03 World
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that “we don’t see any reason why we should talk with Americans” as President Trump has claimed Iran is seeking a deal to end the war between the U.S. and Iran.
“We never asked for a ceasefire, and we have never asked even for negotiation,” Araghchi said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
As the war entered its third week, Mr. Trump has claimed in recent days that Iran wants to reach a deal. The president said in a post on Truth Social late Friday that Iran “is totally defeated and wants a deal – But not a deal that I would accept!” On Saturday, he told NBC News that “Iran wants to make a deal, and I don’t want to make it because the terms aren’t good enough yet.”
But Araghchi said “we are ready to defend ourselves as long as it takes,” saying “this is what we have done so far, and we continue to do that until President Trump comes to the point that this is an illegal war with no victory.”
Beijing said on Monday it has “lodged representations” and urged Washington to “correct its erroneous ways” after the US launched new trade probes last week, with negotiators from both countries meeting in Paris.
Washington’s trade investigations target 60 economies including China and will look into “failures to take action on forced labor” and whether these burden or restrict US commerce.
Those investigations came a day after a separate set of US probes centred on excess industrial capacity that target 16 trading partners including China, which Beijing’s foreign ministry criticised as “political manipulation”.
“We urge the US side to immediately correct its erroneous ways, meet China halfway… and resolve issues through dialogue and negotiations,” Beijing’s commerce ministry said in a statement.
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday (Mar 15) that the United States could soon reach a deal with Cuba or take other action, signalling that developments in the long-strained relationship may come quickly.
“Cuba also wants to make a deal, and I think we will pretty soon either make a deal or do whatever we have to do,” Trump said to reporters on Air Force One. “We’re talking to Cuba, but we’re going to do Iran before Cuba.”
The comments come as tensions between Washington and Havana remain elevated following years of sanctions, diplomatic friction and disputes over migration and security, with regional allies and investors watching closely for signs of a policy shift.
Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel said on Friday that the country opened talks with the United States as the island faces one of its most severe economic crises in decades.
Ukraine Deploys US-Made Phantom MK-1 Humanoid Robot on the Battlefield — The Future of War Has Arrived Dainik Jagran MP CG
from news.google.com
Keir Starmer is speaking at his press conference.
The war is entering its third week, he says.
He says he has been clear in his objectives.
First, we will protect our people in the region.
Second, while taking the necessary action to defend ourselves and our allies, we will not be drawn into the wider war.
And third, we will keep working towards a swift resolution that brings security and stability back to the region and stops the Iranian threat to its neighbours.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that the meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese Leader Xi Jinping could be delayed for logistical reasons during an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Trump suggested on Sunday that the summit could be delayed as the U.S. pressures China to help the U.S. reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Bessent walked those comments back on Monday, arguing the summit would be delayed if Trump chooses to stay in Washington to coordinate the war effort in Iran.
“If the meetings are delayed, it wouldn’t be delayed because the president demanded that China police the Strait of Hormuz,” Bessent said in an interview with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan in Paris. “If the meeting, for some reason, is rescheduled, it would be rescheduled because of logistics.”
President Donald Trump has warned that the United States has the capability to wipe out the Iranian regime’s most critical oil export hub within minutes, and the U.S. military is “locked and loaded” and ready to do so with a moment’s notice.
However, Trump says he has deliberately chosen not to pull the trigger – yet.
Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said U.S. forces are fully prepared to destroy Kharg Island, the regime’s primary oil export terminal and a vital economic lifeline for Tehran.
“We can do that on five minutes’ notice,” Trump said.
“We have it all locked and loaded and ready to go if we want to do it.”
Trump Issues Warning to NATO Allies: Help Secure Strait of Hormuz or Face Consequences– slaynews.com
President Donald Trump delivered a stark warning to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), urging allied nations to help secure the Strait of Hormuz and cautioning that failure to do so could have serious implications for the alliance.
Speaking in an interview with The Financial Times, Trump said NATO members that rely on the critical shipping route should share responsibility for protecting it.
“It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the Strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there,” Trump said.
“If there’s no response, or if it’s a negative response, I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.”
President Donald Trump wants the world to act quickly to stop Iran from threatening shipping in the Straits of Hormuz. Iran has used mines, drones, and naval harassment to disrupt traffic through the narrow channel between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. About one-fifth of global oil shipments travel through that route, and a shutdown would send fuel costs climbing across the world within days. Trump’s message to allies and rivals alike remains simple: help reopen the waterway and keep global commerce moving.
Trump already ordered American forces to strike all remaining Iranian maritime assets and energy facilities tied to the effort to block shipping. U.S. forces destroyed over 30 Iranian mine-laying vessels and carried out strikes against an oil hub on Kharg Island. U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth supports the campaign and has kept naval forces in the region on alert.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi responded with warnings that Iran would increase retaliation if attacks continue. Trump still calls on allied navies to join the effort and escort tankers through the strait.
This is a developing story.
A U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft has gone down in Western Iraq.
Recovery efforts are underway.
Right now, it is not believed that the crash was caused by hostile or friendly fire.
Here’s what we know so far:
U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT CRASH — WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR:
– Two KC-135 refueling aircraft involved
– One crashed in western Iraq
– The second landed safely in Israel
– Six people were aboard the crashed aircraft
– Search and rescue operations underway
– Incident not caused by hostile…— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) March 12, 2026
There is little doubt that U.S. and Israeli strikes on military targets inside Iran have dealt a severe blow to the country’s capacity to wage war. The campaign has eliminated the first and second tiers of Iran’s leadership, destroyed more than 60 naval vessels, degraded its weapons stockpiles, and dismantled key air-defense systems — leaving large portions of the regime’s political and command infrastructure in disarray.
Yet despite the devastation, Iran’s leadership shows no sign of capitulation. Instead, it remains defiantly entrenched. As the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps exhausts its remaining military options, it has increasingly turned to another weapon: a coordinated propaganda campaign waged through its state-controlled media. And, as so often happens, the anti-American foot soldiers of the U.S. legacy press have proven more than willing to amplify it.
President Donald Trump said the replacement for the deceased Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his son Mojtaba Khamenei, hasn’t been killed, although he implied he was seriously injured.
The statement, made in an interview with Fox News set to air on Friday morning, was first reported by Fox and other sources on Thursday night.
The announcement comes after much speculation that the new supreme leader had also been killed in one of the airstrikes that led off the joint U.S./Israeli campaign against Iran on Feb. 28.
Expect to hear a lot more out of Ecuador in the news in the near future. It’s quickly becoming one of the United States’ greatest partners and allies in the Western Hemisphere, especially when it comes to security matters.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer stands a respectable 5’8”, but during his recent visit to China he was — as the kids say — “mogged.”
Soldiers of the People’s Republic’s honor guard, all more than six feet tall, towered over him on both sides.
The optics were hard to miss. The empire that once humiliated China into opening its ports and surrendering Hong Kong now approached Beijing like Oliver Twist asking for more gruel.
President Donald Trump campaigned on ending endless wars, not starting them. Just over a year into his second term, he is delivering this on his terms. The U.S.–Israeli 2026 military campaign against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, which began following Iran’s reckless provocations in the wake of the 12-Day War, has already achieved its strategic goals. With only a small number of remaining nuclear facilities left to neutralize and the Strait of Hormuz on track to be fully secured within the coming weeks, the United States stands ready to proclaim mission accomplished and swiftly conclude major combat operations.
President Donald Trump blasted the New York Times early Friday morning for its coverage of Operation Epic Fury, claiming that it showed that the U.S. was “not winning.” The president provided a list of military accomplishments so far and teased that something would be occurring “today.”
“We are totally destroying the terrorist regime of Iran, militarily, economically, and otherwise, yet, if you read the Failing New York Times, you would incorrectly think that we are not winning,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “Iran’s Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth.”
Rep. Chip Roy is demanding an “immediate” investigation into the leftist network of activist groups organizing protests against President Donald Trump’s intervention in Iran after some of the network’s leaders met with the Cuban Communist Party’s Politburo earlier this week.
“That this group would openly meet with Cuba tells you how urgent it is for the administration and state law enforcement entities, including attorneys general, to immediately investigate these groups and the myriad other groups that are clearly acting against our national security interests,” the Texas Republican told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Thursday.
ABC News, already the worst among the Elitist Media broadcast network evening newscasts, may have plumbed a new low. A story subject’s murderous, transgender father was hit with Disney pixie dust and spun into the more anodyne “former family member.”
Watch the report in its entirety, as aired on ABC World News Tonight on Thursday, March 12th, 2026:
WATCH: @ABCWorldNews retcons the Rhode Island triple-murdering transgender as the “former family member” of the brave kid who willed his team into the state championship. It was, in fact, his deranged father. pic.twitter.com/8RSJIkYxk2
U.S. Central Command has confirmed that the military lost a plane as “Operation Epic Fury” continues in the Middle East.
CENTCOM put out a statement on Thursday and shared the news on X:
U.S. Central Command is aware of the loss of a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft. The incident occurred in friendly airspace during Operation Epic Fury, and rescue efforts are ongoing. Two aircraft were involved in the incident. One of the aircraft went down in western Iraq, and the…
With a high-stakes summit in Beijing less than three weeks away, the U.S. has launched sweeping trade investigations that put China squarely in its crosshairs, adding a new layer of friction to an already complicated relationship.
The probes, which will be conducted under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, aim to identify unfair trade practices, particularly structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors.
While casting a wide net over a dozen trading partners, the move takes a clear aim at China, given its well-documented issues such as overcapacity and forced labor, said Dan Wang, China director at the political consultancy Eurasia Group.
As Trump’s negotiating position has been weakened by the military aggression in Iran, “U.S. needs to establish credible threat on tariffs as it remains Trump’s top pressure tool,” Wang said, although Beijing was likely unsurprised by the escalation.
“Maximizing leverage before major bilateral meetings seems to be a standard move now,” she said.
The probes followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month to strike down Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs, which curtailed his ability to deploy tariffs at will, giving China a boost in leverage ahead of the summit.
The Trump administration is “pivoting to its other tools to continue its tariff agenda … [tariff] is clearly a card that Trump wishes to have in his pocket for negotiations,” said Lynn Song, chief economist at ING Bank.
Iranian missiles and drones attacked at least five vessels in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, signaling a major escalation by Iran in the war. The attacks resulted in the virtual closure of the strait to normal maritime traffic.
Mojtaba Khamenei, the newly appointed supreme leader of Iran, was notably absent from a rally held in Tehran celebrating his appointment, raising fresh questions about the stability of the regime following the recent war with the United States and Israel.
Thousands of supporters gathered Monday at Enghelab Square for the event, which was organized to mark the transition of power after the death of longtime ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
But the man the crowd came to celebrate never appeared.
The Democrat Shawn Harris will go head-to-head with Republican Clay Fuller in a run-off after they came out ahead in a special election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress on Tuesday night.
The election for the state’s 14th congressional district has been seen as a test of Donald Trump’s sway and may provide a rare opportunity for Democrats in a deep-red pocket of north-west Georgia.
Former prosecutor Fuller has Trump’s endorsement and had raised more than $1m leading into voting on Tuesday, but Harris, a retired army general who faced Greene two years ago, has raised more than four times as much.
Cultural Defeat and Surrender.
This is a national disgrace and good example of how the West has come to hate itself and the people who made it great.
Cultural collapse can’t be too far off. What’s next, remove Nelson from atop his column and replace him with a sheep? That shouldn’t cause any divisiveness and it would serve as a reminder of what is in charge of the Bank of England. (Paul Schnee)
If you want something emblematic of cultural and civilizational decline, it would be hard to think of an exhibit more revealing than this. GB News: The Bank of England has confirmed Sir Winston Churchill will be scrapped from banknotes and replaced with images of wildlife. The central bank will soon ask the public which animals they want to appear on the next set of £5, £10, £20, and £50 notes – but confirmed the wartime hero Prime Minister would not be staying. The move to replace historical figures with animals was described as “significant” and “overdue” by celebrity bird-watcher Nadeem Perera, who sits on the bank’s panel of wildlife experts who will choose which English species will appear on the next set of banknotes…. While the monarch will remain on the notes’ front, the decision will remove historical figures including Sir Winston Churchill, Jane Austen, JMW Turner, and Alan Turing (GB News).
Israel launched waves of overnight airstrikes on Hezbollah targets after the Iranian-backed terrorist group fired hundreds of drones and rockets at towns and cities in northern Israel, declaring war on the “enemies of Islam.”
On Wednesday evening, the Lebanon-based Shia-jihadist group announced the launch of Operation “Eaten Straw,” invoking Quranic verses referring to the supposed destruction of a Christian-Ethiopian army at the hands of Arabs in the sixth century.
Islam in general and Ramadan in particular hold the key for society to prosper if it embraces a “noble vision of hope and peace” that Muslims hold dear, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tells the world in a newly released video message.
The exhortation to heed the example of Ramadan comes as the veteran Portuguese Socialist arrives in Turkey to fast with Muslims and show his support for their religion, as Breitbart News reported.
The Turkey visit comes just days after Guterres used the U.N.’s own International Day to Combat Islamophobia to plead, “The world’s two billion Muslims hail from all corners of the globe, reflecting the vast diversity of humanity itself.”
He said “Islamophobia” is real and growing and the time has come for the world to heed his call, “Let’s eradicate the scourge of Islamophobia from every country and community.”
President Trump revealed during a press conference at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland that the U.S. government knows the locations of suspected Iranian sleeper cell operatives and is closely monitoring them as Operation Epic Fury unfolds in the Middle East.