Our national security correspondent David E. Sanger maps Iran’s options for retaliation if the United States or Israel strikes. By David E. Sanger, Coleman Lowndes, Abdi Latif Dahir, Samuel Granados, Stephanie Swart, Lazaro Gamio and Ray Whitehouse February 27, 2026 Source link
Throughout 2025, our view of Russia’s war in Ukraine was shaped by the stops and starts – as well as the ultimatums – issued by US President Donald Trump’s administration: a rare-earth minerals agreement, a summit in Alaska, a 28-point plan favoring Russia and its amended versions, demands for an immediate presidential election in Ukraine and now negotiations over the territories of the Donbas. Each episode is presented, in the moment, as a turning point, only to become obsolete the next instant. This focus on fleeting developments stands in stark contrast to the relentless continuity of attacks, bombings, destruction and lives lost daily. The drawn-out quality of this war – intolerable in its terrible prolongation – is something we have grown weary of, as we can no longer bear to pay attention. Now, it is reduced to brief news items, each one resembling the last, and if anything is considered newsworthy, it is no longer the war itself, but the political theater in which Ukraine is debated – with Ukraine itself struggling to be heard. …
A group of Democratic Senators is accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of purposefully attacking American businesses operating in Ukraine, urging more American support for Kyiv in defending against Russia’s aggression against the country. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) spoke to reporters from Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa and relayed how American business operations are being repeatedly struck… Source link
The January 14 announcement of the new Palestinian technical committee to oversee Gaza’s reconstruction comes at a critical moment. While states are discussing the governance and reconstruction of Gaza, on the ground, the basic survival of 2.1 million people hangs by a thread. This moment demands immediate action to lift the ongoing and suffocating restrictions that are systematically dismantling the very means for Palestinians to survive. Famine conditions in Gaza have moderately stabilised, but the humanitarian catastrophe continues to deepen. Families remain displaced without adequate shelter; children still go to bed hungry; and basic healthcare is out of reach for hundreds of thousands. Winter rains have turned displacement camps into seas of mud, exacerbating suffering and significantly increasing the risk of disease outbreaks. Daily Israeli air attacks and bombardments continue, with more than 500 Palestinians killed since the ceasefire agreement was announced in October. This month alone, seven UNRWA school compounds in eastern Gaza have been demolished by Israeli forces. UNRWA remains Gaza’s largest and most comprehensive service provider, effectively acting as the public sector …
The UK formally agreed to transfer sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in May 2025. With the Trump administration’s explicit support, this move ended one of the longest-running territorial disputes in Britain’s remaining overseas territories. The decision has been hailed by some as a long-overdue act of decolonisation, condemned by others as a strategic misstep. Unexpectedly, Donald Trump has now reignited the debate, branding the deal an “act of great stupidity”. Why has this small chain of remote Indian Ocean islands become such a flashpoint? The roots of the crisis lie in the dismantling of Britain’s empire in the 1960s. The Chagos archipelago was historically administered as part of colonial Mauritius, then a British colony. In 1965, three years before Mauritian independence, the UK separated Chagos from Mauritius to create a new territory: the British Indian Ocean Territory. The creation of a new colony was an act shaped by cold war strategy. Mounting economic and strategic pressures in the late 1960s – including the devaluation of the pound in 1967 and the Labour government’s …
France has banned 10 British far-right activists for actions in France intended to stop migrants crossing to England on small boats, the interior ministry said Wednesday. Immigration has become a central political issue in the United Kingdom, as the government seeks to stem a wave of undocumented migrants arriving on English shores after paying smugglers to cross the Channel. The arrivals have fuelled rising anger on the British far right, and since last year videos have circulated of anti-migrant activists visiting France to take matters into their own hands. France’s interior ministry said it took action following reports that members of the “Raise the Colours” movement had conducted anti-migrant activities in France. On Tuesday, “territorial bans were issued against 10 British nationals, identified as activists within the movement and having carried out actions on French soil”, it said. It did not immediately name the 10 people, or the exact nature of their actions in France. But French authorities have opened an investigation over an alleged “aggravated assault” on migrants in September in a coastal area …
A man who threw a boy off a balcony at the Tate Modern gallery has been jailed for 16 weeks for attacking two nurses. Jonty Bravery kicked one nurse at Broadmoor, a high-security psychiatric hospital in Berkshire, in the thigh and “clawed” at the face of the other, drawing blood, in September 2024. The 24-year-old was convicted in November but didn’t attend the trial and refused to appear via video link at Thursday’s sentencing. He was previously given a life sentence for throwing the six-year-old French boy from the 10th floor of London‘s Tate Modern in 2019. The boy survived the 100ft (30m) fall with devastating injuries that included multiple broken bones and a bleed on the brain. Bravery’s recent trial heard three staff at the psychiatric hospital monitor him “24 hours a day, seven days a week” and his room only contains a mattress. Image: The incident happened at Broadmoor, in Berkshire. File pic: iStock Prosecutors said the nurses, Kate Mastalerz and Linda McKinlay, were attacked in September 2024 after he tried to climb …
Rioters stormed the Capitol to protest Donald Trump‘s loss of the 2020 presidential election five years ago today. The White House marked the occasion with a page attacking Capitol police for their role in the unrest and accusing the Democratic Party of an “insurrection.” President Trump has never backed away from his claim that the 2020 election was rigged in favor of Democrats. Though Trump controlled the federal government at the time of the election, he’s maintained that the results were illegitimate. In the web page that went live on Tuesday, Trump’s White House said that Democrats “masterfully reversed reality” to place Joe Biden in the Oval Office. “In truth, it was the Democrats who staged the real insurrection by certifying a fraud-ridden election, ignoring widespread irregularities, and weaponizing federal agencies to hunt down dissenters, all while [California Rep. Nancy] Pelosi’s own security lapses invited the chaos they later exploited to seize and consolidate power,” the side reads. “This gaslighting narrative allowed them to persecute innocent Americans, silence opposition, and distract from their own role …
For those confused about the decision to strike Venezuela, capture Nicolás Maduro, and bring him to New York City: This is actually an important phase of Donald Trump’s immigration policy. Phase 1 (ongoing) has been to remove all law-abiding immigrants who have been living in the country waiting for their asylum claims to be processed, hoping that America could be a place for them to have a better life. They now must be kidnapped, separated from their families, denied anything remotely resembling due process, and subjected to grotesquely inhumane conditions. Phase 2 is to replace them with (alleged!) brutal autocrat drug criminals from abroad who will be brought in individually (also, as a bonus, in violation of international law). That is the phase we are entering now. Phase 3, of course, is profit. With Maduro in U.S. custody, Trump will now “run” Venezuela and has promised to send in corporations to take care of its oil. Rest assured, this is not the bad kind of oil-involved regime change, where America gets mired endlessly in a …
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Trump earlier this week, they differed over the next stage of the Gaza ceasefire. But both men did agree to launch a second attack on Iran, should Tehran continue to rearm and reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian‘s assertion that his country was… Source link
