The US and Iran conflict live: strikes, retaliation and what it means for Australia

• Trump cancelled the planned strikes on Iran hours after threatening to hit the country "very hard tonight", posting that discussions had "been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved".
• The cancellation confirms the back-channel was real, after Tehran's state media spent a day denying any contact with Trump while Reuters revealed a draft memorandum and Iran's $US6 billion to $US12 billion frozen funds ask.
• One News analysis: the war is one move in a wider play to dismantle China's energy network, with strait transits collapsing from 95 ships a day to just 10.

8:05am 12 June 2026 — Trump cancels tonight's strikes: talks reach Iran's highest level

Hours after threatening to hit Iran "very hard tonight", Donald Trump has called the strikes off. "Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening," he posted on Truth Social. He told Fox News that "Iran is dying to make a deal" and he'd like one done within three or four weeks.

The cancellation settles yesterday's he-said-they-said. Tehran's state media spent Wednesday insisting no contact with Trump had occurred, then Reuters revealed a draft memorandum and a $6 to $12 billion ask over frozen funds, and now the bombing has stopped on the strength of discussions "approved" at the highest level of Iranian leadership.

The denial was theatre, the contact was real, and the sequence of the past 48 hours reads exactly as Hegseth described it in advance: negotiate with bombs until the other side picks up the phone. Iran's lead negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is still talking tough, warning that "impulsive decisions will reset the entire board for the worse", but his government just approved the discussions that paused the bombs over its head.

6:40am 12 June 2026 — Correction: the three Settebello crew members were killed

Three Indian sailors aboard the MT Settebello were killed in this week's US strike on the tanker, India's government has confirmed. Earlier reports, including ours, described the three as missing after the strike on the Palau-flagged vessel, which CENTCOM says was attempting to transport Iranian oil in breach of the blockade and ignored repeated directions from US forces.

The deaths are the first confirmed fatalities of the blockade campaign, which had until this week disabled ships without loss of life across more than 130 compliant redirections. They're also the reason New Delhi's protest carries real weight: India has now summoned a US diplomat over a strike that killed its nationals, and the question of why Indian crews keep ending up aboard sanctions-running tankers is becoming a story in its own right.

6:03am 12 June 2026 — Trump threatens to take Kharg Island, Iran's oil lifeline

Donald Trump has named the biggest target yet, warning the US would hit Iran "very hard tonight" and posting on Truth Social:

"At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela." Asked about it on Fox News, he was candid about the constraint: "My preference has always been, take Kharg Island... I don't know that America has the stomach for it, to be honest with you."

Kharg is the regime's wallet. The island handles more than 90 per cent of Iran's crude exports, most of it bound for China, and the US has been here before: in March, American strikes hit every military target on the island while Trump announced he'd spared the oil infrastructure "for reasons of decency", warning he'd reconsider if anyone interfered with shipping in the strait. The Venezuela comparison is the tell. This is the same playbook One News has tracked across Latin America: take control of the energy assets feeding Beijing's empire, and let the regime that owns them negotiate for the scraps. Iran interfered, the decency clause lapsed, and the island went back on the list, hours before the strike cancellation suggested the threat alone may have done its job.

5:42am 12 June 2026 — Iran's blockade now has a permits desk

Iran has formalised its closure of the strait, with a newly created body called the Persian Gulf Strait Authority confirming a complete closure order "until further notice". "Applicants who have been granted a transit permit are asked to be patient and wait for instructions from the PGSA," the authority said on X.

So Iran has now built a bureaucracy to administer a closure that international law says it cannot impose, complete with application queues for a waterway whose right of transit passage cannot lawfully be suspended. It's the same toll system the EU sanctioned the IRGC's Hormozgan command for running on Monday, now with letterhead. Meanwhile the US insists ships are still transiting under escort, which means the strait currently has two managements: one issuing permits it can't enforce, the other escorting convoys it doesn't announce.

5:15am 12 June 2026 — Third tanker of the week disabled, nine since April

CENTCOM has confirmed it disabled the Guinea-Bissau flagged MT Jalveer in the Gulf of Oman at 11:20pm ET on 10 June, with a US aircraft firing two Hellfire missiles into the ship's engine room after the crew "repeatedly failed to comply with directions from U.S. forces" while attempting to transport Iranian oil. It's the third tanker disabled this week: the Marivex was caught attempting to sail to an Iranian port on Monday, and the Settebello was intercepted moving Iranian oil on Tuesday. All 20 of the Jalveer's crew are safe and were evacuated with help from Oman's Royal Navy.

CENTCOM's updated ledger since the blockade began on 13 April: nine non-compliant vessels disabled, 135 ships redirected after complying, and 42 humanitarian vessels allowed through, with the blockade enforced "impartially against vessels of all nations" entering or leaving Iranian ports. The arithmetic remains the campaign's best defence, 177 ships followed directions and sailed on untouched, nine didn't. The three deaths aboard the Settebello sit heavily against that record, and the pattern behind them, sanctioned Iranian crude moving on flag-of-convenience tankers crewed by Indian seafarers, is becoming the blockade's most uncomfortable story.

4:47am 12 June 2026 — Kuwait intercepts 24 Iranian drones in 48 hours

Kuwait's defence ministry says it has detected and intercepted 24 drones from Iran in its airspace over the past two days, with no injuries and limited material damage.

Add it to the ledger: Jordan intercepting ballistic missiles, Bahrain condemning attacks on its civilians, and now two dozen drones over Kuwait in 48 hours. Iran's retaliation keeps landing on Arab neighbours that aren't at war with it, days before their leaders sit down with the G7 to discuss Tehran's future. The Gulf states spent decades hedging between Washington and Tehran, and Iran is resolving their dilemma for them, one intercepted drone at a time.

4:22am 12 June 2026 — World Bank: the war is now everyone's bill

The World Bank has cut its global growth forecast for 2026 to 2.5 %, the lowest since the COVID pandemic, warning growth could fall to 1.3% if energy supply disruptions worsen. Headline inflation is forecast to average 4%, two-thirds of countries have been downgraded since January, and the bank is making up to $US60 billion immediately available to developing nations, potentially rising to $US100 billion over 15 months. The biggest downgrades hit the UAE, Iraq and other Middle East energy exporters whose shipments the closed strait has strangled.

The numbers globalise what the US CPI figures showed last week: this is energy-led, war-driven inflation, and it ends when the strait reopens. Which is also the strongest economic argument for finishing the campaign rather than freezing it, a half-closed Hormuz is the most expensive outcome on the menu, and the world is now paying for Tehran's permit system.

4:07 am 12 June 2026 — UK defence minister quits mid-war over funding

British defence minister John Healey has resigned, telling Prime Minister Keir Starmer in his resignation letter that "the demands on defence have increased further" amid the Middle East conflict and that "you have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats". Britain's defence and finance ministries have been deadlocked for months over military spending, to the fury of a defence industry that says it can't invest while the US pivots away from protecting Europe.

A defence minister walking out mid-war because his own government won't fund the military is the European version of a problem Australians will recognise. The US is carrying the Hormuz campaign alone, Trump has named the allies who didn't help, and the governments that spent the war offering commentary are now discovering their chequebooks don't match their communiqués. London at least had a minister willing to resign over it.

3:55am 12 June 2026 — While you were sleeping: the diplomacy track

The mediators stayed busy overnight. Pakistan, now named alongside Qatar as a broker, urged both sides to adhere to the ceasefire understanding and return to the table. Türkiye's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking in Sofia, said Iran and the US must stop the renewed attacks and aim to conclude a peace deal. And UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a comprehensive ceasefire in Lebanon and a diplomatic settlement respecting Lebanese sovereignty, notably adding that he fully supports "a monopoly on weapons by the Lebanese government", which is the UN's polite way of endorsing the disarmament of Hezbollah.

Separately, Israel deported French journalist Alice Froussard, two days after Paris banned Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich over his West Bank annexation comments, with Radio France Internationale condemning the expulsion. One to watch if the France-Israel spat escalates into the G7 week.

05:27pm 11 June 2026 — Iran's price for peace: unfreeze the money

Talks between Iran and the US have intensified despite the strikes, three Iranian sources and a European official have told Reuters, with the two sides exchanging messages over a memorandum of understanding. A political understanding has reportedly been reached, with the sticking point now the mechanism for releasing tens of billions in frozen Iranian oil revenues. "Iran wants $US6 billion to $US12 billion of its frozen funds to be released to Tehran, while Washington wants to release funds in stages for humanitarian goods and rejects returning funds to Iran outright," one Iranian source said.

Read that alongside this morning's news cycle. Tehran's state media spent the day denying any contact with Trump while, per Tehran's own sources, exchanging messages with Washington over the terms of a wire transfer. And the most revealing line comes from the Iranian sources themselves: the clerical establishment's priority is not a comprehensive settlement but a framework restoring "minimum breathing space" for the establishment by unlocking its assets and ending the war.

That's the regime, through its own people, describing its negotiating position as survival. Hegseth said the US would negotiate with bombs. Eight hours later there's a draft memorandum and Tehran is asking about the money. The talks Elliot Abrams called stuck this afternoon appear to have come unstuck at precisely the speed of the air campaign.

05:27pm 11 June 2026 — Meloni: EU must be ready to sanction Iran

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has told parliament the European Union should be ready to impose new sanctions on Iran if Tehran doesn't facilitate an end to the crisis. "If Tehran continues down the wrong path, the EU must be ready to increase pressure through new targeted measures," she said in a foreign policy speech ahead of next week's EU summit. Meloni also rebuked recent comments about Italy from Israel's Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir as "unacceptable for Italy and also undignified for Israel".

The substance matters more than the speech. Europe has stayed out of the shooting war, but the economic ratchet has been turning for months: the EU designated the IRGC a terrorist organisation in February, built a new freedom of navigation sanctions framework in May, and used it for the first time on Monday, listing the IRGC's Hormozgan naval command for running what Brussels describes as a toll system in the strait, demanding cargo details and fees from ships before allowing passage.

Meloni is now flagging the next turn of the dial, France and Britain are planning a naval mission for when the shooting stops, and Macron has Gulf leaders coming to the G7. Europe sat out the war and is arriving for the pressure campaign, which is its own admission of whose theory of Tehran was right.

04:16pm 11 June 2026 — Former Trump envoy: talks are stuck, so the pressure is the point

Elliot Abrams, Trump's first-term special representative for Iran, has told ABC Afternoon Briefing the administration has concluded Tehran isn't ready to compromise and that "more pressure is needed to get them there". "It does look as if it is stuck," Abrams said, hours after Hegseth's "negotiate with bombs" warning. "A lot of people negotiating with Iran over the years apparently told Trump that they will drag this out and drag it out and they are not going to make a deal, you will see. And I guess he did not believe that, but does now."

That last line explains the whole shape of the past three months. The deadlines, the five-day and ten-day extensions, the repeated "deal in two or three days" predictions: that was Trump giving the negotiating track real rope while Tehran ran its standard delay play. The rope has run out. Deadlines are for parties you believe will move before the clock expires. This week's strikes came with no deadline at all, which tells you what Washington now believes about what makes Tehran move.

03:34pm 11 June 2026 — UN finds his voice on "accountability", aimed at Israel and US

UN Special Rapporteur Ben Saul, an Australian law professor, has called on Israel and the United States to "support independent and impartial legal mechanisms to ensure accountability for international crimes", reposting photos of Netanyahu's meeting with senior US legal advisers about what Israel calls the lawfare threat against democracies fighting terrorism.

A quick survey of the other party to this war, for anyone keeping accountability ledgers. Amnesty reports Iran executed 2,159 people last year, its highest total in 45 years and enough to drag global executions to a 44 year peak, with 95% carried out in secret. The legal marriage age for girls is 13, and even as young as 8 with a father's permission and a judge's signature, and Iran's own records show 1,474 babies born to mothers aged 10 to 14 last year.

Stoning remains the statutory punishment for adultery. None of this attracted a viral post this week. The international legal community's outrage is a precision munition: it only seems to acquire targets in democracies.

One flag for Justin before this runs: the block sticks to what Saul posted and what's documented about Iran, and the closing line aims at the international legal community broadly rather than claiming Saul personally has never criticised Iran, which we haven't verified and shouldn't imply more specifically than this. If you want to sharpen it onto him as an individual, we'd need to audit his actual record on Iran first.

02:57pm 11 June 2026 — Iran fires ballistic missiles at US base in Jordan

The US Embassy in Jordan has issued a security alert warning that "missiles, drones or rockets are in Jordanian airspace", telling Americans to "seek overhead cover and shelter in place immediately". Iran's Revolutionary Guard says the alert is its doing, claiming a "punitive operation" fired 12 ballistic missiles at Al-Azraq Air Base and its control centre, and that the strike destroyed the facilities "and a large number of fighter aircraft".

The IRGC made similar claims about Al-Azraq earlier this week, when Jordan said it intercepted all five missiles and no damage to US facilities was ever confirmed.

This is also the second time in days Iran has fired through the airspace of an Arab neighbour that isn't at war with it, hours after the IRGC's aerospace commander vowed to turn the region into "hell".

So far the hell consists of embassy alerts, intercepts and destruction claims that exist only in Tasnim's copy. We'll update when there's independent confirmation of any damage, which, based on the week's pattern, may be a long wait.

02:28pm 11 June 2026 — Hezbollah fires north as Iran's ring of fire burns down

The Israel Defense Forces issued early warning alerts after detecting launches from Lebanon toward communities in northern Israel, urging residents into protected spaces. Two projectiles were identified falling near Israeli troops operating in southern Lebanon, a detail that confirms in passing what Netanyahu's direct appeal to the Lebanese people already implied: Israeli ground forces are inside Lebanon, and the campaign against Hezbollah is well advanced. Israeli strikes have hit the port city of Tyre in recent days, with the entire city ordered to evacuate.

This is the second front of the same war. Hezbollah was the crown jewel of Iran's ring of fire, the proxy network built over four decades to encircle Israel and make any attack on Iran unthinkable. The Syrian land bridge is gone, Hamas is broken, and the missile arsenal that was supposed to deter exactly the campaign now hitting Iran's coast has been reduced to launches that mostly trigger sirens. The deterrent didn't deter, the ring didn't close, and Tehran is now absorbing strikes on two fronts while its insurance policy burns through faster than it can be rebuilt.

01:16pm 11 June 2026 — IRGC commander vows to turn the region into "hell"

The commander of the IRGC's aerospace force has issued an ultimatum to Washington, vowing retaliation if the US keeps threatening the Strait of Hormuz. Brigadier General Sayed Majid Mousavi said in a social media post:

"Are you trying to make the holy Strait of Hormuz insecure? We will turn the region into hell for you from across all of Iran. This is Iran's response to the Americans' audacity in the region, God willing."

The IRGC Navy separately warned that any vessel approaching the strait would face decisive action.

The threats arrive from a force that has spent the past 48 hours losing the tools to carry them out. Mousavi commands the drones and missiles the US has been methodically targeting, the IRGC Navy enforcing that "decisive action" lost 22 vessels in a single night, and the radar that would find approaching ships has been, in the President's words, blasted. Tehran's rhetoric is escalating at precisely the rate its capability is shrinking, which tells you more about the state of the war than the words do.

Iran's legal theory is that because it never ratified the law of the sea convention, the right of transit through Hormuz doesn't bind it, a position shared by approximately nobody else on the planet.

12:05pm 11 June 2026 — CENTCOM confirms the overnight strikes

US Central Command has officially confirmed the latest wave of strikes, with Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy assets firing precision munitions at Iranian surveillance capabilities, communication systems and air defence sites across Iran, targets it says "posed a threat to U.S. forces and international commercial ships transiting regional waters".

The strikes are framed once again as a response to "Iran's unwarranted and continued aggression", with no deadline and no ultimatum, just the closing line: "U.S. forces remain vigilant, lethal, and ready." The campaign continues until Tehran decides otherwise.

10:05am 11 June 2026 — CENTCOM fact-checks Iran's strait closure in real time

US Central Command has publicly refuted Iran's claim that the Strait of Hormuz is closed, posting on X that "commercial ships are continuing to transit in and out of the Strait of Hormuz tonight", complete with a graphic stamped "fact check". CENTCOM also denied Iranian reports that a US warship had been hit: "No US warships have been struck."

The denial landed after Reuters, AP and AFP began reporting Iranian navy claims, carried by Iranian media, that two ships had been struck in the strait. Details remain thin, including which ships, and it's the middle of the night there.

So the IRGC declared the strait closed to all shipping yesterday, and within hours the US military was posting maritime traffic updates like a port authority. One side claims to control the world's most important oil chokepoint, the other is escorting tankers through it and live-tweeting the receipts. Iran's blockade is increasingly a press release with a navy problem.

9:45am 11 June 2026 — Iran denies calling Trump, while asking him to stop bombing

Donald Trump has told Fox News that Iranian officials contacted him directly asking him to stop the bombing, that the bombing would stop shortly, and that Israel wasn't involved in the latest strikes.

Iran's state media quickly denied any contact, with an unnamed senior official insisting "Trump's false claim that Iranian officials contacted him is a cover to evade war with Iran."

So to recap Tehran's position: the man currently bombing six locations across southern Iran, who says he may keep going, and whose Defense Secretary spent yesterday promising to negotiate with bombs, is faking phone calls because he's desperate to avoid a war. The war he is, at time of writing, visibly winning. One side of this dispute is conducting strikes at will across the other's territory, and the other side is issuing anonymous denials about who rang whom. Readers can draw their own conclusions about who's evading what.

8:14am 11 June 2026 — Where the US hit Iran overnight: a simple guide

The US has carried out a fresh wave of strikes on Iran overnight, the "strong and clear" attacks Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised. Explosions were reported in six locations: Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, Hengam Island, Sirik, Minab and Kangan.

Five of those sit around the Strait of Hormuz, and that's no accident. Bandar Abbas is Iran's main naval base, Qeshm and Hengam islands sit in the strait's shipping lanes, and Sirik and Minab cover its approaches. The US is knocking out the bases, radar and air defences Iran uses to enforce its closure of the strait.

The sixth location is the one to watch. Kangan sits further west on the Persian Gulf coast and is the heart of Iran's gas industry, home to the South Pars operations. If confirmed, it means the strikes are now reaching beyond the strait toward Iran's energy backbone, the "key facilities" Hegseth flagged.

Air defence was also active near Tehran, but no explosions were reported in the capital. In short: the US is dismantling Iran's grip on the world's most important oil chokepoint piece by piece, and the targets are creeping closer to the assets Tehran can least afford to lose.

8:14am 11 June 2026 — Hegseth promises "strong and clear" strikes on Iran's key facilities

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says America will hit Iran hard and bomb "key facilities", telling reporters at CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa that "those strikes that will happen tonight will be strong. They will be clear. If they happen to happen tomorrow night, they will be strong, and they will be clear."

"If we need to negotiate with bombs, we will negotiate with bombs," Hegseth said, framing the strikes as setting the terms for a deal rather than restarting the war. US officials say the targets include ammunition depots, command and control nodes and warehouses.

The strikes are already underway, with CENTCOM confirming forces began hitting multiple targets in Iran from about 7:15am AEST. The IRGC has responded by declaring the Strait of Hormuz completely closed to all vessels, warning any passage will be targeted.

8:14am 11 June 2026 — Iran lashes out after US strikes

Iran has retaliated against yesterday's US strikes on its air defence and radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz, firing missiles and drones that went well beyond American targets.

Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain all intercepted Iranian missiles and drones overnight, with Bahrain condemning Tehran's "unlawful attacks using missiles and drones targeting civilians in the Kingdom".

The IRGC confirmed the operation against American targets in a statement on Telegram. Iranian media also reported two "violating ships" were struck while attempting to pass through the strait, with Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters warning any vessel attempting passage will be targeted.

7:06am 11 June 2026 — Albanese frustrated over Hormuz, but he chose the sidelines

Anthony Albanese has voiced public scepticism about Washington's read on the Iran conflict, telling the ABC's Raf Epstein that his morning briefings on the Strait of Hormuz change by the hour.

"I wake up in the morning and get a readout that says the Strait of Hormuz has opened, then a couple of hours later it's closed, then it's open, then it's closed," the PM said, adding that Australia now treats American declarations about an imminent peace deal with a "caveat" of uncertainty.

The whiplash in those readouts isn't mixed messaging from Washington. It's what watching a contested waterway from the outside looks like. The US has been running covert convoy operations through the strait for months, moving more than 100 million barrels of oil and 200 ships by Trump's account, and the countries inside that operation aren't learning its status from morning summaries.

Trump has made no secret of where Australia sits, telling reporters bluntly that "Australia didn't help us" and rating Canberra's support as "not great". The PM's frustration is real, but it's the predictable price of an alliance posture that offers commentary instead of contribution. Allies who show up get read in and kept in the loop. Allies who hedge get readouts.

6:43am 11 June 2026 — Trump shrugs off inflation spike as the cost of stopping a nuclear Iran

Donald Trump has welcomed figures showing US inflation rising at its fastest pace in three years, telling reporters at the Oval Office "I love it. The numbers were great. I love the inflation." The May spike was driven by energy costs tied to the war, and Trump revealed he priced that in from day one. He told the room he made the call to strike Iran's nuclear program with B-2 bombers knowing exactly what it would cost, with the economy at record highs and experts predicting the market could fall 25%. "It was worth it. To me, it was worth it. Not to have a nuclear weapon," he said.

The numbers he cited make his case. Experts warned oil would hit $250 a barrel when the war began. It's currently sitting well below around $90, a figure Trump credits to the covert operations keeping supply moving, including the night raid that took out 22 Iranian ships and the secret mission that pushed 100 million barrels through Hormuz.

Meanwhile the stock market he warned would tank has done the opposite, with the Dow above 50,000 and the S&P past 7,000, both milestones hit during his term, and what he counts as 74 all-time highs since taking office.

His bet is simple: voters will wear temporary war-driven inflation as the price of denying Tehran the bomb, and the numbers come back down "as soon as this war is over".

6:39am 11 June 2026 — Australia joins 22 nations condemning Iran's plots

Australia has signed a joint statement with the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand and 17 European nations condemning Iran's "lethal plotting and other malign actions" inside their borders. The statement, released by the US State Department, names the IRGC's Intelligence Organisation, the Quds Force and Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security as the agencies behind attempts to kill, kidnap, harass and intimidate Iranian dissidents, journalists and Jewish communities.

It also calls out Tehran's "deplorable" use of international and local criminal groups to do its dirty work, and condemns a recent campaign of attacks across Europe claimed by Iranian front group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya.

Australia knows this playbook firsthand. Canberra expelled Iran's ambassador last August after ASIO traced the funding of local criminals behind antisemitic attacks, including the arson of a Melbourne synagogue, directly back to Tehran. The joint statement is blunt about where things stand:

"We stand united in our determination to protect our countries and our people against these threats. The Islamic Republic of Iran must halt these actions now."

Iran denies operating on foreign soil, a denial that gets harder to sustain with every disrupted plot, and security services in the UK alone have broken up more than 20 Iran-linked plots in the past year

6:01am 11 June 2026 — Gulf states invited to G7

Leaders from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Egypt will join a special G7 session in France next Tuesday to discuss the Middle East war, French President Emmanuel Macron has announced. The session will focus on Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which Macron conceded has "a real impact on our economies" through soaring fuel prices, along with negotiations on Iran.

Trump will be at the table, having confirmed his attendance at the 15 to 17 June summit in Évian-les-Bains despite earlier friction with European allies over their reluctance to back the US war effort.

The Gulf states have copped the brunt of Iran's drone and missile attacks since the war began in late February, and Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar have all had their oil exports disrupted by Tehran's blockade of the strait. Europe spent months keeping its distance from Washington's campaign, and now finds itself convening emergency sessions about the economic fallout and inviting the very nations Iran has been attacking. The strategic picture Trump has been describing all along is now the official agenda.

5:55am 11 June 2026 — Trump administration hits IRGC's Chinese money with sanctions

The Trump administration has rolled out a new round of Iran-related sanctions targeting six individuals and four entities, with the Treasury Department zeroing in on the clandestine banking networks running through China and Hong Kong that keep Tehran's war machine funded. The move shows Washington isn't just fighting Iran on the battlefield, it's choking the financial plumbing behind it.

Among those designated is Chinese national Liu Boyu, who the US alleges "facilitated, or attempted to facilitate, financial transactions in furtherance of the IRGC's procurement of millions of dollars' worth of weapons". Others connected to Mustad Limited, the company Boyu directs, have also been sanctioned for supporting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It's another data point in the pattern One News has been tracking for months: follow Iran's money and it keeps leading back to Beijing.

5:01am 11 June 2026 — Trump reveals secret mission moved 100 million barrels through Hormuz

Donald Trump has revealed a covert US military operation that has been quietly escorting oil tankers and commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint Iran closed in the early days of the war, cutting off up to a fifth of the world's oil and gas shipments. Announcing the mission on Truth Social shortly after his Oval Office remarks, the President said more than 100 million barrels of oil had reached the open market and over 200 commercial ships had passed through safely.

"This wildly successful effort is because the UNITED STATES of AMERICA CONTROLS the Strait of Hormuz — NOT Iran," Their military is defeated, and their economy is lost. It's over for Iran!"

The announcement caps a week in which Washington has revealed it took out 22 Iranian ships in a single night and continued striking targets inside Iran, with Tehran's blockade now looking more like a press release than a reality.

4:58am 11 June 2026 — India summons US diplomat after tanker strike leaves three crew missing

India has lodged a strong protest with US deputy chief of mission Jason Meeks after American forces disabled a tanker attempting to run the Iranian oil blockade in the Gulf of Oman, with three Indian crew members missing and 21 rescued.

The Palau-flagged Settebello was given repeated warnings to change course and ignored every one of them before a US aircraft fired precision munitions into its engine room, a strike deliberately targeted to disable the vessel rather than destroy it. The tanker was carrying Iranian oil in direct violation of the blockade CENTCOM has enforced since April.

The US rules of engagement here have been consistent and restrained. CENTCOM says 134 vessels have complied with directions and been redirected without incident, 42 humanitarian ships have been waved through, and only eight non-compliant vessels have been disabled, with no confirmed fatalities across the entire operation. Ships that follow instructions sail on. The Settebello chose not to. New Delhi has condemned the strike and called for de-escalation, though the more pointed question is why a tanker crewed by Indian nationals was hauling sanctioned Iranian crude through an active blockade in the first place.

4:52am 11 June 2026 — Trump says he "may keep going" after striking Iran

Donald Trump says he "may keep going" after US warplanes hit nearly 20 targets inside Iran on 10 June, with local Iranian reports confirming damage to a telecommunications tower in the country's south. Next on the list, according to the President: Iran's power plants and bridges.

"I may keep going. They had a chance to sign a deal and survive," Trump told Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, saying he was "getting closer" to ordering strikes on Iranian infrastructure.

Read the full story →

4:42am 11 June 2026 — US inflation hits three-year high as fuel prices bite

Inflation in the United States climbed to 4.2% in May, its highest level in three years, driven almost entirely by surging fuel costs flowing from the Middle East conflict. The jump from April's 3.8%t marked the third straight month of strong rises in the Consumer Price Index, with energy prices doing the heavy lifting.

This is a global oil shock, not a domestic policy failure. With Iran's aggression rattling energy markets and the Strait of Hormuz under pressure, fuel prices were always going to climb, dragging headline inflation with them. Wages slipped behind for a second consecutive month, though the Federal Reserve is still expected to hold rates at next week's meeting.

4:29am 11 June 2026 — Netanyahu urges Lebanese citizens to side with Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has issued a direct appeal to the people of Lebanon, urging them to stand with Israel against Hezbollah and declaring that the militant group has effectively hijacked their nation.

"Israel is not at war with you. We are at war with Hezbollah, that has taken your country hostage," the Prime Minister said in a video address.

He told Lebanese citizens that Israel wanted peace with their country, encouraging them to take control of their own destiny and align themselves with Israel. He spoke of building security and prosperity for the children of both nations.

Netanyahu added that once Hezbollah was removed from the picture, the opportunities for Lebanon would be limitless.

1:41pm 10 June 2026 — America's answer comes at 1am Tehran time

The US response to the Apache shootdown arrived within roughly 24 hours of Trump's post. On the President's orders, US Air Force and Navy aircraft struck Iranian air defence systems, ground control stations and surveillance radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz, with CENTCOM calling it a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression.

The strikes began at 5pm Washington time, 1am in Iran. No cities, no oil fields, just the removal of the capability Iran used to bring the Apache down.

Trump called the response "very strong, very powerful". The IRGC fired back toward US targets and Araghchi vowed nothing would go "unanswered", but the White House assessment is that none of it derails the talks.

Read the full story →

7:13am 10 June 2026 — Iran shoots down a US Apache over the Strait of Hormuz

Iran shot down a US Army Apache patrolling the Strait of Hormuz on Monday night, with both crew rescued from the water about two hours later, in the first known rescue by a US military drone boat. US officials say initial indications point to an Iranian drone bringing the helicopter down.

Trump confirmed the shootdown on Truth Social and said America "must, of necessity, respond". It's the second crewed American aircraft lost to Iranian fire since the war began in February.

Tehran denied responsibility within hours, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi blaming "human errors, plain accidents" or crossfire, while arguing the strait shouldn't be considered international waters at all.

Read the full story →

11:09am 8 June 2026 — Venezuela, Iran, Cuba: Trump's Real Target Is China

The Iran war is one move in a much bigger play, according to One News analysis: dismantling China's global energy network. Before the strikes, China was buying more than 80% of everything Iran shipped, roughly 1.38 million barrels of discounted crude a day, about 13% of its total imports.

The Strait of Hormuz carries around 20% of the world's daily oil supply, and China takes 37.7% of everything moving through it. Since the February strikes closed the strait, transits have collapsed from 95 vessels a day to just 10.

The countries hit hardest by the closure, China, Japan and the EU, are also America's largest foreign creditors. And when the strait reopens, it reopens on Washington's terms.

Read the full story →