Washington / Havana / Tehran, May 21, 2026 — Three months ago, the plan was elegant in its ambition and catastrophic in its execution. US and Israel strikes would kill Supreme Leader Khamenei, free Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from house arrest, and install a post-Islamist government amenable to Western engagement. The Strait of Hormuz would reopen. Oil…
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Trump and Netanyahu The alliance that launched Operation Epic Fury together is showing its deepest fractures yet. On May 20, 2026, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held what multiple sources described as a deeply contentious phone call over the future of the Iran conflict a conversation so heated that one US…
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In the most concrete commercial outcome to emerge from the high-stakes Trump-Xi summit in Beijing, China has agreed to purchase 200 Boeing jets worth an estimated $17–19 billion the largest Chinese aviation order in nearly a decade while simultaneously pushing Washington to extend their fragile US tariff ceasefire beyond its current November 2026 expiry. The…
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By Staff Reporter | May 19, 2026 As the US-Iran war grinds through its third month with no clean exit in sight, the central question haunting Washington’s diplomatic corridors has sharpened into focus: Can Donald Trump’s administration find an off-ramp to this conflict and if so, does that road run through Beijing and Moscow? The…
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Gothenburg / New Delhi, May 18, 2026 — When Swedish Gripen fighter jets escorted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aircraft into Gothenburg on May 17, the symbolism was deliberate and multilayered. Sweden was not merely welcoming a visiting head of government. It was signalling the arrival of a potential customer for its most advanced combat aircraft…
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Beijing, May 15, 2026 — When Air Force One touched down in Beijing this week, flanked by a delegation of Silicon Valley billionaires and Wall Street titans, the optics alone told a story. Donald Trump the man who launched a trade war against China, threatened tariffs at every turn, and spent years casting Beijing as…
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In a moment that will echo far beyond the walls of Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, the two most powerful men on earth sat down on May 14, 2026 and the entire planet leaned in to listen. Donald Trump and Xi Jinping opened their long-anticipated two-day summit in Beijing, a meeting that arrived weighted…
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Donald Trump built his political brand on strength, leverage, and the art of the deal. But as he lands in Beijing for his summit with Xi Jinping, a war he promised would be over in weeks has dragged into its eleventh week and the man waiting for him at the negotiating table knows it. The…
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Donald Trump lands in Beijing on May 14 carrying a packed agenda Iran, Taiwan, tariffs, tech and a promise to American farmers that he will bring home a trade win. But on the biggest agricultural commodity of all, the hard truth is already visible in the data: China does not need as many US soybeans…
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Jerusalem / Beijing / Washington — Standing before cameras with the controlled fury that has become his signature posture in the Iran-Israel war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a statement on Sunday that simultaneously complicated ongoing US-Iran diplomatic negotiations, directly accused China of enabling Iranian missile capability, and drew a bright, unambiguous line around what…