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Trump demands Iran pay compensation for decades of US soldier deaths

Donald Trump has said he will demand that Iran pay compensation for the deaths of thousands of US soldiers and Iran’s own civilians killed in recent decades in the latest sign his negotiations to end the war and reopen the strait of Hormuz have reached an impasse. The US president is trying to end conflicts in Iran, Gaza and Lebanon, and his additional demands of Iran are likely to provoke anger in Tehran at the same time as Israel has rejected Trump’s terms for a 15-point roadmap to end the war in Gaza. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he was issuing the demand for war reparations in response to Iranian negotiators making similar claims for damages for the five-month war that has killed thousands and devastated Iran’s military and economy. “Now I am likewise demanding compensation from Iran, for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts, for which they are famous, as led initially by Gen Soleimani, including the families of those killed on the USS Cole, and thousands of others killed in combat,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Additionally, compensation should be paid to the families of the hundreds of thousands of innocent protesters that Iran has killed over the last 50 years, not to mention the 52,000 that have been killed in the last five months.” The demands are likely to be a nonstarter for Iran’s leaders in the careful peace negotiations aimed at reopening the strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of global oil trade flowed before the US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran in late February. Trump and other senior negotiators have claimed many times that a deal is imminent, although none has materialised. The remarks followed a series of setbacks for Trump’s efforts to end several Middle East conflicts before the midterm elections in November, in which high oil prices and inflation will probably hurt fellow Republicans at the polls. On Sunday, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he rejected the Trump-backed Board of Peace’s 15-point plan to end Israel’s war in Gaza. Netanyahu had said Hamas must fully disarm before Israel would consider pulling out of Gaza, rather than the phased withdrawal proposed by the Board of Peace. Netanyahu framed the decision as a rejection of US pressure on Israel to make peace in several wars in the Middle East. “Unlike all those who lecture us, we do what needs to be done for Israel’s security, and we can and know how to stand our ground, even against our best friends when necessary,” Netanyahu said. Trump has not replied to Netanyahu’s statement, which was a remarkably public break between the leaders of the US and its closest ally in the Middle East. But in response to a shouted question in the Oval Office on Monday, he said his relationship with Netanyahu was “very good”. Trump has sought to increase pressure on Iran. An hour after his first post demanding war reparations from Tehran, he broadened their scope to include the victims of recent wars throughout the region. “Also, with respect to the Iran negotiations, Iran should be responsible for the damages and death caused to the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza!” he wrote.

Scores dead after powerful earthquake strikes western Colombia

More than 100 people have died after a powerful earthquake struck western Colombia, collapsing and severely damaging scores of buildings in major cities including Cali and Pereira. The US and Colombian geological surveys reported that a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck at 7.34am local time (13.34 BST) on Monday, with its epicentre in the western department of Chocó. It was also felt in neighbouring Venezuela, which is still reeling from a deadly double earthquake on 24 June. Colombia’s president, Abelardo de la Espriella, said 111 people had been killed and 87 injured, while 61 buildings had collapsed. “The ⁠national government has all of its capabilities deployed to protect lives, assist affected communities and deliver aid wherever it is needed,” he said in a national address at about 1pm local time, upon declaring ‌a national state of emergency. “The first priority is rescuing the people trapped under the rubble.” Western Colombia appears to have suffered the most serious damage, where authorities reported 27 deaths in the Valle del Cauca department, 40 deaths in Pereira, the capital of Risaralda department, and at least two in Manizales, the capital of Caldas. The mayor of Manizales, Jorge Eduardo Rojas Giraldo, said at least 12 buildings and 20 homes had been partially or completely or destroyed there. In a social media video, he told citizens to be “completely ready” for aftershocks. “Do not go back into the buildings yet. I know this isn’t easy but stay outside for a little while at least because there could be an aftershock,” he said. Social media videos showed citizens searching for victims in the wreckage of a four-storey hotel in Cali and a woman sprinting from a building as it collapsed in Manizales. One video showed part of San José church in Pereira collapsing as palm trees around it shook. Another video published by the newspaper El Tiempo captured the moment a building gave way in Manizales. The mayor of Cali, Alejandro Eder, said at least 20 buildings had collapsed in his city and that some people were trapped inside. He did not specify how many. “Right now, we are trying to map out what has happened, firstly to protect lives and secondly to be able to push ahead with any kind of rescue that might be necessary,” he said, urging citizens to stay calm. He also told residents to check their buildings for structural damage. “If you do not feel safe, if you see very large cracks, please leave the building,” he said. The mayor of Pereira, Mauricio Salazar, declared a curfew. In an interview with local radio he said 65 buildings had collapsed, with victims thought to be trapped in at least 15 of them. Five of the city’s hospitals were reportedly inundated with the injured. Raúl Andrés Buitrago, the head of customer service at a business in Pereira, described setting off for work when the seismic alert on his watch went off. “There are often little tremors here,” he said. “But I’d never felt an earthquake like this. It started softly, softly, softly, then it felt like it was getting stronger every second.” He spoke of “horrible” scenes as he fled outside on to the street in the city centre, which is home to many old buildings. “The roofs started to fall in. The buildings collapsed in on themselves. The panic was terrible. They were the four longest minutes of my life,” he said. The governor of Chocó, Nubia Carolina Córdoba, said people had been injured and buildings severely damaged in the department’s capital, Quibdó. De la Espriella, who took office on Friday, flew to the capital, Bogotá, where he said he would lead the government response. “Colombia has a president whose heart aches for his people and who will do everything in his power to help them in the most difficult moments,” he said in a video posted on his official social networks. His office announced that he had ordered an immediate meeting of the national disaster management committee and said the government was “vigilant and in action”. “We will keep Colombians informed,” it said. Aviation authorities said the airports in Pereira, Manizales, Quibdó, Cartago, Armenia and Buenaventura had sustained damage. The earthquake comes weeks after Venezuela was struck by twin earthquakes that devastated the country’s northern coast, killing more than 6,000 people. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the Trump administration – which has thrown its weight behind Colombia’s new rightwing president – was monitoring the situation closely and stood ready to offer its support.

Flip-flopping Netanyahu rejects Gaza plan but cannot placate all his allies

Benjamin Netanyahu’s public rejection of a US-backed deal for Gaza drew scepticism in Israel, amid reports he was personally hammering out details of a pilot military withdrawal days earlier. The Israeli prime minister is struggling to balance incompatible demands on Gaza policy from his key domestic and international allies. The far-right Israeli politicians who prop up Netanyahu’s coalition government want to intensify Israeli attacks on Gaza and establish settlements inside the territory. Donald Trump, who provides vital diplomatic and military backing for Israel, wants to move toward a permanent settlement and return to Palestinian control in Gaza, brokered by the Board of Peace that he created and chairs. With an Israeli election looming in just over two months, Netanyahu appears to have opted to publicly placate domestic partners who are already on the campaign trail. On Sunday, he rejected a new 15-point plan for Gaza, which included a Hamas commitment to give up its weapons, meeting a key Israeli demand. He also resisted US pressure to end wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran without Israel’s buy-in. The remarks blindsided Israeli commanders, who had been discussing the implementation of the plan in meetings with Netanyahu and the IDF’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, days earlier, Israel’s Channel 12 television reported. “We learned about it today from the media,” the station quoted a defence official as saying. “At the meetings that were held until now, the prime minister personally gave his consent to this plan and to a withdrawal from the points in Rafah.” The meetings covered precise boundaries of three pilot areas in southern Gaza where a proposed international force – which has yet to be stood up – could take over from the Israeli military, and the interface between the two forces, the report said. Netanyahu’s public attack on the Board of Peace plan seemed like a particularly pointed rejection of US goals because it was released soon after a reported visit by Adm Brad Cooper, who heads US Central Command. He came to deliver in person the message that the Trump administration wants Israel to end its wars in Gaza and Lebanon, Israeli media reported. “The Americans’ message to the IDF was to move in the direction of shutting down all three theatres of operations,” a senior Israeli military officer told Channel 13 Television. Defying Trump, who is notoriously thin-skinned and intolerant of dissent, is risky when Israel is internationally isolated and needs US military supplies. But Netanyahu has a long track record of audacious political manoeuvring, both at home and internationally, undaunted even by ostensible power imbalances. Bill Clinton, after meeting him for the first time in 1996, is reported to have said: “Who’s the fucking superpower here?” In May 2024, the then US president, Joe Biden, announced an Israeli-backed ceasefire and hostage release plan for Gaza, only to have Netanyahu distance himself from the proposal and ultimately reject it. For now the administration in Washington appears to have largely shrugged off Netanyahu’s comments as electioneering, perhaps encouraged by military decisions that indicate a far more attentive regard for Trump’s wishes. Last week, Netanyahu scaled back Israeli airstrikes on Gaza by raising the threshold for authorising attacks. Targeted killings must now be approved by the chief of staff, rather than the regional commander, unless Israeli forces are in “imminent danger”. Nor is this the first time he has bowed to US pressure to rein in wars that have the enthusiastic backing of his far-right allies, recently limiting the offensive in Lebanon, and last year ordering fighter jets heading for Iran to turn back at Trump’s demand. Netanyahu’s combination of fierce domestic rhetoric and some conciliatory steps on the ground in Gaza may have bought him a bit of time but US patience may not last until polling day in late October. Trump is weighing up election concerns of his own, as the US is holding midterms just a week after Israel votes. Netanyahu’s visit to the White House last month was notably low profile for a leader who has repeatedly campaigned on his reputation as an international statesman and close relationship with the US president, Haaretz newspaper noted. It ended without a joint statement, and strains caused by the Israeli prime minister’s competing political priorities have become increasingly evident. “That’s how it is when you try to juggle too many balls; you start dropping them,” the paper said. The top envoy for the Board of Peace, Nickolay Mladenov, declined to comment on Netanyahu’s rejection of a deal that took months to hammer out. In an interview with Israeli media he said only that “discussions continue”. Palestinians in Gaza have endured nearly a year of deadly limbo after Trump brokered a nominal ceasefire last October, that he said would halt fighting and pave the way for reconstruction. Israeli attacks have continued, killing over 1,200 people, and Israel has blocked the entry of equipment, supplies and fuel needed for rebuilding homes, schools and medical infrastructure. The majority of Gaza’s surviving population live in tent camps with little sanitation, and although hunger has diminished food shortages are still widespread, with over 70,000 children projected to need treatment for acute malnutrition to April 2027, food security experts have warned. Netanyahu’s office rejected reports that he had discussed detailed withdrawal plans for Gaza.

Police use teargas on young Indians as government jobs protest escalates

Thousands of angry young job-seekers clashed with police in Jharkhand, one of India’s poorest states, on Monday as a weeks-long protest over alleged irregularities in recruitment drives for coveted government jobs escalated into a march on the state legislature. Police fired water cannon and teargas and swung batons as they tried to stop flag-waving demonstrators from clambering over barricades and surging towards the assembly in Ranchi, the state capital. Some of the protesters responded by dancing and cheering as jets of water drenched the crowd. The unrest comes just weeks after the Cockroach movement, a youth-led protest campaign – which began as an online joke and grew into a nationwide outcry over leaks in a national medical entrance examination – put the BJP-led national government under heavy pressure and led to the resignation of the education minister. Both protesters and police officers were injured in the Jharkhand clashes, local media reported, although no official figures were released. “The baton charge was barbaric. We were protesting peacefully, but the government used batons against us,” protester Piyush Kumar Soni told the Press Trust of India. The demonstrators are demanding an investigation by the CBI, India’s premier investigative force, saying only an independent inquiry can get to the bottom of alleged wrongdoing in government recruitment examinations. They accuse authorities of failing to prevent irregularities in public service exams, including test paper leaks and cheating, and say the alleged scandals have deprived young people of a fair chance. Jharkhand has long struggled with high unemployment, making government jobs highly sought after. Competition is intense for civil service and other public sector posts, which offer job security, health and pension benefits. Government recruitment drives routinely attract hundreds of thousands of applicants, and many young people spend years preparing for examinations. In one recent Jharkhand recruitment exercise, nearly 640,000 applications were received for 2,025 posts. In another, more than 322,000 candidates competed for 510 vacancies. The state government, led by a regional party allied with the opposition Congress, has sought to defuse the crisis through talks. Officials say most of the protesters’ demands have been accepted and that they are open to more negotiations. The Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi, condemned the use of force. “Students have a right to peaceful protest, and only dialogue can yield solutions,” he said. The row has already toppled senior figures. The former Jharkhand public service commission chair was arrested over alleged exam irregularities, while three commission members have resigned. The protests underscore mounting frustration among young Indians over corruption in public examinations and recruitment systems, a shortage of good jobs and fears that opportunities are being lost to cheating and political influence. Nearly two-thirds of Indians are under 35. Official data shows unemployment fell to 9.9% last year, but a 2026 study by Azim Premji University found that nearly 40% of graduates aged 15 to 25 were unemployed.

Ukraine drone strike on oil refinery deep inside Russia kills at least 13

A Ukrainian drone strike on an industrial city deep inside Russia has killed at least 13 people, according to the local mayor, as Kyiv steps up its campaign of long-range strikes on targets far from the frontline. Kyiv said it hit the Taneco refinery in the city of Nizhnekamsk, about 750 miles (1,200km) from the Ukrainian border. Footage circulating online appeared to show smoke rising from the refinery. Ukraine’s general staff said the raid was part of a campaign to reduce the “military potential of the Russian aggressor”. Russian investigators claimed civilian and industrial sites in the city had been hit. The head of the Tatarstan region, Rustam Minnikhanov, said a Ukrainian drone hit a hostel, killing nine people. He posted images showing a badly damaged building. If the death toll is confirmed, the strike would be among the deadliest Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory since the full-scale invasion began in 2022, underscoring the growing reach of Kyiv’s strikes deep inside Russia. The Uzbek consulate said in a Telegram post that seven of the victims were Uzbek citizens. Minnikhanov declared a day of mourning and Russian prosecutors opened a criminal case into alleged terrorism. Local video footage showed Ukrainian drones buzzing above the city’s skyline, flying low over grey and box-like Soviet-era apartment blocks. Two plumes of black smoke could be seen rising above an industrial zone on the wooded outskirts of Nizhnekamsk. The site is home to Taneco, one of Russia’s biggest and most technologically advanced oil refineries, owned by Tatneft. It also houses a plant that produces rubber and petrochemical products. Ukraine also bombed the area in June. In an address on Sunday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “long-range sanctions” against the Kremlin and its war machine would continue. In recent months Ukrainian drones have wreaked havoc on Russia’s oil export industry, even hitting refineries in Siberia, 1,500 miles from the frontline. The governor of the Tyumen region in western Siberia said on Monday that several Ukrainian drones had fallen on an industrial facility and that emergency services were dealing with a fire. There have been several strikes on warehouses belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s equivalent of Amazon, as well as on oil tankers in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea. Ukraine’s long-term goal is to slowly strangle the Russian economy so Moscow can no longer fund its war. Zelenskyy described his country’s remote bombing campaign as “entirely justified”. “Every Russian strike [on Ukrainian towns and cities] will be met with our response. Russia’s war will be felt more and more at their own home – in Russia,” he said on social media. “The only reason this is still continuing is Russia’s unwillingness to end this war.” Russia’s defence ministry said it had intercepted 456 Ukrainian drones flying above Russian territory and annexed Crimea. Ukraine says it is knocking out its opponent’s air defence systems more quickly than they can be replaced, creating air corridors or “doors” it can exploit. Overnight, Ukraine’s armed forces hit equipment depots and a repair unit in the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk parts of eastern Ukraine, while ⁠Russian-appointed local authorities said the ⁠Zaporizhzhia region in south-east Ukraine was largely without ⁠electricity on Monday ⁠after Ukrainian attacks destroyed key power facilities. On Russia’s Black Sea ⁠coast, power outages were reported in ‌parts of ‌Novorossiysk, a major export ‌port, and in the holiday resort of Gelendzhik, regional authorities said on Telegram. There were unconfirmed reports that Russian ballistic missile launcher systems were destroyed inside Russia, not far from the border. According to Telegram channels citing Ukrainian military sources, the targeted high-value military assets were in Russia’s western Kursk and Bryansk regions. Both were used to launch Iskander and hypersonic Zircon missiles towards Kyiv. Ukrainian prosecutors said five people were killed on Sunday in a Russian artillery strike on a village outside Kharkiv. Several houses were flattened as a result of an “enemy strike” on Buhaivka in the Chuhuiv district, they said. Sweden’s security service, Säpo, said on Monday it ⁠had shut down a Russian spying operation that had tried to ⁠influence decision making ⁠there and discredit the Nordic country as well as its EU and ⁠Nato allies. Säpo said the operation had been planned and directed by Russia’s SVR foreign ⁠intelligence service and involved three people working under the cover of ‌diplomatic immunity. “This is ‌consistent with the threat we see Russia posing,” a Säpo spokesperson said. “We have been able to monitor what happened at these meetings between the individuals involved, what was said and what assignments were given. They are ⁠no longer in Sweden and we have been able to break up this operation.”

US intelligence ‘believes Russia was behind Leipzig airport drone bomb’

American intelligence experts believe Russia was behind an attack on a German airport last week with a drone laden with explosives, US media have reported, as Berlin remained silent on the likely culprit. Last week’s security emergency prompted the interior minister, Alexander Dobrindt, to break off his summer holiday in Italy and rush to the scene in the eastern city of Leipzig, as he spoke of a “new level of danger” for Germany. Dobrindt called the incident, in which a quadcopter with semtex plastic explosives attached was found next to a Ukrainian cargo plane at the major shipping and military hub, part of a “professional hybrid threat scenario” by a well-equipped foreign actor. As the German investigators raced to identify the perpetrators, the tabloid Bild reported that authorities had found DNA traces at the scene that matched a sample from a firebomb, posted via DHL, that exploded at Leipzig airport in July 2024. Five men suspected in a related series of mailed incendiary devices are on trial in Lithuania, where it emerged in court last week that the plane that was the target of the firebomb only avoided being set on fire in mid-flight because it was delayed. The suspects are alleged by Lithuanian prosecutors to have been employed by Russian intelligence. Even as MPs and security analysts pointed the finger at the Kremlin over the latest incident in Leipzig, German government officials have not levelled a specific accusation against Moscow. The Wall Street Journal, however, has quoted US officials familiar with intelligence reports about the incident as saying that the drone probably belongs to the Russian government. CNN reported that Washington had concluded the drone came from a Russian secret service, citing a US defence official in Europe noting the explosive material found on the drone suggested a military manufacturer. German officials said the drone managed to fly past Leipzig airport’s defences. It was only immobilised when an alert airport bus driver ferrying a group of late-night passengers spotted and reported it, an estimated four hours after it breached the facility’s security, averting what authorities have said could have been a multiple casualty event. The same night, a DHL cargo plane, which had been forced to abort its landing at the airport due to the discovery of the drone, then collided with an unknown object in mid-air as it was climbing away from the airport. It later landed safely elsewhere, with minor damage. Investigators now believe it hit a second hostile drone being flown that night. A day later, drones were detected above an army installation in western Germany housing components for US-made Patriot air-defence systems, which Ukraine has often requested to help fend off Russia’s aerial bombardments. In response to the increased threat, the German interior ministry said on Monday it plans to double its federal team of anti-drone experts to 300, with the number of operational bases for the unit to rise to eight from four. Germany and other European countries have long reported suspicious unauthorised drone overflights at airports, military facilities, ports and logistics companies, and accused Russian agents of spying as well as a targeted campaign of sabotage, disruption and intimidation. Moscow has denied this, and late last week its embassy in Berlin called any suggestion it had a hand in the Leipzig case a “rashly contrived provocation” that “serves only the interests of Kyiv and the militarist wing of the European political establishment”. Berlin is Ukraine’s biggest national supplier of military aid in its defence against the Russian onslaught. Next month, Germany will hold three pivotal elections in eastern states, where support for defence assistance for Kyiv is controversial among voters and fears of “provoking” Moscow run high. The pro-Russian far-right Alternative für Deutschland is poised to perform well in all three races, polls show, amid reports of Russian disinformation targeted at its principal rivals, the mainstream democratic parties. The opposition Greens have criticised the government for not naming and blaming Russia at this stage of the Leipzig investigation. Political scientist Wolfgang Schröder of the University of Kassel in western Germany said two factors could be shaping Berlin’s restraint. Firstly, Russia had been named early on as a prime suspect behind the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which German prosecutors now say was ordered by Ukrainian “state authorities”. More important, Schröder said, were the incalculable consequences of accusing Moscow of a botched military attack on German soil amid warnings of an escalation in tensions. “If it were to be defined as an act of aggression – that is, a military attack by Russia against (Germany’s) critical infrastructure – then we would be on the brink of entering a state of war, and that would have implications not only of a diplomatic nature but also with regard to Nato,” he told local news broadcaster n-tv. “A cautious approach is being taken here, precisely because the aim is to prevent being drawn in, and that would mean turning this into a matter of European security – a matter of Nato security – and that would certainly take Germany’s involvement in the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine to a whole new level.”

Jean hoped bird flu wouldn’t come to Australia. Then it arrived – and she saw a tern ‘trembling and swaying’

Bird enthusiast Jean Turner hoped avian flu would never arrive at her doorstep. At her home on Kangaroo Island in South Australia, bossy fairy wrens chirp at her from the deck, grey currawongs clumsily fall into her bird bath, and fluffy, hooded plover chicks emerge from speckled eggs in front of her binoculars. But online, images of Argentinian coastlines strewn with dead seal pups and researchers lining up rows of dead seabirds on Antarctic islands offered a warning of what could come. So when SA confirmed its first case of the deadly H5 bird flu strain, just over 200km away at Robe on the Limestone Coast, Turner was prepared to become a different kind of birder. “We had this fairytale belief that maybe we wouldn’t get it here,” she says. “But it’s here and now things are going to get harder and more confronting.” She is one of more than 120 volunteers who have signed up for the Bird Observers Network, which allows birders to contribute to the state’s bird flu response. The partnership between the SA government, Conservation Council SA, Birds SA and Birdlife Australia trains volunteers to identify and report sick birds that may be showing signs associated with H5 bird flu. Since the network’s first session, Turner has already reported a sick greater crested tern, which was resting at the edge of a flock. While the other birds shuffled or flew around as she tried to get a better look, the sick animal did not respond. “It was standing on the jetty, trembling and swaying a bit,” Turner says. “It didn’t look well, it just looked really miserable.” Compared with the non-bird-obsessed general public, birders can offer greater detail when reporting potentially infected birds, says Steven Langley, the president of Birds SA. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email They can often recognise species more accurately, use their binoculars to observe possible abnormalities within a flock, and notice when birds they might see on their routine walks go missing. “We all just want to be able to do whatever we can to make a difference,” Langley says. “When you see these distressing images from overseas, you’re implanting them into your mind and on to the places and the birds that you have got a great deal of affection for.” Volunteers generally don’t receive further correspondence after they have made a submission but multiple crested terns found on Kangaroo Island have been tested and returned confirmed positive results for H5 bird flu since Turner’s report. The grim task of reporting dead wildlife is a familiar one to many SA birders after the toxic algal bloom which engulfed 20,000 sq km of coast, killing millions of sea creatures and becoming one of the worst marine mass mortalities in the world. Though Turner says the scenes from the bloom were confronting, she worries bird flu has the potential to be even worse. The first mass mortality event of the outbreak was detected last week among greater created terns at Baudin Rocks, just across the beach from Robe, where more than 80 dead and sick birds were spotted. Langley says the impending disaster makes it even more important to take other actions to protect birds, including mitigating predator risks, reducing disturbance and providing and protecting more habitat. “When you lose a huge proportion of your breeding birds to bird flu, every single bird that survives is really, really valuable,” he says. “We need to be reducing disturbance to these birds.” For now, the SA government says it is continuing engagement with the community, the agricultural industry and the wildlife sector to bolster surveillance. The environment minister, Emily Bourke, thanked the birding community for helping with surveillance and says other states and territories were interested in setting up similar models. Birders and the general public who come across dead or sick animals have been urged not to touch them but instead to report them to the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline on on 1800 675 888, and by taking a photo and noting the location.