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Iran: No nuclear talks under Israeli fire

Iran says it will not discuss the future of its nuclear program while under attack by Israel, as Europe tried to coax Tehran back into negotiations and the United States considers whether to get involved in the conflict. A week after it began attacking Iran, Israel’s military said it had carried out new strikes on dozens of military targets overnight, including missile production sites and a research organisation involved in nuclear weapons development in Tehran. Iran launched at least one new barrage of missiles early on Friday, striking near residential apartments, office buildings and industrial facilities in the southern city of Beersheba.

Reuters

Ukraine

More POWs head home in second exchange in two days

Russia and Ukraine have completed another round of prisoner exchanges, officials in both countries say, part of a recent agreement to swap POWs and the bodies of dead soldiers. Neither Russian nor Ukrainian officials specified how many people were involved in the exchange, the second in two days. Writing on X, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said most of his country’s POWs had been held by Russia for more than two years, and had been captured across various parts of the sprawling front line.

Reuters

Thailand

Embattled Thai PM faces call to step down

Thailand’s embattled Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra faces the prospect of losing her government’s majority, as a vital coalition partner looked set to demand her resignation and senators launched a legal bid to remove her from office. Paetongtarn, the politically inexperienced daughter of divisive tycoon and former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, is fighting fires on multiple fronts, struggling to breathe life into a stagnant economy facing steep US tariffs and under pressure to take a tougher stand on a territorial row with Cambodia that has seen their troops mobilise at the border.

Reuters

Switzerland

Swiss to invest in maintaining Geneva diplomatic hub

Switzerland will spend 269 million Swiss francs ($329.37 million) to support Geneva as a hub for international diplomacy, the government says, amid growing financial pressure on global institutions hit by spending cuts and lower donations. The money, which will cover the period of 2026 to 2029, comes as international organisations based in city face increasing competition from other cities to host them. Bern said it was making the funding available to reaffirm the “central role of international Geneva in Swiss foreign policy and its unique role in global governance”.

Reuters

Taiwan

6 hours ago

China slams Royal Navy stunt

China’s military has criticised the sailing of a British warship through the Taiwan Strait as a deliberate attempt to “cause trouble”, as Taiwan’s president ordered stepped-up monitoring in response to Chinese military activities. China, which views Taiwan as its own territory, though Taipei rejects that claim, has stepped up drills around the island over the past five years, including staging war games that have alarmed Taiwan, Washington and Tokyo.

Reuters

6 hours ago

Sweden

7 hours ago

Tram derails, crashes into pizzeria

A tram has derailed and crashed into a pizzeria in the southwestern Swedish city of Gothenburg early on Friday, injuring seven people, including the driver of the tram, police say. “The speed was high and it couldn’t take the left turn, so he proceeded straight ahead and ran into … a pizzeria,“ a police spokesperson said.

Reuters

7 hours ago

Court

Trump retains control of California National Guard

A US appeals court has let Donald Trump retain control of California’s National Guard while the state’s Democratic governor proceeds with a lawsuit challenging the Republican president’s use of the troops to quell protests in Los Angeles. Trump’s decision to send troops into Los Angeles prompted a national debate about the use of the military on US soil and inflamed political tension in the country’s second most-populous city. A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals extended its pause on US District Judge Charles Breyer’s June 12 ruling that Trump had unlawfully called the National Guard into federal service.

Reuters

Iran

Tehran embassy closed as conflict escalates

Australia says it has suspended operations at its embassy in Tehran, citing a deteriorating security situation as Israel hit Iran’s nuclear facilities again, and the week-old air war showed no sign yet of an exit strategy from either side. Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Australian defence personnel and aircraft were being deployed to the Middle East as part of contingency plans to help evacuate its citizens and diplomats when the airspace opens. They would not be used for combat, she added.

Reuters

Middle East

10 hours ago

Israel: Cluster bombs targeted civilians

Iran has launched a missile at Israel that scattered small bombs with the aim of increasing civilian casualties, the Israeli military and its Washington embassy say, the first reported use of cluster munitions in the escalating seven-day-old war. “Today, the Iranian Armed Forces fired a missile that contained cluster submunitions at a densely populated civilian area in Israel,“ the embassy said in an email to Reuters that did not identify the area.

Reuters

10 hours ago

Iran

Lammy to join nuclear roundtable

British foreign minister David Lammy is headed to Geneva for nuclear talks with Iran and European counterparts, racing to press for a diplomatic solution over Tehran’s nuclear programme, his office says. Israel and Iran have been in a spiralling air war since last week after Israel launched military strikes on Iran, which retaliated with waves of missiles.

Reuters

Ukraine

Zelensky: Russia’s Iran defence highlights need for sanctions

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says that Russia’s defence of Iran’s authorities underscored the need for intensified sanctions against Moscow. Zelensky said Russia’s deployment of Iranian-designed Shahed drones and North Korean munitions was proof that Kyiv’s allies were applying insufficient pressure against Moscow.

Reuters

Space

16 hours ago

Starship destroyed in test blast

SpaceX’s massive Starship spacecraft has exploded into a dramatic fireball during testing in Texas, the latest in a series of setbacks for billionaire Elon Musk’s Mars rocket program. The explosion occurred on Wednesday evening while Starship was on a test stand at its Brownsville, Texas Starbase and preparing for the tenth test flight, SpaceX said in a post on Musk’s social-media platform X.

Reuters

16 hours ago

Canada

Carney curbs steel imports to prop up hard hit industry

Canada will soon adopt tariff measures to address risks associated with persistent global overcapacity and unfair trade in steel and aluminum, Prime Minister Mark Carney said. US President Donald Trump this month doubled the tariffs on imports of...

Reuters

Ukraine

Zelensky appoints new land force commander

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has appointed Hennadiy Shapovalov commander of Ukraine’s land forces, replacing a commander who resigned over a Russian strike on a training area. Shapovalov, whose appointment was announced in a presidential...

Reuters

Middle East

22 hours ago

Trump faces MAGA uproar over Iran

The prospect of a US strike against Iran has exposed divisions in the coalition of supporters that brought US President Donald Trump to power, with some of his base urging him not to get the country involved in a new Middle East war. Some of Trump’s...

Reuters

22 hours ago

Denmark

20 Jun 2025

Copenhagen to push Hungary on Ukraine membership

Denmark will continue preparing Ukraine for EU membership in the face of Hungary blocking negotiations, when the Nordic country takes over the presidency of the European Council from July 1, its European affairs minister said. “Unfortunately...

Reuters

20 Jun 2025

Middle East

Xi, Putin call for de-escalation

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have held a phone call during which both leaders condemned Israel for its strikes on Iran and agreed de-escalation was needed. Both men “strongly condemn Israel’s actions, which violate the UN Charter and other norms of international law”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.

Reuters

Russia

Putin warns Germany on missiles

Russian President Vladimir Putin has cautioned Germany that Moscow will consider it to be directly involved in the war in Ukraine if Berlin supplies Kyiv with Taurus cruise missiles, but says he is ready to speak to Chancellor Friedrich Merz. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said earlier this month that Germany is not considering delivering Taurus cruise missiles, which have a range in excess of 300 miles (480 km), to Ukraine despite Kyiv’s repeated requests.

Reuters

Russia

Putin unwilling to speculate on Khamenei assassination

President Vladimir Putin is refusing to even discuss the possibility that Israel and the United States could kill Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and says the Iranian people are consolidating around the leadership in Tehran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly speculated that Israel’s military attacks could result in regime change in Iran while US President Donald Trump said earlier this week that the US knew where Khamenei was “hiding” but that Washington was not going to kill him “for now”.

Reuters