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US Vice President JD Vance told Iran on Wednesday to take Washington’s threats of military action “seriously,” a day after President Donald Trump appeared to build the case for war in his State of the Union address.As US forces mass in the Middle East, Trump claimed in his speech to Congress on Tuesday that Iran was seeking to develop missiles that can strike the United States.Trump also accused the Islamic republic, whose negotiators will meet US officials in Geneva on Thursday, of having “sinister nuclear ambitions” and working to rebuild a nuclear program that was targeted by US strikes last year.Vance said that while Trump was going to try to get Iran to make a deal “diplomatically,” the US president also had the “right” to use military action.”You can’t let the craziest and worst regime in the world have nuclear weapons,” Vance told “America’s Newsroom” on Fox News.Iran has repeatedly denied that it is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, and has rejected Trump’s claims about its missile program as “big lies.””The president has a number of other tools at his disposal to ensure this doesn’t happen,” said Vance. “He’s shown a willingness to use them and I hope the Iranians take it seriously in the negotiations tomorrow because that’s certainly what the president prefers.”The US vice president said the Trump administration was “hopeful that we’re able to come to a good resolution without the military but if we have to use the military the president of course has that right as well.”His comments came as the United States announced fresh sanctions targeting Iran, pressing on with what Washington calls its “maximum pressure” campaign.Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian earlier struck an upbeat tone, saying there was a “favorable outlook” for the negotiations as his Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his team arrived in Switzerland.But while Trump said he preferred a diplomatic solution, he also set out what appeared to be the justifications for possible military action in the first State of the Union address of his second term.It was the same forum in which then-president George W. Bush laid out the case for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.Trump claimed in his address that Tehran had “already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.”The United States is also demanding that Iran agree that any future nuclear deal should remain in effect indefinitely, the Axios news outlet quoted Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff as telling a private gathering on Tuesday.Under the previous 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which Trump tore up during his first term in office in 2018, the restrictions on Iran’s program were due to expire over a number of years.Iran insists its nuclear program is for civilian purposes.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle arrived on Wednesday in Jordan, where they met with Syrian refugees at the Zaatari camp and Palestinian children evacuated from the Gaza Strip. King Charles III’s younger son and his wife “met young refugees… and joined children in football, art and music”, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said in a post on X.Jordan opened the Zaatari camp located north of Amman in 2012, a year into the war in neighbouring Syria, to host people fleeing the conflict. Today it is home to some 45,000 refugees.The UN says around 680,000 Syrians were registered in Jordan from 2011 onwards, though the kingdom says it welcomed 1.3 million.Some 200,000 Syrians went back to their country after the ouster of former president Bashar al-Assad in late 2024. Invited to Jordan by the World Health Organization, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan also visited a hospital in Amman where they met with children evacuated for medical reasons from Gaza, ravaged by more than two years of war between Israel and Hamas.The couple’s office said the two-day visit “will focus on humanitarian health response, mental health and support for vulnerable communities affected by conflict and displacement”.Prince Harry said in a statement released by the WHO: “We remain deeply committed to advancing awareness, reducing stigma and expanding access to mental health support for all those affected by conflict and crisis.”Meghan and Harry stepped back from royal duties and moved to California in 2020 over rifts with the royal family and concerns about Meghan’s treatment by the British press, which Harry has long blamed for the death of his mother Diana.

German culture officials plan to summon organisers of the Berlin film festival Thursday after the event was rocked this year by controversy over the Israel-Palestinian conflict and Gaza war.Bild daily reported that Tricia Tuttle, the US director of the Berlinale, is expected to be sacked at the meeting, citing sources close to the KBB, the state-owned company that runs the festival.The KBB dismissed the report, telling AFP in a short statement: “We believe this is fake news.”The Gaza war loomed large over the February 12-22 festival, and Syrian-Palestinian filmmaker Abdallah Al-Khatib in Saturday’s closing ceremony accused Germany of being complicit in “genocide” in Gaza through its support for Israel.Culture minister Wolfram Weimer’s office confirmed to AFP that an extraordinary supervisory board meeting of the KBB will be held Thursday to discuss “the direction of the Berlinale”, but said it would “not comment on further speculation”.Speaking in parliament, Weimer, chairman of the KBB supervisory board, himself countered press speculation that a decision had already been made to dismiss Tuttle, according to a parliamentary newsletter. It paraphrased him as saying that not everything that was being written was true.According to Bild, Tuttle, 56, is being sacked over the director’s comments. The newspaper also published a photo in which Tuttle posed with members of his film crew who were wearing Palestinian scarves and holding a Palestinian flag.Germany, in an effort to atone for the horrors of the Holocaust, has been a steadfast supporter of Israel in the post-war era, and criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza has been more muted in Germany than in many other countries.Khatib, who won the Best First Feature Award for “Chronicles from the Siege”, charged that the German government “are partners in the genocide in Gaza by Israel. I believe you are intelligent enough to recognise this truth.”Environment Minister Carsten Schneider, the only member of the German government attending the ceremony, walked out over what he labelled the “unacceptable” remarks.More than 80 film professionals criticised the Berlinale’s “silence” on the war in Gaza in an open letter, accusing the festival of censoring artists “who reject the genocide” they believe Israel has committed in Gaza.Award-winning Indian writer Arundhati Roy withdrew from the festival after the jury president, German director Wim Wenders, said cinema should “stay out of politics” when asked about Gaza.

Pope Leo XIV will visit four African nations in April, the Vatican said Thursday, including Algeria — the first time a pope will travel to the North African Muslim nation.The Vatican announced a series of international trips in the months ahead for the US pontiff, who was elected last year, including to Spain and Monaco.But the official trip to Algeria, which will see Leo visit Algiers and Annaba from April 13 to 15, will be particularly symbolic.Islam is the state religion but the constitution guarantees freedom of worship, subject to approval by the authorities for the place of worship and the preacher.Leo’s visit, which is expected to focus on interfaith dialogue, comes 30 years after the beheading of seven French Trappist monks from a monastery during the 1990s civil war.The US pope said in December a visit to the country would be a chance to deepen “dialogue and bridge-building between the Christian and the Muslim worlds”.Algeria is also the birthplace of the fifth-century St Augustine. The pope belongs to the Augustinian order, which was founded in the 13th century.St Augustine (354-430), one of Christianity’s greatest thinkers, came from the present-day region of Souk Ahras and was bishop of Hippo, now the city of Annaba, in the northeast.After Algeria, the head of the Catholic Church will visit Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea.Leo will stop off in Yaounde, Bamenda and Douala from April 15 to 18, then Luanda, Muxima and Saurimo between April 18 and 21, before travelling to Malabo, Mongomo and Bata between April 21 and 23.The pope is likely to appeal for peace and dialogue while in Angola and Cameroon, where long-running separatist struggles continue to kill civilians.The last papal visit to the African continent was when Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, visited the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan in February 2023.- Monaco, Spain -Before his trip to Africa, the pontiff will visit Monaco for a day, the Vatican said.The visit to the principality on the French Riviera will take place on March 28 and will be the first papal trip to the city state in modern times.It will be “a historic moment for Monaco and stand as a strong sign of hope, in a spirit of dialogue, peace, and shared responsibility”, a statement from the principality in the name of Prince Albert II and Princess Charlene said.Leo will also visit Spain from June 6 to 12.He will first visit the capital Madrid, and then travel to Barcelona, where he will inaugurate the newest and tallest tower of the Sagrada Familia Basilica, the Vatican News website said.The visit marks 100 years since the death of its Catalan architect, Antoni Gaudi, who was declared “venerable” by the Catholic Church in 2025 — the first step on the path to sainthood.Leo will then travel to the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the coast of West Africa, a key point on the migration route to Europe.The American pope, who became head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May, is a vocal defender of migrants, an issue which was also dear to his predecessor Pope Francis.While in the Canary Islands, Leo will visit Tenerife and Gran Canaria, Vatican News said.The announcements of the trips follow news the pope will visit a series of areas within Italy in the coming months, including the island of Lampedusa.

An Iranian delegation headed by its top diplomat set off for Geneva on Wednesday for talks with the US, as the Islamic republic’s president struck an upbeat tone about the prospect for a negotiated agreement to avert fresh conflict.Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened strikes if Iran fails to cut a deal on its atomic programme, and in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, the US president accused Tehran of “sinister nuclear ambitions” after he ordered a massive military deployment around the Gulf.But Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Wednesday that he had a “favourable outlook for the negotiations”, after Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his team left for Switzerland. “We are continuing the process under the guidance of the supreme leader so that we can move beyond this ‘neither war nor peace’ situation,” Pezeshkian said in a speech. Trump in his address claimed that Tehran had “already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America”.He also said that Iran was “at this moment again pursuing their sinister nuclear ambitions”.But Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei on Wednesday refuted those claims as “simply the repetition of ‘big lies'”.The maximum range of Iran’s missiles is 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) according to what Tehran has publicly disclosed, though the US Congressional Research Service estimates they top out at about 3,000 kilometres — less than a third of the distance to the continental United States.- ‘Historic opportunity’ -The West believes Iran is seeking an atomic bomb, but Tehran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful. “My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy but one thing is certain: I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.Hours before Trump’s speech, Iran’s Araghchi declared the two sides had “a historic opportunity”, saying a deal was “within reach, but only if diplomacy is given priority”.He vowed Iran would “under no circumstances” develop atomic weapons, but insisted on its right to peacefully use nuclear technology.Iran and the US held five rounds of nuclear talks last year, but those negotiations ended after Israel’s unprecedented attack on Iran triggered a 12-day war that Washington briefly joined.- ‘People are suffering’ -In recent weeks Trump has deployed two aircraft carrier groups and dozens of other warplanes to the region to back up his threats, and Iran has repeatedly said it would respond firmly to any attack, even a limited one.Tehran residents who spoke to AFP on Wednesday were divided as to whether there would be renewed conflict.Some said war was all but inevitable, while one salesman who gave his name as Mehdi predicted the negotiations would succeed, saying: “The Americans are bluffing.”Homemaker Tayebeh noted that Trump had “said that war would be very bad for Iran”. “There would be famine and people would suffer a lot. People are suffering now, but at least with war, our fate might be clear,” she added.Emile Hokayem, senior fellow for Middle East security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the huge military outlay carried a political cost for Trump.”It looks like President Trump has cornered himself,” Hokayem said, adding the US leader may have predicted the “Iranians would cave quickly”, which they have yet to do. “At this point, the force posture is such that if the US were to pull back without (an agreement), it could come at the credibility of the president himself.”

Egypt said Wednesday that 18 of its citizens were still missing after a migrant boat capsized, killing four people, off the Greek island of Crete last week. The wooden boat was carrying 50 people, including four minors, when Greece’s coast guard was alerted late Friday. Greek authorities then directed a commercial vessel to the area for a rescue operation.According to Greek public broadcaster ERT, an accident occurred when the commercial vessel approached the migrants’ boat. As the passengers tried to climb up ladders into the rescue vessel, a sudden movement caused the wooden boat to capsize.Egypt’s foreign ministry said that 21 Egyptians were on board the boat when it capsized, three of whom have been found dead while the rest remain missing.The body of a 28-year-old Sudanese woman was also discovered, according to the Greek coast guard.Twenty migrants were rescued by the commercial vessel, according to the Greek authorities, leaving several people still unaccounted for.Greek authorities arrested two Sudanese men suspected of being people smugglers who are set to appear before judges on Wednesday, according to local media Creta24.The migrant boat is believed to have departed from Libya.Migrants regularly attempt the perilous crossing from Libya to Crete, a gateway to the European Union.More than 17,000 Egyptians reached Europe via the Mediterranean last year, making them the top African and second-largest global group of irregular migrants to Europe.Many come from poor towns in Egypt’s Nile Delta and travel via Libya, where they face arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence and forced labour.They are often extorted and held hostage until their families back home send the smugglers more money.Egypt’s foreign ministry warned citizens to “exercise extreme caution to avoid being misled by illegal immigration gangs”, and said it was coordinating the repatriation of the deceased.