Top World News

May 17, 2026 - World

Four months after Trump’s surprise raid, a political thaw has descended – but mingled with hope is trepidation for what comes nextWhen Ángel Linares heard a strange buzz followed by an explosion, his first thought was that neighbours were setting off fireworks to celebrate the new year.Then his windows shattered, the building’s walls shook and its facade was ripped off, sending him flying on to the ground of an apartment suddenly reduced to rubble. His 85-year-old mother, Jesucita, feared Venezuela’s northern coast had been devastated by an earthquake, like the one she remembers from 1967. Continue reading...

May 17, 2026 - World

Three paramedics at health centre among dead, while Hamas military chief Izz al-Din al-Haddad killed in Gaza strikeIsrael carried out airstrikes in southern Lebanon, killing at least six people, including three paramedics working at a health centre, just hours after its envoys had agreed with the Lebanese government to extend a ceasefire.Israel also said it had killed the Hamas military chief, Izz al-Din al-Haddad, in a targeted strike in Gaza on Friday. Continue reading...

May 16, 2026 - World

Hundreds of diplomats are being forced out of their jobs by the Trump administration despite ongoing crises around the world, according to a new report. According to CNN, the State Department finalized the firing of nearly 250 foreign service officers via email on Friday. "Your reduction in force separation will be effective today," the email read. "Thank you again for your service to the Department."The reduction in forces also impacted staff that would have been able to "provide guidance on the war in Iran," former officials told CNN. On top of that, "unprecedented numbers of people are choosing to leave" U.S. foreign services, David Kostelancik, a retired diplomat, told CNN. "Roughly 2,000 foreign service officers left the State Department last year," CNN reported based on numbers from the American Foreign Service Association. Another 100 diplomatic posts around the world in tense areas like the Middle East, Ukraine and Russia still lack a Senate-confirmed ambassador, CNN added. "The most sensitive diplomatic negotiations, on fraught topics like ending the war in Iran and securing an end to the Ukraine conflict, are being led by business associates and family members of President Donald Trump," CNN reported. "Often without teams of experienced diplomats with regional expertise."

May 16, 2026 - World

Donald Trump’s return from Beijing without any provable examples of successful negotiations with Chinese President Xi Jinping was yet another sign that, whatever lofty plans he had in store for the second year of his second term, they are easier to boast about than achieve.According to analysis by the Washington Post’s Michael Birnbaum and Isaac Arnsdorf, the China summit didn’t include any measurable wins for a president who has had a rough year so far.“President Donald Trump was riding the early high of his return to power last year when he took his first major foreign trip and declared that he would make a sharp break from years of U.S. nation-building around the world,” they wrote.Exactly one year after his first major foreign trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates — complete with golden swords and honor guards on Arabian steeds — Trump arrived in China at a vastly different moment, the Post is reporting. Inflation is spiraling, the Iran conflict has ensnared U.S. military forces, energy prices are soaring, and his approval ratings are cratering.This time, there were no sweeping declarations about how Trump's America would manage the world, the Post is reporting. Instead, there was Chinese President Xi Jinping, described as being "respectful but businesslike, welcoming but unbending" on issues that are U.S. priorities.Trump came to Beijing hoping to secure trade deals. Xi had other priorities, the report noted. The Chinese president made clear that Taiwan's fate, not investment opportunities, was China's top concern — yanking the spotlight from Trump's preferred focus to warn of "clashes and even conflicts" with the United States should disagreements over the disputed island be mismanaged.Trump left Friday with a promise of Xi visiting the White House in September and trade deals that proved largely disappointing. Boeing's stock dropped 8 percent between Trump's arrival and departure — a stark measure of investor skepticism about the agreements reached.The president has since claimed triumph that the trip enabled top U.S. business executives to meet the Chinese leader, but offered little evidence of actual transactions resulting from the meetings.Most of Trump's signature foreign policy initiatives "have fallen by the wayside," according to the Post. The Ukraine war still rages despite his promises to end it swiftly. Many of his tariffs were struck down by the Supreme Court. Iran diplomacy has been abandoned entirely in favor of military conflict.The collapse reflects a far cry from Trump's more "expansive ambitions" for reshaping U.S.-China relations last year, when the two leaders agreed to meet four times in 2026. With Iran now preoccupying Trump and weighing down the global economy, there is little room for retrenchment.With slumping approval ratings and a faltering economy, Trump now travels the world stage "significantly weakened" compared to a year ago, Birnbaum and Arnsdorf predicted.

May 16, 2026 - World

Donald Trump's reported desperation to end the Iran war is allowing Tehran's leaders to take a harder negotiating line — and a candid admission the president made on Fox News this week handed Iranian negotiators a significant strategic gift.According to MS NOW's Zeeshan Aleem, during an interview with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity on Thursday, Trump revealed his evolving priorities regarding Iran's estimated 970-pound stockpile of highly enriched uranium.When asked whether the U.S. was considering seizing Iran's uranium, Trump first claimed it would take "a week and a half" to extract using a ground operation. But then he made a stunning admission that undercut his entire negotiating position."I don't think it's necessary [to get the uranium], except from a public relations standpoint," Trump said. "I think it's important for the fake news that we get it."He added: "I'm the one that said we're going to get it, and we're going to get it. We have our eye on it."In those few words — "I don't think it's necessary" — Trump appeared to abandon a position that has been central to his entire premise for the war. He instantly undermined his insistence on uranium removal as a key term of any peace deal with Iran, Aleem wrote.Trump's characterization of uranium seizure as merely a "public relations" maneuver suggests he is repackaging a key plank of his negotiation position as window dressing — essentially admitting it's not actually necessary to end the conflict.According to the report, Iranian negotiators will almost certainly exploit this revelation. If Tehran believes Trump is ambivalent about — or could eventually become indifferent to — removal of Iran's uranium stockpile, Iran has far more incentive to refuse to budge on that element or demand compromises more favorable to Tehran.Aleem observed that Trump has a documented tendency to grow bored with or abandon protracted international conflicts, and the Iran war appears to be no exception and that each public statement weakens his negotiating leverage.