London
CNN
–

Palestinian pro-activists broke into Britain’s largest air force base and damaged two military aircraft in central England early on Friday.

Palestinian Action, a UK-based group aimed at disrupting the operations of arms manufacturers supplying the Israeli government, has posted footage of the action on its X account.

The video shows two people riding electric scooters at the tarmac at Rough Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.

Activists can be seen spraying red paint on the turbine engines of the two Airbus Voyager. They are said to be used to refuel military and fighter jets in Israel, the US and the UK, as well as their suspect role in carrying military cargo.

“The UK is not merely a joint venture, but is actively involved in Gaza genocide and war crimes across the Middle East,” a spokesperson for Palestinian actions said in a statement.

“By abolishing the two military aircraft, Palestinian actions intervened directly in the genocide and prevented crimes against the Palestinians,” he added.

A source from the Ministry of Defense told CNN that RAF Voyagers had not carried anything to Israeli forces or refueled Israeli aircraft.

The incident raises broader questions about how un-arrested activists were able to enter without being detected by the carrier. RAF Brize Norton has around 5,800 service personnel, 300 private staff and 1,200 contractors.

In a statement, the Department of Defense strongly condemned “the vandalism of Royal Air Force assets” and said it was working with police investigating the violation.

In a statement posted to X, British Prime Minister Kiel Starmer called the incident “vulnerability” and called it “disgrace.”

Hong Kong
CNN
–

China and Russia position themselves as voices of reason and are considering the US entering the country in search of disputes. These are Optical XI xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin who tried to make predictions during the call on Thursday.

As US President Donald Trump joined Israel in attacking Iran, the rapidly challenging conflict between two sworn-up enemies in the Middle East presented another opportunity to cast himself in Beijing and Moscow as an alternative to American power.

In their appeal, Putin and Xi Jinping strongly condemn Israel’s actions, calling them a violation of the UN Charter and other norms of international law, according to the Kremlin. (Of course, the elephant in the room is a violation of Russia’s own international law in the ongoing war against Ukraine, which Beijing has consistently refused to condemn it.)

In Beijing’s reading, Xi hit a more measured tone and stopped explicitly denounce Israel, unlike the foreign minister who did it in a call with his Iranian counterpart last week.

Instead, Chinese leaders urged “Israel in particular” to political parties fighting to stop the fire as soon as possible, in order to avoid further escalation and regional ripples.

And in particular, in a veiled message to Trump, Xi stressed that “major powers” that have a special impact on the parties to the conflict should work to “cool the situation, not opposed.”

Beijing has long accused Washington of being a source of instability and tension in the Middle East. And some Chinese scholars have accused them of stealing Iran’s crisis to emphasize that point.

Li Zhongmin, a Middle Eastern expert at Shanghai International Studies University, said the latest flare-up stems from the uncertainty created by the chaotic, opportunistic and transactional nature of Trump’s second presidency and his Middle Eastern policy.

“(Trump) seriously undermined the power and credibility of US policy in the Middle East, undermining its ability to threaten and block regional enemies while eroding American leadership and image among its allies,” Liu wrote in state media this week.

Some Chinese online commentators have noted that Trump appears on the brink of pulling the US deeper into other so-called eternal wars in the Middle East.

At the beginning of his second term, officials close to Trump repeatedly stressed the need for Washington to redirect the focus and resources to counter China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. But five months later, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza continue to be furious. And Trump is now squeezing our involvement in the Israeli-Iran conflict.

Beijing is not interested in seeing an all-out war with Iran, which could overthrow the regime. Under the Supreme Leader of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran emerged as a horrifying force in the Middle East and as a key counterweight to US rule.

In 2023, Beijing helped mediate a surprising settlement between Saudi Arabia and Iranian archrivals.

China has long supported Iran through sustained oil imports and UN Security Council seats. In recent years, the two countries have deepened their strategic ties, holding joint navy exercises with Russia. Beijing welcomed Tehran to Shanghai cooperative organizations and BRICS. It was led to challenge the US-led world order led by China and Russia.

Iran is also a key node of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a driving force behind global infrastructure and investment. The country is located near the strategic port of Gwadar, Pakistan’s main BRI pre-post base that provides access to the Indian Ocean, and borders the Strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint for China’s oil imports from the Persian Gulf.

Like Russia, China has offered to become a potential mediator in the Israeli-Iran conflict, casting an alternative to its role as a peace broker and US leadership.

During his call with Putin, Xi laid out four broad proposals to dismantle tensions, including solving Iran’s nuclear issue and protecting civilians, according to Chinese reading.

Meanwhile, Xi’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi spent a busy week on the phone, speaking with counterparts in Iran, Israel, Egypt and Oman with gusts of diplomatic outreach.

However, it remains unclear what Beijing willingly can do when it comes to actually mediating a conflict. In the early stages of Israel’s war with Gaza, China made similar offers and sent special envoys to the region to promote peace negotiations. This is an effort that was ultimately hard to get in terms of concrete results.

Broker peace in the Middle East is highly orderly, especially in deeply divided regions that lack the existence of meaningful political or security, especially for countries with little experience or expertise in mediating long-term, cumbersome conflicts.

And the war in Ukraine, one conflict where China holds important leverage, XI provided diplomatic cover and much needed economic support to maintain Putin’s war effort, even if China continued to acquire its position as a neutral peace broker.

Yet, when America’s global leadership is under scrutiny, especially in the eyes of the global South, Iran’s position as a voice of restraint in the conflict could already count as a symbolic victory for Beijing.

Editor’s Note: Call to Earth is a CNN edited series that promises to report on the environmental challenges the planet faces, along with solutions. Rolex’s Permanent Planet Initiative is partnering with CNN to promote awareness and education on key sustainability issues and encourage positive action.

CNN
–

It is not easy to transport the world’s second largest land mammals along the way along the world’s second largest continent.

However, on a 3,400-kilometer (2,100-mile) journey involved in crates, cranes, trucks and Boeing 747s, 70 raised, bred southern white rhinoceros from South Africa to Rwanda’s Akagera National Park in early June moved as part of an initiative to “rebel” them.

“Transporting 70 rhinos across the continent is risky,” Martin Rickelton, head of the translocation in African parks, told CNN. So far, the animals seem to be doing well in their new homes. “All reports are good,” adds Rickelton.

Creatures that can weigh more than 2,000 kilograms (over 4,000 pounds) come from a controversial breeding programme launched in the 1990s by property developer John Hume.

After spending years lobbying to legalize the rhino horn trade, Hume was obtained by accumulating horn stockpiles and trimming the animals without harming them.

However, he ran out of money and he sold rhinos in 2023 as horn trade is still banned under international law. He told Agence France-Presse (AFP) when he spent about $150 million on the project. “There’s nothing left except 2,000 rhinos and 8,000 hectares (20,000 acres) of land.”

He did not receive a single bid. African parks — a conservation nonprofit that manages 23 protected areas across the continent — intervened to acquire private symes in plans to “rebuild” animals for over a decade.

The translocation marked the first transcontinental movement of the Sai Reno Wild Initiative in Africa Park.

“This is a very important milestone,” says Taylor Tench, a senior wildlife policy analyst at a nonprofit environmental research agency who was not involved in the relocation. “This is definitely a major development in terms of the efforts of African parks.”

Today, around 17,000 South Whitesides remain in Africa, which are classified as “blackmailed” International Union for Conservation of Nature Red list. This means 2,000 southern white rhinoceros purchased by African parks, and plans to spread across the continent account for more than 10% of the remaining population.

Although international trade in Rihhorn has been prohibited since 1977 under the International Trade Treaty of Endangered Species species (citation), demand from Asian consumers has mistakenly promoted it as a status symbol or cured diseases ranging from hangovers to cancer, it still promotes poaching.

Poachers sometimes killed rhinos completely, sedate them before cutting their horns, or hacked most of the animal’s face to death to cause them to bleed.

In South Africa, where the majority of its population lives, 420 rhinos were poached in 2024. Over 100 people have been killed in the first three months of the year.

Tench says that Rhino poaching has been ramping on the continent from 2012 to 2015, and “many things have been achieved since then.” He added that Kenya lost rhinos last year, causing a significant drop in poaching in Zimbabwe. Today, he says poaching is mainly concentrated in South Africa and Namibia.

To address this issue, Tench says it needs to focus more government resources on addressing the organized criminal network behind Rhino’s poaching and international trade and increasing international cooperation.

Rickelton says there are many future relocation projects at various stages of discussion and planning. He added that there is a strong framework in place to ensure that the rhinoceros are available in place to provide adequate habitat, safety to keep the animals safe, and sufficient funding to care for them.

The move to Akagera National Park required more than half of the planning and approval. And the cost of moving each rhinoceros, including monitoring and management for the next three years, is around $50,000 (the move was supported by the Howard G. Buffet Foundation).

The animals were first moved from the breeding program facility to the South African private game reserve Muniwana Conservancy and were exposed to conditions like red-headed gulp. The rhinos were then loaded into individual steel boxes, driven to an airport in Durban, South Africa, and carefully loaded onto a Boeing 747 by crane.

After arriving in Kigali, Rwanda, Sai made the final leg of the journey on the road. Now, rhinoceros need to adapt to their new environment. They will be monitored by the veterinarian team for several weeks.

According to the park, measures like dog units to reduce poaching were guided to reduce poaching, reducing poaching to “near zero” levels.

There is a reason for optimism. In 2021, the African park moved 30 rhinos from a private gaming sanctuary in South Africa to the Red Fillet. Since then they have had 11 descendants. 70 more rhinos have been added, and “We have now established a genetically viable flock of Rhino,” says Rickelton.

He sees the rhinos from their crate at the end of the journey and says, “The effort, frustration and challenge are really worth it.” Rickelton adds: “It’s a story of hope in a less positive world.”

Geneva, Switzerland
CNN
–

European negotiators welcome President Donald Trump’s announcement that he will decide on US military action in Iran within two weeks, and have told CNN it could provide “breathing space” and “diplomacy windows” to bring Iran back to the negotiation table.

Prior to nuclear talks between top Europeans in Geneva, Switzerland and Iranian officials, Western European diplomats told CNN that “ideas” would be presented to Iran, “we will explore what is possible and there is room for manipulation.”

The diplomat refused to be drawn to the details, but the core of the issue remains Iran’s controversial uranium enrichment programme, repeatedly focusing on “what compromises are feasible” on the issue.

But the enrichment that Iran says it needs for peaceful purposes is a major fixture in that it produces a large amount of weapon-grade materials, but the agreement with Iran is pledging to swear that the state must ban it from fully enriching nuclear material.

For decades, Iran, which refused to build nuclear weapons, has resolutely refused to give up its capabilities. Instead, they will narrow down billions of dollars to refine their technology and build a huge number of enrichment facilities, including installing secret fordows built underground in the mountains.

Israel pointed to a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency after it launched its first strike in Iran. This acknowledges that Iran enriches uranium at a higher level than other countries without a nuclear weapons program, and violates its nuclear shortage obligation.

But after more than a week of intensive Israeli airstrikes that saw Iran lose most of its enrichment programmes, the Islamic Republic’s hard-line calculations could ultimately change, a Western European diplomat told CNN.

“Now that Iran is under enormous military pressure, it may have no choice and their nuclear capabilities are degraded,” the diplomat said.

Until Trump’s decision to allow diplomacy to another shot, Geneva’s story appears to be a European sideshow, with the US poised to participate with Israel in the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The meeting between the EU’s foreign policy directors, together with foreign ministers in the UK, France and Germany and Iranian counterparts, has taken over greater importance, setting the stage for the next step and acting perhaps as a bridge between Iran and the US.

But there is a fundamental fear in Geneva that the talks of revitalization here, the first formal meeting with Iranian representatives since the escalation of the Israeli-Iran conflict, are yet to go anywhere.

Even Trump’s two-week window announcement, Western European diplomats told CNN, but while the US military was assembled and ready for the “big gambling” of the military “which could inflam the area”; Western European diplomats told CNN.

“It’s impossible to read anything Trump says.

Life is full of uncertainty after days of aggressive strikes between Israel and Iran for civilians caught up in the Israeli bombing campaign.

“This is war,” Tehran, the 58-year-old father of two in the capital, told CNN, adding, “No one really understands what that means.”

A week after the conflict, contact with the outside world for Iranians is difficult, hampered by sporadic internet and telephone coverage. Some – usually wealthy activists – have access to StarLink terminals, which provide independent internet access.

Speaking through audio recordings, messages and occasional phone calls, all interviewed asked CNN not to reveal their full name for fear of retaliation from Iranian authorities.

Life has discovered a new wartime rhythm, they said, local shops are still open, but some are accepting credit payments, the two’s fathers told CNN. This credit, which cannot withdraw money from Iran’s Sepa Bank, has become a lifeline.

“We have electricity, but gasoline is useless for us, so we have nowhere to go outside of Tehran,” he said.

He glued to television after seeing London-based Iranian broadcasters illegal and said his family had not left their home recently.

“Daily life is full of constant fear and distrust,” he said.

Posted in Tehran, he was able to visit Karaj’s family over the weekend, but military rules in the capital prohibit him from using his mobile phone or other devices. “We can’t even check the news,” he said.

Click here for details.