Anti-war protests in Italy and Spain as high-stakes referendum on Italian judges looms

ROME (AP) — Thousands of people protested Saturday against wars in theMiddle Eastand judicial reforms proposed by Italy's conservative government — linking international tensions with a growing domestic political battle before a national referendum.

Italy Protests

The March 22–23 referendum on changes to the judicial system has become a major political test for Prime MinisterGiorgia Meloni's government, which faces an election next year. The debate over legal reforms has escalated into a broader confrontation between the prime minister and her political opponents.

In central Rome, protesters waving red trade union banners and Palestinian and Cuban flags chanted "Meloni government, resign" before the rally ended peacefully.

"The United States and Israel are destroying any form of coexistence dictated by international law," demonstrator Sandra Paganini said.

"They are dragging us towards a world war in which they are targeting completely innocent people who have done nothing wrong, intervening and destroying nations," she said.

Meloni said that the reforms are needed to tackle chronic delays in Italy's courts and restore public confidence in the legal system. But opponents argue that the changes could weaken judicial independence and make judges subject to political influence.

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The referendum has increasingly taken on the character of a political test for the prime minister. Meloni joined the campaign directly this week.

"If justice doesn't work, if it's slow, if it's inefficient, if it's unfair, then the whole machine gets stuck and everyone pays the consequences," Meloni said at a campaign speech in Milan on Thursday.

Anti-war protests have surged since the launch on Feb. 28 of large-scale U.S. and Israeli air attacks on Iran targeting military sites and senior leaders, and triggering retaliatory strikes that have shaken global markets.

Demonstrations also took place acrossSpainon Saturday, where rallies were organized in dozens of cities by a coalition of civic groups calling for an end to the conflict in the Middle East. In Madrid, thousands chanted slogans against the war and expressed solidarity with civilians affected by the conflict.

Additional protests took place earlier this week in Athens and other cities acrossGreece.

Derek Gatopoulos reported from Athens, Greece.

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Anti-war protests in Italy and Spain as high-stakes referendum on Italian judges looms

ROME (AP) — Thousands of people protested Saturday against wars in theMiddle Eastand judicial reforms proposed by Italy...

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Iran threatens to strike oil facilities after U.S. hits targets on Kharg Island, a critical fuel hub

U.S. forces have carried out "large-scale" strikes on Kharg Island, a critical hub ofIran's Gulf oil operations, with the country responding by threatening to strike U.S. allies' oil facilities if any of its infrastructure is damaged.

U.S. Central Command said Saturday that naval mine storage facilities and missile storage bunkers were among targets destroyed in the "precision strike" on the island, hitting "90 Iranian military targets" while "preserving the oil infrastructure."

Kharg Island, a tiny but strategic island 15 miles off the coast of Iran in the Persian Gulf, is home to an oil terminal that ships 90% of the country's oil exports. There are alsomilitary capabilitiesthere, including air defenses and mines buried underground.

Announcing the strike in a post on Truth Social late Friday,President Donald Trumpsaid that U.S. forces had "totally obliteratedevery MILITARY targetin Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island."

The island's oil terminal has so far been unscathed in the war, according to oil market research firm Energy Intelligence, and the president said the island's oil infrastructure was spared in Friday's attack, but could be struck down the road.

"Should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision," Trump said, as Iran has actively interfered with shipping in the strait for several days.

Iran's Fars News Agency, which is linked to its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said on Telegram Saturday that more than 15 explosions were heard on the island during the U.S. attacks, which it said targeted air defenses, a naval base, an airport control tower and a helicopter hangar.

It said there was no damage to oil infrastructure on Kharg Island, but warned about the consequences of "any attack" on Iran's energy infrastructure.

"If this happens, all oil and gas infrastructure in the region in which the U.S. and its allies have interests will be set on fire and destroyed," Iran's armed forces said.

Iran has previously hit energy targets across the region, with a fire breaking out on Saturday following a drone attack at an oil terminal in the UAE.

Kharg Island is the "backbone" of Iran's oil trade infrastructure, according to one analyst, who said Iran earned $53 billion in net oil export revenues in 2025, around 11% of the country's annual GDP.

The island "serves as the physical hub enabling Iranian crude exports and the primary gateway for oil revenues," said Petras Katinas, a research fellow in climate, energy and defense at the Royal United Services Institute. It also allows Iran to sustain crude oil sales despite U.S. sanctions, he added, which "undermines a key U.S. foreign policy tool."

Trump's focus on Kharg Island appears to go back decades. In an interview withThe Guardiannewspaper in 1988 where Trump expressed his desire to one day be president, he said he'd be "harsh on Iran" and threaten the island.

"One bullet shot at one of our men or ships and I'd do a number on Kharg Island," he said.

When asked by Fox Radio host Brian Kilmeade in an interview on Friday whether he would take Kharg Island after being reminded of his past comments, Trump said it "was not high on the list."

"Let's say I was gonna do it, let's say I wasn't gonna do it," Trump said. "It's sort of a foolish question."

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Two U.S. officials told NBC News last weekthat Trump has privately expressed a serious interest in deploying U.S. troops inside Iran, and on Friday, three U.S. officials said that approximately 5,000 additional Marines and sailors would be deployed to the wider region to support the war effort.

Katinas said that seizing the island "would cut off Iran's oil lifeline" but require a commitment of ground troops on Iranian soil, "which this administration seems hesitant to undertake."

With shipping in the Strait of Hormuz now stopped, Iran "cannot sell it anyway," he added. "But looking ahead, seizure would give the U.S. leverage during negotiations, no matter which regime is in power after the military operation ends."

In a Saturday post on Truth Social, Trump said nations affected by the disruption, including China, France, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom, could send warships to help keep the strait open alongside U.S. forces.

Ehsan Jahaniyan, the deputy governor of Bushehr, a port city close to Kharg Island, said Saturday after the strikes that "exports, imports and the activities of companies on the island are proceeding normally."

The overnight strikes came afterIran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei,issued a fiery first public statement on Thursday, vowing to keep blocking the vital Strait of Hormuz trade route and attacking Gulf states. The written statement was read by a state television announcer.

About one-fifth of global oil supplies and one-third of fertilizers used around the world pass through the vital waterway.

Eight seafarers and shipyard workers have been killed in attacks in the past two weeks, while four are still unaccounted for, according to the International Maritime Organization.

The price of oil has since soared back above $100 a barrel, while the U.S.eased sanctions on Russian oilin a bid to stabilize markets, a move that drew criticism from Ukraine and Europe.

On Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution condemning Iran's attacks on its neighbors and calling on Tehran to halt its threats to ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Asked about the possibility of the U.S. Navy escorting tankers through the strait while speaking to reporters on Joint Base Andrews on Friday, Trump said, "It'll happen soon. Very soon."

Trump also said that gas prices would fall when the war ends.

"I think your gas prices, as soon as that's over, are going to come tumbling down, along with everything else. I think it's going to be — you're gonna see a very big decrease in the price of gasoline, gas, anything having to do with energy as soon as this has ended," the president said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday dismissed the situation in theStrait of Hormuz, suggesting that the blocked strategic waterway is not a major concern.

"As the world is seeing, they are exercising sheer desperation in the Straits of Hormuz, something we're dealing with. We have been dealing with it and don't need to worry about it," Hegseth said at the Pentagon news briefing.

"We're on plan to defeat, destroy, disable all of their meaningful military capabilities at a pace the world has never seen before," he added.

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Iran threatens to strike oil facilities after U.S. hits targets on Kharg Island, a critical fuel hub

U.S. forces have carried out "large-scale" strikes on Kharg Island, a critical hub ofIran's Gulf oil operat...

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Trinidad and Tobago extends state of emergency for 3 months over crime

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) — Trinidad and Tobago's government has received House of Representatives approval to extend a state of emergency for three months, as the twin-island Caribbean nation struggles with a high level of crime.

The two motions to extend the measure, which grants the government additional powers, including to make arrests and conduct searches without warrants, were approved in a 26-12 vote late Friday. There were no abstentions.

Trinidad and Tobago has spent roughly 10 of the last 14 monthsunder an emergency.

The state of emergency has an initial duration of up to 15 days, but the government can extend it if needed. The persistence of such moves has affected the country's tourism industry.

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The main opposition has slammed the renewal of state of emergency periods, accusing the government of failing in its attempts to address the crime situation.

The nation has recorded more than 60 killings so far this year.

Follow AP's coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean athttps://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

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Trinidad and Tobago extends state of emergency for 3 months over crime

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) — Trinidad and Tobago's government has received House of Representatives approval to ext...

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Iranians grapple with whether to flee the country because of the war

KAPIKOY BORDER CROSSING, Turkey (AP) — After bombs exploded near her home in the eastern Iranian city of Golestan, hairdresser Merve Pourkaz decided to leave.

Turkey Iran War

Pourkaz, 32, said she traveled nearly 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) to an alpine border crossing in the hopes of reaching the safety of the nearby Turkish city of Van.

"If they let me, I will stay in Van until the war ends," she told The Associated Press recently while waiting at the crossing. "If the war doesn't end, maybe I'll go back and die."

Pourkaz is one of the 3.2 million people in Iran who the U.N. refugee agency estimates have been displaced since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran started. While some are seeking shelter in safer parts of Iran or one of its neighboring countries, others are returning from abroad, heading toward the fighting to protect their families and homes.

So far, relatively few people have chosen to leave: The U.N. estimates that only about 1,300 Iranians have fled via Turkey each day since the war started, and on some days, more people return to Iran than depart. But Iran's neighbors and Europe are growing increasingly concerned about a possible migration crisis should the war drag on and are making contingency plans.

As Pourkaz was entering Turkey, Leila Rabetnezhadfard was headed the other way.

Rabetnezhadfard, 45, was in Istanbul preparing to marry a German university professor when the fighting started. She postponed the ceremony and left for home in Shiraz, in southern Iran.

"How can I feel safe in Istanbul when my family is living in Iran during the war?" said Rabetnezhadfard, explaining that bringing her family to Istanbul wasn't an option because her apartment is small, her brother needs medical care, and life there is expensive.

"I will not leave Iran until the war ends," she said.

Fleeing the fighting

The U.N. has warned that continued fighting will likely push more Iranians to flee their homes.

As in the12-day conflictlast year, many Iranians are now sheltering in place, without money to flee or perhaps because ofU.S. President Donald Trump's Feb. 28 warning.

"Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere," he said.

Although large numbers of Iranians haven't fled the country yet, people have beenleaving major citiesfor the relative safety of the countryside bordering the Caspian Sea north of the capital, Tehran, according to the International Organization for Migration.

"Movement out of Iran appears limited mainly because people are prioritizing staying with their families, as well as the safety of their families and property, and due to security conditions and logistical constraints," said Salvador Gutierrez, chief of the IOM's mission in Iran.

If Iran's critical infrastructure is destroyed, that could lead to waves of people trying to cross into one of Iran's neighbors: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey and Iraq.

"If Tehran, a city of 10 million people, doesn't have water, they're going to go somewhere," said Alex Vatanka, a fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington.

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Iran is already grappling with one of the world's largest refugee populations: roughly 2.5 million forcibly displaced people mostly from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Neighbors brace for impact

If the crisis deepens, aid groups say the most likely destinations for refugees are Iran's borders with Iraq and Turkey, which stretch roughly 2,200 kilometers (1,367 miles) through rough alpine terrain that is home to many Kurdish communities and are difficult to police.

Turkey had a so-called open-door policy that allowed millions of Syrian refugees to enter the country during their country'slong civil war. But it has abandoned that approach for various reasons.

Instead, it has prepared plans to shelter Iranian refugees in "buffer zones" along the border, or in tent cities or temporary housing inside Turkey, the country's Hurriyet newspaper quoted Turkish Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci as saying.

Iranians who have fled the war will likely not seek refugee status in Turkey because asylum claims might take years to process, if at all, said Sara Karakoyun, an aid worker at the independent Human Resource Development Foundation based near the border.

"They don't want to wait in limbo for years for a refugee status they might not get," she said.

Turkey's defense ministry said in January that Turkey had hardened its border with Iran by adding 380 kilometers of concrete walls, 203 optical towers and 43 observation posts.

Turkey will likely send troops to secure its border and tightly control the flow of people into the country while seeking European Union funds to help deal with refugees, said Riccardo Gasco, an analyst at the IstanPol Institute.

Europe taps network to prepare for the worst

The relationship between the EU and Turkey was redefined by the Syrian refugee crisis a decade ago. Nearly two-thirds of the 4.5 million Syrians fleeing the civil war ended up in Turkey. Many then made their way to Europe via small boats.

In 2016,Brussels and Ankara forged a migration dealwhere the EU offered Turkey incentives and up to 6 billion euros ($7.1 billion) in aid for Syrian refugees on its territory to persuade Ankara to stop tens of thousands of migrants from setting out for Greece.

Aid groups said that deal created open-air prisons with squalid conditions. But for the EU leadership, the deal saved people, kept many migrants from reaching EU territory, and bettered the lives of refugees in Turkey.

Renewal of that deal is up this year, butTurkish citizens have soured on Syrian refugeesand anti-immigrant right-wing partieshave surged in popularity in parts of Europe.

And another refugee crisis is already underway even closer to Europe, with fighting in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollahdisplacing more than 800,000 peopleso far.

"We've got a situation (in the Middle East) that could have grave humanitarian consequences right at a time where humanitarian funding has been completely slashed," said Ninette Kelley, chair of the World Refugee & Migration Council, pointing to the Trump administration'sgutting of USAID. "Is the world ready for another humanitarian disaster?"

McNeil reported from Brussels. Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, Fay Abuelgasim in Cairo, and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.

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Iranians grapple with whether to flee the country because of the war

KAPIKOY BORDER CROSSING, Turkey (AP) — After bombs exploded near her home in the eastern Iranian city of Golestan, hairdr...

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Pakistan’s president says Afghan Taliban forces crossed a ‘red line’ with drone attacks on civilians

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's president on Saturday warned neighboring Afghanistan's Taliban government that it had "crossed a red line" by launching drone attacks on civilian areas in Pakistan and said the administration in Kabul has brought "grave consequences upon itself."

Afghanistan Pakistan

The statement by Asif Ali Zardari was the latest in what has become the deadliest fighting yet between the two neighbors. The cross-border clashes, which erupted late last month, have shown no signs of abating despiteefforts by China and Turkeyto broker a ceasefire.

Pakistan said its forces intercepted the drones launched on Friday but that falling debris injured two children in the city of Quetta and two people elsewhere in the country.

On Friday, the Afghan Taliban government accused Pakistan of conducting airstrikes in Kabul, the country's capital, and other areas in eastern Afghanistan, saying at least six civilians were killed and 15 other were injured.

Hours later, Kabul claimed its air force responded by targeting military installations near Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, and in northwestern Pakistan.

Pakistan denied targeting civilians, saying its operations are focused on Pakistani Taliban militants and their support networks. Islamabad has referred to the conflict as an"open war"— adding to concerns among the international community about regional stability as theU.S.-Israeli war with Iranhas engulfed the Middle East and beyond.

Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that Pakistani aircraft also struck fuel depots belonging to the private airline Kam Air near the airport in the southern city of Kandahar, which he said supplies civilian and U.N. flights.

Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban government of harboring Pakistani militant groups — mainly the Pakistani Taliban — that cross the porous volatile border between the two countries to stage attacks against Pakistani forces and also of allying with its archrival, India. Kabul denies harboring militant groups.

On Friday, a roadside bomb targeting Pakistani police killed seven officers in the northwestern district of Lakki Mawat.

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Zardari slammed the government in Kabul.

"While the Afghan terrorist regime seeks negotiations with our friendly countries, it crossed a red line by attempting to target our civilians," he said.

Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said Saturday on X that its defense forces along the border in the eastern provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar captured a Pakistani post and killed 14 Pakistani soldiers. In Islamabad, Pakistan's Information Ministry said the claim was baseless.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's spokesman, Mosharraf Zaidi, said the "Afghan Taliban are spending more time weaving fantasies" than they are getting rid of "terrorist organizations enjoying Afghan Taliban regime hospitality."

He said on X that such propaganda would not force Pakistan to end its counterterrorism operations. "Only the end of terrorism from Afghan soil to Pakistan will," he said.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday urged for a peaceful resolution of the Afghanistan-Pakistan dispute, warning the use of force worsens tensions and threatens regional stability. His remarks were reported Saturday by China's official Xinhua News Agency, which said Wang had spoken with Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.

Wang said China's special envoy is shuttling between the two countries in an effort to promote restraint and encourage a ceasefire. Muttaqi said Afghanistan seeks regional peace and does not want a military conflict, adding that dialogue remains the only solution and urging China to play a greater role.

AQatari-mediated ceasefire in October briefly reduced tensions, but subsequent talks in Turkey failed to produce a lasting agreement.

Qahar reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Associated Press writer Kanis Leung in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

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Pakistan’s president says Afghan Taliban forces crossed a ‘red line’ with drone attacks on civilians

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's president on Saturday warned neighboring Afghanistan's Taliban government that it had...

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