
By Gwynne Dyer - The Iranians know they have won, but President Trump doesn’t get it yet. He’s still at the stage of counting up the US and Israeli air-strikes and assuming that those numbers mean a US victory is possible. But five gets you ten that the Iranians are already thinking about nuclear weapons. Not their own, which don’t exist. America’s.

”If the (Iran) conflict is contained soon, the hit to confidence may be temporary, but a prolonged crisis could prompt more precautionary saving and further discretionary spending cuts,” warned Moody’s in a report on the current war in the Middle East, and the impact for US households.

Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado met Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the State Department in Washington. It was the second meeting between the two since the U.S. military operation that captured Nicolás Maduro in Caracas on January 3.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday from the Oval Office that U.S. forces will withdraw from Iran in two or three weeks, asserting that the military campaign has achieved its core objectives.

Brent crude, the European benchmark, closed Monday at $112.78 per barrel and continued climbing in the futures market past $114, its highest level since July 2022. Oil has surged roughly 55% in March, the largest monthly gain since the contract's inception in 1988.

A microsatellite designed and built entirely in Argentina will travel as a secondary payload on the crewed Artemis 2 mission, which NASA plans to launch Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Argentina is the only Latin American country selected to participate and one of four globally, alongside Germany, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea.

The countdown for the Artemis 2 mission began Monday at 4:44 p.m. local time at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with liftoff targeted for 6:24 p.m. on Wednesday, April 1. It will be the first time astronauts have traveled toward the Moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

One year after the Trump administration launched its tariff offensive against more than 180 countries, Latin America presents a mixed picture: some economies lost competitiveness in the U.S. market, while others redirected exports or negotiated agreements to cushion the blow.

The United States authorized the passage of a Russian oil tanker loaded with crude bound for Cuba, in the first easing of the de facto energy blockade Washington has imposed on the island since the start of the year, The New York Times reported, citing a U.S. official.

Uruguay's National Customs Directorate reported the arrest and conviction of two people on drug trafficking charges following a series of operations at Carrasco International Airport, on the outskirts of Montevideo, involving the interception of international parcels and passenger screening.