SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Thank you for joining our continuing live coverage of the war in the Middle East, as the conflict enters a sixth week.
Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
- One crew member has been rescued after Iran shot down a US F-15E fighter jet, US and Israeli officials said. Search efforts continue for a second crew member. US President Donald Trump has been briefed on the matter.
- In response, Iran’s parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf mocked the US, posting on X: “After defeating Iran 37 times in a row, this brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from ‘regime change’ to ‘Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?’”
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Trump declined to discuss the search-and-rescue effort for the missing F-15E pilot, whose status remains “unknown”. He said the downing of the jet would not affect negotiations to end the war with Iran, but that he was not ready to say what the US would do if the missing crew member was harmed by Iran.
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A second US Air Force plane was shot down over southern waters near the Strait of Hormuz. The lone pilot of the A-10 Warthog was safely rescued, US officials confirmed. Iran earlier said its air defences had hit the plane.
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A US Air Force UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter was badly damaged by Iranian ground fire during the operation to rescue the crew of the downed F-15E jet. The helicopter managed to fly to safety in Iraq.
- Trump is asking Congress to boost defence spending to $US1.5 trillion ($2.2 trillion), according to a White House outline of Trump’s 2027 budget proposal.
- Australian petrol and diesel suppliers are diversifying their supply chains to bring in new shipments from five continents.
In between NASA astronauts blasting off for the moon, Anthony Albanese’s prime-time appeal to keep calm and carry on, and Donald Trump’s threat to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages”, you might’ve missed that China has devised a plan for peace in our time.
Unfortunately for Beijing, an avalanche of major global news overshadowed the release of its five-point plan for “restoring peace and stability” in the Middle East, which it jointly proposed with Pakistan this week. But it’s also struggled to get serious traction for another reason.
Trump’s war in Iran has gifted China a stronger narrative to pitch itself as the more stable, responsible superpower, but when it comes to its peace-brokering chops, Beijing has a credibility deficit.
Read North Asia correspondent Lisa Visentin’s analysis here.
About $30.3 billion in immediate funding is needed to support strained health services in Iran and another four Arab countries including Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Syria according to World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“This appeal will support essential health services and trauma care, disease surveillance and early warning systems, mass casualty management and national readiness for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear emergencies,” he said on the social platform X on Friday.
The request comes as Tedros warned Saturday that Iranian attacks on two water desalination facilities in Kuwait are jeopardising public health in the Gulf. Attacking water desalination plants is generally prohibited under international humanitarian law.
One facility was hit on Saturday morning, following a March 29 attack on the West Doha Power Generation and Desalination Plant which killed one worker.
US special forces entered Iran on Friday to rescue a crew member of an F-15 fighter jet shot down over Iranian airspace, the first US jet destroyed by enemy fire since the war began, The Telegraph reports. While one airman was rescued by military helicopters targeted by Iranian fire, the whereabouts of a second crew member is still unknown.
Iranian state media has broadcast images of local militia fanning out to find the stranded American, offering a $US60,000 ($87,000) bounty for his capture. In a separate incident near the Strait of Hormuz, the pilot of a crashed US A-10 Warthog was successfully rescued.
US President Donald Trump declined to comment on potential retaliation if the missing airman was harmed. Speaking to The Independent, he said: “We hope that’s not going to happen”. The rescues occurred as the US and Israel continued hitting targets across Iran.
Security is like oxygen, observed a guru of foreign affairs, the late Joseph Nye: “You tend not to notice it until you begin to lose it, but once that occurs, there is nothing else that you will think about.”
Australia now is getting a foretaste of that phenomenon. The complacency of governments Liberal and Labor has made Australia vulnerable. A few weeks of war in a faraway place and suddenly Australian food supply is in doubt. Not because we lack food; Australia produces enough to feed itself plus Greece, Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates combined, on a calorific basis, as an illustration.
Our food supply is in doubt because we can’t be sure of the fuel to grow it and deliver it. Australian nonchalance is so entrenched that even the hard lessons of the past few years have not been hard enough.
In six years, we’ve suffered three major trade and supply chain interruptions – the COVID cut-off, Chinese government trade coercion and irrational US tariff attacks – and learnt nothing. Rory Medcalf of the Australian National University’s National Security College calls it “preparedness amnesia”.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen this morning would not comment on Australia’s role in international discussions on how to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as countries around the world grapple with the oil shock.
Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will visit Australia later this month to discuss co-operation on safe navigation of the Strait, and strengthening supply chains for rare-earth elements, the Japanese Nikkei newspaper has reported.
“The prime minister makes announcements about prime ministerial visits, not a humble energy minister,” Bowen told reporters in Sydney when asked to confirm the report. He added that regional relationships were crucial and ministers were working closely with international counterparts as the war in Iran continues to disrupt global oil supply.
Asked about a report in The Australian that Australia would send representatives to a global military meeting in the United Kingdom next week, Bowen said: “We’ve made clear we won’t be involved in any offensive arrangements in the Middle East. That position has been consistent.”
Almost 80 service stations that did not have diesel on Good Friday now have supply today, according to Energy Minister Chris Bowen who this morning gave his weekly update on Australia’s stockpile of fuel amid the ongoing Iran conflict.
Bowen said Australia had 39 days worth of petrol, 29 days worth of diesel, and 30 days of jet fuel in its reserves – one day of diesel less than last week’s update but otherwise stable.
“We are also seeing very strong demand,” Bowen said.
He said Victoria’s Viva refinery had reported demand in the two days before Easter was 30 per cent higher this year compared to 2025.
Video posted on social media – and verified by The New York Times – shows Iranians firing at low-flying helicopters in south-west Iran.
It was in the same area that other US military aircraft were seen conducting search-and-rescue operations after Iran shot down an F-15E fighter jet.
One crew member was rescued, but search efforts are continuing for a second crew member.
US officials have confirmed that two Blackhawk helicopters involved in the search effort for the missing pilot were hit by Iranian ground fire but made it out of Iranian airspace, Reuters reported.
World leaders have struggled to end Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, which has had far-reaching consequences for the global economy and has proved to be its greatest strategic advantage in the war.
The United Nations Security Council was set to vote on Friday (New York time) on a resolution that would support a range of measures to reopen the waterway.
The resolution proposed by Bahrain with support from other Gulf states and Jordan would back a range of “defensive measures” to secure transit passage through the vital waterway, according to the United Arab Emirates.
Yet Russia, an Iranian ally, pushed back on the initiative. It “is unlikely to improve the chances of a peaceful settlement” and may instead “legitimise aggression against Iran”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.
The comments signal that Moscow may use its veto, which it is granted as one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council. China has also already made clear its opposition to authorising armed intervention.
The vote is now set to be held on Saturday (New York time).
Bloomberg, Reuters
Thousands of people have been killed across the Middle East in the war since it began when the US and Israel struck Iran on February 28. Those strikes triggered Iranian attacks on Israel, US bases and the Gulf states, while opening a new front in Lebanon.
Here are the latest death tolls reported. Reuters has not independently verified them.
IRAN: US-based rights group HRANA said 3531 people have been killed since the war erupted. It said 1607 of those were civilians, including at least 244 children. The group says its data comes from field reports, local contacts, medical and emergency sources, civil society networks, open-source materials and official statements.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said that at least 1900 people have been killed and 20,000 injured in Iran in the US-Israeli strikes so far. It was not clear if those figures included at least 104 people who the Iranian military said were killed in a US attack on an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka on March 4.
