Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£5.8m) of Leeds scored from the penalty spot in Gameweek 36 to record his 13th goal of the season, the fifth-most of any forward.
Anton Stach’s (£4.8m) 54 shots and 62 chances created are both among Leeds’ top two players this season.
Playing in a more advanced role, Brighton’s Jack Hinshelwood (£5.1m) has scored in three straight matches. In the last four Gameweeks, no midfielder has had as many big chances as his six.
Early signs point to the United States and China moving towards a relationship focused on pragmatic areas of common interest following US President Donald Trump’s trip to China, according to analysts, setting aside the turmoil that marked 2025.
Trump was in Beijing for three days this week to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, accompanied by a delegation of American CEOs, including the heads of Apple, Nvidia, BlackRock and Goldman Sachs.
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The meeting between the two leaders came just over six months after they agreed to pause the US-China trade war for a year on the sidelines of a multilateral summit in South Korea. While a frequent critic of China’s economic policies at home, Trump appeared to get along with Xi in person throughout his trip and lavished praise on the Chinese leader.
“It’s an honour to be with you, it’s an honour to be your friend, and the relationship between China and the USA is going to be better than ever before,” Trump told Xi on Thursday.
The White House readout of the Trump-Xi meeting on Thursday stressed areas of common ground, stating that the leaders had “discussed ways to enhance economic cooperation between our two countries” by “expanding market access for American businesses into China and increasing Chinese investment into our industries”.
Notably absent from the statement was any mention of China’s export controls on rare earths, critical materials used across the tech, defence and energy sectors. China controls nearly the entire industry, and it has moved to restrict US access.
William Yang, senior Northeast Asia analyst at the Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that Trump’s remarks showed he would likely try to compartmentalise US-China relations into areas where the two sides can work together without being overshadowed by geopolitical concerns.
Xi, while less effusive, also spoke of his desire to move towards a new US-China framework based on “constructive strategic stability”, meaning that the US and China should try to “minimise competition, manage differences and allow stability to be the foundation of the bilateral relationship”, according to Yang.
Both leaders appear to have sidestepped other controversial issues, such as the status of Taiwan, a 23 million-person democracy claimed by Beijing but unofficially backed by Washington.
Xi told Trump during their meeting that Taiwan was the “most important issue” in the US-China relationship, and that mishandling it could lead to “clashes and even conflicts” between the two sides. Beijing objects to Washington’s ongoing military support of Taiwan and has pressed the US to take a more explicit line on Taiwan’s political status.
Although the US does not recognise the government in Taipei, it maintains a deliberately vague policy on China’s territorial claims. Despite the controversy, neither the Chinese nor the US readout mentioned whether Trump discussed Taiwan or the future of arms sales – suggesting he either disagreed with Xi or avoided the topic.
Analysts like Yang say it is still too soon to know whether Trump will heed Xi’s remarks by blocking or delaying a $14bn arms deal reportedly in the works for Taiwan. The deal would need Trump’s sign-off to move forward, according to US legislators.
Xi was equally circumspect on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, which has been shuttered since the US and Israel launched a war on Iran on February 28.
Trump has previously pushed China to encourage Iran to reopen the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passed each year before the war, because of its close relationship with Tehran. China and Iran signed a 25-year “strategic partnership” in 2021, and Beijing buys 80 to 90 percent of Iran’s oil annually.
Trump raised the points again in his meeting with Xi in Beijing, according to the US readout, which said the two leaders “agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open to support the free flow of energy”.
“President Xi also made clear China’s opposition to the militarisation of the Strait and any effort to charge a toll for its use, and he expressed interest in purchasing more American oil to reduce China’s dependence on the Strait in the future. Both countries agreed that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon,” the readout said.
The Chinese readout of their meeting on Thursday did not include mention of Iran or its nuclear programme.
Chucheng Feng, founding partner of Hutong Research based in Beijing, told Al Jazeera that the omissions reflect that Xi and Trump still disagree on key issues, including Iran, but that the overall message from the summit was a desire to move forward.
“For Beijing, the most important thing is to find a floor for the relationship, to set up and enhance guardrails so that no surprises or uncontrolled escalations suddenly emerge. For that, item-by-item disagreements are largely secondary,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy strongly condemned Russia after a missile strike on a residential apartment building in Kyiv killed at least 24 people, including three children.
The attack occurred during one of the heaviest aerial bombardments on the Ukrainian capital this year and further intensified international concern over the continuing war between Russia and Ukraine. Rescue operations continued for more than a full day before emergency workers completed searches through the destroyed structure in Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district.
The strike formed part of a broader wave of Russian drone and missile attacks across Ukraine that officials say targeted multiple regions over consecutive days.
Zelenskiy Visits the Site of the Attack
Zelenskiy visited the destroyed apartment building on Friday, laying red roses at the site and meeting rescue workers who had spent more than twenty eight hours searching for survivors beneath the rubble.
In remarks shared through social media, the Ukrainian president praised emergency responders for their continuous efforts and accused Russia of deliberately destroying civilian lives.
According to Zelenskiy, the missile strike effectively destroyed an entire section of the residential building. Ukrainian officials stated that initial analysis suggested the attack involved a recently manufactured Russian Kh 101 cruise missile.
The Ukrainian leader once again appealed to international allies for stronger air defence support and increased pressure on Moscow.
Heavy Civilian Casualties
Kyiv authorities declared Friday a day of mourning in memory of the victims. Flags across the capital were lowered to half mast, and public entertainment events were cancelled or postponed.
The Interior Ministry reported that rescue teams removed approximately 3,000 cubic meters of rubble during the operation. Hundreds of emergency personnel participated in the search efforts.
Officials confirmed that 24 bodies were recovered from the site, while approximately 30 people were rescued alive. Nearly 50 individuals were injured, and hundreds required psychological support following the attack.
The deaths of children among the victims further intensified public grief and anger across Ukraine.
Russia Intensifies Air Campaign
Ukrainian authorities stated that Russia launched more than 1,500 drones along with dozens of missiles during attacks carried out over two consecutive days this week.
The strikes extended beyond Kyiv and affected western regions of Ukraine located far from active frontline combat zones. Officials reported that six people were killed during attacks in western Ukraine on Wednesday.
The scale of the aerial assault highlights Russia’s continuing ability to conduct large coordinated attacks despite prolonged international sanctions and battlefield losses.
Moscow did not immediately comment specifically on the apartment building strike. Russia consistently denies deliberately targeting civilians, although residential buildings, hospitals, schools, and energy infrastructure have repeatedly been damaged throughout the conflict.
Ukraine Also Conducts Cross Border Attacks
The conflict has increasingly involved reciprocal long range attacks by both sides.
Russian regional officials stated that Ukrainian drone strikes killed four people, including a child, in the Russian city of Ryazan. Authorities reported damage to apartment buildings and an industrial facility during the incident.
Ukraine has expanded drone operations against targets inside Russia over the course of the war, aiming to disrupt military infrastructure, industrial production, and logistical operations linked to Moscow’s military campaign.
These developments reflect the increasingly transnational nature of the conflict, with civilian populations on both sides facing growing security risks.
The Continuing Humanitarian Crisis
The attack on Kyiv underscores the severe humanitarian consequences of the war, which began with Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Millions of Ukrainians have been displaced since the start of the conflict, while repeated strikes on civilian infrastructure have damaged homes, hospitals, schools, transportation systems, and energy networks across the country.
International organizations and human rights groups have repeatedly raised concerns about civilian casualties and the destruction of non military targets during the war.
At the same time, the prolonged conflict has placed enormous economic and psychological pressure on Ukrainian society as cities continue to face the threat of missile and drone attacks.
Analysis
The deadly strike on Kyiv demonstrates how the war between Russia and Ukraine continues to evolve into a prolonged campaign involving large scale aerial warfare and attacks far beyond frontline battle zones.
For Ukraine, the attack reinforces the urgent need for stronger air defence systems capable of intercepting missiles and drones before they reach urban areas. Zelenskiy’s renewed appeals to allies reflect growing concerns that Ukraine’s defensive capabilities remain under intense strain as Russia increases the scale and frequency of aerial assaults.
For Russia, sustained missile and drone attacks appear aimed at weakening Ukrainian morale, exhausting defence systems, and increasing pressure on the government through continued civilian disruption.
However, such attacks also carry significant international consequences. Civilian casualties, especially involving children and residential buildings, strengthen global criticism of Moscow and may encourage additional military and financial support for Ukraine from Western allies.
The conflict additionally illustrates the changing character of modern warfare, where advanced missiles, drones, and long range strikes allow both sides to target infrastructure and urban centers far from traditional battlefields.
Despite ongoing diplomatic discussions in various international forums, there remains little indication of a near term political settlement. Instead, the war increasingly appears locked in a prolonged phase of escalation, attrition, and humanitarian suffering.
The strike on Kyiv therefore stands not only as a tragic individual event but also as a broader symbol of the continuing devastation caused by one of the most consequential conflicts in modern Europe.
United States President Donald Trump concluded his final round of discussions with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing while attempting to present the visit as a major economic success. The summit came at a sensitive moment for both countries as tensions over trade, Taiwan, artificial intelligence technology, and the Iran conflict continue to shape relations between the world’s two largest economies.
Trump emphasized trade agreements and commercial cooperation during the visit, hoping to strengthen his political standing ahead of important midterm elections in the United States. China, however, used the occasion to deliver clear warnings regarding Taiwan and to criticize the ongoing Iran conflict, signaling that major strategic disagreements remain unresolved despite the positive diplomatic atmosphere.
Trump Highlights Economic Progress
During meetings at the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing, Trump promoted what he described as successful trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing. He stated that both sides had reached agreements that would benefit their economies and help stabilize commercial relations after years of tariff disputes and economic uncertainty.
The United States announced several proposed agreements involving agricultural exports, beef, and energy sales to China. Officials also discussed mechanisms to manage future trade disputes and identified billions of dollars in potential goods trade between the two countries.
One of the most closely watched announcements involved aircraft manufacturer Boeing. Trump claimed China had agreed to purchase 200 Boeing aircraft, marking China’s first major order of American commercial planes in nearly ten years. However, investors reacted negatively because markets had anticipated a significantly larger agreement. Boeing shares declined after the announcement, reflecting disappointment over the scale of the deal.
The summit also failed to produce a breakthrough regarding advanced artificial intelligence technology exports. Expectations had been growing that restrictions on the sale of advanced AI chips from NVIDIA to China might ease, especially after company chief executive Jensen Huang joined the trip. No major agreement emerged on that issue.
China Pushes Back on Iran Conflict
While Trump focused publicly on economic achievements, China used the summit to voice frustration over the war involving Iran. Beijing stated that the conflict should never have started and called for diplomatic efforts to restore peace.
The Iran crisis has become a major international concern because of its impact on global energy markets. Rising instability in the Middle East has pushed oil prices upward and increased fears about disruptions to energy supplies traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical shipping routes.
China’s position reflects both economic and strategic interests. Beijing relies heavily on stable energy imports and also views Iran as an important geopolitical partner that can balance American influence in the Middle East. Analysts believe China is unlikely to pressure Tehran aggressively because maintaining strong relations with Iran supports Beijing’s broader strategic goals.
Although Trump stated that he and Xi shared similar views on Iran, Chinese officials avoided publicly endorsing Washington’s approach. This difference highlighted the continuing gap between the two powers on international security issues.
Taiwan Remains the Most Sensitive Issue
Despite the friendly diplomatic setting, Taiwan emerged as one of the summit’s most serious areas of tension. Xi warned that mishandling the Taiwan issue could lead to conflict, reinforcing Beijing’s longstanding position that the island is part of China.
Taiwan remains one of the most dangerous flashpoints in global politics. China has repeatedly stated that it does not rule out the use of military force to bring Taiwan under its control, while the United States continues to support Taiwan’s defensive capabilities under American law.
American officials maintained that United States policy toward Taiwan had not changed. Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized that Washington continues to support regional stability while maintaining its established position on Taiwan.
The issue remains highly sensitive because any military escalation involving Taiwan could severely disrupt global trade, semiconductor production, and international security across the Indo Pacific region.
A Fragile Trade Truce Continues
One of the summit’s most important outcomes may simply be the continuation of the fragile trade truce reached during earlier talks between the two leaders. Previous negotiations had temporarily paused extremely high tariffs and reduced tensions over rare earth mineral exports that are essential for modern technology manufacturing.
However, uncertainty remains about whether the current trade arrangements will continue beyond the end of the year. American officials indicated that no final decision had been made regarding the future of tariff suspensions and broader economic cooperation.
This uncertainty reflects the deeper structural rivalry between the United States and China. While both countries benefit economically from stable trade relations, they remain competitors in technology, military influence, and geopolitical leadership.
Human Rights Concerns Surface
Human rights issues also appeared during the summit. Trump reportedly raised the case of Hong Kong media businessman and democracy advocate Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced to prison under Hong Kong’s national security law.
American officials expressed hope that Lai could eventually be released, while China maintained that Hong Kong affairs are internal matters and rejected foreign criticism.
The discussion demonstrated that human rights disputes continue to complicate relations between Washington and Beijing even during periods of economic cooperation.
Analysis
The Trump Xi summit demonstrated the increasingly complex nature of United States China relations. Both sides attempted to project stability and cooperation, particularly on trade and economic matters, yet major disagreements remained visible beneath the surface.
Trump sought to frame the visit as proof of economic leadership and diplomatic success. However, the relatively modest scale of announced agreements and the lack of major breakthroughs on technology exports limited market enthusiasm.
China, meanwhile, used the summit to reinforce its strategic priorities. Beijing signaled that Taiwan remains a non negotiable issue, defended its relationship with Iran, and resisted external pressure on human rights matters.
The summit ultimately reflected a broader reality in global politics. The United States and China are deeply interconnected economically, but they are also strategic rivals competing for influence across multiple regions and industries. Cooperation may continue in trade and commerce, but tensions over security, technology, and global power are unlikely to disappear soon.
The US and Chinese leaders agreed during talks in Beijing that the Strait of Hormuz should remain open to ensure global energy supplies.
Published On 15 May 202615 May 2026
United States President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed the Strait of Hormuz during talks in Beijing, with the White House saying Xi agreed the strategic waterway “must remain open to support the free flow of energy” as tensions over the Iran war continue to roil global markets.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi urged fellow BRICS nations at a meeting in New Delhi, India, to condemn the US-Israel war on Iran as a violation of international law, insisting Tehran would “never bow to any pressure”.
At the same time, a third round of direct talks between Lebanese and Israeli negotiators is under way in Washington, DC, aimed at ending hostilities, even as Israeli attacks continue across towns and villages in southern Lebanon.
Here is what we know:
In Iran
Iran urges BRICS to condemn US and Israel: Araghchi told the BRICS+ bloc that Iran was a “victim of illegal expansionism and warmongering” and called on member states to oppose “Western hegemony” by condemning the actions of the US and Israel.
Iran accuses UAE over war: Araghchi also accused the United Arab Emirates of playing an active role in the war against Iran, saying during the BRICS summit in India that the UAE was “directly involved in the aggression against my country”.
Iran signals new Hormuz strategy: Iranian media reported that more than 30 ships, including some linked to Chinese companies, were allowed to transit the Strait of Hormuz overnight as Tehran signalled the waterway was “open to all commercial ships” that cooperate with Iranian naval forces.
War diplomacy
Xi offers help on Hormuz: Trump said Xi Jinping had offered China’s help to open the Strait of Hormuz and pledged not to send military equipment to aid Iran in its war against the US and Israel.
Trump-Xi summit held amid ‘promise fatigue’: Analyst Drew Thompson said Washington and Beijing remain deeply distrustful after years of unmet expectations, with both sides accusing the other of breaking promises. He described the summit as “carefully managed” and focused on preventing further deterioration in ties.
US says Israel-Lebanon talks ‘positive’: A US official said talks in Washington on Thursday between Israel and Lebanon about an expiring ceasefire were “positive” and will take place as planned for a second day.
In the US
Trump wants Iran’s uranium for ‘public relations’: The US president suggested that hunting down Iran’s enriched uranium was primarily for political optics, after Israel demanded it as a goal in the war. “I just feel better if I got it, actually, but it’s – I think, it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else,” Trump told Fox News.
Trump says Iran must make deal: In the same interview, Trump told Sean Hannity he was running out of patience to reach a truce with Iran as peace talks have stalled. “I’m not going to be much more patient… They should make a deal. Any sane person would make a deal, but they might be crazy,” Trump said.
In Israel
NYT lawsuit: Israel says it will sue The New York Times after the newspaper published an article by columnist Nicholas Kristof detailing rape allegations by Palestinian detainees against Israeli forces. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office announced the legal move three days after the report, which was based on accounts from 14 male and female Palestinian victims.
In Lebanon and Syria
Hezbollah claims attacks on Israeli forces: The group said it launched rockets, drones and artillery attacks on Israeli troops and military vehicles in southern Lebanon, and claimed to have downed Israeli drones.
Israel-Lebanon talks face uncertainty: According to Al Jazeera’s Manuel Rapalo, Israel is seeking stronger security guarantees and Hezbollah’s disarmament, while Lebanon wants a permanent ceasefire and Israeli troop withdrawal from the south. Rapalo says Hezbollah’s refusal to commit to any future agreement adds significant uncertainty, although diplomats still view the talks as a breakthrough.
Amnesty urges Israel to conduct Syria war crimes probe: The rights group called for investigations into Israeli raids and shelling in southern Syria, which residents say have destroyed homes and farmland and led to detentions. Israel has also seized additional territory beyond the occupied Golan Heights, in violation of the 1974 disengagement agreement.
When European Jewish settlers embarked on brutal ethnic cleansing to establish Israel in 1948, they thought the Palestinian population would be the least of their problems. In fact, Zionist leaders like David Ben-Gurion believed that “the refugee problem would resolve itself”.
There was deep-seated conviction among Zionists that the Palestinians lacked an identity, and they would just flee to neighbouring Arab countries and assimilate. They would not come back to claim their stolen land.
But what happened was the exact opposite.
Decade after decade, the Palestinian national cause grew stronger. Today, few survivors of the Nakba of 1948 remain, but the national commitment to Palestinian rights and historical justice is as strong as ever. That is because the older generations did not teach the younger ones to forget the trauma and move on; they taught them to remember and to keep the keys to their ancestral homes in their minds.
The “refugee problem” did not “resolve itself” not just because of Palestinian determination and resilience, but also because the Israeli policies of violence and dispossession backfired.
Israel’s theft of land and resources and violent displacement of Palestinians was the starting point for every Palestinian generation to reject and resist occupation.
As Israel succeeded in usurping more and more Palestinian land, it failed miserably in controlling the Palestinian consciousness.
Despite continuous Israeli efforts to turn refugee camps into isolated enclaves, recruit agents and collaborators to undermine unity, and introduce international bodies to redefine the refugee issue as a purely humanitarian one, it failed to dismantle the Palestinian national cause.
Those who were dispossessed and violated – the Palestinian refugees – became the most ardent carriers of the idea of resistance. Refugee camps became the centres of peaceful and armed struggle. These camps gave birth to prominent Palestinian thinkers, doctors, educators and leaders, who spread one message: the rejection of the Israeli occupation and the insistence on Palestinian rights.
Palestinian refugees were the drivers of the first Intifada of 1987 and the second Intifada of 2000. They were at the centre of any subsequent mobilisation to resist the Israeli occupation.
The colonial project saw no option but to ratchet up its brutality. Repeated massacres, mass imprisonment and relentless efforts to uproot communities did not achieve subjugation. This approach failed and the Gaza Strip – where 80 percent of the population are refugees – stands as the clearest evidence of that failure.
After the launch of its genocidal assault on Gaza in October 2023, the Israeli government repeatedly described the war as “existential”. If Israel itself acknowledges today that the fourth generation of Palestinians, the descendants of the survivors of the Nakba, represent a threat to its existence, then this is in itself an admission of the collapse of Ben-Gurion’s prediction and the strategic failure of the Israeli project to eliminate the Palestinian people.
But Israel has not just failed, it has also become trapped. It is stuck in the paradox of the futility of its own brutal power. The more violence, mass killings and displacement it carries out and the more it reproduces the Nakba, the more determined the Palestinian people become to resist. Repression is not uprooting Palestine, it is helping it take deeper root.
The Gaza genocide is perhaps the best illustration of this deadly paradox. More than 72,000 Palestinians have been massacred, more than 170,000 injured, and 1.9 million displaced. Most homes have been damaged or destroyed.
What is the result of all this? When a Palestinian child is born today in a tent and grows up without most of his family, without a school, a playground, proper healthcare, or a home, he or she won’t need a complex historical narrative to understand who is responsible for this and what needs to be done to achieve justice.
But the self-defeating impact of Israeli brutality is not limited to Palestine alone. Israel’s genocide has backfired on a global scale. It has allowed the Palestinian cause to grow beyond the confines of a marginal, left-wing issue into one that increasingly attracts attention across the political spectrum in the West but also elsewhere in the world.
Activists and ordinary citizens of different political convictions now stand in solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Many do so, despite facing retribution, arrest and prosecution for their support of Palestinian rights.
The Palestinian cause has also become an influential factor in local elections in many countries, including the United States and United Kingdom, where support for the Israeli occupation and genocide can cost candidates an electoral win.
As a result, the Palestinian issue has grown beyond a regional struggle to become a defining moral question for people across the world.
This has left the occupation locked in a permanent confrontation with what cannot be defeated: memory. The more it tries to erase the Palestinian cause, the more it is etched in the Palestinian and global consciousness.
If he had been alive today, Ben-Gurion would have been dismayed to learn that Zionism secured its own defeat the moment it embarked on the Nakba.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
“Designating an area as a bathing water before it is suitable for bathing and without a plan in place to clean it up risks confusing the public, who will rightly believe it is safe to swim there,” a spokesman for Water UK, which represents the water companies, told the BBC.
Before arriving for his high-stakes summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, United States President Donald Trump aimed to set expectations high.
He said he would urge Xi to “open up” China’s economy and announced a delegation of top business executives, including Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, to accompany him.
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As Trump and Xi prepare to wrap up two days of meetings on Friday, the expectations for their summit’s outcome among observers generally are modest at best.
While Trump and Xi are anticipated to extend the one-year pause in their trade war agreed to in South Korea in October, the expectations are for a stabilisation – not revitalisation – in ties between the world’s two largest economies, which are locked in a rivalry that spans everything from trade and artificial intelligence to the status of Taiwan.
“It is important to be clear-eyed about the state of relations here,” Claire E Reade, a senior counsel at Arnold & Porter who previously worked on China at the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), told Al Jazeera.
“China does not trust the US, and China wants to beat the US in what it sees as long-term global competition,” Reade said.
“This limits what can be agreed.”
While Trump and Xi have yet to announce the final contours of any trade agreement, the US side has flagged various business deals in the pipeline.
In a pre-recorded interview with Fox News that aired on Thursday, Trump said that China would invest “hundreds of billions of dollars” in companies run by the CEOs in his delegation, without providing further details.
Trump also said that Beijing had agreed to purchase US oil and 200 Boeing aircraft.
Trump administration officials have said that the sides are also discussing the establishment of a “Board of Investment” to manage investments between the countries.
“A realistic ‘opening up’ of the Chinese market would likely focus first on sectors where the economic complementarity is most obvious,” Taiyi Sun, an associate professor of political science at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, told Al Jazeera.
“Agricultural goods such as soybeans and beef, as well as high-value-added manufacturing products like Boeing aircraft, are natural areas for expansion because they match existing Chinese demand with American export strengths.”
Sun said a “gradual” opening for US firms in sectors such as financial services could also be possible.
“But those areas are politically and institutionally more sensitive inside China, so progress would likely be incremental rather than immediate,” he said.
Gabriel Wildau, a senior vice president at global business advisory firm Teneo, said both sides will be seeking to address supply-chain vulnerabilities exposed by their trade war.
“The Iran war has likely increased the US’s vulnerability to export controls on rare earths, given the need to rebuild the munition stocks depleted in that war,” Wildau told Al Jazeera.
“Washington will therefore be willing to offer tariff relief – or at least assurances not to impose new tariffs – in exchange for Beijing’s commitment to keep rare earth exports flowing.”
While Trump and Xi agreed to roll back some trade barriers at their summit in South Korea, US-Chinese business and trade remain severely constrained after a decade of tit-for-tat economic salvoes between the sides.
The average US tariff on Chinese goods stood at 47.5 percent after the South Korea summit, up from 3.1 percent before Trump’s first term, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
China’s average tariff on US goods stood at 31.9 percent, up from 8.4 percent in 2018, according to the think tank.
Two-way goods trade amounted to about $415bn in 2025, down sharply from its 2022 peak of $690bn.
Carsten Holz, an expert on the Chinese economy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said China has less incentive to make concessions to the US than before, amid the rise of its domestic industries.
“Across many industrial sectors, PRC [People’s Republic of China] firms hold leading or controlling positions,” Holz told Al Jazeera.
“As a result, the PRC economy has little to gain from opening further to the US and is likely to only offer largely symbolic gestures.”
Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore, voiced similar sentiments about the limits of US leverage.
“Basically, Trump expects China to buy more stuff from America and let US companies operate more freely in China,” Elms told Al Jazeera.
“What is he offering?” Elms said. “Very little, largely because Trump sees the bilateral relationship as one where the US has been fair and China has not.”
Reade, the former USTR official, said Xi would not agree to any measures that “harm Chinese interests in any way.”
“Instead, China will potentially give the US no-cost ‘gifts,’” Reade said, suggesting such measures could include the removal of trade barriers it placed on US beef.
“It may buy US goods it needs,” Reade said.
“If it allows purchases of US tech products, it will only be because it needs them right now,” she added, “But this does not interfere with China’s strategic plans to eliminate dependence on US technology over the longer term.”
Al Jazeera’s Manuel Rapalo reports from Washington, where the first of two days of US-mediated ambassador-level talks between Israel and Lebanon concluded on Thursday. A ceasefire between them expires on Sunday, though Israel has killed 512 Lebanese since its implementation on April 17.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, the admiral in charge of U.S. military operations in the Middle East pushed back against claims that Iran still possesses a large number of missiles and launchers. He spoke as the White House said U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping discussed the ongoing Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz and hours after Iran seized another ship.
Iran can “no longer threaten regional partners, or the United States, in ways that they were able to do before, across every domain,” the commander of U.S. Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper, explained.
On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that the “Trump administration’s public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what U.S. intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors.”
The newspaper cited “classified assessments from early this month that show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities.”
“Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, which could threaten American warships and oil tankers transiting the narrow waterway,” the Times added. “Iran still fields about 70 percent of its mobile launchers across the country and has retained roughly 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile, according to the assessments. That stockpile encompasses both ballistic missiles, which can target other nations in the region, and a smaller supply of cruise missiles, which can be used against shorter-range targets on land or at sea.”
WaPo last week: “Iran retains about 75 percent of its prewar inventories of mobile launchers and about 70 percent of its prewar stockpiles of missiles” https://t.co/FpAhZQKPlG
Cooper took issue with those figures when asked about them.
“I think it’s appropriate in this forum not to discuss specific intelligence assessments,” he responded. “What I would say, from my perspective, is the numbers that I’ve seen in open source are not accurate. I think what also is not taken into consideration, it’s more than just the numbers. It’s the command and control that’s been shattered. It’s a significant degradation and capability, and it’s the lack of any ability to then produce any missiles…on the back end.”
Cooper was further pressed on Iran’s ability to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz because it still has missiles and fast boats and other assets.
“In each of those cases, their capabilities have been significantly degraded,” the admiral posited. “If I just use my own professional experience and 100 transits through the Strait of Hormuz, you would typically see 20 to 40 fast boats, and lately we’ve seen two or three. So the degradation means it’s been significant, but some residual capability does exist with respect to the threat that remains.”
.@CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper: “[Iran’s] capability has been significantly degraded. If I just use my own professional experience, in 100 transits through the Strait of Hormuz, you would typically see 20-40 fast-boats; lately, we’ve seen two or three.” @centcomcdrpic.twitter.com/8pWaMFpKQ9
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 14, 2026
Though Cooper downplayed Iran’s current capabilities, he said Tehran posed significant new threats with its modern drones.
“The days of $35,000 drones that we saw in the last couple of years, particularly in the fight against the Houthis in Yemen, those days are behind us,” Cooper proffered. “Today we face an increased threat from drones that are highly sophisticated. They’re jet-powered. They have high-end sensors. They have electronic warfare…signals intelligence. So those days of using high value defenses to shoot down cheap targets are behind us.”
“Quite the contrary, what we have been doing lately is using our own low-cost one way attack drones, [to attack] Iran, making them use higher and more expensive weapons. So I can confidently tell you, we have flipped the cost curve in many ways. Always work to be done, but I like where we are in this regard.”
CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper says the U.S. has “flipped the cost curve” in drone warfare against Iran.
“The days of using high-value defenses to shoot down cheap targets are behind us.” pic.twitter.com/7iK4JKpL9N
The LUCAS drones are “an additional capability that we’ve now employed against an adversary very effectively,” Cooper commented. He declined to provide further details.
“Vis a vis Iran, I think I would just like to keep that in the classified setting,” he noted.
LUCAS kamikaze drones. (CENTCOM)
Cooper provided additional statistics about Epic Fury to the committee.
“We destroyed or buried much of Iran’s ballistic missiles, launcher vehicles, and long-range attack drones with more than 450 strikes on ballistic missile storage and systems and roughly 800 strikes on Iran’s drone-launching units and storage. In the air domain, Iran’s air and air defense forces are functionally and operationally irrelevant.”
“Before OEF, the Iranian Air Force flew between 30 and 100 sorties each day. Today that number is zero. We destroyed or rendered non-mission-capable Iran’s fixed-wing airfields, hangars, fuel storage, and munitions stockpiles, and we knocked out 82 percent of its air defense missile systems along with the radar and command architecture that tied them together.”
“At sea, we destroyed 161 vessels in total across 16 classes of warships, effectively crippling the regime’s ability to operate.”
Admiral Cooper: “At sea, we destroyed 161 vessels in total across 16 classes of warships, effectively crippling the regime’s ability to operate. We eliminated more than 90 percent of Iran’s once-massive inventory of over 8,000 naval mines, with more… pic.twitter.com/VmBwR8KIlM
“We eliminated more than 90 percent of Iran’s once-massive inventory of over 8,000 naval mines, with more than 700 airstrikes on Iranian naval mine targets. In sum, Iran’s navy can no longer claim to be a maritime power, and it cannot project into the Gulf of Oman or the Indian Ocean. Iran retains nuisance capability – harassment, low-end drone and rocket attacks, and residual proxy support – but it no longer possesses the means to threaten major regional operations or to deter U.S. freedom of action in the air or maritime domains.”
“The second-order effects of OEF are significant. More than 2,000 strikes against Iran’s command-and-control structures created leadership vacuums, paralysis, and internal confusion.”
“We have seen reporting of desertions, personnel shortages, and signs of regime desperation in their attempts to compel discipline through arrest and execution. Most importantly for the region’s future: Iran will be highly challenged to proliferate advanced weapons to Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, or the Iraqi militia groups. The supply chain from Tehran to the proxies has been broken.”
While Iran has clearly been battered by attacks from the U.S. and Israel, recent events show it can still inflict damage on its neighbors and shipping. As we previously reported, Tehran has repeatedly struck the United Arab Emirates (UAE) before and after the April 7 ceasefire. In previous coverage, we have pointed out how Iran has also attacked U.S. warships and commercial vessels they were helping guide through the Strait of Hormuz during the short-lived Project Freedom operation.
Hours before Cooper testified, “the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy seized the Honduras-flagged fishery research vessel Hui Chuan,” a maritime security official told us. “The Company Security Officer (CSO) reported that the vessel was taken by Iranian personnel while at anchor approximately 38nm northeast of Fujairah, UAE, at 05:45 UTC.”
The Hui Chuan was operating as a “floating armory” storing weapons for Chinese security firms who protect ships at sea from attack by pirates, the official told us. The ship is now “bound for Iranian territorial waters,” the UK’s Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) organization said.
The Honduras-flagged fishing research vessel Hui Chuan (IMO: 8316895), anchored off the UAE’s east coast, is believed to have been seized by the IRGC Navy.
The ship is reportedly operated by the Chinese private security company Sinoguards as a floating armory. pic.twitter.com/VlHpmkqFYw
During an interview with NBC News, Rubio was asked what Trump asked Xi when it comes to Iran.
“He didn’t ask him for anything,” the secretary noted. “We’re not asking for China’s help. We don’t need their help… Our position is very clear: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
NBC: “What exactly did President Trump ask President Xi for when it comes to Iran?”@SecRubio: “He didn’t ask him for anything. We’re not asking for China’s help. We don’t need their help… Our position is very clear: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.” pic.twitter.com/Hn7f3aqiUp
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) May 14, 2026
In a post on his social media platform responding to Xi’s remarks that the U.S. is essentially a declining power, Trump responded that the Chinese leader was referring to America under Biden and that things are much better now.
More interesting, however, is a hint Trump dropped about the future with Iran.
Among the accomplishments he claimed on Truth Social was “the military decimation of Iran (to be continued!).”
The House voted for a third time against acting as a check on President Trump’s military powers in Iran, even as a growing number of Republicans express concern about the prolonged conflict, CBS News reported.
Thursday’s vote on a Democratic resolution to rein in Trump’s authority was 212-212, falling just short of a majority. Originally introduced on March 4, the measure as written would have directed the president to remove U.S. forces from hostilities within 30 days of the start of the war, which began on Feb. 28.
The U.S. House voted 212-212 on a War Powers Resolution to restrict military action against Iran. The measure failed, needing a majority to pass. pic.twitter.com/NcRDvUIFyA
In a readout of the meeting in Beijing between Trump and Xi, the White House noted that the topic of the Strait of Hormuz came up in discussions between the two leaders.
“The two sides agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open to support the free flow of energy,” the White House posted on X. “President Xi also made clear China’s opposition to militarization of the Strait and any effort to charge a toll for its use, and he expressed interest in purchasing more American oil to reduce China’s reliance on the Strait in the future.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was among those accompanying Trump, highlighted Xi’s opposition to allowing Iran to impose tolls on ships transiting the Strait.
“President Trump raised the issue of Iran with China and it was important,” said Rubio. “The Chinese side said they are not in favor of militarizing the Strait of Hormuz and are not in favor of a tolling system, and that’s our position.”
SECRETARY RUBIO: President Trump raised the issue of Iran with China and it was important.
The Chinese side said they are not in favor of militarizing the Strait of Hormuz and are not in favor of a tolling system, and that’s our position. pic.twitter.com/9JYpbvztd8
However, there was no mention of Iran or the Strait of Hormuz.
While that doesn’t mean these issues weren’t discussed, readouts are messaging and this reflected the emphasis Beijing places on the paused war and its aftermath.
“The two heads of state exchanged views on major international and regional issues, including the situation in the Middle East, the Ukraine crisis, and the Korean Peninsula,” was about as close as the statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry came to addressing Iran.
Despite the Trump administration’s stance that China opposes allowing Iran to impose tolls on shipping, Beijing is paying for transits, the Guardian claims.
Tehran “says it has reached a deal with China that has already allowed a large number of oil tankers bound for China to go through the strait of Hormuz since Wednesday night, and this has been made possible by China agreeing to limited charging, undercutting US opposition to such moves,” the outlet reported. “The development suggests China has accepted Iran’s assertion that the shipping rules in the strait have changed, with reports suggesting the cost will be in the region of $1 per barrel.”
We cannot independently verify that and have reached out to the White House for details.
🇮🇷 🇨🇳 Iranian media reported on Thursday that naval forces had allowed a group of Chinese ships to pass through the strategic Strait of Hormuz since the night before. Iran has largely blocked shipping through the strait since the outbreak of war with the US and Israel ➡️… pic.twitter.com/PVjGJ0TY7t
Trump pushed back on claims that China is working to arm Iran.
“We discussed it,” he told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “I mean, when you say ‘support,’ they’re not fighting a war with us or anything. He said he’s not gonna give military equipment. That’s a big statement. He said that strongly. But at the same time he said they buy a lot of their oil there, and they’d like to keep doing that.”
HANNITY: Did you discuss China’s support for Iran with Xi?
TRUMP: We discussed it. Uhhhh. I mean, when you say ‘support,’ they’re not fighting a war with us or anything. He said he’s not gonna give military equipment. That’s a big statement. But at the same time he said they buy… pic.twitter.com/Lq677uoCfG
Trump’s claim that China told him it won’t give weapons to Iran followed The New York Times report that Beijing was working to ship arms to Tehran.
“Chinese companies have been discussing arms sales with Iran, plotting to send the weapons through other countries to mask the origins of the military aid,” the publication stated, citing U.S. officials.
The United States “has gathered intelligence that Chinese companies and Iranian officials have discussed the arms transfers,” the newspaper added. “It is not clear how many, if any, arms have been shipped or to what degree Chinese officials have approved the sales.”
Officials briefed on the intelligence “have reached different conclusions on whether the arms have already been sent to the third countries,” according to the Times. “But no Chinese weapons appear to have been used on the battlefield against U.S. or Israeli forces since they began their war against Iran in late February.”
“The United Arab Emirates denies reports circulating regarding an alleged visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the UAE or receiving any Israeli military delegations in the country,” the UAE Foreign Affairs Ministry posted on X Wednesday afternoon EDT. “The UAE reaffirms that its relations with Israel are public and conducted within the framework of the well-known and officially declared Abraham Accords, and are not based on non-transparent or unofficial arrangements. Accordingly, any claims regarding unannounced visits or undisclosed arrangements are entirely unfounded unless officially announced by the relevant authorities in the UAE.”
The ministry added that the “UAE calls on media outlets to exercise accuracy and professionalism, and to refrain from circulating unverified information or promoting misleading political narratives.”
UAE Denies Reports Regarding Visit by Israeli Prime Minister or Receiving Any Israeli Military Delegation pic.twitter.com/TRX9y5ZoVN
Hours before the UAE announcement, Netanyahu’s office claimed the Israeli leader did travel to the Gulf Arab nation, confirming a CBS News report about the visit.
“In the midst of Operation ‘Roar of the Lion,’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a secret visit to the United Arab Emirates and met with the President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed,” the office posted on X. “This visit led to a historic breakthrough in relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.”
לשכת ראש הממשלה מאשרת כעת:
בעיצומו של מבצע ״שאגת הארי״, ראש הממשלה בנימין נתניהו ביקר בחשאי באיחוד האמירויות ונפגש עם נשיא איחוד האמירויות, השייח׳ מוחמד בן זאיד.
ביקור זה הביא לפריצת דרך היסטורית ביחסים בין ישראל לאיחוד האמירויות.
Israel’s N12 News chief political correspondent Amit Segal noted a “few striking details regarding the news of Netanyahu’s visit to the UAE.”
“A covert flight reportedly took place while Israeli airspace was fully shut—without leaks or detection,” he noted on X. “Sources suggest a deal was reached on an Iron Dome shipment” and “UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan has publicly hosted Israeli leaders like Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid—but not Benjamin Netanyahu. Until now, their contacts stayed behind closed doors.”
Bennet and Lapid visited the UAE in 2021, as Prime Minister and Foreign Minister respectively.
A few striking details regarding the new of Netanyahu’s visit to the UAE:
1. A covert flight reportedly took place while Israeli airspace was fully shut—without leaks or detection.
2. Sources suggest a deal was reached on an Iron Dome shipment.
The announcement from Netanyahu’s office followed media reports on Tuesday about the visit to the UAE of two other high-level Israeli officials.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Mossad chief David Barnea visited the UAE at least twice during Operation Roaring Lion to coordinate war efforts. Barnea reportedly flew to the UAE in March and April. In addition, Israeli media reported that Shin Bet chief David Zini also visited the UAE to coordinate security efforts.
Certainly not surprising given the Abraham Accords and the more recent Iron Dome battery and miltary deployment to UAE by Israel. But 2 back to back visits by a Mossad chief amid a war speaks volumes. Important read by @AnatPeled1 & @summer_said in @WSJ.https://t.co/i9BmyHNZ3p
— Behnam Ben Taleblu بهنام بن طالب لو (@therealBehnamBT) May 13, 2026
The back and forth over the potentially unprecedented wartime visit by three top Israeli officials to the UAE comes a day after U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee publicly confirmed that Israel sent the UAE an unspecified number of Iron Dome air defense batteries and troops to operate them. News of the deployment was first reported by Axios last month. Such an acknowledgement of direct Israeli military aid to an Arab nation is unusual in its own right.
🚨 WATCH: US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee officially confirms: Israel sent the United Arab Emirates an Iron Dome system and a team to operate it. This happened because there are exceptional relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, based on the Abraham Accords. pic.twitter.com/BgCkESt4Yl
TWZ cannot independently verify any of the travel claims. However, Israel has historically been viewed as an enemy by the Arab world and direct cooperation in the form of a visit by its head of state could be considered controversial to say the least. At the same time, things have changed dramatically in the region over the last decade or so, with Arab countries warming to relations with Israel. This has been spurred by the major economic development the region has seen as well as, at least to a degree, a common foe — Iran.
Perhaps the UAE is trying to appeal to a domestic audience or, as Israel’s I24 News senior Middle East correspondent Ariel Oseran suggested on X, UAE is trying to distance itself from Netanyahu and his coalition, not Israel writ large. Maybe Netanyahu, for his own reasons, is trying to claim a level of relationship that doesn’t exist, however that seems unlikely.
We may never find out for sure.
It is highly unlikely that Israel’s PMO would issue a fake statement regarding Netanyahu visiting the UAE at such a sensitive time.
What is more likely is that Abu Dhabi is trying to publicly distance itself from Netanyahu on a personal level, a sentiment that I have personally… https://t.co/8laUSjOAc7
— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) May 13, 2026
The Senate on Wednesday blocked the seventh Democratic attempt to prevent Trump from waging war on Iran. However, it was by the slimmest margin yet, indicating a growing unease in the legislature about the now-paused conflict.
The vote failed by a 49-50 margin, with all Democrats but John Fetterman of Pennsylvania supporting the measure. For the first time, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined fellow Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky in breaking with Trump and voting with Democrats.
This was the first vote on the War Powers Resolution since Trump bypassed the 60-day deadline to seek congressional authorization for Operation Epic Fury last month. You can read more about that effort in our story about it here.
Protesters have demanded the resignation of President Rodrigo Paz, who was elected on a platform of economic reform.
Demonstrators, led by mining groups and rural unions, have clashed with law enforcement in Bolivia as tensions simmer over the country’s economic crisis, the worst in decades.
On Thursday, small explosions were heard in the midst of the protest in La Paz, credited to miners setting off small sticks of dynamite. Some protesters were reported as attempting to breach the presidential palace.
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The unrest follows weeks of road blockades, as miners, farmers, teachers and rural workers express frustration over the country’s ongoing economic turmoil.
Bolivia used to be a major exporter of natural gas, but in recent years, its reserves began to shrivel, and its production has plummeted. Now, rather than being a fuel exporter, it has become a net importer, reliant on oil and natural gas from abroad.
The collapse of the natural gas industry has been coupled with dwindling supplies of foreign currency in the country. The result has been soaring inflation, supply shortages and higher prices.
Bolivians have experienced long lines for fuel, and hospitals have reported a lack of basic supplies like oxygen and medication.
Demonstrators from mining unions take part in a protest against President Rodrigo Paz’s government in La Paz, Bolivia, on May 14 [Claudia Morales/Reuters]
Centre-right leader Rodrigo Paz was elected in October last year in part on a promise to address the economic tailspin.
His victory marked a political sea change in Bolivia. For much of the past two decades, except for a brief period in 2019, the country has been governed by the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS).
The decline of MAS has been credited, in part, to the uproar over the economy.
But on Thursday, Paz likewise faced calls from protesters for his resignation, just as his MAS predecessor, Luis Arce, had.
Earlier in the day, a group of 20 miners were invited to the presidential palace to meet with Paz and discuss their demands, according to the Reuters news agency.
Ahead of the meeting, Economy Minister Jose Gabriel Espinoza said his government was “open to dialogue”.
Among the issues reportedly discussed were fuel subsidies, welfare benefits and changes to an agrarian reform measure, Law 1720, that was repealed on Wednesday after outcry.
Still, officials have refused demands that Paz step down. “The president is not going to resign,” Mauricio Zamora, the minister of public works, services and housing, said earlier this month.
Some of Paz’s allies have blamed the unrest on former President Evo Morales, a former trade union leader who continues to draw popular support in Bolivia’s rural areas.
Morales, who led Bolivia from 2006 to 2019, previously supported protests against Paz’s predecessor Arce, after splitting from MAS.
He is also the subject of an arrest warrant: Morales has been accused of statutory rape and was held in contempt of court for failing to show up to a hearing last week.
A prolific social media user, Morales posted multiple times on Thursday about the protests, accusing the government of using him as a scapegoat. He also echoed calls for officials to address the shortages of food, fuel and other basic supplies.
“They believe that the thousands of Bolivians currently protesting — in the streets and on the roads — are merely obeying a single individual,” Morales wrote in one post.
“The outraged are driven by their social conscience and their fury against a government that, from day one, betrayed its constituents and the nation.”
A third round of direct talks between Israel and Lebanon has kicked off in Washington, DC, days before the expiration of a “ceasefire” that hardly halted Israeli attacks and Hezbollah’s response to them.
The talks, which began on Thursday, represent a step towards more serious negotiations, with higher-level envoys from Lebanon and Israel taking part after the initial preparatory sessions were headed by the ambassadors of the two countries to Washington.
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Lebanese officials are hoping that the two-day negotiations will yield a new ceasefire deal and pave the way for tackling a series of thorny issues, including the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and the disarmament of Hezbollah.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who attended the first Israel-Lebanon meetings in Washington in April, was with US President Donald Trump on a visit to China and did not attend Thursday’s session.
Lebanon’s envoy heading up Thursday’s talks, Simon Karam, is an attorney and well-connected former Lebanese ambassador to the United States who recently represented Lebanon in indirect talks with Israel over implementation of the ceasefire that preceded the latest outbreak of war between Israel and Hezbollah.
On the Israeli side, Deputy National Security Adviser Yossi Draznin was set to attend.
“We do not want to downplay the significance of these talks, but they are ambassador-level talks, excluding top leadership from Israel, Lebanon and the US,” said Al Jazeera’s Manuel Rapalo, reporting from Washington, DC, adding that there is no diplomatic relationship between Lebanon and Israel.
Trump has publicly called for a meeting between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while Aoun has declined to meet or speak directly with Netanyahu at this stage – a move that would likely generate blowback in Lebanon.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, is not part of the talks and has been vocally opposed to Lebanon engaging in direct negotiations with Israel.
A lawmaker from the Iran-backed group, Ali Ammar, on Thursday reiterated his group’s rejection of the direct talks, saying they amounted to “free concessions” to Israel.
Still, “there is optimism”, said Al Jazeera’s Rapalo.
“The cessation of hostilities agreement is due to expire on Sunday, so there is an expectation that this will be front and centre in discussions,” he said.
“Of course, the immediate objective is to prevent the situation along the border from escalating into a broader regional conflict.”
Cautious optimism
The United Nations earlier on Thursday expressed hope for the new round of direct negotiations.
“We hope that the latest round of direct talks between Lebanon and Israel in Washington, planned for today and tomorrow, will contribute to an effective and durable ceasefire and open a path towards lasting peace,” deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told the reporters.
Haq said the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) continues to observe “significant” aerial and military activity across its area of operations, including multiple air strikes on Wednesday by Israel.
“We reiterate our call on all the parties to exercise maximum restraint, ensure the protection of civilians and humanitarian personnel and fully respect their obligations under international humanitarian law,” he added.
In Lebanon, people also hope for an end to violence as the diplomatic efforts continue.
“I think people here in southern Lebanon are cautiously optimistic about the possible results from these meetings,” said Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto, reporting from Tyre, Lebanon.
“Everyone understands that Lebanon is not ready for normalisation, legally speaking. There is a part of the constitution that prevents Lebanon from actually having normalisation with Israel. People realise this might be a huge obstacle to move forward and find a way to live in peace with Israel.”
Still, the Lebanese population wants the violence to stop, said Hitto.
“It’s been more than two months of ongoing Israeli strikes, artillery strikes, air strikes, drone strikes, coordinated, systematic demolitions of entire towns and villages,” he said.
The Israeli army continues daily strikes in Lebanon despite a ceasefire that was announced on April 17 and later extended until May 17.
Three people were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanese media reported.
Since March 2, Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed at least 2,896 people, injured over 8,824, and displaced more than 1.6 million, about one-fifth of the country’s population, according to Lebanese officials. In that time, at least 200 children in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli attacks, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Thursday.
Venezuela’s liabilities include defaulted bonds and loans as well as international arbitration awards. (Archive)
Caracas, May 14, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan acting government announced the formal launch of a restructuring process of the country’s sizable foreign debt.
In a statement published on Wednesday, Caracas promised “comprehensive and orderly” proceedings to renegotiate liabilities owed by the country and state oil company PDVSA.
“This decision has the goal of putting the economy at the service of the Venezuelan people and freeing the country of the burden of accumulated debt,” the communique read. “This is a responsible, nationalist, and social decision.”
Venezuelan authorities added that the country’s resources should prioritize the people’s well-being over “unsustainable financial obligations” and that they seek a “substantial reduction” of the total debt.
Venezuela defaulted on a range of bonds and loans beginning in 2017 as US sanctions severely exacerbated the country’s economic crisis and shut it out of financial markets, making payments impossible. The Nicolás Maduro government had prioritized debt service in previous years as the country’s economy entered a tailspin in hopes of retaining access to international credit.
The sum total of defaulted debts and loans, on top of international arbitration awards, is estimated to be as high as US $170 billion with accrued interest. Liabilities likewise include unpaid loans to China. The restructuring process may be one of the largest in history, surpassing Russia (1998) and Argentina (2001).
According to Business Wire, the government led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez plans to present its “macroeconomic framework and public debt sustainability analysis” to the international financial community in June. Caracas has reportedly hired Centerview Partners as a financial advisor.
On May 5, the US Treasury Department issued a license allowing the provision of financial and advisory services related to Venezuelan debt restructuring. The sanctions waiver does not allow creditors to transfer or settle debt, nor directly engage with Venezuelan authorities.
Market analyst S&P Global argued that Venezuela’s debt renegotiation process could face obstacles if some creditors hold out and reject restructuring proposals.
Financial analyst Elías Ferrer Breda called Wednesday’s announcement an expected “formality” and added that the next step will be assessing the actual size of Venezuela’s foreign debt. For his part, political commentator Luis Vicente León argued that the restructuring process will be drawn out but may “restore credibility” before financial markets.
Pramol Dhawan, head of Pacific Investment Management Company LLC (PIMCO) emerging markets team, welcomed Caracas’ “willingness to engage with bondholders.”
“Any durable resolution will need to be comprehensive and anchored by a credible macroeconomic framework to give creditors confidence in Venezuela’s capacity to service restructured obligations,” he told Reuters.
Venezuelan bonds rose again following the latest announcement, continuing a recent upward trend as investors eye windfall returns. Creditors have also met with Trump officials in recent weeks.
Since the January 3 US military strikes and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, the acting authorities led by Delcy Rodríguez have fast-tracked a rapprochement with Washington. The Venezuelan National Assembly has approved pro-business reforms to its energy and mining sectors while the government has struck agreements with multiple Western multinational corporations.
Following the White House’s recognition of Rodríguez as the South American country’s “sole leader,” Caracas reestablished ties with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Venezuelan officials have expressed hopes of accessing around $5 billion in Special Drawing Rights and stated that there are “no plans” to contract IMF loans.
For her part, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva stated that the Washington-based institution is willing to support a loan program for Venezuela but requires clarity on economic data and external debt.
In April, Rodríguez established a commission tasked with assessing the “strategic” value of Venezuelan state assets and their possible privatization, with private sector conglomerates already raising funds ahead of potential sell-offs.
As Trump meets Xi in Beijing for the first time in nine years, can trade war, Taiwan and Iran tensions be contained?
US President Donald Trump returns to Beijing after nine years to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping. The trade war, conflict in Iran, and rising fears over Taiwan shape the talks. With global tensions mounting, can the two leaders find common ground, or will rivalry push the world further into crisis?
In this episode:
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Marcos Bartolomé and Sarí el-Khalili with Spencer Cline, Catherine Nouhan, Tuleen Barakat, Alexandra Locke, and our guest host, Kevin Hirten. It was edited by Tamara Khandaker.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an international humanitarian organisation, has released its 2025 activity report for Nigeria, and the findings are sobering. The medical emergency organisation, also known as Doctors Without Borders, unveiled the report during an event in Abuja, North Central Nigeria, on Wednesday, May 13, documenting the disturbing rise in malnutrition cases in the country’s northern region.
With more than 3,500 workers delivering essential healthcare services across ten states, MSF reported treating over 440,000 children for malnutrition, more than 300,000 individuals for malaria, and assisting with over 33,500 deliveries in 2025.
This surge, according to the humanitarian organisation, underscores the fragility of Nigeria’s health system and the growing vulnerability of women and children in conflict-affected regions.
The 2025 report shows that MSF recorded more than 600,000 outpatient consultations, 48,000 inpatient admissions, and treated 341,239 patients for malaria, 38,753 children for measles, 6,123 patients for diphtheria, and 985 others for meningitis across its facilities in the region.
These findings are specific to the ten Nigerian states where MSF has been operating since 1996, including Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, and Cross River. The organisation says it has provided a wide range of essential medical services, including paediatric and maternal health care, treating children with malnutrition, responding to disease outbreaks, caring for survivors of sexual violence, offering mental health support, and performing life‑saving surgical interventions.
The MSF country representative, Ahmed Aldikhari, revealed that in 2025, the organisation observed a pattern consistent with that of previous years, starting in 2022. Aldikhari stated that malnutrition is one of the year’s greatest challenges, linking it to the region’s fragile conditions, which are severely affected by insecurity that has worsened food security.
Representatives of MSF unveiling the 2025 report, which revealed the rise in cases of malnutrition in Nigeria. Photo: Isah Ismaila/HumAngle.
“We are seeing a vicious cycle where malnutrition is both a cause and a consequence of diseases such as measles, malaria, and diphtheria, among others, which continue to affect vulnerable communities, especially when healthcare is delayed or inaccessible,” he said, suggesting that Nigeria might soon experience the peak of the malnutrition crisis.
“That is why we are consistently working side-by-side with the ministries of health, humanitarian affairs, budget and planning at the state and federal levels, and also, with our Nigerian colleagues to ensure that efficient services are provided, but they are not enough.”
HumAngle has previously reported on the broader impact of the crisis, stressing how displacements, insecurity, and climate change, among other natural and human-induced disasters, have compounded the problem. In July 2025, MSF, in collaboration with the Katsina State government, mobilised state and non-state actors to address the escalating malnutrition crisis in the northwestern region.
During the 2024 MSF conference in Abuja, organised in collaboration with the North West Governors’ Forum and the Katsina State Government, stakeholders emphasised that malnutrition in the northwestern region is no longer a seasonal emergency but rather a structural crisis that requires urgent mobilisation. The governors acknowledged that insecurity and climate pressures were eroding food systems, but MSF urged greater investment in therapeutic feeding centres and preventive programmes.
Representatives of the humanitarian organisation address journalists on malnutrition, disease outbreaks, and maternal health in Nigeria. Photo: Isah Ismaila/HumAngle.
Northern Nigeria continues to face a critical malnutrition crisis, with Katsina particularly affected, according to MSF’s 2025 activity report. Findings reveal that since 2021, MSF has been present in the state, with the organisation’s leadership revealing that they have witnessed a sharp rise in the number of malnourished children since responding to the growing crisis in recent years.
In 2025, MSF reported treating the highest number of malnourished children in Katsina. With the support of the state Ministry of Health, the organisation focused on preventing illness and malnutrition to reduce mortality and morbidity among children suffering from acute malnutrition.
“Katsina State has faced a chronic malnutrition crisis for over a decade, driven by insecurity, climate shocks, limited primary healthcare services, and high birth rates,” the report revealed. “Throughout 2025, MSF admitted 26,445 patients for inpatient care, provided treatment to 146,301 children through its outpatient centres, and conducted 15,387 outpatient consultations for malaria.”
In response to this, MSF established a new Ambulatory Therapeutic Feeding Centre (ATFC) in Mashi and a second inpatient therapeutic feeding centre at the Turai Yar’aduwa Hospital to handle the increased patient load during peak seasons.
Beyond nutrition in Kebbi, the report states that MSF responded to multiple infectious disease surges and outbreaks by tackling the increase in meningitis cases from February to May, while supporting the Ministry of Health facilities in Jega, Gwandu, and Aliero with logistics, medical supplies, staff training, and facility rehabilitation.
Following the escalating insecurity in neighbouring Zamfara and Niger that led to mass displacement to the Danko-Wasugu areas of Kebbi State as of June, the humanitarian organisation provided basic healthcare and distributed non-food relief kits to vulnerable households.
In Zamfara alone, MSF admitted 47,164 children to inpatient therapeutic feeding centres and provided 14,167 outpatient consultations in 2024, with numbers continuing to rise in 2025. According to Aldikhari, this increase in admissions is due to multiple overlapping crises, including conflict and insecurity in the northwestern and northeastern regions, which have displaced thousands of families, cutting them off from farmlands.
While the 2025 activity report warns that malnutrition is no longer a seasonal emergency but a permanent feature of Nigeria’s humanitarian landscape, it also highlights the fact that the sheer scale of admissions suggests the crisis is outpacing the humanitarian response.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) released its 2025 activity report for Nigeria, highlighting a troubling surge in malnutrition, especially in the northern region.
MSF treated over 440,000 malnourished children, more than 300,000 malaria patients, and assisted with 33,500 deliveries, illustrating the fragility of Nigeria’s health system amid growing challenges in conflict-affected areas. The report details their operations across ten states since 1996, offering a range of essential medical services and responding to disease outbreaks and the chronic malnutrition crisis, particularly in conflict-driven regions like Katsina and Zamfara.
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The report emphasizes the cyclical nature of malnutrition being both a cause and consequence of diseases, exacerbated by insecurity and climate pressures. Collaboration with local government and NGOs is ongoing, yet MSF warns that the crisis has transformed into a structural issue requiring significant investments in therapeutic feeding centers and preventive programs. Despite increased efforts, the scale of malnutrition and related health crises like measles, diphtheria, and meningitis, is outpacing humanitarian response, marking malnutrition as an enduring element of Nigeria’s humanitarian landscape.
In China, Elon Musk has gained both admiration and criticism. While he is seen as a visionary, he has faced scrutiny from regulators and the public due to issues with customer complaints. The success of Musk’s SpaceX and its Starlink satellite service has also led to concerns from the People’s Liberation Army, especially as Tesla faces growing competition from Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers, which threatens Musk’s standing in the market.
Musk recently attended a summit in Beijing with U. S. President Donald Trump, alongside other CEOs like Tim Cook and Jensen Huang, focusing on resolving business issues with China. After a formal welcome, Musk expressed his desire to achieve “many good things” in the country. At the same event, Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun, an admirer of Musk, took a selfie with him, which became popular on social media, showcasing the public’s interest in Musk.
Despite facing competition on technology and pricing from local companies, Musk and Tesla remain influential in China. Experts note that Musk’s business goals align with China’s technological priorities, including electric vehicles, AI, and advanced robotics, making Tesla’s self-driving technology the standard in the industry. In 2018, Tesla became the first foreign automaker permitted to operate in China without a local partner, and its sales in the country reached about 626,000 vehicles last year, contributing significantly to its revenue.
Other Chinese carmakers, like Chery, draw inspiration from Tesla’s focus on innovation, blending it with Toyota’s emphasis on quality. However, Musk’s other ventures, particularly SpaceX, provoke concern among Chinese military and government officials due to its dominance in satellite communications, especially in light of geopolitical tensions, hinting at efforts to develop domestic alternatives.
Though Musk’s social media platform, X, is banned in China, he has a significant following on Weibo and has been celebrated as a global icon in the country. His recent visit pertains to an attempt to purchase $2.9 billion in solar manufacturing equipment from Chinese suppliers, although this may be affected by China’s potential export restrictions on advanced technologies to the U. S.
Musk’s company is also seeking regulatory approval for more advanced self-driving technology. However, his relationship with China has been delicate, particularly when Tesla faced backlash in 2021 over its handling of customer complaints, highlighted by a public protest at an auto show. Additionally, Teslas were previously banned from military areas due to security concerns.
Looking ahead, organizations believe that Tesla’s standing might challenge Musk’s popularity in China as local companies continue to progress. However, he is likely to remain an influential figure in China’s tech scene for his achievements in the automotive and technology industries.
Latvia’s Prime Minister Evika Silina resigned following criticism of her government’s handling of stray drones, believed to be Ukrainian, crossing into Latvian territory. The controversy deepened divisions within the ruling coalition, causing it to lose its parliamentary majority.
Istanbul, Turkiye – When investigations by Al Jazeera and other media outlets in 2024 revealed that Israeli-linked artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as Lavender and Gospel had helped generate thousands of military targets in Gaza, critics warned that warfare was entering a new era – one driven not only by soldiers and bombs, but by algorithms, data, and surveillance technology.
Then, in September 2024, thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by members of Hezbollah exploded in coordinated attacks in Lebanon, widely attributed to Israeli intelligence operations that had turned ordinary communication devices into weapons.
And, last year, reporting by Al Jazeera also raised concerns about the use of cloud and data infrastructure linked to major US technology companies in Israeli surveillance operations involving Palestinians.
For a growing number of scholars, economists and political thinkers, such developments reflect more than just the changing nature of conflict. They show how power in the modern world is increasingly exercised not just through military force, but through technology, finance and control over information.
That argument has revived broader debates around decolonisation – a term historically associated with the dismantling of European empires after World War II, when countries across Asia, Africa and the Middle East gained formal independence.
But many proponents of what is termed “decolonial theory” – a school of thought arguing that colonial-era systems of power and hierarchy still shape modern politics, economics and knowledge – argue that colonial power structures never fully disappeared. Instead, they evolved, embedding themselves in global financial systems, technology platforms, media networks and even the production of knowledge itself.
Dependence of Global South countries on Western technology, digital infrastructure and global markets can create new forms of political and economic vulnerability, particularly across the Global South.
“A generation may have grown up believing they had never experienced colonialism or exploitation,” Esra Albayrak, board chair of the NUN Foundation for Education and Culture and daughter of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told Al Jazeera during the World Decolonization Forum in Istanbul on May 11-12.
“Yet, mentally, they may still be living under colonial influence.”
The war in Gaza marked a turning point, Albayrak says, shining a spotlight on how international principles are not applied equally. Global institutions have so far failed to stop what many countries and rights groups have described as genocide against Palestinians.
“The world is sounding an alarm, and we can no longer afford to remain indifferent to it,” she said.
A techno-feudal era
Albayrak argues that a handful of technology companies are emerging as new, invisible centres of power, shaping how information is produced, circulated and consumed in the digital age.
She describes the digital sphere as the realm of what she calls “future colonialism”, warning that AI systems trained largely on Western-centric data risk reinforcing existing global inequalities.
“When AI systems are run by those tech companies and trained on Western sources, they risk carrying the hierarchies of the past into tomorrow’s digital world, as they now have personalised data, suppressing identity,” Albayrak said.
By this, she means that most major AI models are still trained largely on English-language and Western-produced data – a pattern critics say risks sidelining non-Western languages, cultures and perspectives.
On social media platforms, algorithms tend to amplify some conflicts while rendering others nearly invisible, effectively shaping what billions of users see, discuss and remember online.
Walter D Mignolo, professor at Duke University, argues that while what we historically see as “formal colonialism” may have largely ended, systems of Western dominance continue through economics, culture, technology and knowledge production.
“Coloniality is not over. It is all over the world,” Mignolo said, arguing that modern ideas of development and progress often have the effect of pressuring societies to conform to Western norms.
Rather than simply resisting those systems, he said, societies must find a way to “re-exist” by rebuilding intellectual and cultural autonomy outside dominant global frameworks.
Colonisers in the financial age
The March 2026 Global Debt Report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reveals that 44 countries face severe debt burdens, often aggravated by global conflicts, forcing some governments to spend more on interest payments than on health or education.
This is not a new phenomenon, as developing countries have been labouring under the weight of foreign debt for decades.
But British political economist and author Ann Pettifor told Al Jazeera that modern forms of domination are now increasingly embedded not in empires or nation-states, but in financial systems operating beyond democratic oversight.
Pettifor points to the growing influence of “shadow” banking networks – financial institutions operating largely outside traditional banking regulations – and giant asset managers such as BlackRock, which manages $13 trillion in assets.
Much of the global financial architecture now functions largely outside the regulatory control of governments, she says, including that of Western states themselves.
“This is not a state colonising other states,” Pettifor said. “This is the financial system colonising the whole world, including my country and the US.”
She argues that elected governments increasingly struggle to control key economic realities – from energy prices to commodity markets – because those systems are dictated by global financial actors operating far beyond public accountability.
In Nigeria, for example, Pettifor says, efforts to expand domestic refining capacity continue to face pressure from international financial institutions and global energy markets to keep fuel prices tied to global markets and maintain reliance on imported refined oil products, despite its vast oil reserves.
Coordinated cooperation between developing nations may be necessary to challenge the dominance of Western-centred financial systems, Pettifor says, pointing to growing efforts across parts of West Africa to expand regional refining capacity and reduce dependence on imported fuel. Yet such ambitions can also leave critical sectors dependent on the decisions and influence of a small number of powerful private actors.
Global financial markets, algorithm-driven platforms, and foreign-controlled digital infrastructure increasingly define everyday life – from fuel and food prices to the information people consume online and the technologies governments and societies depend on, observers say.
A ‘mastery complex’
As wars become increasingly influenced by AI, digital infrastructure and financial dependency, debates around colonisation are focusing less on territorial control and more on who influences energy prices, lending systems, access to technology and the flow of information across borders, observers say.
Albayrak draws a parallel between today’s debates around technology and global power and Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem “The White Man’s Burden”, published as the US took control of the Philippines following the Spanish-American War. The poem framed colonial expansion as a moral obligation to “civilise” other societies rather than an exercise of domination.
Albayrak said such traces of “mastery complex” still survive today, though in different forms – not necessarily through military occupation, but through technological, financial and informational influence.
But what the world really needs, she argues, is a global order built not on hierarchy, but on shared responsibility.
“The burden should belong to humanity collectively.”
Storms are common in northern India from March to June, before the annual monsoon rains arrive.
Published On 14 May 202614 May 2026
Duststorms, heavy rain and lightning have killed at least 96 people in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and damaged homes and other structures, officials said.
According to them, more than 50 people were injured in these weather-related incidents across several districts of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, on Wednesday.
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Storms are common in northern India from March to June, before the annual monsoon rains arrive.
Officials said many deaths were caused by falling trees, collapsing structures and lightning. Police and disaster response teams used chainsaws and cranes to clear fallen trees from roads and railway tracks in several districts.
Narendra Srivastava, an administrative official, said emergency teams were deployed across the affected areas and that homes, crops and power infrastructure were widely damaged, particularly in rural parts.
In Prayagraj district, residents were in panic as strong winds tore through neighbourhoods.
“The storm came suddenly, and the sky turned completely dark within minutes,” Ram Kishore said. “Tin roofs were flying, and people ran indoors. We could hear trees falling throughout the evening.”
In neighbouring Bhadohi district, Savitri Devi said her family narrowly escaped after strong winds damaged their mud house. “We rushed outside when the walls started shaking because of the wind,” she said. “Our roof collapsed moments later. We spent the night at a relative’s house.”
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered officials to complete relief operations within 24 hours and for authorities to provide emergency aid and compensation to affected families.
