Middle East crisis live: Kuwait issues oil spill warning after tanker attacked in Dubai port

Kuwait says fire broke out after Iranian attack on giant tanker and warns of possible oil spill in surrounding waters

• Trump threatens to obliterate' Iran's energy grid if ceasefire not reached shortly'

Donald Trump is weighing a military operation to extract nearly 1,000 pounds (454kg) of uranium from Iran, the Wall Street Journal is reporting, citing unnamed US officials.

The mission would likely put American forces inside the country for days or longer, the report says.

But the president remains generally open to the idea, according to the officials, because it could help accomplish his central goal of preventing Iran from ever making a nuclear weapon.

The combined effect of both waterways being shut to commercial traffic from countries that neither the Iranians nor Houthis favour would be devastating.

Napoleon Bonaparte's remark that the policy of a state lies in its geography" has never seemed more apt.