00:01A Thailand-flagged ship smoulders, one of two vessels Iran hit on Wednesday, as it chokes off a key route
00:07for global oil supplies.
00:11Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, just to its south, has sent oil prices soaring.
00:16And its new supreme leader, or someone writing in his name, says this will continue.
00:21Mojtaba Khamenei was named supreme leader on March 8, after US-Israeli strikes killed his predecessor, his father Ali Khamenei,
00:28and set off a regional war.
00:30He's not been seen in public since, but State TV released this, his first statement since taking office, read by
00:37a news anchor.
00:40Certainly, the leverage of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must continue to be used.
00:45And opening other fronts where the enemy is highly vulnerable, if the war continues, will be considered while observing strategic
00:53interest.
00:54The statement also vowed vengeance for strikes, including an apparent US attack on a girls' school in the south of
01:00Iran that reportedly killed over 165 people, mostly children.
01:05And it urged Iran's Arab neighbors to close US military bases on their soil.
01:11Israel, a country with a record of assassinations inside Iran, is already threatening the country's new leadership, while encouraging Iranians
01:19to overthrow it.
01:21I wouldn't issue life insurance policies on any of the leaders of the terrorist organizations.
01:26This is their patron of terrorism.
01:29I don't intend to provide an exact report here about what we are planning or what we are going to
01:34do.
01:35But this is no longer just a conflict between the US-Israel alliance and Iran.
01:43Missiles have flown across the Middle East, with few countries unscathed.
01:47And Israel has reopened a front in Lebanon to its north, as it battles Iranian proxy Hezbollah.
01:53Strikes like these ones around Lebanon's capital Beirut continue, as Israel orders civilians out of much of Lebanese territory.
02:00The UN's High Commission for Refugees says the number of displaced people across the region has ballooned since the war
02:06began.
02:07According to UNHCR, more than 4.1 million people have been internally displaced in Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon and Pakistan since
02:17the beginning of the escalation.
02:19Additionally, some 117,000 people have sought refuge in another country.
02:25But there are those who stand to gain from this war, at least as some analysts see it.
02:30The US has lifted sanctions on Russian oil at sea for 30 days, a loosening of a sanctions regime in
02:36place since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
02:40While temporary and not expected to help Moscow much, it's a further boost to a country that's already seen oil
02:46exports boom since the war started.
02:48What our report shows is a 17% increase in Russia's oil export earnings in the first week of March
02:57compared to in February.
03:00And that means that they're earning from total fossil fuel exports 510 million euros every day in the month of
03:09March from that oil and gas exports used to finance that war in Ukraine.
03:13And so, the launch of one war helps push another war along, an intertwining of conflicts, both of which with
03:20no clear end in sight.
03:22Fu Hua Hung and John Van Trieste for Taiwan Plus.
03:28Fu Hua Hung and John Van Trieste for Taiwan Plus.
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