World, US, Culture, Market, and Sci-Tech News Aggregation from MSM and Independent News
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An Iranian tanker called “Silly City” successfully reached the country’s waters despite a naval blockade and threats from a US Navy task force. According to reports from local media, the vessel reached a southern Iranian port overnight after passing through the Arabian Sea with full security and operational support from Iran’s navy.
“Despite numerous warnings and threats from the US Navy Fleet Group, the Iranian oil tanker Silly City, with the operational support of the Iranian Navy and in full safety, entered Iran’s territorial waters last night after crossing the Arabian Sea,” the Iranian military said in a statement on Tuesday.
Shipping industry intelligence site Lloyd’s List reported that more than 20 Iranian so-called “shadow vessels” had transited past the US blockade
The Strait of Hormuz in peacetime sees around 120 daily transits, according to the site.
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As the ceasefire between the United States and Iran winds down, heated words filled the air.
“Iran has Violated the Cease Fire numerous times!” President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social.
He did not provide details about the alleged infractions.
Meanwhile, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, rebuked Trump for “imposing a siege and violating the ceasefire,” according to CNBC. He was referring to Trump’s blockade of Iranian ports.
He accused Trump of trying to turn peace talks into “a table of surrender or to justify renewed warmongering.”
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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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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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Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) celebrated the news that 26 Iranian ships broke through the U.S. naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman.
Democrat Chris Murphy is getting slammed for replying “awesome” to the news that 26 Iranian shadow fleet vessels breached the U.S. naval blockade.
Murphy has been hammering the war effort. He’s argued the U.S. is spending “billions” to keep its navy there “to fecklessly fail,”… pic.twitter.com/ww96ij1SIE
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 21, 2026
I haven’t found many reports about the fleet bypassing the naval blockade. I came across this:
Maritime tracking firm TankerTrackers.com reported that a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) operated by the National Iranian Tanker Company departed Iran in late March 2026. The vessel then sailed towards Southeast Asia, where it reportedly transferred approximately 2 million barrels of crude oil to another supertanker.
Following the transfer, the tanker returned towards Iranian waters and is believed to have crossed what analysts describe as a US “siege line”, a monitored maritime enforcement zone linked to the ongoing blockade efforts.
According to Iran’s Fars News Agency, the vessel successfully re-entered Iranian-controlled waters and is expected to reach Kharg Island shortly. The report stated, “This tanker unloaded its 2 million barrels of crude oil and then returned home through the blockade line,” citing data from TankerTrackers.com.
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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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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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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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Iran’s Supreme Leader has issied a chilling threat in a new bombshell message, while also taking a brutal swipe at Donald Trump and US troops.
Mojtaba Khamenei commended his forces for resisting what he called American and Israeli “arrogance”, before threatening to bring about “new defeats”. The Supreme Leader also said his opponents’ “weakness and humiliation” had been exposed for all to see. Khamenei has not been seen since the war began. He replaced his father Ali Khamenei, who was killed in Israeli-US strikes at the start of the conflict.
In a statement issued through an Iranian state news agency, Khamenei said his forces had “stood firm against America’s sinister schemes.”
He continued: “With its strong divine and popular support and in dense, fortified ranks, it (the army) stands shoulder to shoulder with other mujahideen of the armed forces against the two armies at the forefront of the front of kufr (disbelief) and arrogance, clashing with them hand-to-hand and exposing their weakness and humiliation to the eyes of the world.
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President Donald Trump departs after speaking with reporters about the war in Iran during a news conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Monday, April 6, 2026.Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
In a Truth Social tirade on Sunday morning, President Donald Trump claimed that Iran violated their ceasefire agreement with the US by firing shots at ships in the Strait of Hormuz and again threatened to commit war crimes by taking out the country’s energy infrastructure.
“Many of [the bullets] were aimed at a French Ship, and a Freighter from the United Kingdom,” Trump contended about Iran’s targeting of the ships, without evidence. “That wasn’t nice, was it?”
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Trump defended the US blockade and threatened “to start dropping bombs again” unless the countries reached a long-term deal before the ceasefire expires on Wednesday.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said Tehran’s control over the strait included demanding the payment of costs related to security, safety and environmental protection services, state media said.
Concern remained after at least two vessels reported being attacked on Saturday while trying to transit the waterway. India summoned the Iranian ambassador in New Delhi and expressed deep concern that two Indian-flagged ships had come under fire in the strait, the government said.
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The Strait of Hormuz is blocked again by Iran as the IRGC’s hardline position appears to prevail in Tehran, setting the stage for the 3-day countdown towards the end of the ceasefire, with no new talks in sight.
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President Donald Trump authorized a direct response after an Iranian-flagged vessel moved into a restricted pattern of activity in the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. Navy forces intercepted and disabled the vessel after it failed to comply with repeated warnings. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth supported the operation, and the U.S. Central Command coordinated the response, stopping the vessel before it could continue its course through one of the world’s most contentious shipping lanes.
It was the first interception since the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports began last week. Iran’s joint military command called the armed boarding an act of piracy and a ceasefire violation, the state broadcaster said.
With the U.S.-Iran standoff over the strait sharpening and the ceasefire expiring by Wednesday, it was not clear where President Donald Trump ’s earlier announcement on new talks with Iran now stood. He had said U.S. negotiators would head to Pakistan on Monday.
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US President Donald Trump on Sunday claimed that American forces seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship TOUSKA after it tried to bypass a naval blockade near the Strait of Hormuz.Iran initially contradicted the claim, saying US forces were forced to retreat…
In a post on Truth Social he wrote, “Today, an Iranian-flagged cargo ship named TOUSKA… tried to get past our Naval Blockade, and it did not go well for them.”
Trump said the ship was warned by a US Navy guided missile destroyer in the Gulf of Oman to stop, but it did not comply.
“The US Navy Guided Missile Destroyer USS SPRUANCE intercepted the TOUSKA in the Gulf of Oman, and gave them fair warning to stop. The Iranian crew refused to listen, so our Navy ship stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engine room. Right now, US Marines have custody of the vessel. The TOUSKA is under US Treasury Sanctions because of their prior history of illegal activity. We have full custody of the ship, and are seeing what’s on board!,” he further wrote.
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Esmail Baghaei, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, has been quoted by Al Jazeera as having said that Iran has no plans for a new round of talks with the US, saying Washington has violated the agreement from its implementation.
The spokesperson also said Tehran can’t forget US attacks on Iran during previous diplomatic talks as he insisted that Iran will continue defending its national interests.
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US President Donald Trump seems to have lost his appetite for war as the two-week ceasefire with Iran nears an end. He is oscillating between ominous and propitiatory approaches while asking Iran to make a permanent peace deal. Behind the scenes, he’s grappling with fear that the situation can turn into something similar to the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis –one of the biggest foreign policy failures of recent times, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Trump’s impulsive style has never before been tested during a sustained military conflict, and according to the report, his top aides are limiting the flow of information t
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The U.N. Navy is aggressively enforcing the blockade against Iran, according to a U.S. official who said two oil tankers attempting to leave Iran were intercepted and turned back by an American destroyer on Tuesday.
The unnamed U.S. official told Reuters that two tankers departed from Iran’s port of Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman, only to be intercepted by a U.S. Navy destroyer that instructed them by radio to turn around. Both ships complied with the order.
Chabahar is a port city on the southeastern coast of Iran. It was originally constructed in 1983, to give Iran alternatives to shipping through the Persian Gulf during the long and bloody Iran-Iraq War.
In recent years, the Indian government made about $500 million in investments to expand the two major port complexes at Chabahar, giving them more deep-water berths for large cargo vessels.