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President Donald Trump on Friday posted about making Lebanon great again amid the country’s ceasefire deal with Israel. “Again! This deal is not tied, in any way, to Lebanon, but we will, MAKE LEBANON GREAT AGAIN!” Trump’s TRUTH Social post said. "I have directed Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Rubio, together with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Razin' Caine, to work with Israel and Lebanon to achieve a Lasting PEACE," the president wrote in a TRUTH Social post. Both nations met earlier this week in D.C. for peace talks, which were mediated by...

Iranian Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on Thursday took credit for the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, which officially went into effect at midnight. In a post on social media, Ghalibaf claimed that “the ceasefire was nothing but a result of Hezbollah's steadfastness and the unity of the Axis of Resistance." He further wrote that “we will deal with this ceasefire with caution, and we will remain together until the full realization of victory." The comments come a day after Ghalibaf insisted that no ceasefire in Iran would be possible without the inclusion of Lebanon. “The completion and consolidation of...

Iranian Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on Wednesday insisted once again that no ceasefire in Iran would be possible without the inclusion of Lebanon. “The completion and consolidation of a comprehensive ceasefire in Lebanon will be the result of the resistance and steadfast struggle of the great Hezbollah and the unity of the Axis of Resistance," Ghalibaf wrote in a post on social media. He added, “The United States must comply with the agreement. Resistance and Iran are one soul, both in war and in ceasefire. America should withdraw from ‘Israel First’ mistake." .....

Mediators moved closer Wednesday to extending the ceasefire between the United States and Iran and restarting negotiations to salvage the fragile truce before it expires next week. A senior Iranian military official threatened to halt trade in the region if the U.S. does not lift its naval blockade, underscoring tensions that are overshadowing the diplomacy. The U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and renewed Iranian threats have imperiled the week-old agreement, but regional officials said Wednesday they were making progress, telling The Associated Press that the United States and Iran had given an “in principle agreement” to extend it to allow...

The US and Iran have failed to reach an agreement after 21 hours of talks in Pakistan. I can’t say I’m surprised. After all, we didn’t have to wait for the negotiations to finish to make an informed guess of the outcome. We needed merely to consider the shape of things beforehand to know that Donald Trump’s hoped-for new world order would fall into new world chaos. America and Iran agreed on a ceasefire conditional on the Islamic Republic’s complete opening of the Strait of Hormuz. It has so far refused to honour that condition. Earlier this week, President Trump...

🚨NEW: CNN's Michael Smerconish *OBLITERATES* calls to remove Trump from office🚨 "You'd expect the guy that posts about a whole civilization dying would be simultaneously busting up the White House furniture — but there's NEVER been ANY reporting of Trump like that behind closed doors." "In other words, it's not that there's a method to his madness — it's that the madness IS his method." "Trump is capable of EXACTLY what his critics say he isn't: patience, process and genuine deliberation." "90 minutes before his own deadline, a ceasefire materialized. That's NOT nothing." "It's certainly not the behavior of someone...

Video at link. About 50 minutes. A very good source of news that often includes cell phone video from inside Iran. Navy aircraft are being prepared for night time operations over Iran.

Iranian delegation led by Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf arrives in Islamabad for US talks, demanding a Lebanon ceasefire and release of frozen assets first. US VP Vance warns Iran against playing games. An Iranian negotiating delegation, led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, on Friday arrived in Islamabad for peace talks with the United States, Iranian media reported. The report stated that negotiations would begin if Washington accepted Tehran’s “preconditions." .....

Quite a lot. Still listening. As always, Tousi is informative.

A US official denied on Saturday that Washington had agreed to release frozen assets belonging to Iran, contradicting earlier reports. Reuters had reported that the United States agreed to release Iranian funds held in Qatar and other foreign banks, citing a senior Iranian source, which described the move as a goodwill step ahead of talks.

Vice President JD Vance heads to Islamabad, Pakistan, for negotiations with Iran amid the two-week ceasefire, marking a major moment for the 41-year-old vice president and the administration as a whole. Vance departed Joint Base Andrew aboard Air Force One on Friday morning, speaking briefly to reporters before boarding the plane. Vance was optimistic that the negotiations this weekend would be positive. “As the president of the United States said, if the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we’re certainly willing to extend the open hand. If they’re going to try to play us, then they’re going to...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday declared a 32-hour ceasefire in Ukraine over the Orthodox Easter weekend, following an earlier call from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a pause in some of the hostilities to observe the holiday. Putin's decree, released by the Kremlin, orders Russian forces to observe a ceasefire starting at 4 p.m. Saturday and lasting until the end of Sunday. Zelenskyy proposed earlier in the week that each side stop targeting each other's energy infrastructure over the holiday, saying he made the offer through the United States, which has been mediating talks between delegations from Moscow and...

US secretary of defence Pete Hegseth claimed today that Iran begged for Donald Trump's 11th-hour ceasefire. Last night, just a few hours before Trump's deadline for Iran to agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the US president said via Truth Social that he had agreed to 'suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks,' after earlier sparking doomsday fears when he threatened to wipe out its 'entire civilisation'. In a later post, the US President hailed 'a big day for world peace' after agreeing to pause the attacks. At a Pentagon press briefing, Hegseth...

“Jesse, as soon as we got the ceasefire, we got a bunch of missile fire. [It] wasn’t five minutes from the Truth Social post to the point where the phones started alerting that missiles had launched from Iran. The first of the missiles was intercepted, and the shrapnel landed outside of Jerusalem, not causing any problems,” Tobin told Jesse Watters. “What we saw here in Tel Aviv were these cluster bombs, like you see on your screen right now. They break up and look a bit like a 4th of July firework and usually has one bright point that comes...

No shortage of surprises around here. President Donald Trump, less than half a day after announcing his intention to destroy “a whole civilization” if the Iranians didn’t reopen the Hormuz, declared via Truth Social that the Pakistanis had brokered a two-week ceasefire on the premise that the Iranian 10-point framework is a “workable basis” for a peace deal. This is a bit of a headscratcher to everyone who has actually seen the Iranian framework, which, among other things, asserts the Islamic Republic’s right to uranium enrichment, institutionalizes an Iranian-Omani toll system in the Hormuz, and demands immediate sanctions relief. The...

The United Arab Emirates emerged Wednesday as a suspected offensive actor in the widening Gulf conflict, with multiple Iranian sources and open-source military analysts pointing to UAE Air Force Mirage 2000-9 fighter jets as the platform behind a strike on Iran's Lavan Island oil refinery, hours after a US-brokered ceasefire was supposed to have halted hostilities. Abu Dhabi has not confirmed or denied the allegation, but the circumstantial case circulating in defense intelligence communities is substantial enough to have triggered an immediate Iranian retaliatory response against Emirati territory. Photographs circulating on social media Wednesday purportedly showed one of the UAE's...

The exclusive reports received by Iran International indicate an unprecedented deepening of the gap at the top of the power pyramid in the Islamic Republic, and it has led to the continuation of conflicts and open confrontation between [President] Masoud Mezikian, the head of state in the Islamic Republic, and the senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. According to two sources close to the presidential office, on Saturday, April 5, there was a heated conversation between Masoud Mezikian, [former IRGC spychief] Hossein Taib, and figures close to Mojtaba Khamenei [gay unconscious one-legged Supreme Ayatollah], which the attendees described...

Investors around the globe on Wednesday cheered what appears to be the beginning of the end of the military clash between the U.S. and Iran, sending stocks higher and government bond yields lower. Oil prices plunged on the promise that the Strait of Hormuz may soon be open for shipping.The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up by 1,000 points by midday, a 2.3 percent gain. The S&P 500 rose 2.1 percent. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 2.6 percent. Stocks had been even higher earlier in the morning but pared gains as reports on ongoing missle strikes and a drone attack on...

I urge everyone to accompany this moment of delicate diplomacy with prayer, in hopes that a willingness to dialogue may become the means to resolve other conflict situations in the world as well. #PrayTogether #Peace

Opposition leader Yair Lapid sharply criticized on Wednesday the ceasefire with Iran announced earlier in the day, calling it a failure of political and strategic leadership and warning of long-term consequences for Israel’s security. “There has never been such a political disaster in all of our history,” Lapid wrote in a statement, arguing that “Israel wasn't even part of the discussions when decisions were made concerning our national security.” He added that while “the military carried out everything that was asked of it” and “the public demonstrated amazing resilience,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “failed politically, failed strategically, and didn't meet...