May 21, 2026

Heated Trump-Netanyahu phone call, tense discussions on Iran The heated discussions on how to proceed with Iran were allegedly behind the ‘prolonged and dramatic’ telephone conversation on Tuesday between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two leaders – three sources quoted by CNN reported – allegedly tried to reach convergent positions, but the conclusion of the phone call left the Israeli head of government ‘furious’. Trump and Netanyahu had already spoken two days earlier, on Sunday. The US president, on that occasion, had anticipated his intention to proceed with new targeted attacks against Iran at … Read more

May 21, 2026

United States trade court rules against Trump’s 10 per cent tariff rate

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A United States trade court has ruled against President Donald Trump’s universal 10 per cent tariff rate, dealing another blow to his signature economic policy. A panel of judges at the US Court of International Trade found two-to-one that the Trump administration lacks a justification to impose the tariffs under a 1970s law. Mr Trump ordered the tariffs on most imports to the US in February, after the Supreme Court deemed his wide swathe of “Liberation Day” tariffs unlawful. A group of small businesses challenged the new rate, which was enacted for 150 days, or through to July. Today’s decision … Read more

May 21, 2026

Trump says Iran’s response to peace proposal “totally unacceptable”

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The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday announced a new round of sanctions against 10 individuals and companies it accused of helping enable Iran’s drone and ballistic missile programs. The sanctions, implemented by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, target those “that are enabling efforts by Iran’s military to secure weapons, as well as raw materials with applications in Iran’s Shahed‑series unmanned aerial vehicles and ballistic missile program,” the Treasury Department said in a news release. The State Department was targeting another four entities with sanctions, the Treasury Department said.  Among those sanctioned were companies based in China, Dubai, … Read more

May 20, 2026

Hegseth ‘dangerously exaggerated’ US military triumph in Iran, Senate hears | Pete Hegseth

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Pete Hegseth has failed to give Donald Trump an accurate picture of the war on Iran while resorting to “dangerously exaggerated” statements to create an inaccurate picture of a US military triumph, a senior Democrat told a Capitol Hill hearing on Thursday. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate armed services committee, told Hegseth, the defense secretary, that far from victory, US citizens were having to bear the cost of a war they did not support in the form of increased fuel prices. “American families are bearing the cost of a war they wanted nothing to do with and … Read more

May 20, 2026

Breaking with the US will be painful for Australia in many ways – but it’s inevitable | John Quiggin

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Donald Trump’s announcement of a “liberation day”, involving the imposition of tariffs on almost every country in the world, is one of a series of measures which call for an urgent reorientation of Australia’s economic and foreign policy. It is, in effect, a commitment to remove the United States from the global economy, which is seen by Trump as unfair and exploitative of Americans. The 10% tariff imposed on Australian exports is not of great concern in itself. The US is only our fifth-largest export market and would be ranked even lower by measures that aggregated the EU and Asean … Read more

May 20, 2026

Trump orders U.S. to attack Iran boats mining Strait of Hormuz

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A 21-year-old woman in Lebanon spoke to NBC News about Israel’s war against Hezbollah from a refugee facility in Beirut. The house, previously a school, is holding 400 people, including 120 children. Marwa Yazbek is from Dihariya, a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut, which was ground zero for Israeli strikes when the war broke out. “The bomb started beside us, actually, and then we tried to go and get our stuff,” she said. Yazbek is studying medicine and is living with her family among strangers in the refugee camp, trying to study on her iPad while kids play tag in … Read more