Category: South Asia

President Donald Trump described Iranian protesters being shot “between the eyes” by snipers and dying en masse as he subjected a room full of White House guests including children to a rant about the Iran war on Tuesday.
Trump gave the group of children and other White House guests a stark and somewhat gory look into global politics on Tuesday as he held them captive in the Oval Office while he took questions from the press on the Iran war and other topics. He then followed it up by launching into a Q&A session with the media, leaving his guests standing awkwardly by for the second time in two months as he rambled on about unrelated issues.
In one surreal moment the president was asked by a reporter — with a young child standing directly beside him — whether he believed Iranian protesters could topple their government if armed by the U.S., and the president responded by describing the brutal massacre of protesters, with detail, to the press and his assembled visitors.
“They don’t have..

A Secret Service officer was arrested and placed on leave after allegedly exposing himself and masturbating in front of guests at a Miami hotel.
John Spillman, 33, “committed the offense of indecent exposure” at a DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Miami Airport & Convention Center late Sunday night, according to an arrest report obtained by WSVN.
Hotel visitors told investigators they were in the lobby, and Spillman started following them, making guests retreat to their rooms for safety. One guest told authorities she and others were in “fear for their lives,” according to the report.
The guests then “saw the defendant masturbating next to their hotel room,” prompting them to call hotel security.
Spillman was found “with his pants lowered and masturbating on the sixth floor,” the arrest report says.
open image in gallerySecret Service officer John Spillman was arrested and charged with indecent exposure after masturbating in front of guests at a Miami hotel (Miami-Dade Sheriff's Off..

President Donald Trump says Iran will “be blown off the face of the earth” if U.S. vessels guiding ships through the Strait of Hormuz are attacked, escalating his threats to eliminate Iranian civilization as the countries test a tenuous ceasefire during the weeks-long war.
U.S. military officials said Iran launched missiles, drones and small boats at ships sailing through the passage with U.S. support on Monday. Six small Iranian boats were targeting civilian vessels, according to officials.
If Iranians continue to target commercial ships during the so-called Project Freedom escort operation, the country will “be blown off the face of the earth,” Trump told Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst on Monday.
Trump’s latest rhetoric follows last month’s threats that a “whole civilization will die” in Iran “never to be brought back again” if the nation did not agree to a ceasefire deal and reopen the Strait, whose effective closure has choked off global oil supplies and surged barrel prices.
“..

Mali 's junta leader and the country’s president has assumed the duties of defense minister, authorities said Monday, after the incumbent was killed in sweeping, coordinated attacks by separatist and jihadi forces that stunned the West African nation.
According to a presidential decree announced on state television, Assimi Goita will remain president while also taking on the new role. Former armed forces chief of staff Gen. Oumar Diarra will assist him as deputy defense minister.
The announcement comes after Defense Minister Gen. Sadio Camara was killed on April 25, in a suicide bombing that targeted his home in Kati, a garrison town near the capital, Bamako.
Along with Bamako, Kati was one of several cities and towns attacked by militants from the al-Qaida-linked group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM, and rebels from the Azawad Liberation Front, a Tuareg-led separatist group, in one of the biggest coordinated attacks in the country in over a decade.
The Islamic mi..

Ukrainian general’s rise from far-right wing agitator to war heroRussian strikes have killed 10 and injured at least 76 people across Ukraine in the past day, Ukrainian officials have said.
Officials said three people were killed in separate incidents in Kherson region, while two died in each of Odesa, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions and one in Sumy region.
It comes as Ukraine's military successfully hit Russia's Primorsk ⁠port, causing significant damage to the infrastructure of ⁠the ​oil ⁠terminal port, president ⁠Volodymyr Zelensky said ​on ⁠Sunday.
In a ‌post on the Telegram app, ‌Zelensky said ‌that Ukrainian troops also struck ⁠the Karakurt-class missile ship, a patrol boat, and one more shadow fleet ‌oil tanker, ​adding that “each such ‌result ⁠further limits ⁠Russia’s war potential”.
On Saturday, Ukraine's military commander has confirmed that Russian troops are inching towards the city ​of Kostiantynivka in the eastern region of Donetsk and trying to establish ..

Trump threatens to 'blast the hell' out of IranIran has issued Donald Trump a one-month deadline for negotiations on its proposed deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and bring an end to the war, according to a report.
The deal would also see the end of the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, and the ongoing conflict in Lebanon, two sources brief on the proposal told Axios.
But negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme – the destruction of which has been one of Trump’s key goals of the war – would only take place after the initial deal is reached.
Trump said on Saturday he was reviewing a new peace proposal from Tehran, before once again escalated his threats when he said the regime “not yet paid a big enough price”.
“I will soon be reviewing the plan Iran has just sent to us but can’t imagine that it would be acceptable in that they have not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to humanity, and the world, over the last 47 years,” he wrote on Truth Social.
The ..

President Donald Trump launched a bizarre late-night burst of AI-generated photos Friday on Truth Social, including one depiction of him and members of his Cabinet shirtless and lounging in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
In one captionless post shared at 11:03 p.m. local time, Trump, 79, is shown smiling and giving a thumbs-up while reclining on a golden inflatable lounger in the historic pool on the National Mall.
Vice President JD Vance, 41, appears beside him, also giving a thumbs-up, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, 54, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, 69. An unidentified woman, possibly AI-generated, also appears in the scene, floating nearby in sunglasses and a blue-and-white gingham bikini.
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is currently undergoing an accelerated beautification project ordered by Trump and overseen by Burgum. The $1.5 million project aims to fix leaks in the pool’s aging granite foundation by applying a new “American flag blue” industrial-g..

Trump threatens to 'blast the hell' out of IranA senior Iranian official has warned that renewed conflict between Iran and the US is “likely”, amid growing fears a temporary ceasefire could soon collapse.
“Evidence has shown that the United States is not committed to any promises or agreements,” Mohammad Jafar Asadi, a senior figure in the Iranian military's central command, told Iran’s Fars news agency.
It comes after US president Donald Trump has declared he is “not satisfied” by the peace deals offered by Iran.
The Iranians are “trying to make a good deal [for them] and we’re not going to let that happen,” he added. “They've got to make a bad deal. Maybe we're better off not making a deal at all”.
Meanwhile, Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius has said it was “foreseeable” that the US would withdraw troops from Europe, as the transatlantic rift over the Iran war deepens.
The US president announced he was withdrawing 5,000 troops from Nato ally German..

Dr. Nicole Saphier is President Donald Trump's latest pick for the vacant role of U.S. surgeon general, a nomination that ended the embattled campaign of his previous candidate, Dr. Casey Means, after it became clear she didn't have the votes to advance out of a Senate committee.
Saphier, a radiologist and former Fox News Channel contributor, has promoted several aspects of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again agenda, including removing food additives, cutting ultraprocessed foods from diets and encouraging exercise.
But she has been a more vocal advocate for vaccination than Kennedy, and at times she has criticized the Trump administration's handling of health issues as “embarrassing.”
If confirmed as the nation's doctor, Saphier would be empowered to issue advisories that warn of public health threats. Surgeons general also have used the office to advocate on vaccination issues — though the office doesn't create vaccine po..

The US president and the German chancellor have locked horns. Spain has shunned Washington. The Nato alliance is more fragile than it has ever been.
Western powers are determined to see off Russian military “hard” power; they are familiar with “soft power” operations to undermine democracies. But how to deal with the Kremlin’s relationship with Donald Trump is now an emergency.
Working out a response to internal frictions within Nato has become a conundrum, not only for leaders in the alliance but for the military officials who have to figure out how to keep the military machine operational.
A weakened Nato serves only the interests of the enemies and rivals of the West.
Top of the list of beneficiaries is Vladimir Putin, but China will enjoy the latest spats between Trump and Germany’s Friedrich Merz almost as much.
open image in galleryPresident Donald Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz meet in the Oval Office in March (Reuters)Merz, opting for a “truth to power” approach, ..