GENEVA — A United Nations fact-finding mission has concluded there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that U.S. forces committed war crimes during two airstrikes in Iran in February, strikes that killed at least 178 civilians, including more than 120 schoolchildren in a single attack on a primary school in the southern city of Minab.

Iran's GDP is projected to contract by 5.4 to 6.1% in 2026, its worst performance since 1988. Oil exports have collapsed from 2.12 million barrels per day before the war to roughly 65,000. Food prices have surged 115%. More than one million jobs have been lost. The naval blockade has severed what one analyst called "Iran's economic lifeline", and there is no realistic path to revival without sanctions relief Washington shows no sign of granting.

The Trump administration is preparing a $2.8 billion weapons package for Israel containing 40,000 2,000-pound bombs, according to US officials cited by The Washington Post, Reuters and the Associated Press.

Film alleges mass civilian deaths are routinely built into military decisions amid Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza

The Israeli rights group says violence, displacement, economic strangulation, and settlement expansion form part of a single project (The Elimination Project), transforming the occupied West Bank. Drawing on 2,000 testimonies and three decades of documentation, the report arrives amid escalating settler attacks, record settlement approvals, and a growing international sanctions push that stops short of the action B’Tselem demands.

Houthi forces have captured the historic Red Sea port of Mocha and are advancing on Dhubab, positioning themselves to control the 20-kilometre-wide Bab el-Mandeb Strait with artillery alone, a strategic prize that, combined with Iran's effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, would give the axis of resistance simultaneous leverage over both of the Middle East's critical maritime chokepoints, threatening to isolate Gulf oil producers, add 0.7 percentage points to global core inflation, displace nearly 20,000 Yemenis in a single week, and shatter a fragile four-year truce that UN mediators had hoped to transform into a political settlement, as Saudi Arabia weighs a decisive military response and analysts conclude that both sides now believe "a return to fighting is in their interest."

London's historic sanctions against Israeli settlements mark a watershed moment in UK foreign policy, but Israeli diplomats privately concede the diplomatic framework Britain seeks to save no longer exists.

With 95% of Gaza’s population now wholly dependent on aid and more than 90% stripped of purchasing power, Palestinian officials allege that Israel is waging a calculated campaign of “silent starvation.” Under the ceasefire, 198,000 aid trucks should have entered in 330 days; only 69,387 did. As spoiled food is weaponised as proof of abundance, the real story lies in the crossing points, the collapsed economy, and the slow bureaucratic erasure of Palestinian survival.

India calls for Kashmir and Ladakh to appear only on its official map after a UN cartography vote, prompting Pakistan to warn that “unilateral claims of sovereignty have no bearing” on the disputed territory, reigniting a legal and rhetorical battle over borders, self-determination, and the credibility of international institutions.

ISLAMABAD – In the high-stakes political theatre of Pakistan, the battleground has shifted from the streets to the sterile corridors of hospitals and the hallowed halls of the Supreme Court. At the centre of the storm is not a policy or an election, but the physical body of a jailed former prime minister, Imran Khan.

Francesca Albanese says third states have an ICJ-mandated obligation to end Israel’s occupation. But with US vetoes blocking the Security Council, Europe, Asia and the Middle East issuing condemnations without action, Palestinians are left without protection amid record settler violence and a Gaza shelter crisis.

As Israeli jets bomb a Syrian air base over alleged Turkish deployment plans, Ankara, Washington and Damascus are scrambling to prevent a direct Israel-NATO confrontation. But critics across the region say the strike was never just about security; it was about maps, sovereignty and an expansionist project Israel refuses to name.