Reading view

News Wrap: Former Trump adviser John Bolton to plead guilty over classified information

In our news wrap Thursday, President Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton agreed to plead guilty to a felony count of illegally retaining classified information, U.S. officials say a flesh-eating insect detected in Texas livestock has not spread, Hezbollah rejects a ceasefire agreement with Israel and Lebanon and thousands got a sneak peek of the Obama Presidential Center.

  •  

Trump claims US and Iran on verge of signing peace agreement, but Tehran says no final decision made

Iranian leadership has not confirmed claim, after the US president announced that planned strikes on Iran had been cancelled

Donald Trump claimed on Thursday that Washington and Tehran were on the verge of signing a peace agreement, and announced that he was cancelling fresh missile strikes, after two days of escalating attacks on Iran that threatened to collapse the fragile ceasefire.

His comments followed a new bout of public diplomacy by social media, but were dismissed by Iran’s foreign ministry, which said a final decision on an agreement had not been reached.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/Pool/Aaron Schwartz - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/Pool/Aaron Schwartz - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/Pool/Aaron Schwartz - Pool/CNP/Shutterstock

  •  

Trump declares US-Iran peace deal ‘all signed’ as G7 leaders battle to tie up loose ends

US president says strait of Hormuz will be open from Friday but questions remain over waterway fees and Israeli breaches of ceasefire in Lebanon

Donald Trump has declared that the strait of Hormuz will be “completely open” from Friday, as western leaders gathering at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains battled to prevent the fragile US deal with Iran from almost immediately unravelling.

“The deal’s all signed. And the strait ⁠is already partially opened,” Trump said as he arrived at the summit in France, but Israeli breaches of the ceasefire in Lebanon and Iran’s claims about its right to charge fees in the crucial waterway revealed the agreement’s many loose ends.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Reuters

© Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Reuters

© Photograph: Anna Moneymaker/Reuters

  •  

Oil prices fall after Trump says he is cancelling strikes – as it happened

This blog is now closed – see our latest full report on the Middle East crisis

Three Indian seafarers were killed in a US attack on an oil tanker earlier this week, India’s shipping minister, ‌Sarbananda Sonowal, said.

“It is deeply unfortunate to learn of the tragic incident aboard the Palau-flagged MT Settebello. Sadly, three Indian seafarers initially reported missing are now confirmed dead after bodies have been located and identified,” he wrote in a post on X.

The Middle East is being pulled deeper into crisis & the consequences reach far beyond the region.”

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

© Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

© Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

  •  

Trump hails Iran deal that fixes nothing except a problem his war caused

Deal will leave things almost exactly as they were before feckless war of choice started

If we get to a Friday signing ceremony without this uncertain new US-Iran deal being derailed by any of its inherent ambiguities, then nuclear talks can finally restart in the same place – and at almost exactly the same point they were before this conflict started.

The world will have irrevocably been changed in other ways. There is no going back for the 120 Iranian children in Minab killed in their primary school in the war’s first hours, nor for their bereaved parents, or any of the thousands in Iran, Lebanon and around the region whose lives were erased or blighted by a feckless war of choice.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

  •  
❌