The Islamic Republic of Iran’s state-controlled media is promoting the memorandum of understanding with the U.S. to re-open the Strait of Hormuz and address Tehran’s illicit nuclear weapons program as its triumph over the U.S. and Israel.

The major diplomatic breakthrough, known as by its initials MOU, is slated to be sealed at a signing ceremony on June 19 in Switzerland. Iranian state-controlled TV boasted that the “U.S. is forced to sign agreement to end the war.”

The State Department has classified Iran as the world’s worst state-sponsor of terrorism and its state-controlled media apparatus is notorious, according to Iran experts, for spreading anti-U.S. propoganda.

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Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said, according to the country’s Tasnim News Agency, “This memorandum does not mean trusting the enemy; it has been written with active distrust. We will monitor the implementation of U.S. commitments.” 

Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that the nation’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, “emphasized that national cohesion and the active presence of the people serve as important capital and a primary pillar of Iran’s diplomatic authority.”

Araghchi said, according to IRNA,” that the true image of Iran’s power on the global stage stems not only from its military capabilities but also from national cohesion, resilience, and the active involvement of its people.”

Tehran’s top diplomat stated that the,”Iranian nation achieved not only tactical victories during the 12-day imposed war in June last year and the recent war, but also important strategic accomplishments whose impact can be observed in both regional and global equations.”

President Trump announced some of the elements of the MOU on Sunday. He wrote on social media. “The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete.” He noted that “I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade. Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!”

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There are additional components of the MOU that have not been confirmed, including the timetable for sanctions relief and the end of Iran’s enrichment of uranium for the construction of nuclear weapons.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said in a Sunday statement that all military operations across multiple fronts, including those in Lebanon, will cease “immediately and permanently” starting Sunday night.

Lisa Daftari, the founder and editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk told Fox News Digital that, “Inside Iran, state media is selling this as a victory, not a compromise. The message on Iranian television is that a ‘strong and proud’ Islamic Republic has forced Washington to recognize its control over the Strait of Hormuz and to ease military pressure, while Tehran supposedly gives up very little in return.”

Daftari, a leading expert on the Islamic Republic, added “The Islamic Republic’s very DNA is built on delay, deceit and deniability. Every agreement it has signed has been treated as a tactical pause on the way to more missiles, more proxies and more leverage, not a real change in behavior. So while it’s important to read the fine print of this new deal, it’s even more important to remember who is signing it. A system that survives by holding deadly weapons over its neighbors and by lying to its own people is not suddenly going to become a trustworthy partner.”

She concluded, “The Trump administration should assume from day one that Tehran will test every loophole, hide every capability it can, and resume its nuclear program, amass its drones and missiles, fund its deadly proxies while continuing to torture the Iranian people at home.”

Vice President JD Vance told Fox News’ “The Big Weekend Show” Sunday that “I think it’s a big moment for the United States of America. Thanks, of course, to the President’s leadership and the hard work of the entire team. Three things that I think are important for the American people just to appreciate about what this deal does for all of us as Americans.”

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He stressed that” Number one, this is the immediate opening of the straits of Hormuz and, of course, the lifting of the naval blockade that we’ve had on Iran along with it. The number two thing that it means is that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon and not just pursue a nuclear weapon for procure or try to buy a nuclear weapon as well.”

Cameron Khansarinia, the chief of staff for Reza Pahlavi, the leader of the Iranian democratic opposition and exiled former crown prince of Iran, wrote on x: “Deal or no deal, the people of Iran will not stop the fight for freedom. Iran’s future has always been for Iranians for determine. And they will. With or without help, Iranians will topple the Islamic Republic. The fight continues. Prince Reza Pahlavi will lead Iran to freedom.” 

Another leading Iranian opposition group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said in a statement that, “The Iranian Resistance, which for nearly five decades has sought freedom and peace, welcomes any understanding to end the war and the suffering of the Iranian people. In Iran, no one except the remnants of the mullahs and the Shah has wanted or wants war.”

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She added that “The effort to produce nuclear weapons, warmongering, and meddling in the countries of the region are part of the survival strategy of the religious fascism ruling Iran, and it will not abandon them as long as it can. War is this regime’s shield against popular uprisings, while peace and a ceasefire are, as Khomeini put it, like “poison” for it. The overthrow of the regime is the responsibility of the Iranian people and their organized Resistance. I reiterate once again that any international agreement to end the war must include an end to the execution of political prisoners and the killing of protesters.”

There are no trailers on a boat. This is the logistical reality that Toby Stephens found himself confronting somewhere in the middle of shooting “The Season,” Hulu‘s new drama about the bad behavior of Hong Kong’s sailing elite – a show that, almost by design, offered its cast nowhere to hide.

“Normally when you’re filming, you can go back there, and at lunchtime you can have a little snoozy,” Stephens says, with the weary affection of a man who has made his peace with it. Instead, he meditated on deck. His castmates photographed him doing it. There was, apparently, a sitar soundtrack.

Six episodes. Fifty days. Humid, floating, relentless. And by all accounts, a genuinely wonderful time.

“Because we had such a fun cast,” says Karina Lam, who plays Fiona Hext, “all that just became so much easier.” Jessie Mei Li, who plays the American Cola despite being resolutely English, agrees. “You just have each other to get through it. And we had so many belly laughs with the crew.”

The warmth is real, but so is the craft that went into making “The Season” – a show that arrives on Hulu on June 17 with all six episodes at once, produced by PCCW Media and SK Global, shot almost entirely on real Hong Kong locations, and built around a cast that spent most of production at sea.

For Lam, the challenge was language. She has spent 25 years acting in Cantonese and Mandarin – launched her career in Hong Kong, built a parallel life as a singer in Taiwan, was born and raised in Canada – and describes herself as a hybrid in the most literal sense. “I dream in Chinese,” she says. English fluency and English acting, it turns out, are different muscles entirely. “There are certain things you can only express in Cantonese,” she says. The ambiguity of Chinese, the way meaning pools in the spaces between words, resists translation.

Mei Li had the opposite problem. Playing an American in a production staffed by Australians, Brits, a Chilean director and a Hispanic DP, her brain kept mutinying. “Because I like to assimilate when I’m talking to someone, I can’t help but copy them,” she says. The accent kept slipping. “There were just some times where my accent was coming up. I’ll be talking to Chris, and I then suddenly say something in a scene that just sounded Australian.”

Chris Pang, for his part, was wrestling with something thornier than phonetics. His character, Andrew Fung, is written to be obnoxious – cartoonishly, gleefully, exhaustingly so. The question was whether audiences would stick with him. “Andrew is unabashedly and unapologetically an asshole,” Pang says. “He just says the most outlandish, most horrible things. And it’s going to be a mission to find that balance, where you say these things but you still like this guy.” The goal, as he frames it: “an asshole, but one that you can’t help but love.” Director Marialy Rivas, he says, encouraged him to push further than he thought wise. He pushed too far, regularly. “Marialy would give me a take and just be like, just go all out, and I’d go way too far. Like, okay, we’re not using that.”

Stephens, playing Christopher Hext – patriarch, power broker, the kind of man who wears his wealth like armor – was after something quieter. The danger with characters like this, he says, is that they flatten into archetype. “Characters can come across as sort of one-dimensional, kind of evil rich people who are just sort of sociopathic.” What interested him was the gap between the performance of power and whatever lives underneath it. “They’re all masking. They’re all throwing up these things about, I’m rich, I’m powerful, I’ve got this status, but underneath it, they’re all human beings who are all terrified. They feel all of these other things.”

It is, perhaps, also a description of Hong Kong itself – a city that presents one face and contains multitudes. All four cast members return, unprompted, to the idea of the city as something more than backdrop. “Hong Kong seems like a character on its own,” Lam says. She has shot dozens of films here and found herself, through this production’s use of real locations and an outsider’s lens, seeing it differently. “I’ve shot so many Hong Kong produced films here, and it’s never been this way, in this kind of lens.”

Mei Li goes further. The show moves between worlds – the gleaming marina set of the ultra-wealthy and the more grounded lives of characters outside that orbit – and the city absorbs both. “It’s not just we filmed it in Hong Kong. It’s like, this show is about Hong Kong in so many ways.” Stephens, characteristically, cuts to it: “This show could only take place in Hong Kong.”

The series is created and showrun by Yalun Tu, with Marialy Rivas serving as lead director and executive producer. It is produced by PCCW Media in partnership with SK Global, the company behind “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Thai Cave Rescue” and “Delhi Crime.” International sales are handled by Fremantle with support from De Maio Entertainment. Beyond Hulu, the series will stream on Viu across Asia, the Middle East and South Africa, and on Now TV in Hong Kong.

As for what comes next: Stephens is returning to the U.K. for a period film about two nuns on the run during the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII – “Thelma and Louise in Tudor times,” he calls it – titled “The Reformation of Mother Agnes.” Pang has written a crime thriller, currently titled “Brother Gangster” (“I think it needs to change,” he says), with director Jane Woo attached to helm. Mei Li heads to the Soho Theatre in London this summer for “Tender,” a four-person comedy by Dave Harris – only her second time on stage. “It’s something a bit different,” she says. Lam is due to begin filming in September on a project with a Malaysian director, details undisclosed.

All four have moved on to other projects, other cities, other worlds. But Hong Kong has a way of pulling people back.