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BUDAPEST, April 13. /TASS/. Hungary’s opposition Tisza party has won the parliamentary election, securing 138 out of 199 seats in the National Assembly (unicameral parliament) and a constitutional majority for the next four years, the National Election Commission said.
Party leader and member of the European Parliament Peter Magyar is expected to be elected prime minister at the first session of parliament in early May. The exact date will be set by President Tamas Sulyok. Magyar will replace Viktor Orban, who leads the Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Alliance party.
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A Chinese-owned oil and chemical tanker slipped through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, becoming the first vessel to make the crossing since President Trump’s blockade on Iranian ports began Monday and raising fresh questions about how hard Tehran and its trading partners are willing to test U.S. pressure.
Fox News reported the tanker, Rich Starry, successfully transited the strait after being turned back on Monday. The ship made it through on its second attempt, the outlet said.
The Trump administration’s blockade is aimed at choking off traffic to and from Iranian ports, not shutting down the entire waterway. Fox News said the Rich Starry was traveling from the United Arab Emirates, not heading to or departing from Iran, and was therefore allowed to pass.
JUST IN: 🇺🇸🇨🇳 Sanctioned Chinese-linked tanker crosses Strait of Hormuz despite US naval blockade. pic.twitter.com/kMG1g8TfuL
— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) April 14, 2026
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Tracking data appears to show a number of Iran-linked ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz in the hours after the U.S. blockade of the waterway began on Monday.
The U.S. military said its blockade would apply to “all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports,” but that it would “not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.”
One ship that crossed the strait after the blockade began on Monday – the Christianna – had previously been stopped at the Iranian port of Bandar Imam Khomeini, data shows.
Another ship, the Ladonna, had been at Bandar Imam Khomeini for a week before turning on its transponder Tuesday and journeying into the Persian Gulf.
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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced on Tuesday that she has suspended her country’s defense cooperation agreement with Israel over the conflicts throughout the Middle East.
Meloni said at an event in the northern city of Verona that her government “has decided to suspend the automatic renewal of the defense agreement with Israel in consideration of the current situation.”
Her announcement came about a week after the Israeli military fired warning shots at an Italian peacekeeping convoy outside Beirut, Lebanon. No one was injured in the incident, which Meloni called “completely unacceptable,” while Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani summoned the Israeli ambassador to Rome for a third time since 2024.
The 2003 Memorandum of Understanding was ratified by Italy in 2005 and is renewed automatically every five years.
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A further escalation in the Iran war could trigger a global recession, spiralling inflation and a sharp backlash in financial markets, the International Monetary Fund has warned.
Against an increasingly volatile backdrop, the Washington-based fund said the economic damage from the Middle East conflict was steadily rising as it cut its growth forecasts for 2026 based on the impact from the war so far.
In its half-yearly update, the IMF said the UK would suffer the sharpest growth downgrade and joint highest inflation rate in the G7 this year, even if the fallout from soaring energy costs can be contained by the middle of 2026.
However, under a worst-case “severe scenario,” involving a drawn-out war and persistently higher energy prices, it said the world would face “a close call for a global recession” for only the fifth time since 1980.
Oil prices jumped back above $100 (£74) a barrel on Monday amid choppy trading in global markets after crunch weekend talks between the US and Iran ended in stalemate and as a US blockade on the strait of Hormuz began. On Tuesday, Brent crude eased 0.9% to $98.5 a barrel on hopes of further peace talks.
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British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has formed a “special” new Cabinet committee to deal with the Iran conflict. Its efforts behind closed doors will coordinate the national response to the growing Middle East crisis through a series of talks, meetings, and earnest consultations.
Position papers can consequently be expected to arrive at 10 Downing Street along with further sub-committees a possibility all in lieu of immediate action.
The move came as Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron announced they will be co-hosting a Middle East summit in Paris on Friday to talk about a diplomatic solution to the Strait of Hormuz crisis.
The Independent reports the Westminster group – the Middle East Response Committee – already had its first meeting Tuesday focused on efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping route vital for global oil and gas supplies.
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Back in January, President Trump dropped a one-liner worthy of the usually inimitable Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, who said of his long-ago romance with then-District Attorney Kamala Harris: “She loved me, I loved me. It was the perfect relationship.” Trump’s version, offered in an interview with NBC News, was about the…
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MANILA, Philippines — More than 17,000 American and Filipino military personnel will participate in one of their largest annual combat exercises in the Philippines that underscore the United States’ staunch commitment to Asia despite its preoccupation with the Middle East, a U.S. military official said Tuesday.
During the April 20-May 8 maneuvers, called the Balikatan, Japanese forces will fire a missile in a ship-sinking exercise in northwestern Philippine waters facing the disputed South China Sea. Japan’s defense chief has been invited to witness the live-fire drill, Philippine military officials said.
The large-scale combat drills between the U.S. and Philippines, which are longtime treaty allies, will expand this year to include other friendly forces, including those from Japan, France and Canada, which have signed visiting forces agreements with Manila, the Philippine military said.
“Our message is our dedication and commitment to our alliance and regional security,” Col. Robert Bunn, a spokesperson for U.S. forces, said in a news briefing when asked what message the U.S. military wanted to send with its large Balikatan deployment despite the war in the Middle East.
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Listing consumer electronics on the internet’s large ecommerce marketplaces is a key step in “democratizing” the products, allowing them to be purchased by anyone with just a click. It has happened to cars (in the United States, you can buy a Hyundai on Amazon), and now it’s happening to humanoid robots.
The Chinese manufacturer Unitree Robotics, among the most active robot-makers in the field, is preparing to bring its most affordable model, the Unitree R1, to international markets through Alibaba Group’s marketplace. According to reports in The South China Morning Post, the rollout will initially cover North America, Japan, Singapore, and Europe. There’s no exact on-sale date for the robots yet, but the Post report says it will show up as soon as this week.
This is not the first time Unitree has used AliExpress as a global storefront. The company’s G1 model, the more powerful and more expensive predecessor to the R1, is already listed at just under $19,000.
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Except for Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the national debt, defense contractors are getting the biggest share of Ohioans’ federal tax dollars, according to a new analysis.
Medicare and Medicaid provide health care to more than 144 million Americans, and paying interest on the $39 trillion national debt isn’t really optional. However, policymakers choose to spend nearly $900 billion a year on defense, and allow the Pentagon to ship 54% of that off to wealthy defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin — sometimes for weapons systems of questionable military value.
If you look at the federal tax bill of the average American, that person is giving those contractors more than he or she is paying for food and agriculture, school lunches, housing and urban development, disaster relief and national parks and the environment combined, according to the Institute for Policy Studies’ 2026 Tax Day report.
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The man accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home has been charged with attempting to kill Altman and a security guard at the residence, San Francisco district attorney Brooke Jenkins said Monday.
Authorities allege Daniel Moreno-Gama, 20, threw the incendiary device about 4 a.m. local time Friday, setting an exterior gate at Altman’s home alight before fleeing on foot, police said. Less than an hour later, Moreno-Gama allegedly went to OpenAI’s headquarters a few kilometres away and reportedly threatened to burn down the building.
Moreno-Gama is opposed to artificial intelligence, writing about AI’s purported risk to humanity and “our impending extinction,” according to court documents.
“This was not spontaneous. This was planned, targeted and extremely serious,” said Matt Cobo, FBI San Francisco acting special agent in charge, during a news conference.
Iran war threatens to push 2.5 mn people in India into poverty: UNDP report | Economy & Policy News– www.business-standard.com
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The conflict and military escalation in West Asia threatens to push 2.5 million people in India into poverty and the country is projected to experience some loss in its human development progress, according to estimates and projections by the United Nations.
The United Nations Development Programme, in a report titled ‘Military Escalation In The Middle East: Human Development Impacts Across Asia And The Pacific’ noted that the conflict is “widening human development pressures across Asia and the Pacific through higher fuel, freight, and input costs, the shock is diminishing household purchasing power, raising food insecurity, straining public budgets, and weakening livelihoods.”
The preliminary assessment, issued Tuesday, estimates that globally 8.8 million people are at risk of falling into poverty and the West Asia military escalation could cost Asia-Pacific up to $299 billion.
Indonesia, US sign ‘major’ defence cooperation agreement | Military News– www.aljazeera.com
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Signing of defence partnership follows reports that Washington is seeking overflight access in Indonesia for US military planes.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has hailed the establishment of a “major defence cooperation partnership” with Indonesia, saying it underscores the “strength and potential” of ties with Jakarta to maintain stability in the Asia Pacific region.
Hegseth hosted Indonesian Minister of Defence Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin at the Pentagon on Monday, where the deal was signed.
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FRANKFURT, Germany – One of the major reasons for the creation of the European Union was to make Europeans wealthier. Along the way, however, something went seriously wrong.
Europeans are becoming poorer compared to Americans, who are becoming richer.
One in five Germans now faces the risk of imminent poverty in what has long been one of the world’s wealthiest nations.
In France, the poverty rate has hit a 30-year high.
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NORTH Korea has spent three days testing missiles as crazed Kim Jong-un unveils his newest cache of cluster-bomb warheads and blackout bombs.
The deranged dictator was trying out a new cluster-bomb warhead last week, North Korean state media reported.
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The United States military issued a warning Monday that it will be enforcing a blockade of Iranian ports on the Gulf of Oman — east of the Strait of Hormuz — as ceasefire negotiations with Iran broke down over the weekend, U.S. Central Command said in a notice to seafarers.
The notice said the blockade would begin at 10 a.m. eastern, following a proclamation from U.S. President Donald Trump. The Gulf of Oman is a strategic body of water in the Arabian Sea, which lies just east of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has been blocking to most international shipping traffic for weeks.
“The blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman,” the U.S. military notice said.
US stands alone as Iran, China join key UN bodies over objections– www.foxnews.com
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Western democracies, including the UK, France, Canada and Australia, are facing backlash after allowing Iran and other authoritarian regimes to secure seats on influential United Nations (U.N.) bodies, with the United States standing alone in opposition.
The controversy stems from decisions by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), a 54-member body that plays a central role in shaping U.N. policy and staffing key committees.
Critics warn the outcome could allow governments accused of human rights abuses to influence global policy and control which civil society groups are granted access to the United Nations.