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Iran consolidates control over crucial waterway by sidestepping peace talks: experts
Iran is moving unilaterally to tighten its grip on the Strait of Hormuz — and to start collecting revenue from it – even as it negotiates with the U.S. and its Gulf neighbors over future management of the waterway.Iran's top insurance regulator, Mousa Rezaei, announced Sunday that a new insurance company has been created specifically for the strait, according to Iranian state media, and days earlier, the Persian Gulf Strait Authority — an entity Iran established in May — began requiring vessels to register and carry a new mandatory Iranian insurance policy, reported the New York Times.For now, that coverage is free, but shipping experts say the 60-day free period is telling. That matches the length of the cease-fire and free-passage guarantees in last week's U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding ending the war and reopening the strait.Once that window closes, maritime historian Salvatore Mercogliano said, Iran could begin charging vessels for "insurance" against risks — attacks, detained mariners — that didn't exist before Iran itself created them by striking commercial ships earlier this year.Richard Meade, editor of Lloyd's List, called the arrangement effectively a toll by another name, designed to get ahead of the broader negotiations over the strait's security framework that Vice President JD Vance said are still to come.International law generally bars charging tolls for mere passage through a strait, though fees for actual services — like tugging waste disposal — can be legitimate. Iran has not specified what services its new insurance would provide, and the International Maritime Organization said the scheme has not been submitted to it and carries no basis in international law allowing mandatory fees or tolls.The maneuver also creates a trap for shippers. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned the Persian Gulf Strait Authority in May, accusing Iran of trying to monetize attacks on vessels through extortion, and has warned that paying the authority could itself trigger sanctions — leaving companies caught between Iranian demands and U.S. enforcement.The result, Meade said, is that shippers remain stuck in limbo, unable to return to how transit worked before the war and unable to know what rules will govern it next. The Persian Gulf Strait Authority did not respond to a request for comment by the outlet.
Downed pilot mystified by 'alarming advance' in Iran drone abilities: 'Real alien stuff'
A U.S. fighter jet pilot described a seemingly extraterrestrial sight before he ejected from his aircraft during hostilities in Iran.The downed F-15 pilot told intelligence officials during a debriefing after the April incident that he saw multiple Iranian drones hovering in air in a formation resembling a jellyfish, four sources familiar with the matter told CNN, and one source said the pilot described the formation as a “minefield of drones.""It immediately set off a firestorm of debate within the US intelligence community that has yet to be resolved," CNN reported. "If the airman really saw what he described — a formation moving in unison — it would be an alarming advance in Iranian drone capabilities."The downing remains under investigation, but initial reports indicated the formation had allowed Iran to shoot down a U.S. fighter jet for the first time during the war, two of the sources said.“Multiple drones interconnected and moving as one with smaller drones below the bigger drones like legs,” one of the sources told CNN. “Real alien s---.”The pilot was rescued hours later, but the weapons systems office on board the two-person craft evaded capture for more than a day in the mountains of Iran before also being rescued.A second aircraft, an A-10, was also downed during the rescue effort but that pilot ejected safely outside Iranian airspace.U.S. intelligence officials disagreed on their interpretation of the pilot's recollection, and some cast doubt on his account, pointing out he was concussed in the crash – his second time being shot out of the sky during the Iran conflict."Had he witnessed a mature capability that U.S. intelligence wasn’t aware of? A beta test? A mirage in the desert?" CNN reported.The technical term for what the pilot purportedly described is “one-to-many meshed networking,” according to the sources, and U.S. intelligence agencies had not been aware Iran was capable of using.Multiple reports have indicated that Iran received assistance in developing its drone technology from China and Russia, which are both believed to possess that capabbility.
Trump-backed candidate dragged over 'eye-opening' history: 'Tied firecrackers to cats'
Abelardo De la Espriella, a right-wing lawyer who used to practice law in Florida, appeared to win his presidential bid in Colombia this week after securing an endorsement from President Donald Trump, and the journalists at Zeteo opted to shed light on his “eye-opening” background in a scathing report.“He Tied Firecrackers to Cats. Yes, you read that right,” reads Zeteo’s report published on Monday. “On a television show, De la Espriella confessed that when young, he tied firecrackers to cats to try to make them fly, but they ended up exploding. He first said he was an ‘innocent’ child at the time, then walked the story back, saying it was a bad joke. Sure.”Also a businessman, De la Espriella has “made a brand of flaunting his wealth,” Zeteo’s report reads, and is “often seen wearing tailored suits, fedoras, and fancy watches.” He practiced law in Miami, Florida as a defense attorney and “came to prominence” defending right-wing paramilitaries and "politicians accused of corruption.”De la Espriella also “sexually harassed” a journalist during an appearance on a popular radio show, Zeteo reported.On a popular radio show, De la Espriella made a crude boast about his anatomy, claiming it would win him women's votes, then showed a female reporter a suggestive photo of himself in sweatpants. The reporter said she felt "violated, harassed, and disgusted." A court ordered him to apologize publicly.De la Espriella received a "congratulatory call” from Trump after his apparent election victory, Reuters reported, with the president touting his endorsement record after De la Espriella’s election win Tuesday morning. De la Espriella’s victory represents a recent “shift to the right” in Latin America.
Trump pulls rug from underneath Iran with surprise change to tentative peace deal
President Donald Trump faced a wave of scrutiny for agreeing to lift sanctions on Iran and unfreeze Iranian funds as part of the tentative peace deal between Washington and Tehran, but on Tuesday, the president announced a new detail regarding the agreement, one that could risk jeopardizing peace talks going forward.“The Money and/or Sanctions that the U.S. Treasury is releasing goes into escrow, controlled by the U.S.A., and will be used for the purchase of food and medical supplies, exclusively from the United States, including Corn, Wheat, and Soybeans from our great American Farmers,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “These are things that are desperately needed by Iran. This is a humanitarian crisis, and I feel it is necessary to help, NOW, before it is too late. Talks are going well!”There is no mention in the 14-point memorandum of understanding of unfrozen Iranian funds or sanction relief being controlled by the United States. On the contrary, point 11 states that the United States would “make fully available for use the frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the implementation of this MOU.”
Iran war's failures may offer an enduring silver lining: Middle East experts
President Donald Trump's war on Iran satisfied no one, but two foreign policy experts say its failure may provide one enduring silver lining.Hawks who cheered the initial strikes are furious he stopped short of toppling the regime, doves are furious he started a war at all and, by nearly every measure, the campaign was a failure, wrote former Iran envoy Robert Malley and historian Stephen Wertheim in a new op-ed for the New York Times."Donald Trump has done the impossible once more," Malley and Wertheim wrote. "He went where his predecessors never dared, joining with Israel in a bid to overthrow or incapacitate the regime in Tehran. Having achieved neither, he appears to have accepted worse terms than he could have obtained through diplomacy. His war was a political albatross as well, garnering, at the start, less support from the public than any other major conflict in modern U.S. history.""Everyone is worse off and no one is happy: a fitting, extraordinary finish to a Trumpian war," they added.Missile defenses and aircraft damaged more than 20 U.S. bases, the Strait of Hormuz remains under Tehran's control and they have a nuclear program that, despite the bombing, can still only be resolved through negotiation. Iran, if anything, emerged emboldened, and yet Malley and Wertheim argued those failures might be the most useful thing to come out of the war."Those opposed to yesterday’s Iran war have a stake in preventing tomorrow’s, to break the entanglement of the United States in conflicts it regrets more quickly and more intensely the more they keep happening," the duo wrote. "This mission is hardly impossible. Military defeat — which is what the United States just suffered — has repeatedly compelled Americans to re-evaluate the severity of a threat they could not eliminate."The experience was painful enough that it may be hard to repeat, they argued. Just as Vietnam taught Americans that the "dominoes" wouldn't fall and Afghanistan taught them to separate the Taliban from Al Qaeda, a humiliating defeat — not persuasion or argument — has historically been what forces Washington to reconsider whether a threat was ever as dire as advertised.A clean, low-cost victory might have only emboldened the next intervention. It's precisely because this war went so badly — drained munitions needed elsewhere, alienated Gulf allies and fractured the U.S.-Israel relationship to the point of public rebuke — that hawks now have a weaker case for trying again.Trump, the analysis suggests, may end up as an accidental peacemaker, not because he sought restraint, but because he tested the limits of force against Iran and got burned. "Iran, by all rights, should not be one of America’s top problems," Malley and Wertheim concluded. "One day, one way or another, it will cease to be. The question is when, and at how terrible a price."
China’s newest aircraft carrier sails through the Taiwan Strait
China's newest and most powerful aircraft carrier, the Fujian, has sailed through the Taiwan Strait, according to Taiwan's Defense Ministry
Guinness crowns Canberra town crier as the world's loudest person at 122.4 decibels
An Australian professional air conditioner cleaner and honorary town crier has been recognized as the world’s loudest person
Armed group in Nigeria kills at least 20 people and exchanges gunfire with police
Police say an armed group has killed at least 20 people in Nigeria
Afghan Taliban to hold rare, closed-door talks with EU officials on deportations
A Taliban delegation is in Brussels for talks with the European Union, focusing on deportations, according to a Taliban official
Priced out of World Cup games, Mexican fans take celebrations into their own hands
Mexicans are reclaiming the FIFA World Cup with street celebrations as high ticket prices keep many out of stadiums
How Starmer went from Labour Party hero to calling it quits within 2 years
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has admitted defeat, resigning less than two years after leading his party to a massive victory in 2024
Lost memoir of Hiroshima survivor found after decades in US archive
Written in 1947, Kiyoshi Tanimoto’s account of the horrors of the atomic bomb attack will be published in August and is being made into a filmThe memoir of a man who survived the horrors of Hiroshima is to be published for the first time this summer after its discovery in a US archive.The 230-page memoir was written almost 80 years ago by Kiyoshi Tanimoto, who witnessed the city’s destruction after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945. He will now be portrayed in a feature film by Takehiro Hira, whose acclaimed roles include the detective in the Netflix Japanese-British drama Giri/Haji. Pre-production begins in November, ahead of the shoot in February 2027. Continue reading...
