Key Reads <\/p>\n
Jade Wilson – 16 minutes ago<\/p>\n
Recent days have seen the biggest flare-ups in fighting in and around the strait since a ceasefire began.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, the United Arab Emirates said it intercepted two drones coming from Iran, while Qatar condemned a drone attack that hit a cargo ship coming from Abu \u200cDhabi in its waters. Kuwait said its air defences had dealt with hostile drones that entered its airspace.<\/p>\n
Clashes have also continued in southern Lebanon between Israel and Hizbullah, despite a US-brokered ceasefire announced \u200bin April.<\/p>\n
Jade Wilson – 24 minutes ago<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5PJLX6Z5B5A3WCEYWSVNFS34AY.jpg\")
A photograph taken from the southern Lebanese area of Marjeyoun shows smoke as it rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the village of Mayfadoun on Monday. Photograph: AFP via Getty Images Trump travels to Beijing this week to meet Xi Jinping<\/p>\n
Donald Trump is expected to arrive \u2060in Beijing on Wednesday. With mounting pressure to draw \u200ba line under the war and the global energy crisis it has ignited, Iran is among the topics Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping are set to discuss.<\/p>\n
Trump has been leaning on China to use its influence to push Tehran to make a deal with Washington.<\/p>\n
Addressing whether combat operations against Iran were over, Trump said in remarks aired on Sunday: \u201cThey are defeated, but that doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the war was not over because there was \u201cmore work to be done\u201d to remove enriched uranium from Iran, dismantle enrichment sites and address Iran\u2019s proxies and ballistic missile capabilities.<\/p>\n
The best way to remove the enriched uranium would be through diplomacy, Netanyahu said in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS News\u2019 \u201c60 Minutes\u201d. But he did not rule out removing it by force.<\/p>\n
Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian said in a social media post that Iran would \u201cnever bow down \u200cto the enemy\u201d and would \u201cdefend national interests with \u2060strength\u201d. – Reuters<\/p>\n
Oil prices rise as US-Iran stalemate continues<\/p>\n
Oil prices jumped more than $4 (\u20ac3.40) a barrel on Monday following news of the \u2060continued stalemate that leaves the narrow Strait of Hormuz largely closed. <\/p>\n
Before the war began on February 28th, the waterway carried a fifth of the world\u2019s oil and liquefied natural gas \u200cflows, \u200cand it \u200bhas emerged as one of the central pressure points in the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe oil market continues to trade like a geopolitical headline machine, with prices swinging sharply based on every comment, rejection, or warning coming from Washington and Tehran,\u201d said Priyanka Sachdeva, senior market analyst at Phillip Nova.<\/p>\n
While traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is at a \u200btrickle compared to before the war, shipping data on Kpler and LSEG showed three tankers laden with \u200bcrude exited the waterway last week, with trackers switched off to avoid Iranian attack. <\/p>\n
Surveys show the war is unpopular with US voters facing sharply higher gasoline prices less than six months before nationwide elections that \u200cwill determine whether Donald Trump\u2019s Republican party retains control of Congress. – Reuters<\/p>\n
Trump rejects \u2018totally unacceptable\u2019 Iran response <\/p>\n
President Donald Trump\u2019s swift rejection of Iran\u2019s response to a US peace proposal sent oil prices \u200csurging on Monday amid concerns the 10-week-old conflict will drag on, keeping shipping through the Strait of Hormuz paralysed. <\/p>\n
Days after the US floated an offer in the hopes of re-opening negotiations, Iran on Sunday released a response focused on ending the war \u200bon all fronts, especially Lebanon, where US ally Israel is fighting Iran-backed Hizbullah militants.<\/p>\n
Tehran also included a demand for compensation for war damage and emphasised Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian state TV said.<\/p>\n
It also called on the US to end its naval blockade, guarantee no further attacks, lift sanctions and end a US ban on Iranian oil sales, the semi-official Tasnim news agency said.<\/p>\n
Within hours, Trump dismissed Iran\u2019s proposal with a post on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like \u200bit \u2014 TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social, without giving further detail. The US had proposed an end to fighting before starting talks on more contentious issues, including Iran\u2019s nuclear programme. – Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Main points US president Donald Trump swiftly rejected Iran\u2019s response to a peace proposal from Washington \u201cI don\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,356,13,14,6,18929,71,11,12,15,16,5,168834,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-478788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-iran","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-world","25":"tag-world-news","26":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116554744456398899","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}