By Enas Alashray and Patricia Zengerle
DUBAI/WASHINGTON, June 3 (Reuters) - Hostilities in the Gulf erupted anew on Wednesday with a report of missile attacks on Kuwait, while little progress was evident in diplomatic talks between Iran and the United States.
They went to war together against Iran, but Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu's relationship is under strain after the US president reportedly called the Israeli premier "crazy."
Trump unleashed a profane tirade over the phone at Netanyahu over Israel's threats to bomb the Lebanese capital Beirut, fearing it would undermine talks with Tehran, the Axios news outlet and ABC News reported.
ROME, June 2 (Reuters) - MSC, the world's largest shipping group, said on Tuesday its Sariska V vessel was struck by two projectiles while in Iraq's Umm Qasr port on Monday, adding that all crew members were safe and unharmed.
The company said Iran's Revolutionary Guard had claimed responsibility. MSC described the incident as an unprovoked attack on a neutral commercial carrier with no affiliation to the United States or Israel.
By Guy Faulconbridge
ST PETERSBURG, Russia, June 2 (Reuters) - A right-wing U.S. influencer, a serving U.S. official and a German retail billionaire are due to attend President Vladimir Putin's "Russian Davos" on Wednesday as the Kremlin grapples with stalled growth and a confrontation with the West over the Ukraine war.
Russia's premier investment forum, the fifth since Russia sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, opens just hours after a deadly drone and missile attack on Kyiv which Russia said was in response to a deadly attack on a dormitory in Russian-controlled Luhansk.
June 2 (Reuters) - The United States issued new Iran-related sanctions on Tuesday, targeting individuals and crypto exchanges, a notice on the Treasury Department website showed.
The U.S. sanctioned four Iranian nationals and four Iran-based digital asset exchangesNobitex, Bitpin, Ramzinex and Wallex, the Treasury said.
Foreign financial institutions and individuals may also be sanctioned if they engage in certain transactions with the four firms, the department added.
(Reporting by Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Christian Martinez and Costas Pitas)
WASHINGTON, June 2 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers on Tuesday that the Trump administration does not want to force Afghans currently stranded in Qatar to return to Afghanistan and has spoken with at least five countries who are open to receiving them.
More than 1,100 people have been held at the former U.S. Army base Camp As Sayliyah (CAS) since at least early last year, when Republican President Donald Trump's administrationhalted resettlement for Afghans who feared retribution from Taliban authorities for their links to the U.S. military.
WASHINGTON, June 2 (Reuters) - Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday there has been no change in U.S. policy on Taiwan and that Washington wants to see the status quo preserved.
"The most important thing to understand is we want to see the status quo preserved as-is at this moment. That's our policy, that's what we've said, that's what we continue to say," Rubio said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
"It's a very ... delicate relationship to balance, but our policy on Taiwan is not changing," Rubio said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday expressed hope that a deal to end the war in Iran was in the cards, stressing that Tehran must severely curtail its nuclear program before any sanctions are lifted.
"There is the prospect before us, which could happen today, it could happen tomorrow, it could happen next week," Rubio told a Congressional panel.
In a south Lebanon hospital heavily damaged by deadly Israeli strikes nearby, Dr Nasser al-Masri held a new-born baby, calling him "a message of life and hope" despite the war.
Israeli strikes near the Jabal Amel hospital in Tyre on Monday killed four people and wounded 127, including four doctors, 27 nurses, and eight administrative employees, Lebanon's health ministry said.
They also caused "severe and extensive damage" to the facility, it added.
Even if the Middle East war stopped immediately, disrupted global humanitarian supply lines would not recover before 2027, the United Nations said Tuesday.
Nearly 100 days on from the February 28 US-Israeli attacks on Iran that triggered the conflict, the fall-out extends far beyond the Middle East region, said Jean-Cedric Meeus, chief of global transport and logistics for the UN children's agency UNICEF.
