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US President Donald Trump said he would extend a cease-fire with Iran until Tehran presents a proposal to permanently end the conflict, adding that the decision came at the request of Pakistan “so that Iranian leaders can reach a unified proposal.””Upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir (Pakistan’s army chief), and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.”I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other.”In a post on X, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called on the United States and Iran to continue adhering to the cease-fire.”I sincerely hope that both sides will continue to abide by the cease-fire and be able to conclude a comprehensive peace agreement during the second round of talks scheduled to be held in Islamabad, aimed at ending the conflict permanently,” he said.Sharif also thanked Trump for accepting Islamabad’s request to extend the cease-fire in the US-Israeli-Iranian war, allowing space for ongoing diplomatic efforts.The United States and Iran had agreed two weeks earlier in Islamabad on a 14-day cease-fire, but the talks yielded no significant progress, prompting the American president to order a blockade of Iranian ports to increase pressure on Tehran. Source link
Police officers stand guard on a road leading to the Serena Hotel Tuesday as Pakistan prepared to host the US and Iran for the second phase…
Peter Magyar speaks during a press conference in Budapest. (Reuters/File Photo) The rights of Slovakia’s ethnic Hungarian minority have resurfaced as a thorn in bilateral issues after Hungarian election winner Peter Magyar protested Slovak legislation reinforcing post-World War Two retribution acts in his first phone call with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. The dispute focuses on post-war decrees that applied collective guilt to take away property and citizenship from ethnic Germans and Hungarians living in what was then Czechoslovakia for alleged wartime wrongs. The “Benes Decrees”, named after Czechoslovak President Edvard Benes, periodically return to cloud relations between EU neighbours Hungary and Slovakia. The Hungarian minority makes up about 9% of Slovakia’s population of 5.5mn. Last year, Fico’s leftist-nationalist government tightened legislation around the decrees by making it a criminal offence to question them. Hungary’s outgoing leader Viktor Orban, a close ally of Fico, let the issue lie but it was picked up by Magyar in the campaign before his landslide victory in the April 12 election. Magyar stuck to his views Tuesday in his first contact with Fico since the election. “I told him clearly that we would be able to negotiate on any policy issue if we received a guarantee that Slovakia would repeal the legislation that threatens Hungarians living in Slovakia with imprisonment,” Magyar told Fico. “And if it was stipulated that in the future the lands of our Hungarian compatriots in Slovakia would not be confiscated on the basis of the Benes Decrees based on collective guilt.” Fico said he told Magyar that Slovak-Hungarian relations had for years not been an issue of contention and that he wanted to focus on co-operation in energy. The two countries continue to rely on Russian oil and gas and have formed a common front in a dispute with neighbouring Ukraine over a damaged Soviet-era pipeline carrying Russian oil. “It clearly emerged from the discussion that Peter Magyar’s priority in Slovak-Hungarian relations are, and will be, the Benes Decrees, where we have fundamentally differing positions,” Fico said in a statement. The Slovak leader, who endorsed Orban before Hungary’s election, said he would meet Magyar at an EU summit in Brussels prior to any bilateral visit. Magyar is expected to form a new Hungarian government by mid-May. Related Story Source link
Vice President JD Vance’s diplomatic mission to Islamabad has been put on hold after Iran failed to respond to US negotiating positions, according to an official with direct knowledge of the situation. According to The New York Times, Vance had been due to fly to the Pakistani capital today, where talks were set to resume tomorrow — the same day the fragile US-Iran ceasefire is set to expire. The trip has not been formally cancelled and could resume at short notice should Iran’s negotiators offer a response that President Trump considers acceptable. Washington is also seeking a clear signal that Iran’s negotiating team has been fully authorised to conclude a deal. The Pentagon is reportedly reviewing military options should Trump determine that Tehran is not engaging in good faith, though the official stressed a return to strikes was not imminent. President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner have also not left the United States, according to a White House official. They were expected to travel to Pakistan as part of the US delegation with Vance, but all three men remain in the United States. Related Story Source link
I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) Commanding General and US Marine Corps Lieutenant General Christian Wortman attaches the Balikatan patch to Philippine Exercise Director Francisco Lorenzo,…
US President Donald Trump yesterday dismissed his top energy official’s view that gas prices will not drop until 2027, saying Americans can expect lower costs as soon as the Iran war ends. On Sunday, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNN that while petrol below $3 a gallon “could happen later this year, that might not happen until next year.” “I think he’s wrong on that. Totally wrong,” Trump told a reporter from ‘The Hill’, adding that prices are expected to come down “as soon as this ends.” While Wright, also on CNN, agreed that “with the resolution of this conflict, you’ll see prices go down,” no clear end is in sight. A fragile ceasefire is set to expire shortly and the chances another round of peace talks succeeding are unclear. Trump and his fellow Republicans are under pressure ahead of November’s midterm elections after pledging to lower costs. With months left to go, US petrol prices remain high, inflation is rising and Trump’s approval ratings are down. The average price for a gallon of regular gas on Monday was $4.04, according to an estimate by AAA, compared to $3.15 a year ago. Source link
Tim Cook will step down as the California tech giant’s chief executive this year, handing the top job to a company veteran as it navigates a technology landscape being upended by AI. The 65-year-old Cook, who ran Apple for 15 years after taking the reins from its visionary co-founder Steve Jobs, will be succeeded by John Ternus, a senior vice president of hardware engineering. The announcement on Monday answered long-simmering questions about a successor for Cook, who said he will step down in September to become executive board chairman. “It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company,” Cook said in a statement. He joined Apple in 1998, rising through the ranks and helping drive its success as chief operating officer coordinating the iPhone maker’s complex supply chain. He became chief executive in 2011 after Jobs left because of health issues. Cook is credited with expanding Apple’s product line and ramping up the company’s value to around $4 trillion based on current share prices. He was the mastermind of the strategy that made China the primary manufacturing base for Apple devices, with the vast majority of iPhones assembled by Foxconn and other contract suppliers in Chinese factories. “Tim’s unprecedented and outstanding leadership has transformed Apple into the world’s best company,” outgoing board chairman Arthur Levinson said in the statement. “His integrity and values are infused into everything Apple does.”Ternus joined Apple’s product design team in 2001 and became a senior vice president of hardware engineering over the course of the following two decades. He is credited with playing roles in an array of products including iPhones, iPads, the Apple Watch and Mac computers. Source link
Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Fatih Birol warned on Tuesday that the ongoing conflict between Iran, the United States, and Israel is leading to one of the most severe energy crises the world has ever witnessed.”This is indeed the biggest crisis in history,” Dr Fatih Birol said an interview. “The crisis is already huge, if you combine the effects of the petrol crisis and the gas crisis with Russia.”He added that the war in the Middle East has disrupted shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies pass, further increasing pressure on energy markets.He pointed out that this crisis also come on top of the effects of Russia’s war with Ukraine, which had already severed Russian gas supplies to Europe.Earlier this month, Birol stated that he believes the current situation in global energy markets is worse than the crises of 1973, 1979, and 2022 combined.In March, the IEA agreed to release a record 400 million barrels of oil from strategic reserves to counter rising oil prices caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. Source link
US President Donald Trump said that the United States will not lift the blockade it has imposed on Iranian ports unless an agreement is reached with Iran.In remarks, Trump said the US blockade on Iranian ports will not be lifted until a deal is reached.He added that Iran is losing $500 million a day as a result of the maritime blockade, calling it “a figure that cannot be sustained even in the short term.”The US maritime blockade on Iranian ports came into effect on the evening of April 13. Source link
The 2026 conflict in the Middle East is adding further pressure on fragile agrifood systems and global supply chains, threatening the availability, accessibility, and affordability of food, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) QU Dongyu told the 38th Session of the FAO Regional Conference for the Near East (NERC38).The conference took place on Monday at the Organization’s headquarters in Rome during a “critical moment” for the region, underscoring the need to recognize “the immense importance of maintaining trade flows, and of ensuring access to adequate food for all, particularly in import-dependent countries,” Qu said in his opening statement.The Director-General warned that the significant disruptions to food production, trade, and distribution systems currently being experienced across the region were further compounded by global implications, “including rising energy prices and disruptions in fertilizer markets, which are increasing production costs and affecting agricultural productivity both within the region and beyond.”FAO Director-General said he had informed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the impact of the crisis would have “long-term consequences for agriculture.” Source link