António Guterres welcomes truce and says through spokesperson he hopes halt in fighting will ‘pave the way for negotiations’

• Trump announces 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon after ‘excellent conversations’

Iran has stopped all petrochemical exports to prioritise domestic supply and prevent shortages of raw materials, Reuters reported.

The state-owned National Petrochemical Company ordered firms to suspend exports until further notice.

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Authorities in Abu Dhabi have reported two incidents of debris falling from intercepted aerial threats in the UAE capital, with one sparking a fire at a gas facility,

The official Abu Dhabi Media Office said authorities responded to an incident of falling debris at the Habshan gas facilities. “Operations have been suspended while authorities respond to a fire,” it said in a post on X, adding that no injuries were reported.

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Donald Trump is weighing a military operation to extract nearly 1,000 pounds (454kg) of uranium from Iran, the Wall Street Journal is reporting, citing unnamed US officials.

The mission would likely put American forces inside the country for days or longer, the report says.

But the president remains generally open to the idea, according to the officials, because it could help accomplish his central goal of preventing Iran from ever making a nuclear weapon.

The combined effect of both waterways being shut to commercial traffic from countries that neither the Iranians nor Houthis favour would be devastating.

Napoleon Bonaparte’s remark that “the policy of a state lies in its geography” has never seemed more apt.

US president tells Financial Times his ‘preference would be to take the oil’ but that ‘some stupid people back in the US say: why are you doing that?’

• Full report: Iran accuses US of plotting ground assault while publicly seeking talks

• Analysis: what the Houthis’ entry into the Iran war means for the conflict and the wider region

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has condemned Israel’s killing of three journalists in Lebanon on Saturday.

On his Telegram, Araghchi said the killings amounted to “targeted assassination” and “flagrant violation of international law”. He said they were a way of silencing “the voices of those who tell the truth”.

Iranian foreign minister claims Tehran has not been in talks to end war – “and we do not plan on any negotiations”; Israeli PM’s comments prompt fears of protracted occupation

• Analysis: Trump pitches Iran peace plan but military buildups rarely veer to off-ramp

• Iran rejects US ceasefire plan and submits its own amid push for talks

Iranian nationals with valid Australian tourist visas will be blocked from entering the country for six months, Australia’s home affairs minister said, citing concern some may decide to stay longer than they’re allowed.

Tony Burke said the direction was necessary as there was a risk Iranians on tourist visas visiting Australia may be unable or unlikely to leave when their visa expires.
The order only applies to people with a valid tourist visa outside of the country.
The government said “sympathetic consideration” would be given to citizens with Iranian parents.

The government said it would closely monitor global developments and adjust settings as required.

If you’re just joining us, here’s a quick recap of the day:

An Iranian military spokesperson mocked US attempts at a ceasefire deal, insisting Americans were only negotiating with themselves. Lt Col Ebrahim Zolfaghari’s statement came after the Trump administration reportedly sent a 15-point ceasefire plan to Iran through Pakistan.

Even as Donald Trump claimed productive negotiations to end the war were ongoing with Tehran, Iran’s relentless bombardment of the Gulf states showed no sign of relenting. Kuwait and Bahrain were both hit with damaging strikes on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, as the patience of the Gulf states after rebuffing constant attacks for almost a month began to wear thin.

The World Trade Organisation warned disruptions to international fertiliser supplies caused by the closing of the strait of Hormuz will cause food scarcity and high prices. A third of the world’s fertilisers normally transit the strait.

Oil prices fell nearly 6% and Asian shares gained, after reports Donald Trump had sent a peace plan to Iran fuelled optimism in the market. A barrel of Brent crude was down 5.92% at $98.30, while benchmark US oil contract, West Texas Intermediate, was down 5.01% at $87.72.

Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed nine people, state media reported. Citing the health ministry, Lebanon’s official National News Agency said strikes had killed people across towns and a Palestinian refugee camp.

News that Trump had approved the deployment of more than 1,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East further undermined the US president’s repeated claims of successful peace talks. Iran has previously threatened to mine the gulf surrounding the island if the US appeared to be landing troops.

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• Iran vows to destroy Middle East water and energy facilities if US attacks power plants

Several blasts could be heard from Jerusalem on Sunday, AFP journalists said, after the Israeli military warned of incoming missile fire from Iran towards central Israel.

Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency medical service said there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Move to allow shipments already at sea comes amid a supply crisis and after US president says he does not ‘want to do a ceasefire’; IDF says it is attacking regime targets in Iran’s capital after strikes on Beirut

• US to send three more warships and thousands more troops, reports say

• How the Iran war has sent shocks rippling across the globe

Kuwait’s state oil firm KPC said its Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery was hit by multiple drone attacks early on Friday, causing a fire in some units, with no initial casualties reported, the state news agency said.

Firefighters responded immediately, with several units shut down as a precaution to ensure workers’ safety.

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Iran is still exporting millions of barrels of oil, with about 90 ships, including oil tankers, having crossed the strait of Hormuz since the beginning of the war with Iran, according to maritime and trade data platforms reports.

This is despite Iran saying it had closed the vital waterway to vessels from the US and its allies.

Trump says Nato faces ‘very bad’ future if US allies don’t help open strait of Hormuz; airport flights suspended after ‘drone incident’ causes fire in area

• How have you been affected by the latest Middle East events?

Iraq’s football team will travel to Mexico for a 2026 World Cup playoff match despite calls for it to be postponed due to the Middle East war, the country’s football association has announced.

“The national team will depart at the end of the week to Mexico via a private plane,” said Iraq football association president Adnan Dirjal in a statement, adding they had contacted Fifa to help facilitate the trip during the conflict in the region that has hampered flights.

Iraq officials say at least one person was killed in the attack on the tankers; US to release 172m barrels of oil from strategic reserve

• Iran escalates attacks on infrastructure and transport across the Gulf

• Israel bombards Beirut suburbs and southern Lebanon

• How have you been affected by the latest Middle East events?

Over in Senate question time, the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has confirmed embassies in Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv and the consulate in Dubai all physically closed in the last week.

Wong said the government’s number one priority is to “keep Australians safe at home and abroad”.

She continued:

“The dangerous and destabilising attacks by Iran put civilian lives at risk, including Australian lives.”

More than 3,200 Australians over 23 commercial flights have returned to Australia since the US and Israel attacked Iran, setting off a regional conflict and grounding thousands of international flights.

Wong criticised Nationals senators for “winding up people and stoking fear” to panic buy fuel.

The senator said:

“Petrol companies are telling us that fuel stock continues to arrive as expected and on time but there has been a large change in the pattern of demand and that is having an effect on the supply, particularly in regional communities. We have seen jerry cans coming off the shelves at Bunnings and lines at the pump.”

One of the two members of the Iranian women’s football teams provided with a humanitarian visa to stay in Australia has changed her mind and contacted the Iranian embassy, according to the country’s home affairs minister.

In Australia, people are able to change their mind, people are able to travel. So, we respect the context in which she has made that decision.

Unfortunately, in making that decision, she had been advised by her teammates and coach to contact the Iranian embassy and get collected … As a result of that, it meant that the Iranian embassy now knew the location of where everybody was.

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Donald Trump has said a decision on when to end the war with Iran will be a “mutual” one he’ll make together with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Times of Israel has reported.

It said Trump also claimed in a brief telephone interview on Sunday that Iran would have destroyed Israel if he and Netanyahu had not been around. The US president said:

Iran was going to destroy Israel and everything else around it … We’ve worked together. We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel.

I think it’s mutual … a little bit. We’ve been talking. I’ll make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account.

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The Israeli military said it launched a wave of strikes “across Iran” on Sunday, targeting military sites.

A military statement said it had “initiated a wave of strikes targeting the Iranian terror regime military infrastructure across Iran”.

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Lebanese state media said that four people were killed and six more were wounded in an Israeli strike on a building in Baalbek in eastern Lebanon on Wednesday.

“The initial toll is four killed and six wounded, and work is underway to rescue families from under the rubble,” Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said.

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• Alex Pretti did not brandish gun, witnesses say in sworn testimony

• Calls mount on Trump administration to fully investigate killing

• Minnesota workers pressure employers to take action against ICE operations

Alex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs Hospital ICU nurse, was said to be deeply upset about the Trump administration’s sometimes brutal immigration crackdown. The 37-year-old has been described as kindhearted by his friends and family (see opening post to read what his parents said about him in a statement issued after he was killed).

Dimitri Drekonja, chief of the Infectious Diseases Section at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs hospital and a colleague of Pretti, called him “a good kind person who lived to help.” Pretti was a nurse working “to support critically ill veterans,” he added.

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• Man shot in Minneapolis by federal agents identified as nurse Alex Pretti

• ‘How many more Americans need to die?’: mayor lambastes Trump

In a statement sent to the Guardian, assistant secretary of homeland security Tricia McLaughlin said that at 9.05am local time, “as DHS law enforcement officers were conducting a targeted operation in Minneapolis” against a person they said was in the country illegally, who she said was “wanted for violent assault”, “an individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun.”

McLaughlin said that “the officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted” and that “more details on the armed struggle are forthcoming.”

One Greenlandic member of Denmark’s parliament says the military alliance has no mandate to negotiate anything about the Arctic island’s sovereignty or mineral rights

• Trump walks back Greenland tariffs threat, citing vague ‘deal’ over territory

• Trump news at a glance: at Davos, president rambles, backs down and touts ‘future deal’ on Greenland

House Republicans are starting a push on Wednesday to hold former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress over the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, opening the prospect of the House using one of its most powerful punishments against a former president for the first time.

The contempt proceedings are an initial step toward a criminal prosecution by the Department of Justice that, if successful, could send the Clintons to prison.

They’re not above the law. We’ve issued subpoenas in good faith.

For five months we’ve worked with them. And time’s up.

Condition of victims unknown; shooting comes one day after an ICE agent killed US citizen in Minneapolis. This blog is paused

• Two people shot by US federal agents in Portland, police say

• ICE agent in Minneapolis killing identified as 10-year law enforcement veteran

• Trump news at a glance: president says his morality is ‘the only thing that can stop me’

Since early December, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations – many of them masked and brandishing rifles – have grabbed people at hardware stores and gyms, or outside homes and schools around the cities.

They have violently tackled undocumented immigrants as well as US citizens, including advocates and protestors.

Trump praises Colombian president’s ‘tone’ during call and says they will meet soon, while demonstrators rally across Colombia ‘to defend national sovereignty’

• Venezuela to continue supplying oil to US ‘indefinitely’, White House says

Meanwhile, in the UK, Nigel Farage has offered his take on Trump’s plans to control Greenland, saying it would be “outrageous” for the US to seize it from Denmark.

Farage says he agrees with Starmer that the fate of Greenland must be decided by Greenland and Denmark, not the US – but sided with Trump on “some genuine security concerns” that require further presence there.

“What I will say is this. There are some genuine security concerns around Greenland and that becomes ever more relevant with a retraction of the ice caps as we head towards the North Pole. There is a strong feeling in British intelligence circles, and many in Nato, that there needs to be a significant Nato base located directly on the north of Greenland.

At the moment, it would appear that is something Greenland is not particularly keen to do.

US president says an operation in Colombia ‘sounds good’ and elections in Venezuela will happen at the ‘right time’

Keir Starmer also told the BBC that he thinks we are living in a more “volatile” world than we have been for “many, many years” and said global affairs have much more of a “direct impact” on the UK than they have in a long time, citing the effects of military conflicts and the climate crisis.

Asked if Donald Trump is worsening global turmoil, Starmer dodges the question and speaks about the so-called special relationship between the UK and the US.

The relationship between the US and the UK is one of the closest relationships in the world. It is vitally important for our defence, for our security, for our intelligence.

It is my responsibility to make sure that relationship works as the prime minister of this country, working with the president of the United States. Not only have I stepped up to that responsibility, I have made it my business and I do get on with President Trump.