President Trump said on Sunday that he was “rejecting” a proposal from Iran to end the war and fully open the Strait of Hormuz within seven days, comments that came after The Wall Street Journal reported that he’s expecting to resume bombing Iran after the midterm elections. “I’m rejecting their deal,” Trump told reporters, according […]

Al Mayadeen | September 26, 2026

China called on Saturday for an immediate end to the blockade on Cuba, in a speech to the UN General Assembly that stopped short of naming the United States.

Vice President Han Zheng urged the “relevant country” to “immediately stop using the threat of force against Cuba” and to “immediately and completely lift the blockade and sanctions.”

He also pushed back against the US on Iran, saying “China holds that the sovereignty and security of countries in the Middle East, including the Gulf, should be respected,” though he did not mention the US at any point in his remarks.

The comments come as a US pressure campaign has largely cut off oil supplies to Cuba. The US oil blockade began in January and has deepened blackouts, with the island’s electrical grid suffering a total collapse earlier this month that left millions without power.

Equality among states

Han said major countries carry special responsibility for international peace and security and should lead by complying with the rules, upholding the rule of law, and “doing what’s right.”

He also cast China as a reliable partner and a steadfast defender of developing nations, saying all countries, “big or small, are equal members of the international community” and that world affairs should be handled through consultation.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke at the UN shortly after and made a similar appeal, urging Washington to end its siege of Cuba and ease trade restrictions on the island.

He also said the US should remove Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Trump-Xi summit

US President Donald Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House earlier this week, welcoming him with military flyovers and a lavish state dinner, according to Reuters.

During the talks, Trump told Xi that China should refrain from providing support to Iran in the US war on Iran. The US ambassador to China claimed on Friday that Trump received assurances from Xi that Beijing would not do so.

This followed reports that China had supplied Iran with shoulder-fired air-defense missile launchers and that Tehran had found ways to evade sanctions on its oil sales with Chinese help.

Beijing has repeatedly rejected the US sanctions campaign against Iran. In August, the Foreign Ministry said that sanctions and pressure “will not help resolve the issue” and that China opposes “illegal unilateral sanctions” lacking a basis in international law.

Chinese support for Cuba

Cuba was the first Latin American country to establish diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China, and 2025 marked 65 years of relations.

China’s practical support has centered on energy. Reuters reported that Beijing financed 55 solar projects in Cuba in 2025, including a 21-megawatt plant near Jatibonico, with 37 more planned by 2028. Cuban media reported that a shipment of 5,000 solar panels arrived in September, the third of its kind in recent months.

Beijing has also committed 90,000 tonnes of rice to Cuba in 2026, of which 30,000 tonnes have been delivered and 60,000 tonnes pledged.

Al Mayadeen | September 26, 2026

International flights from Iran to several destinations remain operational despite the expansion of US sanctions targeting the country’s aviation sector, according to Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport.

The airport said Saturday that flights to Turkey, Malaysia, China, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Afghanistan were continuing according to their previously announced schedules.

The announcement comes as Washington escalates economic pressure on Iran and seeks to restrict the ability of Iranian airlines to maintain international operations.

Iranian flights continue despite sanctions

Imam Khomeini International Airport said that, aside from flights already canceled, no additional cancellations had been announced.

The canceled services include flights involving the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Oman, and Georgia.

The airport also said it was working to restore suspended air connections as soon as possible.

The continued operation of several international routes comes despite growing restrictions on Iranian aviation following a new round of US sanctions announced on September 8.

The measures have affected Iranian airlines as well as companies and intermediaries involved in providing services to the country’s aviation sector.

Recent reporting indicates that Iranian carriers have continued operating some international services despite the sanctions, including flights to China, Turkey, Thailand, and Afghanistan.

US measures target Iran’s aviation sector

The US Treasury Department announced sanctions on September 8 against 36 targets linked to Iran’s aviation sector, including 27 Iranian airlines. Washington described the measures as an effort to target what it considers Iran’s remaining unsanctioned carriers and the networks supporting them.

The sanctions form part of a broader US campaign to restrict Iran’s access to international financial and commercial networks.

The measures have also placed pressure on foreign companies providing Iranian carriers with fuel, ground handling, aircraft-related services, and other forms of support.

The consequences, however, have varied by country. While some governments and companies have restricted Iranian aviation connections, other countries have continued to facilitate flights.

Iraq restrictions trigger backlash

In Iraq, the suspension of Iranian flights, particularly through Najaf International Airport, has triggered criticism from official, political, factional, and religious quarters.

Several Iraqi parties and figures have called for the decision to be reversed and rejected what they described as US pressure on Baghdad.

The Iraqi government is also moving toward dialogue with Washington in an effort to secure an exemption that would allow air links with Iran to resume.

Ali Akbar Velayati, international affairs advisor to Iran’s Leader, said the restrictions on Iranian flights were part of an effort by Iran’s enemies to compensate for their battlefield defeat by attempting to dismantle the “unity of the fronts” from within.

The Iranian Ambassador to Iraq, Mohammad Kazem Al-Sadegh, further told Iran’s ISNA news agency that a new decision surrounding Iranian flights to Iraq is likely to be announced soon.

He added that Iran is in contact with Iraqi officials and proposals on the matter have been submitted.

Al-e Sadegh noted that roughly 12,000 to 13,000 people travel between Iraq and Iran via Iranian airlines.

China maintains air links with Iran

China has maintained its opposition to unilateral US sanctions and continued to receive Iranian flights.

Flight-tracking data cited in recent reports showed Iranian services continuing to operate to Chinese destinations after the latest US measures took effect.

The continued connections with China also reflect the broader geopolitical divide over Washington’s unilateral sanctions policy, with Beijing maintaining economic and diplomatic ties with Tehran despite US pressure.

We are experiencing not just one, but many tipping points in world history all at once. 

By Peter Hanseler | Forum Geopolitica | September 26, 2026

There have been many tipping points in history; to name just a few examples:

• The Peace of Westphalia in 1648
• The French Revolution of 1789
• The Congress of Vienna in 1815
• World War I in 1918
• World War II in 1945

Many of these turning points led to shifts in power in Europe. These were merely transfers of power within the world we now call the “Collective” West. Examples include the collapse of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Russian Tsarist Empire at the end of World War I.

These shifts in power were significant, yet what is happening now cannot be compared to past turning points, as they encompass the entire globe. The reins of power are not being handed over within the West; rather, there will be a shift in power toward the East and the “Global South.”

From Tipping Point to Entropy

The scale, the number of nations involved, the geographic scope, and the speed at which the current geopolitical crises are unfolding are truly astonishing.

Ukraine as a War Platform for the U.S., NATO, the EU, and Russia

Russia Will Prevail Militarily

Looking at the military reports from the front lines, it becomes clear to any observer that Russia will achieve its military objectives. While Russia might have relinquished the Donbas, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia had a peace agreement been successfully concluded in the spring of 2022, such an agreement is unrealistic under the current circumstances, as Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson have been part of the Russian Federation since September 2022. It is currently unclear how far the Russian military advance will go. I have commented on this in my article “The Summer Peace Died,” to which I refer. For the situation on the front lines, I once again refer to Military Summary; I have been following this channel for nearly five years, and it provides objective reporting.

Catastrophic Mobilization Situation in Ukraine

There are thousands of videos showing young men being hunted down like animals on the streets throughout Ukraine in order to forcibly recruit them. Recently, however, videos have also been circulating that show some of those forcibly recruited being transported to the front lines without uniforms and even in handcuffs, like criminals—to prevent them from escaping. I’ll leave it to the readers to ponder the combat effectiveness of these men against battle-hardened and motivated Russian soldiers.

The latest move by the Ukrainian military leadership is to forcibly conscript women. Given this situation, it’s no surprise that Scott Ritter stated that the Ukrainians are losing 30 times more soldiers than Russia. We hear nothing in the West about this inhumane treatment of their own soldiers in Ukraine.

Ukrainian volunteers, who later disappeared without a trace, are said to have used drones and artificial intelligence to count the number of soldiers’ graves throughout Ukraine. They counted 2,000,054 graves. Added to this are the dead buried by their own people in mass graves and the wounded—the Ukrainians’ losses do indeed appear to be astronomical. Nevertheless, Zelenskyy claims that only 50,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed. A few weeks ago, I attended a funeral in Russia. The soldiers’ graves are easily identifiable by the Russian flag and the flag of the fallen soldier’s unit. There were soldiers’ graves, but no sea of flags like in Ukraine.

Military Victory Does Not Solve Russia’s Geopolitical Problem

Whatever needs to be achieved militarily, Russia will achieve it; however, this does not resolve Russia’s geopolitical problem on its western border, because the goal is not new territories, but peace in the West—a goal that Russia has literally been striving for centuries and has never been able to achieve. Time and again, Russia has been attacked from the West and has regularly paid a high price in blood, money, and industrial capacity—resources diverted to military spending rather than civilian purposes. As a result, Russia’s social development has been repeatedly set back.

If Russia wants to keep pace with the major powers in terms of its civilian economy in a sustainable manner, reliably securing its western border is an absolute prerequisite. Although Russia is the only industrialized nation in the world that is self-sufficient and thus capable of waging a war lasting decades, such a confrontation would massively hinder the country from achieving its actual development goals.

The U.S.’s Lack of Credibility in Negotiations with Russia

The U.S.’s lack of credibility in the eyes of Russia is multifaceted. On September 15, Foreign Minister Lavrov said, verbatim:

“If the Americans hadn’t backed away from the Anchorage agreements, if Europe hadn’t pulled them away from those agreements, we would have been living without war for a year now.” – Sergey Lavrov, September 15, 2026

Under this agreement, Russia would have made major concessions. Russia would have retained the Donbas, frozen the conflict in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, and relinquished further territories. Objectively speaking, this was a bad deal for Russia, but it demonstrated the Russians’ considerable willingness to compromise. The Russians assumed that this verbal agreement was binding as a gentlemen’s agreement. However, gentlemen’s agreements should only be made with gentlemen. The Americans taught the Russians otherwise. The Russians are dismayed about this incident and have had to admit that no agreements are possible with the U.S. government. Personally, I’m surprised by the fact that this realization came so late. Even written agreements with the U.S. government are not to be trusted. This was evident in the breach of the Memorandum of Understanding that the Americans signed with Iran in June. Thus, one must conclude that this conflict—or any conflict in which the U.S. is directly or indirectly involved—must be fought to the bitter end. A bitter lesson for every contractual partner of the U.S.

The Risk of Escalation is Significant

Ukraine is desperately trying to officially draw NATO into this military conflict. It is astonishing that European countries—above all Germany and the United Kingdom—are not only signaling their willingness to do so, but are actually doing everything they can to prepare their people for a war with Russia.

Instead of naming many people, we’ll use Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg—former cabinet minister and Member of Parliament for North East Somerset—as an example. In this excerpt from an interview, he compares the situation with Russia—without naming it—to the situations during World War I and World War II:

Young people are thus being called to arms to prepare for war against Russia. In Germany, such efforts have failed miserably. Of the more than 300,000 young Germans surveyed, only 0.17% volunteered to serve in the Bundeswehr. Furthermore, it came to light a few days ago that the Bundeswehr itself could not even find 5,000 volunteers for a battalion in Latvia.

It is incomprehensible what these European countries are up to besides spreading propaganda. Even combined, the European countries do not possess military forces that would give them even the slightest chance of standing up to the Russian armed forces. The Russians are by no means impressed by this farce in Europe—they are disgusted by it. I assume that this war propaganda in Europe serves only to perpetuate the anti-Russian narrative.

Both President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov have repeatedly emphasized that they have no interest in attacking NATO targets outside Ukraine. However, if European countries are foolish enough to send even small European military contingents to Ukraine, the situation could change abruptly.

The greatest risk of escalation at the moment is that the Europeans, presumably in collaboration with the Americans, are planning a false flag attack in Europe in order to somehow trigger Article 5 of the NATO Charter. According to geopolitical analyst Warren Thornton, preparations for false flag attacks are in full swing. He writes on X:

I can’t say whether this theory is correct, but it’s by no means far-fetched that the Europeans would attempt something so outrageous.

U.S. Military Campaigns in the Middle East Beginning in 2001

Looking back over the past 25 years, the U.S. has sought to reshape the Middle East according to the Wolfowitz Doctrine since 2001. None of the wars the U.S. launched during this period (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, etc.) were successful. In fact, it was already evident back then that the hegemon lacked the resources, military strategy, strength, and credibility needed to act successfully. However, if one’s view is that the actual intent was destabilization and chaos, then they were extremely successful. Nevertheless, they returned to the plan in collaboration with Israel, apparently after Israel had succeeded in completely undermining American policy.

Israel: Genocide and Greater Israel

The immediate starting signal for the “Genocide” and “Greater Israel” projects was given on October 7, 2023, when a military operation by Hamas was turned into a false flag attack to justify the genocide against women, children, and other civilians in Gaza and, later, in the West Bank and Lebanon. This, in turn, served as the starting signal for the continuation of the Greater Israel project; initially, Syria and Lebanon were attacked. Although the Western press not only downplays Israel’s genocidal and imperialist actions but also fully supports and fuels them—including through the media of “neutral” Switzerland—Israel is viewed with increasing criticism by the general public in the Western world. According to Pew Research, 60% of Americans view Israel negatively. The Western media thus conveys an image that finds no resonance among the general public.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the podium to address the plenary session on Thursday, delegates to the UN General Assembly left the hall in droves.

Netanyahu called these delegations “moral cowards”—in other words, genocide requires courage—I am at a loss for words.

One interesting photo shows the plenary hall during the speeches by Netanyahu and Perseshkian.

It is important to me to continually remind my Western readers of what is actually happening in Gaza right before our eyes—eyes that many choose to close.

Major Escalation in the Middle East—Loss of Control

Starting in February 2026, events began to accelerate even further. Since then, everything has gone wrong for the West and Israel in the Middle East. The Global South has already wrested the initiative from the West. While Iran initially limited itself to responding to American-Israeli aggression, it is now the Iranians and the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement who are setting the pace.

Ansar Allah managed to bring the entire western coast of Yemen under its control in a very short time and thus controls not only the Bab al-Mandab Strait but also the island of Perim Mayyun off the coast. With virtually no Western media coverage, the advance continues, and it is quite possible that Aden will soon be captured.

Furthermore, the Saudis’ East-West pipeline was paralyzed and targets near Riyadh were attacked. So far, the Saudis have been unable to mount a serious military response to this large-scale attack, as they do not seem capable of doing so on their own, and repeated calls for help to Trump and others have been in vain. The Mecca Alliance, which unites Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey in a military alliance, also appears to be a thing of the past, as even these “friends” refused to provide assistance.

President Macron’s grand announcement that he will send troops to Saudi Arabia won’t change any of that. “Arabia” is called Saudi Arabia because this country is ruled by a family—a tribe—the Sauds. A tribe that is protected by the Americans. However, there are approximately 100 other tribes within Saudi Arabia. It’s very possible that they could join forces with Ansar Allah and overthrow the House of Saud. The House of Saud no longer has any income and seems unable to continue buying off—as it has done until now—all those who could pose a threat to them. There’s a chance that the Saud house of cards will collapse, and if that happens, I wouldn’t give a penny for the remaining Gulf states.

Alastair Crooke also pointed out on several occasions that this dynamic could spill over into Iraq, another millennia-old civilization alongside Iran. If that happens, Kuwait will likely fall as well. Another smoldering conflict can also be detected in Jordan. It is therefore quite possible that the entire structure in the Middle East established by the British a good 100 years ago could collapse within a few months, without the Americans being able to stop this tsunami in any way. Arabia to the Arabs, Persia to the Persians, and the Americans out for good. If this happens, Israel will go from perpetrator to target; one certainly cannot speak of it as a victim in this context. How the emerging great powers of the Middle East will deal with the genocidal Zionists should be left to those who have suffered the greatest losses, for Palestinians are Arabs.

Europe

Chaos is once again rearing its head in Europe. Germany is the first country—once the world’s leading exporter and the major power in the EU—that is in danger of becoming politically ungovernable. The Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has been labeled as far-right and Hitler-like by the previously dominant parties and excluded from government participation by a so-called firewall , not only won landslide victories in two state elections in eastern Germany but also leads the CDU by a clear margin in national polls (30% to 20%). Chancellor Merz’s approval rating stands at 10 percent—a barometer that reveals the people’s dissatisfaction and would have driven any truly democratic chancellor to resign. Whether the Germans, in light of this political situation, will clench their fists and do nothing, as they have in the past, remains uncertain. The chancellor’s downfall would be good for Germany. The AfD is the only major party seeking dialogue and peace with Russia, which is not only desperately needed by this once-thriving industrial nation but is also a prerequisite without which it cannot survive economically. The alternative to real and fundamental political change in Germany is the war against Russia sought by Chancellor Merz and the ruling political elites. The last time Germany went to war against Russia in 1941, Adolf Hitler sent 3.7 million soldiers eastward and failed, despite the Germans’ genocidal behavior, which cost the lives of approximately 17 million civilians. As already explained above, the Federal Republic of Germany today finds itself unable to assemble a brigade of 5,000 volunteer soldiers for the Baltic states. This does not seem to concern the chancellor, which is a clear sign of the madness that has taken hold of him. This is strong evidence that he is acting in the interests of a power located outside Germany. One would be a naughty person to believe that this has anything to do with his BlackRock past. Those who managed to install him as chancellor can pat themselves on the back, as they’ve snagged a puppet at the bargain price of a few million.

The following clip shows how the new leadership in Berlin is presenting itself—the Left has taken over. No words needed:

The situation in the rest of Europe is no more encouraging. The presidential election in France will take place in April 2027. Macron is no longer eligible to run, and Marine Le Pen has a significant lead over the other candidates. The situation is thus similar to that in Germany: a party that is denounced as far-right by the parties currently in power, yet is the most popular among the people. Le Pen’s position on peace with Russia is unclear—she seems to be speaking with a forked tongue: on the one hand, she wants a negotiated peace, but at the same time supports the training of Ukrainian troops. A seasoned politician who positions herself to capture as many votes as possible. France’s financial situation is grim, with no silver lining. The rise in the interest rate on 10-year French bonds over the past twelve months has been even steeper than in any other European country.

Trump

President Trump’s policies only seem difficult to understand at first glance. His constant flip-flopping on Ukraine, Iran, and Israel is counterproductive and damaging to the U.S.’s reputation on the world stage. The reason behind Trump’s current actions is the midterm elections in November. Trump is struggling with the high oil prices he himself has caused, which he can prevent from spiraling out of control by manipulating the futures markets. However, actual market prices are 30% to 50% higher than the manipulated, fantasy futures prices. The fact that futures prices are indeed manipulated is evident, for example, in diesel prices at gas stations, which are moving in only one direction and have reached unprecedented levels worldwide. Diesel is the lifeblood of the American economy, and high prices are one of the biggest drivers of inflation, since virtually all goods are transported by trucks, agriculture depends on it, and large parts of industry rely on diesel. Trump’s latest farce: He’s blaming Zelenskyy for the high diesel prices because Ukraine is attacking Russian refineries; he’s doing this solely to divert attention from the biggest price drivers—the blockades of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab.

Somehow, Trump wants to turn things around, but it seems that he will lose the midterm elections coming up in about six weeks. According to Polymarket, an American online prediction market where users bet on the outcomes of future events—with market prices reflecting collective probability estimates—the probability that the Republicans will lose their majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate stands at 66%. Should this come to pass, Trump will likely face impeachment proceedings. He then runs the risk of going from a lame duck to a dead duck and being replaced by his turncoat vice president, Vance—not a promising outlook for the United States.

Trump’s latest appearance this week before the UN General Assembly was a testament to his psychopathic nature: He announced—nota bene after the election—that he would either make Iran a rich country or obliterate it completely.

Trump is every bit as bad as Adolf Hitler. In his speech at the Berlin Sportpalast on September 4, 1940, Hitler said, “We will wipe out their cities.” Trump wants to wipe out a 5,000-year-old civilization—without any legal basis, of course—acting like a god. In doing so, Trump is publicly calling for the genocide of an entire civilization. One might wonder whether he belongs in prison or in a psychiatric hospital, but the fact that he can make such statements before a global audience with impunity shows the depths to which Western civilization has sunk. I refer to a speech I gave in Switzerland on September 3.

The Financial Markets

I have made numerous comments on the instability of the financial markets. Now my dire predictions seem to be coming true. In addition to the overvaluations in the stock markets, I have repeatedly pointed out the unsustainable situation in the bond markets. Among the more astute market participants, fear is beginning to set in. Mr. Bessent has lost control of interest rates. On August 28, 2026, I looked at the average interest rate the U.S. had to pay on its debt; at that time, it stood at 3.35% (May), resulting in an annual interest burden of 1,340 billion. Today, this average interest rate stands at 3.49% (August); the debt mountain currently stands at 40,070 billion, meaning it has already increased by another 70 billion. Annual interest payments have thus risen by 56 billion to 1,396 billion per year in this short period of time.

Over the past 28 days, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond has risen from 4.722% to 5.185%, an increase of 0.46%. It does not appear that this trend will change. If this pace continues, not only will the government bond market collapse, but so will the towering mountains of debt in the AI sector. The same picture is emerging in Europe and Japan as well. The question isn’t whether the collapse will happen, but when—and who the U.S. will let go first: the Japanese or the Europeans. That is my personal opinion. When it comes to timing, I’m regularly wrong, which has taught me not to be active in these markets. I have the great privilege of meeting regularly with one of the world’s most successful investors. At our last meeting, he agreed with me in principle but remarked that I couldn’t possibly imagine what tricks and means the Americans still have at their disposal to delay the inevitable.

The scale of this crisis will dwarf anything humanity has ever seen. Compared to today, the 2008 crisis was a stroll through a sunny park with a delicious picnic. Such a collapse in the West will also affect the countries concerned’s geopolitical freedom of action; suddenly, everyone will be very preoccupied with their own problems. No one knows whether this will lead to an escalation in the geopolitical arena. What is certain, however, is that the “experts”—who are still driving the markets forward with their jubilant cheers—will solemnly declare that this simply could not have been foreseen—as always.

Entropy

All of these individual tectonic shifts lead to what can be described as entropy, a term from thermodynamics. Applied to geopolitics, I describe the situation as a massive, irreversible state of disorder and uncertainty within the various international systems. Existing power structures, rules, institutions, and hierarchies are losing their cohesive power, and a new order that would promise stability is not in sight.

For the collective West, which until recently held the reins firmly in its hands, is unwilling to make compromises so as not to jeopardize its position as a hegemon.

The Global South, taken by surprise by the rapid pace of events, has not yet devised a coherent, unified, and effective policy to wrest power from the West.

It appears that the Global South, under the military dominance of Russia, China, and—most recently, Iran as the fourth major military power—is in the process of adapting to the new circumstances and coordinating its efforts, which will ultimately lead to its victory.

How long this will take, however, and whether the West will use nuclear weapons to maintain its hegemony remains to be seen—though I would like to express my doubts on this point. So far, only Adolf Hitler believed that Germany should go down with him. Let’s hope that cooler heads are in control of the apocalyptic buttons.

Let’s not lose all faith in humanity.

Press TV – September 26, 2026

An Iraqi anti-terror resistance group has denounced the Baghdad government’s decision to halt Iranian airline operations following US sanctions on Iran’s aviation sector, vowing to stage sit-ins at Iraqi airports nationwide unless normal air traffic between the two Muslim neighboring countries resumes.

“We will not wait long,” Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba Secretary-General Akram al-Kaabi said in a statement on Friday.

He urged Iraqi political forces to “break free from American dominance.”

The restrictions, Kaabi said, were preventing millions of people from visiting religious sites and harming Iraq’s economy.

On Thursday, the Kata’ib Hezbollah resistance group called upon all walks of Iraqi society to break “the US siege on Iran.”

The faction urged Iraqi citizens to “circumvent the embargo through all available means” in demonstration of solidarity with Iran, including the purchase of Iranian commodities, the facilitation of commercial relations with Iran, and the abstention from any undertakings that would exacerbate Iranians’ hardship.

The group also asked Shia religious authorities to issue a decree (fatwa) on whether it is religiously permissible “to help the enemy, in any form, besiege and starve the Iranian people.”

Commercial aviation services between Iraq and Iran were suspended after ground-handling companies stopped providing services on these routes over concerns about potential US sanctions.

The move prompted airlines to suspend their flights.

Najaf International Airport, the last Iraqi airport still operating flights to Iran, suspended the services at 2 a.m. local time on Friday until further notice, according to an official directive.

Erbil International Airport and Sulaymaniyah’s International Airport took similar measures. Kirkuk International Airport also said it had no flights to Iran.

The disruption followed US measures targeting Iran’s aviation sector. On September 8, the US Treasury sanctioned 27 Iranian airlines and claimed that airports, fuel suppliers, ground-handling firms and other service providers dealing with sanctioned carriers could face secondary sanctions.

Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Sayyed Mojtaba Khamenei, on Friday warned against recent regional measures that had disrupted Iranian passenger flights, saying: “Flights in the region are either free for everyone, or for no one.”

He added that cooperation with the US in implementing hostile policies would remain in the memory of the Iranian people, stressing that if Iran cannot fly or receive airport services, “no country in the region will have this possibility either.”

Tehran says it could reopen the Strait of Hormuz within days if Washington lifts its blockade and returns to a ceasefire framework

RT | September 25, 2026

Iran has offered the US a new deal aimed at ending the months-long conflict before the midterm election in November, directly challenging President Donald Trump’s claim that Tehran is deliberately waiting until after the election to reach an agreement.

Trump claimed in a speech at the UN on Tuesday that Iran is deliberately stalling the talks to see how Republicans perform in the November 3 midterm election, and predicted that Tehran would make a deal “right after” the vote. He also threatened to “annihilate” the Islamic Republic if negotiations fail.

“We don’t want it to get to the midterm elections,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday. “We wish Americans to return to the MOU before the midterms,” he said, referring to the memorandum of understanding reached by the US and Iran in June.

“We did reach an agreement with your president… The problem is that America, instead of conducting dialogue, descended into the arena by bombing us first, by blocking every pathway,” Pezeshkian said in an interview with Fox News. “We will stand resolutely to defend ourselves. We never sought war… It’s America that must choose whether it wants to end this or not.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran has submitted a proposal in which the Strait of Hormuz could be reopened within around a week and negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program rapidly resumed. The proposal was sent through mediators during talks in New York this week.

Under the plan, Tehran would restore navigation through the crucial oil shipping route in exchange for Washington lifting its economic blockade, easing restrictions on Iranian oil exports, and releasing some frozen Iranian assets. Iran is also seeking an end to hostilities on other fronts, including Israel’s combat operations in Lebanon.

US and Iranian negotiators are discussing a phased arrangement in which the blockade and restrictions on Hormuz would be addressed first, Reuters reported, citing Iranian, regional, and Western diplomatic sources.

Tehran has not abandoned its claim to regulate Hormuz, with Iranian officials continuing to insist that the waterway should be managed by Iran and Oman and that fees should be charged for services provided to passing vessels.

Araghchi said the proposal largely follows the terms of the June memorandum rather than introducing new demands, adding that Iran is waiting for a response.

Araghchi has also held a series of meetings with foreign counterparts in New York, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Moscow has said there is “no alternative” to a diplomatic settlement of the crisis provoked by the “illegal actions” of the US and Israel.

The renewed diplomatic push comes amid mounting pressure on both sides. The US blockade has sharply restricted Iran’s oil exports, while Tehran’s controls over Hormuz have disrupted one of the world’s most important energy corridors and helped push oil prices above $100 a barrel and US diesel prices to historic highs.

Pezeshkian, who is the first foreign head of state to speak at the UN while his country is at war with the US, told the chamber on Wednesday that Tehran is prepared for “dialogue and diplomacy” but will not negotiate under threats of force and “will never bow our head or bend at the knee.”

China’s President Xi Jinping concluded his three-day state visit to the US on Friday, September 25, with hopes of enhanced cooperation and partnership between the world’s two largest economies.

Xi arrived in the US on Wednesday and received a large-scale welcome from President Donald Trump. Though this was their third in-person meeting it was Xi’s first state visit to the US in over a decade.

On Thursday, the leaders had a long in-person conversation in the White House and finished the day with a state dinner with 130 guests, including tech executives. Though the US is yet to release its version of the official proceedings, reports indicate they discussed a range of outstanding issues such as the dispute over trade and tariffs, cooperation in Artificial Intelligence, the issue of Taiwan, and the US-Israeli war on Iran. 

During the meeting with Trump, Xi called for strategic stability in the China-US relationship which will benefit both countries and the people around the world, Xinhua reported.  

“China and the US should be partners, not rivals,” Xi said. 

Xi’s statement comes at a time when the two countries are negotiating a longer trade deal after briefly facing each other in a tariff war last year. Both countries agreed to extend their temporary trade truce which halted the tariff war till January to give their negotiators more time.

The so-called Busan Trade Truce was set to expire in November this year.  

Xi hoped that “both sides would stay committed to the principles of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation and promote the sustained, stable and sound development of China-US economic and trade relations.” 

Technology and AI

Successive administrations in the US have characterized China’s advancements in technology and other economic sectors as a threat to American interests and have tried to curb them by restricting its access to technology.

In his attempt to address such apprehensions, Xi proposed that “both sides work towards a relationship featuring cooperation as the mainstay, moderate competition, manageable differences, and the promise of peace.” 

Talking about the competition in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Xi offered increased coordination and cooperation between the countries as a way of mutual benefit. 

While emphasizing that “two sides should maintain human control over AI technologies, uphold people-centered approach and the principle of using AI for good” he proposed greater exchange of information to “prevent any misuse and abuse of AI.”

Read more: The AI frontier asks to be paced: anatomy of a panic

Xi also expressed hope that Chinese companies “are treated fairly in the US” while inviting more US companies to invest in China. “Working together, we can lengthen the list of cooperation and shorten the list of issues” he underlined.

The US has sanctioned or put a large number of Chinese companies, including its AI firms on various watch lists in recent years, after accusing them of working with the Chinese armed forces or being involved in the so-called technology theft.

Notably, however, major US tech and finance executives such as Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Eric Yuan of Zoom, Kelly Ortberg of Boeing, Larry Fink of Blackrock, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai of Google, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Elon Musk of SpaceX and Tesla, were present at the state dinner for Xi’s visit hosted at the White House on Thursday, September 24, though no details of cooperation between US and Chinese tech firms have emerged.

Taiwan

Reiterating China’s resolve to “safeguard national reunification and territorial integrity,” Xi expressed hope that the US will “adhere to the correct position on opposing ‘Taiwan independence’ and handle the Taiwan question with caution.”

China has repeatedly accused the US of promoting the separatist cause in Taiwan, despite officially adhering to “one China policy.” The US under Trump has sold or agreed to sell billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Taiwan in complete disregard of China’s objections.

China has also accused the US and its allies in the region of promoting an arms race by deploying advanced weapon systems close to its borders.

Xi said if the US follows the correct position on Taiwan it “will enable both the countries to lay a solid foundation for their strategic cooperation and the development of their bilateral relationship.”

US-Israeli war on Iran 

China has refused to intervene or get involved in the US-Israeli war on Iran, despite Trump’s repeated calls for them to do so. China has maintained the war was unnecessary and repeatedly warned against its prolongation. It has supported the interim peace deal signed in June under international mediation.

Xi reiterated this position during his visit to the US, expressing hope that both Iran and the US would soon return to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and end the war.

Xi claimed that “China-US cooperation may not solve every problem in the world, but without it, it would be hard to solve many of the world’s problems” and proposed more dialogue and “mechanisms of crisis communication and prevention” between their armed forces.

Read more: No new talks with the US until the previous conditions are met, says Iran

Trump said his meeting with Xi on Thursday was “great” also claiming they have maintained close communication.

Trump also agreed that “continued dialogue” with China is necessary to reach agreement on significant issues.

By Humaira Ahad | Press TV | September 25, 2026

US President Donald Trump took the UN General Assembly stage on Tuesday and made a sweeping series of claims about Iran, its nuclear program, the imposed war, and the Strait of Hormuz.

He presented Washington’s military aggression as a campaign to defeat an “Iranian threat,” while casting Tehran as the source of “decades of bloodshed across West Asia.”

Behind the worn-out rhetoric was a version of events riddled with falsehoods, omissions, and sweeping distortions.

For example, Trump claimed that Iran killed “72,000 of its own citizens,” described the country’s nuclear program as having been “obliterated” by the US, declared Tehran’s entire 159-ship navy destroyed, accused Iran of violating the ceasefire, and said US naval forces were moving tens of ships and billions of barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

US intelligence assessments found that Iran’s nuclear program was not destroyed; Pentagon investigators documented hundreds of damaged US structures across the region and depleted munitions, with the US war machine incurring tens of billions of dollars in expenses.

American casualties and aircraft losses mounted, while traffic through the Strait of Hormuz collapsed rather than returning to anything resembling normality following the US-Israeli aggression against Iran.

Here is a breakdown of Trump’s most glaringly false claims about Iran and what the documented record shows.

Claim: For 51 years, Iran (Islamic Republic) has “ruled by bloodshed and mass murder,” spreading “death, carnage and chaos” across the entire West Asia and beyond.

Fact: Other than the wrong claim about Iran spreading “death and chaos” in the region, his chronology also begins with a basic historical distortion.

The Islamic Republic was established in 1979 following the victory of the Islamic Revolution, meaning it has been in power for 47 years, not 51, as the megalomaniac US president claimed.

Trump’s portrayal of Iran as a force of “bloodshed and aggression” runs against the historical record.

For the past two centuries, Iran has fought to defend its territory and deter attacks rather than pursue wars of conquest or territorial expansion.

Even US government and policy institutions describe the Islamic Republic’s military doctrine as primarily defensive and deterrence-based, focused on protecting Iran’s territorial integrity.

One US Institute of Peace assessment says Iran “does not have territorial ambitions and does not seek to invade, conquer, or occupy other nations.”

That stands in stark contrast to Washington’s own modern record of invading countries, waging prolonged wars abroad, killing civilians, destroying infrastructure, and, in several cases, fundamentally altering entire states.

The scale of that record becomes clear when the major US-led invasions and military interventions of the past several decades are examined.

1986, Operation El Dorado Canyon: Libya

On April 15, 1986, the United States launched Operation El Dorado Canyon, bombing targets near Tripoli and Benghazi after Washington accused the Libyan government of supporting international terrorism. More than 100 US aircraft were involved, with 27 aircraft carrying out the main bombing missions and dropping about 150 tonnes of ordnance.

Contemporary casualty accounts record 45 Libyan soldiers and officials killed and 15 Libyan civilians killed.

1988, the USS Vincennes and Iran Air Flight 655

On July 3, 1988, the US Navy cruiser USS Vincennes fired a missile at an Iran Air Airbus A300 flying over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard, including 66 children and 16 crew members.

Washington claimed that the aircraft had been “mistakenly” shot down. There was no official US apology for the horrendous crime.

The episode is particularly relevant to Trump’s portrayal of Iran as the “source of regional bloodshed,” as one of the deadliest incidents involving Iranian civilians during the period came from a US warship operating near Iranian waters.

1995, Operation Deliberate Force: Bosnia

US and NATO launched the so-called Operation Deliberate Force against Bosnian Serb positions. It severely damaged the Serbs’ military capabilities and helped alter the balance of the Bosnian war.

The bombing campaign killed 152 civilians and injured nearly 300, according to the figures in the material. The operation was conducted without a specific UN Security Council authorization for the air campaign, a point that has remained central to debate over its legality.

1999, Operation Allied Force: Yugoslavia

On March 24, 1999, the US, along with NATO, launched the so-called Operation Allied Force against Yugoslavia. The campaign involved extensive bombing of residential areas, television and radio facilities, hospitals, factories, businesses and infrastructure.

Fourteen NATO member countries participated alongside the United States. The bombing destroyed or damaged 82 railroad and motor bridges, 48 hospitals, 25 post offices and telegraph stations, 70 schools, nine university buildings and four student dormitories, 18 kindergartens, 35 churches and 29 monasteries, including UNESCO-protected heritage sites.

The targets also included the television centre in Belgrade, a convoy of Albanian refugees and China’s embassy in Serbia.

According to the Serbian government’s figures cited in the material, the bombing killed around 2,500 people, including 89 children, and wounded 12,500.

Some 863,000 people, primarily Serbs living in Kosovo, left the region, while another 590,000 became refugees. Estimates of the economic damage ranged from $30 billion to $100 billion.

The Independent International Commission on Kosovo, established in August 1999 to examine the NATO intervention, concluded that the intervention was illegal. It also criticized the use of cluster munitions and the bombing of chemical factories and oil refineries because of their environmental consequences. In 2002, the UN confirmed radioactive pollution in Kosovo following the US bombing.

Post-9/11 toll: millions dead, tens of millions displaced

According to the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, US-led wars since 2001 have directly caused about 940,000 deaths across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and other post-9/11 war zones.

The indirect death toll is estimated at another 3.6 to 3.8 million, bringing the overall number of deaths from post-9/11 wars to at least 4.5 to 4.7 million and counting.

The wars displaced an estimated 38 million people across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and the Philippines.

The financial cost has reached about $8 trillion. Brown’s Costs of War research has documented erosion of civil liberties and human rights in the US and abroad.

Claim: Iran“slaughtered” over 72,000 of its citizens this year. Recently, 10,000 were killed for “protesting.”

Fact: Trump’s extraordinary figure of casualties, which he keeps updating every few weeks, requires comparison with the available record.

On February 1, the Iranian government published the names of nearly 3,000 people killed during the foreign-backed riots of early January.

The Iranian Presidency released a list of 2,986 individuals killed, including their full names, their fathers’ names and the last six digits of their national identity numbers.

An Iranian government statement put the total number of fatalities at 3,117. A statement issued in late January said more than 600 of the deceased were rioters and terrorists, with the remainder civilians and security forces killed mostly by heavily armed rioters.

The foreign-backed riots were accompanied by widespread destruction, including systematic assaults on bazaars, shops, banks, mosques, hospitals, ambulances, fire stations, clinics and public infrastructure.

Evidence presented by the government showed that the systematic and coordinated riots involved foreign-backed spy networks.

Supporting the rioters, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo wrote on social media: “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also, to every Mossad agent walking beside them.”

Mossad separately issued a Farsi-language social-media message urging rioters to “Go out together into the streets. The time has come,” and saying its agents were present “not only from a distance and verbally” but “in the field.”

Claim: I(Trump) will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

Fact: Trump presented the ongoing US military aggression against Iran as the means of preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon.

Iran, as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has consistently maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful and remains under IAEA supervision.

The scale of international inspection has been substantial. In 2023 and 2024 alone, Iranian nuclear facilities underwent more than 427 inspections, an “unprecedented” level of scrutiny in the history of global nuclear oversight, as admitted even by UN officials.

In a recent interview, Major General Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) stated, “We remain committed to the fatwa (religious decree) of the martyred Leader of the Revolution and have not changed our nuclear doctrine, but we do not know what will happen in the future.”

In a religious decree, the martyred Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, declared that not only nuclear weapons but also other weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological weapons, pose a serious threat to humanity and ruled their use forbidden.

Trump’s claim that the US military “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program runs directly into the US intelligence assessment that followed the so-called Operation Midnight Hammer.

During the 12-day US-Israeli aggression against Iran in June last year, the United States struck three peaceful nuclear facilities, Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, using bunker-buster bombs capable of penetrating up to 18 meters of concrete or 61 meters of earth.

An early Pentagon intelligence assessment found that the strikes “probably set Iran’s nuclear program back by months rather than destroying it.”

The report said the Islamic Republic’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not eliminated, according to sources familiar with the Defense Intelligence Agency evaluation.

According to various Western media reports, entrances to two nuclear facilities were sealed, but much of the deeply buried infrastructure remained safe from the US bombardment.

Claim: As a result of so-called Operation Epic Fury, all 159 ships of Iran’s navy are “now lying at the bottom of the sea.”

Fact: Trump’s claim that Iran’s entire navy was destroyed is flatly contradicted by the continued combat operations of Iranian naval forces deep into the war, including their ability to track, intercept and push back US naval assets in the strategic waters of the Strait of Hormuz.

In the early hours of September 8, 2026, at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, naval forces of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) tracked, intercepted and recovered one of the United States Navy’s most advanced unmanned undersea platforms.

Media reports identified the vessel as an Anduril DIVE-LD, a large-diameter autonomous underwater vehicle delivered to the US Navy’s Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Group One only a year earlier.

Iranian naval forces have also successfully intercepted and pushed back American naval assets, compelling them to retreat as far as 400 kilometres from the strategic chokepoint.

For the first time since the Second World War, the US has been ostensibly fighting a naval war against a peer adversary largely from a standoff position, unable to project power close to Iran.

Iranian naval forces have effectively denied the US military the freedom to operate close to Iran’s coastline, forcing it to fight from a distance rather than dominate the waters it entered.

The strain on US naval operations has been visible. The USS Gerald R. Ford fire in March, the suicide attempts by sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, and repeated retaliatory attacks on American destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz have added further pressure on US naval forces operating in the region.

Claim: Iran’s air force is gone, their radar is gone, their antiaircraft equipment is gone, their missile and drone manufacturing capacity is almost gone.

Fact: On September 16, the Pentagon’s own inspector general presented a different set of facts about the war’s consequences.

A report covering February 28 through June 30 said Iranian retaliatory strikes damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings and equipment at US military bases across Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan.

The report also acknowledged significant depletion of key US munitions stockpiles and destruction of critical military assets, including missile-defense radar installations.

The retaliatory Iranian strikes forced US Central Command to change how American forces operated across the region. CENTCOM “shifted personnel, assets and storage facilities” in response to attacks by Iran and allied forces.

Among the changes was the withdrawal of US Army medical evacuation helicopters from Iraq and Kuwait. As a result, “most medical evacuations have been carried out by ground … to local treatment facilities,” according to the report.

The destruction of the US Navy’s regional hub in Bahrain by Iranian strikes created “significant challenges” in establishing adequate naval bases and support ports.

The US military turned the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia into a sea logistics hub, extending resupply cycles to between 14 and 18 days.

Iran also brought down roughly 30 percent of the US military’s MQ-9 fleet over Iranian skies.

A recent Congressional report said the American military lost at least 42 aircraft during the 40 days of the US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran, with estimated losses of approximately $2.6 billion.

The US Department of War also updated its casualty database, raising the total number of American forces killed or wounded during Washington’s war on Iran to 642 in figures published in July.

Claim: US has “more munitions” than it could ever possibly even think of using.

Truth: The war on Iran has severely depleted US munitions stockpiles, creating shortages and resupply bottlenecks that have begun to strain Washington’s ability to meet military commitments elsewhere, according to US government and congressional assessments.

The September report by Pentagon inspector general found that the war had produced “shortfalls” in key munitions and bottlenecks in resupply, directly contradicting Trump’s repeated claims about the abundance of US firepower.

A separate assessment by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the war on Iran had exhausted US supplies of key munitions, stretching the military’s ability to fulfill commitments in other parts of the world. The CBO estimated that rebuilding US stockpiles could take up to five years.

The scale of depletion is particularly stark in air-defense systems. A late July estimate by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found that stocks of several key interceptors, including the Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems, had been significantly depleted, in some cases by more than half.

The war on Iran also consumed more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, according to CSIS, with the institute estimating that the US stockpile may not return to pre-war levels until 2031.

The Patriot system, the US military’s principal ground-based air-defense missile, was among the most heavily used. CSIS estimated that as many as 1,430 Patriots were fired during the war on Iran, compared with an estimated pre-war stockpile of about 2,330, meaning roughly 61 percent of the inventory had been expended.

The depletion of THAAD interceptors is even more consequential because the system is more sophisticated and designed to intercept ballistic missiles at higher altitudes and over longer ranges than the Patriot. CSIS estimated that 190 to 290 THAAD interceptors were fired from an estimated pre-war stockpile of just 360.

That means Washington may have expended more than half, and potentially more than 80 percent, of its pre-war THAAD inventory.

With only nine THAAD batteries operational worldwide, sustained expenditure risks leaving US forces with fewer of a highly specialized system that Washington considers critical for defending against ballistic-missile threats from countries including Russia, China and North Korea.

Claim: Iran violated the ceasefire with “brazen acts of terrorism.”

Fact: Iran has formally submitted a detailed complaint to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) stating that the US systematically violated the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

Tehran cited repeated US military strikes against Iranian territory, the revocation of oil-sale licenses, the establishment of a illegal maritime route in the Strait of Hormuz, failure to remove the illegal naval blockade and continued US support for Israeli military aggression in Lebanon as “fundamental and unequivocal breaches” of the agreement.

The US violation centers heavily on Article 5. According to Article 5 of the MoU, Iran would make arrangements to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within one month, with safe passage of commercial vessels forming part of the agreement.

The US, meanwhile, directed ships away from the route designated by Iran as safe and encouraged them to use an alternative illegal route. The MoU subsequently collapsed.

The Washington Post and AP reporting on the memorandum confirmed that the document required the United States to begin removing its naval blockade immediately upon signing and to fully end it within 30 days. However, the US returned to continuing its illegal blockade on Iranian ports.

Washington’s subsequent military strikes and the re-imposition of economic pressure form part of the context in which ceasefire violations are examined.

Claim: The US Navy has recently escorted “more than 1 billion barrels of oil” out of the Strait of Hormuz and “more oil is flowing than at any point” since the start of the war.

Fact: The shipping data tells a markedly different story. Recent satellite imagery has shown traffic through the Strait of Hormuz continuing to fall.

The number of commodity vessels crossing the strait has been around 12 over the weekend, while the pre-war level was more than 100 vessels a day.

According to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) data, during the week before the war on Iran began, average crude-oil flows through Hormuz represented roughly 38 percent of the global total, LPG 29 percent and LNG 19 percent.

According to August figures, crude exports from the Persian Gulf region have dropped by nearly half, 47 percent, compared with before the war, falling from about 17 million barrels a day in 2025 to roughly nine million barrels per day as of August 2026.

Reuters has cited analyst estimates that five to seven million barrels of Persian Gulf oil a day are currently being disrupted.

Direct crude exports moving through the strait have fallen to an average of just 2.2 million barrels per day, according to Kpler.

From July 15 to August 23, an average of about five vessels a day passed through the waterway, an almost 95-percent decrease from pre-war traffic levels.

What little traffic remains consists of tankers operating under naval escort by Iran.

The impact is also being felt in global energy markets. In recent days, oil prices have climbed more than two percent amid uncertainty over the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and continued security risks across West Asia.

Brent crude, the benchmark for two-thirds of global oil, has surged past $106 a barrel.

The US war on Iran has also pushed fuel costs higher in America. US gas prices have risen more than 40 percent since Washington and Israel launched their war on Iran. The national average in the US is more than four dollars per gallon.

In the European Union, diesel prices have hit a new record of 2.23 euros per liter, with 19 countries, including Germany, France and Italy, registering all-time highs.

Markets remain focused on the Strait of Hormuz, where US hostile and reckless attacks continue to threaten energy flows, as traders assess reported US discussions on a 90-day diesel-export ban.

The strategic waterway Trump described as carrying more oil than at any point since the start of the imposed war is experiencing a historic collapse in commercial traffic, with the disruption rippling through global oil prices and fuel markets.

US intelligence assessments, Pentagon reports, shipping data and the documented human cost of America’s wars all point to a widening gap between the picture Trump presented at the UN and the reality on the ground.

His portrayal of an unstoppable US military, a destroyed Iranian nuclear program, a decimated Iranian navy and an open Strait of Hormuz is increasingly at odds with facts, which is of depleted US munitions, military aggression that failed to achieve any objectives, Iran’s continued ability to retaliate and freely operate at sea, and a strategic waterway where shipping has fallen sharply rather than returned to normal amid continued US military adventurism.

Press TV – September 24, 2026

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi has said NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s admission that some 5,000 sorties were flown from European bases in support of US military aggression against Iran proves that Europe formed part of the infrastructure of that aggression.

In a post on X on Thursday evening, Gharibabadi wrote that the NATO chief’s remarks demonstrated Europe’s role in enabling the illegal US campaign.

“Governments that placed their territory at the disposal of the United States cannot evade their responsibility,” he said. “This participation will not go unanswered.”

Rutte has repeatedly acknowledged that thousands of US military flights, between 4,000 and 5,000, departed from bases in Europe during the US-Israeli war of aggression against the Islamic Republic, which began on 28 February.

He described Europe as a “platform of power projection” without which Washington could not have conducted the operation.

Countries including Italy, Romania, the United Kingdom, France and Germany were cited in connection with the use of bases, airspace, tankers and logistics.

Iran has consistently described the US-Israeli assault as an unprovoked act of aggression in flagrant violation of the UN Charter and international law.

Tehran has stressed that providing territory, bases or infrastructure to an aggressor state itself constitutes participation in the act of aggression, as recognized under United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3314.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi separately warned European officials in New York of the severe and long-term consequences of facilitating and supporting US and Israeli war crimes, both in Gaza and against Iran. He noted that submitting to a bully never satisfies that bully.

By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – September 25, 2026

The West may have pushed Russia out of its orbit, but it cannot push Russia out of the world.

Russia’s Diplomatic Blitz

Over the past two weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin has staged a remarkable diplomatic blitz. Across three major gatherings in Bishkek, Vladivostok and New Delhi, as well as during Vietnamese leader To Lam’s state visit to Moscow, Putin met a succession of heads of state from across Asia and the wider Global South. Among them were the leaders of China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia and Turkey.

The sheer intensity of this diplomacy is difficult to reconcile with the notion—aggressively propagated by Western political elites and the media—that Russia has been internationally isolated. Moscow may be estranged from Washington and most European capitals, but its diplomatic and economic relationships elsewhere have been expanding. More importantly, Russia is increasingly operating at the centre of a network of states that are seeking greater strategic autonomy from the Western-led international order.

That does not make these countries a Russian bloc per se. India continues to maintain close relations with the United States; China has its own global ambitions; Turkey is a NATO member; and the BRICS countries have yet to develop a common framework of global action. But it does demonstrate that Russia’s post-2022 so-called “isolation” exists only in the Western perspective. The reality outside of this perspective is totally different.

Moscow’s Reorientation

The Western strategy towards Russia after the start of the military conflict in Ukraine was built partly around economic and diplomatic isolation. The United States and European Union imposed extensive sanctions, restricted access to Western technology and finance, and dramatically reduced many forms of economic engagement with Moscow. Russia responded by accelerating a pivot that had already begun towards Asia and other non-Western regions.

The transformation is particularly visible in trade. Asia accounted for 73.4 percent of Russia’s trade turnover in 2025. China and India have become particularly important destinations for Russian energy exports, while Moscow has simultaneously expanded commercial and strategic relationships across the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

India is perhaps the clearest illustration of this adjustment. Despite its increasingly close strategic relationship with Washington, New Delhi has sharply expanded its economic engagement with Moscow. Reuters reported this month that India and Russia have developed payment arrangements using the rupee and rouble that facilitate the overwhelming majority of bilateral trade. Bilateral trade reached roughly $70 billion in 2024, with both sides targeting $100 billion by 2030. The significance lies not simply in the volume of trade. It is the development of mechanisms that allow countries to maintain economic relationships despite restrictions imposed by Western financial systems.

This is an important distinction. The Global South is not necessarily seeking to replace the West. Many of its governments remain deeply integrated into Western markets and institutions. What they increasingly seek is the ability to maintain alternative relationships when their interests diverge from those of Washington or Brussels. Russia has not only become one of the principal beneficiaries of that preference, but it’s actively cultivating ties on its own too—something clearly evident from the diplomatic blitz mentioned above.

BRICS And the Search for Strategic Autonomy

The most important arena for this transformation is BRICS. The grouping has expanded substantially from its original membership and now includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Its members represent a substantial share of the world’s population and economic output. Although member countries apparently have different geopolitical and national interests, this diversity is not a weakness but BRICS’s defining characteristic.

The grouping provides a political space in which countries can discuss reforms to international institutions, alternative financial mechanisms, trade arrangements and greater representation for emerging economies without having to accept a common ideological position. This is different from Washington’s demands for conformity from its allies in Europe and North America. But BRICS agenda increasingly overlaps with Russia’s own interests.

At the BRICS summit in New Delhi, member states called for greater influence over international economic governance and raised concerns about unilateral trade and financial measures. India has also promoted mechanisms that could eventually facilitate greater use of alternative payment systems. New Delhi has proposed linking central-bank digital currencies among BRICS countries, although substantial technical and political obstacles remain.

For Moscow, these discussions have obvious significance. Western sanctions have made Russia deeply interested in payment mechanisms, financial arrangements and trading networks that are less vulnerable to Western restrictions. But Russia is not creating these demands by itself. It is benefiting from a broader transformation in the preferences of major non-Western states. The result is an unusual convergence. Russia wants alternatives because it has been subjected to Western restrictions. Other Global South governments want alternatives because they do not want their economic and diplomatic options constrained by decisions taken in Washington or Brussels. Therefore, even though the motivations are different, the direction of change is not.

The Geopolitics of a Networked World

This is why the most important consequence of Russia’s diplomatic reorientation may not be the survival of the Russian economy. It may be the emergence of a different geography of globalisation. Energy provides the clearest example. Russia has redirected large volumes of oil and gas towards Asian markets, while expanding nuclear-energy cooperation with countries beyond the West.

Transport infrastructure is developing alongside these commercial relationships. The International North-South Transport Corridor, linking Russia through Iran towards the Indian Ocean, is one example of efforts to create alternative routes between Eurasia and global markets. Russia’s expanding economic engagement with China, India, Iran and other Asian states is gradually creating overlapping networks of energy, transportation, finance and trade.

Vietnam illustrates the same pattern from another direction. During To Lam’s September visit to Moscow, Russia and Vietnam discussed cooperation in energy, science and technology, infrastructure and other sectors. Hanoi, like many Southeast Asian capitals, has little interest in choosing permanently between China, Russia, the United States, Japan, Europe and other partners. Its preference is diversification. That may ultimately prove to be the defining characteristic of the emerging international system.

Russia’s current diplomatic activism should therefore be understood in this larger context. Moscow is not simply looking for countries willing to circumvent sanctions or purchase its commodities. It is building relationships that can survive the political distance between Russia and the West.

The more the West defines its relationship with Russia through separation, sanctions and exclusion, the greater the incentive for Moscow to invest in a world beyond Western institutions, and the greater the incentive for other countries to make sure that such a world remains available. The irony is that the attempt to isolate Russia may therefore be contributing to something larger than Russia’s own diplomatic resilience: a global system in which isolation itself becomes increasingly difficult to impose.

---

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of international relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs

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France is sending military assistance to Saudi Arabia to protect the Yanbu oil facilities as the Kingdom battles the Iran-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen. The move comes amid growing concerns about the remaining flow of oil from the region, which France, as well as the rest of Europe, relies upon heavily.

In a live television interview Thursday night Paris time, French President Emmanuel Macron said he was sending an unspecified number of troops and equipment to Saudi Arabia to protect the Yanbu energy hub, located on the Red Sea.

“This is the agreement we have finalized ​with ⁠the Saudis,” Macron explained. “We are going to send ⁠military resources, that is to ​say, soldiers, radar systems and defense ⁠systems, to protect this site — ⁠not ​to get us involved in any conflicts, but to ⁠protect this site.”

The French leader did not elaborate on the exact equipment he would send, how many troops, or when they would arrive. Nor did he address what would happen if French personnel were killed or injured or equipment damaged or destroyed. We have reached out to the French Embassy for further details. Based on his mention of radars and seeing that the threat to Saudi oil infrastructure is almost entirely from aerial attacks from drones and missiles, these will likely be air defense forces.

Nous agissons pour protéger nos compatriotes des conséquences de la crise au Moyen-Orient. Objectifs : sécuriser les approvisionnements et faire baisser les prix à la pompe. pic.twitter.com/kvrgHcV4E4

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) September 24, 2026

The decision was prompted by repeated Houthi missile and drone attacks as well as suspected strikes from Iranian-backed militias in Iraq on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure. Yanbu in particular is a key installation. As we have explained in the past, Saudi Arabia has diverted millions of barrels of oil per day through pipelines to its Yanbu port on the Red Sea in an effort to minimize the energy shortages due to the hostilities around the Persian Gulf.

Before Macron’s announcement on Thursday, the Houthis claimed they had carried out two more waves of attacks on Saudi targets, including one on the Saudi Aramco facility in Yanbu, “using a number of ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones.”

In addition, the Houthis claimed they struck Riyadh.

There was no immediate Saudi confirmation of an attack on the Saudi capital. Saudi civil defense did not issue an emergency alert for Riyadh on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, the Houthis said they struck “enemy command and control centers, operations rooms, weapon depots, missile launch platforms, and military sites belonging to Saudi-led enemy formations in Jizan,” a Red Sea port city.

“The Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen said on Thursday that it had shot down six ballistic missiles fired by the Iran-backed Houthi militia, in what appeared to be one of the largest cross-border attacks by the group since its conflict with Saudi Arabia [flared back up],” The New York Times reported.

The missiles were aimed at the Saudi cities of Taif and Yanbu, Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, claimed on X. “Escalations and violations by the terrorist Houthi militia will be dealt with firmly,” he stated, without specifying where the missiles were intercepted.

TWZ cannot independently verify any of these claims.

Today’s attacks are the latest in the escalating conflict between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia. Earlier this year, the Houthis imposed a blockade on the Bab al-Mandab Strait (BAM) and began striking Saudi ships in the southern part of the Red Sea as well as critical energy terminals on that body of water and Saudi refineries. Iranian proxies have also struck the vital East-West pipeline that carries oil to the Red Sea to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran vastly curtailed shipping after the launch of Operation Epic Fury. The East-West pipeline reportedly reopened after being shut down following a long-range drone attack.

The stark reality facing Macron is that if Saudi oil infrastructure and transport nodes near the Red Sea are destroyed or the pipeline that feeds it is shut down for months, the last major oil lifeline from the region — and especially to Europe — will be closed off, sparking a deeper energy crisis.

Iran has already severely curtailed the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz since the U.S. and Israel attacked it on Feb. 28. The movement of oil has been further impeded by a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports. However, transits have been increasing as of late, thanks in large measure to U.S. military escorts that U.S. Central Command claims have allowed more than a billion barrels of crude to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Still, the traffic is far below what it was before the war broke out.

Update from CENTCOM Commander: pic.twitter.com/PTX6n9fn56

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) September 19, 2026

Having both the Strait of Hormuz largely closed and energy exports out of the Red Sea shut down simultaneously is a nightmare scenario. By Thursday evening Eastern time, the per-barrel price of Brent crude oil shot up to nearly $107, according to OilPrice.com. It had fallen below $100 per barrel just two days earlier.

Given all this, the French president sought to offer reassurance about oil supplies, according to France 24.

“He said he had carried out ‘intense diplomatic activity,’ meeting in recent weeks with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Nigeria, all hydrocarbon suppliers, to ensure France keeps receiving the same volumes,” the publication noted.

“We have replenished gas stocks and also oil stocks” for the months ahead, the French president also said.

Macron’s decision follows one by the U.K.’s  Royal Air Force (RAF) on Tuesday to deploy one of its Voyager aerial refueling jets to help Saudi Arabia defend against Houthi attacks. As with the French move, it is a response to concerns about the flow of oil.

“Escalating tensions in the Gulf could have negative consequences here in the UK—such as rising prices, disruptions to energy supplies, and increased costs for British businesses,” the U.K. Defense Ministry (MoD) explained in announcing the deployment. “The Houthis pose a threat to stability in the Middle East; therefore, it is in the UK’s national interest—economically and in terms of security—that they do not succeed in their aims.”

“We unequivocally condemn Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, and our position is clear: both Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government have the right to self-defense,” the ministry added. 

The jet will operate from a U.K. air base in Cyprus and will begin air-to-air refueling operations in the coming days, the BBC reported.

The French and British deployments contrast decisions by the U.S. and other nations not to get involved with the Saudi-Houthi fight.

Last week, Trump turned down a direct plea from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Kingdom’s de facto leader, to attack the Houthis. Meanwhile, Pakistan and Turkey, which signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement with Saudi Arabia, have yet to provide any direct military aid. The pact holds that an attack on one is considered an attack on all; however, it doesn’t stipulate exactly what actions should be taken.

The security situation in Yemen has drastically deteriorated since the launch of Epic Fury after the Houthis joined the U.S.-Iran conflict on the side of their major supporter.

The Houthis have been directly attacking Saudi Arabia over claims that the kingdom has imposed a blockade on them. Beyond that, the mostly dormant civil war between the Houthis and internationally recognized Yemeni government forces, backed by Saudi Arabia, reignited in the wake of Operation Epic Fury. The Houthis have made large territorial gains in the renewed conflict, including capturing the port city of Mokha and two key islands in the Red Sea. This has strengthened the Houthi hold on the BAM. You can read more about that in our story here.

3. The Houthis have reportedly attempted to seize ROYG-controlled islands in the Red Sea from which Houthi fighters could launch attacks on international shipping. Houthi forces reportedly landed on the Hanish Islands in the southern Red Sea on the morning of September 10 after… pic.twitter.com/tiFPgNDOHZ

— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) September 11, 2026

The civil war in Yemen erupted in 2014 and expanded a year later when a Saudi-led coalition joined forces with the government ousted by the Houthis. The fighting between Saudi-led forces and the Houthis largely abated after a tenuous ceasefire took hold in 2022. The Saudis held off on getting involved in the recent Red Sea conflict, which saw the U.S. and coalition warships duking it out with the Houthis and eventually led to a U.S.-led air campaign over Yemen. The United Kingdom was another significant player in that air campaign.

Meanwhile, exacerbating concerns about the flow of oil from the Red Sea, “a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader warned Thursday that Iranian forces and their Houthi allies in Yemen could respond to any new U.S. attacks by opening ‘a new front’ in its war with the U.S. by targeting energy supplies in the Red Sea,” CBS News reported.

The statements came after U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday once again threatened Iran.

“Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before?” Trump asked rhetorically. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”

Trump added that he believed he would make a peace deal with Iran after the upcoming U.S. midterm elections, which will decide the control of Congress.

Trump to the UN: "Do I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly? Do I drive them into hell?" pic.twitter.com/cIYBO1Mp3w

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 22, 2026

As we noted yesterday, with gasoline and diesel price increases damaging the economy, the war and Trump’s handling of it have been unpopular with voters.

The fact that France is sending forces to Saudi Arabia is an ominous development and another indication that the current spate of unrest that began with Epic Fury does not appear to show any signs of ending anytime soon.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com 

The post France Sending Forces To Help Defend Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Oil Facilities appeared first on TWZ.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said in an interview with NPR, published on Thursday, that in the days before the US and Israel launched the war with Iran, President Trump dismissed Carlson’s concerns about the conflict by saying, “We all die anyway.” Carlson said that he told Trump that the war was not about […]

China called the latest US threats of secondary sanctions on airline service-providing companies across the world an illegal unilateral measure without any basis in international law. The US said the sanctions would be applied if these companies do not stop providing services to Iranian airlines.

China said they “firmly oppose illicit unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law and lack UN Security Council mandate,” Guo Jiakun, official spokesperson of its Ministry of Foreign Affairs said during a regular press conference on Wednesday, September 23.

China’s reaction came on the same day the latest US sanctions against Iran went into effect. 

The US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has asked companies across the world who are involved in providing services such as refuelling, ticketing, and other kinds of ground support to stop serving Iranian airlines starting at midnight on September 23. If they fail to comply they will be “locked out of the dollar system,” Bessent threatened.

The latest sanctions against its airlines is part of the recently announced US attempt to completely isolate Iran from the global economy in order to pressure its government to re-open the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has shut down the Strait of Hormuz following the resumption of US airstrikes as well as Washington’s attempts to bypass Iranian control over the waterway in the Persian Gulf since July. Iran has claimed that those American moves were in violation of the peace deal signed under international mediation in June.

The adoption of new sets of sanctions is widely seen as an indication of Washington’s failure to achieve its objectives in Iran militarily, even after seven months of war, which began on February 28. 

Iran has reiterated that no amount of economic coercion will open the Strait of Hormuz. They listed the withdrawal of the US naval blockade, the unfreezing of its international assets, and an end of the war on all fronts in the region as preconditions for opening the Strait. 

Air blockade

While some of the countries in the region cancelled Iranian flights to their airports in fear of US sanctions, Iran claimed most of its international flights remained scheduled and operational. Some countries also decided to close their airspace for Iranian airlines.

Iraq has diverted most of the Iranian flights from its Baghdad airport to Najaf.

If the flights remain suspended for a significant number of countries for a longer duration it would amount to an air blockade on Iran. This will have an effect on thousands of people employed in the aviation sector in the country which is already heavily facing tremendous economic troubles due to existing sanctions 

A prolonged suspension of flights could also impact hundreds of thousands of Iranians who have to travel out of the country for medical or other reasons.

Iran has maintained that unilateral US sanctions are illegal and an “act of terrorism” against Iranian people. It has urged the nations across the world to not succumb to the unilateral actions of the US. 

Chief of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezaei, in an interview on Wednesday, warned neighboring countries against submitting to US pressure to shut down Iranian flights, claiming such acts will force Iran to retaliate.

The Senate narrowly defeated a War Powers Resolution on Thursday that would have directed President Trump to end the war with Iran, though the vote doesn’t negate the Iran War Powers Resolution that was passed by both the Senate and the House several months ago. The resolution failed Thursday in a 49-50 vote, with four […]

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that he isn’t sure how the Iranian delegation attending the UN General Assembly in New York City will get home due to US sanctions targeting Iran’s airlines and threats to sanction countries conducting flights to and from Iran. In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Bessent claimed […]

At least one Indian seafarer was killed when a commercial ship was attacked in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, AFP has reported, citing statements from Oman and India. Oman’s Maritime Security Center said in a post on X that the Cape Dao, a bulk carrier flying the flag of Antigua and Barbuda, was struck […]