Here are a few photos of people displaced by fighting between Hezbollah and Israel returning to their villages in Lebanon following a ceasefire that went into effect Friday.
Air Canada has announced a temporary suspension of flights from Toronto and Montreal to New York’s John F Kennedy airport, citing rising fuel prices. The move comes amid growing concerns that airlines worldwide may scale back services as aviation fuel costs climb in the wake of the US and Israel’s ongoing war with Iran, which entered a fragile ceasefire earlier in April. Although Iran announced on Friday that the strait of Hormuz had reopened, helping ease oil prices, fuel costs remain significantly elevated after weeks of disruption. Separately on Friday, Spirit Airlines has asked the US federal government for hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency funding to offset a surge in fuel costs, the Air Current industry website reported, citing unnamed sources. Spirit did not immediately return a request for comment. “Jet fuel prices have doubled since the start of the Iran conflict, affecting some lower profitability routes and flights which now are no longer economically feasible,” Air Canada said in a statement on Friday. “Schedule adjustments including some frequency reductions are being made in response.” The airline said flights from two of Canada’s major cities will be paused starting 1 June, with service expected to resume on 25 October. The affected routes include one flight from Montreal and three from Toronto, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported, citing an Air Canada spokesperson. “Any affected customers will be contacted with alternate travel options,” an airline spokesperson said, referring to New York’s LaGuardia airport and New Jersey’s Newark Liberty international airport. The spokesperson said Air Canada would continue flying to the LaGuardia and Newark airports “34 times daily from six cities across Canada”. Other temporary suspensions from the airline include a Salt Lake City-Toronto route, which will be halted starting 30 June with plans to resume in 2027, as well as a delay to the launch of a service from Guadalajara, Mexico, to Montreal. The airline said it anticipated the changes would affect 1% of its overall passenger-carrying capacity. Since the US and Israel’s war with Iran began in late February, airlines have warned that rising fuel costs were beginning to weigh on bookings. The British budget airline easyJet recently said it expects a pre-tax loss of £540m-£560m for the six-month period ending in March. Australia’s flagship carrier Qantas and Virgin Australia, meanwhile, have announced ticket price increases and reductions in flight frequency. The International Energy Agency (IEA) also warned recently that Europe has only six weeks of jet fuel reserves remaining before shortages could hit. Fatih Birol, the executive director of the IEA, attributed that to ongoing Middle East instability, adding that flight cancellations would “soon” follow if oil supplies from the region are not restored in the coming weeks.
It lacked the triumphalist symbolism of George W Bush’s memorable – and subsequently ill-fated – appearance before the “mission accomplished” banner aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln six weeks after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But there was no mistaking the boastful claims asserted on Friday by Donald Trump after a military assault on neighbouring Iran that has, so far, lasted a similar period and which, by widespread agreement outside the Trump administration, has not gone to plan. Ahead of resumed peace talks in Islamabad and in a frenetic flurry of posts on his Truth Social network, the president all-but proclaimed unambiguous victory, insisting all the major sticking points had been ironed out in advance. “A great and brilliant day for the world,” Trump declared in his trademark block-capital letters. Above all else, the strait of Hormuz, the economically vital choke point that Iran had blocked in retaliation for being attacked, would reopen, thereby removing a near-existential threat to the global economy by allowing the 20% of world energy supplies normally routed through it to freely flow again. Post after post referred to the reopening of the strait, which Iran had targeted as a central part of its strategy of imposing pain on the international economy. Iran had removed – or was in the process of removing – the mines it had reportedly placed in the waterway as a deterrent to shipping. It had agreed, so Trump claimed, to never again use closure of the strait as a military weapon – a striking declaration, given that Iranian officials have long alluded to the sea passage as a lever of their survival strategy. It seemed a shaky justification for a victory lap, given that the strait was completely open to shipping before the war began and that Iran has now proved its ability to inflict international disruption. Moreover, according to Trump, Lebanon – now subject to a 10-day ceasefire with Israel, which has been in renewed conflict with Tehran’s longstanding Lebanese Shia proxy group, Hezbollah – was not included in the agreement. That, too, was a striking claim in view of Iran’s fixation with its regional “axis of resistance” against the west. A clue as to why Iran might have conceded such a point came in Trump’s statement that “Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A. Enough is enough!!!”. Conspicuously absent on that point was any confirmation – or clarification – from Tehran, although the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, confirmed that the strait of Hormuz was “completely open” to commercial shipping. Trump was less effusive in spelling the goals achieved by his decision to go to war, making passing reference only to Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which the US, Israel and the west have long alleged is a precursor to building a nuclear weapon. “The U.S.A. will get all Nuclear ‘Dust,’ created by our great B2 Bombers,” he wrote. “No money will exchange hands in any way, shape, or form.” Separately, he told Reuters that Iran had agreed to indefinitely suspend its nuclear programme and that it would work with Washington to recover the enriched uranium that Trump claimed to have “obliterated” in bombing raids last June. Given that Iran’s nuclear activities have been the subject to a protracted and tortuous diplomatic dispute for a quarter of a century, the claim that it had been suddenly and simply resolved seems dubious. The 2015 nuclear agreement Tehran reached with Barack Obama’s administration, and which was abrogated by Trump three years later, was years in the making, after all. In declaring that Iran now agreed to quickly surrender a right to enrich uranium, which it has long asserted was inviolable, Trump is in effect claiming to have secured at the negotiating table something which it is far from clear the US won on the battlefield. Meanwhile, the Islamic regime – far from collapsing, as Trump and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had assumed it would – is still standing and determined to do all in its power to survive, an achievement tantamount to victory for Tehran given the imbalance of military forces and the targeted killings of so many of its senior figures. Against that backdrop, how likely is it that the two sides are suddenly reconciled to each other? Peace for our time it may be. But that phrase has an unfortunate history.
Daniel Kinahan, alleged to be the leader of the Kinahan organised crime group, has been arrested in the United Arab Emirates. Irish police said they were aware of the arrest of a man in his late 40s, on foot of an arrest warrant issued by the Irish courts in relation to alleged serious organised crime offences. The gardai said the arrest was in accordance with the bilateral agreement on extradition between Ireland and the UAE. Dubai police said the arrest took place on Wednesday. The Dubliner, who lives in the UAE, had previously insisted he had no criminal convictions and denies any involvement in organised crime. A gardai statement said the arrest was an “important demonstration of the need for international law enforcement cooperation in tackling transnational organised crime”. The statement said: “The arrest of the Irish national in Dubai remains a matter for the authorities in the United Arab Emirates at this time. “An Garda Siochana has been steadfast in our determination that we would pursue those allegedly involved in serious organised criminal activity, wherever they go. “Today’s arrest is another extremely important demonstration of the need for international law enforcement cooperation in tackling transnational organised crime.” Dubai police said they had arrested an “Irish fugitive for his alleged role in an international organised crime network”. A spokesperson said: “The arrest comes as part of efforts to combat cross-border crime. “The arrest followed the receipt of a judicial file from Irish authorities detailing the suspect’s alleged crimes and his involvement in an international criminal organisation. “Based on the file, Dubai public prosecution issued an arrest warrant to initiate legal procedures ahead of his extradition. “Specialised teams immediately launched intensive search and surveillance operations, leading to the suspect’s capture within 48 hours of the warrant being issued.” Kinahan is the founder of the MTK Global boxing management company that previously listed Billy Joe Saunders and Tyson Fury among its stable of fighters. In 2016, an attempt was made on Kinahan’s life at a boxing weigh-in at the Regency hotel in Dublin. His involvement in the sport caused anger in 2020 when Fury thanked him for reaching an agreement for him to fight Anthony Joshua, however within weeks Fury’s team announced Kinahan would no longer negotiate on his behalf. The Irish minister Jim O’Callaghan said: “[The] arrest follows my request to the UAE for extradition of this individual to face charges in Ireland. “In recent years, the UAE and Ireland have worked closely together to advance criminal investigations into serious and organised crime, including the agreement of bilateral treaties on extradition and mutual legal assistance in 2025.”
Iran’s foreign minister has said that the strait of Hormuz is now fully open to commercial vessels, reinforcing hopes for an eventual end to the war in the Middle East and sending oil prices tumbling despite analysts’ warnings that there will be no immediate widespread resumption of passage through the vital waterway. In a barrage of social media posts, Donald Trump claimed on Friday that Iran had agreed never to close the strategic waterway again, hailing “A GREAT AND BRILLIANT DAY FOR THE WORLD!” However, Abbas Araghchi’s pledge was given only qualified support by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has reinforced its already powerful authority in Tehran during the war. Trump also said that Iran had agreed to indefinitely suspend its nuclear programme, and would not receive any frozen funds from the US. In an interview with Bloomberg, he said that talks over a deal to end the war would “probably” be held this weekend. Separately, the US president told Reuters that Washington would work with Iran to recover its enriched uranium, which he referred to as “nuclear dust” that would be retrieved at “a nice leisurely pace” and moved to the US. Iranian authorities made no immediate comment on the claim, but Tehran has long asserted that its right to enrich uranium inside the country is sacrosanct. Araghchi statement that the strait was “declared completely open” came as a new 10-day truce in Lebanon entered its first full day, partly pausing fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah Islamist militant movement and offering a fragile relief in parts of the country after weeks of relentless Israeli airstrikes that have killed hundreds of civilians. Trump said that Israel would cease attacks on Lebanon, claiming: “They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A.” Minutes before that post, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, uploaded a video to his official YouTube page declaring that Israel was not done yet with Hezbollah. He said: “We have not yet finished the job. There are things we plan to do to address the remaining rocket threat and the drone threat.” Soon after, reports emerged that an Israeli drone strike had killed one person in southern Lebanon. The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, insisted that the IDF was not withdrawing from the country and that military action could resume. Iranian state television quoted a senior military official saying commercial vessels would be allowed to travel through the strait of Hormuz but only along a determined route and with the permission of the IRGC navy. The US blockade of Iranian ports and shipping will remain in place for the moment, Trump said, and few vessels are likely to risk passage through the strait in such uncertain circumstances, meaning any return to normality is still distant. “The naval blockade will remain in full force and effect as it pertains to Iran, only, until such time as our transaction with Iran is 100% complete,” the US president posted on his Truth Social network, adding that “this process should go very quickly”. In Paris, representatives of about 40 countries met at a conference chaired jointly by France and the UK for discussions on an international plan to secure the strait, which carried around a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies before the conflict. The strait’s closure by Iran shortly after the conflict began has spiked the price of oil, fuelled inflation and threatens a deep economic crisis that could trigger recessions around the world. French president Emmanuel Macron said Araghchi’s statement was welcome, and urged the “full, unconditional reopening by all the parties”. Keir Starmer, the UK’s prime minister, said any proposal to reopen the strait needed to be “lasting and workable”. Trump, however, said that he had rebuffed an offer from Nato to help and told them to stay away unless they want to load up ships with oil. “They were useless when needed, a Paper Tiger!” he posted on social media, before thanking Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Qatar. Shipping industry associations said they were reviewing the situation. “We are currently verifying the recent announcement related to the reopening of the strait of Hormuz, in terms of its compliance with freedom of navigation for all merchant vessels and secure passage,” Arsenio Dominguez, secretary-general of UN shipping agency the International Maritime Organization (IMO), said. Regional diplomats have engaged in a frantic push in recent days to prevent a return to violence between Iran, Israel and the US. The current ceasefire with Iran declared by Donald Trump earlier this month is set to expire on Tuesday. Field Marshal Asim Munir, the army chief of Pakistan, which has emerged as a key mediator, is in Tehran to carry forward negotiations for a more durable peace. Tahir Andrabi, Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokesperson, said at a news briefing on Thursday that “peace in Lebanon and cessation of armed attacks in Lebanon are essential for peace talks”. In Lebanon, there were widespread celebrations at the fragile ceasefire. In Beirut, cars with mattresses stacked on their roofs passed cheering crowds who congratulated the displaced people on their return home. Cars blasted pro-Hezbollah music and waved the yellow flags of the group, claiming victory. The mass return to the south came despite continued occupation of a swath of Lebanese territory by the Israeli army and warnings from the Israeli military spokesperson not to head south of the Litani river. Hezbollah, the Lebanese army, and the speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, Nabih Berri, all put out statements urging residents of south Lebanon to wait before going home. Few appeared to heed the advice, with vast queues forming in front of ruined bridges over the Litani. Israel had bombed the only remaining intact bridge – the Qasmiyeh bridge, which leads into the southern Lebanese city of Tyre – just hours before the ceasefire. The war in Iran spilled over into Lebanon when Hezbollah launched missile attacks on 2 March against Israel in solidarity with Tehran, triggering a ferocious Israeli response, including a ground invasion into southern Lebanon. It came 15 months after the last major conflict between the two sides. The terms of the ceasefire return Lebanon to a status quo very similar to the period after the previous November 2024 ceasefire. Like that deal, it allows Israel the “right to take all necessary measures in self-defence, at any time” in Lebanon, despite the supposed end to hostilities. Mairav Zonszein, senior Israel analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the ceasefire had left residents of northern Israel “seething”. “Netanyahu grasping for a workable narrative, as the majority of Israelis support continuing the war. This, despite the fact that the Israeli military has cast doubt on its ability to disarm Hezbollah through military force alone,” Zonszein said. An end to Israel’s war with Hezbollah was a key demand of Iranian negotiators, who previously accused Israel of breaking the current ceasefire deal with strikes on Lebanon. Israel said that deal did not cover Lebanon. The fighting has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, more than 2,100 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Thirteen US service members have also been killed.
The Indian government has failed to pass a bill to increase female representation in parliament after being accused of using the plan as a guise to redraw the country’s electoral map. It was the first time in 12 years in power that a constitutional amendment proposed by Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government was not passed by parliament. The failure followed a fierce debate, with the government accused of an “attack on democracy” after it tethered a bill reserving one-third of parliamentary seats for women to a wider, controversial exercise of “delimitation”. The process would redraw parliamentary constituencies along population lines based on the 2011 census, and would increase the number of MPs in the lower chamber from 543 to about 850. As a constitutional measure, the bill required a two-thirds majority, making it more challenging for the BJP and its National Democratic Alliance, which does not have an outright majority, to pass it. In the final tally, 298 MPs voted in favour and 230 against. India’s often fragmented opposition parties showed rare unity in fighting the bill. The Indian National Congress member Priyanka Gandhi Vadra called it an “open attack” on democracy, while another senior figure, Gaurav Gogoi, accused the Modi government of trying to “bulldoze” delimitation through the backdoor. Delimitation is one of the most divisive federal issues in India. It is particularly contentious in more prosperous southern states such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala, which have reduced population growth in recent years and fear their political representation would be penalised. Meanwhile, poorer, more populous northern states – considered the BJP’s political heartland – stand to gain the most seats if redrawn. The last time that India’s electoral map was redrawn was in 1971 and southern states want those boundaries frozen for another 25 years. MPs from Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which governs Tamil Nadu, arrived in parliament on Friday dressed in black in protest. The previous day, Tamil Nadu’s chief minister, MK Stalin, described the bill as a “punishment” for southern states and burned a copy outside parliament. Opposition MPs questioned why women’s representation had been linked to a much larger political exercise. Rahul Gandhi, a senior figure in the opposition Indian National Congress party, said: “The first truth is that this is not a women’s bill. This has nothing to do with the empowerment of women. This is an attempt to change the electoral map of India.” A bill reserving one-third of the seats for women was passed unanimously by parliament back in 2023, but its implementation has been delayed until at least 2029 due to certain electoral processes. The BJP said the new bill would speed up the implementation of female parliamentary quotas. Modi said: “Let all of us not miss this important opportunity to give reservation to women. I have come to appeal to you – do not see this from a political lens, this is in national interest.” In parliament, the home affairs minister, Amit Shah, said delimitation was needed to reflect population growth in a country of more than 1.4 billion people. “Every voter should have an equal value for their right, and post this expansion, we believe, they will,” he said on Friday. In response, the opposition MP Shashi Tharoor said that linking women’s reservations to delimitation “effectively holds the aspirations of Indian women hostage to one of the most contentious political exercises in our history”. “We risk creating a tyranny of the demographic majority where a handful of large, poor states could theoretically determine the fate of the entire country,” he added.
Kojo Karam’s trenchant analysis (Reform’s petulance over slavery reparations shows it just doesn’t grasp Britain’s place in the modern world, 10 April) offers a hopeful vision for global development. Alongside its contribution to addressing historical injustices, the mission of “redesigning a world that is fair for all” can empower human beings globally now and in the future. Research by Results UK shows that the countries worst affected by child undernutrition lose tens of billions of pounds in tax revenues each year through illicit financial flows. Meanwhile richer countries lose far more than even these eye-watering sums. All countries should work together, primarily through the UN, to eliminate the scourge of illicit finance. This requires building capacity and coordination worldwide to prevent wrongdoing, prosecute offenders, recover stolen assets and close tax havens. One of the many resulting benefits would be the generation of vast resources. These funds could then be equitably invested in the sustainable wellbeing of people everywhere. The Illicit Finance Summit, to be hosted by the UK government in London on 23-24 June, must be judged on whether it furthers these ambitions. Sunit Bagree Results UK • I am the son of immigrants whose ancestors, during the period Britain was involved in the transatlantic slave trade, were subsistence farmers in a British colony. While I agree in principle with Kojo Koram, those who benefited directly from the proceeds of slavery should be the ones who pay, in particular those who received compensation under the 1837 Slave Compensation Act – a hideous injustice. I would be delighted to back any campaign that named and sought redress from those beneficiaries Dr Pat Ryan Sheffield • 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.
Israel’s security cabinet first heard about the ceasefire with Lebanon from a social media post by Donald Trump. Hezbollah first heard about the ceasefire from the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon. Each side shot off as many bombs, drones and rockets as they could before the ceasefire – imposed from above – came into effect. Despite the US president claiming it is the 10th war he has ended, the situation on the ground in Lebanon looks anything but stable. Israeli troops remained in their positions deep in Lebanon on Friday, firing artillery shells and machine gun bursts at residents who got too close hours after the ceasefire. Hezbollah said it would respect the ceasefire but its fighters’ fingers “remained on the triggers”. The 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon delivers a temporary halt to the fighting. But the text of the agreement solves none of the fundamental problems that brought Hezbollah and Israel to war and – absent a radical shift in both parties’ positions – fighting could easily resume. The sources of the conflict are Hezbollah’s arms and Israel’s continued occupation of southern Lebanon and bombing across the country. The ceasefire is meant to give space for direct negotiations between the Lebanese and Israeli governments. The fact that direct negotiations are taking place between the two governments is an achievement in itself – they have not spoken directly in decades and do not enjoy diplomatic relations. The negotiators have their work cut out for them. According to the text of the deal, the goal of the talks will be to achieve “lasting peace” between the two countries where the Lebanese government has the exclusive monopoly of force in its territory and there is a formal demarcation of a border that has been contested since 2000. To achieve those goals, the status of Hezbollah’s arms will have to be settled and Israeli forces will have to withdraw from Lebanese territory. Hezbollah, while abiding by the ceasefire and appointing Iran as its steward in the larger US-Iran talks, has called on the Lebanese government to not engage in direct talks with Israel. The Lebanese government continues with its diplomacy, without the group’s mandate, and its ability to impose the terms of a deal without outside support is in doubt. Hezbollah’s base, which has borne the brunt of the war, is more alienated from the Lebanese government than ever. It views it as impotent and unable to defend the country from Israeli aggression. Many saw the picture of Lebanon’s flag beside the Israeli flag in Washington on Tuesday as a humiliating capitulation, particularly as it was taken while Israeli jets still bombed the country with impunity. Residents of Lebanon’s south returned to their villages to find their homes in ruins, and Israeli soldiers in the near distance. Almost 2,200 people have been killed by Israel over the past month, many of them women, children and elderly – deaths for which no one has taken accountability. The argument for retaining Hezbollah’s weapons, to the group’s supporters, is stronger than ever. To those outside Hezbollah’s base, there is little alternative to negotiations. What Hezbollah defined as victory – battling Israel for 44 days in south Lebanon – seems like a bitter defeat to them. They were dragged into a war by a group they did not elect, and lost much of southern Lebanon and many of their own lives in the process. Domestically, the resulting picture is fraught and confrontational. Unlike the 2024 ceasefire agreement, which also sought Hezbollah’s disarmament, there can be no more stalling. The issue of Hezbollah’s arms will have to be decided, and now it is being done in an even more challenging context. In Israel, there is also pressure for the war in Lebanon to continue. The ceasefire announcement enraged many residents of northern Israel who wanted the conflict to finally end the threat from Hezbollah. A poll by Israel’s Channel 12 last week found that almost 80% of respondents wanted continued strikes on the armed group. Israeli officials’ statements, while boasting of military victory over Hezbollah, contained an implicit threat that the war could resume if their demands were not met by Lebanon. Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Friday: “The ground manoeuvre into Lebanon and the attack on Hezbollah throughout Lebanon have achieved many achievements but are still not complete; the goal we defined: disarming Hezbollah by military or diplomatic means, was and remains the goal of the campaign to which we are committed.” Trump was less cavalier about Israel’s ability to resume a military campaign, saying on Friday that it was “prohibited” from bombing Lebanon any longer, while announcing a deal with Iran over enriched uranium. His statement came even as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said his country had not “finished the job” of dismantling Hezbollah. It remains to be seen whether Trump’s attention will remain on Lebanon and whether he continues to exert pressure on Israel to lay off. Just as the ceasefire was imposed from above, its path forward into a lasting peace runs through Washington and Tehran, even if the negotiators are coming from Beirut and Tel Aviv. Sustained, intense international focus will have to remain on the Lebanon-Israel peace talks, or else the war will resume.