Paul Moss

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I'm Paul Moss, and in the early hours of Friday the 10th of April, these are our main stories. President Trump has said Iran better not be charging fees for ships to pass the Strait of Hormuz as a shaky ceasefire continues. With Israel and Hezbollah continuing to exchange fire, what's prompted Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to peace talks? Did Donald Trump push him to the negotiating table? And why Cuba's missionary doctors abroad are being sent home?

The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today. Why has Melania Trump suddenly denied having a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein?

Me aloitamme järjestelmän yhdessä Yhdysvallan, Israelin ja Iranin järjestelmään, joka vaikuttaa destabilisaatioon. Uudet israelilaiset järjestelmät ovat kuuluneet Lebanon kautta, vaikka maailmanlaajuisen järjestelmän järjestelmän järjestelmä on tullut sisällä.

Plan is for these to take place in Washington next week. But what are the chances of success given the ongoing bloodshed? Wednesday's attack saw Israel kill more than 300 people. The Israeli government insisted it was targeting Hezbollah, the Shia-led militant group, which has itself fired rockets across the border. But as always, many civilians also died. Mohammed lives near a building which he says was turned to rubble.

In the immediate aftermath of this attack, Benjamin Netanyahu certainly didn't sound in the mood for talks. He described the airstrike on Lebanon as the greatest yet.

And there were further exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah on Thursday. And yet amidst the fighting, we then had this statement from the Israeli prime minister. In light of Lebanon's repeated requests to open direct negotiations with Israel, I instructed the cabinet yesterday to start direct negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible.

The negotiations will focus on disarming Hezbollah and establishing peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon. So what happened in the meantime? Well, nobody can be sure, but it would certainly be an educated guess to suggest that the White House put pressure on Mr Netanyahu to come to the negotiating table. Donald Trump and his administration have been touting their success in reaching that ceasefire with Iran, and the ceasefire was clearly threatened by the attack on Lebanon.

And yet any peace deal between Israel and Lebanon is going to require the Lebanese government to rein in Hezbollah, something Israel has always demanded, but which our Middle East analyst Sebastian Usher told me has never been achieved. The Lebanese government has been unable in any form over the years to take on Hezbollah, because in doing that, in trying to disarm Hezbollah, it would lead to destruction.

The arguments continue about whether Lebanon was included in the ceasefire agreement that was reached between Iran and the United States and Israel. Some people will be scratching their heads at this and thinking, well surely a major ceasefire agreement like this would be put into writing so that we could see very clearly whether Hezbollah and Lebanon were indeed included.

Sebastian Ascher. Well, so much for the peace between Israel and Hezbollah. What of the attempt to end the wider hostilities between Iran, the US and Israel? Passage through the Strait of Hormuz has, as we heard there, become one of the main bones of contention between them. Indeed, new bones of contention have arisen since the conflict broke out, with Iran suggesting it could charge ships to pass through this crucial waterway –

Donald Trump warned that they'd better not. But as the wrangling goes on, the strait remains closed to almost all shipping. Here's our diplomatic correspondent, Caroline Hawley.

If there is no other alternative, you probably would need to, right? But if this means that for the coming years there will be a fee for the Strait of Hormuz of millions, which is double, triple the price of crossing the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal, you know, that would be quite ridiculous for the entire industry.

As we've been hearing, the ceasefire in the Gulf was meant to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But analysis of shipping data by the BBC suggests just nine vessels have passed through the Strait since the ceasefire was announced. And this has affected countries in Asia more than anywhere else. 90% of the oil and gas passing through the Strait is bound for Asia.

Much of it for China, of course. But another country badly hit is Thailand. People there have been told to cut back on energy use. And Thailand's farmers are particularly feeling the effects from the rising cost of fuel.

The voices of farmers in Thailand.

Now an awful lot of high-profile people have found themselves in the firing line over their alleged links to Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Britain's one-time prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. They all denied any wrongdoing. But one person who's rarely been linked with the late sex offender outside of the wilder fringes of the internet is Melania Trump. So it came to say the least as a surprise when on Thursday afternoon local time the first lady came out with this.

Miss Trump's statement was all the more surprising, given that she's rarely spoken about anything. Indeed, apart from her appearance in the carefully curated documentary released earlier this year, Miss Trump has been one of the least prominent first ladies of modern times. But then that may already have been changing, as Mary Jordan explains. She's the author of a book called The Art of Her Deal, The Untold Story of Melania Trump.