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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei martyred.
Sameen Nadeem & Amna Zara
March 01, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
Good afternoon,
The word of the week is war, as tensions boil over in the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, with Pakistan and Afghanistan at war, and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei martyred by US and Israeli strikes. Plus, other global and local updates.
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🌍 What In The World
🇪🇺 European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the “One Europe, One Market” strategy earlier this week, a plan to fully integrate the EU’s single market by 2027 to help the bloc catch up with the US and China.
Despite having the world’s second-largest economy, Europe is held back by internal barriers and fragmented regulations. The strategy focuses on the main drivers of Europe’s competitiveness gap: complex regulations, weak capital markets, high energy costs, and barriers to trade within the EU.
🇨🇺 US President Donald Trump on Friday floated the prospect of a “friendly takeover” of Cuba, saying the country’s government has been in talks with his administration. Trump did not specify what such a takeover would look like or offer a timetable for any potential action against the country. The president’s remarks came days after Cuban soldiers opened fire on a boat that it claimed was trying to infiltrate the island, killing four, including a US citizen.
🫸 US President Trump has said he would direct every federal agency to stop using technology from AI developer Anthropic immediately. Anthropic is mired in a row with the White House after refusing demands to grant the US military unfettered access to its AI tools. The refusal led US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to deem Anthropic a supply chain risk, the first US company to ever publicly receive such treatment.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also announced late Friday that the company had signed a deal with the Pentagon for its AI tools to be used in the military’s classified systems, but with seemingly similar guardrails rival Anthropic had also requested. It’s not clear what is different about OpenAI’s deal with the Pentagon versus what Anthropic wanted.
🇯🇵 Japan plans to deploy surface-to-air missiles to its remote western island near Taiwan by March 2031, as regional tensions simmer. It is the first time that Japan specified a timeline for the missile deployment to Yonaguni Island since it was announced in 2022. Tensions between Tokyo and Beijing have run high since November, when Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi appeared to suggest that Japan would activate its self-defence force in the event of an attack on Taiwan.
🇨🇦 Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney arrived in Mumbai on Friday for his first official visit to India, seeking to reset relations and deepen trade cooperation with New Delhi after ties deteriorated in recent years under his predecessor. During his four-day trip, Carney is set to hold talks with business leaders and will meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Monday.
Story of the Day - Iran
Iran has begun 40 days of mourning after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed by joint strikes launched by the US and Israel on Iran, despite ongoing talks between Washington and Tehran over Iran’s nuclear programme. The exchanges of fire continued throughout the night, and Iranian state media reported on Saturday evening that at least 201 people had been killed and more than 700 injured. Among those killed are 108 people, mostly students, who died following a strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran.
Here are the mapped out strikes from Iran, Israel, and the US.
Iran’s government says an interim council, including President Masoud Pezeshkian, will oversee the country until a new supreme leader is elected. Iranian state media say at least 201 people have been killed in the attacks across 24 provinces.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said it would defend its homeland, while the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps pledged revenge and said it has launched attacks on 27 bases hosting US troops in the Middle East, including Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, while authorities said that four people were injured in a blaze at a luxury hotel in Dubai in the Palm Jumeirah area, as well as Israeli military facilities in Tel Aviv.
The explosions were heard for a second day on Sunday morning in Dubai, the UAE; Bahrain’s capital, Manama; and Qatar’s capital, Doha, raising fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East.
The Middle East: The strikes forced at least eight states to declare their airspace closed, including Iran, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE. Syria also announced it had closed part of its airspace in the south along its border with Israel for 12 hours.
The world: A UN emergency session was called, urging immediate de-escalation. Pakistan was the only Muslim country to condemn the attack on Iran, while also condemning Iran’s retaliatory attacks on the Gulf nations. China called for a halt to military action, while Oman said that the negotiations were going well and were undermined. Russia has criticised the US negotiations as a “cover” as Putin expressed his condolences to Pezeshkian over the killing of Iran’s supreme leader and said that the killing was a cynical murder in violation of all standards of human morality and international law.
Pakistan: At least nine people have been killed today near a US consulate in the Pakistani city of Karachi after security forces opened fire to scatter hundreds of protesters trying to storm the consulate early on Sunday. Protesters also set fire to a UN office building in Pakistan’s northern city of Skardu, in Gilgit Baltistan. Protests are currently happening in many major cities of Pakistan, and this is a developing story.
🇵🇰 Homeground
🪖 There hasn’t been any decrease in fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan as the conflict entered its third day despite efforts by the international community to de-escalate the situation since Pakistan’s military on Friday said it had destroyed more than 73 Afghan Taliban posts and 115 tanks in retaliatory strikes, killing 331 Taliban regime operatives and terrorists and injuring over 500 since Thursday night after the Afghan Taliban forces had initiated unprovoked cross-border firing in 15 sectors across 27 locations along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Pakistani air strikes hit military targets at 22 locations across Afghanistan, including in Kabul, Kandahar, Paktia, Nangarhar, Khost, and Paktika provinces, while 12 Pakistani soldiers were martyred, 27 sustained injuries, and one remains missing in action. The strikes targeted brigade and battalion headquarters, sector headquarters, ammunition depots, and logistics bases. Live updates here.
Pakistan had also launched airstrikes earlier this week, as at least 13 civilians were killed and seven were injured in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, following a string of suicide bombings in Pakistan.
✈️ The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on Saturday suspended its flights to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Doha, and Kuwait due to the evolving situation in the Middle East. However, PIA flights to Saudi Arabia continued with changed routes.
🌊 The National Emergencies Operation Centre (NEOC) of NDMA on Thursday issued an advisory regarding potential glacial lake outburst flood (Glof) risks from March to September 2026, citing anticipated rising temperatures, changing weather patterns, and possible early heatwave conditions in northern Pakistan.
🤖 The National Database and Regulatory Authority (NADRA) notified amendments to the National Identity Card and Pakistan Origin Card rules and introduced QR-based verification and stronger fraud controls to strengthen the country’s digital ecosystem. The amendments include legally embedding QR-based verification, strengthening authentication controls across digital services, expanding biometric recognition, and updating card formats for key citizen categories.
🪁 The Punjab government on Wednesday informed the Lahore High Court that 17 people were killed in Lahore during the Feb. 6–8 Basant kite-flying festival, which was revived this year after nearly two decades of restrictions and bans.
🏏 Pakistan was knocked out of the T20 World Cup on net run-rate as New Zealand reached the semi-final. Pakistan needed to restrict Sri Lanka to 147 runs or fewer in their reply to ensure their net run-rate was better than New Zealand's in Group 2.