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- YouTube

Do nuclear weapons make a country safer?

Does acquiring nuclear weapons make your country safer? It’s a difficult question. On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer looks back to the 1990s and a tale of two radically different nuclear—Ukraine and North Korea.

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Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in a televised message, after the ceasefire between Iran and Israel, in Tehran, Iran, June 26, 2025.

Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

What We’re Watching: Khamenei emerges from bunker, North Korea opens beach resort, & More

Iran’s leader reappears, but big challenges await

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has finally emerged from his bunker, delivering a public video message for the first time since the United States bombed three key nuclear sites in his country last weekend. The Ayatollah claimed “victory” and sought to downplay the effects of the US strikes. His week-long absence had reportedly left many Iranians worried. He faces a myriad of challenges now, including reasserting his power in the wake of Israel’s wave of assassinations of top commanders and aides. He also will need to decide what’s next for Iran’s damaged nuclear program.

Putin and Xi to miss BRICS summit

In a week where the alliance between Europe and the US rebounded at the NATO summit, the premier Global South grouping appears to be trending in the opposite direction: Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin will skip the BRICS summit, which starts on July 6. Putin is wary of his outstanding war crimes arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, while Beijing says Xi won’t go because he’s already met Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva twice in the last year. Brasilia sees this as a snub.

North Korea to open… a beach resort.

Looking for a last-minute summer get-away? Seeking a quiet spot that’s off the beaten track? The new Wonsan Kalma beach resort in North Korea might be just the place for you! Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un hopes the coastal enclave, formerly a missile-testing site, will help to boost tourism. The idea was born seven years ago, in part because of Donald Trump’s musings about the appeal of North Korean beaches. The resort will officially open on July 1.

By the way, it just so happens that GZERO’s puppet satire series PUPPET REGIME actually has a song about this – you can rock along on Instagram or YouTube.

People demonstrations outside the Supreme Court against gender-affirming care for transgender children in Washington, DC, on December 4, 2024. The Court is hearing oral arguments in the United States vs. Skirmetti, which challenges Tennessee’s ban on transgender care for minors. The ruling could affect the 26 states that criminalize gender-affirming care for children.

(Photo by Allison Bailey/NurPhoto)

HARD NUMBERS: SCOTUS affirm transition care ban, OpenAI dons combat boots, and more

6-3: In a 6-3 vote with national implications, the US Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for children, deciding that it doesn’t contravene the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Tennessee is one of 25 states that have banned gender transition care for minors.

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Israeli police dispersed a demonstration in West Jerusalem in which Israelis gathered to demand an end to the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, on April 9, 2025.

Saeed Qaq/Reuters Connect

HARD NUMBERS: Deadly Israeli strike hits Gaza, UK nabs Universal theme park, US visa clampdown crosses threshold, North Korea gets combat lessons, Pleas for release of activist

23: An Israeli airstrike hit a residential area in northern Gaza on Wednesday, reportedly killing 23 people, according to local health officials. A Hamas-run health ministry said that eight women and eight children were among the dead. Israel said it had struck a senior Hamas militant. Meanwhile, in West Jerusalem, police dispersed demonstrators who gathered to protest the ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza and the killing of Palestinian emergency workers.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervises the test of suicide drones with artificial intelligence at an unknown location, in this photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on March 27, 2025.

KCNA via REUTERS

North Korea preps new kamikaze drones

Hermit Kingdom leader Kim Jong Un has reportedly supervised AI-powered kamikaze drone tests. He told KCNA, the state news agency, that developing unmanned aircraft and AI should be a top priority to modernize North Korea’s armed forces.
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North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un visits a shipyard, in this photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on March 8, 2025.

KCNA via REUTERS

Kim Jong Un shows off North Korea’s first nuclear-powered sub

Cigarette in hand, and with the toothiest of grins, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un posed for photographs at a shipyard next to the makings of a “nuclear-powered strategic guided missile submarine.” The vessel appears to be a 6,000-ton-class or 7,000-ton-class one, with a payload of 10 missiles, in line with plans unveiled at the Hermit Kingdom’s 2021 party congress. 

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- YouTube

Trump-Putin chat over Ukraine "deeply" worries Europe

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take from Munich, Germany, where the Munich Security Conference is just about to kick off. And it is going to be a historic meeting, and not necessarily in a good way.

Everyone I've been speaking to here, deeply concerned about the sudden conversation, 90-minute conversation, with a full readout from, both the Kremlin and from the United States, between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Not so much concerned that a conversation took place, rather that it happened, and Trump is engaging unilaterally without coordinating in advance with the Ukrainians or the Europeans. And in that regard, very, very different than what we've seen over the first three years of the war.

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A housing activist holds a sign outside a building whose residents fear they will be evicted after its purchase by a real estate investment fund, in the neighborhood of Lavapies, in Madrid, Spain, on Dec. 14, 2024. The sign reads, "My motherland is my neighborhood."

REUTERS/Susana Vera/File Photo

HARD NUMBERS: Spain jacks taxes for foreigners, North Korea blasts off again, Haitian displacements soar, Red Note noted by TikTok users

100: Thinking of buying a place in Spain? If you’re a foreigner, it could cost you dearly. The government has proposed a 100% tax on non-resident property purchases, up from today’s 6-10%. The measure is meant to address a growing housing crisis in a country where nearly 30,000 extranjeros bought houses last year – not to live in, says Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, but “to make money” by renting them as holiday homes.
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