Tag Archives: Sanctions

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U.S. Strikes Inside Venezuela, Iran Protests, Flu Cases Surge

Maravi Post Reporter

President Trump confirms the first known U.S. strike inside Venezuela, saying it targets drug trafficking as critics warn it risks escalation.
Iranian authorities shut down cities and security forces move in to contain growing protests as anger over inflation and sanctions boils over.
And the flu is spreading fast across the U.S., with a new strain driving cases higher just as vaccination rates slip and hospitals brace for what’s next.

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p class=”readrate”>Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Rebekah Metzler, James Hider, Rebecca Davis, Mohamad ElBardicy, and Alice Woelfle.

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p class=”readrate”>It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas.

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p class=”readrate”>We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.

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p class=”readrate”> Our Supervising Producer is Michael Lipkin.

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p class=”readrate”>(0:00) Introduction
(03:30) U.S. Strikes Inside Venezuela
(07:25) Iran Protests
(11:22) Flu Cases Surge

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Missed Paychecks, NBA Gambling Scandal, Russia Reacts

Maravi Post Reporter

More than a million federal workers are missing their first full paycheck as the shutdown stretches into week four, with pressure building on Washington to end the standoff. A wild NBA gambling scandal involving secret gadgets lands an active player and a Hall of Fame coach in legal trouble. And Russia’s president shrugs off new U.S. sanctions after President Trump cancels his summit with Vladimir Putin.

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p class=”readrate”>Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Emily Kopp, Russell Lewis, Kate Bartlett, Mohamad ElBardicy and Martha Ann Overland.

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p class=”readrate”>It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Ben Abrams and Christopher Thomas

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p class=”readrate”>We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.

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p class=”readrate”>And our Executive Producer is Jay Shaylor

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Ukraine-EU Meeting, National Guard Deployment Cases, Pentagon Press Corps

Maravi Post Reporter

European leaders meet with Ukraine’s president with billions in frozen Russian assets on the table as the European Union and United States impose new sanctions on Moscow. Courts could rule this week on key legal challenges to President Trump’s National Guard deployments in multiple cities. And the Pentagon press corps gets a right-wing makeover as new reporters replace legacy outlets.

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p class=”readrate”>Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Miguel Macias, Alina Hartounian, Emily Kopp, Mohamad ElBardicy and Martha Ann Overland.

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p class=”readrate”>It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas

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p class=”readrate”>We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.

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SCOTUS Immigration Sweeps Ruling, Limited Epstein Files, Trump’s Handling of Russia

Maravi Post Reporter

The Supreme Court clears the way for President Trump’s immigration sweeps in Los Angeles, even when agents use race and accents as a factor. The House Oversight Committee released a limited batch of Epstein estate documents, including a crude birthday letter that appears signed by President Trump. And Russia’s war on Ukraine is only intensifying, despite Trump’s threats of sanctions and his high-profile talks with Russia’s president.

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p class=”readrate”>Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Eric Westervelt, Megan Pratz, Andrew Sussman, Mohamad ElBardicy and Alice Woefle 

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p class=”readrate”>It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas.

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p class=”readrate”>We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.

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White House Envoy In Moscow, MAGA Split On Gaza, Redefining The Attorney General Role

Maravi Post Reporter

White House envoy Steve Witkoff is in Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin, days before President Trump’s deadline for Russia to end the war in Ukraine or face sanctions. Some of the President’s core supporters are expressing disagreement with President Trump on issues from Gaza to Jeffrey Epstein, and the Justice Department has reportedly set up a grand jury investigation into the Obama administration’s handling of the 2016 Presidential election.

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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Ryland Barton, Roberta Rampton, Megan Pratz, Janaya Williams and Ally Schweitzer. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.

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Tariffs View From The EU, Ukraine Weapons Plan, Texas Flood Update

Maravi Post Reporter

President Trump sent letters to leaders of the European Union and Mexico threatening to impose higher import sanctions. The President has expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin and says he will cut a deal coordinating arms shipments to Ukraine. And, as flood recovery efforts continue in central Texas, the magnitude of the disaster is coming into clearer focus.

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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Miguel Macias, Ryland Barton, Russell Lewis, Janaya Williams and Lisa Thomson. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Damian Herring. And our technical director is Zo van Ginhoven.

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UK suspends trade deal negotiations with Israel

Maravi Post Reporter

The British government says it is suspending free trade negotiations with Israel and has leveled new sanctions targeting West Bank settlements as it criticizes Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Tuesday’s actions came a day after the UK, France and Canada condemned Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza and its actions in the occupied West Bank.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the UK’s existing trade agreement is in effect but the government can’t continue discussions with an Israeli government pursuing what he called egregious policies in the West Bank and Gaza. Lammy said the persistent cycle of violence by extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank demanded action.

“We are unwavering in our commitment to your security and to your future, to countering the very real threat from Iran, the scourge of terrorism and the evils of anti-Semitism. But the conduct of the war in Gaza is damaging our relationship with your government,” Lammy said.

The announcement came after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer ramped up his criticism of Israel on Tuesday, saying the level of suffering by children in Gaza was “utterly intolerable” and repeated his call for a ceasefire.

Mounting pressure as humanitarian crisis worsens

International pressure has been building on Israel following a nearly three-month blockade of supplies into Gaza that led to famine warnings.

The United States, a staunch ally of Israel, has also voiced concerns over the growing hunger crisis.

While Israel allowed trucks with baby food and desperately needed supplies to begin rolling into Gaza on Monday, U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher described the volume of aid a “drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed.”

Israel initially received widespread international support to root out Hamas militants following the group’s surprise attack that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on Oct. 7, 2023, and took 251 captives.

But patience with Israel is wearing thin after more than 53,000 Palestinian deaths, mostly women and children. This number is the official count published by Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.

Israel’s latest onslaught has killed more than 300 people in recent days, local health officials said.

Source: Africanews

https://video.euronews.com/mp4/ED/15/43/96/08/ED_PYR_1543968_20250520160524.mp4
Lifestyle

Iran says it will continue nuclear talks with the US, shrugging off threats

Maravi Post Reporter

Iran’s president said his country will continue talks with the United States over its rapidly advancing nuclear program but will not withdraw from its rights because of U.S. threats.

“We are negotiating, and we will negotiate. We are not after war but we do not fear any threat,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said during a speech to navy officials broadcast by state television Saturday.

“It is not like if they threaten us we will give up our human right and definite rights,” Pezeshkian said. “We will not withdraw, we will not easily lose honorable achievements in military, scientific and nuclear” fields and other areas.

The negotiations have reached the “expert” level, meaning the sides are trying to reach agreement on the details of a possible deal. But a major sticking point remains Iran’s enrichment of uranium, which Tehran insists it must be allowed to do and the Trump administration increasingly insists the Islamic Republic must give up.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran’s program if a deal isn’t reached. Iranian officials increasingly warn they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.

Earlier on Friday, Trump said Iran received a proposal during the talks, though he did not elaborate.

During his trip to region this week, Trump at nearly every event insisted Iran could not be allowed to obtain a nuclear bomb, something U.S. intelligence agencies assess Tehran is not actively pursuing, though its program is on the cusp of being able to weaponize nuclear material.

Mohammad Eslami, the head of Iran’s atomic organization, stressed the peaceful nature of the program, saying it is under “continuous” monitoring by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, state TV reported Saturday.

“No country is monitored by the agency like us,” Eslami said, adding that the agency inspected the country’s nuclear facilities more than 450 time in 2024. “Something about 25% of all the agency inspections” in the year.

Meanwhile, Israel routinely has threatened to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities if it feels threatened, further complicating tensions in the Mideast already spiked by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

In his first reaction to Trump’s regional visit, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Trump wasn’t truthful when he made claims about creating peace through power.

“Trump said that he wanted to use power for peace, he lied. He and the U.S. administration used power for massacre in Gaza, for waging wars in any place they could,” Khamenei said Saturday during a meeting with teachers broadcast on state television.

The U.S. has provided Israel with 10-ton bombs to “drop on Gaza children, hospitals, houses of people in Lebanon and anywhere else when they can,” Khamenei said.

Khamenei, who has the final say on all Iranian state matters, reiterated his traditional stance against Israel.

“Definitely, the Zionist regime is the spot of corruption, war, rifts. The Zionist regime that is lethal, dangerous, cancerous tumor should be certainly eradicated, and it will be,” he said, adding that the U.S. has imposed a pattern on Arab nations under which they cannot endeavor without U.S. support.

“Surely this model has failed. With efforts of the regional nations, the U.S. should leave the region, and it will leave,” Khamenei said.

Iran has long considered the U.S. military presence in the region as a threat on its doorstep, especially after Trump pulled the U.S. out of a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions.

Source: Africanews

https://video.euronews.com/mp4/ED/15/20/48/06/ED_PYR_1520486_20250518114805.mp4
Lifestyle

Trump to speak with Putin, then Zelenskyy, to push for Ukraine ceasefire

Maravi Post Reporter

U.S. President Donald Trump said he plans to speak by phone Monday with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, followed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and leaders of various NATO countries, about ending the war in Ukraine.

Trump said the call with Putin will be about stopping the “bloodbath” in Ukraine.

“Hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should have never happened, will end,” Trump wrote Saturday in a post on his social networking site Truth Social.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed in comments to Russian media that preparations were underway for Monday’s call.

Trump’s remarks came a day after the first direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv in years failed to yield a ceasefire. Putin had spurned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s offer to meet face-to-face in Turkey after he himself proposed direct negotiations — although not at the presidential level — as an alternative to a 30-day ceasefire urged by Ukraine and its Western allies, including the U.S.

Also on Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a phone call with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. During a visit to Rome, Rubio suggested that the Vatican could be a venue for Russia-Ukraine peace talks.

In Ukraine, a northeastern town declared a period of mourning after a Russian drone hit a bus evacuating civilians from front-line areas, killing nine people, Ukrainian officials said. The strike came hours after the Russian and Ukrainian delegations left Istanbul, after agreeing to what would be the biggest prisoner swap to date between the warring parties.

Zelenskyy faces a gamble as talks stall

The talks in Istanbul on Friday broke up after less than two hours without a ceasefire, although both sides agreed on exchanging 1,000 prisoners of war each, according to the heads of both delegations. Ukraine’s intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said on Ukrainian television Saturday that the exchange could happen as early as next week.

But the Kremlin has pushed back against a proposal by Ukraine and its Western allies for a temporary ceasefire as a first step toward a peaceful settlement, and the parties remained far apart on key conditions for ending the fighting.

Since U.S.-brokered talks began in March, Ukraine’s strategy has been to convince the Trump administration that Putin is unreliable, and that Kyiv is serious about peace. Trump has expressed frustration with the stalled talks and threatened to abandon his efforts if results aren’t achieved.

He has also said that no peace would be reached until he held a face to face meeting with Putin. On Friday, Trump told reporters after boarding Air Force One to return to Washington from Abu Dhabi that he may call Putin soon.

“He and I will meet, and I think we’ll solve it, or maybe not,” Trump said. “At least we’ll know.”

The political theatrics are underscored by stark realities on the ground in Ukraine. In a war of attrition against Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s position is poised to grow weaker as time goes on, unless powerful sanctions are imposed against Moscow and the U.S. continues arms deliveries.

Zelenskyy said that he had discussed the outcome of the talks with Trump and the leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Poland. In an X post from a European leadership meeting in Albania on Friday, Zelenskyy urged “tough sanctions” against Moscow if it rejects “a full and unconditional ceasefire and an end to killings.”

Peskov on Saturday held open the possibility of Putin holding talks with Zelenskyy, providing the agreed prisoner swap goes ahead, and if the Russian and Ukrainian delegations reached unspecified further “agreements.”

Peskov also told reporters that Moscow will present Ukraine with a list of conditions for a ceasefire, but gave no timeframe, or say what needed to happen before Zelenskyy and Putin can meet.

A town in mourning

In Ukraine, nine civilians were killed and seven others were wounded when a Russian drone struck a bus evacuating people from Bilopillia, a town around 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Russia’s border, according to local Gov. Oleh Hryhorov and Ukraine’s national police. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Moscow.

Zelenskyy described the attack as “deliberate killing of civilians,” adding in a post on the Telegram messaging app that “Russians could scarcely not realize what kind of vehicle they were hitting.”

The local media outlet Suspilne said that the passengers on the bus were being evacuated from the town when the strike happened. Authorities are working to identify some of the victims, most of them older women.

Local community chief Yurii Zarko called the day “Black Saturday,” and mourning was declared in the town through Monday.

Zelenskyy lamented the missed opportunity from Friday’s peace talks, saying that “Ukraine has long proposed this — a full and unconditional ceasefire in order to save lives.”

Ukraine’s European allies strongly condemned the attack. U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that he was “appalled” by it. “If Putin is serious about peace, Russia must agree to a full and immediate ceasefire, as Ukraine has done,” he wrote on X.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, speaking at a joint news conference with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, condemned Russia for “continuing their attacks today with undiminished ferocity.” He vowed to continue to increase the pressure on Moscow with added sanctions.

Source: Africanews

https://video.euronews.com/mp4/ED/15/19/07/03/ED_PYR_1519073_20250518071351.mp4
Lifestyle

ICC makes progress in investigating alleged war crimes in Libya

Maravi Post Reporter

On Monday, the International Criminal Court received a declaration lodged by the Libyan government declaring the country’s acceptance of the ICC’s jurisdiction with respect to alleged crimes in its territory from 2011 to the end of 2027.

ICC chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, was expected to brief the United Nations Security Council Thursday to detail the office’s 29th report which details findings from its’ investigation into crimes in Libya.

However, Khan was unable to make his appearance after being slapped by sanctions from President Donald Trump in February.

Despite obstacles such as the sanctions, the ICC noted that it had seen ” an unprecedented six months of dynamism in our work in the situation in Libya”.

The ICC notably issued its first public arrest warrant for crimes committed in detention facilities in Libya earlier this year.

“There is what can be described as a black box of suffering on the coast of the Mediterranean that nobody has wanted to open. A black box that contains the cries, the ongoing pain, as we speak, of some of the most vulnerable people in both the West and the East of the country”, the statement by the ICC to the UN Security Council noted on the subject of Libyan detention facilities and potential crimes committed there.

Ambassador Christina Markus Lassen, the Permanent Representative of Denmark, commended the ICC prosecutor’s office for their work in Libya by highlighting the unsealed arrest warrants for alleged crimes and efforts to ensure that the voices of victims and survivors are heard.

Source: Africanews