Top Stories — Thursday, April 23, 2026
What is trending in the USA today? Here is Breaking News:
- 'We are facing the biggest energy security threat in history,' IEA chief tells CNBC — CNBC
- Here’s the latest. — nyt News
- EU Considers $106 Billion Loan to Ukraine, Delayed for Months by Orban — nyt News
'We are facing the biggest energy security threat in history,' IEA chief tells CNBC
Source: CNBC • Published: 4/23/2026, 2:01:49 PM
"We are facing the biggest energy security threat in history," Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), told CNBC Thursday.
"As of today, we've lost 13 million barrels per day of oil ... and there are major disruptions in vital commodities," he told Steve Sedgwick virtually at CNBC's CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore.
Birol has previously warned that the Iran war and ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz would result in "the largest energy crisis we have ever faced" and urged governments to bolster their resilience with alternative energy sources.
"I expect, first of all, nuclear power, will get a boost ... Renewables will grow very strongly — solar, wind and others — [and] I expect electric cars will benefit from this," he noted. Alternative fossil fuels could also make a comeback, he noted.
"In some countries, I expect the coal may also see a push and go back up, especially in some big countries in Asia."
The vital maritime passage — through which an average 20 million barrels of oil and petroleum products were shipped every day before the war — is currently under a "double-blockade" with neither Iran nor the U.S. allowing vessels to enter or exit the strait.
Describing the strait as one of the world's "most critical oil transit chokepoints," the IEA has warned that the closure will impact global economic growth, spur inflation and could lead to energy rationing. The agency has warned of an imminent jet fuel crunch in Europe, with some countries facing shortages within weeks.
"Europe gets about 75% of its jet fuel from refineries in the Middle East and this is basically now [down to] zero ... Europe is now trying to get it from the U.S. and Nigeria. If we are not able to get, in Europe, additional imports from the countries now, we will be in difficulties," Birol told CNBC Thursday.
"I really hope, first of all, that the strait is opened and refinery exports start from there, but we may well need to take some measures in Europe to reduce air travel as well," he said.
The 32-member IEA has tried to mitigate the impact of the global energy supply disruption by agreeing in March to release 400 million barrels of oil from emergency stockpiles.
Birol said in early April that while the IEA would consider releasing a second tranche of reserves, such a move would represent a reprieve rather than a resolution to the crisis: "This is only helping to reduce the pain, it will not be a cure," he told the "In Good Company" podcast hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management.
"The cure is opening up the Strait of Hormuz. We are gaining some time, but I don't claim that this will be a solution, our stock release," he added.
Here’s the latest.
Source: nyt News • Published: 4/23/2026, 1:28:26 PM
Beirut11:38 a.m. April 23
Pinned
Oil was trading above $100 a barrel on Thursday, after reports of Iran seizing two cargo ships near the Strait of Hormuz injected fresh fear into energy markets, and there were no public indications of a breakthrough in the effort to restart peace talks.
President Trump told Fox News on Wednesday that there was “no time pressure” on holding a new round of talks or on the cease-fire, and “no timeline” for ending the war with Iran.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told Fox separately that Mr. Trump does not view the reported ship seizures as a violation of the cease-fire.
The reported seizures happened after the U.S. Navy denied dozens of ships access to Iranian ports as part of a blockade President Trump ordered this month. The U.S. military said Wednesday it had directed 31 ships to turn around or return to port since the blockade commenced.
Iran had effectively blocked all shipping through the Strait of Hormuz after the war began in late February with U.S.-Israeli strikes. The waterway is normally a vital conduit for global energy supplies.
A summit aimed at reopening the strait was scheduled to reconvene in London on Thursday, with military planners from more than 30 countries. For now, shipping companies are keeping their vessels away because of the risk of attacks.
In a sign of that danger, Iranian state media reported that the Guards had targeted two cargo vessels on Wednesday, the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas, a Greek-owned ship, because they were not abiding by Iran’s recently imposed rules for passing through the strait. Iranian news outlets also reported that the Guards had fired on a third cargo ship.
Energy prices have risen sharply since the conflict began. The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, rose back above $100 per barrel on Wednesday.
A tenuous 10-day truce between Israeli and Lebanon was also under strain after an exchange of attacks along the border. Lebanese and Israeli officials were expected to meet in Washington on Thursday for a second round of ambassador-level talks aimed at brokering a longer-term arrangement.
A first round of U.S.-mediated talks produced an agreement that took effect on Friday, halting weeks of war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group.
Here’s what else we are covering:
War powers vote: For a fifth time since the war began on Feb. 28, Senate Republicans voted on Wednesday to block a resolution to enforce Congress’ war powers. Democrats failed once again in their effort to constrain Mr. Trump.
Navy secretary out: John Phelan was fired after months of Pentagon infighting over how to revive the Navy’s struggling shipbuilding program.
Journalists in Lebanon: Israeli strikes killed one journalist and wounded another in the country’s south on Wednesday, the Lebanese authorities said.
Israeli strikes killed one journalist and wounded another in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, rattling a tenuous cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon.
The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said the Israeli military had targeted the journalists in the town of Tayri, where they took shelter in a nearby house after an airstrike struck a vehicle in front of the car they were traveling in. About an hour and a half later, a second strike hit the house they were hiding in, according to a statement by a Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, which employed the journalist who was killed.
The Lebanese Red Cross said its teams came under fire while trying to evacuate the journalists from the house, forcing them to withdraw. The rescue crews were targeted by a warning strike and machine-gun fire, the Lebanese health ministry said.
Zeinab Faraj, a photojournalist, was rescued from the house. The other journalist, Amal Khalil, who was a reporter for Al-Akhbar, remained trapped under rubble for hours before emergency medics recovered her body, according to the Lebanese Civil Defense.
In addition to Ms. Khalil, the two people in the car in front of her were killed in the strikes, Al-Akhbar reported.
Amid the 10-day truce between Israel and Lebanon, Israel has continued strikes against what it says are Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, citing its right to self-defense. Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia group, said that it had fired rockets and drones into Israel on Tuesday in response to what it said were violations of the cease-fire. Earlier on Wednesday, the Lebanese News Agency reported that an Israeli drone strike killed one person and wounded two others in another part of the country.
The Lebanese health ministry called the strikes in Tayri a “blatant double breach, involving both the obstruction of rescue efforts for a civilian known for her media and humanitarian work, and the direct targeting of an ambulance clearly marked with the Red Cross.”
The Israeli military denied in a statement that it had prevented rescuers from reaching the injured journalists, and said the incident was under investigation.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli military said Israeli forces had spotted two vehicles emerging from a military building used by Hezbollah. The military observed the vehicles cross what the spokeswoman called the forward defense line, determining the move to be a violation of the truce agreement.
The spokeswoman confirmed that the Israeli military had struck one of the vehicles and the building some of the occupants of the second vehicle had taken shelter in.
Ms. Khalil had covered southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah exercises strong control, since at least 2006. In a tribute to Ms. Khalil, a colleague from Al-Akhbar said she embodied the resilience of the southern Lebanese through her relentless reporting, refusing to leave the front lines of war where thousands of Lebanese had been displaced.
“As with every act of aggression, wearing a press vest did not protect those who wore it from the treachery of the Israeli enemy,” Al-Akhbar said in a statement. “Instead, it has become a danger to journalists’ lives, as part of a systematic Israeli policy aimed at silencing anyone who seeks to expose the crimes and practices of the occupation.”
In a forceful statement on social media, Nawaf Salam, the Lebanese prime minister, accused the Israeli military of war crimes for targeting journalists and obstructing access to medical aid. He said that Lebanon would pursue action to ensure Israel is held accountable with international bodies.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said that it was outraged by the attack, and that it raised serious concerns of deliberate targeting.
“The repeated strikes on the same location, the targeting of an area where journalists were sheltering, and the obstruction of medical and humanitarian access constitute a grave breach of international humanitarian law,” said Sara Qudah, CPJ’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Iranian state media published a video released by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that it said showed the interception of two cargo vessels, the Francesca and Epaminondas, on Wednesday. The Revolutionary Guards said it had seized both ships near the Strait of Hormuz. The New York Times verified that the vessels in the video were the Francesca and Epaminodas, which are seen being approached by a speedboat flying an Iranian flag. The video then shows armed forces scaling the vessels from the boat with a ladder. Footage of armed forces conducting operations in ship interiors could not be verified.
Reporting from Washington
Pentagon Fires Navy Secretary
Navy Secretary John Phelan was fired on Wednesday after months of infighting with senior Pentagon leaders and disagreements over how to revive the Navy’s struggling shipbuilding program.
Mr. Phelan is leaving the Pentagon and the Trump administration effective immediately, wrote Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, in a terse statement.
In his role leading the Navy, Mr. Phelan had championed the “Golden Fleet,” a major investment in new ships including a “Trump-class” battleship. But Mr. Phelan’s leadership was marred by feuds with senior leaders in the Pentagon, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, Pentagon and congressional officials said.
Mr. Phelan is the first service secretary to leave the administration, though he is the second one to clash with the defense secretary. Mr. Hegseth also has butted heads with Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll over promotions and a host of other issues. Mr. Hegseth fired the Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, earlier this month.
The Navy secretary has no role overseeing deployed forces, and Mr. Phelan’s firing is not likely to have significant implications for the conduct of the Iran war or U.S. Navy operations to blockade Iranian ports or open the Strait of Hormuz. As the Navy’s top civilian leader, his main responsibility is to oversee the building of the future naval and Marine Corps force.
But the tumult could make it harder for the Navy to replenish its stock of Tomahawk missiles and high-end air defense systems, which have been in heavy use in Iran.
Tensions had been simmering for months between Mr. Phelan and his two bosses — Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Feinberg — over management style, personnel issues and other matters.
Mr. Feinberg, in particular, had grown increasingly dissatisfied with Mr. Phelan’s handling of the Navy’s major new shipbuilding initiative, and had been siphoning off responsibility for the project from him, said the congressional official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
Mr. Phelan, a White House appointee, also had a contentious relationship with his deputy, Under Secretary Hung Cao, who is more aligned with Mr. Hegseth, especially on some of the social and cultural battles that have defined the defense secretary’s tenure, the officials said.
A senior administration official said that Mr. Hegseth informed Mr. Phelan before the Pentagon’s official announcement that he and President Trump had decided that the Navy needed new leadership.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Phelan referred all questions on Wednesday evening to the Defense Department.
Last fall, Mr. Hegseth fired Mr. Phelan’s chief of staff, Jon Harrison, who had clashed with senior officials throughout the Pentagon. The unusual move highlighted the broader tensions between Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Phelan.
Still, the timing of Mr. Phelan’s firing caught some Pentagon and congressional officials off guard. On Wednesday, Mr. Phelan was making the rounds on Capitol Hill, talking to senators about his upcoming annual hearing with lawmakers to discuss the Navy’s budget request and other priorities.
“Secretary Phelan’s abrupt dismissal is troubling,” Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement Wednesday night. “In the midst of President Trump’s war of choice in Iran, at a moment when our naval forces are stretched thin across multiple theaters, this kind of disruption at the top sends the wrong signal to our sailors and Marines, to our allies, and to our adversaries.”
Mr. Phelan also had a close relationship with Mr. Trump. In December, Mr. Phelan appeared alongside Mr. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort to announce the “Golden Fleet” and the new class of battleships bearing Mr. Trump’s name.
“John Phelan is one of the most successful businessmen in the country — in our country,” Mr. Trump said. “He’s been a tremendous success.”
Before joining the Trump administration, Mr. Phelan ran a private investment fund based in Florida.
“He’s taken probably the largest salary cut in history, but he wanted to do it,” Mr. Trump said at the December press conference. “He wants to rebuild our Navy. And you needed that kind of a brain to do it properly.”
But Mr. Trump’s effusive praise masked deeper tensions with Mr. Phelan’s Pentagon bosses.
Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Hudson Institute, said that Mr. Phelan was “driving the Navy in a different direction” than what Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Feinberg wanted.
“He was championing initiatives like the battleship and frigate that don’t align with where the D.O.W. leadership is taking the military, which is toward submarines, stealth aircraft, unmanned systems and software-driven capabilities like electronic warfare and cyber,” Mr. Clark said in an email, using the abbreviation for Department of War, as the administration calls the Defense Department.
Mr. Phelan also clashed with Mr. Hegseth over personnel issues in the Navy and Marine Corps, a former senior military official said. Mr. Hegseth has directed service secretaries to scrub the social media accounts of general- and admiral-level promotion candidates to ensure they are not deemed too “woke” by Mr. Hegseth’s standards, the official said.
Maggie Haberman and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
President Trump claimed in a social media post on Wednesday that at his request, Iran had decided that “eight women protestors who were going to be executed tonight in Iran will no longer be killed.” It was the second time Trump had posted about the subject, after sharing on Tuesday an activist’s post claiming the women were about to be hanged. The president provided no information on the women or their cases, and the White House did not respond to questions about the claims.
Iran denied any executions had been planned and called the story false news, saying some of the eight women had been released while others faced charges that could result in prison time, but not death sentences.
Three human rights groups that monitor Iran said one of the women had been sentenced to death, but had no confirmed information of death sentences for others. To varying degrees, the groups had little confirmed information about the charges the others face, whether they had been tried, or even whether they were all still detained. The groups said the internet blackout that Iran’s authorities have largely enforced since the war’s start complicated efforts to get up-to-date verifiable information.
Luke Broadwater is a White House correspondent. He reported from Washington.
Just two weeks ago, President Trump threatened to wipe out Iran’s civilization if it did not open the Strait of Hormuz. Days later, he said any Iranian “who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!”
Yet on Wednesday, after Iran seized two ships near the Strait of Hormuz, the White House was quick to argue the action was not a deal breaker for potential peace negotiations.
“These were not U.S. ships,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Fox News. “These were not Israeli ships.” Therefore, she explained, the Iranians had not violated a cease-fire with the United States that Mr. Trump has extended indefinitely.
She cautioned the news media against “blowing this out of proportion.”
The surprisingly tolerant tone from the White House suggests Mr. Trump is not eager to reignite a war that he started alongside Israel on Feb. 28 — a war that has proved unpopular with Americans and has gone on longer than he initially estimated.
The president on Tuesday extended a cease-fire between the United States and Iran that had been set to expire within hours, saying he wanted to give Tehran a chance to come up with a new proposal to end the war.
The American military has displayed its overwhelming might during the war, successfully striking thousands of targets. But it remains unclear whether Mr. Trump will accomplish the political objectives of the war.
The Iranian regime, even after its top leaders were killed, is still intact. Iran has not agreed to Mr. Trump’s demands to turn over its nuclear capabilities to the United States or significantly curtail them. And the Strait of Hormuz, a key passageway for world commerce that was open before the war, remains closed.
Nevertheless, the White House has repeatedly highlighted the military successes on the battlefield as evidence it is winning the war.
“We have completely confused and obliterated their regime,” Ms. Leavitt said on Fox Wednesday. “They are in a very weak position thanks to the actions taken by President Trump and our great United States armed forces, and so we will continue this important mission on our own.”
The oscillation between threats and a more conciliatory tone has long been one of Mr. Trump’s signature negotiating strategies.
Potential peace talks between the two countries are on hold. Vice President JD Vance had been poised to fly to Islamabad for negotiations. But the trip was postponed until Iran can “come up with a unified proposal,” Mr. Trump said.
The United States recently transmitted a written proposal to the Iranians intended to establish base-line points of agreement that could frame more detailed negotiations. The document covers a broad range of issues, but the core sticking points are the same ones that have bedeviled Western negotiators for more than a decade: the scope of Iran’s uranium enrichment program and the fate of its stockpile of enriched uranium.
Mr. Trump has not spoken publicly about the cease-fire, other than on social media. On Wednesday, he also posted about topics including “my Apprentice Juggernaut” — a reference to his former television show; the Virginia elections, which he called “rigged”; and a new book about Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.
Due to an editing error, a headline on an earlier version of this article described incorrectly the actions Iran has taken near the Strait of Hormuz. It seized two vessels; it did not conduct strikes.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at corrections@nytimes.com.Learn more
The S&P 500 nudged up to a fresh record high on Wednesday even as international oil prices moved back above $100 per barrel. Investors have been grappling with mixed signals over the state of a cease-fire between the United States and Iran, with some analysts suggesting to look past the current uncertainty and focus on strong earnings results being reported by corporate America.
In remarks to reporters outside the White House, Leavitt also dismissed mocking statements from Iranian state media claiming that Trump had unilaterally announced an extension of the ceasefire without Iran asking for one. “What they say publicly is much different than what they concede to the United States and our negotiating team privately,” adding that “you should take our word for it.”
She also said that Trump had decided to extend the truce because “there’s a lot of internal fraction and internal division” in Iran’s leadership, and the United States was “offering a little bit of flexibility” in order to see a unified response to its proposals.
The number of ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz has become a barometer of how the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is affecting the global economy.
On Tuesday, after nearly eight weeks of war, that number was one, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Then Wednesday, more ships tried and Iran attacked two cargo vessels in the strait.
“They are reminding us that their threats to attack ships are genuine, and that’s enough to suppress traffic through the strait,” said Rosemary Kelanic, a director at Defense Priorities, a research organization focused on foreign affairs. Ships linked to Iran have passed through the strait, ship tracking data shows.
The latest attacks show that Tehran still has a stranglehold on the strait that allows it to ratchet up the pain on the global economy, even though the U.S. military has struck some 13,000 targets in Iran and set up a naval blockade against it. This strategic move gives Iran leverage in any talks with the United States to end the war.
In normal times, about a fifth of the world’s oil supply and a significant share of its natural gas went through the strait on ships. But with that supply stalled, the prices of gasoline, diesel and gas used for cooking and home heating are rising around the world, piling new costs onto businesses and consumers.
While the United States and Israel have said that they wanted to end Iran’s nuclear program and depose its leaders, Tehran has made it into a war that is also about shipping.
For decades, it made more economic sense to transport oil in tankers the length of three football fields rather than pump it through overland pipelines. While such pipelines exist and are carrying more oil since the war began, those extra flows don’t make up the shortfall created by the waterway’s closure. All told, there has been about a 10 percent reduction in the supply of oil to the world, according to data from the International Energy Agency.
An average of around eight ships a day had been passing through the strait before the latest attacks, down from 130 a day before the war.
Then on Friday, after Iran and the United States said the waterway was fully open, many ships started to move toward the strait with the apparent aim of passing through.
But hours later, Iran said it would crack down on ships entering the strait because the United States had not ended its blockade of Iranian vessels, southeast of the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf of Oman.
The few hours that the strait seemed to be open, Michelle Wiese Bockmann, an analyst at Windward, a maritime analysis firm, saw many ships positioning for an exit.
But after reports on Saturday that Iran had attacked a ship, she said, tracking software showed 33 vessels stop their attempts at passage. “What I saw on Saturday morning was nascent confidence,” she said, “Then, literally, before my eyes, I saw everything start to turn around.”
Ms. Wiese Bockmann said 12 ships with no apparent links to Iran had made it through.
Even those vessels typically get Iran’s permission to make the passage, and Iranian authorities demand that they take a route that runs close to Iran, rather than the two main lanes through the middle of the strait used before the war, which began on Feb. 28.
“There is no freedom of navigation,” Ms. Wiese Bockmann said.
On Wednesday, Iranian news media named the two cargo vessels targeted as the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas. MSC, based in Switzerland, is the world’s largest container shipping company. It did not respond to requests for comment.
Technomar Shipping, the Greek manager of the Epaminondas, said in a statement that the vessel was attempting to pass through the strait “when it was approached and fired upon by a manned gunboat.” It said that the crew were safe, and that there were no reports of injuries or water pollution.
More Iranian-linked ships have been going through the strait than those with no links, according to data from Lloyd’s List Intelligence. From March 2 through Sunday, 308 ships with Iranian links went through, or an average of six a day, according to Lloyd’s List. They were either carrying Iranian cargo, included on an anti-Iran sanctions list or acting in such a way — for instance, turning off their transponders to hide their locations — that strongly suggested that they were doing business with Iran.
Over the same period, 90 ships with no such links to Iran went through the strait, or an average of three a day, according to Lloyd’s List’s data.
To try to stop the Iranian ships, the United States set up a blockade on April 13. One of its aims was to cut off Iran’s oil exports, which were bringing in valuable revenue for its war-stricken economy. Before the blockade, Iran was exporting roughly as much oil during the war as it was before.
The U.S. military has said no Iranian ships have gotten through the blockade, and it seized an Iranian tanker on Sunday attempting to do so. U.S. Central Command said on Wednesday that it had turned back 29 vessels.
But Lloyd’s List’s analysts say seven Iranian-linked ships have passed through both the Strait of Hormuz and the blockade since April 13.
Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for Central Command, on Wednesday disputed Lloyd’s List’s analysis and stood by its earlier statement that the blockade had not been evaded by Iranian-linked vessels.
Ships with no links to Iran are free to go through the U.S. blockade, with some U.S. destroyers reportedly more than 400 miles away. Though Central Command is not providing warships to escort vessels that want to go through the Strait of Hormuz, its top officer said on Friday that it had attack helicopters in the waterway.
“We also have AH-64 Apaches in and around the Strait of Hormuz providing a visible presence and deterrent as we advocate for the free flow of commerce,” Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of Central Command, said.
But the lack of a large U.S. naval presence in the strait shows that the Iranians still pose a threat there, some analysts say.
“It’s not going to reassure anybody to start up shipping again through Hormuz if the U.S. Navy itself refuses to operate in Hormuz,” said Ms. Kelanic, the analyst.
As long as Iran keeps up its attacks, shipping companies are likely to stay away. Anders Boenaes, the senior managing director of the German shipping giant Hapag-Lloyd, said there had been an expectation that it would be relatively quiet on Tuesday night because it was the eve of possible U.S.-Iran negotiations. Instead, ships were attacked early Wednesday.
“It makes the situation more unpredictable when warnings are not given before attacks are taking place,” Mr. Boenaes said in an interview.
Jenny Gross contributed reporting from Hamburg, Germany, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Fox News that President Trump did not view the Iranian seizure of two ships near the Strait of Hormuz as a violation of the cease-fire. “These were not U.S. ships. These were not Israeli ships,” she said.
Leavitt’s statement was a remarkably tolerant position from the White House. For weeks, Trump had threatened — including in expletive-laden posts — to destroy Iran’s energy grid and other civilian infrastructure in an effort to pressure the country into lifting the blockade of the waterway.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said Iran is still willing to engage in talks but argued that stalled diplomacy reflects a breach of commitments, the U.S. blockade and threats, which he described as the primary barriers to genuine negotiations.Writing on social media, he said Tehran “has welcomed dialogue and agreement and continues to do so,” while accusing Washington of inconsistency, saying the world can see the contradiction between its claims and actions.
Reporting from Rawalpindi, Islamabad’s neighboring city, in Pakistan.
The banner overlooking Altaf Khan’s goats’ pen in Rawalpindi praises a “diplomatic victory” for Pakistan’s leaders, but as the U.S.-Iran peace talks those leaders are trying to broker have been delayed, businesses like his are left hurting.
“We need an agreement for fuel prices to come down,” he said.
Mr. Khan, 42, had spent the night following news about the extension of the cease-fire between the United States and Iran, and the postponement of a second visit to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, of Iranian and American officials.
A respite from surging fuel prices and a rebound in his livestock sales, which have shrunk by a quarter, would have to wait, he added.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan met with Iran’s ambassador on Wednesday, as he and other Pakistani leaders, including the army chief, Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, pushed for a new round of talks to try to end the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.
But on Pakistan’s streets and offices, laborers and business owners said the war that has rattled their country’s wobbly economy is squeezing them by the day.
“Outside of Pakistan, Sharif and the army chief are making big names for themselves, but inside, nothing. We should get some relief,” said Mohsen Ali, a rickshaw driver who said he was waiting for clients at a roundabout instead of roaming around, to save on fuel.
About 85 percent of the country’s oil and gas is imported through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been largely closed since the start of the war.
To save on energy, Pakistan’s government has ordered businesses, markets and restaurants to close early.
At a fruit and vegetable market in Rawalpindi, Abdul Wasiq, a wholesaler, said he now has to sell his products under the soaring heat of the day rather than at night, when it’s cooler, because of the early closing time.
Mr. Wasiq imports apples and grapes from Iran and exports oranges from Pakistan, and he said that the fees per truck carrying Iranian produce had nearly doubled.
“It’s the small things, but people are getting angry at us over the higher prices and the uncertainty,” he said.
Usman Shaukat, the president of the Chamber of Commerce in Rawalpindi, said Pakistani government officials said the economy would feel the blow of the war within months. But he sees the impact now.
“Everybody says again and again, ‘It’s going to end in a couple of days,’ but in the meantime, real business is on hold at home,” Mr. Shaukat said. “And from abroad, remittances that are critical to our economy have taken a hit.”
Some Pakistanis said that Field Marshal Munir and Mr. Sharif deserve praise for their mediation efforts, but added that the efforts mean little to them as long as the war continues.
“The country is making headlines, we’re earning respect,” said Mr. Ali, the rickshaw driver. “But what are we going to make out of the praise?”
Zia ur-Rehman contributed reporting.
Reporting from the Kapikoy border crossing outside Van, Turkey.
Iranians crossing the country’s border with Turkey on Wednesday expressed widely differing views on the war, the cease-fire, and their government, but all voiced deep concern over an economic crisis they said was unfolding in the country.
At the Kapikoy border crossing in eastern Turkey, Moji, 38, was returning to Iran after several months in Europe. She had been under constant stress while away, she said, and worried about her family back in Iran who live in Urmia, close to the Turkish border. Like many of the Iranians who spoke to The New York Times, Moji declined to give her full name, for fear of reprisal by the Iranian government. Others refused to be identified entirely.
Many people at the border crossing did not want to speak to a reporter at all, or spoke only briefly. Several people said in interviews that they feared punishment by the state for expressing their views.
Moji said that, while she was abroad, an airstrike had struck near her parents’ home. Her friends in Urmia increasingly struggled to afford food, Moji said, because there was no work to be found and factories had been forced to close amid the strikes.
One couple, a husband and wife who work as garment makers, said the economic problems preceded the war, and they routinely went without work for over half the year. Another woman said that layoffs were increasing, and that her hopes were not that Iran became a democracy, but simply had a ruler who could create jobs and bring security to the country.
Milad, 37, from the city of Khoy in western Iran, was traveling to Turkey for a short family vacation. He expressed support for the Iranian government and its military performance during the war. “For us to persevere before a bully like this, it’s really a great thing,” he said, referring to the United States.
Milad pulled out his maroon-colored Iranian passport, saying that, in the past, when he showed it at border crossings, he was treated with disrespect, he said. “Not anymore,” he said. “Now they know what we are.”
One woman from the Iranian city of Tabriz, who crossed the border into Turkey on Wednesday to see her daughter, said that she hoped negotiations between Iran and the United States would ultimately fail. She implied that the war should continue so that the Iranian government would fall.
Moji, who was heading to see her family in Urmia, said she was glad the cease-fire had been extended, seeing it as relief for people who had been under intense pressure for months, starting with the deadly crackdown on protests in January and, after that, the war.
“Everyone wants something better to happen,” she said. “But unfortunately the path that unfolds for our people is not the right path and, in the end, that which should happen, doesn’t happen. People just suffer more mentally and have to pull back financially.”
Read the full story at nyt News.
EU Considers $106 Billion Loan to Ukraine, Delayed for Months by Orban
Source: nyt News • Published: 4/23/2026, 1:28:19 PM
Hungary dropped its opposition to a $106 billion loan from the European Union to Ukraine on Wednesday, most likely clearing the way for the bloc to extend a needed lifeline to Kyiv as the war with Russia drags on.
The loan — 90 billion euros — had been held up since February by Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary and his government.
But on Wednesday, ambassadors from across the 27-nation European Union, meeting in Brussels, agreed to move ahead on the loan, according to a spokesperson from Cyprus, which currently holds the rotating six-month presidency of the European Union’s political leadership arm. The ambassadors also agreed to move forward with a package of sanctions against Russia, which had also been held up, added the spokesperson, who requested anonymity to discuss diplomatic deliberations.
While Hungary could in theory still object during final steps,both the loan and the fresh measures against Russia are most likely headed for swift final approval — which means money could soon flow to Ukraine.
The break in what has been a monthslong impasse came after the reopening of the Druzhba pipeline, which carries oil from Russia across Ukraine and into Slovakia and Hungary. The pipeline had been damaged in what Ukraine said was a Russian attack, and Hungary said Kyiv had not been moving fast enough to repair it.
Because of that, Mr. Orban’s government announced in late February that it would block the loan, which it had agreed to allow through as recently as December.
Ukrainian and E.U. officials saw Mr. Orban’s opposition to the loan as an example of pre-election posturing before a vote on April 12; his ad campaigns had been anti-Ukraine and skeptical of the European Union.
But then Mr. Orban suffered a resounding defeat in those elections, and Peter Magyar, the winning candidate, quickly suggested that he would lift Hungary’s veto on the loan upon taking office next month. Officials initially thought that progress on the loan would have to wait until the newly elected Hungarian government formally took over.
Things moved even faster than that.
Mr. Orban posted on social media on April 19 that the pipeline could be fixed imminently. “Once oil deliveries are restored, we will no longer stand in the way of approving the loan,” he added, indicating that there might be room for even earlier progress.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, said on Tuesday that the pipeline had been repaired. A large Hungarian energy company, MOL, announced on Wednesday that oil had again begun to flow through the pipeline.
With the oil moving and the loan headed for final approval, money could replenish an increasingly desperate Ukraine within weeks.
“That is important, to move fast and then to have the first payment already next month,” Kestutis Budrys, the Lithuanian minister of foreign affairs, said before a meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday.
European officials had found ways to keep Kyiv funded during the delay, but the loan will provide far more substantial financial support for Ukraine as Moscow’s full-scale invasion extends into a fifth year.
Ukraine would need to repay the no-interest loan only if Russia were to pay reparations. Kyiv needs the cash to buy air defenses and military equipment, and it has been rapidly depleting its existing finances.
“It is important that the European support package becomes operational promptly,” Mr. Zelensky said on social media.
The loan itself will come at no eventual cost to Hungary, or to the Czech Republic and Slovakia, all of which opted out of helping to pay for it as a condition for allowing it to pass. The loan is backed by the European Union’s shared budget.
The final steps on the loan are expected to conclude on Thursday, which is also when European Union leaders will travel to Cyprus for a meeting to talk about Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East and other issues.
In Hungary, in addition to signaling that he would unblock the loan, Mr. Magyar has struck a more friendly tone toward the European Union than Mr. Orban did.
But it remains unclear how much Mr. Magyar will change Hungary’s broader approach toward Ukraine. He has stopped short of endorsing additional financial aid to Kyiv, and he has made it clear that he opposes an accelerated timeline for Ukraine’s integration into the European Union.
Maria Varenikova and Lara Jakes contributed reporting.
Jeanna Smialek is the Brussels bureau chief for The Times.
Koba Ryckewaert is a reporter and researcher for The Times based in Brussels.
Read the full story at nyt News.
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