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Voting under way in Denmark as Greenland PM says election is most important in territory’s history – Europe live

Mette Frederiksen has said that she never “in my wildest dreams” imagined that at prime minister she would be involved in defending Greenland. Meeting Greenlandic people Aalborg, she said that Danes and Greenlanders would “never forget the time we have been through together.” Speaking at an event today she said: “When I became prime minister, I knew that I would also be working with the Danish realm. But I had no idea just how special a place Greenland, and all of you with roots in Greenland, would come to hold in my heart. Nor had I ever imagined, even in my wildest dreams, that I would be involved in defending you against anyone from outside.” She added: “For all of us who have been involved in this, whether as Greenlanders who have felt threatened, or as Danes who have felt a strong sense of solidarity - or, in my own case, as the one who had to stand at the forefront - we will never forget the time we have been through together.” Greenland, she said, has been subjected to “completely unreasonable and unacceptable pressure” by the US, adding: “But you stood firm, and you did so with a grace, determination, and strength that the rest of the world greatly admires. And that is a tremendous tribute to you all.” Around 17,000 Greenlandic people - a quarter of Greenlanders - live in Denmark.

Arizona’s guns are feeding the bloodshed in Mexico’s cartel war

When war broke out within the Sinaloa cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal organisations, people hoped it would last just a few months. But more than a year and a half later it is still going, fuelled by a flow of firearms from the US – specifically from Arizona, which has surged past Texas to become the top source of guns seized in Mexico and traced to a recent US purchase. “We have an enormous problem with gun trafficking by the Mexican drug cartels from Arizona down into Mexico,” Arizona’s attorney general, Kris Mayes, told the Guardian. “There is no doubt in my mind about that.” When Mexican authorities recover guns, they can submit the serial numbers to be traced by their US counterparts. And according to the most recent available data, 62% of the guns seized in Mexico in 2024 and traced to a US purchase less than a year earlier – a key indicator they were bought to be trafficked – came from Arizona. This coincides with the eruption of conflict in Sinaloa after Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who founded the Sinaloa cartel with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, was detained along with one of Guzmán’s sons after a small plane touched down in the US in July 2024. Zambada accused Guzmán’s son of betrayal. Now a faction led by Zambada’s son is waging war against another led by the two sons of El Chapo who remain free in Mexico. “We don’t know what their inventory of guns, ammunition, men and vehicles is,” said Miguel Calderón, coordinator of Sinaloa’s state council on public security, in December 2024. “I imagine they’re pulling together everything they have. This is the mother of all battles.” Roughly 5,000 people are now dead or missing. And the factions show no signs of running out of guns. Since the war broke out, Mexican security forces have seized almost 5,000 firearms in Sinaloa, which is roughly 20% of all the guns seized in the country in that time. Mexico itself has strict gun laws and just two legal gun shops, where the weapons are sold by the Mexican military, meaning that its criminal groups look for their firepower abroad – and mostly in the US. “The traced guns [from 2024] with a short ‘time to crime’ are very concentrated in the county where Phoenix is located,” said John Lindsay-Poland, coordinator of the Stop US Arms to Mexico project. “Others are coming from Tucson, and others from Texas. But the majority are now coming from Arizona.” This is reflected in the fact that the Mexican state with the second highest number of gun seizures in 2025, after Sinaloa, is Sonora – which lies just over the border from Arizona. “This is a change, because for many years, Tamaulipas on the Gulf coast was by far the state with most guns recovered,” said Lindsay-Poland. “And Texas was also dominant in the number of guns sold and then found in Mexico with a short time to crime.” Like Texas, Arizona is a state where it is relatively easy to buy a firearm. Cartel associates often recruit Americans to be “straw purchasers”, sending them into stores to buy them guns in return for a commission, before those guns are trafficked south over the border. Mayes, the attorney general, recently announced the indictment of one gun-trafficking ring involving 20 people that bought more than 330 firearms, many of which ended up in Mexico, but she suspects “this is just the tip of the iceberg”. According to Mayes’ office, the markup for trafficked guns – and especially rifles such as the AR-15 and the AK-47 – has spiked in Mexico, feeding through into higher commissions for straw purchasers in Arizona, possibly reflecting demand driven by cartel infighting. The Mexican government has an ongoing lawsuit against five Arizona gun shops it has accused of facilitating gun trafficking, while Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, has also called on Donald Trump to help stem the flow of illegal firearms to Mexico. But for now the border between Arizona and Sonora – which is also where most seizures of fentanyl coming into the US take place – is a focal point for trafficking. “Arizona is the fentanyl funnel for the rest of the [US], and it’s also where firearms are being funnelled down into Mexico,” said Mayes. “So this is a twin problem.”

Middle East crisis live: Pakistan reportedly favouring Vance for role in possible US-Iran peace talks

The Iran war risks undermining the US dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency, Deutsche Bank has said. Analyst George Saravelos said the foundations of the “petrodollar regime” – under which global oil sales are priced in US dollars – will be tested by the Middle East conflict. There could be “significant downstream effects” to the dollar’s use in global trade and savings, and the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency, he argues – after all, a world that is more self-sufficient in defence and energy could also be a world that holds fewer reserves in dollars…. Saravelos explains: The world saves in dollars in large part because it pays in dollars. The dollar’s dominance in cross-border trade is arguably built on the petrodollar: globally traded oil is priced and invoiced in USD. This arrangement can be traced to a deal struck in 1974 where Saudi Arabia agreed to price oil in USD and invest surpluses in USD assets, in exchange for US security guarantees. Because oil is a core input to global manufacturing and transport, there is a natural incentive for global value chains to dollarize, and global surpluses to accumulate in USD. The foundations of the petrodollar regime have been under pressure even before this conflict. Most Middle East oil is now sold to Asia not the US; sanctioned oil from Russia and Iran has already been trading off dollar rails; Saudi Arabia has been localizing defence, and experimenting with forms of non-dollar payment infrastructure such as Project mBridge. The current conflict may expose further fault lines, by challenging the US security umbrella for Gulf infrastructure and the maritime security for global trade in oil. Damage to Gulf economies could encourage an unwind in their foreign asset savings. In this context, reports that the passage for ships through the strait of Hormuz may be granted in exchange for oil payments in yuan should be closely followed. The conflict could be remembered as a key catalyst for erosion in petrodollar dominance, and the beginnings of the petroyuan. A bigger risk could come if the world begins to move away from globally traded oil and gas itself, to more resilient sources of energy including domestically available fuels, renewable energy, and nuclear power. The energy choices of the Global South, Europe and North Asia will be key to track. A move away from oil could be as powerful as the pressure to price it in other currencies. Read more here:

Whale stranded in Baltic will die unless helped to move soon, say experts

A 10-metre-long humpback whale stranded on a sandbar in the Baltic Sea is in danger of dying if rescue workers do not manage to help it move into deeper waters soon, experts have said. Believed to be a young male, the mammal was spotted by guests of a hotel in Niendorf in Lübeck Bay, northern Germany, on Monday after they heard its deep moans and alerted police. Since then, teams from the local coastguard, fire brigade and marine rescuers have been trying to ease the whale’s path back into deeper waters. Their efforts have included removing netting from parts of its body and trying to create waves to help it swim away. Experts have said the whale, which is thought to need only one or two fin strokes to shift into deeper water, appeared to be getting weaker by the hour. “Every passing hour means a deterioration in his condition,” Sven Biertümpfel, of the sea protection organisation Sea Shepherd, told the broadcaster NDR. “It’s only a question of time as to how long he’s got to live if he continues to stay lying there.” Dr Stephanie Groß, of the Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research (ITAW) in Büsum, said it was possible the whale had accidentally landed in the shallow water area during a search for fish and “either didn’t try to move on because he had enough to feed on, or simply lost its way”. On Monday night the teams briefly managed to get the mammal to turn so that its head was in the direction of the shipping channel and away from the beach, allowing it to head back towards the Atlantic. Shortly afterwards, however, it turned back again. One challenge rescue workers face is trying to avoid being struck by the whale’s flailing tail fin, officials said. Rescue efforts were temporarily paused after the whale appeared stressed and exhausted from the attempts to help it. Hopes that higher water levels around midnight would help the animal fight its way back to the sea on its own were dashed. Niendorf’s mayor, Sven Partheil-Böhnke, urged onlookers to stay away amid reports some were hindering the rescue effort. In some cases people had tried to approach the whale in small boats, he said, while in others, they had accused the rescuers of not doing enough to save it. The beach in the immediate vicinity has been sealed off to the public. Vets and other marine experts on site rejected calls from the public to give the animal a lethal injection. “Nature has to be allowed to take its course,” Robert Marc Lehmann, a marine biologist, told local media. “Human intervention isn’t always helpful.” The stranding is one of a mounting number in northern Europe in recent weeks. According to the Norwegian broadcaster NRK, at least 10 sperm whales have become stranded in Denmark, Norway and off the UK coast in the last month. In Denmark, eight whales have arrived within just a few weeks. In most cases, the mammals also strayed into too shallow water.

Iran’s parliament speaker: the outsider seen by White House as possible partner

Just as in 1967 when a rank outsider won the Grand National due to a massive pile-up of other horses at one of the final fences, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament and Donald Trump’s putative interlocutor, appears to have come to the front as the field around him rapidly thinned. In the pantheon of Iran’s leaders, ruthlessly reduced by targeted assassinations, Ghalibaf stands out as a survivor, but if the US president hopes he has finally located the Delcy Rodríguez of Iran – a pragmatic leader from within the regime willing to do business with America – he may need to think again. Ghalibaf lacks the sophistication of Ali Larijani, the previous secretary of the supreme national security council, who at times fell out with the previous supreme leader but had a range of international contacts. Ghalibaf’s image is instead that of a strongman – possibly the one characteristic in any human that most appeals to Trump. But trying to appoint Ghalibaf from Washington reveals either a misunderstanding of the Islamic Republic’s multilayered political system or a determination to upend it: power in Iran historically lies with the supreme leader, and Mojtaba Khamenei has been selected to that role by the Assembly of Experts. While it is true that Khamenei has not been seen since his election and is believed to be seriously injured, Iran insists he is the functioning decision-maker. Even if Khamenei were to die, Ghalibaf has few pretensions as a cleric and could not be a credible candidate to succeed Khamenei without diluting the religious role of the supreme leader. Similarly the president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who was elected two years ago and has two more years of his term to run. The vacancy that existed for the post of secretary of the supreme national security council after Larijani’s death has been filled by another Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) hardliner, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, so in the short term Ghalibaf can become not Iran’s formal leader, but instead part of what is increasingly resembling a security state leadership – if that is what Trump wants. Ghalibaf was born in 1961 in Mashad, Khorosan, and his roots lie firmly in the IRGC. During the Iran-Iraq war, he commanded the IRGC’s 5th Nasr division, a unit involved in some of the most bloody battles. He became a protege of Ali Khamenei, who became supreme leader in 1989, and was named head of IRGC Aerospace from 1997 and then head of police from 2000. In the IRGC he ran the organisation’s construction arm, so, as Trump likes to say, he knows the art of the property deal. Ghalibaf cut his political spurs as mayor of Tehran between 2005 and 2017, a period in office when the first of many accusations of corruption started to surface. His supporters say Tehran’s development, including the expansion of the metro, was down to his far-sightedness. He was even the subject of a flattering 2008 profile in the New York Times, which described him as an “authoritarian moderniser” when he spoke at the Davos economic forum about opening Iran to foreign investment. But he was also a social conservative who in 2013 ordered that all female secretaries, typists or office managers in municipal offices should be replaced with men. Repression of dissent has been one of the hallmarks of his career. During student protests in 1999, Ghalibaf was one of the 24 IRGC commanders who signed a letter to the reformist president Mohammad Khatami warning that if demonstrations were allowed to continue, they would take matters into their own hands. In an audio recording later released on social media, he acknowledged that he and the IRGC Qods Force commander Gen Qassem Suleimani – assassinated on Trump’s orders in 2020 – wielded clubs on motorcycles in the streets to suppress the student protest. “I was among those carrying out beatings on the street level and I am proud of that. I didn’t care I was a high-ranking commander,” Ghalibaf boasted. Similarly, he showed no compunction in dealing violently with the ”women, life, freedom” protests in Tehran in 2022, saying the police should have enforced the hijab laws earlier. When protests over Iran’s economic crisis erupted at the beginning of this year, Ghalibaf saw “a quasi coup” and Islamic State-style “terrorism”. Ghalibaf first ran for president in 2005, with a campaign consciously modelled on the methods of Tony Blair, including focus group polling. He pitched himself as a populist adherent of globalisation, privatisation and smaller government who was willing, at least within limits, to build on the reformist agenda of the outgoing Khatami. He came fourth in the first round with 4m votes. Later, Hassan Rouhani claimed that in 2005 Ghalibaf had struck a deal to free several major drug and fuel smugglers in exchange for their support. Ghalibaf ran again for the presidency in 2013 but came in a distant second to Rouhani. Throughout his career, Ghalibaf has been dogged by accusations of corruption that have never come to court. When he made his most recent run for president in 2024, , his campaign was dogged by stories that his wife, daughter and son-in-law had gone on a lavish shopping trip to Istanbul in 2022. Photographs appeared with them laden with luggage, at a time when ordinary Iranians were suffering under sanctions and high inflation. The family was said to have bought two apartments in Istanbul worth $1.6m. Ghalibaf said he was a victim of a political smears and claimed he had always opposed the shopping trip. As speaker of parliament, he has broadly followed the mainstream, supporting the 2015 nuclear deal but then, when Trump pulled out, arguing that Iran’s future lay in alliances with Russia and China. His critics claim that Ghalibaf supporters backed the attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran in 2016 that led to the breaking off of diplomatic relations between the two countries. From Trump’s perspective, little of this matters if he feels, in negotiating with Ghalibaf, he is negotiating with Iran’s true power brokers. Ghalibaf does have lines to the commander-in-chief of the IRGC, Ahmad Vahidi, and the commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya central headquarters, Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi. Soon after it became known that Washington thought he was reliable, Ghalibaf issued a tweet saying: “Our people demand the complete and humiliating punishment of the aggressors. All officials stand firmly behind their Leader and people until this goal is achieved. No negotiations with America have taken place. Fake news is intended to manipulate financial and oil markets and to escape the quagmire in which America and Israel are trapped.” Trump’s anointment may at least send the message to Israel that Ghalibaf is not to be killed, but it also piles pressure on him to show he will not betray his country.

JD Vance role touted as Pakistan attempts to broker US-Iran peace talks

Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, says his country is ready to “facilitate meaningful and conclusive talks” to end the war in the Middle East amid attempts to push Islamabad as a possible venue for negotiations between the US and Iran. Pakistani sources said the US vice-president, JD Vance, was being put forward as a probable chief negotiator from the US side if talks went ahead. Iranian sources have said they would refuse to sit down with Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, or Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who led the nuclear negotiations with Iran before the war. Officials in Pakistan said the US and Iran could meet for negotiations in Islamabad as early as this week to discuss an end to the war, which began almost a month ago. Sources said Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, was the most likely to lead any talks from the Iranian side. However, Ghalibaf has so far dismissed reports of talks between the two sides as “fake news”. Pakistan’s military leadership has been attempting to take a leading role in brokering any peace talks. The White House confirmed that Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, had a call with Donald Trump on Sunday to discuss the conflict. Sharif then spoke to the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, on Monday, where they “agreed on the urgent need for de-escalation, dialogue and diplomacy”, according to an official read-out. Islamabad has yet to be officially confirmed as the venue for any talks, which neither side has formally agreed to so far. Qatar, Turkey and Egypt have been touted as other venues, but sources said Tehran’s preference was Islamabad. “Subject to concurrence by the US and Iran, Pakistan stands ready and honoured to be the host to facilitate meaningful and conclusive talks for a comprehensive settlement of the ongoing conflict,” said Sharif writing on X on Tuesday. An Iranian diplomatic source confirmed that talks were expected this week but said that from the Iranian side there was “zero trust” in Washington and that they would not accept Witkoff and Kushner as negotiators for any discussions. Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme were still taking place between the US and Iran when Trump began his bombing campaign. The Iranian regime has since viewed those negotiations, fronted by Witkoff and Kushner, as an attempt by the Trump administration to deceive Iran into thinking it wanted a diplomatic solution, while it planned to attack. “With the previous negotiating team, there’s no chance,” said one diplomatic source. “The Iranian side regards the request for negotiations as another round of deception for the US-Israeli regime to find out a loophole to aggravate the strikes again.” The source said the Iranian side viewed Vance as a more acceptable interlocutor. Vance is widely viewed as a sceptic of the decision to entangle the US in a Middle East war and has largely kept quiet on the conflict. “If the negotiations are going to have any outcome, JD Vance should join,” they said. “With Witkoff and Kushner, nothing will come out of it. We have seen that in the past.” On Monday, Trump gave the strongest indication yet that he would be willing to halt US strikes, claiming that “strong talks” were being held between Iranian officials and Witkoff and Kushner. “We have had very, very strong talks. We’ll see where they lead. We have major points of agreement, I would say, almost all points of agreement,” Trump told reporters. The US president has now given a five-day deadline to an ultimatum he gave over the weekend, threatening to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants and energy infrastructure if they did not reopen the strait of Hormuz, the crucial shipping route currently being blockaded by Iran’s military. Trump’s announcement of talks helped boost markets, bringing oil prices down sharply to below $100 (£75) a barrel, the lowest in days. The Iranians have so far denied that any direct talks are taking place with the Trump administration, but said that “certain friendly states” had been conveying messages from the US regarding negotiations. Diplomatic sources have said Pakistan, Oman, Turkey and Egypt have been among the countries communicating with US and Iranian officials in an attempt to bring hostilities to an end. Pakistan’s powerful army chief enjoys a close relationship with Trump, whom he has visited twice in Washington, and has been described by the US president as my “favourite field marshal”. While Pakistan and Iran have complex ties, Pakistan is home to the second-largest population of Shia Muslims after Iran. Pakistan also has a close relationship with the Gulf countries, which have born the brunt of Iran’s retaliatory strikes, and has a freshly signed defence pact with Saudi Arabia. Pakistan is one of the south Asian countries already suffering from the severe economic fallout as a result of the war. Most of the country’s oil and gas comes through the strait of Hormuz and it has been facing costly shortages and fuel price rises. Pakistani official sources said the Iranians had told them Islamabad was their preferred venue for talks. The White House declined to comment directly on the reports of peace talks to be held in Islamabad. “These are sensitive diplomatic discussions and the United States will not negotiate through the news media,” said a spokesperson.

Russia launches fresh wave of strikes on civilian areas across Ukraine

Russia has launched a fresh wave of missile and drone strikes on civilian areas across Ukraine, killing at least five people, as Moscow appears to be stepping up a spring offensive intended to break Ukrainian resistance along the front. Moscow fired nearly 400 long-range drones and 23 cruise missiles overnight, Ukraine’s air force said, one of the largest attacks in weeks after a relative lull. The strikes continued into Tuesday, when a Russian drone hit a residential building in the historic centre of the western city of Lviv in a rare daytime attack. At least seven people were wounded, local officials said. Footage circulating online showed a large kamikaze drone hitting a site in the city centre. According to preliminary information, a Unesco world heritage site was damaged. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the barrage had caused damage in 11 regions and he renewed calls for allies to urgently supply Kyiv with more air defence munitions. He has said repeatedly that Ukraine, which relies on the US for systems capable of intercepting ballistic missiles, faces looming shortages as Washington’s attention remains focused on the US-Israeli conflict with Iran. Neighbouring Moldova also said a key power line linking it to Europe had been damaged in overnight Russian strikes, and urged citizens to reduce electricity use during peak hours. After enduring a winter of widespread power and heating cuts, Ukraine is braced for a renewed Russian push. Moscow’s war of attrition typically intensifies in the spring as weather conditions improve. Russian forces, who outnumber Ukrainian troops by roughly three to one, are seeking to make gains along the eastern and southern fronts. Russian troops have continued a slow advance in the eastern Donetsk region during the winter, edging closer to the key city of Sloviansk from the north and east. They hold positions about 12 miles (20km) from its outskirts. Open-source analysts also report Russian gains near Zaliznychne in the Zaporizhzhia region. The Kremlin had moved heavy equipment and additional troops to the frontline, the Institute for the Study of War said late on Monday. Michael Kofman, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington DC, said: “Usually there is a Russian wave of mechanised assaults around April, and they once again prove costly and ineffective.” He said Ukrainian defences had been “optimised for defeating mechanised assaults”, with much of the fighting now focused on suppressing or displacing opposing drone units. Ukraine has also had a notable boost on the battlefield this year, retaking roughly 150 sq miles of territory in southern Zaporizhzhia, where Russian forces had previously been advancing. February was the first month since 2023 in which Kyiv regained more territory than it lost, according to military analysts. The counteroffensive was aided by Elon Musk’s decision in February to switch off Russian forces’ access to Starlink internet connections, disrupting a key line of communication for the troops. Ukraine is still in a precarious position, however, with much of the world’s attention focused on the war in the Middle East, raising concerns that US Patriot missile interceptors, the backbone of the country’s air defences, could run out. Ukrainian and US delegations held two days of talks in Florida over the weekend intended to find a path to ending Russia’s full-scale invasion, but no breakthrough was reported. A key sticking point remains the Donbas, which Moscow wants Kyiv to cede in full. On Tuesday Zelenskyy wrote on X: “We had a detailed discussion on the outcomes of the meetings in the United States. It is telling that while our negotiators were reporting, Russia launched a new wave of ‘shahed’ drones against Ukraine. “The geopolitical situation has become more complicated due to the war against Iran, and unfortunately, this is emboldening Russia.” The well-sourced outlet Ukrainska Pravda reported that the US had put pressure on Ukraine to withdraw its troops from the Donetsk region during the Florida talks, saying Washington could step back from peace negotiations and shift its focus further to the military operation in Iran. Zelenskyy has repeatedly said any discussion of a voluntary withdrawal would only be possible if Ukraine first received ironclad security guarantees from the west. The Kremlin, which has benefited from an unexpected economic windfall driven by a surge in global energy prices, said last week that talks between Washington, Moscow and Kyiv on ending the war in Ukraine were on a “situational pause” because of the conflict in Iran.

Middle East violence continues after Trump claims ‘very good’ talks with Iran

Violence has continued across much of the Middle East a day after Donald Trump said the US was in “very good” talks with Iran to end the war in the region soon. Iranian barrages targeted Israel, Gulf Arab states and northern Iraq on Tuesday, while Israeli and US warplanes continued to carry out strikes across Tehran and on other targets in the Islamic Republic. Multiple official sources in Tehran have denied any talks are under way. The Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has been cited as a potential interlocutor with the US, said in a social media post: “No negotiations have been held with the US … fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets.” Tehran distrusts any US offer of negotiations, in part because it was in talks with the US before the surprise attack that started the war and killed the supreme leader Ali Khamenei and dozens of senior officials. Iran was also in talks last year when the US and Israel attacked its nuclear facilities, starting a 12-day war. “We must think wisely,” Esmail Kowsari, a member of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars news agency. “Their nature is to sow discord so that they can make people distrust officials and believe that such actions have taken place, whereas no such action has occurred.” However, potential intermediaries including Pakistan, Oman, Egypt and others have confirmed tentative efforts to establish channels of communication between Washington and Tehran. Analysts point out that there are deep divisions among surviving senior officials in Tehran, which could explain some of the defiant Iranian reaction. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has been talking about the war in recent days with his counterparts in Azerbaijan, Egypt, Oman, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and Turkmenistan, his office said. In Islamabad, officials raised the prospect of a meeting between Iranian officials and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and JD Vance, the US vice-president. A European official told Reuters that while there had been no direct negotiations between the two nations, Egypt, Pakistan and Gulf states were relaying messages. The sudden diplomatic activity came after the US and Iran traded threats over the weekend of strikes that could have cut electricity to millions in Iran and around the Gulf and knocked out desalination plants that provide many desert nations with drinking water. On Monday, Trump delayed a deadline for Iran to open the strait of Hormuz for shipping or see its power stations targeted by airstrikes, briefly driving down oil prices and boosting stocks. The deadline will now expire on Friday. The US continues to reinforce its military forces around Iran, with about 5,000 marines en route for the region, and to launch new attacks. Iranian media reported on Tuesday that Israeli-US strikes targeted two gas facilities and a pipeline, hours after Trump stepped back from his threat to attack power infrastructure. The facilities in central Iran were “partially damaged”, said the Fars news agency, which did not provide a source and was Iran’s only news outlet to report the incident. It said an attack also targeted the gas pipeline of the Khorramshahr power plant, in the country’s south-west. Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would continue to strike Iran and Lebanon, where its offensive targets Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Islamist militant movement, even as the US considers a ceasefire. “There’s more to come,” the Israeli prime minister said. Iran fired several waves of missiles at Israel early on Tuesday, and there were reports of an impact in the country’s north. In Tel Aviv, a missile with a 100kg (220lbs) warhead escaped Israeli defences to slam into a street in the centre of the city, blowing out windows of a neighbouring apartment building and sending smoke billowing. Earlier in the day, Israel pounded Beirut’s southern suburbs, saying it was targeting infrastructure used by Hezbollah. A strike on a residential apartment south-east of the Lebanese capital killed at least two people, according to the Lebanese health ministry. In Kuwait, power lines were hit from air defence shrapnel, causing electricity outages. Missile alert sirens sounded in Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said it had destroyed 19 Iranian drones targeting its oil-rich Eastern province. Oil prices rose to $104 (£77) a barrel in morning trading, up more than 40% since Israel and the US started the war on 28 February. Analysts are warning of durable and deep disruption to the supply of oil and gas from the region even in the event of a rapid end to hostilities, with severe economic consequences around the world.