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Mar 3, 2026 - World

Beijing’s foreign ministry urges ‘all parties’ to avoid escalation as number of crossings drops 60% in one dayHow escalating Iran conflict is driving up oil and gas prices – a visual guideBusiness live – latest updatesThe Chinese government has called for vessels passing through the strait of Hormuz to be protected by all sides in the escalating Iran conflict, as shipping freight rates soared.Maritime traffic through the strait – a narrow channel on Iran’s southern border that connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman – has effectively been closed since the US and Israel launched missile attacks on Iran at the weekend, prompting a retaliation from Tehran. Continue reading...

Mar 3, 2026 - World

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Israel did not pressure the United States to launch strikes against Iran. Trump was meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and speaking about the conflict with Iran at the White House when he took questions from reporters inside the Oval Office. He claimed that Iran's navy, air force and radar technology had been "knocked out.""I might have forced their hand," Trump said. "You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics and it was opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going to attack if we didn't do it. They were going to attack first, I felt strongly about that, and we have great negotiators, great people, people that do this very successfully and have done it all their lives very successfully. And based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they were going to attack first and I didn't want that to happen."Trump's comments somewhat differed from Secretary of State Marco Rubio's remarks on Monday about how Israel claimed Iran was planning to attack. Trump appeared to say he had pushed for the strikes instead."So if anything I might have forced Israel's hand but Israel was ready, and we were ready, and we've had a very, very powerful impact because virtually everything they have has been knocked out now," Trump said.Trump commented that Iran has targeted Arab countries that were neutral, targeting civilians and hotels, but now those countries have planned to fight back. "They hit countries that have nothing to do with what's going on... which shows you the level of evil that we're dealing with," Trump said. Q: Did Israel force your land to launch these strikes against Iran?TRUMP: No. I might've forced their hand. It was my opinion that these lunatics were gonna attack first. pic.twitter.com/KcDmIbI6Vr— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 3, 2026

Mar 3, 2026 - World

The U.S. has enough ammunition to fight "forever" while most of Iran's military assets have been destroyed, President Trump said Tuesday, as the U.S.-Israeli campaign targeted a key meeting of Iranian leaders and the State Department scrambled to evacuate Americans trapped in the Middle East.

Mar 3, 2026 - World

While the U.S. fights a widening war in Iran, American prosecutors are airing claims that Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard was entangled in a foiled 2024 assassination plot that eyed then-candidate Donald Trump as a possible target.

Mar 3, 2026 - World

An analyst revealed the difficult challenge ahead for President Donald Trump as the war in Iran now enters its fourth day. In an interview on MS NOW's Morning Joe with David Ignatius, columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, and Shashank Joshi, defense editor at The Economist, Joshi discussed the Trump administration's mixed messaging about objectives for the military strikes in Iran, including regime change, then "imminent threats" from Iran against Israel and the push to stop Iran from developing ballistic missiles. "What we heard yesterday from Dan Caine, from Secretary Rubio, from Secretary Hegseth, others, was a very, very different set of aims narrowly focused around Iran's missile program," Joshi said.The war aims, such as regime change, could take weeks, Joshi explained. "Now that, I think, can be done in a short period of time, they can degrade missile stockpiles, and we've already heard the Iranians the Israelis say they have destroyed about half of the Iranian missile launches that Iran's able to bring to bear and I think you could have really long lasting and severe damage done to Iran's missile program by the end of this week," Joshi said. "There's no doubt about it. But the problem is, you would still have an Iran led by individuals who are more hardline in some respects than the leaders who have been killed by the strike so far. You have, you know, a new leader of these Islamic Revolutionary Guard, called Vahidi, who is this man? Well, you know, David is, you know, he is a former head of the expeditionary, IRGC. He was associated with the bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Argentina in the 1990s. This is not a regime that will be more moderate, more pragmatic, more deterred than that, of Ayatollah Khamenei." Despite the killing of Khamenei and the dismantling of Iran's weapons, the problem over Iran's leadership will still remain. "And so, I still think at the end of this week, even though enormous damage may have been done to Iran's missile program, including the supply chain, the explosives, the guidance systems, you will still have the political problem sitting in Iran over regime, that cast this incredible U.S. missile shadow over the Persian Gulf, and I think the Trump administration will find it very hard to articulate that and frame that as some kind of decisive win," Joshi added. The strikes have wiped out the regime, but it could take time for Iranians to reform their government. "But I think the focus of these first three days of operations have been on Iran's missile forces, Iran's navy and nuclear and missile sites as well as political leadership," Joshi said. "I think if you are going to give the Iranian people the confidence to say, 'if we go back onto the streets in a week's time and we want confidence, we are not going to be gunned down in the same way.' I think what you need to see is an Israeli and American set of strikes over the next four or five days that systematically break down Iran's domestic security apparatus." But history could repeat. "I think that is a very hard thing to do, and I think that President Trump will face the dilemma between doing that and upholding his commitment to the Iranian people that he has made and sucking himself into a longer campaign, but it'll, he should remember the case of George H.W. Bush in 1991, who, as you will recall at David and others, called upon the Iraqi people to rise up in 1991 after the first Gulf War and the Shias in the south and the Kurds in the north did so, and they were massacred by Saddam Hussein," Joshi said. "That should be, I think a very, very cautionary tale for American strategy today."