Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Iran closes strait of Hormuz again ‘until US lifts blockade’

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IRGC reportedly fires on tanker as it tries to pass through strait during brief window when shipping lane had reopened

Iranian officials say they have reversed the reopening of the strait of Hormuz and reimposed restrictions on the vital shipping lane after the US said it would not end its blockade of Iranian ports.

A UK maritime agency reported that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) ships had fired at a tanker as it attempted to pass through the strait on Saturday. Reuters reported an Indian-flagged vessel carrying crude oil had also been attacked while in the waterway.

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Middle East crisis live: Iran warns it will close strait of Hormuz if US blockade continues

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Iranian parliamentary speaker also says passage through waterway will depend on Iranian authorisation and accuses Donald Trump of multiple falsehoods

A convoy of tankers was seen departing the Gulf and transiting the strait of Hormuz on Saturday, vessel-tracking data showed.

The group comprised four liquefied petroleum gas carriers and several oil product and chemical tankers, with more tankers following from the Gulf, according to MarineTraffic data cited by Reuters.

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Iran says strait of Hormuz ‘completely open’ but sounds warning on US blockade

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Iran’s parliamentary speaker says strait could close again if US blockade continues, but Trump says it will remain in place until ‘transaction’ with Tehran is complete

Iran’s foreign minister has said that the strait of Hormuz is now fully open to commercial vessels, reinforcing hopes for an eventual end to the war in the Middle East and sending oil prices tumbling despite analysts’ warnings that there will be no immediate widespread resumption of passage through the vital waterway.

In a barrage of social media posts, Donald Trump claimed on Friday that Iran had agreed never to close the strategic waterway again, hailing “A GREAT AND BRILLIANT DAY FOR THE WORLD!”

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Donald Trump claims to have ended a 10th war – but will the Lebanon ceasefire hold?

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Lasting peace depends on resolving a border dispute dating back to 2000 and dealing with Hezbollah’s weapons

Israel’s security cabinet first heard about the ceasefire with Lebanon from a social media post by Donald Trump. Hezbollah first heard about the ceasefire from the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon. Each side shot off as many bombs, drones and rockets as they could before the ceasefire – imposed from above – came into effect.

Despite the US president claiming it is the 10th war he has ended, the situation on the ground in Lebanon looks anything but stable.

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Israel escalates attacks on medics in Lebanon with deadly ‘quadruple tap’

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Lebanese health ministry says killing of 91 healthcare workers shows ‘total disregard’ for international law

When they received the call to respond to an Israeli airstrike in the city of Mayfadoun, in southern Lebanon, most of the paramedics held back, having previously seen colleagues killed by double-tap attacks targeting rescuers. But the medics from the Islamic Health Association (IHA) rushed to the scene.

By the time the other emergency workers arrived at the site, they found the IHA medics had indeed been caught in a second strike. They started evacuating their wounded colleagues, only for their ambulances to be hit in two further attacks.

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‘A dollar or two increase is devastating’: US consumers on toll of rising gas prices

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Guardian readers describe how their lives have been upended by cost hikes stemming from Trump’s Iran war

With the US and Israel’s war on Iran now in its seventh week, with a fragile ceasefire in place since earlier this month, Americans are continuing to feel the effects at the pump as global fuel prices rise.

For several readers who spoke to the Guardian, the impact has forced difficult trade-offs – from accessing essential medicines and groceries to facing the brink of homelessness amid an already rising cost of living.

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Trump needs a better Iran deal than Obama’s – but faces major hurdles

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US president will need to show heavy costs of war were worthwhile while Iran must choose between instant and delayed gratification

If talks between Iran and the US reconvene within the next few days in Islamabad, Donald Trump will have two major political hurdles to overcome – first showing that any deal he secures is better than the one signed by Barack Obama in 2015 and from which he withdraw in 2018, and secondly proving the deal is more favourable than the one on offer in Geneva in February before he launched his war.

Otherwise he will have inflicted massive damage on the world economy when alternatives were available that were less costly in blood and treasure. He will also have to show that Iran has made no permanent gain by taking control of shipping passing through the strait of Hormuz. These are the yardsticks, or tests, around which his negotiating team will be keeping an anxious eye.

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More than £1bn pledged for Sudan as humanitarian crisis deepens

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Donors exceed funding target at Berlin conference but prospects for ceasefire remain distant

More than £1bn (€1.15bn) has been pledged for war-ravaged Sudan at a conference in Berlin, eclipsing the funding target organisers had set to help mitigate the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

The financial commitments made on Wednesday will also help offset a chronic humanitarian funding shortfall in a country devastated by three years of conflict, where two-thirds of its population – 34m people – require assistance.

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Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti facing ‘escalating abuse’ in Israeli jails

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‘Palestine’s Mandela’ suffers three recent attacks including assault where prison guards set a dog on him, lawyer says

The jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti is at immediate risk in Israeli jails, where he has been attacked three times in as many weeks, including in one assault last month where prison guards set a dog on the 66-year-old, his lawyer has said.

Barghouti is often called Palestine’s Nelson Mandela. He is respected across otherwise feuding Palestinian factions, has broad popular support across occupied Palestine, repeatedly engaged with Israeli officials before his detention and long backed a two-state solution.

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UK to call for end to Sudan bloodshed at Berlin talks on third anniversary of war

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British aid to double as 19m people face acute hunger, but summit unlikely to end conflict amid Saudi-UAE tensions

The British foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, will urge Sudan’s warring parties to “cease bloodshed” during a major conference on Wednesday, which analysts believe is unlikely to deliver a significant step towards peace.

The talks in Berlin – held on the third anniversary of the start of Sudan’s ruinous war – are expected to help address a catastrophic funding shortfall that is compounding the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

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Trump accuses ally Meloni of lacking courage for not joining attacks on Iran

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Remarks come as Italian PM suspends defence agreement with Israel amid growing domestic pressure over conflict

Donald Trump lashed out at one of his closest allies on Tuesday, saying Italy’s Giorgia Meloni lacked courage in light of her failure to join the US in attacking Iran.

“I’m shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong,” the US president said in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

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Israeli ambassador to Germany condemns Bezalel Smotrich’s tirade against chancellor

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Ron Prosor says verbal attack on Friedrich Merz referencing Nazi regime ‘erodes the memory of the Holocaust’

Israel’s envoy to Germany has criticised a far-right Israeli cabinet member who made historically charged accusations against the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, saying the attack “[eroded] the memory of the Holocaust”.

In a rare rebuke of a top Israeli official by an active ambassador, Ron Prosor said he wished to “unequivocally condemn” Bezalel Smotrich’s tirade against Merz, in which he made reference to the Nazi regime and said: “You will not force us into ghettos again.”

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Detention of journalist in Kuwait raises questions about crackdown on freedom of speech

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Ahmed Shihab-Eldin was arrested after reporting on friendly fire incident during US conflict with Iran

The detention of a prize-winning international journalist over his reporting of a friendly fire incident in Kuwait is raising questions about the crackdown on freedom of speech across the Middle East as a result of the US-Israel war with Iran, the Committee to Protect Journalists has warned.

Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, born in the US and a Kuwaiti national, was arrested on 3 March during a brief visit to Kuwait. He published footage of a US air force F- 15 E Strike Eagle crashing in al Jahra west of Kuwait city. On his Substack he said the pilot and weapons officer had successfully ejected and survived. He added that video circulating online showed local residents assisting one of the crew in a civilian truck.

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Iran tries to cosy up to Europe to increase pressure on US

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Regime hopes to capitalise on deepening transatlantic split by briefing previously sidelined European countries

In a move designed to increase pressure on the US to make compromises in its conflict with his country, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi has been briefing European capitals on the nature of the offer Iran had been willing to make about its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and future stewardship of the strait of Hormuz during the weekend talks in Islamabad.

After the inconclusive talks, Araghchi held phone briefings with the French and German foreign ministers, Jean-Noël Barrot and Johann Wadephul, as well as the Saudi, Omani and Qatari foreign ministers.

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Middle East crisis live: Hezbollah urges Lebanon to pull out of talks with Israel; blockade of strait of Hormuz begins

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Hezbollah says it will not abide by agreements that result from the Lebanon-Israel talks in the US; Trump claims Iran wants to make a deal

Pakistan has reportedly proposed hosting a second round of talks between the United States and Iran in Islamabad in the coming days, before the end of the ceasefire, the Associated Press has reported.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter with the press, said the proposal would depend on whether the parties request a different location.

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US starts naval blockade of Iranian ports after deadline passes

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Iran warns Americans they face higher pump prices due to prohibition imposed on Monday evening

The US blockade of ships using Iranian ports in the Gulf has come into effect, turning the six-week-old conflict between the US-Israeli coalition and Iran into a test of economic endurance.

US Central Command (Centcom) made no formal announcement of the start of the blockade but had said it begin on Monday at 5.30pm Iranian time and would apply to any ships entering or departing Iranian ports or coastal areas, while ships using non-Iranian ports would not be impeded.

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Pope Leo visits Algeria in sign of Africa’s growing importance to Catholic church

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Pontiff makes first papal visit to country as he starts 11-day tour that will also include stops in Cameroon and Angola

Pope Leo XIV has arrived in Algeria for the first papal visit to the country, calling for peace on the opening stop of a tour of Africa that signals the continent’s growing importance to the Catholic church.

The 11-day trip, which will include stops in Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, is the longest by Pope Leo since being elected to the papacy in May last year.

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Planeloads of negotiators and too little time: US and Iran’s 21 hours of talks

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The two sides turned up to test one another’s resolve. It was probably unrealistic to expect a dispute that has taken up years of discussion to be settled in one marathon session

It was if the two delegations in the Iran-US peace talks in Islamabad hoped that the sheer number of negotiators flown into Pakistan could overcome the handicap of having only a finite number of hours in which to settle a 20-year dispute over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, now overlaid by complex new issues such as future control of the strait of Hormuz and US compensation for its attack on Iran.

Iran sent two planeloads of negotiators. They included many members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), present to ensure that no gains made in the field were relinquished at the diplomatic table. Diplomats fanned out across political, legal, security, economic and military files. One Iranian-drafted technical explanation on nuclear facility safety ran to more than 100 pages.

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JD Vance says talks failed due to Iran’s refusal to give up nuclear programme

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Iranian delegates in Islamabad say Washington needs to do more to win their trust if talks to resolve US-Iran conflict are to be successful

The US vice-president, JD Vance, has blamed the failure of marathon negotiations with Iran on the country’s refusal to abandon its nuclear weapons programme, while Iranian delegates have claimed Washington needs to do more to win their trust.

Vance, who left Islamabad on Sunday morning after 21 hours of talks with Iranian officials in the Pakistani capital, said his team had been very clear on its red lines, as hopes faded of a quick end to the conflict that began on 28 February.

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