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Middle East crisis live: Vance warns Iran not to ‘play’ US as he heads to Pakistan for talks

Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on Friday that two previously agreed measures, a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets, must be implemented before negotiations begin. In a post on X on Friday, Qalibaf said the steps were part of commitments made between the parties and warned that talks should not start until they were fulfilled, amid mounting disputes over ceasefire terms and continued hostilities in Lebanon.

Orbán and rival Magyar hold rallies as Hungary election campaigns enter final stretch – Europe live

moving on Intercity 862 Balaton train to Székesfehérvár I am on my way to one of the last Viktor Orbán rallies, in Székesfehérvár, a city an hour away from Budapest where the Fidesz mayor previously won about 70 percent of the votes. “In Székesfehérvár, the city leadership is quite loyal to Fidesz,” said Mátyás Bódi, an analyst at the Electoral Geography website. “But Fidesz won here in the past mainly because of the opposition’s lack of unity, and the fact that voting districts were completely redistricted* by the end of 2024 also contributed to that.” By “redistricted” he essentially means redrawn – and largely to benefit the government.

Fuel-price protests cause chaos in Ireland and spread to Norway

Protests over fuel prices have caused chaos in Ireland and spread to Norway in a knock-on effect from the conflict in the Middle East. Hauliers, farmers and other groups blocked motorways and brought parts of Dublin to a standstill on Friday in a fourth consecutive day of action. In Ireland the protests have sparked fuel shortages and travel disruption, and in Norway lorry drivers taking part in the “diesel roar” protest descended on the capital. The Irish government put the army on standby to help remove blockades and police warned some protesters to disperse or face arrest, prompting defiance and threats to continue the disruption for weeks if necessary. Protests were endangering critical supplies of food, fuel, clean water and animal feed, the police force, An Garda Síochána, said in a statement. “This is not tolerable and is against the law.” Government leaders have accused protesters of holding the country to “ransom”. The blockade of ports and a refinery meant Ireland was on the verge of turning away oil deliveries and losing its supply, the taoiseach, Mícheál Martin, told RTÉ. “It is unconscionable, it’s illogical.” Despite government mitigation measures, in recent weeks the price of diesel has risen from about €1.70 a litre to €2.17 and petrol has jumped from about €1.74 to €1.97. Industry representatives were expected to convey their members’ grievances at a meeting with ministers later on Friday but it was unclear whether that would satisfy protesters who have called for direct talks with the government. The justice minister, Jim O’Callaghan, said “outside actors”, such as the British far-right activist Tommy Robinson, were manipulating the protests for their own agenda. In Denmark’s recent election the far-right Danish People’s party tried to tap into discontent by paying voters for their petrol. The rise in oil prices since the US and Israel began attacking Iran on 28 February has convulsed global markets and triggered outcries from consumers and businesses who want governments to do more to soften the blow. Some countries announced temporary cuts in fuel taxes while others took measures to restrict demand and considered rationing. The Philippines declared a state of “national energy emergency”. Authorities in France tried to avert widespread shortages by announcing on Friday that fuel tankers would be allowed to circulate on weekends and public holidays until 11 May. In Norway protesters on Friday drove a convoy of lorries to the parliament in Oslo. About 70 to 80 trucks, some with banners that read “nok er nok!” (enough is enough!), joined another group known as Dieselbrølet (diesel roar). Only a handful were allowed to drive into the capital. Norway cut fuel taxes on 1 April but hauliers say they need more predictable and lower prices. Despite being an oil producer, fuel prices in Norway have surged since the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz. The Statistics Norway institute said the price of fuel and lubricants rose by 17.9% from February to March, with diesel prices in that period jumping by 23.6%. A Statistics Norway spokesperson said it had never recorded a sharper month-on-month increase in fuel prices using the CPI inflation index. “The last time we saw something similar was in the spring of 2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but in that case the price increase occurred over two consecutive months.” Last month the Irish government announced a €250m package of measures to reduce fuel costs, including a temporary excise duty reduction, expansion of a diesel rebate scheme for hauliers and bus operators and an extension of the fuel allowance. Blockades of Ireland’s sole oil refinery at Whitegate, County Cork, and fuel depots in Galway City and Foynes in County Limerick crippled deliveries. Dozens of forecourts ran dry and there were warnings as motorists rushed to fill up on petrol and diesel. Columns of tractors and other vehicles closed motorways and Dublin’s main thoroughfare, O’Connell Street. The Irish Medical Organisation said slower emergency services response times and missed healthcare appointments would harm patient welfare. The courier company DPD suspended deliveries. Protesters were prepared to remain in the capital for weeks, a spokesperson, John Dallon, told RTÉ. “If it takes a month, we are prepared to sit here,” he said. He accused the government of ignoring the plight of people facing hardship and ruin because of fuel costs. “How dare they come out and say that these people that are protesting are holding the country to ransom? It’s the government that’s holding this country to ransom, not the protesters.” The taoiseach postponed a trade mission to Canada to deal with the crisis.

European airports could face jet fuel shortages within three weeks

European airports have said jet fuel shortages could hit the summer holiday season, if oil supplies do not start to flow through the strait of Hormuz within the next three weeks. Airports Council International (ACI) Europe wrote to Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the EU transport commissioner, saying the bloc is three weeks away from shortages. The warning will raise concerns of a risk of flight or holiday cancellations if the US and Israel’s war on Iran continues. Oil prices have soared since the start of March after Iran effectively closed the strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route for exports from the Gulf, in retaliation. Donald Trump this week announced a ceasefire, but Brent crude oil prices remained at about $96 per barrel on Friday amid concerns over whether it would hold. Before the war, oil traded at about $72. “If the passage through the strait of Hormuz does not resume in any significant and stable way within the next three weeks, systemic jet fuel shortage is set to become a reality for the EU,” the letter said. Jet fuel prices have soared since the end of February after the attacks on Iran ordered by Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. Global jet fuel prices at the end of last week had more than doubled compared with last year to $1,650 per tonne, according to figures tracked by Iata, an airline lobby group. The worst hit region has been Asia, with prices up 163% year-on-year. However, prices in Europe were still up by 138%, amid a global scramble to secure fuel. Michael O’Leary, the chief executive of Europe’s largest airline, Ryanair, this week said that the UK, not an EU member, was the most vulnerable country in Europe to potential jet fuel shortages because of its reliance on Kuwait. The last cargo of European jet fuel to pass through the strait of Hormuz before the war began is due to arrive in Copenhagen tomorrow, after the same tanker delivered a partial cargo to Rotterdam on Monday, according to shipping data provider Vortexa. The final tanker of Gulf jet fuel destined for the UK arrived in Kent on the Maetiga vessel from Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. Europe has typically sourced more than 60% of its jet fuel from Gulf refineries, of which more than 40% was shipped through the strait of Hormuz. Iran’s chokehold on the vital trade strait has forced European buyers to compete with Asia for fresh cargoes from other parts of the world as the last Gulf deliveries have trickled in. The global market for jet fuel has been particularly exposed to the Gulf disruption because there are fewer alternative routes for exports, according to Australian investment bank Macquarie. While some crude exports have been able to bypass the strait via pipelines, jet fuel does not have these options available. In the event that trade flows resume, the bank expects the market for refined oil products, such as fuels, to take at least two to three months longer than crude markets to normalise. Airlines across the world have already started cutting flights and raising fares in response to the higher fuel prices. The fare hikes will feed through into higher inflation, but outright shortages of jet fuel could cause greater economic damage if they force people and businesses to abandon travel or hold off on exports. ACI warned of “increasing concerns of the airport industry over the availability of jet fuel as well as the need for proactive EU monitoring and action”, with supplies further being hit by “the impact of military activity on demand”. The problems could become particularly acute at the start of the peak summer season “when air travel enables the whole tourism ecosystem upon which many economies rely”, ACI said in the letter, first reported by the Financial Times. Willie Walsh, Iata’s director general, said that even if the strait of Hormuz were to remain open, “it will still take a period of months to get back to where supply needs to be, given the disruption to the refining capacity in the Middle East”. Before the crisis, Iata had predicted 4.9% year-on-year growth in passenger traffic for 2026.

US should judge UK on its actions in Gulf, not on Trump’s social posts, says defence secretary

The UK’s actions in the Gulf should be the basis for any US judgment of the country’s value rather than Donald Trump’s social media posts, Britain’s defence secretary has said. Speaking at a conference in London, John Healey said the UK’s recent efforts “spoke for themselves”, as Keir Starmer flew home after a trip that included discussing how to keep the strait of Hormuz open with Donald Trump, as well as meeting leaders in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. “Even in this current conflict, the basing permissions that we in the UK have agreed with the US have been invaluable to their military operations,” Healey said, adding: “If we focus on our actions rather than just simply the exchange of words and social media posts, then the fundamentals for me remain.” Before the ceasefire announced by Trump late on Tuesday, which Starmer said countries in the region believed was “fragile”, the UK led a call of military planners from 35 nations on ways to secure the strait if there was peace, including the removal of Iranian mines. Speaking to broadcasters in Doha, Starmer gave details of his call with the US president on Thursday evening. “I had a discussion with President Trump last night and set out to him the views of the region here. These Gulf states are the neighbours of Iran, and therefore, if the ceasefire is to hold – and we hope it will – it has to involve them,” the prime minister said. “They have very strong views on the strait of Hormuz. We spent most of the time on the call talking about the practical plan that’s going to be needed to get navigation through the strait and the role that the UK is playing.” As well as ensuring the sea route is safe, Starmer has stressed the need to avoid the potential scenario of Iran charging levies on ships passing through. Earlier this week Trump mooted the idea of a “joint venture” between the US and Iran to set tolls. Setting out his talks with the various Gulf leaders, Starmer said they shared this view, and were concerned about the ceasefire, which is under threat from continued Israeli attacks on Lebanon, and Iran warning it could retaliate. “Obviously, the discussion moved very quickly to the ceasefire, a sense that it’s fragile, that more work is needed, that the strait of Hormuz has to be part of the solution, a very strong sense that there can’t be tolling or restrictions on that navigation,” he said. Trump has expressed anger at what he believes has been a lack of support for the attacks on Iran from fellow Nato members, and has again threatened the future of the alliance. Reports have emerged that Washington was planning to audit Nato members to decide if anyone should face punishment for their perceived lack of support during the war in Iran. Starmer said he agreed it was important for European Nato members to “do more”, but emphasised that the alliance was “in America’s interests”. “We’re very strong supporters of Nato and I’ve been making the argument for some considerable time that we need to do more,” he said. “It’s the single most effective military alliance the world has ever known. “Nato is a defensive alliance, which for decades has kept us much safer than we would otherwise have been. So we’re strong supporters of Nato. We’ll always be strong supporters of Nato.”

Peruvians to go to polls hoping to break cycle of instability

Peruvians go to the polls on Sunday hoping to break a cycle of instability that has produced nine presidents in a decade as well as surging violent crime, corruption scandals and overwhelming distrust in institutions and politicians. About 27 million people who are eligible to vote must choose between a record 35 presidential candidates as well as contenders for the bicameral congress – all from a ballot sheet measuring nearly half a metre, the longest in the country’s history. The fight against crime tops voter concerns amid record homicide and extortion rates but political corruption comes a close second. Four former presidents are in jail, most of them linked to bribery cases involving the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. Keiko Fujimori, a three-time presidential candidate and the daughter of the late president Alberto Fujimori, holds a narrow lead in opinion polls. She is closely followed by the comedian Carlos Álvarez and two former mayors of Lima, the ultra-conservative Rafael López Aliaga and the media mogul Ricardo Belmont. None of the candidates is polling above 15%, making a runoff on 7 June almost certain, according to Urpi Torrado, of the polling company Datum Internacional. “This is one of the most unpredictable elections on record,” said Torrado. “There could be surprises this Sunday because we don’t know who will make it through to the second round.” Fujimori, 50, is making her fourth bid for the presidency, having reached the runoff in the last three elections (2021, 2016 and 2011) and losing by extremely narrow margins each time. The rightwinger served as first lady in the autocratic 1990s government of her late father, who was convicted over corruption and human rights abuses and spent 16 years in prison. Ricardo Belmont, who was Lima’s mayor from 1990 to 1995, has risen in most opinion polls, winning the younger vote with his upbeat messaging and the slogan “hugs not bullets”, borrowed from the former Mexican leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Gonzalo Banda, a Peruvian political analyst and doctoral researcher at University College of London’s Institute of the Americas, called Belmont an “anti-establishment candidate catching votes from the right, the left and the centre”. The 80-year-old is also known for making xenophobic and sexist remarks. López Aliaga, who was Lima’s mayor until a few months ago, has run a hard-right campaign littered with disinformation, hate speech and threats against journalists and opponents. But the 65-year-old rail magnate, who has opposed same-sex marriage and pledged to refuse abortion to underage rape victims, has slipped in the polls. The surprise entry is Álvarez, one of Peru’s best-known comedians, who has been imitating presidents for the last three decades. However, his proposals are far from lighthearted. He describes himself as an admirer of Donald Trump and El Salvador’s leader, Nayib Bukele, and his tough-on-crime campaign has focused on megaprisons and the death penalty. “It is ironically poetic that due to this cycle of [political] decay in Peru, we could end up with a comedy performer who imitates politicians as president,” said Banda. Other candidates include Roberto Sánchez, who has been endorsed by the ousted former populist leader Pedro Castillo and wears the same style of wide-brimmed sombrero. Centrist candidates include a former defence minister, Jorge Nieto, and a former university rector, Alfonso López Chau. Torrado said: “No political leader has emerged who can generate a sense of hope, a feeling that this person could change the country’s political course or solve its problems. Peruvians feel that in recent years, politicians have turned their backs on the people.”

War has given Iran new leverage for nuclear programme, say US former envoys

Former US envoys who dealt with Iran have said that the US-Israeli attack on Iran and Tehran’s subsequent closure of the strait of Hormuz have given Iran new tools and resolve to resist pressure to shutter its nuclear programme. Two senior negotiators for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Obama-era agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear uranium enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief, said the Trump administration’s war had handed Iran a coveted weapon by demonstrating its ability to cut off the strait of Hormuz, an economic chokehold that one negotiator said would help Iran “balance the asymmetry of power” with the US. “This administration, to say it more politely, cannot unsoil the bed,” said Alan Eyre, a former diplomat who helped negotiate the JCPOA. “There’s no way to get back to the status quo ante before this war started.” In 2018, Donald Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA, which barred Tehran from enriching its uranium to weapons-grade. Trump called the deal, which lifted some sanctions on Iran, “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions” the US had ever entered into. But after a strategy of high pressure – first through returning sanctions and then, after Trump’s return to power in 2025, a war that was meant to destroy Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities – the current US administration has found itself in more complex negotiations than before its campaign of economic and military strikes. “The strait of Hormuz is such a good strategic deterrent [and] to an extent it makes the nuclear programme less crucial,” said Eyre. “It would have taken a lot of time and a lot of risk for them to weaponise [nuclear arms] … But they’ve got a really cool threat now, which is incredibly easy to turn on and off.” Diplomatic sources have indicated that the Iranian delegation believes this is an unprecedented set of circumstances to negotiate on favourable terms, as the Trump administration appears keen to exit the conflict quickly. A US delegation led by JD Vance will meet Iranian negotiators in Islamabad, Pakistan this weekend. The vice-president has been a less vocal booster of the war than other members of the administration such as the secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio. But while the US could withdraw its air power from the conflict, it has not presented a clear plan for reopening the strait of Hormuz – either through force or a negotiated settlement. Robert Malley, a Yale lecturer who was former special envoy to Iran under Joe Biden and a lead negotiator on the JCPOA, said: “The strait of Hormuz wasn’t an issue before the US decided to strike. You have all the issues inherited from the past, but you just added a few, because the US has handed Iran a tool that it always had, but it never thought of using, or never felt it could.” The chances for a comprehensive agreement addressing all of the US and Iran’s grievances appear slim. While the Obama administration sought to negotiate exclusively on Iran’s nuclear programme in the lead-up to the 2015 agreement, the Trump administration has sought a broader deal limiting Iran’s ballistic missiles programme and its support for regional proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. But a catch-all deal appears to be fraying at the edges. Israel’s continued strikes on Lebanon, a country which Iran believed was part of the deal but the US has said was not, have already threatened its full collapse, with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps maintaining its blockade on shipping and top officials publicly questioning the ceasefire. As Malley noted, the Obama administration had chosen to seek a more limited deal with Iran because “for every element that the US and others will put on the table, Iran will put a reciprocal element on the table. This is not a one-way street.” “I think Trump has been driven by two objectives that were in clear tension,” said Malley. “One was he wanted to be able to declare outright victory, and the other a clear victory. And the other one is he wanted a quick exit.” “Even though he may claim victory … It’s being it’s being contradicted every day, or not every day, but every hour by what’s happening on the ground.”

Trump ‘reaping bitter fruit’ of thinking Iran intervention as easy as Venezuela, says former diplomat

Donald Trump is “reaping the bitter fruit” of erroneously thinking that the capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, offered a blueprint for toppling the Iranian regime, according to one of the US state department’s most respected former Latin America experts. John Feeley, a Marine helicopter pilot who later served as the US ambassador to Panama, believed Trump had been “flush with the victory from Venezuela” when he made the ill-fated decision to attack Iran in February, leaving a trail of destruction across the Middle East and dealing a hammer blow to the global economy. Maduro was seized during a special forces mission on 3 January, with the remnants of his authoritarian regime quickly capitulating to US demands under the leadership of his replacement, Delcy Rodríguez. More than 100 Cuban and Venezuelan troops lost their lives during Trump’s Operation Absolute Resolve but not a single member of the US military was killed. “This was one of the most stunning, effective, and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history,” Trump boasted last month, calling his attack proof the US had “the strongest and most fearsome military on the planet”. Feeley accepted Maduro’s capture had shown Trump’s administration was “willing to use force to get rid of somebody they don’t like”. But he and other former senior US diplomats believed it had also lulled the US president into the false belief that removing Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and his regime would be as straightforward as overthrowing the South American autocrat. “We are now literally reaping the bitter fruit of a decision made in large [part] to go into Iran based on the unbelievable good luck that he had in Venezuela,” said Feeley, emphasising that his comments were not a criticism of the elite forces who snatched Maduro. “As somebody who flew in those units … I can’t tell you how many things could have gone horribly wrong,” he said of the night-time raid involving Delta Force commandos and members of an elite aviation unit known as the Night Stalkers. Feeley, who left the foreign service during Trump’s first term, said the Venezuela assault had led Trump to expect a similarly “marvellous little two-week, three-ribbon war” in Iran. “I think it’s very true that the success of the Venezuela episode led him to give the green light … and begin the Iran episode,” he said, voicing fears that a similar miscalculation might soon be made in Cuba, which Trump recently vowed to “take”. “I think these guys will make the very jejune and naive mistake of thinking that Cuba is going to be just like Venezuela, in the same way they misunderstood that Iran was going to be just like Venezuela,” he said. “These are 70-year regimes, 50-year regimes in the case of Iran. They’re decentralised, the ranks are trained, they’ve been indoctrinated … That’s a very different scenario than Venezuela, which was a criminal mafia that had only really consolidated its position in the last decade. But I think this administration is shortsighted enough … to still foolishly believe: ‘We’ll just go in there’.” Thomas Shannon, a Venezuela specialist and former ambassador to Brazil who was responsible for Latin America policy under George W Bush, was also convinced Trump’s Venezuela intervention had caused him to make a grave miscalculation in the Middle East. “He actually thought Iran was going to be the same thing. I mean, [Trump] knew that they couldn’t sweep in and arrest the supreme leader. But he thought they could go in and kill him and that they could kill any number of other leaders, both civil and military, and that that display would have the same impact the raid on Caracas had,” said Shannon, who believed Trump had hoped to replace Iran’s ayatollah with a compliant, Rodríguez-style figure. No such leader has emerged. Shannon said: “In many ways, Venezuela becomes the wrong example. But it’s the one that the president has in mind when he decides to join the Israelis in the 28 February attack. The problem is that the circumstances are quite different and the Iranians are different. And they have a resilience and a kind of internal capacity and structures to endure these kinds of assaults without having to surrender or to pretend to surrender.” Feeley saw an irony to how, by yielding to Trump’s January attack, the US president’s longtime foes in Caracas had inadvertently lured the US into making such a damaging misjudgment more than 7,000 miles away in Tehran. “Obviously, hard power is hard power and there’s nothing that they could do to prevent Trump doing what he did [in Venezuela],” Feeley said. “But their ultimate revenge is that they kind of laid down and made it look easy – and so [Trump] thought: ‘Oh, I’ll try that in an ancient Persian empire, a millennial civilisation. Threaten to blow the whole civilisation up.’ And we are where we are.”