A meticulously planned meal prepared in the home of an alleged killer is at the heart of a triple murder trial that’s nearing its dramatic conclusion in rural Australia.

For eight weeks, audiences have been glued to daily news reports and podcasts on an unusual case that alleges the world’s most toxic mushroom was used to kill.

A jury will soon decide if Erin Patterson, a 50-year-old mother of two, deliberately added death cap, or amanita phalloides, mushrooms to a Beef Wellington lunch she made for her estranged husband’s parents and his aunt and uncle in July 2023.

Three guests died within days of the meal, while a fourth recovered after spending several weeks in an induced coma. Patterson denies three counts of murder and one of attempted murder.

The prosecution and defense agree death cap mushrooms were in the meal.

The question is, how did they get there?

During eight days of testimony at Latrobe Valley Magistrates’ Court, Patterson acknowledged she repeatedly lied to police, dumped a dehydrator used to dry mushrooms, and reset her phone to delete images of mushrooms and the dehydrator from devices seized by investigators.

But she said she did not intend to kill.

Explaining her lies, Patterson told the jury she had a “stupid knee-jerk reaction to just dig deeper and keep lying.”

“I was just scared,” she said.

Defense lawyer Colin Mandy SC said Patterson accidentally added foraged mushrooms to the meal, along with ones she bought from an Asian grocer in Melbourne.

“What happened was a tragedy and a terrible accident,” he said.

In his closing arguments, Mandy said the prosecution’s case was based on “ridiculous” propositions, including that Patterson “would intend to kill these four people, blowing her entire life up in the process without a motive.”

The prosecution doesn’t need to prove a motive. But it does need to convince the 12-member jury beyond reasonable doubt that Patterson intended to kill the two elderly couples – including her children’s grandparents – and that she deliberately picked death cap mushrooms to do it.

A sumptuous lunch of Beef Wellington

On the morning of July 29, 2023, the smell of frying garlic and shallots likely filled Patterson’s kitchen in the small town of Leongatha in rural Victoria.

She was preparing a meal for two older married couples – Don and Gail Patterson and Heather and Ian Wilkinson.

Don and Gail were the parents of Erin’s estranged husband Simon. Heather and Ian were his aunt and uncle. Gail and Heather were sisters, and Ian the pastor of their local church.

The two couples lived close by in Korumburra, a country town home to fewer than 5,000 people in the scenic hills of southern Victoria.

Erin had asked Simon to come to the lunch, too, but he pulled out the night before, writing in a text that he felt “too uncomfortable” to attend.

Their relationship had become increasingly strained over finances and the children’s schooling, and he was living elsewhere, the court heard.

Erin told the jury she was “a bit hurt and a bit stressed” by Simon’s message, but the lunch went ahead the next day as planned. Patterson said she had started feeling left out of family gatherings and wanted to make more of an effort.

She said she chose to cook Beef Wellington because she remembered her mother preparing the meal for special occasions. It was Patterson’s first attempt at the dish, and she wanted to get it right.

To the garlic and shallots, she added store-bought button mushrooms that she had chopped up in a processor, before simmering the mixture on low for 45 minutes, she said.

The paste was used to coat the steaks, which she wrapped in pastry and baked in the oven.

The prosecution alleges she prepared poisoned parcels for her guests and reserved an untainted one for herself. Patterson insists she made just one batch.

An unexpected invitation

In the witness box, Ian Wilkinson, the only surviving lunch guest, told the court he’d been surprised but “very happy” to accept Patterson’s lunch invitation.

The 71-year-old said his relationship with Erin was “friendly” and “amicable.” He’d been a guest at her wedding in 2007 but considered her more of an acquaintance than a close friend.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Patterson helped to broadcast his church services on YouTube, and she attended his sermons, on and off, he said.

“She just seemed like an ordinary person,” he told the jury.

Wilkinson said he didn’t really understand why they’d been invited to lunch, but it became apparent when they’d finished eating the meal of Beef Wellington, beans and mash.

“Erin announced that she had cancer,” Wilkinson told the jury. “She said that she was very concerned because she believed it was very serious, life-threatening.”

Wilkinson said Patterson asked for advice about how to tell her children about, in her words, “the threat to my life.”

Wilkinson said Don Patterson offered some advice about being honest, but the conversation ended after about 10 minutes when one of the lunch guests noticed the children returning. Wilkinson suggested a quick prayer.

“I prayed a prayer asking God’s blessing on Erin, that she would get the treatment that she needed, that the kids would be okay, that she’d have wisdom in how she told the kids,” he testified.

Patterson had never been diagnosed with cancer, the court heard.

Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC put to Patterson on the stand: “I suggest that you never thought you would have to account for this lie about having cancer because you thought that the lunch guests would die.”

“That’s not true,” Patterson replied.

Patterson said she didn’t explicitly tell her guests that she had cancer, but acknowledged she allowed them to believe she may have a serious medical issue because she was exploring possible surgery for another problem – one that she was too embarrassed to reveal.

The secret Patterson hid for years

Patterson said she’d always been self-conscious about her weight.

As a child, her mother weighed her every week to make sure she wasn’t getting too heavy. “I never had a good relationship with food,” she said.

Since her 20s, Patterson said she would binge and purge. Around the time of the fatal lunch in July 2023, she said she was doing it two to three times a week, maybe more.

“Who knew about it?” her defense lawyer Mandy asked Patterson. “Nobody,” she said.

Patterson told the jury she had resolved to do something about her weight “once and for all,” and booked a consultation for potential gastric bypass surgery with a clinic in Melbourne in September. Evidence showed an appointment had been made.

“I didn’t want to tell anybody what I was going to have done,” Patterson told the court. “I was really embarrassed about it, so I thought perhaps letting (her in-laws) believe I had some serious issue that needed treatment might mean they’d be able to help me with the logistics around the kids,” she said.

Instead, it was her lunch guests who needed serious medical attention.

Hours after the meal Saturday, they started to become ill and went to hospital the next morning with vomiting and diarrhea, the court heard.

By Monday morning, their condition had deteriorated, and doctors arranged for their transfer to Austin Hospital, a larger facility that provides specialist liver care.

Death cap mushrooms contain toxins that stop the production of protein in liver cells and the cells begin to die, leading to possible liver failure and death.

Treatments are available, but none are 100% effective, said Dr Stephen Warrillow, director of Austin Health’s intensive care unit.

“Once the amanita poison is within the body, unfortunately the body tends to recycle it internally,” said Warrillow, who treated all four lunch guests.

Gail Patterson, 70, and Heather Wilkinson, 66, were considered too weak for a liver transplant and died on August 4 from multiple organ failure, he said. Don Patterson, 70, received a transplant but died on August 5.

Ian Wilkinson was in an induced coma on life support but responded to treatment and was eventually discharged in September.

“We thought he was going to die,” said Warrillow. “He was very close.”

Foraged mushrooms

Patterson told the court she took up foraging for mushrooms in early 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, when she would take long walks with her children in the countryside.

Native to Europe, death cap mushrooms arrived in Australia by accident, expert mycologist Tom May told the court. They grow near oak trees and only appear above ground for a couple of weeks before decaying, he said.

Most sightings in Victoria are in April and May, and some people upload photos of them to the citizen science website iNaturalist, May added.

Christine McKenzie, a retired former poisons information specialist at the Victorian Poisons Information Centre, told the court she spotted death cap mushrooms in Loch – about 28 kilometers (17 miles) from Patterson’s home – and uploaded them to iNaturalist on April 18, 2023.

She’d been out walking with her husband, grandson and dog, and said she disposed of the mushrooms to avoid accidental poisoning but conceded that more could grow.

Citing analysis of cellphone tower connections, the prosecution alleges it’s possible Patterson saw McKenzie’s post and went to the same location on April 28 to pick the mushrooms.

Store records show that within two hours of the alleged visit, Patterson bought a dehydrator, which the prosecution said she used to dry the toxic mushrooms.

Patterson concedes she bought the dehydrator, saying there is a “very small season” of availability for wild mushrooms and she wanted to preserve them, and “a whole range of things.” She denied foraging for mushrooms in Loch.

May, the fungus expert, said that on May 21, 2023, he saw death cap mushrooms growing in Outtrim, about 19 kilometers (11 miles) from Leongatha, and posted the sighting to iNaturalist.

“I don’t think I typed the street name in, but I put a very precise latitude-longitude geocode with the observation,” he said.

Prosecutors said analysis of Patterson’s cellphone movements placed her in the Outtrim region on May 22, when they say it’s possible Patterson picked the mushrooms.

The defense said broader analysis of her phone records suggests it’s possible her cellphone picked up different base-station signals within her own home. “These records are consistent with the accused never leaving the house,” said Mandy.

Patterson denied ever foraging for mushrooms in Outtrim, and said she couldn’t remember ever visiting the iNaturalist website and did not see the reported sightings.

Patterson’s explanation

On August 1, three days after the lunch, Patterson was in hospital, having been convinced by doctors to stay after earlier discharging herself against their advice.

They had impressed on her the importance of being treated for death cap mushroom poisoning because symptoms are known to worsen with time.

Her children should be there too, they said, because she said they had eaten some of the leftovers on Sunday night, albeit with the mushrooms and pastry scraped off.

It was in hospital on August 1 that Patterson said she had a conversation with Simon, her estranged husband, that made her start thinking about how toxic mushrooms had come to be in the meal.

Patterson said she told Simon that she had dried mushrooms in a dehydrator, and he replied: “Is that how you poisoned my parents, using that dehydrator?”

Erin Patterson told the jury that Simon’s comment had caused her to do “a lot of thinking about a lot of things.”

“It got me thinking about all the times that I’d used (the dehydrator), and how I had dried foraged mushrooms in it weeks earlier, and I was starting to think, what if they’d gone in the container with the Chinese mushrooms? Maybe, maybe that had happened.”

In his evidence, Simon Patterson denied ever suggesting to Erin that she poisoned his parents with the dehydrator. “I did not say that to Erin,” he said.

The next day, on August 2, Patterson dropped her children at school, then returned home, retrieved the dehydrator, and dumped it at a waste and recycling center. She was seen on closed-circuit television.

Asked about her actions, Patterson said child protection officers were due to visit her house that afternoon, and she was “scared” about having a conversation about the meal and the dehydrator.

“I was scared that they would blame me for it … for making everyone sick,” she said. “I was scared they’d remove the children,” she added.

Analysis showed remnants of death cap mushrooms in the dehydrator, the prosecution said.

Patterson acknowledged that when she dumped the dehydrator, she knew that doctors suspected death cap mushroom poisoning. She also accepted that she did not tell medical staff that foraged mushrooms may have been in the meal.

Patterson said she had diarrhea after the lunch but brushed it off as a bout of gastro. She was not as ill as her lunch guests – and during her testimony, she offered a reason why.

The orange cake

Gail Patterson had brought an orange cake to lunch to share, and Erin Patterson testified that after the guests left, she found herself eating slice, after slice, after slice.

After consuming about two-thirds of the cake, she made herself throw up, she told the court.

In her closing address, prosecutor Rogers said no evidence was offered suggesting expelling tainted food can lessen the impact of amanita toxin.

To the jury, she said, “we suggest (you) reject her evidence about vomiting after the meal as a lie.”

In his closing argument, defense lawyer Mandy asked why, if it was a lie, Patterson hadn’t been more precise about when she vomited? “She surely would have said to you that it happened as soon as the guests left, because the earlier the better,” he said to the jury.

During her testimony, Patterson also offered an explanation about how the death cap mushrooms came to be in the meal.

Patterson said she dried store-bought and foraged mushrooms in her dehydrator and would store them in plastic containers in the pantry. If one box was full, she’d start another, she said.

Patterson said that, back in April, she had bought dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer in Melbourne, but didn’t use them at the time because they were “too pungent.” Instead, she stored them in a plastic container in the pantry.

Mandy asked her: “Do you have a memory of putting wild mushrooms that you dehydrated in May or June of 2023 into a container which already contained other dried mushrooms?”

“Yes, I did do that,” Patterson said.

Patterson said that, on July 29, as she cooked the lunch, she tasted the mixture of garlic, shallots and mushrooms and decided it was “a little bland,” so she added dried mushrooms that had been stored in a plastic container in her pantry.

Mandy asked her what she had believed to be in the plastic container in the pantry.

“I believed it was just the mushrooms that I bought in Melbourne,” Patterson said.

“And now, what do you think might have been in that tub?” Mandy asked.

“Now I think that there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well,” she said.

Closing arguments

The Crown contends there was no Asian grocer and that Patterson faked illness after the meal to suggest that she, too, had suffered symptoms of death cap mushroom poisoning.

Rogers alleged Patterson initially left hospital because she knew that neither she, nor her children, had consumed the poisoned lunch.

When Patterson was examined on Monday, July 31, a doctor found “no clinical or biochemical evidence of amanita poisoning or any other toxicological substance” in her system, Rogers said.

“By that stage, all four of the lunch guests were in induced comas,” she added.

Of allegations Patterson faked her illness following the lunch, Mandy said it made no sense that she’d refuse medical help and discharge herself from hospital early, if she was pretending to have eaten poisoned mushrooms.

“If you’re pretending to be sick, you’re going to be saying to the medical staff, ‘Hook me up, pump me full of drugs, I am very, very sick. Please,’” Mandy said.

Furthermore, he said it was possible to have milder symptoms of amanita poisoning, depending on how much was consumed, according to expert evidence that said weight and age were also factors.

Under cross-examination, Rogers put it to Patterson that she had two faces: A public one where she appeared to have a good relationship with her in-laws, and a private one expressed in her Facebook chat groups, where she vented to friends that she’d had enough of the family.

In messages to Facebook friends read out in court, Patterson expressed her frustration that her in-laws would not get involved in her dispute with Simon over child support.

“I’m sick of this shit I want nothing to do with them,” she wrote in December 2022. “I thought his parents would want him to do the right thing but it seems their concern about not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get involved in their sons personal matters are overriding that so f*** em.”

And another message read: “This family I swear to f***ing god.”

Asked by her defense counsel Mandy how she felt about that statement now, an emotional Patterson said: “I wish I’d never said it … I feel ashamed for saying it, and I wish the family didn’t have to hear that I said that.

“They didn’t deserve it.”

In his closing arguments, Mandy characterized the terse exchanges as signs of a “brief spat” that was “resolved amicably.”

Mandy said there was no motive for triple murder, and that there were in fact several reasons why Patterson would not want to kill her guests. She had no money issues, lived in a big house, and had almost full-time custody of her two young children, who were very close to their grandparents, he said.

The defense argues that Patterson unknowingly picked death cap mushrooms, dried them in her dehydrator and stored them in the pantry, until the day she inadvertently threw them into the pan.

Mandy said some of the “ridiculous” propositions included that Patterson planned to kill four lunch guests and “thought it would all be passed off as some kind of strange case of gastro, where everyone died, except her.”

To the prosecution’s allegation that Patterson had “blitzed” the death cap mushrooms into a powder to hide them in the meal, he said: “Why would you need to hide mushrooms in a mushroom paste? It doesn’t make any sense.”

The moment in hospital when Erin said Simon asked her if she had used the dehydrator to poison his parents was “when the wheels start turning,” Mandy said.

“She starts panicking and she starts lying from that point,” he said.

“What followed from this moment were actions taken to conceal … the fact that foraged mushrooms went into the meal because she feared if that was found out, she would be held responsible.”

However, Rogers said Patterson had complete control over events and used it to “devastating effect.”

The cook had “told too many lies,” said Rogers, as she urged the jury to reject Patterson’s claims that she didn’t know the meal was laced with toxins.

“We say there is no reasonable alternative explanation for what happened to the lunch guests, other than the accused deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms and deliberately included them in the meal she served them, with an intention to kill them,” Rogers said.

The jury is expected to retire to consider their verdict this week – their decision must be unanimous.

Pope Leo XIV has said the Catholic Church must establish a culture that refuses to tolerate abuse in “any form,” as he thanked a Peruvian journalist for reporting on allegations of abuse inside a powerful Catholic group.

Leo’s remarks, the first he has made publicly on the church’s abuse scandals since his election to the papacy on May 8, were contained in a message sent for the performance of a play which dramatizes the work of an investigative journalist, Paola Ugaz, who has faced a long campaign of legal actions and death threats due to her reporting.

“It is urgent to ingrain throughout the Church a culture of prevention that does not tolerate any form of abuse — neither of power or authority, nor of conscience or spirituality, nor sexual,” Leo wrote in a message read on 20 June. “This culture will only be authentic if it is born of active vigilance, transparent processes, and sincere listening to those who have been hurt.”

The pope said the work of journalism was essential to implementing that culture of prevention, as he praised Ugaz and other Peruvian journalists for their reporting on abuse scandals inside the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (Sodality of Christian Life, or SCV), a hugely influential Catholic society which had deep ties to Peru’s powerful and wealthy.

Pope Leo, who spent years working as a missionary and bishop in Peru, came face-to-face with the SCV case when working in the country with Ugaz, and several survivors have said he was crucial in ensuring action was taken against the now dissolved group.

In his message, the first American pope said it was vital the church followed “a concrete path of humility, truth, and reparation” when it came to tackling abuses and cited a landmark 2018 letter from Pope Francis, in which he pledged the church’s “commitment to guarantee the protection of minors and vulnerable adults”. Leo insisted that the response to abuse cannot simply be a “strategy” but requires a “conversion” by the church, which for decades has been grappling with devastating revelations of sexual abuse by priests and other church leaders.

The pope’s praise of journalists’ work in exposing abuse scandals is significant, given that some bishops have in the past criticized the media for its reporting on them. Leo XIV, however, said the journalists who had reported on the Sodalitium had done so with “courage, patience, and fidelity to the truth” and had faced “unjust attacks.”

The pope said the church recognized the “wound” in “so many children, young people, and adults who were betrayed where they sought solace” and “those who risked their freedom and their (good) names so that the truth would not be buried.”

The June 20 message from Leo was read at a performance in Lima, Peru, of the play “Proyecto Ugaz” (Project Ugaz), which highlights Ugaz’s years-long investigation into the Sodalitium. Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, one of the Vatican investigators into the Sodalitium group, read out the message with Ugaz on stage alongside him.

The work of journalists is vital, Leo insisted, in ensuring the church is a place where “no one suffers in silence” and where “the truth is not seen as a threat, but as a path to liberation. He praised Ugaz and fellow journalists for their courage in exposing the abuses.

Pope Leo also referenced “tensions” in Peru, which have been heightened following the removal of President Pedro Castillo in 2022, and he underlined the importance of a free media in a country where journalists have faced intimidation and attacks.

“In this time of profound institutional and social tensions, defending free and ethical journalism is not only an act of justice, but a duty of all those who yearn for a solid and participatory democracy,” he said. “Wherever a journalist is silenced, the democratic soul of a country is weakened. Freedom of the press is an inalienable common good. Those who conscientiously exercise this vocation cannot see their voices silenced by petty interests or fear of the truth.”

A few days after his election, the pope met media representatives in the Vatican and during that gathering he stressed his support for a free press and called for the release of imprisoned journalists. Ugaz was among those present at the meeting, and after his speech she greeted Leo with a broad smile, as she handed him a box of chocolates and a Peruvian scarf.

That meeting with the media, Leo explained in his message on June 20, affirmed the “sacred mission” of journalists to “become bridges between the facts and the conscience of the people.”

China and Russia positioning themselves as voices of reason, calling for de-escalation of a conflict the United States is contemplating on entering — these are the optics Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin sought to project during a phone call on Thursday.

As US President Donald Trump weighs joining Israel in attacking Iran, the fast-spiralling conflict between two sworn enemies in the Middle East has presented Beijing and Moscow another opportunity to cast themselves as an alternative to US power.

In their call, Putin and Xi strongly condemned Israel’s actions, calling them a breach of the UN Charter and other norms of international law, according to the Kremlin. (The elephant in the room, of course, is Russia’s own violations of international law in its ongoing war against Ukraine — which Beijing has consistently refused to condemn.)

In Beijing’s readout, Xi struck a more measured tone and stopped short of explicitly condemning Israel — unlike his foreign minister, who did just that in a call with his Iranian counterpart last week.

Instead, the Chinese leader urged the warring parties, “especially Israel,” to cease fire as soon as possible to avoid further escalation and regional spillover.

And notably, in a veiled message to Trump, Xi emphasized that “major powers” that have a special influence on the parties to the conflict should work to “cool the situation, not the opposite.”

Beijing has long accused Washington of being a source of instability and tensions in the Middle East — and some Chinese scholars are now seizing on the Iran crisis to underscore that point.

Liu Zhongmin, a Middle East expert at the Shanghai International Studies University, attributed the latest flareup to the uncertainty created by Trump’s second presidency and the chaotic, opportunistic and transactional nature of his Middle East policy.

“(Trump) has seriously undermined the authority and credibility of US policy in the Middle East, eroded America’s leadership and image among its allies while also weakening its ability to threaten and deter regional adversaries,” Liu wrote in state media this week.

Another Middle East ‘forever war’?

Some Chinese online commentators have noted that Trump appears on the brink of pulling the US deeper into another so-called forever war in the Middle East.

At the outset of his second term, officials close to Trump repeatedly stressed the need for Washington to redirect its focus and resources toward countering China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. Yet five months in, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza continue to rage on — and Trump is now weighing US involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict.

Beijing has no interest in seeing an all-out war against Iran that could topple the regime. Under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran has emerged as a formidable power in the Middle East and a vital counterweight to US dominance — just as China is working to expand its own diplomatic and economic footprint in the region.

In 2023, Beijing helped broker a surprise rapprochement between arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran – a deal that signaled its ambition to emerge as a new powerbroker in the region.

China has long backed Iran through sustained oil imports and its seat on the UN Security Council. In recent years, the two countries have deepened their strategic ties, including holding joint naval exercises alongside Russia. Beijing welcomed Tehran into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS – groupings led by China and Russia to challenge the US-led world order.

Iran is also a critical node in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), its global infrastructure and investment drive. The country lies near the strategic Gwadar port — a key BRI outpost in Pakistan that gives China access to the Indian Ocean — and borders the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for Chinese oil imports from the Persian Gulf.

Like Russia, China has offered to be a potential mediator in the Israel-Iran conflict, casting its role as a peace broker and an alternative to US leadership.

During his call with Putin, Xi laid out four broad proposals to de-escalate tensions, including resolving the Iran nuclear issue through dialogue and safeguarding civilians, according to the Chinese readout.

Meanwhile, Xi’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has had a busy week on the phone, speaking with his counterparts in Iran, Israel, Egypt and Oman in a flurry of diplomatic outreach.

Yet it remains unclear what Beijing is willing and able to do when it comes to actually mediating the conflict. In the early stages of Israel’s war on Gaza, China made a similar offer and dispatched a special envoy to the region to promote peace talks — efforts that ultimately yielded little in terms of concrete results.

Brokering peace in the Middle East is a tall order, especially for a country with little experience or expertise in mediating protracted, intractable conflicts – in a deeply divided region where it lacks a meaningful political or security presence.

And in the one conflict where China does hold significant leverage — the war in Ukraine — Xi has offered diplomatic cover and much-needed economic support to help sustain Putin’s war effort, even as China continues to cast itself as a neutral peace broker.

Still, at a time when America’s global leadership is under growing scrutiny, particularly in the eyes of the Global South, presenting itself as a voice of restraint in the Iran conflict may already count as a symbolic win for Beijing.

The diplomat refused to be drawn on specifics but reiterated that the crux of the matter remained Iran’s controversial uranium enrichment program and that the talks would focus on “what kind of compromise would be feasible” on that issue.

But enrichment — which Iran says it needs for peaceful purposes, while also manufacturing large quantities of near-weapons-grade material — is a major sticking point, with the Trump administration vowing that any agreement with Iran would have to entirely prohibit the country from enriching any nuclear material.

For decades, Iran, which denies it intends to build a nuclear weapon, has categorically refused to give up its capabilities — instead plowing billions of dollars into refining the technology and constructing vast enrichment facilities, like the secretive Fordow installation, which is built deep underground inside a mountain.

After launching its first wave of strikes on Iran, Israel pointed to a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which acknowledged Iran is enriching uranium to a higher level than other countries without nuclear weapons programs, in violation of its nuclear non-proliferation obligations.

“Because Iran is now under immense military pressure, it might run out of options, and their nuclear capability is being degraded,” the diplomat said.

Until Trump’s decision to allow diplomacy another shot, the Geneva talks had looked like a European sideshow, with the US seemingly poised to join with Israel in the destruction of Iranian nuclear facilities.

The meeting, between the EU’s foreign policy chief, alongside the British, French and German foreign ministers and their Iranian counterpart, is now taking on greater significance, setting the stage for next steps and possibly acting as a bridge between Iran and the United States.

But there is an underlying fear in Geneva that the reinvigorated talks here, the first formal meetings with Iranian representatives since the escalation of the Israel-Iran conflict, will still go nowhere.

“It’s impossible to read anything Trump says because there is a daily barrage of statements,” the diplomat added.

Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is facing increasing pressure to step down, after appearing to criticize the military in a 17-minute leaked phone call she had with Cambodia’s powerful former leader over an escalating border dispute.

The scandal, which sparked widespread anger in the country, brings fresh uncertainty to a country roiled by years of political turbulence and leadership shake-ups. Paetongtarn, 38, has only held the premiership for ten months after replacing another prime minister who was removed from office.

It also comes at a time when the Southeast Asian kingdom is struggling to boost its ailing economy, is negotiating a trade deal with the United States to avoid punishing tariffs, and is embroiled in an escalating border dispute with its neighbor Cambodia that has soured relations to their lowest point in years.

Paetongtarn apologized on Thursday and Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Cambodian ambassador to deliver a letter of protest, calling the leak of the private phone call “a breach of diplomatic etiquette.”

“Thailand views that these actions are unacceptable conduct between states. It contradicts internationally accepted practices and the spirit of good neighborliness” and “undermined the trust and respect between the two leaders and countries,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement.

In a post on his official Facebook page, Hun Sen said he had shared a recording of the call with about 80 Cambodian officials and suggested one of them may have leaked the audio. The 72-year-old political veteran later posted a recording of the 17-minute call in its entirety.

In the leaked call, which took place on June 15, Paetongtarn could be heard calling former Cambodian strongman Hun Sen “uncle” and appeared to criticize her own army’s actions in after border clashes led to the death of a Cambodian soldier last month.

Paetongtarn, a relative political newcomer from a powerful dynasty who became Thailand’s youngest prime minister last year, appeared to signal there was discord between her government and the country’s powerful military.

In the call, the Thai prime minister can be heard telling Hun Sen that she was under domestic pressure and urged him not to listen to the “opposite side,” in which she referred to an outspoken Thai army commander in Thailand’s northeast.

“Right now, that side wants to look cool, they will say things that are not beneficial to the nation. But what we want is to have peace just like before any clashes happened at the border,” Paetongtarn could be heard saying.

She also added that if Hun Sen “wants anything, he can just tell me, and I will take care of it.”

Her comments in the leaked audio, which was confirmed as authentic by both sides, struck a nerve in Thailand, and opponents accused her of compromising the country’s national interests. The Bhumjaithai party, a major partner of the prime minister’s government, withdrew from the coalition on Wednesday, dealing a major blow to her Pheu Thai party’s ability to hold power.

“Paetongtarn compromised her position as prime minister and damaged Thai national interest by kowtowing to Hun Sen,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University. “Her exit is a matter of time and she could be liable for further charges.”

The handling of the border dispute has also stoked nationalist fervor in both countries. In Thailand, conservative forces have called for Paetongtarn to face charges and resign. In Cambodia, thousands of people joined a government-organized rally last week in solidarity with the government and military over the issue.

Thailand and Cambodia have had a complicated relationship of both cooperation and rivalry in recent decades. The two countries share a 508-mile (817-kilometer) land border – largely mapped by the French while they occupied Cambodia – that has periodically seen military clashes and been the source of political tensions.

Paetongtarn on Wednesday tried to downplay her remarks to Hun Sen, saying at a press conference she was trying to diffuse tensions between the two neighbors and the “private” call “shouldn’t have been made public.”

The prime minister said she was using a “negotiation tactic” and her comments were “not a statement of allegiance.”

“I understand now, this was never about real negotiation. It was political theater,” she said. “Releasing this call… it’s just not the way diplomacy should be done.”

Hun Sen, the veteran leader who ruled Cambodia with an iron-fist for almost 40 years, stepped down in 2023 and handed power to his son Hun Manet.

But he remains a hugely influential figure in Cambodian politics, he currently serves as senate president and is a friend and ally of Paetongtarn’s father, the former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Border dispute

Tensions between the two neighbors worsened last month, when a Cambodian solider was killed during a brief clash between Thai and Cambodian troops in which both sides opened fire in a contested border area of the Emerald Triangle, where Cambodia, Thailand and Laos meet.

Thai and Cambodian forces said they were acting in self-defense and blamed the other for the skirmish.

Although military leaders from Thailand and Cambodia said they wished to de-escalate, both sides have since engaged in saber-rattling and reinforced troops along the border.

Thailand took control of border checkpoints, imposed restrictions on border crossings and threatened to cut electricity and internet to Cambodia’s border towns. Cambodia in return stopped imports of Thai fruit and vegetables and banned Thai movies and TV dramas.

Cambodia also filed a request with the UN’s International Court of Justice to seek a ruling over disputed border areas with Thailand, including the site of the most recent clash.

However, Thailand does not recognize the ICJ’s jurisdiction and claims that some areas along the border were never fully demarcated, including the sites of several ancient temples.

In 2011, Thai and Cambodian troops clashed in a nearby area surrounding the 11th century Preah Vihear temple, a UNESCO World heritage site, displacing thousands of people on both sides and killing at least 20 people.

Hungarian police said on Thursday in a statement that they were banning the Budapest Pride march of the LGBTQ+ community planned for June 28.

Hungary’s parliament, in which Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s right-wing Fidesz Party has a big majority, passed legislation in March that created a legal basis for police to ban LGBTQ marches, citing the protection of children.

Budapest’s liberal mayor Gergely Karacsony tried to circumvent the law when he announced on Monday that since the Budapest Pride march will be a municipal event “no permits from authorities are needed”.

Budapest metropolitan police, however, said the law applied to the event organised by the mayor and banned it.

The police ban has “no relevance” as authorities were not officially notified of the plans for the event, Karacsony said on Facebook.

“The Metropolitan Municipality will host the Budapest Pride Freedom Celebration on June 28, the day of Hungarian freedom, as a municipal event. Period,” the mayor wrote. Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend the protest.

Orban faces a challenging election in 2026 where a new surging opposition party poses a threat to his rule.

His government has a Christian conservative agenda and its intensifying campaign against the LGBTQ community has aimed to please Fidesz’s core voters, mostly in the countryside.

Orban said in February that organisers should not even bother organizing Pride in Budapest this year.

India and Canada signaled a reset of relations on Tuesday, agreeing to reestablish high commissions in each other’s capitals, after nearly two years of strained ties following Ottawa’s accusations that New Delhi was allegedly involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist on its soil.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney, who took office in March, announced the move after meeting on the sidelines of the Group of 7 summit in the Canadian Rockies.

Ottawa and New Delhi agreed to “designate new high commissioners, with a view to returning to regular services to citizens and business in both countries,” according to a statement from Carney’s office following their meeting

The move comes nearly two years after former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other Canadian officials publicly accused New Delhi of being involved in the murder of prominent Sikh separatist and Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in a Vancouver suburb in 2023.

Canadian authorities said they shared evidence of that with Indian authorities. However, Indian government officials repeatedly denied Canada had provided evidence and called the allegations “absurd and motivated.”

Relations between both countries plummeted in the wake of the accusation, prompting tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions, the temporary suspension of visa services and allegations from India of Canada harboring “terrorists” and encouraging “anti-India activities” – a claim the Canadian government rejects.

Carney invited the leaders of several other nonmember countries — Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Ukraine, Australia and South Korea — to also attend this year’s gathering.

There were no signs of tension on Tuesday as Modi and Carney shook hands in the western Canadian province of Alberta with the Canadian prime minister calling it a “great honor” to host the Indian leader at the G7.

“India has been coming to the G7 I believe since 2018… and it’s a testament to the importance of your country, to your leadership and to the importance of the issues that we look to tackle together,” Carney told reporters.

Modi’s comments toward Carney were similarly welcoming.

“Had an excellent meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney,” he wrote on X. “India and Canada are connected by a strong belief in democracy, freedom and rule of law. PM Carney and I look forward to working closely to add momentum to the India-Canada friendship.”

The Canadian prime minister’s office said the two discussed opportunities to “deepen engagement” in areas such as technology, the digital transition, food security, and critical minerals.

Neither leader publicly mentioned discussing recent strained relations or the killing of Nijjar.

Nijjar, who was gunned down by masked men in June 2023 outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia, was a prominent campaigner for an independent Sikh homeland in northern India, which would be known as Khalistan.

Campaigning for the creation of Khalistan has long been considered by New Delhi as a national security threat and outlawed in India – and a number of groups associated with the movement are listed as “terrorist organizations” under Indian law.

But the movement garners a level of sympathy from some in the Sikh community, especially in the diaspora, where activists protected by free speech laws can more openly demand secession from India.

Some demonstrators expressed outrage over Modi’s visit, while others demanded justice over Nijjar’s killing.

When asked about the murder of Nijjar during a news conference after speaking with Modi, Carney said: “There is a judicial process that’s underway, and I need to be careful about further commentary.”

Carney also told CBC’s Radio-Canada last week that he had spoken with Modi about Nijjar, when asked about the Sikh separatist and ongoing police investigation.

A volcanic eruption in Indonesia sent an enormous ash cloud more than six miles into the sky, disrupting or canceling dozens of flights to and from the tourist island of Bali.

Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki erupted at 5:35pm local time on Tuesday, unleashing a 6.8-mile (11-kilometer) hot ash column over the tourist island of Flores in south-central Indonesia, the country’s Geology Agency said.

Images showed an orange mushroom-shaped cloud engulfing the nearby village of Talibura with sightings reported up to 93 miles (150km) away.

Officials issued the country’s highest alert and urged tourists to stay away.

Dozens of flights were halted in Bali, according to Denpasar International Airport website, which marked the disruptions “due to volcano.”

They included domestic routes to Jakarta and Lombok as well as others to Australia, China, India, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore.

Fransiskus Xaverius Seda Airport was closed until Thursday, “to ensure the safety of the passengers,” airport operator AirNav said in an Instagram post.

Singapore’s Changi Airport website shows Jetstar and Scoot canceled flights to Bali Wednesday morning while AirAsia called off its midday flight to the Indonesian capital.

Holidaymakers Athirah Rosli, 31, and her husband Fadzly Yohannes, 33, woke up this morning to discover that their Jetstar flight home from Bail to Singapore was canceled.

“My husband and I looked at new flights, booked more accommodation and insurance and then had breakfast at our hotel,” she said.

“I see it was a blessing in disguise that we’re safe and well.”

Recent rumblings

The volcano’s eruption follows significant volcanic activities, including 50 in two hours, up from the average eight to 10 activities per day.

The 5,197-foot (1,584-meter) twin volcano erupted again Wednesday morning, spewing a 0.62-mile (1km) ash cloud, officials confirmed.

Dozens of residents in two nearby villages were evacuated, according to Avi Hallan, an official at the local disaster mitigation agency.

A danger zone is in place around five miles (8km) from the crater and residents have been warned about the potential for heavy rainfall triggering lava flows in rivers flowing from the volcano.

Tourists affected

More than a thousand tourists have been affected, particularly those traveling to Bali and Komodo National Park, famed for its Komodo dragons, according to a local tour operator.

Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki’s last erupted in May when authorities also raised the alert level to the most severe.

A previous eruption in March forced airlines to cancel and delay flights into Bali, around 500 miles (800km) away, including Australia’s Jetstar and Qantas Airways.

In November, the volcano erupted multiple times killing nine people, injuring dozens and forcing thousands to flee and flights to be canceled.

Indonesian, home to 270 million people, has 120 active volcanoes and experiences frequent seismic activity.

The archipelago sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

Five tunnels burrowing into a group of mountains, a large support structure and a wide security perimeter: That’s all you can see of Iran’s mysterious Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant from recent satellite imagery.

The secretive, heavily guarded complex built close to the holy city of Qom has been fueling speculation about its true nature and size since it was first made public in 2009.

A chunk of what we do know about it comes from a trove of Iranian documents stolen years ago by Israeli intelligence.

Its main halls are an estimated 80 to 90 meters (around 262 to 295 feet) beneath the ground – safe from any aerial bomb known to be possessed by Israel, making destroying the facility from the air a near-impossible task.

As Iran’s leadership reels from a series of devastating Israeli strikes, some analysts say that it is at Fordow that Iran may rush to convert enriched uranium stockpiles into a nuclear bomb.

Israel has targeted the facility in recent days but, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), so far it has either been unwilling – or unable – to damage it.

Tehran has long maintained the objectives of its nuclear program are peaceful, but Fordow has been at the heart of concern over Iran’s ambitions.

“The size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program,” then US President Barack Obama said in 2009 as he, along with then French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown revealed the existence of Fordow to the world.

Just days before the announcement, the Iranians, apparently knowing Western agencies had learned about the facility, told the IAEA of their desire to build a new fuel enrichment facility. By that point construction at Fordow had been underway for years.

Tehran pushed back against the accusations, but condemnation even from ally Russia and concerns from China left it with little room to maneuver.

Construction started in the early 2000s

The US and its allies have not provided much detail on when the construction of Fordow started, but publicly available historical satellite imagery shows work at the site as far back as 2004, with photographs revealing two white square structures where the tunnel entrances are located today. The IAEA says it has additional imagery showing construction as far back as 2002.

“Fordow is actually a project that started during what we call the crash nuclear weapons program of the early 2000s,” said David Albright, head of the Washington, DC-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a nonpartisan institution dedicated to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. “The idea was they (the Iranians) would make weapon-grade uranium in that plant, and they would obtain low-enriched uranium from the civil nuclear program in Iran.”

In 2009, a large outside support structure was already fully built and excavation was ongoing for what experts believe to be a ventilation shaft, crucial to allow air circulation into the facility. That shaft was later concealed and camouflaged, more recent imagery also shows.

Tehran explained to the IAEA in a letter dated October 2009 that the decision to build the facility underground was a result of “threats of military attacks against Iran,” adding that Fordow would serve as a contingency for the nearby Natanz plant, which, it claimed, “was among the targets threatened with military attacks.”

Iran told the IAEA the facility could house up to 3,000 centrifuges.

Nuclear deal and Israeli accusations

The dangers posed by Fordow were largely tamed as a result of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) the so-called “Iran nuclear deal,” that required Iran to remove two-thirds of the centrifuges inside the facility, along with all nuclear material, after the facility was banned from any such work.

That process was slowly reversed when US President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018.

Further details about the facility were made public by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2018, after his country’s intelligence services seized more than 55,000 documents from what Israel said was Iran’s “atomic archive.”

Among the documents were detailed blueprints of Fordow and information on its objectives: To produce weapons-grade uranium, as part of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, for at least one or two nuclear weapons per year.

“We never saw any, any inconsistency,” Albright, who has combed through the documents, said of Iran’s push to develop nuclear weapons. “It’s hundreds of thousands of pages. I mean you just can’t make that amount of stuff up. I don’t think anyone challenges it, and that’s probably why there is an (IAEA) Board of Governors resolution against Iran.”

At the time, then Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the revelations and Netanyahu’s comments “childish” and “laughable.” Then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US had known about the material “for a while” and believed the documents were authentic.

Protected from even the largest bombs

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

“The significantly increased production and accumulation of highly enriched uranium by Iran, the only non-nuclear-weapon state to produce such nuclear material, is of serious concern,” the IAEA said in a report on May 31.

“One of the things that elevated the tension, was they have no reason to do that, other than to be able to then go the next step and turn it into weapon-grade uranium,” Albright said.

“It was interpreted as they’re preparing themselves to be able to do it if they decide to. And if you’re 60%, you can turn it into weapon-grade uranium very quickly,” he added.

According to the ISIS think tank, “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.

That is why Fordow is a major focus of Israel’s attempts to degrade and destroy Iran’s nuclear program. But is it even feasible?

The US is the only country that possesses the kind of bomb required to strike Iran’s Fordow nuclear site, Israel’s ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, said in an interview with Merit TV on Monday.

“For Fordow to be taken out by a bomb from the sky, the only country in the world that has that bomb is the United States. And that’s a decision the United States has to take, whether or not it chooses to actually pursue that course,” Leiter said. But, he added, that wasn’t the only option: “There are other ways of dealing with Fordow.”

Destroying Fordow from the air would be almost impossible for Israel, according to a March report from the UK-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank and would require significant firepower and assistance from the United States.

It would not even be reachable by the US’ GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrator bombs, which only reach about 60 meters deep, according to the RUSI report. And the GBU-57 can only be delivered by US Air Force B-2 stealth bombers, something Israel doesn’t have – even if the US would give it the bombs.

“Even the GBU-57/B would likely require multiple impacts at the same aiming point to have a good chance of penetrating the facility,” said the report.

Other analysts agree, saying, if the US were to try to hit Fordow, it probably couldn’t be done with one bomb.

Albright says there could be other ways to disable Fordow.

“Israel could probably destroy the tunnel entrances pretty far back, and certainly destroy the ventilation system,” he said. “If you destroyed (the tunnels) and the electric electrical supply, it would be months before they could really operate.”

Despite its crucial role in Iran’s nuclear program, Albright believes Fordow is just another piece of the puzzle.

“If you destroy it, it’s not the end of the line, because you then go to the next threat, which is, how many centrifuges has Iran made that they didn’t deploy at Fordow and Natanz? And where are they?” he said.

“I think people over-emphasize the need to destroy it by bringing down its ceilings, which admittedly, probably only the US can do.”

Russian overnight drone and missile attacks on Kyiv killed 14 people, officials said on Tuesday, in the deadliest strikes on the capital in weeks.

More than 55 people were wounded in the city, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, making it one of the deadliest nights for its residents in weeks.

Kyiv residents heard loud sirens from late Monday, through the early morning hours of Tuesday, making it a loud and sleepless night for many in the city. The sirens continued as day broke Tuesday – an alarm purportedly for a ballistic threat, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

Of those wounded, more than 40 have been taken to hospitals, Klitschko said, with residential buildings and other infrastructure severely damaged.

“We hope that no dead will be found under the rubble, but we cannot rule it out,” Klitschko added. “The death toll may increase.”

“During the attack on Kyiv in the Solomyanskyi district, a 62-year-old US citizen died in a house opposite to the one where medics were providing assistance to the victims,” Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a message on Telegram, without giving details.

Paramedics and police were seen working to rescue people wounded in a building that appears partially collapsed, according to video posted by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.

Smoke could be seen rising from the site and debris was strewn all over the ground. Vehicles in front of the building were charred and destroyed.

Some 27 locations in different districts came under fire, according to a statement from Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs, Ihor Klymenko.

“Rescuers, police and medics are working. They are doing everything they can to help the victims, clear the rubble and save lives,” he said.

The strikes come as Trump announced he would return to Washington a day early from the Group of 7 summit in Canada.

His early departure means he will miss a key meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the event.

It would have been the leaders’ third meeting since Trump took office in January.

Ukrainian officials had been hoping that a positive interaction with Trump could advance Kyiv’s case as Russia has ramped up its airborne attacks in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu arrived in Pyongyang on a “special mission” from Russian leader Vladimir Putin, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

Shoigu is scheduled to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Tass reported Tuesday.

Pyongyang has continued support for Moscow’s war on Ukraine as world leaders push for an end to the three-year conflict.

North Korea has sent soldiers and millions of munitions, including missiles and rockets, to Russia over the past year, according to a May report by an international watchdog, the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team.

The US has warned that Russia may be close to sharing advanced space and satellite technology with North Korea in exchange for continued support for the war in Ukraine.

In April, Russia launched its deadliest wave of attacks on Kyiv in nine months, sending 70 missiles and 145 drones toward Ukraine, mainly targeting the capital city, killing at least 12 people and injuring 90 more.

Under Trump, the US has been less willing to equip badly outgunned Ukraine directly, has pushed European partners to pick up more of the support and threatened to walk away altogether from peace talks.