Energy

The ban comes after 1,100 responses to a consultation which strongly supported introducing an age restriction on the drinks, external.

The new rules will come in via secondary legislation using powers from the Food Safety Act 1990.

Too much caffeine can cause a rapid heart rate, abnormal heart rhythms and seizures.

Although rare, there have been some deaths linked to excess caffeine.

The sugary versions of the drinks can also contribute to obesity and damage teeth, according to The Association of UK Dieticians.

Currently any drink, other than tea or coffee, with over 150mg requires a label warning of its high caffeine content that says it is not recommended for children or pregnant or breast-feeding women.

For most adults, up to 400mg of caffeine a day, or about four cups of instant coffee or five cups of tea, is safe.

Katharine Jenner, Executive Director of the Obesity Health Alliance, praised the policy and said restricting the sales of the drinks to children “at a vital time in their life is just common-sense”.

The British Soft Drinks Association said the ban was “unnecessary”.

A spokesperson said: “Since 2010, our members have committed not to market or promote the sale of energy drinks to under-16s, and all high-caffeine beverages carry a ‘not recommended for children’ label.”

The previous Conservative government had planned to introduce the ban, but scrapped the move in 2022, and said consumption should be a personal choice.

Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are also considering a ban.

Alebtong, Uganda – When Lucy Everlyn Atim returned home after six years working as a child rights activist in South Sudan’s refugee settlements, her favourite shea tree was gone.

Known locally as moyao, the tree had shaped her childhood. Every morning, she and her friends gathered beneath its branches to eat its sweet, creamy fruit before walking to school.

Its disappearance was not an isolated loss. Across northern Uganda, many more shea trees had been cut down for charcoal.

“I got concerned,” Atim, now in her mid-thirties and a climate activist, told Al Jazeera.

“The destruction of shea trees is alarming. These trees need to be protected, but people also need an alternative source of fuel.”

Uganda loses an estimated 122,000 hectares of forest each year, largely to charcoal production and logging. With about 90 percent of households relying on charcoal for cooking, indigenous species such as shea and Afzelia africana continue to disappear.

Research by Makerere University found that mature shea tree populations on fallow land fell from about 20 trees in 2008 to between 10 and 15 by 2017.

“There is still scant data on the declining shea tree population in northern Uganda,” Dr Patrick Byakagaba, the Makerere University environmental researcher who led the study, told Al Jazeera.

“More needs to be done to determine their density, sapling survival and regeneration.”

Tracking the decline is difficult, he said, because charcoal producers often uproot entire trees, leaving no stumps behind to count.

While working in South Sudan, Atim met a woman in Yida making fuel briquettes from discarded shea husks.

“I got curious. I knew this was something that could be replicated back home,” she recalled.

In 2023, she founded Moyao Africa Initiative, a social enterprise that turns shea waste into fuel briquettes, while helping women earn a living from processing shea butter.

The initiative employs six staff and works with more than 1,200 women organised in savings groups to collect shea waste, produce briquettes and process butter.

“In most households, women carry the burden of finding cooking fuel. By training them to make and sell briquettes and shea butter, we’re creating an income while providing an affordable alternative to charcoal,” she said.

Learning fuel

On a hot afternoon in Alebtong, 15 women sit on woven mats attending a training session led by Moyao Africa Initiative.

They are chairpersons of savings groups from across the district, learning to turn discarded shea husks into cooking fuel.

When the trainer asks about the process, the women answer almost in unison: collect the husks, crush them, mix them with clay and cassava flour, mould them, dry them and store them.

The lesson soon moves from theory to practice. Some women pound dried shea husks in wooden mortars while others dig up clay soil. Nearby, another group stirs thick cassava paste, the binder that holds the mixture together before it is pressed into moulds and left to dry in the sun.

Among them is Catherine Akello, chairperson of the Oteno Moyao Africa Women’s Group in Abwoc village.

Before joining the initiative, Akello valued only the shea kernels, which she processed into butter for her family. The husks were thrown away.

Now they have become a source of fuel.

“I don’t have to worry about buying charcoal whenever I want to cook because I make my own briquettes from shea husks,” Akello, a 47-year-old mother of five, told Al Jazeera.

“As a group, we’re also able to save money from the products we sell, and that helps us support our families when emergencies arise,” she said.

Demand is growing, but production remains limited by the seasonal shea harvest.

To meet it, Atim is saving to buy a carboniser, crusher and briquette-making machine costing about $530. The equipment would allow the initiative to process more shea waste and produce briquettes throughout the year.

“Our plan is to increase shea butter production from 600 litres to 6,000 litres. That means more shea husks and, in turn, more briquettes. It will help us meet demand even when raw materials are scarce,” she said.

Shared future

Renewable energy expert Bosco Odyek told Al Jazeera that turning shea husks into briquettes offers a practical alternative to charcoal by putting waste material to use.

Using a carboniser, he says, would produce cleaner-burning, smokeless briquettes that burn more efficiently.

Beyond fuel production, Moyao Africa Initiative runs environmental clubs in 20 schools across Alebtong District and works with the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) to distribute tree seedlings, encouraging communities to restore the landscape.

Paul Mwirichia, a humanitarian and development expert, told Al Jazeera that such initiatives are important but access to clean energy remains beyond the reach of many rural households.

“We have very good policies,” he said.

“The challenge is implementation. Government needs to support indigenous organisations like Atim’s because they understand the problems affecting their communities, and people trust them to address those challenges.”

For Atim, the work is about saving the tree that shaped her childhood.

The shea tree is gone, but she hopes turning discarded husks into fuel will mean fewer trees are cut down and more women can earn a living from keeping them standing.

“We are leaving no one behind.”

Millions lost power as Cuba’s fifth nationwide blackout of 2026 hit amid a US-imposed oil blockade.

Cuba’s national power grid has collapsed, plunging the island into its third nationwide blackout in less than 10 days and leaving approximately 10 million people without electricity.

The outage began around 11am local time (15:00 GMT) on Tuesday, when the country’s entire power grid went offline, according to the state-run electricity company, UNE.

“There has been a total disconnection of the electrical system,” Cuba’s Ministry of Energy and Mines said on social media.

The latest blackout comes as Cuba faces its worst economic crisis in decades, worsened by an oil blockade imposed by the United States that has deepened fuel shortages and pushed the island’s ageing power system to the brink.

US President Donald Trump imposed the blockade in January after the United States removed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power. Venezuela had long been Cuba’s main supplier of subsidised oil, and under US pressure, Mexico also halted fuel shipments to the island.

As of 2023, according to the International Energy Agency, Cuba was producing only about 40 percent of the oil it consumed, leaving it heavily reliant on imported fuel.

The Trump administration says the measures are intended to pressure Cuba’s communist government to hold democratic elections and release what it calls political prisoners.

The repeated blackouts have fuelled growing frustration across the island. Just a week ago, scattered protests broke out across Havana, with residents banging pots and pans and shouting “turn on the lights” as millions endured another prolonged outage. In both of last week’s blackouts, it took over 24 hours to restore power across the island.

Cuban authorities have struggled for months to keep the lights on as fuel shortages and an ageing electricity grid, much of it dating back to the 1960s and 1980s, leave the system increasingly prone to collapse.

Havana blames the crisis on the US fuel blockade, while Washington says Cuba’s communist government is responsible for the country’s deteriorating power system.

Speaking at a UN General Assembly debate on US sanctions last week, US Ambassador Michael Waltz said Cuba’s leaders were to blame for the electricity shortages.

“Change your ways and turn the lights back on for your people,” he said.

Oil prices have jumped amid the latest outbreak of hostilities between the United States and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz.

Brent crude, the main international benchmark, rose more than 4 percent on Monday as Washington and Tehran traded attacks amid their escalating standoff over control of the critical waterway.

Brent futures for September delivery stood at $79.26 a barrel as of 05:00 GMT, the highest since June 22.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Sunday that it had carried out dozens of strikes on Iran to degrade its ability to attack vessels in the strait, hours after striking hundreds of targets in the country.

US forces launched the earlier round of strikes after accusing Iranian forces of “blatantly” attacking a Cyprus-flagged container ship, the MV GFS Galaxy, as it was transiting the strait.

“The Strait of Hormuz is a vital maritime corridor for global trade. Iran does not control it,” CENTCOM said in a statement late on Sunday.

“US forces are postured and prepared to ensure that freedom of navigation remains available to commercial shipping despite Iran’s continued unwarranted aggression, harassment, threats, and arbitrary declarations.”

Iranian forces on Sunday launched a wave of missile and drone attacks against the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain in response to the US strikes.

Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority, which claims the right to control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, earlier reiterated that vessels attempting to cross the waterway without using its preferred route would “not be covered by safe passage guarantees”.

“The consequences arising from transit through unauthorized routes shall be the responsibility of the owner, operator, and vessel commander,” the authority said.

After ticking up following Washington and Tehran’s signing of a memorandum of understanding on ending the war last month, maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has declined sharply amid the renewed fighting between the sides.

Just six vessels were tracked crossing the strait between 18:00 GMT on Thursday and 06:00 GMT on Friday, compared with 18-22 daily crossings earlier this month, according to maritime intelligence platform Windward.

Nine vessels were tracked in the waterway between 18:00 GMT on Saturday and 06:00 GMT on Sunday, four of which were flying the Iranian flag, according to Windward.

Roughly 130 vessels transited the strait, a conduit for one-fifth of the global oil trade in peacetime, each day before the start of the war.

Oil prices, which had returned to pre-conflict levels following the signing of the memorandum on June 17, are now about 9 percent higher than before the US and Israel launched their initial strikes on Iran in late February.

Mukesh Sahdev, founder and chief oil analyst at XAnalysts in Sydney, Australia, said he expects the per-barrel price of Brent to remain in the upper $70s during August and September amid the heightened geopolitical uncertainty.

“There could be occasional spikes and dips outside that range,” Sahdev said in a note to clients on Saturday.

“Long-haul procurement forces refiners to make supply decisions weeks in advance,” Sahdev added.

“Those decisions have already reduced immediate reliance on the Middle East, and the latest escalation is likely to reinforce rather than reverse that trend.”

Fabien Yip, a market analyst at IG in Sydney, Australia, said prices are unlikely to approach the much higher levels seen earlier in the war despite the latest turmoil.

“Oil’s return towards pre-war levels in June reflected markets pricing in a best-case outcome for the fragile US-Iran arrangement; last week’s re-escalation exposes how fragile that assumption was,” Yip said in a note to clients on Monday.

“Near-term, the risk premium should keep prices supported, though a repeat of the earlier spike appears unlikely, as demand remains slow to recover while stranded-tanker releases and OPEC+ output quota expansion continue to add barrels to an already oversupplied outlook.”

Major Asian stock markets fell on Monday amid the renewed fighting in the Middle East.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell more than 2 percent in afternoon trading, while South Korea’s Kospi plunged more than 8 percent.

Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index dipped about 0.2 percent.

“HE just has that youthful energy,” says Ronnie Wood of his Rolling Stones bandmate Mick Jagger.

It’s not a term often used to describe someone in their Eighties but, in this case, entirely accurate.

Anyone who’s seen the consummate frontman in recent times will know he still has the voice, the moves — and the swagger.

Nearly four years Mick’s junior and, at 79, the “baby” of the band, Ronnie could still be forgiven for thinking, “I want some of whatever he’s on.”

But, as the Stones release their high-octane LP Foreign Tongues, Ronnie can also claim to have some of that “youthful energy”.

“I’m the same as Mick,” he tells me. “I’m a Gemini, I’m pulling in all directions — and I’m just loving it.”

serving glam

Lily James wows in a polka dot dress with busty Hannah Waddingham at Wimbledon

J-LO CUT

Jennifer Lopez rocks sheer dress as she attends PFW with rarely-seen sister

By that, he means his ongoing endeavours with the Stones, his work as a highly skilled portrait artist and the not-so-small matter of his first solo tour in years, beginning next week in Austria on a bill with Van Morrison.

Not to mention being husband to wife Sally and dad to their ten-year-old twin daughters Gracie Jane and Alice Rose.

Ronnie continues: “I just love to be inspired and putting my ideas into action — whether it’s on a canvas or through my guitar or harmonica or whatever I’m playing.

“And I even try my hand at singing every now and again!”

Right now, says Ronnie, “I’m in my art studio preparing an exhibition and I’m getting rehearsals together with my band.

“I even had a little rehearsal with Mick because we’re keeping our hands in, keeping our chops together. So, it’s all go.”

The main purpose of our chat is, of course, all things Stones but you’ll hear more about his extra-curricular activities later.

I discover that Ronnie has a wonderfully old-school approach to tech — none of that new-fangled Zoom stuff for him — so he calls me on the dog and bone.

Which means that I have to go half way up a steep hill on the Cornish coast, not far from Land’s End, in an attempt to get decent signal.

Thankfully, the guitar legend comes through loud and clear — and full of enthusiasm.

First, he explains why the Stones have another new studio album of original material in the bag so soon after 2023’s Hackney Diamonds.

(If you remember, the previous one, A Bigger Bang, came out in 2005.)

He replies that American producer Andrew Watt “hadn’t finished with us and we hadn’t finished with him”.

“We just sparked the fire that was already cooking with Hackney Diamonds.”

Ronnie is quick to praise the 35-year-old producer with bleach-blond hair who has worked with Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne, Lady Gaga and Post Malone.

“We’re on to a good one there,” he says. “The Stones haven’t had someone with so much input since Jimmy Miller.”

Praise indeed because Miller produced a stellar run of consecutive albums — Beggar’s Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile On Main St and Goat’s Head Soup — between 1968 and 1973.

Ronnie adds: “Andrew’s a big fan of ours and he knows what he’s talking about. He can play different instruments and knows my guitar playing better than I do.”

So what was the catalyst for Foreign Tongues? “We had a few tracks like Covered In You left over,” replies Ronnie.

“But basically we started reworking all these songs that Mick had been kicking around, some with Keith, and some by himself. Mick would come to us, saying, ‘Look, I’ve got this idea — let’s develop it’.

“The Stones are his plaything, so I just let him take the helm and get on with it. It’s great.”

Key to the success of Foreign Tongues, a big beast of an album with 14 tracks spanning 63 minutes, was a gathering in London to bring the project to fruition.

Ronnie explains: “We started working in New York at Electric Lady, then we took it to Henson studio in LA and messed around with it there — but we finished off the whole thing at Metropolis in Chiswick.

“It was a great feeling to be in London, to go down to the studio that was not far [from where I live] with all the boys there.”

Ronnie wallowed in the “great studio atmosphere” and was particularly chuffed to have an old mucker like Steve Winwood on board — “he was so lovely”.

Steve, who plays organ or piano on nine of the Foreign Tongues songs, came to prominence in the early Sixties as a fresh-faced teenager in The Spencer Davis Group.

Stints in Traffic and Blind Faith were followed by his hugely successful solo career with hit Eighties albums including Arc Of A Diver and Back In The High Life.

Ronnie says: “The Americans had Little Stevie Wonder and Britain had Little Stevie Winwood.

“I first met him at The Ship pub on Wardour Street and he’s one of the only musicians from my era who’s younger than me.” (Ronnie was born in 1947 and Steve a year later.)

Back in the day, The Ship was one of Ronnie’s favourite haunts because of its proximity to fabled music venues like The 100 Club and The Marquee.

He says: “I used to meet all the musicians in this packed little pub. Just up the road, I met Rod Stewart for the first time in the Intrepid Fox. He came up to me and went, ‘Hello Face!’ ”

They bonded over their mod-style haircuts, as you do, and soon started playing music together, first in The Jeff Beck Group and then, from 1969, The Faces.

In 1975, Ronnie left The Faces to land the job he’d dreamed of since he was a teenager — to become a member of the most rock and roll band on the planet, the Rolling Stones.

His first album as a full-time member with them was 1978’s Some Girls, a sleazy tour de force featuring some dazzling Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood guitar interplay, most notably on the ballad Beast Of Burden.

Which brings us neatly back to Foreign Tongues because it is drawing comparisons with that classic LP.

Ronnie says: “We like to keep the youthful feel we had in Paris when we were doing Some Girls and Emotional Rescue. There was a lot of energy on Respectable and Summer Romance, all those mad songs . . . and we still have that kind of energy going.

“I call this Foreign Tongues album ‘more solos for me, thanks Mick’ and he loves it.”

So which songs feature Ronnie solos? I venture. “There’s one on Back In Your Life which everyone seems to like,” he answers. “It’s the last one I did and there’s a lot of feeling there.

“I also enjoyed doing solos on Mr Charm, Side Effects, In The Stars and Hit Me On The Head.

“And there are lots of songs I loved to jam on, with me and Keith bouncing off each other.”

Hit Me On The Head is one of the few tracks saved from the Hackney Diamonds sessions, a breathless three-minute blast featuring much-missed drummer Charlie Watts.

Ronnie says: “We’ve got a few Charlie tracks saved and it’s lovely to keep his memory going with these little reminders.”

He adds that Steve Jordan, the powerhouse American drummer who stepped in after Charlie died in 2021 “loved Charlie so much and to pay tribute to him on Hackney Diamonds and Foreign Tongues is so great”.

I ask Ronnie which of the other new tracks he’s fond of.

He says: “I love Rough And Twisted which reminds me of my old Faces days — a modern-day blues.”

And he singles out yearning country song Ringing Hollow, which he and Mick gave a debut live airing to at this week’s album launch party in London.

“That’s a great one,” he says. “It reminds me of the songs inspired by the Stones’ first visits to America like Dead Flowers [also performed at the party], Wild Horses and Sweet Virginia.”

Ronnie’s a big fan of the Let It Bleed track Country Honk, a rustic, fiddle-drenched take on Honky Tonk Women, which he’s promising to play with his solo band at his forthcoming shows.

He says: “I’m a big fan of Merle Haggard and Hank Williams along with Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters — a little mix of country and blues.”

This brings us to the raw and authentic cover of Berry’s Beautiful Delilah, which closes Foreign Tongues, done in the style of Mississippi Fred McDowell.

Just Mick and Keith on 12-string guitars with empathetic drumming from Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith. As with so many musicians of Ronnie’s generation, Berry was a massive influence.

“I used to have a dance in my bedroom when I was a kid,” he recalls. “Then I’d learn the solos just by ear.

“I was so inspired by this mystery man from America. In those days, you never saw a picture of Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf or Jimmy Reed.

“When you did, it was like, ‘Wow!’ Like aliens come to life. Then, when I grew up, I got to hang out with them. It was a dream come true.

“Chuck came up to me once when I was on stage with him and said, ‘Where did you get that riff from?’ And I said, ‘From you!’ He nearly fell over.”

Next, we move on to Ronnie’s solo tour, organised because a gap appeared after the Stones ruled out live dates after Keith announced he was stepping back from touring.

He’ll be performing material from his storied life in music that includes The Jeff Beck Group, The Faces, the Stones and solo work — much of it gathered up in his recent retrospective album Fearless.

Ronnie will sing Seven Days, “the song Bob Dylan gave me, one of the special moments in my musical career.”

He will be reuniting with drummer Andy Newmark and bassist Willie Weeks for the first time in 50 years — “they’re playing as great as ever”.

His jaunts will take to Lucca in Italy, London’s Kentish Town Forum, Zurich, Cologne, Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona and Lisbon. It all starts at an open-air shindig on the Royal Sandringham Estate in Norfolk on August 23, headlined by blues maestro Eric Clapton.

Ronnie adds: “Eric said, ‘Hey Ron, get a band together and come and join me at Sandringham!’

“That’s what spurred me on. I thought, ‘Wow! While I’m at it, I may as well get my favourite girl singers like Imelda May and Chanel Haynes’.”

If Stones and solo work wasn’t enough, Ronnie gives me an update on the mouthwatering prospect of a new Faces album — a further reunion with Rod Stewart after last year’s Glastonbury outing for Stay With Me.

“Rod loves what’s going on with us,” he says. “He has so much respect for the Stones and he’s gone his own Hollywood merry way.

“But we’ve been putting our heads together and rejoining the dots and getting some Faces stuff together again.

“Next year, we’re going to get stuck in and finish these tracks. We’ve got a lot on the hob and we’ll stir them up.”

Lastly, Ronnie reflects on the enduring appeal of both the Rolling Stones and The Beatles more than 60 years after they began their journeys.

Having just released his Andrew Watt-produced solo album The Boys Of Dungeon Lane, Paul McCartney returns on Foreign Tongues song Covered In You, following his bass cameo on Hackney Diamonds track Bite My Head Off.

Ronnie says: “I was just out with Paul recently and he was going, ‘Ron, ain’t it wonderful that we can still give this and keep making people happy. That’s what we do!’

“I said, ‘It’s so great Paul’, and he gave me a hug. He’s such a lovely man.

“We have that spirit going around in the Stones as well. There’s a lot of love there and a lot of respect.”

THE ROLLING STONES – Foreign Tongues

★★★★★

July 8 (UPI) — A Nicaragua-flagged oil tanker under investigation for allegedly transporting fuel subject to U.S. sanctions ran aground off India’s western coast after breaking free from its anchor during severe weather.

India’s Directorate of Revenue Intelligence said the vessel was unmanned when it ran aground, according to Nicaraguan news outlet 100% Noticias.

Indian authorities have identified the 597-foot MT Al Jafzia as part of a suspected “shadow fleet” used for clandestine maritime operations.

According to the investigation, the tanker allegedly switched off its tracking system to conduct ship-to-ship fuel transfers at sea, a practice commonly used to conceal the origin of oil cargoes.

The vessel ran aground near Manori Beach, north of Mumbai, drawing renewed attention to the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

Nicaraguan economist and opposition figure Juan Sebastián Chamorro wrote on X that the Al Jafzia’s use of the Nicaraguan flag showed Ortega’s government had joined what he described as a “shadow fleet” transporting Russian and Iranian oil to evade sanctions imposed by the United States and other countries.

“Ortega is now selling the Nicaraguan flag and joining the shadow oil fleet,” Chamorro wrote. He added that the case “demonstrates Ortega’s ties with Putin to evade sanctions.”

Press reports said the MT Al Jafzia was one of three vessels detained by Indian authorities after investigators detected suspected fuel smuggling, fuel theft and illegal ship-to-ship transfers at sea.

Such operations are commonly associated with networks that help sanctioned countries, including Iran and Russia, sell energy exports through illicit channels by using flags of convenience to avoid international scrutiny.

The incident prompted criticism from Nicaraguan opposition leaders and political analysts in exile, who said the case exposed what they described as the Nicaraguan government’s involvement in illicit international activities.

Political scientist José Antonio Peraza told 100% Noticias that the operation appeared to be an illegal transaction intended to evade sanctions or obtain favorable transport terms for the fuel.

“Nicaragua does not have a long tradition of merchant ships sailing under its flag around the world. Therefore, it is very difficult to believe this could happen without the involvement of the Nicaraguan authorities or the Ortega dictatorship,” Peraza said.

Economic analysts warned that the incident could increase the risk of additional international financial and commercial sanctions against Nicaragua if foreign governments conclude the country’s flag is being used to facilitate shipments of sanctioned Iranian oil.

Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa reported that Ortega’s government had not commented publicly on the incident.

Nicaragua maintains close ties with Russia and Iran. Nicaraguan Vice Foreign Minister Valdrack Jaentschke was in Iran this week to attend the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ortega has previously described Nicaragua’s revolution as the “twin” of Iran’s revolution.

Brent crude rises above $76 a barrel for the first time in two weeks amid renewed violence in Strait of Hormuz.

Oil prices have surged as renewed hostilities between the United States and Iran threaten to derail a fragile ceasefire that had brought some relief to global energy markets.

Brent crude, the main international benchmark, rose as much as 3 percent on Wednesday, reversing a slide that had seen prices return to pre-war levels.

Brent futures for September stood at $76.07 a barrel as of 04:00 GMT, the highest since June 23.

The jump came after the US launched strikes on Iran and revoked a temporary waiver of sanctions on Iranian oil, following attacks on three commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.

US, Qatari and Saudi officials blamed Iran for the attacks on the vessels.

US Central Command said on X that it had begun “launching a series of powerful strikes against Iran to impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway”.

Tehran has not directly claimed responsibility for the attacks, but has repeatedly warned vessels against attempting to transit the waterway on routes it has not approved.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said earlier that Tehran would take “decisive actions to safeguard its national interests and security” in response to the revocation of the sanctions waiver, describing the move as a “blatant violation” of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by Washington and Tehran on June 17.

Tony Sycamore, a senior market analyst at IG Australia, said the MoU’s language was deliberately vague regarding control of the strait and traffic management.

Disagreement between the US and Iran over whether the strait is an international waterway or partly Iran’s territorial waters was never fully resolved, Sycamore said.

“It remains to be seen whether this morning’s US strikes bring a swift end to the latest escalation or Iran elects to continue flexing its leverage over the Strait with actions that fall short of triggering a broader conflict,” Sycamore said in a note to clients on Wednesday.

“At the very least, it will keep markets on edge and does suggest crude oil prices have based for now.”

The US strikes followed a separate move by the US Treasury Department late on Tuesday to revoke its 60-day waiver on sanctions on Iranian oil.

The Treasury Department last month authorised the sale of Iranian oil until August 21 as part of broader negotiations with Tehran, but transactions will now no longer be allowed after 12:01am EDT (04:01 GMT) on July 17, according to a statement on the department’s website.

The new order also rescinds authorisation for any new transactions, including purchases or loading, after Tuesday.

Saul Kavonic, head of energy research at MST Marquee, said he expects oil prices to remain elevated as hazardous conditions persist in the strait and the release of emergency oil stockpiles wind down.

“Iran fully intends to cement its control over the Strait of Hormuz in the coming weeks, which is unacceptable to the US, many Gulf states and global customers, and could result in passage through the strait remaining below 50 percent of pre-war levels for many months with periodic flare-ups in hostilities,” Kavonic told Al Jazeera.

People in Cuba already faced an ongoing economic and humanitarian crisis, largely due to a US blockade.

Cuba has suffered its third nationwide power blackout since the start of the year, as the country’s fuel reserves diminish and its electric grid crumbles due to an energy crisis precipitated by the US fuel blockade.

The blackout in the country of nearly 10 million people was reported on Monday by the state-run Electric Union, which said that the cause is under investigation.

Cuba’s Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy said protocols were quickly activated to restore electricity throughout Cuba after the outage.

“Vital services continue to be protected, amidst this complex situation exacerbated by the energy blockade we face,” he said.

Grid operator UNE said it was providing electricity to some vital services, including hospitals and food production centres, but by late afternoon was able to serve only 1 percent of the capital, Havana’s, ⁠demand.

Cuba was already struggling with fuel supplies before US President Donald Trump cut off oil deliveries from Venezuela to the island in January. But Trump’s actions, including threatening tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba, have made things significantly worse, and deepened the island’s financial crisis. As a result, blackouts and power cuts have accelerated.

Since January, Washington has only allowed one oil tanker, from Russia, to pass its blockade and dock in Cuba, as part of a sanctions campaign aimed at ending more than six decades of communist government in Havana.

Trump has pointed to the US abduction of Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, in January, and his replacement with a successor that can be pressured to work with the US, as a potential blueprint for Cuba.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel accused the US of trying to “incite social unrest by strangling Cuba’s fuel supply”.

“The actions of electrical workers in the midst of a genocidal energy blockade are heroic,” he wrote on social media.

The blackout is the eighth on the island of 9.6 million people since late 2024. It comes as the state imposes power cuts across the country – over 30 hours straight in parts of Havana and over 70 hours in some rural areas – in a desperate attempt to preserve fuel.

“Living like this is agony,” Meyboll Font, a 51-year-old self-employed social media community manager, told the AFP news agency.

Font said her Havana neighbourhood has been surviving on just “three or four hours of power a day”, but that the blackout was worse because “you never know when it [electricity] will return”.

A well-known Russian city, Nizhny Novgorod, is incredibly famous for its place on the energy map as the location for the largest energy production and refinery for both local consumption and for exports to Europe. But the energy history has suddenly changed in early July 2026, primarily due to unexpected attacks by Ukrainian drones. The Ukrainian drone attacks, described in official reports, have left an indelible devastating mark on Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsitez (Norsi), considered the largest oil refinery of the Lukoil corporation in Kstovo (Nizhny Novgorod region), and had to suspend its routine refinery operations.

Reuters reported this serious military-related incident on July 3, citing two sources in Russia’s oil industry. According to The Moscow Times, a reputable foreign media outlet, the drone attack damaged the plant’s main primary processing unit, AVT-6, which provided 53% of the Norsi refinery’s capacity. Another unit, AVT-5, which accounts for 25% of the plant’s capacity, was disabled by a drone on June 24. As of July 2, Norsi (Russia’s fourth largest oil refinery and the second largest gasoline producer) stopped selling wholesale quantities of gasoline and diesel fuel on the St. Petersburg Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange.

As The Moscow Times reports, Norsi, which has an annual capacity to process 15 million tons of oil and produce 5 million tons of gasoline, became the fifth Russian refinery to halt production since the beginning of June. Gazprom Neft’s Moscow refinery ceased refining on June 16, with repairs, according to Reuters sources, potentially lasting until 2027. Tatneft’s Taneco refinery in Nizhnekamsk has been idled since June 12; the Kuibyshev refinery, since June 10; and the Volgograd refinery, since June 1.

Moreover, the authorities of the aggressor country will likely be unable to increase the capacity of Russian oil refineries damaged by BP-LA strikes in the coming month, local Russian media Kommersant reported. According to its source, refining volumes in July will “at best” remain at June levels, and only if there are no further attacks at the refineries.

Ukrainian Defense Forces attacked the Kstovo oil refinery on May 18 and 20, 2026. As a result of the repeated attacks, the AVT-6 primary oil refining unit was damaged, after which the refinery suspended operations.

On July 2, Sergei Sternenko, advisor to Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, reported that drones had again attacked the Kstovsky refinery of Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez, and a major fire had broken out at the plant. Later that same day, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine confirmed that the strike on the Kstovsky Oil Refinery was carried out by the Defense Forces, as a result of which the AVT-6 primary oil refinery unit was damaged. Ukrainian officers noted that this oil refinery is one of the largest in Russia and has a design capacity of about 17 million tons of oil per year.

Reports also circulated this early July that Russia has turned to fuel imports from India after Ukrainian strikes disrupted its refineries, a rare reversal for one of the world’s biggest fuel exporters that could bring African oil giants into focus if Moscow widens its search for alternative suppliers. The reports further indicated Russia to likely seek imports from Belarus, with which it has a strategic partnership, and both formed the Russia-Belarus Union. Moscow and Minsk have been working together productively in all areas, coordinating their efforts in countering external threats and coordinating challenges through various institutions of the Russia-Belarus Union.

But for African oil producers, such as Algeria, Angola, Libya, Nigeria, and Egypt, Russia’s fuel crisis could open a new window for countries with active refineries, as global markets seek more secure supplies after US-Iran tensions and disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz reshaped fuel trade. That possibility has gained attention because Russia is now turning to foreign imports to ease domestic shortages.

Meanwhile, Russia has not traditionally depended on African crude oil, but its worsening fuel shortages could make Africa’s oil producers and refiners more strategically important as Moscow seeks supply through direct purchases or alternative refinery routes, while sanctions pressure complicates access to Venezuela and Iranian oil networks.

India is the fourth-largest oil refiner in the world. Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said at a press conference held on July 2 that India was ready to support Russia with oil and gas supply. “We could potentially supply fuel to Russia if needed,” the minister said, explaining it depends on how the situation develops. 

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told TASS that Russia had sufficient fuel reserves to supply the domestic market, but the stir around the situation with gasoline had led to a demand increase of approximately 20-30%. However, he added, “the system’s logistics connections are currently being restructured to meet needs,” and this will take some time. He also stated that he could restrict exporting diesel to manufacturers “to further fill the domestic market.”

As Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on June 30, if Russia can reach cost-effective deals to import fuel, that could help stabilize the market. However, Peskov added that the Kremlin will not disclose which countries it is in contact with regarding possible fuel imports.

In the meantime, Russia has taken a few steps to control the situation. The government has already reduced the mandatory sales of gasoline on the exchange trading from 15% to 10% of the volume. The Kremlin’s presidential decree has been signed, aimed at stabilizing the domestic petroleum product market. Interfax sources explained that the gasoline volumes freed up by the measure would be used to supply agricultural producers and socially significant consumers. While Russia makes no request for fuel from Kazakhstan, Orenburg processing plants are receiving 28% of usual gas from Kazakhstan. In addition, Bashkortostan’s oil refineries are boosting output, owing to unprecedented emergency demand of fuel, and this is stabilizing the situational challenge.

Ukrainian drones have attacked many cities, including Tver, Tula, Smolensk, Kaluga, Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Rostov, Krasnodar, and Moscow regions, as well as the republic of Crimea and the Sea of Azov and the Black Seas.

July 3 (UPI) — The Justice Department on Friday called on states to investigate whether businesses and individuals are artificially inflating gas prices amid complaints from President Donald Trump that costs are too high.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. along with Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson sent a letter to state attorneys general asking them to join federal investigators in probing potentially illegal practices.

“Recent volatility in crude oil prices does not suspend either the antitrust laws or state consumer protection laws, and it does not authorize companies to manipulate retail prices or collude with their competitors,” the letter read.

“We also encourage State Attorneys General to use all tools available under your state laws to investigate and prosecute any misconduct causing unjustified prices increases — particularly conduct that violates state antitrust and consumer protection statutes.”

Gas prices have been on the rise since late February when the United States and Israel began attacks on Iran. Tehran, in return, largely shut down the Strait of Hormuz to traffic, crippling the the transport of oil through the waterway. About one-fifth of the world’s gas supplies pass through the strait.

An agreement between the United States and Iran reopened the strait, but Trump took to Truth Social on June 23 to complain that gas prices had not dropped fast enough.

“The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil,” he wrote. “Those prices are dropping like a rock! In other words, customers are being ‘gouged.’

“I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this. Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing!”

AAA reported Friday that the current national average gas price was $3.82 per gallon for regular gasoline, down from $4.26 a month prior. One year ago, it was $3.16 per gallon.

Pembina Pipeline (PBA) has signed a preliminary agreement with Canadian federal and provincial governments, alongside Trans Mountain, to participate in a major nation-building energy infrastructure initiative aimed at expanding global market access for Canadian crude oil.

The multi-stakeholder partnership aims

Military command issues threat a day after Qatari mediators hailed ‘positive progress’ in indirect US-Iranian talks.

Iran’s military command has threatened ships that attempt to cross the Strait of Hormuz using unapproved routes with a “forceful response,” casting new doubt over trade flows in the critical conduit for global energy supplies.

Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters issued the threat on Thursday, a day after Qatari mediators hailed indirect negotiations between US and Iranian officials as making “positive progress” towards a peace deal.

“Any failure to comply with and depart from the designated route or disregard for the navigation protocols of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Strait of Hormuz will be met with an immediate and forceful response from the armed forces, and will endanger the security of the offending vessels,” the military command said in a statement carried by the country’s semi-official Tasnim news agency.

While Tehran did not specify what prompted the warning, it came after US Central Command (CENTCOM) on Wednesday said it had presided over a security dialogue in Bahrain during which regional leaders expressed their commitment to the “free flow of commerce” in the strait.

Iranian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi hit out at CENTCOM’s statement on Thursday, saying the forum “cannot establish legal order and security for the Persian Gulf”.

“The region’s security will be ensured through the end of interventions and the US withdrawal from the area, respect for countries’ sovereignty, and acceptance of new geopolitical realities – not under the military umbrella of America,” Gharibabadi said in a post on X.

The Strait of Hormuz, which facilitated about one-fifth of the global trade in oil and liquefied natural gas before the US-Israel war on Iran began in late February, has become a major sticking point in Washington and Tehran’s talks aimed at turning their fragile ceasefire into a lasting peace.

While Iran agreed to make its “best efforts” to arrange the safe passage of ships in the strait in the memorandum of understanding it signed with the US on June 17, Tehran has repeatedly threatened to attack ships that do not use its preferred route close to the Iranian shoreline.

At least 49 attacks on commercial vessels have been recorded in the strait since the start of the war on February 28, according to MarineTraffic.

Most of those incidents, including drone attacks on a Singapore-flagged cargo ship and Panama-flagged merchant vessel on Thursday and Saturday, respectively, have been blamed on Tehran.

While transits through the waterway have risen since US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed their MoU on June 17, they remain far below the roughly 130 daily crossings that took place before the conflict.

At least 45 vessels crossed the strait on Wednesday, up from 34 on Tuesday, according to MarineTraffic data.

After dropping to pre-war levels on Thursday on reports of productive talks in Doha, oil prices largely held steady as markets opened in Asia on Friday.

Brent futures for August delivery stood at $72.07 per barrel as of 02:30 GMT, after dropping below $71 for the first time since the war the previous day.

Maritime monitoring service TankerTrackers.com said on Thursday that a ship which Iranian media reported had run aground in the Strait of Hormuz has in fact been stuck in the same spot since March and is part of an operation managed by the notorious Iranian oil magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani.

Here is what we know about Shamkhani, whom the US and EU allege is a central figure in Iranian and Russian shadow fleet operations, generating billions of dollars of oil revenues for both, and what happened to his ship in the Hormuz strait.

What do we know about the stranded ship?

On Thursday, TankerTrackers.com reported that the ship that Iranian media said had run aground in the Strait of Hormuz after using a “US-suggested route” has actually been stuck in the same spot since March.

It identified the vessel as the Arista, and reported that while it is Comoros-flagged, it is in fact part of an operation managed by the sanctioned Iranian oil magnate Shamkhani.

Who is Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani and what are the allegations against him?

Shamkhani is an Iranian oil shipping magnate who has multiple Western sanctions imposed on him. He is the son of the late Ali Shamkhani, a senior political adviser to Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Ali Shamkhani led the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) for a decade until 2023, making him the second-longest-serving security chief since 1979 after former President Hassan Rouhani, who was SNSC secretary for nearly 16 years.

He was reportedly killed in the first Israeli-US strikes on Tehran on February 28 , which triggered the war with Iran and also killed Khamenei, whose funeral begins tomorrow.

In March, the Sarajevo-based Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) reported that following an investigation, Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani and his brother had used aliases and Caribbean “golden passports” to amass a $29m million property portfolio in Dubai.

The US Treasury, which has sanctioned the Shamkhani shipping empire, says it is part of a massive Iranian and Russian oil smuggling ring and that the Comoros‑flagged Arista aground in Hormuz is part of that network.

How does Shamkhani’s oil shipping operation work?

According to the US Treasury, the Shamkhani network makes use of “front” companies to buy Iranian and Russian oil for which it falsifies shipping documents. It switches the oil between vessels frequently via its shipping operations and sells the oil on to buyers who pay for it via their own front companies to obscure the flow of money.

Additional profits are funnelled through hedge funds and other money-laundering operations, the US Treasury alleges.

It said Shamkhani relies on a mix of crude oil, oil product and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tankers to generate billions of dollars for the Iranian and Russian regimes.

According to the European Commission, Shamkhani “uses the company Milavous Group Ltd to blend crude oil with various petroleum products from Russia and to rebrand for exporting purposes, thereby concealing their origin”.

Shamkhani is not known to have responded publicly to these allegations.

What sanctions have been imposed on Shamkhani?

Shamkhani was first sanctioned by the US last July, amid a large number of Iran-related sanctions. In April, the US Treasury Department announced additional sanctions on Shamkhani’s network.

“Treasury is moving aggressively with Economic Fury by targeting regime elites like the Shamkhani family that attempt to profit at the expense of the Iranian people,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

A statement from the US Treasury added that Shamkhani “heads a multi-billion dollar Iranian and Russian petroleum sales empire that enriches a family connected to the highest echelons of the Iranian regime at the expense of the Iranian people”.

The European Union sanctions tracker website says Shamkhani is also subject to EU sanctions, describing him as “a businessperson active in the Russian oil trade and a central player in Russia’s so-called ‘shadow fleet’.”

Russia’s shadow fleet is a network of hundreds of ageing, poorly regulated oil tankers that Russia uses to export crude and fuel while evading Western sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

An August last year, the UK government also announced sanctions against Shamkhani including an asset freeze, director disqualification and travel ban. Minister for the Middle East Hamish Falconer said: “The UK is announcing sanctions against those who operate on behalf of Iran, fuelling its attempts to undermine stability in the Middle East and global security.

“Iran’s reliance on revenues from trading networks and connected organisations enables it to carry out its destabilising activities, including supporting proxies and partners across the region and facilitating state threats on UK soil.”

July 2 (UPI) — A Ukrainian national has been charged in Germany in connection with the 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines bringing natural gas 760 miles via the Baltic Sea from northwestern Russia to Lubmin in northeastern Germany.

Authorities allege the suspect, named only as Serhii K, led and coordinated an operation with seven others to sabotage the $17 billion gas projects on Sept. 26, 2022, according to reports in German media Wednesday. He is also charged with attacking and destroying civilian energy infrastructure and causing an explosion.

Prosecutors said he is the same individual who was detained by Italian authorities in August and extradited to Germany in November.

He denies all wrongdoing.

German prosecutors further allege he was a serving Ukrainian officer and that he and the others, who were also members of the Ukraine military, were “acting on behalf of state bodies in Ukraine” to deprive Moscow of energy revenues from the pipelines to fund its war against Ukraine.

The finger has variously been pointed at Ukraine, along with Britain and the United States, and even Russian itself, but the Federal Public Prosecutor General’s claim the attack was ordered by Kyiv was highly significant because Germany is one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies, providing military aid and political support.

Kyiv , which has always denied involvement, did not immediately respond to the accusation.

Three of the four pipelines were ruptured east of the Danish island of Bornholm in the attack. Nord Stream 1 was shut down at the time due to technical problems.

Nord Stream 2, a subsidiary of the Russian state-run energy giant Gazprom, was completed in September 2021 after being plagued problems including legal wrangles and U.S. sanctions targeting companies party to the project.

However, it never opened because Germany cancelled its certification process shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 as it moved to wean itself from its reliance on Russian gas.

The project, which would have doubled Nord Stream’s gas capacity to 110 billion cubic meters annually — said by the company to be sufficient to supply to 26 million homes in Europe and critical to efforts to guarantee the European Union’s “security of supply of natural gas.”

Brent falls below $71 a barrel amid reports of progress in talks to end the war.

Oil prices have fallen to levels not seen since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran amid rising hopes for a breakthrough in negotiations aimed at sealing a permanent peace deal.

Brent crude fell more than 1 percent on Thursday to below $71 a barrel, returning the international benchmark to pre-war prices.

Brent futures for August delivery stood at $70.82 per barrel as of 04:30 GMT, lower than at any point since February 27.

Following the latest drop, Brent prices are down more than 38 percent from their post-war peak of more than $126 a barrel on April 30.

The slide came after Qatar, a key mediator between Washington and Tehran, said that US and Iranian officials had made “positive progress” in indirect talks aimed at resolving issues related to their memorandum of understanding (MoU) on ending the war.

US President Donald Trump also cast a positive light on the talks on Wednesday, saying the “denuclearisation of Iran is moving along well”.

Vandana Hari, the founder of the Singapore-based oil market analysis provider Vanda Insights, said a steady uptick in oil flows out of the Gulf and “cautiously optimistic geopolitical sentiment” had driven prices lower.

“Several key issues in the MoU remain unresolved, but the two sides appear to have backed off confrontation on the issue of the interim Hormuz transit regime, at least for the time being,” Hari told Al Jazeera.

“I expect crude to continue grinding lower until the backlog of stranded barrels has cleared, and prices could even swing into oversold territory,” she said.

“The real test of normalisation of Persian Gulf supply will come after that, necessitating fresh supply-demand balance recalibration.”

Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for one-fifth of the global trade in oil and liquefied natural gas in peacetime, has shown tentative signs of recovery in recent days after a sharp decline following attacks on two commercial vessels in the waterway on Thursday and Saturday.

At least 40 vessels transited the strait on Tuesday, according to data from MarineTraffic, up from 27 crossings on Monday and 22 on Sunday.

Maritime traffic nonetheless remains far below its pre-war level of roughly 130 daily crossings amid persistent concerns about safety in the waterway.

While Iran agreed to make its “best efforts” to arrange the safe passage of vessels in the MoU it signed with the US on June 17, Tehran has since repeatedly claimed the sole right to control movement through the strait.

At least 49 attacks on commercial vessels have been recorded in the strait since the start of the war, according to MarineTraffic, most of which were claimed by Tehran or blamed on its forces.

Grid operators warn the US heatwave could send electricity demand near record levels before the Fourth of July holiday.

Power grid operators in the United States are warning that a dangerous heatwave could put more strain on an electric grid already under pressure from surging energy consumption.

A stretch of extreme heat is expected to intensify across much of the central and eastern parts of the country this week, peaking from Tuesday through Thursday.

That heatwave is likely to continue through one of the busiest travel weekends of the year, as millions of Americans prepare for Fourth of July celebrations on Saturday.

Temperatures this week are forecasted to climb above 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) from Boston to Washington, DC, pushing up demand for air conditioning.

The heatwave coincides with two major events on the US calendar. Saturday’s holiday marks the 250th anniversary of the US’s independence, and millions are expected to gather for barbecues, parades and fireworks.

The extreme temperatures also come as the FIFA World Cup has reached the knockout stage, with many host cities, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, expected to feel the heat.

Humidity could push the heat index as high as 46 degrees Celsius (114 Fahrenheit) in some places, while overnight temperatures will offer little respite.

The US’s largest regional grid operator, PMJ Interconnection, is forecasting record summer electrical demand of 166.3 gigawatts for Thursday evening, surpassing the previous summer peak set two decades ago, in 2006.

The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), the state’s grid operator, is also expecting electricity demand to approach record highs, while the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), which covers 15 states in the Midwest and South, could also see its peak demand record challenged.

Authorities at MISO say they will rely on PMJ for support in covering consumer needs.

In a May report, PMJ’s executives warned of a “fundamental mismatch between how fast demand is growing and how quickly new supply can be built and connected to the grid”.

New power plants, they said, now take twice as long to build and cost twice as much as they did a decade ago.

Meanwhile, there has been increasing pressure on electrical grids from new technology like data centres and electric vehicles.

In May, PMJ said hyperscale data centres were “adding load at an unprecedented pace”.

Experts say the artificial intelligence (AI) boom is colliding with climate change, with tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude being processed in vast, energy-hungry data centres.

The most energy-intensive are the hyperscale facilities that require between 100 and 300 megawatts of electricity, enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes.

Many of those are concentrated in northern Virginia, which sits within PJM’s service territory and is widely described as the world’s largest data centre hub.

Researchers have also identified what they call a “data heat island effect”, finding that land surface temperatures around AI data centres rise by an average of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), with some locations seeing increases of up to 9 degrees Celsius (16.2 degrees Fahrenheit).

The National Weather Service in the US warns that long periods of extreme heat create significant stress on the body.

It has urged people to limit outdoor activity, stay hydrated and keep close to air conditioning or cooling centres.

A 2024 report from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that 21,518 deaths in the United States from 1999 to 2023 were heat-related.

The highest number came in the final year of the report’s analysis, 2023. That year, 2,325 people died from causes attributed to high temperatures.

Brent crude edges up as tit-for-tat strikes imperial return to normality in key waterway.

Oil prices have climbed following the latest flare-up in hostilities between the United States and Iran.

Brent crude, the primary international benchmark, rose about 0.9 percent on Monday after tit-for-tat US and Iranian strikes over the weekend renewed doubts about a return to normal shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Brent futures for August delivery stood at $73.21 a barrel as of 03:30 GMT, 127 cents higher than the day before the US and Israel launched their war on Iran on February 28.

“Brent’s partial rebound this morning reflects a market that had perhaps run too quickly on ceasefire optimism,” Fabien Yip, a market analyst at IG in Sydney, Australia, told Al Jazeera.

“Oil had nearly unwound its entire war premium, despite an MoU with no enforcement details and ongoing strikes. Thursday’s attack on a commercial vessel was a reality check, and this weekend’s tit-for-tat exchanges have compounded that,” Yip said.

Asian stock markets were mixed on Monday morning, with losses in Tokyo and Seoul and gains in Hong Kong and Taipei.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 was 0.7 percent lower, while South Korea’s Kospi was down 1.9 percent.

Japanese and Korean stocks tied to the AI boom saw some of the biggest losses amid heated debate about whether tech firms’ massive investments in the emerging technology will pay off.

Japanese tech giant SoftBank Group fell about 5 percent, while Advantest Corporation, a key maker of semiconductor testing equipment, slumped 3.7 percent.

South Korean memory chip giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix dropped about 5 percent and 4 percent, respectively.

Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index and Taiwan’s Taiex both rose, gaining 2.2 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively.

“Quarter-end profit-taking is adding to the selling pressure, with investors locking in gains from what has been a remarkable run. The Kospi is up roughly 95 percent this year, and the Nikkei up 37 percent,” IG’s Yip said.

“The underlying concern, however, is whether the AI boom can continue to translate into sustained earnings growth, or whether margin pressure is arriving sooner than the market anticipated.”

US Central Command announced strikes against Iran on Friday and Saturday, citing Iranian attacks on two commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, which in peacetime serves as a conduit for about one-fifth of the global trade in oil and liquified natural gas.

Iran responded to the strikes by launching a series of missiles and drones targeting US military assets in Bahrain and Kuwait.

Washington and Tehran agreed to cease their attacks and renew their negotiations on ending the war, multiple media outlets reported late on Sunday, citing unnamed US officials.

Axios, citing an unnamed senior US official, reported that the sides would hold talks in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday.

Iran has yet to comment on the reported agreement to cease hostilities or the planned talks.

US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a memorandum of understanding to end the war on June 17, but the agreement has repeatedly come under strain due to flare-ups in hostilities and disagreements about the meaning of the text.

Every morning Marisol Winfrey Herrera’s three-and-a-half-year-old daughter Jo reminds her to turn off the tap while washing her hands and brushing her teeth.

When they leave home, she reminds her mother to keep a bottle of ice with them to offer it to homeless people, who they sometimes find wilting in the Tucson heat. At first, they press the ice-filled bottles on the homeless folks to help them revive, then they offer the water to drink and hydrate. At her daycare, Jo is taught water-saving habits to combat Tucson’s soaring heat.

It is what prompted Herrera to join No Desert Data Center, a residents’ group that opposes two large data centres coming up on either side of Tucson – the $3.6bn project on the city’s southeast edge and a $5bn project on its northwest side in the town of Marana, together known as Project Blue.

The group believes these would consume more water and power than the city set in the Sonoran Desert can afford.

“We are in the middle of a 30-year drought, which is now an extreme drought,” says Lisa Shipek, co-executive director of the Watershed Management Group, a Tucson-based nonprofit.

“Water was a unifying theme in our campaign. The Colorado River cuts are looming, and this project would take water away,” Herrera told Al Jazeera.

Water flows in the Colorado River, which provides much of Tucson’s water through the Central Arizona Project canal system, have dropped by 20 percent since the year 2000 compared with water flows in the 20th century due to climate change, melting snow caps and warmer weather, making water cuts to Tucson imminent as the state could face as much as 77 percent water cuts.

“We say Not One Drop for data centres,” says Herrera, speaking of the campaign’s particularly emotive appeal for residents as water cuts get deeper and temperatures rise, with Tucson recording the warmest weather in 125 years last July and August.

Beale Infrastructure, a San Francisco-based company that is owned by investment management company Blue Owl in New York, had asked the city of Tucson to acquire 290 acres that were outside city limits for Project Blue. That would make it the city’s largest water consumer and among its largest power consumers. Beale did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

But at city council meetings, City Councillor Kevin Dahl began seeing hundreds of residents turn up to express their opposition to the project.

“Not for many issues do we get so much response,” he said. Herrera was among those who went.

Pitting environment against unions

At council meetings, Beale executives proposed that Project Blue could be the economic engine the city needed. It would create a few thousand jobs for construction workers, ironmongers, plumbers and other such workers during the construction of the project and a few hundred after that.

“Sometimes people travel as far as Phoenix for work,” Dahl said about Arizona’s largest city, which is nearly a two-hour drive from Tucson.

The project could bring jobs closer. Beale also expected the project to generate nearly $250m in taxes for the city, county and state in the first 10 years.

This left councillors with a difficult decision to make, weighing the project’s economic benefits against allocating it a share of the city’s increasingly scarce water and power.

Activists also raised concerns about whether Tucson Electric Power (TEP), the power utility, would raise rates for consumers so it could expand capacity to provide power for Project Blue. After raising rates by 10 percent in 2023, TEP proposed a 14 percent rate hike in June 2025 for grid upgrades made in the previous year.

Lee Ziesche, an activist from the Democratic Socialists of America who is campaigning to make TEP a public utility, said Project Blue could “lead to higher temperatures and higher rates” because of the heat island effect of the air conditioners and higher rates for power.

She often hears from residents that a rate hike would make it hard to pay bills or put on air conditioning, even as the number of 100-degree Fahrenheit (37.8 degree-Celsius) days has increased in Tucson, which is among the hottest cities in the United States.

The same concerns of needing ramped-up air conditioning would plague data centres too, experts say.

“The viability of data centres in Arizona will always be subject to climate change and heat risks,” says Kate Gordon, chief executive of California Forward, a think tank that works on a sustainable economy.

“The heat in Arizona makes energy less efficient, and servers heat up, so projects will need higher amounts of water and cooling, which developers have to balance against a possibly lower real estate and labour cost,” she said. “I am always amazed at how climate does not figure in business plans.”

Dahl and Andres Cano, a supervisor in Pima County, in which Tucson is located, had discussions with Beale representatives.

“We thought they would go elsewhere if the city did not acquire the land” for the project, Dahl said. Cano also came away with the same impression.

In August 2025, Tucson councillors voted unanimously not to acquire the land for the project or provide it with water and power. In December, Cano became one of only two supervisors in Pima County to oppose the project, and it was approved for construction in an unincorporated part of the county.

“It will create short-term construction jobs for what will ultimately be a project with few wins,” Cano said. “This pitted the environment and unions, but industry is not for unions. This will have just about 100 jobs when it is done.”

With no access to Tucson’s water supply, Beale decided to cool its servers with air conditioners rather than water and use a closed-loop water system, so it would recycle and reuse water.

But Vivek Bharathan, a spokesperson for the No Desert Data Center, said using air conditioners would increase power usage.

Nearly half of TEP’s power comes from fracking, he says. Data centre demand will only mean “more fracking somewhere else, climate and health consequences all along the way”.

The state’s largest data centre

Even as Project Blue was making its way through a fraught approval process, Beale announced another data centre project in the neighbouring farming town of Marana. It was to be spread over 600 acres (242 hectares), twice the size of Project Blue. The area was spread over two farm plots, one owned by the Mormon church and the other by a family trust of city council member, Herb Kai.

This project, too, is slated to bring thousands of construction jobs to a farming town as well as tax revenues.

But when Jackie McGuire, a mother of three and former Wall Street banker, heard about it, she and other residents launched a campaign to stop the land from being rezoned for a data centre. Residents wanted Marana to stay a farming town.

McGuire, who works as a research analyst, said the data centres’ servers and large air conditioners that would be installed to keep them running would raise the project’s cost and make Marana unbearably hot.

Temperatures rose by up to 2.2F (1.22C) downwind from data centres in the Phoenix area, a study published in May had found.

“The heat generated will be like one to two million space heaters,” McGuire says. “It can go up to 112 degrees [44.4C] here already. The heat island effect could make Marana uninhabitable.”

The Marana data centre will be provided power by TEP and Trico, which announced a 7.23 percent rate hike in January.

McGuire and other residents campaigned to have a referendum on whether the land could be rezoned for a data centre. Their plea was not successful, and the city council approved the rezoning of the land.

But the experience of the campaign had invigorated McGuire, and she decided to run for city council herself. The central issue of her campaign is to bring transparency to the data centre’s functioning.

Even as the campaigns in Pima County and Marana raged on, La Osa, the state’s largest data centre project, took shape in Tucson’s neighbouring Pinal County. The 3,300-acre project by the Vermaland real estate group was expected to house 59 data centres and two of its own natural gas facilities, as well as a utility-scale battery storage system.

But residents worried about noise pollution from protracted project construction and a possible increase in power costs.

“I’m worried about the constituents in that area, about the power bills going up, even though you’re saying that they’re going to pay for it,” Pinal County Supervisor Rich Vitiello said in a board of supervisors meeting on May 27.

In the face of such opposition, a La Osa lawyer spoke at the meeting to say the project had been scaled down and would now house 11 data centres from the 59 planned earlier.

‘A straw to the aquifer’

Sharing limited water has long been an emotive issue in the state, and the looming Colorado River cuts and data centre projects have brought such concerns to a head.

Arizona fought one of the longest-running cases, stretching more than three decades, in the US Supreme Court over the sharing of Colorado River water with California. Eventually, Congress adjudicated to provide California with a greater share of the water, which turbocharged its economic growth.

“No water can flow into Tucson and Phoenix unless California gets its full share,” says Jason Robison, co-director of the Gina Guy Center for Land and Water Law at the University of Wyoming College of Law.  “Arizona has always been in a tough spot.”

It strengthened the state’s long-held tradition of conservation.

“Arizona communities have been preparing for the drought conditions we see today since 1980,” a spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Water Resources said in an emailed response.

Authorities have curtailed lawns in Tucson, he said, and educational campaigns of the kind Herrera’s daughter underwent are the norm.

It has meant that groundwater reserves go deep, and homeowners are assured of a water supply before it is given to data centres or farms.

“The use by data centres is low compared to farm use, especially alfalfa and hay,” says Eric Kuhn, retired general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District and co-author of Science Be Dammed: How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River.

However, “data centres are not under the same rules to replenish water” as other industries, says Sharon Medgal, director of the Water Resources Research Center at the University of Arizona. “So it adds a straw to the aquifer.”

Arizona’s governor, Katie Hobbs, who is up for re-election in November, has represented to the Bureau of Reclamation that the state is home to essential industry, including semiconductors, space and data centres, and so needs a higher share of water from the Colorado River. Water, as well as its use for data centres, has been an important issue in primary races across the state.

Construction began for Project Blue at the end of April. No Desert Data Centers’ activists arrived just after dawn to protest. Within days, they found subcontractors bringing in water to control dust on site from construction. County authorities cited Beale.

Then Beale began digging wells on site after reportedly receiving permits allowing that from the Arizona Department of Water Resources. This is likely for 31,000 gallons  (more than 117,000 litres) a year, which is just enough for toilets and kitchens and will likely be recycled for reuse after.

“This may not yet be a winning story,” Bharathan, the spokesperson for the No Desert Data Center, said. “But it is a continuing story.”

The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz has restored the flow of oil and natural gas after more than 100 days of disruption, but the crisis has already left a lasting mark on global energy markets. The prolonged closure exposed the vulnerability of the world’s energy supply chain and has prompted governments to reconsider how they secure fuel supplies.

Analysts say the crisis mirrors the impact of the 1973 Arab oil embargo, which transformed global energy policy by encouraging conservation, diversification, and strategic stockpiling. While today’s energy system proved more resilient, the Hormuz disruption may accelerate a broader shift away from fossil fuels.

What Happened?

The Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 20 percent of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies normally pass, remained effectively closed for more than three months during the US Israeli conflict with Iran.

Despite the disruption, global markets avoided a severe supply crisis through rapid rerouting of cargoes, the release of strategic reserves, reduced Chinese imports, and shifting demand patterns.

However, analysts say these emergency measures were only temporary. Energy inventories fell sharply during the crisis, and markets were approaching a critical point before shipping resumed.

Why the Crisis Matters

The Hormuz disruption demonstrated that even today’s highly interconnected global energy system remains vulnerable to geopolitical conflict.

Unlike previous crises, the world avoided a complete energy collapse because governments, traders, and shipping companies quickly adapted. Nevertheless, the episode exposed the limits of those emergency responses and reinforced concerns about overreliance on a single strategic chokepoint.

The crisis is expected to influence long term energy investment decisions far beyond the Middle East.

Lessons From the 1973 Oil Embargo

The 1973 Arab oil embargo fundamentally changed global energy policy after oil producing nations restricted exports to countries supporting Israel during the Yom Kippur War.

The embargo caused oil prices to surge, triggering inflation and prompting governments to adopt fuel efficiency standards, develop domestic oil production, establish strategic petroleum reserves, and create the International Energy Agency.

Rather than ending fossil fuel use, the crisis encouraged countries to consume energy more efficiently while reducing dependence on imported oil.

A New Energy Strategy Emerges

The Hormuz crisis appears to be driving another major strategic shift, particularly across Asia.

Countries heavily dependent on Middle Eastern oil and gas are increasingly prioritizing energy security over low fuel costs. Governments are expected to expand strategic petroleum reserves while accelerating investment in domestic renewable energy, nuclear power, and alternative fuel sources.

India, Pakistan, Japan, and South Korea are among the countries reviewing long term strategies aimed at reducing exposure to overseas energy disruptions.

Europe Continues Its Energy Transition

Europe entered the Hormuz crisis after already reshaping its energy system following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The loss of Russian energy supplies forced European countries to cut gas consumption, diversify imports, and rapidly expand renewable energy capacity.

The latest Middle East disruption is expected to reinforce that trend by encouraging further investment in clean energy and energy efficiency while reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels.

Investment Trends Support the Shift

Global investment patterns already suggest that energy markets are evolving.

According to the International Energy Agency, worldwide energy investment is projected to reach 3.4 trillion dollars this year, with much of the growth directed toward renewable energy, electricity infrastructure, battery storage, and grid resilience rather than new oil production.

Electric vehicle sales continue to rise rapidly across Europe, Latin America, and Asia Pacific, while Chinese solar panel exports have surged across Africa and Southeast Asia.

Governments are also increasing spending on energy efficiency, with around 20 countries introducing new conservation measures directly in response to the Hormuz crisis.

Why It Matters

The Hormuz crisis has reinforced that energy security is becoming just as important as energy affordability.

Rather than relying solely on global oil markets, governments are increasingly pursuing diversified energy systems that combine fossil fuels with renewables, nuclear power, strategic reserves, and domestic production.

This transition is expected to influence investment, industrial policy, and international trade for years to come.

Future Outlook

Oil and natural gas are expected to remain central to the global economy for decades, particularly in transportation, manufacturing, aviation, and power generation.

However, future growth in fossil fuel demand may become significantly slower as governments invest more heavily in renewable energy, electric vehicles, battery storage, and efficiency improvements.

The Hormuz crisis may ultimately be remembered not as the event that ended the oil era, but as the moment many countries accelerated preparations for a more diversified energy future.

Implications

The Hormuz crisis is likely to have consequences that extend far beyond the immediate recovery in oil and gas flows. Governments that experienced supply disruptions are expected to place greater emphasis on energy security, even if it comes at a higher economic cost. This could accelerate the expansion of strategic petroleum reserves, diversify import sources, and increase investment in domestic energy production, including renewables, nuclear power, and critical energy infrastructure.

For oil exporters in the Gulf, the crisis may strengthen the case for developing alternative export routes that bypass the Strait of Hormuz, reducing dependence on a single maritime chokepoint. Import dependent economies, particularly across Asia, are also likely to rethink long term procurement strategies by securing more flexible supply contracts and expanding storage capacity.

Financial markets are also expected to assign a higher geopolitical risk premium to energy prices. Even after shipping has resumed, investors may continue to price in the possibility of future disruptions, increasing volatility across oil, gas, shipping, and insurance markets. The crisis could also accelerate capital flows into technologies that reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels, including electric vehicles, battery storage, hydrogen, and energy efficiency.

Analysis

The Hormuz crisis may ultimately prove more significant for what it revealed than for the physical disruption it caused. Although global energy markets demonstrated remarkable resilience, that resilience depended on temporary measures such as drawing down inventories, rerouting cargoes, reducing consumption, and relying on spare production capacity. These mechanisms bought time rather than solving the underlying vulnerability of the global energy system.

Unlike the 1973 Arab oil embargo, which primarily forced consuming nations to improve efficiency while expanding fossil fuel production elsewhere, today’s crisis occurred at a time when commercially competitive alternatives to oil and gas already exist. Renewable energy, electric vehicles, battery storage, and advanced power grids have matured into viable strategic assets rather than purely environmental investments. As a result, governments are increasingly viewing clean energy not only as a climate policy but also as a national security priority.

Another important distinction is the shift in investment behavior. Historically, supply disruptions often encouraged greater investment in oil exploration and production. Following the Hormuz crisis, however, a growing share of capital is moving toward energy diversification instead of simply increasing fossil fuel output. This suggests policymakers increasingly see reducing oil dependence as a more sustainable way to improve resilience than expanding strategic reserves alone.

The crisis also exposed a structural imbalance in global energy markets. While production remains concentrated in politically sensitive regions, demand growth is increasingly centered in Asia, leaving major importers highly exposed to geopolitical instability. Countries such as India, Pakistan, Japan, and South Korea may therefore pursue parallel strategies of securing diversified hydrocarbon supplies while rapidly expanding domestic renewable generation, nuclear power, and energy storage.

Perhaps the most important takeaway is that energy security has overtaken cost as the dominant driver of policy decisions. For decades, governments largely optimized their energy systems for affordability and efficiency. The Hormuz disruption demonstrated that the cheapest energy source can quickly become the most expensive if geopolitical events interrupt supply. That realization is likely to reshape government policy, corporate investment, and global energy trade for years to come.

The crisis does not signal the immediate end of the oil era. Oil and natural gas will remain indispensable for transportation, petrochemicals, aviation, heavy industry, and electricity generation in many regions. However, it may represent an inflection point where the trajectory of fossil fuel demand begins to flatten as countries systematically reduce their strategic dependence on imported hydrocarbons. In that sense, the Hormuz crisis could be remembered less as an energy supply shock and more as the catalyst that accelerated the next phase of the global energy transition.

With information from Reuters.