BIG Wrap

(Al Jazeera Media Network) Iran says it launched missiles at two US bases in Jordan following a US attack on Larak Island in southern Iran earlier on Sunday. In a statement reported by Iranian news agencies on Sunday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said the combined missile and drone operation, which it called “Punishment of the Aggressor”, hit the King Hussein and Al Azraq bases in Jordan. The exchange of attacks is the first flare-up...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) United States President Donald Trump has said on social media that oil from a recently struck deal with Venezuela will be ⁠used to replenish the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, an oil stockpile that the country keeps for emergencies and that has been drawn down sharply in ⁠recent years to respond to global supply disruptions and high fuel prices. The US president wrote on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns, that the...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) An armed raid on a seasonal cattle camp and village in the northwest of South Sudan has killed least 49 people, according to local officials. The raid, which wounded 33 other people, took place early on Thursday, as gunmen attacked the Machar-Pakuek cattle camp and Mading Juer Boma in Majak Payam, Tonj North County, Warrap State, according to an official statement. The young African nation is plagued by violent cattle raids, with herders...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) Some 360 bodies have been recovered, and more than 1,400 people are missing across Nepal and China’s Tibet region after a huge collapse of mud and rock into a Himalayan river triggered catastrophic flooding across local towns and valleys, authorities have said. Rescue teams waded through mud on Thursday, searching for the missing, as authorities in Nepal said at least 359 people have been killed there. At least three people have died in the neighbouring...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) China has said that it would safeguard its interests after Washington unveiled new measures while laying out plans for the “economic asphyxiation” of Beijing’s economic partner Iran. Speaking at a regular news briefing in Beijing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian rejected Washington’s expanding pressure campaign, calling for an immediate end to unilateral measures. “Cooperation between China and Iran has always been conducted within the framework of international law and should not...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) At least 30 people have been killed as a new wave of violence grips Haiti. A powerful gang coalition mounted the attack on a farming community in Kenscoff, south of the capital, Port-au-Prince, late on Sunday, officials reported. The flare-up in violence comes as Haiti hopes to hold its first general election in more than a decade. Jean Massillon, Kenscoff’s mayor, said armed men “sowed chaos” as they set homes on fire...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) Israel’s parliamentary election campaign is in full swing, with politicians talking up their ability to defeat the country’s opponents across the region. But the focus on war and the perceived existential threat to Israel from those opponents masks that few of the most prominent contenders in October’s election are discussing the astronomical cost of the country’s multiple conflicts, and how they plan to deal with it. Israel’s central bank estimated in its 2025 report...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) United States allies in Asia are watching warily as Washington scales back military assets in the region to meet demands in the Middle East, where the US-Israel war on Iran is dragging into its sixth month. The latest point of tension came this week as the US moved its last aircraft carrier in Asia – the USS George Washington – from Japan to the Middle East to relieve the USS Abraham...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) The total debt of the United States has surpassed $40 trillion for the first time, according to a Department of the Treasury update on Wednesday. Ballooning debt, especially during President Donald Trump’s second term, which began in January last year, has been raising concerns about a looming fiscal crisis for some time, with economists fearing a toxic combination of heavy borrowing, increased spending and lower taxes could land the world’s biggest...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) United States President Donald Trump has demanded that Iran surrender and threatened to bomb Oman if it interfered with the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, as a 60-day ceasefire deal between Washington and Tehran expired without an agreement to end the war. Speaking on Fox News on Monday, Trump said that Iran should “put up the white flag of surrender” in the five-month-long US-Israel war, confirming that his administration had opened a...