Deporting soldiers? Why immigrant veterans fear removal from the US
Seeking citizenship from a warzone Hernandez has spent most of his life in the US. He was brought across the border by his mother as a baby. He now has three children, all US citizens. As of 2022, nearly 731,000 military veterans like Hernandez were immigrants. They comprise roughly 4.5 percent of the US’s veteran population. For decades, faced with declining enlistment numbers, the US military has depended on immigrants to serve alongside its US-born citizens. Most have citizenship, too — but an estimated 118,000 immigrant veterans do not. Hernandez is one of them. Like many other veterans struggling to reintegrate into society after their military service, Hernandez struggled to find his place in the civilian world. He was jailed on illegal gun charges shortly after returning from his deployment. When he was released a few weeks later, he found he had been evicted from his apartment, and all his possessions, including military memorabilia, had been confiscated. “I came out with nothing,” he told Al Jazeera. With few options left, he became involved in selling drugs, which led him to be in and out of prison on multiple convictions. Without US citizenship — and especially with convictions on his record — the threat of deportation now hangs over him. His experience is not an outlier. Roughly a third of veterans are arrested at least once in their lifetimes, and surveys estimate that as many as 181,500 are imprisoned each year. Many veterans struggle with traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorders and substance abuse issues, which can lead them to commit criminal offences. Hernandez was among those who enlisted after the attacks in the US on September 11, 2001. In the military frenzy afterwards, a recruiter at his California high school convinced him to sign up. Hernandez was just 18, and the structure, ambition and steady income of military service appealed to him. “I was trying to make a difference, trying to defend the land that was supposed to be my country — that adopted me,” he said. Hernandez was deployed when the US invaded Iraq in 2003 and then deployed two more times after that. He worked on the USS Kearsarge LHD-3, an amphibious assault group in the US Navy. “They said I was going to get to see the world,” he said. “I didn’t. It was nothing but sea.” During his first deployment on the ship, he filed his application for citizenship. The process was supposed to take only about six months. Then-President George W Bush had pledged to expedite naturalisation applications for active-duty service members who served during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in an effort to boost recruitment. But like other immigrant soldiers at the time, Hernandez’s naturalisation was delayed. The US immigration system has been chronically overwhelmed, and after the September 11 attacks, stricter background checks led to even slower service. By the time Hernandez was finally called for his citizenship interview in 2006, two years had passed since his return from his final deployment. He already had a criminal conviction for drug possession. As he was no longer in the military, Hernandez’s expedited naturalisation case was denied. Adblock test (Why?)
African governments need to take urgent action on fertiliser shortages
Food security in Africa could face major disruptions due to continuing uncertainty in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran is disrupting global fertiliser trade flows – and this stands to leave millions of African farmers without the ammonia, urea, phosphate, sulphur and other fertiliser inputs vital to growing more food in sub-Saharan Africa. Fertiliser shipments passing through the Strait of Hormuz account, for example, for roughly one-quarter of global ammonia trade and more than a third of seaborne urea. Even the slightest perceived risk can drive up fertiliser prices, stall shipments and cause a seismic shift in food price inflation. This food insecurity scenario is not new: COVID-19 pandemic disruptions and the war in Ukraine drove fertiliser prices to record highs, exposing how dependent we have become on a handful of export hubs and bottlenecked transport routes. About 80 percent of fertiliser used across sub-Saharan Africa is imported, often at prices much higher than in Europe due to freight, financing and logistics. When global supply falters, Africa’s farmers often feel the economic shocks the hardest. For many governments, fertiliser security is tied to food security, which, in turn, is linked to economic and social stability. Africa’s smallholder farmers are at the forefront of this crisis. They produce nearly 70 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s food, and unlike large commercial farms which have the cash to secure a supply earlier, smallholder farmers often have limited fertiliser options or face steep price hikes. Advertisement According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, even a 10 percent reduction in fertiliser availability could result in up to 25 percent less maize, rice and wheat grown in sub-Saharan Africa. This could trigger food inflation of up to 8 percent on the continent. In 2022, the African Development Bank Group launched the $1.5bn African Emergency Food Production Facility to help countries respond to supply disruptions amid the war in Ukraine. The initiative has supported nearly 16 million smallholder farmers in 35 countries with climate-smart seeds and fertiliser, helping generate 46 million tonnes of food worth about $19bn, with nearly $323m in cofinancing from international partners. Having delivered 3.5 million metric tonnes of fertiliser to date, the facility is rolling out a second phase that supports a shift from immediate emergency relief to consolidating, scaling up and institutionalising long-term national food sovereignty. This African-created solution has a role in helping African countries mitigate fertiliser flow uncertainty in the Strait of Hormuz. But African policymakers, partners and allies also need to act to cushion the Iran conflict’s immediate risks and build long-term resilience. They should move across five fronts. First, they need to strengthen market intelligence. Real‑time tracking of trade flows, shipping routes, and price trends helps policymakers anticipate disruptions. UN Trade and Development’s Strait of Hormuz ship traffic monitoring demonstrates how trade data can guide decisions before shortages escalate. Data sharing between regional institutions like those led by the African Fertilizer and Agribusiness Partnership would allow countries to assess exposure and coordinate action. Second, African governments and regional organisations need to coordinate regional procurement and buffer stocks. By pooling fertiliser demand, they can negotiate better prices and reduce the risk of export bans or freight spikes. Shared, commercial channel reserves can stabilise markets during shortages. Partnerships with Africa’s major fertiliser producers like Morocco and Nigeria could help stabilise markets and limit panic buying. Third, African states need to urgently expand domestic and regional production. Countries such as Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia are building fertiliser manufacturing and blending capacity, but the scale remains limited relative to demand. Public-private partnerships should invest in upgrading blending plants, ports and railways while promoting organic fertilisers and soil‑specific nutrient management. Advertisement Fourth, African governments need to protect smallholder farmers from price spikes. Well-targeted subsidies, digital voucher systems and expanded access to seasonal credit can help reduce the burden of global volatility falling on those least able to absorb it. Finally, we must support the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Initiative. Adopted during the African Union-hosted Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit in 2024, the initiative’s 10-year action plan is designed to reverse Africa’s soil degradation, boost agricultural productivity, triple fertiliser use, restore almost a third of degraded soil and double cereal yields. As the 2026 planting season advances, Africa’s ability to navigate fertiliser supply risks will depend on how quickly governments, regional organisations and private sector partners work together and with a wide reach. The World Bank’s AgriConnect programme, launched in late 2025 in collaboration with the African Development Bank Group and other organisations, shows what this partnership approach can look like. By combining digital farming advice, facilitating access to credit and climate-smart farming, AgriConnect can help farmers get fertiliser and other inputs they need, show farmers how to use them more efficiently and equip farmers to be more resilient to global market swings. Tensions in the Gulf are a reminder that a disruption in a distant shipping lane can translate into higher food prices in African households thousands of kilometres away. Multilateral banks, regional agencies and other development partners need to align funding with fertiliser security priorities. When we act quickly, these partnerships could transform today’s crisis into an opportunity that builds Africa’s long‑term food and economic sovereignty. The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. Adblock test (Why?)
After years of avoidance, Trump to attend first White House press dinner
Washington, DC – Donald Trump — whose political career has been built, in part, on deriding the United States press — is set to attend his first White House Correspondents’ Dinner as president. Saturday’s event continues a decades-long tradition, dating back to 1921. Still, the black-tie gala held in Washington, DC, remains a divisive event. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list For years, detractors have argued its chummy approach to the presidency risks blurring the independence of the press corps. Trump himself is one of the dinner’s critics. Until this year, Trump had refused to attend, appearing poised to defy a tradition of sitting presidents dining at least once with the press corps during the annual event. Since he launched his first presidential campaign, Trump has taken a bellicose approach towards the media, issuing both personal attacks on journalists and lawsuits against news organisations for coverage he deems unfair. His presence at Saturday’s dinner has only heightened questions about the event’s role in the modern era. Trump has previously declined five previous invitations to attend, across his first and second terms. His inaugural visit on Saturday has been accompanied by changes to the dinner’s format: Most notably, the longstanding practice of having a comedian perform has been nixed. Journalist organisations and rights groups, meanwhile, have called on the event’s host, the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), to send a “forthright message” to the president about protecting the freedom of the press. Advertisement “We also urge the WHCA to reaffirm, without equivocation, that freedom of the press is not a partisan issue,” a coalition of groups, including the Society of Professional Journalists, wrote in an open letter. A return for Trump? Saturday is set to be the first time Trump attends the correspondents’ dinner as president, but it is not his first time attending the event. He was present as a private citizen at the 2011 dinner, years before launching his first successful presidential campaign. At the time, Trump had begun his foray into national politics, pushing the so-called “birtherism” theory: the racist claim that then-President Barack Obama was born in Kenya and had faked his US birth certificate. It is tradition for the sitting president to speak at the event, and Obama seized the moment to lob barbs at Trump’s conspiracy theories and his nascent political career. In one instance, Obama poked fun at Trump’s work hosting the reality television show The Apprentice. Referring to Trump’s “firing” of actor Gary Busey, Obama mockingly praised his decision-making. “These are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night,” he quipped. “Well played, sir.” Obama also envisioned what a future Trump presidency would look like, displaying a mock-up of a “Trump White House Resort and Casino”. Comedian Seth Meyers, who hosted the night’s event, also took aim at Trump’s birtherism claims and political ambitions. “Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican,” he quipped at one point, “which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke.” Trump sat stone-faced in the audience, with several confidants later crediting the night as a major motivator for his 2016 presidential bid. The White House Correspondents’ Association was launched in 1914, as a response to threats by then-President Woodrow Wilson to do away with presidential news conferences. The organisation has worked to expand White House access for reporters. Comedians became mainstays of the annual dinner in the early 1980s, with both presidents and journalists often the subject of their pointed jokes. Defenders of the event have argued that the presence of comedians helps to celebrate free speech and ground the black-tie proceedings, underscoring that no attendee is above ridicule. But since President Trump first declined to attend the event after taking office in 2017, that norm has shifted. Michelle Wolf’s no-holds-barred performance in 2018 is often seen as a breaking point. Advertisement In her jokes, she seized upon Trump’s past statements appearing to praise sexual assault, and she charged that Trump did not have a “big enough spine to attend” the event. She also mocked the mainstream media’s coverage of the president. While praised by fellow comedians and some members of the press, her performance divided the White House press corps. Trump and his top officials took particular issue with the material, with the president decrying Wolf as “filthy”. The following year, the association instead invited historian Ron Chernow to speak at the event. The dinner did not have another comedian until 2022, during the administration of US President Joe Biden. Last year, during Trump’s first term back in office, the association abruptly cancelled a planned performance by comedian Amber Ruffin, with the board’s then-President Eugene Daniels saying it wanted to avoid “politics of division”. This year, a mentalist, Oz Pearlman, is set to perform instead of a comedian. Calls for press freedom The Society of Professional Journalists, Freedom of the Press Foundation, and The National Association of Black Journalists are among the organisations and hundreds of individual journalists urging their colleagues to use the event to make a statement. In an open letter, it said the actions by the Trump administration “represent the most systematic and comprehensive assault on freedom of the press by a sitting American president”. The organisation pointed to a series of hostile actions the Trump administration has taken against journalists. They include limiting the White House and Pentagon press pools, threats by the Federal Communications Commission against broadcasters, immigration enforcement actions against non-citizen journalists, and an FBI raid of a Washington Post reporter’s home. The letter also pointed to the White House’s launching of a “hall of shame” page on its website, which highlights news organisations accused of biased coverage, as well as Trump’s repeated verbal attacks on reporters. But the Trump administration has rejected allegations that it treats journalists unfairly or that it has prevented public access to information. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, for example, has regularly touted Trump as the “most transparent” president
LIVE: Real Betis vs Real Madrid – La Liga
blinking-dotLive MatchLive Match, Follow our live build-up, with full team news coverage, before our text commentary stream as Real chase Barcelona. Published On 24 Apr 202624 Apr 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
Five games to go: The Premier League’s unpredictable season turns again
This was supposed to be Arsenal’s title. For 200 days, it looked like it would be. But Wednesday night, Erling Haaland scored his 35th goal of the season after five minutes at Turf Moor, and Manchester City went top of the Premier League for the first time since October. Arsenal’s 200-day lead was gone, just like that, to a team that three weeks ago looked like they had run out of steam. I am a Manchester United supporter. I have no dog in this fight. So honestly, watching this title race from the outside has been one of the most entertaining things the Premier League has produced in years. Not because the football has always been brilliant. Because it really has not. But because absolutely nothing has gone the way anyone expected. Arsenal were supposed to win this! The title felt done. Football journalists were already writing the “Arsenal end the wait” pieces and filing them for publication on whatever Sunday it became official. Then Bournemouth beat them at home. Then they lost at the Etihad to goals from Rayan Cherki and Erling Haaland. Then last night, City beat Burnley, and Arsenal’s 200-day stint at the top was over. Now they have no tie-breaker advantage. If the two clubs finish level on points, goal difference and goals scored, City win the title because they have won more points in the head-to-head matches this season. Arsenal hold none of the cards. It’s a case of who blinks first, and I think Arsenal will blink. Mikel Arteta has taken Arsenal close, and he deserves some credit for that. But his performative coaching on the sideline, his cringeworthy “tricks” in training, they point to a man feeling the pressure. He’s so worked up, I think it’s translating to the pitch. Advertisement The Chelsea disaster … While the title race has been the main event, Chelsea have been providing the most genuinely extraordinary sideshow in Premier League history. Three managers in 16 months. Some 2 billion pounds ($2.7bn) spent on players. Seventh in the table. And my personal favourite stat of the entire season: five consecutive league games without scoring, the first time that has happened to Chelsea since 1912. Their most recent manager, Liam Rosenior, was sacked this week. He had been in the job for 106 days on a six-and-a-half-year contract. He is perhaps best remembered for a news conference in January where he explained that the word “manage”, split into two, gives you “man” and “age” and that, therefore, management means “ageing men”. He aged extremely quickly. He is now 41 and unemployed. The week he was sacked, Chelsea’s parent company published accounts showing operating losses of 689 million pounds ($930m) over three years. That is a loss of 629,000 pounds ($850,000) every single day. For three years. At a football club that cannot beat Brighton. There is a serious point buried in the Chelsea comedy. Spending money without a coherent plan is not a strategy. The clubs who disrupted the established order this season, Bournemouth above all, did it through organisation and intelligence. Bournemouth sold their five best players for a combined 250 million pounds ($338m) in 18 months. Their manager, Andoni Iraola, adapted, rebuilt and is still on course to finish in the top half while playing some of the most attractive football in the country. Bournemouth beat Arsenal at the Emirates. They beat Liverpool at Anfield. Chelsea spent many times their budget and could finish below them. When did it turn? If I had to pick one result that changed everything, it would be Southampton beating Arsenal in the FA Cup quarterfinal. Southampton were relegated the previous season. It did not cost Arsenal the title by itself. But it was the first moment where you looked at Arsenal and thought: Something is not quite right here. The composure, the belief, the ability to handle big moments and it wobbled. Once that wobble is visible, every subsequent result gets filtered through it. The Bournemouth home loss felt worse because of Southampton. The City defeat felt worse because of Bournemouth. And now with five games left and City top on goal difference, the whole thing looks like a slow unravelling that started on that day. Five to go! City have Everton away, Brentford at home, Bournemouth away, Crystal Palace at home and Villa at home on the final day. Arsenal have Newcastle at home, Fulham at home, West Ham away, Burnley at home and Crystal Palace away on the final day when they will face a club whose best player, Eberechi Eze, left for Arsenal in the summer and will be returning to the stadium where his career was made. Advertisement Arsenal also have the Champions League semifinal against Atletico Madrid to get through. City have no European football. They are rested, they are focused and Haaland has 35 goals this season with five games still to play. I said at the start of this that Arsenal were going to bottle it. I said it in February when they were nine points clear, and people were not particularly happy about it. I stand by it. The momentum, the tiebreakers, the fixture congestion and I think the mentality – all of it points towards City. But I have been watching this league for 30 years, and I have learned one thing above everything else: The Premier League will find a way to surprise you. The season that looked decided in December is never decided in December. The team that looks unbeatable in April sometimes loses to Bournemouth on a wet Tuesday night and never quite recovers. It happened to Arsenal. Maybe it happens to City too. Five games. Everything to play for. Come back and tell me I was wrong. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. Adblock test (Why?)
Chornobyl at 40: Settlers and horses survive Russian drones, contamination
Oslyak had just finished a night shift at ChNPP on April 25, and had returned to Pripyat and their cosy apartment, with its wall rugs and soft lighting typical of functional Soviet style. He slipped into bed next to Nikitina and fell into a deep sleep. At 1:23am, explosions rang out across the night sky. The city stirred in the night, and some residents woke to the blasts and an unfamiliar light on the horizon, but Nikitina and her husband remained asleep. In the plant, molten fuel burned through layers of concrete and steel towards water beneath the reactor, threatening an even greater explosion. Firefighters and workers responded, unaware of the danger, climbing onto the roof and into the wreckage as radiation surged beyond levels that humans can handle. Two Chornobyl plant workers died that night as a result of the initial explosion, and a further 28 personnel and emergency workers called to the site would die in the following weeks as a result of acute radiation poisoning. But in Pripyat, as Nikitina woke on the morning of April 26, everything seemed normal. It was Saturday, and while many plant workers were off, shops were open, and, as was the norm in the Soviet Union, children went to school. Neither she nor her husband was scheduled to work that day, but as they left the apartment for a stroll, they noticed multiple sealed vehicles loaded with heavy equipment moving through the city towards the ChNPP. They thought back to their university classes, where they had been taught what would happen if a reactor were damaged. It had been presented as such an unlikely scenario that, at the time, she said it felt almost like an old wives’ tale. Yet, they agreed that these signs had all the hallmarks of a major incident, so the couple and their child hunkered down in their apartment and made sure all the windows were tightly closed as a precaution. The morning of April 27, they woke to temporary evacuation orders blaring from loudspeakers mounted on trucks and police cars. Residents were told to gather at collection points near their buildings as there had been an incident at the ChNPP, while municipal services began distributing iodine tablets to the inhabitants of Pripyat to protect their thyroids from radiation exposure. The authorities did not tell them how severe the incident was, and they were advised to pack enough food and clothes for just three days. Before they were about to leave their apartment for evacuation, her husband received a call from the local authorities: He was needed at the plant and was told to stay behind. Nikitina recalls the moment she stood on the warm spring day, waiting with her son to board a bus. She said, although the roughly 49,000 residents of the city were evacuated in an orderly manner, she has realised in hindsight the extreme dangers they were exposed to, standing in dresses, shorts and light clothing, unaware they were immersed in a radioactive plume filled with radionuclides and aerosols. Nikitina and her son were first evacuated to Ivankiv, a town roughly 50km (30 miles) south of Pripyat and about 90km (56 miles) north of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. After Soviet authorities admitted on April 28 that a disaster had occurred, news of its severity spread among the evacuees. A panicked Nikitina began desperately washing her and her son’s clothes in their temporary lodging provided by the authorities, trying to remove any contamination. As she laid them out to dry on a balcony, a dosimetrist visited her, only to discover that they contained dangerous levels of radiation and ordered them to be immediately removed and destroyed. Adblock test (Why?)
Iran war live: Lebanon truce extended; Trump says time not on Tehran’s side
blinking-dotLive updatesLive updates, Death toll from Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza has reached 72,568 with 172,338 injured: Gaza’s Health Ministry. Published On 24 Apr 202624 Apr 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
US professors sue university over arrest during pro-Palestine protest
By The Associated Press Published On 23 Apr 202623 Apr 2026 Three professors at Atlanta’s Emory University in the United States have filed a lawsuit over their arrests during a 2024 campus protest over Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Their lawsuit on Thursday argued that the university broke its own free-speech policies when it called in police and state troopers to aggressively disband the protest, making 28 arrests. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list “The judicial system would find that Emory failed to protect its students, to protect its staff, to protect the educational mission of the university,” said philosophy professor Noelle McAfee, one of the plaintiffs. “So this isn’t just about people’s individual rights. It’s our educational mission to train people in free and critical inquiry, to be able to learn how to engage with others, to be fearless.” Laura Diamond, a spokesperson for Emory, responded that the university believes “this lawsuit is without merit”. “Emory acts appropriately and responsibly to keep our community safe from threats of harm,” Diamond said in a statement. “We regret this issue is being litigated, but we have confidence in the legal process.” The suit is just one example of how the nationwide wave of protests from 2023 and 2024 continues to reverberate on elite campuses. There have been multiple instances where students and faculty have filed lawsuits against universities, arguing they were discriminated against because of the protests. But the Emory suit is unusual. McAfee and her fellow plaintiffs — English and Indigenous studies professor Emilio Del Valle-Escalante and economics professor Caroline Fohlin — all remain tenured faculty members. None were convicted of any charges. The civil lawsuit in DeKalb County State Court demands that the private university repay money the three spent defending themselves against misdemeanour charges that were later dismissed, along with punitive damages. Advertisement McAfee said she’s suing her employer “to try to get them to be accountable and to change”. All three say they were observers on April 25, 2024, when some students and others set up tents on the university’s main quad to protest the war. They say Emory broke its own policies by calling in Atlanta police and Georgia state troopers without seeking alternatives. McAfee was charged with disorderly conduct after she said she yelled “Stop!” at an officer roughly arresting a protester. Del Valle-Escalante said he was trying to help an older woman when he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Fohlin said that, when she protested against officers pinning a protester to the ground, she herself was thrown face-first to the ground and arrested, suffering a concussion and a spine injury. Fohlin was charged with misdemeanour battery of an officer. Emory claimed that those arrested that day were outsiders who trespassed on school property. But 20 of the 28 people arrested were affiliated with the university. The professors said that, after their arrests, they were targeted by threats and harassment, part of a pushback by conservatives who said universities were failing to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitism and allowing lawlessness. Nationwide, however, advocates say there is a “Palestine exception” in which universities are willing to curb pro-Palestine speech and protest. Palestine Legal, a legal aid group supporting such speech, said Tuesday that it received 300 percent more legal requests in 2025 than its annual average before 2023, mostly from college students and faculty. McAfee served as president of the Emory University Senate after her arrest. The body makes policy recommendations and has helped draft the university’s open expression policy. She said she asked then-President Gregory Fenves in fall 2024 why Emory police weren’t dropping the charges against her and others. McAfee said Fenves told her that he wanted “to see justice”. The open expression policy was revised after 2024 to clearly prohibit tents, camping, the occupation of university buildings and demonstrations between midnight and 7am. Whatever the policy, McAfee said students are afraid to protest at Emory, saying the university has turned its back on what Atlanta civil rights icon John Lewis called “good trouble”. “Students know right now that any trouble is not going to be good trouble at Emory, that they could get arrested,” she said. “So students are afraid.” Adblock test (Why?)
Oil rises above $106 per barrel as US, Iran deadlocked in Strait of Hormuz
Jump in prices comes as Donald Trump says vessels will need permission of US Navy to transit key waterway. Published On 24 Apr 202624 Apr 2026 Oil prices have jumped on heightened tensions between the United States and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz following Washington and Tehran’s tit-for-tat captures of commercial vessels. Brent crude, the international benchmark, topped $106 per barrel early on Friday morning as Washington and Tehran stepped up their confrontation over the key maritime route for transporting the world’s energy. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list Brent stood at $106.80 as of 01:00 GMT, up nearly 5 percent from its closing price on Wednesday, when it surpassed $100 per barrel for the first time in two weeks. US stocks fell overnight, with the benchmark S&P 500 index dipping 0.41 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropping 0.89 percent. Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries about one-fifth of the world’s supply of oil and natural gas, remains at a standstill as Iran continues to demand the right to decide which vessels may pass and the US blocks Iran’s maritime trade. US President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post on Thursday that he had ordered the US Navy to destroy any Iranian boats laying mines in the strait, shortly after the Pentagon announced that it had seized a tanker carrying sanctioned Iranian oil for the second time in less than a week. Trump also appeared to expand the scope of the US naval blockade beyond Iranian ports, writing on Truth Social that no ship “can enter or leave” the strait without the approval of the US Navy. “It is ‘Sealed up Tight,’ until such time as Iran is able to make a DEAL!!!” Trump said. Advertisement Trump’s threats came a day after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced the capture of two foreign cargo ships in the waterway. The IRGC said it had seized the Panamanian-flagged MSC Francesca and Greek-owned Epaminondas after the vessels had endangered maritime security “by operating without the necessary permits and tampering with navigation systems”. The Greek Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy Ministry has denied that the Epaminondas was captured and said the vessel remains under the control of its captain. Only nine commercial vessels transited the strait on Wednesday, compared with seven on Tuesday and 15 on Monday, according to maritime intelligence platform Windward. Before the US and Israel launched their war against Iran on February 28, the waterway saw an average of 129 transits each day, according to United Nations Trade and Development. Adblock test (Why?)
Turkiye MPs pass bill to restrict social media use for children under 15
Lawmakers pass bill to require social media platforms to introduce age-verification tools and control mechanisms. Published On 23 Apr 202623 Apr 2026 Turkish MPs have passed a bill that includes restricting access to social media platforms for children under 15, according to state media. The legislation is the latest in a global trend aimed at protecting young people from dangerous online activity, following in the footsteps of Australia, which introduced landmark restrictions on social media use last year. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list The bill’s adoption in Turkiye comes a week after a 14-year-old boy killed nine students and a teacher in a gun attack at a middle school in Kahramanmaras in southern Turkiye. Police are investigating the online activity of the perpetrator, who also died, in a bid to uncover his motivation for the attack. The bill would force social media platforms to install age‑verification systems, provide parental control tools and require companies to rapidly respond to content deemed harmful, the state-run Anadolu news agency said. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan now has 15 days to approve the bill for it to become law. He spoke in the wake of the Kahramanmaras killings of the need to mitigate the online risks to children’s safety and privacy. “We are living in a period where some digital sharing applications are corrupting our children’s minds, and social media platforms have, to put it bluntly, become cesspools,” he said in a televised address on Monday. The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has criticised the proposal, saying children should be protected “not with bans but with rights-based policies”. Mandatory measures Under the law, digital platforms – such as YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram – would have to block children under 15 from opening accounts and introduce parental controls that would manage children’s access. Advertisement Online gaming companies will also be required to appoint a representative in Turkiye to ensure they abide by the new regulations. Potential penalties include internet bandwidth reductions and fines imposed by Turkiye’s communications watchdog. The Turkish government has been criticised by the opposition for restricting online platforms when used as a means of expressing dissent. Online communications were widely restricted during last year’s protests in support of Istanbul’s jailed opposition mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu. Restrictions on social media access for children under 16 first began in December in Australia, where social media companies revoked access to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children. Last month, Indonesia began implementing a new government regulation banning children younger than 16 from access to digital platforms that could expose them to pornography, cyberbullying, online scams and addiction. Other countries – including Spain, France and the United Kingdom – are also taking or considering measures to restrict children’s access to social media amid growing concern that they are being harmed by exposure to unregulated social media content. Adblock test (Why?)