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Middle East crisis live: Trump says US will blockade the strait of Hormuz

Iran had very good initiatives to show goodwill in talks with the US which led to progress in the negotiations, the country’s top negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said in comments carried by state media on Sunday. Qalibaf said Donald Trump’s new threats will have no effect on the Iranian nation. “If you fight, we will fight, and if you come forward with logic, we will deal with logic. We will not bow to any threats, let them test our will once again so that we can teach them a bigger lesson,” he said.

Hungary election live: Polls in Hungary close in tightly fought election after 16 years under Viktor Orbán

Of course, the numbers got updated just as I was typing the last post. Of course. We are now at 21.54%, so getting close to a quarter of all votes, and Tisza is currently projected to get 128 seats – just short of the 133 needed for the 2/3 majority – to Fidesz’s 62 and Mi Hazank’s 8.

Trump says US will blockade strait of Hormuz as Iran peace talks fail

Donald Trump has said the US will begin blockading the strait of Hormuz in an attempt to take control of the strategic waterway from Iran in the aftermath of failed peace negotiations between the countries in Pakistan. The US president also threatened to bomb Iran’s water treatment facilities as well as its power plants and bridges, repeating an earlier threat, if Tehran did not agree to abandon its nuclear weapons programme – the key sticking point between the two sides. Trump’s surprise announcement of a blockade came after 21 hours of face-to-face peace negotiations between the US and Iran in Islamabad collapsed on Sunday morning. JD Vance, the vice-president and head of the US team, said Iran had refused to give up the possibility of developing nuclear weapons, while the Iranian delegates said Washington needed to do more to win their trust. Risking another increase in oil prices, Trump said he had instructed the US navy to begin “blockading any and all ships trying to enter, or leave, the strait of Hormuz” – and accused Iran of extortion with its own scheme of charging tolls to tankers. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded by declaring that if any warships approached the strait to enforce a blockade – usually considered an act of war – it would be considered a breach of the current ceasefire and would be strongly dealt with. They insisted the strait remained under Iranian control. Two US destroyers nevertheless crossed and recrossed the strait without incident on Saturday, although Iranian media said they had been threatened as they left. It was the start of a broader mine clearance mission, the US military said. The president added that US warships would “seek and interdict every vessel” that had paid Iran since the start of the conflict and begin de-mining the central section of the strait, previously declared a “hazardous area” by Tehran, although it is unclear how many mines have actually been laid. About 100 tankers have transited the strait since the US and Israel started bombing Iran, paying up to $2m each time for passage. Many were bound for China and India, carrying Iranian oil products, and chasing them down could complicate relations between the US and the importing. The US and Iranian delegations left Pakistan soon after the talks ended. Vance said he had spoken with Donald Trump at least half a dozen times during the talks, held during a 14-day ceasefire announced by the US, Israel and Iran overnight on 7 and 8 April. “We need to see an affirmative commitment that [Iran] will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon,” Vance said. “That is the core goal of the president of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, who had led Tehran’s negotiators, said that, although he and his colleagues had offered “constructive initiatives”, the US had been “unable to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of negotiations”. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said “excessive” US demands had hindered reaching an agreement, but the foreign ministry said more time was needed. “Naturally, from the beginning we should not have expected to reach an agreement in a single session,” the ministry’s spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei said, according to the state broadcaster IRIB. Pakistani mediators called on the US and Iran to refrain from renewing hostilities and said they would try to arrange a fresh round of talks. “It is imperative that the parties continue to uphold their commitment to the ceasefire,” said Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar. Vance was accompanied by US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. They met Ghalibaf and the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, for several negotiating sessions at the Serena hotel in Islamabad, with Pakistan’s powerful army chief, Asim Munir, also present. Iran’s delegation arrived on Friday dressed in black in mourning for the late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and others killed in the war. They carried shoes and bags of children killed during the bombing of a school next to a military compound, the Iranian government said. A Pakistani source said the discussions, the highest level direct contact between the US and Iran since 1979, were unpredictable in tone. “There were mood swings from the two sides, and the temperature went up and down during the meeting,” a Pakistani source said after the first round. In a subsequent Fox News interview, Trump threatened to restart the bombing of Iran if a deal could not be agreed, and threatened to target the country’s water supply as well as its bridges and power generation. Trump said: “The only thing left, really, is their water, which would be very devastating to hit. I would hate to do it, but it’s their water, their desalinisation plans, their electric generating plants, which are very easy to hit.” The president was also asked if gas and oil prices might be lower by the US midterms in November, an indication that attacking Iran was not an economic mistake. Prices “could be the same or maybe a little bit higher,” a non-committal Trump replied. At least 11 were also reported killed in southern Lebanon by the country’s state news service, after at least 30 Israeli strikes in the region. Pope Leo XIV called for a ceasefire after his Sunday prayers, and said he felt “closer than ever” to the country’s people. The war, which began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran six weeks ago, has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, 2,020 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. It has caused lasting damage to infrastructure in half a dozen Middle Eastern countries.

Irish police clear Dublin blockade staged by fuel price protesters

Police have cleared a blockade of central Dublin by farmers and hauliers who were protesting about fuel prices, signalling a possible end to six days of protests that have rocked Ireland. Mounted units and hundreds of officers regained control of O’Connell Street in a peaceful operation that emptied the thoroughfare of trucks and tractors on Sunday morning. Other police units sealed off a section of the city of Galway in an attempt to end a blockade of a fuel depot, the latest in a series of coordinated actions that began on Saturday when gardaí removed protesters from outside the Whitegate oil refinery in County Cork, prompting scuffles and the use of pepper spray. Protesters outside a fuel terminal in Foynes, County Limerick said they would lift the blockade at 1pm on Sunday. In a bid to ease the discontent, the government announced €500m worth of spending increases and tax cuts to soften the impact on consumers and businesses following an emergency cabinet meeting. It was unclear whether the police actions and proposed financial alleviation, a carrot-and-stick strategy, would fully quell protests that have shown effective coordination despite having no central leadership or organisation. The protesting farmers, hauliers and other groups caused traffic chaos and severely disrupted fuel distribution in response to a 20% jump in fuel prices since last month, a knock-on effect from the conflict in the Middle East that has put pressure on governments around the world to cap fuel prices. Despite hundreds of forecourts running dry, 56% of voters supported the protesters, according to a poll in the Sunday Independent, a solidarity that some analysts attributed to the wider cost of living crisis. Roads and motorways that had been blocked flowed freely, and protesters who had spent successive nights sleeping in their vehicles appeared relieved to go home, but others expressed resentment at police actions and said protests would continue until demands were met. “Nobody in the city of Dublin or the country could say our assembly was anything but peaceful,” said Christopher Duffy, a spokesperson. The police threat to tow tractors and trucks compelled their withdrawal because the vehicles would be damaged if dragged without the engine on, he said. “We have no choice. Financially, we have to move the vehicles,” he said, and urged independent and rural lawmakers to withdraw support for the centre-right coalition government of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. Asked if the overall protests were over, he replied: “I don’t think so.” James Geoghegan, another spokesperson, said protesters would not back down until demands were met. “This protest does not end until the cost of living is dropped to a level that we can stay in business,” he told RTÉ. “Lads can go home and regroup. A lot of lads want to go home and take maybe a day’s rest and come back out because until the issues are solved, the protest doesn’t end.” The cabinet meeting later on Sunday was expected to approve measures to help agriculture, transport, fishing and other sectors most affected by fuel prices. The government said it would publicise the measures, which have been described as targeted and temporary, only after protests ended.

Hope, fear and an ‘unpredictable outcome’ as Hungarians vote after 16 years of Orbán

As Fruzsi, 22, waited to cast her vote at a polling station in central Budapest, a note of optimism laced through her voice. “I think everyone is hopeful,” she said. “It feels like we might be writing history tonight.” It was a hint of the heady mix of hope, anxiety, and fear being felt across the country as a record number of Hungarians turned up on Sunday to cast their ballots in the parliamentary election. For the bulk of Fruzsi’s life, Viktor Orbán had been Hungary’s prime minister, using his past 16 years in power to transform the country into what he described as “a petri dish for illiberalism”. Now, after a hard fought campaign in which his party had consistently trailed in the polls, she was hopeful that Hungarians were ready to turn the page on his government. “There are a lot of angry people,” she said. “The government, they lie, lie and lie – and still people believe them.” The race was transformed in early 2024, after Péter Magyar, a former insider in Orbán’s Fidesz party, began speaking out, alleging that corruption and cronyism were rife within the party. Soon Magyar’s hastily formed centre-right Tisza party had rocketed to the top of the polls with pledges to repair the country’s drift away from the EU, crackdown on corruption, and restore democratic checks and balances, turning the election into a broader plebiscite on Hungary’s future. But on Sunday, many said they were backing Magyar while others said they were content with the status quo. “The outcome is unpredictable, no?” said Mária, 81. “Hopefully Fidesz will win. They help the young and elderly in so many ways, and I trust that they will continue to protect the country.” Her comments were a nod to a campaign that had sought to appeal to very different concerns among voters. Orbán asserted that the war in Ukraine was the country’s top threat and he was the only leader capable of keeping the peace, while Tisza urged voters to focus on tackling economic stagnation, fraying social services and corruption. The discrepancies were reflected in how Hungarians saw Sunday’s vote. “I can’t think of any negative things to say about Fidesz,” said Mária, 58. “I’m hopeful they will have a super majority” The campaign, she said, had made her fearful of the alternative. “I think Magyar is a disaster and Tisza is unpredictable.” A few blocks away, Gergő, 36, said the time had come for change. For 16 years he had watched as Orbán’s government took aim at George Soros, the EU, migrants and, this time around, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “The government attacks everyone, from teachers to judges, all kinds of minority groups. It’s terrible,” he said. “There’s always another enemy – it’s endless.” He was steeling himself for the results with an “anything is possible” attitude, he said, as he had hoped for change in previous elections, only to see Fidesz win time and again. “But I’m hoping for change.” The election is being closely watched around the world, as a loss for Orbán could rattle far-right movements across the globe and reshape the country’s relationship with Russia and the EU. Despite Tisza’s poll lead, analysts said before the vote that the outcome was far from certain, as undecided voters, a redrawing of the electoral map in favour of Fidesz, allegations of vote-buying and the votes cast by Hungarians abroad could all sway the results. Orbán’s most fervent supporters include many in the White House, where backers of the Hungarian strongman have long cited him as an inspiration. The final days of the campaign saw JD Vance travel to Budapest to rally behind Orbán, while Donald Trump repeatedly endorsed the right-wing populist on social media. But for voters such as Mira, 26, the election was fundamentally about issues closer to home, namely whether she would have a future in Hungary. “I want to stay here, but obviously corruption has reached such proportions that healthcare and education are practically unacceptable,” she said. If change didn’t come tonight, she wasn’t sure what she would be able to do abroad as a lawyer trained in Hungary. “I don’t know where I would go, or what I would do.” While the desire for change threaded through many of the conversations with Tisza voters, many were swift to note that they were not expecting it to come quickly. During Fidesz’s 16 years in power, the party stacked the Hungarian state, media and judiciary with loyalists; how they would respond to a potential change in government remain up in the air. And then there is the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution and key laws, meaning Tisza’s ability to change Hungary could be limited if the party wins the election but falls short of a supermajority. “They’re leaving so much behind – from the budget deficit to all their loyalists – as long as those things remain, nothing will change,” said Zoltán, 29. “But there will be a vision for the future. And that means that in the long run we can start to build something.”

US lawmakers split on party lines over negotiations’ failure to end Iran war

The failure of negotiations to end the US war with Iran has unleashed a barrage of starkly partisan political responses, with leading Republicans making hawkish calls for Donald Trump to “finish the job” while top Democrats warned that it would be disastrous for the president to resume hostilities. The former UN ambassador during Trump’s first presidency, Nikki Haley, led the Republican charge. She told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that the current two-week ceasefire was a test of nerves. “This is like a game of chicken,” she said. “It’s who caves first. The Iranian regime is hoping that Trump will cave. Today, he showed he’s not.” Haley was alluding to Trump’s threat, made hours after marathon peace talks in Pakistan ended without result, that the US military would blockade the strait of Hormuz to prevent Iran profiting from its control of the narrow shipping passage. She encouraged Trump to “go after Iran where it hurts”, adding that what would “really bring Iran to its knees is to go after it economically”. Speaking on ABC’s This Week, US senator Ron Johnson – a Wisconsin Republican – also urged Trump to take a hard line. He advocated the total removal of the Iranian regime, admitting that the task “could be longer term”. “We have to finish the job,” he said. “We will not have won until we have completely defanged the Iranian regime.” A top priority for Republican war hawks is to prevent Iran ever acquiring nuclear weapons by seizing its supplies of enriched uranium. Haley gave a rosy appraisal of how that could be accomplished. The US could launch a relatively small and quick special forces operation to grab the country’s stash of enriched uranium, she told CNN. “This is a special forces mission,” she said. “It would take about a week to 10 days to get done. They know how to do it.” US senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who is the top Democrat on the Senate’s intelligence committee, fiercely rebutted Haley’s bellicose remarks. He told State of the Union that attempting to seize Iran’s 1,000lb canisters of highly volatile enriched uranium would be “very, very dangerous”. “It would take 10,000 troops on the ground guarding a perimeter,” Warner said. “We’d have to send special operators in, and the Iranians could then bomb their own facility, potentially trapping our troops.” Warner’s fellow Democratic senator from Virginia, Tim Kaine, told This Week that he would be pressing again for a war motion in the Senate in the coming days to try to stop Trump returning to full-scale hostilities. He argued that even an imperfect ceasefire would be preferable to resuming war. “Returning to full war will just compound the suffering of American troops and the American citizenry who are suffering under a devastated economy because of what Donald Trump has done,” Kaine said. Kaine, who sits on both the Senate armed services and foreign relations committees, added: “We shouldn’t be in this war to begin with. Donald Trump launched this war without the support of allies, the American public, or Congress.” Beyond Capitol Hill, Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic mayor of New York City, reiterated his passionate opposition to the US-Israel war with Iran. Interviewed by Al Jazeera, he laid out what he called the moral case against the conflict. He said the fighting was deeply unpopular among Americans and was utilizing “tens of billions of dollars to kill people, money that could otherwise be used to make life easier for people”. Mamdani quoted the line by the late rapper Tupac Shakur from his 1993 song, Keep Ya Head Up: “They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor.”

Mauritius vows to ‘decolonise’ Chagos Islands after Starmer shelves handover

A senior official in Mauritius’ government has vowed that the Chagos Islands will be “decolonised” after Keir Starmer was forced to shelve legislation to hand the islands back to Mauritius. On Friday, UK government officials acknowledged that they had run out of time to pass legislation within the current parliamentary session, which ends in the coming weeks, after a lack of support from Donald Trump. After the collapse of the plan to hand the islands over voluntarily, Dhananjay Ramful, the Mauritian foreign minister, told an Indian Ocean conference in Mauritius that his government would regain control over the territory. “We will spare no effort to seize any diplomatic or legal avenue to complete the decolonisation process,” he said, in comments that were first reported in the Sunday Telegraph. “This is a matter of justice.” The latest setback in the UK’s bid to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which hosts the joint US-UK Diego Garcia military base, is a sign of faltering US-UK relations after Trump’s criticism of Starmer over the war in Iran. The US president had criticised the Chagos plan, which is backed by the US state department, telling Starmer he was “making a big mistake” by handing sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius in exchange for the UK and US being allowed to continue using their airbase. Trump later gave qualified support, but the UK was forced to drop the bill after the US failed to give its approval by formally exchanging letters to amend a 1966 British-American treaty on the islands. A new Chagos bill is not now expected to feature in the king’s speech in May, where the government’s agenda for the coming parliament is revealed. The Chagos Islands are officially known as British Indian Ocean Territory and have been controlled by the UK since the 19th century. In 2019, the international court of justice found that the UK unlawfully separated the islands from Mauritius before it granted independence to the country in 1968. Thousands of islanders were then forcibly deported to make way for the US-UK military base. A government spokesperson said: “Diego Garcia is a key strategic military asset for both the UK and the US. Ensuring its long-term operational security is, and will continue to be, our priority – it is the entire reason for the deal. “We continue to believe the agreement is the best way to protect the long-term future of the base, but we have always said we would only proceed with the deal if it has US support.” The shelved plan, which was agreed with the previous US president Joe Biden, would have seen Britain cede sovereignty of the Chagos to Mauritius and pay about £35bn to lease the airbase back for 99 years. Simon McDonald, a former permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the government had “no other choice” than to halt the deal. “When the president of the United States is openly hostile, the government has to rethink, so this agreement, this treaty will go into the deep freeze for the time being,” he said. The Mauritius attorney general, Gavin Glover, said the outcome “does not come as a surprise”, blaming it on strained relations between Trump and Starmer, reported Arab News. “We are dependent on Anglo-American relations … the US and Britain will have to reach an agreement,” Glover told a local newspaper. Mauritius is planning to meet the British government on 22 April over the Chagos deal, he said. On Sunday, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, denied that the UK’s deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius was moribund. “It is fair to say there has been a shift in position in Washington,” he said. “We’ve been clear throughout that the objective is to make sure we secure the Chagos Islands for the long term in British and American interests. I think there are lots of people in the US administration who understand what we’re trying to achieve, who support that objective.”

Can’t stop Christian soldiers marching | Brief letters

Pace John Spencer (Letters, 6 April), there is no authority in the Church of England that can “bin” Onward Christian Soldiers, nor is there an official hymnbook. Many churches use more than one book, some print service sheets drawing from multiple sources. Some, alas, project “worship songs” on to a screen. Gone are the days when a hymnbook indicated churchmanship – The English Hymnal for high church, Hymns Ancient and Modern for low church. Rev Ian Randall Fakenham, Norfolk • Phew! Such a relief to read the corrections column (1o April). As a former maths teacher, I love the Countdown quiz, but last week defeated me. At the age of 79.5, I thought I’d lost my skills. But it wasn’t my fault – thank you. Sue Coe Ripponden, West Yorkshire • Thanks for your feature (From Peepo! to Middlemarch: 25 books to read before you turn 25, 11 March). Sadly, I’ve missed the boat. Maybe you could do a “76 books to read before you’re 76”. I’m sure I could squeeze them in before 10 November. Pete Bibby Sheffield • It’s good to learn that the government is now pursuing a coherent strategy to rebuild close relations with our European neighbours (UK starts crackdown on EU citizens’ post-Brexit rights, 10 April). William Wallace Liberal Democrat, House of Lords • Eleanor Margolis makes an interesting argument that money can buy you happiness (Opinion, 11 April) but, for millions of us who qualify, happiness is a bus pass. Geoff Reid Barnsley, South Yorkshire • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.