Iranian students chanted anti-government slogans and scuffled with counter-protesters on Saturday in the latest display of anger at the country's clerical leaders, who also face a US military build-up aimed at pressuring them into a nuclear deal.

The gatherings at universities, which were reported by both local and diaspora media outlets, followed a mass protest movement that was met with a government crackdown last month that left thousands dead.

Feb 21 (Reuters) - Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.

"World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads... but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us," Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.

(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Sharon Singleton)

Hezbollah warned Saturday that it would have no choice but to fight on after an Israeli strike on targets in Lebanon killed eight of its operatives.

Lebanon's government has vowed to disarm Hezbollah, but Israel insists it retains the right to defend itself by striking the Iran-backed militant group.

On Friday, the Israeli military said it had hit Hezbollah command centres in eastern Lebanon and targets linked to the Palestinian group Hamas in the south.

Feb 20 (Reuters) - At least 10 people were killed and 50 wounded in Israeli strikes in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley on Friday, two security sources told Reuters, after the Israeli military said it had targeted Hezbollah sites in the Baalbek area.

The strikes are among the deadliest reported in eastern Lebanon in recent weeks and risk testing a fragile U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Shi'ite Islamist group Hezbollah, which has been strained by recurring accusations of violations.

By Kuba Stezycki and Ali Kucukgocmen

WARSAW/ISTANBUL, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Maryna Bondarenko says she has three suitcases packed in her apartment in Poland, waiting for the day when peace returns to Ukraine.

The 51-year-old journalist fled Kyiv with her son and mother after Russia launched its invasion on February 24, 2022. She thought they would be abroad for a month or two until the war ended.

Four years later, she is still there, working in a Ukrainian‑language newsroom that caters to a community of more than 1.5 million Ukrainians living in Poland.

By Matt Spetalnick, Bo Erickson, Nandita Bose and Tim Reid

WASHINGTON, Feb 21 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has pushed the United States to the brink of war with Iran even as aides urge him to focus more on voters' economic worries, highlighting the political risks of military escalation ahead of this year's midterm elections.

WASHINGTON/HANOI, Feb 20 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump met Vietnamese leader To Lam on Friday and said he would work to remove Hanoi from lists of countries restricted in accessing U.S. advanced technology, according to a summary of the talks posted on the news website of the Vietnamese government.

The first formal in-person meeting between the two took place at the White House after the head of Vietnam's ruling Communist Party attended the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace in Washington.

"Yellow Letters", directed by German filmmaker Ilker Catak, won the Berlin Film Festival's Golden Bear for best film Saturday, at a ceremony reflecting the controversy over Gaza that has dogged this year's edition.

Some award winners spoke out in favour of the Palestinian cause, pushing back after jury president Wim Wenders had sparked outrage earlier by trying to steer the festival away from the issue.

Israel's vital tech sector, dragged down by the war in Gaza, is showing early signs of recovery, buoyed by a surge in defence innovation and fresh investment momentum.

Cutting-edge technologies represent 17 percent of the country's GDP, 11.5 percent of jobs and 57 percent of exports, according to the latest available data from the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA), published in September 2025.

By Samia Nakhoul, Parisa Hafezi and John Irish

DUBAI, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Iran and the United States are sliding rapidly towards military conflict as hopes fade for a diplomatic solution to their standoff over Tehran’s nuclear programme, officials on both sides and diplomats across the Gulf and Europe say.

Iran’s Gulf neighbours and its enemy Israel now consider a conflict to be more likely than a settlement, these sources say, with Washington building up one of its biggest military deployments in the region since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.