Why Are Tourists Turning Away from America?

Aug 7, 2026 | Recent data shows a 5 per cent drop in international arrivals to the United States, compared with the previous year.

Washington correspondent George Grylls explains what could be causing holidaymakers to turn away from the US.

The decline comes at a critical time for the industry, as the US is set to host events such as the World Cup this year and the LA Olympics in 2028.

Can the US convince tourists to visit?

Nobody in his right mind would want to visit the US while Trump is in the White House. When people go on holiday, they want a good time. They don’t want to be arrested by ICE agents, beaten by them, and then disappeared! Sensible people are rightly staying well away from Trump’s dystopia. — © Mar Alexander

America’s Suez Moment: Trump Has Completely Underestimated Iran | General Sir Richard Shirreff

Apr 8, 2026 | “You now see the global superpower humbled by a tinpot theocratic dictatorship.”

Trump's failure to force the Iranians to open the Strait of Hormuz "is America's Suez moment”, and he has completely underestimated Iran’s “tinpot theocratic dictatorship”, says General Sir Richard Shirreff, former deputy supreme allied commander of NATO.

Steve Rosenberg: "Warnings of a [Russian] Economic Crisis Grow Louder" - Russian Newspaper Headline

Apr 8, 2026 | Despite high oil prices boosting export revenues, these are some of the headlines in today’s Russian papers: “Warnings of an economic crisis [in Russia] grow louder” and “A reduction in purchases by Russians is ringing alarm bells for the economy.”

2-Week Cease-Fire Takes Hold

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Israel said the cease-fire did not include Lebanon. It was unclear whether ship operators considered the Strait of Hormuz safe for transit, or if word of the deal had reached local Iranian commanders.

The United States and Iran announced a two-week cease-fire on Tuesday evening, shortly before President Trump’s deadline for Iran to unblock the Strait of Hormuz or to see its “whole civilization” destroyed.

But on Wednesday morning, it was unclear whether word of the nascent deal had reached Iranian local commanders, as fresh missile and drone attacks were reported across the Persian Gulf. And even though the news sent the international oil price benchmark down 15 percent, to $93 a barrel, it remained unclear whether ship operators considered the strait — a critical passage for the world’s oil and gas — safe for transit.

After Mr. Trump said on Tuesday night that he had agreed to the cease-fire proposed by Pakistan, a U.S. official said American military strikes against Iran had stopped. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said the country’s armed forces would “cease their defensive operation,” and that safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be possible for two weeks if it was coordinated with Iran’s military.

But early on Wednesday, emergency sirens in Israel warned of incoming Iranian ballistic missiles. Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates reported missile and drone attacks. Bahrain’s interior ministry sounded warning sirens and reported a fire started by an Iranian attack. Iranian local commanders are allowed to make their own strike decisions under a decentralized control system. Iran War Live Updates » | Francesca Regalado, Elian Peltier, Ephrat Livni and Farnaz Fassihi | Wednesday, April 8, 2026

US and Iran Agree to Provisional Ceasefire as Tehran Says It Will Reopen Strait of Hormuz

THE GUARDIAN: US president abandons threat for Iran to surrender or face destruction with last-minute intervention led by Pakistan

The US and Iran agreed to a two-week conditional ceasefire on Tuesday evening, which included a temporary reopening of the strait of Hormuz, after a last-minute diplomatic intervention led by Pakistan, canceling an ultimatum from Donald Trump for Iran to surrender or face widespread destruction.

Trump’s announcement of the ceasefire agreement came less than two hours before the US president’s self-imposed 8pm Eastern time deadline to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges in a move that legal scholars, as well as officials from numerous countries and the pope, had warned could constitute war crimes.

Just hours earlier, Trump had written on Truth Social: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” American B-52 bombers were reported to be en route to Iran before the ceasefire agreement was announced.

But by Tuesday evening, Trump announced that a ceasefire agreement had been mediated through Pakistan, whose prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, had requested the two-week peace in order to “allow diplomacy to run its course”.

Trump wrote in a post that “subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks”.

In a separate post later, the US president called Tuesday “a big day for world peace” on a social media post, claiming that Iran had “had enough”. He said the US would be “helping with the traffic buildup” in the strait of Hormuz and that “big money will be made” as Iran begins reconstruction. » | Andrew Roth in Washington | Wednesday, April 8, 2026

Un centime d’euro le litre : en Iran, les prix à la pompe restent les plus bas du monde

LE FIGARO : En Iran, les prix des carburants sont extrêmement bas. Deux raisons bien spécifiques à la République islamique contribuent à cet écart vertigineux avec le reste du monde.

1 centime d’euro. C’est le prix d’un litre d’essence en Iran, dans un pays où le salaire moyen est de 170 euros par mois et le salaire minimum de 85 euros. Sans appliquer de pondération par le niveau de vie sur place, l’Iran pratique le prix de l’essence le moins cher du monde. Avec la Libye, et le Venezuela, devant tous les grands producteurs pétroliers du Golfe.

Une spécificité d’abord liée à sa géographie. « L’Iran est un grand producteur, un grand raffineur de pétrole brut , et produit donc d’importants volumes de produits pétroliers. Il dispose d’un approvisionnement intérieur, ce qui rend les prix plus bas dès le départ que dans les pays qui doivent importer », explique Nader Itayim, spécialiste des hydrocarbures pour l’agence Argus Media à Dubaï. » | Par Clément Gros | mardi 7 avril 2026

Réservé aux abonnés

Deutschland vor dem Crash? Drei Krisen, die jetzt alles entscheiden

BERLINER ZEITUNG: Deutschland steckt in drei Krisen gleichzeitig. Energie, Rohstoffe und Krieg treffen die Wirtschaft hart. Doch die wahre Katastrophe steht erst bevor. Eine Analyse.

In Krisen wird oft auf Koalitionszwänge verwiesen. Auf Zuständigkeiten. Oder, wenn gar nichts mehr geht, eine „komplexe Gemengelage“. Deutschland erlebt gerade einen solchen Moment. Drei Krisen – eine selbst verschuldete, eine importierte und eine verschlafene – laufen aufeinander zu.

Jede einzelne wäre für eine handlungsfähige Regierung eine Herausforderung. Zusammen ergeben sie das Szenario eines ökonomischen Crashs, auf den die Bundesregierung unter Friedrich Merz (CDU) keine erkennbare Antwort hat. Schlimmer noch: Die konzeptionelle Leere ist kein Betriebsunfall dieser Koalition. Sie ist das Erbe einer politischen Kultur, die ideologische Selbstvergewisserung über die materiellen Interessen der eigenen Bürger gestellt hat – und die nun unfähig ist, die Folgen dieses Fehlers zu korrigieren. » | Harald Neuber | Dienstag, 7. April 7, 2026

Steve Rosenberg: Russian Paper: "People Believe Less and Less What Trump Says."

April 7, 2026

Trump Says Iran Proposal Isn’t Enough to Stop Attacks on Bridges and Power Plants

THE NEW YORK TIMES: President Trump has told Iran it must open the Strait of Hormuz by 8 p.m. Tuesday or face the consequences, although he has delayed previous deadlines.

President Trump said on Monday that a cease-fire proposal put forth by mediators between the United States and Iran was a “significant step,” but he warned that it was “not good enough” as his deadline of Tuesday evening for a deal approached.

Iran, for its part, rejected any proposal for a cease-fire, mandating that any peace plan include a complete end of hostilities. Diplomatic talks coordinated by Pakistan and other regional countries were continuing, officials said, even as there appeared to be little agreement on what any cessation of hostilities would look like.

If Iran does not agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time, Mr. Trump has threatened to launch a massive attack targeting bridges, power plants and other civilian facilities that would, in his words, send Iran “back to the Stone Ages.” But the president has also extended self-imposed deadlines in recent weeks, and diplomats around the world were asking whether Mr. Trump would find an off-ramp again or if he would follow through this time with what could be a gigantic conflagration.

“We have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday afternoon. “I mean complete demolition by 12 o’clock.” » | Tyler Pager and Erika Solomon | Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent and reported from Washington. Erika Solomon is the Iran and Iraq bureau chief and reported from Cairo. | Monday, April 6, 2026

Navidi: USA sind geschwächt - Steigender Ölpreis setzt Weltwirtschaft unter Druck | ntv

Apr 5, 2026 | Trump: "Öffnet die verdammte Straße, ihr verrückten Bastarde"

Die Lage in der Straße von Hormus scheint sich nicht zu entspannen: "Man fragt sich tatsächlich, ob Trump den Ölpreis absichtlich in die Höhe treiben will", meint Expertin Sandra Navidi. Derweil reiße der Krieg ein immer größer werdendes Haushaltsdefizit in die US-Staatskasse.

Steve Rosenberg: Russian Newspaper Admits that Ukrainian Attacks on Russian Oil Facilities Having Consequences

Apr 6, 2026 | Today one Russian paper concedes that Ukrainian drone attacks “…on [Russian] oil refining facilities did not pass without trace…the government had to freeze petrol exports until July 1. Euphoria over extra revenues from high oil prices is unjustified.”

The War Is Turning Iran Into a Major World Power

THE NEW YORK TIMES — OPINION: In recent years, the conventional geopolitical wisdom has been that the world order was moving toward three centers of power: the United States, China and Russia. That view assumed that power derived primarily from economic scale and military capability.

That assumption no longer holds. A fourth center of global power is quickly emerging — Iran — that does not rival those three nations economically or militarily. Instead, its newfound power derives from its control over the most important energy choke point in the global economy, the Strait of Hormuz.

The strait had long been an international waterway through which ships from all countries could travel. But the joint military campaign that the United States and Israel began waging against Iran this year has prompted Iran to create a selective military blockade of the strait.

Roughly one-fifth of the world’s supply of oil and liquefied natural gas moves through the strait. There are no real alternatives to these supply routes in the near term. If Iranian control over the strait persists for months or years, as I believe it may, it will drastically reshape the global order to the detriment of the United States.

Many analysts believe that Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz is only temporary. A widespread expectation is that U.S. and allied naval forces will soon stabilize the situation and that oil flows will resume along familiar lines.

That expectation is flawed. It assumes that to continue to control the strait, Iran must physically close it off. But as we have already seen, you can control the strait without closing it. Today, the strait remains open to tankers. Traffic has dropped by over 90 percent since the war began, though, not because Iran has been sinking every vessel that entered the strait, but because, given the credible threat of an attack, insurers withdrew or repriced war-risk coverage. Hitting a cargo ship every few days was more than enough to make the risk unacceptable. » | A NYT GUEST ESSAY by Robert A. Pape | Dr. Pape is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who studies military strategy and international security. | Monday, April 6, 2026

'Open the F—in' Strait' — Trump Fires Off a Profanity-laden Social Media Attack on Iran | DW News

Apr 5, 2026 | US President Donald Trump on Sunday heightened tensions with Iran, renewing a threat to strike key infrastructure if Tehran does not lift its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, in an expletive laden post on his Truth Social platform.

Trump's references to 'Power Plant Day' and 'Bridge Day' as imminent actions were widely interpreted as threats against civilian infrastructure, including electrical grids and transportation networks. Under the Geneva Conventions, deliberately targeting civilian objects — such as power plants, bridges, or water systems not being used for military purposes — constitutes a war crime.

Meanwhile, Iran's Revolutionary Guards have claimed responsibility for attacks on petrochemical plants in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain. The IRGC has warned that it will intensify its attacks on US economic interests in the region if Washington strikes additional civilian targets.

Happy Easter! Frohe Ostern! Joyeuses Pâques ! Pasg Hapus! ¡Felices Pascuas! Buona Pasqua! !عيد فصح سعيد

May you all have a blessed and joyous Easter!

Iran Conflict Costing the US $1 Billion a Day

Apr 4, 2026 | “An awful lot of money, and people are unsure what it is for.”

The American people feel “they don’t really know what’s going on” in Iran, as Trump has asked for an additional $1.5 trillion, says US reporter Harriet Alexander.

How Much Is the War with Iran Costing the US? | BBC News

Apr 3, 2026 | The US war with Iran is into its second month and there's growing tension on how much money the US is spending on the conflict.

Recently, the Trump administration signalled that it would be requesting more funds, but there are demands for more transparency on how much the war is costing.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is feeling the impact of the war with rising fuel and oil prices and Trump axes Pam Bondi as Attorney General.

Ist Trump ein Russischer Einfluß-Agent? "Erdrückende Indizien"

Apr 2, 2026 | Sandra Navidi hält Trump für ein Asset, einen Einfluss-Agenten, Putins. Sie nennt Angriffe auf Justiz, Medien und Fed sowie den Ausstieg aus der NATO und Ukraine als Muster.

Prof Sachs on Iran War: How the World Is Paying for US Delusion

Apr 2, 2026 | US President Donald Trump threatened to hit Iran "extremely hard over the next two to three weeks" in his first prime-time speech since starting the war on Iran. In a one-hour conversation with CGTN host Tian Wei, Jeffrey Sachs, the director of Columbia University's Center for Sustainable Development, warns of a worsening global energy shock, rising oil prices, and the risk of a deeper economic crisis. He questions the credibility of US policy and argues the world may already be shifting toward a new multipolar order. National address met with market skepticism

Trump eskaliert gegen den Iran: Kommt jetzt der große Finanz-Crash?

BERLINER ZEITUNG: Donald Trump zieht gegen den Iran nicht zurück. An den Börsen steigt die Nervosität. Der gefürchtete „perfekte Sturm“ braut sich zusammen.

Seit dem US-Angriff auf den Iran wird immer öfter von einem „perfekten Sturm“ gesprochen, wird der „schwarze Schwan“ gesucht – also ein unvorhergesehenes Ereignis, das einen Absturz auslöst. Spekulanten mit Insider-Wissen beschleunigen Entwicklungen. Irgendwann erreicht der Irrsinn dann auch Haushalte, Familien und die reale Wirtschaft.

Donald Trump hat mit seiner Rede am Donnerstag klargemacht, dass er nicht daran denkt zu deeskalieren. Der amerikanische Präsident kündigte an, den Iran in den kommenden Wochen „extrem hart“ zu treffen. Er machte damit die Hoffnung auf ein Ende des Kriegs im Nahen Osten zunichte.

Mehrere US-Geheimdienste sollen laut New York Times in den vergangene [sic] Tagen zu dem Schluss gekommen sein, dass die iranische Regierung nicht bereit sei, substanzielle Verhandlungen aufzunehmen. Trump sagte, Washington werde seine Kriegsziele „sehr bald“ erreichen. Und weiter in der ihm eigenen unflätigen Sprache: „Wir werden sie in den nächsten zwei bis drei Wochen extrem hart treffen. Wir werden sie in die Steinzeit zurückversetzen, dorthin, wo sie hingehören.“ Zugleich sagte er den amerikanischen Verbündeten, sie müssten „die Führung übernehmen“, um die Straße von Hormus wieder für Öllieferungen zu öffnen. Frankreichs Präsident Emmanuel Macron erteilte der Forderung Trumps am Donnerstag postwendend eine Abfuhr. Es sei nicht möglich, die Straße mit militärischer Gewalt offenzuhalten, sagte Macron während eines Staatsbesuchs in Südkorea. » | Michael Maier | Donnerstag, 2. April 2026

Steve Rosenberg: A Newspaper Headline the Kremlin Will Love

Apr 2, 2026 | A Russian headline the Kremlin will love: “Trump declares he’s ready to pull America out of Nato.” Another paper today concedes “US law limits [Trump’s] ability to take a unilateral decision” on this, but suggests he can still “cause a lot of problems for the Alliance.