Name: This Morning’s Top Headlines – March 12 | Morning News NOW
Uploaded: 2026-03-12T23:02:14.000Z
Duration: 19 min 14 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

We begin this Thursday morning with ongoing coverage of the war with Iran.

As the conflict stretches into its 13th day, Iran has launched what the country's state media is calling its most intense operation since the war began.

Overnight, Iran fired a volley of its most advanced ballistic missiles toward Tel Aviv and Haifa in Israel.

The US military also intensifying its strikes.

Central Command says it has eliminated 16 Iranian minelayers along with multiple naval vessels near the Strait of Hormuz.

That critical passageway has become the focal point of the Middle East.

The US And Iran are fighting for control of that vital shipping lane.

20% of the world's oil typically passes through it.

Overnight, three more oil tankers were attacked, proof that Iran has now effectively halted supplies through the strait.

And yesterday a British maritime monitoring agency said three ships were hit in separate incidents near the strait.

That includes a Thai bulk carrier that was hit by an unknown projectile in the Persian Gulf just northwest of Dubai.

Hoping to ease sky high oil prices worldwide, the International Energy Agency has now agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from member countries reserves.

The U.S. department of Energy says that includes 172 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The move failed to drive down oil prices.

They briefly touched $100 a barrel again.

And as the financial fallout from the war with Iran spreads, we have a team of correspondents and analysts joining us this morning.

Break down the latest, including the war's growing economic and political impact.

We begin with NBC News chief international correspondent here Simmons in Dubai.

So yesterday the uae, where you are, said it was responding to missiles fired from Iran.

There are reports that at the Dubai International Airport four people were injured by two drones.

And there was damage done to a tower in the DIFC center that you can see behind me here.

That shot there I think is from the marina.

Another tower that was hit, the UAE says by debris from a drone that was fired on Dubai.

We get alerts on our phones overnight to shelter in place when these kinds of attacks are incoming.

The UAE has managed to stop most frankly of the missiles and drones that are targeted on this city and on this country.

But the UAE has suffered 50% of the attacks and that is having an impact on the psychology of the place, even if mostly there are people wounded but not many fatalities.

The success, if you like, of stopping the attacks is mitigated against the reality of that most People who live here didn't expect to be living through this.

And then, as you mentioned just at the beginning there, off the coast here, a cargo ship was hit and two tankers off the coast of Iraq by unidentified objects.

There are reports of unmanned boats filled with explosives sent towards these ships.

And that is all about, as you say, this battle over the Straits of Hormuz and whether the US Is going to be capable of reopening that very narrow, narrow passageway in places that is just 20 nautical miles wide.

And that gives you a picture of why it is so easy, honestly, for Iran to target ships there and to stop it from being able to be used by shipping.

$1.5 billion of oil normally passes through that strait every day.

Right now, Joe, hardly anything is getting through.

Karen, we are nearly two weeks into this conflict now, and

Dubai is an important center of commerce, normally considered pretty safe within a region that can be quite hostile.

So what is daily life in Dubai like right now and what has changed since the initial days of the war?

Let me ask you the answer in terms of the way that Iran is is trying to counter the Israeli US War, and

that is that it is trying to hit Dubai here because it is an economic center in the middle of a number of countries that are U.S.

And it is targeting the Strait of Hormuz because that is an economic lifeline for the world economy.

Now, President Trump, of course, is talking about the fact he says that this war will be over soon, within days.

But the difficulty here is that the Middle east looks set to teach him a lesson, which is that it's easier to start a war than to end a war.

And what we're hearing from the Iranians is, for example, messages like we will not stop targeting the Gulf, places like where I am, unless the Gulf agrees to no longer host US Bases, saying things like, we will not stop this war unless the US And Israel agrees to stop, to never attack us again.

Now, clearly, President Trump is going to be able to agree to that.

But then he's going to face a choice between doubling down or having to give up, if you like.

He's clearly not going to give up, so he's going to have to double down and that's going to be more risk for US Servicemen and women unless there can be some kind of a negotiated settlement.

Problem there is, and you're gaining from this, Joe, just how difficult a situation we're in.

Problem there is the kinds of countries that would be negotiating with Iran here in the Gulf are being targeted.

NBC News military analyst Colonel Steve Warren joins us now from Washington to break down some of the latest out of the Middle East.

Let's start with that Feb. 28 strike on an elementary school in Iran which killed more than 170 people, including many children.

So NBC News is reporting that outdated intelligence likely led to that deadly missile strike.

Also, three sources who are familiar with the preliminary findings.

The US Military has yet to formally conclude if the US Is responsible.

But we know an American official and a person familiar with these early findings also told NBC an American Tomahawk missile was probably responsible.

So with all that said, how would the US military go about holding someone responsible for this if in the end, what we're reporting is found to be true?

And I'm glad you mentioned that it's still under investigation.

Now, these investigations take time because there are so many people involved in the targeting process.

They're developed by the intelligence agencies.

They're reviewed by people who decide what type of weapon to use.

They're reviewed by civilian and military lawyers, legal experts in the laws of land warfare.

So there are a number of people who touch each one of these.

In the military, we call them target packages.

And a package is simply just all the data you need to take a strike.

So anyway, so a lot of people involved in this.

So the investigation has to determine what went wrong, where the breakdown was.

If it's determined that there is, you know, gross negligence or major incompetence, then punishments can include all the way up to court martials.

Certainly careers can be derailed or even ruined.

In the case of civilians, if there is something even worse than negligence, if there was some intent, then potentially there could even be legal consequences.

Colonel, let's talk about what Keir was reporting on.

Iran ramping up those attacks in the Strait of Hormuz.

It's effectively shutting down shipping throughout that critical waterway.

Overnight, as we mentioned, three more tankers were hit.

And the Indian Embassy in Baghdad says one person died after a U S owned crude oil tanker was attacked near southern Iraq.

So based on all that and what we know about Iran's capabilities, how long do we think Iran can keep the strait closed?

Joe, this gets to the power of psychology in warfare.

You know, the Iranians, quite frankly, have not closed the straits physically.

In other words, they do not have naval vessels out there conducting patrols.

They do not have air power conducting air patrols over the straits.

But what they've done is through a series of small, frankly, small strikes with these unmanned drones, they have convinced the shipping captains, right, the mariners, that it's too dangerous for them to risk transiting that strait.

And so that's why this strait is effectively closed.