Russia called for restraint on Thursday amid growing tensions over a possible U.S. attack on Iran, and as Moscow and Tehran staged naval drills that the Kremlin said were scheduled and should not be a cause for alarm.

The United States has massively built up its forces in the Middle East and President Donald Trump has warned Iran to make a deal with Washington, hinting at military action.

President Donald Trump, shifting his tone yet again, warned Britain on Wednesday not to "give away" a key Indian Ocean base, saying it would be vital if the United States attacks Iran.

Trump, who is considering strikes on the Islamic republic, lashed out hours after the State Department offered the latest U.S. support to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's deal to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the formal unveiling of a huge multiple rocket launcher that can fire nuclear warheads at the South, state media said Thursday.

At a ceremony Wednesday, Kim gave a speech touting the new 600mm multiple launch rocket system as unique in the world and said it is "appropriate for a special attack, that is, for accomplishing a strategic mission," the KCNA news agency said, using a common euphemism for nuclear use.

U.S. Southern Command chief Francis Donovan met Wednesday with Venezuelan interim president Delcy Rodriguez and her top ministers, according to the Venezuelan government.

The U.S. General met with Rodriguez as well as Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, a government account posted on X, adding that the two countries "agreed to work on forming a bilateral cooperation agenda in order to combat drug trafficking, terrorism, and migration."

Russian officials said on Thursday their forces had destroyed 113 Ukrainian drones overnight, some of them having targeted an oil refinery in the northwest that resulted in a fire in a storage tank.

The sides finished two days of U.S.-brokered talks in Geneva on Wednesday, trying to find a settlement to four years of war in Ukraine.

Iran's atomic energy chief Mohammad Eslami said Thursday that no country can deprive the Islamic republic of its right to nuclear enrichment, after U.S. President Donald Trump again hinted at military action following talks in Geneva.

"The basis of the nuclear industry is enrichment. Whatever you want to do in the nuclear process, you need nuclear fuel," said Eslami, according to a video published by Etemad daily.

Israel's increased attacks and forcible transfers of Palestinian civilians "raise concerns over ethnic cleansing" in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the United Nations said Thursday.

"Intensified attacks, the methodical destruction of entire neighborhoods and the denial of humanitarian assistance appeared to aim at a permanent demographic shift in Gaza", the U.N. human rights office said in a report.

The United States will deter Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons "one way or the other", U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright warned on Wednesday.

"They've been very clear about what they would do with nuclear weapons. It's entirely unacceptable," Wright told reporters in Paris on the sidelines of meetings of the International Energy Agency.

France's hard-left France Unbowed party said Wednesday it had to evacuate its Paris headquarters following a "bomb threat", after it was accused of partial responsibility in the killing of a far-right activist.

"The national headquarters of LFI have just been evacuated following a bomb threat. Police services are on site. All employees and activists are safe," the party's coordinator Manuel Bompard said on X.

The U.N. missions for 85 member states issued a joint statement Tuesday condemning Israel's encroaching control of the West Bank, which critics say amounts to de facto annexation of the Palestinian territory.

"We strongly condemn unilateral Israeli decisions and measures aimed at expanding Israel's unlawful presence in the West Bank," the statement reads. "Such decisions are contrary to Israel's obligations under international law and must be immediately reversed."