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BBC News with Gabriel O'Regan.
President Trump has again insisted the U.S. will recover Iran's highly enriched uranium as part of a deal to end the war, contradicting Iran's stance on the matter. Speaking to supporters in Arizona, Mr. Trump said the U.S. would work with Iran. "Iran with the help of the USA, they will never have a nuclear weapon. And somebody said how are we gonna get the nuclear dust? We're gonna get it by going in with Iran, with lots of excavators. We need the biggest excavators you can imagine. But we're gonna go in together with Iran, we're gonna get it and we're gonna take it back home to the USA." Earlier, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said the uranium would not be transferred anywhere and the issue hadn't even been raised in negotiations. In the same speech, President Trump insisted that a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports would continue until a deal was fully signed. The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, threatened to reverse a decision to reopen the Strait of Hormuz unless that blockade was lifted. He reiterated that passage through the waterway remains subject to Iranian authorization. Despite the news of the strait being reopened, concerns about the lack of guarantees in place to ensure the safety of shipping still remain, as our diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams explains. For hundreds of ships and an estimated 20,000 seafarers trapped inside the Gulf for the past six weeks, this could be positive news. But there's lingering uncertainty about what it'll mean in practice. One captain said he'd heard other vessels asking Iran's Revolutionary Guard for permission to leave. And a maritime expert said everyone was asking the same question: Is this real? With preparations underway in Islamabad for another round of U.S.-Iranian talks, there's still no word on when it'll happen. It could be within days. The Lebanese president has declared that his country is entering a new phase to transform a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah into a permanent peace settlement. In a televised address a day after the truce came into effect, Joseph Aoun said Lebanon would no longer be a card in anyone's pocket and that the country's sovereignty had been recovered. "We have reclaimed Lebanon and Lebanon's decision-making power for the first time in nearly half a century. We've once again become a state that alone makes its own decisions, raises them high and puts them into action in word and deed for the life of its people and the good of its citizens, nothing else." The Trump administration says it's hosted a productive meeting with the head of Anthropic following months of tension between the Defense Department and the artificial intelligence company. The White House said they'd discussed opportunities for collaboration while ensuring safety. Earlier this year, President Trump ordered government agencies to stop using Anthropic's technology after the company insisted on safeguards to stop it being used for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. World news from the BBC. An Irish man accused of heading one of Europe's most violent criminal gangs has been arrested in Dubai. Daniel Kinahan found fame as a boxing promoter but is now believed by police to run a drug smuggling ring. A statement from the Dubai police force said his arrest involved an intensive surveillance operation. India's parliament has failed to pass a bill which would have reserved a third of its seats for women. More than half of MPs in the lower house supported the measure but it failed to gain the two thirds to make the necessary constitutional change. Opposition parties insisted they didn't oppose the idea of reserved seats for women but the legislation also included changes to the country's constituency boundaries which they argued were unfair. It's been confirmed that fans' train tickets from New York City to the stadium hosting the football World Cup final this year will cost 11 times more than usual, prompting accusations of price gouging. The U.S. has previously committed to providing free transport for World Cup matches in its bid. Our New York correspondent Nada Tawfik has more details. NJ Transit, the operator of the train, has come under attack from football fans who say they couldn't feel less welcome. They can either pay the $150 train ticket which is normally $12.90, take a shuttle bus for $80, spend over $200 on parking or chance it with a rideshare with no price cap. The chief executive of NJ Transit says they aren't profiting but attempting to recover the costs of labor and security so that it doesn't get passed on to regular commuters. Our New York correspondent Nada Tawfik reporting. The French video game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has won the top prize at the BAFTA Games Awards in London. The role-playing dark fantasy adventure designed by Sandfall Interactive has become a global sensation since its launch a year ago, selling more than five million copies. In December, it became the first French production to win Game of the Year at the Games Awards in Los Angeles. That's the latest world news from the BBC. |