Category: East Asia

President Donald Trump is lashing out at critics and angrily denying that Israel’s government convinced him to launch the nearly two-month-old war against Iran that has roiled global markets and sent energy prices soaring amid an ongoing Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Writing on Truth Social on Monday, Trump claimed Israel “never talked me into war with Iran.”
“The results of Oct. 7th, added to my lifelong opinion that IRAN CAN NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON, did,” he said.
The president’s denial directly contradicts what Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in early March during the opening days of the war.
During a brief press availability at the Capitol, Rubio — who also serves as Trump’s national security adviser — said Trump was forced into a preemptive response after learning of an imminent Israeli attack, as officials knew such an attack would trigger retaliation against US military personnel in the Middle East.
“It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under a..

Donald Trump rebuked one of his own Cabinet officials on Monday after his top energy chief told CNN that he wasn’t sure when higher gas prices would fall back down and stated that price hikes could potentially persist into 2027.
The president conducted one of his increasingly common early-morning phone interviews, this time from The Hill, on Monday and responded to an interview Energy Secretary Chris Wright gave on CNN’s State of the Union a day earlier.
Though most experts (including Wright) have warned that higher gas prices are the result of a supply shock to the oil market that likely won’t be fully steadied for months, the president instead insisted that prices would plunge once his administration signs a peace agreement to end the war in Iran.
Gas prices will drop “as soon as this ends,” Trump told The Hill. Wright, on Sunday, said that such a price drop “might not happen until next year.”
“No, I think he’s wrong on that. Totally wrong,” the president insisted to The Hill on Mond..

Trump warns ‘no more Mr Nice Guy’ and threatens new strikes on Iran if deal not agreedDonald Trump threatened to strike Iran’s civilian infrastructure again on Sunday in an effort to bring the regime to the table for 11th-hour talks before the ceasefire expires next week.
The US president took to social media to urge Iran to make a deal to end the war as he announced that negotiators would be heading to Islamabad for talks on Monday evening.
“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” Trump wrote.
“NO MORE MR. NICE GUY! They’ll come down fast, they’ll come down easy and, if they don’t take the DEAL, it will be my Honor to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran, by other Presidents, for the last 47 years.”
It was unclear whether Iran was sending its own delegation, after their top negotiator said both sides remaine..

A decorated U.S. military veteran fell victim to an online sextortion scheme after sending compromising nudes to someone he met on a social networking platform for fetishists looking to match with “like-minded kink friends,” according to court documents obtained by The Independent.
In a previously unreported petition filed March 8 in Kings County Supreme Court that aims to unmask the alleged blackmailer, the Brooklyn resident is described as a “highly accomplished” soldier who has been “recognized with several awards” across “multiple deployments.“
“John Doe,” as the victim is being identified in the proceeding, was initially targeted last November while on FetLife, a site for members of the fetish community to connect. Users fall into some 600 different categories, FetLife tells visitors, listing such subsets as “Boot Slut,” “Fallen Angel,” “Rubberist,” and “Pig.”
Since then, several explicit selfies the veteran shared with the person – who posed as a woman but turned out to be a man ..

President Donald Trump cracked a joke about wanting to take a psychedelic for symptoms of anxiety and depression during a White House event touting the benefits of the drugs.
Joe Rogan, who has been fiercely critical of Trump’s war in Iran, was a special guest in the Oval Office Saturday morning to witness the president sign an executive order to “accelerate medical treatments for serious mental illness,” including psychedelic therapies, which Rogan advocates.
Trump touted the success of the psychedelic drug ibogaine—a Schedule I controlled substance—and cited a study in which he said participants experienced an “80 to 90 percent reduction in symptoms of depression and anxiety within one month.”
“Can I have some, please?” Trump quipped, prompting the room to erupt in laughter. “I’ll do whatever it takes…I don’t have time to be depressed. If you stay busy enough, maybe that’s what works too, that’s what I do.”
Rogan, who endorsed Trump for president in 2024, said the executive order cam..

Eighteen-year-old Lauryn Muller was scrolling through social media when she encountered a video of Donald Trump disparaging California Governor Gavin Newsom over his dyslexia.
The clip deeply affected Ms Muller, stirring memories of her own difficulties learning to read and the persistent feeling that something was amiss with her. Mr Trump had labelled Mr Newsom “stupid,” “low IQ,” “mentally disabled,” and declared him “unfit to become president.”
While Ms Muller recognised the comments as part of a political rivalry – Mr Trump is a Republican and Mr Newsom, a Democrat, is anticipated to contend for the White House in 2028 – the remarks resonated with her on a deeply personal level.
“We’ve had to overcome so many deficits, and for someone to, on a national stage, say, yeah, they will never be like us — that definitely came as an emotional sting to me,” said Muller, an incoming student at Auburn University whose dyslexia was identified as a child.
open image in galleryLauryn Muller, w..

Donald Trump has told “useless” Nato to stay away from the Strait of Hormuz after the UK and France announced they would work to protect shipping “as soon as conditions allow”.
In another explosive rant, the US president, who has been heavily critical of the key alliance, once again accused it of being “useless when needed” and dubbed it a “paper tiger”.
The criticism came after Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron vowed to lead a “multinational mission” aimed at protecting ships passing through the vital waterway, which Iran has now agreed to reopen for the duration of its ceasefire with the US.
“This will be strictly peaceful and defensive, as a mission to reassure commercial shipping and support mine clearance,” the prime minister said at a gathering of world leaders in Paris on Friday.
“We invite all nations with an interest in the free flow of global trade to join us. Some have already indicated their readiness to contribute. We will take this forward with a military planning conf..

Fidel Castro’s grand-nephew tried to deliver a secret letter to Donald Trump warning that Cuba was preparing for a possible US incursion, according to a report.
Raúl Rodríguez Castro, the grandson and aide of Cuba’s former leader Raul Castro, gave a letter to a businessman in Havana in the hope that it would reach the White House, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a US official.
The letter was formatted like a diplomatic note and was emblazoned with an official Cuban seal. It proposed economic and investment agreements as well as sanctions relief for Cuba.
Roberto Carlos Chamizo González, 37, a Cuban businessman involved in private, high-end auto rentals and luxury tourism who was tasked with delivering the letter, was sent back to Havana by an agent of Miami’s Customs and Border Protection, who obtained the letter.
open image in galleryUS President Donald Trump gestures during a roundtable focused on tax cuts in Las Vegas, Nevada (Reuters)The letter followed a series of rem..

Former Virginia Lieutenant Gov. Justin Fairfax and his wife were found dead at their home in a murder-suicide Thursday morning amid going through a “messy divorce,” police said.
The 47-year-old Democrat, who served from 2018 to 2022, shot and killed his wife, Cerina Fairfax, before he shot himself shortly after midnight Thursday, Fairfax County police said at a press conference.
The couple had been “in an ongoing domestic dispute surrounding what seems to be a complicated or messy divorce,” said county police chief Kevin Davis.
“From what I understand at this early stage, [Justin Fairfax] was recently served some paperwork associated with an upcoming court proceeding. That apparently led to this incident last night,” Davis said.
Their two teenage children were at the family’s Annandale home at the time of the shootings and their son called 911, Davis added.
open image in galleryJustin Fairfax, the former lieutenant governor of Virginia, shot and killed his wife, Cerina Fairfax, at th..

Europe only has around six weeks of jet fuel supply left, an energy chief has warned, in what he fears could be “the largest energy crisis we have ever faced”.
Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, added flight cancellations will begin “soon” if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed amid the Iran war, potentially plunging summer holidays into chaos.
It comes as easyJet announced it expected a headline loss of between £540 million and £560 million before tax for the six months to the end of March, with the airline having spent an extra £25 million on jet fuel last month.
US president Donald Trump’s ongoing blockade of the strategic shipping route has held up much of the world’s oil supply in the Gulf and sent fuel prices soaring.
It has prompted fears of flight delays and cancellations for Britons as they prepare to travel for the half-term school break.
Speaking from Paris on Thursday, Mr Birol said: “In the past there was a group called ‘Dire Straits’. It’s a dire s..