Report: US, Iranian Teams Could Return to Islamabad for Peace Talks This Week

US Vice President JD Vance (L) is welcomed by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ahead of their meeting on Iran  amid the US-Iran peace talks in Islamabad on April 11, 2026. (AFP)
US Vice President JD Vance (L) is welcomed by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ahead of their meeting on Iran amid the US-Iran peace talks in Islamabad on April 11, 2026. (AFP)
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Report: US, Iranian Teams Could Return to Islamabad for Peace Talks This Week

US Vice President JD Vance (L) is welcomed by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ahead of their meeting on Iran  amid the US-Iran peace talks in Islamabad on April 11, 2026. (AFP)
US Vice President JD Vance (L) is welcomed by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ahead of their meeting on Iran amid the US-Iran peace talks in Islamabad on April 11, 2026. (AFP)

Negotiating teams from the US and Iran could return to Islamabad later this week, five sources said on Tuesday, days after the highest-level talks between the two countries in decades ended without a breakthrough.

A source involved in the talks said a date was not yet decided, but both countries could return as early as the end of this week.

"No firm ‌date has been ‌set, with the delegations keeping Friday through Sunday ‌open," ⁠a senior Iranian ⁠source said.

The weekend meeting in Pakistan's capital to resolve the conflict between the US and Iran, held four days after last Tuesday's ceasefire announcement, was the first direct encounter between US and Iranian officials in more than a decade, and the most senior engagement since Iran's 1979 revolution.

A proposal has been shared with both the US and ⁠Iran to resend their delegates to resume the ‌talks, the first source said.

Two Pakistani sources ‌with knowledge of the talks said Islamabad was communicating with the two sides ‌about the timing of the next round and the meeting would ‌likely take place on the weekend.

"We have reached out to Iran and we got a positive response that they will be open to a second round of talks," a senior Pakistani government official said.

Pakistan's foreign ministry, military and ‌prime minister's office did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. The White House also did ⁠not immediately respond ⁠to a request for comment.

US Vice President JD Vance and Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf led their respective delegations in the last round of talks to work out a slew of issues, including the Strait of Hormuz, a major transit point for global energy supplies that Iran has effectively blocked but the US has vowed to reopen, as well as Iran's nuclear program and international sanctions on Tehran.

Vance told reporters after the talks ended that "we leave here with a very simple proposal, a method of understanding that is our final and best offer."

"We'll see if the Iranians accept it."



Pope to Release Major Artificial Intelligence Manifesto

Leo has denounced the race for AI in the military field. Andreas SOLARO / AFP
Leo has denounced the race for AI in the military field. Andreas SOLARO / AFP
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Pope to Release Major Artificial Intelligence Manifesto

Leo has denounced the race for AI in the military field. Andreas SOLARO / AFP
Leo has denounced the race for AI in the military field. Andreas SOLARO / AFP

Pope Leo XIV will release on Monday his long-awaited manifesto on artificial intelligence (AI), a bid to address ethical and social challenges as the technology rapidly develops worldwide.

The US pope will attend the presentation of the "Magnifica Humanitas" (Magnificent Humanity) encyclical at the Vatican in person -- a first for the Catholic Church.

He will be joined not only by officials from the Holy See but experts including the co-founder of the American startup Anthropic, a key player in the booming AI landscape.

Anthropic is in a legal battle with the US military after refusing to change its internal policy prohibiting the use of its Claude model for lethal autonomous warfare or mass surveillance.

Leo has denounced the race for AI in the military field, saying that "delegating decisions concerning the life and death of human beings to machines" is a "destructive spiral".

Since his election a year ago as the Church's first US pope, he has repeatedly warned of the dangers of AI, including "the gradual replacement of reality by its simulation".

And he has slammed the "environmental devastation" caused by the "frenzied race" for rare earth elements, which are essential for modern electronics.

- 'Wake-up call' -

AI could be worth up to $4.8 trillion (4.13 trillion euros) by 2033, a 25-fold increase in a decade, while concentrating its profits in the hands of a limited few, according to the UN.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last year warned "the window is closing to shape AI -- for peace, for justice, for humanity".

Leo has made the hot-button issue a cornerstone of his papacy in dedicating to it his first encyclical -- a document which lays the basis for Church teaching and longer-term debate.

Experts say "Magnifica Humanitas" could prove as influential as Pope Francis's "Laudato Si", a 2015 climate manifesto that triggered political and civic reactions worldwide.

The Vatican sees this new text as an extension of its social teachings on "protecting people in the AI era".

It was signed on May 15, the 135th anniversary of a 1891 encyclical by Leo XIII which laid the foundations of the Church's social doctrine during the Industrial Revolution.

"The Industrial Revolution transformed the labor market, people's lives, hegemony, and power dynamics," said Marijana Grbesa, political science professor at the University of Zagreb, and a speaker at an AI conference in the Vatican.

"At the time, it was necessary to train individuals in the use of tools. The same is true today: we need to train and educate," she told AFP.

The pope, she said, will emphasize that "education is not enough today".

"It's a wake-up call for the whole of civilization", to "be rational when we use these tools".

- 'Perception of reality' -

Leo has emphasized the need for "digital literacy... to understand how algorithms shape our perception of reality."

In April he warned against the use of AI to fuel "polarization, conflict, fear, and violence". And in January he lamented "the lack of transparency in the creation of the algorithms" that govern the operation of various chatbots, whose use is growing rapidly worldwide.

The release of "Magnificent Humanity" follows several years of study by the Church of AI-related technologies.

As early as 2020, the Holy See launched the "Rome Appeal for an AI Ethic", which called for new technologies to respect human dignity.

Leo's predecessor Pope Francis spoke extensively on the subject, calling for AI to be regulated and warning that it could exacerbate inequalities.


Around 20 Injured After Spraying Incident in Tokyo Mall

Emergency personnel work outside the Ginza Six luxury shopping complex in Tokyo's Ginza district, Japan, 25 May 2026. (EPA)
Emergency personnel work outside the Ginza Six luxury shopping complex in Tokyo's Ginza district, Japan, 25 May 2026. (EPA)
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Around 20 Injured After Spraying Incident in Tokyo Mall

Emergency personnel work outside the Ginza Six luxury shopping complex in Tokyo's Ginza district, Japan, 25 May 2026. (EPA)
Emergency personnel work outside the Ginza Six luxury shopping complex in Tokyo's Ginza district, Japan, 25 May 2026. (EPA)

Around 20 people were injured at a luxury shopping complex in central Tokyo on Monday after a man sprayed a substance inside, police and fire department officials said.

Tokyo police spokesman Yusuke Koide told AFP that a man sprayed a substance at an ATM on the ground floor of the building, while a local fire department official said "around 20 people were injured" after a report of a "smell".

The road in front of the mall -- located in the touristy and upmarket shopping district of Ginza -- was blocked off following the incident, and fire trucks lined the street.

But shoppers continued to come and go from the building using side entrances.

An AFP reporter at the scene saw two people on stretchers being put into an ambulance, while firefighters and officials dressed in hazmat suits brought people from the mall into specialized trucks to examine them.

Public broadcaster NHK said the injuries appeared to be light.

One 70-year-old woman who was at the mall told the broadcaster that her throat started "stinging and hurting" as she approached the ATM.

"By the time I arrived, the commotion had already started, and I thought there might have been a small fire or something.

"Once I went into the ATM corner, my throat felt scratchy, almost numb."

Police are investigating the cause, a fire department officer at the scene said.

Violent crime is relatively rare in Japan, which has a low murder rate and some of the world's toughest gun laws.

However, there are occasional stabbing attacks and even shootings, including the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe in 2022.

In December last year fourteen people were injured in a stabbing attack in a factory in central Japan during which an unspecified liquid was also sprayed.

Japan remains shaken by the memory of a major subway attack in 1995 when members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult released sarin gas on trains, killing 14 people and making more than 5,800 ill.

On March 20, 1995, five members of the Aum cult dropped bags of Nazi-developed sarin nerve agent inside morning commuter trains, piercing the pouches with sharpened umbrella tips before fleeing.


Two Killed in Russia During Ukrainian Strikes

A man standing in smoke looks at heavily damaged buildings following Russian strikes in Kyiv on May 24, 2026, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP)
A man standing in smoke looks at heavily damaged buildings following Russian strikes in Kyiv on May 24, 2026, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP)
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Two Killed in Russia During Ukrainian Strikes

A man standing in smoke looks at heavily damaged buildings following Russian strikes in Kyiv on May 24, 2026, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP)
A man standing in smoke looks at heavily damaged buildings following Russian strikes in Kyiv on May 24, 2026, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP)

Two people were killed Monday in Ukrainian strikes on the Russian border regions of Belgorod and Bryansk, local authorities said.

"A drone attacked a vehicle in the town of Graivoron," the authorities of the Belgorod region said in a statement, reporting that "a civilian was killed."

In Bryansk, a man was killed in a Ukrainian strike in the settlement of Belaya Beryozka, the acting regional governor Yegor Kovalchuk wrote on Telegram.

Ukraine regularly targets Russia in retaliation for the daily bombardments it has been subjected to since the start of the large-scale Russian offensive in February 2022.

At least four people were killed and more than one hundred injured in Ukraine overnight Saturday to Sunday in intense Russian bombardments that particularly targeted the capital, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Kyiv and Moscow reported that Russia used its Orechnik nuclear-capable ballistic missile during these strikes, which followed a Ukrainian drone attack on educational buildings in the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk that left 21 dead and more than 40 injured.

US-mediated negotiations to end this conflict, the worst in Europe since the Second World War, have been at a standstill since the outbreak of war in the Middle East.