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Mar 21, 2026 - World

The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog issued a fresh demand for restraint on Saturday after the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran announced that the Shahid Ahmadi-Roshan uranium enrichment complex in Natanz “was subjected to a renewed attack” as the United States and Israel continue to bomb the Middle Eastern country.The Iranian agency said that “technical assessments indicate that no radioactive material leakage has occurred and there is no danger to residents of the surrounding areas,” but the attack was a “violation of international laws and commitments,” including the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.The International Atomic Energy Agency “has been informed by Iran that the Natanz nuclear site was attacked today,” the UN watchdog confirmed on social media. “No increase in off-site radiation levels reported. IAEA is looking into the report.”“IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi reiterates call for military restraint to avoid any risk of a nuclear accident,” the agency added.The Times of Israel reported that “in response to a query... the Israel Defense Forces said that it did not conduct any strikes in the area and that it could not comment on American activities.”The Israeli newspaper also noted that “Israel’s Kan news reported that the US had indeed struck the facility, using ‘bunker buster’ bombs to target the site. It cited unspecified sources.”Later Saturday, The Times of Israel reported that at least 20 people were wounded in an Iranian ballistic missile attack on the Israeli city of Dimona, home to Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center.The United States previously bombed Iran’s Natanz facility last June. The Associated Press highlighted Saturday that satellite images also suggest the site was damaged during the first week of the current war, which President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched on February 28.Condemning the Saturday strike on Iran’s complex, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that “this is a brazen violation of international law, the charters of the UN and the International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and the agency’s General Conference.”Russia has notably also generated fears of a nuclear accident with its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022.Trump has sent mixed messages about the US-Israeli war on Iran, both sending thousands more troops to the region this week while also saying on his Truth Social platform Friday that “we are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran.”According to the AP: “Iran’s capital saw heavy airstrikes overnight and into the morning, residents said, as thousands of worshippers converged on Tehran’s grand mosque for prayers marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said attacks would ‘increase significantly’ next week.”

Mar 21, 2026 - World

Over the past week, Donald Trump has cycled through claiming the United States needs no assistance from allies in its Iran conflict, then requesting their support, and finally expressing rage at their refusal—a pattern that reflects an escalating personal crisis as the war continues and public approval declines.Greg Sargent of The New Republic identifies this behavior as evidence of Trump's central "political weakness": his inability to control himself, which has trapped him in a corner regarding Iran with no path forward that serves his political interests.The Strait of Hormuz closure sits at the core of Trump's predicament, providing Iran with significant strategic advantage.The underlying dynamic reveals Trump's calculation: he recognizes that reopening the strait presents serious challenges and that escalating military action carries substantial political risks for both him and the GOP heading into midterms. His strategy involves enlisting allies to share both the political burden and potential blame for either failure to reopen the strait or any military setbacks.This approach lacks merit. Reopening the strait is genuinely difficult. The geographic reality presents a legitimate obstacle because its geography privileges Iran by enabling small vessels to inflict disproportionate damage and casualties. According to Tom Nichols, advisers informed Trump of all this in advance, but he assumed our strength would overwhelm such boring complexities, and he never developed a plan B.Trump's antagonism toward allies compounds the problem. He has spent the past year weakening alliances across the board, issuing repeated threats to invade territories like Greenland and imposing tariffs on allied nations seemingly motivated primarily by nationalist aggression.Trump faces a difficult position. He will bear responsibility for the global consequences of the strait closure—including rising prices on gas and other products affecting American consumers. However, military action to reopen it could generate its own political costs. This dilemma stems from geographic realities that strengthen Iran's capacity to cause significant damage despite its diminished military capabilities. Yet as Bill Kristol details, no one around Trump appears able to coax him to reason through these fundamentals.Voters are unlikely to hold NATO allies responsible for America's weakening commitment to the alliance or for declining to rescue the nation from a crisis of Trump's making. Instead, public blame will rest with Trump. This reality explains his intense frustration—he understands he will be held accountable for this failure, and he recognizes no clear path to resolution.

Mar 21, 2026 - World

Almost 60 injured in blaze in Daejeon with footage seemingly showing people jumping from burning building to escapeA fire at a car parts factory in South Korea has killed 14 people and injured almost 60 others.Firefighters said all of the missing are now accounted for after a search operation of the wreckage of the three-storey building. Continue reading...

Mar 21, 2026 - World

At least 400 killed in Pakistan’s strike on drug rehab centre, Taliban say, with families searching unmarked mass gravesSohrab Faqiri spent Eid, the Muslim festival to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, looking for the grave of his brother, killed in a massive Pakistan airstrike on Kabul this week.Pakistan’s bombardment campaign, on what it says is terrorist and military infrastructure in neighbouring Afghanistan, appeared to have gone catastrophically wrong. A rehabilitation centre for drug addicts was hit on Monday night, according to the United Nations and the Afghan authorities. The UN’s preliminary death toll is 143 people, while the Taliban administration puts the figure at more than 400 dead. Continue reading...

Mar 20, 2026 - World

President Donald Trump got a harsh reminder on Friday as gas prices soared amid the ongoing Iran war. CNBC anchor Brian Sullivan suggested that as the economy takes a hit amid the conflict in the Middle East, people are still not likely to cut back on things such as subscriptions for Spotify and Netflix. "I find it hard to believe that people are going to cancel their Spotify account at 19 bucks a month or Netflix at 22 bucks a month because of the war in Iran and slightly higher gas prices, which, while painful, I don't think they're enough to change people's behavior over a couple of dollars here and there," Sullivan said. Tom Lee, entrepreneur and financial analyst, described how the economic downturn wasn't just temporary. "Absolutely not," Lee said. "I mean, people do need to realize that volatility is here to stay simply because the options markets have gotten too big to ignore. They are the story. And so they have a there's a lot of mechanical volatility that gets created that has nothing to do with fundamentals."