Activists wave Cuban and Palestinian flags from the vessel Maguro, arriving from Mexico with humanitarian aid as part of the “Nuestra America,” or Our America convoy, in Havana Bay, Cuba, March 24, 2026
Over 100 MPs call on PM to oppose Trump’s oil blockade on Cuba
MORE than 100 MPs have voiced “grave concern” over Donald Trump’s Cuba oil blockade, calling on PM Sir Keir Starmer to oppose the US president’s “collective punishment” of its civilian population.
Ministers were urged to reject Washington’s threat to slap tariffs on any other country that ships fuel to the island after it kidnapped Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January.
The US has blocked Venezuelan oil supplies to Cuba’s socialist government, which said last week that it had not received any fuel in three months.
Your Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, Labour, SNP, Plaid Cymru, Green, SDLP, and Lib Dem MPs have now signed an early day motion by Labour MP for Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr Steve Witherden.
Mr Corbyn told the Morning Star: “The aim of the criminal and inhumane blockade by the US is clear: to starve the Cuban people into submission. They will not succeed.
“As much as the United States would wish otherwise, Cuba is not alone.”
They collectively called on the government to reject the “unjustifiable” sanctions and US claims that Cuba poses an “extraordinary” threat.
…
Socialist MP Richard Burgon, who was in Cuba this weekend delivering humanitarian aid with an international delegation, said: “In Cuba I saw the cruel consequences of Trump’s total ban on fuel entering the country, including its impact on the ability to provide healthcare to those in need.
“Cutting off fuel to an entire country is an inhumane attempt by Trump to strangle the Cuban people into submission. It is illegal and it’s putting lives at risk.
“The UK rightly votes against the US blockade at the UN each year, but that must now be matched with action. It should follow Spain’s example and provide emergency humanitarian aid.”
Green Party parliamentary leader Dr Ellie Chowns said: “Trump has intensified his threats against Cuba following the collapse of the island nation’s energy grid under a US-imposed oil blockade, declaring just yesterday that he believes he will ‘take’ the country and ‘could do anything [he] want[s] with it. This cannot continue.”
Cuba Solidarity Campaign director Rob Miller said his group is delighted with the number of MPs who have signed the motion, saying: “Together they represent over seven million UK constituents.
“We now hope the UK government will move quickly to send humanitarian support to Cuba, a country with which we have had full diplomatic and friendly relations for over 120 years.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Demonstrators hold a protest against the war on Iran next to a military recruiting station in New York City on March 22, 2026. (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Trump is considering putting US troops on the ground in Iran. Only 12% of Americans want that to happen, according to a new Associated Press-NORC poll.
Nearly six in ten Americans say President Donald Trump’s war in Iran has gone too far, according to a poll out Wednesday from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The war launched late last month by the US and Israel has led to the deaths of more than 1,400 Iranian civilians, according to the Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA), and the displacement of more than 3 million. It has spiraled out across the region while creating a global economic crisis that has caused gas prices to spike to nearly $4 per gallon in the US.
Now, 59% of American adults say it’s “gone too far,” compared to just 26% who say it’s “been about right” and 13% who say it’s “not gone far enough,” according to the survey of 1,150 people.
AP-NORC poll | 3/19-3/23
President Trump approval ❌Disapprove 60% (-2) ✅Approve 38% (+2)
(Change from 2/5-2/8) —— President Trump approval on the issues ❌The economy (-23) ❌Trade negotiations w/ other countries (-23) ❌Cuba (-26) ❌Iran (-28) ❌Foreign policy (-30) ——…
— Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) March 25, 2026
Those opposed to continuing the president’s war of choice include 90% of Democrats and 63% of independents. Most Republicans, 52%, say the amount of force used by Trump has been “about right.” Just 20% want him to go further, while 26% say he’s gone too far.
In recent days, as Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has wreaked havoc on global oil prices, Trump has sent thousands more servicemembers to the region and reportedly mulled deploying American ground troops in hopes of reopening the crucial waterway.
Experts have warned that a ground deployment could turn the war into an even greater quagmire. Already, 13 US soldiers have been killed since February 28.
An even larger share of Americans, 62%, said they oppose the idea of deploying US troops on the ground in Iran, while just 12% say they support it and 26% say they have no opinion.
While a minority says it is very important for the US to stop Iran from threatening Israel or to replace its government with one more favorable to the US, Americans are prioritizing issues at home.
Ninety-three percent said it was very or somewhat important for the US to keep oil and gas prices low, which has so far not happened—in less than a month, they have spiked by about a dollar and have not shown signs of coming down, even as Trump has deployed emergency fuel reserves and lifted sanctions on some Iranian oil to juice supply.
A majority of Americans, 65%, also said they felt that preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon—one of Trump’s stated objectives for the war—was a very important foreign policy goal.
However, as journalist and commentator Adam Johnson pointed out in a piece for The Real News on Tuesday, the US public is “grossly misinformed” about the subject—25% wrongly believe Iran already possesses a nuke while 45% believe they are working towards developing one, which has been refuted by US intelligence assessments and reporting based on the testimony of US officials.
The unpopularity of the war with Iran is in line with previous polls showing that the majority of Americans believe the war benefits Israel more than the US and want the war to end quickly.
2026 Midterm Forecast March 24, 2026
House: 🟦 231 🟥 204 Senate: 🟥 50 🟦 50
Current generic ballot: 🟦 Democrats +6.7
Dem ceiling: House 242 seats, Senate 52 seats GOP ceiling: House 209 seats, Senate 53 seats pic.twitter.com/QUvJRer3vn
With Trump having returned to office on the explicit pledge to avoid war with Iran and the cost of living already at the center of the president’s near-historic unpopularity, Republicans’ outlook for this year’s midterm elections looks as grim as ever.
Polling aggregators predict Democrats will easily flip the House, and the Senate is now a toss-up, though Republicans still hold a slight edge.
According to polls, Republicans’ midterm chances truly began to tank in January amid outrage over federal immigration agents’ killings of two US citizens in Minneapolis. Though surveys haven’t shown GOP numbers getting markedly worse since the war began, recent opinion polling suggests it is not a non-factor.
A poll last week from the Institute of Middle East Understanding found that 43% of voters said they’re less likely to support Republicans in the midterms as a result of the war, compared to 31% who said they’re more likely.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone …Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Two members of the Iranian Red Crescent Society stand among others on the ruins of buildings in a residential area in Tehran, Iran, on March 15, 2026. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“The end of the war will occur when Iran decides it should end, not when Trump envisions its conclusion,” said an Iranian official.
Iranian state media reported Wednesday that Iran has rejected the Trump administration’s 15-point ceasefire plan, and a senior official outlined five conditions for ending the war, which the US and Israel launched late last month.
As President Donald Trumpsent thousands more troops to the Middle East, the ceasefire plan “was submitted to Iran by intermediaries from Pakistan, who have offered to host renewed negotiations between Washington and Tehran,” The Associated Press reported early Wednesday, citing an unnamed source briefed on the US proposal.
As experts warn that a global recession could occur if Iran continues to restrict the flow of fossil fuels through the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters highlighted that elevated “oil prices sank about 5% on Wednesday after reports the United States had sent Iran a 15-point proposal aimed at ending the war.”
However, “Iran has responded negatively to an American proposal aimed at ending the ongoing imposed war,” according to the Iranian state-run Press TV, which spoke with a senior political-security official.
Characterizing previous negotiations with the US—including nuclear talks in the lead-up to the current war—as deceptive, the official said that “Iran will end the war when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met.”
In addition to the Iranian government’s demands from the recent negotiations in Geneva, the official said, the five conditions under which Iran would now agree to end the war are:
A complete halt to “aggression and assassinations” by the enemy;
The establishment of concrete mechanisms to ensure that the war is not reimposed;
Guaranteed and clearly defined payment of war damages and reparations;
The conclusion of the war across all fronts and for all resistance groups involved throughout the region; and
Iran’s exercise of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz is and will remain Iran’s natural and legal right, and it constitutes a guarantee for the implementation of the other party’s commitments, and must be recognized.
A ceasefire is contingent upon acceptance of those conditions, and “no negotiations will be held prior to that,” the official told Press TV. “The end of the war will occur when Iran decides it should end, not when Trump envisions its conclusion.”
The Iranian government this week put the death toll from the US-Israeli assault at over 1,500. According to Reuters, the news agency of the US-based Human Rights Activists in Iran said at least 3,291 people, including 1,455 civilians, are dead. US and Israeli bombings have also damaged tens of thousands of civilian locations, including homes, schools, medical facilities, energy installations, courthouses, and United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization World Heritage sites.
There have also been civilian and military casualties across the region, including more than 1,000 people slaughtered in Israel’s bombing of Lebanon, 16 killed in Israel, and 13 confirmed deaths of US service members, according to the AP.
Speaking at UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday, Secretary-General António Guterres renewed his call for the US and Israel to end their war on Iran, which he said is “out of control” and “has broken past the limits even leaders thought unimaginable.”
“The world is staring down the barrel of a wider war, a rising tide of human suffering, and a deeper global economic shock. This has gone too far,” Guterres said. “It is time to stop climbing the escalation ladder—and start climbing the diplomatic ladder, and return to full respect of international law.”
“I have remained in close contact with many from the region and around the world. A number of initiatives for dialogue and peace are underway. They must succeed,” he continued. “My message to the United States and Israel is that it is high time to end the war—as human suffering deepens, civilian casualties mount, and the global economic impact is increasingly devastating. My message to Iran is to stop attacking their neighbors that are not parties to the conflict.”
The UN chief then turned to Lebanon, which he recently visited: “There, too, the war must stop. Hezbollah must stop launching attacks into Israel. And Israel must stop its military operations and strikes in Lebanon, which are hitting civilians the hardest. The Gaza model must not be replicated in Lebanon.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone …Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles listens as US President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media aboard Air Force One as he travels from Washington, DC to West Palm Beach, Florida, on January 31, 2026. (Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“If the DOJ is so confident in Trump’s conduct, why are they desperate” to hide former special counsel Jack Smith’s report, wondered Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee.
Democrats on the US House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday demanded that President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice “stop the cover-up” of former special counsel Jack Smith’s full investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents following his first term, after new material sent to the panel revealed that some documents were stolen to advance the president’s business interests.
Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi about “cherry-picked documents” related to Smith’s investigations into Trump’s taking of classified documents, which he stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.
The DOJ has regularly produced documents for the Judiciary Committee as Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has sought to portray Smith as having a partisan vendetta against the president, said Raskin. Smith led investigations into Trump’s hoarding of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results during the Biden administration. Last month US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, permanently blocked the release of Smith’s final report on the documents case.
Raskin wrote Wednesday that even as Jordan has embarked on a “vindictive campaign” against Smith and has sought a narrow selection of material from the DOJ, Bondi had “quite amazingly missed the fact that some of the documents you provided include damning evidence about your boss’s conduct and may well violate the gag order your DOJ and Donald Trump demanded from Judge Aileen Cannon.”
Those documents include a January 13, 2023 memorandum from prosecutors who said the FBI had determined Trump retained documents that “would be pertinent to certain business interests.” The documents “established a motive for retaining them” that related to Trump’s businesses.
Trump stole highly classified documents to make money is one of the least surprising things Trump has done. https://t.co/XOWOeoO6IE
Trump and his family have garnered condemnation for profiting off the presidency, with the family raking in more than $5 billion in cryptocurrency profits since he took office for a second time, and Trump’s two eldest sons investing in a drone company that is vying for Pentagon contracts as the president wages war on Iran.
The prosecutors’ memo also says the retention of some of the documents represented “an aggravated potential harm to national security,” with one “particularly sensitive document” accessible only by an estimated six people in the US government, including the president, before he took it to his private property.
Additionally, the memo says prosecutors had “identified a classified map that we believe Trump may have shown to individuals on board” his private airplane in June 2022. Susie Wiles, the CEO of Trump’s super political action committee and now the White House chief of staff, “was aboard and witnessed this event. Raskin’s letter includes a flight manifest listing 14 people who were aboard Trump’s private plane when he allegedly showed the classified map, but all of the names were redacted.
Raskin emphasized that without access to the second volume of Smith’s final report, the Judiciary Committee cannot confirm what the classified map shows, the relationship between his business interest and the classified documents, or what the especially sensitive material is.
The congressman noted that some facts are known about Trump’s activities around the time that he allegedly showed the classified map:
We do know that around the time of this flight to Bedminster, President Trump was entering into partnerships with Saudi-backed LIV Golf and state-linked real estate firm Dar al Arkan. A month after this flight, in July 2022, President Trump played golf at Bedminster with Yasir al-Rumayyan, head of the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia—the same official who plied the Trump family with tens of millions of dollars as the family began to run out of money between terms… We also know that there are reports that Donald Trump, at one point while on the phone with his ghostwriter, “made a reference to having classified records relating to the bombing of Iran.” He also reportedly boasted that it was only the hawks who wanted to attack Iran, not him, and that he had Pentagon war plans “done by the military and given to me” about such a potential attack.
“If this map is related to our military posture in the Middle East, and it was in fact shown to any foreign official, Saudi or otherwise, that would amount to an unforgivable betrayal of our men and women in uniform who are currently valiantly fighting in President Trump’s disastrous war against Iran,” wrote Raskin.
“It is now clear that DOJ is in possession of evidence that President Trump has already endangered national security to further the interests of Trump family businesses,” he wrote. “It is time for you to stop the cover-up and allow the American people to know what secrets he betrayed and how he may have cashed in on them.”
Raskin demanded information from the DOJ regarding who accessed the classified materials, whether any foreign actors were given access, and what the documents contain.
“Every new detail that comes to light about the report Judge Cannon has gone to great lengths to keep hidden underscores the same basic truth: The public is being denied access to critical information about one of the most serious national security scandals in American history,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of the government watchdog American Oversight. “While fragments of the factual record have seen the light of day, the full report remains under seal because Judge Cannon has prioritized the president’s personal interests over transparency. The public has a right to see special counsel Smith’s findings in full. Blocking the report’s release only serves to protect those in power and prevent accountability.”
After Raskin’s letter was released, the DOJ took the social media to accuse him and Smith of being “blinded by hatred of President Trump” and pronounce the department “the most transparent in history.”
“This letter is nothing more than a cheap political stunt, almost as if taking cues from members of the corrupt Jack Smith prosecution team,” said the DOJ.
The House Judiciary Committee Democrats retorted that the administration “is doing legal gymnastics to prevent the American people from ever seeing special counsel Jack Smith’s full report on how Trump stole classified documents to advance his corrupt business interests.”
“If the DOJ is so confident in Trump’s conduct, why are they desperate to keep Smith’s report under lock and key?” they asked. “Stop the cover-up, release the evidence, and let the American people decide for ourselves.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone …Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres holds a press briefing outlining his priorities for 2026 at the United Nations headquarters in New York, United States, on January 29, 2026. Selçuk Acar – Anadolu Agency]
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Wednesday that the Iran war has spun beyond all boundaries, declaring the conflict “out of control,” cautioning that the world faces the prospect of a far broader confrontation, Anadolu reports.
“More than three weeks on, this war is out of control,” Guterres told reporters at a news conference at UN headquarters in New York, adding that “the conflict has broken past the limits even leaders thought imaginable.”
“The world is staring down the barrel of a wider war, a rising tide of human suffering, and a deeper global economic shock,” he said, stressing that it “has gone too far.”
Calling for an end to the military escalation, Guterres said. “It is time to stop climbing the escalation ladder and start climbing the diplomatic ladder, and return to full respect of international law.”
Pointing to the key parties involved in the war, he said, “My message to the United States and Israel is that it is high time to end the war as human suffering deepens, civilian casualties mount, and the global economic impact is increasingly devastating.”
Guterres urged Iran to end attacks on the Gulf countries, arguing that they “are not parties to the conflict.”
Highlighting the economic ripple effects of the war, Guterres said, “The prolonged closure of the Strait (of Hormuz) is choking the movement of oil, gas, and fertilizer at a critical moment in the global planting season.”
Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical artery for global goods and energy trade, had been largely disrupted by escalating tensions in the Gulf following US and Israeli attacks on Iran and Tehran’s retaliation.
The strait, which connects Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, and Iran to global markets, handles roughly 25% of global oil trade, about 20% of liquefied natural gas trade, and nearly 30% of fertilizer trade.
The UN chief turned his attention to Lebanon and said, “Israel must stop its military operations and strikes in Lebanon, which are hitting civilians the hardest,” adding, “The Gaza model must not be replicated in Lebanon.”
In efforts to de-escalate tensions, Guterres further announced the appointment of Jean Arnault of France as his “personal envoy to lead the UN efforts on the conflict and its consequences.”
Arnault was the UN chief’s personal envoy on Afghanistan and regional issues in 2021.
When asked for details about Arnault’s role, Guterres said he “will be doing everything possible to support all the efforts for mediation, all the efforts for peace, to be in contact with all the parties” in the Middle East.
Guterres emphasized the need for diplomacy and full respect for international law, expressing hope that the parties involved in the Iran war will reach “an understanding to end this horrible conflict.”
“Because the consequences of the conflict, that is totally out of control at the present moment, are absolutely devastating,” he added.
The region has been shaken since the US and Israel launched a joint offensive on Iran on Feb. 28, so far killing more than 1,300 people, including then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Iran has retaliated with drone and missile strikes targeting Israel, along with Jordan, Iraq, and Gulf countries hosting US military assets, causing casualties and damage to infrastructure while disrupting global markets and aviation.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Orcas discuss rotting brain. Front Orca says “Wish someone would lock him up”.Donald Trump warns against following the https://onaquietday.org blog, says that it’s easy atm, she only needs to report war crimes supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion.Keir Starmer explains that UK is participating defensively in Trump and Israel’s criminal war for Israel’s genocidal expansion in Iran and states that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
Activists wave Cuban and Palestinian flags from the vessel Maguro, arriving from Mexico with humanitarian aid as part of the “Nuestra America,” or Our America convoy, in Havana Bay, Cuba, March 24, 2026
