money

Israel and Iran are in the second week of the conflict.

As well as inflicting damage, both countries are putting their economies under strain.

Israel has spent billions of dollars on its war on Gaza and has upped its spending considerably with its largely air-based attacks on Iran.

Iran was already struggling with the years of sanctions and now its oil and gas facilities are being hit.

So can the two nations sustain the conflict? Which is likely to be worst affected?

And will the conflict eventually damage the global economy?

Presenter: Neave Barker

Guests:

Aly-Khan Satchu – Geoeconomic analyst and investor

Eyal Winter – Professor of economics at the Hebrew University and Lancaster University

Nader Habibi – Professor of practice in the economics of the Middle East at Brandeis University

Gaza’s Health Ministry says that in the last 48 hours, 202 people have been killed in Israeli attacks.

At least 26 people, including more aid seekers, have been killed in the latest Israeli attacks on Gaza.

The attacks come as desperate Palestinians under Israeli blockade continue to wait at food distribution points amid an ongoing hunger crisis.

Among those killed during Israeli attacks on the besieged enclave on Saturday, 11 were aid recipients at distribution centres run by the United States-and-Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which the United Nations has condemned for its “weaponisation” of aid.

Meanwhile, Wafa news agency reported that at least three people were killed and several others wounded by an Israeli drone strike that targeted displaced Palestinians in al-Mawasi, southern Gaza.

The report said that the attack targeted a tent sheltering displaced members of the Shurrab family. The tent was located in an area the Israeli military had previously designated as a “safe zone”.

In the last 48 hours, at least 202 people have been killed, including four recovered bodies after Israeli attacks, and 1,037 wounded by Israeli attacks across Gaza, the Health Ministry reported.

Since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, at least 55,908 people have been killed, and 131,138 have been wounded in Israeli attacks.

Attacks on aid sites

In recent days, Israeli attacks on aid distribution sites in Gaza have ramped up as thousands of Palestinians gather daily in the hope of receiving food rations following a two-month Israeli blockade of aid deliveries.

On Saturday, three people were killed at a GHF site in Khan Younis after Israeli forces opened fire. Several people were also wounded and taken to medical facilities.

Omar al-Hobi, a displaced Palestinian in Khan Younis, told Al Jazeera from a hospital that walking to those sites means you “enter the point of death”.

“I call it the point of death. The tank is in front of us, the machinegun is in front of us, and the quadcopter is above us, and there are soldiers on the ground with snipers. Anyone who moves before the time is shot, and the moment the tank retreats, we start running,” al-Hobi said.

Israel claims its attacks at the aid sites have been to control crowds, but witnesses and humanitarian groups have said that many of the shootings took place unprovoked, resulting in hundreds of casualties.

The Red Cross said on Thursday, the “vast majority” of patients who arrived at its field hospital in the enclave since the GHF aid system began at the end of last month had reported that they were wounded while trying to access aid or around distribution points.

Meanwhile, Wafa, citing the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority in the Gaza Strip, reports that there has been a disruption in internet and landline services affecting the governorates of Gaza, which include Gaza City, and north Gaza.

There is currently an ongoing outage in the southern and central areas of the Gaza Strip that has lasted for more than three days.

The British parliament has narrowly voted in favour of a bill to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill people, marking a landmark moment of social reform in the country’s history.

The legislation passed by a vote of 314-291 in the House of Commons on Friday, clearing its biggest parliamentary hurdle, and will now undergo months of scrutiny in the House of Lords, Britain’s upper chamber.

The process could result in further amendments when it goes to the Lords, but the upper house is usually reluctant to block legislation that has been passed by elected members of parliament in the Commons.

Friday’s vote came after many hours of emotional debate, including references to personal stories, in the chamber. It followed a vote in November that approved the legislation in principle.

Prior to that, the House of Commons voted on the issue in 2015, when it rejected legalising assisted dying.

What is in the assisted dying bill?

The “Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life)” Bill gives mentally competent, terminally ill adults in England and Wales, who have six months or less left to live, the right to choose to end their lives with medical assistance.

Patients will have to be capable of taking fatal drugs by themselves after receiving a green light from doctors and a panel including a social worker, a senior legal figure and a psychiatrist.

Assisted suicide is different from euthanasia, where a healthcare practitioner or other person administers a lethal injection at a patient’s request.

Under current legislation, someone who helps a terminally ill person end their life can face a police investigation, prosecution and a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Changes to the original draft of the new bill were made to include the appointment of independent advocates to support people with learning disabilities, autism or mental health conditions and the creation of a disability advisory board.

Logistics still need to be thrashed out, including whether the practice or any services supporting it would be integrated into the National Health Service (NHS) or would operate as a separate unit made available through third parties.

The bill will not apply in Northern Ireland or Scotland, which is holding its own vote on the issue.

What are the arguments for assisted dying?

Supporters of the bill say it will ensure dignity and compassion for people with a terminal diagnosis, who must be given a choice over whether or not to relieve their suffering.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who introduced the bill, told The Guardian newspaper that terminally ill people should be given rights over their bodies similar to those that allow a woman to choose an abortion.

“As much as I will fight for the rights of disabled people to be treated better by society, I will also fight for the rights of dying people,” she said.

Some advocates for the bill also argue that current legislation discriminates against the poor, who face possible prosecution for helping their loved ones die, while the wealthy can travel abroad to legally access the services.

Conservative MP Peter Bedford spoke against this perceived inequality. “At least one Brit every week is taking the stressful and often lonely journey to Switzerland for an assisted death, at the cost of £12,000 ($16,100),” he said. “This bill isn’t about shortening life, it is about shortening death.”

Labour MP Maureen Burke spoke about her brother David, who suffered from pancreatic cancer. “He could never have known that I would ever have the opportunity to stand in this place and ask colleagues to make sure that others don’t go through what he went through,” she said. “I’ve done right by my brother by speaking here today.”

Opinion polls show that a majority of United Kingdom citizens back assisted dying. Sarah Wootton, chief executive of the UK-based Dignity in Dying campaign, said the vote sent “a clear message” and that “parliament stands with the public and change is coming”.

While there is no timetable for the implementation of the bill, under the terms of the legislation, it must begin within four years of the law being passed.

What do opponents say?

Opponents worry that vulnerable people could be coerced into ending their lives or feel pressured to do so for fear of becoming a burden to their families and society.

Protesters who rallied outside parliament as the vote was taking place on Friday held up banners urging politicians not to make the state-run health service, the NHS, the “National Suicide Service”.

Several MPs withdrew their support for the bill after the initial vote last year, saying safeguards had been weakened. One of the most important changes to the bill from last November was the dropping of the requirement that a judge sign off on any decision. The latest vote passed by a majority of 23, a narrowing of support from the 55 majority (330 votes to 275) in November.

Care Not Killing, a group that opposes the law change, called the bill “deeply flawed and dangerous” and argued that politicians had not been given enough time to consider its implications.

“Members of Parliament had under 10 hours to consider over 130 amendments to the bill, or less than five minutes per change. Does anyone think this is enough time to consider changes to a draft law that quite literally is a matter of life and death?” said the group’s CEO, Gordon Macdonald.

Opponents also raised concerns about the impact of assisted dying on the finances of the state-run NHS, whether it could allow it to sidetrack requests to fund improvements to palliative care and how it might change the relationship between doctors and their patients.

Outright opponents of the legislation include Tanni Grey-Thompson, a disabled MP and Paralympic medallist. In an interview with Sky News, she said nobody needs to die a “terrible death” if they have access to specialist palliative care.

“I’m really worried that disabled people, because of the cost of health and social care, because that’s being removed, that choice is then taken away, so the only choice they have is to end their lives,” she said.

Where else is assisted dying legal?

Assisted dying laws have been introduced in several countries. About 300 million people around the world have legal access to this option, according to Dignity in Dying.

In March, the Isle of Man became the first place in the British Isles to pass an assisted dying bill, allowing terminally ill adults with a prognosis of 12 months or less to choose to end their lives.

Switzerland legalised assisted dying in 1942, making it the first country in the world to permit the practice on the condition that the motive is not selfish.

In Europe, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal and Austria have some form of legalised assisted dying.

In the United States, the practice is known as “physician-assisted dying” and is legal in 10 states, while in Australia, it has been legal in every state since 2022.

In Latin America, Colombia legalised euthanasia for terminally ill adult patients in 2014, while Ecuador opted to decriminalise euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2024.

Canada has one of the most liberal systems of assisted dying in the world. It introduced MAID, or Medical Assistance in Dying, in 2016 for terminally ill adults. In 2021, the requirement of suffering from a terminal illness was removed and it is now debating opening the scheme to people who suffer from a mental illness as well.

Which other countries are considering legalising it?

A bill on assisted dying is being considered in Scotland. It passed an initial vote in May, but it will now need two more rounds of parliamentary scrutiny before it can become law.

French President Emmanuel Macron has backed a bill allowing some people in the last stages of a terminal illness to access assisted dying. That was approved by the National Assembly in May and will now go to the Senate before a second reading in the lower house.

According to Death with Dignity, 17 US states are considering assisted dying bills this year.

Gilan, Iran – The prospect of war seemed to creep nearer to reality with each passing day, but perhaps few of the millions who have been forced to abandon their homes across Iran in the past week – including myself – could have known this new reality would impose itself so harshly or abruptly.

The first explosions jolted people awake in Tehran shortly after 3am on June 13, when a large number of Israeli fighter jets and drones attacked dozens of areas across the country, and explosives-laden quadcopters and anti-fortification Spike guided missiles were launched by Israeli agents from inside Iran.

Entire residential buildings were levelled in the capital, military sites and air defence batteries were targeted, and above-ground facilities supporting nuclear enrichment halls buried deep inside mountains in Isfahan province’s Natanz were bombed. Dozens of civilians were killed, as were a large number of top military commanders and nuclear scientists.

Tehran was in shock the first morning after the attacks, as people struggled to process the terrifying news and evaluate their options while the authorities scrambled to mount a concerted response to the surprise hits.

As the attacks came on a Friday morning – the last day of the weekend in Iran – most city streets were eerily quiet in the immediate aftermath, except for those where Israeli bombs had made an impact.

Soon, however, hours-long queues had formed at almost every single fuel station across the sprawling capital, which has a population of nearly 10 million people and holds more than 15 million during busy workdays, as millions also commute from neighbouring cities like Karaj.

I went out to visit a few of the targeted sites in western Tehran: Multiple homes had been destroyed in the Patrice Lumumba neighbourhood, several floors of a 15-storey building providing accommodation for university professors had caved in at Saadat Abad and adjacent buildings were damaged, while the top two floors of another residential building had been completely wiped out in Marzdaran. All were successful targeted assassinations – including of several top nuclear scientists – and many civilians were also killed.

Later that night, Iran’s armed forces began launching hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in retaliation. Nearly one week on, at least 16 rounds of Iranian strikes have been launched, with no immediate end in sight as Tehran says it will continue to hit back so long as Israel is attacking. Meanwhile, United States President Donald Trump teases triggering an all-out regional war by directly entering the war alongside Israel, which he and Washington’s Western allies already support with cutting-edge munitions, a massive fleet of refuelling planes and intelligence efforts.

For the next few days, the Israeli attacks were ringing out across Tehran and the country during the daytime, terrorising civilians who saw the smoke and heard the explosions get closer to their homes or places of work. Both at home and at Al Jazeera’s Tehran bureau, I heard many explosive impacts, with some of the closer ones only about 2km (1.2 miles) away.

Most of Tehran was shut down after the Israeli attacks ramped up, and the streets and petrol stations were more crowded than ever after Israel and Trump told people to evacuate immediately. The government said metro stations and mosques were opened as 24-hour shelters since it has built no dedicated shelters or come up with any clear security protocols, despite the ever-present threat of war.

On Monday, after three days of evaluating the situation, my family and I decided to join the countless others who had already fled Tehran.

After hurriedly packing some clothes and a few belongings in a suitcase, I drove from my own place to my girlfriend’s house to pick her up at about 4pm. Her parents, who work in healthcare, needed to stay in Tehran that day but they have since left as well, after Israeli air strikes intensified in their neighbourhood.

We then picked up my mother – along with our four cats who have been staying with her – from her home in western Tehran, close to a major road which exits the capital.

Israeli bombs were falling on multiple areas across western Tehran as we scurried to grab the cats and put them in their boxes.

The unmistakable sounds of the explosions, which leave a sickening, sinking sensation in your stomach no matter how many times you hear them, only added to the urgency – especially since the Israeli military had issued a new evacuation threat at about the same time and then bombed the state television headquarters.

Fleeing north

We left Tehran with heavy hearts, not knowing when we might return. The buildings were already mostly empty of residents.

The feeling that we may not return to the same intact neighbourhoods was unavoidable, as was the terror we feel for those who wanted to leave but could not, whether because they are nursing a sick family member or because they simply lacked the means to do so. Iran’s ailing economy has been dragged under the weight of years of local mismanagement and US sanctions.

The journey north, which usually takes about four hours, took close to 12. The highways were a sea of vehicles filled with families, pets and belongings. Roadside diners and service areas brimmed with people who had no idea when or how they might return. Many worriedly followed news of the latest air strikes.

Close to our destination in the north of Iran, checkpoints set up by armed and masked security forces made the traffic even worse. They were stopping some vehicles, mostly pick-up trucks, since those are what have been used by Israeli agents to smuggle explosive quadcopters and other weapons inside Iran.

I am writing this from a small but vibrant city in the province of Gilan in northern Iran. The northern provinces, also including Mazandaran and Golestan, are where most Iranians have opted to go. They are relatively close to Tehran, have far fewer places that could be potential targets for the Israeli army, and were already popular travel destinations with a large number of hotels that many have visited before.

Many here have opened their homes to people displaced from other provinces, too. Six million people have entered Mazandaran alone since last week, according to Iran’s deputy police chief, Qasem Rezaei.

The authorities are trying to reassure the population, especially Iranians who have fled to the northern provinces, that the government faces no problems in providing for their basic needs, especially food and fuel.

But in the meantime, 90 million Iranians have been thrown into a state of uncertainty, frustration and anger while trying to maintain hope for a semblance of normal life when the country is not constantly under threat of military action or isolated from the international community.

For ordinary civilians, the situation is seriously compounded by the fact that they have been completely cut off from the internet for days, with internet observatory NetBlocks confirming on Friday that 97 percent of the country’s connectivity was down. Barring a handful of small daily updates gleaned from state media or local sources, Iranians have little idea about the extent of the Israeli military strikes across the country.

The Iranian authorities began imposing internet restrictions from the first day of the Israeli strikes, but increased them as Israel expanded its offensive and a pro-Israeli hacking group also launched cyberattacks.

Several of the country’s top banks have been taken offline as a result of the cyberattacks, as well as Iran’s top cryptocurrency exchange, Nobitex, which said its “hot wallet” had been compromised but promised it would return any lost money.

Iranian officials, who also took the country offline during the deadly nationwide protests in November 2019, claimed disconnecting the internet was necessary to fend off Israeli quadcopters and other projectiles, but gave no timeline as to when they would restore full connectivity.

Iran already has one of the most closed-off and slowed-down internet connections in the world, as almost all major global messaging apps and other services, along with tens of thousands of websites, are blocked and only accessible through workarounds such as virtual private networks (VPNs).

If you are reading this now, it means I managed to find a barely functioning connection to send this out.

Here are the key events on day 1,213 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Saturday, June 21:

Fighting

• Drones and missiles launched by Russia overnight have damaged energy infrastructure in central Ukraine’s Kremenchuk district in Poltava, said local military authorities.
• One person was injured in the attack, according to Volodymyr Kohut, the region’s military governor, who did not provide further details on the extent of the damage.
• Russia had targeted the district’s refinery, according to a report by online news outlet Strana.ua.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukraine and Russia exchange more prisoners of war, officials from both countries said, the second swap in two days under an agreement struck in Turkiye earlier this month. All the captured soldiers were wounded, ill or under 25 years old. Neither side said how many soldiers had been freed.
• At Russia’s flagship economic forum in Saint Petersburg, President Vladimir Putin said he did not “rule out” his forces taking control of Ukraine’s northeastern city of Sumy as part of efforts to create a buffer zone along the border.
• The Sumy region is not one of the regions Moscow has formally annexed, although Russian forces have recently made inroads there for the first time in three years, with Putin claiming his troops had advanced up to 12km (7 miles) in the region.
• In a string of hawkish remarks, Putin also appeared to repeat his denial of Ukrainian statehood. Ukraine said Putin’s comments showed “disdain” for the peace process.
• The German military considers Russia to be an “existential risk” to the country and Europe, according to a Spiegel news magazine report that cites a new Bundeswehr strategy paper. Russia is verifiably preparing for a conflict with NATO, particularly by strengthening forces in western Russia “at the borders with NATO,” the report cites the strategy paper as saying. Germany can only counter this threat “with a consistent development of military and society-wide capabilities,” the document concludes.
• Putin has reaffirmed Moscow’s opposition to the spread of weapons of mass destruction, including any potential acquisition by Iran. Putin told Sky News Arabia that Russia supports Iran’s right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, emphasising that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has found no evidence suggesting Tehran seeks to build nuclear weapons. Putin also stated that Russia is prepared to assist Iran in the development of its civilian nuclear programme.

Economy

• At the economic forum in St Petersburg, Putin also urged officials not to let Russia fall into recession “under any circumstances”, as some in his own government warned of a hit to economic growth. Economists have warned for months of a slowdown in the Russian economy, with the country posting just 1.4 percent year-on-year growth in the first quarter of 2025, the weakest pace in two years.
• A decision by the OPEC+ group of leading global oil producers to speed up production now looks far-sighted and justified amid the Middle East conflict, said Igor Sechin, head of Russia’s largest oil producer Rosneft, at the forum. Sechin also said that there will be no oil glut in the long term despite the production rise, and that the European Union seeks to reduce Russia’s oil cap to $45 to improve the profitability of its purchases, not to cut Russia’s budget revenues.

Clashes with police have left at least one person dead and about 30 injured in a major banana-producing province.

Panama has declared a state of emergency in western Bocas del Toro province, where antigovernment protesters opposing a pension reform law are accused of setting fire to a baseball stadium and of looting businesses, including a provincial airport.

The protests that erupted two months ago in Bocas del Toro, a major banana-producing region, intensified this week, culminating in clashes with police that left one person dead and injured about 30 people, including several officers, police said on Friday.

Presidential Minister Juan Carlos Orillac said in a news conference on Friday that the move to suspend some constitutional rights and ban public gatherings would allow the government to reestablish order and “rescue” the province from “radical groups”, adding that the damage caused to public properties was “unacceptable and did not represent a legitimate protest”.

“In the face of the disruption of order and acts of systematic violence, the state will enforce its constitutional mandate to guarantee peace,” he said.

The measure will be in place for five days, he said.

The protesters, backed by unions and Indigenous groups across the country, have faced off with authorities over a pension reform law passed in March.

Confrontations have been particularly intense in Bocas del Toro, largely led by workers at a local Chiquita banana plantation. The multinational banana giant Chiquita called the workers’ strike an “unjustified abandonment of work” and sacked thousands of employees.

Those workers ultimately withdrew from the protests after they were able to negotiate the restoration of some benefits that had been removed under the March pension reform.

Still, the government has said roadblocks in Bocas del Toro have yet to be lifted, though it did not directly attribute them to the Chiquita workers.

The violence peaked in the city of Changuinola, Bocas del Toro’s main city, on Thursday when groups of hooded individuals looted businesses and partially set fire to a baseball stadium with police officers inside, authorities said.

Police said “vandals took over” the local airport, stole vehicles belonging to car rental companies, and looted an office and a warehouse containing supplies belonging to Chiquita. Flights at the airport were still suspended on Friday.

Panama’s right-wing President Jose Raul Mulino has been facing protests on several fronts in recent months.

Besides the pension reforms, Panamanians have also been in the streets over a deal Mulino struck with US President Donald Trump in April allowing US troops to deploy to Panamanian bases along the Panama Canal.

Mulino made the concession to Trump after the US leader repeatedly threatened to “take back” the US-built waterway.

Mulino has also angered environmentalists by threatening to reopen Cobre Panama, one of Central America’s biggest copper mines.

Meghan Markle is pressing ahead with build her business empire with her lifestyle brand As Ever – but one royal expert has questioned Prince Harry new career path

Meghan Markle continues to build her business empire with her As Ever lifestyle brand and a vast investment portfolio. But while the Duchess of Sussex pursues her entrepreneurial aspirations, it seems to be a different story for Prince Harry.

The Duke of Sussex is said to be concentrating more on his charity and philanthropic works rather than chasing commercial ventures. It is a marked difference from several years ago, when the Sussexes’ careers appeared intertwined with Meghan declaring that she and Harry were like “salt and pepper” as they always “move together”.

And with a change in their working lives, a new Channel 5 show called Meghan and Harry: Where Did The Money Go? shines a light on their finances; revealing Harry’s surprising inheritances, Meghan’s millions and their staggering Montecito mortgage.

The documentary counts the multi-million pound deals the pair have cut to sell their story since leaving The Firm – but it also details their astronomical outgoings.

It also sees one royal journalist pose a question about Harry’s contribution – especially given Meghan’s revelations about how much of a hands-on parent she is to their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.

Royal commentator Emily Andrews reckons Harry doesn’t contribute much else to his household – and she tells the documentary: “Meghan gets up at half six, half an hour before the children, then the children gets up and she gets them dressed, gets their breakfast, and then she makes their packed lunch and takes them to kindy (nursery), then at 9 o’clock she sits down and is a girl boss… Where is Harry in all of this? He’s not making money, he’s not looking after the kids, what is Harry doing?”

It comes after other experts say the couple will see their income dwindle and costs soar as their multi-million pound deals dry up. After striking their ‘Megxit’ deal in 2020, King Charles removed all financial support from the couple, with Harry moaning to Oprah that his dad “literally cut me off financially”.

Royal expert Norman Baker tells the show: “There’s no doubt in my mind that Meghan and Harry’s income is going to decline in the future. It’s declining now. They’ve done the big hits that they could do. They’ve done the big Spotify event, they’ve done the big book, there is nothing else to come, nothing else to sell apart from themselves.”

Upon moving to America, the pair splashed out on a family home costing $14.65 million (£11m). However, they also took out a mortgage of $9.5m (£7m), with repayments in the region of $50,000-100,000 (£73,000 – £37,000) a month. Until now, it’s been unheard of for a senior royal to require a mortgage.

On top of that, Prince Harry has been forced to fund his own security, and he rarely travels anywhere public without a four-car convoy.

Former royal protection officer Simon Morgan explains the costs of specialist protection, saying: “It’s always very difficult to identify the cost in relation to specialist protection, purely because there’s a lot of other factors that go into it. You are looking at somewhere in the region of about £3 million a year to protect somebody who stays at home.

“As soon as they leave the residence, even if they go down to the shops, that could see that cost double or triple and go from £3m to £6m or £9m or £10m, conservatively. Security is not a fashion accessory, it’s a need. You’ve got to address your needs versus your wants.”

To pay for it, the pair famously signed a £100 million five year deal with Netflix in 2020 and a £15 million deal with Spotify. The Spotify deal has already ended with a top exec at the firm dubbing the pair “grifters”, while the Netflix deal is due to end this year, with no renewal in sight.

Before Megxit, the Sussexes were earning £2.3m a year as working royals, receiving money from the then Prince Charles’s Duchy of Cornwall. But when the pair left The Firm that all stopped, leaving Harry forced to live on the inheritance his mum Diana, Princess of Wales left him in her will.

When she died in 1997 Diana left £6.5m to the boys each, which had grown to around £10m when Harry received it upon turning 30. Talking to Oprah, Harry said “Without that, we wouldn’t have been able to do this,” referring to the family’s move to California. Meghan, meanwhile, was thought to be worth around £5million when she met Harry – money built up from her time as an actress on Suits and from her lifestyle brand.

His tell all book Spare earned Harry a $20m (£15m) advance and sold an incredible 3.2 million copies in its first week. And he’s expected to have received a further £7m from the hardback sales.

PR expert Nick Ede is backing Meghan to become the family’s highest earner. He says: “Meghan is the best way of making money for the two of them. She is the breadwinner.” Nick believes that having to build her own fortune before she met Harry means she’s more savvy with deals than her royal husband.

Nick continues: “Megan from an early age knew it was very important to be secure. If you’re a jobbing actress that means you don’t know literally where the next pay cheque will come from and I think that will have added to her drive.”

Broadcaster and critic Bidisha Mamat agrees with Nick and admits she fears that Harry has a lot to prove. She says: “They are going to run out of ideas before they run out of money. Meghan is going to do fine, Meghan is going to make her money, Harry has the bigger financial, personal and emotional challenge. Harry has to prove he really can have a career.”

Following the collapse of the Spotify deal, Meghan did indeed land another podcast deal. This time, however, her deal was with smaller company Lemonada and expected to be worth just $40,000 (£30,000).

Meghan is also still coining it in from Suits, from which repeats are thought to have recently added another $200,000 (£148,800) to the Sussex bottom line.

Indeed, Meghan might be more savvy with money but Harry has just come into another inheritance – this time from his great-grandmother, Elizabeth, Queen Mother. In 1994 the Queen Mother set up a Trust Fund to benefit her great-grand children and this is expected to have paid out £8m to Harry.

Since they left the royal family, the pair have become more famous than ever and commentator Afua Hagan believes the pair will go on to achieve more and more.

She says: “What is clear about Harry and Meghan is that they are very savvy with their money. America is a good spot for them at the moment because it definitely fits in with their idea of entrepreneurship.

“Harry and Meghan have proven time and time again that they can stand on their own two feet that they can provide for themselves and their family. Definitely we can never count them out.”

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been contacted for comment.

Meghan & Harry: Where Did The Money Go? is streaming on 5

Federal judge pauses Trump’s efforts as the US president says a ‘deal’ with the Ivy League school was in the works.

A federal judge in the United States has blocked President Donald Trump’s bid to block Harvard from enrolling foreign students, delivering the prestigious university another victory as it challenges multiple government sanctions amid a battle with the White House.

Friday’s order by District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston preserves Harvard’s ability to host international students while a lawsuit filed by the Ivy League school plays out in the courts.

Burroughs, however, added that the federal government still had the authority to review Harvard’s foreign admission policies through normal processes outlined in law.

Harvard found itself embroiled in a polarising debate about academic freedom and the right to protest against Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza as its pro-Palestine students demanded full disclosure of the country’s oldest and wealthiest university’s investments in companies linked to Israel and divestment from those companies.

Trump and his allies claim that Harvard, and other US universities that saw similar protests, are unaccountable bastions of liberal, anti-conservative bias and “anti-Semitism”.

In May, Harvard sued the Department of Homeland Security after the agency abruptly withdrew the school’s certification to enrol foreign students and issue paperwork for their visas, skirting most of its usual procedures.

The action would have forced Harvard’s roughly 7,000 international students – about a quarter of its total enrolment and a major source of income – to transfer or risk being in the US without the necessary documents. New foreign students would have been barred from coming to Harvard.

The university said it was experiencing illegal retaliation for rejecting the White House’s demands to overhaul Harvard policies related to campus protests, admissions and hiring.

Trump, who has cut about $3.2bn of federal grants for Harvard and tried numerous tactics to block the institution from hosting international students, said that his administration has been holding negotiations with Harvard.

“Many people have been asking what is going on with Harvard University and their largescale improprieties that we have been addressing, looking for a solution,” Trump said in a post on Friday on Truth Social.

“We have been working closely with Harvard, and it is very possible that a Deal will be announced over the next week or so,” he said. “If a Settlement is made on the basis that is currently being discussed, it will be ‘mindbogglingly’ HISTORIC, and very good for our Country.”

Trump did not provide any details about the purported “deal”.

With the Friday notices, 85 percent of Voice of America’s workforce had been slashed.

Layoff notices have been sent to 639 employees of Voice of America (VOA) and the United States agency that oversees it, effectively shutting down the outlet that has provided news to countries around the world since World War II.

The notices sent on Friday included employees at VOA’s Persian-language service who were suddenly called off administrative leave last week to broadcast reports to Iran following Israel’s attack.

Three journalists working for the Persian service on Friday, who left their office for a cigarette break, had their badges confiscated and weren’t allowed back in, according to one fired employee.

In total, some 1,400 people at VOA and the US Agency for Global Media, or 85 percent of its workforce, have lost their jobs since March, said Kari Lake, Trump’s senior adviser to the agency. She said it was part of a “long overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy”.

“For decades, American taxpayers have been forced to bankroll an agency that’s been riddled with dysfunction, bias and waste,” Lake said in a news release. “That ends now.”

VOA began by broadcasting stories about US democracy to residents of Nazi Germany, and grew to deliver news around the world in dozens of languages, often in countries without a tradition of free press.

But President Donald Trump has fought against the news media on several fronts, with the complaint that much of what they produce is biased against conservatives. That includes a proposal to shut off federal funding to PBS and NPR, which is currently before Congress.

‘Death’ of independent journalism

Most VOA employees have been on administrative leave since March 15, their broadcasts and social media posts mostly silenced. Three VOA employees who are fighting the administration’s dismantling of VOA in court were among those receiving layoff notices on Friday.

“It spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds US ideals of democracy and freedom around the world,” plaintiffs Jessica Jerreat, Kate Neeper and Patsy Widakuswara said in a statement.

The Persian-language employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing legal case, was in the office Friday when colleagues were barred from re-entry. The person was afraid to leave for the same reason – even though authorities said their work had been halted – until receiving a layoff notice.

Steve Herman, VOA’s chief national correspondent who was in the process of retiring to take a job at the University of Mississippi, called the layoffs an “historic act of self-sabotage with the US government completing the silencing of its most effective soft-power weapon”.

It’s not clear what, if anything, will replace VOA’s programming worldwide. The Trump-supporting One American News Network has offered to allow its signal to be used.

Although plaintiffs in the lawsuit called on Congress to continue supporting VOA, Herman said that he is not optimistic that it will survive, even if a Democratic president and Congress take over. For one thing, every day it is off the air is another day for viewers and readers to get into another habit for obtaining news.

“I believe that the destruction is permanent,” Herman said, “because we see no indication in the next fiscal year that Congress will rally to fund VOA.”

By the time another administration takes power that is more sympathetic to the outlet, “I fear that VOA will have become forgotten,” he said.

US president doubles down on claim Iran is building nuclear weapon, again contradicting US intelligence community.

United States President Donald Trump has said his director of national intelligence was “wrong” when she testified that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had not re-authorised the country’s suspended nuclear weapons programme.

The comments come after Trump earlier this week cast doubt on Tulsi Gabbard’s March 25 report to Congress, in which she reiterated the US intelligence community’s assessment. On Tuesday, Trump told reporters, “I don’t care” that the intelligence community’s finding contradicted his own claims, saying Iran was in the late stages of developing a nuclear weapon.

But speaking on Friday, Trump went further.

A reporter asked, “What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon? Your intelligence community said they have no evidence.”

The president responded, “Then my intelligence community is wrong. Who in the intelligence community said that?”

“Your DNI [director of national intelligence], Tulsi Gabbard,” the reporter replied.

“She’s wrong,” Trump said.

It is extremely rare for a US president to openly contradict the country’s intelligence community, with critics accusing Trump of flagrantly disregarding evidence to justify potential direct US involvement in the fighting, according to Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara.

“This is not just one person, one team saying something,” Bishara said. “It’s the entire intelligence community in the United States. That he would dismiss them … it’s just astounding.”

Speaking on Friday, Trump also appeared to downplay the prospect of the US brokering a ceasefire agreement between Iran and Israel, saying he “might” support such a deal, while adding, “Israel’s doing well in terms of war, and I think you would say that Iran is doing less well.”

“It’s hard to make that request right now. When someone’s winning, it’s harder than when they’re losing,” he added.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou Castro noted that Trump was “really making a point that he’s not going to make an effort to ask Israel to ease up on its aerial bombing of Iranian targets”.

“It seems that Trump is very squarely on Israel’s side as things are progressing, and … it appears that he is not leaning towards the diplomacy route, though, again, he is giving himself that two weeks’ time to make a final decision,” she said.

Trump on Thursday said he would take two weeks to decide the US response to the conflict. Experts say the decision would likely be transformative.

The US is seen as one of the few countries with the leverage to pressure Israel to step back from the brink of wider-scale regional war.

At the same time, the involvement of the US military is seen as key to Israel’s stated mission of completely dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme, which hinges on destroying the underground Fordow enrichment plant.

A successful attack on the facility would require both Washington’s 30,000-pound (13,000kg) GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator and the B-2 bombers needed to deliver it.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Trump also downplayed the potential role of European countries in de-escalating the situation. That came hours after Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met the top diplomats from France, the UK, Germany and the EU in Geneva.

“Europe is not going to be able to help,” the US president said.

An EU diplomatic service audit report, seen by Reuters and AFP, looked at Israel’s actions in Gaza and occupied West Bank.

There are indications Israel may have breached its human rights obligations under the terms of a pact governing its ties with the European Union, a review of the agreement shows.

According to an EU document seen by the Reuters and AFP news agencies on Friday, the European External Action Service said that Israel’s actions in Gaza were likely not in line with rules laid out in the EU-Israel Association.

“On the basis of the assessments made by the independent international institutions … there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations,” the audit drafted by the EU’s diplomatic service read.

The report comes after months of deepening concern in European capitals about Israel’s operations in Gaza and the humanitarian situation in the enclave.

“Israel’s continued restrictions to the provision of food, medicines, medical equipment, and other vital supplies affect the entire population of Gaza present on the affected territory,” it said.

The document includes a section dedicated to the situation in Gaza – covering issues related to denial of humanitarian aid, attacks with a significant number of casualties, attacks on medical facilities, displacement and lack of accountability – as well as the situation in the occupied West Bank, including settler violence, Reuters reported.

The document said it relies on “facts verified by and assessments made by independent international institutions, and with a focus on most recent events in Gaza and the West Bank”.

The audit was launched last month in response to the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, in a push backed by 17 states and spearheaded by the Netherlands.

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, is expected to present the findings of the report to the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.

EU-Israel agreement

Under the EU-Israel agreement, which came into effect in 2000, the two parties agreed that their relationship would be based on “respect for human rights and democratic principles”.

Suspending the agreement would require a unanimous decision from the bloc’s 27 members, something diplomats have said from the beginning was virtually impossible.

According to AFP, diplomats have said that they expect Kallas to propose options on a response to the report during the next foreign ministers’ meeting in July.

“The question is … how many member states would still be willing not to do anything and still keep on saying that it’s business as usual,” an unnamed diplomat told the news agency ahead of the review’s findings.

“It’s really important to not fall into the trap of Israel to look somewhere else,” they said.

The EU is Israel’s largest commercial partner, with 42.6 billion euros ($48.2bn) in goods traded in 2024. Trade in services reached 25.6 billion euros ($29.5bn) in 2023.

Israel’s mission to the EU did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment about the contents of the document.

Trump revives longstanding grievance as the White House is consumed by a foreign policy decision on whether to get directly involved in the Israel-Iran war.

US President Donald Trump has called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden, repeating his baseless claim that the contest was marred by widespread fraud.

In a post on Truth Social, the president criticised Biden on immigration issues and said he lost the 2020 presidential election by a “LANDSLIDE”.

“Biden was grossly incompetent, and the 2020 election was a total FRAUD!” Trump said. “The evidence is MASSIVE and OVERWHELMING. A Special Prosecutor must be appointed. This cannot be allowed to happen again in the United States of America! Let the work begin!”

Trump’s revival of his longstanding grievance, which comes as his White House is consumed by a hugely substantial foreign policy decision on whether to get directly involved in the Israel-Iran war, is part of an amped-up effort by him to undermine the legitimacy of Biden’s presidency.

Earlier this month, Trump directed his administration to investigate Biden’s actions as president, alleging aides masked his predecessor’s “cognitive decline.” Biden has dismissed the investigation as “a mere distraction”.

The post also revives Trump’s claim that the election was stolen, even though courts around the country and a Trump attorney general from his first term found no evidence of fraud that could have affected the outcome. The Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity arm pronounced the election “the most secure in American history”.

And in 2022, the House of Representatives January 6 committee’s final report asserts that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Trump’s repeated, false claims of widespread voter fraud resonated with his supporters, the committee said, and were amplified on social media, building on the distrust of government he had fostered during his four years in office.

It was unclear what Trump had in mind when he called for a special prosecutor, but in the event Attorney General Pam Bondi heeds his call, she may face pressure to appoint someone who has already been confirmed by the Senate.

A Department of Justice spokesperson declined to comment Friday.

The Justice Department, in recent years, has appointed a succession of special counsels – sometimes, though not always, plucked from outside the agency – to lead investigations into politically sensitive matters, including conduct by Biden and Trump.

Last year, Trump’s personal lawyers launched an aggressive, and successful, challenge to the appointment of Jack Smith, the special counsel assigned to investigate his efforts to undo the 2020 presidential election and his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

A Trump-appointed judge agreed, ruling that then-Attorney General Merrick Garland had exceeded his bounds by appointing a prosecutor without Senate approval and confirmation, and dismissed the case.

That legal team included Todd Blanche, who is now deputy attorney general, as well as Emil Bove, who is Blanche’s top deputy but was recently nominated to serve as a judge on a federal appeals court.

Russia’s economy must not slide into recession, President Vladimir Putin said, after economists warned for months of a slowdown in growth.

Putin told attendees, including government ministers and central bankers, at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday that some specialists and experts were “pointing to the risks of stagnation and even a recession”.

“This must not be allowed to happen under any circumstances,” he said.

“We need to pursue a competent, well-thought-out budgetary, tax and monetary policy,” he added.

Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov said on Thursday that the economy was on the verge of slipping into a recession, and monetary policy decisions would determine whether it falls into one or not.

In October, the Bank of Russia increased its key interest rate to the highest level since the early 2000s to curb high inflation, only to cut it by one percentage point to 20 percent earlier this month.

Moreover, economists warned for months of a slowdown in the economy, with the country posting its slowest quarterly expansion in two years during the first quarter of 2025.

However, the Kremlin said it expected the slowdown due to two years of rapid expansion as it increased military expenditure to fund its war against Ukraine.

Yet, Putin denied that the defence industry was solely driving the economy. “Yes, of course, the defence industry played its part in this regard, but so did the financial and IT industries,” he said.

He added that the economy needed “balanced growth”, calling on officials to keep a “close eye on all indicators of the health of our industries, companies and even individual enterprises”.

At the same time, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday that it was time to “cut the [interest] rate and start heating up the economy”.

German Gref, CEO of Russia’s largest lender Sberbank SBER.MM also called for faster rate cuts to incentivise companies to invest.

Growth of military industries

Putin has used the annual economic forum to highlight Russia’s economic prowess and encourage foreign investment, but Western executives shunned it since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, leaving it to business leaders from Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The economy, hit with a slew of Western sanctions, has so far outperformed predictions. High defence spending has propelled growth and kept unemployment low despite fuelling inflation.

Large recruiting bonuses for military enlistees and death benefits for those killed in Ukraine have also put more income into the country’s poorer regions. But over the long term, inflation and a lack of foreign investments pose threats to the economy.

Economists have warned of mounting pressure on the economy and the likelihood that it would stagnate due to a lack of investment in sectors other than the military.

Putin said the growth of military industries helped develop new technologies that have become available to the civilian sector.

He pledged to continue military modernisation, relying on lessons learned during the fighting in Ukraine.

“We will harness new technology to improve the combat capabilities of the Russian armed forces, modernise military infrastructure facilities, [and] equip them with the latest technology and weapons and equipment,” he said.

“At the same time, we intend to develop military-technical co-operation with friendly countries. And we are talking not only about supplies or the modernisation of equipment and weapons, but also about joint development, personnel training, and the creation of turn-key enterprises and production facilities,” he added.

The dispute centred on an exception granted to California on national vehicle emission standards, allowing it to set stricter rules than federal standards.

The United States Supreme Court has sided with fuel producers that had opposed California’s standards for vehicle emissions and electric cars under a federal air pollution law, agreeing that their legal challenge to the mandates should not have been dismissed.

The justices in a 7-2 ruling on Friday overturned a lower court’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit by a Valero Energy subsidiary and fuel industry groups. The lower court had concluded that the plaintiffs lacked the required legal standing to challenge a 2022 US Environmental Protection Agency decision to let California set its own regulations.

“The government generally may not target a business or industry through stringent and allegedly unlawful regulation, and then evade the resulting lawsuits by claiming that the targets of its regulation should be locked out of court as unaffected bystanders,” conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority.

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the decision.

The dispute centred on an exception granted to California during Democratic former President Joe Biden’s administration to national vehicle emission standards set by the agency under the landmark Clean Air Act anti-pollution law.

Though states and municipalities are generally preempted from enacting their own limits, Congress let the EPA waive the preemption rule to let California set certain regulations that are stricter than federal standards.

The EPA’s 2022 action reinstated a waiver for California to set its own tailpipe emissions limits and zero-emission vehicle mandate through 2025, reversing a 2019 decision made during Republican President Donald Trump’s first administration rescinding the waiver.

Valero’s Diamond Alternative Energy and related groups challenged the reinstatement of California’s waiver, arguing that the decision exceeded the EPA’s power under the Clean Air Act and inflicted harm on their bottom line by lowering demand for liquid fuels.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out the lawsuit in 2024, finding that the challengers lacked the necessary standing to bring their claims because there was no evidence that a ruling in their favour might affect the decisions of auto manufacturers in a way that would result in fewer electric and more combustion vehicles to be sold.

Sceptical court

California, the most populous US state, has received more than 100 waivers under the Clean Air Act.

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has taken a sceptical view towards broad authority for federal regulatory agencies and has restricted the powers of the EPA in some important rulings in recent years.

In 2024, the court blocked the EPA’s “Good Neighbor” rule aimed at reducing ozone emissions that may worsen air pollution in neighbouring states. In 2023, the court hobbled the EPA’s power to protect wetlands and fight water pollution. In 2022, it imposed limits on the agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act to reduce coal and gas-fired power plant carbon emissions.

As the war between Israel and Iran continues, Yemen’s Houthi rebels say they are coordinating with Tehran.

The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, have since 2023 launched attacks on Israel and shipping in the Red Sea in what they say is support for Palestinians in Gaza.

The Houthis are also a close ally of Iran, and now they say that their latest attacks are on behalf of the “Palestinian and Iranian peoples”, according to the Telegram account of Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree, who added that the Yemeni group were coordinating with “the operations carried out by the Iranian army against the criminal Israeli enemy”.

On Sunday, two days after Israel first attacked Iran in the early hours of June 13, the Houthis announced that they had targeted Israel.

In a televised address, Saree said the group fired several ballistic missiles at Jaffa.

The Houthis are timing their attacks with the Iranians, according to Hussain Albukhaiti, a pro-Houthi political commentator.

The Houthis are launching missiles “after Iran launched its missiles”, Albukhaiti told Al Jazeera. “This way the Zionist settlers [Israelis] keep going back and forth to their shelters so they can live a small fraction of the fear they caused the Palestinian people in Gaza.”

The Houthi attacks are essentially a continuation of their previous periodic missile and drone attacks on Israel. The Israelis have mostly been able to intercept the attacks but some have gotten through, most notably an attack in early May on Ben Gurion airport that injured six people and led to a suspension of flights.

But the Houthi attacks have also had another consequence for Israeli defences, according to Yemen expert Nicholas Brumfield.

“The constant threat of Houthi attacks coming from the south requires Israel to spread out its air defences rather than positioning them all to more effectively [defend] counterattacks coming from Iran,” he told Al Jazeera.

Shipping routes

In November 2023, the Houthis began attacking ships they say were linked to Israel in the Red Sea. International ships that travel to the Red Sea are forced to pass Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

The attacks have ceased in recent months, particularly after the Houthis and the United States came to an agreement to stop attacking each other in early May, following a US bombing campaign that is reported to have killed more than 200 people in Yemen.

But the attacks could still resume, and the Houthis never agreed to stop targeting Israel, which itself has also continued to bomb Yemen.

“We had an agreement with the US to stop attacking each other, but Yemen will not obey this agreement if the US joins the Zionists in their attacks against Iran,” Albukhaiti said.

“We remember that Trump cancelled the nuclear deal between Iran and the US,” he said, referring to the US president’s unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal between Iran and several Western countries in 2018. Albukhaiti accused Trump of cancelling the deal because it was not in Israel’s interest.

“Yemen will do the same, and will cancel the agreement with the US, because it’s not in the interest of Iran, which is an important ally of Yemen,” he said, referring to the Houthi rebel group as “Yemen”, although the group’s government is not recognised internationally.

Iran has also threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, which lies between it and Oman. About 20 million barrels per day (BPD), or the equivalent of about 20 percent of global petroleum liquids consumed, pass through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Analysts said the Houthis could potentially do the same in the Red Sea.

Sea mines are “very low-tech, easy-to-make mines that would nevertheless introduce considerable uncertainty for global shippers,” Brumfield said.

“I don’t think that Iran or Yemen will hesitate to use sea mines if necessary to block the entire shipping lines in our region,” Albukhaiti added.

Risks to Gulf states

There are also fears that the conflict could drag in other countries in the region. The US has bases in a number of countries in the Middle East, and the Houthis have previously been involved in fighting with many of them, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

If the current conflict spirals, Gulf countries may find themselves threatened by Houthi attacks.

“The Houthis are trying to recover from the US strikes we saw between mid-March and May, and probably aren’t begging to restart those more intensive strikes if they don’t have to,” Brumfield said. “But I also think they’d be amenable to restarting them if they saw themselves as participating in a grand regional war between the US-Israel and the Axis of Resistance, especially if a lot of US military resources are diverted to Iran.”

Albukhaiti said Houthi forces “could also target US bases in the region”, specifically those involved in the coalition against Yemen, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, because “we are still at war with these countries”, he said.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened militarily in the war in Yemen between the Houthis and the country’s internationally recognised government in 2015, unleashing a years-long campaign of air strikes. Saudi Arabia ceased hostilities in Yemen in 2022, but has yet to officially reach a deal with the Houthis.

And before that, it had come under Houthi attack. In 2019, Saudi oil production was cut by around 50 percent after Houthi drone strikes on oil plants. Since then, analysts say the Saudis have worked hard to keep more stable relations with the Houthis in order to avoid further attacks.

But despite these efforts, the detente could be forgotten if the Houthis see fit to resume hitting their northern neighbour.

“I don’t think [attacks on Saudi Arabia are] off the table,” Brumfield said. “If elements in Houthi leadership in favour of a military-first approach win out, it’s plausible they would attack the Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia] as part of a general escalation in both the regional and Yemen conflict.”

Brumfield added that the Houthis would, however, have to also keep in mind that Saudi Arabia has provided “diplomatic cover” for the Houthis in the past few years, as it seeks to find a final deal to end the conflict in Yemen. Any attacks from the Houthis would likely make Saudi Arabia abandon that strategy.

Internal strife

Anti-Houthi groups in Yemen have been watching events carefully over the past few months, as they sense an opportunity with the initial US campaign against the Houthis, and now the weakening of the Houthis’ principal ally, Iran.

“The most [the Houthis are] capable of doing is continuing symbolic attacks on Israel or potentially restarting activity in the Red Sea,” Raiman Al-Hamdani, an independent Yemen analyst, told Al Jazeera. “But doing so could provoke a renewed military response from the US, Israel, and the UK, which might weaken their position domestically and open space for anti-Houthi groups to exploit any resulting instability.”

However, analysts say that few of the groups that oppose the Houthis, including the Yemeni government, are in a position to take and effectively govern territory from the Houthis.

And, should those groups mobilise, the Houthis would likely respond, Albukhaiti said.

Houthi forces could target any domestic opponents through “oil and gas fields and platforms” as well as the “airports and water distillation plants” of the countries he said backed the groups, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Project 2025 became a flashpoint during the 2024 presidential campaign. The sweeping conservative policy blueprint aims to overhaul the federal government and reshape United States society.

How closely is President Donald Trump following its direction? And how much does it test the limits of the Constitution?

Marc Lamont Hill talks to Paul Dans, the former director of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation.