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Iran ‘won war and diplomacy,’ foreign minister says after Trump’s call for Tehran to surrender

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Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi gives a speech in Tehran, Iran on November 30, 2025. [Ahmet Serdar Eser – Anadolu Agency]

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tuesday that Iran had “won both the war and diplomacy,” claiming those who initially sought Tehran’s “unconditional surrender” later sought negotiations, Anadolu reports.

Speaking at an event, Araghchi said Iran resisted for days against what he described as “the world’s largest apparent military,” alongside another army claiming military power and with the support of nearly all Western countries and some other states inside and outside the region, according to the Tasnim news agency.

“Those who were seeking unconditional surrender, shortly after the war began, begged for negotiations,” Araghchi said.

READ: Iran’s IRGC dismisses Trump’s claim of backchannel talks as ‘lies’

He claimed Tehran initially rejected a ceasefire and continued fighting until reaching a point where the other side accepted a ceasefire and negotiations “on Iran’s terms.”

“We fought with strength, and we negotiated with strength,” he said, adding that many foreign ministers had told him: “You won both the war and diplomacy.”

​​​​​​​Araghchi’s remarks came after US President Donald Trump called on Iran on Monday to give up and “raise the white flag.”

READ: Trump says he is not seeking extension of framework agreement with Iran

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Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don't need people to join wars after they've already won. He's challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it's fun to kill everyone ... unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.

Continue ReadingIran ‘won war and diplomacy,’ foreign minister says after Trump’s call for Tehran to surrender

Trump says no talks with Iran underway or scheduled

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United States President Donald Trump speaks to the press before departing the White House for Florida on May 1, 2026, in Washington, DC. [Celal Güneş – Anadolu Agency]

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that no talks with Iran were underway or scheduled, adding that the Strait of Hormuz remained open under Washington’s naval blockade, Anadolu reports.

“There are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

“The Naval Blockade remains in full force and effect. The Hormuz Strait is open and operating. All water mines have been removed or detonated,” he added.

READ: Trump shares image depicting Strait of Hormuz as ‘US territory’

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Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it's fun to kill everyone ... unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.

Continue ReadingTrump says no talks with Iran underway or scheduled

Trump shares image depicting Strait of Hormuz as ‘US territory’

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Trump Shares Image Portraying Strait of Hormuz as ‘US Territory’. [Truth/@realDonaldTrump]

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday shared an image depicting the Strait of Hormuz as US territory, days after saying he would declare the strategic waterway part of the United States, Anadolu reports.

Trump posted an image on his social media account showing a map of the Strait of Hormuz labeled “New US Territory,” echoing his earlier remarks about declaring the waterway US territory.

Speaking at an event on Aug. 14, Trump claimed that the US Navy was enforcing a complete blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

READ: Trump says he is not seeking extension of framework agreement with Iran

“After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” Trump said.

In a separate social media post, Trump also said the US had “total control” over the Strait of Hormuz and that he believed Washington could maintain that control.

Iranian officials, meanwhile, have repeatedly said the strait will not reopen unless the US ends its intervention and naval blockade and fulfills the terms of an agreement signed between Tehran and Washington on June 17.

READ: Iran ‘won war and diplomacy,’ foreign minister says after Trump’s call for Tehran to surrender

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Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it's fun to kill everyone ... unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.

Continue ReadingTrump shares image depicting Strait of Hormuz as ‘US territory’

US sanctions International Criminal Court’s president, official

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ICC President Tomoko Akane. [Photo by EVA PLEVIER/ANP/POOL/AFP via Getty Images]

The US imposed sanctions Tuesday on International Criminal Court President Tomoko Akane and official Abdoulaye Seye, Anadolu reports.

Akane, a Japanese national who has served as ICC president since 2024, and Seye, a Senegalese national, were added to the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List, according to the agency’s website.

Both designations were made pursuant to Executive Order 14203, “Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court,” which US President Donald Trump signed on Feb. 6, 2025, and which has since been used to designate 10 ICC officials, including former Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan and eight judges.

The listing blocks any US assets held by Akane and Seye, and bars Americans and entities from engaging in transactions with them.

The move comes as Washington intensified pressure on the court after it issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Akane and Seye of “directly” engaging in efforts by the ICC to “investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction.”

READ: US sanctions 4 ICC judges, deputy prosecutors over Netanyahu arrest warrants

“Our whole of government campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the ICC to national sovereignty will be sweeping and we expect more countries to join our campaign by ending their funding and participation in this politicized and unaccountable court,” he added.

The US State Department last month launched a campaign aimed at dismantling what the Trump administration has described as a threat by the ICC to “American sovereignty.”

Speaking at Camp David last month, Rubio said the ICC had “made themselves illegitimate” by claiming jurisdiction over countries that are not members of the court. The US and Israel are not parties to the ICC.

Trump then said Rubio was seeking to “defend Bibi and various other people,” a reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Akane, the ICC’s sixth president and first Japanese national to hold the post, has repeatedly criticized the sanctions campaign since it began, telling the court’s Assembly of States Parties in December that the measures would not alter how judges interpret their mandate.

“We will never accept any kind of pressures from anyone on issues of interpretation of the statutory framework and adjudication of cases,” Akane told the assembly, stressing that the court’s “independence and impartiality are our polar stars and remain unaffected.”

The ICC has not yet issued a statement on the latest designations.

OPINION: America’s war on international justice

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Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it's fun to kill everyone ... unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.

Continue ReadingUS sanctions International Criminal Court’s president, official

The impunity granted to Israel is as shocking as its violence

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Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, during a news conference at the Knesset in Jerusalem, Israel, on, 05 February , 2024 [Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg via Getty Images]

by Ramona Wadi  walzerscent

More incitement to violence from Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir exposes how colonial violence is aimed at the entire colonised population. Speaking on a podcast with former Israeli hostage Rom Braslavski, Ben Gvir said that Israeli forced should kill 30-40 Palestinians each night in Gaza. 

Braslavski requested to act as executioner should Ben Gvir’s plan come to pass, to which the security minister replied, “I will turn the world upside down to make that happen. I promise you that I will do everything I can and turn the world upside down until it happens.”

As shocking as the comments are, both are the product of an enterprise that knows it can only sustain itself through ethnic cleansing.

In 2025, a poll by the Hebrew University Centre showed that 87 per cent of the Israeli government’s supporters perceived “no innocents’ in Gaza, while 64 per cent of Israelis held the same view.

Israel’s Channel 14 branded all Palestinians killed during the genocide as terrorists. Among settlers that normalise the killings of Palestinians, and which even glorifies those murdering them, Ben Gvir’s comments are unlikely to elicit any lingering shock. On the contrary, Ben Gvir’s wish for extrajudicial killings may well find willing participants. And while Gaza remains within reach of the Israeli military in terms of extrajudicial assassinations, the occupied West Bank faces both Israeli institutions and settlers.

READ: Extremist Israeli minister says “30 to 40” Gazans should be killed every day

Ben Gvir’s comments were aimed at Gaza, but Israel’s colonisation plans do not only include Gaza. The occupied West Bank, which faces daily violence from settlers, is much at risk from extrajudicial killings. In Ras al-Ain, south of Nablus, Israeli settlers besieged Palestinian families and cut off their electricity, water and food supplies. While attracting international attention, the UN as usual preferred to rely on its usual condemnations while Erika Guevara Ross, Amnesty International Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns, described the siege as “an accelerating and well-documented pattern of coordinated and strategic settler terror, enabled, backed and funded by the State of Israel.” True, but what is being done with the information that is already mainstream knowledge to the rest of the world?

Likewise, Ben Gvir’s comments have not prompted a reckoning with world leaders or international institutions. Israel has already internalised such thinking – it thrives upon creating victims to sustain itself. The international community, supposedly a reference for human rights under the UN, does not seem to consider Ben Gvir’s threats dangerous enough. Even though Israel has a proven history of torturing and killing Palestinians. 

Killing 30-40 Palestinians per night is not merely a fantasy. It has already been carried out by the Israeli military during the genocide; also exceeding that quota. Ben Gvir has also found someone willing to carry out the assassinations, even on a much larger scale. For Israel, as Ben Gvir again elucidated, Palestinians “are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people.”

If, according to Ben Gvir, killing Palestinians is killing non-people, then Israel is already completely absolved of culpability. This is the type of impunity the UN is harvesting for Israel. 

BLOG: Israel’s imaginings of forced displacement, and UN culpability

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

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UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it's fun to kill everyone ... unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.

Continue ReadingThe impunity granted to Israel is as shocking as its violence