🇮🇳🇴🇲 An Indian-flagged vessel caught fire and sank while sailing from Somalia to the UAE early Wednesday. This is now the 2nd Indian ship lost in the region since the Iran war kicked off. All 14 crew members were rescued safely by the Omani coast guard and taken to Diba port. Source: The National News

🇮🇱🇱🇧 Israel has the Iron Dome. F-35s. The Trophy system, designed specifically to protect tanks from incoming threats. Billions in defense tech, decades of military innovation. Hezbollah's answer: a fibreglass drone. Immune to jamming. Bypasses Trophy. Israel's counter, right now: fishing nets over parked vehicles. Netanyahu says a real solution "will take time."

🚨🇱🇧 A legal loophole kept Hezbollah armed while every other militia in Lebanon disarmed in 1992. Lebanese MP, billionaire and top PM-candidate Fouad Makhzoumi explains how it happened: "They and the Syrians were smart enough to redefine Hezbollah not as a militia, but to define it as a resistance. And then it was accepted by everybody that the law does not apply to them." If the state can't enforce its own laws, it's not a state. @fmakhzoumi

🇺🇸 Pete Hegseth just asked you for $1.5 TRILLION The Secretary of War posted a 2 minute video of himself standing awkwardly in front of a green screen while animated graphics play behind him, pitching a "$1.5 trillion generational investment" he branded the "Arsenal of Freedom." This is real. He posted it himself.

🇺🇸🇨🇳🇹🇼 Xi didn't waste any time in Beijing. Before trade, before Iran, before anything else, he put Taiwan on the table. "The Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations," he told Trump. "Handle it well, the relationship holds. Handle it badly, the two countries risk collision or conflict." And Xi had more leverage to say it than he has had in years, partly because of the Iran war, and partly because Trump handed him an opening before the plane even landed in Beijing. On Monday, two days before the summit, Trump told reporters he would discuss U.S. arms sales to Taiwan with Xi. "President Xi would like us not to. And I'll have that discussion." That one sentence broke with the Six Assurances, the decades-old U.S. commitments that date back to Reagan, one of which is a pledge never to consult Beijing on arms sales to Taipei, Taiwan. Even securing that conversation is a win for Xi. Once arms sales to Taipei become a legitimate topic of negotiation between Washington and Beijing, they can be used as a bargaining chip in every future deal. Then add the Iran war on top of that. Since February 28, the U.S. has been pouring military resources into the Middle East. Missile defense systems moved out of South Korea. A rapid-response Marine unit pulled from Japan. Precision munitions being spent at a rate that takes time to replenish. The Council on Foreign Relations published a piece this week asking the question nobody in Washington wants to answer out loud: can the U.S. sustain two high-intensity conflicts simultaneously, one in the Middle East and one in the Taiwan Strait? To be fair the picture cuts both ways. Chinese military equipment didn't perform well in Iran. Chinese-made radar systems sold to Venezuela failed to detect U.S. stealth jets. Beijing is learning from that too, and Rubio said U.S. Taiwan policy is "unchanged" after the meeting. The U.S. National Defense Strategy still commits to a strong denial defense along the First Island Chain. But Xi raised Taiwan first, sharpest, and loudest. And Trump gave him a reason to feel confident doing it two days before they even sat down. Source: CNBC, CFR, CNN, Asia Times, Military. com

🇺🇸🇨🇳🇹🇼 Xi didn't waste any time in Beijing. Before trade, before Iran, before anything else, he put Taiwan on the table. "The Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations," he told Trump. "Handle it well, the relationship holds. Handle it badly, the two countries risk collision or conflict." And Xi had more leverage to say it than he has had in years, partly because of the Iran war, and partly because Trump handed him an opening before the plane even landed in Beijing. On Monday, two days before the summit, Trump told reporters he would discuss U.S. arms sales to Taiwan with Xi. "President Xi would like us not to. And I'll have that discussion." That one sentence broke with the Six Assurances, the decades-old U.S. commitments that date back to Reagan, one of which is a pledge never to consult Beijing on arms sales to Taipei, Taiwan. Even securing that conversation is a win for Xi. Once arms sales to Taipei become a legitimate topic of negotiation between Washington and Beijing, they can be used as a bargaining chip in every future deal. Then add the Iran war on top of that. Since February 28, the U.S. has been pouring military resources into the Middle East. Missile defense systems moved out of South Korea. A rapid-response Marine unit pulled from Japan. Precision munitions being spent at a rate that takes time to replenish. The Council on Foreign Relations published a piece this week asking the question nobody in Washington wants to answer out loud: can the U.S. sustain two high-intensity conflicts simultaneously, one in the Middle East and one in the Taiwan Strait? To be fair the picture cuts both ways. Chinese military equipment didn't perform well in Iran. Chinese-made radar systems sold to Venezuela failed to detect U.S. stealth jets. Beijing is learning from that too, and Rubio said U.S. Taiwan policy is "unchanged" after the meeting. The U.S. National Defense Strategy still commits to a strong denial defense along the First Island Chain. But Xi raised Taiwan first, sharpest, and loudest. And Trump gave him a reason to feel confident doing it two days before they even sat down. Source: CNBC, CFR, CNN, Asia Times, Military. com

🇺🇸🇮🇶 Iraq’s next PM? Trump just pushed Ali al-Zaidi for the top job And now, Iraqi lawmakers have all but confirmed al-Zaidi, who's a businessman and former banker. So we can all expect a HUGE shift coming to Baghdad. Source: Bloomberg

🇸🇦🇰🇼🇮🇶 Saudi and Kuwait carried out covert military operations against Iran-backed militias in Iraq during the Iran war. Saudi fighter jets struck targets near Iraq’s northern border, including sites used for drone and missile attacks against Gulf states, with some operations occurring around the April 7 U.S-Iran ceasefire. While rockets were launched from Kuwait into southern Iraq on at least two occasions, targeting infrastructure linked to Iran-backed groups, including Kataib Hezbollah. Source: Reuters

🇺🇸🇮🇷 Iran's oil is going nowhere, and the storage is full. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Kharg Island, Iran's main oil loading facility, has seen zero loading activity for three days. No ships in, no ships out, and satellite imagery is showing production starting to shut down. "They're gonna start shutting down their production, we can see that that's happening from satellite." The economic pressure is now as visible as the military one. Source: Scott Bessent, U.S. Treasury Secretary

🇮🇷🇦🇪 Iran’s FM Araghchi said that the UAE wasn't really hit, the targets were always theAmerican on UAE soil. Even crazier? He said Abu Dhabi should ditch the U.S. and Israel to team up with Iran instead. The sheer audacity... gaslighting on that level gives me heartburn. Source: TABZ

🇺🇸🇨🇳Trump on China ties: Xi agreed to buy “200 big ones” from Boeing 200 planes. American factories about to go BRRRRR. This trade meeting is already printing wins. Source: @Osint613

🇺🇸🇮🇷 We might be witnessing the "Suez Moment" for the American Empire in the Middle East. As regional players watch the U.S. security umbrella fray, many are wondering if a Chinese-led order is about to fill the vacuum. Ali Hashem, a seasoned journalist, questions whether the current conflict marks the definitive end of Western hegemony in the Gulf. If Ali is right, the fallout from this war will force every local capital to fundamentally rethink their 20th-century alliances. @AliHashem

🇦🇪🇮🇷 THE UAE WAS FIGHTING A SECRET WAR INSIDE IRAN While Trump was announcing the ceasefire on April 8th, UAE Mirage jets were hitting Iran's Lavan Island oil refinery. The facility caught fire. Stayed offline for months. Iran responded with missiles and drones. The UAE intercepted them, said nothing about what it had done to provoke the response, and pointed silently to its right of self-defense. Before that: Iran hit the UAE's Borouge petrochemical complex. Iran hit Dubai International Airport. A Shahed drone struck the Fairmont on Palm Jumeirah. An Iranian drone hit the US consulate in Dubai. Iran fired 174 ballistic missiles, 689 drones, and 8 cruise missiles at UAE soil between March 1 and the ceasefire. The UAE absorbed all of it publicly... and struck back in secret.