Read the daily news to learn English

Trump mocks Japan about Pearl Harbor in response to question about Iran war

It would be funny if it wasn’t so Trumpy. Hosting the Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, in the Oval Office on Thursday, Donald Trump could not resist mocking Japan about its 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor during the second world war. After a series of questions about the current conflict in Iran, the US president was asked by a Japanese reporter: “Why didn’t you tell US allies in Europe and Asia and Japan about the war before attacking Iran?” Trump replied: “One thing you don’t want to signal too much, you know, when we go in, we went in very hard and we didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan?” There was laughter in the room but the president had not finished. He asked mischievously: “Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?” Suddenly the laughter died away. Takaichi’s eyes widened and she shifted in her chair as Trump evoked the moment that drew the US into the second world war. The Japanese attack on the US naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, took place on 7 December 1941, nearly five years before Trump was born. It killed 2,390 Americans and the US declared war on Japan the next day. Then president Franklin Delano Roosevelt called it “a date which will live in infamy”. The US defeated Japan in August 1945, days after atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. Trump supporters relished his off-the-cuff response. His son Eric posted on the X social media platform: “One of the great responses to a reporter in history!” Critics were less impressed. Journalist Mehdi Hasan wrote: “I’m sorry, but this is legit hilarious. If only he wasn’t the president and just a character on TV. We could laugh our heads off without any sense of unease, dread, or embarrassment.” It was not Trump’s first awkward moment regarding the war. Last year, when Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, brought up 6 June as D-day, Trump responded that it was “not a pleasant day” for the chancellor.

Iran says it will show ‘zero restraint’ if energy infrastructure is targeted again

Iran said on Thursday it would show “zero restraint” if its energy infrastructure was targeted again as Qatar revealed that almost a fifth of its liquefied natural gas export capacity had been knocked out in an Iranian strike that is likely to have a years-long impact. The warning, delivered by the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, followed Israel’s attack on Iran’s massive South Pars gasfield – which it shares with Qatar – which triggered Iranian retaliatory strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas complex and other Gulf neighbours, sending stock markets tumbling globally and triggering sharp increases in gas prices. Ras Laffan supplies about 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas. Israel also confirmed on Thursday that the Bazan Group refinery in Haifa had been hit and damaged in a claimed Iranian strike. Araghchi said in a post on X: “Our response to Israel’s attack on our infrastructure employed FRACTION of our power. The ONLY reason for restraint was respect for requested de-escalation. ZERO restraint if our infrastructures are struck again.” Amid warnings of an unprecedented energy crisis, and a growing sense of panic in global capitals, Israeli officials dismissed Donald Trump’s claim that their attack on the gasfield had not been coordinated with Washington, as Trump asked Congress for an additional $200bn (£150bn) to pay for his war. On Thursday Trump recast his denial, saying he had told the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, not to attack Iranian gasfields again, but he appeared unable to explain the logic of how the junior partner in a wartime military alliance had felt able to act unilaterally with such internationally damaging consequences. “I told [Netanyahu] don’t do that, and he won’t do that,” Trump told reporters as he met Japan’s prime minister. “We get along great. It’s coordinated, but on occasion he’ll do something” that the US opposed, he said. Netanyahu, when asked if Israel had told Trump about the attack, told reporters: “Israel acted alone … President Trump asked us to hold off on future attacks and we are.” Trump also suggested he would not send ground troops to Iran, despite the deployment of 2,000 US marines to the region. Reuters had reported he was considering deploying thousands of troops to reinforce the operation in the Middle East. Possible next steps in the campaign against Iran include securing safe passage for oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz, a mission that would be accomplished primarily through air and naval forces, the sources said. But securing the strait could also mean deploying US troops to Iran’s shoreline. Underlying the growing anxiety, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan issued a joint statement expressing “deep concern” about the escalating conflict and calling on Iran to “cease immediately its threats, laying of mines, drone and missile attacks and other attempts to block the strait to commercial shipping”, and to comply with a UN security council resolution. They said they were ready “to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the strait [of Hormuz]”, warning: “The effects of Iran’s actions will be felt by people in all parts of the world, especially the most vulnerable.” Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, rose as much as 10% to $119 a barrel at one point, before slipping back to $110 a barrel, a gain of 3.3%. Crude prices have soared by 60% since the war started on 28 February. European and UK gas prices also jumped, climbing as much as 24% before easing back. They have more than doubled since before the war. Stock markets reeled under a heavy sell-off, with steep falls on Japanese, South Korean and Hong Kong markets bleeding into Europe. The UK’s FTSE 100 closed down 2.35% at 10,063 points, and there were similar falls on Germany’s Dax and France’s CAC. Airlines said the rise in fuel prices would drive up fares and urged passengers to book early. Long-haul airlines such as Air France-KLM and Lufthansa said they would be adding more flights via Asia, as Gulf carriers’ hubs are either shut or operating at a reduced level. With the war at risk of spiralling wildly out of control, Trump and his officials continued to deliver chaotic messaging, even as unnamed Israeli officials were quoted by Reuters as suggesting the gasfield attack was not likely to be repeated. Iranian strikes also hit Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea refinery, located at the end of a pipeline that bypasses the strait of Hormuz, and two Kuwaiti oil refineries. The chief executive of QatarEnergy, Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, said about $20bn in damage had been done to its facilities and that repairs would sideline 12.8m tons per year of gas for three to five years, threatening supplies to some European countries. “I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that Qatar would be – Qatar and the region – in such an attack, especially from a brotherly Muslim country in the month of Ramadan, attacking us in this way,” al-Kaabi said. Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said his country had not ruled out military action in response to the attacks. However, most analysts said there was still a widespread reluctance among Gulf countries, even Saudi Arabia, to entangle themselves in Trump’s conflict. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said in Brussels: “I hope everybody returns to reason,” noting the infrastructure attacks’ potential long-term impact on global markets and calling for a moratorium on such strikes, as well as those on civilians. The insistence by Israeli officials that Trump had been informed of the South Pars attack came amid contradictory messaging from Washington that suggested Trump was seeking a way to distance himself from the latest dangerous Israeli escalation even as he threatened to bomb the field himself. The scramble to find a coherent message extended to key Trump officials, with the US treasury secretary suggesting on Fox that the US lift oil sanctions on some Iranian cargoes already at sea, while the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, delivered his own warning to Iran in bellicose language. “Our objectives, given directly from our America-first president, remain exactly what they were on day one,” Hegseth told reporters. “These are not the media’s objectives, not Iran’s objectives, not new objectives. Our objectives: unchanged, on target and on plan.” He continued: “The world, the Middle East, our ungrateful allies in Europe, even segments of our own press should be saying one thing to President Trump – thank you. Thank you for the courage to stop this terror state from holding the world hostage with missiles while building or attempting to build a nuclear bomb. Thank you for doing the work of the free world.” He accused the press of trying to convince the American public that it was “spinning toward an endless abyss, or a forever war, or a quagmire”. He said: “Nothing could be further from the truth.” Additional reporting by Graeme Wearden

Habermas and the lessons of history | Brief letters

One thing missing from most of the commentaries following the death of Jürgen Habermas (Editorial, 18 March) was his use of the expression “history as a learning process”. That he took the idea seriously was understandable, given that he was born in Germany in 1929, but the sad truth is that politicians keep making the same old mistakes even when the consequences of their actions are staring them in the face. Dr Charles Turner University of Warwick • “Testing of water from Lough Neagh, which has a surface area 26 times bigger than Windermere” (Report, 14 March). I am in Ohio and I don’t know the size of Windermere. I reckon it is about 26 times smaller than Lough Neagh. Mary Jo Hanlon North Royalton, Ohio, US • We are doing our bit to uphold the existence of pointless units of measurement (Letters, 18 March). Every year we have gooseberry shows in the area, in which the fruit is weighed in pennyweights and grains (me neither). Geoff Holman Knutsford, Cheshire • On children’s first fibs (Letters, 16 March), when my third child was two he insisted that his hands weren’t red because he’d been playing with red ink, but because he’d been holding a red asteroid that had fallen from the sky. Elli Woollard London • My sister has never been allowed to forget that when I, as a newborn, suddenly began to cry, she rushed up to my mother and said: “He’s crying for his feed, Mummy. I didn’t bite his toe.” Allan Wilcox Beverley, East Yorkshire • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

Viktor Orbán refuses to agree to €90bn loan for Ukraine as EU leaders accuse him of betrayal

EU leaders have failed to convince Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, to drop his opposition to a vital €90bn (£78bn) loan for Ukraine. They have accused him of betrayal and acting in bad faith but have not persuaded him to budge. In an unusual sign of public anger on Thursday, several leaders made plain their irritation with Orbán, who refused to sign off on the loan agreed last year because of a dispute with Kyiv over a damaged oil pipeline. Arriving at an EU summit, Kaja Kallas, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, said she was not optimistic about a solution before the Hungarian elections on 12 April, when Orbán faces the most serious challenge to his 16-year rule. Hungary had agreed to the loan and was now “taking [its] agreement back”, Kallas said, adding that Orbán was not acting in good faith, a foundational principle of the EU treaty. “The question for us is how can we really force the implementation of the agreement we made in December?” she said. Orbán and his ally Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister, refused to sign a European Council statement “look[ing] forward” to the release of funds for Ukraine. Two EU sources said they did not expect a shift from Hungary at the summit. “Orbán didn’t move in the Ukraine session,” said one. EU leaders agreed in December that 24 member states would take out a €90bn loan for urgently needed military aid and government support for Ukraine. Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic approved the idea with the crucial caveat that they did not have to contribute to the loan. It was a hard-fought plan B after an alternative option of tapping Russia’s frozen assets for the funding failed to win the required unanimity. Orbán’s reneging on his agreement has infuriated EU leaders because it undermines EU decision-making at a moment when Ukraine is running out of money. EU officials want the first tranches of cash to be available to Kyiv from early April. Petteri Orpo, Finland’s prime minister, said Orbán was using Ukraine “as a weapon” in his election campaign, adding: “I think that he betrayed us and we need to find a solution how to go forward.” Bart De Wever, the prime minister of Belgium, who blocked the option to freeze Russia’s assets, played a central role in orchestrating the loan deal, including negotiating with Orbán. He said: “It’s unacceptable to decide with the leaders and then after say: ‘But I’m not ready to execute what I decided.’” António Costa, the European Council president, told leaders – in Orbán’s presence – that Hungary’s behaviour was “unacceptable”, according to an EU official. Costa used the same word to describe comments by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, who, while speaking about Orbán, said he would “give this person’s address to our armed forces”. The remark prompted a rare rebuke from EU officials. Arriving at the summit, Orbán showed no sign of compromise. He said: “We would like to get the oil which is ours from the Ukrainians and which is … blocked by the Ukrainians. I will never support any kind of decision here which is in favour of Ukraine [as long as] the Hungarians are not able to get the oil which belongs to us.” The dispute centres on the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline, which brings Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia via Ukraine. Ukraine said the pipeline had been damaged in a Russian air attack, but Orbán has accused Kyiv of stalling on repairs. Hungary and Slovakia’s Kremlin-friendly governments are also blocking the EU’s 20th package of sanctions against Russia, which was meant to have been agreed by the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last month. The EU statement, adopted by 25 member states on Thursday, calls for the “swift adoption” of that package and further pressure on Russia. This week Zelenskyy agreed to accept EU financial and technical support to repair the pipeline. But the decision does not appear to have swayed Orbán, who is running an anti-Ukraine, anti-EU election campaign. It depicts his centre-right opponent, Péter Magyar, as an agent of Brussels and Kyiv, who wants to drag Hungary into the war in Ukraine. Arriving at his first EU summit as prime minister of the Netherlands, Rob Jetten said: “It is obvious that Ukraine needs our full support to win this war against Russian aggression. There has been decision-making here on the European level so I expect everyone to respect that.” Zelenskyy, who addressed the leaders via video link, said before the summit he hoped the EU would stand by its promise. “We are really counting on the countries and the EU to find ways to resolve this issue,” he said on Wednesday. The Ukrainian president told EU leaders this week that Ukraine was “undertaking all possible efforts to repair the damage and restore operations” to the pipeline. Hungary and Slovakia are the only two EU countries that benefit from Druzhba, having secured a temporary exemption from the EU’s import ban on Russian oil, introduced after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The summit in Brussels was meant to be dedicated to fine-tuning a long-term agenda to revitalise Europe’s waning competitiveness against the US and China. But it has been overshadowed by the dispute with Hungary and the war in the Middle East, which has sent energy prices soaring and increased the strain on the transatlantic relationship.

Concerns raised over ex-Putin interpreter’s key role in monitoring Hungary vote

Hungarian rights groups have raised concerns over the appointment of Vladimir Putin’s former interpreter to a key role in an international election monitoring mission, amid fears of Russian interference ahead of Hungary’s crucial vote next month. Daria Boyarskaya, who worked for many years for Russia’s foreign ministry and interpreted in numerous high-level meetings including one between Putin and Donald Trump, is now a senior adviser at the parliamentary assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE-PA), based in Vienna. She is coordinating the body’s mission to monitor next month’s parliamentary election in Hungary. The vote could end the nationalist leader Viktor Orbán’s grip on power after 16 years in charge. Orbán is the EU’s most pro-Russian EU leader and he has made criticism of Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a key pillar of his election campaign, as well as blocking EU loans to Ukraine. There have been numerous allegations that Russia has been deploying assets to boost Orbán’s chances in the vote. Over his long years in charge, Orbán has frequently targeted civil society groups and independent media, and in a number of recent speeches he has referred to them as “bugs” who need to be cleansed or quashed. Given this chilling climate, and the close relations between Orbán and Moscow, some worry about sharing their concerns with a figure with clear links to the Kremlin. Boyarskaya invited representatives of civil society organisations to a closed-door meeting next week in Budapest to share their concerns about the Hungarian political landscape. The delegation will be led by the British Labour MP Rupa Huq and Sargis Khandanyan, an Armenian MP, and is meant to lay the groundwork for a much larger monitoring mission made up of MPs from OSCE member nations that will travel to Hungary around the time of the vote. “Such meetings often involve the exchange of highly sensitive information concerning political pressure, electoral manipulation risks and threats faced by human rights defenders and journalists,” wrote Márta Pardavi, a co-chair of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, in a letter sent earlier this month to various OSCE officials and seen by the Guardian. The Austrian weekly Falter and Bloomberg previously covered aspects of the story. Whether or not Boyarskaya retained links with Russian official bodies, she said, “even the perception that confidential exchanges could be accessed by malign external actors” would prevent rights activists from speaking freely. Pardavi therefore requested that the OSCE-PA should consider “immediately removing Ms Boyarskaya from all her tasks related to the election observation mission in Hungary, and ensuring that Ms Boyarskaya does not have access to sensitive election-related information or civil society interlocutors going forward”. In a strongly worded response to Pardavi also seen by the Guardian, Roberto Montella, the Italian secretary general of the OSCE-PA, claimed her letter had a “slandering nature”. He said he had personally selected Boyarskaya to take part in the mission to Hungary and said she enjoyed his “full trust and confidence”. He suggested an external auditor had looked into Boyarskaya in 2023 and made the “unequivocal” conclusion that allegations against her were unfounded. Boyarskaya has worked with the OSCE on and off for more than a decade and was hired full-time in 2021. There is no evidence she has any relationship with Russian intelligence or shares information with the Russian government. In an emailed response to questions, she said she abided by OSCE rules by which “all staff members are explicitly prohibited from accepting instructions from their national authorities”. Unlike many OSCE employees who are seconded by their governments, Boyarskaya is directly hired by the body. Nat Perry, a spokesperson for the OSCE-PA, said: “The Russian government does not pay Ms Boyarskaya’s salary, nor has it done it so in the past.” Security sources say international bodies such as the OSCE-PA are a target for Russian and other intelligence services. Andrei Soldatov, an author who has written extensively on Russian intelligence networks and is currently a visiting fellow at King’s Centre for the Study of Intelligence in London, said: “Organisations like this are a prime target for Russian intelligence penetrations: it’s international, has access to sensitive information and is in the centre of Europe, which is now elevated to Moscow’s primary target.” As an interpreter for Putin, Boyarskaya would almost certainly have come under the view of the Russian security services. “With that level of access to the ‘first person’, she would need to have the highest-level clearance, which usually includes understanding of the needs of the security services, if they would ask something,” Soldatov said. Fiona Hill, Trump’s national security adviser on Russia during his first term, has claimed that in a 2019 meeting in Osaka, Putin swapped in Boyarskaya at the last minute as a means of distracting Trump with an attractive female translator. “There had been somebody else on the list, a man, intended to translate for that particular session, and at the very last minute the Russians swapped out for that translator,” Hill said in a 2021 interview with Good Morning America. “It was clearly intended to draw attention because President Putin made a big point of introducing President Trump to the interpreter, which is something he didn’t normally do,” Hill said, although she added that Boyarskaya proved to be an “excellent translator”. In late 2022, Poland declared Boyarskaya persona non grata ahead of an OSCE-PA meeting in the country, saying her presence would “pose a threat to state security”, according to media reports at the time. Travel records available in leaked Russian databases show she has continued to visit Russia regularly since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Additional reporting by Pjotr Sauer

No breakthrough on Hungary’s veto of EU’s €90bn loan to Ukraine – as it happened

… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today! EU leaders have failed to convince Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, to drop his opposition to a vital €90bn (£78bn) loan for Ukraine as they have accused him of betrayal and acting in bad faith (15:11). Orbán’s decision to renege on his agreement has infuriated EU leaders, because it undermines EU decision-making, at a moment when Ukraine is running out of money (15:21). Several EU leaders made their frustration with Orbán clear (9:43, 9:56, 10:10), including the new Dutch PM Rob Jetten making his EUCO debut (9:48), but could not get him to change his mind. European Union experts have arrived in Ukraine to assess the condition of the Druzhba oil pipeline, state energy firm Naftogaz said, in a bid to reassure Orbán about the EU’s intent to restore oil flows (10:15, 14:29). But Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed his frustration with the further delay in unblocking the €90bn loan for Ukraine and related sanctions and accession files (15:53). Orbán refusal to drop his opposition is widely seen in the context of the upcoming parliamentary election in Hungary (13:03), with US vice-president JD Vance expected to endorse the nationalist prime minister as he fights for his political survival (16:29). In other news, Several EU leaders also expressed concerns about the impact of the Middle East crisis on Europe, and in particular on energy prices (9:56, 11:09, 11:17, 11:33). The European parliamentary trade committee has voted to progress legislation to ratify last summer’s trade deal with Donald Trump ending months of delays and paving the way for a plenary vote on the agreement (10:45). Germany’s parliament is taking unusual action to curb fuel prices in the wake of a spike from the Iran war, proposing that petrol stations will only be able to raise prices once a day, at 12 midday (12:30). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Denmark reportedly flew blood bags to Greenland in preparation for a US attack

Denmark reportedly readied itself for potential attack from the US in January – flying bags of blood to Greenland and explosives to blow up runways in case of a battle with its former closest ally. During the tense days when Donald Trump threatened to take over Greenland – a largely autonomous territory that is part of the Danish commonwealth – “the hard way”, Copenhagen was so shaken that it started preparing for US invasion, according to Danish public broadcaster DR. When, in January, Danish soldiers were flown to Greenland, they were reportedly carrying explosives to destroy runways in the capital, Nuuk, and in Kangerlussuaq, a small town north of the capital, to prevent US aircraft from landing in the event of an invasion. They also carried supplies from Danish blood banks to treat wounded people in the event of battle, according to DR, which had spoken to sources from across the Danish government, authorities and intelligence services in Denmark, France and Germany. Denmark reportedly started seeking political support from European leaders in a series of secret talks that started soon after the 2024 US election. The 3 January US attack on Venezuela was a crucial turning point, many of the sources told DR. The following day, Trump said the US needed Greenland “very badly” – renewing fears of a US invasion. The following day, Frederiksen said that an attack by the US on a Nato ally would mean the end of both the military alliance and “post-second world war security”. According to DR, there was already reportedly a plan for Danish and European forces to send soldiers to Greenland later in they year, but this was rapidly brought forward. An unnamed top French official told DR that the unprecedented situation had brought Europe closer together. “With the Greenland crisis, Europe realised once and for all that we need to be able to take care of our own security,” the source said. Although Copenhagen wanted to avoid escalation with the US, it did not want to do nothing in the event of a US attack. An advance command of Danish, French, German, Norwegian and Swedish soldiers touched down in Greenland, followed by a main force including elite soldiers. Danish fighter planes and a French naval vessel were also sent in the direction of the North Atlantic. The aim was reportedly to have as many different nationalities of soldiers as possible to force the US to take a significant hostile action if it was to occupy Greenland. “We have not been in such a situation since April 1940,” a Danish defence source told DR. The Danish ministry of defence and the offices of the Greenlandic prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, and Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, declined to comment.