USA - In yet another sign of the deep freeze consuming the transatlantic 'special relationship' the president lashed out at the Royal Navy's capabilities in a rant against US NATO allies. He claimed the UK had offered to send its two carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and the fleet flagship HMS Prince of Wales, once the fighting in the Middle East was 'over', and had told Keir Starmer 'don't bother.' The president's remarks come after Downing Street previously rejected Trump's claims that it offered to send any aircraft carriers to the war at all. Sir Keir Starmer is becoming increasingly reluctant to allow the UK to be dragged into the conflict which has triggered a surge in energy prices.

IRAN - Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri, the man who directed Iran’s naval strategy to choke one of the world’s most vital energy arteries, is reportedly dead. Reports indicate that Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy since 2018, was killed in an airstrike on the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas on March 26, 2026. An Israeli official told the Jerusalem Post that the strike eliminated Tangsiri, who had authorized and vowed to maintain the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Tangsiri’s death marks the latest in a series of high-profile Iranian military and political figures killed amid escalating conflict, following the reported deaths of IRGC spokesperson Ali Mohammad Naini, de-facto leader Ali Larijani, and anti-protest enforcer Gholamreza Soleimani.

MIDDLE EAST - "The Bab al-Mandab Strait is considered one of the strategic straits in the world, and Iran has the will to produce a completely credible threat against it," an Iranian official told Tasnim. With the building of the Suez Canal, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait assumed great strategic and economic importance, forming a portion of the link between the Mediterranean Sea and East Asia.

USA - Apollo Global Management capped investor redemptions at one of its largest non-traded private credit funds, Apollo Debt Solutions. According to a shareholder letter, it capped redemptions at 5% of outstanding shares after investors sought to withdraw roughly 11.2%. The move follows similar restrictions at other private credit funds in recent weeks, deepening concerns across the $1.8 trillion private credit market. Apollo’s $25 billion private credit fund received withdrawal requests of 11.2% this quarter and honored less than half of them, capped at 5%. BlackRock did the same with its $26 billion fund, Blue Owl replaced withdrawal requests with IOUs entirely, and Morgan Stanley got hit with 10.9% redemption requests. Fortune is calling it a $265 billion meltdown. Whether this is a manageable liquidity event or the leading edge of something larger is the question nobody can answer yet.

GERMANY - “Germany made a huge strategic error” by rushing to shut down its nuclear power plant fleet, a mistake which has exacerbated the energy crisis in Europe, the director of the International Energy Agency said. The Turkish economist who has led the International Energy Agency (IEA) for over a decade, who is engaged in shuttle diplomacy to persuade first world producer nations to stop throttling their own domestic oil and gas extraction, has said the present contraction in supply would be less severe had Germany not bottled it in the past decade and rushed to become nuclear-free.

GERMANY - Germany’s push for a standalone military satellite network, independent of a parallel EU program, has alarmed some lawmakers in Brussels, who warn that the move risks weakening the bloc, according to Reuters. The plan comes amid a broader militarization drive by Germany and the EU, framed by Western officials as a response to an alleged threat from Russia, a claim Moscow has dismissed as “nonsense.” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in September that Berlin would invest €35 billion (over $41 billion) in military space technologies over the next five years, citing various risks, including in orbit. The development comes as divisions persist within the EU over defense, trade, and relations with Washington. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, initially seen as a pro-European figure, has increasingly emphasized national interests following shifts in US policy under President Donald Trump.

GERMANY - A sharp and unusually public rift has opened in transatlantic relations, as German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier delivered a blunt critique of the ongoing war with Iran, marking one of the most direct European challenges to American leadership in recent years. His remarks have ignited debate not only about the conflict itself, but about Europe’s future path in a rapidly shifting global order. Speaking before diplomats in Berlin, Steinmeier, a member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), described the war as a “politically disastrous mistake,” arguing that it represents a fundamental break from established norms. His tone stood out in a continent where many leaders have chosen more cautious language. “Our foreign policy does not become more convincing just because we do not call a breach of international law a breach of international law,” Steinmeier said. He added that, in his view, the war is “contrary to international law.”

USA - Donald Trump has brutally slapped down Benjamin Netanyahu's push for the US to incite a bloody street revolution to topple the Iranian regime. 'Why the hell should we tell people to take to the streets when they'll just get mowed down,' Trump told Netanyahu during a call last week. The call came just hours after Iran's security chief Ali Larijani was killed in an Israeli strike last Tuesday. Netanyahu told Trump the regime was in disarray and that there was a window for a popular uprising, a US official and Israeli source told Axios.

IRAN - Donald Trump is massing a 7,000-strong ground invasion force on Iran's doorstep after the Islamic regime snubbed a 15-point peace plan with a series of 'ridiculous' demands. Pentagon chiefs ordered around 2,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East last night to join some 4,500 Marines already en route to the region. The President is prepared to pull the trigger on a full-scale invasion if Tehran continues to rebuff his diplomatic overtures, according to members of his inner circle. 'Trump has a hand open for a deal, and the other is a fist, waiting to punch you in the face,' a Trump aide told Axios.

IRAN - Radical Iranian army chiefs bent on continuing the war will start assassinating their own higher-level officials if they continue to negotiate on Donald Trump's terms, an expert has claimed. Iran's veteran Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a host of other top Revolutionary Guards commanders have been killed in US-Israeli strikes, but the ruling system has maintained its ability to operate in the conflict that began on February 28. Hooshang Amirahmadi, the founder and president of the American Iranian Council, said that while around 150 members of the regime's top brass have been eliminated, a new generation of younger officers have entered the scene and are 'increasingly in charge'. With Khamenei killed in one of the first strikes of the war, the 'vertical power structure' of the Islamic Republic has collapsed into a 'horizontal structure', giving more military agency to hardline second rank officers who are resistant to peace.

IRAN - Iran is claiming it is hunting US soldiers hiding out across the Middle East after drone and missile attacks on American military bases, it has been reported. Iranian military spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaqari has called on people in the Gulf states to report hideouts and demand their expulsion, according to remarks attributed to Iranian media outlets. 'Considering that all American bases in the region have been destroyed, American commanders and soldiers have fled and taken refuge in hideouts outside the bases, and we are searching for them,' Zolfaqari is cited as saying.

USA - Donald Trump has once again [declared] the US has won the Iran war 'completely and decisively' as he lashed out at Democrats. Trump accused the 'radical left' and 'country-hating Democrats' of trying to create 'inner chaos' to negate America's 'great military achievement'. On his Truth Social platform, the President said: "They hate seeing us WIN so completely and decisively, but the American public sees what is going on. AMERICA FIRST! President DJT."

UNITED NATIONS - The Iran war is 'out of control,' UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said. Mr Guterres has warned of more human and economic pain the longer fighting goes on across the Middle East. 'The conflict has broken past the limits even leaders thought imaginable,' he told reporters. 'The world is staring down the barrel of a wider war, a rising tide of human suffering, and a deeper global economic shock. This has gone too far.'

USA - BlackRock boss Larry Fink said it was too early to determine the outcome of the conflict, but told the BBC there were two possible scenarios. If the conflict ends soon, then oil prices could return to their pre-conflict level at around $70. But if the war is drawn out, or if there is a cessation and 'yet Iran remains a threat, a threat to trade, a threat to the Strait of Hormuz, a threat to this peaceful coexistence of the GCC region, then I would argue that we could have years of above $100 - closer to $150 - oil which has profound implications on the economy'. While Trump may want to de-escalate the conflict to stabilise energy prices, prices are still hovering at $100 as markets grow increasingly unconvinced the war will end soon. 'We will have global recession,' Fink claimed, when asked what would happen if oil stays at $150 a barrel as the Middle East crisis deepens.

USA - Trying to decipher what Donald Trump is really up to can be something of a mug’s game. But, with all the usual caveats this uncertain exercise entails, it does seem as if the President is looking for an off ramp in his Iranian adventure – which, contrary to the propaganda emanating from the White House and the Pentagon, cannot be said to be going exactly to plan. Last Saturday, Trump was still doing his Mr Bellicose act, threatening to ‘obliterate’ Iranian energy infrastructure if the regime didn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran responded, predictably, by saying that if he did that, Iran would destroy the energy infrastructure of America’s Gulf allies. The global economy gulped.