🎇America marked its 250th birthday with fireworks, fighter jets and storms. See all the celebrations on the Reuters World News podcast https://t.co/ck0FyKVBGZ
🚨🇮🇷 BREAKING: It may be starting. Iranian media reports air defenses are active in Fars Province, with residents of Mohr City hearing what sounded like an explosion minutes ago.
One report and one city so far, with the cause unconfirmed, so hold the conclusions.
Source: Geopolitics Watch on TG/ Writer: Daniel
🇨🇳🇺🇸 China is quietly turning the Iran war into an advantage.
As Trump escalates, Beijing is using the chaos to reshape its global position.
Diplomatically, it’s presenting itself as stable and predictable while the U.S. looks erratic.
That contrast alone is a major narrative win.
Militarily, China is watching closely as Iran confronts the world’s most advanced military, studying every move and response.
Economically, rising oil prices hurt, but China is buffered by reserves and thinking long term.
The real play? China wants U.S. power to weaken, but not collapse too fast.
Too much chaos slows its own rise.
So while the war unfolds, Beijing is learning, adapting, and positioning itself as the alternative.
Telegraph
🇺🇸🇮🇷 Washington spent 6 weeks hitting Iran… then showed up in Islamabad asking for surrender and walked away with nothing.
Look at the scale. 900+ strikes, leadership hit, navy wrecked, air defenses gone, 2000+ dead… and Iran still sat there for 21 hours and said no.
Trump had already set the tone. “No deal except unconditional surrender.” And once that’s the demand, the outcome becomes predictable.
Because no country agrees to that after taking hits like that, and no government survives looking like it surrendered.
Now add the reality. 21 hours of talks vs decades of mistrust… that gap was never closing in one room.
The 2015 deal took years, and that was without a war. This time it was everything at once, nukes, Hormuz, frozen money, reparations, ceasefire… all pushed in a single round.
Iran says they were close, then came maximal demands and shifting terms, while Pakistan expected days of talks and got a one-session collapse.
So here’s where it lands. After 6 weeks of strikes, Iran’s position didn’t move.
Because you can destroy assets, but that doesn’t mean you get the outcome you want, and they’ve seen Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan… and how those stories end.
So more pressure won’t suddenly change this. It only moves step by step, small confidence-building measures first, limited sanctions relief, partial access to funds, temporary nuclear limits, gradual reopening of trade and routes… each side giving a little without looking like it gave in.
Not a clean win, just something both sides can live with. Because surrender was never realistic.
And right now, that’s the gap no one has been able to close.
Source: Sources: TIME, Al Jazeera, NPR, CNN, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Wikipedia, Middle East Policy Council
🚨🇺🇸🇮🇷 IRAN WILL LIKELY BUILD A NUCLEAR WEAPON NOW
Political scientist Prof. David N. Gibbs warns the war has made nuclear proliferation almost inevitable.
The Strait of Hormuz is Iran's nuclear deterrent, for now. But Gibbs fears that won't hold. The lesson of Libya is seared into every watching government: Gaddafi gave up his nuclear program, got promises of safety, then was overthrown and tortured to death. North Korea kept theirs and survived.
The assassination of Ayatollah Khomeini removed the one figure whose fatwa explicitly blocked Iran from going nuclear. That barrier is now gone.
"I fear it's more likely than not Iran will develop a nuclear weapon, and Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and others will follow."