Sounding triumphant following what the White House described as a daring operation to rescue a wounded American pilot from Iran, US President Donald Trump on Monday renewed his warning that the US could strike Iran’s critical infrastructure if negotiations fail to produce the desired results by his deadline of Tuesday, April 7 at 8pm EST. “Their entire country can be taken out in a night and that night could be tomorrow,” said the US president about Iran. With Trump’s deadline looming, Pakistan...

At least three people were killed on Monday in the latest powerful Russian drone strikes on the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa. Fifteen residents, including a pregnant woman and two children, were injured, military governor Oleh Kiper reported on Telegram, after a drone struck a multi-storey residential building. Those killed included a 30-year-old woman and her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, as well as a 53-year-old woman. There were fires and significant destruction, Kiper...

Whether it wraps up quickly or drags on, the repercussions of the US-Israeli war on Iran will echo for years, reshaping warfare, geopolitics, energy security and global perceptions of American tactical and strategic power. In the first of a three-part series, Mark Magnier looks at how the Iran war may alter Beijing’s approach to potential conflict over Taiwan, asymmetrical weaponry and the United States as an adversary. The US military is formidable, well-disciplined, projects deadly force...

Mainstream metrics may understate the role of China’s currency in global payments, as a growing share of transactions is now routed through Beijing’s own cross-border payment system and not fully reflected in conventional data sets, analysts say. This could help explain the gap between Beijing’s official narrative – which describes the yuan as the world’s third-largest payment currency – and readings from tracking systems such as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication...

A Nasa crew of four astronauts will fly by the moon on Monday at the closest distance they will get to the lunar surface during their mission and the nearest any human has got to the moon in more than 50 years. The historic moment is set to occur just after 7pm New York time on Monday, part of a several hours-long fly-by where the astronauts will snap images of the moon’s far side – a vantage that is never seen from Earth. The close approach is the pinnacle moment of Nasa’s Artemis II mission,...

A daughter of Malaysia’s late finance minister Daim Zainuddin will be charged at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court on Tuesday. Lawyer Yu Ying Ying confirmed that Asnida Daim, who is in her 60s, will be charged under Section 36(2) of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009. That section relates to the offence of failing to comply with a written notice from the MACC to declare assets. Court records indicate the case will be mentioned before Judge Rosli Ahmad at 9am. In a separate...

As US President Donald Trump’s Tuesday deadline for reopening the Strait of Hormuz approached, Pakistan put forward a fresh proposal for an immediate ceasefire on Monday, offering what one analyst described as “a critical opportunity” for talks. The plan was brokered through overnight contacts between Pakistani army chief Asim Munir, US officials including Vice-President J.D. Vance and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, according to Reuters. It called for an immediate halt to hostilities...