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Middle East crisis live: Trump claims Iran wants US to open strait of Hormuz as soon as possible

Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to the lowest level of his current term, as Americans increasingly sour on his handling of the cost of living and his deeply unpopular war against Iran, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. The four-day poll completed on Monday showed that only 34% of Americans approve of Trump’s performance in the White House, down from 36% in a prior Reuters/Ipsos survey, which was conducted from 15 to 20 April. Trump’s standing with the US public has trended lower since taking office in January 2025, when 47% of Americans gave him a thumbs-up. His popularity has taken a beating since the US and Israel launched their war against Iran on 28 February, which has led to a surge in US gasoline prices. Only 22% of poll respondents approved of Trump’s performance on the cost of living, down from 25% in the prior Reuters/Ipsos poll. The price hikes are weighing heavily on American households and fuelling concern among Trump’s Republicans that they could lose control of Congress in the November midterm elections. While a solid majority of Republicans - 78% - still say they back Trump, 41% of the party say they disapprove of his handling of the cost of living, the Reuters/Ipsos poll found. Independent registered voters, a group that could be decisive in the midterms, favoured Democrats by 14 points, 34% to 20%, when asked who would get their vote in congressional elections. One in four said they were still undecided. While the war has cooled since the two sides agreed to a ceasefire earlier this month, Iran’s threats are preventing most oil shipments from leaving the Persian Gulf, fueling further increases in US and global energy prices as global economies run down reserves and restrict demand. Just 34% of Americans approve of the conflict, down from 36% in mid-April and 38% in mid-March, the Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

Russia claims its Africa Corps group prevented coup in Mali after rebels seize towns

Russia’s defence ministry has claimed its Africa Corps – the successor to the former Wagner mercenary group – had prevented a coup in Mali over the weekend, avoiding mass civilian casualties and inflicting “irreplaceable losses” on rebel insurgents. It said in a statement that its troops in the desert town of Kidal near the Algerian border had fought for more than 24 hours while completely surrounded and vastly outnumbered. It also alleged without providing evidence, that the militants had been trained by European mercenary instructors including Ukrainians. The casualty toll was not specified. Local reports on Monday had suggested that contrary to Russia’s claims, the Africa Corps troops negotiated their exit, with Algeria as a mediator. Rebel forces in Mali over the weekend drove the Africa Corps from Kidal, launched an attack near the capital, Bamako, and killed defence minister Sadio Camara – a key Moscow ally – in an apparent suicide bombing. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov separately told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday that restoring peace and stability in Mali was a priority. The fall of Kidal – a city Russian forces first helped the junta recapture in 2023 – and handover of territory to the rebel alliance has been seen as proof of the limits of Moscow’s military influence in west Africa. French state radio RFI quoted one Malian official as anonymously saying that Kidal’s governor had warned Africa Corps of the attack three days before it happened and that their exit was pre-negotiated. “The Russians betrayed us in Kidal,” the official said. Mali has been gripped by violence on multiple fronts since 2012 after a rebellion triggered by Tuareg rebels. The security crisis hit a new peak on Saturday after the separatists and al-Qaida-linked jihadists joined forces to launch coordinated attacks, dealing a major blow to the country’s military junta and its Russian backers. In recent years, Russia has made inroads in the Sahel, the semi-desert belt stretching across countries including Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. All three have experienced military coups in which French and UN forces were expelled and replaced by Russian support, as juntas sought to shore up their rule and confront long-running Islamist insurgencies and separatist rebellions. About 2,000 Russian troops are deployed in landlocked Mali under the Africa Corps banner, the successor to the Wagner group across much of the continent. Military bloggers close to the defence ministry previously said that one Russian helicopter had been shot down near the city of Gao, killing those on board. Footage posted on social media appeared to show Russian soldiers engaged in fighting with insurgents, with one clip showing rebels seizing Russian military hardware. Residents of neighbourhoods within and on the outskirts of Bamako also reported seeing al-Qaida affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) terrorists freely moving around in the last few days. Analysts like Ulf Laessing, Bamako-based head of the Sahel programme at the German thinktank Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung say the Russians could change tactics in the short-term at least and move southwards. “I think the Russians will focus on defending the regime and leave the north to rebels,” he told the Guardian. Peskov told reporters Moscow had no information on the whereabouts of Assimi Goïta, the military ruler who deposed Mali’s civilian government in a 2020 coup and assumed office within a year, but had not been seen publicly since the unrest began. The Malian presidency posted a photo of him in a meeting with Russian ambassador Igor Gromyko, on X on Tuesday afternoon, in a meeting purported to have happened on the same day. That however did not diminish speculation about Goita’s future as military ruler and reports of factions within the junta. “Goita has lost his footing … he no longer has political legitimacy over the junta,” one former Malian diplomat told the Guardian under condition of anonymity.

Chlorinated chicken with a side of safety warnings | Letters

You were right to report (23 April) that government officials have actively considered how to respond to US pressure to accept imports of “chemical-washed chicken” and other processed products. This matters to the public, for whom chlorinated chicken has become a test case for whether UK standards are lowered for commercial and political reasons. If the UK accepted imports from the US of such products, our food supply would be significantly less safe. It’s why the EU and UK actively resisted such demands, saying that washing meat with chlorine is far from the answer to unhygienic meat. A 2018 study found that applying chlorinated water provides illusory reassurance. The treatment is not an effective disinfectant; it merely blocks the customary (bacterial culture) test by which the presence of harmful bacteria should be detectable. That evidence also helps explain why rates of microbiological food poisoning are significantly higher in the US than in the UK and the EU. It would therefore be reckless for a UK government to relax the prevailing restrictions on imports of US food products unless the US authorities can demonstrate that their products are at least as safe as those achieved by UK and EU producers. Erik Millstone Emeritus professor of science policy, University of Sussex Tim Lang Professor emeritus of food policy, City St George’s, University of London • Please do not dismiss campylobacter as a mere “bacteria that can cause diarrhoea”. I contracted it when I was one month pregnant; it did not cause diarrhoea but rather long-lasting severe lower abdominal pain. When eventually diagnosed, I was put on a high dose of an unpleasant antibiotic, leaving me with a tinny taste and no appetite for weeks. I was over five months pregnant before I began to feel remotely normal. Name and address supplied • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

Hezbollah drone strikes target Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon

Hezbollah launched several drones at Israeli soldiers in south Lebanon on Tuesday, while Israel issued new displacement orders for south Lebanon and carried out airstrikes, as the fraying ceasefire failed to stop fighting between the two sides. Hezbollah claimed Tuesday’s attack injured several Israeli soldiers, but no confirmation was given from the Israeli military, apart from a statement saying interceptor missiles had been fired at incoming Hezbollah drones. An Israeli soldier was killed and six others wounded in a Hezbollah drone attack on Sunday. Hezbollah’s use of small, fibre-optic-guided drones has managed to evade Israeli aerial defences, as the wired element of the aircraft limits the radio signals that radars detect. The drones have a range of up to 9 miles (15km) and the armed group has used them to attack Israeli soldiers in south Lebanon almost daily since the ceasefire was established on 17 April. Israel also carried out a series of airstrikes on Lebanon on Tuesday, in addition to ordering the residents of 16 villages in south Lebanon to flee northwards. Israeli airstrikes killed 18 people and wounded 88 more in Lebanon over the weekend, according to the Lebanese ministry of health. At least 2,534 people have been killed and 7,863 wounded by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon since the beginning of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel on 2 March. Hezbollah rocket fire has killed two civilians in Israel in the same time period. The back-and-forth fire came as talks between the US and Iran ground to a halt, with US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, saying any permanent truce needs to include a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme. The statement came after Tehran offered to reopen the strait of Hormuz – a chokepoint for a fifth of global oil supply – in return for the US lifting its blockade of the strait. US president, Donald Trump, said Iran was in a “state of collapse” due to the blockade in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday. As talks with Iran faltered, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said drones and Hezbollah’s rockets continue to pose a threat to northern Israel and promised further strikes against what he said was Hezbollah infrastructure. “They have about 10% of the missiles they had at the start of the war. But these still trouble the residents of the north … We are carrying out strikes now, both within the security zone and north of it,” Netanyahu said in a statement on Monday night. Israeli media reported that Netanyahu told Trump Israel needed to respond to Hezbollah’s attacks to restrain the armed group. In response the US asked Israel to ensure their response was “calculated and limited”. The ceasefire in Lebanon was reached after the US requested Israel come to the negotiating table with the Lebanese government, apparently in a bid to ensure negotiations with Iran were not disrupted by the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Since the ceasefire was established, Israel and Lebanon have had two ambassador-level meetings, one of which was held in the Oval Office in Trump’s presence. Trump has said that he is looking to make a lasting peace between the two countries, which do not have diplomatic relations and have fought on-and-off wars since Israel’s invasion of south Lebanon in 1978. Fighting has continued in Lebanon despite a nominal ceasefire, with Israeli bombing and Hezbollah attacks continuing since the first day of the deal to stop hostilities was signed. Israel also established a “yellow line” in south Lebanon where Israeli troops are active, comprising at least 55 villages. They have continued to demolish homes there. Under the text of the ceasefire deal, Israel is allowed to strike Lebanon in self-defence, a repeat of the 2024 ceasefire during which Israel struck Lebanon more than 15,000 times. Hezbollah is actively striking Israeli troops in Lebanon. While the Lebanese government negotiates in Washington, it has little to no ability to control the actions of Hezbollah. The government has come under fierce criticism from Hezbollah for negotiating directly with Israel, with the Hezbollah head, Naim Qassem, on Monday calling direct talks a “grave sin” which would plunge the country into “instability”. “These direct negotiations and their outcomes are as if they do not exist for us, and they do not concern us in the slightest,” Qassem said, adding that the group will not give up its arms – a key demand from Israel and the Lebanese government. Lebanon’s president Joseph Aoun responded hours later, saying the “real betrayal is committed by those who drag their country into war to serve foreign interests”. Rubio, in an interview on Monday, suggested the US could assist Lebanon in creating specialised units in the Lebanese army which would confront Hezbollah directly. The prospect of such a scenario prompted concern in Lebanon, which has a history of inter-communal warfare and civil war. The Lebanese government has been cautious in confronting Hezbollah head-on for fear of sparking civil unrest. Analysts have said that normalisation between Lebanon and Israel, which Trump is seeking to add to his list of international achievements, is unlikely given the antipathy in Lebanon towards Israel. Instead, a more realistic scenario would be an armistice agreement. Israeli officials have continued to apply pressure, with the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, accusing the Lebanese government of “taking cover” under Hezbollah and not moving forcefully enough against the group.

Fears of resurgence in Somali piracy after three vessels hijacked in a week

Three vessels have been hijacked off the coast of Somalia in the past week, raising fears of a resurgence in piracy around the Horn of Africa, and adding to the woes of the global shipping industry. The merchant vessel Sward was taken over on 26 April, a day after a dhow was seized. These followed the 21 April hijacking of Honour 25, a motor tanker carrying 18,000 barrels of oil, according to the Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean (MSCIO), the tracking service of the EU’s naval force. “All incidents remain ongoing …,” the MSCIO said in a statement on Monday. “Vessels operating in the area are strongly advised to maintain heightened vigilance … particularly within 150NM [nautical miles] of the Somali coast between Mogadishu and Hafun where feasible.” Piracy around Somalia jumped in the late 2000s, peaking in 2011 with 212 attacks, according to EU naval force data. Pirates became more audacious, raiding ships as far as 2,270 miles off the Somali coast in the Indian Ocean. An international naval coalition then stemmed the tide of attacks, cutting them to just a handful each year from 2014. However, incidents began to rise again in 2023. Global shipping is already reeling from the near-total closure of the strait of Hormuz by Iran and attacks by the Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels around the narrow Bab el Mandeb strait. Ships have to sail through the straits to exit the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, with many then heading around the Horn of Africa. Sward is a cement carrier that left the port of Suez in Egypt on 13 April. It was en route to Mombasa, Kenya, when it was captured by pirates about 6 nautical miles (11km) from the Somali port town of Garacad. The ship had 17 crew members, 15 from Syria and two from India, according to three security officials from the autonomous Somali region of Puntland. After the hijacking, shortly after 8pm on Sunday, the pirates steered the ship towards the coast and anchored it in a remote area near Garacad. Six armed men and an unarmed interpreter fluent in English and Arabic then boarded the ship. “He’s not only speaking with the crew but also dealing with the owner of the ship,” one of the security officials said. A second official said: “The interpreter is in charge.” By Tuesday morning, four more armed men had boarded Sward, bringing the total number of pirates on board to 20, according to the officials. Jethro Norman, a senior researcher with the Danish Institute for International Studies, said pirates had taken advantage of international navies diverting resources towards the Red Sea to combat the Houthi attacks, and Puntland’s Emirati-backed security forces being stretched. Norman said: “Pirate networks are testing the waters again and they are better equipped than the last generation. GPS, satellite communications and hijacked dhow motherships let them operate hundreds of miles offshore.” A third Puntland security official said that a shipment of khat, a narcotic stimulant widely used in the Horn of Africa, was taken out in a small boat to the pirates on the cement carrier on Tuesday morning. It had been driven about 150 miles from the inland city of Galkayo on Monday, suggesting the pirates have a network on land and are potentially preparing for a long siege at sea.

Journalist Andrzej Poczobut freed as part of US-brokered Polish-Belarusian prisoner swap – as it happened

… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today! The Polish-Belarusian journalist Andrzej Poczobut, the 2025 Sakharov prize winner, has been freed after five years in a Belarusian penal colony as part of a US-brokered multi-country swap deal (13:19). A prominent Polish community activist in Belarus and a journalist for Poland’s newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, Poczobut was sentenced to eight years in a penal colony after a process widely condemned as a politically motivated attempt to silence the regime’s critics. The release is part a US-brokered prisoner exchange involving several other countries: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia and Ukraine. The release comes as part of a broader attempt to bring Belarus closer to the west, with talks led by Donald Trump’s special envoy to Belarus, John Coale. Two Moldovan citizens were also released as part of the swap (15:11). In other news, Andorra’s co-prince and France’s president Emmanuel Macron has backed proposed changes to the country’s draconian abortion laws in a speech during his two-day visit to the country, in which he also called for a swift implementation of an association agreement with the EU (10:42, 11:32, 13:01, 16:04). Romania’s Social Democrats and far right on Tuesday said they filed a no-confidence motion against liberal prime minister Ilie Bolojan after his pro-EU ruling coalition broke apart, triggering a new political crisis in a turmoil-weary country (16:21). Finland’s president Alexander Stubb downplayed recent warnings of a possible Russian attack on European Nato allies in the coming months, but urged Europe to be “prepared for the worst so you can avoid it,” as he confirmed some delays in US arms deliveries to the continent as a result of the Iran war (11:54, 11:58). An 89-year-old man was arrested in Greece in connection with a reported shooting in central Athens which left five people injured (11:20, 16:17). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Journalist Andrzej Poczobut freed from prison in Belarus in US-brokered swap deal

The Polish-Belarusian journalist Andrzej Poczobut, the 2025 Sakharov prize winner, has been freed after five years in a Belarusian penal colony as part of a US-brokered multi-country swap deal. His release has been confirmed by Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, who posted a picture of him on social media, saying: “Andrzej Poczobut is free! Welcome to your Polish home, my friend.” The release comes as part of a broader attempt to bring Belarus closer to the west, after the US secured the release of 123 prisoners including the Nobel peace prize winner Ales Bialiatski and the opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava late last year and removed some sanctions, including on Belarusian potash, a key export. Poczobut – a prominent Polish community activist in Belarus and a journalist for Poland’s newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza – was detained by the Belarusian authorities in 2021. He was sentenced to eight years in a penal colony after a process widely condemned as a politically motivated attempt to silence the regime’s critics. In recent years, there were growing warnings about his deteriorating health, with a UN-mandated report published last month sounding alarm over “prolonged solitary confinement” and “denial of essential medical care” in the prison he was in. The release is part a US-brokered prisoner exchange involving several other countries: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia and Ukraine. Tusk said it was “the finale of a two-year complicated diplomatic game, full of dramatic twists and turns”. The talks with Belarus’s authoritarian leader, Aleksandr Lukashenko, often called “Europe’s last dictator”, were led by the US special envoy to Belarus, John Coale, who confirmed that three Poles and two Moldovans were released as part of the swap. Speaking at a press conference in Warsaw, he said that “basically an argument with Lukashenko is, what are you getting out of this?” “It hurts you internationally and if Belarus wants to join the family of nations, this kind of things have to stop. If you want to put people into prison for good reason, great, that’s your business, but not for these types of crimes,” he said. Coale said he was planning to go back to Belarus in “two or three weeks” for further talks with the Belarusian regime. “The United States has a lot to do on this issue, there’s 800 to 900 political prisoners left to get out of Belarus, and we haven’t stopped our work at all until we get every last one of them,” he said. Poland’s president, Karol Nawrocki, credited by Coale for his role in the swap, thanked the US president, Donald Trump, “for bringing out the release of our compatriot”. Separately, the foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, said Poczobut’s release was a symbol of Poland’s commitment to look after Poles abroad and to the freedom of the media. He also praised the US-Polish relationship, stressing the exchange would not have happened without the US involvement, and thanked Trump. Russian state media reported that a jailed Russian archaeologist and historian, Alexander Butyagin, wanted by Ukraine for excavations in Russian-occupied Crimea, was released by Poland as part of the swap. In 2025, Poczobut was awarded the European parliament’s Sakharov prize for freedom of thought, with the body’s president, Roberta Metsola, hailing him and co-winner Mzia Amaglobeli from Georgia as “two journalists whose courage shines as a beacon for all who refuse to be silenced”. “Both have paid a heavy price for speaking truth to power, becoming symbols of the struggle for freedom and democracy,” she said. On Tuesday, she responded to his release by saying it was “wonderful news”. “Very happy to see Sakharov prize laureate Andrzej Poczobut free,” she said. Poczobut’s longtime employer, Gazeta Wyborcza, celebrated the release on its website, saying: “Andrzej Poczobut is finally free! The dictator has released our colleague from the penal colony.” The newspaper’s deputy editor-in-chief, Bartosz Wieliński, posted a picture with Poczobut, captioned: “The first kilometres of freedom. We’re heading to Warsaw.”

One year after Spain’s blackout, its shift to renewables and grid evolution power on

One year ago today, all of Spain, and much of Portugal, suffered through a blackout of unprecedented scale and duration. In mere seconds, a cascading sequence of events burst through the grid and created Europe’s first “system black” event in recent memory. Traffic signals failed, mobile networks stopped working entirely, petrol stations could not pump fuel and supermarkets could not process payments. Madrid’s metro came to a halt and people had to be pulled out of carriages. “People were stunned because this had never happened in Spain,” Carlos Condori, a 19-year-old construction sector worker, told AFP at the time. “There’s no [phone] coverage, I can’t call my family, my parents, nothing: I can’t even go to work.” Power was mostly restored in the days after, but the political debate – domestic and global – began just hours after the blackout occurred. Spain’s grid collapsed when solar power generation was high, triggering intense discussions around Spain’s transition away from fossil fuelled power and, controversially, nuclear. The media published headlines such as “Renewable energy triggered Spain’s blackouts”, “Spain at risk of fresh net zero blackouts” and “Spain power cut caused by solar farm failures”. Despite a widespread theory assigning blame to renewables for a lack of “inertia” – the heartbeat of the grid traditionally provided by large spinning masses in fossil fuel and nuclear plants – subsequent investigations have found conclusively that this was not a factor. The final report published by the pan-European grid operator ENTSO-E ultimately blamed the blackout on a “perfect storm” of several governance failures relating in particular to voltage. This is the pressure of electricity on the grid, and when it is too high or too low, power lines and generators tend to automatically disconnect. This in turn triggers a cascading failure through the grid. And while some might have expected the blackout to lead to a move away from renewables, it is clear the opposite has occurred. A year on, there is no material reduction in Spain’s efforts towards the replacement of its coal and gas-fired power stations with non-fossil alternatives. According to data from global energy thinktank Ember, Spain added 13.8 gigawatts of new solar in 2025, compared with 12.3 gigawatts in 2024, and the country’s highest-ever month of capacity additions was July 2025. Chris Rosslowe, a senior energy analyst for Europe at Ember, told the Guardian that Spain’s “trajectory towards reducing fossil power and increasing renewables and their enablers has strengthened since the blackout”. There was some increase in the use of gas-fired power generation post-blackout, running in “reinforced mode” to allow gas plants to help control the grid’s voltage. But this was not a sign that returning to gas is the best long-term course of action. Rather, Rosslowe said, “Spain lacked alternatives”, including large lithium-ion battery storage, or the use of large spinning motors that can provide the same heartbeat of stability to the grid provided by the spinning turbines in coal and gas plants, without the emissions. Rosslowe also highlighted that half of the gas increase in 2025 was simply down to less wind and lower hydro capacity. One of the reasons voltage oscillated outside normal bounds this time last year was because Spain’s grid operator has traditionally limited the capacity for wind and solar generation to contribute to voltage control. Fakir pointed out this has very recently changed, with renewable technologies providing voltage compensation services since April. She added that “it is unfortunate that a blackout had to occur to change regulation and allow renewables to control grid voltage”. In the intervening months since the blackout, a devastating conflict has broken out in the Middle East, and the closure of the strait of Hormuz has sent gas prices steeply upwards. But Spain has been relatively protected compared with other countries because of its existing investment in renewable energy. Jan Rosenow, a professor of energy and climate policy at the University of Oxford, said, “wholesale electricity prices would have been 40% higher in the first half of 2024 without the wind and solar growth of recent years”. The crisis has also flipped the focus back towards reducing reliance on gas in Spain’s grid. José Luis Rodríguez, an analyst and the head of organisation at the Meridiano Institute, said: “All the chatter around renewable insecurity has collapsed with the energy shock that is brewing. The shield of the sun and wind is the only thing guaranteeing relatively affordable energy prices for the majority, unlike elsewhere in the EU, and protecting our economy.” In 2025, gas was framed as saving the grid from renewables. But in 2026, renewable energy is protecting consumers from the acute impacts of gas. Rosslowe said: “Spain’s average power prices in March (€43 per MWh) were the third lowest in Europe, after Finland and Portugal, twice as low as Germany (€99 per MWh) and three times as low as Italy (€144 per MWh). That’s because of the weakened link between Spanish electricity and gas prices.” Frustration that it took such an acute blackout catastrophe to spur action to further protect Spain’s power grid users from the gas price crisis is a common theme among energy experts and advocates. But far from any structural return to fossil fuels, the long-term trendlines in Spain all continue to point in the opposite direction, while the political and social fallout from the April 2025 blackout shows that tackling disinformation is as important as fixing the grid.