WORLD ROUNDUPIran Had a Doomsday Weapon All Along | Orban’s Scapegoat Scam | Ukraine Has Finally Given Up on Trump, and more

The Scapegoat Scam  (Adam Serwer, The Atlantic)
Hungarians stopped falling for an authoritarian’s trick.

Peter Magyar’s Victory Will Keep Hungary in the Spotlight  (Economist)
The country will become a test case for reversing democratic decay.

Ukraine Has Finally Given Up on Trump  (Phillips Payson O’Brien, The Atlantic)
Zelensky has written off the United States.

6,000 Meters Under the Pacific, Japan Seeks Independence from China on Rare Earths  (Lorenzo Lamperti, Wired)
Tokyo is succeeding where the rest of the world has failed, reducing its reliance on Beijing for crucial rare earth elements—thanks to an enormous underwater deposit discovered on a remote island.

Iran Had a Doomsday Weapon All Along  (Alan Eyre, The Atlantic)
Control of a vital waterway gives Tehran the deterrence power it’s always wanted.

Spoofed Tankers Are Flooding the Strait of Hormuz. These Analysts Are Tracking Them  (Aarian Marshall, Wired)
Marine insurers and oil traders want to know what’s going on in one of the world’s most critical waterways. As the volume of disappearing ships in the area increases, analysts are getting creative.