Trump ‘not at all’ concerned about possible war crimes
Donald Trump has said he is “not at all” concerned about committing possible war crimes as he threatened to destroy Iran’s infrastructure if Tehran does not open the Strait of Hormuz by his deadline.
He threatened to destroy bridges and power plants if the regime does not move on the blockade by 8pm Eastern Time on Tuesday.
“I’m not worried about it,” the US president said. “You know what’s a war crime? Having a nuclear weapon.”
At a news conference, Trump said all of Iran could be “taken out” in one night “and that night might be tomorrow night”, referring to Tuesday.
Israel and the US carried out a wave of attacks on Iran on Monday, killing more than 25 people. Iran responded with missile fire on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbours.
Diplomatic negotiations aimed at halting the war in the Middle East appeared to be faltering a day before a deadline imposed by Donald Trump with a threat to destroy Iran’s bridges and attack its power plants.
Mediators from Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey want both sides to agree to a ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, to be followed by a period of detailed negotiations intended to reach a more complete peace agreement.
Iran, however, said it wanted a permanent end to the war, not a ceasefire. It submitted its own 10-point peace plan, according to the country’s Iran news agency, and called for a “permanent end to the war in line with Iran’s considerations, while rejecting a ceasefire”.
Trump acknowledged Iran’s proposal as he spoke to reporters during an Easter egg event for children at the White House on Monday and said it was insufficient. “It’s a significant step. It’s not good enough,” he said. -AP
Strikes continued in Iran and in the region overnight. Israel said it targeted three airports and a petrochemical facility, while Iran launched another wave of missiles towards Israel.
The Israeli military meanwhile told Iranian citizens that “your presence on trains and near railway lines endangers your life”, according to a post made on X.
The King Fahd Causeway, a key bridge linking Saudi Arabia to the island kingdom of Bahrain, closed early on Tuesday due to threats. The King Fahd Causeway Authority made the announcement in a post on X. It said vehicle movements had been “suspended as a precautionary measure” over Iranian attacks targeting Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.
The 25km bridge is the only connection by road for Bahrain – home to the US navy’s 5th Fleet – to the Arabian Peninsula, the Associated Press reports.
Negotiations enter ‘critical, sensitive’ stage
Pakistan’s “positive and productive” efforts to stop the US-Israeli war with Iran are approaching a “critical, sensitive” stage, Iran’s Ambassador to Pakistan Reza Amiri Moghadam said in a post on X on Tuesday.
Russia helping Iran strike US targets
Russian satellites have made dozens of detailed imagery surveys of military facilities and critical sites across the Middle East to help Iran strike US forces and other targets, according to a Ukrainian intelligence assessment.
The conclusions, reviewed by Reuters, also found that Russian and Iranian hackers were collaborating in the cyber domain. They represent the most detailed account yet of how Russia has provided secret support to Iran since Israel and the US launched their assault on February 28th.
Russian satellites, the undated assessment said, made at least 24 surveys of areas in 11 Middle Eastern countries from March 21st to 31st, covering 46 “objects”, including US and other military bases and sites including airports and oil fields.
Within days of being surveyed, military bases and headquarters were targeted by Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, the assessment said, in what it described as a clear pattern.
A Western military source and a separate regional security source told Reuters that their intelligence also indicated intense Russian satellite activity in the region and said that imagery had been shared with Iran.
Nine surveys covered parts of Saudi Arabia, including five over the King Khalid Military City near Hafar Al-Batin, in what appeared to be an effort to locate elements of the US-made Thaad air defence system, the Ukrainian assessment said. - Reuters
Global stocks wavered on Tuesday, while oil prices were perched above $110 (about €95) per barrel as the prospect of escalation in the war in the Middle East and the looming deadline for a deal to be reached kept nervy investors on the sidelines.
Markets have been rattled since the US-Israel war on Iran broke out at the end of February, with Tehran effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil transit chokepoint that has spurred inflation worries.
While investors have pinned their hopes on a resolution to the war, the talks so far have yielded no progress, with Trump imposing a deadline of 1am on Wednesday (Irish time) for a deal to be reached. -Reuters
An Israeli air strike killed at least 10 people and wounded several others outside a school housing displaced Palestinians on Monday, health officials said, in the latest violence overshadowing the fragile US-backed Gaza ceasefire deal.
Before the strikes, some Palestinians had clashed with members of an Israeli-backed militia who they accused of attacking the school in an attempt to abduct some people, medics and residents said. - Reuters
Protests over fuel prices may cause delays on roads
Road users have been advised to allow extra time for journeys this morning as a number of protests against the price of fuel are due to take place in various locations around the country.
An Garda Síochána said the protest activity is “proposed to take the form of slow-moving convoys of vehicles on the main arteries leading to Dublin and in the vicinity of large urban areas across the country from after 8am”.
Dublin Airport has advised passengers travelling to the airport “to allow extra time for their journey due to the possibility of traffic disruption on roads around the airport”.
Current oil and gas crisis ‘worse than 1973, 1979, 2002 together’, energy chief says
The current oil and gas crisis triggered by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is “more serious than the ones in 1973, 1979 and 2002 together”, Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), told Le Figaro newspaper.
“The world has never experienced a disruption to energy supply of such magnitude,” he said in an interview with the French newspaper released in its Tuesday edition.
He said the European countries, as well Japan, Australia and others will suffer, but the countries most at risk were developing nations that will suffer from higher oil and gas prices, higher food prices and a general acceleration of inflation.
The IEA member countries agreed last month to release part of their strategic reserves. Some of this had already been released and the process continues, said Birol.
In reaction to the strikes by Israel and the US, Iran has almost entirely blocked the traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 per cent of world oil and gas regularly flows, creating a surge in energy prices. - Reuters
About 18 per cent of French petrol stations were lacking some kind of fuel on Tuesday morning, junior energy minister Maud Bregeon said.
French oil major TotalEnergies has set a ceiling on its retail prices in France, below what other brands charge, which led to supply issues at some stations, she said in an interview on news TV channel BFM TV.
There is no overall problem of supply, she said, with only a problem of logistics because of demand changes. - Reuters
As negotiations to end the war continue, civilians on the ground are surveying the destruction.
Iran war jeopardises US global leadership, warns Italian minister
The Iran war has put US global leadership on the line, Italy’s defence minister Guido Crosetto said, expressing fear about the “madness” of nuclear escalation.
Like some other Nato allies reluctant to join Trump’s attacks on Iran, Italy last week denied permission for US military aircraft to land at the Sigonella air base in Sicily en route to the Middle East.
“This war is also putting the United States at risk in its global leadership,” Crosetto told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published on Tuesday. Crosetto, a close ally of Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, who has a good relationship with Trump, said he worried the conflict could take an even worse turn and cited the 1945 US nuclear bombings of Japan in the second World War.
“Just think: it was human beings like us who decided that even Hiroshima and Nagasaki were acceptable means of ending a conflict. Unfortunately, we still possess nuclear weapons, and those who do not have them are seeking to acquire them. We have learned nothing,” he said.
“The risk is madness, and what we are experiencing is a conflict in which every action triggers a reaction at a higher level”.
Crosetto, who is due to address parliament about the Iran war later on Tuesday, said Trump should have braver advisers.
“One of the problems of this presidency is that no one dares contradict the boss,” he said.
With Trump angry at Europe’s stance on the war, Crosetto said Italy has not given the US permission to use its bases in other circumstances than those that arose last week. Meloni, who has so far refrained from taking a hard line against the war, visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates over the weekend to show support for Gulf nations facing Iranian attacks and to protect Italy’s energy supplies as the world grapples with rising fuel prices. - Reuters
Iran’s Mehr news agency is reporting that Khorramabad Airport has been targeted in a US-Israeli attack. More as we get it.
Fuel protests causing traffic delays around the country
There are reports of heavy traffic in several locations around the country as people stage slow-moving convoys protesting high fuel prices caused by the war.
You can read the latest updates in our live story on the protests here.
Eurozone investor morale plunges, Sentix survey shows
The Sentix index measuring investor morale in the eurozone fell sharply in April, stung by higher energy prices and supply chain disruptions from the US-Israeli war on Iran.
The index fell to -19.2 points, down from -3.1 the month before, the survey showed on Tuesday, worse than forecasts by analysts polled by Reuters for a reading of -9 points.
“Investors realise that recession is once again on the table,” Sentix said.
Sentix likened the decline to that of a year earlier, when Trump began to increase tariffs.
“The attacks on energy infrastructure and disruptions to shipping in the Persian Gulf are weighing even more heavily on people’s minds than they did four weeks ago,” Sentix added
The survey of 1,047 investors was taken from April 2nd to 4th. - Reuters
A strike on a residential area in Iran’s Alborz province has killed at least 18 people and wounded 24 others, according to Fars news agency.
Turkey is not facing any problems regarding energy supply security due to the Iran war but the situation is “volatile”, energy minister Alparslan Bayraktar was quoted as saying by Turkish media on Tuesday.
“We hope the war will not last any longer. But the process is currently under our control,” Bayraktar told reporters on Monday evening after a cabinet meeting, broadcaster Haberturk reported. “There is no problem or difficulty in energy supply security.”
Turkey is a big energy importer which neighbours Iran and is among the most exposed emerging market economies to the global energy price jump. Bayraktar said in late March that Turkey’s dependence on Middle East oil was at a “manageable” 10 per cent of total supplies and that the country had taken protective diversification steps. - Reuters
Government doing ‘as much as it can’ to respond to rising fuel prices, minister says
The Government will do “as much as it can for as long as it can” to respond to rising fuel prices, Minister for Higher Education James Lawless has said.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1, Lawless said: “We’ve cut the price of diesel and petrol at the pumps. We’ve extended the winter heating scheme into another four weeks. So we’re doing as much as we can for as long as we can, but one of the things about this war, this situation, is it’s moving so rapidly and it is quite a volatile situation. So the war could ramp up or the war could ramp down.“
Vivienne Clarke reports that Lawless said the Government had “to do something that’s sustainable, that’s costed, that’s repeatable, and the taxpayer ultimately can stand over”.
“So we’re taking it one step at a time. We are engaging with industry, trying to manage people’s expenses, because we know it’s hard, and pump heating in particular is a strain,” he said.
“We just don’t know where this is going to take us. We have to step carefully in a way that is sustainable and that the economy can afford.
The Government was looking at both short-term and long-term measures, he said.
“I think with the long term, we need to look at our energy mix. We just need to really drive it home, the longer that we’re importing fossil fuels from outside the EU, the longer we will continue to be dependent on oil stocks or gas stocks or these kind of surprises in the markets and these kinds of exposures.”
The chief executive of the business organisation Dublin Town has warned that today’s fuel price protests could erode goodwill, Vivienne Clarke reports.
Richard Guiney told Newstalk’s Claire Byrne show that while he had sympathy for everybody in the current circumstances, businesses were also facing large energy price increases. The experience from previous similar protests was that the city continued to function, but protestors lost the goodwill of people who could have been their allies, he said.
“I’m not sure that they’re going to get what they want out of this kind of protest. And, you know, in terms of the general public, a lot of people will just work from home during the protests.”
Guiney anticipated there would be a decrease in footfall in the city centre today, “probably in the region of about 10 per cent”.
He continued: “Those businesses, particularly in the retail side of the house, are already - with all the other options that are out there, online shopping, etc - are feeling a fair amount of stress.
“Obviously, we all need a strong economy, that’s what we need to work together towards.”
Kremlin says the world is lining up for Russian energy
The Kremlin said on Tuesday there were a huge number of requests for Russian energy supplies from a range of different places amid the global energy crisis.
Russia is the world’s second largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia and holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves.
President Vladimir Putin has suggested switching supplies away from European customers who have repeatedly said they no longer want to buy Russian energy due to the war in Ukraine.
“Now that the world has confidently embarked on the path of a rather serious economic and energy crisis, which is growing day by day, the market and market conditions in the field of energy and energy resources have completely changed,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“There are a huge number of requests for the purchase of our energy resources from alternative sources. We are negotiating, we are negotiating in such a way that this situation best suits our interests.” - Reuters
Israel and US strike civilian targets in Iran in possible war crimes
Israel and the US struck 17 civilian targets on Tuesday morning, the Iranian Red Crescent said, in attacks that the humanitarian NGO have decried as war crimes.
In a statement posted on X, the Iranian Red Crescent said there was no justification for attacking defenceless civilians and to do so was a war crime.
Donald Trump earlier said he was “not at all” concerned about committing possible war crimes as he again threatened to destroy Iran’s bridges and power plants if Tehran does not meet his deadline (1am on Wednesday, Irish time) to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
A spokesman for UN secretary general Antonio Guterres told the Associated Press on Monday international law bars the attacking of such infrastructure. “Even if specific civilian infrastructure were to qualify as a military objective,” Stephane Dujarric said, an attack would still be prohibited if it risks “excessive incidental civilian harm”. - Reuters
Iran on Tuesday attacked a petrochemical complex in Saudi Arabia’s Jubail industrial city, located in the Eastern province, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency said.
The Saudi government communications office, state oil giant Aramco and its petrochemicals subsidiary SABIC did not immediately respond to requests for comment. - Reuters
Pilots must be given final say on flying in war zones, aviators’ group says
Pilots must be given a “final and non-negotiable” say allowing them to refuse to fly over or within conflict zones without influence from commercial pressures, global union group International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA) said.
The position paper on Monday from IFALPA comes as the six-week-long Iran war is reshaping airspace across the Middle East and increasing disruptions to flights due to drone and missile attacks and interceptions, heightening safety risks for airline crew members and their passengers.
Montreal-based IFALPA said airlines should recognise how conflict zone operations can create mental and emotional strain in the cockpit.
“The Commander’s decision regarding the conduct or rerouting of a flight, including refusal to overfly a conflict zone, must be final and non-negotiable,” the paper said. “Additionally, this decision must not be influenced by financial or other incentives, career repercussions or other penalties, or commercial pressures.”
While many carriers have cancelled services to affected destinations, Dubai-based Emirates is now operating at about 69 per cent of its normal capacity and Qatar Airways at 26 per cent, according to Flightradar24 data. That equates to hundreds of flights per day in airspace that has been targeted by Iranian missiles and drones. - Reuters
A senior Iranian source has told Reuters that Tehran has rejected any temporary ceasefire with the US.
The source said Iran has set preconditions for talks with the US for “a lasting peace”.
Preconditions include an immediate halt to strikes, guarantees strikes will not be repeated and compensation for damages. - Reuters
Three people shot outside Israeli consulate in Istanbul
One person was killed and two others injured in an incident near the Israeli consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday.
Initial reports said three people were killed, but authorities have since said one person was killed and two others were injured.
Davut Gul, governor of Istanbul, told reporters at the scene that three individuals were armed with rifles and pistols before engaging police in a firefight.
According to Gul, one attacker was killed and two others were wounded. Two police officers were also wounded, he said.
It’s still unclear what the attackers were seeking to achieve.
Gul said there have been no Israeli diplomatic staff at the consulate in Istanbul for two and a half years.
Turkey’s interior minister Mustafa Çiftçi said the attackers had been “neutralised”.
“Three individuals who engaged in an armed clash with our police officers on duty in front of the Yapi Kredi Plaza Blocks in Istanbul have been neutralised,” he wrote in a post on X.
“In the clash, two of our heroic police officers sustained minor injuries. The identities of the terrorists have been identified.
“It has been determined that the individuals, who arrived in Istanbul by a rental vehicle from Izmit, include one with ties to an organisation that exploits religion; and it has also been established that one of the two terrorists, who are brothers, has a drug record.”
- Reuters and The Guardian
The Israeli military said it completed a wide wave of attacks across Iran on Tuesday.
One of the strikes targeted a bridge on the Tabriz-Zanjan highway in Iran’s northwest, Iranian newspaper Etemad is reporting.
- Reuters
A spokesperson for the Qatar foreign ministry said the country supports Pakistan-led mediation efforts to end the war, but is not itself mediating between the US and Iran. - Reuters
Fuel convoy protests arrive in Dublin city centre
The various convoys protesting fuel prices have begun to arrive in Dublin city. Reporter Cian O’Connell is on the scene at O’Connell Street.
A small number of tractors have parked up outside the GPO, where speeches by fuel protest organisers are set to take place this afternoon, he reports. Several dozen protesters have gathered there on foot.
At the top of O’Connell Street, Gardaí are redirecting regular, southbound traffic away from the River Liffey, though some trucks and larger vehicles are being allowed to pass through.
Read the latest updates here.
An unknown projectile struck a container vessel south of Iran’s Kish Island, the UK Office of Maritime Trade Operations said on Tuesday. The crew is safe and no environmental impact has been reported.
The incident remains under investigation – it’s still unclear who launched the projectile and whether the container vessel was the intended target. - Reuters
‘No winners’ if war continues - Qatar
A Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson has said Hormuz is a natural strait, not a canal, and all countries in the region have the right to use it freely.
The spokesperson said there would be “no winners” if the war in the Middle East continues.
Attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure by any party should not be accepted, they added. - Reuters
