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Netanyahu Says Israel Supports Trump's Iran Naval Blockade

FILE PHOTO: A map showing the Strait of Hormuz is seen in this illustration taken March 23, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A map showing the Strait of Hormuz is seen in this illustration taken March 23, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Netanyahu Says Israel Supports Trump's Iran Naval Blockade

FILE PHOTO: A map showing the Strait of Hormuz is seen in this illustration taken March 23, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A map showing the Strait of Hormuz is seen in this illustration taken March 23, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel supports US President Donald Trump's decision to impose a naval blockade on Iran, adding that his government is in full coordination with Washington on the matter.

"Iran violated the rules (of the peace talks in Pakistan), President Trump decided to impose a naval blockade," Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting, according to a video statement released by his office, AFP reported.

"We, of course, support this firm position, and we are in constant coordination with the United States."

The US military said it would begin a blockade of all Iranian ports on Monday after weekend talks with Tehran ended without a deal.

Trump had announced on social media that he would blockade the strategic Strait of Hormuz trade route that he has been demanding Tehran fully re-open, after Vice President JD Vance left the failed negotiations with an Iranian delegation in Islamabad.

The US military said the blockade would begin at 1400 GMT, and apply to all ships leaving or seeking to dock at Iranian ports on either side of the key waterway.

Netanyahu said Tehran had violated the terms of the talks to begin with, saying Vance had briefed him after the negotiations ended in Islamabad.

"The breakdown came from the American side, which could not tolerate Iran's blatant violation of the terms for entering negotiations," Netanyahu told the cabinet.

"The agreement was that there would be a ceasefire, and that the Iranians would immediately open the strait. They did not do so. The Americans could not accept this."

Netanyahu also said Vance had told him the "central issue" for Trump was the removal of all enriched uranium from Iran and "ensuring that there is no further enrichment in the years ahead -- even decades ahead -- no enrichment within Iran".

"That is their focus, and of course it is important to us as well," Netanyahu added.

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World

Rubio Offers Cubans ‘New Path’ in Special Video Address

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a press briefing in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 5, 2026. (AFP)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a press briefing in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 5, 2026. (AFP)
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Rubio Offers Cubans ‘New Path’ in Special Video Address

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a press briefing in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 5, 2026. (AFP)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a press briefing in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 5, 2026. (AFP)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered Cubans a "new path" in a special video address Wednesday hours before Washington was expected to criminally indict the island's influential former leader Raul Castro.

Addressing the Cuban people directly in Spanish, Rubio accused the country's communist leadership of theft, corruption and oppression.

"President (Donald) Trump is offering a new path between the US and a new Cuba," said Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants.

"A new Cuba where you have a real opportunity to choose who governs your country and vote to replace them if they are not doing a good job."

Tensions between Washington and Havana have spiked in recent months since US forces ousted Cuba's regional ally Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro in a military raid and then imposed a painful energy blockade on the already economically struggling island nation.

Trump has repeatedly signaled that the Cuban government could be next to fall, and earlier this month even said Washington would be "taking over" the Caribbean island, about 90 miles (145 km) from Florida, "almost immediately."

"In the US, we are ready to open a new chapter in the relationship between our people and our countries," Rubio said, according to an official English translation of his speech released by the State Department. "And, currently, the only thing standing in the way of a better future are those who control your country."

In his speech on the day when the Cuban community in the United States marks the island's independence, Rubio accused Gaesa, the military-backed conglomerate estimated to control 70 percent of the Cuban economy, of enriching the elites at the expense of ordinary citizens.

"A 'state within the state' that is accountable to no one and hoards the profits from its businesses for the benefit of a small elite," Rubio charged. "And the only role played by the so-called 'government' is to demand that you continue making 'sacrifices' and repressing anyone who dares to complain."

The US Justice Department was expected on Wednesday to announce criminal charges against 94-year-old Raul Castro, who succeeded his brother Fidel as president of Cuba and oversaw a historic 2015 rapprochement with the United States under Barack Obama that Trump later reversed.

According to US media reports, the indictment would focus on the 1996 downing of two civilian planes manned by anti-Castro pilots, that killed four people, and sent bilateral relations plummeting.

Four US Congress members expressed hope that the indictments will see justice served.

"We have a different President now, a president who is not willing to look the other way," Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida told reporters during a press conference. "We expect that today justice has finally arrived."

Representative Nicole Malliotakis of New York added: "This a Communist regime that has brutally killed, tortured its people, and much of it was work of Raul Castro himself."

"We hope this will be a turning point for the Cuban people," she said.

While Cuban Americans on Wednesday marked Cuba's independence, the Cuban government emphasizes different dates in its historical narrative, particularly the victory of Fidel Castro's revolution on January 1, 1959.

"Intervention, interference, dispossession, frustration: that is what May 20th signifies in Cuba's history," Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in a post on X, referring to the Platt Amendment, an addendum to Cuba's pre-communist constitution that allowed Washington to intervene militarily in Cuba.

World

WHO Says Ebola Risk High Regionally, Low Worldwide

A visitor walks at the entrance of a hospital in Rwampara on May 19, 2026. (AFP)
A visitor walks at the entrance of a hospital in Rwampara on May 19, 2026. (AFP)
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WHO Says Ebola Risk High Regionally, Low Worldwide

A visitor walks at the entrance of a hospital in Rwampara on May 19, 2026. (AFP)
A visitor walks at the entrance of a hospital in Rwampara on May 19, 2026. (AFP)

The World Health Organization on Wednesday said the risk of the Democratic Republic of Congo's deadly Ebola outbreak was currently high at the national and regional levels but low worldwide.

WHO experts said that while investigations into its origins were ongoing, given the scale of the situation in the eastern DRC, the outbreak probably began a couple of months ago.

But the UN health agency's emergency committee said it did not currently meet the pandemic emergency threshold.

"WHO assesses the risk of the epidemic as high at the national and regional levels, and low at the global level," said the organization's chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

So far, 51 cases have been confirmed in the DRC, in the eastern provinces of Ituri and North Kivu, "although we know the scale of the epidemic in DRC is much larger", he told a press conference at the WHO's headquarters in Geneva.

He said Uganda had also reported two confirmed cases in the capital Kampala, including one death, while a US national working in the DRC has been confirmed positive and transferred to Germany.

"There are several factors that warrant serious concern about the potential for further spread and further deaths," said Tedros.

"Beyond the confirmed cases, there are almost 600 suspected cases and 139 suspected deaths.

"We expect those numbers to keep increasing, given the amount of time the virus was circulating before the outbreak was detected."

- Not a pandemic -

On Sunday, Tedros declared the situation to be a public health emergency of international concern -- the second-highest level of alarm under the legally binding International Health Regulations (IHR) -- triggering emergency responses in countries worldwide.

The WHO emergency committee convened to assess the outbreak met on Tuesday.

"The current situation and criteria for a public health emergency of international concern have been met, and we agree that the current situation does not satisfy the criteria for a pandemic emergency," the committee's chair, Lucille Blumberg, told reporters from South Africa.

Anais Legand, WHO technical officer on viral hemorrhagic fevers, said investigations were under way to pinpoint how long Ebola has been spreading in the eastern DRC.

"Given the scale, we are thinking that it has started probably a couple of months ago, but investigations are ongoing and our priority is really to cut the transmission chain by implementing contact tracing, isolating and caring for all suspect and confirmed cases," she said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday said the WHO was "a little late" in identifying a deadly outbreak.

President Donald Trump, in one of his first acts on returning to office last year, set in motion a US withdrawal from the WHO, which he attacked bitterly over its response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Asked about Rubio's criticism, Tedros said that "maybe what the secretary said... could be from lack of understanding of how IHR work, and the responsibilities of WHO and other entities", he said, explaining that the agency acted in support of countries rather than replacing them in outbreak responses.

World

Germany Arrests Married Couple on China Spying Charges

FILED - 12 May 2026, Bavaria, Munich: A view of the construction in the Freiham development area in Munich. Photo: Malin Wunderlich/dpa
FILED - 12 May 2026, Bavaria, Munich: A view of the construction in the Freiham development area in Munich. Photo: Malin Wunderlich/dpa
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Germany Arrests Married Couple on China Spying Charges

FILED - 12 May 2026, Bavaria, Munich: A view of the construction in the Freiham development area in Munich. Photo: Malin Wunderlich/dpa
FILED - 12 May 2026, Bavaria, Munich: A view of the construction in the Freiham development area in Munich. Photo: Malin Wunderlich/dpa

German police on Wednesday arrested a married couple on charges of spying for China, accusing them of seeking information on advanced technology with military uses.

The couple, German nationals partially named as Xuejun C. and Hua S., were arrested in the southern city of Munich, said the federal prosecution service, which alleged that the pair "work for a Chinese intelligence agency.”

Their homes and workplaces in Munich were being searched, AFP reported.

The couple are alleged to have "established contacts with numerous academics at German universities and research institutions, in particular with chairs in the fields of aerospace engineering, computer science and artificial intelligence.”

To make these contacts, the couple are believed to have "posed as interpreters or as employees of an automobile manufacturer.”

Some scientists were then "enticed to travel to China under the pretext of giving paid lectures to a civilian audience,” but actually ended up addressing employees of state-owned arms manufacturers, prosecutors said.

As well as the suspects' arrests, prosecutors said that "further measures" were being carried out "concerning a total of 10 people who are not suspected of any offence but are potential witnesses" in Berlin, Munich and several other locations across the country.