International News
US, Iran in counter threats over Strait of Hormuz
As the stand-off over the Strait of Hormuz continued, following its effective blockade by Iran, the US and the gulf state are trading threats of further destruction of energy and oil infrastructure across the Middle East with US President, Donald Trump, saying Tehran would face possible obliteration of its energy facilities if it failed to reopen the channel within 48 hours.
In a swift response, Iran threatened to irreversibly destroy US-linked energy sites across the Middle East if its power plants were targeted.
The 48 hours deadline expires today.
Trump’s ultimatum came hours after two Iranian missiles struck southern Israeli towns of Arad and Dimona, injuring more than 160 people in the most destructive attack since the war began.
This, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed to retaliate “on all fronts”.
Iran had blocked the vital waterway, which carries a fifth of global crude oil trade in peacetime, as its key leverage in the war.
The standoff has sent crude oil prices soaring, with North Sea Brent crude now trading above $105 a barrel, as long-term consequences for the global economy become an acute concern.
The ultimatum, made just a day after the US president said he was considering winding down military operations after three weeks of war, came as the key oil passage remained effectively closed and thousands more US Marines headed to the Middle East.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Tehran had imposed restrictions only on vessels from countries involved in attacks against Iran, and would assist others that stayed out of the conflict.
Meanwhile, issuing the threat via his Truth Social, Trump said that the US would “hit and obliterate various Iran power plants starting with the biggest one first if Tehran did not fully reopen the strait within 48 hours.”
Reinforcing Trump’s threat, US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, said the US may need to “escalate” its attacks against Iran to be able to wind down the war.
Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if Trump was winding down or escalating the war, Bessent said: “They’re not mutually exclusive. Sometimes you have to escalate to de-escalate.”
“This is the only language the Iranians understand,” he argued.
Iran threatens US-linked Gulf energy sites after
In response to Trump’s threat, Iran’s army said it would target energy and desalination infrastructure belonging to the US and the regime in the region, according to the Fars news agency.
In a post on X, speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf,
said that vital infrastructure, energy and oil facilities throughout the region will be considered “legitimate targets” and would be destroyed in an irreversible manner.
“Immediately after the power plants and infrastructure in our country are targeted, the critical infrastructure, energy infrastructure, and oil facilities throughout the region will be considered legitimate targets and will be destroyed in an irreversible manner, and the price of oil will remain high for a long time,” Ghalibaf said.
Similarly, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence unit in a post on X published by the IRGC affiliated Fars News Agency, said that it is thinking “beyond just the region”.
The post explained that this referred to a “red target bank” of technological and political targets in response to threats against power plants, suggesting that action could be taken “in less than 48 hours”.
The post also lists several achievements the IRGC claimed to have made during the war, including what it described as the “consolidation of power in the Strait,” and “control of global energy.”
To completely shut down the strait
Besides the threats of targeting energy infrastructure across the region, Iran’s military also threatened to completely shut down the strategic Strait of Hormuz if Trump acts on threats to target the country’s power plants.
“If the United States’ threats regarding Iran’s power plants are carried out… the Strait of Hormuz will be completely closed, and it will not be reopened until our destroyed power plants are rebuilt,” the military’s operational command, Khatam Al-Anbiya, said in a statement carried by state TV.
The military said it would also strike Israel’s “power plants, energy, and information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure”, along with power plants in regional countries hosting US bases and companies with US shareholders.
It added that the measures will be taken “to defend our country and the interests of our nation”.
Iran charges $2m from ships passing through Strait of Hormuz – Iranian MP
BBC quoted Iranian Member of Parliament, Alaeddin Boroujrrdi, as saying on state TV that some of the ships that pass through the Strait of Hormuz were being charged “ a $2 (£1.5) million fee” by Iran.
He said that a “new governing regime” was being imposed in the Strait claiming that “war has costs”. According to him, the closure of the Strait shows the “authority and right that the Islamic Republic of Iran possesses”.
Iran’s deadly strikes on southern Israel injures 160
Meanwhile, retaliating against Israel’s strike on its Natanz nuclear facility, Iran struck southern Israel towns of Arad and Dimona, injuring more than 160 people in the most destructive attack since the war began. The Israel prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed to retaliate “on all fronts”
The strikes, which slipped through Israel’s missile defence systems, tore open the facades of residential buildings and carved craters into the ground.
First responders said 84 people were injured in the town of Arad, 10 of them seriously. Hours earlier, 33 were wounded in nearby Dimona, where AFPTV footage showed a large hole gouged into the ground next to piles of rubble and twisted metal.
Dimona hosts a facility widely believed to be the site of the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, although Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons.
The Israeli army told Agence France-Presse there had been a direct missile hit on a building in Dimona, with casualties reported at multiple sites, including a 10-year-old boy in serious condition with shrapnel wounds.
Iran said the targeting of Dimona was retaliation for Israeli strikes on its Natanz nuclear facility, with the IRGC saying forces also targeted other southern Israeli towns as well as military sites in Kuwait and the UAE.
The Natanz facility hosts underground centrifuges used to enrich uranium for Iran’s disputed nuclear programme; it sustained damage in the June 2025 war.
The Israeli military denied it was behind the Natanz strike, but said it had struck a facility at a Tehran university that it claimed was being used to develop nuclear weapon components for Iran’s ballistic missile programme.
Attacks on nuclear sites create escalating threat to public health, WHO chief warns
The Iran war has reached a “perilous stage” as both sides target nuclear facilities, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has warned.
Ghebreyesus said the International Atomic Energy Agency was looking into both attacks.
“No indications of abnormal or increased off-site radiation levels have been reported,” he said in a post on X.
But he added: “Attacks targeting nuclear sites create an escalating threat to public health and environmental safety.
“Since the outbreak of hostilities, WHO has provided critical training to its own staff and UN personnel across 13 countries to help them respond effectively to public health threats in the event of a nuclear incident.
“I urgently call on all parties to exercise maximum military restraint and avoid any actions that could trigger nuclear incidents.
“Peace is the best medicine.”
US President Donald Trump says he is “not a big fan” of Pope Leo XIV, after the global leader of Catholics made a plea for peace amid the war in the Middle East.
The 70-year-old American pope publicly implored leaders on Saturday to end the violence, telling worshippers at St Peter’s Basilica: “Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!”
“I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo. He’s a very liberal person, and he’s a man that doesn’t believe in stopping crime,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
He accused the pontiff of “toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon.”
Trump later doubled down on his comments to reporters with a post on Truth Social, saying: “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” he said.
The president added that Leo had only been elected “because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.”
“If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”
Trump later posted an AI-generated image seemingly depicting himself as Jesus Christ.
In the image, the president appears dressed in red and white robes as he cures a man with his healing hand. The American flag is shown over his shoulder.
Trump and the White House have previously shared AI-generated images, including one that showed the president dressed as the pope.
On Friday, a Vatican official denied reports that a top Pentagon official gave the church’s envoy to the United States a “bitter lecture” over Pope Leo’s criticisms of the Trump administration.
The story in the Free Press — which the Pentagon had already dismissed as “distorted” — reported that Cardinal Christophe Pierre was summoned in January to the Pentagon, where he was given a dressing-down by US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby.
The military official reportedly told the cardinal that the United States “has the military power to do whatever it wants — and that the Church had better take its side.”
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement “the account presented by certain media outlets regarding this meeting does not correspond to the truth in any way.”
While both parties insist the meeting was cordial, the Holy See and the White House have openly been at odds over the Trump administration’s hardline mass deportation campaign — which the pope called “inhuman” — and the use of military force in the Middle East and Venezuela.
When Trump made genocidal threats against Iran Tuesday — saying “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” — the pontiff slammed the “truly unacceptable” statement and urged parties to “come back to the table” for negotiations.
Earlier this month, Pope Leo hailed the news of a ceasefire between the United States and Iran as a “sign of real hope.”
But peace talks between the United States and Iran, held in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, ended abruptly and without a resolution on Saturday, with US Vice President JD Vance telling reporters after a marathon-session of talks that Washington has delivered its “final and best offer.”
Pep Guardiola has explained the reason for Manchester City’s resurgence as they push for the Premier League title.
The win lifts City to 64 points from 31 games, cutting the deficit to leaders Arsenal—who have 70 points from 32 matches—to just six points, ramping up the title race in the closing stages of the campaign.
Asked why Manchester City have been in such fine form in the final stages of the season, Pep Guardiola joked: “The sun! If it had been shining in November, we’d have been league champions by January… No, I’m joking, of course. In Manchester, the sun doesn’t shine very often.”
Looking ahead to next Sunday’s 32nd-round clash with Arsenal in the Premier League, he added: “That game will feel like a final for both teams, but there is a tactical detail we need to review, so we may make some adjustments.
“Everyone is talking about the Arsenal game, but matches against Brentford, Bournemouth and the other sides are just as important. The season is still long.”
Guardiola added “We’re in better shape, and in training everyone knows exactly what they have to do. We’ve faced three strong opponents, three Champions League teams. We didn’t put in a complete performance for the full 90 minutes, but we were organised enough, didn’t concede many chances, and our attacking threat was always there.”
Pep Guardiola
He added:One of our secrets as a club and a system is that, after one success after another, we have remained humble and have always asked ourselves: what must we do to stay at the top? Winning once or twice is normal, but to remain at the top for nine years—with the exception of last season—reflects the strength of the entire system.”
Their dramatic grand finale fast approaching, Artemis II’s astronauts aimed for a splashdown in the Pacific on Friday to close out humanity’s first voyage to the moon in more than half a century.
The tension in Mission Control mounted as the miles melted away between the four returning astronauts and Earth.
All eyes were on the capsule’s life-protecting heat shield that has to withstand thousands of degrees during reentry. On the only other test flight of the spacecraft — in 2022, with no one on board — the shield’s charred exterior came back looking as pockmarked as the moon.
Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen were on track to hit the atmosphere traveling Mach 32 — or 32 times the speed of sound — a blistering blur not seen since NASA’s Apollo moonshots of the 1960s and 1970s.
They didn’t plan on taking manual control except in an emergency. Their Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, is completely self-flying.
Like so many others, lead flight director Jeff Radigan anticipated feeling some of that “irrational fear that is human nature,” especially during the six minutes of communication blackout preceding the opening of the parachutes. The recovery ship USS John P. Murtha awaited the crew’s arrival, along with a squadron of military planes and helicopters.
The last time NASA and the Defense Department teamed up for a lunar crew’s reentry was Apollo 17 in 1972. Artemis II was projected to come screaming back at 34,965 feet (10,657 meters) per second — or 23,840 mph (38,367 kph) — not a record but still mind-bogglingly fast before slowing to a 19 mph (30 kph) splashdown.
Artemis II’s record flyby and lunar views
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Launched from Florida on April 1, the astronauts racked up one win after another as they deftly navigated NASA’s long-awaited lunar comeback, the first major step in establishing a sustainable moon base.
Artemis II didn’t land on the moon or even orbit it. But it broke Apollo 13’s distance record, making Wiseman and his crew the farthest that humans have ever journeyed from Earth when they reached 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers). Then, in the mission’s most heart-tugging scene, the teary astronauts asked permission to name a pair of craters after their moonship and Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll.
During the record-breaking flyby, they documented scenes of the lunar far side never seen before by the naked eye and savored a total solar eclipse courtesy of the cosmos thanks to their launch date. The eclipse, in particular, “just blew all of us away,” Glover said.
Their sense of wonder and love awed everyone, as did their breathtaking pictures of the moon and Earth. The Artemis II crew channeled Apollo 8’s first lunar explorers with Earthset, showing our blue marble setting behind the gray moon. It was reminiscent of Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise shot from 1968.
“It just makes you want to continue to go back,” Radigan said on the eve of splashdown. “It’s the first of many trips, and we just need to continue on because there’s so much” more to learn about the moon.
Their moonshot drew global attention as well as star power, earning props from President Donald Trump; Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney; Britain’s King Charles III; Ryan Gosling, star of the latest space flick “Project Hail Mary;” Scarlett Johansson of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; and even Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner of TV’s original “Star Trek.”
Artemis II was a test flight for future moon missions
Despite its rich scientific yield, the nearly 10-day flight was not without technical issues. Both the capsule’s drinking water and propellant systems were hit with valve problems. In perhaps the most high-profile predicament, toilet trouble prevented the crew from using it for No. 1 most of the trip, forcing them to resort to old-time bags and funnels.
The astronauts shrugged it all off.
“We can’t explore deeper unless we are doing a few things that are inconvenient,” Koch said, “unless we’re making a few sacrifices, unless we’re taking a few risks, and those things are all worth it.”
Added Hansen: “You do a lot of testing on the ground, but your final test is when you get this hardware to space, and it’s a doozy.”
Under the revamped Artemis program, next year’s Artemis III will see astronauts practice docking their capsule with a lunar lander or two in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will attempt to land a crew of two near the moon’s south pole in 2028.
The Artemis II crew’s allegiance was to those next Artemis crews, Wiseman said.
“But we really hoped in our soul is that we could for just for a moment have the world pause and remember that this is a beautiful planet and a very special place in our universe, and we should all cherish what we have been gifted,” he said.
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