Workers in India’s textile hub Surat are returning home after days without cooking gas, as an LPG crisis linked to Iran war disruptions halts supplies. Industries face shutdowns, while authorities invoke emergency measures to prioritise households.
Published On 20 Mar 202620 Mar 2026
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How Iran’s power structure was built, and how it survives its architect.
After a US-Israeli strike killed Iran’s Ali Khamenei, the war on Iran escalates, and the Islamic Republic faces a critical moment. Mojtaba Khamenei has been elected supreme leader, marking a rare and controversial succession. This explainer breaks down how Iran’s power structure was built after the 1979 Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and how Ali Khamenei transformed that revolution into a complex political and security structure.
We examine how the supreme leader sits above all institutions in Iran, shaping decisions across government, the military, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and how this system is designed to endure beyond any single leader. As Mojtaba Khamenei takes power, questions grow over how Iran will be governed, how the IRGC will influence decision-making, and whether the system Ali Khamenei built can withstand both internal pressure and external conflict.
From Ali Khamenei to Mojtaba Khamenei, this is the story of Iran’s supreme leader, the system behind power in Iran, and what comes next.
Published On 20 Mar 202620 Mar 2026
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Air raid sirens sounded across Kuwait City as Iran targeted US assets with missiles and drones. Footage shows alerts sounding as the call to Eid al-Fitr prayers was made at a mosque.
Published On 20 Mar 202620 Mar 2026
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Volodymyr Zelenskyy says ‘clear dates’ needed as Ukrainian negotiators prepare for discussions in US.
Published On 20 Mar 202620 Mar 2026
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukrainian negotiators will push for a clear timeframe for the next round of Russia talks, as diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have been paused amid the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Zelenskyy said Kyiv wants “clear dates – at least approximate ones” for the negotiations.
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“Everyone understands that the situation in the Middle East, the war, is affecting the postponement of this date,” he said.
Zelenskyy’s comments come as Ukrainian negotiators are set to hold talks in the United States on Saturday on US-brokered attempts to reach an agreement to end the more than four-year Russia-Ukraine war.
Previous rounds of negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow in Geneva and Abu Dhabi failed to yield a breakthrough.
The main sticking point has been territory, with Russia pushing for Ukraine to give up the remaining 20 percent of the eastern region of Donetsk that Russian forces have failed to capture.
Kyiv has refused that demand while calling for robust security guarantees from its Western allies to prevent any other Russian attack should an agreement to end the war be reached.
“We have received signals from the US side indicating readiness to continue working within the existing negotiation formats to bring an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in a social media post on Thursday.
“There has been a pause in the talks, and it is time to resume them. We are doing everything to ensure that the negotiations are genuinely substantive.”
A senior Kremlin official indicated on Friday that a new round of US-mediated negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv will likely take place soon.
“The pause is temporary, we hope it’s temporary regarding the continuation of the trilateral format,” he said.
Amid the Iran war, Ukraine’s European allies have sought to reassure Kyiv that their attention remains focused on maintaining pressure on Russia to end the war.
“There is obviously a conflict in Iran going on, in the Middle East, but we can’t lose focus on what’s going on in Ukraine and the need for our support there,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said this week after meeting with Zelenskyy in London.
European countries also have raised concerns about a decision by US President Donald Trump’s administration to waive sanctions on some Russian oil supplies in a bid to offset soaring energy costs linked to the Iran war.
On Friday, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian officials at the US talks on Saturday would discuss the recent “dangerous” decision to ease those sanctions on the Russian energy sector.
Health and environment advocacy groups in the United States are suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw a key 2009 climate change ruling known as the “endangerment finding”.
That finding had established that greenhouse gases are a risk to public health and environmental safety, given that they are the primary drivers of climate change. It formed the legal basis for many regulatory policies aimed at curbing climate change.
When US President Donald Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax” and a “con job”, rescinded the declaration in February this year, the EPA supported the move, deeming it the “single largest deregulatory action in US history”.
The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday this week, alleges that the Trump administration’s decision will risk the health and welfare of US citizens.
“Repealing the Endangerment Finding endangers all of us. People everywhere will face more pollution, higher costs, and thousands of avoidable deaths,” Peter Zalzal, the associate vice president of clean air strategies at the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
Trump’s revocation of the endangerment finding is the latest in a series of steps he has taken to prioritise deregulation, boost fossil fuel production and reverse climate regulations.
But Trump is not the first US president to enact policy damaging to the environment. Here’s how decades of US policy have harmed the environment before he arrived in the White House
The endangerment finding was established under the presidency of Democrat Barack Obama. It states that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare.
That ruling allowed the EPA under President Obama to move forward on policy aimed at limit the release of greenhouse gases in the US, Michael Kraft, professor emeritus of political science and public and environmental affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, told Al Jazeera.
Under the endangerment finding, power plants were required to meet federal limits on carbon emissions or risk being shut down. This forced oil and gas companies to invest more to detect and fix methane leaks, curb flaring, and improve tailpipe and fuel‑economy standards to enable automobile companies to manufacture more efficient, lower‑emitting vehicles.
“By allowing for increased pollution, these recent changes [by the Trump administration] will harm practically every single person on the planet,” Washington, DC-based policy researcher Brett Heinz told Al Jazeera.
“People living near fossil fuel facilities will be some of the most immediately affected, as they will be exposed to the new air and water pollution unleashed by deregulatory policies,” Heinz added.
Without the endangerment finding in place, the EPA has lost a key legal basis on which to limit greenhouse gas emissions, making it easier for coal plants, oil refineries and petrochemical complexes to run older, dirtier equipment for longer, expand without installing modern pollution controls, and emit more soot, smog‑forming gases and toxic chemicals into nearby communities.
Heinz explained that higher greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels in power plants, cars and industry as well as continued deforestation will also amplify the dangers posed by natural disasters. This is because increased warming exacerbates heatwaves, storms, floods and droughts, and raises sea levels – all of which turn existing natural hazards into more frequent and more destructive disasters.
“The only people who will benefit from these decisions are a small handful of wealthy fossil fuel executives and shareholders, who will see healthy profits while the world grows sick. These fossil fuel elites, many of whom contributed money to Trump’s presidential campaign, have now gotten a return on this investment,” Heinz said.
Experts say that Trump’s decision to entirely do away with environmental policy is unlike any president before him.
“The White House’s tidal wave of new pro-pollution policies is completely unprecedented. While past administrations have modified environmental rules, the second Trump administration is essentially trying to eliminate them entirely. So far, this has been the most radically anti-environmental presidency in American history,” Heinz said.
Trump is by no means the first US president to enact policy which is damaging to the environment, however.
Under Republican Theodore Roosevelt, who was president from 1901 to 1909, Congress passed the Reclamation (Newlands) Act of 1902, which treated land and rivers primarily as raw material for large infrastructure projects rather than as ecosystems in need of protection.
This was furthered by Democrat Harry Truman, who was president from 1945 to 1953 and pushed for rapid post‑war industrial and suburban expansion by commissioning the construction of interstate highways and promoting car‑centric development.
Under Republican Dwight Eisenhower, who was president from 1953 to 1961, the interstate highway system burgeoned, and the private car became a developmental priority in the US.
While Republican Richard Nixon, who was president from 1969 to 1974, signed key environmental laws, he also backed massive fossil‑fuel expansion. Under Nixon, the highly toxic herbicide, known as Agent Orange, was used by the US military during the Vietnam War.
Republican Ronald Reagan, who was president from 1981 to 1989, appointed people to the EPA and the Department of Interior who pushed for expanded oil, gas, coal and timber extraction on public lands.
To facilitate this, they favoured deregulation and industry interests, and rolled back existing environmental policy, slashing budgets for EPA enforcement of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, easing rules on toxic emissions and pesticides, and opening up more federal land – including wilderness and wildlife habitat – to oil, gas, mining and logging activities.
Republican George W Bush, who was president from 2001 to 2009, refused to ratify the 1997 UN-backed emissions reductions Kyoto Protocol and actively undermined global climate negotiations by formally withdrawing US support for Kyoto in 2001, appointing senior officials who questioned climate science, and pushing voluntary, industry-friendly approaches instead of binding emissions cuts.
While Obama, who was president from 2009 to 2017, introduced several landmark climate regulations, he also oversaw the fracking boom, making the US the world’s largest oil and gas producer, and locking in long-term fossil infrastructure.
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, involves blasting water, sand and chemicals into shale rock to release oil and gas, a process believed to cause methane leaks, groundwater contamination, heavy water use and increased local air pollution.
Democrat Joe Biden, who was president from 2021 to 2024, approved large fossil projects such as the Willow project in Alaska. This involved oil development on federal land in the National Petroleum Reserve, projected to pump hundreds of millions of barrels of crude over several decades.
Figures released by the the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) suggested that the project would release 239 million to 280 million tonnes of greenhouse gases over its lifetime. The project, approved in 2023 and ongoing, was projected to continue for 30 years.
Biden also backed LNG export growth by approving new and expanded export terminals and long‑term export licences, allowing companies to lock into multidecade contracts to ship US gas to Europe and Asia.
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“The failure of US policymakers to aggressively tackle global warming is not so much a Democrat versus Republican matter,” Steinberg said.
“It’s neoliberalism, a form of corporate freedom, that is the heart of the problem. A bipartisan consensus on the need for economic growth has led to a general trend toward weakening environmental regulations,” he added.
The US once led the world in conservation by creating an extensive national park system in the 19th century, Ted Steinberg, a history professor at the US-based Case Western Reserve University, told Al Jazeera.
“That was then. US corporate interests, especially the fossil fuel industry, combined with the one-party political system, in which both Republicans and Democrats indenture themselves to the business class, have caused the United States to drag its feet on global warming,” Steinberg said.
The US has historically been the largest contributor to global warming, experts say.
“As in most countries, US environmental policy has been a response to the problems caused by industrialisation and urbanisation, starting in the mid-19th century and proceeding from there, happening at the local, state and national levels,” Chad Montrie, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, told Al Jazeera.
“Much of that policy has been limited and inadequate, especially when corporations were able to exert their influence, but in some cases, it has been ahead of what other nations were doing,” Montrie, who specialises in environmental history, added.
There was a time when environmental policy was bipartisan. The EPA was, in fact, created by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970.
“It wasn’t until the rise of pro-business politics in the 1980s that Republicans like President Reagan took a hard turn against environmental protections,” Heinz said.
“The Democratic Party continues to believe in environmental protection and climate-friendly policies to some degree, while the Republican Party has become one of the few political parties worldwide that completely denies the scientific facts around climate change.”
“US policy often sets the standards for policy in other parts of the world, both because of its cultural influence and because of the control that the US has over global bodies like the International Monetary Fund,” Heinz said.
“Right now, the US is actively pushing dirty fossil fuels on the rest of the world and even threatening some of its allies for trying to negotiate new environmental agreements.”
Heinz explained that this pressure, coupled with soaring energy prices, seems to have convinced Europe to retreat from some of their climate goals. Household electricity prices jumped by about 20 percent across the European Union between 2021 and 2022, according to Eurostat data.
Heinz said that if the latest United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP negotiations are any indication, global climate ambition appears to be on the decline right now.
The latest conference concluded in November 2025 in Brazil with a draft proposal which did not include a roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels, nor did it mention the term “fossil fuels” at all. This drew rebuke from several countries attending the conference.
“So long as Donald Trump remains in office, the hope of future generations relies upon the nations of the world coming together and acting responsibly to preserve a healthy environment at a time when the United States has gone truly mad.”
March 20 (UPI) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel “acted alone” in striking Iran’s South Pars gas field, an attack that escalated the war in the Middle East and prompted President Donald Trump to declare that the U.S. ally would not target the site again.
Israel attacked the South Pars field on Wednesday. In retaliation, Iran targeted major Persian Gulf energy facilities of U.S. allies, causing damage to Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City and the United Arab Emirates’ Bab gas field.
The tit-for-tat strikes have edged the region closer to all-out war while soaring the price of oil, leading Trump to state the United States had known nothing of Israel’s plans before it struck the South Pars gas field and to threaten Iran if it attacked Qatar again. He also said Israel would not attack Iranian energy infrastructure unless Iran attacked Qatar again.
Trump’s comments and his administration’s rationale for entering the war have come under scrutiny after reporting challenged his claim that Washington had no prior knowledge of the South Pars attack, while critics accused the United States of being lured into the war by Israel.
Speaking to reporters in English on Thursday, Netanyahu mostly backed Trump’s account, saying “Israel acted alone against the Asaluyeh gas compound,” using the name of the nearby Iranian port and industrial complex that is often used as a shorthand for the gas field.
He did not directly address whether Trump or the United States knew of the attack beforehand, but pivoted to state that further attacks would not occur, as the American president had ordered.
“President Trump asked us to hold off on future attacks, and we’re holding off,” he said.
The press conference was held following reporting, including by CNN, citing U.S. and Israeli officials who said the attack had been conducted in coordination with the United States.
It was also held as accusations mount that the United States was dragged into the war by Israel. After the United States launched initial attacks with Israel on Feb. 28, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that it was a preemptive strike to reduce U.S. casualties and deaths because they knew Israel was going to strike Iran and believed Tehran would retaliate against American forces.
The Trump administration has attempted to thwart the notion that Israel forced the United States into war, with officials repeatedly stating that Trump’s decision to attack was not influenced by others.
Netanyahu echoed this sentiment.
“Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do? Come on,” he said. “President Trump always makes his decision on what he thinks is good for America, and may I add, I think what is also good for future generations.”
The United States Commission of Fine Arts, a federal agency, has approved plans for a commemorative gold coin that features one of Donald Trump’s recent presidential portraits.
The commission, made up of Trump appointees, voted unanimously in favour of minting the coin on Thursday. But the legality of such efforts has been repeatedly questioned.
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Federal law prohibits the depiction of living presidents on US currency. Thursday’s coin, however, may sidestep the rule, as it is intended as a commemorative item, not for circulation as currency.
Still, the Trump administration has advanced other plans to put the president’s face on a $1 coin, in addition to the commemorative gold coin.
Critics denounced both initiatives as unlawful and inappropriate for a sitting leader.
“Monarchs and dictators put their faces on coins, not leaders of a democracy,” Senator Jeff Merkley told the news agency Reuters.
The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, a bipartisan federal panel, has previously pushed back against efforts to mint Trump-themed coins.
One of its members, Donald Scarinci, said that the panel and the Commission of Fine Arts are both supposed to approve such designs.
“But we still fully expect them to plough ahead and mint both coins,” Scarinci said of the commission.
The gold coin is set to feature a bald eagle on one side, and Trump on the other, leaning with both fists on the table and staring straight ahead.
The image is a facsimile of a black-and-white image of Trump taken by photographer Daniel Torok and featured in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.
“I know it’s a very strong and a very tough image of him,” said Chamberlain Harris, a Trump aide who was appointed to arts commission earlier this year.
Harris indicated that the Trump gold coin would be as large as possible. The US Mint currently produces coins as large as 7.6 centimetres, or three inches, which is what Harris said the Trump administration would aim for.
“I think the larger the better. The largest of that circulation, I think, would be his preference,” Harris said, referencing her discussions with the president.
Megan Sullivan, the acting chief at the Office of Design Management at the US Mint, also indicated that Trump had given the design his approval.
“It is my understanding that the secretary of the Treasury presented this design, as well as others, to the president, and these were his selection,” Sullivan said.
Since taking office for a second term, Trump has pushed to leave his mark on the federal government.
In addition to the gold coin and $1 coin that are slated to bear his image, he has placed his name on the US Institute of Peace and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Both efforts are the subject of ongoing lawsuits. An act of Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, designating it as a living memorial to the late John F Kennedy, a president who was assassinated in office in 1963.
Likewise, the US Institute of Peace was established by Congress as an independent think tank dedicated to conflict resolution.
It was the subject of a standoff between its leadership and members of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) last March, culminating in its employees being forcibly evicted.
Trump has also placed his face on government buildings around Washington, DC, in the form of long banners.
Even the architecture of the city is changing to reflect his tastes: Last October, he tore down the White House’s East Wing in order to build a massive ballroom, and he has plans to build a triumphal arch in the capital, similar to the one in Paris, France.
Trump has pitched many of the changes as part of the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations, which culminate this July.
At Thursday’s meeting to discuss the gold coin, his officials repeated the argument that celebrating Trump was a good way to mark the anniversary.
“I think it’s fitting to have a current sitting president who’s presiding over the country over the 250th year on a commemorative coin for said year,” said Harris.
Omar Oswaldo Torres, the leader of the Los Mayos faction of the Sinaloa criminal network, was detained in the raid.
Published On 19 Mar 202619 Mar 2026
Mexican authorities have revealed that 11 people were killed during a raid that resulted in the capture of Omar Oswaldo Torres, the leader of a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.
In a social media post on Thursday, the Mexican Navy said the raid took place in Culiacan, part of the state of Sinaloa in northern Mexico.
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It alleged that its personnel were attacked at the site of the raid and returned fire, killing 11 “assailants”. Their identities have yet to be released to the public.
“High-powered weapons and tactical equipment were seized at the scene,” the navy said in a statement.
The navy added that a woman identified as Torres’s daughter was also present during the operation, but she was released to her family due to a lack of connection to criminal activities.
Torres, known by the nickname “El Patas”, is the leader of the Los Mayos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.
In recent years, Los Mayos have been in a fight with another faction, Los Chapitos. Each side is named for a different Sinaloa Cartel leader: Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, both of whom have been arrested and imprisoned in the United States.
Thursday’s raid comes as governments across Latin America seek to deliver US President Donald Trump tangible results in the fight against crime and drug trafficking.
Just this week, the Mexican government participated in a law enforcement operation with Ecuador and Colombia to arrest Angel Esteban Aguilar, the leader of the Los Lobos crime group.
A separate Mexican military operation in the state of Jalisco last month led to the death of Nemesio Oseguera, also known as “El Mencho”, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Criminal groups responded with a burst of violence, including the erection of roadblocks and attacks on security force outposts across Mexico.
Critics have questioned the efficacy of the more militarised methods Trump has pressured Latin American leaders to use against cartel leaders.
Capturing or killing cartel leaders is sometimes referred to as a “decapitation strategy”, and the method is designed to weaken the structure of criminal networks.
But experts warn that the “decapitation strategy” risks increasing violence over the long term, as new conflicts emerge to fill the leadership vacuum.
Many also point out that such militarised approaches fail to address the root causes of crime, among them corruption and poverty.
Still, Trump has labelled groups like the Sinaloa Cartel “foreign terrorist organisations”, and has indicated he would consider taking military action on Mexican soil against such groups, despite concerns that such actions would violate Mexican sovereignty.
Trump told a summit of Latin American leaders earlier this month that he considered Mexico to be the “epicentre” of cartel violence.
“We have to eradicate them,” Trump said of the cartels. “We have to knock the hell out of them because they’re getting worse. They’re taking over their country. The cartels are running Mexico. We can’t have that.”
Mexican officials, meanwhile, have called on the US to stem the flow of illicit weapons into Mexico, to little avail.
Last year, the Supreme Court struck down a lawsuit from the Mexican government accusing US gun manufacturers of negligence, given that their products end up arming criminal networks in the Latin American country.
Iran’s strike on Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas facility will cut an estimated 17% of the country’s Liquefied Natural Gas export capacity for up to five years, officials say. The damage is a major blow to the global energy market, which could disrupt supplies to Europe, Asia and beyond.
Published On 19 Mar 202619 Mar 2026
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March 19 (UPI) — Senate Republicans have blocked a Democrat-led effort to curb President Donald Trump‘s powers to wage war against Iran, as the nearly three-week-old conflict escalates and rattles global energy markets.
The Senate voted 53-47 mostly along party lines Wednesday night to reject a resolution that would withdraw U.S. armed forces from conflict with Iran absent congressional approval.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican to join his Democratic colleagues and vote in favor of the motion, while Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the only member of his caucus to vote against it.
“We do not have a king. We are a democratic republic with a constitution and no one is above the law,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.Y., said Wednesday from the Senate floor before the vote.
“This president cannot take us to war without coming through this body. He is not able to do that unless this body supplicates itself before that man and surrenders its responsibilities.”
Senate Democrats forced the vote on the resolution that Booker sponsored as the conflict escalated on Wednesday, with Iran attacking Persian Gulf energy facilities in retaliation for Israel striking its South Pars gas field.
Thirteen American service members have been killed, and another 200 have been wounded so far in the conflict, which is threatening to become a regional war as Iran has retaliated by attacking U.S. bases and its allies in the Middle East.
Democrats of both chambers of Congress have been attempting to rein in Trump’s war powers through resolutions since the war with Iran began late last month. They argue the United States’ ongoing war with Iran violates the Constitution, which mandates that only Congress has the power to declare war.
The conflict has also seen the cost of oil surge. On Thursday, Brent crude reached nearly $110 a barrel, up from an average $71 before the war began on Feb. 28.
Wednesday’s vote is the third time — and the second by the Senate — that the majority Republicans have blocked war powers motions.
From the floor, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “Enough is enough.”
“To my Republican colleagues: The American people are watching. They oppose this war. They expect us to do our jobs,” he said.
“No more senseless wars in the Middle East. No more gas prices shooting through the roof. No more U.S. service members fighting and dying for in endless wars.”
Though the war has exposed fissures in the Republican Party, its members still mostly stand behind the president, who campaigned on ending conflicts and warning Americans that the Democrats would wage war with Iran if they won the White House.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump ally, argued on the Senate floor that the war is intended to prevent Iran from securing a nuclear weapon.
He said during the prior negotiations the United States offered Iran what he called “a lifetime fuel supply for free” if the Islamic regime agreed to hand over its cache of highly enriched uranium. It is believed that Iran had enriched uranium to 60%, according to a recent International Atomic Energy Agency report, which is below weapons grade enrichment at 90%.
Graham compared the Islamic regime of Iran to Nazi Germany.
“If you do not see this as an imminent threat, then you’re blind from your hatred of Trump,” he said.
“There are people on the left and people in my own party that are more afraid of Trump being successful than the Ayatollah having a nuclear weapon. That’s sick.”
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The European Parliament’s trade committee agreed Thursday to cut EU tariffs on US goods to zero, as set out under the EU–US agreement struck in July 2025 after multiple delays over tensions with the Trump administration.
EU Lawmakers had resisted for weeks implementing the deal signed by EU Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen and US President Donald Trump last summer, following threats over Greenland and fresh tariffs imposed by Washington on EU goods after a pivotal February ruling by the US Supreme Court ruled illegal the 2025 US tariffs.
On Thursday, the committee adopted a legislation by 29 votes in favour, paving the way to eliminate EU duties on most US industrial goods as agreed in the Turnberry deal.
The lopsided agreement, clinched after weeks of trade tensions triggered by the White House’s nationalist trade agenda, imposes 15% US tariffs on EU goods while the bloc agreed to scrap its own duties and ramp up investment in the US.
Thursday’s vote opens the door to full approval by the European Parliament. However, adoption may slip to April or May as EU lawmakers still need to negotiate implementing legislation with EU member states.
Amendments introduced by MEPs could complicate talks with capitals, including a “sunset” clause that would reinstate EU tariffs after 18 months if the agreement is not renewed, and a so-called “sunrise clause” making tariff cuts conditional on Washington meeting its commitments.
Lawmakers unfroze the deal on Tuesday following US pressure and calls from the European Commission to move ahead.
They had sought clarity after the White House imposed fresh duties following the ruling of US top judges. New investigations into EU goods launched last week by Washington also raised concerns among MEPs, who called for predictability for European businesses.
US officials, meanwhile, have grown increasingly impatient after repeatedly assuring EU counterparts they would stick to the deal, which also spares sectors such as EU aerospace, if the bloc does the same.
“EU tariffs on US goods haven’t changed,” U.S. ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder said on X on Tuesday, adding: “We understand that the EU must follow its process. But we’re hopeful that, after 6 and a half months, the time has come – and we’ve respectfully requested that – the EU finalize the deal so we can mutually unlock the potential for positive collaboration – for the betterment of our economies and our joint security.”
March 19 (UPI) — The FBI is investigating Joe Kent, who resigned this week as the counterterrorism director in protest over the war with Iran, over allegations that he leaked classified information, according to reports, while Trump administration officials attack his credibility.
Kent resigned Tuesday as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, a position to which the MAGA supporter and far-right conspiracy theorist with ties to White nationalist groups was nominated in early 2025 by President Donald Trump, stating that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.”
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” he said.
The FBI investigation into Kent predates his resignation, unidentified sources told Semafor, the first to report on the development. The New York Times, NewsNation and others have since corroborated that story.
Kent is the first senior Trump administration official to resign over the war that has divided Republicans and supporters of the president, who campaigned on ending conflicts while warning Americans that if the Democrats were to return to the White House, the United States would be lured into a war with Iran.
Little information about the allegations against Kent was known. The revelations of the investigation come as the White House was attempting to undermine and dismiss the man Trump had repeatedly called “a Great American Hero” for his service as a soldier, Green Beret and CIA officer.
In his resignation letter, Kent argued that Trump was pulled into the war by Israel, claiming the Middle Eastern country had deployed a disinformation campaign to convince Americans that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States.
Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he thought of Kent as a “nice guy” who was “very weak on security.”
“I didn’t know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy. But when I read his statement I realized that it’s a good thing that he’s out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt refuted the allegation as “insulting and laughable.” Speaking to reporters Wednesday, she attempted to distance Trump from Kent, saying he has not been involved with the president’s intelligence briefings for several months and has not been seen at the White House “for quite some time.”
“The president feels it is deeply disappointing that after the president gave him an opportunity in this administration to serve the American people that he would resign with a letter filled with falsehoods — accusing the president of the United States of being controlled by a foreign country.”
The war began late last month after the United States and Israel attacked Iran. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the U.S. attack on Iran was preemptive. He said they knew Israel was going to attack Iran, which would result in Iran attacking U.S. bases and allies in the region.
The U.S. attack was intended to preempt an Iranian response, he said.
The logo of state-owned petroleum company QatarEnergy in front of the headquarters, in Doha, Qatar, March 3. QatarEnergy has halted production of liquefied natural gas and related products due to military attacks on its facilities in Ras Laffan Industrial City and Mesaieed Industrial City. Photo by Hannibal Hanschke/EPA
March 19 (UPI) — Iran on Thursday attacked major energy facilities in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates after vowing to retaliate for Israel striking its gas field a day earlier, escalating a war that is driving up energy prices and rattling global markets.
Qatar said Iranian ballistic missiles struck its Ras Laffan Industrial City, the centerpiece of the nation’s LNG production and export, while the United Arab Emirates said its Habshan gas facilities and Bab field had come under attack.
Several liquefied natural gas facilities at the Ras Laffan Industrial City, which is responsible for about one-fifth of global LNG supplies, were struck early Thursday, igniting what state-owned QatarEnergy said in a statement were “sizeable fires.” Extensive damage was reported.
Two of three fires that ignited from the attack were contained as of 5 a.m. local time Thursday, according to a statement from Qatar’s Ministry of the Interior.
Iran attacked the complex’s Pearl gas-to-liquids facility late Wednesday, which was dealt “extensive damage” and prompted emergency teams to be deployed to the site.
Rockets launched at the UAE facilities were successfully intercepted, but falling debris prompted Abu Dhabi authorities to respond to unspecified incidents at the Habshan gas facilities and the Bab gas field, the Abu Dhabi Media Office said in a statement.
The facilities have been shut down in response, it said, adding that no casualties were reported.
Iran also targeted gas facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia, but all projectiles and drones were intercepted, its Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
The attacks mark an escalation in the war, and come after Israel attacked Iran’s South Pars gas field, one of the world’s largest resources of natural gas.
Israel’s attack was condemned by several countries, including Qatar. Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said it was “a dangerous & irresponsible step amid the current military escalation in the region.”
“Targeting energy infrastructure constitutes a threat to global energy security, as well as to the peoples of the region & its environment,” he said in a statement.
Following Iran’s attack on Wednesday night, Qatar gave Tehran’s embassy officials 24 hours to leave the country.
The targeting of Persian Gulf energy facilities is expected to further drive surging energy costs. On Thursday, Brent crude reached nearly $110 a barrel, up sharply from $71 before the war began in late February.
Iran had vowed to attack the region’s energy facilities after Israel attacked its South Pars gas field.
Oil facilities “associated with America are now on par with American bases and will come under fire with full force,” Alireza Tangsiri, chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy, said on X.
“You have heard a lot about #hell; we will paint its picture for you,” the IRGC said Thursday in a social media statement.
“Stay away from energy facilities…”
Following the attacks, U.S. President Donald Trump said on his Truth Social platform that there would be no more Israeli attacks on the South Pars field.
Trump claimed the United States “knew nothing” about Israel’s plan to attack the gas site and that Qatar was also neither involved.
He said Iran was unaware of that, but warned that if it again attacks Qatar, the United States will join Israel and “massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars gas field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before.”
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister warns Iran that regional neighbours have ‘significant’ capabilities with which to respond to Tehran’s aggression.
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud has warned Iran that tolerance of its attacks on his country and those of neighbouring Gulf states is limited, calling on Tehran to immediately “recalculate” its strategy.
Warning that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have “very significant capacities and capabilities” that could be drawn on should they “choose to do so”, the foreign minister told a news conference early on Thursday that Iran had carefully planned its strategy for striking regional neighbours, despite denials from Tehran’s diplomats.
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“The level of accuracy in some of this targeting – you can see it in our neighbours as well as the kingdom – indicates that this is something that was premeditated, preplanned, preorganised and well thought out,” Prince Faisal said.
“I’m not going to lay out what would and would not precipitate a defensive action by the Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia] because I think that is not a wise approach to signal to the Iranians,” the foreign minister continued.
“But I think it’s important for the Iranians to understand that the kingdom, but also its partners who have been attacked and beyond, have very significant capacities and capabilities that they could bring to bear should they choose to do so,” he said.
“The patience that is being exhibited is not unlimited. Do they [the Iranians] have a day, two, a week? I’m not going to telegraph that,” he added.
“I would hope they understand the message of the meeting today and recalculate quickly and stop attacking their neighbours. But I am doubtful they have that wisdom.”
Prince Faisal’s warning followed a meeting of foreign ministers from Arab and Islamic countries in the Saudi capital earlier in the day to discuss the expanding war in the region, which on Wednesday saw Iranian attacks on Gulf energy sites, including Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas facility, where significant damage was reported, and the United Arab Emirates’ Habshan gas facility.
Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its “strong condemnation and denunciation of the blatant Iranian attack targeting Ras Laffan Industrial City”, located 80km (50 miles) northeast of the Qatari capital Doha, which is the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) production facility, producing some 20 percent of the world’s LNG supply.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had warned earlier that oil and gas facilities in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE would face retaliation for an Israeli strike on Iran’s South Pars gasfield.
Iranian state media reported that facilities linked to the country’s huge offshore South Pars field – located off the coast of southern Iran’s Bushehr province – had come under attack.
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defence also said on Wednesday that its air defences had intercepted four Iranian ballistic missiles that targeted Riyadh and two launched towards the country’s eastern region.
Air defences in the UAE dealt with 13 ballistic missiles and 27 drones, according to the country’s Defence Ministry, while operations were suspended at the Habshan gas facility as authorities responded to incidents caused by fallen debris after the successful interception of a missile.
The Saudi foreign minister also told the news conference on Thursday that while the war will end one day, it will take much longer to restore relations with Iran as trust “has completely been shattered” due to Tehran’s tactics of targeting its neighbours.
“We know for a fact that Iran has been building this strategy over the last decade and beyond,” Prince Faisal said.
“This is not something that is a reaction to an evolving circumstance where Iran is improvising. This has been built into their war planning: targeting their neighbours and using that to try and put pressure on the international community,” he said.
“So when this war eventually ends, in order for there to be any rebuilding of trust, it will take a long time. And I have to tell you, if Iran doesn’t stop … immediately, I think there will be almost nothing that can re-establish that trust,” he added.
March 18 (UPI) — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard defended U.S. military strikes on Iran during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday, calling them a strategic success.
Senators challenged Gabbard to reconcile the words of President Donald Trump with the intelligence her department has received on Iran. When pressed, Gabbard yielded that Trump has the final say on what threats the United States faces.
When the United States performed strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June, Trump said Iran’s nuclear capabilities were “obliterated.” Earlier this month, he said Iran’s development of nuclear weapons posed an imminent nuclear threat to national security, justifying military action.
Gabbard affirmed Wednesday that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was “obliterated” in the June strikes.
“It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat,” Gabbard said. “That is up to the president, based on a volume of information he receives.”
Gabbard was once a vocal opponent of engaging in a war with Iran, even selling shirts that read “No War With Iran” in 2019 while she campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Iran is one of the United States’ top adversaries, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s “Annual Threat Assessment” said. China, Russia and North Korea are also on that list.
In the 19 days since the war with Iran began, Gabbard said the Iranian regime “appears to be intact but largely degraded.”
“Even so, Iran and its proxies remain capable of and continue to attack U.S. and allied interests in the Middle East,” Gabbard said. “The IC assesses that if a hostile regime survives it will seek to begin a yearslong effort to rebuild its missiles and UAV forces.”
The United States Federal Reserve will hold interest rates steady as the labour market cools and prices on goods and services surge following the US and Israel’s joint strikes on Iran.
The central bank will maintain its benchmark rate at 3.5–3.75 percent, consistent with the Fed’s decision last month, when it also held rates steady.
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“The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run. Uncertainty about the economic outlook remains elevated. The implications of developments in the Middle East for the US economy are uncertain,” the central bank said in a statement announcing its policy decision and referring to its Federal Open Market Committee.
“The Committee is attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate.”
Holding rates steady was in line with estimates. CME FedWatch, a tool that tracks monetary policy decisions, forecast that there was a 99 percent chance that rates would hold steady.
The stall comes after three rate cuts in 2025.
Consumers are also facing the repercussions of US President Donald Trump’s trade and military policies in their daily expenses.
“Despite meaningful progress on inflation in 2024, Trump’s tariffs have stalled progress and kept inflation persistently above the Fed’s target. Wholesale prices are running hot as service prices surge, and now, Trump’s war in Iran is rocking commodity markets around the globe,” Elizabeth Pancotti, managing director of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, an economic think tank, said in comments provided to Al Jazeera.
Last month, the US Supreme Court ruled against the president for his use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The high court said the president exceeded his authority and that the tariffs imposed under that order must be refunded. However, the president then imposed new tariffs not covered by IEEPA.
The White House announced a 15 percent tariff through Section 122, which allows the president to impose tariffs for 150 days. Those changes were reflected in the producer price index report released by the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday.
Wholesale prices rose by 0.7 percent for the month, marking the biggest one-month surge in a year. Goods prices rose 1.1 percent overall after tumbling for two months. Energy prices rose by 2.3 percent, with the cost of gas or petrol rising by 1.8 percent. Those costs are expected to get higher as tensions rise in the Strait of Hormuz following joint US-Israel strikes on Iran in late February and the subsequent retaliation.
“In the near term, higher energy prices will push up overall inflation; however, it is too soon to know the scope and duration of the potential effects on the economy,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters.
In the last month, petrol prices have jumped for US consumers. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline is $3.84, up from $2.92 this time last month.
“The Fed’s inflation worries extend beyond weathering a fleeting wave of one-off price hikes associated with tariffs and, more recently, an energy price spike,” Stephen Stanley, chief US economist at Santander US Capital Markets, told the Reuters news agency.
Holding rates steady also comes as the job market stagnates. The latest jobs report, which was released earlier this month, showed that the US economy lost 92,000 jobs, with unemployment rising to 4.4 percent.
Meanwhile, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report, which came out last week, showed 6.9 million open jobs in the US, unchanged from the month prior. That shows that employer hiring has stalled and that those who have jobs are seldom leaving for new ones.
“This might be one of the toughest moments in recent memory for the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee,” Michael Linden, Senior Policy Fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, said in remarks provided to Al Jazeera. “Recent data has revealed that economic growth in the back half of last year was extremely weak, the labour market seems to be on the precipice of disaster, and prices keep rising faster than anyone feels comfortable with.”
Wednesday’s decision is the second-to-last one of current Fed Chair Powell, whose term is up in May. Powell, who was first appointed by Trump during his first administration, has been a target of Trump’s scorn and criticisms for not cutting interest rates fast enough.
“When is ‘Too Late’ Powell lowering INTEREST RATES?” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday morning ahead of the decision.
Previously, Trump said he would not nominate someone to lead the central bank unless the nominee agreed with his position.
“Anybody that disagrees with me will never be the Fed Chairman!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social in December.
“We at the Fed will continue to do our jobs with objectivity, integrity and deep commitment to serve the American people,” Powell told reporters.
Trump’s nominee to succeed Powell, Kevin Warsh, has his nomination in flux as Republican Senator Thom Tillis said he would not vote to advance any of Trump’s nominees to the central bank until a criminal probe into the current chairman, Powell, is closed.
Tillis sits on the Senate Banking Committee, which vets nominees for the central bank, including Warsh. He said he will not approve Trump’s Fed nominees until the probe of Powell is closed. The criminal probe of Powell centres on Fed building renovations after a judge quashed grand jury subpoenas and called the investigation a pretext to pressure the central bank to lower interest rates.
If Warsh has not been confirmed by the Senate in time for the Fed’s June 16–17 meeting, Powell would continue to lead the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee.
“If my successor is not confirmed by the end of my term as chair, I would serve as chair pro tem until he is confirmed. That is what the law calls for,” Powell said.
“On the question of whether I will leave while the investigation is ongoing, I have no intention of leaving the board until the investigation is well and truly over with transparency and finality.”
Iranians in Tehran burned effigies of Israeli PM Netanyahu and US President Trump.
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SANTIAGO, Chile, March 18 (UPI) — The United States is continuing efforts to secure supplies of critical minerals deemed vital to national security. Alongside copper, lithium and silver, one lesser-known metal is drawing increased attention: rhenium.
Used primarily in the aerospace, energy and petrochemical industries, rhenium plays a key role in high-performance applications. Experts say it also holds potential in the global energy transition because it can act as a catalyst in producing green hydrogen.
Chile is the world’s largest rhenium producer, accounting for about 50% of global output. The metal is atomic No. 75 on the Periodic Table of Elements.
Since Friday, Chilean officials have held consultations on critical minerals and rare earth elements with the administration of President Donald Trump, seeking a bilateral agreement to strengthen supply chains and promote strategic investment.
“Chile controls nearly half of a mineral that the United States and China cannot produce in sufficient quantities. Washington reinstated rhenium to its critical minerals list in 2025 and explicitly included it in the bilateral mining agreement with Chile. That makes it a genuine geopolitical asset, not just a mining one,” mining market specialist Víctor Pérez, an engineering professor at Adolfo Ibáñez University, told UPI.
Manuel Reyes, a mining engineering professor at Andrés Bello University, said the United States considers rhenium a national security priority because of its critical role and a lack of substitutes in aerospace and defense.
“Although rhenium does not carry the financial weight of copper or lithium, it functions as a reputational asset that keeps Chile on global strategic radars. More as a necessary logistics partner than as a decision-making power,” he said.
Pérez said Chile’s rhenium exports are expected to range between $100 million and $200 million this year, compared with an estimated $60 billion in copper exports. Still, he said its strategic importance is unique “because it has no real substitute in aerospace and defense applications.”
Chile holds the world’s largest reserves at 1,300 metric tons, followed by the United States with 400 metric tons, Russia with 310 metric tons and Kazakhstan with 190 metric tons, according to Reyes.
Rhenium trades at about $2,000 per kilogram, though prices have climbed in 2026 to roughly $6,000 per kilogram, he said.
About 70% to 80% of global rhenium is used in superalloys for aviation and defense turbines. “It is the metal that allows aircraft engines and military turbines to withstand extreme temperatures without deforming,” Pérez said.
Rhenium is known as a by-product mineral because it is not found alone, but rather extracted from copper-related ores, which makes production complex. Chile’s large-scale copper mining operations enable its recovery, as processing captures gases released during molybdenum concentrate roasting and chemically extracts the metal.
Reyes said Chile remains highly dependent on external demand.
“Reserve management and supply continuity depend on the technical and national security requirements of powers such as the United States, which ultimately drive demand,” he said.
The war has reignited a debate within the Iranian diaspora about what role the US should play in Iran’s future.
This question is more than a distant geopolitical issue for Iranians in Los Angeles.
Many residents explained that their family histories had been shaped by US involvement in the region, whether it was through US support for Iran’s fallen monarchy or through the US decision to back Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980.
Aida Ashouri, a human rights lawyer who is running to be Los Angeles city attorney, was among those publicly condemning the latest US campaign in Iran at the city hall protest on February 28.
“This is a US imperialist war, and we have to make that clear,” she said. “Call a spade a spade. This war is not to liberate the women of Iran or the people of Iran.”
Ashouri was born during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Her hometown, Isfahan, was also bombed in June last year during the US and Israel’s 12-day war with Iran.
For Ashouri, it was telling that the US and Israel once again launched the first strike in the current conflict. For many legal experts, that made the conflict an unprovoked war of aggression, in violation of international law.
“A war implies two sides are actively engaged, but Iran has done nothing to be involved,” Ashouri said.
“This is a unilateral military invasion, an aggression of the United States and Israel. They are the ones with the power to end it by stopping the bombing.”
She and other protesters drew parallels between the current Iran war and the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, launched in 2003 and 2001, respectively.
“I lived through the shadow of the war on terror, all the propaganda talking points,” said Shany Ebadi, an Iranian American antiwar organiser with the ANSWER Coalition. “What the Trump administration is saying reminds me a lot of the Iraq war.”
As someone who follows the news closely, Ebadi remembers feeling alarm when the first strikes were launched in February.
“When I got the breaking news notification of the initial attack, my whole body felt paralysed. I felt anger and frustration,” she said.
She and Ashouri both said they fear the military operation in Iran could spark a regional war that might further destabilise not just Iran, but the entire Middle East.
“I fear that war will repeat the disasters seen in Palestine, Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan,” Ashouri said, listing countries targeted in the US’s “war on terror” over the past two and a half decades.
The question of whether bombs can pave the way to freedom in Iran is a simple one for Ashouri and her fellow antiwar activists. The answer, they say, is simply no.
As United States President Donald Trump tries to build a coalition of navies willing to open the Strait of Hormuz, some countries are negotiating safe passage directly with Iran, underscoring a new de facto reality, analysts say: Regardless of military results, Tehran is calling the shots on who gets to use the world’s most important energy waterway.
After US-Israeli strikes on Iran began on February 28 and killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the Iranian military leadership responded by focusing on its most potent form of leverage – Iran’s geography. The country controls the northern shore of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of global crude oil and natural gas supplies pass. It is 33km (20 miles) wide at its narrowest point, so any naval force that wants to cross it becomes easy prey for Iranian attacks coming from the mainland.
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Considering insurance companies’ low appetite for risk, it took relatively few attacks on vessels in the strait – or just the threat of them – to undermine market confidence and send insurance premiums shooting up, causing a near paralysis in maritime traffic. About 20 vessels have been attacked since the start of the war.
“Iran has effectively proven that it dictates the terms of passage through the strait. They have now shown they are the gatekeeper of this important chokepoint. This will elevate the status of Iran in the geography of the Gulf,” said Andreas Krieg, an associate professor in Security Studies at King’s College London and a fellow at King’s Institute of Middle Eastern Studies. This will be the new reality for the foreseeable future, he added.
Meanwhile, crude prices have risen above $100 a barrel, more than 20 percent higher than pre-war prices, forcing countries to make the biggest releases of emergency reserves in history. Gas prices have risen by more than 40 percent since the war began.
Trump initially floated the idea of ordering the US Navy to escort vessels through the waterway. He then appealed to some countries to send warships and warned NATO members they would face “a very bad” future if these allies failed to help in opening the strait. But the appeal was either turned down or received noncommittal responses. Japan said it had no plans to deploy naval vessels. Australia ruled out sending ships. The United Kingdom said it would not be drawn into the wider war. Germany sent a clear message: “This is not our war”.
Others decided to take action – but not of the kind that Trump asked for. On Saturday, two India-flagged gas tankers passed through the strait after days of negotiations between New Delhi and Tehran, including a phone call between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Ships from Pakistan, Turkiye and China also have transited through the Strait of Hormuz. The Financial Times has reported that Italy and France have also reached out to Iran for deals although Italian authorities have rejected making such an overture.
Meanwhile, Windward, a maritime intelligence tracking group, said that while traffic in the strait on Tuesday remained 97 percent below average, a growing number of ships have been passing through Iran’s territorial waters, suggesting that Tehran is allowing “permission-based transit”.
There is a precedent for US naval forces to escort convoys through the strait dating back to the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. But today’s scenario is different, experts said. Back then, the US, while it was backing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, was not a direct party to the conflict. Iran was still in a post-revolutionary process of consolidating power, and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was nowhere near as organised as it is today.
Today, Iran has drones that its factories are capable of producing on a large scale and has been using them. Iranian forces could also use small boats to assault tankers, deploy mines and engage in other guerrilla-style tactics. While there are conflicting reports on whether Iran has placed mines in the strait, experts said it would be a counterproductive move for Tehran because it would disrupt the passage for any ships – Iranian vessels included – and it would take away from Tehran the power to choose who may pass.
Iranian officials are aware of their geographic advantage. “This is up to our military to decide,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday, referring to who will be allowed to use the strait.
Pro-government figures increasingly frame the Strait of Hormuz as a strategic bargaining tool beyond the war itself, suggesting the waterway could be used to extract compensation, sanctions relief or broader economic concessions after the war, Hamidreza Azizi, an expert on Iran and visiting fellow with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, commented on X.
Recent attacks seem to suggest that Iran wants to increase its pressure on the energy market.
On Tuesday, a drone attack caused a fire at the port of Fujairah, the United Arab Emirates’s only crude export terminal. It is located outside the eastern entrance of the Strait of Hormuz, allowing its exports to circumvent it. The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen could also further squeeze oil prices by disrupting the Bab al-Mandeb strait. That would force the US to operate across multiple maritime theatres. So far, the Houthis have not carried out such attacks, but this month, they said they were ready to strike at any moment.
Still, the US is focused on applying maximum pressure on Tehran and forcing it to open the Strait of Hormuz. The US Central Command, the US military’s combat command responsible for operations in the Middle East, said early on Wednesday that its forces had used 2,270kg (5,000lb) bunker-busting munitions against antiship missile sites along Iran’s coastline near the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump has also ordered amphibious ships carrying thousands of US Marines to move to the Middle East, and some experts believe the US might try to seize Kharg Island, a tiny piece of land in the northern Gulf where 90 percent of Iranian crude oil is exported from. The US has already bombed what it said were military sites on the island.
Such an operation, however, might do little to force Iran into opening the Strait of Hormuz, Krieg said. The island is 500km 310 miles) from the strait, and should the US take control of it, it would expose US Marines to Iranian fire. Should Iran see its key terminal being seized, it could also opt to mine the strait outright, having fewer reasons to allow some vessels to pass through.
“The issue with the Strait of Hormuz is really not a military one. … It’s a market issue, and confidence cannot be restored by the military. Confidence can be restored through diplomacy only,” Krieg said.
March 18 (UPI) — Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton claimed victory late Tuesday in a close race to be the Democratic Senate nominee in November, as voters headed to the polls to cast ballots in primary elections.
Dozens of local and federal contests were held throughout the state on a busy election Tuesday that included 17 U.S. House races but only one for the Senate — a seat being left vacant by the retiring Dick Durbin, the six-term senator and the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate.
Stratton claimed victory in a packed race for the Democratic nomination for Durbin’s seat.
“We did it,” she told supporters in her victory speech in Chicago.
“Tonight, we showed what’s possible when you listen to the people and give the people what they want.”
Stratton ran on a progressive platform of securing a single-payer healthcare system and a $25 minimum wage, while rejecting all corporate Political Action Committee funding during her campaign.
U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly emerged as her main political rivals.
Krishnamoorthi told his supporters in a brief speech Tuesday night at the Westin Hotel in Chicago’s River North neighborhood that he had called Stratton to congratulate her on winning the primary.
“I offered her my full support on the road ahead,” he said.
Krishnamoorthi positioned himself as the anti-President Donald Trump Democrat, often railing against the Republican leader and campaigning on his so-called Trump accountability plan of reforms to rein in presidential power to prevent abuses of power.
“Obviously, this is not the result we sought, but unlike Donald Trump, I’m not going to question the outcome,” he said.
“Now we must come together as Democrats and as Americans to make sure that we return to principles that made us a beacon of freedom and opportunity for the world.”
Kelly conceded online.
“Tonight’s isn’t the outcome we wanted, but I am so proud of us, and I still believe in putting people over profits,” she said in a statement.
“You want to know that your elected leaders are fighting for YOU, not distracted by outside noise. I’ll continue that fight in the U.S. house. I still have your back.”
As of early Wednesday, when an estimated 92% of the ballots had been counted, Stratton had secured about 40.1% of the vote share to Krishnamoorthi’s 33.2% and Kelly’s 18.1%, CNN and CBS News reported.
In a statement, Durbin, who did not endorse any candidate in the race, said he looked forward to “passing the torch” to Stratton when his term ends, while congratulating Krishnamoorthi and Kelly.
“Now our attention must turn to ensuring Juliana wins the general election on November 3,” he said. “With Donald Trump in the White House for another two years, the challenges facing our country and state will continue to be historic and unprecedented. We need Juliana Stratton fighting alongside Sen. [Tammy] Duckworth every day.”
On the GOP side, Don Tracy, former Illinois Republican Party chairman, was poised to seek Durbin’s vacant Senate seat as his party’s nominee.
Tracy campaigned in the blue state by positioning himself as a center-right candidate at a time of extremism in his party, stating on his website that he would seek “common sense solutions over extreme agendas.”
He also argued to be a voice for the entire state, voicing concerns that all federal elections had become contests for Chicago and Cook County.
“It’s time to make Illinois a two-party state again,” he said in a statement claiming victory on Facebook, while bashing Stratton as “the most extreme far-left U.S. Senate candidate this state has ever seen.”
“I will push for common sense solutions that make life more affordable for working families. I will work for everyday Illinoisans, not special interests or extreme agendas.”
Tracy was poised to win early Wednesday with nearly 40% of the vote share compared to lawyer Jeannie Evans’ nearly 23%, the closest runner-up, CNN and CBS News reported.
Evans campaigned on being a political outsider and a conservative Republican, while championing lowering costs and fighting crime.
In the governor’s race, Illinois is poised to have a rematch of 2022, when Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, beat Republican farmer Darren Bailey.
While Pritzker ran uncontested, Bailey was seemingly coasting to the GOP nomination in a landslide.
With 94% of ballots counted, Bailey had won 53.5% of the vote share to runner-up Ted Dabrowski’s 28.8%, according to CNN and CBS News tallies.
“The first fight has been won, but make no mistake, we are just getting warmed up,” he said in his victory speech.
“Best birthday ever.”
Bailey ran on a law-and-order campaign that included lowering property taxes, cutting government spending and cracking down on repeated criminal offenders.
The US defence secretary designated the AI company a ‘supply chain risk’ after it refused to remove guardrails on its technology.
Published On 18 Mar 202618 Mar 2026
The administration of United States President Donald Trump has said in a court filing that the Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic was justified and lawful, opposing the artificial intelligence company’s high-stakes lawsuit challenging the decision.
The administration made its comments in a court filing on Tuesday.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic, the maker of popular AI assistant Claude, a national security supply chain risk on March 3 after the company refused to remove guardrails against its technology being used for autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance.
The Trump administration’s filing says Anthropic is unlikely to succeed in its claims that the US government’s action violated speech protections under the US Constitution’s First Amendment, asserting that the dispute stems from contract negotiations and national security concerns, not retaliation.
“It was only when Anthropic refused to release the restrictions on the use of its products — which refusal is conduct, not protected speech — that the President directed all federal agencies to terminate their business relationships with Anthropic,” the administration’s legal filing said. The filing, from the US Justice Department, said that “no one has purported to restrict Anthropic’s expressive activity”.
Anthropic’s lawsuit in California federal court asks a judge to block the Pentagon’s decision while the case plays out. Some legal experts say the company appears to have a strong case that the government overreached.
In a statement, Anthropic said it was reviewing the government’s filing. The company said that “seeking judicial review does not change our longstanding commitment to harnessing AI to protect our national security, but this is a necessary step to protect our business, our customers, and our partners.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has backed Hegseth’s move, which excludes Anthropic from a limited set of military contracts. But it could damage the company’s reputation and cause billions of dollars in losses this year, according to its executives.
The designation came after months of negotiations between the Pentagon and Anthropic reached an impasse, prompting Trump and Hegseth to denounce the company and accuse it of endangering American lives with its use restrictions.
Anthropic has disputed those claims and said AI is not yet safe enough to be used in autonomous weapons. The company said it opposes domestic surveillance as a matter of principle.
In its March 9 lawsuit, Anthropic said that the “unprecedented and unlawful” designation violated its free speech and due process rights, while running afoul of a law requiring federal agencies to follow specific procedures when making decisions.
The Pentagon separately designated Anthropic a supply chain risk under a different law that could expand the order to the entire government.
Anthropic is challenging that move in a second lawsuit in a Washington, DC, appeals court.