The Iran-backed group also claimed the districts of Hais and Al-Khawkhah in western Taiz province during its westward push, putting it in position to isolate Mocha and pressure supply lines between Taiz and Al-Hudaydah provinces. If confirmed, control of both districts would give the Houthis complete dominance over Al-Hudaydah province.
Mocha’s significance lies in its proximity to the Bab al-Mandab strait, a critical maritime chokepoint connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal, through which roughly 10 to 12 percent of global trade passes. Zuqar Island holds added strategic value for monitoring shipping and naval movement near the strait. Analysts note the strait’s narrowness, around 12 miles, means a force holding its shores can threaten passing vessels with artillery alone, without missiles or drones.
The advance marks one of the broadest escalations in Yemen’s conflict since 2022, following a stalled UN-sponsored truce and the resumption of military confrontations in July. Saudi Arabia has backed the internationally recognized Yemeni government forces battling the Houthis.
Source: Anadolu Agency (AA)
]]>The Duo pairs a 5.4-inch external OLED display with a larger 7.6-inch flexible OLED panel on the inside. It is built with a titanium frame and carries an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. The interior screen uses a matte nano-texture finish that cuts down on reflections and helps disguise the center crease, while an under-display FaceTime camera almost entirely disappears when it is not in use. The edges are rounded for easier opening, both screens support the Apple Pencil, and the transition animation between the two displays is seamless.
At 254 grams and 11.3mm thick when closed, the Duo is noticeably heavier and thicker than Samsungs Galaxy Z Fold 8, which weighs 201 grams and measures 9.7mm. Rutherford says the design feels more refined than rivals like the Pixel Fold, though his main gripe is that it does not have three rear cameras.
Source: Engadget
]]>Marandi, a professor at the University of Tehran and one of the most prominent Iranian voices in international media, shares his assessment of where the conflict is headed and what it could mean regionally and globally.
Source: Glenn Diesen / YouTube
]]>World Health Organization figures put Iranian deaths at 3,375, with more than 33,000 injured. The United States has lost 18 military personnel, with hundreds wounded. Dozens more have been killed in Israel and in Gulf states.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day of fighting. His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, succeeded him.
Iran is enduring what analysts describe as its worst economic crisis since the 1980s. The economy is projected to contract by 5.4 percent this year, inflation is above 80 percent and the rial has collapsed in value.
Medicine prices have tripled. One asthma patient described a generic inhaler rising from $5 to $15. “We are buying all our food items on credit because nobody has cash,” one Iranian blogger said.
The government has responded with intensified arrests and executions, though officials are reported to recognise that repression alone cannot resolve the crisis.
Brent crude rose from around $72 a barrel before the war to nearly $120, and remains about 20 percent up. Jet fuel is expected to cost 70 percent more than in 2025.
Equity markets, after an initial five-week slide, have more than recovered. Since the late-March low the Dow is up 19 percent, the S&P 500 22 percent and the Nasdaq 27 percent. Defence suppliers including Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics have gained.
Air travel has taken the strain. Spirit Airlines has ceased operations and Lufthansa has cut 20,000 flights, while fares, baggage fees and fuel surcharges have all risen.
High energy prices have accelerated the shift to electric vehicles. EV sales rose 110 percent in Singapore, 180 percent in New Zealand and 300 percent in Colombia; EVs are projected to account for 29 percent of vehicle sales in 2026.
The sharpest costs fall on the poorest. Fertiliser prices peaked 44 percent above pre-war levels in April. “An oil tanker anchored in the Strait of Hormuz can mean one less meal a day for a child in Sudan,” said Carl Skau.
Despite six months of bombardment, Iran’s government remains entrenched. “The reality is the best-case scenario … is there won’t be a clear-cut winner,” said Alex Vatanka, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.
Sources: The Independent, Associated Press, NPR
]]>In a message marking Unity Week, Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei described the American and Israeli governments as “sworn enemies” of Muslims as a whole, according to Iranian media.
He urged leaders across the Islamic world, and in West Asia and the Persian Gulf in particular, to identify what he called their “real enemy” and to work against its strategies in the region.
Unity among Muslim nations was essential to resolving the region’s problems, he said, arguing that outside powers deliberately exploit racial, cultural, social, economic, political and geographical differences in order to divide Muslim countries and weaken their collective strength.
The message comes six months into the war between Iran and the United States, which began on February 28, and amid a US naval blockade of Iranian ports that has left Tehran struggling to import fuel.
Source: Press TV
]]>The claim comes from leaker Ice Universe, who says the Find X10 “Pro Max” will pair three 200MP sensors, with Samsung’s new ISOCELL HPC as the main camera.
If accurate, it would be an unusual configuration. Most flagships pair a high-resolution main sensor with lower-resolution ultrawide and telephoto units; matching all three at 200MP would be a first.
The leak also points to a new model tier. Oppo’s previous generation topped out at the Find X9 Pro, so a “Pro Max” would sit above anything in the current line-up.
None of this is confirmed by Oppo. The specifications come from a single leaker posting on X, and camera claims in particular have a habit of shifting before launch.
A launch is not far off, though. The Find X9 series arrived in October 2025, putting the X10 within weeks rather than months.
Sources: Digital Trends, 9to5Google
]]>Iran’s top diplomat met his Qatari counterpart on Thursday in Tehran for talks on the strategic Strait of Hormuz, as a US naval blockade squeezes oil supplies to Iran amid a domestic shortfall.
The visit by Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani follows a week of intense diplomacy in Iran involving separate meetings with Oman’s top diplomat and senior Pakistani officials seeking ways to end the Middle East war and reopen Hormuz.
It also comes as Washington threatens wider secondary sanctions against countries, banks and companies that continue doing business with Iran, part of a broader campaign it has called “economic asphyxiation”.
Iranian state television said Al Thani, who is also Qatar’s prime minister, had met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, without providing details.
Qatar’s foreign ministry said they discussed de-escalation efforts as well as the proposed framework for Hormuz between Iran and Oman.
Al Thani “emphasised the necessity of respecting the sovereignty of neighbouring states and freedom of navigation”, and pursuing dialogue, the ministry said.
Alongside mediator Pakistan, Qatar had played a key role in securing an April ceasefire and June deal between Iran and the United States, but those deals have since collapsed.
Since war with the United States broke out on February 28, Iran has maintained tight control over Hormuz, a vital global energy conduit, with Washington imposing a naval counter-blockade on Iranian ports.
On Wednesday, Iran’s Vice President Mohammad Jafar Ghaempanah said the blockade had prevented his country from importing enough petrol to cover a shortfall in domestic production.
“Petrol production is insufficient, and because of the US naval blockade, we cannot import it,” he was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying.
In recent days, many Iranians have been seen queueing outside petrol stations. Presidential chief of staff Mohsen Haji-Mirzaei meanwhile said petrol quotas would be reviewed, without elaborating.
Iran, a major oil producer with some of the world’s cheapest fuel, has for years heavily subsidised petrol, making changes to pricing politically sensitive.
As the United States seeks to strangle Iran’s economy, Iranian officials have dismissed the measures as “failed policies” that will not force Tehran to change course.
“The country is in an all-out economic war,” said Iran’s top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf in a statement carried by local media.
“We will see that the government … will defeat the enemy on this ground as well,” he added.
Even before the war, Iran’s economy was battered by decades of international sanctions, and has long suffered from chronic inflation and a weakening currency.
Iran has for weeks been in talks with Oman, which also overlooks the Hormuz strait, over a framework agreement that would establish a “temporary corridor” for shipping and provide for clearing mines Tehran says were laid during the war.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Wednesday said the two countries had agreed on each country’s share of the waters and any revenues collected from managing the waterway.
Tehran has nonetheless insisted that the strait will not be reopened unless Washington meets its demands, including lifting its naval blockade, unfreezing Iranian assets abroad and removing oil sanctions.
Since the war broke out, Iranian forces have required vessels to obtain permission to transit the waterway and struck ships that failed to comply.
Tehran has also sought to impose service fees on ships using the strait – a move strongly opposed by Washington and regional countries.
On Thursday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said an “unknown projectile” had struck a tanker in Hormuz this week, causing a fire that was later extinguished.
]]>The Model Hardware Standard, or MHS, was released as a research preview and marks the company’s first move into physical AI.
Anthropic says connecting an AI model to a piece of equipment currently takes weeks or months of bespoke engineering. MHS is intended to reduce that to hours or minutes.
The standard extends the Model Context Protocol, which Anthropic released in 2024 to connect AI models to software tools. Alek Kemeny, a member of the technical staff, described MCP as “kind of like the USB for AI to software connection”.
MHS is model-agnostic. It is designed to work with any large language model, including Claude, OpenAI’s models and open-source alternatives — not only Anthropic’s own.
The early use cases are autonomous scientific experiments and advanced manufacturing. Anthropic developed the standard with the HHMI Janelia Research Campus.
Early access participants include Genentech, Carnegie Mellon University, QuEra, Universal Robots, Amazon Web Services, Doosan Robotics, Danaher and Hugging Face.
Jonah Cool, who heads partnerships at Anthropic, said the aim was to “avoid vendor lock-in for scientists”, pointing to research equipment that “suffers from proprietary solutions”.
Access is limited while the standard remains a research preview. A practical obstacle is that much existing equipment has no programming interface to connect to at all; Anthropic says it is working with manufacturers both on MHS-compatible products and on retrofitting older systems.
Sources: Digital Trends, Fortune
]]>The main display is a 6.13-inch monochrome e-ink panel, the paper-like kind used in e-readers. It is easy on the eyes and frugal with battery, but poorly suited to video, games or anything needing colour.
Hisense’s answer is a colour LCD that clips magnetically onto the back of the handset. Attach it when colour is needed; remove it and carry a lighter, longer-lasting e-reader in your pocket.
Reporting suggests the detachable display may be sold separately rather than included in the box, and Hisense has not confirmed its specifications.
The phone is also not compatible with major US carriers, making it a niche device outside China regardless of how novel the idea is.
Sources: Digital Trends, Gizmodo, Notebookcheck
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