🇺🇸💬🇮🇷❌🇮🇷 — 🧐 ISW on 𝕏:
"MORE: Ghalibaf publicly defended negotiations on Iranian state television on April 18, arguing that diplomacy with the United States, alongside military power, is necessary to secure Iran’s objectives. Ghalibaf also reportedly criticized hardline officials, including Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) member Saeed Jalili and hardline parliamentarian Amirhossein Sabeti, for their opposition to negotiations during a meeting with advisers, but his criticisms were likely implicitly directed at Vahidi.
US officials separately told Axios on April 20 that the US negotiating delegation thought it was “negotiating with the right people“ in Islamabad on April 11 and 12 but that the IRGC effectively told the Iranian negotiating delegation upon their return to Tehran that they ”don’t speak for” the IRGC. Senior regime officials, including former IRGC Intelligence Organization Chief Hossein Taeb, reportedly called the Iranian negotiating delegation back to Tehran after it surpassed its mandate.
A second US official told Axios that “we aren’t sure who’s in charge and neither do they.” This report is consistent with CTP-ISW‘s assessment that there is a division between Vahidi and his inner circle and members of Iran‘s negotiating team over Iran’s negotiations policy.
This report is also consistent with CTP-ISW’s assessment that Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has not played the role of cohering and arbitrating between various factions as his father used to do, which has likely exacerbated intra-regime fighting."
🔗 Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar)
🚫🌾 The coming global food crisis — Financial Times
Hunger and even famine are foreseeable consequences of the war on Iran. Now the world must act to shield the poorest from effects that will continue long after the fighting stops
Few 20th-century transformations did more to remake the world than the “Green Revolution”. From the 1950s onwards, new high-yielding crop varieties, synthetic fertilisers, chemical pesticides and large-scale irrigation drove a sharp increase in the output of staple crops such as wheat and rice. In its more celebratory accounts, this transformation pushed back famine and helped support rapid population growth across much of Asia and Latin America. India, one of the key centres of the Green Revolution, more than doubled wheat production between the mid-1960s and early 1970s.
As numerous critics have noted, the Green Revolution also came with enormous ecological and social costs. But one of its less discussed consequences was the link it established ...
U.S. DEPRESSION RATE STAYS NEAR RECORD HIGH
A GALLUP SURVEY FINDS 19.1% OF U.S. ADULTS REPORT CURRENT DEPRESSION IN EARLY 2026—ABOUT 51 MILLION PEOPLE—NEAR HISTORIC HIGHS AND UP SHARPLY FROM 2015.
RATES SURGED AFTER 2019, BRIEFLY EASED IN 2024, THEN ROSE AGAIN. LIFETIME DIAGNOSES HAVE ALSO CLIMBED TO 29.5%.
THE INCREASE IS MOST PRONOUNCED AMONG YOUNGER ADULTS (18–29), WHERE DEPRESSION HAS MORE THAN DOUBLED TO 28%, AND AMONG LOW-INCOME HOUSEHOLDS, NOW AT 37.4%.
LONELINESS REMAINS A KEY DRIVER: THOSE FEELING LONELY ARE FAR MORE LIKELY TO REPORT DEPRESSION (33% VS. 13%). BOTH ARE STRONGLY LINKED TO LOWER LIFE SATISFACTION AND DECLINING OVERALL MENTAL WELLBEING IN THE U.S. ...
🌾🪫 "We're On Borrowed Time": Vitol LNG Chief Warns Of Coming Food Price Shock
Pablo Galante Escobar, the head of liquefied natural gas (LNG) at Vitol, warned the audience at the FT Commodities Summit earlier today that the "world is on borrowed time" and that the Gulf energy shock will develop into a food crisis unless LNG flows resume through the Hormuz chokepoint.
"We are on borrowed time. Every day this trade remains closed and every day production does not come back, we are building a problem for the future, and we are building a problem that, as I said, will be transferred from the energy side into many different sectors, with the food sector being a very important one," Escobar said, who works world's biggest independent energy trader.
Escobar continued, "This is not sustainable, or the energy crisis will become a food crisis. Only gas can supply the feed for fertilizers. We are building a problem for the future."
He added that even if the Hormuz chokepoint reopened today, it ...