US forces completed a new round of strikes against Iran, hitting more than 80 targets, US Central Command says. The comments come as Iran’s top joint military command says US army targeted parts of southern Iran in “blatant aggression” and vowed to give a “crushing response”.
Iran has accused the US of violating the agreement aimed at ending the war between the two sides, after the US military launched strikes around the strait of Hormuz and revoked a temporary sanctions waiver for Tehran to export oil. The US military said the attacks launched in the early hours of Wednesday were in response to Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels that were transiting through the strait of Hormuz on Tuesday. “Iran’s demonstrated aggression was unwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation of the ceasefire,” US central command said, referring to the three tankers, including a Qatari LNG vessel, that were struck within hours in the strait. Wednesday’s attacks were the latest in a string of ceasefire violations between the two sides, despite a truce that came into effect in April, and the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) last month that began 60 days of negotiations to resolve the issue of Iran’s nuclear program and bring a permanent end to hostilities. US officials speaking to multiple media outlets said Wednesday’s attacks targeted Iranian weapon launch sites, air defences and coastal surveillance system, and the operation was expected to “last for hours”. Iranian state media reported a series of explosions on the Iranian island of Qeshm in the strait of Hormuz, and in the city’s of Sirik and Bandar Abbas. Iran’s foreign ministry accused the US of repeated violations of the MOU and warned that it would take “decisive measures” in response. Among the breaches of the agreement the ministry cited, was the US treasury decision on Tuesday to revoke the temporary suspension of sanctions on Iranian oil sales. The US lifted sanctions on Iranian oil exports last month after signing the MOU, but re-imposed them on Tuesday after the attack on vessels in the strait of Hormuz. The waiver on Iranian oil exports proved to be controversial among critics of the Trump administration’s Iran agreement, who said it amounted to the surrender of a key tool of economic leverage, before negotiations over the nuclear program had even begun. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre (UKMTO) said a Qatari tanker, Al Rekayyat, was among the vessels hit on Tuesday as it tried to travel south out of the strait toward the Gulf of Oman. Qatar has been acting as a mediator in the talks between Washington and Tehran, but its foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, called it a “serious and explicit violation” of international law and said Qatar would hold Iran fully responsible for the act of aggression. All three tankers were hit close to Oman, which has proposed a new shipping corridor close to its coastline, a suggestion which Iran opposes as it wants to charge ships to use the waterway. Iran said on Tuesday that Washington’s efforts to open up new routes through the strait constituted a breach of the memorandum of understanding the two parties had signed. Tehran claims the memorandum is specifically worded to leave it, in consultation with Oman, to manage the reopening of the strait with the aim of commercial traffic returning to prewar levels within 30 days. Experts have said that the vague wording of the MOU has left both sides interpreting the agreement in different ways, with the repeated misunderstandings a continuing threat the ceasefire. Wednesday’s strikes from the US came during the days-long funeral for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the beginning of the war. Tuesday saw huge crowds mourning Khamenei in the holy city of Qom, with hundreds of thousands of people carrying flags and banners comparing Khamenei to revered Shi’ite martyrs. Some bore placards and banners reading “KILL TRUMP“.
Michael Owen, a man who once quipped he had never drunk tea or coffee, isn’t known for his adventurous palate. Safe to assume, then, that the former England striker was out of his comfort zone sipping Roxburgh rose juice and eating chilli-wrapped rice noodle rolls during his recent visit to south-west China’s Guizhou province. The 2001 Ballon d’Or winner dusted off his boots for a match in Rongjiang county, the birthplace of viral amateur football league Cun Chao, also known as the Village Super League. Scoring twice in a 4-3 loss for local side Rongjiang Niubi, Owen endeared himself to the thousands in attendance, even if some weren’t familiar with the former Liverpool and Real Madrid player. “Many people didn’t know who he was. The older generation doesn’t even know who David Beckham or Cristiano Ronaldo are,” May, a Rongjiang local whose family helps run Cun Chao, says. “But what left a deep impression was watching him play football with the local players. There were also very young schoolchildren who had been preparing for days to interview him in English. Owen was very patient in communicating with them.” Guizhou’s amateur tournament became an unexpected viral hit in 2023, drawing the attention of tens of millions on social media, including from Owen. Tourists began flocking to the rural, mountainous community, as crowds of more than 10,000 watched farmers, construction workers and students represent their local village teams. “When it started, Guizhou was amazing. Chinese tourists found there was a place where ordinary people played football … It became an internet sensation,” says Rowan Simons, a China football expert who founded one of the country’s first amateur networks in the early 2000s. “It’s quite remarkable that China is latching on to amateur football 150 years after the rest of the world.” The league’s success – the fourth season of Cun Chao that kicked off in January had 137 village teams – has inspired similar initiatives by local governments across China hoping to replicate its popularity. Amateur football has since become a national phenomenon, drawing larger attendances than many European professional leagues. It has even drawn praise from the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, who said in his 2024 new year’s speech that it “presents a vibrant and flourishing China to the world”. ‘China is fundamentally a top-down country’ Yuming, a 24-year-old lifelong fan of Chinese Super League (CSL) club Beijing Guo’an in the top tier of professional football, says China’s amateur leagues fill a “similar gap to college sports in the US and non-league football in England”. “The local feel is the single biggest attraction to these competitions,” he says. “It was easy for people to jump in since the [geographical] allegiance is already there.” But while this nascent love affair with the local game has drawn comparisons to British football’s formative years, in which amateur sides evolved into today’s multi-billion pound industry, experts remain sceptical that China has finally found a formula to develop its long-absent grassroots football scene. Mark Dreyer, the Beijing-based founder of website China Sports Insider, doesn’t believe authorities will allow the amateur game room to grow organically. “The more successful it becomes, the more it’s going to get co-opted by the state and the football association and the sports ministry. Then all of their bad decisions are going to start impacting these more organic leagues,” Dreyer says. Poor governance has long held back China’s professional game. In 2016, the country’s football association outlined its vision to become a “world football superpower” by 2050, including getting 50 million children and adults playing by 2020. What followed was an ill-fated spending spree, in which international stars were handed lucrative contracts to join the CSL. The splurge ended in the early 2020s as several clubs folded amid funding issues and corruption scandals. Today, China’s men’s national team has made little progress, languishing 91st in the Fifa world rankings and failing to qualify for a sixth consecutive World Cup this year. Dreyer says this failure is due to Chinese authorities applying their customary top-down approach to football. “Football needs to be bottom-up, but China is fundamentally a top-down country. Everything stems from the top, so they focus on the elites instead of focusing on the base of the pyramid,” he says. “Every country has done it, it’s not rocket science. But China doesn’t work that way.” The Chinese Football Association was contacted for comment about the state of the grassroots game but had not replied by time of publication. Local leagues like Cun Chao, and its copycats, may seem to offer the antidote. But Simons cautions that even provincial tournaments that have sprung up in Cun Chao’s wake can’t truly be considered “grassroots”. “It happened [organically] in Guizhou, and other provincial governments jumped on the bandwagon,” he says. “It has appeared from nowhere in two years … regional governments saw the cultural and tourism benefits and created these amateur leagues.” Crucially, the amateur leagues aren’t part of a larger pyramid connected to China’s professional game, and so their potential as a talent pipeline is limited. “There still isn’t a pathway to go from amateur through to professional,” says Simons. But that’s of little concern to the regional governments running the roughly 13 leagues that have sprung up around China since 2023. Football is almost a “sideshow”, says Dreyer, with match days serving as hyperlocal celebrations of ethnic heritage, food and culture. Beijing Guo’an fan Yuming says the matches are accompanied by “non-footballing activities like a food market before and after, half-time shows featuring local cultural icons, which makes it more of a spectacle”. An amateur match with a crowd of more than 60,000 The model is hugely popular. The most successful Cun Chao clone is Jiangsu province’s Jiangsu Football City League, known as Su Chao, which consists of 13 teams. The league’s final in November saw 62,329 fans – just shy of China’s spectator record of 65,769 for a domestic club match – pack into Nanjing’s Olympic sports centre. The league’s average attendance in the later rounds of the competition exceeded 30,000. In France, the average attendance across the whole Ligue 1 season was about 27,500. “It’s a great way to bring more people into a football stadium to see the beautiful game,” Yuming says. “Who knows, maybe our next generation of footballers might have gotten into football because they attended Su Chao games as a small kid?” Dreyer doubts the transformative potential of these leagues, but agrees that “anything that gets people playing or watching football is a fantastic thing”. Back in Rongjiang, local May describes Cun Chao’s appeal to her community, and also captures the sentiments of amateur football fans worldwide. “These [players] are our own people; it all happens right here among us, and they’re all our relatives and friends,” she says. “Since the players are so closely connected to us, we pay much more attention than to the Chinese Super League, or even the World Cup.” Additional reporting by Yu-chen Li
The US military launched a series of “powerful” strikes against Iran, it announced on Tuesday night, in response to what it said were “unwarranted, dangerous” Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels in the strait of Hormuz. In a statement on social media, US Central Command accused Tehran of a “clear violation” of the ceasefire agreement between US and Iran, which was signed last month. The attacks were designed “to impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway”, it added. Qatar has warned Iran it will bear full legal responsibility after three tankers, including a Qatari LNG vessel, were struck within hours in the strait. All three were hit close to Oman, which had suggested a new shipping corridor close to its coastline – a proposal Iran opposes, as it wants to charge ships to use the waterway. Iran blamed the US for the incident on Tuesday, saying Washington’s efforts to open up new routes through the strait constituted a breach of the memorandum of understanding the two parties had signed. Tehran claims the memorandum is specifically worded to leave it, in consultation with Oman, to manage the reopening of the strait with the aim of commercial traffic returning to prewar levels within 30 days. At a briefing in Tehran, foreign ministry officials insisted Iran had a right to impose fees on all ships using the strait. “Securing the strait for navigation for safe passage is itself a service,” said the foreign ministry spokesperson, setting terms for the long-term management of the strait that are likely to be rejected by Oman and western shipping interests. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre (UKMTO) said a Qatari tanker, Al Rekayyat, was hit near Limah, Oman, as it tried to travel south out of the strait toward the Gulf of Oman. In a mayday call, the Al Rakayyat crew were heard sending out a message: “We’re being hit by a drone top of port side near engine room.” It was the first time a Qatari ship has been struck since the start of the war between the US and Iran on 28 February. Qatar has been acting as a mediator in the talks, but its foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, called it a “serious and explicit violation” of international law and said Qatar would hold Iran fully responsible for the act of aggression. Iran’s foreign ministry claimed the memorandum left it alone to manage the reopening the strait, “but the US has been trying somehow to open new routes”. The spokesperson also rejected a proposal from Oman to build a new authority for the strait modelled on the Malacca and Singapore strait, where fees are charged only for specific navigational services not including security. “For a long time we have been generous enough not to ask for anything. Providing security is costly, and Iran and Oman have been doing that for a long time. So from now on we’re going to ask for necessary costs when we provide related services, including securing the safe passage,” the spokesperson said. He added: “When you provide in the English Channel you call it deep sea piloting, for instance, you call it different names, but that’s the same.” However, deep sea pilotage in busy waterways is regarded as voluntary. Iran will face criticism that it is demanding ships pay a compulsory fee or risk being attacked – a situation close to a protection scheme. Tehran argues the strait became contested only because of American aggression. Iran’s foreign ministry also firmly rejected proposals from France and the UK that they start to de-mine and secure the southern route through the strait close to the Oman shore. The spokesperson said: “When France and others said they were ready to help, we said ‘no thank you’ – this is for Iran to do it and we know how to do it.” Saudi Arabia condemned Iran’s targeting of the Saudi-flagged tanker Wedyan and the Qatari tanker Al Rekayyat as they transited the strait of Hormuz, saying the attacks threatened international navigation and global energy supplies. “The kingdom stresses its demand that Iran immediately stop all actions that threaten the security of the region and the safety of international navigation and energy supplies,” the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. The ministry said Saudi Arabia held Iran “fully responsible for these attacks, their damage and all their repercussions”. Qatar summoned Iran’s deputy ambassador to Qatar to register its protest amid reports the ship’s crew had abandoned the vessel. Reports that at least three other ships had been attacked in the past 24 hours have not been confirmed.
Donald Trump has revived his bid for the US to acquire Greenland, threatening to pull all American armed forces out of Europe after the continent repeatedly pushed back. Arriving at the Nato summit in Ankara on Tuesday, the US president also suggested his commitment to defending Europe had been tempered by political decisions by leaders on immigration and energy. Keir Starmer and European allies have been determined to avoid another public bust-up with Trump over defence spending after a bruising year for Nato, in which the Iran war once again exposed cracks in the alliance. The UK has already pushed back on criticism from the US that some allies are “lagging behind” on funding, with Trump expected to rebuke countries, including the UK, for not making enough progress on hitting the target of spending 3.5% of GDP by 2035. As Trump arrived in Turkey, he suggested that Starmer’s decision to keep out of the war against Iran had contributed to his downfall, whereas the prime minister’s stance had in fact been popular with the British public. “I was very disappointed with Nato. We weren’t treated well because we did something in Iran. We don’t need anybody’s help, but before I asked they said they wouldn’t be there,” the US president told reporters. “In the case of the United Kingdom, the prime minister, I guess he’s no longer there, maybe because of this, it was a very unpopular thing he did. He said: ‘No, we’ll help after the war is over.’ I said: ‘We don’t need that kind of help.’” Reviving an earlier row, Trump also suggested that the disagreement about the ownership of Greenland – which is part of Denmark, a fellow Nato member – had “hurt” his relationship with the military alliance. “Denmark doesn’t spend money to really help Greenland, but it’s an important part for the US, and it’s surrounded by China ships and Russian ships … [It] should be controlled by the US, not by Denmark. And when they wouldn’t go along with it, and with all the money we spend to help them with Russia,” he said. “We don’t have to spend any money; we could remove all of our soldiers out of Europe because, as you probably noticed, Europe’s a very different place than it was 20 years ago … they better be careful with immigration and energy. If they’re not careful with those two things, you’re not going to have a Europe any more.” In response, Rachel Reeves, the UK chancellor, told reporters: “The future of Greenland is up to the people of Greenland and of Denmark, and not up to the US president. I’ve been very clear about that ever since it was first suggested.” Trump also renewed his criticism that Nato allies do not spend enough on defence and are too reliant on the US – an argument European members are attempting to meet head-on by announcing multi-billion-pound defence collaborations. “Why are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars and they’re not there for us? We’ve always been there for them,” he said, although Nato’s mutual defence clause has only ever been triggered after the September 11 attacks on New York, where allies joined US troops in Afghanistan. The UK will lead a £37bn European project to develop a long-range missile that could strike thousands of milies behind Russia’s frontline with Ukraine as part of efforts to end Nato’s reliance on the US. Amid ongoing uncertainty over Trump’s commitment to the alliance, the UK will work with countries including France, Germany and the Baltic states to produce its own deep-precision strike capability. The new weapon, which would be the most advanced Nato has at its disposal, could strike targets between 200 miles and 1,200 miles away with pinpoint accuracy, meaning from Ukraine it could hit military targets well behind Russian lines, and could even reach Moscow. As Labour struggles to fund a steep increase in defence spending to meet Nato targets, Reeves suggested for the first time that the “multilateral defence mechanism” of off-balance sheet financing could be merged with Canada’s Defence, Security and Resilience Bank initiative. Supporters argue the Canadian-led scheme, which was supported by John Healey when he was defence secretary but opposed by the Treasury, would give the UK access to a bank with £86bn of lending capability for defence projects, for a UK subscription of £900m.
Marine Le Pen has said she will be a candidate in France’s presidential race next year, after a court ruling on her appeal against a conviction for embezzlement of public funds allowed her to run. However, the path ahead is far from straightforward. Here is a look at the ruling, the case that led up to it, Le Pen’s response – and what might happen next in the race to succeed Emmanuel Macron as French president. What did the court decide? The appeal court upheld a lower court’s verdict from March 2025 that found Le Pen guilty of misusing EU funds. However, it reduced the length of both parts of the original sentence – a ban on holding public office and a part-suspended jail term. The appeal court handed the three-time presidential candidate, who has transformed her far-right National Rally (RN) from an extreme fringe group to the largest single party in the French parliament, a 45-month ban from office, of which 30 months were suspended. Finding her guilty of misuse of European public funds in her capacity as an MEP and the then president of the RN, it also ruled that Le Pen, 57, must serve a three-year jail term, with two suspended and the third spent under house arrest with an electronic ankle tag. In March 2025, the lower court had sentenced Le Pen to a five-year ban from holding public office, with immediate effect, and a four-year prison term, with two years suspended – in effect putting her fourth run for France’s presidency on hold until an appeal was heard. What was the case about? Along with 23 former MEPs, assistants and accountants, as well as the National Rally as a party, Le Pen was accused of running a system that used money meant for employing European parliamentary assistants to pay staff working for the party in France. The defendants were suspected of having embezzled €4.4m between 2004 and 2016, at first under Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, and, after 2011, under her. A personal secretary and a bodyguard were among employees declared as parliamentary assistants. “Marine Le Pen asserted herself with authority and determination within the framework established by her father,” the lower court ruled, playing a “central role” in “optimising” a system designed to “save [the party] money thanks to the European parliament”. Le Pen claimed her party was the victim of a “witch-hunt” and, with 10 others, appealed, denying during her second trial that her party had any kind of system aimed at embezzling EU money, and saying it had acted in “complete good faith”. Prominent nationalist figures such as Viktor Orbàn in Hungary and Matteo Salvini in Italy denounced the lower court verdict as a “violation of democratic norms”, while Donald Trump called it a “very big deal”, comparing it to his own legal battles in the US. What does the appeal court decision mean for Le Pen? The appeal court said after its decision that it had aimed to “assess the penalty in light of any infringement of the right to stand for election”, arguing that “voters’ freedom of choice – a prerequisite for the expression of the democratic vote – must be a consideration”. That is exactly what it did: by in effect reducing her ineligibility for office to 15 months (45 months in total, with 30 months suspended), it ensured she could, in principle, run for the presidency, since the 15 months began with the lower court verdict in March last year. However, by ordering her to wear an electronic bracelet for a year, it made it very difficult, politically and practically, for her to do so – although the exact terms of house arrest and electronic tagging must be decided by a different judge in the coming weeks. In principle, an order of “house arrest under electronic monitoring” implies leaving home only during fixed, pre-agreed hours in order to go to fixed, pre-agreed destinations. Occasional exceptions can be requested but are by no means certain to be granted. What has she decided - and what could it mean for the elections? Le Pen had repeatedly said she would not run for the presidency if she was obliged to wear an electronic ankle tag, saying it would be impossible to campaign effectively with her movements curtailed. She had previously also ruled out going to France’s highest court, the court of cassation – which has said that if it was asked to assess the case it would rule before the election – arguing that the uncertainty would jeopardise her party’s chances. But Le Pen announced on Tuesday evening that she was indeed taking her case to the highest French judicial authority, saying she wanted to “exhaust all the legal avenues available to me in order to defend my innocence in this case” and arguing “the people will decide”. Taking her case to the highest court meant the appeal court’s order that she wear an electronic ankle tag would not be applied until a final ruling was handed down, she said, adding: “Tonight, I am a candidate in the presidential election.” The RN had already started preparing for the possibility that her 30-year-old protege, Jordan Bardella, would be its candidate instead. But Le Pen’s decision defers that possibility at least until the court of cassation delivers its verdict. Polls suggest either RN candidate, Le Pen or Bardella, would comfortably win the first round, due on 18 April. Forecasts for the runoff are divided, with some polls suggesting a centrist candidate, the former prime minister Édouard Philippe, could emerge victorious.