LIVE: UAE under attack from Iran for second day in a row

The UAE has declared it is responding to a missile threat from Iran as the country’s air defence systems are activated.

In a social media post, authorities said: ‘The UAE’s air defenses are currently dealing with missile and drone attacks originating from Iran.

‘The Ministry of Defense confirms that the sounds heard in scattered areas of the country are the result of the UAE’s air defense systems intercepting ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones.

‘UAE Air Defences system are actively engaging with missiles and UAV threats.’

Portugal’s government will request parliament’s approval in the coming weeks to impose a windfall tax on energy companies profiting from an energy price surge amid the Iran war.

Portugal, along with Germany, Italy, Spain and Austria, sent a letter to the European Commission in April, calling for such a tax at a European level, but Brussels left it up to individual countries to decide.

Miranda Sarmento said Portugal ‘would seek the highest possible level of coordination’ with other countries and ‘learn from each other about potential measures that each may be preparing.’

‘We will take the measures adopted in 2022, recalibrate them, improve them and, in the near term, present a proposal to parliament,’ Miranda Sarmento told reporters in Brussels, referring to the previous energy price shock after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

He said the current situation differed from 2022 as overall inflationary pressures are now far lower, with core inflation – excluding food and energy – running at around 2.2%.

Although the centre-right government holds only a minority of seats in parliament, the proposal is expected to be approved with the backing of the Socialist Party, which introduced the mechanism in 2022.

Lebanese president Joseph Aoun has said he is open to hosting soldiers from France and other European nations after the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) leaves at the end of the year.

He said on X that Lebanon ‘welcomes the willingness of France and other European countries to keep their forces in the south after the beginning of the withdrawal of UNIFIL, in order to help the Lebanese army maintain security and stability, provided that the framework under which these forces will operate is defined in consultation with the concerned countries and the United Nations.’

The IRGC has warned vessels in the Strait of Hormuz to only travel through approved routes, or else face a ‘decisive response.’

It said: ‘We warn all vessels that intend to transit the strait, the only safe route… is the corridor previously announced by Iran.

‘The diversion of vessels to other routes is unsafe and will face a decisive response from the IRGC Navy.’

A lawyer for the now-defunct Spirit Airlines today said that sharply higher jet fuel prices left ‘no remaining way out’ of bankruptcy and forced the budget carrier’s shutdown, as it seeks approval for an expedited plan to sell off assets and pay retention bonuses to remaining employees.

Marshall Huebner, a lawyer for the airline, said at a US Bankruptcy Court hearing that the airline learned on Thursday afternoon that the government financing initiative would not be proceeding and apologised to customers and the American public on behalf of the carrier.

The Trump administration had proposed a $500million bailout last month to help Spirit exit bankruptcy but faced objections from some creditors.

Huebner said that after the airline learned on Thursday that the government financing initiative would not be happening, the airline transported 50,000 passengers on Friday as it sought to wind down operations before it made the news public.

Global carriers are contending with surging jet fuel prices since the US-Israeli strikes on Iran disrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, in the air travel industry’s worst crisis since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Spirit was already struggling to turn a profit before the fuel shock and has faced $100million in incremental fuel costs since March 1.

He noted that the airline faced many hundreds of millions of dollars in high fuel costs for the rest of the year.

Spirit is seeking court approval to pay $10.7million in retention bonuses to employees who remain as the company ends operations – averaging $76,000 per participant – and will pay more to the top three executives but has not yet disclosed how much.

The US Trustee, the Justice Department’s bankruptcy watchdog, has raised concerns about the bonuses.

Spirit says it does not have money to conduct an organized auction of its aircraft, engines and other equipment, and is asking the court for permission for fast sales or to abandon and let the lenders repossess.

Donald Trump has said Iran will be on the agenda when he meets China’s Xi Jinping in Beijing next week.

He said: ‘I’ll be talking about that, that’ll be one subject. But, he’s been very nice about this.’

In a chilling statement made in the Oval Office, Trump said Iran needs to do the ‘smart thing’ as the US does not want to ‘kill people.’

He said: ‘They should do the smart thing because we don’t want to go in and kill people, we really don’t, I don’t want to, it’s too tough.

‘Great people, I know the people, I have so many Iranian friends from New York and from other places over the years, they’re great people, I don’t want to kill those people.’

He added that he ‘hopes’ the Iranian economy fails as he wants to ‘win.’

Trump said: ‘It is failing. We have sanctions on them, tremendous sanctions [Treasury Secretary] Scott Bessent’s done a great job. We have sanctions that nobody has ever seen before.’

He claimed Iran’s currency was now ‘worthless.’

Eyal Zamir, the head of Israel’s army, says the nation is closely monitoring the latest developments in the Gulf.

He added: ‘We are ready to respond forcefully against any attempt to harm Israel.’

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump was asked what Iran would have to do to violate the ceasefire, following yesterday’s hostilities.

He said: ‘You’ll find out because I’ll let you know. They know what to do, and they know what not to do more importantly, actually.’

Donald Trump appeared to describe the US-Iran exchange of fire in the Strait of Hormuz as a ‘little skirmish’ as he reiterated Tehran has been ‘beaten badly’ in the war.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said:

We hit an all time high in the stock market today, despite that little skirmish. I call it a skirmish because Iran has no chance. They never did. They know it. They express it to me when I talk to them. Then they get on television, they say how well they’re doing.

And on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the President reiterated Iran will never be capable of developing a weapon.

He added:

These are sick people, and we’re not going to let lunatics have a nuclear weapon. The power of a nuclear weapon is something I don’t even want to talk about. But it’s not going to happen. And we have beaten them badly.

Donald Trump has said Iran ‘doesn’t like playing games’ with the US in remarks made at the White House.

The President thanked Pete Hegseth for a ‘great news conference’ earlier today as he signed a proclamation to revive the Presidential fitness tests in American schools.

In his opening remarks inside the Oval Office, he said:

They [Iran] don’t like playing games with us. They don’t like it at all. You’ll see that as time goes by, you’re going to see it. I think you’ve already seen it. We’ve basically wiped out their military in about two weeks.

FIFA has invited the Iranian football federation (FFIRI) to its headquarters for talks over the country’s participation at this year’s World Cup, a source has told AFP.

Iran’s presence at the tournament, held in the US, Canada and Mexico between June 11 and July 19, has been shrouded in uncertainty since the eruption of war in the Middle East in February following strikes by the US and Israel.

The source said FIFA had asked the FFIRI to visit its Zurich base ‘by May 20 to prepare for the World Cup’.

Last week, FIFA president Gianni Infantino reiterated Iran will play their World Cup games in the United States as scheduled.

‘Let me start by the outset, confirming straightaway that of course Iran will be participating at the FIFA World Cup 2026,’ Infantino said as he addressed delegates at the FIFA Congress in Vancouver.

‘And of course, Iran will play (in) the United States of America’.