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Middle East crisis live: Trump says strait of Hormuz to open immediately ‘as soon as’ US and Iran sign peace deal

A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry told the state-run IRNA that Iran has not yet made a final decision on an agreement with the US, Reuters reports. Esmaeil Baghaei said Thursday that Iran will not compromise on its “red lines” in negotiations. Though Donald Trump told reporters that an agreement signing could take place as early as the weekend and will likely be in Europe, Baghaei said any reports regarding the signing of the agreement was speculative as nothing has been finalised. A large part of the text had been finalised, Baghaei said, but the US repeatedly changed its positions during the talks.

Military strikes on water facilities in Iran may constitute a war crime, experts say

Military strikes that damaged two water storage facilities in southern Iran may constitute a war crime, military and legal experts say, after reviewing media reports and visual evidence of a 10 June strike on Bemani, a small district about 2 miles from the strait of Hormuz. It’s unclear if the strikes deliberately targeted the district’s water tanks, or if they unintentionally destroyed a key reservoir for about 20,000 people living nearby. But if the tanks were the target, then the legal question becomes critical, Brian Finucane, a former state department lawyer, said. “It’s either a military objective or it’s a civilian object: attacking one is lawful, attacking the other is a war crime,” Finucane said. Iran’s state broadcaster said Wednesday’s strikes were carried out by the US military, though the Guardian could not verify if that was the case. “We are aware of reports and are looking into it,” Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for US Central Command (Centcom), the operating authority for US military operations in the Middle East, said in a statement. The strikes on Bemani may be part of an escalating effort to force Iran to accept a deal on US terms, breaching a tenuous ceasefire agreement that has been in place since April and compounding US threats to capture Iranian infrastructure and take control of its oil industry. Donald Trump has warned that Iran will “pay the price” for stalling negotiations and boasted on Wednesday that “we hit them hard yesterday and we’re going to hit them hard again today.” Conflicting reports emerged on Thursday about whether the US, Iran and several Gulf countries had reached a deal to end the conflict. Trump said he was calling off planned strikes in advance of what he characterized as a deal agreed to in principle on most major points. Trump has claimed dozens of times to be close to an agreement to end the war, and that the Iranian leadership had agreed to a deal when in fact they had not. The destruction of Bemani’s water tanks occurred shortly after Centcom announced strikes on “Iranian air defense, ground control stations, and surveillance radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz” by US air force and navy fighter jets in a post on X. The White House declined to comment on the strikes on Bemani and referred all questions about the operation to Centcom. The attack on Iran’s water infrastructure comes amid the heat of summer and a historic drought. “Iran’s water crisis has left the country with virtually no margin for error,” said Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the International Crisis Group. “Further disruptions could prove catastrophic for the population. But Tehran is more likely to endure a deepening thirst at home than satisfy Trump’s thirst for a political victory.” Lawmakers have also raised questions about the president’s continued use of force in Iran, and cited the risks of any expanded campaign that targets crucial water infrastructure. “Iran is one of the most water-challenged countries in the world right now, and we’re in the hottest part of the year where damages to civilian water access are going to have the most acute consequences,” said Tim Kaine, a Virginia senator. “Whether it was a mistake in targeting or intentional targeting, this is not a minor matter.” Iran’s semi-official news agency posted photos of destroyed water tanks as well as images of munition fragments that Trevor Ball, a former US army technician, identified as pieces of a GBU-39 bomb – a precision-guided munition produced in the US and often sold to allies in the Middle East including Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Ball described the damaged water facility as “remote” and said that it was “very unlikely that two buildings were both directly hit if that’s not what they were aiming for”. Several military analysts and Iran experts said that the Bemani strike was the first publicly reported attack on water infrastructure in Iran. Earlier this year, the US hit a girls’ school in Minab, killing dozens of students aged seven to 12. The US military has not commented on its role in the elementary school attack. Multiple former officials with deep experience in military targeting said that if the US did intentionally target a water facility, it would be unprecedented. “It’s never been on the table to hit any water infrastructure – in any campaign that I’ve been a part of,” said Wes Bryant, who advised the US military on the use of force in Iraq and Syria. “Pre-Trump 2.0, I would have said that ‘Absolutely we don’t target water infrastructure. This is a misidentification.’ But now I’m not sure.” Finucane, who consulted on use of force issues for both Republican and Democratic administrations in more than half a dozen countries, agreed. “I don’t recall ever seeing the US military conduct a deliberate strike on water infrastructure this way,” he said. “It’s not clear to me whether that is what took place here,” he said. Before the US military conducts a deliberate operation, it must evaluate the legality of any potential strike against two key criteria, Finucane said. First, commanders must determine if the target is a lawful military objective. And second, the military must determine that the expected harm to civilians would not be excessive compared with the anticipated military advantage. “Checking that first box as to whether it was a lawful military objective is critical,” Finucane said. “Because if it’s not a lawful military objective, you’re attacking a civilian object, and attacking a civilian object is a war crime.” Congress voted to constrain US action in Iran on 3 June, securing four Republican votes in favor of an unprecedented resolution to rein in Trump’s power to continue the conflict. Kaine said that he planned to bring a war powers resolution to the Senate in response to the latest strikes on Iran, and will also demand answers from the Pentagon. If the strike on Bemani’s water facilities turns out to be intentional, Kaine said that it will “absolutely” affect Republicans’ support for the war. “The one thing the president cares about is his own popularity,” Kaine said. “The combination of American citizens being mad about gas prices and losing Republican votes who had been supportive … they don’t affect his ability [to wage war], but they start to affect his calculations about going in a different direction.” While it’s unclear exactly how the strike on Bemani came to be, Kaine also raised concerns about the use of AI in selecting US military targets. “AI, without appropriate human oversight, could lead you to commit an egregious mistake,” Kaine said. “We are obviously deeply concerned about the role that AI may have played in the Minab strike, and we will have the same questions about the water strike.”

Canadian mother sues OpenAI, alleging ChatGPT led her daughter to kill herself

A Canadian mother sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, in US court on Thursday, alleging that ChatGPT encouraged her daughter to kill herself. The lawsuit is the latest in a slew accusing the company of failing to address dangerous conversations between users and the company’s chatbot. Kristie Carrier said in a lawsuit filed in San Francisco state court that her daughter, Alice, told ChatGPT about her suicidal ideations more than a dozen times leading up to her death but that OpenAI’s safety systems never flagged the conversations for human review or terminated them. “ChatGPT took on the persona of a confidant, a best friend, a therapist at times, even though it was not capable of safely and responsibly engaging in this way with my child,” Carrier said in a statement. OpenAI has said it trains its models to direct people who express intent to harm themselves to seek help and connect with real-world resources. “This is a heartbreaking situation and our thoughts are with everyone impacted. We’re currently reviewing the legal filing, which indicates that these interactions took place on an earlier version of ChatGPT that is no longer available,” said Drew Pusateri, a spokesperson for OpenAI. The platform initially told Alice Carrier to seek help from a crisis hotline or emergency services. But as OpenAI updated ChatGPT to make its responses sound more human, her interactions with the platform deepened, with Alice Carrier sharing more personal information and ChatGPT responding in ways that mimicked a friend or therapist, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit claims the chatbot criticized Alice Carrier’s partner and crisis hotlines, validated her suicidal thoughts, and urged her to keep speaking with it. When Alice Carrier said she had suicidal thoughts and had attempted to kill herself, it again suggested a crisis hotline, the lawsuit said. Alice Carrier was working as a web developer in Montreal when she began using ChatGPT in 2023 to troubleshoot problems with computers and gaming consoles, according to the lawsuit. The following year, her relationship with the platform changed, when she turned to ChatGPT with questions about what to do with her suicidal thoughts, as well as suicide methods. Alice Carrier said crisis hotlines were not helpful, and ChatGPT echoed those statements, according to the filing. “Maybe this is just the end,” ChatGPT told her, according to the lawsuit. These events led to Alice Carrier’s suicide last year at the age of 24, her mother alleges. The lawsuit, which accuses OpenAI of negligence in the design of ChatGPT and in its failure to warn users of the product’s dangers, seeks damages and a court order requiring OpenAI to automatically terminate conversations about self-harm and to display warnings about its platform. OpenAI is already facing 18 similar lawsuits filed by families of people who committed or attempted suicide in a coordinated proceeding in California state court, according to lawyers for Kristie Carrier. Google is facing a similar suit over alleged encouragement by its Gemini chatbot. More than 1 million ChatGPT users each week send messages that include “explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent”, according to a blogpost published by OpenAI in October 2025. In addition, OpenAI said that about 0.07% of users active in a given week – about 560,000 of the 800 million weekly users the bot saw then – show “possible signs of mental health emergencies related to psychosis or mania”. “While ChatGPT is not a substitute for medical or mental health care, we have continued to strengthen how it responds in sensitive and acute situations with input from mental health experts. Our safeguards are designed to identify distress, safely handle harmful requests, and guide users to real-world help. This work is ongoing, and we continue to improve it in close consultation with clinicians,” Pusateri, the OpenAI spokesperson, said. Its models are also trained to refuse requests that could “meaningfully enable violence”, and to notify law enforcement when conversations suggest “an imminent and credible risk of harm to others”, with mental health experts helping assess borderline cases, according to OpenAI blogposts. In addition to lawsuits over suicide, the company is facing lawsuits accusing it of assisting school shooters and failing to flag those conversations to law enforcement. Families of seven victims of a mass shooting at a secondary school in British Columbia are suing OpenAI and Altman for negligence after the company failed to alert authorities to the shooter’s troubling conversations with ChatGPT. Florida became the first US state to sue OpenAI earlier this month, accusing the company of harming children by providing information to school shooters, offering guidance on self-harm and addicting young users. The state’s attorney general has also opened a criminal investigation into OpenAI over the chatbot’s alleged role in a shooting. Reuters contributed reporting • In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Delhi issues ‘strong protest’ after US strikes kill three Indian seafarers in Gulf

The Indian government has voiced a “strong protest” after three Indian seafarers were killed in US military strikes against oil tankers travelling through the strait of Hormuz. US Central Command confirmed that its aircraft had fired two Hellfire missiles at the engine room of the MT Settebello as it sailed through the Gulf of Oman on Wednesday. The US said its forces had carried out “precision strikes” against the ship, which was sailing under the flag of the Pacific island of Palau, after its crew repeatedly failed to comply with instructions. The US alleged the ship was violating its military blockade of Iranian ports, which it began enforcing in April in an effort to cut off revenue and increase pressure on Tehran as peace talks have continued to falter. After the incident, 21 of the Indian crew onboard the MT Settebello were rescued but three were reported missing. By Thursday, the Indian government confirmed that their bodies had been discovered on the ship, the first fatalities since the US imposed the blockade. The three men who died were named as Patnala Suresh, a chief engineer, Aditya Sharma, a deck cadet, and Shivanand Chaurashiya, a fitter. Sarbananda Sonowal, India’s shipping and ports minister, called it a “profound loss to our maritime family”. The Indian government condemned the attack and summoned a senior US diplomat in response to the deaths. “These attacks must cease and end,” the foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a briefing. “We also call for dialogue and diplomacy so that we can have an early return to peace and stability in the region.” The general secretary of India’s seafarers, Manoj Yadav, said: “I am fully convinced that US naval forces knew how many Indians and other foreign nationals were on those vessels. If the ships did not comply with instructions, they could have been detained instead.” The Indian government said on Thursday that it was monitoring all Indian-flagged vessels and crew in the Gulf closely. The ship is one of three tankers with an Indian crew that have been hit by US missiles this week, putting further strain on already tense diplomatic relations between Delhi and Washington. India is one of the world’s largest suppliers of merchant marine labour. Indian seafarers make up almost 15% of the global maritime workforce. With nearly a fifth of the world’s oil passing through the strait of Hormuz, there are large numbers of Indian seafarers working in Gulf countries and as crew on tankers. A US fighter jet targeted the oil tanker Marivex on Monday, setting it alight and forcing Indian crew to be evacuated. Washington said the ship had previously carried oil that was under sanction and was trying to return to an Iranian port. US forces then acted against another Indian-crewed tanker on Thursday, which was sailing under the flag of Guinea-Bissau, and which Washington alleged had attempted to transport oil from Iran through the Gulf of Oman and had not followed instructions. The US and Iran began renewed tit-for-tat strikes this week, threatening an already fragile ceasefire and further undermining efforts to bring about a permanent peace deal. As of Thursday, the US said it had disabled nine non-compliant vessels in the strait of Hormuz and redirected 135 others since its blockade began.

Pope Leo rails against migrant deaths on visit to Spain’s ‘dock of shame’

The constant flow of people embarking in small, rickety boats to migrate abroad should force a reckoning as to why we have built a world where so many “must risk death to seek life”, Pope Leo has said as he warned: “We cannot grow accustomed to counting the dead.” Thursday’s speech in the Canary Islands, on the final leg of the pontiff’s week-long tour of Spain, contained Leo’s most pointed comments to date on migration. Standing near a memorial to the many who had braved the fierce swells of the Atlantic in the hope of carving out a better life in Europe, the pope railed against the world’s “indifference” and called on leaders to treat migrants more humanely. “Even today, monsters lurk in these seas: mafias that traffic in despair, traffickers who enslave women and children, and those whose indifference allows the poor to be swallowed up by exploitation or oblivion,” he said. Last year, an estimated 1,906 people died attempting to cross into Europe along the perilous Atlantic route. Flanked by rescue ships and a simple wooden cross cobbled together from the wreckage of migrant boats, the US-born pope said it went against Christian values to “regard as foreign the cry of those who shout from the night”, and he warned that history would condemn those who did so. “May history not accuse us of turning the pain of those who suffer into a common sight along our shores,” he said. “Today, here by the sea, every individual that arrives asks us what remains of our humanity. Sooner or later, it will be known whether we protected life or whether we yielded to indifference.” The event was held at the dock of Arguineguín in Gran Canaria, which burst into the spotlight in 2020 after arrivals along the Atlantic route swelled. As Spanish media showed migrants left to sleep on the rat-infested dock and others who had gone weeks without blankets or showers, the wooden jetty became known across the country as the “dock of shame”. After hitting a peak of more than 46,000 arrivals in 2024, the number of people crossing via the Atlantic route has dropped sharply. Rights groups have said EU cooperation with countries across Africa appears to be emphasising deterrence while turning a blind eye to the risk of rights abuses. In his speech, the pope singled out Europe, urging people to see the tragedy of migration as a “call to conscience” for all of those involved. “Europe cannot claim to uphold human dignity while growing accustomed to the Mediterranean and Atlantic becoming graveyards without headstones,” he said. The comments come as the EU pursues an increasingly hardline on irregular migration, from Italy’s escalating crackdown on the NGO rescue ships that ply the Mediterranean to a new bloc-wide law that critics say mimics the US administration’s ICE system. In recent years, Spain’s Socialist-led government has sought to position itself as a notable exception, including by championing its efforts to regularise more than half a million undocumented people. On Thursday, the pope expanded on this to call for “legal and safe pathways” for immigration, international cooperation to fight human trafficking, and funding to rescue migrants in distress at sea. “Human dignity has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border,” he said. “Every boat that arrives does not bring only migrants, it brings with it a question: what kind of world have we built, if so many brothers and sisters must risk death in search of life?” He capped off his speech by casting a wreath of flowers into the sea, accompanied by a moment of silence, to mourn those who had lost their lives while in transit. It was an echo of a gesture made by Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, who visited the Italian island of Lampedusa in 2013 and denounced the “globalisation of indifference” towards migrants. Thursday’s event also featured testimony of first responders, humanitarian workers and migrants, including that of a Nigerian woman who had risked all to enter Europe. “I had to choose: live in suffering, or cross and risk it all. Die trying, or stay and not have anything,” said the woman, whose journey led to her being trafficked into prostitution and led to her baby being snatched from her. Leo responded by telling her she was a blessing from God and deserved happiness. Later, he said: “Dear migrants, before saying anything else to you, I want to bow before your dignity,” inclining his head slightly. “You are not just numbers or files. You are people who have left behind families and homes. You have dreams that no one has the right to despise.”

Trump says US and Iran on verge of signing peace agreement

Donald Trump has claimed that the US and Iran are on the verge of signing a peace agreement and announced that he will cancel fresh missile strikes in a new bout of public diplomacy by social media, which was not immediately confirmed by the Iranian leadership. While the White House has sought a peace agreement with Iran and it would mark a major achievement for this administration, Trump has claimed dozens of times to be close to an agreement and has previously said the Iranian leadership had agreed peace terms when they had not. “Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, the social network he owns. He claimed the negotiations had been approved by other parties to the conflict, including Israel, which has been publicly skeptical about any deal with Iran. Others included the Gulf states of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as regional powers Turkey and Pakistan. “The Naval Blockade will remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalized – Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly,” Trump added. The Fars news agency, which is close to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Iran had not given a final response yet but suggested the US had accepted a text proposed by Iran. Tasnim, the semi-official Iranian news agency, wrote that “until a potential understanding is announced by Iran, any news from Trump on this matter should be dismissed”. Just hours earlier, Trump had said the US would take control of Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure and launch further strikes on Iran on Thursday night as the countries exchanged fire for the second consecutive day despite a nominal ceasefire being in place. In a post on Truth Social, Trump had said the US would hit Iran “VERY HARD, TONIGHT”, claiming that most of Iran’s offensive capacity had been destroyed. He also said the US would seize Kharg, an island in the Gulf that handles about 90% of Iran’s oil exports and hosts vast storage facilities. Trump said: “At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their oil and gas markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America.” He later appeared to walk back his threats to seize Kharg, telling Fox News that though his preference had always been to take the island, he did not know if “America has the stomach for it”. He also said he would rather avoid hitting Iranian bridges and power plants despite having threatened to do so earlier in the week. The UN ⁠secretary-general, ⁠António Guterres, on Thursday called on the US and Iran to return to a full implementation of the ceasefire negotiated in April and to avoid further violence that could “trigger ⁠a full resumption of the conflict, with unpredictable consequences for the region and the world”. Analysts have said that taking Kharg Island would require the US to put boots on the ground, exposing US soldiers to Iranian attacks. Ruben Gallego, a Democratic senator and former US marine, said of Trump’s threats to take Kharg Island: “I think he’s putting our men and women in very harsh danger … Kharg Island is a very small, dense place, it’s not that hard to target [our] military formations.” Responding to Trump’s threats, the head of the Iranian parliament’s national security commission, Ebrahim Azizi, said the US president would receive a stronger and more painful response if he made any “uncalculated” moves. Iran and the US have traded strikes for two consecutive days, triggered by the downing of a US helicopter above the strait of Hormuz. The ceasefire, established in early April, has been undermined by sporadic retaliatory strikes, with both sides accusing the other of violating the temporary truce. Trump said Thursday’s assault was prompted by Iran stalling in negotiations aimed at turning the temporary ceasefire into a permanent peace. The most intense strikes yet took place on Thursday morning, with the US launching a wide-ranging salvo against what it described as “military surveillance capabilities, communication systems and air-defence sites across Iran”. The US military said it also struck an oil tanker near the strait of Hormuz that it claimed was attempting to breach a blockade of Iranian ports, firing Hellfire missiles at the vessel. An Indian official said a US strike had killed three Indian crew members on a ship, though it was unclear whether it was the same one referenced by the US military. Iran launched missiles and drones at Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan on Thursday, as it had the previous morning. Bahrain’s interior ministry said an 11-year-old girl had been injured, while homes and vehicles had been damaged by falling debris from interceptions. Despite the strikes, Iranian officials told Reuters that talks on a preliminary deal had intensified. They said the US and Iran were exchanging messages on a memorandum of understanding, although significant obstacles remained, including how to unfreeze billions of dollars in Iranian assets. “This war, from a military standpoint, is a dead end,” one Iranian source told Reuters. “The Americans could not achieve their goals by attacking Iran. There has been progress in negotiations.” The mechanism for releasing frozen Iranian funds remains a significant sticking point. Iran wants the money to be released all at once directly to Tehran, while the US favours a phased approach focused on funding humanitarian goods. Unfreezing the funds and creating broader economic relief was the priority, according to the Iranian source, rather than an all-encompassing settlement. Other unresolved issues include the conflict in Lebanon, which Iran insists must be included in any ceasefire framework. Israeli strikes there have reportedly killed more than 3,600 people, while Hezbollah attacks have killed at least 30 Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and Israeli civilians. Trump wants Iran to end its restrictions on shipping through the strait of Hormuz and guarantee that it will not develop a nuclear weapon – something Tehran has long denied pursuing. Iran tightened its control over the strait of Hormuz after Wednesday’s attacks, warning that ships transiting the waterway must be patient. The strait is a chokepoint for about 20% of the world’s oil supply and its closure has sent prices of energy and inflation soaring. The US military denied that the strait had been closed or that its ships had been attacked, despite Iranian claims to the contrary, insisting that vessels were continuing to move through the strait. Trump is seeking a deal with Iran at a time when the conflict is becoming increasingly unpopular in the US. The president faces midterm elections, rising inflation and plummeting approval ratings. Gallego said: “It’s never that easy and we certainly shouldn’t be telegraphing our moves or intentions. I think [Trump] is being just way too cavalier about how he’s talking about this.”

A shadowy overseas group is trying to influence Australian abortion policy. Who are CitizenGo and what do they want?

Among the hand-drawn signs warning of the “evil” of abortion at last week’s Sydney rally were some more professional placards. “The greatest liberty is the right to life,” the blue-and-white posters read, under a small logo for CitizenGo. CitizenGo will not be a familiar name to many in Australia but in Europe it looms large in the anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ rights world. An offshoot of the ultra-conservative Spanish group HazteOír (Make Yourself Heard), it was founded in Spain in 2013 and claims to have 20 million members across 50 countries. Its sources of funding have been disputed. A European parliamentary inquiry into foreign interference in the European Union’s democratic processes described CitizenGo in 2021 as “an organisation founded by US and Russian ultra-conservatives that has sought to coordinate the activities of far-right parties in Europe” but CitizenGo has denied receiving money from “Russian oligarchs”. A UN research institute for social development report published in 2024 called CitizenGo an “ultra-conservative Catholic organisation” and a global leader of anti-gender ideology. Outside Europe it has also been particularly active in Africa. In Kenya, Marie Stopes was temporarily banned from providing abortions in 2018 after complaints from CitizenGo, among others. Its methods typically include initiating mass online petitions for its cause, which it describes as “stopping radical lobbies from imposing their agenda on society”. Petitions have made headlines for trying to get a Cadbury’s Creme Egg ad pulled off air, and for succeeding in getting a DC Comics series on Jesus cancelled. In Australia, CitizenGo – which is on the foreign influence register – says it advocates “on issues of family, faith and liberty from a biblical perspective”. Its campaigners include the former Nationals MP and failed One Nation Senate candidate George Christensen, and Christopher Yates, a former adviser to the independent Fowler MP, Dai Le. The former Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance executive director Brian Marlow (who is now running a rightwing political movement called Revive Australia) joined in 2024 but it is unclear if he is still involved. To date, the impact of CitizenGo in Australia has been modest. One petition in support of the anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe, which claims “the political elite are trying to destroy her”, has been signed by almost 14,000 people. About 7,400 people have signed Christensen’s petition to ban sex-selective abortion, and about 22,300 have signed a petition calling for the dissolution of federal parliament for a range of reasons including “mass migration” and inflation. But researchers say CitizenGo is another potentially influential part of the burgeoning ecosystem of anti-rights groups energised by the rise of One Nation in the polls and populist movements worldwide. Lucy Hamilton, a doctoral researcher at the University of Technology Sydney and far-right expert, uses the word “co-belligerence” to describe CitizenGo’s role in that ecosystem. The word is used to describe people who fight alongside each other for a common cause, without necessarily having a formal alliance. “There’s a variety of … Christian groups representing different faith traditions [that are] co-operating … to drive their shared projects,” she says. Hamilton says such groups embrace multiple issues – such as abortion, immigration and climate change – to broaden out. “Basically they’re all extending their messaging to include as many factions as possible so that a group that might not be focused on abortion feels itself included. These become part of an ideological package that threatens the safety of many Australians,” she says. Kurt Sengul, a research fellow at Macquarie University and far-right expert, echoes that idea, and says coalitions have emerged in the far-right space that “never would have seen eye to eye on anything before”. CitizenGo is in the mix but has “definitely flown under the radar” in Australia. “They haven’t got a lot of traction,” he says. “You get the sense they feel like the opportunity structure is there now, the possibilities have broadened, that could be why they’re making some moves now.” The recent prominence of abortion as an issue – there are three bills before state parliaments trying to reduce access – has given CitizenGo an opportunity to insert itself into the campaign. Yates was at last week’s rally, organised by Howe, who works with state and federal politicians to introduce laws to restrict abortion access. Yates said in a Facebook post he could have printed out three times as many of those blue-and-white posters and that “ideally” abortion should be entirely banned. Dr Adam Simpson, a senior lecturer in international studies at Adelaide University’s school of society and culture, says cost-of-living pressures since Covid have driven people to unite on a range of grievances. “That’s been the vector for the move to these rightwing populists that bring with them a whole range of other complaints,” he says. “I strongly suspect that there’s quite a few of those [One Nation] supporters who are broadly pro-choice but – because they’re susceptible to the far-right, populist view – they become more susceptible to views they might not have thought about before or might no have strong views on, like abortion.” Guardian Australia has contacted CitizenGo, Christensen, Yates, Le and Howe for comment.

Is the Iran ceasefire over? What the latest US attacks tell us

The US launched strikes across southern Iran for a second consecutive day on Thursday. Although there have been several breaches of the ceasefire agreed between the two sides in April, the attacks this week – launched after the downing of a US helicopter over the strait of Hormuz – represent the most serious and extensive breakdown of the truce to date. The US president, Donald Trump, raised the prospect of further attacks, while his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, told reporters that if strikes “have to happen … they will be strong and they will be clear”. Then in a sudden shift, Trump said he would cancel the planned strikes because Washington and Tehran were on the verge of signing a peace deal approved by other regional powers, crucially including Israel. The US president has said dozens of times that the two sides are close to an agreement and none has materialised, so observers will be watching carefully to see if other parties confirm his claim. Tasnim, the semi-official Iranian news agency, wrote that “until a potential understanding is announced by Iran, any news from Trump on this matter should be dismissed”. Is the ceasefire over? US officials have sought to play down the significance of the attacks in media briefings this week, claiming that the ceasefire remains in place and wider negotiations with Iran have not been affected. Trump’s remarks on Thursday indicated that the ceasefire may even lead to a peace deal, but Tehran did not immediately confirm his remarks. In an earlier post on Thursday, Trump increased pressure on Tehran by saying that the US was planning to capture Iran’s key infrastructure and take control of the country’s oil industry. Iran would almost certainly reject any deal that included US control over its oil industry. Trump wrote: “At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets.” He said the situation would be “much like we have with Venezuela”. In previous efforts to downplay the renewed US attacks on Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported that, after authorising the latest attacks, Trump instructed aides to send a message to Iran via Qatar that the strikes did not signal a “restart of all-out war” and were solely a response to the helicopter downing. “Nothing changes where the deal stands right now,” another White House official told Politico. “There’s a military bucket and then there’s a negotiation bucket … so, two things can happen at the same time.” Brett McGurk, who held senior national security positions in the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, noted that the US had clearly telegraphed to Iran that another attack was coming on Thursday. “What they’re trying to do is manage that escalation … to say to Iran: ‘We’re going to respond, this is coming, but this is not a restart of the campaign we started in February’,” he said. For weeks, Trump has claimed that a deal to bring a permanent end to the conflict was close and that he has gone out of his way to avoid a return to all-out war. But the president is grappling with plummeting approval ratings, as the conflict has proved deeply unpopular at home. Meanwhile, despite claiming on Wednesday to “love” inflation, a third consecutive monthly rise in prices is weighing on Trump and his Republican party in the run-up to the midterm elections. Yet despite repeated claims that a deal with Iran is imminent, significant differences remain between the two sides. Restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear programme, the unfreezing of Iranian assets, and Israel’s continued war in Lebanon are still substantial obstacles to an agreement. What is the US hoping to achieve with this latest round of strikes? With the White House and Pentagon signalling that the US is not seeking a return to all-out war, Hegseth offered some clues to strategy. The renewed strikes were not happening “because we want to restart anything”, the defence secretary said, but because the US “is prepared to set the terms to ensure that we get the kind of deal President Trump expects. If we need to negotiate with bombs, we will negotiate with bombs.” Meanwhile, a US official told the Wall Street Journal the “military pressure would only increase until Iran ceded to the president’s terms”. The view that US attacks this week were designed to further press Iran to cede to Trump’s terms was reflected in reporting from Axios, which said the US president had discussed with his national security team an operation that would be “big in scale but short in duration”, intended to push Iran towards changing its negotiation position. But “coercive diplomacy” is not the only reason for the escalating attacks, according to Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. The choice of targets – including air-defence systems, command-and-control centres and radar systems – suggest the Trump administration wants to weaken Iran’s ability to target shipping in the strait of Hormuz and “signal at the highest political level that the security situation around the strait is improving, thereby reassuring shipping companies”. Taken together, the attacks can be seen as an attempt to erode Iran’s leverage over the strait of Hormuz, Azizi said. Will further pressure bring Iran to the negotiating table? Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, said on Wednesday that “no sustainable deal can be reached through terrorists, intimidation, or the use of force. Iran has never negotiated under threats and pressure and will never submit to pressure or question,” adding that the US had repeatedly pursued such a policy and should have learned by now “that threats and military intimidation are counterproductive”. Throughout the war, Iran’s leadership has remained unwilling to bend to US terms, despite widespread attacks and economic devastation. According to the Atlantic, at least 1 million Iranian jobs have been lost since the war began, while almost 300,000 people have signed up for unemployment insurance. Inflation is approaching 85%, although the rate is considerably higher for food products. Despite all this, continued US military strikes were unlikely to shift Iran from its current position, said Danny Citrinowicz, a former head of the Iran branch of Israeli military intelligence. “No military operation, whether limited or extensive, short or prolonged, is likely to compel Iran to accept a deal in the US terms,” said Citrinowicz, now a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council. “More likely, an Iranian response would push the parties even further away from diplomacy.” Inside Iran, there are also warnings that the US decision to target radar sites and command centres may be part of a “broader pattern of preparations for a new large-scale war” coordinated with Israel, Azizi said. Such warnings are likely to strengthen the hand of the minority of senior officials in Tehran who favour abandoning peace talks. “The current situation is the direct result of profound mistrust on both sides,” said Citrinowicz, who suggested Iran and the US were beginning to accept that the status quo looked unsustainable. “If President Trump genuinely wants a deal, he will have to engage with at least some of Iran’s core demands. If he is unwilling to do so, then he should be prepared for a prolonged confrontation rather than a negotiated settlement,” he said.