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Iran has denied that it has agreed to the inspections and warned against ‘exaggerations’
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President Donald Trump has insisted that he has Iran “on the ropes” as he hit out at a “poorly timed” Senate vote to limit his war powers.
He said the Senate vote on war powers related to Iran had made his job more difficult, but vowed that he would get it done “one way or the other”.
The US Senate backed legislation directing Trump to halt US military action against Iran, the latest rebuke of the Republican president from an increasingly restive Congress.
The Senate voted 50-48 in favour of the war powers resolution, which passed the House of Representatives early this month, reflecting growing concern even among some of Trump’s Republicans about the unpopular conflict.
Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said: “So, I have Iran on the ‘ropes,’ ready to go down for the fall, willing to give us practically anything.”
This comes as Iranian banks were hit by a cyber attack just days afterTrump said that frozen funds would be returned to the Islamic Republic as part of their initial deal to end the war.
Israel and Lebanon are discussing a US-backed pilot project under which Israeli troops would hand over control of some territory in southern Lebanon to the Lebanese Armed Forces, according to three Israeli officials.
The officials said the Lebanese troops involved would undergo US training and vetting to ensure they are not linked to Hezbollah, while Israel would maintain a military presence in the buffer zone.
Traffic has picked up in the Strait of Hormuz since Iran and the US signed an interim deal to end a war that constricted global oil supplies and fuelled inflation.
Data and analytics company Kpler said its tracking confirmed 131 ships traveled through the strait between Friday and Monday, including 39 crossings on Monday.
In contrast, about 100 to 130 vessels a day made the journey before the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February, and Tehran responded with its own attacks and effective closure of the waterway.
The main central route of the Strait of Hormuz is still mined and remains closed. Ships have been using the smaller northern route, which goes through Iranian waters, and the southern route, which goes through Omani waters.
Israel has deliberately and intentionally targeted Palestinian children during its military campaign in Gaza, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, a UN commission of inquiry has said.
A report released on Tuesday says that Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately and intentionally targeted Palestinian children, including after a ceasefire came into effect in October 2025.
It says that Israeli forces “deliberately carried out acts inflicting death and severe bodily and mental harm on hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children”, as part of a “deliberate strategy to destroy the future of the Palestinians in Gaza”.
Around 30 per cent of those killed in the Gaza war were children, the report found, with a total death toll of at least 20,179 by October 2025.
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US secretary of state Marco Rubio has begun a Middle East tour in earnest today, seeking to reassure Gulf allies who view concessions in president Donald Trump’s Iran deal that include a proposed $300bn fund as too generous to a regional foe.
Rubio is undertaking his first high-level diplomatic mission on the agreement reached last week to end the four-month-old US-Israeli war with Iran.
Asked on arrival in Abu Dhabi if he planned to address allies’ disquiet with the accord, Rubio told reporters: “That most certainly will come up in these discussions.”
He said they would also discuss issues not covered by the memorandum of understanding.America’s top diplomat has been largely absent from Iran-related discussions in recent weeks, with vice president JD Vance instead leading a round of talks with Iranian counterparts over the weekend in Switzerland.
Rubio’s remarks during his swing through the region will be closely scrutinised to see how the man once known as a hawkish critic of Iran frames a deal that many congressional Republicans argue amounts to capitulation.
The head of the UN’s nuclear agency today signaled that Iranian nuclear enrichment sites would be visited by his inspectors, a key component in the interim deal between the United States and Iran to reach an end to the war.
International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Mariano Grossi made the comments in Tokyo.”Whether this happens the day after tomorrow or in one week or in 10 days, it’s important, but not essential,” Grossi told reporters.
“This is going to happen.”Iran and the US have disputed whether or not bombed enrichment sites would be inspected. That’s key for the deal, which calls for Iran’s stockpile of uranium to be “downblended” from highly enriched levels.
US president Donald Trump this morning said that he has instructed the Department of Justice to look into oil companies for not lowering pump prices in line with falling crude costs.
“The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil. Those prices are dropping like a rock! In other words, customers are being “gouged,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this. Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing.”
Qatar’s prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said the Gulf state would resume normal liquefied natural gas production “within a few weeks”, the Financial Times reported.
Establishing a hotline between the US and Iran is essential to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, he told the FT in an interview.
Qatar Energy suspended LNG production after the US and Israel launched their war on Iran on 28 February following a drone attack on its huge Ras Laffan plant.
The US fighter pilot rescued by commandos after he was shot down by Iran in April has described how Iranian drones swarmed him in what appeared to be a “jellyfish” formation before he ejected from his plane, according to a report.
Iranian forces opened fire on the $31m F-15E Strike Eagle on 3 April, triggering a major search for the missing weapons-system officer, who held out in the mountains for hours before his dramatic rescue.
During a debriefing with intelligence officials, the pilot described seeing a unified and overwhelming drone formation resembling a jellyfish, sources familiar with the matter told CNN in a report published on Tuesday.
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At least four vessels operated by South Korean shippers exited the Strait of Hormuz to sail to their destinations, the South Korean maritime ministry said.
The ministry said that 18 of the 26 vessels that had been stranded since the start of the Middle East conflict were still in the Persian Gulf.
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