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Here’s TWZ’s weekly carrier tracker monitoring America’s flattop fleet, including deployed Carrier Strike Groups (CSG) and Amphibious Ready Groups (ARG), using publicly available open-source information.

President Trump declared this morning on Truth Social that the U.S. Navy “will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” which follows U.S. Central Command’s announcement yesterday that U.S. forces executed a mine clearance mission and asserted navigational rights and freedoms in the Strait. “Additional U.S. forces, including underwater drones, will join the clearance effort in the coming days,” the release concluded. It isn’t clear exactly what the destroyers did near the Strait or the details of their attempted transit.

Additional warships have arrived in Europe and the Middle East over the last week, and more are en route, as the U.S. takes advantage of the ceasefire to rearm, resupply, and reposition key assets across theaters. The first elements of the George H.W. Bush CSG transited the Strait of Gibraltar in early April, and the flagship with at least three escorts is expected to follow in the near term. The Gerald R. Ford CSG is on station in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, most recently conducting operations southwest of Cyprus, satellite imagery shows. The Boxer ARG, embarked with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), departed Pearl Harbor and is transiting the Pacific Ocean westbound toward the Middle East, where the Tripoli ARG-31st MEU is currently operating.

For the latest on the status of the ceasefire and negotiations, follow our rolling coverage here and be sure to check TWZ.com daily for live updates.

Note: Positions are general approximations. Non-deployed LHA/LHD amphibious warships are not shown.

Contact the author: ian.ellis-jones@teamrecurrent.io

Other US allies criticise Trump’s move, including France, Spain and Turkiye, and China also condemns the plan.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says his country will not join the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz announced by United States President Donald Trump, a move also criticised by other US allies.

“We are not supporting the blockade,” Starmer told BBC radio on Monday, adding that the United Kingdom “is not getting dragged in” to the US-Israel war on Iran.

Starmer said it was vital to get the strait reopened. In peacetime, about 20 percent of the world’s oil supplies pass through the strategic waterway that links the Gulf to the Indian Ocean.

“It is in my view vital that we get the strait open and fully open, and that’s where we’ve put all of our efforts in the last few weeks, and we’ll continue to do so,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, reporting from London, said Starmer has continued to “maintain a delicate balancing act” of saying the UK will not be joining the war while being careful not to level any criticism directly at Trump regarding his actions in the war.

Traffic through the strait has been heavily restricted since the start of the war. Iran has allowed through only some vessels serving friendly countries, such as China.

Starmer made his statement as the US military announced it would block all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports starting from 14:00 GMT. It was unclear, however, how the US military would enforce the blockade.

“The blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman,” the US military’s Central Command said.

US forces would not impede vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports, it added.

In a lengthy social media post on Sunday, Trump said his goal was to clear the strait of mines and reopen it to all shipping and Iran must not be allowed to profit from controlling the waterway.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France and the UK would hold a conference in the coming days aimed at restoring freedom of navigation in the strait.

Macron reiterated that no diplomatic effort be spared in reaching a lasting end to the US-Israel war on Iran.

Nicole Grajewski, assistant professor at the Center for International Research at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, said a US blockade was “not a minor coercive signal” but could rather be considered essentially a resumption of the war.

Other US allies also criticised Trump’s move, including Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles, who said the planned naval blockade “makes no sense”.

“It’s one more episode in this whole downward spiral into which we’ve been dragged,” she said.

Fellow NATO ally Turkiye said the Strait of Hormuz should open “as soon as possible”.

“Negotiations with Iran should be conducted, persuasion methods should be used and the strait should be opened as soon as possible,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told the state-run Anadolu news agency.

China, Washington’s great power rival and a big importer of Iranian oil, also criticised the plan.

“The Strait of Hormuz is an important international trade route for goods and energy, and maintaining its security, stability and unimpeded flow is in the common interest of the international community,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun said, urging Iran and the US not to reignite the war.

Many people resorting to eating leaves and animal feed to survive in North Darfur and South Kordofan states.

Millions of people in Sudan are surviving on just one meal a day, as the country’s food crisis deepens and threatens to spread, according to a report published by a group of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs).

“Sudan’s war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which enters its third year on Wednesday, has caused widespread hunger and displaced millions of people amid one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises,” a report by Action Against Hunger, CARE International, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, and the Norwegian Refugee Council said on Monday.

“Nearly three years of conflict, marked by violence, displacement and siege tactics, have systematically eroded Sudan’s food system – field by field, road by road, market by market – producing mass hunger,” it added.

The report highlighted that millions of families can only access one meal a day in the two states worst hit by the conflict – North Darfur and South Kordofan.

“Often, they miss meals for entire days,” the report said, adding that many people have resorted to eating leaves and animal feed to survive.

The NGOs said communal kitchens set up to collectively prepare and share meals are struggling to stretch the scarce food available as resources dwindle.

It added that the crisis is being compounded by a worsening economic crisis and climate change.

Government denies famine

In April 2023, a war erupted between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), unleashing a wave of violence that has led to one of the world’s worst man-made humanitarian crises, with more than 12 million forced from their homes, and more than 33 million people in need of humanitarian aid.

More than 40,000 people have been killed over the past three years, according to the United Nations. Aid groups say the actual death toll could be many times higher.

Some 61.7 percent of Sudan’s population – 28.9 million people – is facing acute food shortages, according to the 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan.

The army-aligned Sudanese government denies the existence of famine, while the RSF denies responsibility for such conditions in areas under its control.

The UN has reported widespread atrocities and waves of ethnically charged violence. In November, the global hunger monitor confirmed, for the first time, famine conditions in el-Fasher and Kadugli.

In February, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification found that famine thresholds for acute malnutrition have been surpassed in Um Baru, where the rate of acutely malnourished children aged below five years was nearly double the famine threshold, and Kernoi.

The report, based on interviews with farmers, traders, and humanitarian actors in Sudan, details how the war in Sudan is driving communities towards famine conditions – due to disruptions to farming as well as the use of starvation as a weapon of war – including deliberate destruction of farms and markets.

Women and girls have been disproportionately affected, as they face a high risk of rape and harassment when going to the fields, visiting markets, or collecting water, the report said.

Female-headed households are three times more likely to experience food shortages than male-headed households, it added.

Sana* is a 27-year-old woman living with her roommate, Fatemeh, in a two-bedroom apartment in western Tehran. The economics master’s student and risk control analyst at an investment firm had already survived the June 2025 Israel-Iran war. When the latest war began in late February, she promised herself she would not run away from the city again. As told to Ariya Farahand. 

The night before the war, every piece of news arriving on my phone had two possibilities: Either they strike, or they don’t. I stayed up late, waiting. Previously, the strikes had come around midnight, so I kept watching. When nothing happened, I put on some Persian music, poured myself a drink to take the edge off, and went to bed. I told myself the night had passed without an attack.

I was wrong.

It was 9:40am on February 28 when the first missiles hit Tehran. I was caught between sleep and wakefulness in my apartment in the west of the city. My neighbourhood hadn’t been targeted yet. I hadn’t heard any explosions. I didn’t know what to expect.

My phone began chiming with text messages I couldn’t bring myself to get up and check. When it started ringing, I realised that it was urgent. It was my boyfriend, his shaky voice enquiring if I was OK. Before I could answer, he blurted out: “They struck. They attacked.”

He didn’t need to elaborate further.

Within minutes, my mother, my father and my younger sister were calling from Sari, 250 kilometres (155 miles) north in Mazandaran province, where they’re based, begging me to leave the capital. I stared at my cat, Fandogh (Hazelnut). She stared back. I made myself a promise: No matter what happens, I am not leaving Tehran.

The 12-day war last June had broken something in me. On its third day, my family’s pressure forced me out of the city. The drive to Sari was miserable, and my parents’ house was crowded; none of us found peace. This time, I refused. My boyfriend urged me to go somewhere safer. I said no.

By mid-afternoon, my roommate Fatemeh had finally made it home from work, the gridlock traffic making her typical hour-and-a-half journey take four hours. She walked in, still wearing her coat, sat down in the middle of the living room, and wept – the first explosion, she told me, had hit right near her office.

Routine

The war settled into a grim routine. We learned to anticipate strikes during certain windows: early morning, the afternoon, and after 11 at night. The bombings were never predictable enough to be safe, but those were the hours we instinctively braced. We relied on supermarket deliveries to avoid going outside. If we absolutely needed something, we made a frantic dash to the shops and rushed straight back.

The internet was another kind of suffocation. When friends who had emigrated abroad heard there was “no internet”, they assumed it meant social media was blocked. But, for most people, it was a total blackout – we couldn’t even load Google. We kept buying virtual private networks (VPNs) that would work for a day and then stop. My daily life ran on podcasts and YouTube. Now there was nothing. I downloaded foreign TV series from local servers that were still operating just to keep my mind occupied. I read. I found a copy of Baghdad Diaries (a 2003 book recounting the war in Iraq), and its mirroring of my own reality sent a chill through me. You could write a whole book, I kept thinking, about what we were living through.

March 16 was one of the worst nights of my life – though it had started gently enough.

At my friends’ urging, I had gone to a nearby cafe that evening, the first time in weeks that anything felt briefly, superficially normal. I got home about 9pm, did some light cleaning, and was asleep by 11.

At 2:30 in the morning, a massive explosion tore through the silence. The force of it jolted me upright. Fatemeh was already awake. We stumbled into the hallway, peered out the window – and then an intense flash of light flooded the apartment, followed by a blast so violent we both screamed. Still in our pyjamas, without stopping to grab our phones, we sprinted down the fire escape to the lowest level of the parking garage. Several neighbours were already there.

Seven or eight more explosions followed. They were bombing near Mehrabad airport, close to us. I genuinely thought I was going to die.

When I finally went back upstairs, my cat was hiding in the wardrobe, trembling. My family and boyfriend had been calling and texting, without response, for hours, watching the news reports about strikes near the airport and imagining the worst. Guilt washed over me for leaving my cat behind. I called everyone to say I was alive.

Attempting normality

I felt like a refugee in my own city.

The days had already been darkening before that night. One day, an oil depot was struck. I had stepped out to do some shopping at the corner of the street. I stopped and looked up. It was the middle of the day, but the sky had turned black. Pitch black. Like the end of the world.

April 4 was my first day back in the office – and the day we would find out whether our contracts were being renewed or not. When I arrived, a colleague was already standing in the hallway, termination letter in hand, crying about how she would pay her rent, how she was supposed to find work in the middle of a war. I will never forget her tears. By midday, half the staff – 18 out of 41 – had been laid off. Nobody did any work.

I kept my job. Three days later, on my commute home, the streets were nearly empty – a journey that once took more than an hour took less than 20 minutes. The only queues were at petrol stations, snaking down deserted roads, after US President Donald Trump threatened to strike Iran’s energy infrastructure and destroy our “whole civilisation”. In the lift, my neighbour stepped in, carrying two large packs of bottled water and talked anxiously about pooling money for a building generator. That night, Fatemeh went to bed early, claiming she didn’t care about any of it. She had been biting her nails all evening. She showered before bed – so that she would be clean, she told me, if the water was cut off after an attack.

When the ceasefire was announced, I couldn’t believe it. I waited for the denial that never came. When it was finally clear the war was on pause, it felt as though a 100-kilogramme weight had been lifted from my chest.

I pulled the blanket over my head, but found I still couldn’t sleep. What happens next?

The first thing I did the following morning was book an appointment to get my hair cut and my nails done. The second thing I did was buy a high-grade VPN – expensive, about $4 a gigabyte — and scroll through Instagram for the first time in weeks.

Small things. The kind that makes you feel human again.

*The names used in this article are pseudonyms chosen for security reasons

Iran’s military has called US blockade plans in the Strait of Hormuz an “act of piracy”, warning that the ports in the Gulf and Seas of Oman are “either for everyone or for no one”. Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi is in Tehran.

Lieutenant General Susan Coyle has held several senior command roles over her nearly 40-year military career, including during operations in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Australia has announced that its army will be led by a woman for the first time in its 125-year history, as part of a reshuffle of the country’s defence force leadership.

Lieutenant General Susan Coyle, the current chief of joint capabilities, will become the chief of army in July, the government said in a statement on Monday. She will replace Lieutenant General Simon Stuart, who assumed the post in July 2022.

Coyle’s career spans nearly four decades, during which she has held several senior command roles, including during operations in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Her appointment comes as the Australian military seeks to boost the number of female officers in its ranks. It is facing a wave of allegations of systemic sexual harassment and discrimination.

“From July, we will have the first ever female chief of army in the Australian Army’s 125-year history,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement.

Defence Minister Richard Marles called Coyle’s appointment a “deeply historic moment”.

“As Susan said to me, you cannot be what you cannot see,” Marles said.

“Susan’s achievement will be deeply significant to women who are serving in the Australian Defence Force today and women who are thinking about serving in the Australian Defence Force in the future.”

Australia’s army is undergoing a major transformation, equipping itself with long-range firepower, drones and other modern combat tools.

Coyle, 55, stressed her experience in areas such as cyber-warfare. “This breadth of experience provides a strong foundation for the responsibilities of command and the trust placed in me,” she said.

Women currently make up about 21 percent of the Australian defence forces, or ADF, and 18.5 percent of senior leadership roles. The ADF has set a target of 25 percent of overall participation for women by 2030.

Last October, a class action lawsuit was filed against the ADF alleging it failed to protect thousands of women officers from systematic sexual assault, harassment and discrimination.

The government on Monday also appointed Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, the current chief of the navy, as the head of the ADF, succeeding Admiral David Johnston.

The current deputy chief of the navy, Rear Admiral Matthew Buckley, will replace Hammond as head of the branch.

A KC-135R was just spotted transiting through RAF Mildenhall in the United Kingdom covered in patches installed over shrapnel damage.

The images come to us from aviation photographer Andrew McKelvey, which show the aircraft dotted with the repairs from nose to tail. It is very likely this is one of the tankers damaged in the Iranian long-range strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia last month. The aircraft belongs to the Ohio Air National Guard’s 121st Air Refueling Wing.

While the attack on the base is said to have damaged five tankers, the full destruction inflicted by it and subsequent strikes on Prince Sultan Air Base remains murky, as do potential impacts to facilities and aircraft located across the region. The lack of regular satellite imagery from U.S. providers of the Middle East has made it harder to understand what has occurred, but as we state repeatedly, satellite images would not show more minor damage to aircraft, such as the shrapnel holes seen here.

You can get an idea of how many aircraft the U.S. has lost during Operation Epic Fury from our recent graphic linked here.

While all tankers are precious assets, at least to a degree, due to the high demand on the fleet and its cumulative age, in this case there may be at least one positive side effect from the damage. Executing a battle damage repair plan in the field to get a KC-135 back in the air is a good real-life exercise, one that could prove vital if a future conflict in the Pacific were to erupt. Lessons will certainly be learned on many levels from Operation Epic Fury. And some of these lessons came the hard way even though they really shouldn’t have.

Regardless, the fact that this Stratotanker is flying again is a good thing and a testament to the airman in the field that made it happen.

We will likely be seeing more patched-up tankers in the coming days and weeks as similar repairs are made and they make their way back to the United States for much more repairs.

Contact the author: Tyler@twz.com

“From talking to parents, head teachers and school governors in my constituency, I know that many are worried about the rising cost of food, and in many cases the current funding just isn’t enough, forcing schools to provide smaller portion sizes and poorer quality food,” she said.

Leo, ​who last year became the first US-born pope, has emerged as an outspoken critic of the US-Israeli ⁠war on Iran.

United States President Donald Trump has unleashed a storm of criticism at Pope Leo XIV, calling him “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy”.

Trump delivered the unusual criticism of the head of the Catholic Church in a Sunday night post on social media, saying he does not “want a Pope who criticises the President of the United States”.

Trump’s outburst appeared to be triggered by recent remarks from Pope Leo critical of the US-Israel war on Iran.

Last week, Leo issued a rare direct rebuke of Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilisation, calling it “truly unacceptable“. And then, on Sunday, the 70-year-old pontiff implored leaders to end ongoing bloodshed, condemning what he described as a “delusion of omnipotence” fuelling war – comments that appeared directed at Trump.

The pope has also previously questioned the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies, saying, “I don’t know if that’s ⁠pro-life.”

Taking to Truth Social, Trump wrote: “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela.”

“Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician,” said the US president.

Trump also claimed credit for Leo’s leadership in the Catholic Church, suggesting the Vatican picked the first US-born pontiff – elected last year – to curry favour with the White House. “If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican,” Trump said.

Asked about the comments later on Sunday, Trump reiterated that he is “not a big fan” of Leo, who he said “is not doing a very good job”.

“He likes crime, I guess,” said Trump. “He’s a very liberal person.”

Trump also had a rocky relationship with Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, who criticised Trump’s ‌immigration ‌policy proposals when he first ran for president and suggested Trump was “not a Christian“. Trump had called Francis “disgraceful” in early 2016.

Leo is set to begin an 11-day trip to Africa on Monday, starting with a historic visit to Muslim-majority Algeria.

In a record turnout at the polls, Hungarians have voted out their long-serving, far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban, handing victory to the Tisza party’s Peter Magyar who ran a pro-EU campaign.

Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell suspends campaign to succeed Gavin Newsom after media reports detailed alleged accounts of sexual assault.

US Congressman Eric Swalwell has dropped out of the California state gubernatorial race following sexual assault allegations.

“I am suspending my campaign for Governor,” he said in a social media statement on Sunday.

“To my family, staff, friends, and supporters, I am deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past. I will fight the serious, false allegations that have been made – but that’s my fight, not a campaign’s,” the Democrat added.

Swalwell’s statement came after several influential Democratic Party lawmakers called on him to exit the race and resign from the United States Congress following reports from CNN and the San Francisco Chronicle that detailed alleged accounts of sexual assault from a former staffer and misconduct allegations from several other women.

“What he did is sick and disgusting,” Congressman Ro Khanna told the news programme Fox News Sunday, calling for investigations into the allegations by law enforcement and the US House of Representatives.

A March poll from Emerson College suggested that Swalwell was ahead of Democratic and Republican challengers by several points in the race to replace Governor Gavin Newsom.

But the reports shook his campaign, with powerful figures and organisations revoking their endorsements and calling for him to drop out over the weekend. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office confirmed on Saturday that it was investigating the allegations.

Republican US Representative Anna Paulina Luna said she would submit a motion to begin the process of expelling Swalwell, a move some Democrats in Congress said they could support.

“This is not a partisan issue,” Representative Pramila Jayapal said on Sunday. “This cuts across party lines. And it is the depravity of the way that women have been treated.”

Democrats have also called for the expulsion of Representative Tony Gonzales, a Republican from Texas, who is also facing sexual misconduct allegations.

Khanna and Republican Representative Byron Donalds have said they could support a bid to eject both Gonzales and Swalwell from Congress.

“As far as I’m concerned, both gentlemen need to go home,” Donalds said.

The Northern Irishman becomes the first player to repeat at Augusta National since Tiger Woods back in 2001-2002.

Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo, Tiger Woods, and now, Rory McIlroy.

The Northern ‌Irishman emerged from a tight pack of contenders to win the 90th Masters Tournament on Sunday, joining the trio of golf icons as the only players in history ⁠to conquer Augusta National in back-to-back years.

McIlroy ⁠said earlier this week that winning one Masters would make it easier to win a second, and he dug deep into that belief on Sunday to rally from a three-shot deficit on the front nine to post a one-under-par round of 71 for the winning score of 12-under 276 – one better ⁠than Scottie Scheffler.

“I can’t believe that I waited 17 years to get one green jacket, and I get two in a row,” McIlroy told CBS in Butler Cabin. “I think that all of my perseverance at this golf tournament over the years has really started to pay off.”

McIlroy’s sixth career major also tied him with Faldo for the most by a European player in the modern era, and they are tied for 12th-most all-time by any player.

Cameron Young, Russell Henley, England’s Tyrrell Hatton and Justin Rose finished another shot back at 10 under.

McIlroy rallies

McIlroy began the final round tied for the 54-hole lead at 11 under with Young, who birdied the second hole to reach 12 under and take the outright lead. It appeared that McIlroy’s repeat quest might unravel when he went three over on the two par-threes on the front nine to fall to 9 under for the tournament.

Suddenly, McIlroy’s name was looking up on the leaderboard at Young and Rose, who reached 12 under with ‌four birdies in a five-hole stretch through No 9. Scheffler was also making a run several holes ahead, and Henley reached 10 under through eight holes.

This is when McIlroy kicked it back into gear for the first time since closing with six birdies over his final seven holes on Friday. A birdie on the seventh hole got McIlroy back to double digits under par, and he pulled within one shot of the lead with another on the par-five eighth.

While Scheffler’s rally stalled for a long stretch with 11 consecutive pars, and Rose and Young struggled to hole putts on the back nine, McIlroy kept ratcheting up the pressure. He birdied the 12th and 13th holes to go 2 under through “Amen Corner” and build a two-shot lead.

Scheffler kept it interesting with birdies on numbers 15 and 16 to get to 11 under. Another birdie attempt on 17 stayed on the lip of ⁠the cup, and Scheffler parred out to post a 4-under round of 68, with McIlroy on the course with three holes to play.

The two-shot ⁠cushion proved helpful for McIlroy when he pushed his drive on the 18th hole well right into the trees. He was able to punch the ball forward into a greenside bunker and put it on the putting surface with his third shot.

From there, McIlroy easily converted the two-putt bogey, and became the fourth player in history to successfully defend at the Masters.

“It’s nice to have that two-shot cushion instead of the one [shot] like I ⁠had last year,” McIlroy said. “I looked at the [leader]board after I made the bogey on six, and I went back to 9 under at that point. And I said, ‘If I can get to 14 under, I think I’ve got a really good chance of winning this tournament.’

“I didn’t quite ⁠get there, I got to 13, but 13 was good enough standing on the 18th tee.”

After setting a Masters record ⁠with a six-shot lead after 36 holes, McIlroy played the final 36 holes in even par. That brought a host of players back into the mix, with at least four different players leading at some point during the final round.

McIlroy admitted that he kept a close eye on the leaderboard after falling back to 9 under to know where he stood in the tournament.

“It was a tough weekend,” he said. “I did the bulk of my work on Thursday and Friday, ‌but just so happy to hang in there and get the job done.”

Asian stocks fall as naval blockade threat injects new turmoil into financial markets.

Oil prices have risen sharply following US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a naval blockade of Iran.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose more than 8 percent on Sunday to top $103 a barrel.

It was the first time the benchmark rose above the psychologically important threshold of $100 since Tuesday, when prices surpassed $111 a barrel.

Trump announced on Sunday that the US Navy would block all ships from entering or exiting the Strait of Hormuz, following the collapse of ceasefire talks between US and Iranian officials over the weekend.

US Central Command said in a later statement that it would only block vessels travelling to and from Iran and that other traffic would not be impeded, in an apparent scaling back of Trump’s threat to impose a full blockade.

The command said the blockade would take effect on Monday at 10am Eastern Time (14:00 GMT).

Oil prices have been a rollercoaster since US-Israeli strikes on Iran prompted Tehran to impose a de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for about one-fifth of global oil and natural gas supplies.

After topping $119 last month, Brent fell below $92 a barrel last week after the US and Iran announced a two-week ceasefire following more than six weeks of war.

While Iran has allowed a limited number of ships to transit the waterway, subject to prior vetting and authorisation, traffic has been reduced to a trickle compared with peacetime levels.

Despite Washington and Tehran’s fragile truce officially remaining in place until April 22, only 17 vessels crossed the strait on Saturday, according to maritime intelligence firm Windward, down from roughly 130 daily transits before the war.

Major stock markets in Asia opened lower on Monday as Trump’s blockade threat stoked uncertainty on trading floors.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 0.9 percent in morning trading, while South Korea’s KOSPI dropped more than 1 percent.

US stock futures, which are traded outside of regular market hours, also fell, with those tied to the benchmark S&P 500 down about 0.8 percent.

Vessels will still be able to transit Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports, says CENTCOM; Iran warns any approaching military vessels will be breaching ceasefire.

The United States military has announced it will begin blockading all Iranian ports on Monday, its latest move to exert pressure on Tehran after marathon peace talks in Pakistan concluded without a deal.

In a statement on Sunday evening, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the blockade would apply to “all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports” from 10am Eastern Time (14:00 GMT) on April 13. That includes “vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas”, including those on the Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

However, US forces “will not impede freedom of ⁠navigation for vessels transiting the Strait ⁠of Hormuz to and ⁠from non-Iranian ports,” CENTCOM said, in an apparent scaling back from President Donald Trump’s earlier threat to blockade the entire strait and pursue ships paying tolls to Iran.

“There are a lot of questions here,” said Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro from Washington, DC, pointing to “conflicting information” coming out of the US side.

“Trump said the blockade would target any and all ships trying to enter or leave the Strait of Hormuz. But CENTCOM is saying this would only target ships going to or from Iranian ports.”

The price of US crude oil jumped 8 percent to $104.24 a barrel after the US blockade threat. Brent crude oil, the international standard, increased 7 percent to $102.29.

Iran has essentially taken control over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for the global energy market, since the US and Israel launched a war against the country on February 28. Traffic through the waterway has since slowed to a trickle, nearly paralysing about one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.

Iran has continued to move its own vessels through the strait, while allowing limited passage of ships from other countries. Iranian officials have discussed setting up a toll system after the fighting ends.

In a statement responding to Trump’s blockade threat, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said any approaching military vessels would be in breach of a US-Iran ceasefire – meant to be in effect until April 22 – and “will be dealt with severely”.

The US-declared blockade appears to be triggered by the failure of the talks in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, raising fears of renewed fighting.

Iranian officials blamed the US side for failing to reach a deal, with Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi saying US negotiators shifted the “goalposts” and obstructed efforts when a memorandum of understanding was “just inches away”.

Zohreh Kharazmi, an associate professor at the University of Tehran, said the US “is not in a position to dictate” to Iranians how to behave, or “to choose which vessels may pass”.

“If this blockade becomes a contest between the resilience of the Islamic Republic and the resilience of global markets, it will not take long to see who is losing,” she said, adding that Iran “is ready for a prolonged war”.

“Technically, they [the US] cannot control the situation. With Hollywood-style strategies, they cannot prevail in this battleground.”

Jorge “Toti” Vilalta is a political spokesperson for the Otro Beta social movement, and also a member of the ALBA Movimientos platform. He works for La Ceiba, a Latin American and Caribbean outlet focused on stories from the territories. A longtime Bolivarian and Chavista activist, he specializes in cultural, communications, and productive processes, as well as international solidarity initiatives. In this interview, Vilalta offers his views on the present challenges for Venezuelan popular movements and international solidarity initiatives, and argues that there is a need to articulate a clear narrative for the Chavista grassroots.

In the wake of the US attacks on January 3, which followed years of the blockade, what are the challenges to sustaining morale and keeping hope alive?

It is an important question. Maintaining high morale is essential for everything we need to do in the country. Venezuela needs to increase oil production to boost the economy. With the possibility that US sanctions and the oil blockade will be lifted, there is some hope. Additionally, the market upheaval due to the war against Iran has raised hydrocarbon prices, so that could improve our conditions to negotiate with our “kidnapper,” which is the US government.

The United States, despite being the world’s largest oil producer, still needs our crude. Its refineries in the South are geared to receive Venezuelan crude. Therefore, the US-Israeli war against Iran could help us negotiate sanctions relief, and that will help improve living conditions in the country.

Venezuelans need better jobs, healthcare, education, and access to culture. I believe this is also the priority for Acting President Delcy Rodríguez.

Politically, to sustain the revolution, our goal as grassroots movements is to advance the communal state as a Bolivarian socialist model. The regular national consultations make democracy stronger by creating direct connections between the government and the people, bypassing bureaucracy. We must keep working in the communities.

Another objective is maintaining peace. The multiple dialogue processes, under President Maduro and now with Acting President Rodríguez, have exposed and isolated neo-fascism and the far-right.

What is your take on the multiple and often competing narratives that have emerged since January 3?

There is a lot of work to be done in terms of communication and culture. There is no unified narrative on our side. The only Chavista version comes from the government. We need to explain what we’re doing and where we’re going. On January 3, we had a big chance to tell all the people of Venezuela: “Here is the enemy, clearer than ever; let’s unite.”

That work wasn’t finished. Many people today are confused and see no clear goals. People are still dealing with the trauma of the bombings, they fear not knowing what will happen. There is a lot of speculation on issues like early elections, not to mention the generalized perception that Trump is calling the shots. and the country’s commitment to following the US president’s dictates.

The Bolivarian Revolution has always had a weakness in communication. We do a lot, but we explain little about everything we do. It is hard to counter all the mainstream media propaganda. So in the end we feel trapped under bombings and blockades without being able to provide convincing explanations to the people. We need to create new communications channels, not just copy influencers from other countries.

What role does international solidarity play in the present circumstances? In particular, what are grassroots movements doing to press for the release of kidnapped President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores?

International solidarity is going strong. We have cultivated internationalist practices in Venezuela for over a decade. 

Concerning the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and Congresswoman Cilia Flores, here in Venezuela we had near-daily demonstrations all over the country in the first two or three weeks after the kidnapping. El Otro Beta and ALBA Movimientos were present in many of them. We have also been working with solidarity brigades that have arrived since the bombing and kidnapping.

Around the world, every third of the month there are concrete actions to push the “Bring Them Back” (“Los queremos de vuelta”) campaign. We have coordinated activities, rallies, webinars, and more with grassroots movements from other countries. ALBA Movimientos, the International People’s Assembly and the Simón Bolívar Institute have been at the forefront of this campaign.

In the US, solidarity collectives have been protesting at the New York prison where the president is being held. They’ve been marching, chanting, and holding signs with information, challenging the false narratives of drug trafficking and “narcoterrorism.” We also saw street actions outside the court, and in many cities around the world, on March 26 to coincide with the latest court hearing.

In Latin America, we are witnessing the rise of the far right, with deeply reactionary agendas. What, in your opinion, is the strategy for resisting and fighting back?

That’s a million-dollar question. I wish we had a definite answer. We missed our chance to unite Latin America and the Caribbean in the first ten years of this century.

Now, there are more reactionary and far-right governments, it feels like we are surrounded. We are seeing the launch of the “Shield of the Americas,” a new version of the Plan Condor from the 1970s. 

With this worrying scenario, one priority would be for leftist and progressive governments to stop fighting among themselves. Beyond governments, the people of Latin America and the Caribbean must also set aside their differences, including ideological ones. If there’s one thing we all have in common, it’s our opposition to fascism. We are facing an advance of neocolonialism, fascism, and US imperialism.

If we do not put our differences aside to work together towards a common goal, which is to protect the 99% against the 1% of billionaire pedophiles and genocidal Zionists, who are leading us towards a totalitarian dictatorship of AI surveillance and robot police, we are doomed.

Comandante Chávez and the other revolutionary leaders said it: we must unite and fight together. The people of Latin America and the Caribbean are starting to understand this. It is also great to see US citizens standing up against war and the neo-fascism seen in ICE and immigration enforcement practices. And the demonstrations in support of Cuba and Palestine have been inspiring. More and more people are realizing that they live under a racist and war-mongering state.

We know that the masses bring about change. The Bolivarian Revolution had its genesis in the 1989 Caracazo uprising. The Vietnam War ended because people refused to fight, and a massive anti-war movement emerged. We are in a similar situation in history: the US faced serious setbacks in Iran, wasting taxpayers’ money, and losing soldiers in a war driven by Zionism. The imperialist defeat in this war can create new possibilities for left-wing governments, and for the global struggle for sovereignty. We must provide tools to popular power organizations and for mass mobilizations.

On February 28, the Venezuelan government issued and then deleted a statement regarding the US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran, which sparked controversy. How did you interpret this incident? And beyond the government’s stance, what position should Latin American movements take regarding the war that is spreading in the Middle East?

I do not believe that this was the government’s position. That is exactly why the statement was removed, even before people started criticizing it. It was the position of someone who was not politically affiliated, not of the government or the Venezuelan people.

The most important thing to know about the war in West Asia is that Iran is currently the world’s most significant anti-imperialist beacon. Its people are on the frontlines resisting against sanctions, global criminalization, and constant attacks by the genocidal state of Israel.

Iran has responded with full force, politically and militarily. It has well-trained leaders and a very clear narrative. Furthermore, Iran is taking advantage of its strategic ability to influence the global economy. With its control over the Strait of Hormuz, it aims to break the petrodollar dictatorship and the US’ ability to impose its will.

The dictatorial Gulf monarchies, which violate human rights but get a free pass on Western media, are paying the price. And we have seen the immediate impacts on energy markets. If the war continues, the balance of power between countries will change quickly and there are prospects of things improving for people in the Global South.

We must thank Iran and mourn its thousands of dead because they have stood up not only for their Islamic revolution and their nation-state, but also opened a window for the rest of the Global South’s peoples to fight against imperialism.

In Cuba, food and fuel shortages are worsening due to the US’ escalating blockade and sanctions. What are ALBA Movimientos and grassroots organizations across the continent doing to get concrete aid to the island?

ALBA Movimientos has been collecting supplies and goods for Cuba. The same people who were part of the flotilla for Cuba are the ones organizing this effort. We are sending aid from Venezuela, Mexico, and Colombia.

Several Latin American countries are supporting this movement through their local communities. Brazil works with the MST, in Argentina it is via several social organizations. The Nuestra América Flotilla was the first of its kind, and it will happen again. There is an open humanitarian channel from Mexico to continue sending humanitarian supplies.

In Venezuela, we started the campaign “Love is Repaid with Love” (“Amor con amor se paga”). It has three phases. The first one, which was for donating medicines, was organized regionally, with collection centers in each state and in Caracas. The second phase, now underway, involves raising funds through various events (street fairs, a concert, and more) because what’s coming next is more expensive.

The third phase is purchasing supplies, primarily solar panels, which are very expensive, along with wiring and batteries, and other essential items. The information is available on our social media channels, and the shipments will happen at some point. They are not scheduled yet.

Against the backdrop of ongoing US sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela, how can solidarity organizations navigate the tension between the need to accommodate pressure from Washington and the defense of sovereignty and anti-imperialism?

Let me focus on the Venezuelan case because I believe the situation in Cuba is different right now. 

In my view, the historic, Bolivarian project continues. Communes continue their work toward a communal state even if this is not evident in other territories or at the institutional level. Social movements are working hard, staying true to anti-imperialism, and the acting government is following President Maduro’s line.

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has made it clear that Venezuela should be able to make its own decisions and that the US should recognize Venezuela as an independent nation.

But it is necessary to explain this to the entire country, not just to the hardcore chavista base. The US government ultimately wants Chavismo to disappear. The best way to achieve this right now is not to bomb it, but to destroy it from within.

We understand that the government must keep negotiating with the US, and that Delcy Rodríguez has a gun pointed to her head. We have to be honest: we are negotiating with a kidnapper, and the conditions are not equal.

Still, internally, we need a narrative that explains to the country what happened, where we are, and where we are headed. Chavismo needs answers. In communities, people are asking questions that the media, including state outlets, are not answering, and this is a problem. To continue with our program, we need to have a shared understanding, a common narrative with which to influence national public opinion.

Beyond what the government does, we in the popular power organizations must battle for common sense. We need to explain that we are living through an extraordinary situation and that only a united country can overcome it. We cannot just wait for the right time to act; we need to keep moving forward, even though the circumstances are much more difficult.

CENTCOM says the blockade will begin at 14:00 GMT, as Iran warns of even higher prices at the pump.

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