Foreign

*Slaps More Sanctions *Chokes Billionaire Oil Mogul, Shamkhani, Allegedly Involved In Smuggling The United States (US) has announced it is tightening sanctions against Iran’s oil industry as naval blockade of the Persian Gulf nation's ports persisted. The new punishment targets oil transport infrastructure by slapping sanctions on more than two dozen people, companies and ships that operate within the network of petroleum shipping magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, the Treasury Department said. “Treasury is moving aggressively with ’Economic Fury’ by targeting regime elites like the Shamkhani family that attempt to profit at the expense of the Iranian people,” US Treasury Secretary…

There is renewed anxiety over the fate of Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not surfaced since his selection by the country's authorities 8 March this year. Latest disclosure indicates that he is still recovering from severe facial and leg injuries suffered in the 28 February US-Israeli airstrike that killed his father, the legendary Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the beginning of the war, three people close to his inner circle told Reuters. Mojtaba Khamenei’s wife, brother-in-law ⁠and sister-in-law were among other members of his family reportedly killed in the strike, which also snuffed lives out of over 40…

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he has agreed to a two-week ceasefire over the war with Iran. "I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks,” the President wrote on social media. “This will be a double sided CEASEFIRE!” Trump said his decision is “subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz”. The announcement came just over an hour before his self-imposed deadline of 8 pm ET. Details soon …

*‘If Your Heart Is Beating, We Will Find You' *Iranian Troops Were Closing In On Him *From 40 Miles, US Rescue Team Knew His Exact Location The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used a futuristic new tool called Ghost Murmur to find and rescue the second US airman who was shot down in southern Iran, New York Post has learned. The secret technology uses long-range quantum magnetometry to find the electromagnetic fingerprint of a human heartbeat and pairs the data with artificial intelligence (AI) software to isolate the signature from background noise, two sources close to the breakthrough said. It…

*A Whole Civilization Will Die Tonight If Iran Refuses To.., Trump Says *Israel Warns Ordinary Iranians To Stay Off Trains, Bridges, Others … Details Coming.

*By 8pm Tuesday, If Iran Does Not Reopen Hormuz Strait, We'll Take Out Entire Country, He Warns *'If By Midnight, Tehran Has Not Signed A Ceasefire On Our Terms, US'll Bomb Them Back To Stone Age' US President Donald Trump yesterday repeated his usual claims about how well the Iran war is going and how well the US military is doing (“unbelievably well”, he said), and celebrated the “very historic” rescue of the second crew member of the US F-15 fighter jet downed over Iran last week. Turning to his latest deadline for Tehran to open the strait of Hormuz…

*Iran Detests America's 'Unacceptable' Demands *War Intensity May Increase *Turkey, Egypt Scramble To Get Talks Back On Track Regional mediation efforts to broker a ceasefire between the United States (US) and Iran have reached a dead end, mediators said on Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The push, led by Pakistan, has failed to yield a breakthrough, with Tehran formally notifying mediators that it is unwilling to send officials to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, for talks in the coming days. Iran has also stressed that it finds Washington's demands unacceptable, effectively closing off the current framework for negotiations. The breakdown…

*Appoints VP Vance As Fraud Czar US President Donald Trump has announced a fresh crackdown on fraud in Democratic states and tapped Vice President (VP) JD Vance to lead the charge. Officials swiftly announced a string of arrests in California. In a Truth Social post today, the President announced that his VP is now “in charge of ‘fraud’ in the United States”, claiming the problem is “massive and pervasive” and that Vance’s new role as “fraud czar” will be “a major factor in how great the future of our country will be." Trump said that Vance would focus on “everywhere…

*Military Ruler Is Now In His Fourth Year As President “Democracy, we kill children. Democracy, we drop bombs, we kill women, we destroy hospitals, we kill civilian population. Is that democracy?” This was the position of Burkina Faso military President Ibrahim Traore yesterday,four years into his reign, as he told his country to forget about democracy as it is “not for us." Traoré was speaking in an interview with the country’s broadcaster, Radiodiffusion Télévision du Burkina (RTB). Traoré took power in a coup in September 2022, toppling another junta that had taken power just nine months earlier. He has since…

*Mocks Trump's Claim Of Curtailed Capabilities, Insists More Crushing Strikes Underway Talking tough, the Iranian military has responded to United States (US) President Donald Trump's remarks yesterday, warning that the war in the Middle East will continue until the US faces what it described as "lasting humiliation and surrender." In a statement, a spokesperson for Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Military Headquarters, Ebrahim Zolfaghari, threatened to launch "stronger, wider, and more destructive" attacks against the US and Israeli forces, rejecting Trump's claims that its capabilities have been significantly weakened. The statement came hours after Trump said that over the next two…