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Initial testing found evidence of metals in water samples, months after province’s residents began reporting unusual numbers of dead fish washing ashorePapua New Guinea’s government has warned communities not to fish from parts of the New Ireland coastline as preliminary tests show evidence of metals in some water samples, after months of residents reporting dead marine life in the area.On 7 May the fisheries minister, Jelta Wong, said initial testing conducted by an independent company detected various metals in water samples taken from affected areas around Kafkaf village and Larairu lagoon in New Ireland, an island in eastern PNG. Continue reading...

The Department of Defense has suspended a joint military advisory board with Canada that dates to World War II, escalating tensions between President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby announced the suspension of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, claiming Canada has failed to adequately invest in military modernization, and he pointed specifically to remarks Carney had made at the World Economic Forum in January calling on "middle powers" to unite as a bulwark against superpowers, reported The Hill.Carney downplayed the move Tuesday, noting that Canada was spending 2 percent of its gross domestic product on defense for the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall, including a $40 billion investment in the North American Aerospace Defense Command. "I wouldn't overplay the importance of this," he said of the suspended board.But Canadian defense experts warned the decision signals a dangerous deterioration in one of the world's most important bilateral relationships."None of this political rhetoric serves anyone's purposes but China and Russia," said Andrea Charron, director of the Center for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba.The board, composed of military and civilian advisers, typically meets once a year to consult on matters of mutual importance. Experts said its suspension is unlikely to disrupt day-to-day military cooperation between the two countries, given that other communication channels remain intact — but said the symbolism carries real weight.Trump's frustrations with Carney have been building for months. Canada is renegotiating a trade agreement with the U.S., recently awarded Australia a contract to build its Arctic radar system, and is weighing the purchase of Swedish fighter jets over American-made F-35s.Defense analyst David Perry said Canada has itself to blame, in part, for not using forums like the joint board more proactively. "I can imagine a scenario where somebody in the Pentagon said, 'What's on the agenda for this next meeting?' and thought the answer was underwhelming," he said.Carney has committed to raising defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP by 2035, though experts say achieving that target will require difficult trade-offs with domestic social programs.

MS NOW host Joe Scarborough and “Morning Joe” regular John Heilemann had a good laugh on Wednesday morning over a report that Donald Trump and the Israelis had a grand plan to reinstall Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the leader of Iran.According to the New York Times report, “… the audacious plan, developed by the Israelis and which Mr. Ahmadinejad had been consulted about, quickly went awry, according to the U.S. officials who were briefed on it.”The report added, “Mr. Ahmadinejad was injured on the war’s first day by an Israeli strike” and that “after the near miss he became disillusioned with the regime change plan.”On “Morning Joe,” the Times' Elizabeth Buhmiller prompted the conversation by noting that, when it comes to Iran, Trump is “ …kind of stuck in a corner. He — it's a real problem.”Pointing to the aborted Ahmadinejad plan, she added, “It just shows you how unplanned and by the seat of their pants this war is.”Co-host Scarborough then piled on as Heilemann burst into laughter. “It ended up all the time the moderate was Ahmadinejad, who would have known they were going to blow him out of prison, almost killed him,” Scarborough sarcastically pointed out as Heilemann laughed. “Of course, this is like, this is straight out of — this is, this is straight out of a South Park episode or a movie.”“What was the movie where they had the American heroes that saved Paris by blowing up the Eiffel Tower and everything else?” he joked. “Great movie a couple of years ago. But anyway, that's what, that's what we were doing.” - YouTube youtu.be

A humanitarian group says that funding cuts by the Trump administration left a region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo "dangerously exposed" to a rare strain of Ebola that has killed more than a hundred people, according to a new report. The International Rescue Committee told Politico that losing funding under the Trump administration in March 2025 forced it to reduce early-warning systems to detect Ebola in the region. "Funding cuts have left the region dangerously exposed," Heather Reoch Kerr, the IRC's Congo country director, told Politico. "The sharp rise in reported cases over the last few days reflects the reality that surveillance systems are now catching up with transmission that has likely been occurring for some time."With the most recent outbreak of Ebola, more than 500 people are suspected to be infected with the virus, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO declared the outbreak, which started in April, a public health emergency over the weekend. The strain spreading is Bundibugyo, a rare variant for which no licensed vaccine or targeted treatment exists. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday that the "scale and speed" of the current outbreak is alarming, according to Politico. Kerr explained that the IRC shut down "health and preparedness work" in three sections of the Ituri Province, which is "the epicenter of the outbreak" in the DRC right now, Politico reported.

Donald Trump’s return from Beijing without any provable examples of successful negotiations with Chinese President Xi Jinping was yet another sign that, whatever lofty plans he had in store for the second year of his second term, they are easier to boast about than achieve.According to analysis by the Washington Post’s Michael Birnbaum and Isaac Arnsdorf, the China summit didn’t include any measurable wins for a president who has had a rough year so far.“President Donald Trump was riding the early high of his return to power last year when he took his first major foreign trip and declared that he would make a sharp break from years of U.S. nation-building around the world,” they wrote.Exactly one year after his first major foreign trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates — complete with golden swords and honor guards on Arabian steeds — Trump arrived in China at a vastly different moment, the Post is reporting. Inflation is spiraling, the Iran conflict has ensnared U.S. military forces, energy prices are soaring, and his approval ratings are cratering.This time, there were no sweeping declarations about how Trump's America would manage the world, the Post is reporting. Instead, there was Chinese President Xi Jinping, described as being "respectful but businesslike, welcoming but unbending" on issues that are U.S. priorities.Trump came to Beijing hoping to secure trade deals. Xi had other priorities, the report noted. The Chinese president made clear that Taiwan's fate, not investment opportunities, was China's top concern — yanking the spotlight from Trump's preferred focus to warn of "clashes and even conflicts" with the United States should disagreements over the disputed island be mismanaged.Trump left Friday with a promise of Xi visiting the White House in September and trade deals that proved largely disappointing. Boeing's stock dropped 8 percent between Trump's arrival and departure — a stark measure of investor skepticism about the agreements reached.The president has since claimed triumph that the trip enabled top U.S. business executives to meet the Chinese leader, but offered little evidence of actual transactions resulting from the meetings.Most of Trump's signature foreign policy initiatives "have fallen by the wayside," according to the Post. The Ukraine war still rages despite his promises to end it swiftly. Many of his tariffs were struck down by the Supreme Court. Iran diplomacy has been abandoned entirely in favor of military conflict.The collapse reflects a far cry from Trump's more "expansive ambitions" for reshaping U.S.-China relations last year, when the two leaders agreed to meet four times in 2026. With Iran now preoccupying Trump and weighing down the global economy, there is little room for retrenchment.With slumping approval ratings and a faltering economy, Trump now travels the world stage "significantly weakened" compared to a year ago, Birnbaum and Arnsdorf predicted.

Donald Trump's reported desperation to end the Iran war is allowing Tehran's leaders to take a harder negotiating line — and a candid admission the president made on Fox News this week handed Iranian negotiators a significant strategic gift.According to MS NOW's Zeeshan Aleem, during an interview with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity on Thursday, Trump revealed his evolving priorities regarding Iran's estimated 970-pound stockpile of highly enriched uranium.When asked whether the U.S. was considering seizing Iran's uranium, Trump first claimed it would take "a week and a half" to extract using a ground operation. But then he made a stunning admission that undercut his entire negotiating position."I don't think it's necessary [to get the uranium], except from a public relations standpoint," Trump said. "I think it's important for the fake news that we get it."He added: "I'm the one that said we're going to get it, and we're going to get it. We have our eye on it."In those few words — "I don't think it's necessary" — Trump appeared to abandon a position that has been central to his entire premise for the war. He instantly undermined his insistence on uranium removal as a key term of any peace deal with Iran, Aleem wrote.Trump's characterization of uranium seizure as merely a "public relations" maneuver suggests he is repackaging a key plank of his negotiation position as window dressing — essentially admitting it's not actually necessary to end the conflict.According to the report, Iranian negotiators will almost certainly exploit this revelation. If Tehran believes Trump is ambivalent about — or could eventually become indifferent to — removal of Iran's uranium stockpile, Iran has far more incentive to refuse to budge on that element or demand compromises more favorable to Tehran.Aleem observed that Trump has a documented tendency to grow bored with or abandon protracted international conflicts, and the Iran war appears to be no exception and that each public statement weakens his negotiating leverage.

A significant schism is emerging within the Republican Party over the extent to which the United States should support Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — with a substantial number of MAGA voters showing unwavering loyalty while non-MAGA conservatives increasingly question America's commitment to the longtime ally.According to Politico, new polling from The POLITICO Poll reveals stark divides among Republican voters on Israel policy, with the party's traditional unity on Middle East issues fracturing amid Trump's unpopular Iran war and growing skepticism about U.S. interventionism.Nearly half of self-identified MAGA Trump voters say they back Israel and approve of Netanyahu's government's actions, while just 29 percent of non-MAGA Trump voters say the same. The divide is even more pronounced on specific military operations: 41 percent of MAGA voters say Israel is justified in its military campaign in Gaza, compared with 31 percent of non-MAGA voters.On whether Israel has overextended militarily, 24 percent of MAGA voters believe the country was initially justified but has gone too far — compared with 31 percent of non-MAGA voters.Non-MAGA voters are notably more critical of Israeli influence on U.S. policy. They are 10 percentage points more likely than MAGA Trump voters to believe the Israeli government has too much influence over American foreign policy, Politico's Lisa Kashinsky and Erin Doherty are reporting.The emerging fractures have spilled into an ugly public debate, with prominent Republicans including Tucker Carlson, former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Steve Bannon all criticizing America's close relationship with Israel — particularly as the Iran war escalates.Most Republican members of Congress and conservative influencers like Laura Loomer and Ben Shapiro have remained steadfast pro-Israel voices defending the administration's foreign policy approach.Republicans were powerfully unified in support of Israel in the immediate aftermath of Hamas' October 7 attack. But amid the Iran war and growing unease about Trump's foreign interventions, Israel's standing appears increasingly fragile among the non-MAGA wing of the GOP and among young conservatives."There is a sentiment right now within the Republican Party of, 'America First,' let's get out of all of the conflicts in the world, let's not be committed to those conflicts," said Amnon Cavari, an associate professor at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at Reichman University in Israel, told Politico.According to the report, the emerging Republican divide carries "significant implications" for the future of the U.S.-Israel alliance and GOP efforts to maintain the coalition that powered Trump's return to the White House.

The Pentagon blindsided Republican lawmakers Friday after abruptly scrapping a 4,000-troop deployment to Poland, a decision that reportedly surprised Army leaders, according to Politico.Army leaders admitted they had no real answers about the shock cancellation, leaving Congress furious over the last-minute move as Republican lawmakers have had conflicting views from the Trump administration involving security efforts in Europe, Politico reported. Last year, lawmakers had established limits for troop withdrawals as tensions mounted over whether the Trump administration would pull back on sending troops to support European allies.Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) called it "a slap in the face" to America's NATO allies. "I just want to say this is a slap in the face to Poland; it’s a slap in the face to our Baltic friends," Bacon said. "It’s a slap to the face of this committee.""We don’t know what’s going on here, but I can just tell you we’re not happy with what’s being talked about, particularly since there’s been no statutory consultation with us," said Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth opted to cancel the plan — and lawmakers wanted to know why — demanding that Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and acting Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve explain what prompted the plan to change, Politico reported."The pair indicated the administration only made the decision in recent weeks and did not provide a rationale for it," according to Politico.