative. Will China deepen the trade war? Will Trump bristle at Xi’s stance on the war against Iran?
But for the trajectory of the relationship between China and the United States, the summit could play a constructive role, facilitating a peaceful recognition of the shift in power dynamics between the two countries and globally. Perceptions in both countries of one another, and of the role each seeks to play in the world, will be shaped by the art of the summitry and what the meeting between the two leaders conveys.
Historically, high-profile summits have proven to be important turning points in U.S. foreign policy by mediating enduring tensions in bilateral relations. The 1959 US-Soviet summit humanized the Soviet Union and Nikita Khrushchev in the eyes of some Americans. The 1972 Nixon visit to China allowed pro-rapprochement sentiment to emerge and circulate in American public discourse, contributing to ongoing discussions and debates on diplomatic normalization for years following the summit. The 1985-87 US-Soviet summits between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev were crucial for transforming bilateral distrust into trust.
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- Confident in China’s power, Xi is ready to host an unpredictable Trump The Washington Post
- As Trump Heads to Beijing, China Is ‘Locked and Loaded’ for a Fight The New York Times
- US standoff with Iran deepens and strait remains closed after Trump rejects latest proposal AP News
- Trump and China’s Xi set for talks spanning Iran, nuclear, trade and AI Reuters
- Iran, China and AI collide in Trump’s legacy-defining week Axios
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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to “face up to the big challenges” facing the U.K. in a make-or-break speech on Monday, amid mounting pressure on his leadership.
Starmer cited growth, national defense, the U.K.’s relationship with Europe and energy needs as key issues that must be tackled urgently, in an attempt to convince Labour Party colleagues to keep him in the job.
“To meet the challenges that our country faces, incremental change won’t cut it,” he said, recognizing that “some people are frustrated with me” and acknowledging that he has “doubters.”
“I know I need to prove them wrong and I will,” he told an audience of supporters.
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Labour’s political opponents are un-British, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said as he made a final Hail Mary speech to save his job on Monday, while attempting to use boogeyman scare tactics over the so-called “far-right” to justify his continued presence in Number 10.
The answer to the country rejecting his Labour party at the ballot box with its worst election results in a century is simply to be more Labour than ever, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said at yet another ‘reset’ speech on Monday morning. Even as coup plotters break into the open to challenge his position, Starmer said clinging on to power rather than accepting his time is up is his “responsibility” while criticising people who notice the problems the country has, vowing to crack down on the right wing, and vowing to nationalise the steel industry.
The American State Department released two recent statements that break with the mass migration strategy of the UN. One release made it clear America stands in direct opposition to the plan, and one exposes how the UN is working to “assure” Britian’s recent “migrants” aren’t deported.
New evidence has revealed Pakistan has been allowing the Iranians to park their warplanes in its territory for safekeeping. Pakistan is currently playing the role of mediator in ceasefire negotiations between Iran and the U.S. (and Israel).
A Texas couple is suing OpenAI, alleging their product, ChatGPT, led to their son’s overdosing on drugs after following the AI platform’s advice.
OpenAI released this statement, “This is a heartbreaking situation, and our thoughts are with the family… ChatGPT is not a substitute for medical or mental health care, and we have continued to strengthen how it responds in sensitive and acute situations with input from mental health experts…”