World roundup: June 2 2026
Stories from Iran, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cuba, and elsewhere
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TODAY IN HISTORY
June 2, 1098: The army of the First Crusade captures Antioch after an extended siege. The Crusaders were subsequently besieged themselves by a Muslim relief army.
June 2, 1896: Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi files a British patent application for his radio telegraphy device, titled “Improvements in Transmitting Electrical impulses and Signals, and in Apparatus therefor.” When it was awarded the following year it became the first patent awarded for a communications system utilizing radio waves.
MIDDLE EAST
LEBANON
Monday’s partial reduction in hostilities seems to have held up for at least one day, in that the Israeli military (IDF) didn’t bomb Beirut on Tuesday. It did, however, kill at least 11 people in drone strikes across southern Lebanon, so any hope that Donald Trump cursing at Benjamin Netanyahu was going to lead to an actual ceasefire seems to have been misplaced. Israeli and Lebanese negotiators began another round of talks in Washington on Tuesday but there’s little reason to think this one will be any more beneficial to the Lebanese people than the previous rounds have been.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The IDF killed at least four people across four incidents in Gaza on Tuesday. The IDF has only commented on one of them, in which its forces shot at two people who were allegedly encroaching on the “yellow line” near Khan Younis.
OMAN
According to The Wall Street Journal, recent threats from the Trump administration to bomb and/or sanction Oman are part of a larger effort to force the country “to pick a side and cut diplomatic ties with Iran.” The administration “increasingly interprets Oman’s approach toward Tehran as hostile to America.” Interpreting neutrality or impartiality as implicit hostility is a recurring element of US foreign policy but it’s particularly doltish here, given that Oman’s relationship with Iran has provided the US with a channel for communication with Tehran. The WSJ piece notes that the Omani government’s “back channel” talks with Iran “helped Gulf states reopen flight corridors” shortly after the war started, so one need only go back about three months to find the relationship paying dividends. Nevertheless even some of those states—at least two, Saudi Arabia and the UAE—are irritated with the Omanis as well.
IRAQ
Two Iraqi militias, Asaʾib Ahl al-Haqq and the Imam Ali Brigades, announced on Tuesday that they will begin the process of turning their weapons over to state authorities. That will begin with cataloguing their fighters and arms. These moves come after new Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi called last month for the militias to place themselves under state control, and prominent religious figure Muqtada al-Sadr announced that his own Saraya al-Salam militia would do so. Zaidi is under pressure from the US government to disarm the militias in the wake of their participation in the Iran war. Two other prominent militias, Kataʾib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba, have rejected Zaidi’s pitch.
IRAN
There’s been what sounds like a substantial exchange of hostilities between the US and Iran overnight (local times) and it remains to be seen how that will affect whatever peace talks are still taking place. This story is still developing but the US military’s version of events is that its forces fired on and disabled an Iranian oil tanker that may have been trying to load oil at Kharg island, prompting Iranian forces to fire drones at several civilian vessels. The US then attacked “military ground control stations” on Iran’s Qeshm island, at which point the Iranians fired at least two ballistic missiles at Kuwait and three at Bahrain, targeting US facilities in both countries. US Central Command later reported a round of Iranian drone fire directed at Kuwait and that’s where things stood at time of writing.
Prior to the above, Iranian media reported on Tuesday that officials in Tehran are “reviewing” another “proposed agreement” on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and beginning negotiations, “but [have] not communicated with Washington for a few days.” This is interesting inasmuch as Donald Trump had insisted just the previous day that “talks are continuing, at a rapid pace” despite reports that the Iranian government had completely suspended its involvement in the negotiations. The last message the Iranians sent to the US reportedly concerned the conflict in Lebanon.
With Trump seemingly unable to make a deal over the past few days there’s been less focus on the extent to which Iranian leaders are interested in an agreement, particularly if getting one would require them to make significant concessions like committing to the elimination of their highly enriched uranium. One of the problems that seems to recur in these deliberations is the fact that the US is demanding that Iran take steps that are not easily reversible while it’s only offering concessions that are easily reversible. That plus a massive trust deficit may be coloring internal Iranian deliberations. However, with Iranian inflation reportedly hitting 77.2 percent year-on-year last month, a rate not seen since World War II, Iranian officials have an economic incentive to conclude at least a preliminary agreement.
Elsewhere, the Trump administration blacklisted Nobitex, “Iran’s largest digital assets firm” according to the AP, on Tuesday along with its chairman. The administration has accused the firm and Tehran in general of using digital currency as a means of evading US sanctions.
ASIA
MYANMAR
Foreign Policy’s Michael Haack reports on the Trump administration’s efforts to make nice with Myanmar’s military government and gain access to the country’s minerals:
In 1988, student activists in Myanmar were protesting the military-dominated government of Gen. Ne Win. At some point, a rumor took hold that the U.S. Navy would be sending a ship to support them. One protester, who decades later still preferred not to give his name, said that he chartered a boat of his own to go greet the Americans. Others in Yangon, convinced of coming U.S. support, dug bomb shelters and printed signs to welcome the American GIs. Needless to say, the U.S. military never came. The boat that many expected was likely the USS Coral, passing nearby on a routine voyage.
But although the United States never sent a battleship in support of Myanmar’s democracy, over the coming decades, U.S. policymakers emerged as consistent, if imperfect, advocates of it. Up through 2024, Republican and Democratic administrations consistently used sanctions, refugee programs, Voice of America broadcasting, and other tools to weigh in on the side of those fighting for freedom.
Now, however, much of this support has been curtailed. Instead, the Trump administration appears to be laying the groundwork to cooperate with the military regime in a—likely unsuccessful—bid for rare-earth minerals. A number of entrepreneurs have emerged in the gray space between business and diplomacy, all seeking to help broker a deal between U.S. President Donald Trump and the junta. As one of them told Foreign Policy, “This is Shark Tank.”
The chances of extracting a meaningful supply of minerals from Myanmar are slim. Many of the country’s biggest mining areas remain under rebel control and even if the military seizes them there will be major challenges both logistically and geopolitically (given China’s sway in the country). But to be fair, the administration has secured the assistance of a security contractor, a crypto guy, and Roger Stone, and if that team of luminaries can’t get it done then nobody can.
CAMBODIA
The Cambodian government is seeking “compulsory conciliation” of its dispute with neighboring Thailand over the countries’ maritime border, under the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Last month the Thai government scrapped a 2001 memorandum of understanding regarding the demarcation of that border and the sharing of offshore resources, prompting this decision. It’s unclear when the UN might issue a ruling and even when it does it won’t be binding.
AFRICA
SUDAN
The Sudan Tribune is reporting that a drone strike hit a market and a hospital in Sudan’s South Darfur state on Monday, causing “multiple civilian casualties.” The attack took place in the town of Kubum, in an area where the Salamat and Beni Halba tribes have been clashing since the weekend, so it seems likely that this strike is related to that situation. There are concerns now that if the violence continues it could spill into neighboring Central Darfur state.
MALI
At least eight people were killed and 42 more wounded in Mali on Tuesday when the bus they were riding struck a landmine west of the country’s capital, Bamako. There’s no confirmation as to who laid the mine but the jihadist group Jamaʿat Nusrat al-Islam wa’l-Muslimin is active in the surrounding area.
KENYA
Two people were killed on Monday during protests outside a proposed US Ebola quarantine facility in central Kenya. It’s unclear who killed them but Kenyan police do not have a great reputation for composure in these sorts of situations. Protests continued on Tuesday while Kenyan President William Ruto defended the facility, citing Kenya’s “friendship” with the US and insisting that it would pose minimal risk in terms of spreading the disease.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Allied Democratic Forces jihadists killed at least 16 people in the eastern Congolese city of Beni on Sunday, as France 24 reports:
On a more positive note, Congolese authorities are planning a gradual reopening of the airport in the city of Bunia to commercial traffic. As Bunia is the only airport in position to service Ebola-hit parts of Ituri province this is both good news for the humanitarian effort in response to the outbreak and for the course of the outbreak itself. In announcing the reopening, officials said that there are now indications that the outbreak is being brought under control.
Additionally, the Trump administration blacklisted the M23 militant group’s head of intelligence along with an official in Rwandan military intelligence. It cited ongoing fighting between Rwandan-backed M23 militants and the Congolese military. The administration had been trying to mediate that conflict but that effort has shifted to the back burner—or really all the way off the stove—amid the Iran war.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
Last month Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu announced that Moscow is developing a “full-fledged partnership” with Afghanistan, roughly ten months after Russia became the first country to formally recognize the Taliban-led government in Kabul. The parameters of this partnership are unclear, though the two governments did sign a military cooperation agreement last week. That deal notwithstanding, The Diplomat’s Yama Sekandar argues that Russia’s interest in Afghanistan is actually more economic than military:
The war in Ukraine has reached a difficult moment for Russia. Officials do not acknowledge the situation as unfavorable, but the battlefield record tells a different story. Russia has sustained 1.2 million casualties since the onset of the war, has begun losing some territory, and now faces a Ukrainian military capable of striking Moscow itself, more than a thousand kilometers from the front. Losses have strained the military and accelerated a labor force contraction that was already underway before the first shots were fired, pulling working-age men out of the economy at a rate the country was already poorly positioned to absorb.
The underlying problem predates the war. As of 2025, Russia’s fertility rate had fallen to a two-century low of around 1.4 births per woman, well below the replacement threshold of 2.1. Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously introduced incentives for larger families and elevated natalist rhetoric to the level of state policy, but the trend has thus far failed to reverse. Productivity has remained stagnant relative to most developed economies, leaving population as the variable Moscow has the least room to lose. Russia is also facing a severe shortage of workers. In response, Russia has increasingly turned to migrant labor, historically drawing workers from Central Asia, Africa, and more recently India, to fill shortages domestic workers can no longer fulfill.
Afghanistan, which has agreed to allow a limited number of agricultural and other professionals to work in Tatarstan and Chechnya, oversaw a major step in sending migrant labor to other parts of Russia as a result of the new agreement.
UKRAINE
Russia’s overnight bombardment of Ukraine left at least 22 people dead and “dozens” more wounded across the country. At least 16 people were killed in central Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk oblast while the remaining six were killed in Kyiv. A Ukrainian drone strike killed at least one person in Russia’s Kursk oblast.
AMERICAS
CUBA
The secondary sanctions that the Trump administration imposed on Cuba’s Grupo de Administración Empresarial SA (GAESA) last month are having a major impact on the island’s hospitality industry, according to Reuters. Travel firms like Blue Diamond Resorts of Canada are ending their relationships with GAESA-linked hotels and major shipping firms have likewise suspended their Cuban business rather than risk US penalties. The Cuban government issued a statement on Tuesday defending GAESA, a conglomerate with ties to the Cuban military, from US charges of corruption, calling it “a carefully crafted response of proven efficiency against the economic blockade that has historically tried to suffocate the Cuban Revolution.” GAESA controls a substantial share of the Cuban economy (40 to 70 percent in most estimates), having been formed in the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union left the island in crisis.
UNITED STATES
As part of its “out of sight, out of mind” approach to environmental degradation, the Trump administration is phasing out the Ocean Observatories Initiative. Established in 2016 and involving hundreds of instruments around the world, the OOI has been providing data on the health of the world’s oceans, measuring among other things the impacts of climate change. The Trump administration is not interested in the health of the world’s oceans so it’s terminating the program to save its $48 million annual cost, or roughly 0.004 percent of Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” project.
Finally, Trump has appointed Bill Pulte to replace outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on an acting basis. Pulte has been serving, and will continue to serve, as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency so his qualifications to serve as DNI presumably speak for themselves. He is at least demonstrably loyal to Trump, which seems to be the main consideration. That may come in handy, because he’s taking office at a time when Reuters is reporting that there is considerable discord within the US intelligence community:
The CIA has stopped contributing to some intelligence assessments, including those related to the Iran war, produced by the office of the nation’s top spy as disputes over intelligence-sharing and areas of responsibility boil over, say people familiar with the matter.
The infighting between the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has flared for more than a year, disrupting collaboration on national security analyses on which presidents long have relied to navigate complex foreign challenges, said a U.S. official and three people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters.
At the heart of the disagreements is a clash over a task force set up in April 2025 by Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, the sources said.
The CIA, led by Director John Ratcliffe, contends that Gabbard’s Director’s Initiatives Group has acted recklessly by circumventing traditional intelligence-sharing and declassification protocols, said two of the people. ODNI officials say the CIA has consistently blocked the group’s access to intelligence.
The DNI post was created after the September 11, 2001 attacks in order to reduce bureaucratic bottlenecks and turf wars that prevented US intelligence agencies from working collaboratively. Instead it’s just added another bureaucratic bottleneck and an additional combatant in the turf wars. There is no reason for the office to exist given that it’s failed to achieve the one thing it was supposed to achieve, but it is highly unlikely that it will ever go away.