India given green light to buy Russian oil, for now
As the Middle East crisis disrupts global crude shipments, the United States treasury has issued a 30-day “stopgap” waiver to allow India to buy Russian oil. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said: “To enable oil to keep flowing into the global market, the treasury department is issuing a temporary 30-day waiver to allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil. This deliberately short-term measure will not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government as it only authorizes transactions involving oil already stranded at sea.”
Kristi Noem ousted as Homeland Security boss after mounting criticism
US President Donald Trump has appointed Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin to replace Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security. Noem faced mounting criticism. Her tenure has been marked by the killing of two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis – whom she controversially claimed, without evidence, were involved in “domestic terrorism” – a rumoured affair with a senior associate and former Trump campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, and the splurging of $220m in federal funding on an advertising blitz starring herself, and nearly $200m on two luxury jets for her official travel.
Ukraine will help in countering Iranian drones, if defence against Russia not compromised – Zelensky
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukrainian equipment and expertise will be shared with the US and its allies in the Middle East to help them counter Iran’s Shahed drones. He said the US and other countries had asked for help, and he had spoken in recent days to the leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait about possible cooperation. Zelensky said Ukraine was willing to help as long as this did not weaken Ukraine’s own defences. Moscow has made extensive use of Shahed missiles against Ukraine.
Republicans defeat bid to compel Trump to ask Congress for Iran war approval
By a vote of 219-212, the House of Representatives has rejected a war powers resolution which would have forced the US to withdraw from the war against Iran pending authorisation of military action by Congress. Two Republicans broke with their party to support the resolution, and four Democrats voted against it. A Senate vote earlier in the week also ended in defeat for the war powers resolution.
Most Israeli Jews support war, poll shows
Polling by the Israel Democracy Institute suggests that 93% of the Jewish public are in favour of it, compared with 26% of Israeli Arabs. Prof Tamar Hermann, a senior research fellow who helped carry out the survey, said: “This is actually a consensus. Even during the last campaign against Iran, we didn’t have such high numbers.” Hermann said one of the reasons for the high support was that the damage in Israel from Iran’s retaliatory strikes had been “very, very limited”.
Sources: BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, Associated Press