SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Thank you for joining our continuing live coverage of the conflict in the Middle East and King Charles and Queen Camilla’s state visit to the United States, as well as developments in Australia.
Here’s what you need to know this morning:
- King Charles III and Queen Camilla have met with families of victims and first responders at the 9/11 memorial in New York City before separate events at a community organisation in Harlem and a celebration of literature at the New York Public Library on the third day of their four-day state visit to the US.
- The war in Iran has cost the United States $US25 billion ($35 billion) to date, the Pentagon has confirmed.
- US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone on Wednesday (US time), discussing the wars in Ukraine and Iran. “I suggested a little bit of a ceasefire, and I think he might do that,” Trump said. “Even if it’s a little ceasefire, there’s so many people being killed, it’s ridiculous.”
- Trump told US news site Axios Iran was “choking like a stuffed pig”, amid reports he is preparing to oversee an extended naval blockade on Iranian ports. In a Truth Social post, including a mock-up of him holding a machine gun, he declared: “No More Mr. Nice Guy.”
- Foreign Minister Penny Wong has confirmed China has agreed to take a “first step” to resume critical exports of jet fuel to Australian businesses. The news came after an earlier incident, when Chinese officials attempted to usher Australian media out of a room at The Great Hall of People before Wong had completed her remarks.
President Donald Trump’s administration is seeking the participation of other countries to form an international coalition to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, according to a State Department cable seen by Reuters.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio approved the creation of the Maritime Freedom Construct (MFC), the cable dated April 28 said, which it described as a joint initiative by the State Department and the Pentagon.
“The MFC constitutes a critical first step in the establishment of a post-conflict maritime security architecture for the Middle East. This framework is essential to ensuring long-term energy security, protecting critical maritime infrastructure, and maintaining navigational rights and freedoms in vital sea lanes,” the cable said.
The component of the initiative led by the State Department would serve as the diplomatic hub between partner countries and the shipping industry, while the Pentagon component operating out of CENTCOM headquarters in Florida would coordinate real-time maritime traffic and communicate directly with vessels transiting the Strait, the cable said.
Reuters.
Washington: US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth noted the Albanese government’s commitment to boost military spending but indicated there was still more to do before Australia would be considered a “model ally” in the Indo-Pacific, writes US correspondent Michael Koziol.
He also confirmed the cost of the US military campaign in Iran was at least $US25 billion ($35 billion), while lashing out at Democrats for labelling the two-month-old war a “quagmire”.
In a formal statement to Congress, Hegseth reiterated that the Trump administration was prioritising burden sharing in the Indo-Pacific and praised South Korea as a model ally. Seoul has announced it will raise defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP by 2035.
Japan, too, “clearly recognises the threat environment confronting all of us, and has signalled that it will raise defence spending and align investments accordingly”, Hegseth said in the statement.
“Australia likewise understands the need to increase defence spending and Canberra has taken another step with the release of its latest National Defence Strategy,” he said.
Australian officials are “urgently seeking an update” from Israeli authorities after at least four Australians sailing to Gaza were intercepted in international waters.
Israel’s Defence Forces boarded the Global Sumud Flotilla vessels carrying activists Ethan Floyd, Zack Schofield, Bianca Webb-Pullman and Neve Barwick O’Connor from about 8.30am on Thursday (AEST). Another eight of the 15 Australians aboard the flotilla are thought to have been intercepted. All were sailing in international waters west of the Greek island of Crete.
“While our officials stand ready to provide consular assistance to any affected Australians, our ability to provide support in Israel and Palestine is limited at this time due to the conflict in the Middle East,” a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told this masthead.
“We continue to urge Australians not to join others seeking to break the Israeli naval blockade as they will be putting themselves and others at risk of injury, death, arrest or deportation.”
DFAT said it encouraged people wishing to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza to do so through established channels.
Peter Hartcher answers your questions about Iran, Trump and the state of the world:
Regular listeners will know Peter Hartcher: he’s our international and political editor and a weekly voice on The Morning Edition, helping us dissect and process the extraordinary times that we’re living in.
Every week we get many comments from our listeners, so we put a call-out for the burning questions you’ve wanted to ask Hartcher. Today we’ve collated a selection of them for this special episode.
Jerome Powell may have chaired his last Federal Reserve board meeting on Wednesday, but he’s hanging around while he remains at personal legal risk and the Fed’s independence remains under threat from US President Donald Trump, writes senior business columnist Stephen Bartholomeusz.
At the last press conference of his eight-year stint as chairman of the Fed, Powell, whose term as a governor doesn’t formally expire until January 2028, revealed that he will become the first Fed chair since 1948 to remain on the board of governors after their term as chair.
“After my term as chair ends on May 15, I will continue to serve as a governor for a period of time to be determined,” he said.
Powell has, throughout his term, been subjected to an escalating series of attacks from Trump, who has been unhappy that the Fed hasn’t cut US interest rates more. Those attacks culminated in a criminal investigation of Powell over cost overruns in the renovation of the central bank’s Washington headquarters.
While the Justice Department suspended that investigation last week, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, has said she would not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so.
Israel has intercepted aid ships bound for Gaza in international waters near Greece, flotilla organisers said on Thursday, decrying the move as an “escalation of Israel’s impunity”.
A second flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza sailed from the Spanish port of Barcelona on April 12, aiming to try to break the Israeli blockade.
The vessels were seized by Israel hundreds of nautical miles from Gaza, said the organisers, Global Sumud Flotilla.
“This is piracy,” the group said in a statement. “This is the unlawful seizure of human beings on the open sea near Crete, an assertion that Israel can operate with total impunity, far beyond its own borders, with no consequences.”
No state had the right to claim, police or occupy international waters, but Israel had done that, extending its control outward to occupy the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Europe, the group said.
Reuters
Top Pentagon officials finally put a price tag on the war in Iran so far during a contentious congressional hearing, but analysts say the $US25 billion ($35 billion) figure they cited underestimates the total cost by a large amount.
The cost of some munitions, destroyed equipment and operating expenses total as much as $US14 billion, according to Bloomberg calculations based on Pentagon data.
That includes $US8 billion for some munitions, $US5 billion to replace destroyed aircraft and equipment, and $US1 billion in operating costs for two aircraft carriers and 16 destroyers across 39 days of near-constant strikes.
That sum doesn’t factor in the cost of repairing facilities damaged around the region, such as the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, which was hit repeatedly by Iranian strikes. It also doesn’t include operational costs of all ships and aircraft in the buildup before February 28 and in the current blockade.
Returning briefly to energy security, the latest news in Australia should provide confidence that renewables combined with batteries can provide a stable grid, as conflict in Iran sends the price of oil up.
As Mike Foley and Nick Toscano report, the figures from the Australian Energy Market Operator released overnight reveal the number of household and grid batteries have doubled in a year.
What is incredible is the way this has flattened the energy supply and demand curve in a short space of time.
For years, those who care about the energy grid have been wringing their hands about a phenomenon called the “solar duck”.
King Charles and Queen Camilla capped their whirlwind day in New York City with an appearance at an early evening reception for one of the king’s charities, the King’s Trust, where Charles spoke of the enduring cultural bond between the people of the UK and US as one “rooted in shared creativity, enterprise, and values”.
“Reminding us that we are truly greater together, that’s the point,” the king said.
The four-day trip is Charles’ first state visit to the US since he became king.
His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, made four state visits to the US. Her last visit to New York was in 2010.
The National Security Committee has met this morning and agreed to implement the 14 recommendations of the interim report of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, which was published today.
The recommendations include increased security measures at “high-risk Jewish festivals and events”, the participation of the prime minister and key ministers in counter-terrorism exercises, and urge the states and territories to prioritise the National Gun Buyback Scheme.
“The first task of the Royal Commission, the priority, was to look at the security elements of [counter-terrorism] issues. I can confirm that the National Security Committee has met this morning, and we have adopted and will implement all the recommendations of the interim report that are relevant to the Commonwealth,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told a press conference in Sydney this morning.
“A number of the recommendations relate to state and territory jurisdictions, aimed at ensuring a nationally consistent approach to implementation, and we’ll work constructively with state and territory governments on those issues.”
