Shehbaz Sharif congratulates US president on his peace efforts after Trump claims strait of Hormuz will be opened as part of deal
In Lebanon, the civil defence agency said early on Sunday its regional facility in the southern city of Nabatieh had been destroyed by an Israeli strike.
The Directorate General of Civil Defence said the building had collapsed and a large number of vehicles and equipment had been damaged by a “direct hit in a hostile Israeli strike”.
Continue reading...Secretary of state suggests July meeting of alliance will be fraught as US demands help in strait of Hormuz
Donald Trump is disappointed that Nato allies refused to become more actively involved in attacking Iran, the US secretary of state has said, setting up what could become a fraught summit of the alliance in July.
Marco Rubio, meeting with foreign ministers of the military alliance, emphasised that he expected the rift would be discussed at the July meeting in Ankara, making the summit “one of the more important” in Nato’s 77-year history.
Continue reading...Iran has threatened to impose tolls on shipping, while US demands that Iran hand over its highly enriched uranium may be deferred. Is there an end in sight?
Qatar has rushed a team of mediators to Tehran in a sign that talks to open the strait of Hormuz, in return for the lifting of US sanctions and asset freezes, are reaching a climax.
The aim would be to sign a memorandum of understanding on the strait that would lead to 30 days of talks on Iran’s nuclear programme – so deferring discussion of the US demand that Iran hand over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
Continue reading...Surging demand, low reserves and reduced Middle East exports predicted to cause global crunch by August
Oil markets will enter the “red zone” by July and August as stocks dwindle before the summer travel season amid a shortage of fresh oil exports from the Middle East, the executive director of the International Energy Agency warned on Thursday.
Fatih Birol added that the most important solution to the Iran war energy shock was a full and unconditional reopening of the strait of Hormuz.
Continue reading...Former Iranian president has a populist, headline-grabbing communication style but is an avowed anti-Zionist. How could Israel see him as a man to do business with?
For all their outward differences, there always seemed to be things that linked Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Donald Trump.
A visit to the then Iranian president’s rather humble Tehran neighbourhood nearly 20 years ago highlighted cost of living problems that prefigured those facing Trump now.
Continue reading...Airstrike at the start of the war was aimed at freeing populist ex-president from house arrest, US newspaper claims
Fresh questions have been raised over the US and Israeli effort to depose the Iranian regime after it was claimed that Israel wanted to put the populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power.
Ahmadinejad’s turbulent presidency, from 2005 to 2013, was marked by incendiary attacks on Israel but he recast himself as a critic of the regime and champion of the poor after falling out with the supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
Continue reading...President claims planned Tehran attack postponed to allow talks to continue – but no indication peace plan is imminent
As he seeks an exit from the Iran war, Donald Trump is increasingly outsourcing his policymaking to US allies in the Middle East, while the White House appears unable to find a simple way to end the fighting and reopen global shipping lanes held by Tehran.
In Trump’s telling, the “dealmaker-in-chief” has maintained a consistent policy toward Iran aimed at preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, leveling threats and incentives to reach a new deal that would also open the strait of Hormuz.
Continue reading...Renewed threat comes after US president said he was ‘an hour away’ from ordering a strike before pulling back
Donald Trump has again threatened Iran, saying the US may launch new attacks if Tehran continues to refuse the significant concessions he wants before a deal can be struck to end the Middle East war.
The US president said he had called off a fresh wave of strikes, which would have broken the ceasefire in place since early last month. “I was an hour away from making the decision to go today,” Trump said on Tuesday.
Continue reading...The US president said he called off a planned attack on Iran on Tuesday so that peace talks could continue
Iran’s army has warned it would “open new fronts” against the US if it resumes attacks on the country amid reports that Donald Trump is weighing up restarting military operations in Iran amid an impasse in negotiations.
“If the enemy is foolish enough to fall into the Zionist trap again and launches new aggression against our beloved Iran, we will open new fronts against it, with new equipment and new methods,” army spokesperson Mohammad Akraminia said, according to Iran’s ISNA news agency.
Continue reading...US president says there ‘won’t be anything left’ of country if it doesn’t come to an agreement
Oman’s foreign ministry has condemned the drone strike that caused a fire at the perimeter of UAE’s Barakah nuclear power plant on Sunday.
In a statement shared to X, the ministry expressed its solidarity with the UAE but stressed that it rejected all “hostile and escalatory acts” as it urged for dialogue to address regional issues and called for international law to be respected by all parties.
Continue reading...Abu Dhabi denounces ‘dangerous escalation’ as Iran war ceasefire grows more precarious, and US president voices impatience at stalemate
The United Arab Emirates has blamed a fire near its nuclear power plant on a drone launched by Iran or one of its proxies in what the UAE called a “dangerous escalation”.
The fire was just outside the Barakah nuclear plant and caused no injuries or radiation alerts, with the emirate’s nuclear regulator saying there was no radioactive leak or risk to the public.
Continue reading...Iran has a long history of unconventional operations, all designed to divert, distract and destabilise current or potential enemies
The arrest by US authorities of an alleged Iraqi commander of an Iranian-backed militia group now accused of responsibility for 18 terrorist attacks in the UK, Europe and Canada since the beginning of the Iran war is an astonishing development – yet not the least bit surprising.
According to a complaint unsealed on Friday in a federal court in Manhattan, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi is allegedly responsible for organising – among other operations – a string of recent firebombings of banks and other targets in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, an arson attack against a synagogue and a shooting at the US consulate in Toronto in March, as well as – most recently – a wave of attacks on mainly Jewish targets in the UK including places of worship and charities.
Continue reading...The film-maker, who won the Grand Prix for A Hero in 2021, condemned both the killing of protesters and the conflict’s bombing campaigns during a Cannes press conference
Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has described the deaths of civilians in Iran as “extremely cruel and tragic” during a press conference at the Cannes film festival.
Farhadi, whose new Paris-set drama Parallel Tales premiered on the Croisette on Thursday night, was asked about working free from censorship in France, the war involving Iran, the US and Israel, and the repression of protesters in his native country.
Continue reading...Muscat silent about plans – opposed by US – to charge fee and demand details on nationality of all transiting ships
Oman has been caught in geopolitical crossfire after Iran said it was coordinating with the Gulf state over the future management of the strait of Hormuz, including Tehran’s plans to impose fees on commercial shipping.
The Omani exclave of Musandam lies to the south of the contested waterway, which normally carries a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil traffic but has been blockaded for 10 weeks since the US-Israeli attack on Iran in February.
Continue reading...US president has said he and Chinese leader ‘settled a lot of different problems’ but has given little detail on solutions
Donald Trump’s whirlwind trip to Beijing – the first US presidential visit in nearly a decade – wrapped up with much fanfare but little clarity about what was actually achieved.
Trump said on Friday he and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, “settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve”. But he didn’t provide much detail on what those solutions were.
Continue reading...Prof Abbas Rajabifard of the University of Melbourne says he was listed as a co-author of research with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator in recent peace talks, without his knowledge
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A University of Melbourne academic has denied collaborating on research with the speaker of Iran’s parliament – who has been leading Tehran’s peace negotiations with the US – saying he was named as an author on a journal article without his knowledge.
On Monday Guardian Australia revealed that Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s top negotiator, had built extensive ties to Australia over the past decade, including links to a University of Melbourne engineering research centre.
Continue reading...Docked ship reportedly seized outside UAE port by “unauthorised personnel”
The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said ships entering the strait of Hormuz must cooperate with the Iranian navy as reports emerged of a ship being seized outside a United Arab Emirate port and taken towards Iranian waters.
The UK Maritime Trading Organisation said the docked ship was seized by “unauthorised personnel” while it was anchored off the coast of the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah near the southern entry to the strait of Hormuz.
Continue reading...Lindsay and Craig Foreman were given 10-year sentences after entering the country on a motorcycling trip
The “terrified” family of a British couple jailed for 10 years in Iran on spying charges have said they have lost all contact with them.
Lindsay and Craig Foreman, both 53, were arrested in January 2025 while travelling through Iran during an around-the-world trip by motorcycle.
Continue reading...Emirates’ foreign ministry rejects claims that Netanyahu visited country, describing them as ‘baseless’
Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed he made a secret trip to the United Arab Emirates at the height of the Iran war to meet the president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
“This visit has led to a historic breakthrough in relations between Israel and the UAE,” the Israeli prime minister’s office said on Wednesday night.
Continue reading...If current precarious ceasefire between US and Iran ends, Emirates are more likely to be targeted by Tehran
The risk of some Gulf states becoming embroiled in a direct war with Iran has risen after it was reported the United Arab Emirates had secretly launched a major attack on Iran during the conflict.
In addition, Kuwait has said that at least four members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had been captured trying to carry out “terrorist attacks” on the Kuwaiti-owned Bubiyan Island, the largest island in the Kuwaiti coastal chain.
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