Middle East crisis live: IEA chief says Iran war energy crunch worse than 1970s oil crises and Ukraine war combined

• During a heated Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand directly challenged Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over rising Iran war costs, specifically questioning reports of a potential $200 billion additional spending request. • Gillibrand pressed Hegseth on the lack of evidence that military operations have made Americans safer, arguing the massive spending burden conflicts with domestic economic pressures and inflation affecting citizens. • Hegseth defended the campaign as a necessary and "defined mission" with strategic objectives, comparing it to long-term conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan, highlighting growing Washington tension over war costs and direction.

• President Donald Trump signed a comprehensive executive order significantly expanding U.S. sanctions against Cuba, targeting individuals, entities, and sectors linked to the Cuban government. • The new measures focus on key economic areas including energy, defense, financial services, and security sectors, with secondary sanctions allowed on foreign entities conducting business with targeted Cuban organizations. • The escalation reflects Trump's intensified pressure campaign against the Cuban government and signals broader shifts in U.S. foreign policy toward adversarial regimes.

• A CNN investigation based on satellite imagery and damage assessments found that Iranian strikes damaged at least 16 U.S. military installations across eight Middle Eastern countries during the conflict. • Some U.S. military facilities suffered extensive harm classified as operationally unusable or facing difficult repair decisions, suggesting the scale of attacks was far greater than publicly acknowledged. • The report raises questions about whether the Pentagon has understated both physical damage and the true financial costs of the Iran war, challenging official public accounting of the conflict.

• Reports indicate Iran may be circumventing international sanctions through cryptocurrency exchanges, with Nobitex allegedly linked to figures close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's circle acting as a key financial conduit for sanctioned entities and individuals. • Blockchain analysis suggests millions of dollars have moved through the platform despite Western restrictions, utilizing advanced obfuscation tactics to obscure transaction trails. • The alleged sanctions evasion exposes enforcement gaps as the Trump administration grapples with containing financial flows from Iran, raising questions about the effectiveness of existing economic pressure campaigns.

• An Israeli Defense Forces official warned that the Iran conflict risks becoming "one big failure" unless Tehran's estimated 400 kilograms of enriched uranium, stored near weapons-grade levels, is removed. • Israeli officials claim the current stockpile could potentially yield up to 11 nuclear weapons if further processed, while Iran maintains its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful. • The Trump administration signals ongoing concerns over Iran's nuclear capabilities, raising fears of potential renewed escalation as negotiations remain stalled and both sides maintain hardline positions.

• Israel reportedly deployed its cutting-edge Iron Beam laser system to the United Arab Emirates during the Iran conflict, designed to destroy incoming drones and rockets mid-air despite the prototype not being fully integrated into Israel's own defense network. • The advanced laser weapon was rushed into combat alongside an advanced surveillance system that detected incoming Iranian drones, signaling deepening military cooperation between Israel and the UAE. • The deployment highlights the Abraham Accords alliance and raises questions about real-world testing of next-generation weapons systems during active Middle East conflicts.

Heidi Alexander criticises Green leader over retweet of post suggesting police used excessive force when arresting suspectGood morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, has said Zack Polanski’s retweeting of a post suggesting the police used excessive force when they arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack last week was “disgusting” and “absolutely abhorrent” as she claimed he was not “fit to lead a political party”.Polanski retweeted, without comment, a post on X alleging that officers were “repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head” when he was already incapacitated by a stun gun.I thought it was disgusting what he did and absolutely abhorrent. Those police officers ran towards danger, they were armed only with a Taser that they had already discharged. The guy still had a knife in his hand. They were armed with their courage and their training.And I think for the leader of a political party to jump onto Twitter, start retweeting content criticising those policemen who responded with incredible bravery in what was a very difficult situation. I think it demonstrates that the man is not fit to lead a political party. Continue reading...

Antwerp port is stepping up scanning of goods amid warnings country risks becoming a narco-stateSara Van Cotthem takes a safety knife and precisely slices open the side of a cardboard box to unpack its contents, an aluminium stepladder made in China. Working under harsh fluorescent lights at the border inspection post at the port of Antwerp, Van Cotthem checks the paperwork and taps the ladder with a magnet to check if it really is aluminium and not another metal.It is an everyday operation for customs officers at Antwerp, one of Europe’s main commercial gateways, which handled the equivalent of 13.6m 20ft-long (6 metres) containers last year. Everything is in order and the lorry, jam-packed with identical boxed ladders, can get on its way to Germany. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Resistance to equity, diversion and inclusion drives affects hiring chances of people with convictions, says charityMore than a third of HR decision-makers in the UK said they have faced pushback against equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives over the past year, according to new research.The new YouGov poll, carried out for the national employment charity Working Chance, surveyed 565 HR decision-makers and found that resistance towards EDI was on the rise. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Union body finds workers describing themselves as ‘gambling’ because wages felt like the outcome of chance rather than workThe practice of using “dynamic pricing” to set pay on gig economy platforms including Uber should be banned because it leaves workers at the mercy of shadowy algorithms with no certainty over their earnings, trade union leaders have urged.In a report exposing the human cost of the gig economy practice, the Trades Union Congress said pay was becoming decoupled from time, skill or effort. Instead, work had become a speculative practice with the rewards determined by an algorithmic process with little transparency. Continue reading...

From legitimate scrutiny to lurid scare stories, the Green party’s rise has brought a sudden spike in attentionIt is the lot of smaller parties that grow rapidly that they tend to endure something of a trial by the media in the UK. The attention from some of the newspapers and broadcasters to the Green party before this week’s elections has occasionally borne an unlikely resemblance to the height of Clegg-mania in the spring of 2010, when the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, was rewarded for his positive polling with the unlikely Daily Mail headline “Clegg in Nazi slur on Britain”.All manner of colourful tales have emerged about Green policies and personnel as the party has risen up the national opinion polls, making them something of a target for news editors and reporters. That attention has ranged from legitimate questions over the views of members to more eccentric warnings of a dire future for everyone in Britain from exotic animals to members of the clergy. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Two ‘intimate conversations’ held with writers, directors and producers, with a third due in JuneNato is holding closed-door meetings with film and TV screenwriters, directors and producers across Europe and the US, the Guardian can reveal, prompting accusations the alliance is seeking to use the arts to generate “propaganda” for the bloc.The alliance has held three meetings with film and TV professionals in Los Angeles, Brussels and Paris and is due to continue its “series of intimate conservations” next month in London, meeting with screenwriter members of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain (WGGB), which represents professional writers in the UK. Continue reading...