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Good morning from the newsroom of the Financial Times.

Today is Tuesday, June 18th, and this is your FT news briefing.

Cutter's Sovereign Wealth Fund is ramping up its investment plans in North America and Asia.

European private equity groups are rushing to raise new mega funds before market conditions

get tougher, and Pfizer boosts its cancer treatment portfolio.

But first, the F.T.'s Washington Bureau Chief Dimitri Sevestapula

has the latest in the escalating tensions between the United States and Iran. I'm Mark Filipino and

here's the news you need to start your day.

Over the past few weeks and even over the past few months you've had a dramatic

escalation in tensions between the US and Iran. The context of this is a year

ago Donald Trump pulled the US out of the 2015 landmark

nuclear deal that the Obama administration did with Iran. In the last few months

there's been a series of attacks on tankers in the Persian Gulf of Oman.

The Trump administration has blamed Iran for these and warned them that there will be severe consequences

if Iran does anything to threaten or to attack US forces in the region.

Now Iran has rejected those allegations and said it's not responsible,

but there are very few people in the US who take those

rejections seriously. So what we have now is a dramatic increase in tensions and

concerns around the world that the US and Iran could potentially be heading for a military

conflict.

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