US president was meeting with Japanese PM when he said: ‘Who knows better about surprise than Japan?’
It would be funny if it wasn’t so Trumpy.
Hosting the Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, in the Oval Office on Thursday, Donald Trump could not resist mocking Japan about its 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor during the second world war.
Continue reading...Beijing seeks to decipher effect of Iran war on US midterms and best way to apply pressure when Trump meets Xi
The White House said on Wednesday that China had agreed to postpone Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing, as war in the Middle East rages on, complicating the US president’s position at home and abroad.
China has not yet commented on the delay to the highly anticipated trip, in which Trump and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, will meet in person for the first time since October. Trump previously said he hoped to delay the trip, originally scheduled to run from 31 March to 2 April, for “five or six weeks”.
Continue reading...$11.3bn more than enough to fund EPA or National Cancer Institute, where administration sought to slash budgets
The US spent $11.3bn on just the first week of its military assault on Iran. This huge expenditure dwarves the annual budgets of many of the public health and scientific agencies the Trump administration has sought to cut, raising stark questions about the country’s priorities.
In the six days that followed the US and Israel’s joint attack on Iran on 28 February, $11.3bn was spent on American taxpayer-funded bombs that hit the country and caused hundreds of deaths, the Pentagon has told lawmakers. This figure does not capture the full cost of the conflict, such as deployment of forces, and will now be far higher given the ongoing nature of the war.
Continue reading...Pair attempt to strike united front amid reports vice-president skeptical over US-Israeli attack on Iran
Donald Trump revealed that he had asked China to delay his forthcoming visit to Beijing while the war with Iran was continuing, as he attempted to strike a united front on Monday with his vice-president JD Vance, who is believed to have been skeptical over attacking Tehran’s regime.
Appearing together with Vance for the first time in two weeks, Trump said he did not think the conflict – which started on 28 February after the US and Israel opened hostilities – would be over this week but predicted victory would be achieved soon.
Continue reading...US president had earlier hinted trip could be put on hold if President Xi does not help unblock the strait of Hormuz
Trump has asked to delay his planned visit to Beijing by about a month due to the Iran war, after earlier hinting he might put the trip off if his prospective hosts do not help to unblock the strait of Hormuz.
The US president’s summit with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, was meant to take place at the end of March but Trump told reporters in the White House on Monday: “Because of the war I want to be here, I have to be here, I feel. And so we’ve requested that we delay it a month or so.”
Continue reading...Details from US Central Command come as 13 US service members and more than 1,300 Iranians have been killed
At least 200 US troops have been injured in the US-Israeli war on Iran, a US military spokesperson said on Monday.
“Since the start of Operation Epic Fury, approximately 200 US service members have been wounded,” US Central Command spokesperson Cpt Tim Hawkins told the Guardian via email.
Continue reading...There is little sign of imminent regime change in Iran as its blockade of strait of Hormuz shocks global economy
Few doubt that in the first days of the new war in the Middle East, the initiative belonged to the US and its ally Israel. Now it seems less sure, however.
Mohsen Rezaee, a senior officer in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, on Sunday said “the end of the war is in our hands” and called for the withdrawal of Washington’s forces from the Gulf and compensation for all damage caused by the assault.
Continue reading...Tehran wants ceasefire but terms ‘not good enough yet’, US president claims, as both sides launch new waves of strikes
Donald Trump has warned he is not ready to seek a deal to end the US-Israeli offensive against Iran, saying that though he thought Tehran was keen to negotiate a ceasefire, the US would fight on for better terms.
Trump’s comments came as Iran launched fresh missile and drone attacks on countries in the Gulf and on Israel, and Israeli and US warplanes launched new waves of strikes on Iran.
Continue reading...US Central Command says crash followed unspecified incident, and second refueling tanker landed safely in Israel
The names of the six US service members who died when a military refueling aircraft crashed over Iraq on Thursday have been released.
The Pentagon on Saturday identified the crew members as Maj John “Alex” Klinner, 33, of Auburn, Alabama; Capt Ariana Savino, 31, of Covington, Washington; Tech Sgt Ashley Pruitt, 34, of Bardstown, Kentucky; Capt Seth Koval, 38, of Mooresville, Indiana; Capt Curtis Angst, 30, of Wilmington, Ohio; and Tech Sgt Tyler Simmons, 28, of Columbus, Ohio.
Continue reading...Rare action began peacefully but ‘degenerated into vandalism’ according to state-run newspaper
Five people have been arrested in Cuba for acts of “vandalism” after a small group of protesters broke into a provincial office of the Cuban Communist party and set fire to computers and furniture.
The incident, which also affected a pharmacy and another shop, took place in the town of Moron, a little more than 300 miles (500km) east of Havana.
Continue reading...Iran is trying to create wedges between Gulf states and the US, but Trump is very comfortable on the ‘escalatory ladder’
• Middle East crisis – live updates
In its current phase, the Israeli-US war against Iran and its proxies has become a proving ground for two competing concepts of military escalation, each of which threatens to become a trap.
On one side, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have failed thus far in their ill-defined and shifting strategic aims. Despite killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and other key leaders in the opening salvo of the campaign, the clerical regime remains and Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is unsecured. Airstrikes are intensifying and hitting a greater number of targets.
Continue reading...US president calls on China, France, Japan and the UK to send vessels after US strikes Kharg Island oil facilities
Iran threatened on Saturday to further escalate the war raging in the Middle East by targeting any facility in the region with US ties, after Donald Trump predicted “many countries” would send warships to support a US bid to reopen by force the strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway closed to virtually all maritime traffic by Tehran since the beginning of the war.
Iran has responded to the joint US-Israeli offensive, which is entering its third week, with daily attacks on oil and other infrastructure around the Gulf region, as well as against Israel.
Continue reading...Negotiations aimed to ‘find solutions to the bilateral differences’ between the countries, Miguel Díaz-Canel said
Cuban officials have held talks with the US government, the country’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, confirmed on Friday, amid growing pain inflicted by a punishing US fuel blockade and frequent power failures.
“These talks have been aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences we have between the two nations,” Díaz-Canel said in a prerecorded statement to senior Communist officials.
Continue reading...Traditionally jovial affair poses potential debacle for Irish leader at odds with US over foreign policy, tax and immigration
For Ireland’s leaders, it has long been the highlight of the political calendar: a love-fest in Washington with hosts who sport shamrocks and toast Saint Patrick.
Irish delegations are traditionally received on Capitol Hill and at the White House in a blaze of goodwill and backslapping that has them wishing every day was 17 March.
Continue reading...Rescue efforts continue for remaining two crew members from refuelling plane that crashed in western desert
Four of the six crew members onboard a US military aircraft that crashed in western Iraq were killed, the US military has said as rescue efforts continued for the remaining two.
The KC-135 military refuelling plane crashed in western Iraq on Thursday, in an incident the military said involved another aircraft but was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.
Continue reading...Tehran has enough material to make at least 10 nuclear warheads but extracting it would be very risky, say experts
The Trump administration is reportedly considering the deployment of special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which experts say could be used to make at least 10 nuclear warheads.
Preventing Iran from acquiring a bomb is one of Trump’s stated war aims, and the 440kg HEU stockpile represents the greatest nuclear threat as it could be turned into weapons-grade uranium relatively easily. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has told Congress that “people are going to have to go and get it”.
Continue reading...President makes evidence-free claim despite video showing US Tomahawk missile hit naval base next to school
As oil prices surged amid the widening war with Iran, Donald Trump suggested, without evidence, on Monday that the strike on an Iranian elementary school could have been carried out by Iran or “somebody else”.
During back-to-back appearances in Florida, Trump was asked whether the US would accept responsibility for a strike that hit the school and killed scores of people, many of them children, after video evidence showed a US Tomahawk struck the naval base next to it.
Continue reading...Scientific awards – which honor research that makes people laugh and then think – to move away from ‘unsafe’ US
The annual Ig Nobels, a satirical award for scientific achievement, are shifting for the first time from the US to Europe due to concerns about attendees getting visas, organizers announced on Monday.
Organized by the Annals of Improbable Research, a digital magazine that highlights research that makes people laugh and then think, the 36th annual ceremony will be held in Zurich. It’s usually held in the US in September, a few weeks before the actual Nobel prizes are announced.
Continue reading...Senators say Trump allies such as Hegseth and Rubio should be forced to testify to Congress on ‘unnecessary war’
Democratic senators have filed a wave of new war powers resolutions as they call on Republicans to convene public hearings into the US hostilities with Iran or be forced to vote on continuing a conflict that polls show majorities of Americans do not support.
Late last week, Democrats Cory Booker of New Jersey, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Adam Schiff of California, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Chris Murphy of Connecticut filed resolutions under the War Powers Act that would force the US military to withdraw from the war with Iran unless Congress votes to authorize the engagement.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Across the Iranian diaspora, reactions to the escalating conflict reveal a complex mix of fear, grief and deep political ambivalence
Good morning. War has broken out in the Middle East. As the Iran war broadens and spills out into neighbouring countries, media agencies have rightly focused on trying to understand how the conflict came about, where bombs have fallen, and how many have died, while many states globally fear spikes in energy prices and wonder how the war will impact their economies.
What can easily get lost are the voices of the people directly affected.
Iran | Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of the late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been chosen as his successor.
UK politics | Keir Starmer sought to repair fractured relations with Donald Trump over the war with Iran on Sunday, as a Labour backlash gathered pace over Tony Blair’s assertion the UK should have supported the US’s initial airstrikes on Iran.
Energy | Great Britain has only two days of fossil gas stored after a decline in energy reserves, as more tankers carrying liquefied natural gas are diverted from their course to Europe towards Asia because of the Iran war. Meanwhile, global oil prices surged past the $100 (£74) a barrel mark for the first time since 2022.
Health | More than 400 lives may have been saved as a result of Martha’s rule, which lets NHS patients request a review of their care. Thousands of patients were either moved to intensive care, received drugs they needed or benefited from other changes as a direct result of over 10,000 calls to helplines.
AI | ChatGPT is driving a rise in reports of organised ritual abuse and “witchcraft, spirit possession and spiritual abuse” against children – which is historically under-reported in the UK – as survivors of “satanic” sexual violence use the AI tool for therapy.
Continue reading...