Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Iran’s efforts to control the Strait of Hormuz, North Korea denouncing joint U.S.-South Korean military drills, and the death toll from drone strikes in Haiti.
Trading Energy Threats
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed on Tuesday that “today will be, yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran” at the same time that Iranian forces unleashed a new barrage of attacks on Israel and its Gulf neighbors. With both Washington and Tehran ruling out cease-fire talks, experts expect the global energy crisis to worsen as the war trudges on.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Iran’s efforts to control the Strait of Hormuz, North Korea denouncing joint U.S.-South Korean military drills, and the death toll from drone strikes in Haiti.
Trading Energy Threats
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed on Tuesday that “today will be, yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran” at the same time that Iranian forces unleashed a new barrage of attacks on Israel and its Gulf neighbors. With both Washington and Tehran ruling out cease-fire talks, experts expect the global energy crisis to worsen as the war trudges on.
Fears of Iranian attacks coupled with high insurance costs have largely halted oil and gas tankers from traversing the Strait of Hormuz, where around 20 percent of the world’s crude normally passes. On Tuesday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that Tehran “will not allow the export of even a single liter of oil from the region to the hostile side and its partners until further notice,” adding that “we are the ones who will determine the end of the war.”
In response, U.S. President Donald Trump warned that “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far.”
Such threats have left global markets scrambling. The cost of a barrel of Brent crude hit around $90 on Tuesday, nearly 24 percent higher than when U.S.-Israeli strikes first targeted Iran on Feb. 28. That, however, is down from Monday’s spike, which saw Brent prices reach almost $120. West Texas Intermediate crude also recorded falling prices from Monday into Tuesday, though costs still hit around $85 per barrel.
“The Strait of Hormuz will either be a path of peace and prosperity for all, or a path of failure and suffering for warmongers,” Ali Larijani, Iran’s top national security official, wrote on X on Tuesday.
The Trump administration is pursuing several strategies to counter high oil prices. On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a 30-day waiver for India to buy Russian crude already at sea in an effort to “enable oil to keep flowing into the global market.” The following day, Bessent revealed that Washington is considering lifting even more sanctions on Russian oil.
The U.S. Development Finance Corporation has also begun offering a backstop for maritime insurance to persuade tankers to make the risky trip through Hormuz, though experts say that the plan is likely inadequate to address the scale of the problem.
In addition, the White House has said that it is considering having the U.S. Navy escort tankers through the strait. And on Tuesday, oil prices dropped in response to a post on X by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright announcing that the U.S. Navy had “successfully” carried out such a mission; however, minutes later, the post was deleted without explanation.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a press briefing shortly after that “the U.S. Navy has not escorted a tanker or a vessel at this time,” though she noted that “that’s an option the president has said he will absolutely utilize if and when necessary at the appropriate time.”
Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency (IEA) convened an emergency meeting on Tuesday to decide whether to release emergency oil stockpiles to help bring down costs; IEA member nations hold more than 1.2 billion barrels of public crude reserves.
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Condemning Freedom Shield. Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, denounced joint U.S.-South Korean military drills (dubbed “Freedom Shield”) on Tuesday, calling them a “provocative and aggressive war rehearsal.” Although she did not directly mention the Iran war, she warned that such exercises “will further destroy regional stability” at a time when wars are “break[ing] out in different parts of the world due to the reckless acts of outrageous international rogues.”
North Korea has long portrayed such military drills as invasion rehearsals, using them as justification for its own weapons tests and military demonstrations. However, both the United States and South Korea maintain that the annual Freedom Shield exercise, which began on Monday and will run through March 19, is defensive in nature.
The 10-day drill will involve thousands of U.S. and South Korean troops and 22 field training exercises. That is fewer than half the number of exercises carried out last year. Freedom Shield will also serve as an opportunity to prepare for the transfer of U.S. wartime operational control of South Korea’s forces to Seoul, which Washington aims to complete before South Korean President Lee Jae-myung’s term ends in 2030.
Lethal drone strikes. Haitian forces killed more than 1,200 people in drone strikes targeting violent gangs between March 1, 2025, and Jan. 21, 2026, according to a new Human Rights Watch report published on Tuesday. That includes at least 17 children and 43 adults not tied to criminal groups. In total, Haiti’s military carried out 141 operations during those 10 months. In this time, more than 40 percent of all killings occurred between Dec. 1 and Jan. 21, with drone attacks in the capital of Port-au-Prince increasing significantly.
“Haitian officials have offered no indication that drone strikes were in response to any threat to life that might allow for the deliberate lethal use of force through such attacks,” Human Rights Watch said. “Instead, many of these attacks appear to be attempts to target and kill people in circumstances that amount to unlawful, extrajudicial killings.”
In recent months, armed gangs have expanded their control well beyond Port-au-Prince, killing thousands of people, displacing more than 1 million others, and devastating the country’s economy. A multinational task force with the United Nations’ backing has largely failed to quell the violence, even after expanding its mandate in September to include military troops.
Will not comply. U.N. peacekeepers in South Sudan defied a government order on Monday to shut down their base in Akobo, an opposition-held town near the Ethiopian border. The U.N. mission in South Sudan will continue to provide “a protective presence for civilians,” it stated, adding that the “safety and security of its personnel, premises, and assets must be fully respected at all times.”
The South Sudanese military issued the evacuation order on Friday, giving peacekeepers, nongovernmental organizations, and civilians 72 hours to leave Akobo ahead of a planned assault. Fighting between state and opposition forces reignited last year, and in December, the opposition seized several government outposts in Jonglei state. Since then, a government-led counteroffensive has displaced more than 280,000 people, many of whom have sought refuge in Akobo.
“Any military operations in and around Akobo gravely endanger the safety and security of civilians,” mission director Anita Kiki Gbeho said. Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States demanded in a letter sent to South Sudanese President Salva Kiir on Monday that the army cancel its planned offensive and revoke its evacuation order, warning of “further deaths, displacement and suffering for the South Sudanese people.”
However, South Sudanese Information Minister Ateny Wek Ateny has since defended the order, saying it was linked to earlier coordination with the U.N. mission.
Odds and Ends
It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s … a meteorite? Stargazers got a close-up view of a falling meteorite on Sunday when shards of at least one fireball crashed through a bedroom ceiling in Koblenz, Germany. No injuries were reported. Although the incident caused some unanticipated home renovations, astronomers appeared excited about its location, as finding such debris is usually a difficult and time-consuming task. Meteorites are studied to better understand the history and makeup of the solar system.
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