Tehran has accused Washington of violating a ceasefire, vowing to respond Iran has denounced a US attack on one of its vessels as “armed maritime piracy,” warning of retaliation. On Sunday, a US warship fired at and subsequently seized an Iranian-flagged cargo vessel in the Gulf of Oman. The military said the ship, identified as the Touska, was attempting to breach a naval blockade and head for Bandar Abbas through the Strait of Hormuz. In a statement released shortly afterward, Iran’s military command center, Khatam al-Anbiya, condemned the strike on a vessel returning from China, accusing Washington of violating the ceasefire in place since April 8. “We warn that the armed forces of... Iran will soon respond and retaliate against this armed piracy and the US military,” a spokesperson for the command center said, as cited by ISNA news agency. US President Donald Trump announced the blockade of Iranian ports last week after Pakistani-mediated talks failed to achieve a breakthrou...
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Rumen Radev and Boyko Borissov are competing in a vote that will shape Bulgaria’s relations with Brussels, Kiev, and Moscow Bulgaria’s Rumen Radev and Boyko Borissov have cast their votes, and the country’s eighth election in five years is underway. Radev, who opposes EU aid to Ukraine, has vowed to break the stranglehold of the “oligarchic mafia” on Bulgaria. The election is another flashpoint in the battle between pro-EU and sovereignist political forces in Europe. Borissov’s GERB-SDS party is aligned with Brussels’ foreign policy, and he reassured voters on Sunday that the party gives “full support to Ukraine.” Radev's Progressive Bulgaria faction promises to balance relations between East and West, with Radev vowing to build a “modern European Bulgaria,” while developing “practical relations with Russia based on mutual respect.” Radev is a former fighter pilot who served as Bulgaria’s president between 2017 and 2026. Borissov is the country’s longest-servin...
Moscow says it has always treated Western energy sanctions as hollow and illegal The US has renewed a sanctions exemption allowing Russian crude and petroleum products already loaded onto tankers to be delivered and sold freely, the US Treasury Department has announced. The move came despite a pledge by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made two days prior that the waiver would not be extended. On Friday, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a general license covering Russian oil loaded onto vessels as of April 17 and authorizing transactions through May 16. The waiver replaces an earlier 30-day order – which took effect on March 19 – and extends to services including safe docking, crew safety, emergency repairs, and insurance, even for previously sanctioned vessels. The goal of the initial waiver was to contain the spike in oil prices caused by the Iran war and the de-facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Read more US to target Iran-linked ships worldwide – top...
Falsehood will not help the US achieve its goals in negotiations, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has said US President Donald Trump made seven claims in one hour after Tehran announced the temporary reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and all of them are untrue, Iranian parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has said. On Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared the waterway, which handles around 25% of the global crude oil trade, “completely open” for commercial vessels for the remainder of the ten-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. The announcement sent oil prices down by about 10%. On Saturday, however, Tehran reversed the decision, saying the Strait of Hormuz has “returned to its previous state” and is once again under the “strict management and control” of its military. Iranian officials said the renewed closure was driven by Washington’s refusal to lift the blockade of Iran’s ports, which the US imposed on Monday after the first ...
The UK is pulling out all the stops to persecute a pro-Palestine activist group, including blanket gag orders and courtroom deception Imagine you know about a brutal gang of serial killers openly committing one sadistic crime after the other. Imagine you recognize your obvious moral obligation to do something to stop or at least impede these crimes as best you can, but your country’s morally perverse and politically corrupt authorities are in cahoots with the murderers, so you cannot simply call the police. Indeed, if you try to resist the killers and their accomplices, the police and state prosecutors will relentlessly go after you instead of them, and in effect, protect the criminals. Imagine, finally, that while you cannot strike the killers directly, you can make committing their heinous crimes harder for them by disrupting their business activities and alerting the public to their scandalously uninhibited activities and shocking power in your society. That is the situation in w...
Donald Trump earlier vowed to maintain the blockade of Iranian ports until a peace deal is reached The Iranian military has once again closed free passage through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, citing what it described as US ‘piracy.’ On Friday, Tehran initially declared the waterway completely open for commercial vessels for the remaining period of the ten-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, prompting a fall in oil prices on hopes of de-escalation. However, while US President Donald Trump praised the news, he said that the US blockade of Iranian ports “will remain in full force” until a peace deal is reached. According to multiple media reports, the US has presented several demands to Iran, including the handing over of its enriched uranium stockpile. While Trump claimed that Tehran had “agreed to everything,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei reiterated that the Islamic Republic would not give up the stockpile, which he described as “as sacred as Iranian...