Reuters Daily Briefing

"Oil tanker off Dubai hit by Iran strike."

Views expressed in this geopolitical news and analysis are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Accessed on 31 March 2026, 1436 UTC.

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Daily Briefing

By Kate Turton

Hello. Iran strikes a giant oil tanker off Dubai, Asia barters for scarce energy as the Iran crisis throttles supplies, and US tech stocks struggle for safe haven appeal. Elswehere, meet the Nigerian HIV volunteers who went door‑to‑door to keep patients alive, and paintings by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse stolen from an Italian museum.

Today's Top News   Damage to the Kuwait-flagged Al-Salmi crude oil tanker, following a reported strike, March 31, 2026. Kuwait Petroleum Corporation/Handout via REUTERS War in the Middle East Iran attacked and set ablaze a fully loaded crude oil tanker off Dubai, after President Donald Trump warned the United States would obliterate Iran's energy plants and oil wells if it does not open the Strait of Hormuz. Follow our live updates. Thousands of soldiers from the US Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division have started arriving in the Middle East, ‌two US officials told Reuters, as Trump weighs his next steps in the war against Iran. The Israeli parliament has passed a law making the death penalty by hanging the default sentence for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank who are convicted of fatal terrorist attacks. Maayan Lubell tells the Reuters World News podcast that critics say the law is discriminatory. In other news Air traffic controller staffing at LaGuardia airport on the night an Air Canada jet collided with a fire truck may have violated the facility's procedures by combining roles before midnight, according to a document seen by Reuters. Ukrainian drones struck Russia's Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga for the fifth time in 10 days, and industry sources told Reuters an oil loading terminal was hit, likely adding to Russia's difficulties in exporting crude. Russia is going to further clamp ‌down Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which are used by millions of Russians to get around internet controls and censorship, Russia's digital minister said. More than 3 million Indian officials are set to spend a year counting every single ‌person in the world's most populous nation, a mammoth task delayed in part by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Business & Markets   Technology shares are struggling to act as safe havens in the turbulence wrought by the Iran conflict, which could be a big problem for the broader US stock market. Tech and other megacap tech-related stocks have led US equity indexes higher during much of a bull run that has lasted more than three years. Gold rose but stayed on track ‌for its biggest monthly drop in more than 17 years as investors flocked to the dollar as the favored safe haven amid the Middle East war that has raised inflation fears and bets for hawkish monetary policy response. Banks in the US are charging more for some loans to private credit funds as doubts grow about the valuations given to some of their investments, three people familiar with the matter said, in a development that could start to hurt funds' returns. Britain's economy barely expanded at the end of 2025, official data confirmed, adding to the challenge for the government to keep growth on track this year with the Iran war likely to push up inflation and hit demand. This as the EU tells members to prepare for 'prolonged disruption' to energy markets from the Iran war. As energy stress spreads across Southeast Asia, governments across the region are asking China to deliver on its pledges of closer energy security cooperation by freeing up now-banned exports of fertiliser and fuel. But so far China has offered only vague statements.

With US aid slashed, HIV volunteers went door‑to‑door to keep patients alive   A child living with HIV, wearing an intravenous cannula in the hand, looks on, at the Federal Medical Centre in Makurdi, Nigeria. REUTERS/Marvellous Durowaiye/File Photo For several months last year, Josephine Angev walked the dusty village paths of Nigeria's Benue State with a mission - to help people living with HIV stay on their life-saving medication, after a US aid freeze left thousands scrambling for supplies. The 40-year-old is one of dozens of volunteer "HIV champions" who went door-to-door to bring patients back into care when their access to antiretroviral drugs was disrupted, tending to those whose condition can still bring shame and ‌stigma. Read more

And Finally... A handout picture of the painting "Odalisque on the Terrace" by Henri Matisse. Image obtained by Reuters on March 30, 2026. Magnani Rocca Foundation/Handout via REUTERS Three paintings by French masters Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cezanne and Henri Matisse, reportedly worth an estimated $10 million in total, ‌have been stolen from a museum in northern Italy. The theft took place at the Fondazione Magnani Rocca, on the outskirts of the city of Parma, during ⁠the night of March 22-23, the Carabinieri police said in a statement. Read more

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