While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, June 24, 2025
Traces are seen in the sky after Iran's armed forces say they targeted The Al-Udeid base in a missile attack, as seen from Doha, on June 23. PHOTO: REUTERS
While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, June 24, 2025
Iran fires missiles at US airbase in Qatar
Iran launched a missile attack on an American air base in Qatar on June 23 that caused no injuries, and US President Donald Trump dismissed it as a 'weak response' to US attacks while urging Iran and Israel to make peace after 11 days of mutual hostilities.
The attack on Al Udeid Air Base in neighbouring Qatar threatened to widen a conflict that began on June 13 with an Israeli strike on Iran targeting its nuclear programme and ballistic missiles.
Iran had threatened to retaliate against the United States after US bombers dropped 13,600kg bunker-busters on Iranian underground nuclear facilities at the weekend, joining Israel's air war against Iran, and Mr Trump had raised the possibility of the Iranian government being toppled.
'We did not assault anyone, and we will never accept being assaulted by anyone,' Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement. 'We will not submit to anyone's aggression – this is the logic of the Iranian nation.'
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Airlines face fresh upheaval as Iran attacks US airbase in Qatar
Airlines scrambled to cancel flights and reroute planes on June 23 after several Middle Eastern nations closed their countries' airspace temporarily as Iran attacked the Al Udeid US military base in Doha, the latest upheaval to air travel in a normally busy region.
On June 22, the US attacked key Iranian nuclear sites and Tehran responded on June 23 by firing several missiles at the US base without killing or injuring anyone.
The escalating tensions are starting to affect airlines beyond the Middle East, where major flight routes have already been cut off since Israel began strikes on Iran on June 13.
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Starmer and Zelensky agree military production project in London
Mr Volodymyr Zelensky and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a new defence co-production initiative on June 23 during a short visit by the Ukrainian president to London to discuss his country's defence against Russia.
The two leaders announced the deal in the garden of Mr Starmer's Downing Street residence, where they also met Ukrainian troops being trained in Britain.
'I'm really proud that this afternoon, we're able to announce an industrial military co-production agreement - the first of its kind so far as Ukraine and the UK are concerned - which will be a massive step forward now in the contribution that we can continue to make,' Mr Starmer said.
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Japanese leader joins regional allies in skipping Nato summit
Japan said on June 23 its Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has cancelled plans to attend this week's Nato summit, joining other Indo-Pacific countries in saying that their leaders will not attend and raising questions about future regional cooperation.
Japan's foreign ministry announced the scrapping of Mr Ishiba's June 24-26 trip just three days after announcing he would attend the meeting in The Hague to 'reaffirm with Nato allies and others the recognition that the security of Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific is inseparable.'
The decision came after US President Donald Trump joined Israel's air war against Iran and mooted the possibility of the Tehran government being toppled.
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WhatsApp banned on US House of Representatives devices, memo shows
Meta Platforms' WhatsApp messaging service has been banned from all US House of Representatives devices, according to a memo sent to all House staff on June 23.
The notice said the 'Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use.'
The memo, from the chief administrative officer, recommended using other messaging apps, including Microsoft Corp's Teams platform, Amazon.com's Wickr, Signal, and Apple's iMessage and FaceTime.
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Netanyahu says Israel has agreed to Trump's proposal for ceasefire with Iran
FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump talks to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting where Trump announced nuclear talks with Iran, Washington, U.S., April 7, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt/File Photo/File Photo Netanyahu says Israel has agreed to Trump's proposal for ceasefire with Iran JERUSALEM - Israel has agreed to U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal for a ceasefire with Iran after it achieved its goal of removing Tehran's nuclear and ballistic missile threat, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement on Tuesday. "Israel thanks President Trump and the United States for their support in defense and their participation in eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat," the statement said. "In light of the achievement of the operation's goals, and in full coordination with President Trump, Israel agreed to the President's proposal for a mutual ceasefire," the statement added. Trump said on Tuesday a ceasefire between Israel and Iran was now in place and asked both countries not to violate it, only hours after Iran launched waves of missiles, which Israel's ambulance service said killed at least four people. Netanyahu, who will deliver a statement later on Tuesday, also said Israel would respond forcefully to any violation of the ceasefire. Israel, joined by the United States on the weekend, has carried out attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities, after alleging Tehran was getting close to obtaining a nuclear weapon. Iran denies ever having a nuclear weapons programme, but Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has said that if it wanted to, world leaders "wouldn't be able to stop us". REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
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French prime minister to meet with pension negotiators after talks fail
FILE PHOTO: French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou speaks during the questions to the government session at the National Assembly in Paris, France, June 10, 2025. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier/File Photo PARIS - Months-long talks between French trade unions and employers over reforms to the pension system collapsed late on Monday, prompting Prime Minister Francois Bayrou to call a meeting with both sides to find a way out of the deadlock. Negotiators were unable to reach an accord, seen as "last chance" talks, over discussions to amend an unpopular 2023 overhaul of the pension system that will gradually raise the retirement age to 64 years from 62 years. Unions wanted an agreement that would allow workers that had physically taxing jobs to retire early, and maternity leave to be better taken into account, while employers were wary of concessions that could weigh on the retirement system's fragile finances. Bayrou now faces a possible no-confidence vote from opposition lawmakers. "We know well that the difficult search for new solutions is a long road and in that long road, the next steps are often the most demanding, but they are also the most important," Bayrou said in an early-morning speech that lasted less than five minutes. He said he would meet with the negotiating parties "this morning" without elaborating. Bayrou, a centrist and long-time debt hawk, has said all options were on the table as long as any modifications ensure a pensions funding gap is plugged by the end of the decade. He called for the pensions "conclave" earlier this year in a bid to win support from lawmakers from the Socialist party to survive previous no-confidence votes. Bayrou took over from his predecessor Michel Barnier in December, after lawmakers from the far-right and far-left joined to oust him over budget cuts they said went too far and spurned their priorities. Barnier's government lasted just three months. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
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Big questions loom over Trump's announcement of Israel-Iran ceasefire deal
FILE PHOTO: 3D printed miniature of U.S. President Donald Trump's face and map of Iran are seen in this illustration taken June 23, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo WASHINGTON - When President Donald Trump sent U.S. bombers to strike Iran's nuclear sites last weekend, he was betting he could help ally Israel cripple Tehran's nuclear program while keeping his long-standing vow to avoid entanglement in a protracted war. Just days later, Trump's surprise announcement on Monday of an Israel-Iran ceasefire agreement suggests he may have bombed Tehran's rulers back to the negotiating table. But a long list of big unanswered questions remains, not least whether any ceasefire can actually take effect and hold between two bitter foes whose years-long 'shadow' conflict had erupted into an air war marked by the past 12 days of strikes on each other's territory. Also still unknown and unmentioned in Trump's effusive social media post announcing an imminent 'Complete and Total CEASEFIRE' are the terms the two sides have agreed to; whether the U.S. and Iran will revive failed nuclear talks; and the fate of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium that many experts believe may have survived the U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign. "The Israelis have accomplished much of their objectives ... and Iran was looking for an off-ramp,' said Jonathan Panikoff, a former deputy U.S. national intelligence officer for the Middle East. "The U.S. hopes this is the beginning of the end. The challenge is whether there is a strategy for what comes next." Questions also remain about what has actually been agreed to, even as Trump's declaration raised hopes for the end of a conflict that has prompted fears of a broader regional war. There was no immediate confirmation from Israel of a ceasefire deal, and the Israeli military said it had detected missiles launched from Iran towards Israel in the early hours of Tuesday. Four people were killed in a missile strike on a building in Beersheba, Israel's ambulance service said. Soon after, Trump said the ceasefire between Israel and Iran was "now in effect" and urged both countries to not violate it. While an Iranian official earlier confirmed that Tehran had accepted a ceasefire, the country's foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, said there would be no cessation of hostilities unless Israel stopped its attacks. But that did not stop Trump and his loyalists from touting what they see as a landmark achievement of a foreign policy approach they call "peace through strength." Trump had endorsed Israel's assessment that Iran was getting close to developing a nuclear weapon, which Tehran has long denied. U.S. intelligence agencies said earlier this year they assessed that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and a source with access to U.S. intelligence reports told Reuters last week that that view hadn't changed. IRAN'S CALIBRATED RESPONSE Trump's announcement came just hours after Iran launched missiles against a U.S. air base in Qatar, causing no casualties, in retaliation for the U.S. dropping 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs on Iranian underground nuclear facilities over the weekend. Trump administration officials deemed Iran's response on Monday to have been calibrated to avoid further escalation with the U.S., according to sources familiar with the matter. Trump called for talks with Israel and Iran, and a senior White House official said Israel agreed to a ceasefire so long as Iran did not launch fresh attacks. Iran signaled that no further strikes would take place, the official said on condition of anonymity. Trump spoke directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff were involved in the direct and indirect communications with Iran, the official said. Qatar also helped broker contacts with the Iranians. Iran was also amenable to the ceasefire because it was in a severely 'weakened state,' the White House official said. The Iranians had faced days of Israeli bombardment of nuclear and military sites as well as targeted killings of top nuclear scientists and security commanders. Trump in recent days had also mused publicly about the prospects for 'regime change' in Iran. Earlier on Monday, three Israeli officials had said their government was looking to wrap up its campaign in Iran soon and had passed the message on to the U.S. but that much would depend on Tehran. 'Now that Trump declared 'world peace,' it will be hard for Netanyahu to publicly contradict him,' said Laura Blumenfeld, a Middle East expert at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies in Washington. TRUMP'S BIG GAMBLE For his part, Trump's unprecedented decision to bomb Iran's nuclear sites marked a step that he had long pledged to avoid - to intervene militarily in a major foreign war. In the biggest and potentially riskiest foreign policy move of his presidency, Trump was betting not only that he could take out Iran's key nuclear site at Fordow but also draw only measured retaliation against the U.S. There have been fears that Tehran could respond by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil artery, attacking multiple U.S. military bases in the Middle East and activating proxies against U.S. and Israeli interests worldwide. If Trump is able to defuse the Israel-Iran conflict, he may be able to calm the storm of criticism from congressional Democrats and appease the anti-interventionist wing of his Republican MAGA base over bombings that ran counter to his own campaign pledges. It would also allow him to re-focus on policy priorities such as deporting undocumented migrants and waging a tariff war against trading partners. But Trump and his aides won't be able to ignore Iran and the lingering questions it poses. 'Can the ceasefire hold?' asked Dennis Ross, a former Middle East negotiator for Republican and Democratic administrations. 'Yes, the Iranians need it and the Israelis have largely now acted against the (Israeli Defence Force's) target list.' But obstacles remain. 'Iran is greatly weakened but what is the future of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs? What happens to its stockpile of highly enriched uranium? There will be a need for negotiations - and these won't be easy to resolve,' Ross said. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
