LIVE: Countries warn global energy crisis is now ‘critical’

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has declared the time has come for negotiations with Iran to reopen the blocked Strait of Hormuz given the perilous energy situation around the globe.

Speaking in Australia at the conclusion of a new free-trade agreement between the EU and Australia, she said: ‘The situation is critical for the energy supply allies worldwide.

‘We all feel the knock-on effects on gas and oil prices, our businesses and our societies, but it is of utmost importance that we come to a solution that is negotiated, and this puts an end to the hostilities that we see in the Middle East.’

Navy warships like HMS Dragon will not be deployed to Strait of Hormuz

by Mark Nicol, Defence Editor

Officials have confirmed that while the UK and France and leading international efforts to draw together a naval coalition to secure the Strait of Hormuz, no Royal Navy warships will deploy to the crucial waterway before the warring parties have agreed a ceasefire.

The UK is planning to send a combination of crewed ships, and autonomous sea drones designed to identify and destroy mines but only once the United States and Israel have reached an agreement with Iran.

Iran has mined the Strait though it is unclear how many explosives devices it has positioned. There is a clear path through the Strait as Iran has been permitted small numbers of Indian, Chinese, Pakistani and Turkish cargo cessels to pass through.

The cash strapped Royal Navy is looking into leasing commercial ships to operate alongside the undercrewed systems

by Mark Nicol, Defence Editor

A British Special Forces base in northern Iraq repelled a record 14 Iranian suicide drones last night in a dramatic escalation of the conflict.

Despite US President Donald Trump offering an olive branch to the Tehran regime, its military launched its biggest attack yet on UK troops.

Confirmation has been sought from the Ministry of Defence regarding whether any British troops were wounded as the deadly drones rained down.

The Special Forces base in Erbil, in the Kurdish-controlled sector of Northern Iraq, has been singled out by Iran over recent weeks.

Following previous attacks Italian troops withdrew from the base. A French soldier is also understood to have been killed by projectiles there, after a previous attack.

The 14 drones were shot out of the night sky by troops from the elite Royal Air Force Regiment who are specialists in protecting bases using ground to air rocket systems.

Today, a senior Western official said: ‘The Iranians retain the ability to fire ballistics. While the US is focusing on destroying the industrial base. The attack on Erbil came after a reduction in tempo at the time of Eid [the end of Ramadan].

Israeli defence minister Israel Katz has said the military will take control of south Lebanon all the way to the Litani river.

‘All five bridges over the Litani that were used by Hezbollah for the passage of terrorists and weapons have been blown up, and the IDF (Israeli military) will control the rest of the bridges and the security zone up to the Litani,’ Katz said during a visit to a military command centre in Israel.

Katz added that the hundreds of thousands of south Lebanon residents who were displaced by the Middle East war this month ‘will not return south of the Litani River until security is guaranteed for the residents of the north’ of Israel.

by Eliana Silver, Senior Foreign News Reporter

This is the uncomfortable moment Donald Trump appeared to shift blame onto Pete Hegseth, as the US President suggested his Secretary of War came up with the idea of striking Iran.

Speaking Monday at a conference in Tennessee, Trump said: ‘I called a lot of our great people… and I said, “Let’s talk. We got a problem in the Middle East. We have a country known as Iran that, for 47 years, has been just a purveyor of terror, and they’re close to a nuclear weapon.”’

Turning to Hegseth who was sitting to his right, Trump added: ‘And Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up. And you said, “Let’s do it, because you can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”‘

The defense secretary forced an awkward smile as the US President continued discussing ongoing talks with Iran, claiming they had ‘started last night.’

‘I think they’re very good. They want peace to– they’ve agreed they will not have a nuclear weapon, you know etc., etc., but we’ll see. You have to get it done. But I would say there’s a very good chance.’

Germany’s president said the Iran war is a ‘disastrous mistake’ and likened Donald Trump’s actions to Vladimir Putin.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the conflict breaches international law in an unusually blunt rebuke of Trump’s foreign policy.

‘Our foreign policy does not become more convincing just because we do not call a breach of international law a breach of international law,’ Steinmeier, a former foreign minister from the centre-left Social Democratic Party, said in a speech at the foreign ministry.

‘We must address this with regard to the war in Iran. For, in my view, this war is contrary to international law,’ he said.

Calling the war unnecessary and a ‘politically disastrous mistake’, Steinmeier said Trump’s second term marked a rupture in German foreign relations as profound as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

‘Just as I believe there will be no going back in relations with Russia to before February 24, 2022, so too do I believe there will be no going back in transatlantic relations to before January 20, 2025.’

Astonishing images have captured moment Palestinian villagers in the Israeli occupied West Bank inspected a missile fired by Iran.

Remnants of the missile strike landed in Haris, near Salfit, earlier this morning.

Israel’s military reported that it detected multiple waves of missiles launched from Iran towards Israel throughout the morning

by James Gordon, US News Reporter

Stock and oil futures exploded in a sudden and unexplained burst of trading just minutes before President Donald Trump revealed a market-moving update on Iran on Monday morning.

At approximately 6:50am in New York, S&P 500 e-mini futures on the CME registered a sharp and highly unusual spike in volume, breaking from an otherwise quiet premarket session, reports CNBC.

At nearly the exact same moment, West Texas Intermediate oil crude futures also saw a sudden surge in activity, interrupting the typically subdued early-morning trading conditions.

Then, at 7:05am, roughly 15 minutes later, Trump posted on Truth Social that the United States had engaged in talks with Iran and that he was halting planned strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure.

The sequence is now raising questions about whether someone may have acted on advance knowledge of the president’s announcement.

An aerial view of the Strait of Hormuz

Bahrain has tabled a draft UN Security Council resolution that would allow countries to use force to protect commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, it has been reported.

According to the text seen by Reuters, nations will be authorised to use ‘all necessary means’ – diplomatic language for force – to protect the strait.

Diplomats said the draft text was backed by other Gulf Arab states and the United States, although they said it was unlikely to get through the council, where Russia and China had veto power.

The move underscores mounting concern in the region that Iran could continue to threaten the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic chokepoint that carries about a fifth of global oil supplies and underpins Gulf economies.

Closing the Strait has been one of Iran’s main objectives. Shipping through the waterway has ground to a near-⁠halt after Iran hit vessels in its conflict with the US and Israel.

The draft resolution calls Iran’s actions a threat to international peace and security.

by Sabrina Penty, Foreign News Reporter

Iran is believed to be down to its last 1,000 missiles as the country continues to batter Israel and the Gulf Arab states.

At the beginning of the war, the Islamic Republic had an arsenal of about 2,500 projectiles, according to Israeli think tank the Alma Research Centre.

But a new report by the centre suggests its stock has been reduced to about 1,000 missiles.

Iran was launching dozens of missiles a day at the start of the conflict, but Tehran’s firing rate has fallen significantly.

The country is now striking Israel with around 10 missiles a day, suggesting that Tehran’s ability to carry out retaliatory strikes has reduced as the conflict in the Middle East approaches its one-month mark.

But Iran has shown resilience before, with experts at Alma Research Centre saying that at the end of the 12-day war last year, Tehran was left with about 1,500 missiles. Still, within eight months, it was able to manufacture another 1,000.

Donald Trump appears determined to reach a deal with Iran aimed at ending hostilities in the Middle East, three senior Israeli officials have said.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it is unlikely that Iran would agree to US demands in any new round of negotiations, which broke down on February 28 with the launch of Operation Epic Fury.

Those demands were likely to include curbs on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

Trump wrote on social media on Monday that the U.S. and Iran had held ‘very good and productive’ conversations about a ‘complete and total resolution of hostilities in the Middle East’.

Iran said after Trump’s post that no negotiations had taken place.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Trump believed there was a possibility of ‘leveraging the mighty achievements obtained by the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) and the U.S. military, in order to realize the goals of the war in a deal – a deal that will preserve our vital interests.’

Donald Trump listens to US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff

by Andrew Jehring, Natalie Lisbona, Mark Nicol and Adam Pogrund

Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy has reportedly travelled to Pakistan to hold peace talks with Iran as the regime’s feared missile barrage across the Gulf failed to materialise.

Pakistan has offered to act as a mediator between the US and Iran – and Steve Witkoff’s arrival in Islamabad has sparked hopes of a diplomatic end to the war.

It comes after the US President dramatically pulled back from the brink on his threat to ‘obliterate’ Iran’s power plants within 48 hours.

As the hours ticked down to a deadline for the mullahs to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, he suddenly claimed Tehran was on the cusp of agreeing to ‘no more wars’, ‘no more nuclear weapons’, and ‘regime change’.

Mr Trump said there would be a ‘five-day’ pause on energy strikes after his talks with ‘the most respected’ leader left in the Islamic Republic, whom he refused to name.

But within minutes, officials in Iran said it was ‘fake news’ and a ‘phantom negotiation’ designed to manipulate the financial markets, and denied any direct talks with Washington.