As Pope Leo XIV tours Africa calling for dialogue and an end to the Iran war, Trump keeps attacking — losing even his closest European ally in the process. The setting was deliberately chosen. On Wednesday, Pope Leo XIV stood inside a mosque in Algiers — the first papal visit to Algeria in history —…
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The January 2025 ceasefire was supposed to end the Gaza war in phases. Phase 1 held — barely. Phase 2 collapsed before it began. Now US envoys are talking directly to Hamas — a designated terrorist organization — in a last-ditch attempt to revive a deal that may already be beyond saving. DOHA / WASHINGTON…
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PERSIAN GULF / WASHINGTON — This is what maximum pressure looks like from the water. As of April 14, the United States has deployed 15 warships — anchored by a carrier strike group, guided-missile destroyers, submarine escorts, and maritime patrol aircraft — in a naval blockade formation encircling Iranian ports across the Persian Gulf and…
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Thousands of US troops on high alert, Kharg Island seizure plans on the table, Iran threatening to shut the entire Gulf — and a framework deal that Axios says is now within reach. The next five days decide everything. On Wednesday morning, Donald Trump told the world the Iran war was “very close to over.”…
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From a US naval blockade that NATO allies openly refused to join, to Chinese tankers transiting Hormuz in defiance, to the Pope, Canada and Hungary — the Iran crisis is becoming a catalogue of Trump’s limits. There is a theory of American power that Donald Trump has spent his entire second term road-testing: that the…
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Two countries blocking each other’s exports, oil near $105 a barrel, Iran’s inflation at 44% and climbing — and a ceasefire that expires in six days. The economic stakes have never been higher. When Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf taunted Donald Trump on social media Sunday — “Enjoy the current pump figures. With the…
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Viktor Orbán’s stunning election defeat hands Trump and Putin a geopolitical loss — and hands the EU a historic opening. But Peter Magyar’s Hungary will be more complicated than Brussels is celebrating. It was, in retrospect, a remarkable alignment of interests. The President of the United States and the President of Russia rarely back the…
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Three byelection wins, five floor crossings, and an unprecedented parliamentary maneuver have handed Mark Carney something that narrowly eluded him at the ballot box: a majority government built to resist Donald Trump. When Mark Carney stepped in front of cameras Monday night to claim victory in three federal byelections, he was not just celebrating a…
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With the ceasefire expiring April 21, Trump told the New York Post talks could restart “over the next two days” — even as his blockade leaks, sticking points remain, and the Mossad warns the mission isn’t over. The signal came not from a formal White House statement or a CENTCOM briefing. It came from a…
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The White House released a record-breaking $1.5 trillion defense budget request — how Trump is using the Iran war to reshape all federal spending while gutting domestic programs. There is a line in the Trump administration’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal that functions as the clearest statement of national priorities in modern American history. President…