World, US, Culture, Market, and Sci-Tech News Aggregation from MSM and Independent News
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Qatar has urged an end to the Iran war and a return to negotiations on Tuesday, saying it is in contact with all parties as uncertainty surrounds US-Iran talks in Islamabad.
“The crisis is ours, and the crisis of our region. That’s why we have direct contacts,” foreign ministry spokesperson Dr Majed al-Ansari said at a press conference in Doha.
Al-Ansari added that Qatar supports maintaining the ceasefire as uncertainty remains over whether talks are moving forward.
“Our call has only been to end this war and return to the negotiation table,” he said. “Qatar supports the continuation of the ceasefire until there’s a diplomatic resolution. We are hearing contradicting reports and we are quite concerned.”
“We do not want to talk about the failure of the negotiations,” al-Ansari said. “The entire world is supporting these negotiations, including us. And we are supporting our brothers in Pakistan.”
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WASHINGTON/CAIRO/ISLAMABAD, April 21 (Reuters) – The U.S. military said on Tuesday it had seized a tanker linked to Iran in international waters, its latest apparent action to enforce a blockade, with time running out on a ceasefire and the prospect of last-ditch further peace talks still up in the air.
Washington has expressed confidence that talks with Iran will go ahead in Pakistan, and a senior Iranian official said Tehran was considering joining. But with the final hours of a two-week truce ticking by, there was little time left for the talks.
The U.S. military said it had boarded the tanker Tifani “without incident”. The ship, capable of carrying 2 million barrels of crude, last reported its position on Tuesday morning as near Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean, according to MarineTraffic tracking data. It was close to fully loaded and had signaled Singapore as its destination.
“As we have made clear, we will pursue global maritime enforcement efforts to disrupt illicit networks and interdict sanctioned vessels providing material support to Iran — anywhere they operate,” U.S. Central Command said.
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A national free speech group is calling on the Catholic University of America to allow pro-Israel speakers on campus – or else face an accreditation complaint.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sent a second letter to CUA leadership on Friday, asking it to remove its restrictions on Students Supporting Israel.
The intervention follows a proposal earlier this year for the group to host Israeli homeland security expert Dany Tirza as well as Jewish Republican Rep. Randy Fine of Florida, as The College Fix previously reported.
The university is requiring the club to host a pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel speaker.
While the school says this is part of their policy, that is only supposed to apply when an invited speaker takes a view contrary to the Catholic Church, such as if a club invited a pro-abortion speaker. However, the university did not even apply this policy, allowing the campus Democrats club to host a speaker who supports abortion, according to Student Supporting Israel’s leadership.
The Catholic university in Washington, D.C. allowed an event with an anti-Israel speaker, for example, but did not present the pro-Israel side, FIRE also said.
“We again strongly urge CUA to approve SSI’s event requests and assure students that the university will not condition event approval on student’s willingness to arrange for and host speakers opposed to their own viewpoint,” Program Counsel Jessie Appleby wrote to President Peter Kilpatrick.
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Iran has brutally mocked JD Vance ahead of crunch peace talks on Tuesday. Iranian channels have reporrtedly shared images of JD Vance edited using Mr Bean meme showing him waiting for the conversation.
Vice President JD Vance and other top Trump officials are expected to travel to Pakistan today for a second round of intense negotiations. The US President has previously said it is “highly unlikely” he would extend the ceasefire deadline further than tomorrow evening.
However, Iranian state media said: “None of the Iranian delegation has arrived or even flown to Islamabad for negotiations with the US at the moment”
Meanwhile, the US President shared a new update on extending the US ceasefire with Iran past its new deadline of tomorrow evening.
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As major artificial intelligence breakthroughs arrive on what seems to be a near-weekly basis, the race between the US and China continues to intensify. In this post and the next, we will examine the good and bad news for the prospects of American triumph in the battle for AI superiority, a skirmish that could well determine the future of global innovation.
Let’s start with the bad news.
Last week, I attended a hearing of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party entitled “China’s Campaign to Steal America’s AI Edge.” Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) opened the proceedings by asserting that “China’s smuggling of advanced AI chips is a pervasive threat facing law enforcement” and observing that “just last month, the Department of Justice announced a $2.5 billion chip smuggling case, which would be the largest export control violation in US history.”
Moolenaar then asked, “Why is China so desperate to acquire US-designed chips? The reason is obvious. AI is a truly transformative technology. It’s already changing how we fight wars, run our government, and operate companies.” Critically, the chairman contended, “it is essential for the United States to maintain a decisive lead in the AI race. We cannot afford a future where Beijing dominates this technology.”
At the hearing, Dmitri Alperovitch, the founder and chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, echoed Moolenaar, arguing that “we are in a race, and the stakes could not be higher. Artificial intelligence will transform every industry, every battlefield, and every government.” Critically, Alperovitch asserted, “whoever fields the best models running on the best infrastructure will likely win not just the AI race itself but the 21st century. The single most important input to winning is compute—the processing power used to train and run AI models.”
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Donald Trump may be considering a deal to allow Iran to continue nuclear enrichment in 10 years(Image: Pool/ABACA/Shutterstock)
Donald Trump is reported to be weighing up an option allowing Iran to resume uranium enrichment in a decade.
The US president has offered shifting reasons for the war in Iran but has consistently said a primary objective is ensuring the country will “never have a nuclear weapon”.
Iran has 440.9kg of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency.
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Keir Starmer has ordered an investigation into any security concerns relating to Peter Mandelson’s tenure as UK ambassador to the US as he gave his side of events in a politically crucial statement in parliament.
“I know many members across the house will find these facts to be incredible,” Starmer told jeering MPs, after setting out how the Foreign Office opted to overrule the initial decision to refuse Mandelson’s security vetting without informing him and other ministers.
He said: “To that I can only say they are right. Throughout the whole timeline of events, officials in the Foreign Office saw fit to withhold this information from the most senior ministers in our system in government. That is not how the vast majority of people in this country expect politics, government or accountability to work, and I do not think it’s how most public servants think it should work either.”
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North Korea test-fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles on Sunday, South Korea‘s military said, the latest in a recent flurry of launches by the nuclear-armed state.
The Sunday launches add to a series of weapons tests Pyongyang has carried out in recent weeks, including ballistic missiles, anti-warship cruise missiles and cluster munitions.
Read moreNorth Korea tests nuclear-capable rocket launchers amid US-South Korea military drills
“Our military detected several short-range ballistic missiles fired into the East Sea from the Sinpo area of North Korea at around 6:10 am (GMT 21:10),” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, referring to a body of water also known as the Sea of Japan.
“The missiles flew approximately 140 kilometres (86.9 miles), and South Korean and US intelligence authorities are conducting a detailed analysis of their exact specifications,” it added.
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Federal officials are scrambling after a powerful new artificial intelligence (AI) model demonstrated the ability to hack virtually every major operating system and web browser, triggering urgent warnings from top government and financial leaders.
AI giant Anthropic’s new system, known as “Mythos,” is being kept under tight restrictions.
However, insiders say the threat is already serious enough that the U.S. government is racing to understand it before it’s too late.
Treasury Rushes to Access High-Risk AI
According to reports, the U.S. Treasury Department is urgently seeking access to Anthropic’s restricted model
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One of the biggest takeaways of the war with Iran is that it has proven itself to be a surprisingly capable adversary against the United States. In addition to its willingness to go on the offensive, Iran has forced the U.S. and its regional allies to confront the rise of cheap drones on the battlefield.
Iranian drones, made with commercial-grade technology, cost roughly $35,000 to produce. That is a fraction of the cost of the high-tech military interceptors sometimes used to shoot them down.
Note: Estimated price of munitions per unit. In practice, multiple interceptors are fired when targeting a drone. For instance, with the $80 bullet fired by the Centurion Counter-Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar (C-RAM), 75 rounds are fired in a second. Sources: Department of Defense, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Open Source Munitions Portal, SRC Inc, U.S. Army and U.S. Navy.
Cheap drones changed the war in Ukraine, and they have enabled Iranians to exploit a gap in American defense investments, which have historically prioritized accurate but expensive solutions.
Countering drones has been a major priority for the Pentagon for years, according to Michael C. Horowitz, who was a Pentagon official in the Biden administration. “But there has not been the impetus to scale a solution,” he said.
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Sweden is bracing itself for a potential Russian operation to seize the island of Gotland, according to the country’s military chief.
Swedish Chief of Defence Michael Claesson warned that Moscow could execute a land grab “at any time” in order to put NATO’s determination to the test.
“It doesn’t have to be particularly extensive at all, but more to make a point and wait to see what might happen politically,” Claesson said.
NATO military exercises have traditionally centred on a potential Russian land assault along the alliance’s eastern flank, however focus is now turning towards the Baltic Sea.
War games have simulated possible Russian landings on strategically vital islands such as Gotland in Sweden, Bornholm in Denmark, and Hiiumaa and Saaremaa in Estonia.
Swedish military intelligence has cautioned that Russia is capable of broadening its conflict in the years ahead.
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A gunman who killed at least six people in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, before taking hostages and barricading himself inside a supermarket on Saturday has been shot and killed by police, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukraine’s special tactical police units stormed the store after attempts to contact the gunman with a negotiator failed, the head of Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, Ihor Klymenko, said in a statement on social media. The attacker was killed while resisting arrest, he said.
Speaking to reporters at the scene, Klymenko said that the gunman had killed four bystanders while on the street, before entering the supermarket and killing a fifth person.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that a sixth victim, a young woman, died from her injuries in the hospital.
An Associated Press reporter on the scene saw the bodies of the victims in the street covered by emergency blankets before they were taken away.
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President Donald Trump issued an ultimatum to the Cuban government, urging it to release political prisoners or face continued blackouts, fuel shortages and other problems.
Washington is currently maintaining a blockade in the region, preventing Cuba from receiving shipments of oil and other resources. The move is aimed at pressuring the Cuban government to remove the Castro family from power, release political prisoners, hold free elections, and restore civil liberties to the public. The president has also imposed tariffs on countries that provide oil to the Cuban regime.
CUBA COLLAPSING: The Cuban Communist Regime just started releasing prisoners HOURS after their amnesty announcement…completely folding under President Trump’s brutal pressure campaign and oil blockade.
Obama kissed their asses for years and got ZERO. pic.twitter.com/5ojSWbnh0n
— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) April 4, 2026
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A senior Iranian source has been talking to Reuters news agency about the gaps in negotiating position between Washington and Tehran.
There are still significant differences regarding Iran’s nuclear programme, the source said.
It comes amid hopes that Iran and the US will resume peace talks after they failed in Islamabad earlier this month.
The senior Iranian source said that Tehran’s “defensive capabilities”, including its missile programme, are not open to negotiation with the US
“Continuation of the US blockade on the Strait of Hormuz undermines the peace talks,” they added.
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JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said on Monday (Apr 20) that it had determined an image circulating on social media that shows a soldier in south Lebanon hitting a statue of Jesus Christ is authentic and depicts one of its troops.
The image appears to show an Israeli soldier using a sledgehammer to strike the head of a statue of a crucified Jesus that had fallen off a cross.
Arab media reports indicated that the statue was in the Christian village of Debl in south Lebanon, near the border with Israel.
The Debl municipality told AFP that the statue was located in the village, but could not confirm whether it had been damaged.
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LOS ANGELES — Federal prosecutors said a 44-year-old Los Angeles woman was arrested Saturday night at Los Angeles International Airport on suspicion of helping Iran traffic weapons to Sudan, which is in its fourth year of a bloody civil war.
Shamim Mafi will face charges that she brokered the sale of “drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition” between Iran and the Sudanese Armed Forces, First U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said Sunday on social media.
A phone number for Mafi could not be located and it wasn’t known Sunday if she has an attorney who could speak on her behalf.
Essayli posted a photo of someone in an FBI jacket escorting a woman into the back of a sedan outside a terminal at LAX.
Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2016, Essayli said.
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PHALABORWA, South Africa — Two enormous sandlike dunes at an old chemical processing plant in South Africa are at the center of an exploratory U.S.-backed project to extract highly sought-after rare earth elements from industrial mining waste.
The Phalaborwa Rare Earths Project has U.S. support through a $50 million equity investment by the government’s International Development Finance Corporation and is part of accelerated U.S. efforts to reduce reliance on economic rival China for the minerals crucial for making electronic devices, robotics, defense systems, electric vehicles and other high-tech products.
Countries have identified dozens of minerals, including copper, cobalt, lithium and nickel, as critical because they are essential for new technologies. The 17 rare earth elements are a subset of them.
President Donald Trump has made expanding U.S. access to critical minerals, including rare earth elements, a central policy to counter China. The Trump administration said this year it will deploy nearly $12 billion to create its own strategic reserve.
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The US president has lashed out at the pontiff over his criticism of the war in the Middle East
Pope Leo has sought to downplay his public spat with US President Donald Trump, rejecting claims that he was trying to challenge the president with his criticism of the war in Iran and calls for peace.
Speaking to reporters on a flight to Angola on Saturday, the US-born pontiff insisted that his remarks were not meant to be confrontational, while criticizing the media for inflating the row through excessive commentary and speculation.
“There’s been a certain narrative that has not been accurate in all of its aspects… much of what has been written… has been more commentary on commentary, trying to interpret what has been said,” the Pope said. He stressed that his remarks in Cameroon earlier this week, blasting leaders who spend billions on wars and describing the world as “ravaged by a handful of tyrants,” were not directed at Trump.
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On Monday, at 4:53 P.M. local time, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the northeastern shores of Japan’s largest island, Honshu, where the Pacific tectonic plate plunges beneath the North American plate at the deep-sea Japan Trench. Immediately, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) sent out a tsunami warning alert. Although small tsunami waves did soon reach various sections of the coast, no reports of injuries, deaths, or significant damage to homes or infrastructure were reported.
The danger, however, has not necessarily passed. Following the temblor, a JMA spokesperson told the media and those along the affected shoreline that “the likelihood of a new, huge earthquake occurring is relatively higher than during normal times.” Specifically, there is an elevated risk of a “megaquake”—one of magnitude 8.0 or greater—in the coming days.
The odds of an imminent megaquake are very low—around one in 100. “This 1 percent probability is still low in absolute terms, but it’s 10 times higher than normal, which is significant from a risk management perspective,” says Amilcar Carrera-Cevallos, an independent earthquake scientist.
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MADRID — Migrants in Spain began applying to legalize their status Monday after the Southern European nation launched a mass legalization measure that could affect hundreds of thousands of foreigners living and working in the country without authorization.
Spain’s approach sharply differs from prevailing attitudes elsewhere in Europe, where many governments have been trying to curb arrivals and step up deportations. The Spanish government has defended the measure as an economic one that has the support of business owners and unions.
With an aging population, the government has said Spain needs more workers to maintain its growing economy, pay taxes and contribute to social security.
The amnesty program was announced in January and finalized this month. It offers immigrants without legal status a one-year, renewable residence permit if they have spent five months living in the country and have a clean criminal record. They have until the end of June to apply.
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Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has indicated Keir Starmer’s mishandling of the economy and the Peter Mandelson saga risks leading Nigel Farage to become prime minister.
Davey told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that Starmer should “move aside” if he wants the Labour party to succeed.
He said: “The thing that I think Labour MPs should think about quite carefully now is their Government has been a bit of a failure, frankly, on the economy, on so much, and it’s in chaos, in the way that Conservatives were in chaos, in perpetual crisis, and I don’t think they can get out of that unless Keir Starmer moves aside.
“And if they don’t, there’s a real danger they’re handing the keys to Number 10 to Nigel Farage, who can benefit from this chaos.
“So I would really say to Labour MPs, who in many ways, have the future of the prime minister in their hands, that they really now have to accept, the prime minister is a big part of their own problem and in the context of the threat that Nigel Farage poses to our democracy and to our country with his divisive Trump-like politics, I think the Labour party has to realise they have to move on.”