Read the daily news to learn English

Middle East crisis live: US says second day of Iran strikes ‘completed’; Tehran claims it has targeted US base in Bahrain

Kuwait’s army has said its air defence systems are intercepting “hostile aerial targets”, after Iran claimed it had launched attacks on US bases in the country. The general staff of the Army said in its announcement that citizens must “adhere to the security and safety instructions and guidelines issued by the competent authorities, and to obtain information from the approved official sources.” At the same time, Bahrain’s ministry of interior has once again issued an air raid alert and told people to head to the “nearest safe” place.

French man on trial accused of raping partner after contact with Dominique Pelicot

A bodyguard from Lyon is to go on trial for allegedly sedating and raping his partner after he was in contact online with Dominique Pelicot, who was convicted of drugging and raping his own wife, Gisèle Pelicot. Pelicot, one of the worst sex offenders in modern French history, is serving 20 years in prison after he was found guilty of drugging his then wife and inviting dozens of men to rape her in their home in the south of France over almost a decade. He and 50 other men were found guilty after the biggest rape trial in French history in 2024. The 73-year-old, who made contact with men in an online chatroom called “Against her knowledge”, crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into his then wife’s food and drink to render her unconscious. Gisèle Pelicot won support worldwide after insisting that the rape trial be held in public to raise awareness of the use of drugs and sedation to rape women, saying: “It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them”. The man going on trial on Thursday worked as an international bodyguard for high-profile clients at film festivals and on trips around the world, including the US and the Gulf states. Investigators found communications between him and Pelicot as part of their initial investigations into Pelicot in 2020. The man, who was arrested in 2023, is accused of sedating his longterm partner, raping her and filming her. His lawyer, Gabriel Versini-Bullara, said he denied the charges. The investigation had established that the bodyguard had contact with Pelicot but this did not mean he had been a “disciple” of Pelicot, Versini-Bullara said. The court will seek to determine how close the contact was and whether the man had sought Pelicot’s advice on how to sedate and abuse his wife. The investigating magistrates’ summary of the case, seen by Agence France-Presse, alleges the bodyguard had sought to benefit from Pelicot’s “experience” in drugging and raping his wife. The fact that the woman was deeply sedated “ruled out all form of consent”, they wrote. The man’s partner told investigators she had experienced “great fatigue” over a period of three years without understanding why. She also spoke of heart issues, dizziness and several blackouts. The bodyguard admitted separate charges of the possession and distribution of child abuse imagery. The case will run until Friday.

Ukraine war briefing: Flamingo missiles hit more far-flung Russian targets

Long-range Ukrainian attacks hit targets deep inside Russia on Wednesday. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, said Ukrainian FP-5 Flamingo long-range missiles hit a military factory in Cheboksary that supplies components for Russian drones and missiles. It is located in the Chuvashiya region more than 900km (560 miles) from the frontline. The Astra online news outlet reported that the Ukrainian strike hit the VNIIR-Progress plant that produces antennas for drones. Oleg Nikolayev, the head of Chuvashiya, confirmed the attack. Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces also struck a refinery in Russia’s Samara region, where the governor, Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, confirmed industrial plants were damaged by drone strikes and three people were injured. Astra carried images of a large fire at the Samara refinery. It matches with reporting by Reuters citing industry sources who said Russian oil producer Rosneft’s Kuibyshev refinery in Samara halted oil processing on 10 June after a drone attack. Kuibyshev refinery is part of Rosneft’s Samara refining hub, which also includes Novokuibyshevsk and Syzran plants. Syzran has been offline since 21 May after a drone attack. Novokuibyshevsk had to shut down on 18 April after a drone attack and has been running at reduced throughput. Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s SBU security service also targeted two oil infrastructure facilities in Russia’s Vladimir region, about 700km from the frontline. And a fire broke out in the area surrounding Russia’s Afipsky refinery in southern Krasnodar, with a gas pipeline also damaged, Russian authorities said. Zelenskyy declared Thursday 11 June 2026 the inaugural “Day of the Unmanned Systems Forces” – to be celebrated annually in a show of “respect and gratitude” to the Ukrainian military’s drone branch. “For the first time in the world, such a branch of the military was created, in Ukraine,” said Zelenskyy. “We are developing the USF to the max, and it is Ukrainians who have proved that through technology, ingenuity, and courage, we can change the nature of warfare.” Russian investigators said on Wednesday that they had arrested at least two suspects after two car bombings in Moscow. Pjotr Sauer writes that one explosion killed Col Damir Davydov, 57, head of the Russian military’s artillery and missile ammunition supply directorate, which oversees the distribution of weapons to the armed forces. The bomb under his BMW went off at about 5.30am on Tuesday in the city of Balashikha, the independent outlet Astra reported. Another bomb was found before it went off and in that case a boy and a girl in their teens had been charged, said Russia’s state investigative committee. The alleged target was an employee of a scientific production enterprise. Ukrainian forces struck the Russian-occupied port of Mariupol, Kyiv said on Wednesday, the latest in a series of drone attacks on logistics across a critical stretch of Moscow-held southern Ukraine connecting Russia to Crimea. The attack on the port, which Ukraine’s military said plunged the site into a blackout, followed two strikes earlier this week on the Chonhar bridge linking the Russian-occupied Kherson region to the Black Sea peninsula, which Moscow seized in 2014. Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed governor of the occupied part of Ukraine’s Kherson region, said the bridge had been hit twice and traffic had been suspended. Ukraine’s military struck the “shadow fleet” tanker West Horizon in the Black Sea, the Ukrainian general staff said on Wednesday. Russia meanwhile condemned a European Union decision to authorise EU military vessels in the Mediterranean to stop and inspect foreign ships suspected of being part of the fleet, which transports Russian oil in breach of sanctions. The EU said it had expanded the mandate of the naval mission known as Operation IRINI. Intensified Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports have caused serious damage that threatens a significant reduction in shipments including agricultural exports, said Ukraine’s largest farmers’ union, UAC. All iron ore and more than 90% of Ukraine’s agricultural exports are shipped through the three ports of the Odesa hub. “The situation at ports in the Odesa region has reached a critical point,” said a UAC statement, warning that Russian shelling was “destroying Ukraine’s logistical heart”. Ukraine’s police chief has accused Russia of recruiting teenage Ukrainian girls to kill Ukrainian military personnel, after the arrest of a 17-year-old suspect for murder. Ivan Vyhivskyi said the young women allegedly lured Ukrainian military personnel to rented apartments and poisoned their drinks with methadone. Police detained a 17-year-old woman in the western region of Zhytomyr last week after a fatal poisoning and said she had been communicating via Telegram with a man who was likely a Russian security services agent. She had received a parcel of what presumed was methadone, a synthetic opioid, police said. Russian MPs on Wednesday voted in favour of a law that enables Vladimir Putin’s government to increase spending and debt without going through parliament. Russia’s financial position has been deteriorating, with the government forced to raise value-added tax this year to cope with rising military spending. Putin has proclaimed Russia’s economic situation to be “under control”. Putin, the Russian ruler, told top officials on Wednesday that there are grounds to expect a cut in the central bank’s key interest rate when it meets next week. The central bank chief, Elvira Nabiullina, was absent from the meeting, purportedly due to illness. Concerns have been raised about Nabiullina’s absence – she was last seen in public during Putin’s visit to Kazakhstan on 28 May, and missed his drone-affected “Russian Davos” summit in St Petersburg altogether. China has complained as the European Union prepares further measures targeting Chinese firms for their alleged support for Russia’s war effort. Officials told AFP the measures would include adding 14 companies from mainland China and Hong Kong to a list of firms banned from buying EU goods. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that Beijing “has always firmly opposed illegal unilateral sanctions that lack basis in international law.” China would “closely follow” developments and “take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests”.

Aukus is among Australia’s worst foreign policy decisions and requires ‘heroic’ optimism, Gareth Evans says

Aukus will prove to be one of the worst defence and foreign policy decisions ever made by an Australian government and is only being permitted by Donald Trump in order to destroy Chinese nuclear threats to the US mainland, former foreign affairs minister Gareth Evans says. In evidence to an independent public inquiry into the $368bn nuclear agreement with the US and UK on Thursday, Evans, a cabinet minister in the Hawke and Keating governments, will warn the transfer and construction of submarines to Australia from the early 2030s is effectively only an extension of the American military fleet. He says a future US administration would not come to Australia’s aid in the event of an “existential attack” and would only assist in a military conflict if its own assets on Australian soil are threatened. “The notion that extended nuclear deterrence justifies our prostration – that the US really would be prepared to sacrifice San Francisco for Sydney, let alone Miami for Melbourne – is, and always has been, a ludicrous delusion,” Evans says. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email Foreign affairs minister from 1988 to 1996, Evans will tell a hearing in Melbourne the delivery of three Virginia-class submarines from the US starting in 2032 is unlikely, due to construction delays and shortages for the US fleet, and that five new-design SSN-Aukus attack submarines to be jointly built by the UK and Australia will be extremely difficult. He says the complexity and timeline of the second phase of Aukus requires even more “heroic levels of optimism” than is needed for the American vessels. “Every report coming out of the UK indicates that its defence-industrial base is presently under extraordinary stress, with submarine building schedules tightening and costs increasing, and with every prospect of further deterioration, notwithstanding Australia’s commitment to spending $4.5bn over 10 years to help boost production rates.” Evans calls the government’s expected price tag for the deal “wholly speculative” and says the US views the submarines as primarily supplementary assets, effectively embedded into US military command, for the task of finding, tracking, attacking and destroying Chinese submarines seen as posing a risk to the US mainland. “Australian ministers have never explicitly conceded as much but the conclusion is inescapable that from the outset the whole enterprise has been viewed through an alliance reinforcement lens, with this role for the boats being the understood quid pro quo.” Evans calls Aukus a doubling down on Australia’s commitment to the US alliance, painting a target on the country’s back in the event of a military conflict. Thursday’s first hearing of the public inquiry – which is not a parliamentary process and is being backed by trade unions and the Australian Peace and Security Forum – will be led by commissioners including the former Labor minister Peter Garrett and former defence boss Chris Barrie. Current Labor ministers have accused the inquiry of being anti-Aukus from the outset. Nuclear non-proliferation campaigners Tilman Ruff, Richard Tanter and Dave Sweeney will give evidence in the hearing, as well as retired diplomat John Lander. Highly sceptical of the Aukus agreement, the inquiry’s commissioners will hold public hearings around the country before delivering a reporting in October. The foreign minister, Penny Wong, said on Thursday she and the defence minister, Richard Marles, had discussed Aukus with their UK counterparts in regular talks overnight. The UK government has confirmed the first steel for the newly built joint submarines will be cut next year, even as Britain’s existing submarine program runs years behind targets and billions over budget. “This submarine capability is central to assuring Australian sovereignty in a much more contested world,” Wong said. “It is a capability we need in a world that is more contested. There is no doubt that this project has its challenges. There is no doubt it is ambitious. But there is also no doubt that we do need this capability to assure our interests. And we are very focused on delivering it.” Labor is pushing back on criticism of the plan, including from its own MPs, before the party’s national conference in Adelaide next month.

Pacific nation of Nauru wants to change its name as it moves on from colonial past

Nauru, the world’s smallest republic, may soon make a big change: renaming itself “Naoero”. The switch would “more faithfully honour our nation’s heritage, our language, and our identity”, said the president of the Pacific microstate, David Adeang, in a speech to parliament in January. After Nauru’s parliament passed the proposal unopposed, the island – with an estimated population of 13,000 – will vote in a referendum on whether to make the change official. “Naoero” – pronounced Now-ero – is the term Nauruans use in their own language. “Nauru” – commonly pronounced Now-roo – became the island’s official name because its Indigenous name “could not be properly pronounced by foreign tongues”, the government said, adding it was “changed not by our choice, but for convenience”. The remote island country – located about 3,000km north-east of Australia, and similar in size to London’s Westminster, at 21 sq km – has a history of name changes. In 1798 it was christened “Pleasant Island” when sighted by a British seafarer, who was struck by its beauty and the generosity of its people. After Germany annexed the island in 1888, the name “Nauru” entered official records, though variants “Nawodo” and “Navoda Onawero” were also used. When Australia took over primary administration of the island in 1919 under a League of Nations mandate, it maintained the “Nauru” spelling, which persisted after independence in 1968. In 2001, Australia began to use the island as an offshore detention centre. For scholars of Indigenous placenames, such changes are never just a matter of spelling. Zoltán Grossman, a professor of geography and Native American studies at Evergreen State College in the US, says changing names has long been part of exercising colonial power. “Changing placenames has been an integral part of colonialism to erase the presence of the original peoples,” he says. “It’s not just about the names themselves, it’s about who has the power to change the names.” In arguing for Naoero, the Nauruan government has pointed to other countries that have changed their official names to better reflect local language, including Türkiye (formerly Turkey) and Eswatini (Swaziland). It also cited the nearby Micronesian state Chuuk, which until 1990 was widely known as Truk – another foreign rendering of an Indigenous name. This “re-Indigenisation” of placenames to reflect local pronunciations is how formerly colonised peoples assert their sovereignty, Grossman says. The breakup of the Soviet Union led to the de-russification of eastern European countries: Byelorussia became Belarus and Moldavia changed to Moldova. India has de-anglicised many city and state names since independence. Jordan Engel, founder of the Decolonial Atlas, a project to map and document Indigenous placenames, says there is a “growing momentum” to use them for landmarks and places. “At its core, decolonisation is about self-determination, and one of the most basic expressions of self-determination is being able to speak your language and use your ancestral placenames,” Engel says. But changing a place’s name is not always straightforward. A petition to change New Zealand to the Māori name of Aotearoa gathered more than 70,000 signatures, but its official use has sparked rows in parliament. Cook Islands has long wrestled with whether to drop the name of the British explorer James Cook. Nauru’s government declined to comment on the potential name change when approached by the Guardian. Nauruan Arcmen Willis, a wrestler who has represented Nauru internationally, supports the change; he hopes non-Nauruans people will make the effort to pronounce the new name correctly. “I want to tell people now how to pronounce it, so it goes around and people would pronounce it right,” Willis says. “It’s good to keep our identity,” he says, “because once it’s gone, there will be no more Nauru or Naoero.” Unesco officially classifies Nauru’s language – Nauruan or dorerin Naoero – as “severely endangered”. While Nauruans like Willis speak it among friends and family, it is not taught in schools. Engel says a name change to Naoero can help protect the language for future generations. “Changes like this can play an important role in language revitalisation and cultural continuity.” While the change may take some time to become official, the name “Naoero” has already been adopted by the postal service, national health service and utility provider. The Australian high commission is using both names in its public communications. For Nauruans like Willis, the change matters most in how the country is recognised from afar. At home, he says, it carries less weight. “I feel the same, because it’s only the name change,” he says. “It doesn’t change me.”

French star Patrick Bruel charged with rape and sexual assault

The French singer Patrick Bruel has been charged with rape and sexual assault in one of the biggest #MeToo cases in the French music industry. The 67-year-old, a major figure in French pop culture, was placed under formal investigation over several cases that included alleged rape, attempted rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment. The Nanterre prosecutor’s office said Bruel had been questioned on Wednesday over cases relating to nine alleged victims between 2000 and 2019. Complaints from another 13 women accusing him of rape, attempted rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment from 1992 to 2008 had been added to the file handed to investigating magistrates, even if they “appeared to be beyond the statute of limitations at this stage”, the office said. Bruel’s lawyers said he denied all charges. The singer was released on bail in the early hours of Thursday. Bruel’s pop career took off in the 1990s with several top-selling albums. His face was routinely on the cover of teen magazines and his screaming fans were described as being in thrall to “bruelmania”. At the height of his fame, French media often described him admiringly as a “seducer” or “Don Juan”. He acted in dozens of films and in 1998 was briefly a world poker champion and continued to to be a regular on TV chat shows. The investigative website Mediapart and the magazine Elle published a series of accusations by women against Bruel in recent months, some detailing alleged assaults dating back to the 1990s. Bruel, whose lawyers told Mediapart, he denied “all allegations of violence, brutality or constraint” had continued acting on stage in a Paris until recent days and had intended to continue his concert tour across France. But he faced protests by feminist campaigners, and the mayors of big cities such as Marseille, Paris and Nancy urged him to cancel his concerts, resulting in him calling off the tour. Bruel attended a police station by appointment earlier this week and was charged on Wednesday night after hours of questioning by judges. The women who spoke out against Bruel in recent months include Daniela Elstner, the current director of Unifrance, a key cultural institution which promotes French cinema abroad. Separately, the lawyer Myriam Guedj Benayoun said this week she had filed a new complaint against Bruel for the alleged attempted rape of a 19-year-old woman at his home in 2000. The woman, who is now a 46-year-old actor, had taken part in filming for a music video with Bruel. Bruel’s lawyers said he denied all allegations. Bruel is the latest French celebrity to face sexual assault claims. The actor Gérard Depardieu, 76, was given an 18-month suspended sentence last year after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting two women, a set dresser and an assistant director, during the shooting of the feature film Les Volets Verts (The Green Shutters) in Paris in 2021. The judge ruled that his name must be added to the sex offender register in France. Depardieu’s appeal will be heard in November. He has also been ordered to stand trial on charges of raping and sexually assaulting the actor Charlotte Arnould at his Paris home in 2018. He denies the charges.

Sole survivor of Air India crash demands ‘honesty and answers’ one year on

The only survivor of the Air India plane crash that killed 260 people in June 2025 has called for “honesty, transparency and answers” a year on from the disaster, and spoken about his “significant psychological scars” and financial hardship. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British national, has previously described his fate as a “miracle” after being the only person to survive the incident, in which a Boeing 787 Dreamliner struck a medical college shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad airport. The crash killed 241 people onboard the London-bound flight, including 169 Indian nationals and 52 Britons, as well as 19 people who were on or near the site of the incident. A further 67 were seriously injured. Ramesh, who lost his brother in the crash, demanded answers as investigators are yet to publish their findings. Last month, India’s civil aviation minister said the investigation was in the “last stage” and the report would “mostly” be finished by the anniversary of the crash, on 12 June. Exactly 30 days after the crash last year, the Indian authorities released a preliminary report, which was in line with standard procedure. It found both of the plane’s fuel switches had moved to the “cut-off” position “immediately” after take-off, stopping fuel supply to the engine. Speaking to the Press Association, Ramesh said there were more “unanswered questions” he wanted addressed, and that his trauma had not ended on the day of the crash. “I live with the significant psychological scars, the loss of my brother, and the constant unanswered questions around how and why this happened,” he said. “I know those questions are not just on my mind; they are on the minds of every affected family. More than anything, people need honesty, transparency and answers. Nothing will ever change what happened, but families deserve clarity.” Ramesh has received £21,500 from Air India to support his wife and five-year-old son, according to his representative, Sanjiv Patel, but continues to face financial hardship as well as psychological and emotional. “We’ve repeatedly asked to meet the chief executive of Air India but that has not happened,” Patel said. “We recently met with executives of Air India and representatives connected to the Tata Group [which has a controlling stake in the business]. “Those discussions were constructive and have resulted in some positive progress, although a number of important issues remain under discussion.” Patel said that, due to the impact of the crash, Ramesh had not been able to return to work as normal and his family was living on less than £1,000 a month. Ramesh is also taking civil action. Patel said: “Despite one of the worst aviation disasters involving British citizens in recent years, neither Vishwash nor many of the affected families we have spoken to have received any direct contact or tailored support from the UK government.” An Air India spokesperson confirmed that representatives from Air India and the Tata Group had met Ramesh, and remained in “close contact” with him and his team. The company said they were “actively working to ensure that appropriate support continues to be extended to him”. Paul McClorry at Hudgell Solicitors said civil claims were being considered against a number of potential defendants. “We are awaiting the findings of the investigations, and we should finally start to see some clarity as to how and why this awful disaster happened, and, crucially, how it could have been avoided,” he said. The UK Foreign Office has been approached for comment.

US strikes Iran for second day, as ceasefire appears close to collapse

The US has launched new strikes against targets in Iran for the second consecutive day. Donald Trump had promised to “hit them hard again” as a two-month-old ceasefire appears close to collapse. US Central Command announced in a statement that forces began “launching additional self-defence strikes today at 5:15 p.m. ET [10.15pm UK time on Wednesday] against multiple targets in Iran at the Commander in Chief’s direction”. The two days of strikes followed the downing of a US Apache helicopter over the strait of Hormuz, which Trump has blamed on Iran. “The strikes are in response to Iran’s unwarranted and continued aggression,” the statement added. Iranian media reported that explosions were heard in Bandar Abbas, Sirik and Minab in the south of the country. Trump had said the US would carry out major strikes against Iran on Wednesday evening, and has accused negotiators in Tehran of “playing us for suckers” – a day after repeating claims that a peace deal was imminent. Defence secretary Pete Hegseth warned US Central Command will “be busy tonight” in order to “advance our military interests and enhance our diplomatic position”. Hegseth said US bombs would be “dropping on key facilities in Iran”, adding: “That’s not because we want to restart anything we don’t have to restart. That’s because the war department is prepared to set the terms to ensure that we get the kind of terms that President Trump expects.” The threats came hours after the two sides had traded fire, drawing neighbouring Gulf states back into an on-and-off war that has consumed the region since late February. “We hit them hard yesterday and we’re going to hit them hard again today,” the US president told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. Trump, seemingly frustrated by the lack of progress in talks to turn a temporary ceasefire into a permanent truce, added: “We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along, they keep playing us for suckers.” The president also claimed the US has been taking oil out of Iran: “I’m just announcing today for the first time, but we’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil, millions of barrels every night.” Without sharing any other details, he added: “Millions of barrels of oil has come out, and that’s why it’s at $85-$90 a barrel, instead of $250.” In the early hours of Wednesday, the US had launched strikes against Iran in retaliation for what it said was Iran’s downing of a US army helicopter. Iran then launched a wave of retaliatory airstrikes, claiming hits on US bases in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait. Iranian state media said US strikes had hit two reservoirs in southern Iran, leaving 20,000 residents without water and creating a “major problem for the region’s water supply network”. “Unfortunately, following this attack, 20,000 residents of the region have lost access to safe drinking water, and with temperatures ranging between 45C and 50C, conditions have become extremely difficult and critical for local inhabitants,” Iran’s state television said, quoting local water company officials. The latest tit-for-tat attacks were the most severe escalation since a ceasefire was established in early April. Talks to turn the ceasefire into a durable peace have been stalling for weeks, with periodic flare-ups as both sides continued to launch limited strikes and trade blame for violating the truce. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baqaei, said US strikes had jeopardised the ongoing ceasefire negotiations. He accused Washington of undermining diplomacy with its attacks and contradictory messages, and said Israel was also harming the diplomatic process by continuing to violate the ceasefire in Lebanon. “Following overnight events, we need to reassess … any diplomatic process requires a minimum stable environment,” Baqaei said. According to Fox News, Trump said in a phone interview that he could order new strikes on power plants and bridges because Iran was taking too long to make a deal. Trump has frequently threatened to resume military action since the ceasefire was established, but has not yet fully followed through. He has also repeatedly claimed – including as recently as Tuesday – that a peace deal was imminent. Regional mediators have been trying to de-escalate tensions and revive the sputtering diplomatic track. A delegation from Qatar – a key mediator – landed in Tehran on Wednesday to discuss the latest developments related to efforts to end the war, Iranian media reported. The US military described its initial attacks as a “proportional response” to the downing of a helicopter, saying its two crew members had been rescued. The US said it had hit Iranian air defences, ground control stations and radar sites. Iran said Qeshm island and the port city of Sirik were attacked, while Iranian media reported explosions in the seaside city of Bandar Abbas. Two crew members of a tanker were reported missing and another injured after a suspected missile strike by the US military enforcing its blockade of Iran’s shipping routes, according to UK maritime security company Ambrey. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responded to the US strikes by attacking US bases in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait, and said it was ready to give a “crushing and decisive” response if the US attacked again. The US military said nearly all Iranian missiles and drones had been intercepted, with no immediate reports of US casualties or damage to its facilities. Despite the attacks and escalating rhetoric, a US official suggested that a deal with Iran could still be close. “Nothing changes where the deal stands right now,” an anonymous senior 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.” Trump is keen for a peace deal as US midterm elections approach amid rising inflation and plummeting presidential approval ratings. However, significant gaps remain between the two sides. Iran is seeking the lifting of international sanctions, the unfreezing of billions of dollars in assets, and control over the strait of Hormuz. Trump has said any future peace deal must prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, while Tehran denies that it wants one. Access to the strait of Hormuz – a choke point for about a fifth of the global oil supply – remains restricted by Iran, while the US maintains a blockade on Iranian ports. The interruption to global shipping and energy supplies have had knock-on effects around the world, increasing the prices of food, energy and other goods. A significant obstacle to a lasting peace deal between Iran and the US has been the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon. Iran has insisted that any ceasefire must include the Lebanese front, while Israel and the US have been eager to separate the two.