The US and Israel on Feb 28 launched what they described as a “pre-emptive” joint strike against Iranian targets, with Trump announcing start of “major combat operations”
Pakistan hosted the first round of face-to-face talks between the US and Iran in 47 years in April; the talks ended without a breakthrough, but also without a breakdown
Wall Street’s main indexes rose ahead of a long weekend, with the blue-chip Dow hitting a record high for the first time since the Iran war began, as investors tracked progress in talks to end the nearly three-month-old conflict, reports Reuters.
The S&P 500 is on track for an eighth consecutive weekly gain, which would mark its best winning streak since December 2023.
Most megacap and growth stocks traded higher, with Apple up 2 per cent, hitting a market capitalisation of more than $4.5 trillion for the first time.
Semiconductor stocks, a key driver of recent Wall Street gains, were broadly up with the Philadelphia chip index rising 2.4pc. Qualcomm led the pack with a 12% jump.
PC makers Dell Technologies and HP Inc surged over 15pc each after China’s Lenovo Group reported a better-than-expected 27pc jump in quarterly revenue.
The Royal International Air Tattoo, one of the world’s largest defence shows, has been cancelled due to military operations linked to the Iran war, it said on Friday, reports Reuters.
RIAT had been scheduled for July 17-19 at RAF Fairford, an active Royal Air Force base used by the US Air Force, in southwest England. The airshow attracts more than 150,000 visitors every year.
“This has not been an easy decision. It follows extensive discussions with the Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force regarding uncertainty over access to RAF Fairford, given the ongoing situation in the Middle East,” RIAT said on its website.
The use of British military bases by US forces for the Iran war became a point of tension between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Donald Trump.
NATO’s mission to Iraq, which was entirely evacuated to a base in Italy due to the Middle East war, could return to Baghdad in the coming months, its former commander told AFP.
“The general staff is working on various options” to allow the mission to return to Iraq, said French General Christophe Hintzy, who this week handed over command of the mission to Spanish General Ramon Armada.
“Where, when, how? We have no idea. But the determination is in our bones,” he added after the handover ceremony on Tuesday in the presence of his successor, specifying that “several scenarios” were under consideration for this return, which should take place “step by step”.
“But we won’t be going back in the same configuration. It will be a much smaller setup,” he added, saying he could not give any figures.
The NATO mission in Iraq, launched in 2018 at the request of the Iraqi government, is a non-combat mission focused on advising and strengthening Iraq’s military and security capabilities.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander of the Mohammad Rasul Allah Corps said the country’s armed forces were “more prepared than ever before”, reports Tasnim.
He warned that if “the enemy makes a mistake”, Iran’s armed forces would respond “more forcefully and decisively than before”.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi spoke on call with his Saudi counterpart, Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud, said the Saudi Ministry of Interior in a post on X.
Iran’s representative to China has praised Beijing for being the only power to present a peace initiative during the war, “with the support of Pakistan”.
The European Union has amended its sanctions framework to target those it says have facilitated Iran in “threatening the freedom of navigation in the Middle East”, Al Jazeera reports.
The restrictions were originally established to address Tehran’s support for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“The EU will now be able to introduce further restrictive measures in response to Iran’s actions undermining the freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz,” the European Council said, including travel restrictions and asset freezes on individuals.
Israeli air defences have intercepted two “suspicious aerial targets” launched from Lebanon that triggered warning alarms in northern Israel, Al Jazeera reports.
Israel’s military wrote on Telegram that the incoming projectiles were identified in the border area with Lebanon.
As part of the US blockade against Iran, American forces have redirected 97 commercial vessels and disabled four since the start of the blockade, US Central Command said in a post on X.
Speaking further, Marco Rubio also commented about CDF Asim Munir’s visit to Tehran, which he departed on just shortly before.
“And it’s my understanding he was supposed to go yesterday, but it could be as early as today that Field Marshal Munir could be travelling there very, very soon,” Rubio was quoted as saying by Fox News.
“And we’re in constant communication with him [and] the highest levels of our government are constantly talking to him.”
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks with journalists during a meeting of Nato foreign ministers in Helsingborg, Sweden on May 22, 2026. — Pool via Reuters
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has praised Pakistan for doing an “admirable job” trying to mediate a peace deal between Washington and Tehran.
“The primary interlocutor on this has been Pakistan and continues to be and they’ve done a, you know, I think an admirable job. And that’s what we continue to work through,” Fox Newsquoted Rubio as saying.
“Obviously, other countries, you know, have interests because especially Gulf countries that are, you know, in the middle of all this, may have their own situation going on. We talk to all of them. But I would just say that the primary country we’ve been working with on all of this is Pakistan, and that remains the case,” he told reporters in Sweden.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said there has “been some progress” in the US-Iran negotiations, adding that there was need for “more work to be done”.
He reiterated that Trump’s priorities were that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, the matter of highly enriched uranium and the issue of future enrichment.
“We’d all love to see an agreement with Iran and wish the straits are open and they abandon their nuclear ambitions and so forth,” he said.
He asserted that that is what the US “would continue to work on”, stressing the need for a “Plan B” if Iran refused to open the Strait of Hormuz.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said he raised the point of reopening the Strait of Hormuz in a Nato-affiliated meeting today in Sweden.
“We have to have a Plan B for it if someone is shooting that how do you reopen the straits. So I made that point today. I don’t know if that’ll be a Nato mission necessarily, but it will certainly be Nato countries that can contribute to it,” he said while speaking to the media.
Rubio said the US could act if Iran refused to open the Strait of Hormuz, but “there are countries that have expressed an interest in potentially being a part of something like that”.
“We don’t need their help but they’re willing to do it,” he asserted.
However, Rubio added, “We prefer to get an agreement with them.”
A Qatari negotiating team has arrived in Tehran in coordination with the United States to help secure a deal to end the war with Iran and resolve outstanding issues, a source with knowledge of the matter tells Reuters.
Doha, which has worked as a mediator in the Gaza war and other areas of international tensions, had till now distanced itself from playing a mediation role in the Iran war after it came under attack from Iranian missiles and drones during the latest conflict.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his Austrian counterpart Beate Meinl-Reisinger have discussed the latest international developments and their bilateral relations, IRNA reports.
During the phone call late last night, the two top diplomats exchanged views on the bilateral relations and the latest diplomatic developments.
Hezbollah claims it has carried out a drone attack targeting Israeli military equipment in the southern Lebanese town of al-Aadaissah, close to the Israeli border, Al Jazeera reports.
Israel’s military, meanwhile, reported impacts of “suspicious aerial targets” in the border area.
The UAE’s decision to leave Opec was three years in the making and is based on its view the world is near the autumn of the hydrocarbon age, meaning the country needs to maximise oil revenues while it can, according to UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash, Reuters reports.
Anwar Gargash said the country’s exit was chiefly because its Opec production quotas kept output well below capacity.
“We see that we are close to the sort of autumn of the hydrocarbon age,” he added.
“And as a result, if you have the ability to produce and generate income and use that income in other investments, that’s what you should do.”
The UAE’s production capacity is 4.85 million barrels per day. It plans to raise it to 5 million bpd by 2027. Just before its exit from Opec and the wider Opec+ group, its production target was closer to 3.5 million bpd.
Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) and Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir has left for an official visit to Iran, security sources say.
The CDF will discuss US-Iran talks, peace in the region and other important issues during the visit, the sources said. He will also meet with senior Iranian officials.
Humanitarian aid consignments from Iraq, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, consisting of medical equipment, food supplies, and essential medicines, have arrived in Iran, Iranian Red Crescent says.
India’s central bank says it has approved a record 2.86 trillion rupee ($29.9bn) payout to the government to help bolster New Delhi’s coffers at a time when public finances are strained due to high global oil prices, AFP reports.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said its board had greenlit the “transfer of surplus” after taking into account current macroeconomic factors, its own financial performance and the “maintenance of appropriate risk buffers”.
Gold is edging lower and headed for a second consecutive weekly drop, as elevated oil prices fuel fears of inflation and boost expectations of a US interest rate hike this year, Al Jazeera reports.
Spot gold was down 0.4 per cent at $4,524 per ounce, as of 09:04 GMT (2:04pm PKT). The metal has shed about 0.4pc so far in the week.
US gold futures for June delivery lost 0.4pc to $4,524.20.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baqaei, in response to German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s remarks calling the Iran war “unnecessary”, says the war cannot be “downplayed” as it was a “blatant act” of aggression against a sovereign state.
In a post on X, Baqaei said, “It is true that the current crisis with which our region and the world are confronted can be directly traced back to the unlawful and arbitrary withdrawal of the United States from the JCPOA in May 2018.
“It is also true that this imposed war could and should have been avoided,” the spokesman wrote.
However, he went on to say that the United Nations Charter did not recognise the concept of a “necessary war”, allowing states to use force against another sovereign state based on “arbitrary decisions by aggressors”.
“The American-Israeli attack on Iran cannot be downplayed or reinterpreted as a mere ‘unnecessary war’,” he maintained, stressing that it was a “clear and flagrant violation of Article 2 Paragraph 4 of the UN Charter – a blatant act of aggression against a sovereign state”.
“Every nation that respects the rule of law and the UN Charter must unequivocally condemn this act of aggression and hold those responsible accountable,” he added.
