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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....

This applies to tankers described by Brussels as "shadow fleet"NICOSIA, June 8. /TASS/. EU member states have authorized their warships operating in the Mediterranean as part of Operation IRINI to detain foreign tankers suspected of transporting Russian oil as part of what Brussels describes as the "shadow fleet," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said. TASS has summed up what is known to this moment. Kallas’ statementEU member countries have authorized their warships to detain foreign tankers suspected of shipping Russian oil, Kallas said. This applies to tankers described by Brussels as "shadow fleet." According to Kallas, the main objective...

Israel said on Monday it hit a petrochemical plant in Iran's southwest, along with strikes elsewhere on military targets, after U.S. President Donald Trump ​reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from further attacks. The escalation complicates U.S.-led efforts to broker a broader deal with Iran, driving oil prices up by nearly 5%, with benchmark Brent ‌futures back above $97 a barrel. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps blamed the U.S. for the latest exchange of fire with Israel and said further attacks on non-military and energy targets would have consequences for the global economy. The IRGC said that...

One hundred days after they went to war together to thwart Iran’s rogue nuclear weapons program, radically degrade its ballistic missile industry, end its support for the Hezbollah and Hamas terror armies, and create the conditions for the fall of the regime, the US-Israel alliance against the Islamic Republic on Sunday reached its nadir. With its north battered relentlessly by Hezbollah in recent weeks, Israel resorted to a largely symbolic strike on the terror group’s Dahiyeh stronghold in Beirut, reportedly without telling the disapproving Trump administration ahead of time that it was doing so. And, as it had warned it...

Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has claimed it has launched a missile attack on a petrochemical plant in Haifa, northern Israel, according to a statement reported by Iranian Tasnim news agency. Tasnim quotes the IRGC as saying the attacks were in response to an earlier attack by Israel on an Iranian petrochemical facility in Mahshahr, in the south-west of the country. It warned Israel has started a "dangerous game" and further attacks on non-military and energy targets in the region would have consequences for the global economy.

US President Donald Trump reportedly fumed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a Monday call, calling the premier “fucking crazy” and telling him that everyone “hates Israel” as he demanded Israel agree to a ceasefire with the Hezbollah terror group. Axios’s Barak Ravid cited a US official who summarized Trump’s message to Netanyahu as follows: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.” A second source briefed on the call told the outlet that the US president was “pissed” at the prime...

Israel conducted strikes on military targets in western and central Iran early Monday local time, the Israeli military announced, escalating a conflict that had already broken through the ceasefire just hours earlier when Iran fired multiple waves of missiles at Israel on Sunday. The strikes came despite a direct phone call from President Trump to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging him not to retaliate immediately for the Iranian missile attack. A senior U.S. official told the Associated Press, on condition of anonymity to describe a private call, that Trump believed he had convinced Netanyahu to wait. Israel struck anyway....

Tsunami warnings were issued after an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 struck off Mindanao in the southern Philippines on Monday, the German Research Centre for Geosciences said. The quake struck at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles), GFZ said. The geophysics ⁠agencies ​of the Philippines and neighbouring Indonesia issued tsunami warnings. There were no immediate reports of major damage in either country.GFZ had earlier pegged the ​earthquake at ​8.2. The US Tsunami Warning ⁠System issued a tsunami threat to the earthquake.

Donald Trump said he would plead with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to retaliate against Iranian strikes on Israel - which came in response to Israeli strikes on Beirut on Sunday. ‘I am going to call Bibi right now and tell him not to retaliate,’ Trump was quoted as saying by Axios journalist Barak Ravid in a phone interview, using the Israeli leader’s nickname. ‘Each of them had their fun. Israel had its strike and Iran had its strike. We don’t need another one,’ Mr Trump said. Trump described the attack - the first Iranian strikes on Israeli soil...

WATCH LIVE UPDATES: Netanyahu and Trump Hold Phone Call After Iran Ballistic Missile Barrage Iran launched a ballistic missile attack targeting northern Israel following Israeli airstrikes in Beirut. The attack prompted widespread security measures across Israel, including the cancellation of classes nationwide, as officials prepared for the possibility of additional strikes. So far, missile alerts have sounded hundreds of times across Israel as Iran has launched at least five separate rounds of missile fire. Approximately six waves of ballistic missiles from Iran have been detected. The latest escalation began after Israel carried out airstrikes against targets in southern Beirut, a...

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...

Recent U.S. intelligence reports raised alarms about Israel spying on American officials to gain insight into the Trump administration’s approach to the Iran War, according to separate reports from the New York Times and NBC News. The Times reported Saturday that U.S. intelligence offices discern an elevated threat of Israeli espionage operations targeting Steve Witkoff, the top American negotiator with Iran, Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s under secretary of defense for policy, and Michael DiMino, one of Colby’s top deputies. Colby and DiMino are widely perceived to be part of an America First faction that is skeptical of military intervention in...

The U.S. launched retaliatory airstrikes against Iranian military sites on Sunday after Tehran launched its own wave of missiles and drones targeting Kuwait and Bahrain. U.S. and allied forces successfully intercepted the strikes. Iran launched multiple missile barrages toward Israel on Sunday, prompting air raid sirens across regions and sending civilians into shelters, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The military said the Israeli Air Force (IAF) was actively working to intercept incoming threats and strike targets where necessary. "At this time, the Israeli Air Force is operating to intercept and strike threats where necessary to remove the threat,"...

Summary Missiles were launched from Iran toward Israel a short time ago and defense systems are operating to intercept the threat, the Israeli military said in a statement. US bases and and Israeli assets in the region have become "legitimate targets," Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a post on X on Sunday. US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he did not plan to withdraw US troops from the region, telling NBC News that “I think we’ll keep them there until such time as we have a completion.” A US-drafted resolution sent to countries on the...

British Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy has said that not all ethnic groups should be treated the same by police in the wake of the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak, who died in police handcuffs after officers refused to believe he had been stabbed by a Sikh man. Lammy, who also serves as the left-wing Labour Party government’s Justice Secretary, said that while the “starting point” should be equality before the law, it is not always appropriate to be treated “the same”, noting the disproportionate arrest rates of certain ethnic minority groups, such as Roma travelers [Gypsies] and black Britons....

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine arrived on Sunday afternoon in London for talks with the leaders of Britain, Germany and France as Europe considers taking a more active role in peace talks with Russia after more than a year of unsuccessful U.S. mediation. Ukraine and its European allies see a new opening to revive talks that have stalled as Moscow made uncompromising territorial demands and Washington shifted its focus to the war with Iran. They note that Russia’s recent battlefield setbacks and mounting economic strains could make a peace settlement more appealing to the Kremlin, a scenario that is also...

Two Pakistani men who gang-raped a French tourist in front of her three children six years ago will be sentenced to death, a court has ruled. Abid Malhi and Shafqat Ali were convicted of gang rape, kidnapping, robbery and terrorism offences back in March 2021 over the attack on the Sialkot-Lahore Motorway and were handed the death penalty. Both appealed their conviction, with the defence arguing that there were gaps in the prosecution's version of events and that the judge’s decision was unjust. But on Wednesday, two judges dismissed the appeal after the prosecution argued that there was overwhelming evidence...

The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has emphatically rejected the terms of a US-backed ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. In a strongly worded statement, the Iran-backed group's leader Naim Qassem said negotiations had been "futile" and "humiliating" for Lebanon, and rejected categorically by "broad segments of the Lebanese people". It comes after Israel and Lebanon announced a renewal of their fragile ceasefire with the creation of "pilot" security zones inside Lebanon in which Hezbollah operatives would be banned. It also required Hezbollah to stop attacking Israel. Donald Trump later said he had spoken to Hezbollah and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu...

President Trump denied Friday that he campaigned on avoiding “endless” wars, as he seeks to reach a deal to end hostilities with Iran. “I didn’t promise anything. I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war,” he told host Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” in an interview that aired Sunday. “We’ve been doing this for three months,” Trump added, referring to the Iran conflict that began on Feb. 28. “Much of it has been under… a pretty good form of ceasefire.” The president later said that he would “not have built the strongest military in...

President Donald Trump’s top counterterrorism adviser confirmed that U.S. and Nigerian forces killed 199 suspected terrorists and seized massive new evidence about ISIS extremists during a recent secret mission deep in Africa. Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council, dropped the details during an appearance on the “Just the News, No Noise” show, declaring the operation “the most successful counterterrorism operation since September 11.” “This is a historic moment, because that operation in Nigeria … that one operation led to the killing of 199 enemies,” Gorka stated. “That is the most successful counterterrorism operation since...