👀 At a Glance
This week…
🇮🇷🇺🇸 IRAN & US
Iran FM seeks Putin's backing
Hormuz talks stall over enrichment
🇲🇱🇷🇺 MALI & RUSSIA
Mali attacks kill defense minister
Russian-backed forces withdraw from Kidal
🇮🇱🇱🇧 ISRAEL & LEBANON
Israel-Lebanon talks trigger Hezbollah backlash
Hezbollah allegedly deploys suicide bombers
🇨🇳🇺🇸 CHINA & US
China blocks Meta's Manus deal
US blocks Hua Hong chip tools
🌐 OTHERS
Trump assassination suspect charged
UAE quits OPEC
🇬🇧 UNITED KINGDOM
Golders Green Attack
This is the attacker. Click the image to view the video of the attack. Please be aware that the footage is too graphic to display as a GIF.
Two Jewish men were stabbed in Golders Green on Wednesday, and British police have declared the attack a terrorist incident.
What we know:
A45-year-old British national born in Somalia was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after officers Tasered him.
The victims, 76 and 34, were hospitalized in stable condition.
Shomrim (Orthodox Jewish civilian volunteer patrols) and members of the public reportedly responded and helped at the scene.
Police subdued and arrested the suspect after tasering him.
The group said he had been running with a knife and trying to stab Jewish members of the public.
The perpetrator getting tasered.
What's worse? Soon after, an Iran-linked terrorist group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI) claimed responsibility on a Telegram channel. However, note that investigators said there was no initial evidence of Iranian state direction, and warned the claim may have been “opportunistic.”
This attack comes after arson attacks on various Jewish sites in London, including Hatzola ambulances in this very suburb.
🇯🇵 JAPAN
Robot Coworkers
Japan Airlines will start testing humanoid robots at Tokyo's Haneda airport in May, putting Chinese-made machines beside ground crews that move baggage and cargo on the tarmac.
This isn’t our usual geopolitics story, but it felt worth highlighting today since it may impacts many people in the near future.
The robots are meant to handle heavy work in tight airport spaces.
The project is running through 2028 and safety management staying with humans.
JAL and GMO AI & Robotics say the point is to cut strain and save labor in a job fixed equipment struggles to automate.
Japan is the perfect preview case. Tourism is booming, the workforce (population) is shrinking, immigration is politically sensitive, and the machine is suddenly close enough to do the lifting.
📌 Context. Japan drew a record 42.7 million foreign visitors in 2025, and may need more than 6.5 million foreign workers by 2040.
🇮🇷🇺🇸 IRAN & US
The Blockade Bet
Trump is continuing his naval blockade of Iranian ports until it agrees to a nuclear deal that satisfies Washington. This is essentially a hard reject on a last-minute Iranian offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz first and push nuclear talks to a later stage.
Oil prices rocketed off of this news, and it also puts the region in a weird limbo: not a full restart of bombing, not a real off-ramp, and very much still an energy crisis.
Standoff:
US leverage: CENTCOM said US forces have redirected 42 commercial vessels so far, with 41 tankers carrying 69 million barrels of oil stuck outside Iran's reach.
Iran's answer: It will not negotiate directly while the blockade remains in place.
Missile Debut
The military side may be moving too. A separate report said CENTCOM has asked to send the Army's Dark Eagle hypersonic missile to the region for possible use against Iranian ballistic-missile launchers deeper inside the country.
If approved, that would be the first US deployment of the long-delayed system, which has not been declared fully operational.
Iran Fires Back
Iranian state-run Press TV quoted an unnamed senior security source warning that continued US seizures and blockades would bring "practical and unprecedented action."
A senior Iranian lawmaker also renewed the Bab el-Mandeb threat, saying Iran could ask Yemen's Houthis to squeeze another shipping chokepoint if the US keeps intercepting Iranian-linked vessels.
🇷🇺🇺🇦 RUSSIA & UKRAINE
Parade Without Steel
Moscow’s May 9 Victory Day parade will roll through Red Square without tanks, artillery, or missile systems, after Russia’s defense ministry cited the “current operational situation.”
That is doing a lot of work.
What’s Not Showing:
tank columns
artillery and missile systems
cadet groups from key military schools
the usual heavy-metal flex
basically everything you expect from a military parade
Russia will still bring war veterans, military students, marines, and aircraft. But a Victory Day parade without steel is a strange visual for a state that has built so much of its Ukraine war story around "military strength."
📌 Context. Victory Day is not just a holiday in Putin’s Russia. It is one of the main props holding up the Kremlin’s claim that its war in Ukraine is a continuation of the Soviet fight against Nazism. Not sure if it's working though.
