Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz fell sharply on Thursday, with just seven commodity vessels crossing the vital waterway, as heightened security risks and stalled US-Iran peace talks deterred ships from using the key energy route. Follow our liveblog for the latest updates.
Yesterday's key developments: • The USS George Washington aircraft carrier strike group arrived in the Middle East to replace the long-deployed USS Abraham Lincoln after apparently deteriorating living conditions on board sparked fresh criticism of President Donald Trump's war against Iran. • US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the country's allies that they were either "with us or against us" on economically isolating Iran, after Trump announced a fresh slew of sanctions against the Islamic Republic. • Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels said that they targeted an airport and a facility belonging to state-owned oil giant Aramco in Saudi Arabia's southern Najran region, near the Yemeni border. (FRANCE 24 with Reuters, AP and AFP)
