SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Thank you for joining our continuing live coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.
Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
- US President Donald Trump has said he is giving Iran another 10 days to negotiate on ending the war before possible strikes on energy infrastructure.
- Following his remarks, oil dropped as much as 2 per cent to below $US106 a barrel after surging by almost 6 per cent on Thursday, while West Texas Intermediate was near $93.
- Trump held a cabinet meeting this morning (AEDT) during which he claimed the “present” the US had received from Iran was 10 Pakistan-flagged boats of oil that passed through the Strait of Hormuz.
- He also criticised allies, including Australia, for not doing more to support his war.
- Albanese responded to this at a press conference this morning, saying it was up to Trump to explain his comments. “I make the point as well that Australia wasn’t consulted before this action was undertaken, and I expect that that’s a matter for the United States.”
- At the press conference, Albanese said Australia’s fuel supplies remained secure short-term.
- Albanese dismissed the Coalition’s call to slash electric vehicle and home battery subsidies to fund a cut to the fuel excise, saying they were important cost-of-living measures.
- Albanese also said Australia expected reciprocation for its reliable supply of gas to neighbouring countries as the government continues to work to shore up fuel supply.
- Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, confirmed the US had given a 15-point “action list” to Iran, delivered through Pakistan, as a framework for a possible peace deal.
- An Iranian official, speaking to Reuters, described the plan as “one-sided and unfair”.
- Israel claims to have killed Commodore Alireza Tangsiri, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ navy, in an airstrike. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Tangsiri was responsible for bombing operations that have blocked ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz.
- The war, about to enter its fifth week, has now killed more than 3000 people. This includes 1900 people in Iran, nearly 1100 in Lebanon and 18 in Israel, while three Israeli soldiers have been killed in Lebanon. Thirteen US military members have died, as well as a number of civilians on land and sea in the Gulf region. Millions of people in Lebanon and Iran have been displaced.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in France to meet his Group of Seven counterparts after President Donald Trump attacked NATO countries over a reluctance or refusal to take part in the Iran war, a conflict that some of America’s closest allies have met with deep scepticism.
Rubio will have a hard time trying to sell the other top diplomats from G7 countries on the US strategy for the Iran conflict, to which almost all nations have raised objections.
Trump’s vitriolic comments about NATO – and to a lesser extent Australia – during a cabinet meeting on Thursday will make it an even tougher task. Of the G7 nations – besides the US – Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy are members of the transatlantic military alliance. Japan is the only one that is not.
Rubio left Washington for the G7 meeting outside Paris just hours after Trump complained bitterly about NATO countries not stepping up to help the US and Israel in the Iran war.
The chief executive of one of Australia’s major energy companies has called for calm
At a press conference held next to a shipment of crude oil in Geelong, Scott Wyatt of Viva Energy said he understood the concerns that prompted the panic buying Australia had seen in recent weeks, but that supply was coming in.
“People need to be calm… purchase as needed, and trust government and companies like us with doing our job,” he said.
At the press conference, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan announced the company had increased by two its scheduled shipments into the Corio refinery in coming weeks.
With Alexander Darling
New Zealand has outlined a four-phase strategy to manage rising risks to petrol, diesel and jet fuel supplies.
It said no restrictions were currently needed because the government remained well positioned to respond to potential energy shocks.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis said the country was in the first phase of the plan, which focuses on monitoring global developments and promoting voluntary reductions in fuel use.
A powerful cyclone has forced production cuts across key Australian gas-export plants, adding pressure to global energy markets already in short supply due to the war in the Middle East choking oil and natural gas flows.
Oil and gas giant Chevron has evacuated workers from its Wheatstone gas platform – 225 kilometres off the coast of Western Australia – as Tropical Cyclone Narelle swept through the region and forced it to suspend output of domestic gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) destined for export markets.
The storm’s reach extended to the company’s massive Gorgon gas plant on nearby Barrow Island, where severe weather forced the shutdown of one of its three LNG-production units, the company said.
Together, the Wheatstone and Gorgon projects account for roughly 5 per cent of global supply of LNG – natural gas that has been super-chilled into a liquid so it can be shipped around the world.
The United Nations Security Council – a group of 15 nations charged with keeping international peace – scheduled closed consultation on Iran tomorrow morning Australian time.
Russia asked for the meeting on US-Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure in the country, two UN diplomats said, speaking late yesterday on condition of anonymity because the meeting is not public.
The US, which holds the Security Council presidency, scheduled the meeting.
The Security Council has the power to make legally binding resolutions that apply to any and all countries that are members of the UN.
AP
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer suggested he won’t be bullied by Donald Trump in a further demonstration of how the US president’s war on Iran has frayed the so-called special relationship between their two countries.
It comes as Trump has also criticised Australia for not doing more to support his war. Australia maintains it has honoured the one request made of it so far.
“My own view is that a lot of what is said and done has been to put pressure on me to change my mind, but I’m not going to do so,” Starmer told Beth Rigby of Sky News for the Electoral Dysfunction podcast when asked about recent criticism from Trump.
“When it came to the Iran war, I’ve said we’re not going to get dragged in because my judgment is that’s not in the interests of our country.”
Iran has sent a letter to the United Nations over claims that its foreign minister and parliament Speaker had been “targets for assassination”.
The letter, dated Thursday and signed by ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani, focused on media reports that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf had both been spared for the time being by Israel and the US as negotiations to reach a ceasefire in the war go on.
“The reports indicate the existence of an operational framework contemplating the assassination of the highest-ranking political officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the letter reads.
It added, “The conditional nature of the purported ‘suspension’ further underscores that the threat remains real, deliberate and ongoing.”
The United States has deployed uncrewed drone speedboats for patrols as part of its operations against Iran, the Pentagon said, the first time Washington has confirmed using such vessels in an active conflict.
The deployment of the vessels – which can be used for surveillance or kamikaze strikes – has not previously been reported.
It comes despite a series of setbacks in the US Navy’s years-long effort to field a fleet of uncrewed surface vessels, Reuters reported last year.
Uncrewed vessels have risen to prominence in recent years after Ukraine used explosive-laden speedboats to inflict significant damage on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey has warned that consumers and businesses should brace for more “short-term inflation” amid an oil shock he has described as “arguably bigger than the 1970s”.
Mookhey was speaking at a conference on data centre growth in western Sydney, where he was spruiking the government’s support for the industry’s growth in the region.
But he addressed the oil crisis affecting fuel prices around the world, saying he is concerned at the impacts the crisis will have on the economy.
He said that he would “concur with what [federal Treasurer] Jim Chalmers has said, that we are expecting there to have impacts on the economy”.
Iran has allowed Malaysian vessels trapped in the Persian Gulf to return home through the Strait of Hormuz, Malaysia’s prime minister Anwar Ibrahim said in a televised address yesterday evening.
The narrow waterway has been all but closed since US and Israeli strikes against Iran began almost a month ago, upending global energy markets and trapping hundreds of tankers and other vessels.
Malaysia is a significant oil and gas producer, but it also imports crude from the Middle East and is heavily dependent on the strait.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank the president of Iran for granting early passage,” Anwar said. “We are now in the process of securing the release of Malaysian oil tankers and workers involved, so that they can continue their journey home.”
