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Middle East crisis live: Iran warns of ‘devastating’ retaliation after Trump’s expletive-laden threats over strait of Hormuz

The EU council chief has said that striking civilian infrastructure installations during war is illegal, which comes as president Donald Trump threatened to devastate civilian infrastructure in Iran if it did not reopen the strait of Hormuz. EU chief António Costa said in a social media post on Monday: “Any targeting of civilian infrastructure, namely energy facilities, is illegal and unacceptable. “This applies to Russia’s war in Ukraine and it applies everywhere. The Iranian civilian population is the main victim of the Iranian regime. It would also be the main victim of a widening of the military campaign. “The European Union urges Iran to immediately put an end to its attacks against countries in the region and to allow for the reestablishment of full freedom of navigation through the strait of Hormuz. “After five weeks of war in the Middle East, it is clear that only a diplomatic solution will settle its root causes.”

How defense contractors and oil companies profit from war on Iran as US gas prices soar

Two weeks into the US-Israel war with Iran, the White House was fielding heavy criticism that the conflict would drive up gas prices and frustrate voters. Donald Trump turned to Truth Social to appease Americans about gas prices, which were slowly climbing toward $4 a gallon. “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” he wrote. Now five weeks into the war, as Americans struggle with soaring gas prices and the threat of higher inflation, it is becoming clearer who is making “a lot of money”: defense contractors and oil companies. The US defense department announced on Wednesday Boeing would join Lockheed Martin to help triple the US production of missile seekers, which boosted the aerospace manufacturers share price. Lockheed Martin, a key defense contractor with the US government, has seen its stock jump 25% since the start of the year. Meanwhile, American-produced oil has shot up in value as Iran continues its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil and gas would typically pass through, and energy infrastructure in the Middle East remains vulnerable to attacks. US crude oil has nearly doubled since the start of the conflict, going from $65 a barrel to over $110 a barrel in a month. Gas prices at the pump have followed suit, rising past $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022. The increase has been a boon for American oil companies, whose share prices have soared since the start of the year. Even as the overall US stock market has dipped down, share prices of companies including ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron have all jumped by over 20% since the start of the year. US oil producers could be in for an additional $63bn in profit as oil has climbed past $100 a barrel, according to a report from market research firm Rystad Energy. “[Oil prices] in the month of March have been materially higher than any of these guys had expected. So certainly at this point in time, it’s been a windfall for the vast majority of US energy companies,” said Leo Mariani, a senior research analyst at Roth Capital Partners. The last time oil companies got a boost from price shocks was in 2022, after Russia, a major oil producer, invaded Ukraine and uncertainty flooded energy markets. Average US gas prices hit $5 a gallon, the highest in history, while inflation would hit a generational high of 9%. It was a painful time for Americans at the gas pump, but the uncertainty was a win for a select few. Across the globe, publicly listed oil and gas companies made $916bn that year, more than three times the profit in previous years. American companies alone made $281bn in those few months that oil prices had soared. In 2023, Chevron announced a huge stock buyback program worth $75bn – a seven-fold increase compared to the year prior – after company shares soared over 50% in 2022. “Things didn’t cost more, things weren’t harder to bring to the market or anything like that, but suddenly the price was twice as high,” said Gregor Semieniuk, an assistant professor of public policy and economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. “When the price is $50 [a barrel], the shale companies hardly make any profit. But when the price is $100 [a barrel], the profit differential multiplies.” In research published in September, Semieniuk and fellow economist Isabella Weber found that the 50% of the profits US oil companies reaped in 2022 were distributed to the top 1% of Americans. About 1% of the profits trickled down to Americans in the bottom 50% of the wealth distribution. Economists say the gains from the current oil price shocks could actually be higher. Unlike in 2022, the conflict with Iran has damaged oil infrastructure in the Middle East. While American oil companies have investments in the Middle East’s energy infrastructure, “most of the bigger companies are very, very well diversified globally,” Mariani said. “You’re benefiting a lot more from higher prices than you are from lost production,” he added. Even if the conflict ends, it’s unclear how long it will take for the Middle East to produce oil at a pre-conflict capacity. In 2022, “Russian oil was not really removed from the market, it was just kind of reshuffled,” said Clay Seagle, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies energy and climate change program. “Now we’re dealing with a much more severe supply event because the oil has been actually removed from the market.” Higher oil prices aren’t always a win for oil companies, Seagle said. Prolonged high prices could mean consumers, including businesses, start to make a concerted effort to lower their oil consumption. For example, the US moved away from using oil to power electricity after the oil price shocks of the 1970s, he noted. But oil is in a much better spot than many of the other industries that rely on oil and gas to produce and ship their products. The price of diesel, a heavier type of oil that is used to power trucks and planes, has jumped 40%. The stock of some airline companies, including United and American Airlines, has dropped over 15% since the start of the year. The conflict has also disrupted the production of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is used to produce fertilizer that is key to the food supply. “We’re approaching the kinds of levels of disruption that we saw in 2022, and with that, the kinds of profits that we saw there,” Semieniuk said. “If this takes longer, it’s going to surpass that.”

Was Trump ignorant to the realities of Netanyahu’s promised ‘easy’ war on Iran?

When Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club on 29 December last year, the Israeli prime minister came with an appeal – and a not so subtle inducement. After months of restocking air defence and other missiles after June’s 12-day conflict in which the US joined in to bomb Tehran’s nuclear facilities, Israel was ready to go again, this time with more substantial objectives. In the press conference hosted by the two leaders, Trump appeared to dutifully echo familiar talking points of Netanyahu’s. “Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again,” Trump said. “Then we are going to have to knock them down. We’ll knock the hell out of them. But hopefully, that’s not happening.” The Israeli leader, like others before him, had come armed with an appeal to Trump’s ego: the award of his country’s top honour, the Israel Prize, rarely given to non-Israelis, for his “tremendous contributions to Israel and the Jewish people”. According to the Atlantic, Netanyahu had suggested a final benefit to the famously transactional president: defeating Iran would allow Israel to wean itself off its massive reliance on US military aid. That meeting, as multiple accounts have now made clear, was one of many contacts between Netanyahu and Trump in the weeks that followed as the latter sought to lock in US participation for a comprehensive conflict against Tehran with far grander ambitions than the previous round of fighting. A fragile and unpopular regime was ripe for toppling, shaken by internal protests – with Iranians furious at the lethal repression of those demonstrations, according to an assessment prepared by the Mossad, Israel’s secret service. It would be a historic opportunity requiring a short campaign. An extra benefit dangled by the Israeli leader, according to some accounts, would be that Trump could take revenge for alleged Iranian plots against his life. What is clear from what has subsequently emerged is that Netanyahu – a self-styled “expert” on Iran – and the wider Israeli military establishment were fully invested in their pitch of an easy war. On 28 February, the first day of the war, unnamed Israeli officials briefed the Haaretz newspaper that the Iranian threat would taper off in a handful of days as Iran’s last missile launchers were eliminated. Another article in the same paper said Israel’s military planners had stockpiled missile interceptors for a war they assumed would last three weeks at most. When viewed as a discrete conflict, it is as much owned by the US as Israel, but it is part of Israel’s war; the latest front in Netanyahu’s state of permanent conflict that has raged since Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. That attack altered the country’s strategic calculations. And in the expanding regional conflicts that have followed in Gaza, Lebanon and now Iran, with the Houthis in Yemen and in the Syrian hinterland, a common theme has emerged: Netanyahu has promised and declared victories of which the realities are always more ephemeral and hubristic. In Gaza, despite a horrific campaign of death and destruction, a diminished Hamas still persists among the ruins. In Lebanon, where Hezbollah was declared defeated, the organisation retains its capacity to fire rockets across the border, with Israel plunging once again into the same policy of occupying southern Lebanon that failed once before – and led to the emergence of Hezbollah in the first place. In Iran, despite the killing of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei and other senior officials, a “decapitation” strategy has not led to Netanyahu’s promises of quick regime change but, for now at least, apparent consolidation of the regime around the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Even if the precise dynamic of influence and persuasion remains murky, it is clear that even among senior Trump administration officials, the perception exists that Netanyahu overpromised, not least amid challenged accounts of a testy conversation between the vice-president, JD Vance, and Netanyahu to that effect. Axios, quoting a US source using Netanyahu’s nickname, reported last week: “Before the war, Bibi really sold it to the president as being easy, as regime change being a lot likelier than it was. And the VP was clear-eyed about some of those statements.” Others are more cautious. Trump, wrote Daniel C Kurtzer, a former US ambassador to Israel, and Aaron David Miller in a post for the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, was “a willing and full partner”. “He was risk-ready and caught up in a self-generated aura of military power and invincibility after taking President Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela.” They concede that “Netanyahu may have determined the timing of conflict”, but Trump was “likely already on his way to war”. As the war enters its second month, with no end in sight and with the global economy reeling from the closure of the strait of Hormuz, the detrimental consequences of Netanyahu’s promise of an “easy” war are spreading far beyond the immediate region. In that respect, the perception of Netanyahu’s role – following his years-long advocacy for the conflict – matters as much as Trump’s own willing involvement. As the security experts Richard K Betts and Stephen Biddle wrote in Foreign Affairs last week: “In just its first weeks, the war has cost many billions of dollars in direct expenditure, reduced support for Ukraine, put dangerous strains on inventories of the most advanced US weapons, and shocked the global economy.” The conflict has also undermined Nato while potentially emboldening China, Russia and North Korea. And while Netanyahu has boasted in biblical terms of hitting Iran with ‘‘10 plagues”, it has not been lost on some that the Iranian and Hezbollah missiles still landing on Israel mean Passover will be spent with one eye on the bomb shelter. For Netanyahu and Israel, there are likely to be longer term consequences in terms of diplomacy and public opinion, which – alongside the Iran question – have long obsessed Israel’s prime minister. Already viewed with caution, if not outright distrust, in many foreign capitals, Netanyahu and his war threaten Israel’s detente with the Gulf states in the shape of the Trump-mediated Abraham accords. “Some Arab states may blame Israel for being thrust into a war they didn’t choose,” said Raphael Cohen, the director of the strategy and doctrine programme at the Rand thinktank. He suggested that while the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East may change as promised by Trump and Netanyahu, “at least insofar as which countries are on Israel’s side – [that] may look very different once the dust settles”. Outside the Gulf, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, last week reflected a more widespread view that US and Israeli strikes on Iran would not provide a durable solution to Tehran’s nuclear programme. “A targeted military action, even for a few weeks, will not allow us to resolve the nuclear issue in the long term,” Macron said in South Korea as he described a military operation to open the strait of Hormuz as “unrealistic”. “If there is no framework for diplomatic and technical negotiations, the situation can deteriorate again in a few months or a few years,” he added. More difficult to immediately quantify is the impact that fast-declining support for Israel may have on domestic politics around the globe, a phenomenon already apparent in the widespread opposition to the scorched-earth tactics of Israel’s right-far right government in Gaza and now Lebanon. In the US, polls show that support for Israel has declined across the political spectrum, most obviously among Democrats and young voters. A Gallup survey released the day before the US-Israeli attack on Iran showed Americans are more sympathetic to Palestinians than Israelis for the first time since Gallup began measuring that question in 2001. Since then, the downward trend has only continued, even among US Jewish voters. A survey commissioned for J Street found 60% of Jewish voters opposed the military action against Iran and 58% believed it weakened the US. A third said they believed the war would weaken Israel’s security. Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s chief of staff from 2009-10 and a former US ambassador to Japan, told Semafor that in the future it may mean the end of Israel being a unique beneficiary of US military assistance. “They’ll get the same restrictions like any other country that buys any of our weapons. There’ll be a country among countries … It’s a different game now, and you will not get the United States taxpayers to foot the bill for you.”

‘Such a mix of people’: Ireland of 1926 was not monocultural, release of census shows

The first years of independent Ireland tend to be remembered, if at all, as a dreary monochrome of parochialism and conservatism. After the blazing dramas of the 1916 rebellion and the 1919-1921 Anglo-Irish war, the infant state seemed to limp into a grey period of insularity, the dream of freedom giving way to anti-climax and drab conformity. That perception is about to be shaken up with the release of the 1926 census in a landmark initiative that will make the personal details of almost the entire population from that era freely available exactly a century later. The National Archives of Ireland has digitised the census returns, a vast dataset of more than 700,000 pages that give an intimate snapshot of the nation, and will post them online on 18 April, creating a research trove about the lives, occupations and, in some cases, secrets of 2.9 million people. The findings will challenge perceptions that the new state – which had wrested independence from Britain but was not yet a republic – was a mono-ethnic backwater, said John Gibney, a Royal Irish Academy historian who worked on the project. “Immigrants could be found in every corner of the Irish Free State at that time. It bucks the image we have of this dour, conservative society. It had conservative elements, but the 1920s were quite a globalised world. People engaged with popular culture, they travelled around, and the currents of that culture would have made their way to Ireland.” The number of foreigners was small, but the census showed this smattering of British, American, French, Italian, German, Egyptian and other nationalities popping up around Ireland, said Gibney. “You can almost see it at a ground level, a kind of cosmopolitan inflection. There’s far more variety than might sometimes be assumed. There was probably no town or village that didn’t have someone with a different accent to everyone else that was living there. It adds a strain of complexity to how we look at the past.” Poverty and unemployment drove many natives to emigrate, yet the embryonic state offered opportunities to Germans, who flocked to Limerick to work for Siemens on a hydroelectric scheme, and to others such as an India-born Hindu law student who stayed at a Dublin boarding house, said Orlaith McBride, the director of the National Archives. “You get such a mix of people. It’s fascinating.” Census returns provided by hotels showed that foreigners were holidaying in Ireland despite, or perhaps because of, its position on the periphery of Europe. “We also get a sense of who worked in the hotels – whole towns were taken up with the hotel,” said McBride. Under the so-called 100-year rule, the census must by law be made public this month. With €5m (£4.3m) in government funding, a 50-strong National Archives team extracted the records from 1,344 boxes, restored damaged pages with paste and Japanese rice paper and catalogued and digitised the trove to make it freely searchable by scholars and the general public. Unlike the UK’s 1921 census, which was made public in 2021, there is no paywall. “It has been quite a phenomenal undertaking,” said McBride. “It’s very, very labour-intensive.” Each census entry contains 21 topics, including age, sex, marital status, occupation, religion, housing conditions and ability to speak Irish. In addition to households and hotels, forms were completed in prisons, hospitals, ships and other places where people resided on 18 April 1926. The 2,000 gardaí – police officers – who distributed and collected the census returns used their local knowledge to add information. In one case, they noted that the purported daughter of an elderly woman was in fact her granddaughter, a fiction to shield the likelihood that the real mother was unmarried. In another case, a garda noted that a widowed farmer had married his housekeeper, a detail the couple omitted from the census form. “The census is going to reveal things to people about their families that they may or may not have known,” said Gibney. Scholars hope the census will help to answer one of the era’s great enigmas: why did the Protestant population dramatically drop? From 1911 to 1926, the non-Catholic population in Ireland’s 26 counties – Northern Ireland was not part of the census – fell by 32%. First world war casualties, the influenza pandemic and the British garrison’s withdrawal explain some but not all of the decline, leaving historians to debate if Protestants left because they felt unwelcome or menaced in an overwhelmingly Catholic state. Tracking people’s movements and occupations should shed light on the puzzle, said Gibson. “The census returns would hopefully provide some kind of answers.” Exhibitions, documentaries, theatre productions and a book, The Story of Us: Independent Ireland and the 1926 Census, will mark the release of the records. Authorities have issued an appeal for “centenarian ambassadors” among the estimated 1,200 people who are aged 100. “They have a fascinating story to tell,” said McBride. “Their lives mirror the first 100 years of the evolution of modern Ireland.”

Monday briefing: Can human-based space exploration still be meaningful?

Good morning. For a short period today, the four-person crew of the Artemis II mission will be alone in space, unable to contact anyone on Earth. Facing the far side of the moon, the astronauts will be further from our planet than anyone before them, divided from the rest of humanity by the enormous white rock we see in the sky at night. This is a crucial stage of their mission. All being well, the crew will spend most of their time documenting parts of the moon that no human has been able to see with their own eyes since the Apollo missions more than 50 years ago. Once done, the moon’s gravity will catapult their Orion spacecraft back to Earth. Today on First Edition, we are covering what to expect in the critical hours of the Nasa Artemis II mission, an indisputable marvel of human achievement and coordination. But first, the headlines. Five big stories Middle East | Donald Trump issued an expletive-laden warning for Tehran to reopen the strait of Hormuz or the US will obliterate Iran’s power plants and bridges. Iran’s parliament speaker responded that the US president’s “reckless moves” would mean “our whole region is going to burn”. UK politics | Keir Starmer has criticised the Green party, claiming that voting for Labour’s rivals jeopardises advances such as the new workers’ rights set to take effect today. Immigration | Government ministers are working with Labour backbenchers to modify proposed immigration changes by the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, that would extend to 10 years the time required for individuals to achieve settled status in the UK. Aliens | Jared Isaacman, the top official at Nasa, has said that the possibility of alien life is a core consideration in mission planning, emphasising that exploring the universe’s secrets includes asking the question: “Are we alone?” Hungary | Serbia’s claim that it found “explosives of devastating power” near a pipeline that carries Russian gas to Hungary sparked claims by the country’s leading opposition candidate of a possible “false flag” operation aimed at influencing elections in favour of the incumbent prime minister, Viktor Orbán. In depth: It’s hard not to be moved by the enormity of this Ever since Artemis II launched from the Kennedy Space Centre on 1 April, the view of Earth has become smaller and smaller for its crew. Today, our planet will probably disappear entirely, replaced instead by the lunar landscape. The moon will appear the same size as a basketball held at arm’s length from Orion as it orbits. Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen will not land on the moon this time. The mission is about preparing for a lunar landing by 2028 – part of Nasa’s plan to build a base on the moon that could have a continuous human presence. Over the weekend, the astronauts have spent their time checking systems and spacesuits, and rehearsing their role in scientific experiments connected to the mission. *** Some very earthly problems Despite being so far from Earth, they have already had to contend with some familiar problems, including an out of order loo. With help from the crew back home, Koch had to fix the plumbing on the $30m toilet – the first ever with a private cubicle on a spacecraft of this type. On previous Apollo missions, solid waste was collected in bags and strapped to spacesuits. Liquid waste was collected in condom-like containers. Unfortunately, both methods were prone to leaks – to the disgust of the astronauts. Thankfully, for everyone on board, the new system is working as intended – although the flush is so loud that the crew need to wear ear protection. *** A science-gathering mission The mission has not been without controversy. The entire Artemis programme is expected to cost almost $100bn, which critics say is an affront to the millions of Americans suffering with a cost of living crisis. The launch is happening despite an attempt from President Donald Trump to make deep cuts to Nasa funding last year, which was rebuffed due to rare bipartisan support. And there is major scepticism that American astronauts will really be back on the moon in 2028 – with many cautioning it will probably happen when Trump’s second presidency is over. Still, it’s hard not to be enthralled by the achievements of the mission and its advances for our understanding of space travel. In Nasa’s quest to better understand the challenges of deep space exploration, the astronauts are also volunteers in scientific experiments, hoping to bolster knowledge for future missions. They will be collecting saliva samples to monitor how their immune systems respond to radiation exposure, isolation and distance from Earth during the 10-day mission, examining whether dormant viruses could be reactivated by space travel. The re-emergence of illnesses like chickenpox and shingles has been a problem for astronauts on the International Space Station. The crew are also wearing “organ-on-a-chip technology”, a device the size of a USB stick that contains some of their blood. It acts as a replica of their bone marrow, which is especially sensitive to radiation. Nasa scientists hope that the data will help them better predict the response of astronauts to the demands of space travel – enabling mission planners to provide individualised medical kits to each crew member in the future. For missions that go deeper into space, astronauts will have to contend with “space weather” from the Sun, which causes spikes in radiation that might poison them. The astronauts this time have a protection shelter on the craft with them that they will test against radiation spikes from solar flares and other high-radiation events. *** Humanity can work together Watching the livestream from Orion on YouTube, it is hard not to be moved by the enormity of the scientific and technological achievements of the mission. During their journey, the astronauts have slept in strange positions to ensure they would not drift around the cabin, which is about the size of a caravan. “The crew is feeling pretty good up here on our way to the moon,” said astronaut Jeremy Hansen as the mission was cleared to zoom away from Earth’s orbit on Friday. “Humanity has once again shown what we are capable of.” Within hours of swinging around the far side of the moon, they will begin their return journey to Earth. There are still major challenges ahead. When it re-enters our planet’s atmosphere on Friday , the spacecraft must withstand temperatures up to 1,650C before parachuting into the Pacific Ocean. But today, a period of solitude in space awaits the crew: 41 minutes of radio silence where it will be just them among the stars. It is an experience that had a profound experience on astronauts before them. “That’s when we will be closest to the moon, farthest from the Earth,” astronaut Victor Glover said in February in an interview with CBS’s 60 minutes. Glover, the first Black person to travel to the moon, added: “But it is also a human moment. I would love for us to have a moment of togetherness for humans to go ‘Hey, there’s a part of humanity that’s not in touch for the rest of us.’ I hope that it inspires folks to have a moment of togetherness.” For me, at least, it has. What else we’ve been reading I couldn’t agree more with Robin Craig who argues, passionately, that a home full of clutter beats a stripped back museum-style house every time. Poppy Noor, newsletters team Pamela Hutchinson has a moving interview with Sean Hepburn Ferrer, son of Audrey Hepburn. He has written an authorised biography about his mother’s extraordinary life. Patrick I loved Gaby Hinsliff’s roundup of the scandalous photos that changed the world in our Saturday paper this weekend, which did nothing to dampen my crush on Hugh Grant. Poppy I was blown away by this extraordinary story, about a father and son who made their fortune in Dubai and then became wanted men. Patrick I read, in awe, this new start after 60, about a man who decided to become a professional poker player, winning sums as big as £150,000. “You don’t tend to get those highs in a normal job” he says – you can say that again. Poppy Sport Football | Despite scoring twice in injury time to level the FA Cup quarter-final, West Ham still went out on penalties after their 2-2 draw against Leeds, who reached their first semi-final since 1987. Rugby union | Bordeaux Bégles delivered a dominant performance against Leicester, winning 64-14 in the Champions Cup to set up a quarter-final against Toulouse next weekend. Football | Arsenal made a surprise exit at the quarter-final stage of the Women’s FA Cup for the second successive season as Brighton stunned the record 14-time cup winners at Borehamwood. The front pages The Guardian’s page one lead is “Trump threatens to unleash ‘hell’ on Iran in expletive-laden tirade”. The Mail’s version is “Trump drops F-bomb on Iran” and the Mirror’s main headline is “Unhinged” under a strapline that says “President hits new low”. The Financial Times reports: “Trump renews Iran threat in bid to reopen Hormuz strait”. The Times has “New Trump deadline to open Strait or ‘face hell’”. Top story in the Telegraph is “‘We got him’ – US airman rescued in daring raid”. The Express stays local with “‘Vile’ betrayal of grooming gang victims”. Today in Focus Move over Murdochs, here come the Ellisons Margaret Sullivan on the billionaire father and son buying up the US media Cartoon of the day | Tom Gauld The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad France can be reached in a few short hours by train from the UK, and offers some striking experiences for all tastes this summer. In Calais, visitors can ride the fire‑breathing Dragon de Calais and its new companion, Le Varan, before exploring nearby beaches and chateaus. Normandy marks the centenary of Monet’s death, with Rouen providing a quieter place to admire his cathedral series. Cyclists can tackle the new Traversée Bretonne from Nantes to Mont‑Saint‑Michel. Brittany boasts tidal pools to cool off after long days of sightseeing, and the remote Aubrac plateau rewards travellers with rustic food and starry skies. Late summer in the Vallée du Gapeau brings fig festivals and scenic hikes, while the Jura mountains reveal the world of comté cheese. Start packing those suitcases. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply

When Suzuki met Suzuki: why a Tokyo dating agency is matching couples with the same name

At the very least, the three men and three women calming their nerves on a Friday evening at a venue in Tokyo know they have one thing in common. Spaced out across booths, they will soon be placed in pairs and given 15 minutes to get to know one another. “Let’s start with a nice ‘hello’ and a big smile,” the emcee says. When they meet they will only need to use their first names – because they all share the same surname. The event is the first in a series that – novelty value aside – aims to skirt Japan’s controversial ban on married couples having separate surnames by getting people with the same surname together. After the participants have confirmed their IDs on an app, the chatter begins and the beer begins to flow. Round one over, the men are asked to move to the next table. Laughter is heard from one of the tables – surely a good sign. At another, the couple get to their feet and help themselves to cakes and biscuits provided by sponsor companies that share their common surname: Suzuki. Similar events have been planned for other people with the same surnames: Ito, Tanaka and Sato, Japan’s most popular family name. “To be honest, I’m not too fussed about keeping my maiden name, but I thought it would be fun to meet another Suzuki,” says *Hana Suzuki, a 34-year-old nurse. What’s in a name? Japan’s civil code specifies that a husband and wife must have the same family name. Couples are free to choose which surname to take when they marry, but in just under 95% of cases, it is the woman who has to adapt – a reflection, critics, say of Japan’s male-dominated society. In practice, many women continue to use their birth name at work and their legal, married surname in official documents. Although the government allows birth names to appear alongside married ones on passports, driving licences and other documents, Japan remains the only country in the world that requires spouses to use the same name. The UN committee on the elimination of discrimination against women has also called on Japan’s government to revise the laws and introduce a selective dual-surname system. Businesses are among those urging change, saying the rule is proving an obstacle to Japanese firms that do business overseas if female employees use work ID that doesn’t match their surname. The powerful business lobby Keidanren has collected testimony from women who say the rule has negatively affected their careers, including academics whose work written under their birth name struggles to gain recognition, and managerial-level women whose “business name” has been rejected when signing contracts. According to an internal Keidanren survey, 82% of female executives said they supported allowing married couples to use separate surnames. “We launched the project to highlight a growing issue in Japan, as many people hesitate to marry because of the requirement to change their surname,” said Yuka Maruyama, a creative planner and project initiator at Asuniwa. “We wanted to present a simple and slightly humorous idea – matching people who already share the same surname – in order to make this issue more visible and easier to understand,” he said. Successive Liberal Democratic governments have refused to consider changing the law. Conservative members have led the resistance, arguing that amending the civil code, which was adopted in the late 1800s, would “undermine” the traditional family unit and cause confusion among children. ‘A safe option’ “Keeping my maiden name isn’t a deal breaker, but I can see why taking my husband’s name could be inconvenient in, say, the workplace,” says Hana, one of the participants in the matchmaking event. “I’m fine with the idea of separate surnames, but I think it could cause problems when you have children … which name would they take?” A recent survey of 2,500 people in their 20s and 30s who use the Japanese dating app Pairs found that 36.6% of women and 46.6% of men felt reluctant about changing their surname, while a smaller proportion of both sexes had misgiving about their partner changing their name. Just over 7% said they would break up if neither partner wanted to change their surname. Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, has shown little interest in changing the law. Instead, she supports a bill that would expand legal recognition of birth names in official documents – a compromise critics say would do little to end the confusion for women who have to use one of two names depending on the circumstances. Takaichi took her husband’s surname, Yamamoto, during their first marriage, which ended in 2017. When they remarried in 2021, he officially took the name Takaichi. The conservative leader told MPs this month she opposed the introduction of selective separate surnames, preferring, as she had done, to use birth names in certain situations. It was important, she said, for “spouses and their children to share the same surname on the family register”. The matchmaking party’s organisers do not follow up with couples for privacy reasons, but some of this evening’s participants appear to have few regrets. “I’ve been to matchmaking parties before, but I thought this one would be more interesting,” says *Taisho Suzuki, a 33-year-old company employee. “I hadn’t given much thought to the idea of marrying another Suzuki, but I can see now why it’s a safe option. I don’t want to give up my surname when I marry, and I know a lot of women feel the same about their names.” He and his female counterpart have used their shared family name as an icebreaker, laughing as they recounted the times their name was called in government offices and waiting rooms – prompting responses from multiple people – before numbered tickets became the norm. “Now that I’m in my 30s my priorities have changed and I want to marry and have children,” he says. “If I met a woman with an unusual surname, I’d understand why she would want to keep it. I guess we’d have to sit down and work something out.” * First names have been changed at the interviewees’ request

Cruise ship caught on reef off tiny Fiji island where Cast Away filmed

Salvage crews in Fiji are working to prevent an oil spill after a cruise ship ran aground off the island on which the 2000 Tom Hanks film Cast Away was filmed. The Blue Lagoon Cruises vessel Fiji Princess grounded at a reef near the uninhabited Monuriki Island on Saturday, according to Fiji’s maritime rescue agency. All 30 passengers and 17 of its 31 crew were taken off the vessel the same day. There have been no injuries reported. The company has been contacted for comment. The Maritime Safety Authority of Fiji (Msaf) said its officers had arrived to assess the stricken ship on Saturday. “Initial checks confirmed that the vessel has suffered serious damage to its rear left side, including the area where the steering equipment is located. Part of the vessel underneath has also been damaged,” a spokesperson said. “The vessel also experienced engine failure and was reported to be taking in water following the grounding. Due to rough seas and strong waves, officers were unable to safely inspect the vessel underwater at the time.” An Msaf spokesperson said the main priority on Monday was to reduce the risk of pollution. The vessel was carrying about 20,000 litres of diesel fuel. The spokesperson said authorities had taken oil spill equipment to the area “as a precaution” but that the sea conditions were too rough for it to be used. “At the time of inspection, there were no signs that the fuel tanks had been damaged,” the spokesperson said. Salvage teams were working to remove the fuel and oil from the vessel, with the assistance of a salvage specialist from Australia. Once the weather improved, further work would begin to recover the vessel safely, the spokesperson said. “Msaf’s main concern at this time is the safety of all personnel, the protection of Fiji’s marine environment, and ensuring that response efforts continue safely,” they said. “Msaf will continue to work closely with the vessel operator and all response teams, and will provide further updates as necessary.” Monuriki Island, about 45km west of the city of Nadi, was the filming location for the 2000 film Cast Away. It is part of the Mamanuca Island chain, on which the US version of reality show Survivor has been filmed since 2016. Blue Lagoon Cruises advertises the Fiji Princess as being small enough to “get so close to shore that we can tie off to a coconut tree, and you can swim to the beach”. Evacuated passengers and crew were taken back to Port Denarau. The remaining crew were aiding salvage efforts, and were being berthed on Fiji Princess’s sister ship, Cougar, for safety reasons.

At least 15 killed in strikes on Lebanon – as it happened

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