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US, Iran teams in Pakistan for peace talks amid doubts over Lebanon, sanctions

The Iranian delegation, led by parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, arrived on Friday.

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Senior U.S. and Iranian leaders were in the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Saturday for negotiations to end their six-week-old war, although Tehran threw the talks into doubt by saying they could not begin without commitments on Lebanon and sanctions, Reuters reported.

The U.S. delegation, led by ​Vice President JD Vance and including President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, landed in two U.S. Air Force planes at an air base in Islamabad on Saturday morning, where ‌they were received by Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar.

The Iranian delegation, led by parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, arrived on Friday.

These will be the highest-level U.S.-Iran talks since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. If the two sides hold face-to-face negotiations as expected, they would be first direct talks since 2015, when they reached a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme.

Trump scrapped the nuclear deal in 2018 during his first term in office. That year, Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – who was killed at the start ​of the war six weeks ago – banned further direct talks between U.S. and Iranian officials.

Qalibaf said on X that Washington had previously agreed to unblock Iranian assets and to a ceasefire in Lebanon, ​where Israeli attacks on Iran-backed Hezbollah militants have killed nearly 2,000 people since the start of the fighting in March. He said talks would not start until those pledges were ⁠fulfilled.

Israel and the U.S. have said the Lebanon campaign is not part of the Iran-U.S. ceasefire.

Iran’s state broadcaster said the Iranian delegation would meet Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif around noon (0700 GMT) to determine the timing and manner of “possible negotiations”.

Qalibaf said ​Iran was ready to reach a deal if Washington offered what he described as a genuine agreement and granted Iran its rights, Iranian state media reported.

The White House did not immediately comment on the Iranian demands, but Trump posted on social media ​that the only reason the Iranians were alive was to negotiate a deal.

“The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways. The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!” he said.

Vance, speaking as he headed to Pakistan, said he expected a positive outcome but added: “If they’re going to try to play us, then they’re going to find the negotiating team is not that receptive.”

Preliminary discussions have been separately held by Pakistani officials with advance teams from both sides, sources ​in Islamabad said.

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said these included 70 members from Tehran, including technical specialists in economic, security and political fields as well as media personnel and support staff. About 100 members of an advance U.S. team were in the ​city, a Pakistani government source said.

Pakistan’s Dar said he hoped the U.S. and Iran would engage in constructive talks to reach a “lasting and durable solution to the conflict”, according to a statement from Pakistan’s foreign ministry.

A Pakistani source said it was too early to say ‌whether talks would ⁠end on Saturday, adding there was no time limit for negotiations.

Islamabad was under an unprecedented lockdown ahead of the talks with thousands of paramilitary personnel and army troops on the streets, read the report.

Trump announced a two-week ceasefire in the war on Tuesday, which has halted U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran.

But it has not ended Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused the biggest-ever disruption to global energy supplies, or calmed the parallel war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israeli and Lebanese officials will hold talks in Washington on Tuesday, both sides said, amid conflicting accounts on what those talks would cover.

Lebanon’s presidency said officials from the two countries had spoken by phone on Friday and agreed to discuss announcing a ceasefire and ​setting a start date for bilateral talks under U.S. mediation. ​But Israel’s embassy in Washington said the talks would ⁠constitute the start of “formal peace negotiations” and that Israel had refused to discuss a ceasefire with Hezbollah.

Tehran’s agenda at the Islamabad talks also includes demands for major new concessions, including the end of sanctions that crippled its economy for years, and acknowledgment of its authority over the Strait of Hormuz, where it aims to collect transit fees and control access in what would amount ​to a huge shift in regional power.

Iran’s ships were sailing through the strait unimpeded on Friday, while those of other countries remained hemmed inside.

Disruption to energy supplies has fed inflation ​and slowed the global economy, with ⁠an impact expected to last for months even if negotiators succeed in reopening the strait.

The hard line taken by Iran’s leaders ahead of the negotiations followed a defiant message from its new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, on Thursday.

Khamenei, yet to be seen in public and said to be suffering from severe facial and leg injuries sustained in the attack that killed his father, said Iran would demand compensation for all wartime damage. “We will certainly not leave unpunished the criminal aggressors who attacked our country,” he said.

Although Trump has ⁠declared victory and ​degraded Iran’s military capabilities, the war has not achieved many of the aims he set out at the start: to deprive Iran of the ability ​to strike its neighbours, dismantle its nuclear programme and make it easier for its people to overthrow their government, Reuters reported.

Iran still possesses missiles and drones capable of hitting its neighbours and a stockpile of more than 400 kg (900 pounds) of uranium enriched near the level needed to make a bomb. Its clerical ​rulers, who faced a popular uprising just months ago, withstood the war with no sign of organised opposition.

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Supreme Court lets Trump resume deporting migrants to countries not their own

More than 25,000 migrants have been deported ⁠to 29 countries under the policy implemented last year, according to a tally by human rights groups, with the vast majority going to Mexico.

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The US Supreme Court on Tuesday let President Donald Trump’s administration resume deporting ​migrants to countries other than their own without offering them the chance to show the harms they may face, bolstering a tool his administration has used for rapid ‌expulsions as part of his immigration crackdown, Reuters reported.

The court granted the Justice Department’s emergency request to put on hold Boston-based US District Judge Brian Murphy’s ruling that the Department of Homeland Security’s policy to remove migrants to so-called third countries is unlawful. The court also agreed to hear arguments in the dispute in December, with a formal ruling on the policy to follow.

The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal justices dissented from the decision to let the ​deportations immediately resume pending the final outcome of the litigation.

Murphy’s ruling came in a class-action lawsuit filed by immigrant rights groups on behalf of migrants seeking to prevent the US ​government from sending them to third countries without notice and a chance to assert the harms they could face.

More than 25,000 migrants have been deported ⁠to 29 countries under the policy implemented last year, according to a tally by human rights groups, with the vast majority going to Mexico.

The policy is one of a number of measures the administration ​has taken in its pursuit of Trump’s goal of mass deportation. The Republican president has enforced a sweeping crackdown on immigration — among his top priorities — since returning to office last year.

The administration has carried ​out third-country deportations to politically unstable South Sudan, which the US State Department urges Americans to avoid due to the risks of crime, kidnapping and armed conflict, as well as Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, the Central African Republic, and other nations.

Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival welcomed the court’s decision.

“A bad day for criminal illegals and open-borders activists alike,” Percival wrote on social media.

Trina Realmuto, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said the court has “allowed ​the administration to resume sending people to third countries where they face persecution or torture. That is a devastating result for people who may be put on a plane before they ever have ​notice or an opportunity to raise a fear claim.”

In February, Murphy ruled that the policy violates immigration law procedures and due process protections under the US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. Due process generally requires the government to provide notice ‌and an ⁠opportunity for a hearing before taking certain adverse actions.

The Supreme Court, which has allowed a number of Trump’s hardline immigration policies, previously sided with the administration in the legal challenge, suspending a preliminary order that Murphy issued earlier in the case halting the removals. In another win for the administration, the Supreme Court subsequently lifted limits the judge had imposed to protect a group of men from being sent to South Sudan, read the report.

The case began in 2025 after the Department of Homeland Security moved to step up deportations of migrants who cannot be returned to any country listed on their deportation orders.

The policy provided that migrants ​could be swiftly removed without notice to third ​countries that have provided credible diplomatic assurance ⁠that they will not persecute or torture the individuals. For countries that have not provided such assurance, deportees would be notified of their destination and US authorities would assess the likelihood of persecution or torture only if the individual raises such fear on their own.

In its emergency filing to the Supreme Court, ​the Justice Department said third-country deportations are “an essential tool to remove certain aliens, including some of the worst criminal aliens.”

But both Murphy and critics ​of the administration said ⁠the policy is also targeting migrants who had been granted legal protection from being sent back to their home countries.

The policy has resulted in deportees being unlawfully transferred by third countries back to their home countries from which the US had already granted them protection, while others have been beaten, sexually assaulted, detained or have disappeared, the plaintiffs said in a court filing.

The administration is ignoring “the significant harm resulting from deporting thousands of ⁠longtime US ​residents, many with no criminal history, to third countries without regard to the persecution or torture they face there,” the plaintiffs ​said.

The Boston-based 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld most of the judge’s ruling on September 18.

The case has been hotly contested since it began, and included findings by Murphy that the administration “repeatedly violated, or attempted to violate” his orders. Murphy ​in 2025 found that the administration had violated another order he issued requiring additional steps before attempting to send a group of migrants to South Sudan.

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Trump says men arrested at UK air base used by US planned ‘big damage’

WATCH: Trump praises UK authorities for arrests Sunday near RAF airbase used by US forces in England.

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British police have arrested five men on suspicion of explosives offences and preparing a terrorist act near RAF Fairford, a UK air base used by the United States military, authorities said.

The arrests were made early Sunday after police received a report of three suspicious vans travelling towards the airfield in Gloucestershire, western England.

US President Donald Trump said the suspects had been under investigation by British and US authorities and were looking to cause “big damage” to the base.

“The arrest in the UK was fantastic,” Trump told reporters, praising cooperation between US and British authorities.

Counter Terrorism Policing said five men remained in custody and that officers were working with partner agencies to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Police placed a 400-metre cordon around the area while bomb disposal experts examined the vehicles. About 85 homes in a nearby village were evacuated, while armed officers patrolled the area.

RAF Fairford has been used by US forces for military operations against Iran. Security was also increased at other UK bases used by the US, including RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall.

A source familiar with the investigation told Reuters an Iranian-linked motive was considered the most likely, while possible Russian involvement or an Islamist plot were also being examined.

No motive has been publicly confirmed by police.

The arrests come amid heightened security concerns in Britain following Iranian warnings over the use of UK bases by US forces. Russia has also been accused by Western governments of supporting sabotage operations in Europe, allegations Moscow has denied.

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Serbia’s President Vucic resigns ahead of October parliamentary elections

He had said in late June that he planned to resign and that Serbia would hold early parliamentary ​and presidential elections.

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Serbia’s populist President Aleksandar Vucic ‌announced his resignation on Sunday, ending his second and final five-year term and paving the way for early presidential elections, Reuters reported.

Vucic’s resignation, seven months before his term ends, comes amid campaigning for Serbia’s October 25 snap parliamentary vote and allows him to be appointed prime minister if his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) ​forms the new government.

He had said in late June that he planned to resign and that Serbia would hold early parliamentary ​and presidential elections.

Rights groups have accused Vucic and his allies of increasingly authoritarian rule, with anti-government ⁠protesters saying they have been beaten by police and unfairly detained. Authorities have denied those allegations.

On Sunday, hundreds of Vucic’s supporters ​cheered him in front of the Presidency building in Belgrade’s city centre.

“This is the last evening for me in this building,” he told ​the flag-waving crowd minutes before resigning.

“I have faithfully served you and my fatherland, Serbia, … I am proud of what we have done together,” he said.

Under Serbia’s constitution, outgoing Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic will serve as interim president until a new one is elected. The presidential election must be completed within 90 ​days, with the campaign lasting between 30 and 60 days.

“By the end of December … we will have the first round of ​presidential elections,” Vucic said.

Next month’s snap parliamentary election will pit Vucic’s SNS and its allies against Students Win, a student-led anti-corruption movement, ‌and ⁠European Serbia, an alliance of pro-Western opposition parties.

Students Win, European Serbia and other parties have yet to nominate their presidential candidates.

Vucic, 56, has dominated Serbian politics for more than a decade, read the report.

He was a hardline nationalist and information minister during the era of the late Slobodan Milosevic and the wars of the 1990s, and later served as deputy prime minister from 2012-14 and prime minister from 2014-17.

He moved to the largely ceremonial ​position of president in 2017, but ​kept tight control over his ⁠party and the government.

In foreign policy, Vucic has pursued a balancing act that seeks closer ties with China, a major investor, and Russia, Serbia’s principal supplier of natural gas, while maintaining a long-term goal of joining the ​EU. He also has sought to bolster ties with the United States and Israel.

Vucic’s term in office ​suffered a major blow ⁠in November 2024 when an awning of a newly reconstructed railway station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed, killing 16 people.

The disaster sparked nationwide protests by students and the opposition, who demanded accountability for those responsible, transparency in public procurement, an end to systemic ⁠corruption, and an ​early parliamentary vote.

The government repeatedly denied accusations by the protesters, although several ​officials, including two ministers, were arrested or resigned after the incident.

On Sunday, Vucic said he has granted amnesty and a pardon to 49 people, including 12 activists and 11 of ​his own supporters, who were arrested or tried in connection with the protests.

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