VANCOUVER, May 1 — Fifa President Gianni Infantino reiterated that Iran will play their World Cup games in the United States as scheduled, as football’s power-brokers met in Vancouver yesterday. 

Iran’s participation at this year’s World Cup in Canada, Mexico, and the United States has been shrouded in uncertainty since the eruption of war in the Middle East in February following strikes by the United States and Israel.

Infantino, who has repeatedly stated that Iran will be at the World Cup, underscored that stance at the start of his address to delegates as Fifa’s 76th Congress got underway in western Canada.

“Let me start by the outset, confirming straightaway that of course Iran will be participating at the Fifa World Cup 2026,” Infantino said. “And of course, Iran will play (in) the United States of America.”

Infantino’s remarks drew swift support from close ally US President Donald Trump, who told reporters in the Oval Office he was “OK” with Iran’s participation.

“Well, if Gianni said it, I’m OK,” Trump said. “I think let ‘em play.”

Iranian officials had floated the idea of shifting their group games from the United States to Mexico, but that proposal had already been nixed by Infantino.

In a further twist last week, Italy-born US special envoy Paolo Zampolli was reported to have floated the idea of Italy taking Iran’s World Cup place.

The US government later distanced themselves from that proposal, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying Iran’s footballers would be welcome.

But the tension surrounding Iran’s World Cup participation rumbled into the build-up to Thursday’s summit.

Iran’s delegation was the only absentee from the 211-member congress as Thursday’s meeting got under way after a clash with Canadian border officials earlier this week.

Officials from the Iranian football federation (FFIRI) abruptly left Canada after landing in Toronto, abandoning their onward trip to Vancouver.

Iranian media said FFIRI president Mehdi Taj—a former member of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — and two colleagues flew home after being “insulted” by Canadian immigration officers.

Canada, which designated the IRGC a terrorist organization in 2024, said Wednesday that individuals linked to the force were “inadmissible.”

Iran, who are due to be based in Tucson, Arizona, during the World Cup, face New Zealand, Belgium and Egypt in Group G.

The Iranians open their World Cup campaign against New Zealand in Los Angeles on June 15.

Infantino election boost 

Fifa supremo Infantino went into yesterday’s summit with his organization under fire over skyrocketing ticket costs for the World Cup, which one supporters group has branded a “monumental betrayal” of fans.

Infantino brushed off those criticisms in his address, insisting that all revenues from the World Cup—estimated between US$11 and US$13 billion—would be pumped back into football development.

“There are expensive tickets, yes, (but) there are also affordable tickets,” Infantino said. “And what is important is that all the revenues that we generate from the world go back to the entire world and finance football in all of your countries.”

Infantino’s close ties to US President Trump have also come under scrutiny.

Advocacy group Fairsquare filed a formal complaint in December arguing that Infantino had breached FIFA rules concerning political neutrality by awarding Trump the inaugural “FIFA Peace Prize” during last year’s World Cup draw.

However Infantino received a huge boost to his hopes of securing re-election as the head of world football yesterday after receiving pledges of support from the African and Asian regional confederations.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) and Asian Football Confederation (AFC) have both said they will back Infantino if, as expected, he stands for a fourth term in 2027.

The African and Asian confederations account for 101 votes in FIFA’s presidential election out of a total of 211.

Infantino has already secured support for re-election from South American football’s ruling body CONMEBOL, which is worth a further 10 votes. — AFP

MAY 1 — There have been weeks of naval blockade along the Iranian Gulf coast by the United States.

The maritime pressure on Iran is now pushing the country towards a far more dangerous threshold.

Millions of barrels of crude that would normally leave the country each day are instead backing up into onshore storage.

Its largest terminal, which handles roughly 90 per cent of Iran’s crude exports, Kharg Island, has only 12–13 days of usable capacity remaining.

Once the tanks are full, the problem is no longer simply that Iran cannot sell its oil, but that it may not be able to keep producing it.

The strategy behind the blockade by Donald Trump’s administration is clear and brutally simple: The real pressure begins when crude keeps flowing from the fields but has nowhere to go.

Blocking tankers at sea is only the first layer; the inner layer is to force Iran to shut in producing wells.

In fact, this is a very real problem for Iran, and obviously, the team behind the Trump administration clearly understands the natural characteristics of Iranian reservoirs far better than many expected.

This is not only a matter of stopping exports or creating short-term financial pain; it is a calculated pressure point aimed at the subsurface itself.

The reason forcing crude well shut-ins is an effective strategy is because, fundamentally, a crude reservoir is not a storage tank that can simply be switched off and restarted at will.

This handout image taken by the European Space Agency (ESA) captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite shows a view of Iran’s Kharg Island, which hosts the country’s main crude export terminal. — AFP pic

Most of the major crude-producing fields, particularly in the southwest of Iran, such as Ahvaz, Marun and others, are mature carbonate reservoirs with strong dual-porosity characteristics – the natural rock fracture matrix that stores the crude, while also providing pathways for crude to flow towards the wellbore.

This system works only when reservoir pressure is carefully maintained.

After decades of production, many of these ageing fields have lost a significant portion of their natural pressure and rely heavily on continuous gas reinjection to sustain output and prevent rapid decline.

Once production is forcibly shut in, pressure redistribution inside the reservoir changes fluid movement and cool-down of liquids.

It leads to precipitation of asphaltene and halite clogging, a phenomenon in which precipitation of sodium chloride and calcium chloride may build up geostress, leading to the collapse of corroded wells.

Reopening these wells is therefore not as simple as reopening a valve.

Some crude wells may require major intervention, pressure support restoration, chemical treatment, or even expensive workovers to return to normal operation.

In general, depending on the duration of closure, reopening old crude wells normally sees a significant drop in production index (PI), which quantifies crude production.

Let’s carry out a general case study.

A mature Iranian onshore carbonate well producing 2,000 STB/d before shut-in (PI ≈ 2.5 STB/d/psi, water cut ~35 per cent), with a 12-month unmanaged shut-in, typically results in a 40–50 per cent permanent PI loss, driven by combined near-wellbore chemical reactions, including asphaltene precipitation, fines migration and scale deposition.

Using a mid-case 45 per cent PI loss, the restarted oil rate falls to ~1,100 STB/d, a loss of 900 STB/d (≈328,500 bbl/yr) compared to pre-shut-in levels.

Even with standard remediation such as acid stimulation and lift replacement, full PI recovery is rarely achieved in such reservoirs because the field experiences partial restoration, leaving a structural, long-term rate penalty.

This magnitude of PI degradation is consistent with long shut-ins in sour and mature carbonate wells.

Let’s look at the financial impact in a simple numerical simulation.

At an oil price of US$65/bbl, variable opex of US$12/bbl, 10 per cent discount rate, and seven years of remaining field life, the permanent rate loss from the 45 per cent PI degradation reduces annual net cash flow by approximately US$17.4 million/yr.

This is equivalent to approximately US$87 million of net present value (NPV) destruction from rate loss alone.

Adding deferred production value erosion from the 12-month shut-in (~US$4 million), restart capex for stimulation, electrical submersible pump (ESP) replacement, and integrity work (US$3 million), and incremental opex due to higher water handling and lift inefficiency, the total NPV impact approaches US$98 million per well.

In practice, this means that even if a well can be restarted successfully, the restart economics become negative unless the oil price is exceptionally high.

However, what is shown above is not the worst case.

In a multi-well plateau decline model, plateau loss is more economically catastrophic because the plateau of a field is a system-level outcome, rather than a simple aggregation of independent wells.

In a simple simulation, a 20-well mature carbonate field producing 40,000 STB/d suffers a one-year shut-in, inducing an average 45 per cent permanent PI loss across the wells.

When production restarts, each well can deliver only ~1,000 STB/d instead of 2,000 STB/d, collapsing the field plateau abruptly to 20,000 STB/d.

The loss of 20,000 STB/d is not a temporary decline but an irreversible step-down caused by near-wellbore damage, increased water and gas encroachment, as well as the loss of drawdown headroom that balances strong and weak wells.

Over the remaining five-year plateau window, approximately 33 million barrels of oil will never be produced.

Hence, at a net margin of US$53/bbl, the plateau collapse alone causes approximately US$1.3 billion in NPV, dwarfing ~US$70 million restart capex and higher opex, pushing total value destruction towards US$1.7 billion for the field.

This is a staggering economic loss as plateau barrels are high-rate, early-life barrels with the highest present value.

When PI degradation forces the field into a lower-rate regime, the operation changes from capacity-limited to reservoir-limited.

The field permanently forfeits its most valuable cash flow years.

As a practical rule of thumb, beyond 45 per cent PI loss, plateau recovery is practically impossible without infilling or massive lift upgrades.

The pressure campaign from Washington is not merely on seaborne crude exports, but on deeper vulnerabilities embedded in Iran’s reservoirs.

When sanctions and blockades force ageing and rate-controlled plateau wells offline, the damage is not unimaginable.

From the standpoint of strategy, time and patience are assets: Every additional month of constrained production quietly degrades the future revenue base.

As Iran diverts its limited resources towards deterrence and domestic stability, it lacks both the capital and operational freedom to protect reservoir integrity at scale.

Time is not on Iran’s side.

Iran may survive the sanctions and blockade politically, but its core economic engine is being structurally impaired by time.

*Phar Kim Beng is a professor of Asean Studies and director of the Institute of International and Asean Studies, International Islamic University of Malaysia. Jitkai Chin is from the Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, and also expert committee member in Centre of Strategic Regional Studies.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.

Bogotá, Colombia – Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has demanded that United States authorities provide evidence for their claims that several senior politicians have ties to drug cartels.

Yesterday, the U.S. Justice Department indicted Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha, Senator Enrique Inzunza, and eight other current and former officials for drug trafficking and weapons offenses.

Sheinbaum said that without proof, the charges would be treated as politically motivated, marking the latest flashpoint in tense relations between the two neighbors. 

“If there isn’t clear evidence, it ⁠is obvious that the objective of these indictments by the Department of Justice is political,” said Sheinbaum at a press conference this morning.

Her statement came a day after the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced the indictments against the ten officials from Sinaloa.

In addition to the governor and senator, justice officials charged Sinaloa’s deputy attorney general, several former police officials, and the current Mayor of Culiacán – the state capital. 

“These politicians and law enforcement officials have abused their ​authority in ⁠support of the cartel, exposed and subjected victims to threats and violence, and sold out their offices in exchange for massive bribes,” read the indictment.

Rocha was charged with narcotics importation conspiracy and weapons possession, which carry a minimum sentence of 40 years and up to life in prison.

In the indictment, authorities accused the governor of receiving help from a faction of the Sinaloa cartel in his 2021 election campaign.

They alleged that “Los Chapitos”, a group run by the sons of jailed kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, had kidnapped and threatened Rocha’s political rivals in exchange for guarantees of impunity.

But Rocha denied the charges, writing on X, “They lack any truth or foundation whatsoever.”

Both the governor and Senator Inzunza are members of Sheinbaum’s ruling Morena party, threatening to embarrass the president as she leads a crackdown on organized crime. 

In February, authorities killed “El Mencho”, the head of the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), in an operation with U.S. intelligence assistance. Last week, they took out a possible successor to lead the CJNG, alias “El Jardinero”. 

The Mexican government’s offensive comes amid U.S. pressure to deliver results on drug trafficking as the Donald Trump administration takes a renewed interest in tackling hemispheric organized crime.

During his election campaign, Trump pledged to stop the flow of illegal drugs, primarily Fentanyl, which contributed to the nearly 80,000 deaths from overdose in the U.S. in 2024.

In addition to pressuring regional governments to take firmer action against organized crime, Washington has overseen a boat bombing campaign in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific aimed at stopping drug trafficking.

But drug experts note that the use of military force has failed to stem the illegal narcotics trade during the decades-long U.S.-led ‘war on drugs’.

Featured image description: Claudia Sheinbaum pictured at her desk on April 30, 2026.

Featured image credit: @Claudiashein via X.

The post Mexico’s Sheinbaum calls for proof after US authorities accuse senior politicians of narco ties appeared first on Latin America Reports.

The Cuban Foreign Minister asserted that the island does not pose a threat to the U.S.

Source: Water Resources Research

Wildfires can increase flooding risks in and downstream of burned areas by removing vegetation and disturbing hydrologic processes. As the climate changes, the severity of both wildfires and heavy rainfall events is increasing, meaning flooding is likely to become more severe in the near future. Better understanding how, and by how much, wildfires change flood risk is important for disaster and infrastructure planning for communities around the country.

Canham and Lane used streamflow data from the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Water Information System and precipitation data from the NOAA Analysis of Record for Calibration product to identify storms and quantify their effects across seven burned watersheds in the western United States.

To make the most of the limited data on flooding in the years following wildfires, the researchers created a paired-storms framework: They identified postfire peak flows (PFPFs), defined as the five highest peak flows within 3 years of a wildfire across seven watersheds. Then, for each precipitation event causing a PFPF, they looked for storms with similar characteristics (or paired storms) that occurred before the wildfire. Storm characteristics used for pairing included the season in which the storm occurred, recent precipitation, and precipitation depth, duration, and peak intensity.

The researchers found significantly elevated peak flows after wildfires in many cases, underlining the risks to communities following wildfires and validating their approach for use elsewhere.

Altogether, the authors found 26 PFPF events, including 20 with paired storms occurring before wildfires. For 75% of the postfire storms, their peak flows were 2 or more times greater than prefire peak flows. PFPFs were most likely to happen in the first year after a wildfire and typically occurred following storms that were centered upstream of the watershed centroid, were uniform in shape, and fully covered the watershed and burned area, the authors reported. They also found some evidence that the first storm in the year immediately following a fire has a higher-than-expected chance of producing a PFPF.

Future work could look more deeply at the characteristics of storms occurring over burned areas, such as storm direction and watershed recovery, and could apply the automated methods to more burned watersheds and storm events to enhance the robustness of the work, the authors say. (Water Resources Research, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025WR040693, 2026)

—Nathaniel Scharping (@nathanielscharp), Science Writer

Citation: Scharping, N. (2026), How wildfires worsen flood risk, Eos, 107, https://doi.org/10.1029/2026EO260133. Published on 30 April 2026.

Text © 2026. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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TEHRAN, April 30 — Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said in a written message today that the United States had been defeated in its war on Iran.

“Today, two months after the largest military deployment and aggression by the world’s bullies in the region, and the United States’ disgraceful defeat in its plans, a new chapter is unfolding for the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz,” said Khamenei in the message read on state television. — AFP