Today In Issues:
FDD Research & Analysis
The Must-Reads
Hamas wants guarantees of Israeli troop withdrawal before disarmament talks, sources say Billions for terror: Israel says Iran doubled Hezbollah funding since last war Iran beefs up defenses, recruits children as it prepares for ground war A bid to use force to open Strait of Hormuz hits roadblocks at U.N. Security Council Exclusive: US intelligence assesses Iran maintains significant missile launching capability, sources say WINEP’s Michael Jacobson and Matthew Levitt: How Tehran’s proxy network could outlast the Iranian regime Zelenskiy offers Ukraine's maritime expertise with Strait of Hormuz Taiwan to strengthen Pratas islands' defences as China steps up pressure Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing elected president by pro-military parliament WSJ Editorial: Why Britain can’t afford a navy Islamic State-linked rebels kill 43 in eastern Congo, army say Cuba says it will release over 2,000 prisoners, as U.S. keeps up pressureIn The News
Israel
Palestinian militant group Hamas has told mediators it will not discuss giving up arms without guarantees that Israel will fully quit Gaza as laid out in a disarmament plan from U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace”, three sources told Reuters. – Reuters
Eight Muslim-majority countries “strongly condemned” Israel’s move to pass a law making death by hanging a default sentence for Palestinians convicted in military courts of deadly attacks, a joint statement released by Pakistan said on Thursday. – Reuters
The IDF destroyed an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Ground Forces base and a mobile command post on Wednesday as part of strikes targeting regime infrastructure in Tehran, the Israeli military said on Thursday. – Jerusalem Post
Missile and rocket fire from Iran continued into early Friday morning, causing damage across various sites in central Israel. On Thursday evening, missile fire from Iran left three people lightly wounded in Petah Tikva and Mazkeret Batya, as a major impact caused heavy damage at a site in Petah Tikva. – Jerusalem Post
Two IDF soldiers were lightly wounded on Thursday during a close-quarters engagement in southern Lebanon, during which the troops killed a Hezbollah terrorist, the military said. – Jerusalem Post
The IDF said Thursday that Iran sent about $2 billion to Hezbollah over the past year, roughly double its usual annual support, helping the Lebanese terrorist group rebuild after its last war with Israel. – Ynet
Israel is receiving conflicting messages about U.S.-Iran negotiations to end the war, with signs of progress alongside indications that talks have stalled, leaving officials uncertain and increasingly pessimistic. – Ynet
The IDF said Thursday it killed a senior Iranian commander in a strike in Tehran earlier this week, while also targeting a separate financial headquarters used to fund Iran’s military and allied groups across the Middle East. – Ynet
Editorial: A ceasefire that leaves Iran with room to recover will invite the next war. A deal that lacks enforcement will be treated in Tehran as time gained rather than danger avoided. The lesson of the past two decades is clear enough: when the Iranian regime is given space, it takes advantage of it. Washington has every right to define its own interests. Israel has every obligation to defend its own survival. At this stage, these two notions will remain aligned only if the United States understands a simple fact: unfinished work in Iran will not produce stability. It will produce a countdown. – Jerusalem Post
Guy Benson writes: But since Oct. 7, the Israelis have crushed Hamas, decimated Hezbollah, and dealt thunderous, hugely consequential blows to the head of the snake: the Iranian regime and its nuclear and weapons programs. They’ve done so with the tacit or open support of Arab governments around the region. As Eli Lake has observed, while Israel has become less popular globally, it has massively degraded the threat matrix aligned against it, and it is less isolated than ever within a volatile and dangerous neighborhood. The Israelis would prefer to be popular and safe, to be sure, but if forced to choose between the two, the Jewish state will always take the latter option. – Washington Examiner
Amos Yadlin and Avner Golov write: It is too early to say whether this positive outcome will prevail. Wars often promise strategic transformation yet ultimately change little. But the present moment has created an opening that has not existed in years. If Israel, the United States, and the Gulf states seize this moment, the current campaign won’t be remembered as just another chapter in the long-running conflict between Iran and the rest of the region. It will be remembered as the fight that finally brought peace to the Middle East. – Foreign Affairs
Iran
Oil tankers, container ships and bulk carriers shimmer all over the horizon to the left of the windswept beach here at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. They have been bottled up in the Persian Gulf ever since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran more than a month ago. – Wall Street Journal
Iran is responding to the threat of a ground operation on its soil by stepping up defenses around its biggest oil port, while threatening to attack a wider array of targets around the Gulf and launching a mass recruitment drive reminiscent of its 1980s war with Iraq. – Wall Street Journal
Russia, China and France on Thursday effectively stymied a push by Arab countries to get the United Nations Security Council to authorize military action against Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, saying they opposed any language authorizing force, according to a diplomat and a senior U.N. official. – New York Times
Iran signaled on Thursday that it intended to continue to oversee shipping traffic through the critical Strait of Hormuz, even after the war, though it insisted that it would not restrict transit. – New York Times
President Donald Trump said the U.S. “hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran”, reiterating vows to increase the ferocity of attacks on its infrastructure, as dozens of countries sought ways to restart vital energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. – Reuters
Dozens of international law experts in the U.S. have signed an open letter saying that American strikes on Iran may amount to war crimes, after President Donald Trump reiterated his threats this week to strike Iran’s power and desalination plants. – Reuters
Emergency medical needs in Iran are rising exponentially, and stocks of trauma kits and other gear could run low if the war persists, the head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies delegation there said on Thursday. – Reuters
A man convicted of participating in an attack on a classified military facility during January’s protests in Iran was executed on Thursday, the judiciary’s news outlet Mizan said, after his appeal was rejected and the Supreme Court upheld his sentence. – Reuters
Iran’s operational headquarters must monitor “enemy movements with utmost pessimism and accuracy” and be ready to counter any method of attack, the country’s army commander-in-chief Amir Hatami was quoted as saying by state media on Thursday. – Reuters
Iran fired on targets across the Middle East, sparking multiple blazes at a Kuwaiti oil refinery, while American and Israeli airstrikes hit the Islamic Republic on Friday as the war neared the end of its fifth week unabated and the U.N. Security Council prepared to meet over Tehran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz. – Associated Press
Roughly half of Iran’s missile launchers are still intact and thousands of one-way attack drones remain in Iran’s arsenal despite the daily pounding by US and Israeli strikes against military targets over the past five weeks, according to recent US intelligence assessments, three sources familiar with the intel told CNN. – CNN
The Islamic Republic of Iran is on track to exceed the record number of executions it carried out against opponents in 2025, with 657 executions in the first three months of the year, according to the Iran Human Rights Society. – Fox News
A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday the U.S. has a new precision strike missile and used one to kill a group of children on the first day of strikes carried out by the U.S. and Israel. – The Hill
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Thursday responded to President Trump’s threat during his recent address to the nation to take Iran “back to the Stone Ages” with ongoing U.S. military operations against the country. – The Hill
The IDF said Thursday it eliminated Makram Atimi, commander of a central Iranian ballistic missile unit, in a precise airstrike in the Kermanshah area. – Jerusalem Post
Iran claimed it had downed a U.S.-made F-35 fighter jet over central parts of the country and said the pilot likely did not survive. Iranian media published images purportedly showing debris from the stealth aircraft. The Fars news agency reported that markings on the wreckage indicated it had been stationed at a British air force base. – Ynet
Elliot Kaufman writes: Wars are often clarifying, and all now can see U.S. aircraft overwhelming Russian and Chinese equipment. The world can also see that Mr. Trump doesn’t “always chicken out” or restrict himself to single-day missions. Good. Adversaries should know that the president is willing to deploy force, even at a political cost, in sustained defense of U.S. interests. Yet so much that matters, from the nuclear stockpile and the Pickaxe Mountain potential enrichment site to the Strait of Hormuz and the regime itself, still hangs in the balance. That’s why neither defeatism nor triumphalism is convincing. The war’s first minute was its most important, felling the supreme leader and some 40 of his top men. But its first month didn’t decide the strategic outcome. As Mr. Trump said on Wednesday, there’s good reason to fight on. – Wall Street Journal
Michael Jacobson and Matthew Levitt write: Cutting the ties between Iran and its proxies would certainly be a major step forward, though the selection of the ayatollah’s hard-line son Mojtaba as the new supreme leader is a strong indication that Iran is not moving in a better direction. But don’t assume that even if Iran cuts off its support, it would eliminate the threat. Even as it works to secure promises from Tehran, the U.S. should also press its partners around the world to maintain pressure on the proxies’ independent networks, particularly in the locales where Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis have been most active. If the international community fails to aggressively crack down on these networks, the late ayatollah might have the last laugh. – Los Angeles Times
Russia and Ukraine
The things Dmitri A. Muratov says from his newspaper’s studio in Moscow would risk years in prison for most Russians. In videos posted to YouTube, he has spoken of the “self-fascistization” of his native country. – New York Times
Russia is sending a second tanker of crude oil to Cuba, a government official said on Thursday, after one sent by the Kremlin reached Cuban territory earlier this week, ending a de facto U.S. oil blockade on the island. – New York Times
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday offered to provide Ukraine’s expertise in dealing with freedom of navigation in the Black Sea to countries considering how to keep the Strait of Hormuz open amid conflict in the Middle East. – Reuters
Russian forces maintained a day-long barrage of drone strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, on Thursday, injuring at least two people, local officials said. – Reuters
A Ukrainian military draft officer was fatally stabbed in the neck on Thursday while on duty in the western city of Lviv, authorities said, amid frictions over mobilisation in Kyiv’s war effort. – Reuters
Students across Russia are being offered large financial incentives to join drone units fighting in Ukraine as operators and engineers, while companies in Russia’s central Ryazan region have been given quotas to sign up workers for the army, documents show. – Reuters
Russian oil output cuts are imminent because Ukraine’s strikes on port infrastructure, pipelines and refineries have reduced export capability by 1 million barrels per day, or a fifth of total capacity, three industry sources said on Thursday. – Reuters
Elina Ribakova and Lucas Risinger write: Europe has spent billions of euros on Ukraine, and leaders are right to describe the expenditure as an investment in their own security. But the returns on that investment could be greatly improved if European and Ukrainian governments did more to bridge the gap between defense ambitions and commercial reality. To that aim, they should remove regulatory hurdles, make joint ventures less financially risky, and let the private sector do the rest. The result will be a more capable European defense industry, a better-financed Ukrainian one, and a continent that is less dependent on the United States to deter future Russian aggression. – Foreign Affairs
Gulf States
Muzaffar Ali Ghulam traveled here four years ago at the invitation of his cousin, hoping to build the house of his dreams back in Pakistan for his young family […] When Iran started firing missiles and drones at the United Arab Emirates a month ago, Masood said, there was no discussion of fleeing Dubai. There was no way they could afford it. – Washington Post
Billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX has had discussions with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund about PIF potentially taking an anchor stake of around $5 billion in the space company’s IPO, according to two people familiar with the matter. – Reuters
Three tankers broadcasting Omani ownership appeared to enter the Strait of Hormuz by hugging their home country’s coastline, indicating a different route to a northerly path through Iranian waters. – Bloomberg
Karen E. Young writes: For non-oil economic activity, the impact will be varied across the GCC, with the UAE seeing the largest impact on tourism revenues and retail. Bahrain has already been impacted by reduced tourism as Saudi Arabia increased domestic offerings, and its tourism revenues could be further disadvantaged in the recovery post-war. […] The only strategic option is to work collectively to secure the Strait of Hormuz, for ports, logistics and transport revenues to be gradually restored. More difficult will be decisions on how to engage regionally and globally through foreign policy influence and economic statecraft, in some ways simply because domestic spending priorities will require more immediate attention. The Gulf’s strategy of mediation and hosting major international conferences and convenings, across both corporate and foreign policy spheres, could face significant headwinds. – Italian Institute for International Political Studies
Middle East & North Africa
Since rebels ousted the dictator Bashar al-Assad in late 2024, panicked families and activists trying to help have regularly sounded the alarm on social media that women and girls from Syria’s Alawite minority have mysteriously disappeared or been kidnapped. Many fear that their sect is being targeted as retribution for the brutality of Mr. al-Assad, who also belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. – New York Times
President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia and Egypt could discuss plans to create a “grain and energy hub” in the North African country. – Reuters
Import-dependent Morocco has enough diesel and petrol to cover respectively 51 days and 55 days, while coal and gas supplies have been secured to the end of June, the energy ministry said on Thursday. – Reuters
The U.S. Embassy in Iraq warned Americans in the Middle East on Thursday to “leave now” as U.S.-Israeli attacks on and retaliatory strikes from Iran intensify days after an American journalist in Iraq was kidnapped by an Iran-backed militia group. – The Hill
Will Todman writes: Egypt is just one of the many countries around the world that would be plunged into crisis if the Houthis try to block Bab al-Mandab. If faced with an even more serious escalation from the United States, the Iranians could well decide that the Houthis hold the key to their survival. Should Iran choose to play this card, the costs of the war for the global economy will rise considerably, and some governments will have to resort to even more drastic measures to weather the storm. – Center for Strategic and International Studies
Korean Peninsula
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and French President Emmanuel Macron are set to upgrade relations between the countries to a “global strategic partnership,” Korea’s Blue House said in a statement on Friday. – Reuters
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung urged citizens to “save every drop of fuel,” ramping up an official call for energy conservation as the deepening Iran conflict hits the energy-importing nation hard, straining households and businesses. – Bloomberg
The South Korean Navy stood up its first American-made MH-60R Seahawk helicopters Wednesday in the service’s latest move to bolster Seoul’s submarine hunting forces. – USNI News
China
The U.S. handed over a Chinese fugitive suspected of drug-related crimes to China for the first time in recent years, state news agency Xinhua reported on Friday, citing Chinese police. – Reuters
China on Thursday repeated calls for a ceasefire in the Middle East and safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz in conversations with Western counterparts, widening its diplomatic effort to end the war that has disrupted the global energy market. – Reuters
Detentions of Panama-flagged vessels by China that followed a Panamanian court ruling raise serious concerns about efforts to undermine rule of law in the Latin American country, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday. – Reuters
Shares of Chinese companies that offer cross-border payments rose, after the commerce ministry noted that the yuan is being used to pay tolls for passage through the Strait of Hormuz. – Bloomberg
South Asia
Painful fuel shortages are beginning to drive violence and instability in parts of Asia, adding to the cascade of repercussions from the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. – Washington Post
Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing was elected president on Friday after breezing through a parliamentary vote, formalising his grip on political power in the war-torn nation five years after he ousted an elected government in a coup. – Reuters
India’s government supports the central bank’s aggressive steps to crack down on currency speculation, people familiar with the matter said, suggesting authorities will stick to their approach despite lobbying by lenders to ease the restrictions. – Bloomberg
A US-sanctioned vessel carrying Iranian crude oil has shifted course to China from its previously signaled destination of India, where it would have been the first such shipment in nearly seven years. – Bloomberg
Asia
Taiwan will strengthen its defences of the Pratas as China steps up its activities around the islands which lie at the top end of the South China Sea, the minister in charge of Taiwan’s coastguard said on Thursday. – Reuters
A man accused of one of Australia’s worst ever mass shootings on Thursday lost a bid to prevent media from reporting the identities of his family. – Reuters
Singapore will enhance support measures announced in the budget and bring some of them forward to provide earlier relief as the Middle East conflict strains energy supplies. – Bloomberg
Indonesia will hold off raising subsidized fuel prices despite ongoing oil shocks from the Iran war, with Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa warning any hike could undermine growth and threaten social stability. – Bloomberg
Iran assured the “safe, unhindered and expeditious” passage of Philippine vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, the Southeast Asian nation said. – Bloomberg
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the US-Israeli war on Iran appears to have achieved its key initial aims of curbing Tehran’s nuclear and missile capabilities — and questioned what further goals remain. – Bloomberg
Japan’s order for hundreds of Tomahawk missiles from the US is under threat as the American-Israeli war with Iran burns through inventories, the latest example of how the conflict is drawing in supplies and troops at the expense of defending against Washington’s primary strategic rival, China. – Bloomberg
Europe
Scathing criticism by the French president. Taunts and more missile strikes from Iran. Surging oil prices. President Trump’s 19-minute speech on Wednesday night, in which he threatened to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages” and said the war would last several more weeks, failed to appease deep global anxieties over where the war was leading. – New York Times
France has increased security at sensitive sites across Paris after a foiled bomb attack on Bank of America’s offices that prompted some other U.S. banks in France and Germany to allow their staff to work remotely on Thursday. – Reuters
France banned a gathering of Muslims that was planned in the Paris area for the coming days, due to it representing a security risk, the country’s top police officer said on Thursday. – Reuters
Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic will begin talks on Friday as part of what he has billed as a way to lift the country out of a political crisis but which critics have rejected as pointless negotiations ahead of any early election. – Reuters
About 40 countries on Thursday discussed joint action to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and stop Iran holding “the global economy hostage,” Britain said, after U.S. President Donald Trump said securing the waterway was for others to resolve. – Reuters
Three men will go on trial in Poland over a series of arson attacks in Warsaw and the Baltic States that officials say were part of a Russian-orchestrated sabotage campaign, Polish prosecutors said on Thursday. – Reuters
Rima Hassan, a French far-left member of the European Parliament, was arrested on Thursday over a comment she posted on X last month about an attack on an Israeli airport in the 1970s, her fellow party member Jean-Luc Melenchon said. – Reuters
Lithuania is preparing a request to the United States for cooperation in its investigation into potential human trafficking with links to late sex offender , the Baltic country’s Prosecutor General Vita Grunskiene said on Thursday. – Reuters
The EU is assessing “all possibilities” including fuel rationing and releasing more oil from emergency reserves as it braces for a “long-lasting” energy shock from the Middle East war, the Financial Times reported on Friday in an interview with EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen. – Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have been damning of the U.K.’s naval capabilities. Their jibes may have stung in a country with a long and proud maritime history, but they do carry some substance. – Associated Press
The Belarus parliament passed a bill Thursday to introduce punishments for people who promote LGBTQ+ causes, in an echo of restrictions set up in neighboring ally Russia. – Associated Press
The government has agreed the legal text of the U.K.-U.S. pharmaceutical deal, locking in a commitment to increase the amount Britain’s National Health Service spends on new medicines in exchange for zero tariffs. – Politico
Austria will play no part in U.S. President Donald Trump’s military operation in the Middle East. The country’s Vice Chancellor Andi Babler slammed the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in a social media post Thursday, writing that Austrians “want nothing to do with Trump’s policy of chaos and his war, which will bring us the next energy crisis” and added: “No to war.” – Politico
While Keir Starmer’s hopes of reviving the UK economy and his premiership have been battered by the war in Iran, there may be a silver lining for the prime minister: The conflict could put off a leadership challenge. – Bloomberg
France is advising Bahrain on a draft United Nations Security Council resolution that would authorize the use of force to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restore global energy flows, according to three diplomats informed of the process. – Politico
A complaint filed Thursday in France seeks a war crimes investigation into an Israeli strike on a Beirut apartment building in November 2024, said to have killed seven civilians, including the parents of a French-Lebanese artist, a human rights group said. – Times of Israel
Editorial: Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer last year briefly tried to reform a different disability welfare program to free up money for defense. He failed amid opposition from all sides. Now the party with “Reform” in its name also is taking major entitlement reform off the table. This kind of welfare recklessness has consequences, and in Britain an embarrassing one is the decline of the military. London’s struggle to deploy the navy to the Mediterranean to defend British assets during the Iran war—let alone help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz—exposes the national security price Britain is paying for social handouts. It’s a recipe for continuing British decline. – Wall Street Journal
Editorial: Perhaps hardest of all, Labour must confront fiscal limits honestly. Defense funding at the needed scale will require broad-based tax increases or budget reductions elsewhere, particularly in welfare. Both are likely necessary in the short term. Starmer should make the case for the required trade-offs. But first things first: Britain needs a plausible plan to get its military back on track. Without it, the UK will remain a country that deploys submarines when it needs carriers and carriers it can’t support at all. – Bloomberg
Joseph C. Sternberg writes: Better yet, Mr. Klingbeil is prepared to sell reforms to German voters in a bracingly honest way. That’s an essential ingredient to building electoral support for changes that often feel like a huge leap of faith when voters are accustomed to the false security of the status quo. “My sense is that people in our country are willing to make sacrifices and accept change,” Mr. Klingbeil said last week. They want politicians to level with them about what those sacrifices and changes will be. Germany will find out this summer if he’s right. – Wall Street Journal
Michael Rubin writes: The same, too, might be applied to Catalonia. The Catalans deserve support regardless of who is in the White House. Yale University will begin teaching Catalan next year in recognition of its unique culture. In 2017, Catalans unilaterally declared independence; Trump might urge Rubio at least to study becoming the first country to recognize the Catalan Republic. While Catalans are traditionally leftist, if they had U.S. support, Washington might discover they could win hearts and minds. Spaniards may cry about Florida or the American Southwest, but this just furthers their ignorance. America is a melting pot; Spain is not. America can survive this debate; Spain will not. – Washington Examiner
Africa
Thousands of women and girls in Sudan have sought treatment after surviving sexual violence in the country’s civil war, Doctors Without Borders has found, in what it called “a pattern of deliberate tactics designed to humiliate and terrorize.” – Washington Post
Government and allied forces in Burkina Faso have killed more than twice as many civilians as Islamist militants have since 2023, according to a tally of incidents documented in a report, published on Thursday by Human Rights Watch. – Reuters
Ethiopia’s more than 20-year quest to join the World Trade Organization is set to come to fruition this year – part of the nation’s plans to boost its economy through global integration – just as the WTO itself faces unprecedented uncertainty. – Reuters
Sudan has appointed General Yassir al-Atta, a member of the country’s Sovereign Council and assistant to the commander-in-chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, chief of staff of the country’s Armed Forces, a military spokesman told Reuters on Thursday. – Reuters
A group of 12 deportees from the United States landed in Uganda on Thursday, the Uganda Law Society said, marking the first transfer under a bilateral agreement that designates Uganda as a destination for migrants the U.S. cannot return to their home countries. – Reuters
A joint session of Cameroon’s National Assembly and Senate on Thursday began examining a constitutional amendment bill that would reintroduce the post of vice president, who could complete the mandate of the 93-year-old president in case of death or incapacity. – Reuters
Forty-three people were killed in an attack by Islamic State-linked militants in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday, the army said in a statement. – Reuters
Madagascar’s five-month old military government received another shipment of Russian arms and equipment on Wednesday as the two countries deepen ties. – Bloomberg
Mozambique will continue to work with the International Monetary Fund on the framework for a new program after repaying $700 million to the fund early and in full, the finance ministry said. – Bloomberg
The Americas
The Cuban government on Thursday said it would release 2,010 inmates from its prisons in a “humanitarian and sovereign gesture,” announcing a sweeping pardon as the Trump administration continues its pressure campaign to isolate the island through a de facto oil blockade. – Washington Post
Cuban activists paraded on Thursday on bikes and electric tricycles along Havana’s waterfront Malecon boulevard, accompanied by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, in a show of defiance amid U.S. efforts to starve the island of fuel. – Reuters
United Nations investigations substantiated four allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse last year against a U.N.-backed security force in Haiti, the majority of whose staff are Kenyan troops. – Reuters
Argentina on Thursday declared Iranian charge d’affaires Mohsen Tehrani “persona non grata” and gave him 48 hours to leave, the nation’s foreign ministry said, as the US-Israeli war against Iran entered its second month. – Times of Israel
Kristina Arriaga writes: Mr. Trump’s directive threatens even more cuts to Cuba’s desperately needed fuel supply. That may mean more darkness to come—but it is a darkness that many will welcome if it gives way to brightness. And there are no better emissaries right now of Cuba’s inherent desire for and God-given right to freedom than their faith leaders, who won’t be silenced. As Mr. Reyes wrote to his parishioners, “There is no darkness in this world that can endure forever without, sooner or later, being defeated by the light.” – Wall Street Journal
United States
A drug-running cousin of the former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was convicted last week in a federal court in Virginia of plotting to trade military-grade weapons for a shipping container’s worth of Colombian cocaine — all under the guise of fruit sales. – New York Times
U.S. President Donald Trump ordered 100% tariffs on certain branded pharmaceutical imports and overhauled steel, aluminum and copper duties on Thursday as his administration sought to move on from the collapse of the broad global tariffs he announced exactly one year ago. – Reuters
Vice President JD Vance will visit Budapest next Tuesday and Wednesday and hold talks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the White House said in a statement. – Bloomberg
Cybersecurity
Marie Le Tiec was 15 when she ended her life in 2021. Her mother, Stéphanie Mistre, went through her phone a month later, and said she was shocked to discover the kind of content on the girl’s TikTok feed. – New York Times
Microsoft (MSFT.O), on Friday said it will invest 1.6 trillion yen ($10 billion) in Japan between 2026 and 2029 to expand artificial intelligence infrastructure and strengthen cybersecurity cooperation with the government. – Reuters
The Chinese government supports companies with transnational operations and technology cooperation deals according to needs and the law, commerce ministry spokesperson He Yadong said on Thursday. – Reuters
Since Australia banned children from using social media in December, lawmakers from Spain to Malaysia have expressed interest in following suit, while U.S. courts have found tech firms negligent toward young users. – Reuters
A cybercriminal group called ShinyHunters stole personal data in a recent cyberattack on the European Commission’s cloud infrastructure, the European Union’s in-house cybersecurity team said on Thursday. – Politico
OpenAI said it banned a network of ChatGPT accounts linked to the pro-Kremlin media outlet Rybar that used artificial intelligence to generate social media content and draft proposals for covert influence operations targeting Africa. – The Record
Leslie Abrahams and Lauryn Williams write: Adversaries are keenly aware that a successful large-scale attack on U.S. energy infrastructure would not stay contained to the energy sector, indeed this truth heightens the appeal of an attack. It would cascade across healthcare, water, transportation, and communications simultaneously, making the cost of inaction far greater than the cost of the coordination among federal, state, and local entities, as well as private owners and operators, required to prevent it. The question is no longer whether U.S. energy infrastructure will be targeted by determined nation-state and criminal actors; it is when—and whether the public and private sectors will close today’s critical gaps in coordination, capacity, and information sharing in time to prevent such attacks from successfully achieving adversaries’ aims. – Center for Strategic and International Studies
Defense
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked Army Chief of Staff General Randy George to step down, according to Pentagon officials, a move that comes after President Donald Trump warned of military escalation against Iran. – Bloomberg
The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, has departed Croatia after receiving repairs during a five-day port visit, the Navy announced on Thursday, a sign the warship could be poised to rejoin U.S. military assets in the Middle East. – The Hill
President Donald Trump is set to unveil a $1.5 trillion defense budget request for the next fiscal year on Friday, by far the largest year-over-year increase in defense spending in the post-World War Two era. – Defense News
The Space Force is consolidating developmental and operational testing phases for some of its new systems in order to accelerate fielding timelines, and is now looking ahead to recruit even more testers to meet the service’s demands, according to officials. – Defensescoop
The Pentagon has placed increasing emphasis on adopting commercial tech to accelerate the pace at which the U.S. military can put the latest and greatest tools in the hands of warfighters. – Defensescoop
Editorial: Congress will get the final say over how much of this becomes law, and Mr. Trump will have to keep the political pressure on. Deficit scolds will say it’s unaffordable, but there are savings to be had by cutting fraud in Medicaid and other welfare programs. Investing in military deterrence is also far cheaper than having to fight a war against China. Mr. Trump likes to say no military can match America’s, yet it isn’t nearly as dominant as it once was even as the world grows more dangerous. The President’s budget shows a welcome new realism about the multiplying threats America faces. – Wall Street Journal