International

South Korea said it was verifying intelligence information that a ship flying the South Korean flag had been attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, Yonhap News reported on Monday. A spokesperson for the South Korean shipping company HMM told Reuters that a fire had occurred in the engine room of one of its bulk carriers in the Strait of Hormuz, and added that the cause of the fire was still under investigation. They assured that there were no reports of casualties or injuries.

The seppuku of the Japanese samurais (a painful cut in the abdomen with a dagger, dressed in white ritual clothes and writing a farewell poem) was not just any way to take one’s life, but an honorable death to avoid being captured, pay for failure, demonstrate loyalty, bravery, and self-control. It was banned at the end of the 19th century but even if it were not, and despite its romanticism, there is nothing further from the will of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer than to commit harakiri.

President Donald Trump has a problem with poor popularity both inside and outside the United States. The war he launched alongside Israel against Iran on February 28 is causing an increase in the price of oil and other products, which affects the economy of the citizens and that never gives good publicity.

In a situation of tug of war and with the ceasefire in limbo, a spokesperson for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed on Sunday that they had received, through Pakistan, a response from the United States to their 14-point proposal to end the war conflict.

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has announced a joint operation with the Middle East to free the ships stranded in the Strait of Hormuz. The Republican, who has called the mission “Project Freedom,” has given more details through his Truth Social account about an intervention that will take place starting this Monday morning.

China has launched its first robotic traffic police squad, which has officially started operating in Hangzhou, one of the country’s main technology hubs.

Two U.S. military personnel participating in the African Lion 2026 military exercises were reported missing on Saturday night in a training area of Cap Draa, near the city of Tan-Tan, in southern Morocco.

Iran has presented the United States with a 14-point proposal to definitively end the war, with a resolution timeline of 30 days and a set of demands ranging from lifting the naval blockade to the withdrawal of US troops in the region.

The Magistrate’s Court of Ashkelon, a coastal city in southern Israel, extended the detention of the Palestinian-Spanish activist Saif Abukeshek and his Brazilian companion Thiago Ávila for two days, Adalah, the legal center representing the two members of the Global Sumud Flotilla, reported to Efe. Israel links both activists, especially Abukeshek, to having connections with Hamas.

Perhaps what happened in the Bundestag (lower house of Parliament) a year ago, on May 6, 2025, when the Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz became Chancellor of Germany, was somewhat prophetic. The winner of the elections was elected Chancellor in a second vote after failing to secure enough votes from the deputies in the first vote, an unprecedented event in the history of the Federal Republic. Thus was born, visibly weakened, his leadership as head of a coalition government of conservatives and social democrats that has often been at odds since then.