Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at how Lebanon jeopardizes the Iran war’s cease-fire, Russia’s threat to China-North Korea relations, and a deadly earthquake in the Philippines.
‘Fire Is on Hold’
Iran declared an end to its military operations against Israel on Monday, after an exchange of attacks risked escalating the Middle East conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said that his country’s “fire is on hold,” after U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly urged the Israeli leader to back off from further strikes.
Still, as FP’s John Haltiwanger reports, the latest flare-up demonstrates the folly of trying to divorce Israel’s conflict in Lebanon from the Iran war, as the Trump administration has tried to do.
On Sunday, Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at Israeli targets in retaliation for continued Israeli strikes on southern Lebanese villages. Israel responded by targeting “terrorist infrastructure” in Beirut’s southern suburbs. According to Lebanon’s health ministry, Israel’s attack hit two apartment buildings, killing two people and wounding at least 20 others, including women and children.
Iran had previously warned that any attack on Beirut could collapse ongoing peace talks with Washington. Following Sunday’s assault, Iran launched 11 ballistic missiles at Israel, targeting two military bases in the country. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, another Iranian proxy group, also claimed an attack on Israel while warning that all Israel-linked vessels in the Red Sea would once again become targets.
Israel quickly traded fire, launching two waves of strikes on central and western Iran that injured at least 15 people and damaged the country’s largest petrochemical complex.
Iran and Hezbollah tried to “impose a new equation” by firing at Israel for its attacks on the Beirut-based proxy group, Netanyahu said on Monday. “This equation is unbearable and unacceptable to me.” The prime minister later told Trump that no Israeli leader can refrain from retaliating against an Iranian attack. “You can’t normalize 11 ballistic missiles shooting at Israel. You just can’t,” an Israeli official told NBC News.
Despite the United States not being directly involved in the exchange, Monday’s slew of attacks marked the most serious threat to the Iran war’s cease-fire since Washington and Tehran agreed to it in April. Although Netanyahu has implied that the current round of strikes is over, he warned that if Tehran “makes the mistake and returns to attacking us, we will respond with force,” adding that Israel “has full right to self-defense, and we will exercise it to the full extent necessary.”
Iran issued a similar warning, saying that any future “aggression and hostile acts” by Israel or its supporters, including in southern Lebanon, would face “much more severe and crushing measures than before.” Tehran also blamed the United States for Israel’s actions. “No one believes that the Israeli regime would take any action without coordination with the United States,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said.
Yet that very well may be what happened, after Israel defied the White House’s demands to not attack Beirut. Last Monday, Trump pushed Israel to halt its operations near Lebanon’s capital in order to prevent Iran from suspending talks. During a phone call that day with the Israeli leader, Trump reportedly called Netanyahu “fucking crazy,” saying, “You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”
Still, Trump insists that he is in control of the situation. “I call the shots. I call all the shots,” Trump told the Financial Times on Sunday.
Today’s Most Read
The World This Week
Tuesday, June 9: Estonia hosts a summit for leaders from eight Nordic and Baltic countries.
Wednesday, June 10: Brussels hosts the European Union-South Korea leaders’ summit.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim concludes a three-day trip to Japan.
Thursday, June 11: South Korean President Lee Jae-myung begins a three-day trip to Italy.
NATO chief Mark Rutte hosts Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store.
Finland kicks off the two-day Kultaranta Talks.
Friday, June 12: Pope Leo XIV concludes his weeklong trip to Spain.
Sunday, June 14: Switzerland holds a quarterly referendum.
Monday, June 15: France hosts the three-day G-7 leaders’ summit.
What We’re Following
Vying for influence. Chinese President Xi Jinping received a red-carpet welcome on Monday, when he arrived in Pyongyang for his first trip to North Korea in seven years. From a military honor guard to a large public gathering in the capital’s main plaza, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sought to demonstrate the importance of the two countries’ “unbreakable” bond by pulling out all the stops for one of his closest allies.
Few details of the two leaders’ meeting have emerged. However, both Xi and Kim reiterated their commitment to bolstering bilateral ties across several sectors, including trade, technology, and agriculture. The two-day summit also served as a way to project a united front against the West.
Yet one nation may get in the way of the traditional China-North Korea partnership: Russia. Historically, Beijing has been Pyongyang’s main economic and diplomatic partner, defying United Nations sanctions to grant the Hermit Kingdom access to China’s market. However, Pyongyang has shifted closer to Moscow in recent years. Since reviving their Cold War-era mutual defense pledge in 2024, Russia has given North Korea vital humanitarian supplies in exchange for North Korean troops and munitions. Such ties risk China losing North Korea’s dependency.
Deadly quake. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake in the southern Philippines on Monday killed at least 35 people and injured more than 200 others. The quake, which struck off the coast of the island of Mindanao, triggered a landslide in the municipality of Glan, killing at least 13 villagers, and it sent a roughly 3-foot tsunami into nearby coasts, damaging several low-rise buildings. Smaller waves were also recorded in Indonesia, Palau, and southern Japan. Tsunami warnings have since been lifted.
Monday’s tremor was the Philippines’ largest this year, according to Teresito Bacolcol, the director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. France, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States have offered to support Manila’s response efforts, which include search-and-rescue missions, evacuation orders, and the delivery of aid. “The national government is moving and we will not leave Mindanao behind,” Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Monday after ordering the cancellation of all classes on the southern island.
The Philippines sits on the Ring of Fire, an area of seismic faults along the Pacific Ocean that is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Last October, a 7.4 magnitude offshore earthquake killed at least seven people in the southern Philippines.
Weekend election results. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared victory on Monday in the country’s high-stakes parliamentary elections. With the ruling Civil Contract party securing 49.8 percent of the vote, Pashinyan clinched enough support to secure a majority in parliament, which Pashinyan argued was essential for him to finalize Armenia’s peace deal with neighboring Azerbaijan. Pashinyan’s win also represents a massive blow to the opposition, including to a pro-Russia group that accused Pashinyan of losing the long-disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Unlike Pashinyan, Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti did not command a sweeping win during snap parliamentary elections in his country on Sunday. After failing to secure enough votes to form an absolute majority, Kurti called for other parties on Monday to join his Vetevendosje group to create a governing coalition. Eighteen months of political deadlock have all but stalled Kosovo’s efforts to join the EU, as institutional instability has delayed promised reforms.
Meanwhile, results for Peru’s presidential election runoff remained too close to call on Monday. According to exit polls, former first lady Keiko Fujimori has 50.5 percent of the vote, just 1 percentage point more than left-wing candidate Roberto Sánchez. Fujimori, whose father oversaw a brutal, decadelong dictatorship in Peru, has championed a tough-on-crime platform to appease far-right voters. In contrast, Sánchez has drifted to the center, promising to protect private property and ensure the central bank’s autonomy.
Odds and Ends
Donald Trump is going viral—no, not the U.S. president. A rare albino buffalo in Bangladesh has become a global sensation after a farmer noticed that the animal’s golden locks resemble the U.S. leader’s distinctive haircut. The 1,500-pound buffalo was going to be slaughtered for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which concluded on May 29. But government authorities ordered that the mammal be transferred to a zoo instead, where large crowds can now visit him.
No word from the human Trump on if he appreciates the buffalo’s likeness.
