The speaker of the Iranian parliament warned Friday that if Washington carries out its threat of military repercussions for Iran in the absence of a new nuclear agreement, Tehran would attack US bases in the region.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, received a letter from US President Donald Trump earlier this month warning that “there are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal.”
According to Parliament Speaker Mohammad Qalibaf, “the entire region will blow up like a spark in an ammunition dump if the Americans strike the sanctity of Iran.”
“Their bases and those of their friends will not be safe,” Qalibaf stated live during the yearly Jerusalem Day, also known as Al-Quds Day, which falls on the final Friday of the blessed month of Ramadan.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi stated on Thursday that negotiations were not feasible until Washington modified its “maximum pressure” stance, and Khamenei has referred to Trump’s message as misleading. Iran delivered “an acceptable answer” through Oman after carefully reviewing Trump’s letter, according to Araqchi.
According to state media, Araqchi said Friday that although Trump’s letter included threats, it also allowed for diplomacy. He did not go into detail.
Trump pulled out of a 2015 agreement between Iran and other powers that imposed stringent restrictions on Tehran’s disputed nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions during his first term in office, which extended from 2017 to 21.
Subsequently, Iran violated the agreement by exceeding uranium enrichment restrictions, particularly after Trump reinstated broad U.S. sanctions.
Iran is accused by Western nations of having a covert plan to acquire nuclear weapons. According to Tehran, its program is only for the production of civilian energy.
A Chinese teacher has been banned from his job after hitting a kid in the face nine times for yelling his name. The incident happened at a school in Shandong province on March 14, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP). During physical education class, the student and his classmates were relaxing at a playground when the youngster heard his math instructor calling his name as she passed by. The teacher, who went by Wu, grew agitated at this point because he believed the youngster had treated him disrespectfully.
According to the site, the teacher went up to the class, located the youngster who had called his name, and gave him a slap across the cheek. One of his classmates even attempted to convince Mr. Wu not to hit the youngster after the student apologized to the teacher twice. But the teacher continued to use aggression and gave the child nine slaps.
According to the student’s parents, he had tinnitus and facial swelling. Additionally, the parents claimed that their child suffered from a persistent headache. “My youngster has been experiencing panic attacks. The boy’s mother wrote on social media, “I wonder what conduct of his provoked an adult man to hit him.”
The mother claimed to have brought her baby to the hospital, where it was determined that he had suffered facial and brain injuries. After bringing the matter to the attention of the school administration and alerting the police, the family demanded that Mr. Wu be dismissed.
“Who authorized you to strike my child? You can get in touch with me if he did something incorrectly. I assume you have my phone number. The teacher was asked by the mother.
Mr. Wu responded, “I understand. However, I am a fifty-year-old man. He yelled my name in a boisterous and playful manner. This was quite rude. I slapped his face as a result. He ought to control his mouth, in my opinion.
In the meantime, the teacher has been disciplined by the school. In addition to offering the boy’s family 5,000 yuan in compensation, the authorities suspended Mr. Wu from his teaching post. But the parents refused to accept the money.
In a separate statement, the local school authority stated that they are looking into the case and promised to handle it “based on law and rules” and seriously.
Following an Israeli military warning, Lebanese state media reported an airstrike on south Beirut on Friday. This was the first such raid since a ceasefire in November that mainly stopped Israel-Hezbollah hostilities.
Images from AFPTV showed smoke rising over the region.
Breaking: The most significant breach of the ceasefire deal agreed last November occurs as an Israeli airstrike strikes a building in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
“Israeli airplanes bombed the Hadath neighbourhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs,” according to the National News Agency, referring to a crowded neighborhood with apartment complexes and educational institutions.
Israel bombed Lebanon, carrying out two airstrikes on a building in the southern neighborhood of Beirut called Al-Hadath.
Parents rushed to pick up their children from schools that promptly closed after Israel issued a warning for a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which are a stronghold for Hezbollah, according to AFP correspondents.
As many inhabitants of the southern neighborhoods, which Israel brutally bombed during its two-month conflict with Hezbollah starting in September of last year, attempted to evacuate, the correspondents noted that heavy traffic congested the highways in the area.
Beijing’s latest attempt to impose sovereignty over the highly contested island in the South China Sea was demonstrated this week by the deployment of two long-range H-6 bombers around the Scarborough Shoal, according to satellite pictures acquired by Reuters.
China did not publicize the deployment, which took place before U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s trip to the Philippines, which also claims the shoal within its 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.
Questions from Reuters about the scope of the deployment and if it was planned to coincide with Hegseth’s trip were not immediately answered by China’s defense ministry.
At the eastern tip of the contested Scarborough Shoal, Chinese H-6 bombers are flying. Image Source: Reuters
Requests for response were not immediately answered by military and Philippine National Security Council officials.
Hegseth said China’s actions made deterrence in the South China Sea important during a visit to Manila on Friday, reinforcing the United States’ “ironclad commitment” to its mutual defense treaty with the Philippines.
Maxar Technologies’ photos from Monday depict two planes east of Scarborough Shoal, also known as “Huangyan Dao” in China.
In the South China Sea, Chinese H-6 bombers fly east of the contested Scarborough Shoal. Image Source: Reuters
Since taking de facto control of the shoal in 2012, China has occasionally tried to block the atoll’s mouth, where Chinese coast guard vessels have often battled with Philippine fisherman in recent years.
The Philippine Coast Guard accused the Chinese navy last month of engaging in risky flying maneuvers in the area. Beijing disregarded a 2016 ruling by an international arbitration panel in The Hague that China’s claims lacked legal support.
Maxar told Reuters in an email that the aircraft in the pictures were H-6 bombers and that processing satellite photos of rapidly moving objects produced “rainbow hues” near them.
But regional security analysts suggested it was doubtful that the flights’ timing was coincidental.
This was “a signal that China has a sophisticated military,” according to Peter Layton of the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia.
“You (the United States) have the capacity to launch a long-range attack; so do we, and in greater quantities,” could have been the bombers’ second message. “Obviously not serendipity,” he continued.
Starting with landings on upgraded runways in the disputed Paracel islands in 2018, regional military attachés claim that China has progressively increased the number of H-6 bomber deployments into the South China Sea as its military presence has increased.
Based on a Soviet-era design, the jet-powered H-6 has been updated to carry a variety of land-attack and anti-ship missiles, some of which can fire ballistic missiles with nuclear tips.
As part of larger air and sea operations by the Chinese military’s Southern Theatre Command, the bombers were used in war scenario exercises in late December near Scarborough and in October over Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.
According to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, the command, which is responsible for the South China Sea, has two regiments of the bombers.
The defense ministry’s statement at the time that the December drills were intended to “resolutely preserve China’s national sovereignty and security, and maintain peace in the South China Sea” raised awareness of them.
The ministry shared pictures of planes flying over the shoal, but there are not many satellite photos showing patrols in action.
It is unknown how high the H-6s were flying in the vicinity of the shoal.
China’s claim of sovereignty is rejected by Taiwan’s government, which maintains that the destiny of the island is up to its citizens.
CNN, a news outlet that US President Donald Trump has regularly criticized for supposedly disseminating “fake news,” was featured in a tape that Trump shared. A report emphasizing Mr. Trump’s favorable favorability ratings was included in the viral video.
Given Mr. Trump’s previous remarks on CNN and MSNBC, when he referred to their journalism as “dishonest” and asserted that their numbers were dropping, this action is noteworthy. Last Thursday, these remarks were given to reporters in the Oval Office.
On Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump posted the CNN clip on Truth Social, even though he had previously tried to disparage the network during the Signal text leak scandal.
Trump’s approval rating is currently improving, albeit still being slightly negative. His approval rating is greater than it was early in his administration and higher now than it was throughout his first term, according to CNN analyst Harry Enten.
Enten started, “We only discuss how unpopular Donald Trump is.” In actuality, however, he is essentially more popular than he was throughout the first term and more popular than he was when he was elected in November 2024.
The CNN analyst clarified, “So when you compare Trump against himself, he is really closer to the apex than he is to the bottom of the trough.” “And naturally, that is really significant since Donald Trump’s numbers have always been understated.”
Authorities in Kathmandu imposed a curfew after Nepal police used tear gas and water cannon to scatter thousands of protesters calling for the restoration of the monarchy.
After parliament dissolved the monarchy as part of a peace agreement that concluded a ten-year civil war that claimed over 16,000 lives, the Himalayan nation adopted a federal and republican political system in 2008. “The nation ought to have advanced considerably. Good administration, peace and security, and greater employment possibilities should have been available to everyone. “We ought to have been free from corruption,” Mina Subedi, 55, who attended the protest, told AFP.
Cryants who said that the king and the nation were “dearer to us than life” assembled in front of the national parliament.
After the protesters broke into a restricted area and damaged structures, police used water cannon and tear gas to drive them out, police spokesperson Dinesh Kumar Acharya said AFP.
Popular discontent with political instability, corruption, and unimpressive economic growth has coincided with an increase in support for the return of the monarchy and the reinstatement of Hinduism as the official state religion.
Following the altercation, local officials declared a curfew in the region.
To “protect the republican system,” opposition parties organized a counter-demonstration in the capital that drew thousands more participants.
Pushpa Kamal Dahal, a former guerrilla leader who commanded the Maoist insurgency for ten years before entering politics and going on to become prime minister three times, declared that “Nepalis would not revert to the past.”
“Perhaps because we republicans have failed to meet the needs and desires of the people, they have the audacity to raise their heads.”
Gyanendra Shah, the 77-year-old abdicated king, has mostly avoided discussing Nepal’s contentious politics, but he recently appeared in public with some of his supporters.
Following the death of his older brother, King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah, and his family in a palace massacre that killed the majority of the royal family, Shah was crowned in 2001.
The Maoist insurgency was raging in remote parts of Nepal at the time of his coronation.
In 2005, Shah dissolved parliament and suspended the constitution, sparking a democratic uprising in which the Maoists joined forces with Nepal’s political establishment to plan massive demonstrations in the streets.
In 2008, parliament voted to dissolve Nepal’s 240-year-old Hindu monarchy, which ultimately led to the conflict’s end.
Following recent political developments and the deployment of security troops and military personnel throughout the nation, particularly in Dhaka, social media is ablaze with rumors of a coup in Bangladesh. However, neither Army Chief Waqar Uz Zaman nor Professor Muhammad Yunus have addressed the rumors, which appear to have picked more steam in the past day.
As protests against Bangladesh’s interim leader, Md. Yunus, continue, it is thought that General Wakar Uz Zaman is at the center of these reported developments.
Rumors that the Army Chief has had enough of the political climate in Bangladesh have been strengthened by reports of army meetings. Additionally, the Army Chief has urged for greater security and alertness throughout the nation and issued a warning against terrorist strikes.
Political observers have concluded that there is some tension between the government and the army chief as a result of General Zaman’s talks with his top aides over the weekend and remarks made by the ruling regime. According to sources, the Army Chief talked about security measures during the discussions in light of the nation’s growing radicalism.
However, the Home Secretary for Bangladesh’s Interim administration, Nasimul Haque Gani, claimed that rumors of a declaration of emergency were “gossip.”
There were allegations in India a few days ago that the Army Chief was nearly overthrown by some of his own men who had pro-Pakistani views. However, General Zaman appears to have a tight hold on the army for the time being.
The Army Chief has repeatedly alluded to Dhaka’s deteriorating law and order situation and increased security.
The general secretary of the student-run Aamar Bangladesh Party, Asaduzzaman Fuad, charged that the Army Chief was planning to form a new interim administration with President Mohammed Shahbuddin.
“You may observe the Army Chief engaging in a new scheme and hosting some alleged meetings. to determine how a new temporary administration can be established under the President. Sheikh Hasina’s slave dog is this president. Should you attempt to govern the nation under Shahabuddin, thousands of Abu Syeds will sacrifice themselves and blow up the cantonment. Mr. Fuad advised against becoming involved in any disputes with Bangladesh. When pro-reform demonstrations in July 2024 turned violent and drove out then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her exile in India, student activist Abu Syed was killed.
The rumors of Asaduzzaman Fuad’s detention fueled the idea of a military coup to control the nation’s hardline forces. The AB Party, however, has refuted the arrest rumors.
Authorities say a 2-year-old kid died after he was allegedly left in an unsupervised automobile on Martha’s Vineyard for hours. Aimee Cotton, 41, the boy’s babysitter, has been charged with manslaughter. The youngster was transported to a Boston hospital via helicopter after the March 13 incident. Robert Galibois, the district attorney for Cape & Islands, said that he passed away tragically on Thursday.
Prior to the boy’s death, Cotton was charged with reckless behavior and assault and battery on a minor. At the time of the occurrence, she was taking care of the boy and a girl who was one year old. His mother teaches at Oak Bluffs Elementary School, and the youngster was from West Tisbury.
Cotton had first called 911 to report that the boy was becoming blue and not breathing. Police found that she had left the kids in the car for roughly three hours, despite her claims that she had only left him there for fifteen minutes. According to reports, Cotton acknowledged leaving them in the car as she prepared bacon and took care of other household duties.
“During this extremely painful moment, District Attorney Galibois’ thoughts are with the toddler’s family and loved ones,” the agency said.
The Kremlin declined to provide specifics of the negotiations, which both parties had stated would center on a possible naval ceasefire, but stated that Russia and the United States are analyzing the results of talks between their officials in Saudi Arabia on Monday.
The delegates, who had been investigating the possibility of a settlement between Russia and Ukraine covering navigation in the Black Sea among other matters, have returned to respective capitals, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“As you can see, we are discussing intricate technical negotiations. Consequently, it goes without saying that the details of these discussions will not be made public. Peskov stated, “This is not to be expected.”
“Secondly—I will say it again—analysis of the reports sent back to the capitals is currently underway. It will not be feasible to discuss some understandings till after that.
Additionally, he stated that there are currently no plans for a follow-up discussion between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, but that one might be arranged quickly if necessary.
During their conversation last week, Putin accepted a ban on hitting Ukrainian energy infrastructure but rejected Trump’s offer of a complete 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine.
According to Peskov, there was no discussion of a three-way meeting between Russia, the United States, and Ukraine at this time.
During a standoff over Israelis’ attempt to steal sheep from Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank, the Oscar-winning director of a documentary about the Israel-Palestinian conflict was taken into custody late Monday, according to a witness.
According to Jihad Nawajaa, leader of the Susiya local council, Hamdan Ballal, co-director of the award-winning film “No Other Land,” was at a gathering for Iftar, the conclusion of the daily Ramadan fast, in Susiya village near Hebron when a group of settlers stormed the event.
“The gathering during Iftar was attacked by dozens of settlers,” Nawajaa told Reuters over the phone. “There were roughly eight injuries on our side, and the young lads ran out to stop them.”
Ballal, who was hurt during the confrontation, was one of three individuals detained by Israeli police, he added. The extent of his injuries was unknown.
The Israeli military claimed that after Palestinians threw rocks at Israeli civilians’ cars, police and troops stepped in. According to the report, three Palestinians were taken into custody for allegedly hurling rocks at them.
Reports that at least one Palestinian was taken into custody in an ambulance were refuted.
This year’s Academy Awards saw the Oscar-winning film “No Other Land,” which was co-directed by Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers and told the story of how Israel uprooted a Palestinian community.
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