US and Iranian negotiators held their highest-level talks in half a century in Pakistan on April 11 to try to end their six-week war as President Donald Trump said his military was starting the process of clearing the Strait of Hormuz.
The talks in Islamabad were the first direct US-Iranian meeting in more than a decade and highest-level discussions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The Strait of Hormuz, a major transit point for global energy supplies that Iran has effectively blocked but Trump has vowed to reopen, is crucial to negotiations between the sides during a two-week ceasefire agreed last week.
The US military said two of its warships had passed through the strait and conditions were being set to clear mines, while Iran’s state media denied any US ships had transited the waterway.
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PHOTO: REUTERS
Three supertankers passed through the Strait of Hormuz on April 11, shipping data showed, marking what appeared to be the first vessels to exit the Gulf since the US-Iran ceasefire deal and as peace talks got under way in Pakistan.
The Liberia-flagged Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) Serifos and China-flagged VLCCs Cospearl Lake and He Rong Hai, entered and exited the “Hormuz Passage trial anchorage” that bypasses Iran’s Larak Island on April 11, LSEG data showed.
Each vessel is capable of carrying two million barrels of oil.
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Pope Leo on April 11 urged world leaders to end what he called the “madness of war,” in an impassioned appeal as senior US and Iranian officials met in Pakistan to discuss ending the six-week conflict.
At a special prayer vigil in St Peter’s Basilica, the first US pope decried the use of religious language to justify war and said a “delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us… is becoming increasingly unpredictable”.
Making a direct appeal to world leaders, he said: “Stop! It is time for peace! Sit at the table of dialogue and mediation, not at the table where rearmament is planned.”
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PHOTO: REUTERS
Police fatally shot a man on the morning of April 11 after he attacked three people with a machete at the Grand Central subway station, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said.
The episode, on the platform of the 7 train and then uptown 4, 5 and 6 trains, began just after 9.30am when the man, who had been seen acting erratically on a subway train, exited at the Grand Central-42 Street Station and slashed three people on the two platforms, according to police.
Officers responding to the scene repeatedly ordered the man to drop the machete, but he refused to comply, police said. One of the officers then shot the man, they said.
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PHOTO: EPA
Liverpool’s teenaged winger Rio Ngumoha became the club’s youngest player to score a Premier League goal at Anfield on April 11 before Mohamed Salah struck four minutes later in a 2-0 win over Fulham that boosted their quest for a top-five finish.
The 17-year-old Ngumoha – already the team’s youngest scorer thanks to his goal at Newcastle in August when he was 16 – etched his name alongside another record when he made space with a couple of stepovers before curling a rocket into the far corner in the 36th minute.
Salah doubled the lead with a first-time finish to the far corner in the 40th. The 33-year-old, who is leaving Anfield at the end of the season after nine remarkable years, tapped a hand to his Liverpool shirt crest with a wave to the crowd.
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