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Iran gives negative response to US ceasefire plan amid push for talks

Iranian officials expressed initial disapproval of a US ceasefire plan on Wednesday, even as intermediaries suggested direct talks between the two could start as early as this weekend. Representatives from Pakistan who reportedly delivered the US plan to Iran told the Associated Press that it was a 15-point proposal that would include sanctions relief for Iran, dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme, restricting its use of missiles and reopening the strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about 20% of the world’s oil. An Egyptian official also suggested it would restrict Iran’s support for armed groups across the Middle East. Some of these proposals proved to be intractable sticking points in negotiations before the war began. A senior Iranian official speaking to Al Jazeera described it as “extremely maximalist and unreasonable”, while other officials said the country was still reviewing the proposal, despite viewing it as too favourable to US demands. Iran had previously scoffed at the diplomatic effort and mocked the US president, Donald Trump, claiming Washington was negotiating with itself. Overnight and on Wednesday, Tehran launched even more attacks on Israel and Gulf countries, including an attack that sparked a huge fire at Kuwait international airport, while Israel continued its bombardment of Iran. “Our first and last words have been the same from day one, and it will stay that way: someone like us will never come to terms with someone like you,” said Lt Col Ebrahim Zolfaghari, an Iranian military spokesperson. Many parts of the 15-point-plan were not new and were the subject of negotiations prior to the US-Israel war with Iran. Iran had previously refused to compromise on its ballistic missile programme or regional proxy network, which it sees as key to its self-defence in front of the militarily superior US and Israel. Egyptian and Pakistani officials suggested that in-person negotiations between the US and Iran could begin as quickly as Friday in Pakistan while other sources suggested Turkey as a venue for talks. Trump said that the US was currently in negotiations with a party in the Iranian government who is engaging with his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the US special envoy, Steve Witkoff, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the US vice-president, JD Vance. It was reported that Kushner and Witkoff had suggested a one-month ceasefire during negotiations. It was unclear who exactly the US negotiating team was in contact with, as officials from Iran’s foreign ministry and military denied Trump’s statements that negotiations were taking place. Iranian officials are skeptical of coming back to the negotiation table with the US, after the country was attacked twice before while in the middle of discussions. The US attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel last summer and launched its latest conflict while progress was reportedly being made towards a comprehensive deal between the two parties. Israel and the US have also killed much of Iran’s senior leadership, including more pragmatic figures such as the secretary of the supreme national security council, Ali Larijani, creating concerns for the safety of its Iranian interlocutors, some of whom Israel has threatened to kill. “We have a very catastrophic experience with US diplomacy,” the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, told India Today on Tuesday. Pressure has been growing domestically for Trump to find an end to the war in Iran, as Iranian attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure and the virtual blockade of the strait of Hormuz has sent prices soaring across much of the world. Oil prices fell after news of the 15-point-plan broke on Wednesday, as investors hoped for an end to the greatest energy crisis in decades. About 59% of Americans say that the US war in Iran has “gone too far”, according to a new poll. Trump’s approval rating has dropped to an all-time low of 36% owing to the increase in fuel prices and the war in Iran, according to a poll by Reuters. Israel, by contrast, has sought to keep fighting as it tries to degrade the Iranian regime further. Israeli officials were reportedly surprised by the US ceasefire plan. As diplomacy sputtered forward, the US continued to amass troops in the Middle East. At least 1,000 troops from the 82nd airborne division will be sent to the region, according to the Associated Press, as well as 5,000 more marines and thousands of sailors. The deployment of the additional troops comes as the Trump administration is weighing plans to invade Iran’s Kharg Island to pressure it to reopen the strait of Hormuz. The island holds 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports. The 82nd airborne division is specialised in flying into contested areas and securing them. Israel continued to strike Iran on Wednesday, announcing the completion of several waves of airstrikes in Tehran, as well as the targeting of a submarine development centre in Isfahan. Iran responded in kind with ballistic missile launches targeting Israel, with missile sirens activating multiple times on Wednesday. It also targeted Arab Gulf states and Saudi Arabia said it destroyed at least eight drones in the eastern part of the country where oil infrastructure is located. Israel continued to pound Hezbollah targets across Lebanon, as well as engaging in ground fighting with the group south of the Litani River. The Israeli army had been slowly advancing northwards despite fierce resistance, with soldiers posting videos in the previously contested towns of Taybeh and Khiam. Israel also continued to target civilian infrastructure such as bridges and gas stations, as well as killing two medical workers in the city of Nabatieh, south Lebanon on Tuesday. Human rights groups warned that Israel’s striking of civilian targets, even if some had an affiliation with Hezbollah, could constitute war crimes. Hezbollah continued to fire rockets and drones into northern Israel throughout the day. A woman was killed in northern Israel by Hezbollah fire on Tuesday night, an attack that injured two others as well. The woman was the first person killed by Hezbollah in Israel since the group launched rockets at Israel on 2 March, triggering an Israeli military campaign. So far Israeli strikes have killed 1,094 people and wounded 3,119 in Lebanon, according to the Lebanese health ministry. The Iranian health ministry reports that at least 1,500 people have been killed in Iran. According to Israel, 20 people have died in the war, including two soldiers in Lebanon. At least 13 US military personnel have been killed, as well as more than a dozen people across the occupied West Bank and Gulf states.

Middle East crisis live: confusion over Iran’s response to US proposal to end war

France’s armed forces chief Fabien Mandon will hold a technical meeting by video conference “soon” with army chiefs from countries keen to play role in restoring maritime navigation in the strait of Hormuz, a French military official said on Wednesday. The meeting would be unrelated to the United States approach to the issue and would remain in a framework of a defensive posture, the official said. France has repeatedly said it would not take part in operations until hostilities had calmed in the region.

Skeleton of Three Musketeers hero d’Artagnan may have been found

More than three-and-a-half centuries after a musket ball to the throat put an end to decades of exemplary swashbuckling, the French soldier who inspired Alexandre Dumas and went on to be immortalised on the stage and screen – not to mention as a plucky cartoon dog – may rise again. Workers repairing a church in the Dutch city of Maastricht have discovered a skeleton that could belong to the 17th-century Gascon nobleman Charles de Batz-Castelmore – better known as d’Artagnan – whose exploits led Dumas to make him the hero of the Three Musketeers. The real-life d’Artagnan was a spy and musketeer for King Louis XIV who died during the siege of Maastricht in 1673. Three hundred and fifty-three years later, the longstanding mystery of where the warrior came to be buried may finally have been solved, thanks to a set of bones found under a collapsed church floor. Wim Dijkman, a retired archeologist from Maastricht who has spent 28 years searching for the musketeer’s final resting place, was called to the Church of St Peter and St Paul in the Wolder district of the city after the deacon told him a skeleton had turned up. “A section of the floor in the church had subsided, and during the repair work, we discovered a skeleton,” Deacon Jos Valke told the local L1 Nieuws broadcaster. “I immediately called Wim because he has been working on d’Artagnan for more than 20 years.” Valke said several clues pointed to the skeleton belonging to the famous musketeer. “He lay buried under the altar in consecrated ground,” he said. “There was a French coin from that time in the grave. And the bullet that killed him was lying at chest level, exactly as described in the history books. The indications are very strong.” The skeleton has been removed from the church and is now in an archaeological institute in Deventer in eastern Germany. A DNA sample taken from the skeleton on 13 March is being analysed in a laboratory in Munich. It will then be tested alongside DNA samples provided by descendants of d’Artagnan’s father to determine whether there is a match. Dijkman said that while he understood the news value of the possible discovery, he was anxiously waiting for the lab results. “It is an incredibly exciting story, after all,” he told L1 Nieuws. “This is about the most famous and well-known person linked to Maastricht. “[But] I’m always very cautious, I’m a scientist.” Interest in the potential discovery is certainly not limited to Maastricht. Dijkman said: “All kinds of analyses and investigations are under way both domestically and abroad. It has truly turned into a top-level investigation. We want to be absolutely certain that it is d’Artagnan.” The soldier achieved huge posthumous fame after Dumas published the Three Musketeers in 1844. Dumas had taken inspiration from an earlier book on the musketeer, Mémoires de M. d’Artagnan, which was written in 1700 by the French soldier and writer Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras. Dumas’s book has been adapted for the screen numerous times over the past century, with d’Artagnan being played by actors including Douglas Fairbanks, Michael York, Chris O’Donnell, Logan Lerman and François Civil. The character was also reimagined as the eponymous, sword-wielding beagle in the early 1980s animated series Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds. Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Danish PM Frederiksen resigns and coalition talks begin following close election – Europe live

Back to Denmark, the Royal Palace has just said that King Frederik will meet with the outgoing/acting prime minister Mette Frederiksen again at 5pm today local (4pm UK) to discuss the results of the “royal round” and who will be tasked with the job for exploring a possible new coalition government. Could it be that she will get the role?

Denmark braces for lengthy and challenging coalition talks

Denmark is braced for lengthy and challenging coalition talks after neither Mette Frederiksen’s leftwing bloc nor the rightwing parties managed to obtain a majority in Tuesday’s election. After a bruising night for her Social Democrat party, which despite remaining the biggest party in the Danish parliament had its worst general election since 1903, the prime minister went to Amalienborg palace on Wednesday morning to submit her government’s resignation to the king. Later in the day, parties began arriving at the palace in order of size, starting with the Social Democrats, to tell the king who they think should have the role of “royal investigator”, whose task it will be to try to form a government. Speaking in a debate involving the 12 party leaders in Copenhagen on Wednesday, Frederiksen said voters had handed leaders a “troublesome” party situation but a “government must be formed”. She added: “The world is not waiting for us out there, and it has only become even more restless than when the election was called.” Frederiksen said she would start exploring the possibility of forming a left-leaning government with the support of Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s centre-right Moderates. The failure of the left-leaning “red bloc” and right-leaning “blue bloc”, which won 84 seats and 77 seats respectively, to get a majority in the 179-seat parliament left the Moderates, with 14 seats, in a potentially powerful position to play a key role in forming a new coalition, putting Rasmussen, a committed centrist, in the position of kingmaker. In his election night speech he appealed to Frederiksen and Troels Lund Poulsen, the leader of the liberal Venstre party, with whom he has been in coalition for more than three years, to “come down from the trees” and join him in the centre ground. “What is clear – with all conceivable reservations – I think is that there is no red majority to the left of us, and there is no black-blue majority to the right of us,” he said, to cheers. Rasmussen, was the foreign minister in the last government and has twice been prime minister. He said before this election that he did not want to be the prime minister but would like to be appointed royal investigator – although this role is usually held by the person who goes on to lead the government. Frederiksen addressed her party at the Social Democrats’ party at Christiansborg in the early hours of the morning, saying the results were not as good as she had hoped but were “OK”. “We reach out for responsibility – even when it comes at a price. I am still prepared to take on the job as Denmark’s prime minister. There is just no indication that it will be easy,” she said. Poulsen said he was still a candidate for prime minister and ruled out forming a coalition with the Social Democrats. He told supporters: “We need a new government. And that’s also why I’m happy that Venstre has become the largest blue party.” Coalition negotiations are expected to take weeks. Among the election’s biggest winners were the Green Left, who for the first time became the second largest party in Folketinget, the Danish parliament. They are believed to have benefited from leftwing voters deserting the Social Democrats after their three years in a centrist coalition, during which time Frederiksen doubled down on her hardline stance on immigration. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the far-right Danish People’s party (DPP) increased its support since the last election from five to 16 seats. The number is still far from the party’s peak levels of support in 2015, when it won 37 seats and 21% of the vote. Naaja Nathanielsen, a high-profile minister from the Greenlandic party Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA), won one of the Arctic island’s two seats in the Danish parliament. The other was won by Qarsoq Høegh-Dam, of the independence party Naleraq. The royal palace released a statement saying the king had received the prime minister, and representatives of the political parties would be asked to meet at the palace. “After explaining the election results and the parliamentary situation, the prime minister submitted the government’s resignation and advised that representatives of the political parties that have been elected to the Folketing should now be given the opportunity to speak about the upcoming government formation,” it said.

Could the continent’s far right be suffering from a Trumplash?

The Rassemblement National is not invincible. A year out from a make-or-break presidential vote, that might be the main lesson (though there are others, which may prove more significant) from last weekend’s local elections in France. What’s more, news elsewhere – Giorgia Meloni’s referendum defeat in Italy, Janez Janša beaten in Slovenia, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán in trouble, the left bloc largest in Denmark – might suggest the rest of Europe’s far right are not having it all their own way, either. But let’s focus first on France – if only because while local elections are rarely a wholly accurate guide to future national outcomes, these ones seem to provide some pointers – and the stakes in the country’s next major election are vertiginously high. After 10 years of Emmanuel Macron, this time next year French voters will be gearing up for the first round of a presidential election that polls suggest will be comfortably won by whichever of the RN’s Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella ends up running. Depending on whom they face, some polls also project a far-right win in the second round. It’s difficult to overstate the implications of that – many analysts frame it as arguably the most significant threat to the EU’s architecture in its history. A victory for the nationalist far right could lead to a “France first” policy in which the bloc’s second biggest economy, and sole nuclear power, challenges further European integration and enlargement, scales back support for Ukraine and reshapes Nato. Real-world electoral clues to possible dynamics of that election are welcome – and these local votes were an important early test of the RN’s strength. So how did it do? The party, naturally, hailed it “a major breakthrough”. Certainly, it now runs almost 60 small and medium-sized towns with more than 3,500 people, about seven times more than after the last local elections in 2020. But it failed its test in the bigger cities that it had the highest hopes of capturing. The far-right party did win in conservative Nice – but through an ally, Éric Ciotti, in a very personal battle between two rightwing rivals. But it lost in its prime southern targets of Marseille, Toulon and Nîmes. Often, that was because left-leaning and more moderate right-leaning voters teamed up in a so-called “Republican front” to keep it out. It all suggests the RN might not be quite as unbeatable as it has looked. But if the far right is not to furnish France’s next president, the parties of the traditional centre-right and -left, as well as Macron’s centrists, will have to play their part. The local elections may have had some lessons for them, too. In Paris and Marseille, the centre-left Socialist party (PS), allied with other left-wing moderates, showed it could win without the backing of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left La France Insoumise – and that when it does ally with LFI, it often loses. LFI, on the other hand, shunned by much of the mainstream left over allegations of extremism, antisemitism and street violence, scored a couple of symbolic wins including in Roubaix. It can motivate its base, but its reach is limited. *** Headwinds hit Europe’s far right The dilemma for the left will be to devise a strategy – and find a candidate – who will appeal to potential radicals without repelling moderate left-wingers. The same goes, on the other side of the spectrum, for centrists and the centre-right. The conservative Les Républicains and Macron’s centrists lost in Paris and Lyon – but between them, allied or separately, they captured several former leftist bastions. A combined centre and centre-right bloc could, in theory, defeat the far right. They would, however, need a single candidate, and half a dozen look set on running (with Edouard Philippe, handily re-elected mayor of Le Havre, perhaps the favourite). A lot of stars will need to align, but an RN win in 2027 might not be inevitable. More broadly, there were other tentative signs this week that Europe’s populist far right may be encountering headwinds – perhaps due, in part at least, to what might be called a Trumplash. Ask Giorgia Meloni. The Trump-whispering Italian prime minister lost her high-stakes referendum on judicial reform, seen as a de facto vote of confidence in her government, on a record-breaking turnout and, notably, with 61% of 18- to 34-year-olds voting against it. The vote has few immediate consequences, though it may thwart an electoral law change that could help her in next year’s election. But as one analyst said, when you start losing in politics, “people look at you differently. You’re not invincible.” In Slovenia, meanwhile, the centre-left incumbent Robert Golob managed a one-seat win ahead of Janša, a far-right nationalist; and in Hungary, Viktor Orbán, despite the shrill backing of his European populist allies and of Trump, could well be ousted. In Denmark, the Social Democrats suffered their worst result in 120 years but remain, after two terms in office, by far the largest party, and Mette Frederiksen could form a new government at the head of the left-leaning “red bloc”, which finished ahead. The far-right Danish People’s Party, meanwhile, improved significantly – but is still well below its pre-2019 support levels. Does standing up to Trump, as Frederiksen did over Greenland, and rejecting Trump-style populism, carry an electoral dividend? To receive the complete version of This Is Europe in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.

Lars Løkke Rasmussen: Denmark’s pipe-smoking kingmaker who cleans his teeth with soap

At the end of a long, gruelling night for the biggest parties on the right and left, there was one veteran of Danish politics who came out of Tuesday’s general election with a smile on his face – and a pipe in his mouth. Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the two-time prime minister whose Moderates party is not aligned with the country’s left or right-leaning political blocs, is poised to play a central role in any coalition deal reached in the coming weeks. Clearly enjoying himself, and still carrying his pipe, Rasmussen, 61, urged the leaders of the Social Democrats and the liberal Venstre party on Tuesday night to “come down from the trees” and join him on the centre ground. It was a dramatic turnaround for a political veteran whose fortunes were looking decidedly uncertain at the end of last year, when polls showed support for the Moderates had plummeted. Then came the Greenland crisis. At the height of Denmark’s geopolitical drama with the US in January, Rasmussen, the foreign minister in Mette Frederiksen’s centrist coalition, went to Washington to meet the US vice-president, JD Vance, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio. He was pictured afterwards smoking a cigarette and fist-bumping the Danish ambassador, and has since been credited with helping to successfully cool Copenhagen’s tensions with Donald Trump. Rasmussen’s party secured 14 seats in Tuesday’s elections, significantly fewer than his former coalition partners, but by refusing to take part in old-fashioned “bloc” politics, he has effectively become kingmaker. While he is unlikely to be prime minister, although it should not be ruled out– he is likely to come out of talks with another powerful ministerial position and a government of his choice. “No government can be formed without his at least tacit approval,” said Rune Stubager, a political science professor at Aarhus University. “So he decides what side will get his support, or whether he wants to create a crisis by insisting on a centre coalition that the others don’t want to be part of. I can’t really say just how far he is willing to go in that direction.” Rasmussen, who was prime minister from 2009 to 2011 and again from 2015 to 2019 and has been a fixture of Danish politics since he was 22, seemed to “live and breathe for politics and power” and was skilled at both the substance and tactical side of it, Stubager said. “A cunning power player, if you will.” A large part of Rasmussen’s appeal is his carefully cultivated “man of the people” persona. In a recent interview with Euroman magazine he said he smoked in bed when he had a sore throat or was sick, consumed excessive amounts of coffee – “I think I’ve become caffeine resistant” – and sometimes brushed his teeth with hand soap. “Then you want coffee afterwards. It’s a way to wake up,” he said. During an election debate featuring his rivals Troels Lund Poulsen and Frederiksen, he posted a picture of himself with a goat on his Instagram feed, wishing them a good debate and eliciting a stream of goat emojis and comments declaring him the Greatest Of All Time. Another picture on his account shows him waving and walking while smoking his pipe. Some followers noted the look and compared him to Britain’s wartime leader. “Lars Winston Løkke Churchill,” wrote one.

Australians can expect high fuel costs to linger for far longer than the war in Iran

As diesel prices make history by passing $3 a litre in nearly every capital city around the country, the stresses of high fuel costs are beginning to show. Truckies are warning they will go out of business if they can’t renegotiate their contracts with customers; farmers are warning the same, telling families that food in our supermarkets could soon cost more. Small miners are already scaling back their operations and airlines are either hiking fares on a daily basis or cutting back on flights. Meanwhile, fuel prices keep rising. Construction industry groups are warning that builders are being charged 8% to 10% “fuel surcharges”, adding to sky-high costs that never really returned to normal after the pandemic disruptions. Denita Wawn, the head of Master Builders Australia, told the ABC: “We’re concerned that the longer this goes, then the longer the tail is”. “We saw that from Covid; the tail was literally 12 months once things returned to normal from everyone else,” Wawn said. That long tail is also worrying the government. Australian fuel prices are up by about 40% since Israel and the United States started bombing Iran, which effectively closed the strait of Hormuz and choked off 20% of the global oil trade. Jonathan Kearns, the chief economist at Challenger and a former senior Reserve Bank official, echoed the broad consensus that headline inflation would be heading from 3.7% and towards 5% over the coming months. That alone would seem to support the case for three additional Reserve Bank rate hikes, as is priced into financial markets for 2026. But the picture is more nuanced than that. The post-Covid cost-of-living shock was cushioned by a rebounding economy and a hiring spree that left a higher share of Australians in the workforce than ever before. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email But the stagflationary effect of energy shocks suggests both rising inflation and climbing unemployment, as the economy slows and businesses cut back on hiring. Already consumer confidence, according to the weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan survey, has collapsed to its lowest level in history stretching back to 1973 – coincidentally also the year of that decade’s first oil shock. And because the starting point was already pessimistic, we are now even gloomier than during the 2020 national lockdowns. “With the oil supply shock increasing inflation, but slowing economic growth, the RBA will struggle to keep the economy on an even keel,” Kearns said. As the Iran war drags on and fuel prices continue to climb, experts and officials are beginning to wargame even more extreme scenarios, including fuel rationing. The head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, was in Canberra this week, effectively delivering a wake-up call to the nation – and the world. Birol declared that the oil supply disruptions in the Middle East were twice as big as those experienced in the 1970s, at the same time as the war delivered a shock to global gas markets as big as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That dire analysis may have factored into Jim Chalmers’ decision to ask Treasury officials to look at even more “challenging circumstances” where crude oil prices go above $US120 a barrel – and stay there. “The end of this war can’t come soon enough for the economy,” Chalmers told reporters on Wednesday. The treasurer said the government was preoccupied with two “key considerations”. “First of all, the timing of the end of the war,” he said. “And secondly, how long it takes for the global economy to get back on track after the hot part of the hostilities.” Australians blame the government for the fallout from Donald Trump’s decision to help launch a war in the Middle East without clear objectives or an exit strategy. With so much out of his hands, Chalmers has a mammoth task crafting a budget that responds to the global energy shock in a way that satisfies voters, supports the economy and doesn’t add to inflation. The longer fuel prices stay high, the more likely the government is to deliver some relief for households – ideally targeted at more vulnerable Australians and not via fuel subsidies. Economists at Barrenjoey expect a “muted” response from the government. But the budget strategy changes dramatically when it comes to the real worst-case scenario, where we are confronted with national fuel shortages and rationing. “If there was the risk of fuel shortages across the country from an inability to import refined oil, we could see a potential crisis level response from the government and rationing of fuel,” they say. “The economic consequences of fuel shortages would potentially be significant,” including a collapse in business and consumer confidence and a likely “material” rise in unemployment. “We would expect a crisis-level fiscal and monetary response to support the economy.” This type of scenario remains improbable, they say. But for every day the Iran war continues, it becomes that much more likely.