Authored by Olivia Gomm via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Culture Minister Marc Miller says the federal government has the role of regulating content on the internet and that Canada is years behind other countries when it comes to regulating “online harms.”

Miller told reporters on Parliament Hill April 29 that when it comes to the regulation of online content and social media, that role is “assumed by the federal government, whether we’re talking about moratoriums or the proper regulation of egregious online harms.”

“That’s stuff that we’re, frankly, a couple years behind in regulating, as we see other jurisdictions like Australia, like Britain, like France taking action,” Miller said, as was first covered by Blacklock’s Reporter. “We need to take action as well.”

Asked to comment on when the government plans on tabling a new online harms bill, Miller said “we’re working on it” and declined to share a timeline.

Miller told reporters earlier this month that a new online harms legislation is in the works and the government is “seriously” thinking about adding a social media ban for children to the bill, but did not provide a status or timeline for the introduction of the legislation then either.

The upcoming legislation will be the government’s third attempt to legislate on “online harms,” following previous proposals in 2021 and 2024, neither of which passed before Parliament was dissolved. Conservatives and civil liberties advocates had criticized both bills as posing a risk to freedom of expression.

In March, the federal government reconvened the same group of experts first formed in 2022 that made recommendations to the government on how to address online content deemed to be harmful, which led to Bill C-63.

The department of industry said in a recent report to the Senate social affairs committee that Ottawa is examining a “future online safety regime” meant to reduce content deemed as being harmful, such as hateful content and cyberbullying on large platforms.

“To advise on this proposal, the government has recently reconvened the Expert Advisory Group on Online Safety whose members previously contributed to the development of online harms legislation, to engage on new and emerging issues related to online harms,” the department said.

“Any future legislative proposal would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny, and details will be made public at the appropriate time.”

In 2021, Bill C-36 proposed a regulatory framework for harmful online content, but faced criticism from the opposition over its scope, including concerns about definitions of harmful speech and the extent of proposed oversight powers.

In 2024, Bill C-63 placed a stronger focus on protecting children and addressing specific categories of harmful content, and proposed the creation of new regulatory bodies such as a digital safety commissioner and ombudsperson. It also included amendments to the Criminal Code and human rights law, with stricter penalties for certain hate-related offences.

After pushback on the 2024 bill, the government said it was open to splitting the bill in two to facilitate the passage of measures protecting children, but the bill lapsed after Parliament was prorogued in January of last year.

Justice Minister Sean Fraser said last November that new legislation regulating online content would be different from the government’s previous proposals. Meanwhile, former Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault said a few months earlier that upcoming online harms legislation would be similar to the versions tabled in 2024 and 2021.

The Liberals’ election platform last spring promised to “introduce legislation to protect children from horrific crimes including online sexploitation and extortion and give law enforcement and prosecutors the tools to stop these crimes and bring perpetrators to justice.”

The Liberals also pledged to “make it a criminal offence to distribute non-consensual sexual deepfakes” and to “increase penalties for the distribution of intimate images without consent.”

Jennifer Cowan, Noé Charter, and Paul Rowan Brian contributed to this report.

Beijing is reversing its curbs on refined fuel exports after halting shipments in the opening days of the U.S.-Iran conflict. This move suggests that Chinese domestic inventories are now at comfortable levels, allowing state refiners to reopen the export spigot, even as much of Asia remains gripped by a fuel shock caused by disrupted Gulf energy flows through the Hormuz chokepoint.

There was chatter earlier this week that China’s state-owned refiners were applying for government permits to resume fuel exports in May. These include China Petrochemical (Sinopec Group) and China National Petroleum Corporation.

By late in the week, Bloomberg reported that state-owned refiners had received government approval to export 500,000 tons of fuel next month.

People familiar with the upcoming shipments said the one-off quota would allow gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel to be sent to neighboring Asian countries, providing relief amid a worsening fuel crunch.

They said these shipments will be loaded onto tankers and are likely destined for Vietnam, Laos, and other nearby nations.

China’s U-turn on export curbs comes weeks after the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and International Energy Agency urged countries to avoid panic hoarding of energy supplies, as JPMorgan analysts warned that Asia would face the most immediate impact from the Gulf energy shock.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has been a bit on the defensive since his earlier in the week swipe at President Trump over launching the war against Iran. The German leader had told students in a talk that the US is being “humiliated” by Iranian leaders. He had also asserted, “If I had known that it would continue like this for five or six weeks and get progressively worse, I would have told ​him even more emphatically.”

As we covered earlier Thursday, Merz has tried to soften the spat, after Trump responded on Truth Social earlier, “From my perspective, my personal relationship with the ​US President remains good,” he told reporters. “I simply had doubts from the ⁠start about what was begun with the war in Iran. That is ​why I have made that clear.”

But that hasn’t quieted Trump, who again hit back again in a fresh Thursday morning Truth Social post, which emphasized that the German Chancellor should focus more on problems like the Russia-Ukraine war, where “he has been totally ineffective” – Trump said. 

The US President once again reiterated that Germany is “broken” – and that this especially true on immigration and energy. He also reiterated that his Operation Epic Fury is making “the World, including German, a safer place!”

However, Merz earlier sought to place some of Germany’s economic woes precisely on the war raging in the Middle East, and ongoing Strait of Hormuz closure. His initial April 29 remarks had included the following: “In Germany and Europe we are ​suffering from the consequences, such as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,” he had said.

Wednesday night saw Trump issue a new, important threat, which he has been teasing as a possibility for day:

“The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Responsible Statecraft’s Trita Parsi is also a deep Iran war critic, but says that EU leaders are full of hypocrisy on the Iran issue, and that it needs to be called out. Parsi writes:

Merz isn’t wrong in saying he’s “disillusioned” with the US & Israel over Iran because they “claimed at the beginning that they could solve this problem within days. Now I must recognize: It is not solved.” But he is in no position to complain. He applauded the war and as a result, owns the outcome. This is typical of some EU leaders who support and help facilitate the US’s worst instincts, and then pretend they are innocent when the foreign policy adventure predictably goes wrong.

The comments underscore several European leaders’ reassessment of their relations with Trump. A tendency to smooth ties by currying favor has given way to a more sober perspective of a U.S. president who has repeatedly called into question NATO, bolstered European far-right forces and threatened to seize Greenland, a territory of Denmark.

Meanwhile Merz holds a presser in military fatigues, hilariously enough…

German Chancellor Merz demands:

Iran must come to the negotiating table.

It must stop playing for time.

It must not continue to take the entire region — and ultimately the whole world — hostage.

The military nuclear program in Iran must be ended.

There must be no more… pic.twitter.com/xkaf6Eh7wh

— Clash Report (@clashreport) April 30, 2026

Regardless, the fresh critique by a leading EU head of state is certainly going to add fuel to the fire of Trump’s ratcheting anti-EU and anti-NATO rhetoric, given their absence in helping the US get the Strait of Hormuz back open and the return to normal functioning of global energy transit once again.

Authored by Andrew Korbybko via Substack,

Sanctions, bureaucracy, and logistics are the primary obstacles to “diversifying economic ties and correcting the existing imbalance”, but these can be surmounted through SMEs playing a greater role, more localization and procedure simplifications, and optimizing their trade corridors.

The Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) and Gateway House, which are among their country’s top think tanks, published a joint report in late March about moving “Toward More Balanced Russia–India Economic Relations” for the second Russia-India International Conference. It’s over 40 pages long so this piece will highlight the top takeaways and then briefly analyze them. The report began by acknowledging the challenges posed by US sanctions for reaching their goal of $100 billion in bilateral trade by 2030.

The solution that was presented, especially for the oil and financial industries, is having Indian SMEs play a much greater role due to their much less exposure (if any at all) to the US’ secondary sanctions. China’s “tea pot” model of small refineries is mentioned as an example for India’s oil industry to follow. The authors also proposed bilateral cooperation in building similar such facilities in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kenya, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka, for example. India would thus help Russia meet their smaller demand.

Their suggestion for expanding critical minerals cooperation is for their state-owned companies to form joint R&D initiatives to strengthen their technological self-sufficiency. As for doing the same in the broad health-related field (biotech, pharmaceuticals, etc.), it’s recommended that Indian manufacturers localize production, IP rights, etc., in Russia to better overcome bureaucratic hurdles. Russian research capabilities could also pair with Indian manufacturing capacity to expand market share in third countries.

The bureaucratic hurdles mentioned above also impede cooperation on food and textile industries, but simplifying procedures could help, especially through the creation of unified digital platforms. More industrial cooperation is possible, especially in the automotive, aviation, and railway industries, but localization is likely the prerequisite. Improving logistics across the North-South Transport Corridor and the Vladivostok-Chennai Maritime Corridor can reduce costs and thus raise incentives for scaling trade.

More technological cooperation is difficult for the multiple reasons that were enumerated in the report, not least of which is global competition, so this might prove disappointing in the future. Each’s SMEs might have better chances, but overall, this might not expand associated cooperation all that much. What’s much more promising is labor cooperation, which is already a work in progress that readers can learn more about here, basically amounting to Russia replacing Central Asian labor with Indian.

To review, sanctions, bureaucracy, and logistics are the primary obstacles to “diversifying economic ties and correcting the existing imbalance”, but these can be surmounted through SMEs playing a greater role, more localization and procedure simplifications, and optimizing their trade corridors. Although the prospects for more technological cooperation are dim, efforts nevertheless shouldn’t be abandoned due to the strategic importance of this industry, especially its AI component.

The authors conclude that Russia and India’s $100 billion trade goal by 2030 is realistic, but this requires urgently implementing the aforementioned proposals to increase 2025’s estimated $60 billion in trade by another $40 billion in the next four years, which will be very difficult to achieve and then maintain. The Third Gulf War has caused radical changes to the global energy market, Eurasian logistics, and the financial industry, however, so it’s premature to predict the odds of success till the dust finally settles.

Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a bill to extend a spying authority of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for 45 days as congressional debate on the controversial measure continues.

Both chambers of Congress raced to pass the short-term measure earlier Thursday after the Senate declined to take up a House-passed bill to extend the deadline until 2029.

The House passed the “clean” extension, without reforms, which punts the deadline from April 30 to June 12, in a 261–111 vote. It was passed under a suspension of the rules, meaning it relied on Democratic support to pass. However, opposition to the measure was also bipartisan, with 26 Republicans joining 85 Democrats in casting a “No” vote.

The measure’s passage and signature into law came just hours before the critical—but contentious—power was due to expire.

The 45-day extension was proposed and passed by the Senate earlier on Thursday after it became clear that a three-year extension passed by the House the night before couldn’t pass the Senate before the midnight deadline.

Section 702 allows U.S. intelligence agencies to collect emails, phone calls, texts, and other communications of foreign nationals located outside the United States for national security purposes, such as tracking terrorism, espionage, or weapons proliferation, without obtaining an individualized warrant.

However, the data of Americans who communicate with these foreign targets can be incidentally gathered and is available to U.S. intelligence without a warrant—a “backdoor search” loophole that has come under criticism by privacy advocates.

Trump, despite his current support for a clean reauthorization of the power, has acknowledged his experience with the law in the past.

In a post on Truth Social, he described it as “the worst and most illegal abuse of FISA in [U.S.] History,” referencing disclosures that revealed that the FBI had used Section 702 of FISA to spy on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign as part of the Crossfire Hurricane operation.

Nevertheless, Trump has praised the intelligence utility of the authority when used appropriately.

However, some lawmakers in both chambers are disinclined to agree: Bipartisan concerns about Section 702’s effects on American civil liberties, particularly Fourth Amendment protections, are as old as the legislation itself.

Despite Trump’s calls for a clean reauthorization—calls that have won the support of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)—many of those congressional skeptics are among Trump’s closest allies, including lawmakers like Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.).

On Wednesday, the lower chamber also authorized a bill that would extend Section 702 of FISA for three years, but that measure included provisions that have been opposed by Senate Democrats.

Namely, the three-year extension bill would prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing digital currency, an asset class known as central bank digital currency.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has long warned that such a measure would struggle in the upper chamber, and urged the House against attaching it to the reauthorization measure.

Jackson Richman contributed to this report.  

LIV Golf is preparing to inform players and staff that its main financial backer, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, will stop funding the league after the 2026 season, according to Golfweek. The announcement—expected midweek—would open the door for CEO Scott O’Neil to pursue new investment to keep the tour running.

Since launching in 2022 as a challenger to the PGA Tour, the circuit has reportedly burned through more than $5 billion while failing to gain meaningful U.S. viewership. Broadcast deals with The CW Network and later Fox did little to improve ratings.

Uncertainty around funding has been building. In April, O’Neil acknowledged the league is only financed through this season, saying future survival depends on securing new backers—even as he publicly maintained LIV is in its best position yet.

Golfweek writes that the timing aligns with a broader shift by PIF, led by Yasir Al-Rumayyan, toward prioritizing domestic projects over global spending.

LIV did manage to lure big names like Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, and Jon Rahm with lucrative deals. Still, its team-based, no-cut format struggled to resonate broadly, despite pockets of success overseas and moments like Anthony Kim’s brief resurgence.

Efforts to align with the PGA Tour—including a 2023 framework agreement that followed LIV’s antitrust lawsuit—ultimately stalled, even with involvement from Donald Trump.

Recent player movement has added to the uncertainty, with figures such as Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed stepping away from LIV competition.

With only a handful of events remaining this season, LIV Golf now faces mounting pressure to secure fresh funding—or risk folding after 2026.

We have been diligently tracking the Trump administration’s war-economy mobilization across the homeland, from the rise of so-called “war unicorns” favored by the Department of War to Trump officials talking with GM, Ford, GE Aerospace, and Oshkosh about converting underused civilian industrial capacity into weapons production. The signal to investors is becoming hard to miss: the Trump administration is preparing to expand the defense industrial base at scale to refill depleted weapons stockpiles.

Whether through venture-backed defense startups, legacy defense primes, or redirected auto and heavy-manufacturing capacity, the White House’s war policies point toward a major weapons-production boom on the horizon.

With that in mind, L3Harris Technologies has confidentially filed a draft S-1 with the SEC for a proposed IPO of its Missile Solutions business, or MSL.

L3Harris is now preparing for an IPO, as the SEC privately reviews the draft registration statement and may send comments or request changes. This occurs before the IPO roadshow begins.

Last week, L3Harris announced it had closed a $1 billion investment from the DoW into MSL, which will be used to “accelerate research and development, and increase production capacity for critical national security technologies.”

“This strategic partnership with the Department of War is a testament to the critical role L3Harris plays in our national security,” L3Harris CEO Christopher Kubasik wrote in a statement.

Kubasik noted, “The investment will allow us to accelerate innovation and enhance our ability to deliver the advanced capabilities our warfighters need to deter and defeat emerging threats. We are proud to partner with the DoW to ensure the resilience of our defense industrial base for years to come.”

Related:

• Race To Refill U.S. Weapons Stockpiles Will Supercharge War Economy

• War Economy Returns: From Trucks To Tanks, Pentagon Looks To Automakers To Rebuild America’s Arsenal

MSL will be a direct play on the DoW ramping up orders for PAC-3, THAAD, Tomahawk, and Standard Missile systems, given that the two theaters of conflict across Eurasia, Ukraine-Russia and U.S.-Iran, are draining key missile stockpiles.

Currently there are three American aircraft carrier groups in Middle East waters and near Iran in the context of Operation Epic Fury. By comparison, at the height of the Bush-ordered US invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were six total carrier groups – which were responsible for most of the large tomahawk missile strikes on Baghdad. 

Amid the current extended ceasefire between the US and Iran (and including Israel), there are indicators that Washington is not preparing for a ground invasion of the Islamic Republic anytime soon. First and foremost is that the USS Gerald R. Ford is set to return to the United States after nearly a year deployed in wartime operations – as it was previously in the Caribbean focused on Venezuela ops.

Defense officials have newly told The Washington Post the carrier will leave the Middle East in the coming days and head back to Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia.

The publication confirms, “The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford will depart the Middle East and begin the sail for home in coming days, multiple U.S. officials said, an expected relief for roughly 4,500 sailors who have been deployed for 10 months – but a loss of significant firepower as peace talks between the United States and Iran stagnate.”

Its departure will leave the USS George H.W. Bush and the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea as the US Navy continues efforts to enforce a blockade on Iranian ports. Recent operations have seen dozens of Iranian vessels intercepted, even as others breached the blockade, with CENTCOM in a recent update saying that over 40 vessels have been turned back or intercepted.

There’s still as yet no clear sign of imminent breakdown of the Iranian government or society, amid what’s turned into a prolonged economic siege war – even though President Trump declared days ago that the Islamic Republic is ‘fractured’ and ‘collapsing’.

The US retains additional carrier strike groups elsewhere, including the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which remain available for potential deployment later this year.

The longer the Iran conflict drags on, the more likely it is that additional carrier groups could head toward Mideast regional waters, including patrolling the Mediterranean, near Israel.

The Ford’s return follows a record deployment exceeding 300 days that spanned the Caribbean, Europe, and the Middle East. Most recently, it had to undergo significant repairs – first in Cyprus and then at port in Croatia, for what’s been described as a laundry room fire and persistent maintenance problems during its extended mission.

(Reuters) – A U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports has shrunk Tehran’s oil exports, stranding a growing stockpile of crude on tankers as Iranian storage sites run out of space, shipping data showed and analysts said.

With some vessels switching off tracking systems and U.S.…

— Phil Stewart (@phildstewart) April 30, 2026

The crew has been described as overstretched and exhausted, while there are reports the carrier has come under Iranian attack – though which the Pentagon has repeatedly denied posed any real threat.

Via The Cradle

Hezbollah attacked the Israeli army with a fiber-optic drone in the Galilee on Thursday, injuring at least a dozen soldiers and destroying a military vehicle. 

Israeli Army Radio reported that 12 soldiers were injured when the drone struck a military position in the Shomera settlement. Two soldiers were “moderately” injured while 10 sustained minor wounds, Army Radio added, also revealing that other soldiers may be transferred to the hospital later for anxiety and ringing in the ears.

The drone directly struck an Israeli army vehicle in Shomera. Israel’s Channel 15 reported that it was likely a fiber-optic guided FPV drone.

A picture released by Hebrew media showed the military vehicle engulfed in flames. The vehicle was near the artillery launcher (howitzer), which the Lebanese resistance said it was targeting. 

“In defense of Lebanon and its people, and in response to the Israeli enemy’s violation of the ceasefire and attacks targeting villages and the demolition of homes in southern Lebanon, the fighters of the Islamic Resistance targeted, at 8:45 am on Thursday, April 30, 2026, a 155 mm self-propelled artillery piece south of the town of Yaroun using an attack drone, achieving a confirmed hit,” Hezbollah said in a statement on Thursday morning. 

Secondary explosions were seen in video footage on social media, as a result of the ammunition that was present at the Israeli site. 

“Hezbollah successfully carried out a precise strike on an artillery battery inside Israeli territory, causing significant damage. Twelve soldiers were injured, two of them moderately. Hezbollah directed an explosive drone at a vehicle known as an ‘Alpha,’ which carries the artillery shells for the battery. The impact triggered secondary explosions that intensified the damage to the unit. A fire broke out at the site, which firefighting teams later brought under control. Soldiers from the Hasmonean Brigade assisted in treating and evacuating the wounded,” Maariv newspaper reported.

Palestinian analyst and expert on Israeli affairs, Azzam Abu al-Adas, said “the range of fiber-optic cables can reach up to 70 kilometers, which is a challenge that was not anticipated. The ability of the drone to remain airborne for several minutes, along with its capacity for evasive and flexible maneuvering, has made it a weapon more dangerous than the Kornet – even against military and logistical targets deep inside the Galilee.”

This marks the first time this type of drone has reached the western Galilee. Prior to the ceasefire, Hezbollah FPV drones targeted Kiryat Shmona and other areas in the upper Galilee.

WATCH | Footage shows secondary explosions following Hezbollah’s drone strike on Shomera due to the ammunition that was present at the targeted site.

The struck armored vehicle was located near an M109A5 “Doher” howitzer loaded with 155mm high-explosive and white phosphorus… pic.twitter.com/h3k1fxBdyr

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) April 30, 2026

The Hezbollah operation coincided with a report by Israel’s Channel 12, which said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked US President Donald Trump to limit direct talks with Lebanon to a two-to-three-week window ending in mid-May. 

The report says Israel has conveyed to the US that if talks fail to produce results, it will seek approval to move forward with the original plan of expanded attacks against Hezbollah across Lebanon. 

Direct talks were launched by Beirut at Washington’s request. The Lebanese government refused Iran’s efforts to include it in the truce between Washington and Tehran. While Iranian pressure resulted in an end to strikes on the capital, Israel has continued brutal attacks on the south – coinciding with a ground invasion and occupation of scores of villages with the aim of creating a ‘buffer zone.’

Israeli forces are launching airstrikes and carrying out assassinations while demolishing villages on a daily basis. As a result, Hezbollah has expanded operations against troops inside Lebanon and army positions across the border. 

At least 16 Israeli soldiers have been killed by Hezbollah resistance fighters in south Lebanon since early March 2026. This week, one Israeli defense contractor was killed by a Hezbollah drone as he was destroying civilian homes in south Lebanon.

Hebrew media has expressed shock over the accuracy of Hezbollah’s FPV drones, labeling them a major challenge to troops. 

🚨Hezbollah’s deadly fiberoptic tethered drones poke huge hole in Israel’s defenses

$400-500 UAVs built from 3D-printed parts, Soviet RPG grenades and cheap FPV controls linked to spools of commercially-sourced fiberoptic cable are taking on tanks worth millions.

Fiberoptic… pic.twitter.com/CXtiT0ACIW

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) April 28, 2026

At the start of the ground operation, the Israeli army failed to achieve the stated goal of occupying Lebanese territory up to the Litani River. Israeli forces were unable to fully capture the strategic and symbolic city of Bint Jbeil, which remains inhabited by resistance fighters despite efforts to besiege the city and carry out a scorched-earth policy. 

A poll published by Israel’s Broadcasting Corporation (KAN) this week found that a majority of Israelis believe that Tel Aviv has failed to secure victory on any front since October 2023.