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Iran held annual military drills with Russia this week in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean as a second U.S. aircraft carrier moved closer to the Middle East, with both Washington and Tehran signaling readiness for conflict if long-stalled talks over Iran’s nuclear program collapse. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he believes “10 to 15 days” is “enough time” for Iran to reach a deal, while warning that failure to secure what he called a “meaningful deal” would bring consequences. “It’s proven to be, over the years, not easy to make a meaningful deal with Iran, and we have to make a meaningful deal. Otherwise, bad things happen,” Trump said. U.S. Navy Carrier Air Wing 8 aircraft fly in formation; Via: US Navy The drills came amid mounting U.S. military deployments and heightened rhetoric across the region. The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier was near the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea, bolstering Trump’s ability to conduct a strike should he decide to do so, th...

China has issued a strong condemnation of the United States following its large-scale military operation in Venezuela that led to the capture and removal of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.  Representational Image: MFA China Press deck In an official response released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing on January 3, a spokesperson called the U.S. action a blatant use of force against a sovereign nation and a serious breach of international law. The statement came in response to a direct question posed at a press briefing, referencing public claims made by U.S. President Donald Trump on the social platform Truth Social, where he described the operation as a “successful” mission involving a military strike and the extraction of Venezuela’s head of state. Beijing expressed “deep shock” over the development and described the actions of the U.S. as hegemonic, saying they not only violated Venezuela’s sovereignty but also posed a significant threat to pea...

The Russian Federation has issued a series of formal statements condemning the recent U.S. military operation in Venezuela , in which Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were captured and transported to the United States.  Describing the action as “armed aggression,” Moscow demanded their immediate release and called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council. Sergey Lavrov’s telephone conversation with Delcy Eloína Rodríguez Gómez. Via: MFA Russia In its first response, issued shortly after reports of Maduro’s capture on January 3 , the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the justifications provided by the United States for the raid lacked any factual basis. It characterized the action as a case of ideological hostility supplanting diplomacy and respect for sovereignty.  Donald Trump’s actions in Venezuela do not make America safer, stronger, or more affordable. That Maduro is a brutal, illegitimate dictator does not change...

In an unprecedented turn of events, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores are now in U.S. custody after a swift and covert military operation conducted by American forces over the weekend.  The raid, which began late Friday night in Caracas, ended with Maduro’s transfer to New York’s Metropolitan Detention Center, where he awaits trial on charges including narco-terrorism, cocaine trafficking, and possession of weapons. Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth remotely followed the operation. Via: White House The operation began with a seizure from inside Maduro’s fortified presidential residence, where U.S. intelligence reportedly used real-time surveillance and human assets on the ground to track the Venezuelan leader’s movements.  He was flown by helicopter to a U.S. Navy warship, the USS Iwo Jima, stationed in the Caribbean Sea. From there, his journey continued via Guantanamo Bay before landing at Stewart Air Force Base in New York. Escort foota...

Iran is once again at the brink. Six days into the largest protests the country has witnessed since 2022, the Islamic Republic finds itself in a precarious domestic and geopolitical bind—grappling with mass unrest triggered by the freefall of its national currency and inflamed by a public still raw from last summer’s U.S. airstrikes on nuclear sites.  The volatility is now deepening into a full-blown crisis, marked by the return of U.S. President Donald Trump to a confrontational posture and a defiant volley of warnings from Tehran’s security establishment. File Photo: Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani; Via: TheCradleMedia The current wave of protests erupted after the Iranian rial plunged to an all-time low of 1.4 million to the U.S. dollar, prompting the resignation of Central Bank governor Mohammad Reza Farzin. Merchants in Tehran’s historic Saadi Street and Grand Bazaar, long seen as economic and political bellwethers, shuttered shops in sy...