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U.S. President Donald Trump is considering the possibility of purchasing the strategically important Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean directly from Mauritius. This scenario has gained momentum due to delays in the UK’s plans to transfer sovereignty over these islands. The new U.S. administration seeks to gain full control over the archipelago to secure its military positions in the region. Washington’s main goal is to preserve and protect the strategic Diego Garcia military base, which is currently jointly used by the U.S. and the UK. To finalize the deal, the islands must first officially gain sovereign status under Mauritian control....

Donald Trump has flip-flopped over whether Sir Keir Starmer should ‘give in to wokeism’ and hand the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius, a day after approving the deal. His defiant message comes as dozens of planes head towards the Middle East with tensions between Iran and the US reaching a breaking point after nuclear talks. In a post on his Truth Social platform, the US president said Sir Keir would be making ‘a big mistake’ if he proceeded with plans to hand over the islands – which are home to a joint US-UK military base. The plans would see the...

Sir Keir Starmer pulled his deal to surrender the Chagos Islands on Friday night. Just days after Donald Trump blasted the UK for 'an act of great stupidity' in signing the strategically important archipelago away, Labour withdrew the legislation from a planned debate in the House of Lords on Monday. While sources claimed the process was simply being delayed, critics warned that without US support it was effectively dead. Conservative peer Daniel Hannan said: 'We have secured a breathing space. It is now up to Trump and the people around him. If the President sticks to what he said this...

@GBNEWS 'This is the worst deal I’ve ever seen!' Nigel Farage blasts Labour's Chagos Islands handover, calling it a betrayal of national security, a £50 billion taxpayer disaster, and a slap in the face to the Chagossians. 'I hope Trump’s has sunk this Chagos deal below the waterline.'

The US president said the UK's decision to cede the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is among the reasons he wants to take control of Greenland. US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticised the UK's deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, calling it an "act of great stupidity" and "total weakness." Trump said that relinquishing the remote Indian Ocean archipelago — home to a key joint US-UK military base on Diego Garcia, the largest island — was "another in a very long line of national security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired." "Shockingly, our 'brilliant' NATO...

Iran has threatened to strike American bases and 'blow up' the entire Middle East if Donald Trump follows through on his warning of military action in the absence of a new nuclear deal. -snip- 'If the Americans attack the sanctity of Iran, the entire region will blow up like a spark in an ammunition dump,' Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Qalibaf said Friday. 'Their bases and those of their allies will not be safe,' Qalibaf said in a live speech at the annual Al-Quds Day, or Jerusalem Day, that marks the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan. Khamenei has...

@benrileysmith Breaking: Donald Trump tells @Telegraph in the Oval Office he is minded to sign off the Chagos Islands deal. Big win for Starmer.

The White House is actively considering a plan to purchase the Chagos Islands, potentially undermining the UK’s agreement to transfer sovereignty of the strategically vital territory to Mauritius, according to reports. US officials have prepared proposals to bypass Britain and negotiate directly for control of Diego Garcia, the key Indian Ocean atoll that hosts a major joint US-UK military base. The idea forms part of broader options being developed by the Trump administration as alternatives to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s plan to cede the islands to Mauritius, which has close ties to China and Iran. Strategic Importance Diego Garcia’s location...

NEW DELHI: How far will a country go to secure a favourable deal for itself? Pretty far, it seems. Mauritius has offered a couple of sun-drenched islands to India as part of a trade and investment deal. While the offer has been talked about for a while, Mauritius has revived it - at a time when it's very keen on persevering with the 1983 double-taxation avoidance treaty with India. Mauritius foreign affairs and trade minister Arvin Boolell said that it was up to India to use the islands to its advantage. He said the "blue economy" had great potential. India...

The White House is considering a plan to buy the Chagos Islands from Mauritius, the Telegraph reported on ​Sunday. U.S. officials have drawn up a proposal to bypass the U.K. ‌and make their own deal to take control of Diego Garcia, the report said. The plan is among several options being drafted by the White House, in a paper aimed at providing alternatives ​to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer ceding sovereignty of the Indian Ocean archipelago ​to Mauritius, the report said. "President Trump has been consistent in his position ⁠that the United Kingdom should not give away the British Indian...

Operation Epic Fury marks a turning point in the art of war. The key to 20th-century battles was air power. In the past, space and cyber activities have traditionally played supporting roles as so-called force multipliers. But this is no longer the case. In this conflict they have become mainstream, carving out new fronts for the wars of the future. The use of space is no longer something that is just nice to have, because everything from comms to intel to navigation uses space and cyber assets. Along with the National Reconnaissance Office, which manages US spy satellites, the US...

--SNIP-- Europeans are far more vulnerable to Iranian-inspired Islamic terrorism. They are more reliant on oil from the Middle East, some of it passing through the Strait of Hormuz. All the US had initially requested was basing support in disarming a common Western enemy that, for nearly half a century, has slaughtered American diplomats and soldiers and tried to kill an American president and secretary of state. But most NATO members could not even offer tacit help. Some ****** the US effort as either illegal or unnecessary. The American public watched the British waffle for days over permitting the US...

An Iranian ballistic missile strike on a joint US-UK military base in the Chagos Islands has been condemned as 'reckless' by Britain's defence chiefs. Iran fired two intermediate-range ballistic missiles targeting Diego Garcia in what is thought to be the first strike ever made against the base.

British cabinet minister Steve Reed ​said on Sunday that there was no ‌assessment that backed claims Iran is planning to strike Europe with ballistic missiles, or that it even has ​the capacity to do so. On Saturday, the ​Israel Defence Forces posted on social media that ⁠Iran has missiles "that can reach London, Paris ​or Berlin". "There is no assessment to substantiate what's being ​said," British Housing Secretary Reed told the BBC. "I'm not aware of any assessment at all that they are even ​trying to target Europe, let alone that they ​could if they tried."

The Islamic Republic of Iran significantly escalated its war effort against the U.S. with its launch of two intermediate-range ballistic missiles on Friday toward Diego Garcia, a key U.S.-U.K. military base in the Indian Ocean. The targeting of Diego Garcia, roughly 2,500 miles from Iran, means Tehran’s missile capabilities appear to have exceeded previously acknowledged limits. In the period leading up to Operation Epic Fury Feb. 28, Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed, "We intentionally kept the range of our missiles below 2,000 kilometers so we don’t have that capability. And we don’t want to do that because we do...

Alternate headline: Iran Lied. Again. That may not qualify as breaking news, since the Iranian regime has lied about practically all of its threats to the region and beyond. The theocratic-military junta has lied for 47 years about its sponsorship of terrorism, and they lied over and over again about their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Those lies got exposed over and over again, and yet leaders in Europe and the US kept insisting that the regime could become a trustworthy partner in non-proliferation talks. Iran just exposed another lie, one that should rattle Europe. The IRGC launched a missile attack...

Iran fired two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia but did not hit the US-U.K. military base in the Indian Ocean, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing multiple US officials. One of the missiles failed in flight, while a US warship fired an SM-3 interceptor at the other, although it could not be determined if the interception succeeded, the newspaper says. The Journal does not specify when the missiles were fired.

Is a miserable pissant of epic proportions. Sir Keir Starmer is blocking a request by President Trump to allow American planes to use British bases to attack Iran, telling him that it would be in breach of international law. In a rift with Washington, the prime minister is understood to have told Trump that the UK would not allow the use of British facilities at Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, which is home to America’s fleet of heavy bombers in Europe. Under the terms of long-standing agreements with Washington, these bases can only be used for military operations...

Keir Starmer has tonight been forced to stall the Bill which would hand the Chagos Islands over to Mauritius. The legislation enabling the deal was expected to be debated in the Lords on Monday. But this evening, it was revealed that the votes have been delayed amid parliamentary ping-pong and a backlash from the Americans. Both the Conservatives and Reform UK are keen to take credit for the pause in the bill, under which Britain would give up the archipelago and lease back the Diego Garcia base. The Conservative case for credit is on the legislative front. Peers like Lord...

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer went after President Trump on Wednesday for reversing position on a deal surrounding the Chagos Islands, suggesting the president did so because of tensions over his plan to acquire Greenland. “I made out my position on Greenland absolutely clear on Monday and a moment ago. President Trump deployed words on Chagos yesterday that were different to his previous words of welcome and support when I met him in the White House,” Starmer said in the House of Commons. “He deployed those words yesterday for the express purpose of putting pressure on me and Britain in...