Iran blames US blockade for diplomatic deadlock as ceasefire holds

Iranian officials have pointed squarely at Washington as the reason peace negotiations remain stalled, insisting that Tehran will not bow to what they have called American “bullying” while a naval blockade continues to strangle Iranian ports.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and one of its lead negotiators, said on Wednesday that a full ceasefire between the two countries is impossible as long as the United States maintains its naval blockade. Speaking in his first public comments since Donald Trump, the US president, announced an extension of the truce, Ghalibaf drew a firm line. “A complete ceasefire only makes sense if it is not violated by the maritime blockade and the hostage-taking of the world’s economy, and if the Zionist warmongering across all fronts is halted,” he wrote on X. “Reopening the Strait of Hormuz is impossible with such a flagrant breach of the ceasefire.”

Masoud Pezeshkian, Iranian President echoed that position, insisting that diplomacy rather than pressure was the only credible path forward. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has welcomed dialogue and agreement and continues to do so,” he said, addressing both the US and Israel directly.

The standoff comes nearly two months after the war between the United States, Israel and Iran began, with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continuing to disrupt roughly a fifth of global oil and gas supplies and deepen an international energy crisis. No new talks have been scheduled and no deadline has been attached to the current ceasefire extension

Israeli strikes in Southern Lebanon kill five, including Journalist

Israeli air strikes have killed at least five people in southern Lebanon, including a journalist, further straining a fragile ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that an initial strike hit a car in the village of at-Tiri, killing two people inside. Israel’s military said it had targeted two vehicles that had departed from a building used by Hezbollah. Shortly afterwards, a second strike hit a building in the same village, trapping two journalists who had travelled to the scene to report on the first attack.

Amal Khalil, a journalist with the local outlet Al Akhbar, was later found dead under the rubble. Her colleague, Zeinab Faraj, was pulled out alive but was reported to be in a very serious condition requiring surgery. Rescue workers and Red Cross teams were reportedly unable to reach the journalists for several hours due to continued Israeli strikes in the area.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Health accused Israel of deliberately “pursuing” the journalists by targeting the building where they had taken shelter, a claim that has drawn condemnation from press freedom advocates. The deaths bring renewed scrutiny to the terms of the Lebanon ceasefire, which had been one of the preconditions Iran set before agreeing to any negotiations with the United States.

Billionaire backer sues Trump family’s crypto venture over alleged extortion

The Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, is facing a lawsuit from one of its most prominent backers, who has accused the company of running an illegal scheme to seize his digital assets.

Justin Sun, the founder of the multi-billion dollar crypto project TRON, filed a complaint on Tuesday in a San Francisco federal court alleging that World Liberty had frozen all of his WLFI tokens, stripped him of his right to vote on governance issues, and was threatening to permanently destroy his holdings by “burning” them without justification.

Sun, who initially invested $45 million in World Liberty and whose tokens were at one point valued at over one billion dollars, said the actions amounted to extortion. “They wrongfully froze all of my tokens, stripped me of my right to vote on governance proposals, and have threatened to permanently destroy my tokens by burning them, all without any proper justification,” he said in a post announcing the lawsuit.

World Liberty, co-founded by Donald Trump, the US president, and his son Eric Trump, denied any wrongdoing, with co-founder Zach Witkoff describing the lawsuit as “a desperate attempt to deflect attention from Sun’s own misconduct.” Eric Trump dismissed the case entirely, saying: “The only thing more ridiculous than this lawsuit is spending six million dollars on a banana duct-taped to a wall,” a reference to Sun’s 2024 purchase of a Maurizio Cattelan artwork.

The case has attracted wider attention amid concerns about World Liberty borrowing against the value of its tokens, and questions about the Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent decision to drop its separate investigation into Sun.

Erdogan says Turkiye working to revive Russia-Ukraine peace talks

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish President  has said his country is actively working to restart negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and bring the leaders of both nations to the table, as Ankara continues to position itself as a key mediator in the conflict.

Erdogan made the remarks during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in the Turkish capital Ankara on Wednesday. “We are engaged, as Turkiye, for the Ukraine-Russia war to end with peace, and we are working to revive negotiations and start talks at leaders’ level,” the Turkish presidency said in a readout of the discussions.

Turkiye has maintained unusually balanced ties with both Moscow and Kyiv since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a position that has allowed Ankara to serve as a channel for communication even as Western nations imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia. Erdogan also told Rutte that maintaining transatlantic ties was “indispensable” but made clear that Ankara expected European NATO allies to shoulder greater responsibility for transatlantic security going forward.

Man who stole Kristi Noem’s handbag sentenced to three years in prison

A Chilean national has been sentenced to three years in prison for stealing a handbag belonging to Kristi Noem, the then-United States Secretary of Homeland Security, in an incident that sparked questions about the adequacy of her Secret Service protection.

Mario Bustamante Leiva, 50, was convicted of the theft, which took place in Washington, DC, in April 2025. US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a statement that Bustamante Leiva had “methodically targeted women at restaurants, stealing their purses, and monetizing the stolen cards within minutes.”

Following his prison term, he will also be subject to deportation.

His co-defendant, Cristian Montecino-Sanzana, received a lighter sentence of 13 months in prison and three years of supervised release, but also faces deportation. The Trump administration has used the case to bolster its argument for stricter immigration enforcement and its military-led crackdown on crime in Washington, DC. The incident had drawn considerable attention at the time because Noem’s Secret Service detail was present on the night of the theft.

AFRICA

Pope Leo visits notorious Equatorial Guinea prison, calls for justice reform

Pope Leo has visited one of Equatorial Guinea’s most notorious prisons, delivering a message of hope to inmates while using the occasion to call on authorities to treat incarceration as an opportunity for rehabilitation rather than punishment alone.

The American-born pontiff, 70, visited a prison in the city of Bata on Wednesday as part of a four-nation Africa tour nearing its end. Speaking to around 600 detainees, including approximately 30 women, Leo said that the administration of justice must always protect human dignity. “True justice seeks not so much to punish as to help rebuild the lives of victims, offenders and communities wounded by evil,” he told the assembled prisoners, many of them young men dressed in orange or khaki-green uniforms.

The visit drew renewed attention to longstanding human rights concerns in Equatorial Guinea, where campaigners have for years documented abuses within the prison system. Leo listened to testimonies from several prisoners in a courtyard inside the facility. Despite rain beginning to fall during his remarks, the detainees remained standing outside throughout.

US in talks to resettle stranded Afghans in Democratic Republic of Congo

The Trump administration is in discussions with the Democratic Republic of Congo to resettle approximately 1,100 Afghan nationals who have been stranded in Qatar for years while awaiting United States visas, according to an advocacy organisation working on their behalf.

The Afghans fled their country following the Taliban’s return to power after the US withdrawal from Kabul in 2021. Although they had been awaiting resettlement in Qatar, visa processing for Afghan nationals was effectively halted after the Trump administration took office in January 2025. The situation worsened further in November when Washington suspended all immigrant visa processing for Afghans following a deadly shooting involving an Afghan former CIA-backed paramilitary unit member.

In June 2025, Afghanistan was added to a list of 12 countries subject to a US travel ban, with only a narrow exemption for Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans who had served alongside American troops and diplomats. The proposed resettlement in Congo represents one of the few potential avenues out of limbo for those caught in the policy freeze, though no agreement has been finalised.

Sierra Leone signs offshore survey deal with Shell

Sierra Leone has signed a reconnaissance permit agreement with oil major Shell, allowing the company to conduct advanced geological and geophysical surveys across multiple offshore blocks as the West African nation seeks to attract investment in its deepwater hydrocarbon potential.
The agreement, announced by Sierra Leone’s Petroleum Directorate on Wednesday, covers an area of approximately 20,600 square kilometres and includes basin modelling and petroleum systems analysis. It follows a similar deal signed with Italian energy company Eni last October and is designed to build a clearer picture of what lies beneath Sierra Leone’s offshore waters before any exploration drilling begins.

Foday Mansaray, director general of the Petroleum Directorate of Sierra Leone, said the strategy was focused on “de-risking the basin through high-quality data” and “attracting credible global players.” Shell, for its part, noted that the agreement was non-binding and did not signal any commitment to proceed, with any further steps subject to regulatory processes and due diligence.

UAE-Backed Colombian mercenaries supported Sudan’s RSF in el-Fasher, report finds

A network of Colombian mercenaries backed by the United Arab Emirates provided critical support to Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, enabling them to capture the western city of el-Fasher last year, according to a new investigation by the security analysis organisation the Conflict Insights Group.

The report, which used data obtained by tracking the mobile phones of Colombian fighters, represents what the organisation describes as the first research to prove UAE involvement with certainty. “We are making public what governments have long known, that there is a direct link between Abu Dhabi and the RSF,” said Justin Lynch, the group’s director. The investigation found that mercenaries involved in drone operations had travelled from a UAE base to Sudan ahead of the RSF’s takeover of el-Fasher, with one detail striking analysts: the mercenaries had named their wi-fi network after their unit, which was linked to a company operating out of the UAE.
The fall of el-Fasher marked one of the most brutal chapters of a conflict that has produced what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with tens of thousands killed and millions displaced. The UAE has consistently denied supporting the RSF. Colombian President Gustavo Petro had previously referred to the mercenaries as “spectres of death” and described their recruitment as a form of human trafficking. The BBC reported it had sought a response from the relevant parties.