Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak has revealed Pep Guardiola was on the verge of quitting "100 times" before finally leaving at the end of this season.

Guardiola stepped down after winning six Premier League titles and the Champions League in his glittering decade at the Etihad Stadium.

While Guardiola enjoyed remarkable success with City, Khaldoon said the emotional Spaniard constantly thought about resigning during low moments in his reign.

By Jana Choukeir

DUBAI, June 4 (Reuters) - A new U.S.-mediated ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon raised hopes on Thursday for progress toward ending the wider U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, though there was still uncertainty about how and when it would be implemented.

Tehran has made a ceasefire in Lebanon a condition for any peace deal with Washington, and has suggested in recent days that it could intervene directly in support of its proxy Hezbollah if Israel keeps up or escalates attacks there.

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, June 4 (Reuters) - Brunei's ruler announced a major cabinet reshuffle on Thursday, creating new key portfolios and appointing two of his younger sons as ministers, in a sign of potential succession planning in the tiny oil-rich sultanate.

The shake-up is the first since 2022 and comes as Brunei, on the island of Borneo, faces pressure from a global energy crisis sparked by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

By Guy Faulconbridge and Vladimir Soldatkin

ST PETERSBURG, Russia, June 4 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin faced two rival outlines of Russia's future as he hosted his premier annual investment conference with the war in Ukraine unabated.

Some participants at the glitzy St Petersburg International Economic Forum said Russia should fight on and gird for global confrontation with the West.

Iran's supreme leader said Thursday that the United States and Israel had been dealt a "decisive blow" in the Middle East war, after the government reported "no tangible progress" in negotiations on ending the conflict.

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei's message, read out by a prayer leader at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the death of the Islamic republic's founder, came after the US House of Representatives passed a resolution seeking to halt American military action in Iran.

By Jana Choukeir

DUBAI, June 4 (Reuters) - Israel and Lebanon agreed to implement a new ceasefire after U.S.-mediated talks, the Trump administration said, raising hopes for progress toward ending the wider U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

Tehran has made a ceasefire in Lebanon a condition for any peace deal with Washington, and has suggested in recent days that it could intervene directly in support of its proxy Hezbollah if Israel keeps up or escalates attacks there.

June 4 (Reuters) - Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told local outlets on Thursday that a U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreed the previous evening between Lebanon and Israel could come into force within 24 hours of all concerned parties approving it.

The comments appeared to refer to Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which has yet to comment on the ceasefire announced after talks between Lebanon and Israel in Washington. Hezbollah is opposed to the direct talks and has continued firing at Israeli troops in Lebanon. Israel has kept up strikes.

Franco-Iranian author and film director Marjane Satrapi, renowned for her graphic novel and film "Persepolis", has died aged 56, a year after the passing of "the love of her life", a member of her close circle told AFP on Thursday.

"Marjane Satrapi died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life," they said in a statement sent to AFP.

Born in 1969 in Rasht in northern Iran, Satrapi arrived in France in 1994 and gained French nationality in 2006.

DUBAI, June 4 (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a message on Thursday that Iran's enemies, having been defeated on the battlefield, were now seeking to undermine public resilience and sow internal divisions.

Khamenei called for national unity in the face of those threats and said any action that created pessimism or frustration among the public amounted to helping the enemy.

By Emily Rose

KIRYAT SHMONA, Israel, June 4 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces plunging support in the electorally vital north where Hezbollah rocket fire has been heaviest, a new poll has shown, putting pressure on him to take a more hawkish stance as elections loom.

Wednesday night's ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon - whether it holds or not - may not be what northern voters have in mind.