By Kyu-seok Shim

SEOUL, May 11 (Reuters) - South Korea's presidential Blue House on Monday condemned in the strongest terms an attack against a cargo ship operated by a Korean shipper this month in the Strait of Hormuz and said it plans to respond once the source of the attack is identified.

Experts conducted an initial forensic analysis of the damage to the port stern, a Blue House official said. The attack had led to a fire in the vessel's engine room.

By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU, May 11 (Reuters) - A minor fire broke out on a tyre of a Turkish Airlines plane after it landed on Monday in Nepal's capital of Kathmandu, authorities said, forcing the closure of the airport for an hour.

All 277 passengers and 11 crew on the Airbus A330 arriving from Istanbul were evacuated using the emergency exits following the fire, and nobody was injured, Gyanendra Bhul, a Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal spokesperson, told Reuters.

Seated at a table draped in a floral plastic cover inside his prefabricated home, Meir Goldmintz says he is finally fulfilling a dream he has carried for two decades: "returning to Sa-Nur".

The tiny settlement, perched above Palestinian villages in the northern Israeli-occupied West Bank, was dismantled in 2005 along with three other Jewish settlements in the area, as well as all the settlements in the Gaza Strip during Israel's withdrawal from the territory.

By Nayera Abdallah, Elwely Elwelly and Idrees Ali

DUBAI/WASHINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's swift rejection of Iran's response to a U.S. peace proposal sent oil prices surging higher on Monday amid concerns the 10-week-old conflict will drag on, keeping shipping through the Strait of Hormuz paralyzed.

Conflicts in the Middle East are increasing dangers for whales off South Africa by shifting sea traffic into their habitats and heightening the risks of collision, researchers told AFP.

The rerouting of shipping around South Africa and away from the Red Sea and Suez Canal since late 2023 has "substantially increased" the chances of ship strikes, they said in new research.

May 10 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hopes to wean Israel off U.S. military support within a decade as his country pushes to strengthen ties with Gulf states, he said in an interview that aired on Sunday.

"I want to draw down to zero the American financial support, the financial component of the military cooperation that we have," Netanyahu told CBS News' "60 Minutes" program.

Israel receives about $3.8 billion of U.S. military aid a year, he said. The U.S. has agreed to provide a total of $38 billion in military aid to Israel from 2018to 2028.

By Trevor Hunnicutt and Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON/BEIJING, May 10 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to discuss Iran, Taiwan, artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons as they weigh extending a critical minerals deal, according to U.S. officials previewing Trump's two-day visit to China this week.

The leaders of the world's two largest economies will hold their first face-to-face talks in more than six months as they try to stabilize ties strained by trade, the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran and other areas of disagreement.

The UK and France will on Tuesday host a multinational meeting of defence ministers on military plans to restore trade flows through the Strait of Hormuz, the British government said.

The announcement came hours after Iran warned London and Paris against sending warships to the region.

"The Defence Secretary John Healey will co-chair a meeting of over 40 nations, alongside his French counterpart, Minister Catherine Vautrin, for the multinational mission's first Defence Minister's meeting," a British defence ministry statement said Sunday.

Iranian authorities on Sunday released Nobel peace prize winner Narges Mohammadi on bail following growing alarm over her health and she has already been transferred to Tehran for medical treatment, her supporters said.

After 10 days of hospitalisation in Zanjan in northern Iran where she had been serving her sentence, Mohammadi "has been granted a sentence suspension on heavy bail", her foundation said in a statement, without detailing the amount.

It added she had been transferred by ambulance to a hospital in Tehran "to be treated by her own medical team".

DUBAI, May 10 (Reuters) - Iran's imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi has been moved to a hospital in the capital, Tehran, and has been granted a suspension of her sentence on heavy bail, a foundation run by her family said on Sunday.

Mohammadi, 54, won the ‌prize in 2023 while in prison for a campaign to advance women's rights and abolish the death penalty. She suffered a heart attack two weeks ago.