Latest news with #French
Hindustan Times
11 minutes ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
‘Great Israeli conspiracy': Iran says Israel's bid to assassinate foreign minister Abbas Araghchi failed
Iranian authorities have claimed to have thwarted an Israeli-backed assassination attempt on foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, just days before his scheduled diplomatic mission to Geneva amid escalating hostilities between Iran and Israel. The development was announced by Mohammad Hossein Ranjbaran, an adviser to Araghchi, who stated that Iranian intelligence agencies uncovered and neutralised what he described as a 'major Israeli conspiracy' aimed at killing the top diplomat in Tehran. The alleged assassination attempt comes as Foreign Minister Araghchi prepares to meet with his British, French, and German counterparts in Geneva on Friday. 'If it were not for the security measures of the 'unknown soldiers of the homeland' (Iran intelligence team), perhaps a few days ago the great Israeli conspiracy against him would have been carried out in Tehran, which, thank God, failed,' Ranjbaran posted on X. The term 'unknown soldiers of the homeland' is commonly used in Iran to refer to its intelligence and security operatives. Abbas Araghchi's advisor further said that Iranian security concerns had intensified after it was announced that Araghchi would lead talks with the European 'troika.' He warned that threats to the minister's life remain ongoing. 'Yes, there certainly was and still is such a threat. Nevertheless, Seyed Abbas Araghchi considers himself a soldier of the motherland more than the head of the diplomatic service,' Ranjbaran's post read. Despite the alleged plot, Araghchi has proceeded with his travel plans and is currently en route to Geneva. His adviser said the minister remains unfazed by the threat. 'He seeks martyrdom,' Ranjbaran wrote. The Geneva meeting is being closely watched by international observers. European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and British foreign secretary David Lammy are among the key figures expected to attend. The diplomatic push comes as the military conflict between Israel and Iran enters its second week, with Israeli airstrikes targeting Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure and Tehran responding with missile attacks. Speaking ahead of the talks, Lammy said, 'A window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution.' Iranian officials, meanwhile, have reiterated that such security threats—whether real or perceived—will not distract them from pursuing their broader strategic and diplomatic goals.
The Wire
18 minutes ago
- Politics
- The Wire
As Trump Mulls Iran Intervention, MAGA Is Angry
Weeks after his with Elon Musk, US president Donald Trump is now facing unprecedented backlash from other erstwhile admirers – influential figures in the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement. Trump has invited the wrath of his most reliable support bastion over a likely US military intervention in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran. On Tuesday, Trump made an early exit from the G7 meeting in Canada, leading to many including the French president Emmanuel Macron to speculate that he is working on a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. However, Trump had other plans. He and said that he's working on something even bigger. The same day Trump announced on his Truth Social account that 'we have total control over Tehran's skies.' In a series of follow-up posts, Trump demanded a ' total surrender ' from Tehran whose ten million residents he had told to leave the city a day earlier. He also said that the plan to assassinate Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei was not off the table. On Wednesday, however, he seemed to backtrack slightly, making his stand ambiguous. 'I may do it. I may not…Nobody knows what I am going to do,' he said at a White House event. And yesterday (June 19), he said that he will decide in two weeks. But Trump's initial plan of directly getting involved in Iran militarily and then the eventual suspense over the course of his actions haven't gone down well with many in his own support base – popular traditionalist influencers and media figures who had rallied behind his MAGA politics. Conservative influencer and author Charlie Kirk wrote on X, 'No issue currently divides the right as much as foreign policy.' Kirks suspects that a US intervention in Iraq would cause a massive rift among MAGA. It could 'disrupt our momentum and our insanely successful Presidency,' he wrote. Consider what Trump's former campaign strategist Steve Bannon told Tucker Carlson on the Bannon War Room podcast to contextualise why MAGA – a term that has also come to mean his support base – is upset with Trump. Bannon said the three prominent promises from Trump in the run-up to his election were to 'stop the forever wars, seal the border and deport the illegal aliens invading our country, and redo commercial deals around trade and bring back high value manufacturing jobs.' He added that all three promises are being broken. Carlson has been even more unrelenting. His defiant opposition to an American military intervention in Iran is receiving tens of millions of views and is slowly turning into a headache for Trump who called Carlson '' in a post on Truth Social and later said, 'I don't know what Tucker Carlson is saying. Let him go get a television network and say it so that people can watch.' , 'The real divide isn't between people who support Israel and people who support Iran or the Palestinians. The real divide is between those who casually encourage violence, and those who seek to prevent it – between warmongers and peacemakers. Who are the warmongers? They would include anyone who's calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct US military involvement in a war with Iran.' Carlson's most significant intervention till now is his viral takedown of Senator Ted Cruz. In an interview on the Tucker Carlson Network, he asked Ted Cruz, a staunch supporter of US intervention, to point out the ethnic mix of Tehran. The senator had no answers. He asked Cruz the total population of Iran. Cruz couldn't answer this as well. At one point, Tucker mocked a rather clueless Cruz for saying the US is bound by the Bible to protect Israel to which Carlson sarcastically asked if the Biblical reference to Israel is the same as the modern Israeli state run by Netanyahu. 'Yes,' Cruz replied. Carlson also asked Cruz if he agreed that Iran was going to assassinate Trump to which Cruz replied, 'Yes, but they don't have good hitmen.' Carlson received flak from Trump and other influential MAGA supporters like influencer Laura Loomer who said, 'The Muslim Brotherhood, HAMAS, and foreign lobbyists are now all defending @TuckerCarlson and Iran…You can tell a lot about a man by the people who come to his defense and the company he keeps.' She accused Carlson of being funded by Qatar, a charge Carlson's team called a lie. She threatened to snitch on influencers criticising Trump and personally deliver such screenshots to the president. But Carlson has received support from many MAGA influencers. Alex Jones, the host of the infamous show InfoWars wrote, "Trump attacking @TuckerCarlson for not supporting a new WORLD WAR is not something any sane person should support! This is the stuff NIGHTMARES are MADE of…' Podcaster Theo Von who has hosted Trump on his show and 'anti-woke' YouTuber Candace Owens have spoken against intervention too. Von said that Israel 'cannot be trusted." Owens said, 'the same people say Iran can't have a nuke because they are religious fundamentalists are the same people who hold the heretical belief that we must support Israel's non-stop campaign of murder, blackmail, land theft bombing & starvation of the innocent because 'God will bless those who bless the 1948 created nation of Israel'.' In a separate post on X alleging US involvement in Iran, she wrote, 'Aaron Bushnell self-immolated back in 2024 to alert the American people to the fact that our military was involved in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. He committed suicide to reveal that truth.' Although there are republican senators like Majorie Green Taylor, Josh Hawley, and Rand Paul who've disapproved of Trump's intervention in Iran, the backlash from influencers is more significant for two reasons. First, Trump came to power arguing that the big media – TV and newspapers – is compromised and serves the agenda of 'forever wars.' Musk has repeatedly said he bought X to break the cycle of media control. In the run-up to his election, Trump appeared on several podcasts and online spaces with the same people who are now criticising him. While the likes of Loomer have defended Trump, more and more loyalists are jumping ship over Iran. Interestingly, Musk has neither expressed support nor opposed Trump's comments this time. But his old tweets against wars and US intervention in West Asia have resurfaced. This week US vice-president J.D. Vance announced to his four million followers on X that he's moving to Bluesky, X's rival platform in the US, which Vance said 'has become the place to go for common-sense political discussion and analysis.' Earlier, in a long post on X, Vance defended Trump and said that he's shown great restraint. He said, 'Having seen this up close and personal, I can assure you that he is only interested in using the American military to accomplish the American people's goals. Whatever he does, that is his focus.' Replying to Vance, the former UFC champ and MAGA supporter Sean Strickland , 'We want you to run for president. If you go through with this and tow () the line, you will lose all support.' Amid escalating opposition and the fear of yet another 'forever war' spilling across West Asia, Trump has backed down from his initial suggestion of a likely US military intervention in Iran. However, can the possibility of a US intervention still be ruled out? It's hard to predict what happens next but we'll get the answers soon. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
21 minutes ago
- Politics
Europeans see a 'opportunity' for diplomacy as they meet Iran's top diplomat
GENEVA -- Iran's foreign minister plans to meet in Geneva on Friday with leading European counterparts, who hope to open a window for a diplomatic solution to the week-old military conflict that has seen Israeli airstrikes target Iranian nuclear and military sites and Tehran firing back. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who will meet Iran's Abbas Araghchi together with his French and German counterparts and the European Union's foreign policy chief, said that 'a window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution.' The talks will be the first face-to-face meeting between Western and Iranian officials since the start of the conflict. Lammy is traveling to Geneva after meeting in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump's Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff. Trump has been weighing whether to attack Iran by striking its well-defended Fordo uranium enrichment facility, which is buried under a mountain and widely considered to be out of reach of all but America's 'bunker-buster' bombs. He said Wednesday that he'll decide within two weeks whether the U.S. military will get directly involved in the war given the 'substantial chance' for renewed negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program. 'Now is the time to put a stop to the grave scenes in the Middle East and prevent a regional escalation that would benefit no one,' Lammy said. Israel says it launched its airstrike campaign last week to stop Iran from getting closer to being able to build a nuclear weapon. Iran and the United States had been negotiating over the possibility of a new diplomatic deal over Tehran's program, though Trump has said Israel's campaign came after a 60-day window he set for the talks. Iran's supreme leader rejected U.S. calls for surrender Wednesday and warned that any military involvement by the Americans would cause 'irreparable damage to them.' Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, though it was the only non-nuclear-armed state to enrich uranium up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. The three European countries, commonly referred to as the E3, played an important role in the negotiations over the original 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. But they have repeatedly threatened to reinstate sanctions that were lifted under the deal if Iran does not improve its cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Germany's foreign minister acknowledged that years of efforts to relieve concerns about the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon haven't succeeded, but said it's worth talking now. 'It is our commitment once again to undertake a very intensive attempt to dissuade Iran permanently from pursuing such plans,' Johann Wadephul said in a podcast released by broadcaster MDR on Friday. 'If there is serious and transparent readiness by Iran to refrain from this, then there is a real chance of preventing a further escalation of this conflict, and for that every conversation makes sense.' Wadephul said U.S. officials 'not only know that we are conducting these talks but are very much in agreement with us doing so — so I think Iran should now know that it should conduct these talks with a new seriousness and reliability.' French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot spoke by phone with Rubio on Thursday evening. A French diplomatic official, who was not allowed to speak publicly on the issue, said Barrot detailed the purposes of the Geneva meeting and Rubio 'stressed that the U.S. was ready for direct contact with the Iranians at any time.' —- the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. —-
Economic Times
26 minutes ago
- Business
- Economic Times
Eutelsat shares surge on deal with French armed forces
Shares in French satellite operator Eutelsat shot 10% higher on Thursday after it said it had signed a 10-year deal with the French government to provide connectivity for the country's armed forces. Under the €1 billion ($1.15 billion) agreement, the French military will have priority access to OneWeb satellites as well as operational and security maintenance, the company said in a statement late Wednesday. The deal also covers the upgrading of satellites for military-grade use, it said. Eutelsat shares climbed as much as 21% in early trade before paring some gains by late morning. Eutelsat has garnered unprecedented attention this year from European governments looking for alternatives to SpaceX's Starlink for internet connectivity. There is a "real appetite" for sovereignty across the industry, CEO Jean-Francois Fallacher said at the Paris Air Show this week, according to an Eutelsat post on X. France's Ministry of the Armed Forces said in a statement that the agreement was part of a programme to strengthen its space communications by supplementing its Syracuse military satellites which are in higher geostationary orbit with a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). "While not entirely unexpected, the deal is a clear positive for Eutelsat, reaffirming the growing strategic relevance of LEO and the EU's push for sovereign satellite capabilities independent of foreign players like Starlink," said Alessandro Cuglietta, analyst at Kepler Cheuvreux. The French ministry also said the deal underlines the importance and strategic nature of Europe's IRIS² programme, which is an EU-backed satellite constellation due to launch in 2030. The deal will also shore up Eutelsat's finances as it works on raising funds for a second generation of its LEO satellites and to fulfil its commitments to the IRIS² project. It needs more than three times the satellites than previously thought, requiring up to €2.2 billion in financing. ($1 = €0.8721)
San Francisco Chronicle
31 minutes ago
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
The Latest: Israeli airstrikes reach into Iranian city of Rasht
Israel and Iran exchanged strikes a week into their war Friday as new diplomatic efforts appeared to be underway. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi appeared headed to Geneva for meetings with the European Union's top diplomat and counterparts from the United Kingdom, France and Germany. A plane with his usual call sign took off from the Turkish city of Van, near the Iranian border, flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24 showed. Iran typically acknowledges his departure hours afterward. The Israeli military said Thursday that Iran used a missile with multiple warheads, posing a new challenge to its defenses. Instead of having to track one warhead, missiles with multiple warheads can pose a more difficult challenge for air defense systems, like Israel's Iron Dome. A week of Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 657 people and wounded 2,037 others, the Washington-based group Human Rights Activists said Friday. Here's the latest: Iran's foreign minister says his country is not seeking negotiations with anyone as long as Israel continues its strikes on Iran. 'In the current situation, as the Zionist regime's attacks continue, we are not seeking negotiations with anyone,' said Abbas Araghchi during an interview aired Friday by Iranian state television. He added: 'I believe that as a result of this resistance (by Iran), we will gradually see countries distancing themselves from the aggression carried out by the regime, and calls for ending this war have already begun, and they will only grow stronger.' Spain says citizens evacuated safely Spanish citizens who requested to be evacuated from Iran landed safely in Armenia, Spain's Foreign Minister José Albares said Thursday night. They would soon be flown to Spain, Albares said on X. Israeli airstrikes reach into the city of Rasht Israeli airstrikes reached into the Iranian city of Rasht on the Caspian Sea early Friday, Iranian media reported. Social media video posted online appeared to show explosions around the city. The semiofficial Fars news agency reported local air defense systems were firing into the night sky against the Israelis. Ahead of the strikes, the Israeli military put out a warning urging the public to flee the area around Rasht's Industrial City, which sits a few kilometers (miles) southwest of the city's downtown. The Israelis did not immediately describe what they sought to destroy in the area. However, with Iran's internet being shut off to the outside world, it was unclear how many people in Iran would be able to see the message. French foreign minister speaks to US secretary of state French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot spoke by phone with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday evening. A French diplomatic official said Barrot detailed the purposes of the Geneva meeting and Rubio 'stressed the U.S. was ready for direct contact with the Iranians at any time.' The official, who was not allowed to speak publicly on the issue, said they 'jointly stressed the threat posed by Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile program to Israel, the region and Europe.' Tehran fires anti-aircraft weapons Anti-aircraft batteries began firing Friday morning in Iran's capital, Tehran. It wasn't immediately clear what they were firing at. Khamenei adviser in stable condition A key security adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is now in stable condition, a week after being seriously wounded in an Israeli airstrike, a media outlet close to him reported Friday. Nour News quoted Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani as saying: 'I am alive and ready to give my life away.' Nuclear agency says Israel damages heavy water reactor The International Atomic Energy Agency, in an update Friday, said an Israeli strike at the Arak heavy water reactor also damaged key buildings there, 'including the distillation unit' there. That makes the heavy water at the site. Aircraft transporting Iranian foreign minister to talks An Iranian aircraft bearing a call sign associated with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is now airborne over Turkey. The Airbus A321 of Meraj Airlines took off from the Turkish city of Van, near the Iranian border, flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24 showed. It bore the call sign IRAN05, which Araghchi uses on his official travel. Iran did not immediately acknowledge his departure, though it typically only does so hours later. Araghchi is due for talks with European diplomats in Geneva on Friday, the first face-to-face negotiations he has conducted since the Israeli airstrikes began June 13. German foreign minister says Iran can avoid escalation Germany's foreign minister says there is a chance of avoiding further escalation in the conflict if Tehran shows 'serious and transparent readiness' to refrain from developing nuclear weapons. 'It is our commitment once again to undertake a very intensive attempt to dissuade Iran permanently from pursuing such plans,' Johann Wadephul said in a podcast released by broadcaster MDR Friday. 'If there is serious and transparent readiness by Iran to refrain from this, then there is a real chance of preventing a further escalation of this conflict, and for that every conversation makes sense.' Wadephul plans to meet Iran's foreign minister in Geneva Friday along with his French, British and EU counterparts. Wadephul said U.S. officials support the plan to hold talks, "so I think Iran should now know that it should conduct these talks with a new seriousness and reliability.' Israel says missile systems and radar destroyed The Israeli military said it has destroyed missile systems and radar installations around Isfahan. That corresponds to the sound of anti-aircraft fire heard in the area of Isfahan into Friday morning. Iran has not offered any acknowledgment so far of its military losses in the war. Czech Republic closes its Iran embassy The Czech Republic's Foreign Ministry says it has closed its embassy in Tehran due to security reasons amid the military conflict between Iran and Israel. The measure is in place until further notice. The Slovak Foreign Ministry announced the same step over the escalation of the conflict. It said the remaining diplomats and staffers of the embassy are leaving Iran on Friday Russia dismisses US nuclear claims Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed claims the U.S. might use nuclear weapons in Iran as 'speculation' in comments to state news agency Tass on Friday morning. 'There is a lot of speculation now,' Tass quoted Peskov as saying. 'Such a turn of events would be catastrophic, but there is so much speculation that it is impossible to really comment on it.' Australia closes its embassy in Tehran Australia closed its embassy in Tehran and evacuated staff and their families due to the 'deteriorating security environment,' the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday that also urged Australian citizens still in Iran to leave quickly. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and they agreed to work 'closely' to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and to pursue peace. 'There is an opportunity … over the next two weeks for de-escalation, dialogue and diplomacy,' Wong said from Adelaide on Friday. Britain's foreign secretary says situation in Middle East 'remains perilous' British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the "situation in the Middle East remains perilous,' after meeting Thursday at the White House with his U.S. counterpart, Marco Rubio, and presidential envoy Steve Witkoff. 'We are determined that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon,' Lammy wrote in a post on X. 'We discussed how a deal could avoid a deepening conflict. A window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution,' he added.
