The first telegram arrived in Singapore on a Monday, sent from the city of Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta, Indonesia). “Terrific detonations from Krakatau (volcanic island),” it reported. Soon afterward: “Stones falling. Village near Anjer washed away.” The wires continued clattering out news of bridges destroyed, boats smashed, lighthouses “disappeared.” By noon on Tuesday, the scope of the natural disaster was clear: “Where once Mount Krakatau stood the sea now plays.”
Within days, the source of the destruction was known worldwide. On the morning of August 27, 1883, a volcanic eruption had obliterated two islands in the strait between Java and Sumatra, and most of a third. More than 36,000 people perished, the majority in devastating tsunamis that raced outward from the colossal explosion.
Thanks to Victorian-era telecommunications, it was the first time in history that people around the globe could begin to document, in near real time, the immediate and long-term effects of a catastrophic volcanic eruption. What they learned over the next few years laid the foundations for the modern science of volcanology. And it was an especially eye-opening lesson in how the biggest eruptions can influence climate, agriculture, and even the course of human history.
Global effects
In the months after Krakatau, drifting volcanic particles high in the atmosphere circled the globe, causing violently colored sunsets that contemporary artists captured in paintings, likely including the psychedelic background of Edvard Munch’s The Scream.
But the key climate-driving component of the volcano’s emissions was sulfur from the molten rock that fed Krakatau. Once sulfur erupts into the atmosphere, it can form particles called aerosols that reflect sunlight and cool Earth. In the months and years after the eruption, average summer temperatures fell 0.6° Celsius (1.1° Fahrenheit) in the non-tropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
Fast-forward more than a century, and researchers now understand that climate changes, especially rapid ones, have transformed societies by affecting agriculture, public health, and living conditions. With what they’ve learned from Krakatau and other eruptions, volcanologists today are identifying past catastrophic blasts that may have contributed to historic events like droughts, famines, epidemics and societal unrest.
“In so many different ways societies were affected … a failure in harvest or flooding or a cold summer or a really cold winter,” says Katrin Kleemann, an environmental historian at the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven.
While they can’t prove an eruption caused the demise of a regime, volcanologists have uncovered some intriguing links, including some that could inform our understanding of how today’s society might react to a rapidly changing climate.
536 and all that
The first challenge in making volcano-society connections is to find physical fingerprints of past eruptions. In the year 536, scribes in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia wrote about bizarre weather, including a haze that shrouded the sun for 18 months. Temperatures plummeted, harvests failed, and within a few years, the first documented global plague began.
These early medieval chronicles strongly suggest a major volcanic eruption—but the hard evidence lies deep in polar ice. Scientists can infer that big eruptions happened at certain times in the past by looking for sulfur and ash deposits in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica. These cores, drilled into ice sheets, preserve an annual record of whatever was circulating in Earth’s atmosphere as it settled onto the surface each year. Researchers can read these frozen layers back in time like turning the pages of a book.
It turns out that polar ice cores do contain large amounts of sulfur dating to 536, a distinct signal of a major eruption. But which volcano went off at the time remains a mystery. There is no known written record from anyone living close to the eruption—Iceland, where it may have occurred, was not yet populated.
Large volcanic eruptions cool Earth’s climate by injecting tiny particles of sulfur high into the atmosphere, where they reflect a portion of incoming sunlight back into space for periods of months or years. The 1257 eruption of the Samalas volcano in Indonesia dwarfed others in recent history as measured by sulfur output, and has been shown to have chilled the climate across the Northern Hemisphere for several years afterward. Other significant eruptions shown have also influenced Earth’s climate enough to affect human societies.
Large volcanic eruptions cool Earth’s climate by injecting tiny particles of sulfur high into the atmosphere, where they reflect a portion of incoming sunlight back into space for periods of months or years. The 1257 eruption of the Samalas volcano in Indonesia dwarfed others in recent history as measured by sulfur output, and has been shown to have chilled the climate across the Northern Hemisphere for several years afterward. Other significant eruptions shown have also influenced Earth’s climate enough to affect human societies. Credit: Knowable Magazine
Empire falls
There is better evidence pinpointing the volcano that may have helped topple the Mongol Empire seven centuries later. Until 2013, researchers knew only that some eruption—the biggest in the last few millennia as measured by sulfur output—occurred in 1257. In 2013, an interdisciplinary team radiocarbon-dated the ash, pumice, and other deposits around Samalas, a volcano in Indonesia, tying it to the 1257 eruption.
Tree-ring studies, which analyze annual growth layers on trees to determine which years had good and bad growing weather, show extensive cooling across North America and Eurasia from 1257 to 1259. Among other impacts, bad harvests led to starvation in England, and wet, cool summer weather in Japan damaged rice production.
Some researchers have speculated that it was the Samalas eruption that helped seal the fate of the Mongol Empire, which ended after its last ruler perished in a 1259 epidemic in China that could have been linked with the eruption-caused climate changes.
The Black Death
A century after Samalas, volcanologists have found, there was yet another intriguing eruption-disease connection. Between 1346 and 1352, perhaps half of Europe’s population died in the Black Death plague, from infection by the flea-borne bacterium Yersinia pestis.
Historical records from Europe and Asia suggest that skies were darker than usual around that time, perhaps because of a volcanic haze. Ice-core records support that interpretation, documenting a big eruption, or perhaps several, around the year 1345—though the location remains unknown.
To see how this volcanic activity might have affected climate, an interdisciplinary team led by Ulf Büntgen, a tree-ring specialist at the University of Cambridge, used tree-ring data to confirm that the summers of 1345, 1346, and 1347 were unusually cold and wet in southern Europe.
Büntgen and his colleagues note that as crops failed in the bad weather, Europeans imported grain from farther east. The grain ships arrived with rats harboring Y. pestis, leading the researchers to argue that the mystery volcano erupting in 1345 may have set off a chain of events that ultimately killed tens of millions of people.
Iceland’s toxic fogs
Connecting volcanoes to human events may be a challenge even today, but in 1784 an American ambassador to France named Benjamin Franklin was astute enough to link a strange haze that rolled across the countryside in the previous year to a distant eruption.
The source turns out to be Laki, an Icelandic fissure that spewed lava for eight months starting in June 1783. The eruption killed at least one-fifth of Iceland’s people, and much of its livestock, through toxic fog and climate changes that ruined harvests. Though the event was well-documented in Iceland, observers in England, France and elsewhere across Europe who saw the volcano’s haze and sometimes smelled its foul odor could only guess what was going on in a disconnected, pre-electronic world.
“They wouldn’t get news alerts on their phone, they wouldn’t see livestreams of this eruption — they would have no idea,” says Kleemann, who has studied the eruption.
Connections grow clearer
Though it happened just a few decades after Laki, one of the largest eruptions in recorded human history offers a much more detailed picture of how a volcanic climate shock can change history. In 1815, a mountain in Indonesia named Tambora exploded, sending sulfur into the upper atmosphere and triggering broad climatic changes.
Tambora’s eruption caused cooling across much of Europe and North America, where crops failed and 1816 was dubbed the “year without a summer.” The volcanic weather that year kept the writer Mary Shelley cooped up while traveling in Switzerland, where she wrote the novel Frankenstein.
The bad weather brought famine to Switzerland, Ireland, and elsewhere; grain prices and malnutrition soared in parts of Europe, prompting tens of thousands of people to emigrate to North America. Eastern Europe and western Russia, in contrast, had relatively better growing conditions under the post-volcanic climate and enough grain to export it to other nations. Port cities like London and Hamburg enjoyed greater access to imported grains, while prices rose sharply in the hinterlands. Those bright spots show how access to transportation and trade networks can make societies more resilient in the face of disaster.
“Human society has a lot of susceptibilities and vulnerabilities,” says Clive Oppenheimer, a volcanologist at the University of Cambridge who coauthored a 2026 Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences paper on volcanoes, climate and society with Büntgen. “Some climate shocks will come and go…. At other times, the climate shock will come … when there are greater societal vulnerabilities.”
These lessons may hold particular relevance today, because researchers see the historical fallout of past eruptions as a clue to how humanity might respond to present-day climate change. Big volcanic eruptions cool the planet rather than warm it, but they represent the same sort of rapid planetwide shocks that societies are coping with now as Earth heats up.
And as historical volcanology teaches, it is only a matter of time before the next big blast. In the era of satellites and social media saturation, the whole world will know the moment it happens—but it is only by studying past events like Krakatau and Tambora that we can have an idea of what will happen next.
When monsters square off, they are quick to showcase their asymmetrical superpowers.
Take Godzilla, for instance. Thanks to U.S. atomic testing in the Pacific, the dinosaur-like sea creature has explosive, radioactive breath that can destroy everything in its path. His archenemy Rodan, meanwhile, is a pterodactyl-like bird that can fly at supersonic speeds, a skill useful in avoiding atomic bad breath. Since the 1960s, the two giant monsters have duked it out across a series of Japanese films, causing much mayhem in the process.
Originally the product of Cold War fears of nuclear peril, these archetypal monsters can stand in for the principal geopolitical antagonists of today. Like their monster kin, China and the United States have very specific and complementary superpowers. China controls the majority of critical minerals in the world, with a special focus on rare earth elements. The United States has a technological edge when it comes to the most sophisticated semiconductors needed for artificial intelligence applications.
Put bluntly: China has the rocks, and America has the chips.
With these superpowers on display, the two countries have clashed in a series of trade negotiations, tense military standoffs, and high-level political meetings. They are engaged in a prolonged tug-of-war not to save the world — as in some comic-book universe — but in the service of their own national aggrandizement and transnational greed. While they dicker, the world slouches toward bedlam.
A Pause in Hostilities
When President Donald Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing in mid-May, the exchanges were unexpectedly cordial. The two countries had been engaged in an on-again, off-again war of tariffs since Trump had begun his second term, a conflict that threatened to spiral out of control. At the same time, the Chinese were deeply concerned about the impact of the U.S.–Israeli war against Iran on international stability, given spiking oil prices and their ripple effects on the global economy.
Yet, at this meeting in China, the two leaders converged on a common goal of “constructive strategic stability.” In order to forge this condominium of superpowers — a G2 — Trump was willing to delay arms deliveries to Taiwan. He also greenlighted the sale of sophisticated (though not the most advanced) Nvidia computer chips to China. In turn, China agreed to increase its purchases from the United States, including 200 Boeing aircraft and $17 billion of agricultural goods each year through 2028.
The hoopla surrounding the summit, generated by press offices on both sides, obscured the reality that the two countries completed few concrete bilateral deals. Trump did not secure long-term access to the critical minerals that China controls — specifically the rare earth elements that are essential to U.S. high-tech manufacturing and sophisticated military hardware — and the tech giants that accompanied Trump on the trip didn’t win any major concessions in the form of enhanced access to the Chinese market. Meanwhile, China failed to alter U.S. security policy in the Asia–Pacific region. The leaders of the new G2 might be expected to rethink or rework the global rules of the road, but this was not on the agenda in Beijing.
Still, the two superpowers stepped off the path of escalating confrontation. Perhaps more importantly, Trump has seemingly abandoned his earlier goal of decoupling the United States from the Chinese economy, which, along with ratcheting up containment of the “strategic competitor,” had become something of a bipartisan imperative.
For the time being at least, the world’s superpower monsters are not laying waste to the landscape around their feet. Given how much firepower they command, that’s no small achievement. The battle, however, continues to rage further afield in the mineral world.
Grabbing the Rocks
Rare earth elements, or REE, aren’t rare. But it can be quite difficult to extract any of these 17 unusual metals from their surrounding ores. The United States used to be the world’s leading extractor and processor of these resources, from a mine in California near the Nevada border. But that was back when REE were mostly used for such products as black-and-white televisions. The environmental damage caused by the extraction and processing — as well as the labor costs involved — impelled the United States, over time, to outsource operations to China.
By the time REE had become indispensable to the manufacture of very powerful magnets used in everything from wireless iPhone chargers to the F-35 fighter jet, China was controlling upward of 60 percent of the extraction and 90 percent of the processing. It has filed more patents for the latest processing techniques than any other country. It has also expanded beyond digging up its own territory and, through its Belt and Road Initiative — a globe-spanning collection of interconnected infrastructure projects — secured access to mines overseas.
In Tanzania, for instance, an Australian firm Peak Rare Earths discovered what may well be the largest untapped supply of REE in 2010. This is exactly what the United States and its allies had been looking for: ore that can be extracted and processed outside of China. Except that last year, the Chinese firm Shenghe Resources bought the Australian company — and the rights to the Tanzanian deposits — for a little more than $100 million. China is further cornering the market by importing ore from rare earth mines in Myanmar, exploiting new deposits in Brazil, and eying Malaysia and Indonesia for potential processing operations.
To guarantee access to the minerals that both the Pentagon and U.S. industry need, the Trump administration has ramped up the exploitation of U.S. REE deposits. Mountain Pass, the California mine previously shuttered after environmental lawsuits and Chinese outsourcing, restarted production in 2012, but it still couldn’t compete against China, which had flooded the market with REE to drive down prices. Last year, the Pentagon acquired a majority stake in MP Materials, the company that owns the mine, which now produces over 10 percent of the global supply of REE.
Trump has also pumped money into USA Rare Earths, which is developing the Round Top mine in Texas, which promises to rival the REE production of Mountain Pass. Even with an accelerated timeline, however, the new mine won’t start production before 2028. Meanwhile, the administration is playing the field: pouring money into a REE processing facility in Arizona, contracting with a similar operation in France, and hammering out supply contracts with a mining firm in Australia. This frenzied activity may lessen dependency on China but not eliminate it.
And it’s not just rare earth elements. China controls 95 percent of magnesium production, over 80 percent of tungsten, over 70 percent of graphite and silicon, and three-quarters of cobalt — minerals that are critical to pretty much all modern manufacturing. On the processing end, China is the leading refiner of 19 out of 20 of the most coveted minerals, with an average market share of 70 percent. And instead of being reliant on its control of raw materials and processed ores, China is also in command of the downstream production. For instance, it’s responsible for 94 percent of the manufacturing of the most powerful magnets that go into cars, computers, and medical equipment.
The new rush for “critical raw materials,” many of them essential for building out the infrastructure of a “clean energy” transition but also indispensable for the entire range of advanced military products to which the United States is addicted, has sharpened the competition between China and the United States throughout the mineral-rich Global South. Those countries generally see China as a willing provider of capital and finance. They view Trump — who has dismissed so much of the Global South as “shithole countries,” deported huge numbers of their citizens, and subjected nearly all of their governments to punishing tariffs — with considerable skepticism.
How long will it take for the United States to catch up and neutralize China’s mineral superpower? In the best-case scenario, America will only be able to meet half its need for rare earth elements by 2028, and it currently produces less than 1 percent of those powerful magnets. Until America catches up — or forges partnerships with other countries to meet its demand through initiatives such as the U.S.-led Pax Silica — China will be able to pinch off the supply of those key minerals more easily than Iran can close off the Strait of Hormuz.
Controlling the Chips
Silicon Valley has long been a byword for innovation: Apple’s iPhones, Google’s search engine, Facebook’s social media platform. But the heart of Silicon Valley was, at least originally, made out of silicon. Chips made the valley. In the 1980s, Japan produced semiconductors that were superior to anything American companies could get to market. Competition spurred Silicon Valley to leapfrog over Japan.
The chip-designer Nvidia began in the 1990s as a supplier of graphic processing units, or GPUs, for the video game industry. These Nvidia chips became, literally, the brain behind Microsoft’s Xbox. Later, they came to power Sony’s PlayStation 3, signaling that Silicon Valley had definitively surpassed its Japanese competitors.
Then Nvidia began developing the kind of hardware necessary for the next big tech revolution: artificial intelligence. The first major AI platform available to the public — ChatGPT — was built on the foundation of Nvidia’s next-generation GPUs. Suddenly, Nvidia was the most sought-after supplier and the most valuable company in the world, now worth more than $5 trillion.
It’s one thing to corner the market on the graphics necessary to play “Grand Theft Auto” or make the special effects of the 2021 “Godzilla vs. Kong” movie look terrifyingly real. It’s quite another to create the building blocks of the AI technology that is creeping into every corner of the economy, not to mention the military.
To maintain its economic and military edge, the United States has placed controls on the export of Nvidia’s most advanced semiconductors to China. It’s no surprise that, over the last six years, the People’s Liberation Army attempted hundreds of times to acquire those precious chips. To prevent China from producing their own, the Dutch also placed restrictions on the export of the machines used to print the chips.
There are two challenges to this strategy of restriction. The first is that, despite its name, Silicon Valley doesn’t actually manufacture the vast majority of these fancy computer chips. For more than 90 percent of advanced semiconductors, the world depends on Taiwan. It’s as if another monster has appeared on the scene with a superpower that can bring both Godzilla and Rodan to their knees.
The United States harbors a fear that the Chinese response to their chip dependency will be simply to invade Taiwan and take over its semiconductor industry. For its part, the Biden administration pushed through the CHIPS Act to re-shore computer chip manufacturing, which is turning Arizona into a real Silicon Valley. Intel and Taiwan’s TSMC are among the more than 75 firms building factories there, which will require considerable water (in a desert) and produce tons of “forever chemicals,” the synthetic compounds that do not break down naturally, polluting the environment and accumulating within people (amid a growing population).
Given Russia’s failure to seize Ukraine and the inability of the United States and Israel to achieve regime change in Iran, China is not likely to attempt a takeover of Taiwan any time soon. Instead, it has pursued a different approach, and this is the second problem with a restriction strategy. Prevented from acquiring Nvidia’s best chips, China is pouring money into making its own chip sector the best in the world.
Trump’s cuts in science funding and restrictions on work visas will handicap U.S. technological progress for years and possibly decades.
Those considerable state investments produced a Sputnik moment in January 2025 when the Chinese company DeepSeek released its ChatGPT competitor. The big breakthrough, however, was behind the scenes: China was able to use its own domestically produced chips to create comparable AI results at a cheaper cost.
Private sector expenditures on AI in the United States still exceed China’s investments by a considerable margin. But the Trump administration’s cuts in science funding and restrictions on work visas will handicap U.S. technological progress for years and possibly decades. China, meanwhile, will likely have machines ready to produce what its AI models need by 2030, the target date Beijing has set to close the advanced chip gap.
The Sequel
Both China and the United States have landed a number of punches in their monster battle. The Trump administration has maintained export controls on its most advanced chips and has created a blacklist of Chinese companies it accuses of working with the People’s Liberation Army, including the car company BYD and the tech firm Baidu. China has retaliated by putting two American and 14 European companies on its own blacklist for the “dual use” of rare earth elements for both civilian and military applications. These come on top of Chinese export restrictions imposed in 2025 on seven rare-earth metals and an announcement that five more elements will be added in November.
These tit-for-tat exchanges might suggest that the two sides are evenly matched. And that may have been the case a decade ago. Today, however, despite its iconic status and devastating powers, the American Godzilla looks pretty wobbly. Trump’s fixation on cutting government and his failure to staff the remaining positions with competent officials has meant that the effort to deny China the most sophisticated chips has been compromised. Simply put, the Commerce Department has failed to enforce the export restrictions on U.S. companies, and thousands of those powerful chips have likely made their way into Chinese hands.
Even without government incompetence, the United States would be hard-pressed to maintain its advantage. The bottom line: China will be able to make its own chips sooner than America can acquire its own rocks.
The real superpower that China possesses, in other words, is its government’s ability to marshal resources to make the technological leap forward and maintain a substantive defense of its own material advantages. Thanks to this superpower, as Evan Osnos points out in The New Yorker, “China produces at least 70 percent of the world’s drones, electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries, and solar cells.” So confident is China in this superpower that it has recently rolled out a sodium-ion battery that needs none of the critical minerals of the lithium battery that powers electric vehicles. Beijing is thus negating its own mineral advantages. Instead, the Chinese government is relying on its industrial prowess to prepare for a world where rocks no longer rule.
The Biden administration tried to copy this superpower with the CHIPS Act and the additional targeted subsidies of the Inflation Reduction Act. Trump, too, has attempted to pursue a similar industrial policy with investments in critical minerals alongside scattershot tariffs and export controls. But he has also weakened the underlying superpower of government action through funding cuts and mass layoffs at critical government agencies. As a result, a lot of the shots that the Trump administration fires at China are actually blanks.
Trump’s fixation on cutting government and his failure to staff the remaining positions with competent officials has meant that the effort to deny China the most sophisticated chips has been compromised.
If this were a film, Godzilla would be teetering on the edge of a precipice, harried by a triumphant Rodan. In the final shot, Godzilla would live to fight another day, setting the scene for a sequel.
In real life, the United States is wasting billions of dollars on a war in Iran, the Trump administration is laser-focused on stuffing its own pockets from insider deals, and U.S. universities and companies are hemorrhaging funds and talent. At the same time, China is cornering the global market on renewable technology and consolidating its trade and investment relationship with the nearly 150 countries in the Belt and Road Initiative. The newer superpower seems to be making better use of its superpowers.
Another great movie trope is enemies quickly morphing into friends when faced with an existential threat. Godzilla and Rodan eventually team up to fight King Ghidorah, a hydra-like extraterrestrial beast with three heads. Is it too late for China and the United States, inveterate frenemies, to do the same in response to the very terrestrial threat of climate change?
It would certainly make for a Hollywood happy ending. But the Trump administration, insisting that carbon emissions are no problem, is attempting to reenergize the country’s fossil fuel sector. And despite its buildout of renewal energy infrastructure and its expanding exports of solar panels and wind turbines, China remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels, especially coal.
Let’s face it: Monsters are going to be monsters. If they’re not fighting each other directly, they’re laying waste to the environment and poisoning the communities that live atop precious resources. In the world of entertainment, Godzilla and Rodan learn how to use their superpowers for good when a planet-wide emergency pushes the monsters together to fight against an external threat.
The real world faces just such a red alert. Our monsters, however, just keep doing monstrous things.
Actress Killed in Horrific NYC Hit-and-Run as Scooter Rider Fled Scene
Actress Lisa Banes spent decades building an impressive career on stage and screen, appearing in more than 80 movies and television shows.
But in June 2021, the Gone Girl star’s life came to a sudden and horrifying end on a New York City street.
Banes, 65, was visiting friends in Manhattan on June 4 when she attempted to cross Amsterdam Avenue near the Juilliard School.
As she walked through a marked intersection, authorities said an electric scooter rider blew through a red light and slammed into her.
The impact left Banes with a catastrophic brain injury.
But instead of stopping to help the badly injured actress, the rider allegedly sped away.
Banes was rushed to the hospital, where doctors fought to save her life. She died from her injuries 10 days later, on June 14.
The tragedy stunned Hollywood, where Banes had become a familiar face through roles in Gone Girl, Cocktail, Murder, She Wrote, Desperate Housewives, China Beach and numerous Broadway productions.
Authorities soon began hunting for the scooter rider responsible for the deadly crash.
Prosecutors later revealed that the man traveled roughly four miles after striking Banes and took his scooter to a shop in Upper Manhattan for repairs rather than returning to the scene or checking on the actress.
Nearly two months later, on Aug. 5, 2021, police arrested Brian Boyd, then 26, at his apartment near the area where Banes had been struck.
He was initially charged with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death and failing to yield to a pedestrian. His bail was set at $30,000 cash or $100,000 bond.
Boyd later pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
On Nov. 30, 2022, he was sentenced to one to three years behind bars.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg condemned Boyd’s actions following the sentencing.
“Brian Boyd drove recklessly with no regard for pedestrians, fatally striking a beloved actress and New Yorker before speeding off to avoid accountability,” Bragg said.
He added that Banes would be remembered for the mark she left on New York through her work on Broadway and on screen.
Her sudden death also brought an outpouring of grief from friends and former co-stars.
Seth MacFarlane, who worked with Banes on The Orville, remembered her as an enormously talented performer whose kindness matched her abilities.
“A tremendous loss,” he wrote following her death.
Actress Dana Delany, who appeared alongside Banes on China Beach, also paid tribute.
“Terribly sad news about Lisa Banes,” Delany wrote, calling her a “consummate actor who commanded the stage.”
Banes’ career stretched across several decades, but her death at just 65 turned what should have been another visit to New York into an unthinkable tragedy — one made even more disturbing by the rider’s decision to flee as she lay critically injured.
Iran threatens neighboring countries against joining US ‘economic war’
Iran warned neighbouring countries on Saturday against joining the US “economic war,” threatening to target their interests and prevent oil exports from the Gulf if they cooperate with Washington, Anadolu reports.
“We tell all neighbouring countries not to participate in the economic war with the US; otherwise, we will consider them an enemy,” said Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaee, according to state broadcaster IRIB.
“We are not seeking to expand the war, but if the countries surrounding Iran join the Americans in the economic war, we will strike their interests,” he added.
Rezaee warned that if neighbouring countries cooperated with the US campaign, “not a single drop of oil will leave the Persian Gulf or the Strait of Hormuz.”
He said Iran would also target other routes used to export oil from the Gulf. “If Trump wants to take action, we will respond in kind with earthquake-like force,” Rezaee said
Rezaee said the Strait of Hormuz remains closed despite US claims to the contrary and would not reopen until Washington “corrects its behaviour.”
“This time, it is the United States that must first fulfil its commitments,” he said.
Rezaee said Iran accounts for more than 50% of the Gulf coastline and that it should therefore manage the Strait of Hormuz.
He added that Iran seeks an end to the war in West Asia and “stands against warmongers around the world.”
US President Donald Trump announced this week his intention to launch “the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country,” describing his maximum-pressure campaign against Iran as “Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale.”
Iran and the US signed the memorandum of understanding in June through Pakistani and Qatari mediation, ending hostilities that began in February and to pursue negotiations toward a final agreement.
Talks have since stalled amid disputes over implementation of the memorandum and arrangements for navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical route for global oil and gas exports.
Imran Khan Fears ‘Morsi’ Fate as PTI Accuses Government of Defying Court
Imran Khan’s sister says the jailed former prime minister told her he feared suffering the same fate as Egypt’s Mohamed Morsi, as Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) accuses Pakistan’s government of defying a Supreme Court order over his hospital transfer.
Morsi, Egypt’s former president, died in 2019 after collapsing in court following nearly six years in prison.
The PTI, which was founded by Khan, has decided to move the Supreme Court with a contempt petition against the government for defying the court’s order to transfer Imran Khan to Shifa International Hospital.
It was announced Khan was released fromo prison to be treated at the Shifa International hospital, but was sent to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) instead
Imran Khan’s sister, Dr. Uzma Khan, who met him at PIMS Hospital late Thursday night held an emergency press conference in Islamabad alongside Khan’s personal physician, Dr. Faisal Sultan, and PTI leaders, where she briefed the media about her brother’s health.
During the press conference, Dr. Khan said Imran Khan told her during their meeting at PIMS Hospital, where he was undergoing a medical examination, that he was being subjected to torture and inhumane treatment in jail and that he believed his condition was deteriorating because of prolonged isolation.
Quoting her brother, she said: “I have been wronged, and I have been tortured. I used to tell the prison authorities that Mohamed Morsi was killed in the same way. I would tell them about my condition, but they would not provide me with treatment. I told them that the same thing had happened to Morsi.”
According to Dr. Khan, Imran Khan also told her that a doctor who had examined him had linked his deteriorating health to the lack of human contact resulting from his prolonged confinement. She said her brother complained that he had been largely deprived of newspapers, reading material and television for about 10 months, which he said had left him in prolonged isolation.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi also addressed the press conference, expressing concern over the conduct of the government and administration on Thursday. Afridi said the Supreme Court’s ruling, issued by a three-member bench, to transfer Khan to Shifa International hospital had effectively been disregarded, describing the move as contempt of court.
He questioned the ability of the judiciary to enforce its own rulings, saying judges across Pakistan must now decide whether they can ensure compliance with their decisions or whether the courts themselves have been rendered ineffective.
Senior leaders PTI as well as other opposition politicians, have also accused the government of defying the Supreme Court and described the move as contempt of court.
Speaking at a separate media briefing on Friday, PTI Secretary-General Barrister Salman Akram Raja strongly criticized the government, calling its decision an attack on Pakistan’s judicial system. Raja described the alleged violation of the Supreme Court’s order as “a tragedy” and an attempt to turn the country into a “graveyard.”
PTI has long maintained that Khan is being held in solitary confinement at Adiala Jail without adequate medical care. The party approached the Supreme Court, which on August 18 ordered his transfer to Shifa International Hospital and directed the formation of a medical board, including his personal physician, Dr. Sultan and his sister Dr. Khan.
The development has further heightened political tensions and sparked growing concern among Khan’s supporters in Pakistan and abroad over his health.
Trump threatens ‘tremendous economic consequences’ on any country helping Iran
President Donald Trump has said the US will inflict “TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences” on any country that helps or does business with Iran.
He wrote in all capital letters on Truth Social that he was launching “the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country!” He gave no further details, and did not name any other nation.
It comes after a 60-day ceasefire with Iran expired on Monday, with no sign of a diplomatic or military off-ramp to the conflict that the US and Israel began at the end of February.
Trump’s latest move appears to extend the pressure campaign of Operation Economic Fury, launched in April to sanction foreign banks or firms that do business with Tehran.
In Wednesday evening’s social media post, Trump said he was launching “economic D-Day” on Iran because the Islamic Republic had failed to make a deal with the US.
“ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences,” Trump said.
He did not specify what punishment countries might face.
Trump continued: “Oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, front companies – It all needs to stop NOW. You know who you are.”
It comes a day after the United Arab Emirates, a US ally, announced it would be severing all financial and economic ties with Iran, following a new missile threat from the country.
The UAE’s defence ministry said it had detected two ballistic missiles launched from Iran targeting maritime traffic, both of which landed in the sea.
Iranian entities have long used Dubai’s financial system to transfer money through exchange houses and shell companies.
Following the UAE’s decision, Iran’s armed forces warned neighbouring Gulf countries against providing support to the US military, saying any assistance given to US forces would be considered collusion.
While China was not named in the post, businesses there are the biggest buyers of oil from Iran, a key source of Tehran’s funding.
Since the start of the war, Washington has sanctioned several so-called teapot refineries – privately owned oil processing plants, mostly based in Shandong province, eastern China.
At the time, China’s Ministry of Commerce said the sanctions were “in violation of international law and the basic norms governing international relations”.
It also issued an order stipulating that the sanctions “shall not be recognised, enforced, or complied with”.
The BBC has contacted the Chinese embassy in Washington for comment in response to Trump’s latest post.
Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US would soon impose economic isolation on Iran “like the world has never seen before”.
In April, the US treasury department and the Pentagon announced Operation Economic Fury.
It aimed to dismantle Iran’s revenue streams through sanctions and by stopping foreign international entities doing business with Iran. It also included a naval blockade to stop exports from the Islamic Republic.
The BBC has asked the White House and US treasury department for comment.
Earlier this week, Trump also reportedly threatened to bomb Oman – a US ally – if it “gets in the way” of his administration’s own talks with Iran, during a phone interview with a Fox News reporter.
The US and Oman have been negotiating separately with Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway that is vital to the global economy.
The conflict has significantly disrupted traffic through the key Strait of Hormuz shipping route, pushing up global energy prices.
Around 20% of the world’s crude oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) usually passes through the strait.
Ahead of the US midterm elections in November, Trump faces pressure over how much the war is costing American consumers.
Tree Worker Killed in Horrific Accident as Coworker ‘Played’ With Heavy Machinery
A Minnesota tree worker is accused of accidentally killing his coworker after allegedly using a heavy boom grapple to play with shadows on the street.
Tyler Anthony Lynch, 26, was killed Thursday evening while working with a tree-trimming crew in Apple Valley, Minnesota.
Police were called to the 5200 block of 132nd Street West at about 7:10 p.m.
When officers arrived, Lynch was pronounced dead at the scene.
A 34-year-old man from Brainerd, Minnesota, was taken into custody and charged with one count of second-degree manslaughter.
According to the criminal complaint, the man told police he was the only worker on the crew with a commercial driver’s license, which meant he was responsible for operating the boom.
He allegedly told investigators that he and Lynch had been “f**king around” while working and noticed that the setting sun was casting shadows of both Lynch and the boom’s grapple onto the street.
The man said he began moving the grapple so that its shadow appeared to grab Lynch’s shadow.
But investigators say he was moving the equipment without actually looking at Lynch.
According to the complaint, the operator then closed the grapple.
Police say the machinery crushed Lynch’s head.
A witness reportedly told investigators they saw the grapple move and either strike or pinch Lynch’s head.
The incident happened while the crew was trimming trees.
Authorities have not released additional details about exactly how close Lynch was standing to the equipment or what safety procedures were in place at the time.
The case is now being investigated not only by local law enforcement but also by workplace safety officials.
Police said representatives from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are expected to investigate the fatal incident as well.
The 34-year-old suspect remains accused of second-degree manslaughter, and the charge is an allegation until proven in court.
Shocking and clicky title:
Tree Worker Accused of Crushing Coworker’s Head While ‘Playing’ With Boom Grapple
IDF Thwarts Attempted IED Attack on Israeli Troops in Syria
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck an armed operative near Beit Jinn in southwestern Syria who was in the final stages of preparing an improvised explosive device (IED) attack against Israeli troops, the military said.
Beit Jinn is approximately 10 kilometers, or 6 miles, from the Israeli border. The IDF said the operative presented an immediate threat to Israeli forces operating in the area when the strike was carried out.
Syrian media and state television reported that the strike targeted a vehicle and wounded one person.
The operation came as Israel provided additional details about separate strikes on Syria’s Abu al-Duhur military air base. Israeli intelligence indicated Turkey was preparing to deploy troops along with radar and air defense systems at the facility, Kan News reported Saturday.
Israel also shared intelligence about the planned Turkish deployment with the United States, according to Kan.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said Saturday that Israel attempted to prevent the deployment before authorizing military action by issuing a direct warning to senior Syrian officials. His account was consistent with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that Syria had received a warning before the strikes.
“Following several discussions that Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and I held with the IDF and the various security officials, it was agreed that before approval was given, a direct warning would be issued to the Syrian regime at the highest levels first in an attempt to prevent the move, and that is what was done,” Katz said.
Katz said the warning was intended to give Syrian authorities an opportunity to prevent the planned Turkish deployment before Israel authorized an attack.
The mayor of Como has banned riding bicycles in certain areas of the historic Italian city after he was hit by an electric one.
Alessandro Rapinese said the ban was necessary to improve public safety. It means from September, cyclists will have to dismount through an area of around 30 streets.
He told Italian news agency Ansa: “People act based on their own experiences and I know what it’s like to be hit by one of these beasts.”
Several other local authorities around Europe, including in the UK, have restricted where and how e-bikes and other single-person vehicles can be used.
The measure put forward by Rapinese is part of a package of new traffic regulations, establishing a Limited Traffic Zone (ZTL) to manage tourist growth, and which impose stricter rules on cars and vans in the city centre.
Many of the roads covered by the ban are the widest in the old town and are popular with delivery drivers.
The measure applies to both electric and push bikes, as the Italian highway code does not distinguish between models.
Rapinese explained his decision in a video as part of a series of online videos he produces himself, known as RapiNews24.
He recounted an incident in which he had been leaving city hall in July and collided with an e-bike shortly after his administration had discussed traffic restrictions in the city centre.
The cyclist involved in the collision has not been identified.
“In this case, I didn’t even end up in the hospital,” Rapinese said. “I was hit by a bike. I gathered information, and that’s where the measure came from.”
Como’s Roman-walled centre is already covered by a limited-traffic zone, and bicycles have become a go-to method of transport for locals.
The new traffic regulations for the ZTL mean some vehicles will require an annual permit and, for each day of entry, a €3 (£2.60) permit.
Deliveries to shops and restaurants will only be allowed between 06:00 and 23:00, while tourists staying in hotels will only be able to drive into the centre if their accommodation has parking.
The ban has faced a backlash from locals and an online petition has been launched to block the resolution.
Civitas Como, a local citizens group, has challenged the legitimacy of ban, describing it as “questionable and erroneous”.
The Nova Como association has organised a protest bike ride for 12 September.
Como is not the first Italian city to restrict bicycles in historic or busy parts. In Palermo, bikes have been restricted in some sections of the main streets since 2023.
Sudanese anti-war groups meet in Ethiopia to discuss Burhan’s call for dialogue
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali (L) stands next to Head of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (R) during an official welcoming ceremony upon his arrival at the Khartoum International Airport in Khartoum, Sudan on January 26, 2023. [SUD Sovereignty Council Press Off. – Anadolu Agency]
Anti-war forces opened a 2-day meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Saturday to discuss a call by Sudan’s Sovereignty Council chairman Abdel Fattah al-Burhan for dialogue, Anadolu reports.
In a statement, the National Umma Party said the meeting is organized by groups that are not affiliated with either the Sudanese army or the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
It listed the Civil Democratic Alliance of Revolutionary Democratic Forces (Sumoud), headed by former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, the Popular Congress Party, and the Umma Party as among the prominent participants in the meeting.
The statement said the meeting would address developments in Sudan and national visions for achieving comprehensive peace.
READ: 16 killed by heatstroke in Sudan’s Red Sea state
Discussions will also take up several other issues, including the efforts and roles of external mediators and Burhan’s call for dialogue, it added.
On Wednesday, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mohieddin Salem said his country would soon launch political dialogue, noting that contacts were underway at various levels to pave the way for its launch.
Burhan said on Aug. 14 that a group of Sudanese citizens have proposed an independent national mechanism to facilitate a comprehensive Sudanese dialogue to restore peace in Sudan.
Sudan has been engulfed in war since April 2023 between the army and the RSF over plans to integrate the paramilitary force into the regular military. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced around 13 million, according to UN estimates.
READ: Egypt renews opposition to new Ethiopian dams on the River Nile
![Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali (L) stands next to Head of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (R) during an official welcoming ceremony upon his arrival at the Khartoum International Airport in Khartoum, Sudan on January 26, 2023. [SUD Sovereignty Council Press Off. - Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/AA-20230126-30091304-30091303-ETHIOPIAN_PRIME_MINISTER_ABIY_AHMED_ALI_IN_SUDAN.jpg?fit=920%2C613&ssl=1)
