President Donald Trump has been speaking to a number of different US media outlets after threatening Iran’s infrastructure if the country doesn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Here’s what we’ve heard.

He told Axios that the US is « in deep negotiations » with Iran to make a deal. He says « there is a good chance, but if they don’t make a deal, I am blowing up everything over there ».

He similarly told Fox News there is a “good chance” a deal will be reached tomorrow, but he is considering “blowing everything up and taking over the oil” if a deal to end the war is not reached quickly – as we reported earlier

Trump told the Wall Street Journal that if Iran want to keep the strait closed « they’re going to lose every power plant and every other plant they have in the whole country »

As we’ve been reporting, Donald Trump has issued an expletive-laden threat that Iran’s infrastructure will be hit on Tuesday if the Strait of Hormuz is not opened.

He had previously issued a deadline of 6 April for Iran to make a deal. In a new post on his Truth Social platform, Trump writes: « Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time! »

That’s 03:30 Tehran time on Wednesday (01:00 BST).

It’s not clear what Trump’s social media post is referring to. The BBC has asked the White House to clarify.

Four people have been injured in Haifa, northern Israel, after a rocket strike, the country’s emergency service Magen David Adom says.

It says this includes « an approximately 82-year-old man in serious condition who was injured by a heavy object, and 3 casualties in mild condition with shrapnel and blast injuries ».

The emergency service has shared these pictures of the scene.

Military trains ‘endlessly’ for rescue missions, former US commander says

Gen Frank McKenzie, a retired former commander of US Central Command, tells CBS Face the Nation that the rescue of the airman in Iran is something the US military trains “endlessly” for.

“Every time we send air crew over enemy territory, we have detailed elaborate plans to go get them,” he says.

McKenzie says this rescue operation left the airman in a “position where they can hide until you can get to them, all that seemed to work out very well”.

The retired general says “we did in fact lose a couple of aircraft in that mission”, but it’s a loss you take « any day » in such a situation.

He says it is a “hard lesson” for Iran that it was “not able to find the missing air crewman” before the US rescuers.

World Opinion + Agencies

L’article Analysis. Trump issues expletive-laden threat to Iran demanding Strait of Hormuz be opened.. Video est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

US President Donald Trump has claimed that Iran has asked for a ceasefire, saying he will consider it when Strait of Hormuz is open.

Iranian officials have rejected those claims, saying no such request was made.

Qatar’s Defence Ministry says missiles launched from Iran hit oil tanker in the country’s territorial waters.

Kuwait says an Iranian attack has sparked a “large fire” at the fuel tanks at its international airport.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi tells Al Jazeera he has no faith in talks with the US, and says that while he has had messages from Washington, no negotiations are under way.

Israeli medics say 14 wounded in Iranian missile attack

Israel’s emergency services say the wounded included an 11-year-old girl in a missile strike near Tel Aviv that the military blamed on Iran.

In the central city of Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv, the Magen David Adom emergency service said it had treated and evacuated to hospital 14 wounded people, adding that the girl is in critical condition with shrapnel injuries.

It said a 13-year-old boy and a 36-year-old woman, also with shrapnel injuries, were in moderate condition, while a further 11 casualties were in mild condition.

Hezbollah says it downed Israeli drone, attacked warplane

Hezbollah has been announcing a flurry of attacks on Israeli army personnel and positions today. In recent hours, it said, its fighters attacked a newly established Israeli artillery emplacement in the town of Rabaa Thalathin with missiles.

It added that its fighters shot down an Israeli enemy drone with a surface-to-air missile in the skies over the town of Ainata, and “confronted” an Israeli warplane in the skies over the town of Bflay.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army on any of these claims.

World Opinion + Agencies

L’article Iran rejects Trump claims that Tehran asked for a ceasefire est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

More on this incident in southern Israel now, as the national fire and rescue service instructs workers in and around the blaze to shelter in a safe space.

The service says the fire in Neot Hovav industrial zone has been declared « a hazardous materials incident », urging workers to evacuate « exposed » areas and instead shelter in « protected structures ».

According to Reuters news agency, ADAMA, a global crop protection company, has released a statement confirming its Makhteshim plant was the site that was hit – either by an Iranian missile or debris from an intercepted missile.

ADAMA – part of Chinese-owned Syngenta Group – says the extent of any damage to the plant is not immediately known, reports Reuters.

Death toll continues to climb in Lebanon during Israeli invasion

Officials in Lebanon say more than 1,200 people have been killed over the past four weeks.

The toll includes 124 children with more than 3,500 people wounded, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

On Saturday and Sunday alone, 49 people were killed including 10 rescue workers and three journalists.

Fears continue to rise of more deaths after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is “determined to fundamentally change the situation in the north”.

Hezbollah “still has residual capability to fire rockets at us”, he said.

Iran has ‘appetite for negotiations’ but also apprehension

Iran is eager to have talks and some sort of negotiations but on its own terms, says Mehran Kamrava, director of the Iranian studies unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies.

“There is appetite, but there is also apprehension,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that Tehran is concerned that in a few months, the Americans, or more likely the Israelis, would attack again.

In terms of guarantees, “what the Iranians want to do in addition to some sort of internationally sanctioned document is they want to make sure that the pain that they inflict on the United States and on America’s regional allies are deep enough, that they are painful enough that the Americans and the Israelis will think twice next time when they want to attack Iran.”

Over the past several weeks, the Iranians along with the US and Israel have been willing to cross successive red lines.

They have attacked oil and energy installations and strikes in the Middle East have become increasingly accurate, Kamrava said. They have also caused “major damage in military bases in Saudi Arabia, so that is another source of leverage”, he added.

World Opinion + Agencies

L’article Analysis. Israel says industrial site on fire after Iranian attack as hundreds mourn killed journalists in Lebanon.. Video est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

Israel has attacked two nuclear facilities and two major steel plants, actions for which Iran’s FM Araghchi says it will carry out “heavy” retaliation.

The attacks came despite US President Donald Trump’s promise to further delay attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure by 10 days – until April 6 – as he continues to claim talks with Iran on a peace deal are going “very well”.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar confirms Islamabad is relaying messages between US and Iranian officials as part of mediation efforts to end the war, with Turkiye and Egypt also lending support.

Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Ali Jafarian tells Al Jazeera at least 1,937 people have been killed in US-Israeli attacks on his country.

Israel has issued displacement orders for all residents of Lebanon living south of the Zahrani River – located some 50km (31 miles) from the border with Israel – as Lebanon’s Health Ministry reports more than 1,100 people killed in Israeli attacks since March 2.

Iran’s Ghalibaf says ‘fake news’ no longer altering energy markets

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf says the US’s spamming of “fake news” to alter the energy markets and push prices down had only made it “numb”.

“Keep going, nobody’s buying it anymore. The real prices will show up anyway. Powerful? Maybe. But Smart? Not even close. Burned that fake news card way too early,” Ghalibaf wrote on X.

US stocks closed out their worst week since the war began, with the S&P 500 falling 1.6 percent.

World Opinion + Agencies

L’article Tehran vows retaliation for Israeli hits on nuclear sites.. Video est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

A major breakthrough has been announced by US scientists in the race to recreate nuclear fusion.

Physicists have pursued the technology for decades as it promises a potential source of near-limitless clean energy.

On Tuesday researchers confirmed they have overcome a major barrier – producing more energy from a fusion experiment than was put in.

But experts say there is still some way to go before fusion powers homes.

The experiment took place at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California.

LLNL director Dr Kim Budil said: « This is a historic achievement… over the past 60 years thousands of people have contributed to this endeavour and it took real vision to get us here. »

Nuclear fusion is described as the « holy grail » of energy production. It is the process that powers the Sun and other stars.

It works by taking pairs of light atoms and forcing them together – this « fusion » releases a lot of energy.

It is the opposite of nuclear fission, where heavy atoms are split apart. Fission is the technology currently used in nuclear power stations, but the process also produces a lot of waste that continues to give out radiation for a long time. It can be dangerous and must be stored safely.

Nuclear fusion produces far more energy, and only small amounts of short-lived radioactive waste. And importantly, the process produces no greenhouse gas emissions and therefore does not contribute to climate change.

But one of the challenges is that forcing and keeping the elements together in fusion requires very high temperatures and pressures. Until now, no experiment has managed to produce more energy than the amount put in to make it work.

How close is a fusion-powered future?

The amount of energy they’ve generated in this experiment is tiny – just enough to boil a few kettles. But what it represents is huge.

The promise of a fusion-powered future is one step closer. But there’s still a long way to go before this becomes a reality.

This experiment shows that the science works. Before scientists can even think about scaling it up, it needs to be repeated, perfected, and the amount of energy it generates will have to be significantly boosted.

This experiment has cost billions of dollars – fusion does not come cheap. But the promise of a source of clean energy will certainly be a big incentive for overcoming these challenges.

The National Ignition Facility in California is a $3.5bn (£2.85bn) experiment.

It puts a tiny amount of hydrogen into a capsule the size of a peppercorn.

Then a powerful 192-beam laser is used to heat and compress the hydrogen fuel.

The laser is so strong it can heat the capsule to 100 million degrees Celsius – hotter than the centre of the Sun, and compress it to more than 100 billion times that of Earth’s atmosphere.

Under these forces the capsule begins to implode on itself, forcing the hydrogen atoms to fuse and release energy.

On announcing the breakthrough Dr. Marvin Adams deputy administrator for defense programs at the US National Nuclear Security Administration said that the laboratory’s lasers had input 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, which had then produced 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output.

Dr Melanie Windridge, CEO of Fusion Energy Insights, told the BBC: « Fusion has been exciting scientists since they first figured out what was causing the Sun to shine. These results today really put us on the path to the commercialization of the technology. »

Prof Jeremy P. Chittenden, professor of plasma physics and co-director of the Centre for Inertial Fusion Studies at Imperial College London called it « a true breakthrough moment ».

« It proves that the long sought-after goal, the ‘holy grail’ of fusion, can indeed be achieved, » he said.

This has been the sentiment echoed by physicists globally, who praised the work of the international science community.

Prof Gianluca Gregori, Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford said: « Today’s success rests upon the work done by many scientists in the US, UK and around the world. With ignition now achieved, not only fusion energy is unlocked, but also a door is opening to new science. »

On the question of how long before we could see fusion being used in power stations, Dr Budil, the LLNL director, said there were still significant hurdles but that: « with concerted efforts and investment, a few decades of research on the underlying technologies could put us in a position to build a power plant ».

This is progress from when scientists used to say 50 – 60 years in answer to that question.

One of the main hurdles is getting cost down and scaling up the energy output.

The experiment was only able to produce enough energy to boil about 15-20 kettles and required billions of dollars of investment. And although the experiment got more energy out than the laser put in, this did not include the energy needed to make the lasers work – which was far greater that the amount of energy the hydrogen produced.

World Opinions – BBC News

L’article Breakthrough in nuclear fusion energy announced est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

A European proposal to revive the nuclear agreement between Western countries and Iran is imminent and includes the release of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian funds and oil exports in return for the scaling back of its nuclear programme.

The new deal will be carried out in four phases over two 60-day periods, sources with knowledge of the proposed agreement told Al Jazeera Arabic.

Iran recently voiced optimism about an agreement on a renewed version of the 2015 nuclear deal with the United States and other foreign powers, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Iran’s negotiating team adviser Mohammad Marandi said earlier this week “we’re closer than we’ve been before” to securing a deal and the “remaining issues are not very difficult to resolve”.

The European Union’s “final text” proposal for the accord, submitted last week, was approved by the US, which says it is ready to quickly seal the agreement if Iran accepts it.

According to sources with knowledge of the matter, the proposal stipulates on the day after the agreement is signed, sanctions on 17 Iranian banks as well as 150 economic institutions will be lifted.

It also says Tehran will immediately begin to reverse the steps it took to advance its nuclear technology, which is now beyond the scope of what the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the 2015 deal’s original signatories say is acceptable.

Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is now at 60 percent enrichment, its highest ever and a jump from the 3.67 percent limit set out by the 2015 deal. Enrichment at 90 percent is needed to build a nuclear bomb.

Within 120 days of signing the agreement, Iran will be permitted to export 50 million barrels of oil per day. The deal also includes the release of $7bn of Iran’s funds, which are currently being held in South Korea, the sources said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The US will have to pay a fine in the event it withdraws from the nuclear agreement again, as it did under the administration of former President Donald Trump in 2018, according to the sources.

With a revived nuclear deal, the US and the deal’s other signatories – France, the United Kingdom, Germany, China and Russia, known collectively as the P5+1 – aim to contain the nuclear programme and prevent what many warn could be a nuclear weapons crisis in the Middle East.

Iran maintains its aims are peaceful and its actions fall within the country’s sovereign rights to a civilian nuclear programme.

Obstacles to overcome

One of the main sticking points to reviving a deal appears to be a safeguards inquiry into Iran’s nuclear programme by the IAEA, which Tehran wants closed for good before the JCPOA is restored.

The nuclear watchdog has demanded more cooperation on traces of man-made nuclear particles found at several Iranian sites years ago, saying that is the only way the inquiry could be terminated.

Another factor is the US designation of Iran’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as a “foreign terrorist organisation”. The US appears reluctant to meet Tehran’s demand to remove the IRGC from the blacklist to seal the deal.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has suggested the IRGC’s “terror” designation falls outside the purview of the nuclear deal and, therefore, requires separate concessions from Iran.

Right-wing US politicians and Israel, the arch-rival of Iran, have warned Washington against lifting sanctions on the IRGC. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid spoke to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday, pressing Israel’s position that efforts to revive a nuclear deal with Iran should end.

Tehran, meanwhile, has said it will never shelve plans for revenge after the killing of the Revolutionary Guard’s top general, Qassem Soleimani.

Soleimani, who headed the elite Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the IRGC, was killed in an American drone strike in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, in January 2020.

Trump ordered Soleimani killed saying he was planning an “imminent” attack on American personnel in the Iraqi capital.

Iran responded to his assassination by firing missiles a few days later at Iraqi bases housing US troops, causing injuries. The attacks and retaliatory strikes brought the Middle East region to the brink of war.

“This is a tougher deal to sell than the 2015 deal in that this time around there are no illusions that it will serve to moderate Iranian behaviour or lead to greater US-Iran cooperation,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“The Iranian government stands to get tens of billions in sanctions relief and the organising principle of the regime will continue to be opposition to the United States and violence against its critics, both at home and abroad,” he said.

World Opinions – Aljazeera

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