Headline

US Says Strikes ‘Devastated’ Iran’s Nuclear Program

Published

3 months ago

June 22, 2025

Unprecedented US strikes have wrecked Iran’s nuclear program, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Sunday as Washington sought to assess what remained of the three targeted sites.

The surprise strikes threaten to deepen conflict in the Middle East after Israel launched a bombing campaign against Iran, with Tehran vowing to retaliate against US involvement.

But the United States said President Donald Trump wanted peace and urged Iran to end the conflict after strikes on a key underground uranium enrichment site at Fordo, along with nuclear facilities in Isfahan and Natanz.

“We devastated the Iranian nuclear program,” Hegseth told a Pentagon press briefing, adding that the operation “did not target Iranian troops or the Iranian people.”

Trump “seeks peace, and Iran should take that path”, Hegseth said. “This mission was not, and has not been, about regime change.”

Standing beside Hegseth, top US general Dan Caine said that “it would be way too early for me to comment on what may or may not still be there.”

“Initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction,” he told reporters.

– Protests in Tehran –

People gathered in the center of Tehran to protest against US and Israeli attacks, waving flags and chanting slogans, state TV showed.

Trump claimed total success for the operation in an address to the nation hours after the attack, and Vice President JD Vance followed up on Sunday morning.

“We know that we set the Iranian nuclear program back substantially last night, whether it’s years or beyond,” he told ABC.

“We’re not at war with Iran — we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program,” he added. “The president took decisive action to destroy that program last night.”

In Tehran, AFP journalists said the roar of aircraft flying over the city was heard repeatedly for the first time since Israel’s initial attacks.

The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency said it had not detected any increase in radiation levels at the nuclear sites and Tehran said Sunday there were no signs of contamination.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters in Istanbul the United States and Israel had “crossed a very big red line,” asserting Iran would continue to defend itself “by all means necessary.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the US strikes, saying Trump’s decision to “target Iran’s nuclear facilities with the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history.”

The Israeli military was also checking the results of the US raid on the deeply buried nuclear facility in Fordo, with a spokesman saying it was “too soon” to know if Iran had removed enriched uranium from the site.

The main US strike group was seven B-2 Spirit bombers flying 18 hours from the US mainland to Iran with multiple aerial refuelings, Caine said.

– Global concern –

In response to the US attack, Iran’s armed forces said they targeted multiple sites in Israel including Ben Gurion airport, the country’s main international gateway near Tel Aviv.

Israeli rescuers said at least 23 people were wounded.

In Jerusalem, Claudio Hazan, a 62-year-old software engineer, said he hoped the US intervention would hasten an end to the Iran-Israel war.

“Israel by itself would not stop… and it would take longer,” he said.

Israel said it had launched fresh strikes on western Iran and in Qom, south of Tehran. Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported four Revolutionary Guard members were killed in strikes on a military base in the city’s north.

The Israeli military said it had “struck missile launchers ready to launch toward Israeli territory, soldiers in the Iranian Armed Forces, and swiftly neutralized the launchers that launched missiles toward Israeli territory.”

Iran’s Shargh newspaper reported that a “massive explosion was heard” Sunday in Bushehr province, home to Iran’s only nuclear power plant.

Iranian news agencies also reported strikes in Yazd province.

The United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman, which had been mediating Iran-US nuclear talks, criticized the US move and urged de-escalation.

The European Union called on all sides “to step back,” while stressing Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

The Iranian foreign minister said he would travel to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday.

Following his address, Trump warned Iran against retaliation. Iran and its proxies have previously attacked US military bases in Iraq and elsewhere in the region.

Iran’s Huthi allies in Yemen on Sunday repeated their threat to resume attacks in the Red Sea if Washington joined the war, saying they were ready to target US ships and warships.

The US president had stepped up his rhetoric against Iran since Israel first struck the country on June 13, repeating his insistence it could never have nuclear weapons.

Tehran denies seeking an atomic bomb. On Saturday, President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran’s right to pursue a civilian nuclear program “cannot be taken away… by threats or war.”

Headline

Putin Has ‘Let Me Down’, Trump Laments As UK State Visit Ends

Published

9 minutes ago

September 19, 2025

Editor

Donald Trump warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “really let me down” as he met Prime Minister Keir Starmer for wide-ranging talks on Thursday, the final day of the US president’s historic UK state visit.

A day after King Charles III treated Trump to royal pageantry at Windsor Castle, the Republican flew to Starmer’s Chequers country residence for talks on thorny issues, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Starmer has positioned himself as a bridge between Trump and European allies, particularly on the war in Ukraine, in a bid to secure more commitments for Kyiv from the US leader.

And his calls, repeated again on Thursday, for more international pressure on Putin appear to be gaining more traction with Trump, who slammed the Russian leader for continuing the war despite his efforts to stop the fighting.

Trump told a post-talks press conference that he had thought the Ukraine conflict would be the “easiest” to end “because of my relationship with President Putin, but he’s let me down. He’s really let me down.”

He urged European nations to stop buying Russian oil, saying that “if the price of oil comes down, Putin’s going to drop out of that war.”

– ‘Unbreakable bond’ –

Starmer’s warm tone with the 79-year-old Trump has won some leniency in the president’s tariff war, with the British leader saying Thursday the trade deal the two countries signed in May was the first by the US and also “the best”.

But Trump said that the pair had “one of our few disagreements” about the UK’s plan to recognise a Palestinian state.

The US leader also offered strong thoughts on illegal migration in the UK, revealing that “I told the Prime Minister I would stop it”, even if it meant calling in the military.

Earlier in the day, Trump hailed America’s “unbreakable bond” with Britain as he and Starmer signed a huge tech deal, boosting ties in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and nuclear energy.

At the signing ceremony attended by a host of US tech CEOs, Labour leader Starmer said he and Republican Trump were “leaders who genuinely like each other.”

The deal comes on the back of pledges of £150 billion ($205 billion) of investment into the UK from US giants including Microsoft, Google and Blackstone.

Trump had earlier said goodbye to King Charles at Windsor, calling him a “great gentleman and a great king” as he left the castle heading to Chequers.

Appealing to Trump’s admiration for British wartime leader Winston Churchill, Starmer led the US president on a tour of Churchill artifacts at Chequers.

Starmer is facing political troubles at home after sacking his ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, over his connections to disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Sex offender Epstein has also haunted Trump over recent weeks, with further revelations about the pair’s relationship in the 1990s and early 2000s.

– ‘Highest honours’ –

Having negotiated the potentially perilous press conference relatively unscathed, Starmer can claim some justification for granting Trump an unprecedented second state visit, with investment deals and deepening alignment on Ukraine to show for the diplomatic effort.

Trump was Wednesday lavished with the full pomp and circumstance of the British state — the second time it has done so, after his first visit in 2019.

“This is truly one of the highest honours of my life,” Trump said at the state banquet.

The king meanwhile hailed Trump’s peace efforts and support of Ukraine, after a day featuring gun salutes, soldiers on horseback, and bagpipes, all designed to appeal to the US president’s fascination with royalty.

But he also stressed to Trump the need to protect the environment for “our children, grandchildren, and those who come after them”.

Melania Trump remained in Windsor on Thursday morning, where she met scouts with Princess Catherine, and viewed Queen Mary’s Doll’s House with Queen Camilla.

The US first lady’s husband was kept far from the British public, with an estimated 5,000 people marching through central London Wednesday to protest against his visit.

Trump was due to return to Washington later Thursday.

Headline

India Issues Health Alert After Spike In ‘brain-eating’ Amoeba Deaths

Published

7 hours ago

September 18, 2025

Editor

India has issued a health alert after infections and deaths caused by a rare water-borne “brain-eating” amoeba doubled compared to last year in the southern state of Kerala.

Numbers are still tiny but Altaf Ali, a doctor who is part of a government task force to arrest the spread, told AFP that officials were “conducting tests on a large scale across the state to detect and treat cases”.

Officials reported 19 deaths and 72 infections of the Naegleria fowleri amoeba this year, including nine deaths and 24 cases in September alone.

Last year, the amoeba killed nine people out of 36 reported cases.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says it is often called a “brain-eating amoeba” because it can “infect the brain and destroy brain tissue”.

If the amoeba reaches the brain, it can cause an infection that kills over 95 per cent of those affected.

Infections are “very rare but nearly always fatal”, the CDC notes.

The amoeba lives in warm lakes and rivers and is contracted by contaminated water entering the nose. It does not spread from person to person.

The World Health Organisation says that symptoms include headache, fever and vomiting, which rapidly progresses to “seizures, altered mental status, hallucinations, and coma”.

“It’s worrying that new cases this year have emerged from across the state, as opposed to specific pockets in the past,” Ali said.

Since 1962, nearly 500 cases have been reported worldwide, mostly in the United States, India, Pakistan, and Australia.

AFP

Headline

Gunmen On Motorbikes Kill 22 At Baptism Ceremony In Niger

Published

1 day ago

September 17, 2025

Editor

Gunmen on motorbikes shot dead 22 villagers in western Niger, most attending a baptism ceremony, local media and other sources said Tuesday.

The shootings happened on Monday in the Tillaberi region, near Burkina Faso and Mali, where jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group (IS) are active.

A resident of the area told AFP that 15 people were killed first at a baptism ceremony in Takoubatt village.

“The attackers then went to the outskirts of Takoubatt where they killed seven other people,” said the resident, who requested anonymity for security reasons.

Local media outlet Elmaestro TV reported a “gruesome death toll of 22 innocent people cowardly killed without reason or justification”.

“Once again, the Tillaberi region has been struck by barbarism, plunging innocent families into mourning and despair,” Nigerien human rights campaigner Maikoul Zodi said on social media.

Niger’s military leaders, who came to power two years ago in a coup, have struggled to contain jihadist groups in Tillaberi, despite maintaining a large army presence there.

Around 20 soldiers were killed in the region last week.

Human Rights Watch has urged Niger authorities to “do more to protect” civilians against deadly attacks.

The rights monitoring group estimates that the Islamic State group has “summarily executed” more than 127 villagers and Muslim worshippers in Tillaberi in five attacks since March.

Meanwhile, the NGO ACLED, which tracks conflict victims worldwide, says around 1,800 people have been killed in attacks in Niger since October 2024 — three-quarters of them in Tillaberi.

Niger and its neighbours, Burkina Faso and Mali, also ruled by military coup leaders who claim to pursue a sovereignist policy, have expelled the French and American armies that were fighting alongside them against jihadism.

AFP