While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, May 25, 2025
Chinese Premier Li Qiang being greeted by Indonesian officials upon his arrival in Jakarta on May 24. PHOTO: AFP
While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, May 25, 2025
China, Indonesia will promote 'true multilateralism', says Li
China's Premier Li Qiang said on May 24 that China and Indonesia will promote 'true multilateralism', the official Xinhua news agency reported, as he landed in Jakarta on a two-day visit to South-east Asia's largest economy.
China has intensified engagement with countries in the region since US President Donald Trump announced hefty import tariffs on its global trading partners earlier this year.
Some levies have since been delayed, while China and the US agreed this month to pause some of their tariffs.
Jakarta, whose biggest trading partner is China, has offered the US a number of concessions in a bid to soften tariffs against Indonesia.
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At West Point, Trump rips diversity and inclusion policies
President Donald Trump ripped US diversity and inclusion policies, knocked Nato, and took credit for building up the military on May 24, in a campaign-style commencement speech at the prestigious West Point Military Academy in New York.
Mr Trump, wearing a suit and his signature red 'Make America Great Again' cap, mixed advice to 'work hard' with a list of his top grievances about cultural and political issues while speaking to a stadium filled with cadets, family members and a largely supportive crowd.
'The job of the US Armed Forces is not to host drag shows, to transform foreign cultures,' Mr Trump said. 'The military's job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America, anywhere, anytime, in any place.'
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Rescuers say 9 children of Gaza doctor couple killed
Gaza's civil defence agency said on May 24 that an Israeli strike in the southern city of Khan Younis killed nine children from the same family, with the Israeli army saying it was reviewing the reports.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said civil defence crews retrieved 'the bodies of nine child martyrs, some of them charred, from the home of Dr Hamdi al-Najjar and his wife, Dr Alaa al-Najjar, all of whom were their children'.
He added that Dr Hamdi al-Najjar and another son, Adam, were also seriously wounded in the strike on May 23.
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Shannon Tan finishes second at Jabra Ladies Open
A second-placed finish at the Jabra Ladies Open in France on May 24 has given Singaporean golfer Shannon Tan a boost ahead of the July 10-13 Evian Championship, her first Major of the 2025 season.
With both tournaments played at the Evian Resort Golf Club's The Champions Course in Evian-les-Bains, the 21-year-old is excited to return to the venue after a creditable showing this week.
Her confidence stems from a remarkable comeback on the final day of the €300,000 (S$440,000) Jabra Ladies Open, as she carded a three-under 68 in the third round of the event for an eight-under 205 total, two strokes behind champion Sara Kouskova (67) of the Czech Republic.
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Dissident Iranian filmmaker wins Cannes top prize
It Was Just An Accident by dissident Iranian director Jafar Panahi won the Palme d'Or for best film at the Cannes Festival on May 24.
The highly political but wry film tells the tale of five ordinary Iranians confronted with a man they believe tortured them in jail.
Panahi, who has been imprisoned twice in his home country and banned from making films, used his acceptance speech to urge Iranians to work towards freedom.
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Straits Times
an hour ago
- Straits Times
US strikes against Iran not aimed at regime change, Pentagon chief says
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth warned Iran against following through with past threats of retaliation against the US. PHOTO: AFP US strikes against Iran not aimed at regime change, Pentagon chief says Follow our live coverage here. WASHINGTON - The US military's strikes on Iran's nuclear sites were not a preamble to plans for regime change, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on June 22, adding that private messages had been sent to Tehran encouraging them to negotiate. Still, Mr Hegseth warned Iran against following through with past threats of retaliation against the United States, and said US forces were postured to defend themselves, and take action if needed. "This mission was not and has not been about regime change," Mr Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon. "The president authorised a precision operation to neutralise the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear programme." The US strikes included 14 bunker-buster bombs, more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles and over 125 military aircraft, in an operation the top US general, General Dan Caine, said was named "Operation Midnight." Gen Caine said initial battle damage assessments indicated that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction, but he declined to speculate whether any Iranian nuclear capabilities might still be intact. The operation pushes the Middle East to the brink of a major new conflagration in a region already aflame for more than 20 months with wars in Gaza and Lebanon and a toppled dictator in Syria. Tehran has vowed to defend itself, and responded with a volley of missiles at Israel that wounded scores of people and destroyed buildings in its commercial hub Tel Aviv. But, perhaps in an effort to avert all-out war with the superpower, it had yet to carry out its main threats of retaliation - to target US bases or choke off the quarter of the world's oil shipments that pass through its waters. The Iranian Parliament approved closing the Hormuz strait, a potential choke point for oil shipments, but the country's top security body is required to make a final decision, Iran's press TV reported. Gen Caine said the US military had increased protection of troops in the region, including in Iraq and Syria. "Our forces remain on high alert and are fully postured to respond to any Iranian retaliation or proxy attacks, which would be an incredibly poor choice," Gen Caine said. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
US strikes on Iran nuclear sites are real-life test of hard power's limits
A combination picture shows satellite images over Fordow, before and after the U.S. struck the underground nuclear facility, near Qom, Iran, June 2, 2025 (L) and June 22, 2025. Planet Labs PBC via REUTERS VIENNA/PARIS - U.S. military strikes overnight in which President Donald Trump said Iran's main nuclear sites were "obliterated" will put to the test the widely held view that such attacks can delay a nuclear programme but not kill a determined push for atom bombs. As Iran's nuclear programme has expanded and become more sophisticated over the past two decades, many officials and nuclear experts have warned: You can destroy or disable a nuclear programme's physical infrastructure but it is very hard or impossible to eliminate the knowledge a country has acquired. Western powers including the United States have publicly suggested as much, complaining of the "irreversible knowledge gain" Iran has made by carrying out activities they object to. "Military strikes alone cannot destroy Iran's extensive nuclear knowledge," the Washington-based Arms Control Association said in a statement after the U.S. strikes with massive bunker-busting bombs on sites including Iran's two main underground enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow. "The strikes will set Iran's programme back, but at the cost of strengthening Tehran's resolve to reconstitute its sensitive nuclear activities, possibly prompting it to consider withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and possibly proceeding to weaponisation." Israel has also said it has killed Iranian nuclear scientists but, while little is known about the personnel side of Iran's nuclear programme, officials have said they are sceptical about that having a serious impact on Iran's nuclear knowledge, even if it might slow progress in the near term. The West says there is no civilian justification for Iran's enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade fissile purity. Iran says its nuclear objectives are solely peaceful and it has the right to enrich as much as it wants. Iran's nuclear programme has made rapid advances since Trump pulled the United States out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers that placed strict limits on its atomic activities in exchange for sanctions relief. After the U.S. withdrawal in 2018 and the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions, Iran pushed past and then far beyond the limits imposed by the deal on items like the purity to which it can enrich uranium and how much it can stockpile. URANIUM STOCK At least until Israel's first strikes against its enrichment installations on June 13, Iran was refining uranium to up to 60% purity, a short step from the roughly 90% that is bomb-grade, and far higher than the 3.67% cap imposed by the 2015 deal, which Iran respected until the year after Trump pulled out. The last report on May 31 by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog that inspects Iran's nuclear facilities, showed Iran had enough uranium enriched to up to 60%, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. It has more at lower levels like 20% and 5%. The exact impact of Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and materials has yet to be determined. In addition to the enrichment sites, the U.S. struck Isfahan, where officials have said much of Iran's most highly enriched uranium stock was stored underground. One important open question is how much highly enriched uranium Iran still has and whether it is all accounted for. A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Sunday most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow, the site producing the bulk of Iran's uranium refined to up to 60%, had been moved to an undisclosed location before the U.S. attack there. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told state TV last weekend Iran would take measures to protect nuclear materials and equipment that would not be reported to the IAEA, and it would no longer cooperate with the IAEA as before. NORTH KOREA LOOMS LARGE The IAEA has not been able to carry out inspections in Iran since the first Israeli strikes nine days ago, but has said it is in contact with the Iranian authorities. What Iran will do next in terms of its nuclear programme is also unclear. Its threat to pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty hints at a race for nuclear weapons, but Iran has maintained it has no intention of doing so. The only other country to announce its withdrawal from the NPT is North Korea in 2003. It expelled IAEA inspectors and went on to test nuclear weapons. "Our biggest concern is that we end up with a North Korea scenario whereby these strikes convince the Iranians that the only way to save the regime is to go for the bomb. Nobody is bombing North Korea now, are they?" a European official said. Even if inspections continue, because of Trump's withdrawal in 2018 Iran had already scrapped extra IAEA oversight provided for by the 2015 deal. That means the agency no longer knows how many centrifuges Iran has at undeclared locations. The IAEA says that while it cannot guarantee Iran's aims are entirely peaceful, it also has no credible indication of a coordinated nuclear weapons programme. The Israeli and now U.S. strikes have already raised fears among diplomats and other officials, however, that Iran will use those centrifuges to set up a secret enrichment site, since one could be built inside a relatively small and inconspicuous building like a warehouse. "It is quite possible that there are enrichment sites that we don't know about. Iran is a big country," a Western official said, while adding that Iran could also choose to bide its time. "In two years, if Iran were to start from scratch, they would only need a few months to reconstitute a new programme and to get back to where they were yesterday." REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Senior Russian official says Trump has started new war on Iran that will strengthen Khamenei
FILE PHOTO: Russia's Security Council's Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev attends a meeting of the Council for Science and Education at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in the Moscow region's city of Dubna, Russia June 13, 2024. Sputnik/Alexei Maishev/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo Senior Russian official says Trump has started new war on Iran that will strengthen Khamenei MOSCOW - A senior Russian official said on Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump had started a new war by attacking Iran that would only strengthen Tehran's leaders by consolidating society around Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The Kremlin, which has a strategic partnership with Iran and also maintains close links to Israel, had repeatedly cautioned Washington that U.S. strikes on Iran would plunge the entire region into the "abyss". "Trump, who came in as a peacemaker president, has started a new war for the U.S.," said Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, adding that "with this kind of success, Trump won't win the Nobel Peace Prize". "Iran's political regime has been preserved, and it is highly likely that it has become stronger," Medvedev said. "The people are consolidating around the spiritual leadership, even those who did not sympathise with it." Medvedev also said that Iran's nuclear infrastructure did not appear to be affected by the U.S. strikes, and that the U.S. was in danger of being drawn into a ground operation. President Vladimir Putin had repeatedly offered to mediate between the United States and Iran, though the Kremlin chief last week refused to discuss the possibility that Israel and the United States would kill Khamenei. Putin said that Israel had given Moscow assurances that Russian specialists helping to build two more reactors at the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran would not be hurt in air strikes. Russia's foreign ministry strongly condemned the U.S. attacks which it said had undermined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The United Nations Security Council must respond, Moscow said. "It is already obvious that a dangerous escalation has begun, fraught with further undermining of regional and global security," it said. "The risk of the conflict spreading in the Middle East, which is already gripped by multiple crises, has increased significantly." While Moscow has bought weapons from Iran for its war in Ukraine and signed a 20-year strategic partnership deal with Tehran earlier this year, their relationship since the 16th century, when Muscovy officially established relations with the Persian Empire, has at times been troubled. Inside Russia, there were calls for Russia to come to the aid of its partner and to supply Iran with the same support which Washington had given to Ukraine - including air defence systems, missiles and satellite intelligence. "It's time for us to help Tehran," said Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeyev. "And at the same time, to offer the United States and Iran diplomatic assistance in peace negotiations by appointing a special envoy for this. Two can play at this game." Jailed Russian nationalist Igor Girkin said that unless Russia supported Iran, the Islamic Republic would be bombed into the Stone Age by the United States and Israel and then plunged into chaos. "If Iran does not receive the necessary support from its allies, Russia and China, and very serious and significant support, then, most likely, within a month, its enemies will achieve this," Girkin said on Telegram. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
