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Middle East crisis live: US and Iran in blockade stalemate as Washington’s navy secretary leaves office ‘immediately’

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards released video footage earlier today purportedly showing their forces seizing two vessels in the strait of Hormuz. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it seized the vessels for what it called maritime violations, and escorted them to Iranian shores, according to statements by the shipping companies and Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency. It is the first time Iran has seized ships since the war began at the end of February. Tasnim said the IRGC had accused the two ships – the Panama-flagged MSC Francesca and Liberia-flagged Epaminondas – of “attempting to exit the strait of Hormuz covertly”. At the White House, spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Donald Trump did not consider the capture of the two container ships to be a violation of the US-Iran ceasefire because the vessels were not American or Israeli. Leavitt said: No, because these were not US ships, these were not Israeli ships. These were two international vessels.”

Erdogan says Iran war ‘starting to weaken Europe’ – as it happened

We’re closing this file now but our live coverage of the Middle East continues in a new blog here, including a fresh summary of the latest developments. Thanks for following along.

Czech journalists threaten to strike over plan to scrap licence fees

Journalists at the Czech Republic’s public broadcasters have said they are prepared to go on strike unless the government of the billionaire prime minister, Andrej Babiš, backs down on its plan to scrap licence fees and move funding under state control. In what the journalists see as a threat to their independence, the government wants to replace the current system, in which households pay fees directly to public service media, with direct funding from the state budget. “Licence fees are cancelled,” the culture minister, Oto Klempíř, declared last week. Babiš’s populist Ano (Yes) party pledged to end licence fees before last October’s parliamentary election, which it won. But the move is deeply controversial. On Wednesday, thousands of university students gathered at Prague’s Jan Palach Square and marched through the capital chanting: “We won’t let you take the media.” Pavla Kubálková, of the Czech Television strike committee, said: “Adoption of the bill would introduce direct political influence over Czech Television by changing a funding model that has functioned for decades. We see this as a direct threat to its independence.” The proposal would cut about £48m from public service media funding in 2027. Czech Television would lose just under a third of its budget compared with 2026, while Czech Radio would lose about a fifth. Jan Herget, of the Czech Radio strike committee, told the Guardian: “State financing puts a tool into the hands of politicians that can be used to undermine the independence and editorial autonomy of Czech Radio and Czech Television.” He noted that radio licence fees were last set in 2005 at about £1.60, rising only slightly in 2025 to roughly £1.85. “The new proposal would effectively revert funding to 2005 levels, pushing it back by around 20 years,” he said. “It’s like expecting an average household with two children today to live on the same income it had in 2005.” Wednesday’s student protest was joined by opposition figures including Zdeněk Hřib, the leader of the Pirate party, who has previously called on Klempíř to resign as culture minister. “The situation is serious. Attempts to take control of the media through funding and government-controlled council members are far beyond acceptable limits,” he wrote on X. Jan Motal, a media commentator, said the proposed law “shifts funding under state control without explaining how independence will be protected”. “It is a half-formed reform being pushed through in a climate where political interference is a real concern,” Motal said. He said successive governments had failed to reform Czech Television and Czech Radio. “Both the legislative and economic frameworks are essentially the same as they were 26 years ago. These institutions should have undergone reform long ago to secure their independence.” Concerns about political pressure are shared by prominent figures within the media. Václav Moravec, a well-known journalist who worked at Czech Television for 21 years, recently left the broadcaster, saying live on air that it could no longer guarantee independence. He told the Guardian that alongside external political pressure such as the proposed law, the broadcaster’s autonomy had been undermined internally, and he argued that resistance must also come from within the institution. Moravec drew parallels with broader global trends. “Internal pressure and political pressure are working side by side. Political actors like Nigel Farage or Donald Trump argue that public media is no longer needed because we already have private media and a pluralistic information environment through social media and private news outlets.” He argued that public opinion may further complicate the situation. “Research shows that 68% of the Czech public does not see a difference between licence fees and state budget funding,” Moravec said. “That makes it much easier for someone like Andrej Babiš to push for state control.” Czech Radio has already reduced staffing in its international broadcasting division by a quarter after the foreign ministry cut funding to Radio Prague International. The foreign minister, Petr Macinka, now plans to end support for international broadcasting altogether next year, despite the service being mandated by law. The Vienna-based International Press Institute said it feared that the bill, which still requires approval from the government and parliament, was intended to “weaken the broadcasters’ financial and editorial independence and compromise their ability to fulfil their public service remit”.

Christopher Luxon shoots the messenger as nightmare New Zealand election scenario hangs over him | Claire Robinson

Being prime minister is the hardest job in New Zealand. It requires presence, vision and the willingness to be publicly answerable for everything – to parliament, citizens, the party, business, the media. You can’t be accountable to one and not the other. Yet that’s what Christoper Luxon chose this week when he scolded the media and told them he would no longer engage with them on questions about his leadership. For most of the last year, National, the lead party in a three-way coalition government, has been trailing the opposition Labour party in the polls. In January 2026 the gap was just 0.67% of a percentage point on average. Three months later, it widened to a 5.86% average with no signs of bottoming out. The party is facing the possibility of being the first one-term National-led government since the party was founded in 1936. This prospect is embarrassing for its leadership, current and past. National has never led for less than three terms, ever. Leader popularity is a major factor in voter choice. High leader ratings correlate with increased party support. As a general rule, low preferred-prime-minister ratings can drag a party down by 2-4%. In New Zealand this can be the difference between government and opposition. Luxon’s net approval rating has plummeted from +11 in February 2024 to around -19 in March 2026. He’s in life or death territory. Not unexpectedly, the dismal polling has fuelled rumours and speculation about Luxon’s leadership, and if he should be the one who leads National into the 7 November general election. On Tuesday, in a high stakes National caucus meeting, Luxon moved, and won, a formal motion of confidence in his own leadership. Emerging two and a half hours later, he delivered a two-minute prepared statement declaring the matter “now closed”. He told the media if they “want to keep focusing on speculation and rumour, I’m not going to engage”. After describing the interest in his leadership as a “media soap opera”, he walked away without taking a question. It was a masterclass – just not in the art of leadership. Luxon may have intended to come across as a schoolyard head-boy delivering a stern word to recalcitrant first years. It had the opposite effect. His curtness and blame deflection said more about how bad it got in caucus than any questions he might have answered afterwards. In chastising the media, Luxon broke one of the cardinal rules of political leadership: don’t shoot the messenger. The press may be brutal, ask awkward questions, and go down rabbit holes where there is nothing to find. But with freedom of the press a fundamental right, you censor them at your peril. This was no media beat-up. In questioning Luxon’s leadership capabilities, the media was reflecting the public mood. When Luxon walked away from the mics, as waiting reporters peppered him with questions, he was effectively telling voters he wasn’t interested in their opinion of him. Not smart. The following day, coalition partner and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, who will jump at any chance to poke the bear, said it would have been wise for Luxon to have forewarned Peters about the confidence motion. National’s deputy leader Nicola Willis and later Luxon retorted that a vote for New Zealand First was a vote for Labour. The rarity of both National leaders actively counter-attacking Peters is telling. Luxon and Willis have been wary of criticising the party that holds the dice in the next coalition negotiation. With National bleeding votes to New Zealand First, the National caucus will have instructed Luxon and Willis to fight Peters if he comes at them. Stem the bleed, or you’re toast. Luxon likes to present himself as the CEO of the government, not understanding that the role of prime minister requires so much more of him. A CEO answers to a board. A prime minister answers to everyone. Paradoxically, if Luxon was a CEO reporting to a board and his staff engagement score was under 20%, his board would be asking the same questions as the media about his fitness for office. Luxon may have survived his own confidence vote but this is not the same as re-gaining the confidence of voters. He is a leader on notice who is yet to learn that when that notice is served is not up to him. Dr Claire Robinson is a political commentator and author of Promises Promises: 80 Years of Wooing New Zealand Voters

Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv hails frontline position as ‘strongest in a year’

Ukraine’s frontline position is “the strongest” it has been in a year due to superiority in drones and enhanced air defence, said Andriy Sybiha, the foreign minister. Agence France-Presse said its analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed Russian troops made almost no territorial gains across the frontline in March – the first time this had occurred in two and a half years. “We have minimised the Russians’ advantage in manpower through the use of drones,” Sybiha added. “For us, the situation on the battlefield is about strengthening our negotiating position. We can shoot down up to 90% of the targets that strike our cities … [Ukraine’s] position on the battlefield is indeed the strongest, or the most solid, it has been over the past year.” Turkey is trying to revive negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and bring together their leaders at the request of Kyiv, the office of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said on Wednesday. Erdogan told the Nato head, Mark Rutte in a meeting in Ankara that “we are working to revive negotiations and start talks at leaders’ level”. Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister, confirmed Ukraine is pushing for the face-to-face talks between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin. While Turkey was asked to facilitate, Ukraine would consider any venue outside Russia and Belarus. “We are … advocating for a meeting now to bring new momentum to diplomacy,” Sybiha said. Russian news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Putin would only meet Zelenskyy “for the purpose of finalising agreements”. The Kremlin instead appealed for the US to again send Donald Trump’s delegates Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Moscow. The pair have repeatedly listened to Putin’s maximalist demands, to which Witkoff has appeared pliant, and produced no outcomes while declining to visit Kyiv and hear Ukraine’s side. Peskov said Russia was ready for any new talks on a settlement to the war with US negotiators “even tomorrow”. A woman and child were killed in the Russian oil refining city of Syzran, about 1,000km (621 miles) from the border with Ukraine, after a Ukrainian drone hit their apartment building, the regional governor said on Wednesday. Russian media reports said a Rosneft oil refinery is located on the same street as the damaged building. Russian drones attacked infrastructure in the Black Sea port of Odesa damaging berths, warehouses, railway infrastructure, port operators’ facilities and a ship, Ukraine’s deputy PM Oleksiy Kuleba said on Wednesday. Preliminary reports said no one was hurt and the port was still operating. Kuleba said a Russian drone attack at a sorting yard at the Zaporizhzhia-Live station in the southern Zaporizhzhia region killed an assistant train driver while the driver was hospitalised. EU member states reached agreement on unblocking the urgently needed €90bn (£78bn) loan for Kyiv and a new package of sanctions against Moscow after Ukraine resumed pumping Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, prompting Budapest to lift its veto. Jon Henley writes that Cyprus, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said member states’ ambassadors had agreed to launch “written procedures” for the final approval of the loan and the sanctions package, with formal signoff on both due by Thursday afternoon.

UK to pay France another £660m to curb Channel crossings

The UK government has agreed to pay France another £660m to curb the number of asylum seekers travelling across the Channel, including plans to fund a riot squad to “contain and disperse” people trying to board small boats. Under a three-year deal to be signed on Thursday by the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, 1,100 enforcement, intelligence and military officers – an increase of 40% – will be employed to track down smuggling gangs and people seeking refuge. A 50-strong riot squad will be trained in “crowd-control tactics” and will “stop illegal migrants in their tracks”, according to the Home Office. UK cash is expected to fund batons, shields and teargas to deal with “hostile crowds and violent tactics”. The announcement follows protracted negotiations between the two countries over how to halt unauthorised small boat journeys, and who should pick up most of the cost. The previous £478m, three-year deal collapsed on 31 March. Organisations representing asylum seekers said plans to fund policing tactics such as riot control would mean the further brutalisation of people who have no alternative if they wish to seek refuge in the UK. Sile Reynolds, head of asylum advocacy at the charity Freedom from Torture, said it was a “deeply alarming” escalation, adding: “Now, we will be paying for police boots and batons to be wielded indiscriminately against men, women and children on the beaches of northern France for the crime of seeking safety. “Many of the people who will be harmed by these heavy-handed tactics have already endured state violence during their flight from persecution. Now they will face the full ferocity of the French riot police – a security body that has been criticised by the United Nations committee against torture for excessive use of force.” Imran Hussain, the director of external affairs at the Refugee Council, said: “By focusing on policing the Channel, the government is treating the symptom not the cause. Policing alone will not prevent desperate people from turning to dangerous small boats in the first place. “We know from our frontline services why people risk their lives to reach the UK: many already speak some English, have family here, or have cultural connections to Britain. Without safe routes to reach the UK, these men, women and children will be forced into dangerous and potentially deadly small boat crossings.” French police have fired teargas canisters and stun grenades and used pepper spray in attempts to stop people boarding boats across the Channel. However, this is the first time the UK will fund a riot squad specifically to tackle irregular migration. The new deal includes a baseline package of about £500m to boost enforcement action on beaches in northern France. The deal will cover: • Five new police units, including a riot squad of 50 officers who will be trained in the use of crowd control. • An additional 20 maritime officers to target and intercept small boats that pick up asylum seekers in shallow waters. In the past two months, French officials have stopped six “taxi boats”, sentencing smugglers to prison and deportation, the Home Office said. • An expansion of the 18-strong intelligence unit to 30 specialists to ramp up the arrest and prosecution of people smugglers. • Two new helicopters and a camera system to track down and intercept people smugglers and people seeking to cross to the UK. The government has also put aside £160m “to trial new approaches”, but the Home Office did not respond to requests asking what these might be. In the first year of this arrangement, the UK will spend £50m, a statement said. If the initial investment does not make an impact, the government will withhold the remaining £110m in years two and three, it says, billing it as the first “payment-by-results” scheme in the Channel. Labour, which is predicted to lose councils to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in the local elections, has come under increasing pressure from political opponents to curb irregular migration. In a statement Keir Starmer, the prime minister, said: “Our work with the French has already stopped tens of thousands of crossings and this government has deported or returned nearly 60,000 people with no right to be here. This historic agreement means we can go further: ramping up intelligence, surveillance and boots on the ground to protect Britain’s borders.” Mahmood said: “This landmark deal will stop illegal migrants making the perilous journey and put people smugglers behind bars.” Earlier this month, a Sudanese man was charged over the deaths of four migrants who drowned after being swept away by strong currents while trying to cross the Channel. More than 6,000 people have arrived in the UK this year after making the journey, down 36% on the equivalent period last year.

‘Impossible’ to reopen strait of Hormuz amid ‘flagrant’ ceasefire breaches, Iran says

Iranian forces have seized two ships in the strait of Hormuz as the US and Iran doubled down on imposing separate blockades of the shipping waterway. The standoff over the strait – through which about 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied fossil gas passed through during peacetime – has raised doubts about whether stalled peace negotiations will resume. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament and lead negotiator, said late on Wednesday that reopening the strait of Hormuz would be “impossible” while the US and Israel committed “flagrant” breaches of the ceasefire, including the US naval blockade, “the hostage-taking of the world’s economy” and “Zionist warmongering”. He added in a post on X that the US and Israel “did not achieve their goals through military aggression, nor will they through bullying”. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said earlier that their naval forces had stopped two ships attempting to cross the strait and brought them to shore. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that the IRGC had accused the two ships – the Panama-flagged MSC Francesca and Liberia-flagged Epaminondas – of “attempting to exit the strait of Hormuz covertly”. The Epaminondas is Greek-operated, and Greece’s foreign minister confirmed there had been an attack against a Greek-owned cargo ship. A UK-based maritime security monitor reported attacks on ships in the waterway on Wednesday, including an incident in which a vessel was approached by an Iranian gunboat “that then fired upon the vessel which has caused heavy damage to the bridge”. The seizures mark the first time Iran has taken control of ships since the beginning of the war, which started on 28 February, and come after the US fired on and seized an Iranian cargo vessel and boarded a Iranian oil tanker in the Indian Ocean. In the latest in a series of about-turns, Donald Trump threatened violence on Tuesday hours before announcing he was unilaterally extending a ceasefire. On Wednesday the White House press secretary said Trump was “satisfied” with the naval blockade, and “understands Iran is in a very weak position”. “The cards are in President Trump’s hands right now,” Karoline Leavitt told reporters, adding that the US was “completely strangling their economy through this blockade, they’re losing $500m a day”. The US president has been unable to contain the global economic and diplomatic crisis that erupted from the war, which has not resulted in the anti-US regime being overthrown or ended Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Instead, it led to Tehran’s forced closure of the strait of Hormuz, which has caused a spiralling global economic crisis. Facing calls to reopen the waterway, Trump put pressure on Iran to end its blockade, but failed and later decided to impose his own blockade, leading to more fuel price hikes and threats of long-term inflation. Countries in Asia that are dependent on Gulf oil have been badly hit, with shortages of fuel, fertiliser and other raw materials that pass through the strait. While the west is better insulated, it is not immune. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, halved its 2026 growth forecast to 0.5% on Wednesday, while Greece announced €500m (£434m) in extra aid for households and farmers. The prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, said: “The nation’s economy is holding up and doing better than expected. However, the stress of the supermarket, the expenses of children, more expensive fuel and the care of the elderly remain.” The head of the UN maritime agency has appealed for help for thousands of seafarers stranded in the Gulf by the strait of Hormuz closure. About 20,000 seafarers and 2,000 ships have been stranded, according to the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Over the weekend, Iran said it had received new proposals from Washington but also suggested a wide gap remained between the sides. Pakistan has acted as mediator, but a luxury hotel in Islamabad that was cleared out for more talks remained empty on Wednesday. Iran never publicly accepted the invitation and the US delegation led by the vice-president, JD Vance, never left Washington. A Pakistani official briefed on the preparations told Reuters: “We had prepared everything. We were all prepared for the talks, the stage was set. If you ask me honestly, it was a setback we were not expecting, because the Iranians never refused, they were up to come and join and they still are.” In his first term as president, Trump withdrew from an agreement that limited Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme. He disliked the pact, which had been signed by Barack Obama, and was discouraged from diplomacy by Israel, Iran’s arch-enemy. For years, Israel had pushed the US to bomb Iran but no administration in Washington agreed, seeing it as counterproductive and fearing the chaos that is now playing out. Adding to the bloodshed and instability, Israel and the Iranian proxy group, Hezbollah, have fought a second front in Lebanon. Despite a tenuous 10-day ceasefire that expires on Sunday, Israeli strikes killed five people in Lebanon on Wednesday, Lebanese state media said, including journalist Amal Khalil. Khalil and photographer Zeinab Faraj were covering developments near the town of al-Tayri in southern Lebanon when an Israeli strike hit the vehicle in front of them. They ran into a nearby house, which was then also targeted by an Israeli strike, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Rescuers were able to retrieve Faraj, who had a head wound. When they returned to help Khalil, a sound grenade blocked their access to the damaged building, a Lebanese military official said. She was later found dead by civil defence, who pulled her corpse from under the rubble. In a statement before Khalil’s death was confirmed, Israel’s military said it had received reports that two journalists were injured as a result of its strikes, and denied it was preventing rescue teams from reaching the area. Hezbollah said it carried out an attack on northern Israel in response to what it called “flagrant” violations of the ceasefire. At least 2,454 people have been killed in Lebanon in Israeli attacks since the start of the war, according to Lebanese authorities. The Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, said preparations were under way for negotiations between Lebanon and Israel on Thursday. The talks are significant as the countries have not maintained diplomatic relations with each other. For decades, Israel has repeatedly bombed, invaded and occupied Lebanon, while the Lebanese government has failed to contain Hezbollah, which has fired rockets at Israel. Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Tourist charged with damaging historic Florentine fountain in pre-wedding prank

A tourist has been charged after allegedly climbing a colossal marble statue in Florence to touch its genitals for a pre-wedding prank. Experts said the woman caused thousands of euros of damage to the Neptune fountain in Piazza della Signoria. Created by the sculptor Bartolomeo Ammannati, it was commissioned by Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1559 to celebrate the marriage of his son, Francesco I de’ Medici, to grand duchess Joanna of Austria. The basin encloses horses that pull a shell-shaped chariot at the base of a statue depicting Neptune, the Roman god of the sea. The 28-year-old tourist, whose nationality has not been disclosed, was spotted by police and quickly removed from the monument. She told them her friends had dared her to touch Neptune’s genitals, according to a statement from Florence’s city council. Experts from the council inspected the monument and found the prank had caused “minor but significant damage to both the legs of the horses she had walked on and to the frieze she held on to in order to avoid slipping”. City officials put the cost of the damage at €5,000 (£4,340). Police charged the woman with defacing an artistic and architectural asset. It is not the first time a tourist has tried to mount Neptune. CCTV cameras were introduced in 2005 after a visitor climbed the statue, breaking one of its hands and damaging the chariot. In 2023, a German tourist caused significant damage trying to climb the monument to take a selfie; that same summer, a young couple tried to scale a copy of Michelangelo’s David in Piazzale Michelangelo. Despite stricter controls around Florence’s landmarks, rarely a summer goes by without similar incidents. According to Giorgio Caselli, who manages the city council’s fine arts office, it has become increasingly trendy for visitors to climb monuments for a “challenge”. In 2024, a teenager hid in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore overnight before climbing up to its cupola for a selfie. Wearing a black hoodie, jeans and trainers, the teenager filmed himself walking up an inside stairwell of the world heritage site before reaching the dome level, stepping on to a small platform outside and taking a picture of himself and posting it on Instagram. Caselli said visitors often lacked respect: “The physical contact that is sought with the monument is far from the objective, emotional and intellectual [awareness] that we expect and favour towards our monumental heritage. We must not allow ourselves any conscientious concessions to the ignorance and superficiality that characterise such actions. “Our goal must be to awaken and cure the civic sense of those who frequent the city, which is not only to show respect toward others, but also towards monuments.” Florence is one of Europe’s most-visited and overcrowded cities, attracting roughly 16 million tourists a year. “Florentines are protective of their heritage and look towards them [visitors] with suspicion,” added Caselli. “Perhaps because they don’t live in the city, they consider it more of a game.”