Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the outcome of indirect nuclear talks between the United States and Iran, a potential thaw in Canada-India relations, and growing disillusionment with Britain’s Labour Party.
Diplomacy or Strikes?
U.S. and Iranian officials held a third round of indirect nuclear talks in Geneva on Thursday. “We’ve been exchanging creative and positive ideas,” Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, who is mediating the negotiations, wrote on X, adding later that “significant progress” was made. Technical-level discussions are expected to take place in Vienna next week, he said.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the outcome of indirect nuclear talks between the United States and Iran, a potential thaw in Canada-India relations, and growing disillusionment with Britain’s Labour Party.
Diplomacy or Strikes?
U.S. and Iranian officials held a third round of indirect nuclear talks in Geneva on Thursday. “We’ve been exchanging creative and positive ideas,” Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, who is mediating the negotiations, wrote on X, adding later that “significant progress” was made. Technical-level discussions are expected to take place in Vienna next week, he said.
But as the United States ramps up its military presence in the Middle East, some analysts believe that failure to secure a diplomatic breakthrough soon could result in U.S. strikes on Iran.
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned that Tehran must make a deal with Washington or else risk possible attack. “My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy,” Trump said during his State of the Union address on Tuesday. “But one thing is certain: I will never allow the world’s No. 1 sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon. Can’t let that happen.”
Trump has ordered the largest U.S. military buildup in the Middle East since its 2003 invasion of Iraq. That includes the deployment of two aircraft carriers; more than 50 additional fighter jets; and dozens of refueling tankers; among other destroyers, cruisers, and submarines.
Experts suggest that Trump is likely considering several military options, such as limited strikes on military targets, widespread attacks on the country’s missile or nuclear facilities, or a sustained campaign designed to force the removal of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Tehran has vowed retaliation for any U.S. attack.
Beyond curbing Iran’s nuclear program, U.S. negotiators also want Tehran to accept restrictions on its missile arsenal and stop funding regional proxy groups. However, “Iran refuses—refuses—to talk about ballistic missiles, to us or to anyone, and that’s a big problem,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Wednesday.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Thursday that a framework could be reached if Washington separates “nuclear and non-nuclear issues.” The same day, four Iranian officials told the New York Times that Tehran is proposing to suspend nuclear activity and uranium enrichment for three to five years, after which Iran would join a regional nuclear consortium and maintain a low level of 1.5 percent uranium enrichment for medical research. Iran would also dilute its existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium in phases and would grant monitoring access to International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors.
Iranian officials have also made it clear that they expect the United States to lift sanctions in exchange for possible concessions on its nuclear program. Yet just a day before Thursday’s talks, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed new sanctions targeting Iran’s oil exports and ballistic missile production.
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Resetting relations. Ottawa and New Delhi are expected to work toward a total reset of their bilateral relations when Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney travels to India this week. Carney, who departed for the city of Mumbai on Thursday, is likely to sign a slew of new trade deals during his visit, including a potential agreement to expand Canada’s uranium shipments to India. Cooperation pacts concerning critical minerals, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing are also on the agenda, according to Dinesh Patnaik, India’s high commissioner to Ottawa.
Last November, Carney and Modi agreed during a meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit to resume stalled talks on a comprehensive free-trade deal. It is unclear if such a deal will be discussed during this week’s trip.
“The visit comes at an important juncture in normalization of India-Canada bilateral relations,” the Indian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, adding that both leaders have “agreed to pursue a constructive and balanced partnership grounded in mutual respect for each other’s concerns and sensitivities.”
Since Carney took office last March, he has prioritized thawing the two countries’ tense ties after his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, accused the Indian government of orchestrating the killing of a Sikh separatist in British Columbia. That accusation—made in September 2023 and denied by New Delhi—led to a major diplomatic rupture between the two countries.
Labour’s uncertain future. A special election in northwest England could signal a disappointing future for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. The Gorton and Denton constituency in Greater Manchester held a three-way race on Thursday among Labour, the hard-right Reform U.K. party, and the environmentalist Green Party. Results are still too close to call and are expected to be announced early Friday. But even if Labour retains the seat, the vote’s competitiveness highlights growing disillusionment with Downing Street.
Since Labour’s landslide victory in July 2024, Starmer has had a rocky tenure. The cost of living remains high despite him promising to grow the economy. Internal party dissent continues to plague Labour’s agenda following Starmer’s own lawmakers voting against proposed welfare cuts last summer. And pressure is mounting for the prime minister to resign over his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, who maintained close ties with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, to be the British ambassador to the United States.
Starmer maintains that voting Labour is the best way to stave off a Reform U.K. win; the anti-immigrant party only holds eight seats in the 650-member House of Commons, whereas Labour holds 404. However, a recent rise in far-right nationalism in Britain and Starmer’s own political woes could foreshadow a potential Labour departure from Downing Street.
A corrupt adoption system. South Korea relaunched its Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Thursday, renewing an investigation into allegations of fraud and misconduct in the country’s foreign adoption program. The three-year fact-finding mission will accept the more than 2,100 cases left unresolved from Seoul’s previous mandate, which expired in November, as well as more than 300 submissions from Korean adoptees in the West that were deferred or remain incompletely reviewed.
An investigation led by The Associated Press and PBS in September 2024 found that the South Korean government collaborated with adoption agencies and other child services for decades to send roughly 200,000 children abroad, largely to Western countries. These children were obtained via dubious means, including falsified paperwork, kidnapping, and the removal of newborns from their birth parents.
Some adoptees hope to use the reopened commission’s findings to file damage lawsuits against the South Korean government and adoption agencies; the last commission report prompted President Lee Jae-myung in October to issue a rare apology for the “anxiety, pain, and confusion” that adoptees suffered. However, it may take months for the investigations to actually begin, as Seoul has yet to appoint a chair to the body.
Odds and Ends
In Argentina’s southern Patagonia region, paleontologists have discovered a nearly complete, well-preserved skeleton of one of the world’s smallest-known dinosaurs. According to research published on Wednesday, the female Alnashetri cerropoliciensis (nicknamed Alna) was roughly the size of a crow, weighing around 1.5 pounds, and died around the age of 4. But though Alna be but little, she was fierce. Researchers suggest that her strong, pointy teeth likely enabled her to hunt small animals, such as snakes and lizards.
