Author: c4rdiotop

Before the U.S. and Israel launched their joint attacks on Iran 25 days ago, many Iranians said they would welcome foreign intervention if it meant the end of the Islamic Republic. The regime, in power for 47 years, had just crushed a huge wave of anti-government demonstrations, with President Trump claiming more than 30,000 were killed and vowing to come to the rescue of the protesters.

Now, two Iranians — one inside and one outside the country — tell CBS News the feeling of optimism has shifted markedly after more than three weeks of war.

“If we had a world situation where Europe and the rest of the world was more orchestrated and together, collectively, with a plan that combined a number of things, both force and diplomacy and sanctions and discussions, all kinds of things — long-term plan — then that could have worked with this regime,” said Reza, a British-Iranian whose name CBS News has changed to protect his identity. “But to just have one or two countries, you know, unilaterally going in without a proper plan? It’s never gonna work. So that’s why I think people are waking up to that rude awakening, realization, that they’re doomed, basically.”

Reza, who is in the U.K., said he’s spoken with many other Iranians in the diaspora who feel the same.

Iran is “really playing the upper hand on Trump, in that they realize he doesn’t have a strategy. So they’re really using that to their advantage to gain more strength and more forward planning with the Strait of Hormuz, and suffocating the world, because they know that’s where the weakness of the whole entire world is, basically,” Reza said.

Inside Iran, Amir — whose name has also been changed to protect his identity — echoed the sentiment.

“Many people that were pro-war, and they supposed war could be liberator, liberate them from the despotism in Iran and theocratic despotic regimes, now they are thinking twice and revising, and they are reaching for any moment ceasefire, no matter who is the boss. No matter who is the king,” Amir said. “Anything that can say ‘okay, enough is enough and there is a ceasefire until further notice.’”

Ecuador has arrested a Syrian man identified as a terrorist threat by the United States for belonging to Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, authorities said Wednesday.

The arrest came as the government of Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, wages a crackdown on drug trafficking gangs, with Washington’s backing.

Ecuadoran Interior Minister John Reimberg said on X the man had been arrested in a joint operation between immigration authorities and the national police intelligence service.

“Deportation proceedings have been initiated” against the man, who was identified only as M.K. and entered Ecuador without proper documentation, said Reimberg.

He said the man was known to Ecuadoran authorities, having been arrested in the country in 2005 on charges of leading a drug trafficking network that allegedly moved millions of dollars on behalf of Hezbollah.

The suspect had been granted provisional release in 2012.

“There are international terrorist groups that intend to operate in the country, and President Daniel Noboa’s Government will not allow it,” Reimberg said.

xLebanon-based Hezbollah is currently fighting with Israel as part of the Middle East war unleashed by U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.

Noboa last year issued a decree blacklisting Hezbollah and Palestinian militant group Hamas as terrorist organizations.

The president claims the groups advise drug trafficking gangs operating in Ecuador.

Earlier this month, Ecuador launched operations against drug traffickers with support from the U.S. The two countries are part of a 17-country cartel-fighting alliance launched by Mr. Trump at a summit earlier this month.

U.S. and Ecuadoran forces recently conducted joint strikes inside Ecuador, and Ecuador’s military sank a “narco sub” near its northern border. Earlier this month, the FBI said it would open an office in Ecuador to investigate organized crime, money laundering, and corruption in conjunction with local police.

Noboa has spent the past two years targeting cocaine traffickers, but the rates of associated crimes including murders, disappearances and extortion have not fallen.

Vital Arctic sea ice shrank to basically tie its lowest measured level for the winter, the season when ice grows, as a warming Earth shattered records across the continents.

Arctic sea ice levels, especially in the summer, are crucial to Earth’s climate because without the ice reflecting sunlight, more heat energy goes into the oceans. Ice of all kinds around the poles acts as Earth’s refrigerator. The lack of sea ice in the Arctic creates new shipping routes and, in doing so, causes geopolitical disruptions, making once-ignored places such as Greenland more desirable.

The melting sea ice “continues a downward trend scientists have observed over the last several decades,” NASA said in a statement.

The shrinking Arctic sea ice was announced Thursday as temperatures broke March heat records across the United States, all over Mexico, in Australia, across Northern Africa and through parts of Northern Europe. Climatologist and weather historian Maximiliano Herrera, who tracks extreme temperatures, called the extreme March temperatures “by far the most extreme heat event in world climatic history” and said on social media that the next few days would be “much worse.”

Sixteen U.S. states broke March temperature records in the past week or so, said weather historian Christ Burt. Twenty-seven locations had temperatures in the past week high enough to tie or surpass the hottest April day on record, including St. Louis, meteorologists said.

Mexico has had thousands of records shattered, some of them warmer than the hottest May temperatures, but that’s nothing compared with what’s happening in Asia, where “dozens of thousands of monthly records” were smashed by 30 to 35 degrees (17 to 19 degrees Celsius) margins, Herrera said.

Yet at the same time earlier this week, Antarctica set a record for the coldest March day anywhere on Earth at minus 105.5 degrees (minus 76.4 degrees Celsius), according to Herrera and Burt.

Colombia’s navy said Friday that it had destroyed dozens of drug trafficking laboratories and seized more than two tons of cocaine during operations in the country’s southern Pacific region.

The navy said it also seized more than 3,700 gallons of smuggled fuel in the area, which “prevented the strengthening of illicit economies in the area.”

The navy shared photos of each seizure and of some of the laboratories. The seized cocaine appeared to be in small packages, each weighing about two pounds. The interception prevented the drugs from circulating in “international markets,” the navy said.

The navy said three crew members were arrested when the cocaine was seized. Two of them were Ecuadorian. The nationality of the third was not specified. Four individuals were captured when the smuggled fuel was seized, the navy said.

“We continue to exercise maritime control to protect the country’s security and stability,” the agency said in a post announcing the fuel seizure.

The navy did not say if all of the seizures were made at once or across multiple operations. The information was shared in multiple posts on X. Another post highlighted the seizure of more than 90 pounds of marijuana in Cartagena, a city in the country’s north.

Colombia is the world’s largest cocaine-producing nation. Relations between Washington, D.C., and Bogota have been strained, with the U.S. accusing the Colombian government of failing to contain a spike in cocaine production and placing sanctions on President Gustavo Petro. A U.S. military campaign against alleged drug-ferrying boats off South America in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea has killed more than 100 people since September.

Colombia has announced several major drug busts in recent months, including the seizure of more than 240 pounds of cocaine that had been thrown from a “go-fast” vessel as it was pursued by authorities in February. In January, the Colombian Navy seized over two tons of cocaine from a speedboat in the South Pacific Ocean, and in November, the nation announced its largest cocaine bust in a decade, with 14 tons confiscated at its main Pacific port.

Police have arrested two more people over an attempt to place a homemade explosive device outside the Paris headquarters of Bank of America, the French domestic security service said Sunday.

One suspect was arrested on Saturday morning while attempting to place the device around 3:30 a.m. The Bank of America headquarters is near the Champs-Élysées, a popular tourist area. The suspect was accompanied by a second person, who appeared to be taking photos and video with a cell phone. The second person fled when police arrived.

A police source said the arrested suspect said he had been recruited through Snapchat to carry out a bombing in exchange for about $692. Police said the suspect said he was a minor from Senegal. Officials are working to verify his identity.

Two further arrests were made on Saturday night. Police did not specify who was arrested or what role they may have played in the attempted bombing.

France’s National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office told CBS News on Saturday that it has opened an investigation into the charges of attempted arson or dangerous damage in connection with a terrorist enterprise, manufacture of an incendiary or explosive device in connection with a terrorist enterprise, possession and transport of an incendiary or explosive device with the intent to prepare dangerous damage, in connection with a terrorist enterprise and terrorist conspiracy.

The Paris police and France’s domestic intelligence service are also investigating, the prosecutor’s office said.