Mere hours before Trump’s 8pm Tuesday deadline yesterday, Pakistan’s government contacted Iran with a US-written proposal for a two-week ceasefire, explicitly stated to also include Lebanon, during which they would negotiate a permanent end to the war on the basis of Iran’s 10 Points. Among other things, these points include 1) maintaining strict control (joint with Oman) over Hormuz, complete with a toll; 2) the end of sanctions on Iran; 3) keeping their enriched uranium; 4) a withdrawal of US forces from the Middle East [stated by the Supreme Leadership Council but not in the 10 Points, so who knows], and 5) some plausible guarantee that Iran would never be attacked again. I’ve heard rumors that China may have prodded Iran to accept these terms.
In theory, these are relatively confident and maximalist demands. In practice, Iran has already achieved military and economic control over Hormuz and the withdrawal of many US troops and bases from the region, so at least a few of Iran’s demands are, to a greater or lesser extent, already achieved, and with little hope for an increasingly exhausted US to undo these achievements short of nukes.
A couple hours after the ceasefire, the Zionist entity began a wave of airstrikes in Lebanon, killing hundreds of civilians, as well as flying drones into Iranian airspace. This was a strange move to make even if you assume - very sensibly - that the US is completely agreement non-capable: why not agree to the ceasefire and simply pretend to negotiate for two weeks while regrouping/repairing what assets you can and then start hitting Iran again?
One theory is that the Zionists are testing to what degree Iran is actually willing to have solidarity with Lebanon and Hezbollah. While the Resistance has been relatively united since October 7th, the formation of separate peaces instead of negotiating terms as a united front has been a major exploitable weakness. Alternatively, it’s been proposed that the US didn’t even consider using the ceasefire to regroup and deceive Iran, and that Trump merely wanted a way to chicken out of his threat on Iran’s electrical grid - the fact that US officials have since stated that Iran’s 10 Points were not the same ones they agreed to is a point supporting this, I suppose. If the conflict resumes and Trump does not deliver another 48 hour deadline (and/or makes it something silly like a month from now) then this could be the explanation.
From Iran, I am getting the sense that a lot is happening behind the scenes. Statements from top officials like Araghchi have stated quite plainly that there will be no ceasefire and no negotiations unless the Zionists stop attacking Lebanon, but as of ~24 hours after the ceasefire began, there has been no significant military response from Iran yet. There have apparently been phone calls between Araghchi and numerous regional officials, but it is unknown to what end. All the while, the global economic situation continues to deteriorate. Over the next week or two, the last tankers that left Hormuz before it closed will arrive at their destinations. If the missile exchanges begin once more, then the West, much like most of the rest of the world, will be experiencing all sorts of fuel, energy, food, and product shortages while trying to justify why they broke the ceasefire to kill more Lebanese civilians.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists’ destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/china-strait-of-hormuz
Chinese defense ministry says
If the US goes ahead with the blockade they say they’re doing, they are going to come into direct confrontation with China and we’re going to see who blinks first.
It’s always best not to expect much when it comes to these threats from China, but I do wonder if there’s any significance to this coming from the Defense Minister instead of the usual Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Usually when I see them making these kinds of statements it seems to be by an MoF spokesperson.
Sadly I’m afraid China will. I highly doubt they’ll go to open war with the US over Iran, and that’s pretty much what they would have to do to protect their shipping interests in the region. Happy to be wrong but China never steps up when it matters, I don’t see them doing it here
I don’t know, it seems like a pretty good deal for China if we take a swing at one to their civilian cargo vessels. That makes the US look even more crazy (somehow) and I think gives them justification to talk about sanctions or embargoes for the US. At the very least they can cut supply for critical exports to the US. I don’t think China would shoot, they have shown know little interest escalating militarily basically anywhere (smartly), and I don’t see any reason for that to change now.
You think they will stop sailing tankers through the strait? I feel like they would let the US bury themselves by intercepting a civilian ship, but they wouldn’t come out firing.
So far, so good. These are presumably paying Iran so technically under the “blockade” right?
Probably won’t go for a military response, but their response might include more support for Iran or economic sanctions etc. on the US.
China almost always chooses the “de-escalation” option in international politics, but they also don’t usually bluff at all.
Perhaps. We will see.
I think if they do then they’re inviting the US to blockade the Malacca strait, they may calculate that it’s worth confronting the US now.
I’m sorry if this is annoying but is there an actual source for this claim?
I don’t know. Can’t find an official english source because it’s probably a statement made in Chinese.
Politico also reported it though: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/13/iran-blockade-new-phase-iran-war-00870157
Feels like an important statement to put into English, given the context. Everyone’s reporting it, nobody’s got a source
Yeah I don’t know. Maybe not true? Genuinely don’t know what to make of literally everyone reporting it though. Could be that they’re all like we are and just decided since everyone is reporting it then they should report it too because clearly everyone thinks it’s true?
Might not be.
Osint613 pulled their quote of it.
no mention of this quote (at least that I can find) on:
Xinhua https://english.news.cn/
People’s Daily https://en.people.cn/
China Media Group https://www.cctv.com/gyys/
China’s Ministry of Defense http://eng.mod.gov.cn/
After all this time, I’m confident saying it’s not real
LOL. Just being passive-aggressive? Heading off where the U.S. stands back and pushes the Empire’s puppet states to do the dirty work? Both? Hmm.