Live
Maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has once again ground to a halt after US President Trump announced a naval blockade following the failure of negotiations with Iran, reports Lloyd’s List.
Starmer: Gb will not participate in Hormuz Strait naval blockade
Britain will not join the naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz announced by US President Donald Trump. This was reiterated by the Prime Minister of London, Keir Starmer.
“We are not supporting the blockade,” Starmer told BBC radio, adding that the UK “will not be drawn” into the war with Iran.
China: navigating the Strait of Hormuz unhindered
China has called for ‘unimpeded’ navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. A day after US President Donald Trump threatened a naval blockade, Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a press conference that ‘the Strait of Hormuz is an important international trade route for goods and energy, and maintaining its security, stability and free flow is in the common interest of the international community’.
Trump attacks Leo XIV: ‘He is terrible, without me he would not be Pope’
US President Donald Trump had ‘fiery’ words for Pope Leo XIV late yesterday evening, in an unusual and direct attack on the leader of the Catholic Church, which triggered immediate condemnatory reactions from believers and ecclesiastical institutions.
In what seemed to all to be a response to the pontiff’s growing criticism of the conflict launched jointly by the United States and Israel against Iran and the Trump administration’s very strict immigration policies, the US president called Leo XIV ‘terrible’.
Catholics on social media reacted by criticising Trump for attacking the Church leader. And Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he was saddened by Trump’s statements. “Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the Pope a politician. He is the Vicar of Christ speaking from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls,” he said in an official statement.
Robert Francis Prevost, originally from Chicago, is the first US pope. Trump claimed that he was elected precisely because he was American, indeed precisely because he was back in the White House: ‘Leo should be grateful to me because, as everyone knows, his nomination was an incredible surprise. He was not on any list of those eligible and was chosen solely because he was American, because it was felt that this was the best way to handle the relationship with President Donald J. Trump. If I were not in the White House, Leo would not be in the Vatican,’ he said.
Known for his cautious language, he has become an outspoken critic of the Iran conflict in recent weeks and denounced the ‘folly of war’ in a call for peace on Saturday. Last year he questioned whether the Trump administration’s tough immigration policies were consistent with the Church’s pro-life teaching.
“Those who say, ‘I am against abortion but I agree with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,’ I don’t know if they are really pro-life,” the pontiff had said in September.
Source link
