US president expresses ire at Tehran’s reported demands, as drones strike Gulf nations and Israel warns war ‘not over’
Donald Trump has rejected an Iranian response to a US peace proposal as “totally unacceptable”, on a day the month-old ceasefire showed signs of fraying as drone strikes were reported around the region and Benjamin Netanyahu warned the war was “not over”.
The Iranian counter-proposal was passed to Washington through Pakistani mediators.
Continue reading...Experts warn of ‘soft target’ vulnerabilities and intelligence gaps as federal agencies prepare to secure 78 matches across 11 cities
Fifa World Cup matches set to be held across the United States face heightened terrorism risks, with experts warning that vulnerabilities are being amplified by the US-Israel conflict with Iran and a depletion of counter-terrorism expertise within federal law enforcement.
The biggest threat stems from homegrown violent extremists, often lone actors that may have become radicalized online by extreme political views or jihadists such as the Islamic State (Isis), said four counter-terror experts interviewed.
Continue reading...Revolutionary Guards issue warning as Trump awaits Iran’s response to Washington’s latest proposal for peace deal
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have threatened to target US sites in the Middle East if its tankers come under fire, Iranian media reported on Saturday, as Washington was left waiting for Tehran’s response to its latest negotiating position.
“Any attack on Iranian tankers and commercial vessels will result in a heavy attack on one of the American centres in the region and enemy ships,” the force said, a day after US strikes on two Iranian tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
Continue reading...Simply hanging on could be a disaster for Iranians, while Trump needs to resolve this economic crisis he created
Exchanges of fire between Iran and the US demonstrate the serious instability of the situation in the Middle East. Though the US strikes late on Thursday were just “a love tap”, according to the US president, Donald Trump, the reality is that neither side can continue the high-stakes standoff in the strait of Hormuz indefinitely.
The US and its ally Israel demonstrated a comprehensive military superiority over Iran – taking minimal casualties in the 38-day war – but Washington has both failed to translate that into strategic dominance and allowed Iran to take control of the strait, driving up the oil price.
Continue reading...Israeli PM says he has ‘full coordination’ with US president amid reports that Washington no longer consults him
Benjamin Netanyahu interrupted an uncharacteristically long silence over the Iran conflict this week with a video commentary insisting he had “full coordination” with Donald Trump, with whom he spoke “almost daily”.
The insistence that all was rosy in the US-Israeli relationship followed weeks of reports in the domestic press that Israel was no longer being consulted over the Iran conflict, and even less over Pakistani-brokered peace talks. Such is the scepticism over Netanyahu’s trustworthiness among the general public and independent press that the immediate reaction among observers to his video statement was speculation that the reality could be even worse than they had imagined.
Continue reading...Diplomatic efforts continue despite fighting in and around contested strait of Hormuz in recent days
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said that Washington is expecting a response from Iran to its proposals for an interim deal to end the conflict in the Middle East, as Iran accused the US of breaching the increasingly fragile ceasefire announced last month.
In recent days there have been the biggest flare-ups in fighting in and around the contested strait of Hormuz since the informal truce began. The rise in violence followed Donald Trump’s announcement – then rapid pause – of a new naval mission aimed at opening the strategic waterway.
Continue reading...Carmaker gives one of biggest warnings yet of conflict’s impact on businesses while Trump tariffs also take toll
Toyota has reported a £3bn hit from costs from the war in Iran, as prices of parts and materials soared and sales dropped.
The world’s biggest carmaker said profits declined in its financial year to March as it was “likely unable to absorb newly added impact from the Middle East”, in one of the largest warnings yet of the war’s impact on businesses.
Continue reading...US military claims it targeted sites responsible for attacks on its forces and ‘unprovoked’ hostilities by Tehran
Iran has accused the US of violating the ceasefire by targeting two ships at the strait of Hormuz and attacking civilian areas, as the US insists it struck in retaliation.
The US military said it targeted sites that it said were responsible for attacking US forces in what it called “unprovoked” hostilities by Tehran.
Continue reading...Riyadh told White House it would deny access for operation to provide tankers military escort through strait of Hormuz
A refusal by Saudi Arabia to allow the US to use its bases and airspace to provide a military escort for oil tankers passing through the strait of Hormuz lay behind Donald Trump’s decision to shelve the plan days after it had been launched.
Riyadh told the White House it would not allow its Prince Sultan airbase to be used to mount the operation billed as Project Freedom, which the US presented as the successor to the bombing campaign called Operation Epic Fury.
Continue reading...President indicated that deal had materialised but truth was that Saudi Arabia had stopped US use of its bases
When Donald Trump abruptly pulled the plug on “Project Freedom”, the scheme to open the strait of Hormuz, barely a day after it had been announced, he gave the impression that an opportunity for a peace deal had materialised that could not be missed.
To the surprise of nobody who has been following the US’s recent adventures in geopolitics, Trump’s spin concealed a lot of the underlying reality. It turns out that Trump suspended Project Freedom after Saudi Arabia stopped the US military from using its bases or airspace to carry out the operation, which involved giving air cover to commercial shipping sailing through the strait.
Continue reading...Powerful property and farming firm Grosvenor Group says knock-on effect of Iran war could arrive next year
Fertiliser shortages caused by the Iran war have driven up costs for UK farmers by up to 70% and will have a “dramatic” impact on food prices globally next year, according to one of Britain’s most powerful property and farming companies.
Mark Preston, executive trustee of the 349-year-old Grosvenor Group, controlled by the Duke of Westminster, said fertiliser “was already quite expensive” before the 50% to 70% surge in prices since the start of the Iran war in late February.
Continue reading...Latest proposal, derided by Tehran as a ‘wishlist’, could yet be a way out – but with 5,000 dead, it comes at an awful price
Another day, another hairpin turn in the world of Donald Trump’s foreign policy.
The weekend was all about war, and Trump insisting Iran had not yet “paid a big enough price”. Tuesday was Project Freedom, styled as a grand “humanitarian gesture” to allow trapped ships and their crews to escape the Gulf, but also aimed at weakening Iran’s chokehold on the strait of Hormuz.
Continue reading...Pontiff responds after US president accuses him of ‘endangering a lot of Catholics’ with stance on Iran war
Pope Leo has said he has never supported nuclear weapons and that those who criticise him need to speak the truth, in response to Donald Trump’s latest tirade accusing him of “endangering a lot of Catholics” with his stance on the Iran war.
Speaking to journalists on Tuesday night after leaving the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo, near Rome, the first US-born pontiff said: “The mission of the church is to preach the gospel, to preach peace.”
Continue reading...Firms raising prices at fastest rate in three years, driven by soaring energy and wage bills but also extra materials costs
Airlines and other companies are increasingly using fuel surcharges to cover soaring costs, a survey has found, in a further sign of Iran war-linked inflation hitting the economy.
A poll of companies in the services sector, which includes airlines, found rising fuel prices had contributed to businesses raising prices at the fastest pace in more than three years in April.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: The brief US effort to steer trapped vessels through the waterway put the fragile ceasefire under strain
Good morning. Uncertainty once again reigns in the Middle East. The uneasy ceasefire between the US and Iran threatened to disintegrate after Donald Trump launched an initiative – dubbed “Project Freedom” – to help thousands of sailors stranded in the Gulf by the war to pass through the strait of Hormuz.
To Iran, the announcement was a cynical provocation. Flurries of fighting restarted as Iran sought to maintain its grip on the critical passageway out of the region.
UK politics | Zack Polanski falsely claimed to be a spokesperson for the British Red Cross while campaigning for the Green party leadership, the charity has said.
Fuel shortages| Two million airline seats have been cut from this month’s schedules as airlines redraw their operations because of soaring jet fuel prices amid the Middle East conflict.
UK news| A British crew member who became ill after a suspected outbreak of hantavirus on luxury cruise ship the MV Hondius is to be medically evacuated, officials have said.
Tax | An increased windfall tax should be imposed on the UK’s largest banks, say trade union leaders, after the big four lenders reported almost £14bn in first-quarter profits, partly fuelled by market turbulence amid the Iran war.
Society | People from black backgrounds in England are twice as likely to experience strokes as their white counterparts, while also being less likely to receive timely care, according to the largest study of its kind.
Continue reading...US president directs fresh criticism at pontiff days before secretary of state Marco Rubio’s visit to Vatican
Donald Trump has issued another verbal attack against Pope Leo, accusing the pontiff of “endangering a lot of Catholics” because “he thinks it’s fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon”.
The remarks come two days before Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, meets Leo at the Vatican in an effort to ease the tensions sparked by Trump’s previous broadside against the Chicago-born pontiff over his condemnation of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Continue reading...Letter from House Democrats to secretary of state calls for end to ambiguity over Israel’s nuclear weapons programs
House Democrats have asked the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to publicly announce that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, arguing that Washington must end decades of ambiguity over the issue amid the conflict with Iran.
In a letter sent on Monday, 30 Democrats wrote that it was unsustainable for Donald Trump to collaborate with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on a military campaign against Iran – with the stated goal of preventing the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon – without publicly acknowledging the US ally’s possession of the bomb.
Continue reading...Quintessentially almost quadrupled staff in Middle East and Asia less than year before wealthy began to flee Gulf
The embattled luxury concierge service co-founded by Queen Camilla’s nephew Ben Elliot embarked on what appeared to be an inopportune hiring spree in the Middle East and Asia before wealthy individuals began fleeing the region because of the US-Israel war on Iran.
Quintessentially almost quadrupled staff in the regions from 22 to 84 during its financial year to 30 April 2025, according to newly released annual accounts, which again reported multimillion-pound losses and warned of “material uncertainty” about its future.
Continue reading...US operation announced as ‘Project Freedom’ dramatically raises stakes in conflict
The US has launched Donald Trump’s operation to open a route through the strait of Hormuz for hundreds of ships trapped with their crews in the Gulf, in a move that brought the region back to the brink of full-scale war as Iran sought to reassert its blockade.
The US operation, which got under way on Monday after being announced as “Project Freedom” by Trump on Sunday night on his social media site, dramatically raised the stakes in a conflict that had been in a month-long period of uneasy limbo.
Continue reading...After banging his battle drum, Trump is back in Nobel peace prize mode. But the move has dramatically raised the stakes
“Project Freedom” has all the trappings of a classic episode of the Trump Show, the reality series that the rest of the world does not just have to watch, but live through and survive. It has a dramatic plot twist, it is bathed in a self-projected beatific light, and the trailer looked far more promising that the reality.
Trump spent a long weekend in Florida banging the war drum. Iran had not “paid a big enough price” for its past misdeeds, he wrote in an online post before spending Friday afternoon revving up a cheering crowd at America’s largest retirement community.
Continue reading...