A “tectonic shift” has taken place in the geopolitics of the Middle East, said Ilker Sezer in Türkiye Today (Istanbul). On 7 August, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan formed “the holy grail of military alliances”, with the three Sunni Muslim nations vowing that “an armed attack against any one of the three states shall be regarded as an attack against them all”. That clause of the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, named after the holy city where the treaty was signed, is the “Islamic equivalent of Nato’s Article 5”.

Three-pronged advantage

Hitherto, Saudi Arabia had been wary of entering into any kind of multilateral pact: it had previously opted for bilateral deals like the one it reached with Pakistan in September, while continuing to rely on the US for its security. But the Iran war, during which Riyadh’s territory has been attacked by both Tehran and its regional proxies, has altered its thinking.

The new alliance has a three-pronged advantage: it will benefit from Saudi Arabia’s financial might; from Turkey’s formidable army (the second largest in Nato) and arms industry; and from Pakistan’s battle-tested military and nuclear arsenal, the only one in the Muslim world. Together, these powerful resources are bound to affect “the strategic calculus of every adversary”.

Still, though highly symbolic, it’s “a thousand leagues away from being a new Nato”, said The Times. There’ll be “no integrated command structure, no joint doctrine, no integrated air defence network and no joint operational commands”. And no budget either. The pact simply provides a framework for closer military and political cooperation: it’s an attempt by the trio to free themselves from their “vassal-like dependence on the American security umbrella”. Such hedging makes sense in an increasingly volatile region in which the US has been unable, or unwilling, to protect its allies.

Washington doesn’t seem overly concerned by the arrangement for now, said Umair Jamal on The Diplomat (Washington DC). It maintains close relations with all of them, and has long been keen for other nations to assume more responsibility in the Middle East. But in the long term, the US could lose leverage as a result of it, “particularly with respect to arms sales, negotiation of military-basing rights and the management of regional crises”. The effect will be all the greater if Egypt, Jordan and some additional Gulf states also jump on board.

‘Third pole’

With US influence receding in the Middle East, Iran and Israel have looked set to exert more control over the region, said Khalid Al-Jaber on Al Jazeera (Doha). That’s where this pact comes in: to counter Iranian and Israeli dominance, Riyadh, Ankara and Islamabad seek “to build a third pole” to ensure neither achieves hegemony. And one key step in that direction will be the co-development of Turkish and Pakistani weapons systems, including advanced drones and armoured vehicles, on Saudi soil.

For Israel, this alliance marks a dangerous “turning point”, said Oshrit Birvadker in Israel Hayom (Tel Aviv). Turkey has morphed from an ally into a “major threat to Israel, no less significant than Iran”, while Saudi Arabia has pivoted from its intention to join the Abraham Accords to recognise Israel.

The alliance’s first test could well be in Yemen, said Mohammed Nail Abdulqader on Responsible Statecraft (Washington DC). The Houthis, an Iran-aligned group battling the Riyadh-backed Yemeni government, have recently renewed hostilities with Saudi Arabia following the collapse of a 2022 ceasefire. As part of a maritime blockade against Riyadh, they have fired missiles at a refinery in the Saudi city of Jazan and attacked vessels in the Red Sea.

A major future attack by the Houthis could test the “grey area” that has not been publicly defined by the Mecca accord. If the alliance’s response is weak, the Houthis may become emboldened; if it’s too strong, there’s the risk of a wider conflagration. Carving a middle path between these two extremes will be mightily hard. But that’s the only way to build a “credible deterrence without opening the door to a new war”.

What happened

The United Arab Emirates said Wednesday it had halted “all trade, commercial exchanges and financial transactions” with Iran “until future notice” due to “escalations that undermine regional and international peace and security.” Hours earlier, the UAE had accused Tehran of firing two missiles into its territory. Iran’s Foreign Ministry called that accusation “baseless” and possibly a “false flag operation.”

Iranian Gen. Ali Abdollahi later warned “countries on the southern shores of the Persian Gulf” that “any assistance” given to the U.S. military “amounts to participation” in its war. President Donald Trump on Wednesday night threatened that “ANY country that allows its financial institutions” or other entities to “provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences.”

Who said what

The UAE is one of Tehran’s “biggest economic lifelines,” The Wall Street Journal said, and Trump’s “effort to squeeze Iran into submission will depend heavily” on Dubai. It’s unclear if the U.S. “played a role in the embargo decision,” The New York Times said, but it was announced “hours after a call” from Trump to the Emirati leader.

What next?

If “implemented broadly,” the UAE’s trade severance could significantly harm Iran’s economy, the Journal said. But “severing those links will be difficult” and “could hurt Dubai’s role as a freewheeling global hub for commerce.”

What happened

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy and son-in-law, reportedly met Sunday with Hamas political leader Khalil al-Hayya in Egypt as the White House and regional allies attempt to revive the Trump-backed proposal for peace in Gaza. Representatives from Egypt, Turkey, Qatar and Trump’s Board of Peace also attended the meeting.

Who said what

Trump said last month that Hamas had agreed to his Gaza road map, but the plan “​​appeared to hit a dead end” when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly rejected it, The New York Times said. Hamas leaders on Sunday “reaffirmed their commitment to disarm and demilitarize” as Israel withdraws from Gaza, Axios said. Kushner “used the rare direct meeting to press Hamas for tangible steps,” warning that “Israel doesn’t trust the group to follow through.”

Hamas told mediators it was waiting for Israel to agree to the plan so they could “work out a timetable for implementation,” The Associated Press said. Instead, Israel “has resumed airstrikes in the past few days,” Reuters said.

What next?

Kushner and Board of Peace members Nickolay Mladenov and Tony Blair are set to meet with Netanyahu on Monday. The Israeli leader “faces a challenging election on Oct. 27” with a “coalition that includes ministers taking a harsh line on Gaza,” the AP said, and it’s “not clear whether he will take decisive steps on the ceasefire before then.”

What happened

The Navy is sending the aircraft carrier USS George Washington from the South China Sea to the Middle East to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln, U.S. officials said Thursday, amid growing concerns over deteriorating mental health and living conditions aboard the Lincoln after more than 260 days at sea. The ship, which hasn’t made a port call in more than 200 days, has been supporting U.S. military actions against Iran since January.

Separately, President Donald Trump signed a national security memorandum directing the Navy to “tear out a complex system for launching jet fighters from its aircraft carriers and instead go back to using steam catapults,” The Wall Street Journal said. This “would likely cost billions of dollars,” The Associated Press said, and “revert the Navy’s most advanced ships to a system that takes more sailors to operate and is more difficult to maintain.”

Who said what

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said reports about deplorable conditions on the Lincoln have been “completely misrepresented.” But “concerns about the ship’s roughly 5,000 service members mounted” amid reports of “family members describing suicidal ideation and food shortages,” NOTUS said, and several attempts “to jump overboard.” At least one sailor did go overboard earlier this month, before being rescued, U.S. officials told CNN. “The Navy considered the incident a mental health episode.”

What next?

Trump’s directive to retrofit new aircraft carriers with steam catapults comes as the U.S. military is “trying to find funding from Congress for all its desired equipment,” the AP said, and “as the Navy is struggling to fill its ships with enough sailors.”

What happened

A Syrian court on Tuesday sentenced ousted President Bashar al-Assad to death, finding him guilty of murder, torture and crimes against humanity committed before and during Syria’s bloody 14-year civil war. Assad, his younger brother Maher and six of the seven other former officials handed death sentences by the Damascus court were tried in absentia. Assad’s cousin Atef Najib stood in a cage in the courtroom for the verdicts.

Who said what

Tuesday’s verdicts were the “first against Assad or any members of his inner circle since his family’s five decades in power came to an end 20 months ago,” The Associated Press said. They are “mostly symbolic” for Assad and his brother, who both fled to exile in Russia after their government’s “stunning collapse.” The sentences were nonetheless “met with celebrations” across the country, The New York Times said. Many Syrians have become “increasingly resentful and impatient at the lack of accountability” and the “pace of trials,” even as legal experts “cautioned that transitional justice takes time.”

What next?

The verdicts handed down by Syria’s “transitional authorities” should “set a strong legal precedent for others accused of crimes” under the previous regime, said Al Jazeera. Syria’s National Commission for Transitional Justice said Najib can appeal his verdict but the absent defendants forfeited that right.

What happened

President Donald Trump claimed Thursday on Truth Social that Hamas had agreed to “COMPLETE DISARMAMENT” in Gaza and that “Israeli forces will withdraw” from the war-torn region. Details on the deal remain limited, but Trump said it was brokered by the international Board of Peace, which he established earlier this year to oversee the Gaza peace plan.

Who said what

The breakthrough is a “critical step” toward Gaza being “governed by a new Palestinian government” and Israel having “the security it deserves,” Trump said. He added that the International Stabilization Force would collaborate with “a new Palestinian police force to take responsibility for Gaza being safe.”

But “we didn’t say disarmament,” Hamas negotiator Ghazi Hamad told The Wall Street Journal. Instead the group simply “agreed to place its weapons in a storage facility.” Israel has yet to make a public statement on the reports. Trump would be “very, very” disappointed if Israel rebuffed the plan, a senior Trump adviser told reporters.

Hamas has “long regarded giving up all its weapons as tantamount to surrender,” The New York Times said, so “disarmament would be a monumental undertaking.”

What next?

Board of Peace officials expected details of the deal would have to be “refined” over the coming weeks and months, Bloomberg said, and the timeline for Israeli withdrawal has yet to be finalized.

What happened

Joint U.S. and Saudi Arabian airstrikes on Iran-backed militia positions in Iraq on Wednesday have intensified fears that the Middle East conflict is entering a more dangerous phase. At least 20 fighters from Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces were killed in the attacks, while Iran responded by firing missiles at U.S. military bases in Jordan. “We are going to be hitting them very hard because it’s our turn,” President Donald Trump said before the U.S. military launched what it called a “heavy wave of strikes” in Iran.

Who said what

The “scope of the war” in the Middle East has now “widened,” The New York Times said. Iran-linked groups across the region have “opened new fronts and reopened old ones, drawing in forces in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan”.

“This is a war in search of a rationale,” Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-Calif.) told CNN. “We’re losing lives and we’re not going to be any closer to real peace in the Middle East.”

What next?

It is now impossible to know how Tehran will respond because it views this conflict as an existential struggle, H.A. Hellyer, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute, told CNN. The region has entered “uncharted territory.”

What happened

The United States has “pressed pause” on airstrikes against Iran after President Donald Trump’s advisers told him their military was “running out of targets” and “expressed worries” about dwindling munitions, Reuters reported Sunday. Sources also told Axios that Adm. Brad Cooper, the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, and other advisers “recommended stopping the bombing campaign” because it had “reached the limit of its effectiveness.” There have been no U.S. strikes in the region since last week, and Iran has halted its retaliatory attacks. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed.

Who said what

The president is giving “some space” for diplomatic talks to take place while still keeping “all options on the table,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” The U.S. has “far more munitions than anyone in the world,” Trump insisted in a statement to The Wall Street Journal.

Recent polling shows the MAGA base is “losing patience” with the conflict, Politico said. Trump seems “trapped” by a “war he cannot find his way out of,” said The New York Times. “There is more skepticism than optimism” that the pause in fighting will continue, a senior Iranian source told Reuters.

What next?

Oil prices tumbled Monday morning as the pause held, but “analysts cautioned against pricing in further falls,” the Financial Times said. Fed officials will meet this week to discuss a possible interest rate hike as prices remain high.

What happened

The US-Saudi nuclear cooperation agreement signed this week was thrown into uncertainty on Thursday after President Donald Trump said the deal would depend on Saudi Arabia establishing diplomatic ties with Israel. In a post on Truth Social, Trump warned that the agreement allowing Riyadh to pursue civilian nuclear power using U.S. technology was “totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” the initiative that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states during his first term. The condition was not specified when the deal was announced.

Who said what

Trump’s White House “had faced down considerable political opposition to push forward with the Saudi deal,” said The Washington Post. By highlighting caveats to the agreement, Trump is “responding to two of the bigger criticisms: that it could open the door to nuclear enrichment and that Washington gave up leverage to push a peace deal with Israel,” said Axios.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the new condition as a “historic leap for peace.” Saudi officials have previously resisted linking nuclear cooperation to recognition of Israel.

What next?

“It is unclear,” said CNN, what “impact Trump’s social media missive will have on the signed agreement,” which is expected to be submitted to Congress for review.

What happened

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis on Thursday morning said they had attacked two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, enforcing a threatened blockade of the Bab el-Mandeb waterway that Saudi Arabia has been using to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. The attack “threatened to open a new front in a war that has roiled the global economy” as the U.S. and Iran “vie for control of vital shipping lanes,” The Associated Press said. Both sides have also “increasingly threatened civilian infrastructure.”

The U.S. conducted a 12th night of airstrikes against Iran, which fired at U.S. allies in the region. Along with striking U.S. military bases, Iran has also hit several CIA sites, prompting U.S. intelligence to “investigate whether Russia assisted by providing targeting information or ​advanced drone technology,” Reuters said.

Who said what

President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened on social media to “destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT” in Iran every time Tehran “shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz.” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran will respond in kind with an “eye for an eye” defense against the U.S. and its enablers. “Current and former military officials caution it isn’t lawful to strike an adversary’s infrastructure for political purposes,” The Wall Street Journal said.

What next?

Trump is considering “both a ceasefire and a significant military escalation” in Iran, Axios said. The Pentagon is “surging forces, medics and weaponry to the Middle East,” suggesting “Trump is considering escalating the conflict,” the Journal said.

‘Structural shifts demand a new central banking mindset’

Vivekanand Jayakumar at The Hill

While the “primary objective of most central banks” is “unchanged, the post-pandemic economic landscape has evolved in ways that require policymakers to rethink how monetary policy is designed,” says Vivekanand Jayakumar. The “pandemic shock and its aftermath substantially altered underlying economic trends and gave rise to a new geopolitical reality.” Forces are “reshaping inflation dynamics, impacting economy’s growth potential, and altering monetary policy transmission mechanisms.” So “central bankers will need to exhibit greater flexibility, adaptability and forward-looking decision-making.”

Read more

‘Where did all the computer science professors go?’

Lila Shroff and Rose Horowitch at The Atlantic

AI companies are “turning into something like mini-universities,” say Lila Shroff and Rose Horowitch. As AI has “taken center stage, Silicon Valley has intensified its efforts to recruit star researchers and looked beyond computer science departments.” While “plenty of research is still happening within universities,” the “result is a flywheel.” As “more academics get sucked up by industry, the center of AI research moves further from academia, thus increasing the incentive for remaining researchers to leave.”

Read more

‘We are taking hobbies too far’

Meehika Barua at Time

Having hobbies shows that you “have the time, money and energy to spend on them,” says Meehika Barua. But we have “turned hobbies from optional leisure activities into a marker of identity.” Hobbies are “increasingly sold as a route to becoming a more interesting or successful person rather than simply a way to spend free time.” This can “leave people feeling guilty if they prefer quieter pursuits or if they discover they don’t enjoy the hobby that everyone else seems to love.”

Read more

‘He may be Trump’s only real friend. He’s quietly transforming the world.’

Andrea Bernstein at Slate

Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff “seems like Trump, a New York real estate developer turned world dealmaker,” says Andrea Bernstein. But in an administration that “privileges snarling visages, Witkoff is nearly universally described as kind or nice, a quality he has used to good diplomatic effect.” As Witkoff “presided over a tenuous ceasefire deal with Hamas and Israel, he surrounded those talks with meetings with big-name Gulf leaders.” He is “unabashed about performing diplomacy through a business lens.”

Read more

What happened

President Donald Trump has approved a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that could open the door to uranium enrichment inside the kingdom, The Wall Street Journal first reported Tuesday night. The 30-year agreement is “designed to give American companies a central role” in developing Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear infrastructure, the Journal said. But it’s “certain to prove controversial” among U.S. allies and lawmakers opposed to the “spread of nuclear technology in the volatile Middle East.”

Who said what

The nuclear cooperation agreement “has been under discussion for years,” The New York Times said. Trump dropped a Biden administration stipulation that the Saudis first normalize relations with Israel, and to “get the deal done with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,” he “had to agree to terms that may limit international inspectors” from visiting sites “they think could be a pathway to diverting fuel to weapons projects.” Bin Salman has vowed to build nuclear weapons if Iran does.

The White House argues that the U.S. role “would ensure enrichment remains peaceful,” the Journal said. But if the Saudis can enrich uranium, so “goes the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Egypt,” Henry Sokolski of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center told the Journal. “The idea that this will have a happy ending is delusional.”

What next?

U.S. and Saudi officials are expected to sign the accord on Wednesday.

What happened

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a Senate committee on Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s Iran war had cost an estimated $37.5 billion so far, and that the $67 billion in supplemental war funding he was requesting is an “urgent, necessary” stopgap as Congress debates Trump’s $1.5 trillion annual Pentagon budget request. Hegseth faced “fiery questions” during the “combative Senate Appropriations Committee hearing,” The Associated Press said. And the scrutiny was “bipartisan,” The Washington Post said, as “frustrated lawmakers” pressed him to “explain the Trump administration’s strategy for the war” amid “renewed hostilities.”

Who said what

Hegseth’s appearance “represented an attempt by the administration to sell the unpopular conflict as a necessary expense,” Politico said. But Senate Democrats “questioned both the success of the war so far and the need for more military money, citing $75 billion in unused funds” from last year’s huge GOP-only spending package. “The problem is not a lack of money, but poor planning,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told Hegseth. “This war is now spiraling out of control again,” and Trump is “asking for $70 billion more — and for us to just trust him it’ll all work out fine.”

What next?

The House plans to quit Washington on Thursday “for a month-long recess,” the Post said, “leaving any deal on military funding weeks away at the earliest.”

What happened

The U.S. military early Monday morning completed a ninth consecutive night of airstrikes on Iranian targets, and Iran again fired missiles and drones at Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan. The Pentagon said a U.S. service member was killed in Iraq on Saturday during the “controlled detonation” of a downed Iranian drone, and human remains were found at a military base in Jordan hit by Iranian strikes last week. That attack killed two U.S. troops, and if the remains are confirmed to be a soldier missing since the strikes, the U.S. death toll from the Iran war will be 18. Iran said U.S. strikes had killed at least 50 people since a ceasefire collapsed this month.

Who said what

The U.S. hit Iran “very hard again” throughout the night “in honor of” the “great patriots” killed, Trump told reporters. “We feel very badly,” but “those great people” were “fighting that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.” Iran has been “stepping up” its strikes on Jordan “as it seeks to produce American casualties and deter Washington from escalating its test of wills with Tehran,” The Wall Street Journal said.

What next?

“Even larger American attacks may be coming” as “more U.S. warplanes head to the Middle East,” the Journal said. “The U.S. is planning for a wider war,” a U.S. official told The Washington Post, but with dwindling munitions stockpiles and growing battle damage, “we do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that.”

What happened

The price of oil has jumped nearly 10% following renewed violence in the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude futures climbed to $83 a barrel Monday, marking the “largest daily percentage gain since May 2020,” The Wall Street Journal said. The U.S. military launched its third straight night of attacks against Iran Monday night; Iran responded by striking two United Arab Emirates tankers.

Who said what

The new attacks “signaled a return to open conflict” in the region less than a month after the two nations agreed to a ceasefire, The New York Times said. They follow President Donald Trump’s social media declaration that the U.S. is “reinstating THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE,” and will take over the strait, charging a 20% fee for secure passage. That would “be a major new tax on global energy flows and would drive up the cost of the world’s oil and gas,” The Washington Post said.

What next?

The blockade goes into effect Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern time. Oil markets are facing a new reality, the Journal said, as the Strait of Hormuz is “no longer expected to return to a prewar norm.”

What happened

The U.S. military on Sunday night conducted a fresh wave of airstrikes against Iranian targets as retaliatory attacks between the two nations increase. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed responsibility for attacks on a U.S. refueling facility at the Omani port of Duqm, as well as attacks on American bases in Qatar and Jordan. Tehran also said it had shut the Strait of Hormuz and struck commercial vessels transiting the strategic waterway. The latest exchange follows fresh U.S. airstrikes on 140 Iranian military targets.

Who said what

Iran accused the U.S. of undermining diplomatic efforts, saying American attacks had “rendered futile” recent negotiations. The two nations have “traded fire and recriminations,” said The New York Times. Both have accused the other of violating the terms of the ceasefire and “leaving the region suspended between war and peace.” As the war “heats up” again, CNN said, U.S. weapon stocks “remain significantly depleted,” risking the military’s “ability to fight” any “future war.”

What next?

In a televised statement, Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen since the Feb. 28 death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that “vengeance” for his father’s killing “is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out”.

What happened

The U.S. attacked Iranian targets twice over the weekend while Iran struck an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz and fired drones and missiles at U.S. military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain. The “renewed fighting was sparked by competing interpretations of the memorandum of understanding” to end the war, Axios said, especially regarding the strait.

Who said what

Hours after Saturday’s oil tanker strike, President Donald Trump warned on social media that if Iran kept violating the ceasefire, the U.S. might be “forced to militarily complete the job” in Iran, which would then “no longer exist!” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Sunday said the MOU gave Tehran sole responsibility for “the management and full restoration of maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.”

Attacking ships transiting the economically “pivotal” waterway “through Omani waters” was a risky but “necessary gambit” for Tehran, The New York Times said. Its “newfound power to disrupt traffic” in the strait is “critical leverage it cannot afford to lose — either at the negotiating table or back at war.”

What next?

After the weekend’s fighting, “both sides will stand down for now and vessels can move freely,” a Trump administration official told news organizations. “Iran has yet to confirm an agreement,” the Times said. U.S. officials said talks with Iran will resume tomorrow in Qatar.

What happened

The International Maritime Organization on Thursday paused a nascent effort to evacuate ships stranded in the Persian Gulf after Iran struck a cargo vessel, causing damage but no casualties, according to the ship’s owner. The IMO, a United Nations body, earlier this week began shepherding ships through the Strait of Hormuz along a route hugging Oman’s coast. Hundreds of ships and more than 11,000 seafarers have been stranded in the Gulf since the Iran war broke out, and Iran’s drone strike demonstrated its “continued ability to restrict the critical waterway, despite the agreement reached last week with the United States,” CNN said.

Who said what

The attacked vessel did “not transit under IMO’s evacuation framework,” IMO chief Arsenio Dominguez said in a press release, but “the evacuation plan will be paused until further clarity is obtained” on “necessary safety guarantees.” Hours before the strike, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that transiting the strait outside routes “authorized” by Iran was “unacceptable and completely dangerous.” The opening of an alternate passage “would relieve pressure on the world economy,” The Associated Press said, but also “remove Iran’s main source of leverage in ongoing peace talks.”

What next?

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday during a “visit to the Gulf to reassure American allies” that “Washington was committed to the new route” and free passage through the strait, the AP said.

What happened

The Senate on Tuesday voted 50-48 to adopt a resolution instructing President Donald Trump to end the Iran war or obtain congressional authorization. Four Republicans joined all but one Democrat to pass the resolution, and two Republicans were absent. The House approved the measure 215-208 on June 3, and Trump cannot veto it.

Who said what

The resolution’s adoption is a “significant rebuke” to Trump, CNN said. It reflects “growing concerns” among GOP lawmakers “over both the war and the deal Trump struck with Iran to end it,” The Associated Press said. Trump called the vote “poorly timed and meaningless.”

This is the “first time since the enactment of the War Powers Resolution of 1973” that both chambers “approved a concurrent resolution directing a president to end a military conflict,” The New York Times said. Whether it’s legally binding without a president’s signature “has never been definitively tested before the Supreme Court.”

What next?

The White House is expected to request $80 billion this week to pay for the war. Trump will “meet with restless GOP senators” on Wednesday on Capitol Hill, where his preference that lawmakers just “pony up, and don’t ask too many questions” about the war, is “grating on many congressional Republicans,” Politico said.

What happened

Vice President JD Vance said Monday that he and President Donald Trump had “digitally” signed an interim peace agreement with Iran and expected the text of the memorandum of understanding to be released before a ceremonial signing in Geneva on Friday. The potential breakthrough “drew cautious optimism and frustration” in Congress, where “even some Republicans were reluctant to praise a deal whose terms the administration has yet to disclose,” The New York Times said. “If it’s a secret deal, then how can I take it seriously?” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said to reporters.

In Israel, people “from across the political spectrum reacted angrily” to news of the deal to end the war that their government launched alongside Trump, The Associated Press said. And they directed their “fury at one man: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Who said what

It’s unclear if Trump’s deal is “one that Netanyahu will stomach — or one he will seek to derail,” The Washington Post said. Politically, he “has every incentive to continue fighting, especially in Lebanon.” For Trump, “this is his decision,” Netanyahu told reporters. For Israel, “the struggle has not ended.”

What next?

“Early signs of bumps ahead” included Netanyahu’s insistence that Israeli forces would remain in Lebanon and Iran saying it “intended to charge ‘fees’ but not ‘tolls’” to ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the Times said. But “for all the confusion,” oil prices “tumbled, and Iranians expressed wary optimism that a war that has killed thousands could soon end.”

Host Emmanuel Macron is expected to pull out all the stops for this week’s G7 summit to prove that this gathering of the world’s richest democracies still matters in an age of strongman politics.

In one of his last big diplomatic set pieces before his presidential term winds down next year, Macron “will seek to paper over divisions” between Donald Trump and the other six leaders, said Euronews. Top of the agenda will be trying to “forge common positions on how to end the war in Ukraine”, on the resumption of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and on “the development of safer technologies”.

What did the commentators say?

The summit is being held in the alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains. The last time the G7 met here was in June 2003, when the US had invaded Iraq despite “the strident objections of France and Germany”, said Mark Landler, France editor of The New York Times. Then-US president George W. Bush “got chilly handshakes” but he worked hard with the other leaders “to maintain the veneer of like-minded countries uniting to confront the perils of an unruly world”. Two decades later, it’s the same town but another American war in the Middle East, and any “veneer” of unity has been “stripped away”.

The G7 is “a forum created to solve geopolitical crises but it was excluded from the US-Israeli planning for war” with Iran, said Flavia Krause-Jackson, Bloomberg’s Europe editor. And it was ignored by the US in both the diplomacy for and the timing of the peace deal, which Trump announced the day before the summit, with the signing taking place after it ends.

The truth is that while, collectively, the G7 nations – France, Italy, Germany, the US, the UK, Canada and Japan – might account for 45% of global GDP, individually, few would count as one of the world’s “biggest or indeed most powerful economies”, said Jonathan Moules in the Financial Times. And Trump would clearly rather play geopolitics with Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping than waste time building consensus with leaders he views as weak.

For their part, Canada and Europe “no longer view the US as a partner on key issues such as climate change and security”, said Landler in The New York Times. And some even see America as a “threat”, given Trump’s “deepening disdain for Nato” and his repeated pursuit of Greenland. Across the group, there are “diverging opinions” on “how far to pull away from the US” but that’s certainly the direction of movement.

What next?

Expectations of what this three-day summit can achieve are “already low”, said Clea Caulcutt on Politico. “Despite all the efforts of the French presidency, the G7 format has lost much of its relevance,” an EU official told the website.

“They will talk, but I’m not sure anything will come out of it,” said a former French official. And even if it did, “any gains secured could be fleeting” with such a mercurial US president. In the end, it’s really all about keeping up appearances. As one European diplomat put it bluntly: “It will be a success if there is a family photo.”

What happened

President Donald Trump and Iran said Sunday they had reached a preliminary deal to end hostilities and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Neither side released the text of their memorandum of understanding, but it was slated to go into effect on Friday after a signing ceremony in Geneva and last for 60 days while they negotiate Iran’s nuclear status and the lifting of U.S. sanctions.

Who said what

The deal with Iran “is now complete,” Trump said on social media. “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” He later said implementation had been pushed back to Friday “for purposes of mine removal.”

The U.S. and Iran “offered conflicting accounts” of what happens after the deal is signed, CNN said. Iran’s deputy foreign minister said negotiations would begin after the U.S. releases billions in frozen funds, a claim rejected by U.S. officials. Trump told The New York Times the agreement would assure that the Strait of Hormuz was “permanently toll-free” and that Iran “cannot develop or purchase a nuclear weapon.” In both cases, Trump “appeared to be celebrating” a “return of the prewar status quo” or “Iranian concessions that the country has not yet made,” the Times said.

What next?

The interim deal, if signed, likely “returns the region to a status that existed before the war, but with Iran having proven its ability to disrupt shipping in the strait,” The Associated Press said. Solving the Iranian nuclear impasse in 60 days is also a “tall order,” Axios said, given how “difficult it was to reach the much less detailed memorandum of understanding.”

What happened

The U.S. struck “multiple targets in Iran” for a second night “in response to Iran’s unwarranted and continued aggression,” U.S. Central Command said late Wednesday. Iran responded by firing missiles and drones at U.S. military targets in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait, and announced that the Strait of Hormuz was closed to all traffic.

Who said what

President Donald Trump is “pivoting back toward a war footing after months of failing to reach a lasting diplomatic resolution” that he has “repeatedly” claimed is close, The Wall Street Journal said. “We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along, they keep playing us for suckers,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. Iran has “taken too long to negotiate,” he said on social media, and “now they will have to pay the price!!!”

Trump and Tehran both “seem to be looking for a way to end the conflict — if they can manage to sell it as a win at home,” The Associated Press said. Trump likely could have “concluded an initial agreement” two weeks ago if he had “accepted the terms his envoys had negotiated,” Axios said. Now, he’s “growing more and more frustrated” as Iran fails to respond to his requested changes amid “negative, even mocking media coverage about his unfulfilled promises of a deal.”

What next?

Trump said the U.S. attacks would resume Thursday if Iran did not capitulate to his demands.

What happened

Iran and Israel on Sunday night fired missiles at each for the first time since a U.S.-backed ceasefire took effect in April. Iran said it targeted an Israeli air base in response to Israeli strikes in Lebanon, and Israel said it retaliated by striking military targets in western and central Iran. Israel also said it intercepted a missile from Yemen.

President Donald Trump told Fox News earlier that the U.S. was not involved in Israel’s strike on Beirut’s suburbs and “I’m not happy about it.” After Iran launched missiles at Israel, Trump warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to imperil peace talks by firing back, according to several news reports. “I call all the shots,” Trump told the Financial Times. Netanyahu “doesn’t call the shots.”

Who said what

Trump told Netanyahu to stand down because “we are close to doing something good in terms of a deal,” a U.S. official told Axios, and Netanyahu “pseudo-agreed.” Israel “has responded enough, they don’t need to respond anymore,” Trump told Israeli public broadcaster Kan. “We can achieve peace after 3,000 years.” No “self-respecting country in the world would tolerate such an attack, and neither will Israel,” Israel’s U.S. ambassador, Yechiel Leiter, said on X.

What next?

The tit-for-tat attacks continued Monday morning and “threatened to drag the wider Middle East back into a regional war,” The Associated Press said.

The death of a British soldier in Iraq has refocused concerns over the UK’s military presence in the Middle East.

Lance Corporal James Stewart Freeman died in northern Iraq on Sunday during a training exercise, the Defence Secretary John Healey has said. The US has confirmed that the Briton, and an American soldier, died at a US-controlled base in Erbil, in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region near the Iranian border.

The UK’s position on the Iran war is to participate in “defensive action” only. But after Iran began retaliating against US-Israeli strikes, the UK deployed more personnel to the region, bringing the total number to about 1,000.

The heightened risk to British troops

Northern Iraq has been “one of the most dangerous places for British troops” since Iran launched retaliatory attacks on Gulf countries, said The Times. Tehran has been targeting “US strongholds” across the border in Iraq; specialist soldiers stationed in Erbil have “shot down more than 100 kamikaze drones” since the US and Israel started the war. British personnel “have been within a few hundred feet of successful Iranian strikes”. There is a “heightened risk” that Iran or its proxies could “hit coalition bases in the Middle East”.

The US has about “two dozen significant air bases, naval facilities and outposts scattered from Turkey to Oman”, said The Independent. About 50,000 US service personnel are stationed across the Middle East, many in Arab Gulf countries such as Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar and the UAE – “all of which are at risk of Iranian retaliation with short-range weapons”. There are also about 200 British service personnel deployed in Iraq, involved in “training and supporting Iraqi and Kurdish security forces”.

Oman has been a “strategic hub” for the UK since the Royal Navy opened a “joint logistics support base” at Duqm port. The MoD said Duqm gives the UK a “strategically important and permanent maritime base east of Suez, but outside of the Gulf”. The UK also has two Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus: Akrotiri and Dhekelia. A string of drone attacks, presumably by Hezbollah, appeared to target the RAF Akrotiri base in March.

Britain: an unwilling participant?

“The UK’s armed forces have long had a presence across the Middle East,” said Geraint Hughes, military historian at King’s College London, on The Conversation. The UK’s naval support facility, which supports the Royal Navy’s “longstanding maritime security mission” in the Persian Gulf, has been in Bahrain since the 1980s. The base and its 300 personnel were “close to the Iranian missile strike” targeting the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in February. That shows that British military personnel “could potentially be at risk from an Iranian attack, even if indirect”.

Keir Starmer maintains that the UK will not join in “offensive action”, and that military assets are only being used to “support the defence of the Gulf states”. But Iran is “unlikely to acknowledge this distinction between ‘defensive’ operations and more ‘offensive’ ones”. As part of the Five Eyes alliance, Britain also “closely coordinates its eavesdropping operations” with the US.

Fundamentally, said Hughes, the regime in Iran is “profoundly Anglophobic”. It presumes the US and Britain will “always collaborate” – as they have done in the Middle East in the past. Iran may have “assumed British complicity in the launching of Operation Epic Fury”, and may “target the UK’s military assets in the Gulf and beyond”. Whatever Labour’s intentions, the UK “may find itself drawn into a war it had no say in starting”.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Monday said Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to stop their fighting, hours after Iran signaled it was ending peace talks over Israel’s escalating campaign in Lebanon and Israel said strikes on Beirut were imminent. After a “very productive call” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “a very good call with Hezbollah” through “highly placed” intermediaries, Israel’s troops “turned back” from Beirut and Hezbollah “agreed that all shooting will stop” if Israel doesn’t “attack them,” Trump said on social media.

Who said what

Trump initially responded to reports Iran was abandoning peace talks by telling CNBC he “couldn’t care less” and thought they had “started to get very boring.” But he then said Iran’s “problem is with Israel” and he would ask Netanyahu “what’s going on with Lebanon.” Trump then “lashed out” at Netanyahu in an “expletive-laden call,” Axios said, citing three sources. One U.S. official summarized Trump’s remarks: “You’re f---ing crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”

What next?

Lebanon’s embassy in Washington confirmed that Hezbollah had agreed to the U.S.-proposed truce. Netanyahu said Israeli forces “will continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon” and “will attack terror targets in Beirut” if “Hezbollah does not cease attacking our cities and citizens.”

Donald Trump “lashed out” at Benjamin Netanyahu last night in an “expletive-laden call” with the Israeli PM about the country’s actions in Lebanon, according to US officials speaking to news site Axios. The official paraphrased Trump’s remarks as: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”

Trump himself described the call as “very productive”, saying he had demanded Israel abandon plans for a “major raid” and that Netanyahu had “turned his troops around” as a result.

The Israeli prime minister is caught between Donald Trump’s demands to end the bombardment of Lebanon, which threatens peace talks with Iran, and domestic pressure to escalate the campaign against Hezbollah, which has seen the Israeli army moving deeper into Lebanon and escalating air strikes.

What did the commentators say?

Since the 7 October attacks, Netanyahu has “struggled to assure Israelis he will keep them safe” against Iran and its proxies, said The Times. There was already “mounting frustration in Israel at the failure to defang Hezbollah”, said the Financial Times’ Jerusalem correspondent, James Shotter. Most polls suggest Israelis “favour more aggressive action” against the group, and Netanyahu’s “climbdown” to Trump provoked criticism from “across the political spectrum”.

National security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, of his own coalition, urged him to ignore Trump’s demands and ratchet up the campaign against Hezbollah. “This is the time to tell our friend, President Trump – ‘no’,” Ben-Gvir wrote on X. Naftali Bennett, the right-wing former prime minister “widely regarded as one of Netanyahu’s main rivals” in the crucial upcoming election, accused him of “losing control over Israeli sovereignty”.

Netanyahu is also worried that any US-Iran deal will “leave Israel’s core concerns – Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, its ballistic missile program and regional proxy network – largely unaddressed”, said Tal Shalev of CNN’s Jerusalem bureau.

For more than three decades, Netanyahu has “defined himself as the leader who would confront Iran’s nuclear ambitions”. But a recent poll from Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies found that 45% of Israelis believe the situation with Iran has worsened compared to before 7 October; only 31% believe it has improved. Nearly half believe Israel will probably not win, or has already lost, the war against Iran.

“It’s hard to overstate how deeply Netanyahu views this moment as a possible personal and political defeat,” Danny Citrinowicz, senior researcher at the institute, wrote on X. “Mr. Iran” may be forced to accept an agreement that “not only legitimises the very regime he sought to weaken but also exposes the collapse of his long-standing Iran doctrine”.

Ultimately, Netanyahu has to defend his own citizens, said The Jerusalem Post in an editorial. Northern Israel is “under constant rocket and drone fire”. Hezbollah had used the ceasefire as a “tactical opportunity” to regroup and rearm. It has “no intention of genuinely ending hostilities”; its purpose remains the destruction of Israel. The ceasefire “prioritised a quick diplomatic achievement for Washington” over the security needs of Israel; extending it further would mean “trading Israeli lives for a few more days of quiet”. The US negotiations with Iran over Lebanon “are certainly not worth the lives of Israeli citizens”.

What next?

Just hours after Trump announced the ceasefire agreement, Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon resumed. At least eight people have been killed today, according to Lebanese state media.

In a statement, Netanyahu said that he had told Trump that Israel would continue its operations. “Our position remains the same,” Netanyahu wrote. The Lebanese government, which wants Hezbollah to disarm, has begun direct negotiations with Israel today.

Iran continues to insist that any ceasefire between the US and Iran hinges on peace in Lebanon, with a senior military officer saying today that resumption of war with the US is “inevitable”.

What happened

Israel on Sunday said its military had captured Beaufort Castle, a 900-year-old hilltop fortress in Lebanon that served as an Israeli base from 1982 to 2000. The seizure of the strategic Crusades-era fortress was a “dramatic step” toward Israel’s new goal to “deepen and expand our grip on the places that were under Hezbollah’s control,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Who said what

Israel made its “deepest incursion inside Lebanon” since its 2000 withdrawal “despite a nominal U.S.-brokered ceasefire” and the first direct Israel-Lebanon talks in decades, The Associated Press said. Israel’s advance is also “complicating negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, which has made an end to fighting” in Lebanon “one of its conditions for a deal,” The Wall Street Journal. Netanyahu “has come under heavy pressure from critics who say he has allowed the U.S. to tie his hands in fighting” Hezbollah.

Military experts said capturing Beaufort “was unlikely to protect Israeli forces from Hezbollah’s cable-borne drones,” The New York Times said. And despite the “increasing domestic pressure to ramp up Israeli attacks in Lebanon,” Netanyahu’s options appear “limited to avoid totally derailing the talks with Iran,” a “higher priority” for President Donald Trump.

What next?

France requested an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Monday. “Nothing can justify the prolongation of Israeli military operations in Lebanon and its increasingly deep occupation of Lebanese territory,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said.

What happened

U.S. and Iranian negotiators on Thursday reached a tentative agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and extend the ceasefire for another 60 days while thornier issues like Iran’s nuclear program and U.S. sanctions are hashed out, U.S. officials said. “We’re not there yet, but we’re very close,” Vice President JD Vance told reporters, adding that it’s “still TBD” if and when President Donald Trump “can endorse the agreement.” Tehran did not comment.

Who said what

The “emerging memorandum of understanding came as the fragile ceasefire” appeared to be “wavering,” The Associated Press said. Several “brief exchanges of fire” this week have added “pressure on negotiators,” The New York Times said. Meanwhile, Trump’s “seemingly haphazard approach to the conflict is bewildering allies” as he “veers between diplomatic dealing, military strikes and increasingly far-fetched ideas” to clinch some sort of victory.

Trump “finds himself in a bind,” Reuters said, as he “seeks to end the war” and secure a “quick solution to high gas prices” while avoiding a “potential backlash from Iran hawks” over “any concessions to Tehran.” Those “competing demands” leave him “little room to maneuver.”

What next?

Trump was “leaning toward signing off on the deal” as of Thursday afternoon, Axios said, citing senior U.S. officials. But he “wants to wait another few days” to “make sure Iranian officials would sign” and to “see how the domestic political debate around the deal plays out.” In Iran, officials “said Tehran is concerned Trump will scuttle the deal under Israeli influence,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Iran has signalled that any peace deal must include an end to Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. But it’s unclear if the US could get Israel to agree to that, even if it wanted to.

Despite last month’s ceasefire, Israel has continued to pound Lebanon with airstrikes, killing at least 608 people, according to the World Health Organization. Yesterday, in response to a Hezbollah attack on its military posts, Israel launched one of its most intense waves of bombings, saying it had hit more than 100 Hezbollah targets. “I have ordered an even greater acceleration of our operations,” Benjamin Netanyahu said. “We will intensify our blows, increase our firepower, and we will crush them.”

What did the commentators say?

“Lebanon is in danger of becoming an overlooked but increasingly deadly sideshow”, as both Israel and Hezbollah violate the ceasefire, said Tom Kington in The Times. Israeli troops are occupying swathes of southern Lebanon, and won’t withdraw unless Hezbollah disarms. But the Iran-backed group says it won’t stop attacking Israeli positions until Israel withdraws. “The result has been a stand-off.”

Hezbollah is “waiting for a cue from Iran, which in turn depends on how Iran’s talks with the US go”, Michael Young, of the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, told The Times. “If Iran emerges stronger from its clash with the US, Hezbollah will feel reinvigorated.” They will “be able to say they resisted and claim victory”. Meanwhile, Israel will be trying “to torpedo any deal”.

Washington is “pressuring” Lebanon’s leaders to disarm Hezbollah or else “face more Gaza-style destruction”, said Rami G. Khouri, a policy analyst at the American University of Beirut, in Al Jazeera. It has also “tied financial support” for the country’s reconstruction to “Beirut’s compliance with US-Israeli terms”. The Lebanese government faces “a disgruntled, deeply impoverished population, exasperated by relentless Israeli attacks”.

April’s ceasefire agreement heralded “weakened US-Israeli positions in the region”, as well as dealing “deep political blows” to Netanyahu and gifting “new diplomatic leverage” to Iran and Hezbollah. Having survived their “existential” battles and now pressing for permanent ceasefires, they could “weaken Israeli postures and help reshape Lebanon’s internal dynamics”.

“But far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition are pushing him to challenge” Donald Trump on the “ceasefire with Hezbollah”, said The Guardian’s chief Middle East correspondent, Emma Graham-Harrison. “It is time for the prime minister to bang on Trump’s table and inform him that we are returning to war in Lebanon,” said Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, on social media. “There is an urgent need to put an end to the threat posed by Hezbollah’s explosive drones,” the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, posted on Telegram. Hezbollah has “ignored repeated requests to stop firing at Israel”, a US official told Reuters. Israel will never “​passively absorb attacks on its forces and civilians”.

But Tehran won’t accept such attacks on its proxy, either, Danny Citrinowicz, a Middle East expert at the Atlantic Council, told The New Yorker. Lebanon is of “real strategic importance” to Iran; Hezbollah is “a vital element” of its “so-called Axis of Resistance”. So Trump “has a mountain to climb”. If he wants an agreement with Iran, he will have to “force Netanyahu’s hand on Lebanon”.

What next?

On Friday, delegations from Israel and Lebanon will meet for direct talks in the US, in preparation for further negotiations on 2 and 3 June.

The shaky US-Iran ceasefire, meanwhile, is under increasing strain: Iran has said US strikes near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday were a “gross violation”, and validated its “deep suspicion”. The US said its attacks were “defensive”.

But “even if Lebanon is part of a US-Iran peace deal, the Lebanese people will be wary”, said Kington in The Times. After all, April’s Pakistan-brokered ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran, supposedly included Lebanon – but Israel “denied this was the case and launched 100 attacks in a few minutes”.

What happened

The U.S. military on Monday night said it had “conducted self-defense strikes” on Iranian missile sites and “boats attempting to emplace mines,” interrupting a weekslong ceasefire after a weekend of positive signals about an imminent peace deal. Earlier, President Donald Trump said talks on ending the war were “proceeding nicely.” An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said a “large portion of the issues” had been resolved but no “agreement is on the verge of being signed.”

Who said what

The emerging framework indicates that Trump’s “mixture of threats and limited military operations” in Iran hasn’t “decisively shifted” Tehran’s negotiating stance, The New York Times said. After Republican hawks “slammed the contours of the deal,” The Wall Street Journal said, Trump “expanded the scope of his diplomatic ambition,” saying Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Muslim countries must normalize relations with Israel as part of any agreement. Trump posted Monday that it “should be mandatory” for all of them to “simultaneously” sign the Abraham Accords.

What next?

Trump’s Israel normalization push could give him a way to cast any peace deal “as a larger regional success story instead of a climbdown,” the Journal said. But it’s “highly unlikely to be heeded” by the Saudis or Qataris, given Israel’s intransigence on Palestinian rights.

Donald Trump’s claim that the US and Iran are closing in on a peace deal has already been met with widespread criticism within his own Republican party.

The details haven’t been made public but Iran is said to have agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, without charging tolls, and dispose of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. In return, the US would cease hostilities, unfreeze billions of dollars of assets, and gradually remove economic sanctions.

But Republican Senator Ted Cruz said it would be a “disastrous mistake” to leave Iran “able to enrich uranium and develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz”. And Senator Roger Wicker, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned that the emerging deal “would not be worth the paper it is written on”.

What did the commentators say?

The “grim reality” is that, by closing the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has “leverage” over peace talks, said the Financial Times’ chief foreign affairs columnist Gideon Rachman. And now the US seems poised to agree to a deal that “threatens to leave Iran in a stronger position than before the war began”. Trump likes to “deride” the nuclear non-proliferation agreement that Barack Obama negotiated with Iran in 2015, but this looks in many ways “worse”. Perhaps the US president “should have reread” his book, “The Art of the Deal”.

Eli Groner, a former director-general of Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, said Iran’s knowledge that it can now close the Strait of Hormuz at any point “is a victory far deeper and more strategic than any point-scoring military achievement”. His summary? “Disaster.”

The framework of the deal described by US officials would be “a series of compromises, well short of the capitulation that Trump sought”, said David Ignatius in The Washington Post. Iran hasn’t accepted his demand that its highly enriched uranium be delivered to the West, nor has it agreed to give up its “right to enrich” in the future. But Trump “doesn’t appear to have any better options” to escape what has become “a military morass and a strategic dead end”. Tehran “can claim victory simply by having survived” the US assault.

Some Republicans are arguing that “peace could bring a pay-off for voters” by lowering petrol prices and easing inflation as oil tankers start to move through the Strait of Hormuz again, said CNN’s Stephen Collinson. But recovery from the strait’s closure will take time and won’t “immediately improve global economic prospects or affordability in the US”. Trump “can’t win politically”: given that a majority of Americans oppose the war, he would face a huge “backlash if he ordered new strikes”.

There’s no way to spin this humiliating “catastrophe”, Middle East expert Danny Citrinowicz, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, told The New Yorker. Rather than toppling the Iranian regime, the US and Israel have “ended up strengthening” it. It’s hard to imagine Tehran will just “give up its nuclear material” – to Trump or anyone else – because “they’re so much in the driver’s seat” here. Iran is already rebuilding its missile capacity and still has most of its launchers. Now we have “a more radicalised regime that can rush into a nuclear bomb and still have a conventional missile capacity. It’s a shit show.”

What next?

We have “reached a conclusion on a large portion of the issues under discussion”, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqai told a news conference in Tehran yesterday. “But to say that this means the signing of an agreement is imminent – no one can make such a claim.” The two sides were not discussing Iran’s nuclear programme “at this stage”, he added.

This is “not a final settlement”, said the BBC; this “memorandum of understanding” seems simply to involve a 60-day extension of the ceasefire and a plan for further negotiations on “some of the thorniest issues”, including the nuclear one. That timeline seems “rather compressed, given the complexity of the issues”, said CNN’s Collinson. “History shows Iran would love to drag the United States into a prolonged period of inconclusive diplomacy that lasts months or years.”

GPS jamming across the Middle East has exploded since the US and Israel began their war against Iran in February, “plunging both sides into an ‘electronic warfare arms race’”, said The Independent.

“Underlying the dramatic clashes across the region”, forces on all sides are “quietly fighting an invisible war by land, air and sea, distorting tracking information to sow chaos or hide in plain sight”.

‘Electronic warfare arms race’

Jamming of the Global Positioning System (GPS) works by disrupting signals from global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) with electromagnetic noise. “Spoofing” is more sophisticated and involves transmitting fake signals to provide a false location. Both are used to distort drone and missile guidance systems.

Interference “isn’t a new phenomenon”, said CNN. It has been used in modern warfare since the Second World War but has become “a major issue” for shipping and aircraft since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The problem is now “endemic” in regions such as the Baltic Sea, Black Sea and parts of the Middle East, said Michelle Wiese Bockmann, from shipping intelligence firm Windward.

While all sides engage in it, Iran is particularly “prolific” in spoofing. Tehran uses it to “add confusion and disrupt any of the allied intelligence gathering”, said Philip Ingram, an intelligence expert and former British Army colonel.

The tools used by Iran are likely to be domestically produced or made with equipment sourced from Russia or China, Thomas Withington, from the Royal United Services Institute think tank, told the BBC.

Tracking ‘has stopped telling the truth’

The problem with GPS jamming is that it cannot be contained within precise geographic boundaries and does not discriminate between military and commercial systems.

On the first day of the war alone, electronic interference disrupted the navigation systems of more than 1,100 commercial ships in UAE, Qatari, Omani and Iranian waters, according to a Windward report cited by Inside GNSS.

“The missiles and drones make for good headlines, but they’re a distraction,” said Erik Bethel, from investment firm Mare Liberum, and Windward CEO Ami Daniel in Fortune. The “real story” is that the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passes, has “gone dark. Not in some poetic sense, but literally.”

In effect, the Automatic Identification System (AIS) – the network that’s supposed to be the “gold standard” for commercial tracking and is used by ships to avoid one another – “has stopped telling the truth”.

The same thing happened in the region last year during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran and has also troubled vessel navigators in the Baltic Sea. But “this is next-level”, said Bockmann. “We can’t over-estimate the huge danger this places to maritime navigation and safety.”

“Without reliable and accurate” navigation systems, ships are “effectively sailing blind”, said The Wall Street Journal.

‘Anti-jam antenna system’

There are various technologies that offer protection against GPS jamming. These can include “automatically detecting jamming or interference and switching to unaffected frequencies”, said the BBC.

UK defence giant Raytheon produces an “anti-jam antenna system” device the size of an ice hockey puck that can be installed on different kinds of vehicles and uses multiple channels to overcome jamming. Other companies have “developed navigation tools that work around GPS’s flaws”.

Alternative navigational tools that do not rely on GPS at all but instead harness quantum technology are also in development “but remain a long way off operational use”, said CNN.

“GNSS is a wonder of the modern world,” said Ramsey Faragher, chief executive of the Royal Institute of Navigation in London. “You can switch it on and within a few seconds, it works out where you are to within a metre and what time it is to within a nanosecond. Unfortunately, the luxurious era of those signals not being messed about with intentionally is over. We need to rapidly catch up.”

What happened

Tehran is considering a U.S. proposal to formally end the Iran war and start a 30-day clock to negotiate a full agreement, Axios and other news organizations reported Wednesday. Iranian and Trump administration officials “offered contradictory and rapidly changing assessments of the state of the war and peace talks,” The New York Times said, all “while providing few details about those negotiations.”

Who said what

If Iran doesn’t agree to “give what has been agreed to,” President Donald Trump said on social media Wednesday morning, the “bombing starts,” and “at a much higher level and intensity.” Hours later, he told reporters the two sides “had very good talks over the last 24 hours” and a deal was “very possible.” An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Tehran would relay its response through Pakistan, while another Iranian official dismissed the proposal as an “American wish-list.”

The one-page U.S. memorandum of understanding involved “Iran committing to a moratorium on nuclear enrichment, the U.S. agreeing to lift its sanctions and release billions in frozen Iranian funds, and both sides lifting restrictions around transit through the Strait of Hormuz,” according to Axios. But the proposal would “not initially require concessions from either ​side,” sources told Reuters, and it leaves “unresolved key U.S. demands” on Iran’s nuclear program and reopening the strait.

What next?

The “biggest obstacle to an Iran deal may be Trump’s ego,” Politico said, citing U.S. and Arab officials. Trump’s “history of nursing grudges, ridiculing opponents and insisting he wins everything doesn’t bode well” for striking a deal with Iran’s respect-conscious leaders.

What happened

President Donald Trump said the U.S. was launching a new effort Monday to “guide” blockaded commercial ships “safely” through the Strait of Hormuz, which has effectively been closed to maritime traffic since Trump and Israel launched the Iran war Feb. 28. Trump offered few details in his social media announcement, but described “Project Freedom” as a “humanitarian gesture” on behalf of the U.S., Middle Eastern countries and “in particular” Iran. Iranian state-run media said the announcement was part of “Trump’s delirium.”

Who said what

U.S. Central Command said guided-missile destroyers, drones and more than 100 aircraft would support Trump’s new initiative. But the plan “doesn’t currently involve U.S. Navy warships escorting vessels through the strait,” The Wall Street Journal said, citing senior U.S. officials. Traders and shipowners “expressed skepticism” that the “arm’s-length effort to unblock the vital supply route” would be effective.

Trump’s announcement was “essentially a challenge to Iran, and a bet that it would not want to take the risk of firing the first shots — or laying mines” — to challenge the U.S., The New York Times said. Ebrahim Azizi, the head of Iran’s parliamentary National Security Committee, said on X that “any U.S. interference” in the strait “will be considered a violation of the ceasefire.”

What next?

Two months into the war, Trump’s “predictions of a relatively short-term conflict with minimal economic consequences appear to be crumbling around him,” the Times said. “Voter backlash is building” as average U.S. gas prices hit a “wartime high of $4.39,” The Washington Post said, and “inside the White House, the options to lower prices at the pump are dwindling.”

What happened

The White House is arguing that the War Powers Act deadline to either wind down the Iran war or get congressional authorization is not Friday, as Congress assumed, because the 60-day clock stopped when President Donald Trump ordered a ceasefire on April 7. “For War Powers Resolution purposes,” an official told reporters, the hostilities “have terminated.”

Who said what

“We are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses or stops,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a Senate hearing Thursday. His assertion was “met with outrage from Democrats and skepticism from Republicans,” The Wall Street Journal said. The U.S. military “continues to enforce a military blockade,” which is “considered an act of war under international law.”

“Nothing in the text or design of the War Powers Resolution suggests that the 60-day clock can be paused or terminated,” Katherine Yon Ebright, a war powers expert at the Brennan Center, told The Associated Press, and Congress needs to push back against this “sizeable extension of previous legal gamesmanship” over the law.

What next?

In the hearing, ostensibly about the Pentagon’s $1.45 trillion budget request, Hegseth “did not say how long the war with Iran could continue,” The New York Times said.

What happened

LIV Golf, the PGA Tour rival launched in 2021 with financial backing from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, will lose that funding at the end of this season, The Wall Street Journal and other news organizations reported Wednesday. Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi PIF, is stepping down as LIV chair, according to the Sports Business Journal.

Who said what

LIV Golf “will announce details of its strategic path forward” on Thursday, including new leadership and “a push to secure new, long-term financial partners,” CNBC said. LIV chief executive Scott O’Neil told TNT two weeks ago that if PIF funding ended, he would “work like crazy to create a business plan to keep us going.” But most likely, the Saudi withdrawal “sounds the death knell for the upstart that sowed chaos in professional golf,” the Journal said. It will be “nearly impossible” for LIV to carry on in “any resemblance to its current form after the Saudis lost billions on the endeavor.”

What next?

Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and other pro golfers who “abandoned the PGA Tour for nine-figure guaranteed contracts are now facing an uncertain future,” USA Today said. The “mainstream golf world” has already made clear it “isn’t ready to simply welcome them back,” the Journal said.

Indonesia, Qatar, Ecuador and Angola have all departed the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in recent years. But the loss of the UAE, one of its longest-serving and most influential members, is seen as a major blow to the cartel.

The UAE said on Tuesday that quitting Opec and the broader Opec+ alliance next month reflects its “long-term economic vision” and desire to speed up investment in energy production. But Emirati officials had threatened for years to leave, blaming Opec’s production quotas for unfairly curtailing its oil exports. (The UAE has repeatedly been accused of exceeding those limits.)

Rising tensions with Saudi Arabia, Opec’s de facto leader, have also been greatly exacerbated by the Iran war; the UAE has criticised its Gulf neighbours for failing to defend it from Iranian retaliation. The question is whether the blow to Opec of losing its third-biggest oil producer will be a knockout one.

What did the commentators say?

This is “the beginning of the end of Opec”, energy analyst Saul Kavonic told the BBC. The group “loses about 15% of its capacity and one of its most compliant members”. Saudi Arabia “will struggle to keep the rest of Opec together”. This means “a fundamental geopolitical reshaping of the Middle East and oil markets”.

Opec’s ability to influence oil prices will be “clearly weakened”, said former International Energy Agency official Neil Atkinson. The UAE “will attempt to sell as much oil as they can to as many people as possible”. That “will run up against any attempts” Opec makes to “keep prices high”.

But when the UAE announced its decision, “oil markets merely shrugged”, said the Financial Times. The “muted” reaction is “a symptom of Opec’s declining relevance”. It was a “major power” in 1973 when its Arab members carried out a “devastating” embargo on countries supporting Israel. But despite its expansion to include 10 nations in Opec+, its influence has “waned” as non-members, particularly the US, boosted oil production.

Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz is “a further blow to Opec’s ability to control the market”. Tehran showed it could halt most of the flow of oil from the Gulf – more than half the cartel’s oil production. “It completely dilutes Opec’s market power and puts Iran in control of the vast majority of Opec’s exports,” said Joel Hancock, senior commodities analyst. Opec “effectively becomes an instrument of Iran’s foreign policy”.

The UAE’s departure would probably not be “fatal” for Opec, said Raad Alkadiri of the Center for Strategic and International Studies – unless Venezuela, Iraq or Iran also quit.

And that’s “only a matter of time”, said Damien Phillips in The Spectator. “Opec has always been a tenuous and fractious alliance that just about holds together when convenient and nearly falls apart when it isn’t.” It has always been “beset by chronic quota cheating” and “wildly inconsistent” compliance. There are “endless disputes over baseline production levels”, which often lead to “full-blown price wars”. Membership has also become “increasingly toxic”; the West sees Opec’s attempts to tighten oil supply as “helping to fund Russia’s war effort and immiserating ordinary consumers”.

The UAE understands “energy security and abundance” is now a global priority. In a world of “drill, baby, drill”, “price-fixing relics like Opec are being left behind”. Opec members “can see that the end is nigh”.

What next?

Opec’s remaining 11 members, and 10 more in Opec+, will still account for about 40% of global oil output. But Kazakhstan and Iraq are seen as most likely to “soon start creeping toward the door”, said MarketWatch. Both have excess crude-production capacity that could “incentivise them to leave”. Kazakhstan, like the UAE, has been “chafing” under Opec’s production quotas.

The UAE, meanwhile, is “splashing cash on production infrastructure”, aiming to increase production from the current 3.6 million barrels a day to 5 million by 2027, said The Economist. But any increase in exports depends on when the Strait of Hormuz reopens. The UAE’s departure from Opec, long a “bugbear” of Donald Trump, may “endear” it to the US, but it will “further sour its relations with Saudi Arabia”.

Saudi Arabia “might respond with an oil price war” that poorer Opec members might not be able to withstand, said the BBC’s economics editor Faisal Islam. “Much depends” on their response. Emirati officials also talk of building new pipelines from the Abu Dhabi oil fields towards “the underused port of Fujairah”, bypassing the strait entirely. If they do so, “Emirati oil will flow like never before”. “It will have little effect on the current blockades. It could change everything afterwards.”

The U.S.-Israeli war in Iran has had a tangible effect on the economy in the Middle East, and the conflict is also making things more expensive for Americans at home. Increasing oil prices resulting from the war have cascading consequences, and while things like gasoline are most obviously affected, other products are also getting pricier.

Clothes

Supply chain issues with crude oil are raising the cost of the oil’s building blocks, called petrochemicals. Six of these petrochemicals are the “major foundations of plastics and synthetic materials like nylon and polyesters,” said The Associated Press. When petrochemicals become more expensive, it is often accompanied by a spike in clothing prices.

To make a button-down shirt, for example, the “materials account for 27%-30% of the cost a manufacturer incurs,” Andrew Walberer, a partner at the global strategy and management consultancy Kearney, told the AP. Experts are “warning consumers to budget for price increases of 10 to 15%” in clothing if the petrochemicals’ costs continue to rise, said the South China Morning Post.

Condoms

People may not assume safe sex would be impacted by the war, but the world’s largest condom manufacturer, Karex, is planning to “raise prices by 20% to 30% and possibly further if supply chain disruptions drag on due to the Iran war,” said The Guardian. Karex, a Malaysian company, supplies more than 5 billion condoms annually to global manufacturers, including major brands sold in the U.S. like Trojan and Durex.

Karex is being forced to raise its prices because the company “has seen a cost increase for synthetic rubber, nitrile, ‌aluminum foil and silicone oil,” said Inc. magazine. While still seeing high demand, the company is “currently faced with rising freight costs and shipping delays, leading to its customers carrying lower stockpiles” of Karex’s products.

Cosmetics

The war in Iran is even “seeping into the cosmetics supply chain, pushing up the cost of everything from plastic jars and ​lipstick tubes to transport, and reminding the beauty industry that even a tub of face cream depends on fragile ‌global trade routes,” said Reuters. The most notable sector being affected is the Korean beauty industry, which has a large following in the United States.

Due to the unstable cost and raw material prices of petrochemicals, the “unit prices of most products will inevitably be increased,” cosmetics company Luxepack Korea said in a press release, per The Washington Post. Many similar cosmetic brands “aren’t sure how much longer they can absorb rising production costs.”

Gasoline

This one is probably the most obvious: spiking oil prices are causing costs at the pump to skyrocket. On April 29, gas prices “hit a fresh record since the start of the war with Iran, rising to an average nationwide of $4.23 per gallon,” said NBC News, citing data from AAA. The price of Brent crude, the benchmark for international petroleum, also “stands at $114.60, up nearly 25% from the recent low seen April 17.”

It may be unlikely that gas prices will come down anytime soon. President Donald Trump has “told aides to prepare for a long blockade to throttle Iran’s economy by blocking Iranian oil shipments,” said The Guardian. The number of ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz is “now at its lowest level since the start of the war.”

Toys

Like clothes, many stuffed plush toys are “made with polyester and acrylic, synthetic fibers derived from petroleum,” said the AP, so rising prices could similarly impact the toy industry. Suppliers in China have notified Aleni Brands, the company behind popular plush lines like Bizzikins, that “getting the materials already was costing them 10% to 15% more.”

Notable production hurdles are also being experienced by a “cluster of manufacturers in Shantou, a city located 190 miles northeast of Hong Kong, which produces a third of the world’s toys,” said The New York Times. Other child-adjacent products, including crayons, are additionally facing shortages due to petrochemical supply chain issues.

What happened

The United Arab Emirates on Tuesday announced it was withdrawing from OPEC and Russian-led OPEC+ on Friday, weakening the oil cartel’s leverage to set and stabilize oil prices. The UAE, which joined OPEC in 1967, is the cartel’s third-biggest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Who said what

The UAE’s exit “had been rumored as a possibility for some time, as it pushed back in recent years” against production limits enforced by OPEC to influence oil prices, The Associated Press said. In the short term, the decision “doesn’t really matter,” Semafor said, because with the “Strait of Hormuz closed, Gulf oil producers can’t hit their production targets anyway.” But “in the long term,” The New York Times said, the UAE’s move “could contribute to greater volatility” in the oil markets.

What next?

Free from the cartel’s “rigid quotas,” the UAE “gains the flexibility to aggressively increase its oil production on its own terms,” The Wall Street Journal said. Its departure could “spur more defections” from other members who have similarly “chafed at Saudi Arabia’s dominance.” This is the “beginning of the end of OPEC,” MST Financial energy analyst Saul Kavonic told the BBC.

What happened

Iran has proposed a deal to open the State of Hormuz provided the U.S. and Israel cease their attacks and the U.S. ends its naval blockade of Iranian ships and ports. Tehran’s nuclear program and enriched uranium would be discussed at a later date. The proposal, passed to the U.S. through Pakistan on Sunday, followed an Iranian offer to suspend its uranium enrichment that President Donald Trump rejected.

Who said what

Trump is “unhappy with Iran's proposal as he wants nuclear issues dealt with from the outset,” Reuters said, citing a U.S. official. The proposal was “subject to a vigorous debate inside the administration” over which side “has more leverage,” The New York Times said, “and which country is better positioned to endure the economic hardship” from the strait’s closure.

Iranian officials are “serious about getting themselves out of the mess that they’re in,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Fox News. The Americans “have achieved none of their goals, and this is why they are asking for negotiations,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters in Russia. “We are now considering it.” Leaders of European nations also weighed in: the U.S. “quite obviously went into this war without any strategy” and has “no truly convincing strategy in the negotiations either,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Monday. “A whole nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership.”

What next?

The “tense stalemate” has “entered a Cold War-like phase of financial sanctions, gunboat interdictions and talks about having talks,” with “no immediate end in sight,” Axios said. With the midterms six months away, a “frozen conflict is the worst thing for Trump politically and economically,” said a source close to the president.

The United States has backed Israel since its founding as a modern state in 1948. That alliance is looking fragile these days, with recent polls suggesting American public support for its longtime ally has cratered amid deadly wars in Gaza, Iran and across the Middle East.

The number of Americans who now hold a “very or somewhat unfavorable view of Israel” is 60%, said Pew Research Center. That’s up seven points since last year, and “nearly 20 points since 2022.” There was once bipartisan support for Israel among U.S. voters, but 80% of Democrats now disapprove while 58% of Republicans approve. There has also been a departure from 25 years of polling, which long reported that “Israelis consistently held double-digit leads in Americans’ Middle East sympathies,” said Gallup. Americans now view Palestinians more sympathetically than Israel, by a margin of 41 to 36%.

‘Heavy-handed militarism’

The United States is “falling out of love” with Israel, Edward Luce said at Financial Times. Fewer Americans remember Yitzhak Rabin, the “courageous prime minister of Israel who sought peace with the Palestinians” but was assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli extremist. Benjamin Netanyahu has largely dominated Israeli politics since then, wielding a “heavy-handed militarism” in Gaza, and Americans have noted his role in persuading President Donald Trump “that it was a good idea to attack Iran.” Rabin lost his life for peace. “What will posterity say of Netanyahu?”

Netanyahu may be remembered as the “prime minister who lost Israel’s most important ally,” Michelle Goldberg said at The New York Times. The country’s faltering reputation is mostly a “consequence of its oppression of the Palestinians” and particularly the “mass killings” in Gaza during its war with Hamas. But the growing split is also the result of Netanyahu’s “aligning Zionism” with Trump’s “American authoritarianism.” U.S. views of Israel “could still have much further to fall.”

The United States “must stand with Israel,” Alex Tokarev said at The Detroit News. Like the U.S., Israel “values liberty” but is “surrounded by tyrants and terrorists determined to annihilate it.” A West that will not support its ally against such enemies “will not defend its own liberty.”

An ‘ominous turn’

Netanyahu has “torched U.S. support for Israel for a generation,” said Axios. The collapse can be seen among Democrats in Congress, where “lawmakers who started out staunchly pro-Israel are becoming increasingly vocal critics” of the U.S. ally. American leaders must “have a discussion about how to normalize” the relationship with Israel, Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) said to Axios.

An “unprecedentedly overwhelming majority of Democrats” last week voted against failed Senate resolutions to block weapons and bulldozer sales to Israel, said The Times of Israel. Americans are “sick and tired of spending billions of dollars to support Netanyahu’s horrific wars,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said to reporters, per the outlet. The votes to deny arms to Israel are an “ominous turn that will encourage Iran, Hezbollah and their terrorist allies around the Middle East,” The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial.

As conflict continues to destabilise the Middle East, the Gulf States elite are seeking solace in European alternatives that offer comparable financial benefits with a far lower risk of war on the doorstep. One such destination is the small Swiss town of Zug, which is becoming a “bolt-hole” for Gulf-based wealth, said the Financial Times.

‘Swiss Monaco’

Switzerland’s reputation as a magnet for the world’s financial elite is nothing new. In 2025, the country recorded the “densest concentration of millionaires” with an estimated 146 per 1,000 adults last year, said The Times. Now home to around 135,000 people, Zug’s canton – also named Zug – used to be the “poorest corner of Switzerland” until it lowered its tax rates in the 1950s. “Now it has corporate tax rates of 16.2% compared with 40% in the US and 33.3% in France.”

“In almost all ways Zug is unremarkable”, with its traditional Swiss architecture and cobbled waterfront lanes. But if its “Alpine lake water is clear”, the financial scene is more “murky”. Many credit Marc Rich and Pincus “Pinky” Green, founders of metals and minerals trading firm Glencore, with the transformation of Zug from a “Swiss backwater” to its status as the “Swiss Monaco”. The multinational is headquartered just outside Zug, and has made the town a “global powerhouse for trading crude and refined oil products”. It should be “no surprise” that the “1% of the world’s 1%” are taking shelter there, and at the same time, hoping to still “keep a hand in the oil business”.

“Industry estimates suggest that tens of billions of dollars could flow into Switzerland depending on how the current conflict evolves,” said the Outbound Investment Group. The “immediate trigger” for the “surge in interest” from Gulf-based investors is the war in the Middle East. However, Switzerland’s underlying appeal is its unwavering “Swissness”: “political neutrality”, “strong legal frameworks”, and reputation for wealth preservation. It’s a safe bet with no sign of slowing.

‘Availability tightening’

There are some drawbacks, said the FT. For “would-be arrivals”, the appeal of the region for Middle Eastern residents comes with “practical constraints”. Those outside the EU “face a higher bar”. Usually, the condition of residency is “tied” to employment or company formation. For the “very wealthy”, there is the added option of “negotiated lump-sum taxation agreements with cantonal authorities” that allow individuals to “pay a flat annual tax based on living expenses rather than global income”.

Even if they are holders of EU passports, the “main bottleneck” is the availability of property. Competition is “intense” and “rental supply is extremely limited, with properties often snapped up within days”. With Zug’s “availability tightening”, other cantons in the region with similar tax arrangements could benefit, such as Lugano, an Italian-speaking city in the Ticino region.

The uncertainty of the duration of the conflict is one of the most pressing concerns, said Bloomberg. The recent breakdown of ceasefire talks risks “forcing a reckoning for the professional and expat classes considering options after putting down roots in the Middle East”.

The short-term benefits of physical safety from leaving the Gulf are clear, but changing tax residency “takes time” and practicalities such as finding schools and “conforming to national requirements such as opening local bank accounts” is often “complicated and time-consuming”. The region’s ultra-wealthy are facing “uncomfortable decisions on whether to make the move permanent, especially with the end of the school year in sight”.

What happened

U.S. Marines boarded and took control of an Iranian cargo ship on Sunday after it breached President Donald Trump’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Central Command said. An Iranian military spokesperson warned that Iran “will soon respond and retaliate against this armed piracy.”

The seizure followed a weekend of mixed signals on the status of the strait and mutual accusations of violating the fragile ceasefire set to expire Wednesday. Trump said that his envoys would meet with Iranian negotiators in Pakistan on Tuesday, but Iran’s Foreign Ministry later said that Tehran had “no plans for the next round of negotiations” and has made “no decision” on further talks.

Who said what

Trump on Sunday said the U.S. was “offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL” to Iran, but if it did not accept, he would “knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!” Iran’s state media said Tehran saw “no clear prospect for productive talks” given the Trump administration’s “excessive demands” and shifting, “unrealistic requests.”

Both sides have “triggered a swirl of confusion over the status of peace talks,” The Wall Street Journal said, though Iran “made similar threats ahead of participating in the previous round of negotiations.” Pakistan “appeared to be preparing for the talks,” Reuters said, and U.S. “security equipment and vehicles” landed at an airbase in Islamabad over the weekend.

What next?

All the uncertainty “sent oil prices rising again,” The Associated Press said, and Iran this morning “warned it could keep up the global economic pain” and keep “inflicting political pain on Trump.”

What happened

A 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon took effect at midnight local time on Friday, though Hezbollah has not committed to the truce. President Donald Trump announced the ceasefire on Thursday after a flurry of diplomatic wrangling. The pause in fighting, if it holds, would remove one of the sticking points in U.S. peace talks with Iran, Hezbollah’s main backer.

Who said what

The State Department said Israel, as a “gesture of goodwill,” had agreed to pause “offensive operations” against Lebanese targets while reserving the “right to take all necessary measures in self-defense.” Lebanon was expected to take “meaningful steps” to prevent Hezbollah from attacking Israel.

Trump’s ceasefire pressure put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “in an awkward position,” The New York Times said. His “goal to gut Hezbollah is far from fulfilled, and he was swiftly assailed by his allies and critics” for agreeing to the truce. Israel’s security cabinet “heard about Trump’s announcement several minutes into” an “urgent conference call” Netanyahu had convened “to discuss the ceasefire and vote on it,” Axios said.

Netanyahu said in a subsequent statement that Israeli forces would remain in a 6-mile-deep “security zone” spanning southern Lebanon, “and we are not leaving.” Hezbollah said “Israeli occupation of our land” gave them “the right to resist it,” and it will act “based on how developments unfold.”

What next?

The temporary truce “will bring immediate relief” to war-ravaged Lebanon, The Wall Street Journal said. But “without Hezbollah at the negotiating table,” peace is “on shaky ground.”

What happened

The U.S. on Tuesday hosted the first direct meeting between Israel and Lebanon since 1993. Israel, which is occupying southern Lebanon as it attacks Hezbollah, continued trading strikes with the Iran-backed militia during the meeting. Israeli attacks have killed at least 2,124 people in Lebanon in six weeks of war, including 168 children and 88 health workers, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Israel said 13 soldiers and at least two Israeli citizens have been killed.

Who said what

Tuesday’s two-hour Washington, D.C., meeting “concluded with encouraging words and talk of further meetings,” The New York Times said, but “no firm commitments and no change in Israel’s refusal to halt its punishing military campaign” in Lebanon. Israel’s U.S. ambassador, Yechiel Leiter, said he and his Lebanese counterpart, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, had agreed “that the evil of Hezbollah must be eradicated.” Moawad said she had “underscored the need to preserve our territorial integrity and state sovereignty” and “called for a ceasefire.”

The Lebanese government’s “capacity to confront Hezbollah” is “limited,” the BBC said. Hezbollah said it won’t abide by any agreements from the bilateral talks. “What does Lebanon have to offer on a negotiating table?” a Lebanese government official said to The Washington Post. “Nothing.”

The Israel-Lebanon talks are “a process, not an event,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters. “Hezbollah and Israel have always helped each other to destabilize the government of Lebanon,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said. “It’s time for Israel and Lebanon to be working together.”

What next?

The U.S. State Department said Israel and Lebanon “agreed to launch direct negotiations” at an unspecified “time and venue.”

What happened

President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz after peace talks with Iran in Pakistan failed to produce a breakthrough. The U.S. Navy will blockade “any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait,” he said on social media. But U.S. Central Command had a different interpretation of Trump’s order, saying it would block only vessels entering or departing “Iranian ports and coastal areas,” starting this week.

Who said what

A U.S. naval blockade would cut off a “key source of financing for Iran’s government and military operations,” CNN said. But a blockade could be a “blow to the rest of the world as well,” exacerbating the “war-driven global energy crisis” and raising U.S. gas prices, The Washington Post said.

The problem for Trump is that “Americans have a much lower threshold of pain than the Iranians,” Andreas Krieg, a security expert at King's College London, said to The Associated Press. The Iranians “can sustain this for far longer than the world economy” and “the Americans,” and Trump doesn’t have “any tool in the toolbox in terms of the military lever” he can use “to get his way.”

What next?

The face-to-face peace talks, led on the U.S. side by Vice President JD Vance, “were the highest-level negotiations between the longtime rivals” since 1979, the AP said. Iran said it was open to continuing the talks, and “neither indicated what will happen after the ceasefire expires on April 22.”

Airlines are feeling the strain of swelling oil prices resulting from the Iran war and closure of the Strait of Hormuz. To deal with higher operating costs, many companies are making changes that shift the burden to consumers, including higher baggage fees, more fuel surcharges and canceled routes.

How are higher gas costs affecting airlines?

Airlines and their customers across the U.S. are being impacted but especially those based in four major hubs: Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and New York City. In these locations, the average price for a gallon of jet fuel is currently $4.25, according to the aviation trade association Airlines for America. On Feb. 27, the day before the war in Iran started, the average price was only $2.50. Airlines are also “facing an increase in the amount of fuel their aircraft use because of extra miles required to avoid flying over the conflict zone,” said The Guardian.

Fuel is already an expensive cost for aviators and is “generally airlines’ largest expense after labor,” said Quartz. Airlines are feeling the pressure as a result. If prices were to stay at their current level, it would mean an “extra $11 billion in annual expense just for jet fuel,” said United CEO Scott Kirby in a memo to employees. For “perspective, in United’s best year ever, we made less than $5 billion.”

How are airlines adapting?

Many are adding “extra fees and surcharges onto already rising ticket prices” to “recoup costs as the war in Iran causes fuel costs to surge,” said The New York Times. Luggage is one common area where airlines are bumping up the price. Delta and Southwest announced they would “start charging $10 more to check a bag on U.S. domestic flights,” days after United and JetBlue said the same.

The company with the most notable baggage changes may be American. The airline said it would “raise the fee by $10 each for the first and the second checked bag for travelers booking domestic and short-haul international flights,” said The Detroit News. The company also “increased the cost of a third checked bag by $50 to $200” for fliers and additionally announced an upcoming $5 increase on checked bags for passengers flying economy.

Some airlines are also including pricing for the fuel itself. Canada’s second-largest airline, WestJet, announced it would “add fuel surcharges of up to 60 Canadian dollars, or about $43, to some flights,” said the Times. Air Canada unveiled surcharges of 50 Canadian dollars to certain warm-weather destinations. For passengers, the decisions from airlines resulted in “rising fares and fees, fewer flight options and difficult decisions about whether a trip is worth the cost,” said The Associated Press.

Airlines are also cutting the number of places they go. Several Asian airlines have stated they would “cut flights to mitigate fuel shortages and mounting costs,” said Business Insider. Ryanair, Europe’s largest carrier, is also “considering reducing routes,” while Lufthansa could ground up to 40 planes. Air New Zealand will “cut about 5% of its flights, or about 1,100, at the start of May,” and in the U.S., United and Delta are both cutting routes.

As the world creeps toward peak travel season, industry leaders are taking notice of the fuel shortages. ACI Europe, an association representing airports in the European Union, notes these shortages could “hit within three weeks, disrupting summer travel and ‘significantly’ harming the European economy,” said CNBC. For people who still want to fly, experts say “flexibility and careful planning can help offset these costs,” said the AP, and “fare-tracking sites can alert travelers to price changes.”

What happened

The two-week ceasefire announced by President Donald Trump and Iranian officials earlier this week faltered Wednesday as the U.S., Iran and Israel argued over whether it covered the Israel-Hezbollah fight in Lebanon. Iran also accused the U.S. of violating several tenets of the agreement, and closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israeli strikes on Lebanon that killed at least 254 people and wounded 1,100 more.

Who said what

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key mediator of the ceasefire, said it applied to “everywhere, including Lebanon.” Israel said Lebanon was not included, and President Donald Trump agreed Wednesday. U.S. allies, including the leaders of France, Australia and Spain, said Lebanon needed to be covered by the ceasefire.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Lebanon was included, and the “ceasefire terms are clear and explicit: the U.S. must choose — ceasefire or continued war via Israel.” Vice President JD Vance called the dispute a “legitimate misunderstanding.” Iran likely “thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t,” he told reporters, adding that Israel nonetheless “actually offered to be — frankly, to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon.”

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “faced swift criticism from political opponents on the left and right” over the U.S.-Iran deal, Politico said. “The ceasefire stopped the Israeli military campaign much sooner than Israel wanted,” and while Netanyahu had “no choice but to go along,” he can claim ongoing Lebanon strikes “as a victory with the Israeli public.”

What next?

Despite Wednesday’s “dueling threats to resume attacks if the ceasefire fell apart,” The New York Times said, Trump “seemed determined to plow ahead” with diplomacy, saying Vance would lead a delegation to Islamabad for peace talks starting Saturday.

What happened

President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening said he had agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran, subject to a “COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz.” The announcement defused his threat from earlier in the day that “a whole civilization will die tonight” absent a deal.

Iran said it would abide by the ceasefire, proposed by Pakistan, but maintain control of the Strait of Hormuz. Israel also agreed to stop attacking Iran, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday morning the “ceasefire does not include Lebanon,” contradicting an earlier statement from Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Who said what

Iranian state TV said Trump had accepted Iran’s terms in a “humiliating retreat.” Trump told APF that the ceasefire was “100%” a “total and complete victory” for the U.S. His “apocalyptic threat” of civilizational erasure “certainly helped him find” the “offramp he had been seeking for weeks,” said The New York Times. But his “down-to-the-wire tactical victory” resolved “none of the fundamental issues that led to the war.”

The ceasefire’s terms were “clouded in uncertainty,” The Associated Press said. Trump said on social media that Iran’s 10-point plan was “a workable basis on which to negotiate.” But that plan appears to cross several of Trump’s red lines. Notably, Iran and Oman “plan to charge transit fees for vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz,” CNN said, something that wasn’t in place before the war. Iran’s caveat that “safe passage” through the strait was contingent on “coordination with Iran’s Armed Forces” and “technical limitations” means Iran will keep the “power to speed up passage, or slow it down,” The Wall Street Journal said. The U.S. will be “helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump posted. “Big money will be made,” and “Iran can start the reconstruction process.”

What next?

The “ceasefire appeared shaky in its early hours,” Politico said, with Iran firing missiles at Gulf Arab countries and Israel continuing to strike Iran. The U.S. and Iran “are expected to hold peace talks on Friday in Islamabad,” Axios said.