People trying to call friends and loved ones inside Iran have instead been met with strange, pre-recorded voice messages, which some experts believe may be part of the regime’s wider internet blackout.

“Life is full of unexpected surprises,” it continues, “and these surprises can sometimes bring joy while, at other times, they challenge us.

“The key is to discover the strength within us to overcome these challenges.”

The unsettling message, which lasts nearly 90 seconds, then goes on to recommend the listener close their eyes and imagine themself in a place that brings them “peace and happiness.”

While different variations have been reported, this version appears to have been the one most commonly heard by people outside Iran placing calls to mobile phones inside the country on Wednesday and Thursday. No similar message was reported when calling landlines.

The messages were widely heard after Iran imposed nationwide temporary restrictions on internet access on Wednesday, citing security concerns. This meant WhatsApp was down, so people abroad began calling their friends and family in Iran directly, rather than via the app. The message is reportedly not heard if the call is made through an app.

The initial assumption for many Iranians was that the messages were the result of an Israeli cyberattack. Others see the Iranian authorities as being behind them.

Alp Toker, the founder and director of NetBlocks, a non-governmental organization that monitors internet governance, believes the messages are an attempt by the Iranian government to limit telecommunications, as part of the wider internet censorship measures.

Toker added it was a phenomenon NetBlocks had seen in different places around the world when internet access was cut. “Sometimes it will have an advert for summer vacations and sometimes it will have some other nonsense,” he said.

According to Toker, the messages are text-to-speech generated. He believes they appear to have been set up rapidly.

“It’s in the format of a normal gateway answering message of the type you might get from a national gateway when a phone doesn’t answer,” he said. “It seems that they’ve gone with the settings, and there’s a little box where you can put in the settings and they’ve put something in there, pre-AI generated.”

Neither Israel nor Iran has made a public statement on the recorded phone messages.

Access to international internet services had been partially restored in parts of Iran on Saturday “after approximately 62 hours of severe disruption,” NetBlocks said.

“While some regions have seen improvements, overall connectivity remains below ordinary levels, continuing to hinder people’s ability to communicate freely and access independent information,” it added.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that international internet services would resume by 8 p.m. local time Saturday, citing the communications minister. However, Tasnim later reported that this was not the case, citing the same minister.

According to the communications ministry, Iranians abroad can now contact their families inside Iran through domestic messaging apps.

The Iranian government has frequently restricted internet access in the country. During nationwide protests in 2022, authorities implemented multiple internet shutdowns in an effort to stifle dissent.

Pakistan has formally recommended US President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, citing his “decisive diplomatic intervention” following a spike in violence between India and Pakistan earlier this year.

The government praised Trump for leveraging his “pivotal leadership” in May, when several days of cross-border strikes marked the worst regional fighting between the two nuclear-armed nations since 1971, killing dozens and stoking fears of a wider war.

Islamabad and New Delhi agreed to a US-brokered truce on May 8, as one final burst of strikes ripped through parts of the long-disputed Kashmir region – to which both countries claim full sovereignty.

“At a moment of heightened regional turbulence, President Trump demonstrated great strategic foresight and stellar statesmanship through robust diplomatic engagement with both Islamabad and New Delhi,” Pakistan’s government said in a statement on Saturday.

The US president helped in “averting a broader conflict between the two nuclear states that would have had catastrophic consequences for millions of people in the region and beyond” the statement added.

“This intervention stands as a testament to his role as a genuine peacemaker and his commitment to conflict resolution through dialogue.”

Indian and Pakistani officials gave contradictory accounts of how the agreement on a truce was reached at the time. While Islamabad lauded the involvement of the White House, New Delhi downplayed it – keen to relay the ceasefire as a victory and saying the neighbors “directly” collaborated on the truce.

Governments, other institutions and certain individuals can nominate any living person or active organization for the Nobel Peace Prize. The winner is decided each year by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Trump has long sought to present himself as a global peacemaker.

Before his second term in office, the Republican leader ferociously criticized his predecessor President Joe Biden’s failed attempts to negotiate an end to Israel’s brutal campaign against Hamas in Gaza, and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Now, a new war is brewing in the Middle East after Israel unleashed mass strikes on Iran on June 13, prompting retaliatory attacks from Tehran – a week-long conflict that has already inflicted a bitter human cost.

More than 400 people have been killed in Iran, Iranian state broadcaster IRIB reported on Saturday, citing Iran’s health ministry. In Israel, at least 24 people have been killed, according to the Israeli government.

Israel says the attacks are targeting nuclear sites and high-ranking military officers, several of whom have been killed. Tehran has retaliated with drone and missile attacks deep into northern and southern Israel.

Earlier this week, Trump set out a self-imposed two-week timeline for a decision on US military involvement in Iran. After meeting with a top EU official and foreign ministers from Britain, France and Germany in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday, Iran’s foreign minister said his country would not re-enter negotiations with the US while it remains under attack from Israel.

Just on Friday, Trump sought to stress his diplomatic successes in the Middle East and beyond, while suggesting he would not gain recognition for them.

“I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for stopping the War between India and Pakistan,” he posted on his Truth Social platform.

“I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do, including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be.”

Karen and Omri Mamon, dual American-Israeli citizens, traveled to Israel last month to attend the wedding of Omri’s sister. They didn’t know they would end up spending their holiday moving from one house to another, searching for shelter.

A week after the wedding, Israel launched its surprise attack on Iran, and missiles began flying over the skies, forcing both airspaces to shut down. Most flights out of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport were canceled, leaving many stranded and unable to get home.

Mamon said they’ve lived in Israel before and experienced having to shelter, “but this time is different.”

“The bombs are bigger, the noises are extremely high … you hear bombs everywhere,” he added.

Dozens of Americans who have been trying to leave Israel gathered at a hotel in central Israel on Saturday, where US embassy consular staff began processing their departures.

Earlier in the week, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee announced on social media that the embassy was arranging evacuation flights and ships for American citizens who wished to leave. Huckabee did not say when the evacuation efforts would begin.

According to US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce, more than 25,000 people have sought information from the State Department about the “situation in Israel, the West Bank and Iran.” There are about 700,000 Americans living in Israel, according to Huckabee.

The Mamons were on the list to go, but others, like Elana Hayman, are still waiting to be processed.

“It was so intense that I thought it hit our building. It shook us to the core. … I actually hear the sound every night. When I think about it, I can hear it over and over again,” she said.

Her 18-year-old daughter Noa, who has anxiety, said it was a terrifying experience.

“It was really bad. I was really scared. I just wanted to find any way to leave. … It’s a scary time to be here right now,” she said.

As the evacuation process progresses slowly, Hayman — like many others — are still trying to find a way out of Israel. The US embassy said in a security alert last week that the land crossings from Israel to Jordan and Egypt are options but acknowledged that each comes with its own risks. Jordanian airspace has closed sporadically since the conflict began, and the US cannot offer emergency services to American citizens traveling through the Sinai Peninsula to catch international flights out of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

The Mamons suspect they were processed so quickly because their son has autism.

“The main thing was to bring him back home; he was our priority. … He had a really rough time here with the sirens, noises, the shelters, and lots of people shouting,” Karen Mamon said.

Despite feeling relieved to have been processed, Omri Mamon still says “anything could happen.”

“We’re not celebrating yet,” he said.

Belarus has freed Sergey Tikhanovsky, a key dissident figure and the husband of exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, following a rare visit by a senior US official, Tikhanovskaya’s team announced on Saturday.

Tikhanovsky, a popular blogger and activist who was jailed in 2020, arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania, alongside 13 other political prisoners, his wife’s team said. The release came just hours after Belarusian authorities announced that authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko met with US President Donald Trump’s envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, in Minsk.

A video published on his wife’s official Telegram account showed Tikhanovsky disembarking a white minibus, with a shaved head and broad smile. He pulled Tikhanovskaya into a long embrace as their supporters applauded.

“My husband is free. It’s difficult to describe the joy in my heart,” Tikhanovskaya told reporters. But she added her team’s work is “not finished” while over 1,100 political prisoners remain behind bars in Belarus.

Tikhanovsky was jailed after announcing plans to challenge Lukashenko in the 2020 election. Following his arrest, his wife ran in his stead, rallying large crowds across the country. Official results of the election handed Lukashenko his sixth term in office but were denounced by the opposition and the West as a sham.

As unprecedented protests broke out in the aftermath of the vote, Tikhanovskaya left the country under pressure from the authorities. Her husband was later sentenced to 19 1/2 years in prison on charges of organizing mass riots.

Other prominent dissidents remain in Belarusian jails, among them Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, a human rights advocate serving a 10-year prison sentence on charges widely denounced as politically motivated. Also behind bars is Viktor Babaryka, a former banker who was widely seen in 2020 as Lukashenko’s main electoral rival, and Maria Kolesnikova, a charismatic leader of that year’s mass protests.

Released alongside Tikhanovsky was longtime Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondent Ihar Karnei, the US government-funded broadcaster confirmed. Karnei, who had also worked with prominent Belarusian and Russian newspapers, had been serving a three-year service on extremism charges he rejected as a sham.

RFE/RL’s Belarusian service had been designated extremist in the country, a common label handed to anyone who criticizes Lukashenko’s government. As a result, working for it or spreading its content has become a criminal offense.

“We are deeply grateful to President Trump for securing the release of this brave journalist, who suffered at the hands of the Belarusian authorities,” the broadcaster’s CEO Stephen Capus said Saturday in a press release.

Karnei was detained several times while covering the 2020 protests. Unlike many of his colleagues, he chose to stay in Belarus despite the ensuing repression. He was arrested again in July 2023, as police raided his apartment seizing phones and computers.

Belarus also freed an Estonian national who had set up an NGO to raise funds for Belarusian refugees. According to the Estonian Foreign Ministry, Allan Roio was detained last January, and sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison on charges of establishing an extremist organization.

The streets were fairly quiet in the Iranian capital, usually a bustling metropolis of over 9 million people. Over the past few days, traffic has increased as more Iranians return to the city after fleeing Israel’s bombing during earlier days of the conflict.

Despite being the voice of a government exchanging blows with a nuclear power (and waiting on whether to expect fire from the United States), Mohajerani was relaxed. The first woman to serve as Iranian government spokesperson, she came into her role less than a year ago, appointed by President Masoud Pezeshkian last August.

She noted that Iran has endured numerous cycles of negotiations about its nuclear activities, yet none have resulted in a sustained long-term deal.

“These past years we’ve been through a painful experience twice,” Mohajerani said, pointing to US President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA agreement in 2018.

No matter how eager Trump might be to bring Iran to the negotiating table, Mohajerani said Iran does not want to be left empty-handed again. And before talks begin, Israel’s bombing must stop, she said, emphasizing a point made by multiple Iranian officials in recent days.

“This time we were in the middle of negotiations again when this attack took place,” Mohajerani said. “Therefore, as our officials have already stated, as long as there are attacks, negotiations will be meaningless. When the attacks stop, we will think about it.”

Israel’s initial, wide-ranging operation on June 13 killed some of the most powerful commanders in the Iranian military and damaged Iranian uranium enrichment sites. Since then, daily strikes have damaged its nuclear power plants, set its largest natural gas field aflame and obliterated the newsroom of one of the country’s state-run media channels.

Still, Mohajerani insists that Iran is ready for whatever the Israelis throw at them next.

“Both the government and the nation of Iran are totally robust in defense,” she said. “Our military force is completely ready to prevent such attacks from happening again, and in case the need arises to practice legitimate defense.”

“I’ve had five operations,” she said from her hospital bed. “In my abdomen area, my kidney, my liver.”

Iran’s missile-and-UAV-driven response, meanwhile, has killed 24 in Israel, wounding over 1,200 others, according to figures from the Israeli government. Iranian missiles have struck deep within Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities, with one missile hitting a hospital.

Nuclear energy ‘means life to us’

At the heart of the conflict is the future of Iran’s nuclear program.

“Nuclear energy does not mean war to us,” Mohajerani said. “It means life to us. Therefore, since the subject of enrichment and the subject of life are the same path to us, not leading to war, we believe enrichment is our right.”

Nonetheless, Israeli officials have cast their bombing campaign in existential terms, going so far as to say that Iran’s nuclear program poses a threat to the entire planet.

“We act to prevent a huge threat—primarily to the existence of Israel, but also to the entire region, Europe, and the world order,” declared Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar at the site of an Iranian missile strike in Rishon Lezion.

It remains unclear whether Washington will join the fray. Trump has said he will decide whether to intervene within the next two weeks, but has already joined Israeli officials in publicly pondering the benefits of assassinating Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on June 17. “He is an easy target but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.”

Mohajerani was blunt when asked about the possibility that Israel or the US might take direct aim at her country’s head of state.

“This shows that Israel does not understand the unity of the Iranian people,” Mohajerani said. “Israel better not do something for which it can’t pay the damage. The Iranian people are backing their leader.”

“We should not forget that for all of us Iranians today, Iran is a united concept, which we will certainly defend.”

A draft-dodging scandal in Taiwan allegedly involving a number of actors, influencers, and musicians has cast an unflattering spotlight on the conscript and reservist forces which could one day stand between the island and a possible invasion by China.

Taiwan’s military service regime, which runs alongside its conventional military, faces accusations of failing to prepare conscripts for an actual war – an alarming situation against a drumbeat of threats from its giant neighbor.

On Monday, authorities indicted 28 defendants. Prosecutors allege that, between 2016 and early this year, a four-person ring helped 24 healthy men dodge the draft by faking high blood pressure to gain a medical exemption, netting a total of 7.63 million Taiwanese dollars ($255,000).

At least 11 celebrities are now under investigation.

Among those indicted was the actor Darren Wang. The 34-year-old, launched to fame across the Chinese-speaking world a decade ago as a boyish heartthrob in teen romcom Our Times, was accused of paying 3.6 million Taiwanese dollars ($120,000) for a fake hypertension diagnosis.

Such organized efforts to evade conscription are largely seen as a sign of people’s apathy towards service, rather than their fear of military rough-and-tumble.

“Most of the time during the service is dedicated to miscellaneous tasks, and not actually combat-related.”

A mundane duty

Back in 1949, as the Nationalist government lost a bloody civil war against the insurgent Chinese Communist Party and fled to Taiwan, it introduced mandatory military service to the island, where eligible men would serve two years in the army or three years in the navy, air force or marines. The system, in one form or another, has been in place ever since – as have Beijing’s designs on the island, which the Communist Party claims as its own territory, to be taken by force if necessary.

But military service has long been seen as anything but heroic. Conscripts have described it as monotonous, disorganized and often irrelevant to modern warfare: a combination of indoor lectures, hours of waiting around, and outdated ceremonial drills.

US officials, not authorized to speak openly, quietly warn that Taiwan’s reserve forces remain the soft underbelly of its defense posture.

One official said millions of former conscripts exist “on paper,” but years of truncated service and minimal refresher training have left them “underprepared for modern warfare.”

While there are no official estimates for the number of illegal draft-dodgers, a tally by the Ministry of the Interior shows that, from 2021 to 2023, cases of suspected obstruction of military service have risen from 309 to 553.

“It is imperative to reform military service as quickly as possible,” said Wu Tzu-li, an associate research fellow at the INDSR. “After all, the fight ultimately comes down to the people operating the weapons and not the weaponry itself, so having solid education and training is crucial.”

Attempts at reform

Even Taiwan’s leaders have acknowledged the problem. Shortly after taking office in 2016, former President Tsai Ing-wen called for sweeping reform, as opposed to “papering over problems, wasting human resources, and operating inefficiently in so many different ways.”

In response to growing security threats from Beijing, which conducted at least three large-scale military exercises around Taiwan last year, and sent warplanes, naval vessels and coast guards close to the island on a near-daily basis – Taiwan’s government has extended training time for conscripts and introduced reforms such as more live-fire drills and an emphasis on modern tactics. As of January 2024, the minimum active-duty period was increased to one full year, up from just four months under the previous policy.

The changes’ effectiveness remains to be seen. Critics say that unless Taiwan revamps how – and what – soldiers are taught, young men will continue to view the draft as symbolic rather than strategic.

“The key is what kinds of training will be provided to the new conscripts,” said Chieh. “It’s important to not let them feel they’ve wasted one year.”

Another US official added that “Taiwan is making good progress in enhancing the realism of training for reservists, but still has work to do in updating their equipment and reforming the organization of reserve units.”

“Retraining and equipping existing reservists to operate asymmetric platforms like drones and anti-air missiles will have an outsized impact on Taiwan’s ability to deter conflict.”

It added that the new, extended one-year training period “enables conscripts to undergo systematic and comprehensive military training, including enlistment, stationing, specialization, base training, and joint exercises – equipping them with essential combat skills and a firm resolve to defend the nation.”

Korean contrast

In nearby South Korea – another place marked by long-running hostility with its nearest neighbor – military service is taken a lot more seriously, and counting down the days until major celebrities will park their careers to don military fatigues has become something of a national pastime.

Rather than damaging reputations, military service is often seen as a sign of integrity and patriotism in major stars – an impression that can enhance their careers after taking off the uniform.

Earlier this month, K-pop superstars RM and V, from the band BTS, became the latest high-profile conscripts discharged from national service. They each saluted upon their release from duty in Chuncheon city, after about 18 months of active service, to the cheers of about 200 gathered fans – some of whom traveled from Mexico, Turkey and Brazil.

The other five members of the massively popular group either have completed or will complete the mandatory service, and the band expects to reunite within the next 12 months.

Even soccer superstar Son Heung-min, who avoided conscription through an exemption after winning gold at the 2018 Asian Games with South Korea’s national team, has taken four weeks of basic military training.

For Taiwan to restore faith in conscription, military analysts say, it will need to reduce loopholes, improve instruction, and modernize training to reflect real threats – particularly as tensions with Beijing intensify. It will also, they say, need a cultural shift: one that values service not as empty symbolism, but as preparation for a possible fight.

But it depends whether the recent reforms take root.

“The fear,” said one former conscript, “is that the new system will look just like the old one – only longer.”

The US has struck three key nuclear sites in Iran, President Donald Trump said on Truth Social Saturday evening as the Iran-Israel conflict enters a second week.

The Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz sites lie at the heart of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and had previously been targeted by Israeli strikes. Here’s what we know about them.

Natanz

The nuclear complex, about 250 kilometers (150 miles) south of the capital Tehran, is considered Iran’s largest uranium enrichment facility.

Analysts say it is used to develop and assemble centrifuges for uranium enrichment, a key technology that turns uranium into nuclear fuel.

Natanz has six above-ground buildings and three underground structures, two of which can hold 50,000 centrifuges, according to the non-profit Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI).

The site was targeted in Israel’s initial attack on Iran, with satellite photos and analysis showing the strikes destroyed the above-ground part of Natanz’s Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant.

That’s a sprawling site that has been operating since 2003, and where Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Weapons-grade uranium is enriched to 90%.

Fordow

Much is still unknown about the full size and nature of this secretive, heavily-guarded facility, located close to the holy city of Qom and buried deep in a group of mountains. A good chunk of what we do know comes from a trove of Iranian documents stolen years ago by Israeli intelligence.

The main halls are an estimated 80 to 90 meters (around 262 to 295 feet) beneath the ground, making it very difficult to destroy the facility from air. The US is the only country with the kind of bomb required to strike that deep, Israeli officials and independent reports have previously said. However analysts have warned even those bombs might not be enough.

“Iran can convert its current stock of 60 percent enriched uranium into 233 kg of weapon-grade uranium in three weeks at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant,” enough for nine nuclear weapons, according to the nonpartisan Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS).

Recent IAEA reports suggested Iran had ramped up production of enriched uranium to a level of 60% at Fordow. The facility now contains 2,700 centrifuges, according to experts and the IAEA.

Isfahan

Isfahan is in central Iran, and is home to the country’s largest nuclear research complex.

The facility was built with support from China and opened in 1984, according to the NTI. According to NTI, 3,000 scientists are employed at Isfahan, and the site is “suspected of being the center” of Iran’s nuclear program.

It “operates three small Chinese-supplied research reactors,” as well as a “conversion facility, a fuel production plant, a zirconium cladding plant, and other facilities and laboratories,” the NTI says.