JD Vance slams Zelenskyy comments on Orban ahead of Hungary election
US vice president in Hungary calls Ukrainian leader’s ‘threatening’ remarks ‘completely scandalous’. Published On 8 Apr 20268 Apr 2026 US Vice President JD Vance has said Ukraine’s prime minister made “scandalous” comments about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, as he echoed Budapest’s accusations that Kyiv is trying to influence the upcoming elections there. Vance’s remarks on Wednesday came during a visit to Budapest days before the far-right Orban, a Trump ally, faces the toughest challenge of his 16-year rule in an election on April 12. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list Hungary’s strained relations with Ukraine have taken centre stage in the election campaign, with Budapest’s government accusing Kyiv of deliberately stopping flows of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline in an effort to sway the ballot. Kyiv says the pipeline was damaged by a Russian drone attack in late January, and it is fixing it as quickly as it can. Hungary responded by blocking a 90-billion-euro ($105bn) EU loan for Ukraine, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to say he could give the address of whoever was responsible to the Ukrainian army, who could “speak with him in their own language”. ‘Completely scandalous’ Speaking at a Hungarian university, Vance said Orban had told him about Zelenskyy’s remarks. “It’s completely scandalous,” Vance said. “You should never have a foreign head of government … threatening the head of government of an allied nation.” Vance then accused the media of double standards in their coverage of alleged foreign interference in the 2016 US presidential election and in the Hungarian vote. “You saw this back in 2016 where a lot of the American media said that it was a true scandal that the Russian government bought like $500,000 of Facebook advertisements … That’s foreign influence,” he said. Advertisement “But what’s not foreign influence is when the European Union threatens billions of dollars withheld from Hungary because you guys protect your borders… What’s not foreign influence is when the Ukrainians shut down pipelines, causing suffering among the Hungarian people in an effort to influence an election.” Budapest has been embroiled in a long‑running dispute with the European Union over issues ranging from judicial independence to the treatment of migrants. Vance had already lambasted what he said was EU meddling in the Hungarian vote at a news conference on Tuesday. A European Commission spokesperson said on Wednesday Brussels would use diplomatic channels “to convey our concerns to our US counterparts” following those comments, according to the Reuters news agency. Adblock test (Why?)
White House says Trump’s ‘red line’ against Iran nuclear enrichment remains
The White House has said that the United States continues to reject any uranium enrichment inside Iran, reiterating that US President Donald Trump did not agree to a “wish list” submitted by Tehran. Trump’s spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, suggested on Wednesday that the 10-point proposal put forward by Iran as the basis for a ceasefire in the US-Israel war on Iran differs from the proposal published by the government in Tehran. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list That plan said the US would accept Iran’s right to enrich uranium as well as sanctions relief and a permanent end to the attacks on Iran. “The president’s red lines, namely the end of Iranian enrichment in Iran, have not changed,” Leavitt said. Domestic uranium enrichment has been a major sticking point in previous talks between Tehran and Washington. While Iran says it is not seeking nuclear weapons, it insists on enriching its own uranium as a national right. The Trump administration, however, has been pushing for dismantling the Iranian nuclear programme altogether. After more than 38 days of war, Washington and Tehran announced a two-week ceasefire that will see the US stop its attacks and Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz, whose closure at the outset of the conflict sent energy prices soaring. Leavitt said Iran’s initial 10-point proposal was “literally thrown in the garbage” by Trump’s team, but Tehran later put forward a revised plan. “The idea that President Trump would ever accept an Iranian wish list as a deal is completely absurd,” she said. Advertisement “The president will only make a deal that serves in the best interests of the United States of America.” Trump said late on Tuesday that the Iranian proposal was a “workable basis on which to negotiate”. Leavitt said Trump and his aides will focus on talks with Iran over the next two weeks “so long as the Strait of Hormuz remains open with no limitations or delays”. She confirmed that the first round of negotiations will take place in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Saturday, and the US team will be led by Vice President JD Vance, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. But later on Wednesday, Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf cast doubt over the fate of the talks. He said the US and Israel have already violated the ceasefire by continuing the war in Lebanon, failing to stop their drones from entering Iranian airspace and denying Tehran’s right to uranium enrichment. “Now, the very ‘workable basis on which to negotiate’ has been openly and clearly violated, even before the negotiations began. In such [a] situation, a bilateral ceasefire or negotiations is unreasonable,” Ghalibaf wrote on X. For her part, Leavitt echoed the Pentagon in claiming victory against Iran, which also said it won the war. “Their navy, their missiles, their defence industrial base, and their desire and their plan to build a nuclear bomb inside their country is no longer going to be allowed, can no longer happen, thanks to the remarkable success of Operation Epic Fury,” the White House spokeswoman said. The Trump administration says US and Israeli attacks all but destroyed Iranian military capabilities, though Iran continued to fire missiles and drones against Israel and across the region throughout the conflict. Washington has argued that the main reason for the war was to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, but Trump had repeatedly said for eight months before the assault that the June 2025 US attacks “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme. Adblock test (Why?)
Iranians breathe a ‘ceasefire’ sigh of relief as all sides claim victory
Tehran, Iran – The mental strain of living under daily bombardment has been partially lifted in Tehran and much of Iran as all parties to the war with the United States and Israel claim victory after a ceasefire was announced. Some traffic has returned to the streets of the Iranian capital during daylight on Wednesday, the first day of a two-week ceasefire agreed between Iran and the US with mediation from Pakistan. Negotiations aimed at reaching a long-lasting agreement are expected to begin in Islamabad on Friday. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list But Tehran, home to more than 10 million people, is still far from its usual commotion after being targeted by several thousand munitions since February 28. Air defence systems were activated for short periods several times since the ceasefire was announced overnight, but there were no reports of impacts or any official explanation for the activations. People across Tehran, from young men and women huddling in vibrant cafes downtown to families sitting in parks, were debating whether the ceasefire would hold and what the future could have in store for them. “Looks like the ceasefire will continue. I heard the Israelis are opening up their airspace more,” a young man said, referring to an announcement by Israeli authorities that flights will resume from Ben Gurion Airport. Others, however, were more pessimistic, especially after two critical islands off southern Iran were attacked on Wednesday morning, hitting oil facilities. It is unclear who was behind the attack. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it shot down a drone in the southern province of Fars. Advertisement Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain also reported attacks on their territories by missiles and drones from Iran with Iranian state television confirming this was in retaliation for the post-ceasefire oil attacks. Tehran said it was ready to restart military operations if attacked again. On Tuesday, Iranians had been worried about the targeting of critical civilian infrastructure, such as power plants and bridges after a threat earlier in the day from US President Donald Trump to end “civilisation” in a country with one of the world’s oldest civilisations, dating back more than five millennia. The ceasefire was announced shortly before the midnight GMT deadline that Trump had set for an agreement to be reached to avoid US forces carrying out his threat. The Israeli military did, however, intensify its attacks in the hours preceding the ceasefire, hitting electricity outposts, bridges and the railway network. Warplanes also struck the Iranian Aluminium Company in Arak, damaging the country’s largest aluminium production facility. The Israeli army also extensively bombed Iran’s steel factories and petrochemical companies on Tuesday, putting them out of commission in an effort to impose more pressure on the already strained Iranian economy and population of more than 90 million. Even after the ceasefire, Israel continued attacking Lebanon, killing more than 250 people in a devastating day of attacks on Wednesday. Israel said it was targeting Iran’s ally Hezbollah, but civilian locations across Lebanon were hit. ‘Celebrations of victory’ to continue Trump hailed what he described as a decisive victory against Iran while announcing the ceasefire, but Dan Caine, his top general, emphasised that the deal only signifies a pause and combat operations could start once again if no final deal is reached. The US military said it struck 13,000 targets across Iran in less than six weeks of war. In Iran, similar proclamations of victory and celebrations were broadcast from Iranian state television, and a statement from the Supreme National Security Council urged the most fervent supporters of the government to trust in the system and refrain from making “divisive commentary”. The council also stressed that affairs were being overseen by Mojtaba Khamenei, who was declared Iran’s supreme leader after his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed on the first day of the war on February 28. The younger Khamenei and IRGC commander-in-chief Ahmad Vahidi have not been seen or heard from publicly since the start of the war. Advertisement A large number of events were organised by the theocratic and military establishment throughout Wednesday, and more were planned for Thursday to mark 40 days since the killing of the former supreme leader. These included marches on foot and in vehicles, public religious eulogy sessions and banners erected across the country. A video of an old Khamenei speech being recirculated by state-affiliated media on Wednesday showed him telling supporters to insist on “resistance”. Regardless of the ceasefire, pro-government Iranians have been told to continue driving in motorcades broadcasting religious chanting and take their children to join checkpoints and security patrols. However, some government supporters said they were caught off-guard by the ceasefire announcement because the establishment had repeatedly emphasised it would never agree to a temporary ceasefire and it would continue launching missiles and drones while it had the “upper hand”. Majid Nouri, son of Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian judiciary official who was handed a life sentence in Sweden for his role in the deaths of political prisoners but ended up being exchanged in a 2024 swap, recorded a video from among government supporters in Tehran to say they were “shocked and saddened”. “Many good arguments and some disagreements have taken place between the people since the announcement of the ceasefire. They say, “We came to the streets for 40 nights. We did not expect this,’” he said. A week earlier, a senior correspondent on Iranian state television was explaining emphatically how the government would not agree to a temporary cessation of hostilities because it would allow the US and Israel to rearm and restart attacks at a time more appropriate for them. But state television’s English-language Press TV on Wednesday claimed Iran has become a “new superpower” since the ceasefire. In the meantime, the vast majority of Iranians continue to suffer from a state-imposed internet outage, which has cut traffic down to 1 percent of pre-war levels, according to monitors. After the ceasefire, the
Iraqis celebrates US-Iran ceasefire as two-week halt in war begins
NewsFeed Celebrations have erupted in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, following the announcement of a two-week ceasefire between Iran and the United States. Iraq had been pulled into the war with pro-Iran armed groups and US forces carrying out attacks on each other. Published On 8 Apr 20268 Apr 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
Is Arteta’s intensity Arsenal’s Premier and Champions League hope, or fear?
Arsenal’s quadruple hunt was halved in the space of a week, and their UEFA Champions League hopes were given a stern test by a Sporting Lisbon side that only just squeezed past Bodo/Glimt to reach the competition’s quarterfinals. Sporting, who had to come from 3-0 down following the first leg against Norway’s Bodo, are seven points off leaders Porto in the Portuguese top flight, but were more than a match for the English Premier League leaders in Lisbon on Tuesday, with only a late Kai Havertz strike separating the sides. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list The 1-0 win favours Mikel Arteta’s side ahead of the second leg in London next week, but it was another game that left the Gunners with as many questions as answers. Back-to-back defeats leading into the game – in the League Cup final against Manchester City and the FA Cup quarterfinals against second-tier Southampton – have left Arteta’s team in danger of a late-season slump. Having finished third in the Premier League for the last three seasons, their chances of dropping the “nearly men” tag look good this year. They hold a nine-point lead at the top of the English table, with seven games to play, although Pep Guardiola’s City in second do have a game in hand. Even substitute Havertz’s injury-time winner in Lisbon, however, could not paper over the cracks of another troubled performance for the Gunners, and against a side that have never made it beyond the quarterfinals of the competition. Sporting had 10 shots on goal compared with Arsenal’s seven, while five were on target compared with the Gunners’ four. Advertisement Arteta said going into the match in Lisbon that the questions about his team are to be expected, despite their Premier League lead and having won all but one of its games in the Champions League this season. “It’s been like this for the last nine months, and that’s going to continue; that’s never going to change when you play at this level for this club,” he said ahead of the match at Estadio Jose Alvalade. “There’s always going to be a question mark, and that’s it. You have to live the present; you have to deliver it every day.” Arteta’s intensity in full focus as Arsenal wobble again The question mark is not only over his side, though. The Spaniard struggles to hide his emotions, particularly in defeat, and Al Jazeera understands that this is an area of concern for certain members of Arsenal’s hierarchy, who believe the former midfielder’s intensity at crucial moments could be holding his side back. The slump, marked by the first time they have been beaten in successive games in this campaign, has plunged the club’s long-suffering fans into a bout of soul-searching. The north Londoners have not won a trophy since the 2020 FA Cup, and their “nearly men” tag has raised doubts about their ability to finally land silverware. Arteta, however, is convinced they can handle the mounting pressure of bidding to win the Champions League for the first time, while aiming to finally lift the Premier League trophy after a 22-year wait. “In the season, you always have moments, normally two or three. This is the first moment that we have with a certain level of difficulty,” Arteta said in the build-up to the match in Lisbon. “I love my players; what they have done for nine months. I’m not going to criticise them because we lost a game in the manner that they are putting their bodies through everything. “I’m going to defend them more than ever. Someone has to take responsibility. That’s me, and we have the most beautiful period of the season ahead of us,” Arteta added. Arsenal’s pain could provide Champions League gain Arsenal routed Sporting 5-1 in Lisbon in the league phase of the Champions League, a far cry from the continued nervy display by the Gunners on Tuesday. The soundbites from Christian Norgaard, which struck an upbeat note in the face of adversity heading into the Sporting match, would have been something that those doubting Arteta’s temperament were relieved to hear in the halls of power at Emirates Stadium. “The message is to have a positive body language, to talk with your teammates, with the coaching staff. Now is not the time to go with our heads down for too long,” the Arsenal midfielder said on Monday. Advertisement “It’s fine to be frustrated and also to analyse what went wrong, but then we also have to look forward, because there are so many big games coming up for this club.” Arteta did talk about his side turning the pain of the last two results into gain, drumming into his players to embrace the defeats, while fighting off outside noise about yet another late-season swoon. “What you have to be is clear,” he said on Monday. “Instead of panic, understand if that happens, why it happened, and bring clarity. And when you analyse that and you accept that, you will be better. That’s it, and that’s the thing that we have to do. “Have some perspective on how difficult it is. Feel that pain, feel that emotion, and use it to be better and to improve. There are a few things that we have discussed internally, and I’m very convinced that we’re going to see that.” The players were filmed partaking in team-building exercises in training on Monday, alongside their usual footballing drills ahead of the match in an attempt to shake off the blip. “We have full belief,” Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya told Prime after the game, in which his ability was hailed as the key performance on the night. “We absolutely believe [we can win the Champions League]. If you don’t believe, you are never going to win it, no matter what you go through. “We need to go back to what we are, be ourselves, learn from losing two competitions straight away, and learn from the pain in the belly.
Netanyahu says US-Iran ceasefire ‘does not include Lebanon’
DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, Israeli prime minister’s office welcomes US decision to suspend attacks on Iran, but says the two-week truce does not apply to Lebanon. Published On 8 Apr 20268 Apr 2026 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has announced that Israel backs the United States’s decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks, but said the truce “does not include Lebanon”. In a statement on X on Wednesday, Netanyahu said Israel supported US President Donald Trump’s efforts to ensure “Iran no longer poses a nuclear, missile and terror threat to America, Israel, Iran’s Arab neighbors and the world”. He said the US has told Israel that it is committed to achieving these goals in the upcoming negotiations in Pakistan’s Islamabad on Friday. But the two-week ceasefire “does not include Lebanon”, he added. Netanyahu’s statement comes after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced that the US, Iran and their allies “have agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere”. Sharif said the move was “effective immediately”. Lebanon was drawn into the war on March 2 after Iran-aligned Hezbollah launched attacks on Israel. Hezbollah said the attacks were in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28 as well as its near-daily violations of a ceasefire it agreed in Lebanon in November of 2024. Israeli attacks on Lebanon have since killed more than 1,500 people and displaced more than 1 million people. The Israeli military has also launched an invasion of southern Lebanon and said it aims to seize more territory for what it calls a buffer zone. There’s been no immediate comment from Hezbollah or Lebanon. Adblock test (Why?)
India’s nuclear leap: Why its fast breeder reactor success matters
India’s most advanced nuclear reactor has reached a self-sustaining stage that marks a major leap for the country’s atomic energy programme, and takes it a step closer to cutting dependance on uranium. The prototype fast breeder reactor (PBFR) at Kalpakkam in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu reached criticality – the stage at which a nuclear chain reaction can continue on its own – on Monday. Once the reactor becomes fully operational, India will become only the second country after Russia to have a commercial fast breeder reactor. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it “a proud moment for India” and “a defining step” in advancing the country’s nuclear programme. “This advanced reactor, capable of producing more fuel than it consumes, reflects the depth of our scientific capability and the strength of our engineering enterprise. It is a decisive step towards harnessing our vast thorium reserves in the third stage of the programme,” he said in a post on X on Monday. So what is a fast breeder reactor, and why does this latest advance matter – for India and the world? Here’s what we know: What is India’s fast breeder reactor all about? A fast breeder reactor is an advanced nuclear reactor that produces more fissile material – fuel that can be used for fission nuclear reactions – than it consumes. India’s fast breeder reactor has been designed and developed by the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), a key research and development institution under the country’s Department of Atomic Energy. It has a 500 megawatt electrical (MWe) capacity. Advertisement The nuclear reactors that India and most other countries otherwise use are what are known as pressurised heavy water reactors. They use uranium as their fuel, and churn out plutonium as waste. But a fast breeder reactor can then use that ejected plutonium as fuel to set in motion a self-sustaining nuclear reaction. Fast breeder reactors also use uranium as fuel, but need less since they can also consume plutonium. So in effect, the Kalpakkam reactor will need less uranium to generate electricity than heavy water reactors would. That’s why it’s called the second stage of India’s nuclear programme. On Monday, the Indian government said that the reactor is designed to enable “India to extract greater energy from its limited uranium reserves, while paving the way for large-scale deployment of thorium-based reactors.” A March 2024 report by Modi’s office said India’s PFBR “will initially use the Uranium-Plutonium Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel. The Uranium-238 ‘blanket’ surrounding the fuel core will undergo nuclear transmutation to produce more fuel, thus earning the name ‘Breeder’.” Uranium-238 refers to the most abundant, naturally occurring form of uranium that is only weakly radioactive by itself, but that can capture neutrons to turn into plutonium. “Since it uses the spent fuel from the first stage, [the] FBR [fast breeder reactor] also offers great advantage in terms of significant reduction in nuclear waste generated, thereby avoiding the need for large geological disposal facilities,” the report added. How does a fast breeder reactor work? Paul Norman, a professor of nuclear physics and nuclear energy at the University of Birmingham, told Al Jazeera that – as the Indian prime minister’s office said in its report – fast breeder reactors use both plutonium and uranium. The uranium is converted further into plutonium, too. “One bonus of this type of system is that it can increase nuclear fuel reserves enormously, by in theory making use of ‘all of the uranium’ [via plutonium conversion] rather than just a small part of it,” he said. “The technology can also be tweaked towards thorium systems, and there is meant to be more thorium out there in the earth than uranium, providing a further huge boost in the amount of nuclear fuel,” he explained. Globally, thorium reserves are four-times larger than uranium reserves. And in India, this equation is even more loaded: The country is home to about 1-2 percent of the world’s uranium, but has more than 25 percent of the world’s thorium. Advertisement How do the vast thorium reserves help India? The construction of the PFBR officially began in 2004 after multiple delays. But its importance was highlighted by the country’s scientists much earlier. An October 1996 report written by Indian scientists Shivram Baburao Bhoje and Perumal Chellapandi for the International Atomic Energy Agency said that the fast reactor programme was important in India because of the country’s growing and continuous demand for electricity. India is the world’s third-largest energy guzzler, after China and the United States. With the world’s largest population and a fast-growing economy, India’s energy consumption is only expected to grow further. As the war on Iran, and its impact on global energy prices has demonstrated, a continuing overwhelming dependence on fossil fuels poses a risk to economies like India’s. At the moment, nuclear energy represents only 3 percent of the country’s energy mix, but India wants to raise that dramatically, from 8,180MW in 2024 to 100GW by 2047. That’s where the three-stage nuclear programme and thorium fit in. In the second stage, the fast breeder reactors use uranium and the plutonium waste from heavy water reactors to generate electricity. They also produce more plutonium and a lighter isotope of uranium called uranium-233, which is ready, fissile material that can be used as fuel in third-stage reactors. Those third-stage reactors, once designed, would be thorium-based. They would be fed with thorium – which India has in abundance – and uranium-233. The waste those reactors would produce: also uranium-233, which can be fed back as fuel for the reactors. Once India accomplishes its three-stage process, it would in effect be able to reduce its need for naturally found uranium significantly, and instead use thorium for much of its nuclear energy needs. Why does this matter to the rest of the world? Other countries – including the US, France, UK, Japan and Russia – have worked on fast breeder reactor technology.
From 9pm shutdowns to remote work: Egypt cuts fuel amid power crisis
The US-Israel war on Iran has sparked a global fuel crisis as thousands of tankers carrying crucial deliveries of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) remain stranded on either side of the Strait of Hormuz, currently under a blockade imposed by Iran. On Saturday, Egypt’s government said it is among the “best-performing” countries in tackling the crisis because of the measures it has implemented to save on fuel. Here is what we know about the steps Egypt is taking and whether other countries are doing the same. Why has the Iran war caused an energy crisis? Pressure on oil and gas markets is mounting due to the almost complete halt to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz as well as air strikes on and around key energy facilities in the Gulf as the United States-Israel war on Iran enters its sixth week. One-fifth of the world’s oil and LNG is shipped from producers in the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz in peacetime. This is the only route from the Gulf to the open ocean. On March 2, two days after the US and Israel began strikes on Iran, Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the commander in chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), announced that the strait was “closed”. If any vessels tried to pass through, he said, the IRGC and the navy would “set those ships ablaze”. Since then, traffic through the strait, carrying cargoes including 20 million barrels of oil each day, has plunged by more than 95 percent. Now, Tehran is allowing just a handful of tankers through after reaching agreements with some countries to do so. Advertisement Besides this, energy infrastructure in the Middle East has suffered damage over the course of the war. On March 24, QatarEnergy declared force majeure on some of its long-term LNG supply contracts after an Iranian attack on Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG facility – the largest in the world – wiped out about 17 percent of the country’s LNG export capacity, causing an estimated $20bn in lost annual revenue and threatening supplies to Europe and Asia. All of this disruption has sent energy prices soaring. On Tuesday, global oil benchmark Brent crude was around $109 per barrel, compared to around $65 per barrel right before the war started. How is Egypt tackling the energy crisis? Egypt’s Petroleum Ministry has announced rises in fuel prices ranging from 14 percent to 30 percent. On March 28, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly’s office told a press conference that the country’s energy import bill had increased from $1.2bn in January to $2.5bn in March. Egypt is both one of the region’s largest energy importers and among its most heavily indebted economies. While domestic gas and oil account for the majority of its total energy supply, the country still relies on imported fuels, especially refined oil products and some natural gas, from Israel and the Gulf states. Madbouly announced measures Egypt is taking to mitigate this and preserve state energy resources. From March 28, shops, malls and restaurants are closing at 9pm (19:00 GMT) every day for one month, except Thursdays and Fridays. On Thursdays and Fridays, the closing time will be 10pm (20:00 GMT). Fuel allocations for government vehicles will be reduced by 30 percent. Street lighting and street advertisement lighting will be cut by 50 percent. From April 1, eligible employees will work remotely on Sundays, the first day of the working week. Some essential services, such as pharmacies, grocery stores and tourist facilities, will be exempted from this. Which other countries have introduced energy conservation measures? Besides Egypt, other countries are also taking steps to save energy. Last week, Malaysia ordered civil servants to work from home to save energy in government offices. In mid-March, it was revealed that government offices in the Philippines had moved to a four-day work week, officials in Thailand and Vietnam were being encouraged to work from home and limit travel, and Myanmar’s government had imposed alternating driving days. Pakistan, which imports about 80 percent of its energy from the Gulf, announced on Monday of this week that markets and shopping malls would close at 8pm (15:00 GMT) across the country, except in Sindh province. The government’s statement added that food outlets would close at 10pm (17:00 GMT), which is also when marriage ceremonies at private properties and houses must end. Advertisement Bangladesh has reduced working hours for government and private workers and banking services hours in a bid to conserve electricity. In Sri Lanka and Slovenia, authorities have introduced fuel rationing and purchase limits to manage shortages and soaring costs. Adblock test (Why?)
Trump threatens Iran: ‘A whole civilisation will die tonight’
NewsFeed Donald Trump warned that “a whole civilisation will die tonight” if Iran does not open the Strait of Hormuz, ahead of a Tuesday night deadline for Tehran to comply. The comments follow a “pretty shocking” silence from US Congress on the US-Israeli war, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett explains. Published On 7 Apr 20267 Apr 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
Ukraine strikes Russian Black Sea energy hub Novorossiysk
The Ukrainian military reports that it has struck a Russian warship and a drilling rig in the Black Sea. Kyiv’s drone forces commander, Robert Brovdi, said on Monday that the overnight attack targeted the Admiral Makarov missile carrier in the port of Novorossiysk, which is Russia’s largest oil exporting outlet on the Black Sea. Ukraine has increased its attacks on Russian energy infrastructure in a bid to disrupt export revenues that feed into Moscow’s war chest. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Russian authorities said at least eight people, including two children, were injured in Novorossiysk, without specifying whether the port was struck. Videos posted on Telegram and verified by Al Jazeera’s verification unit showed a fire at one of the oil port’s docks in the city. Novorossiysk Mayor Andrei Kravchenko said debris from drones had fallen on two locations in the city, including a residential area. Russia’s military said in the early morning that air defence units had downed 148 Ukrainian drones over a three-hour period. It added that officials said emergency crews were restoring power to nearly half a million households in outages linked to air attacks. Ukraine has concentrated drone attacks around the port of Novorossiysk throughout the war but has ramped up its efforts to halt Russian energy exports recently [File: Reuters] A Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal is located in the Novorossiysk port area. It exports oil from Kazakhstan, and its shareholders include major US oil companies, such as Chevron and ExxonMobil. Advertisement Ukraine has significantly intensified its attacks on Russia’s energy facilities, including the largest oil exporting hubs on both the Baltic and Black seas, as it seeks to reduce Moscow’s revenues from the sales of oil, the lifeblood of its economy. The Kremlin has tried to boost its exports after United States President Donald Trump gave it a temporary waiver from sanctions to ease supply constraints as the US-Israeli war on Iran upends oil markets following a de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Kyiv officials complained that Russia will use the additional revenue to buy new weapons to hit Ukraine harder. Later on Monday, Russia reported that Ukrainian drones had attacked the CPC terminal. The export facility, which handles 1.5 percent of global oil supplies, reported damage to mooring, loading and storage infrastructure, the Reuters news agency reported. “The Kyiv regime deliberately attacked facilities of the international oil transportation company Caspian Pipeline Consortium in order to inflict maximum economic damage on its largest shareholders – energy companies from the United States and Kazakhstan,” the Russian Ministry of Defence said in a statement. The Black Sea strikes come a day after Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Primorsk, one of Russia’s main oil exporting outlets, and the NORSI oil refinery in the western region of Nizhny Novgorod. Alexander Drozdenko, governor of northwestern Russia’s Leningrad region, said a fuel reservoir in the Primorsk port area leaked when it was hit by shrapnel. Ukrainian drones also repeatedly struck Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga last month, damaging several buildings in the sprawling complex of oil-processing facilities and export terminals. Odesa has been targeted numerous times by Russian strikes (EPA) In Ukraine, an overnight Russian drone attack on the southern port city of Odesa on Monday killed two women and a toddler, authorities said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X that 16 people were wounded, including a pregnant woman and two children. Russian strikes also hit energy infrastructure in the Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Dnipro regions, Zelenskyy said. More than 300,000 households were without electricity in the Chernihiv region in the north after distribution facilities were damaged in attacks, according to the regional power utility. Zelenskyy said that over the past week, Russia launched at Ukraine more than 2,800 attack drones, nearly 1,350 glide bombs and more than 40 missiles. Adblock test (Why?)