The World in Brief from The Economist

Bahrain’s state oil firm declared force majeure after an Iranian strike set fire to its only oil refinery. Also, Mojtaba Khamenei was named Iran’s supreme leader, succeeding his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iranian state media reported that Mojtaba Khamenei had been chosen to become the country’s supreme leader.

America and Israel continued to strike Iran as attacks on infrastructure intensified across the Middle East; Iran expanded its missile and drone attacks across the region.

The United Arab Emirates was in a “time of war”, said the country’s president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in his first statement since the escalation of the regional conflict

The soaring oil price sent Wall Street stock indices tumbling.

Israel said it struck an underground bunker in Tehran used by Iranian officials, near to where Iran’s former supreme leader was killed

Qatar’s energy minister, Saad al-Kaabi, said that Gulf oil-and-gas exporters would be forced to “call force majeure” on energy shipments within “days”; Wall Street stock indices tumbled as oil prices continued to soar and America’s jobs report showed that the unemployment rate rose from 4.3% to 4.4% in February.