Tehran evacuation call, expanded travel ban and China's slimmer pigs
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Today, Trump calls for the evacuation of Tehran as the Iran-Israel conflict escalates. Iran appeals to the U.S. to force a ceasefire. Why the U.S. is expanding its travel ban. And why China wants slimmer pigs. ♪

It's Tuesday, June 17th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Jonah Green in New York. And I'm Tara Oakes in Liverpool.

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U.S. President Donald Trump has urged Iranians to evacuate Tehran as Israel and Iran attack each other for the fifth day straight. That's the moment an Israeli strike hit Iran's state TV while it was broadcasting.

G7 leaders meeting in Canada have called for a de-escalation of the worst ever conflict between the longtime enemies. Trump left the G7 meeting a day early as the conflict escalates. Sources tell Reuters that Tehran has asked several Gulf countries to urge Trump to pressure Israel to agree to an immediate ceasefire.

In return, Iran would show flexibility in nuclear negotiations. Jonah spoke to our U.S. foreign policy editor, Don Durfee, in Washington.

So the U.S. is trying to keep some distance between itself and Israel's campaign. Trump has acknowledged that the U.S. was fully informed of this attack beforehand, but has bit of pains to say that it wasn't involved directly. And now the U.S. is moving some military assets into the region, including an aircraft carrier and some refueling planes.

And the way that administration officials put that is it's an effort to give Trump options, ostensibly defensive options. But these are things that could be used either way for defense or offense. And Iran told the U.N. that cooperation by third countries would make them complicit or liable for some sort of military response. Is that a factor into how the Pentagon is responding?

Yeah, it's certainly a risk, right? It's always been one of the dangers is that Israel attacks Iran, and then Iran retaliates against the US and US allies because their position is that Israel doesn't do anything without a green light from the United States. I think Trump really does not want the US to get directly involved militarily. He, of course, has promised not to get the US involved in any foreign wars, especially ones in the Middle East.

So how does this impact nuclear negotiations? I think what Trump is hoping is that the pressure, the military pressure that Israel has put on Iran will make it easier at the negotiating table with the Iranians when it comes to talking about the nuclear program again. So Iran doesn't have a lot of options here. And I think from the regime's perspective, they would really love to find a way to de-escalate returns of the negotiating table.

Markets fear that the conflict could spill over into the oil-rich Middle East. Oil markets' reactions have been the most volatile, while stocks and currencies have been more guarded. Heightened uncertainty has driven investors to traditional safe haven assets, as a rise in US treasuries pushed yields closer across the curve, while gold prices edged up.

Overnight drone and missile attacks across Kyiv have killed 14 people and injured dozens. That's according to Ukraine's Interior Ministry. Russia's Defense Ministry says their air defense units intercepted and destroyed over 100 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory overnight, including the Moscow region.

The man accused of assassinating a Minnesota lawmaker and shooting another drove to the homes of at least four state politicians, prosecutors say. U.S. authorities say it was part of a planned killing spree. 57-year-old Vance Bolter is facing state and federal murder charges. President Trump's family business has licensed its name to launch a mobile service in the U.S. and a $499 smartphone.

They're calling it, you guessed it, Trump Mobile. It's the latest deal brokered by the president's children to capitalize on his last name while he's in office. And the latest Reuters Ipsos poll shows Trump's public approval rating holding steady at 42% over the last month. The poll also shows Americans are becoming less supportive of his approach to immigration, with a drop from 47 to 44%.

The Trump administration's expansion of its June 5th travel ban could bring the total countries with restricted access to the U.S. from 12 to 48. That's according to an internal State Department cable.

While the Trump administration is citing national security risks, our deputy foreign policy editor, Humaira Pamuk, has been looking into what the State Department is asking of these additional nations. So the administration has laid out a dozen concerns about these countries, specifically saying that

that some of these countries have been designated by the United States as state sponsor of terrorism. In some countries, the State Department says there is no competent or cooperative central government authority to produce reliable identity documents.

So there are a number of concerns that the State Department has about these countries. And they are basically saying you have to try to fix these things within 60 days. If not, we can put you either on a full ban or a partial ban.

So how does this differ from previous travel restrictions from the Trump administration? While the whole travel ban agenda was very much a front and center topic in the first Trump administration, we see that now and explicitly they say,

Countries who may or may not fall into this travel ban, we're going to judge you on how willingly you cooperate or not with our own immigration agenda in the United States will help determine whether or not your country will be banned from this country, which is huge and different than before. We reported weeks ago that the administration

had actually drawn up plans to send various migrants to Libya. None of the migrants were from Libya, and it included people like nationals of Vietnam, Thailand. This part is particularly interesting because we're seeing the administration take this bigger and very broad immigration issue and make it

a negotiating topic with its bilateral relations with various countries. With some countries, you would think, OK, we can fix our paperwork. We can perhaps issue better passports. We can have better checks at the border. But, you know, being able to receive third country nationals in your country, that's a bigger, heavier political decision for these countries to make.

The Chinese government wants slimmer pigs. It's cracking down on a practice known as refattening, where farmers are trying to make as much cash as they can per hog. But the practice is wreaking havoc on the markets. Ella Chow and Lewis Jackson are in Beijing. So Ella, what exactly is refattening?

Small-scale farmers and firms, they buy pigs, normally weighed around 100 to 110 kilograms. And then they keep feeding those pigs until they get up to 150 kilos or more for a better price. But it only pays off if prices go up. And the farmers need to really cover the extra cost and make a profit. So if prices fall, they could really lose a lot of money. So, Lewis, why is that an issue?

So the government doesn't like it for two reasons. All these fat pigs flooding the market, it puts pressure on prices. Prices are already really low. It also causes volatility. Prices are swinging up, swinging down. And the regulators don't like that, especially in a market like pork, which is so important. And the other thing is really about the trade war. Fat pigs eat a lot of food. So you need to use lots and lots of animal feed to keep fattening them up. And a lot of China's animal feed is made from imported food.

grains and oilseeds, including some from the US. So China wants to cut back on those imports, especially with the trade war. And for today's recommended read, one of the universe's mysteries. Scientists estimate ordinary matter makes up only 15% of all matter. Gas, dust, stars, planets and earthly things, like the devices on which we listen to Rotisworld News Pod.

But scientists have struggled to locate where the rest of the matter is. Now, with the help of powerful bursts of radio waves, researchers believe that they've found the missing matter. You can find out more by following the link to the story in today's pod description. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.