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BBC News with Neil Nunes.
The United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution condemning attacks by Iran on the Arab Gulf states and Jordan. The text put forward by the Gulf countries makes no mention of airstrikes by the U.S. and Israel. China and Russia have abstained. The Iranian ambassador to the U.N., Amir Saeed Iravani, gave this reaction. "This resolution is a manifest injustice against my country, the main victim of a clear act of aggression. It distorts the realities on the ground and deliberately ignores the root causes of the current crisis. It rewards the regimes of the United States and Israel, which have violated the U.N. Charter and committed act of aggression." Iran has continued to attack targets in the Gulf hitting fuel storage containers in Oman. Oil prices remained high despite the biggest ever market intervention by the International Energy Agency to try to counter the effects of the war on Iran. Members have agreed to release an unprecedented 400 million barrels from their combined emergency reserves. Iran has in effect closed the world's busiest oil shipping channel, the Strait of Hormuz, in retaliation. Here's our business correspondent, Michelle Fleury. The reason you have not seen a big movement in the oil price in the downward direction is in part because people are looking at the situation and they're going. That might help in the short term while it sounds like a huge number, roughly speaking, it would be maybe about 20 days or so, of, sort of replacement, maybe a bit more. And they think if this conflict goes on beyond that, well, then what next? Israel says it is stepping up the intensity of its strikes on the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Our correspondent, Wyre Davies is, is there and sent this report. There have been huge explosions across the Lebanese capital tonight as the Israeli military warned residents of southern Beirut, an area covering hundreds of thousands of people, that they should evacuate immediately for their own safety. Tens of thousands have already left the Dahiya area after days of relentless Israeli bombing aimed at Hezbollah's leadership and its financial institutions. As the Iranian-backed Hezbollah said it had launched rockets and missiles against northern Israel, there are increasing concerns the renewed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is escalating out of control. Iran's minister of sports says the national football team are not in a position to participate in this year's World Cup. The team are scheduled to play three group matches in the tournament, which is being held in the U.S., Canada and Mexico in June and July. Iran's participation has been in doubt since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on the country in February. This is the world news from the BBC. Chile's new far-right President José Antonio Kast has been sworn in, marking the country's biggest shift to the right since the end of dictatorship in 1990. Mr. Kast has the backing of President Trump. Our global affairs reporter Mimi Swaby reports. The ultra-conservative father of nine borrowed from Donald Trump's playbook during his campaign, promising to deport hundreds of thousands of mostly Venezuelan irregular migrants and build a wall to seal the northern border. He has promised harsh measures to fight crime and illegal migration, a project similar to policies adopted by his U.S. counterpart. His election follows the trend of Latin American countries veering to the right in recent years. Colombia says it will restart importing natural gas from Venezuela. It's after Bogota and Caracas agreed to repair a damaged section of a binational pipeline. The Antonio Ricaurte gas pipeline has long been inactive. But Colombia's energy ministry has announced that after an agreement with Venezuela's state oil company, there's a plan to replace five kilometers of pipeline in Colombia's territory. Liberia's foreign minister has said his government is working to calm tensions along the country's border with Guinea after reports of gunfire and injuries to a civilian. Local media say clashes took place this week when Guinean soldiers crossed into Liberia, took down a Liberian flag and raised their own. Researchers in Canada say they've discovered that queen bumblebees have the ability to breathe underwater. Bumblebees nest in the ground and new queens hibernate there over the winter, making them vulnerable to flooding from melting snow and rainfall. Researchers at the University of Ottawa say their discovery may explain how the insects can seemingly emerge from floodwaters to rebuild their colonies. BBC News. |