Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at early setbacks to the U.S.-Iran cease-fire deal, Greece’s social media ban for children under age 15, and more North Korean ballistic missile tests.
Disagreement and Confusion
Less than 24 hours after the United States and Iran agreed to a cease-fire deal that included the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran has reportedly once again closed the strategic waterway. Such an early setback casts doubt on whether the precarious truce will hold, and it reignites concerns that the world’s unprecedented energy crisis is far from over.
The two-week truce was struck less than two hours before U.S. President Donald Trump’s Tuesday evening deadline; Trump had vowed to destroy a “whole civilization” with targeted strikes on civilian infrastructure if Tehran did not agree to a deal and reopen Hormuz.
However, Iran appears to have already backtracked on that pledge, saying that Israeli strikes on Hezbollah—an Iranian proxy group in Lebanon—violated the terms of the cease-fire. On Wednesday, Israel launched one of its largest attacks against the militant organization since the war began, killing at least 182 people and injuring hundreds more.
“The Iran-U.S. Ceasefire terms are clear and explicit: the U.S. must choose—ceasefire or continued war via Israel. It cannot have both,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) took Tehran’s condemnation one step further, threatening a “heavy response” against Israel if it does not immediately halt its attacks on Hezbollah. “Aggression towards Lebanon is aggression towards Iran,” said Brig. Gen. Seyed Majid Mousavi, the IRGC’s aerospace commander.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who facilitated the cease-fire negotiations, explicitly included Lebanon as part of the terms of the agreement that he announced on Tuesday night. However, the Trump administration is now arguing that Lebanon is not part of the cease-fire deal. “That’s a separate skirmish,” Trump told PBS News when asked if it was OK for Israel to continue attacking Hezbollah. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu similarly said on Wednesday that the cease-fire deal excludes Lebanon.
Eighteen world leaders—including from Europe, North America, and Asia—issued a joint statement on Wednesday calling for the cease-fire to include Lebanon.
It’s not just the truce agreement’s exact terms that are unclear; the details of the framework that both sides are basing their upcoming talks on are also confused—even to the negotiators. In Trump’s Truth Social post announcing the cease-fire on Tuesday night, the U.S. president wrote, “We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate.” But the 10-point framework that Tehran released on Wednesday includes numerous items that had previously been considered nonstarters for the United States—including insisting on Iran’s right to enrich uranium.
It also calls for a permanent peace deal instead of a temporary truce; maintains that Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz and has the right to charge tolls; demands that U.S. forces withdraw from all bases in the region, including from Gulf Arab countries, Israel, and Iraq; insists that Washington pays reparations for war damages; requires the United States to lift all primary and secondary sanctions on Tehran; orders the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency to terminate all resolutions against Iran; and mandates the end of all regional wars, including the conflict in Lebanon.
Washington had already rejected that proposal before the cease-fire, deeming it “fundamentally unserious, unacceptable,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday. According to Leavitt, U.S. officials are now working off of a new, modified 10-point peace proposal from Iran that mirrors Trump’s initial 15-point proposal. She did not say what was in the new proposal. “Many of the 15 points have already been agreed to,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday, claiming that Iran has vowed not to continue enriching uranium.
Yet that appears to be news to Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, the primary person in Iran with whom the Trump administration has been negotiating in recent days. On Wednesday afternoon, Ghalibaf posted on X that three clauses of the agreed-upon 10-point framework had already been violated—including “Denial of Iran’s right to enrichment, which was included in sixth clause of the framework.”
U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will head to Pakistan this week for further talks, scheduled to begin early Saturday.
Meanwhile, Trump hosted NATO chief Mark Rutte at the White House on Wednesday, during which the Iran war was expected to be a major point of conversation. The alliance was “tested and they failed” over the course of the conflict, Leavitt said, referring to how NATO members refused to help U.S. forces reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has threatened to withdraw from NATO over this lack of support.
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Social media restrictions. Greece will ban social media access to children under age 15 starting next year, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Wednesday. Having already barred cellphones in schools and advocated for using parental controls to limit screen time, Athens’ latest measure aims to tackle rising anxiety and sleep issues among minors as well as counter these platforms’ addictive designs.
Greece’s Parliament is expected to approve the ban this summer. According to an opinion poll published in February, around 80 percent of people approve of this legislation, though Mitsotakis acknowledged in a TikTok video on Wednesday that many children may be unhappy with the restrictions.
Still, “our goal is to push the European Union in this direction as well,” Mitsotakis said. In a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Mitsotakis proposed creating an EU-wide age-verification program that would set the “digital age of majority” at 15. Greece is one of the first countries in Europe to announce such a ban; Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom are also considering similar restrictions.
Testing ballistic missiles. North Korea fired several short-range ballistic missiles into its eastern waters on Wednesday, marking Pyongyang’s second launch event in just two days. According to South Korean and Japanese intelligence, most of the projectiles flew around 150 miles before crashing into the sea; however, at least one North Korean missile fired later that day traveled more than 430 miles and landed outside of the country’s exclusive economic zone.
The back-to-back launches reiterate Pyongyang’s opposition to improving ties with its southern neighbor. South Korea will always be North Korea’s “most hostile enemy state,” said Jang Kum Chol, North Korea’s first vice minister of foreign affairs. Last June, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung suggested that he was open to recalibrating relations with North Korea.
In response to Wednesday’s tests, Seoul convened an emergency National Security Council meeting to demand that Pyongyang end these launches, saying that they violate U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea’s nuclear program. Meanwhile, Japanese chief cabinet secretary Minoru Kihara argued on Wednesday that Pyongyang’s actions “threaten peace and security in the region and the international community.”
Slavery reparations. The far-right, anti-immigrant Reform U.K. party on Tuesday proposed denying visas to people who come from countries that seek reparations from Britain for trans-Atlantic slavery. That would include several nations that are part of the British Commonwealth, such as Ghana, Jamaica, and Nigeria.
Calling for reparations is “insulting,” said Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesperson, adding that doing so “[ignores] the fact that Britain made huge sacrifices to be the first major power to outlaw slavery and enforce this prohibition.” The United Kingdom has never formally apologized for slavery despite being a major participant in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Global backlash to Reform’s proposal was immediate. “The idea the victims of an enormous crime calling for justice are to be doubly punished is tragic,” said Hilary Beckles, the chair of the Caribbean Community’s reparations commission. The 21-nation bloc issued a 10-point plan for “reparatory justice” more than a decade ago, in which it demanded a full formal apology, ordered that all foreign debts be canceled, and pushed for greater investment in literacy rates and public health.
Odds and Ends
Cue the Interstellar soundtrack. NASA’s Artemis II mission released its first images of the dark side of the moon on Tuesday. Among the most striking photos were two never-before-seen vantage points: a frame of Earthset (when the Earth dips below the moon) and a view of a solar eclipse from behind the moon’s far side. Want more Easter eggs? Look closely at the latter image, and you can spot Saturn and Venus among the stars. Truly breathtaking!
