Fuel prices are displayed on a sign as a customer fills their vehicle at a gas station on April 13, 2026 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“We are living on borrowed time,” said one economist about global oil prices.
With no end in sight to the Strait of Hormuz crisis caused by President Donald Trump’s illegal war with Iran, the head of the International Energy Agency warned Monday that global energy supplies are running dangerously low.
IEA executive director Faith Birol told reporters in Paris that the world only has weeks’ worth of oil reserves left, raising the likelihood that energy prices will soar even higher in the near future.
Birol said that oil inventories are “declining rapidly” and added that there was “a perception gap in the markets between the physical markets and the financial markets,” as the price of oil in futures markets has not yet risen to a level that accurately reflects the coming supply crunch.
In his remarks to the press, given on the sidelines of a G7 gathering taking place this week in France,Birol warned that it’s only a matter of time before the supply shortage of fertilizer, which was also caused by the Iran War, leads to a surge in food prices that “might give a big push to inflation numbers.”
The Financial Times reported on Sunday that energy markets are approaching a “tipping point” where prices could see another upward surge that would throw the global economy into a recession.
Paul Diggle, chief economist at fund manager Aberdeen, told The Financial Times that he has been modeling the economic impact of oil hitting $180 per barrel, which he said would set off a global inflation crisis.
“We are taking that outcome very seriously,” Diggle said. “We are living on borrowed time.”
Oil prices briefly fell last month after the US and Iran announced a ceasefire agreement. However, the Strait of Hormuz has remained closed throughout that period, and Trump is reportedly preparing to restart attacks on Iran in the near future if no deal to reopen the strait is reached.
In a Sunday Truth Social post, Trump again threatened Iran with destruction unless it agrees to his demands.
“For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them,” the president wrote. “TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”
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A view of Sde Teiman prison in the Negev desert near the Gaza Strip, in Negev, Israel, on January 10, 2025. (Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)
While Israel said the claims amount to “blood libel,” a spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office said, “torture and ill-treatment, including sexual and gender-based violence, are systematically perpetrated against Palestinian prisoners.”
As Israel attempts to discreditNew York Times reporting published last week that detailed systematic sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners by Israeli forces, the United NationsHuman Rights Office over the weekend called for an independent probe into what a spokesperson characterized as well-documented mistreatment.
“Torture and ill-treatment, including sexual and gender-based violence, are systematically perpetrated against Palestinian prisoners under Israeli custody. This includes numerous cases of rape, involving children,” said Thameen Al-Kheetan, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Saturday, in response to questions from the Anadolu Agency.
Al-Kheetan added that the human rights office had confirmed the deaths of at least 90 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody since October 7, 2023, including a 17-year-old who showed signs of starvation at the time of death.
Israel has announced that it will sue the Times for the report by opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof, which included testimony from 14 Palestinians who said they faced sexual assaults in Israeli custody or during attacks by the Israeli military or settlers. Threatening legal action, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other government officials described the reporting as “blood libel.”
But Al-Kheetan said the OHCHR had “systematically documented the practice of torture and ill-treatment, including sexual and gender-based violence, against Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.”
Reports from other human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Israeli group B’Tselem, have included similar testimonies in which Palestinian former detainees say they’ve experienced or witnessed sexual violence while in custody.
Al-Kheetan added that it was part of a “flawed Israeli detention and justice system,” which includes arbitrary detention, unfair trials, and violations of international law. “This system must end, and Israel, as an occupying power, must respect international human rights law and its obligations,” he said.
While rejecting allegations of systemic abuse, Israel has denied requests by the UN and other agencies for access to its detention facilities. Last year, Israel refused a request from the UN to investigate possible sex crimes committed by Hamas militants against Israelis on October 7, 2023, because it would have also involved a probe into its own treatment of Palestinian detainees.
Al-Kheetan said, “independent, impartial, and transparent investigations must be conducted into every death, torture, ill-treatment, and other case of inhuman or degrading treatment, and those responsible must be held accountable.”
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Israeli forces as they approach vessels traveling as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, organized by humanitarians to bring life-saving aid to Palestinians in Gaza. (Photo: Screengrab/Global Sumud Flotilla)
“Shame on European governments who are not acting to stop Israel!” said UN expert Francesca Albanese. “When will Israel’s impunity end?”
Israel’s raid on a peaceful flotilla of international vessels attempting to bring humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip was described Monday as an act of brazen piracy and condemned by human rights activists and experts who say the world should no longer stand by in the face of such criminality.
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, called the operations by Israel “yet another act of piracy by the Israeli army in international waters” that must be condemned by the global community.
Noting that the flotilla is “carrying basic necessities to a desperate population in Gaza,” Albanese said: “Shame on European governments who are not acting to stop Israel! When will Israel’s impunity end?”
RED ALERT!
Military vessels are currently intercepting our fleet and IOF forces are boarding the first of our boats in broad daylight.
We demand safe passage for our legal, non-violent humanitarian mission. Governments must act now to stop these illegal acts or piracy meant to… pic.twitter.com/4RmPuswZNo
— Global Sumud Flotilla (@gbsumudflotilla) May 18, 2026
A dispatch was issued by the Global Sumud Flotilla—which has repeatedly tried to break the siege of Gaza—shortly after 10:30 am local time, which said that their vessels off the coast of Cyprus were “currently surrounded and under active interception by Israeli naval warships in international waters, approximately 250 nautical miles from the coast of Gaza.”
The Israeli forces reportedly boarded a number of the more than 50 vessels traveling in the flotilla and began detaining those aboard.
“By intercepting the flotilla at a perimeter of 250 nautical miles today and in Cyprus’ SAR zone,” said the Flotilla in its statement, “the Israeli regime continues to demonstrate a systematic disregard for international maritime law, freedom of navigation on the high seas, and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).”
Thiago Avila, a Brazilian activist who was detained and imprisoned by the Israelis for several days after being kidnapped off a boat on a previous attempt by humanitarians to reach Gaza with relief supplies, said in a video statement on Monday that now was the time for the international community to act.
“Do something,” pleaded Avila. “Take to the streets. The world cannot stand a genocide. The world cannot stand a country that violates international law, to continue killing children, assassinating children out of hunger, killing people with drones.”
“They want you not to talk about what’s happening in Gaza,” he continued. “There’s no real ceasefire. Seven months of people getting killed, aid still being hindered, more than half the land being taken away, and their plans are the worst for that area—it is complete ethnic cleansing and genocide. We need to stop that.”
Ann Wright, a retired US Army colonel who has long been a leading anti-war activist and is currently serving as a member of the support team at the Flotilla’s Crisis Center stationed in Istanbul, Turkiye, called the operation to deliver aid the “largest civilian flotilla in the history of support for Palestinians in Gaza” to date.
“Stop the genocide, not the flotilla,” said Stephen Bowen, executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland.
Independent journalist Alex Colston, embedded with the flotilla activists and on one of the vessels approached by Israeli forces, reported that he could confirm “people on intercepted boats are being moved to one, maybe two, military prison frigates,” though it was not clear where exactly those detained would be taken.
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US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after arriving on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 15, 2026. (Photo by Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images)
“The only realistic path to a diplomatic breakthrough would require Washington to engage more directly with the structure and substance of the Iranian proposal itself,” said a national security expert.
With the economic impact of the war on Iran linked to President Donald Trump’s plummeting approval rating, the president issued his latest threat to destroy the Middle Eastern country Sunday as he demanded negotiators “get moving, FAST” to end the conflict the US and Israel began by choice in February.
“For Iran, the Clock is Ticking,” said the president in a Truth Social post, adding that if a peace deal is not reached soon, “there won’t be anything left of them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”
Trump rejected Iran’s latest peace proposal last week; the country has reportedly offered significant concessions on its uranium enrichment, but seeks to have separate nuclear talks after achieving peace and reaching a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which the Iranians effectively closed in retaliation for the US-Israeli attacks.
Since launching the conflict, Trump has demanded the dismantling of Iran’s missile arsenal as well as its nuclear program, which Iran has said is not for military purposes, and has called for the country to cut ties with its regional allies.
Iran’s Mehr news agency said Sunday that Trump had offered “no tangible concessions” in his response to the Iranians’ latest proposal.
“The United States,” said the news outlet, “wants to obtain concessions that it failed to obtain during the war, which will lead to an impasse in the negotiations.”
Trump told Fox News in Beijing over the weekend that the Iranians are “crazy, and you know what? Because of that, they cannot have a nuclear weapon,” explaining why he viewed it as “unacceptable” for nuclear talks to take place separately after a peace deal is brokered.
Trump reportedly spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday about the possibility of renewing strikes on Iran, which would break a ceasefire that was reached more than a month ago.
Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, said Sunday that “the only realistic path to a diplomatic breakthrough would require Washington to engage more directly with the structure and substance of the Iranian proposal itself.”
“Iran’s priorities remain consistent: ending what it views as economic siege conditions, reopening maritime access and reducing pressure in the Gulf, negotiating an end to the broader conflict, and only afterward addressing the nuclear issue,” said Citrinowicz. “At the present moment, it is difficult to see the Iranian leadership agreeing to any framework that does not meaningfully engage with those core demands.”
As with Trump’s earlier threats of violence, including one in April in which he declared that Iran’s entire civilization would die, “never to be brought back again,” Iranian officials said the president’s latest comments—which followed his posting of an image of himself on a military ship accompanied by the words, “It was the calm before the storm”—would not be tolerated.
A spokesperson for Iran’s armed forces, Abolfazl Shakarchi, told Mehr that “repeating any folly to compensate for America’s disgrace in the Third Imposed War against Iran will result in nothing but receiving more crushing and severe blows.”
Reporting for Al Jazeera, correspondent Almigdad Alruhaid said that the “kind of language” displayed by Trump on Sunday “is not acceptable here in Tehran. They are projecting defiance rather than [giving] an immediate response to this kind of rhetoric.”
“Behind all of this rhetoric, there is awareness that the diplomatic window right now is narrowing,” said Alruhid.
Meanwhile, US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) urged Trump to “hurt them more” in order to force a deal, calling on the president to go through with bombing Iran’s energy infrastructure as he’s threatened to in recent months.
Uber-warmonger Lindsey Graham calls on Trump to bomb Iran's energy infrastructure.
The reason why Trump didn't do this during the war – despite threatening it – was because he realized Tehran would retaliate and take out the energy infrastructure in the GCC states. This would… pic.twitter.com/rvrewkavNr
“The reason why Trump didn’t do this during the war—despite threatening it—was because he realized Tehran would retaliate and take out the energy infrastructure in the [Gulf Cooperation Council] states,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “This would lead to a far worse oil crisis—one rooted in production problems, not just a bottleneck in the Persian Gulf.”
“The global economy would be thrown into a deep recession. Fuel shortages would lead to food shortages worldwide. Trump’s presidency would be destroyed,” he said. “None of this matters to Lindsey. He’ll burn the entire planet as long as he gets his war. Trump’s biggest mistake has been to listen to Lindsey and his allies.”
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Four victims of the Trump administration’s boat bombings, Eduard Hidalgo, Dushak Milovcic, Ricky Joseph, and Chad Joseph, are seen in a composite image. (Photo: Courtesy of CLIP)
“It’s a double tragedy—not only because of the unlawful killings, but because the victims are erased, reduced to anonymity,” said one human rights advocate.
The 57 confirmed bombings of boats that the Trump administration has carried out so far since last September have shattered families and communities across Latin America, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and US Southern Command never acknowledging the identities of the at least 192 people they’ve killed, beyond declaring them “narco-terrorists.”
But despite the concerted effort to keep the names and any information about the victims hidden—their identities “blown away over vast stretches of ocean,” as a new report states—20 journalists led by the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP) managed to identify 13 of the men whose killings have been called “murders” by legal experts and rights advocates.
The journalists and researchers represented CasaMacondo, Verdad Abierta, 360-grados.co, and NGO El Veinte in Colombia; Alianza Rebelde Investiga in Venezuela; the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian; and Airwars in the UK.
The investigation, titled “Bombed, Without the Right to a Defense,“ was completed despite widespread fears of speaking out about the bombings in the affected communities.
“Some relatives of victims in Venezuela and in Santa Marta, Colombia, say they have received threats, as sources confirmed to journalists in this alliance,” reads the report. “Authorities have remained largely opaque, and the officials willing to talk do so only off the record, wary of dragging their countries into conflict with [US President Donald] Trump.”
Three people named in the report had already been identified publicly in legal complaints—Trinidadians Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, whose families filed a complaint in the US federal court; and Colombian Alejandro Carranza Medina, whose family filed a petition with the US-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The men identified for the first time by CLIP include:
Juan Carlos Fuentes, a bus driver who told his family he was “going to have to do something risky to see if I can make ends meet” after his bus broke down, and who left behind three children and a grandson;
Luis Ramón Amundarain, a motorcycle taxi driver and fisherman with a wife and five children;
Eduard Hidalgo, a fisherman who had been deported from the US in December 2025;
Jesús Carreño of Venezuela;
Eduardo Jaime, a “beloved indoor soccer player” in his hometown of Güiria, Venezuela;
Dushak Milovcic, a student at the National Guard Academy in Venezuela who became involved in drug transporting, starting as “a lookout for smugglers”;
Ricky Joseph, a well-known fishmerman in Savannes Bay, Saint Lucia, whose family lost contact with him after a bombing on February 13 and who is believed to be one of the victims;
Pedro Ramón Holguín Holguín, who was registered as a fish and seafood wholesaler in Ecuador;
Carlos Manuel Rodríguez Solórzano, who was rescued by Costa Rican authorities but died following an attack on his boat;
Luis Alí Martínez, who had a criminal record for drug trafficking and other crimes;
Ronald Arregocés of Riohacha, Colombia;
Adrián Lubo, of Riohacha, Colombia, who was called “a great captain” by a person who knew him; and
Robert Sánchez, who was traveling with his cousin, Amundarain, when the boat they were on was bombed.
Another man was identified by his nickname, and two unnamed people, including an Ecuadorian man who helped survivor Jonathan Obando escape a bombing and later died, were included in the report.
“It’s a double tragedy—not only because of the unlawful killings, but because the victims are erased, reduced to anonymity,” John Walsh, of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), told CLIP and the reporting alliance.
The report emphasizes that all of the victims it identified came from poor families and communities. In Uribia, Colombia, where at least two bodies washed ashore after a boat attack, 92% of residents “lack adequate education, healthcare, or basic public services.”
“In those conditions, recruiting young men to transport cocaine is easy work—and the pay can be good,” reads the report.
A boatman in Uribia told CLIP that “most people here aren’t the owners” of vessels or the drugs they carry. “The people who own the cargo are almost always outsiders—even international players.”
María Teresa Ronderos, director and co-founder of the CLIP, told The Guardian the report affirms that despite the administration’s repeated claims that the military is defending “our nation’s interest” and protecting Americans from those who are “trafficking deadly narcotics” like fentanyl and cocaine, “the US is not taking down any Pablo Escobar or Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán.”
“Despite the US claim that the strikes are fighting narco-terrorism, what is actually happening is that young people living in extremely precarious conditions, doing whatever work they can to support their families, are being targeted,” Ronderos said.
As the investigation into the identities of the boat strike victims illustrates, the people the Trump administration is killing are not in fact the "al Qaeda of our hemisphere" as repeatedly claimed by SecDef.www.elclip.org/los-bombarde…
The boat that Fuentes and Amundarain, who had both gone to Trinidad and Tobago to work, were on was traveling from the Caribbean country to Venezuela, calling into question the claim that the vessel was trafficking drugs.
“Boats carry drugs from South America northwards, not the reverse,” Ronderos told The Guardian.
Legal experts have emphasized that even in the cases of victims who were involved in the drug trade, the bombings still legally qualify as extrajudicial killings, or even murder. Trump informed Congress in October that the White House views the US as being in an armed conflict with drug cartels in Latin America, claiming a rationale for carrying out the boat strikes. But no conflict has officially been declared, and rights experts warn that the military has clearly violated international law by targeting the survivors of some of the boat attacks in “double-tap” strikes.
“The deaths of Joseph and Samaroo were clearly extrajudicial killings,” Steven Watt, an attorney with the ACLU who is working on the case brought by the two Trinidiadian families, told CLIP. He added that “the Trump administration’s argument—that a ‘war on drugs’ justifies violent strikes like these—cannot legally excuse the killings.”
Brian Finucane of the International Crisis Group told CLIP that “the law of war permits violence otherwise prohibited, but only during genuine armed conflict—a threshold the Trump administration has failed to meet, as it has not even identified who the US is supposedly fighting.”
“Beyond that foundational problem, the administration’s suggestion that vaguely defined ‘enablers’ may be targetable raises further concerns that it is violating the rules of its own bogus legal paradigm,” Finucane said.
Ronderos added that “there is no death penalty for cocaine trafficking.”
“So the fact that they were killed without even having the chance to defend themselves is deeply troubling,” she told The Guardian.
In accordance with international and domestic laws, the US has historically treated drug trafficking on the high seas as a criminal offense and has ensured those who are found trying to bring drugs to the US are brought to justice in court.
A spokesperson for US Southern Command told the reporters that the bombings have been “deliberate, lawful, and precise, directed specifically at narco-terrorists and their enablers,” and that the US has “full confidence in the operations and intelligence professionals who inform our missions.”
But the administration has not released any evidence showing the strikes have targeted major drug trafficking operations, and as Common Dreams reported last month, data from US Customs and Border Protection shows little evidence that the strikes are stopping the flow of illicit substances.
“CBP’s seizures of fentanyl at the US-Mexico border had been declining, often sharply, since mid-2023. But since early 2025, the declines stopped,” said Adam Isacson of WOLA at the time. “Halfway into fiscal 2026, seizures are almost exactly half of 2025’s full-year total: a flat trendline.”
Finucane told The Guardian that the boat strikes have never been “a serious counter-drug operation.”
“I think this was in part a military spectacle to give the illusion of the administration doing something ‘macho’ about drugs,” Finucane said.
Walsh said Hegseth and Trump “want to impress the public, to make Americans believe that they, unlike previous governments, are finally ending the terrible problem of drug trafficking.”
“The profound cruelty and indifference with which they order these systematic and intentional killings allows them to project this menacing image of faceless ‘narco-terrorists,’” he added. “In doing so, they shock many Americans while numbing their sense that the US officials responsible for these murders should be held accountable.”
