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As Sir Keir Starmer can tell Andy Burnham when they pass each other going out and coming in, campaigning for office is very different from governing. Mr Burnham has made an impressive pitch to be
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Lydia Spencer-Elliott, The IndependentYou can feel it when you walk down the street: that little pep in everyone's step. While it's not unusual for everyone to shuffle past each other with a grunt (particularly in
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As the FIFA World Cup 2026 is progressing toward tougher matches, the football fever is not showing any signs of slowing down. With each passing day, the glittering sporting event is becoming more exciting and
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US President Donald Trump’s struggle to extricate himself from the unpopular Iran war has hit a new roadblock with the latest exchange of attacks between the two sides, leaving him with few good options and a faltering ceasefire. Trump declared that an interim agreement to end the conflict was “over” and ordered fresh strikes this week after Iran targeted US military sites in the Gulf region following the US bombing of Iranian targets in response to attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. More than three weeks after the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to begin a truce between the US and Iran, the flare-up has highlighted the difficulties Trump faces in forging a comprehensive peace deal and a face-saving exit from the war. His choices are limited and mostly bad, analysts say. Any heavy escalation beyond tit-for-tat strikes could risk a return to full-fledged war, even though Trump has insisted that the latest events would end “very quickly” as global oil prices spiked. However, backing down in the face of Iranian defiance could add to Tehran’s sense that it can assert leverage over the world’s most important oil-shipping channel, anytime it sees fit. Trump may be hoping he can bomb Iran back to the negotiating table for talks about the fate of its nuclear programme, which he set as his main war objective, but most experts see little sign that Tehran will make the kind of deep concessions he is seeking. “Trump has put himself in a box,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator for Democratic and Republican administrations. “Whether through military or diplomatic means, he doesn’t look likely to gain much from Iran.” The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump’s pursuit of an exit plan has come as he faces pressure to permanently end a war that has killed thousands, inflicted economic pain at home and driven down his approval ratings just months ahead of November’s US midterm elections. A June 23 Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Trump’s approval rating falling to 34%, returning to the lowest level of his second term and dimming his Republican Party’s chances of retaining control of Congress. The latest attacks, which overshadowed a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) summit that Trump attended this week in Turkiye, dented hopes of turning the memorandum signed on June 17 into a final peace deal to end the war, which began with US-Israeli airstrikes on February 28. Most analysts are sceptical the two sides can craft a comprehensive settlement within the 60-day negotiating window laid out in the document. It kicked the hardest issues down the road to on-again-off-again discussions that have made little if any progress, and the next round of talks remains uncertain. Iran, which has suffered heavy damage to its economy and military capabilities, also faces mounting pressure after Washington revoked a waiver allowing Tehran to sell oil internationally, undoing one of its biggest gains under the interim agreement. Even so, its hardline rulers appear willing to withstand further blows and some analysts suggested this week’s strikes by both sides may have been aimed at staking out positions for future negotiations. Jonathan Panikoff, a former deputy US national intelligence officer for the Middle East, said this pattern was likely to continue for the foreseeable future. “The situation is not going to revert to full-scale war,” said Panikoff, now at the Atlantic Council think-tank in Washington. “But the default setting is now managed instability – recurring violence with no permanent off-ramp.” Trump, who campaigned for a second term on promises to avoid foreign interventions and focus on Americans’ economic concerns, has framed the interim agreement as a resounding US victory – even as Iran has made similar claims. Still, most analysts agree that Trump, who once demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, has been stymied on many of his often-shifting goals for the war. At the root of the latest outbreak of hostilities are differing interpretations of what the preliminary deal means for control of the strait, where Iran showed its ability during the war to choke off one-fifth of the world’s oil shipments. Iran sees itself having a future role in managing the waterway, possibly even charging fees or tolls, while Trump and US Gulf allies insist on a return to free and safe passage. “The Iranians have judged that Trump doesn’t want to get sucked into an open-ended war, and the Gulf is desperate for normalcy,” said Jon Alterman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington. “Their bet is that Trump will fight for a few days (and) the Gulf Arab states will push for him to stop.” The looming US midterms, and concerns that high gasoline prices driven by the war could turn voters against his Republican Party, are also widely seen as a pressure point for Trump. “Haunted by former US president Hoover’s failed economic stewardship, Trump knows he needs to focus on the economy,” said Laura Blumenfeld, a Middle East expert at Johns Hopkins University, referring to Trump’s assertion that by continuing the war he would risk becoming like the president who governed at the start of the Great Depression.
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China’s submarine-fired ballistic missile test into the southern Pacific on Monday gave its military leadership an opportunity to examine some of the most complex and sensitive operations of its evolving nuclear deterrent, analysts and diplomats say. Commanding, controlling and communicating with nuclear-armed submarines attempting to operate undetected pose immense challenges, they say – something felt acutely by a Chinese Communist Party leadership where the military’s political loyalty is paramount. “This aspect is certainly something that would have been very much evaluated, besides looking at the actual technical capabilities of the missile and submarine,” said Collin Koh, a security scholar at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies. “There are still challenges ahead but it would seem they are getting close to an operational strike capability here... they are probably trying to demonstrate that even if they can’t get into a position to hit the continental US, they could still target Guam and Hawaii,” he said. China’s test firing of the missile armed with a dummy warhead drew criticism from regional powers, with the US saying that it was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that landed in the southern Pacific Ocean. Chinese state media and officials described the test as a “routine” military drill that was not directed at a specific target or country. Dismissing some reports as “pure distortion and hype”, the Chinese defence ministry said in response to Reuters’ questions yesterday that the test was made in accordance with international law and practice. “It should be emphasised that China’s efforts to modernise its nuclear forces are intended to safeguard national strategic security and maintain global strategic stability,” the defence ministry said. It was China’s most significant long-range ballistic missile test since September 2024, when the People’s Liberation Army fired a weapon into the southern Pacific Ocean from a mobile launcher on Hainan Island in the South China Sea. Monday’s missile was fired from one of China’s six Type-094 nuclear-powered submarines known as SSBNs, said analysts and academics. State media said it was a strategic missile submarine (SSBN), but did not identify the class. An SSBN is a nuclear-powered submarine designed to launch nuclear-armed ICBMs. Regional military attaches and analysts say China’s SSBN operations, based out of Hainan Island, are among the most closely watched elements of its ongoing military modernisation, given their importance to China’s nuclear deterrent to ensure a second-strike capability. If its nuclear-armed submarines can operate undetected, China can strike back if its more extensive land-based weapons are destroyed in a first strike by an adversary. This is widely seen as a particularly important factor for Beijing, which still maintains an official policy that it would not be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict. The US and its allies at times attempt to track Chinese submarines through naval vessels, networks of underwater sensors in key chokepoints, as well as air patrols with P-8 Poseidon aircraft, which are equipped with advanced maritime surveillance devices, military attaches and analysts say. Such operations are expected to increase as China’s capabilities grow. A Pentagon report in 2022 stated that China had begun operating near-continuous deterrence patrols with its SSBNs. The US, Russia, France and Britain have for decades routinely deployed such a nuclear strike capability, and India is now developing its own SSBNs. A study of China’s nuclear weapons released this week by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based organisation, said that while US officials have not publicly stated that China’s SSBNs were actually armed with nuclear weapons on such patrols, some US officials have said it to the authors privately. Noting the lack of official confirmation, the study says that “President Xi Jinping’s purge of military officials – including leaders of the People’s Liberation Army’s rocket force – make it seem unlikely that nuclear warheads would be handed over to the military under normal circumstances”. China’s Global Times newspaper has said the missile launch showed how China is continuously strengthening its “nuclear triad” of strategic forces – the ability to fire nuclear weapons from land, sea and the air. “This will compel external powers and their followers to abandon attempts aimed at forcing Chinese concessions through maximum military pressure or pre-emptive strikes, thereby fundamentally reducing the risk of large-scale conflict,” the Global Times editorial said. — Reuters
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At the beginning of the NATO summit in Ankara this week, US President Donald Trump declared his disappointment with the European members of NATO, and praised Turkiye, the host and the lone Asian member of
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Not many historians have seen their work referenced on “The Simpsons” and “The Sopranos.” Not many historians have been condemned by name by a president on the White House lawn for the “crime” of researching
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The recent health report by the Australian government, which showed that chronic and mental conditions are having a growing impact on the health of Australians, is alarming not only for the Australian people but also
