Syria announces clandestine cells dismantled for preparing assasination of top government officials

Explosives and weapons seized, 11 people detained

https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/05/05/syria-foils-hezbollah-assassination-plot-with-raids-across-country/

https://www.arabnews.pk/node/2642450/middle-east

The United Arab Emirates has come under attack from Iranian missiles and drones for the second day in a row, according to its Defence Ministry. Tuesday’s attack came a day after at least three people were injured in strikes the day before, and a drone sparked a fire at a key oil facility in the eastern emirate of Fujairah.

The results of the latest attack were not immediately clear. The escalation comes amid fears of a return to war between Iran and the US, after Washington launched a new initiative, dubbed “Project Freedom”, to guide vessels through the Strait of Hormuz starting on Monday. About a fifth of global energy exports pass through the narrow waterway. In retaliation for joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February, Iranian forces have effectively taken control of the strait by attacking – or just threatening – vessels attempting to cross without Tehran’s permission. The move has triggered a global energy shock, pushing oil and gas prices to multi-year highs. In response, the US imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports and shipping on April 13, limiting Tehran’s ability to export oil, import essential goods and maintain foreign-exchange inflows.

Prosecutors said that the six defendants were members of the banned group Palestine Action, which organised the assault on the Elbit Systems UK facility in Bristol, southwest England, in August 2024.

The raid, which prosecutors said caused about one million pounds ($1.36m) of damage, took place about 10 months into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza that began in October 2023.

Palestine Action was later proscribed under “terrorism” law, a decision which was ruled unlawful by London’s High Court, though the group remains banned pending the government’s appeal, which was heard last week.

Tuesday’s verdicts follow an earlier trial, after which all six defendants were acquitted of aggravated burglary, and the previous jury could not reach verdicts on the criminal damage charges.

Prosecutors later dropped charges of violent disorder against all six defendants.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/51525347

Full Report(PDF).

Trump says US navy will ‘guide’ stranded ships out of waterway but report says warship was hit by Iran

The world’s shipping industry has questioned whether vessels will be able to travel safely to and from the Gulf after Donald Trump announced his latest plan to open the strait of Hormuz.

Trump wrote on Monday that the US navy would “guide” stranded ships out of the waterway, writing on his social media site Truth Social that the operation, “Project Freedom”, would be a humanitarian gesture “on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran”.

But within hours Iran’s Fars news agency reported a US warship intending to pass through the strait had been hit by two missiles and turned back after ignoring an Iranian warning. The US denied its ship had been hit. Brent crude rose more than 5% a barrel to $114.45 amid reports that the United Arab Emirates was responding to a missile threat and a fire on a South Korean vessel in the Gulf.

The surge in gold prices in recent years has fueled a renewed mining rush in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, accelerating deforestation in protected areas and driving mercury contamination to hazardous levels, officials and experts say. A study released Tuesday by the nongovernmental organization Amazon Conservation, in partnership with Brazilian nonprofit Instituto Socioambiental, found illegal mining sites drove clear-cutting inside three conservation areas in the Xingu region, one of the world’s largest expanses of protected forest, spanning the states of Para and Mato Grosso. The analysis combined satellite imagery with ground research. The Terra do Meio Ecological Station recorded its first cases of illegal mining in September 2024. By the end of 2025, mining-related deforestation there had spread to 30 hectares (74 acres). At the Altamira National Forest, illegal mining accumulated 832 hectares (2,056 acres) of deforestation between 2016 and September 2025. A new mining front that opened in 2024 expanded to 36 hectares (89 acres) by October 2025, accounting for nearly half the mining-related deforestation recorded in the unit during that year.

Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced an updated version of her country's regional strategy in Vietnam last weekend, underlining Tokyo's growing reliance on Southeast Asia at a time of intensifying great-power rivalry. Takaichi met her Vietnamese counterpart, Le Minh Hung, on Saturday in Hanoi, where the two leaders oversaw the signing of six cooperation agreements, including on disaster-resilient rural development, climate-resilient infrastructure and satellite data exchange. The visit came as Japan and Vietnam look to deepen their "Comprehensive Strategic Partnership,” which has become increasingly important to both sides. The two governments agreed to work toward raising Japanese investment in Vietnam to $5 billion (€4.3 billion) per year and bilateral trade to $60 billion by 2030, according to Vietnam's Foreign Ministry. Bilateral trade exceeded $50 billion for the first time last year, while Japan remains one of Vietnam's largest sources of foreign investment. Japan and Vietnam also share concerns about China's territorial claims and military activity in the East and South China Seas.

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More than four years after a Boeing 737-800 passenger jet plunged 29,000 feet and crashed into a mountain in southern China, killing all 132 people on board, newly released data appears to indicate that someone in the cockpit may have intentionally switched off the fuel supply to the engines.

It was China’s deadliest air disaster in decades, but the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has not addressed the crucial question of what had prompted the deadly nosedive of China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735 in March 2022 in remote Guangxi region.

Data released by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in response to a freedom of information request, shows that the fuel switches to both engines were shut off simultaneously before the Boeing 737-800 jet dropped out of the sky.

Amnesty International has accused a rebel group in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) of mass war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In a damning new report published Monday, the rights group said the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) was behind multiple cases of murder, abductions, forced labour and marriage, sexual abuse of women and girls, and the exploitation of children.

The report is entitled “I’d Never Seen So Many Bodies: War Crimes by the Allied Democratic Forces in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo”. The ADF has been involved in a years-long military campaign against central authorities in Kinshasa and pledged allegiance to ISIS/ISIL, also known as ISIS-Central Africa, in 2019. “Civilians in the eastern DRC have suffered extensive brutality at the hands of ADF fighters. They have been killed, abducted and tortured in a dehumanising campaign of abuse,” Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said. “The ADF’s violence is contributing to an escalating humanitarian crisis… These abuses constitute war crimes which the world must not continue to ignore.”

An explosion ripped through a fireworks plant in the central Chinese province of Hunan, leaving at least 21 people dead, state media reported Thursday, A total of 61 people are reported to have been injured in the incident.

What do we know? The blast occurred in the ​city of Changsha on Monday at around 4:40 pm local time (8:40 am UTC), state-run outlets CCTV and Xinhua reported. The city is home to a hub for fireworks manufacturing. The causes behind the incident were not immediately clear. Nearly 500 rescuers were deployed at the site of the blast, reports said. People staying in danger zones were evacuated, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing high risks from two black powder depots located on the site. According to reports, rescue workers used spraying and humidification to eliminate potential hazards and further accidents during the operation.

President Donald Trump says the US has struck seven Iranian "fast boats" in the Strait of Hormuz, as Washington seeks to guide stranded ships out of the Gulf through the largely closed waterway. The UAE and South Korea both reported strikes on ships in the vital channel on Monday. The UAE also said a fire broke out at the oil port of Fujairah after an Iranian attack. Shipping company Maersk told the BBC that one of its US-flagged vessels had successfully exited the strait with US military protection - under what Trump has called "Project Freedom". Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that events in the strait "make clear that there's no military solution to a political crisis".

At least two people were killed after a car drove through a crowd in the eastern German city of Leipzig, authorities said. Around 20 other people were hurt, including three who were seriously injured. Police said the suspect was a 33-year-old German male who was apprehended inside the vehicle after it came to a stop. "The driver has been arrested; there is currently no further danger from him," they said.

UAE reports large fire at oil port after drone attack from Iran

We're also hearing from local officials in Fujairah, who say a large fire has broken out at the key UAE oil port after it was hit by a drone attack from Iran.

Fujairah is the Emirates' biggest port and oil storage facility. Before the ceasefire, it was also targeted in drone attacks.

In a statement shared on social media, the Fujairah Government Media Office says civil defence teams are working to contain the fire.

For the past three years, reports of wartime atrocities and dire humanitarian crises have been making the headlines from Sudan. Now, satellite imagery shows the extent of the damage to the country’s agriculture and industrial sectors. An Al Jazeera digital investigation using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) reveals the devastating toll of the war on Sudan’s largest irrigated farming projects in the central states of Gezira, Sennar, and Khartoum.

The fertile plains of central Sudan – known as the country’s “breadbasket” – have been devastated, the images show, with the vibrant, geometric green grids that once defined the country’s agricultural heartland now faded into a barren, dusty brown. Sudan descended into a bloody civil war on April 15, 2023 following a power struggle between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful paramilitary force, and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).