Iran vows to rebuild nuclear sites ‘stronger than before’
"By destroying buildings... we will not be set back," said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in a visit to the country's...Geostrategy
Saudi Arabia’s next play: Capital to capability
Non-oil growth is robust, but risks – project slippage, write-downs and export controls on chips – persist. Conditional confidence prevails...Geostrategy
Trial opens in Klarna’s $8.3 billion lawsuit against Google
Stockholm, Sweden -- A Swedish court began hearing arguments Monday in a lawsuit brought by Swedish price comparison site Pricerunner,...The Swedish tech startup filed its suit with the Patent and Market Court in Stockholm in 2022.
It filed the suit after EU General Court ruling that Google "breached EU antitrust laws by manipulating search results in favor of their own comparison shopping services".
Trump says Gaza ceasefire still in force after Israeli strikes, suggests Hamas leadership didn’t violate truce
Asked by reporters whether the truce was still in effect, Trump said: "Yeah, it is". The US president, who helped...The dozens of strikes Israel carried out on Hamas positions in Gaza Sunday came after it accused the militant group of targeting its troops in "a blatant violation" of the truce
The deal established the outline for hostage and prisoner exchanges, and proposed an ambitious roadmap for Gaza's future, but it has quickly faced challenges to its implementation
Cash-strapped Gazans left disappointed as first banks reopen
Deir el-Balah, Palestinian Territories -- The Palestinians trying to rebuild their lives in the ruins of Gaza are short of...Food is purchased with cash or through bank transfers, which are often complicated due to power and communication outages.
Gazans have lost a lot of savings and commissions on transfers can reach 40 percent.
Publishers fight back against US book bans
Frankfurt, Germany -- Escalating attempts to remove works featuring themes such as LGBTQ lifestyles and race relations from US bookshelves...In 2020 just under 300 titles faced "challenges" -- demands to restrict access to them or remove them entirely -- across the United States.
That number began surging the following year, and reached over 9,000 in 2023, said the NGO, whose office for intellectual freedom has been tracking challenges since 1990.
13 killed in Gaza as Hamas says Israel devising pretexts to resume attacks
Izzat Al-Rishq, a member of Hamas's political bureau, reaffirmed the group's commitment to the ceasefire and said Israel "continues to...Palestinian witnesses told AFP clashes erupted in the southern city of Rafah in an area still held by Israel.
Hamas had been fighting a local Palestinian gang known as Abu Shabab but the militants were "surprised by the presence of army tanks".
Protesters out in force for anti-Trump ‘No Kings’ rallies across US
Organizers said seven million people attended protests spanning New York to Los Angeles, with demonstrations popping up in small cities...Trump's response to Saturday's events was typically aggressive, with the US president posting a series of AI-generated videos to his Truth Social platform depicting him as a king.
In one, he is shown wearing a crown and piloting a fighter jet that drops what appears to be feces on anti-Trump protesters.
China’s power paradox: record renewables, continued coal
Bangkok, Thailand -- Call it the China power paradox: while Beijing leads the world in renewable energy expansion, its coal...China accounted for 93 percent of new global coal construction in 2024, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clear Air (CREA) found.
China wants 3,600 gigawatts of wind and solar by 2035, but that may not meet future demand, risking further coal increases.
Iran says no longer bound by ‘restrictions’ on its nuclear programme
Iran said on Saturday that it was no longer bound by restrictions on its nuclear programme as a landmark 10-year...The 2015 deal -- signed in Vienna by Iran, China, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the United States -- saw the lifting of international sanctions against the Islamic republic
But the pact had already been in tatters after Washington unilaterally withdrew during President Donald Trump's first term, with Iran later pulling back from its commitments
US envoy Witkoff felt ‘betrayed’ by Israeli attack on Hamas in Qatar
Washington, United States - US envoy Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump's chief negotiator on the Middle East, has said that..."I think both Jared and I felt, I just feel we felt a little bit betrayed," Witkoff told the CBS news program "60 Minutes" in excerpts released Friday
At the time, the strike halted the indirect negotiating process to end the fighting in the devastated Gaza Strip, triggered by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel
Pakistan, Afghanistan officials to meet in Qatar after latest strikes
Islamabad, Pakistan - Pakistani and Afghan officials were due to meet in Qatar Saturday to seek a path back to...Kabul accused Islamabad of violating the 48-hour ceasefire, which had paused nearly a week of cross-border clashes that killed dozens of troops and civilians on both sides
The latest strikes targeted what Pakistan security sources said was a militant group linked to the Pakistani Taliban in the Afghan border areas
