MIDDLE EAST - Israel quietly deployed its Iron Dome air defense system along with dozens of IDF troops to the United Arab Emirates in the early days of the Iran conflict, according to reporting, marking the first operational use of the system outside Israel and the United States as Tehran unleashed a sustained and intense missile and drone barrage against the Gulf state. According to reports published Sunday by Axios and The Jerusalem Post, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the deployment early in the conflict following a call with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, directing the Israel Defense Forces to send an Iron Dome battery, interceptors, and several dozen operators to help defend the country as Iran escalated its attacks across the region.

MIDDLE EAST - The United Arab Emirates announced on Tuesday that it will depart from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on May 1, 2026. In an official statement delivered via the Emirates News Agency, the UAE noted that its “long-term strategic and economic vision” had diverged from OPEC’s. The move comes as global oil benchmark Brent crude rose to over $110 per barrel after markets opened. Joining OPEC in 1967 as the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, the UAE served as OPEC’s third-largest producer in its nearly 60-year tenure with the group. The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company has long sought to increase its production, but disagreements with Saudi Arabia prevented this expansion.

MIDDLE EAST - The United Arab Emirates hit two birds with one stone with its dramatic announcement on Tuesday. Its decision to quit the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) has dealt a potential death blow to the influential oil group. Future historians may mark it as a turning point in the cartel’s slow decline into irrelevance. Equally, it aims a powerful punch at its neighbour and de facto Opec leader Saudi Arabia, reigniting a tense regional rivalry between the two nations. In doing so, the UAE has confounded widespread expectations that the Gulf countries would unite in the face of a shared threat from Iran. The UAE has been chafing against Opec for at least five years, as it wants to expand its output beyond its official quota. It is capped at 3.4 million barrels per day (bpd), but aspires to pump out five million bpd by 2027.

UK - More than two-thirds of babies under two use screens, a report has found, and some are exposed for up to eight hours a day. Nearly a third of newborns were found to be watching screens for more than three hours a day, while almost 20 per cent of infants of four to 11 months used screens for more than an hour a day. The report comes after the government issued guidance that children under two do not use screens at all, apart from communal activities such as video-calling relatives. In a review of the current research, researchers found evidence linking screen time to poorer outcomes for children, including an increased risk of obesity, short-sightedness, sleep and behavioural difficulties, and later challenges with friendships.

AUSTRALIA - Australian researchers have delivered fresh evidence of what many have long suspected: the convenience foods filling our grocery aisles and dominating American dinner tables are not merely empty calories but active threats to brain health. Ultraprocessed foods — think packaged snacks, sugary drinks, ready-to-eat meals, and most items with lengthy ingredient lists — undergo industrial treatments that strip away natural structures while adding sugars, unhealthy fats, additives, and chemicals. These alterations do more than add calories; they promote inflammation, insulin resistance, oxidative stress, and poor blood flow, all documented contributors to brain deterioration.

USA - A chemical tranquilizer 100 times more potent than fentanyl and 10,000 times stronger than morphine is rapidly spreading through the US drug supply, killing hundreds of unsuspecting users. Carfentanil, a large-animal tranquilizer researched for years as a potential chemical weapon, was identified 1,400 times in Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seizures in 2025, a nearly ten-fold increase from just 145 identifications in 2023 and only 54 in 2022. Unlike fentanyl, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans over the past decade, carfentanil has no legitimate human medical use. Veterinarians use it to tranquilize elephants, rhinos and bears. Because a lethal dose of carfentanil is smaller than a grain of salt, the drug's extreme potency renders standard overdose reversal measures dangerously inadequate. A single two-milligram intramuscular injection of carfentanil is powerful enough to sedate an elephant and lethal enough to kill 50 human beings.

USA - Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Tuesday that a recent review found thousands of Americans who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits in just one state are actually driving luxury vehicles. Rollins did not identify the state, except to say it was led by a Republican, but said a scrutiny of the federal food stamp program uncovered that thousands of people who are getting the benefits in that one state are also rolling to stores in Bentleys and Teslas. The study, conducted by the Foundation for Government Accountability, connected 14,000 luxury vehicles to food stamp enrollees, with Lexus being the most common brand. The review found 3,636 food stamp recipients are driving Lexus cars, 2,098 are driving Teslas, 1,914 are driving BMWs, 1,131 are driving Cadillacs, 11 drive Lamborghinis, three drive Bentleys and three drive Ferraris, according to the Washington Times. “This is just in one state," Rollins said. "We need to defend our nutrition programs for those most in need, not for scammers gaming the system."

UK - Tehran's Embassy in London has urged UK residents willing to die for the regime to sign up to an official 'martyrdom' program, sparking national security concerns. Consulate officials posted a message encouraging 'proud Iranian compatriots residing in Britain' to register for its 'Jan Fada' – or 'sacrificing life' – program. It asked for 'all brave and noble children of Iran' with a 'desire for the people's defence of the land of Iran' to come forward in a 'display of solidarity, loyalty, and national zeal'. Chillingly, the post in Farsi on the embassy's official Telegram channel read: 'Let us all, to a man, give our bodies to be slain; For it is better than giving our country to the enemy.'

USA - The Washington Hilton is ‘hated’ by experts, and was one of the biggest security weaknesses the Secret Service faced on Saturday. One of the biggest weaknesses was the choice of venue, security experts told The Times. The White House correspondents’ dinner is held each year at the Washington Hilton, a mile-and-a-half from the White House. Privately owned hotels are occasionally used for functions by presidents in office, but they often also function as “public accommodations” meaning they remain open to other guests staying in the building ahead of time. The Hilton boasts one of the largest ballrooms in Washington, but is a functioning hotel that is difficult to secure. Guests, including the gunman, had already checked in in the days before and were not subject to security checks.

UK - Shoppers have been urged to brace for soaring food prices, as supermarkets warned the “full force” of the war in Iran would hit shelves imminently. Its warning came as separate figures from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) revealed that retailers were already under significant pressure, making it unlikely they could absorb cost increases. Fears that Britain is facing a fresh inflation crisis will create a dilemma for the Bank of England’s rate-setters, who meet on Thursday to decide whether to hold or increase borrowing costs.

USA - The King will call on the United States and Britain to “come together” even when they do not agree, in a speech to Congress on Tuesday. The King, who is in Washington for a four-day state visit to the US, is expected to say that the long tradition of transatlantic friendship does not just benefit the two countries, but the world. The spirit of friendship between the two countries is one of “reconciliation and renewal”, he will say, in carefully chosen words that come at a challenging time for US-UK relations.

AFRICA - Mali is experiencing a major escalation in violence, with jihadist groups advancing and the defense minister assassinated. The crisis threatens to destabilize the Sahel region. Mali has seen an unprecedented advance by armed groups in recent days, and among the groups involved are Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), considered a jihadist organization, and the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), seen as a group seeking an independent region or state for the Tuareg people. The context here is important. Mali is a large country that spans the Sahel region, connecting sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa. It is the eighth-largest country in Africa. It borders Algeria, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Liberia, and Burkina Faso, among other states. As such, what happens in Mali tends to spill over into other areas that span the Sahel. This means that the current advances by various groups could lead to more destabilization in Africa.

GERMANY - German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday Iran's leadership was humiliating the United States and getting US officials to travel to Pakistan and then leave without results, in an unusually abrupt rebuke over the conflict. Merz also said he did not see what exit strategy the US was pursuing in the Iran war - comments that underlined deep divisions between Washington and its European NATO allies, which had already been festering over Ukraine and other issues. "The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skillful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result," he said during a talk to students in the town of Marsberg. "An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so I hope that this ends as quickly as possible," he added at the venue in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. He said the conflict was costing Germany "a lot of money, a lot of taxpayers' money and a lot of economic strength."

UK - Cole Tomas Allen, who allegedly set out to kill Trump administration officials at the White House correspondents’ dinner on Saturday evening, has reportedly echoed in his social media posts the incessant demonisation of opponents and calls for violence that increasingly emanate from the Democratic Party. Allen is a graduate of the California Institute of Technology and was “teacher of the month” at his tutoring service. In a dismal finding, the American Political Perspectives Survey has shown that those with graduate degrees are twice as likely to support political violence as those with a high school diploma or less. Support for political violence is also highest among those identifying as “very liberal”.

USA - Spending on defence is surging in Europe while it falls in the United States, suggesting the Trump effect driving European engagement with NATO remains alive and well. Analysis of global military spending found that in 2025, $2.8 trillion or 2.5 per cent of worldwide Gross Domestic Product was directed towards militaries. Spending rose by 2.9 per cent and has increased every year for 11 consecutive years, leaving defence budgets worldwide 41 per cent higher today than in 2015, so found the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in their annual report. And there is clear evidence for what has previously been called this ‘Trump Effect’, with defence spending rising faster in Europe than any other part of the world, growing at an astonishing 14 per cent this year. European countries spent $864 billion on their militaries in 2025, with almost a third of expenditure on investments in new equipment, implying the rise in cost is going towards modernisation and growth.