Circling back to Donald Trump’s press conference at the White House earlier, the US president took another swipe at Nato, the UK and Australia for not being more involved in his war on Iran.

We have covered the Nato comments here:

But Australia got a mention too – late in the press conference – in response to a question about his phone calls with British prime minister Keir Starmer. Trump said:

[Starmer] did something that was shocking: he didn’t want to help us. And maybe in particular that country, you know, the longest bond, the longest ally.

Australia, too, Australia was not great. I was a little surprised by Australia.

I wouldn’t say anybody was great, other than the five countries in the Middle East. We never really had very much support.

More on petrol prices: Vietnam’s trade ministry is saying it has temporarily waived an environmental tax on fuel to cut soaring prices by more than a quarter.

The environmental protection tax rate on gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel would be slashed to zero from today until 15 April, the ministry said on Friday, adding:

This is considered an urgent and effective solution to stabilise the petroleum market and ensure national energy security amidst the escalating conflict in the strait of Hormuz, which is creating the ‘biggest energy bottleneck ever’.

India has slashed its special excise duties on petrol and diesel amid the soaring prices triggered by the Iran war.

In a government order, the Indian finance ministry on Thursday cut the excise duty on petrol to 3 rupees ($0.032) a litre from 13 rupees earlier. It also cut the duty on diesel to zero from 10 rupees.

In case you missed it earlier, Lebanese media said an Israeli strike hit Beirut’s southern suburbs early on Friday.

Several explosions were heard from the Hezbollah stronghold and smoke was billowing from the area after the raid, Agence France-Presse reported.

Israel has previously issued sweeping evacuation warnings for the area but provided no specific warning in advance of Friday’s strike. It was unclear if there were any casualties.

Israel has sent ground troops into south Lebanon in a push to establish what it calls a “defensive buffer” zone, and Hezbollah said its fighters kept up its attacks on troops there early on Friday.

And just to recap, on Thursday Wall Street had its worst day since the war with Iran started.

The S+P 500 fell 1.7%, and the index is headed for a fifth straight losing week, which would be the longest such losing streak in almost four years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 2.4%.

Some news on the Asian markets, after early Friday trading.

South Korean shares have fallen more than 3% today and are set to end the week lower. Japan’s Nikkei share average is also down today, and is on track for a fourth straight weekly decline, amid fading hopes for an imminent ceasefire.

Elsewhere, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.1%, while the Shanghai Composite index was up 0.1%. Australia’s S+P/ASX 200 fell 0.5%, while Taiwan’s Taiex was trading 1.5% lower.

World Trade Organisation chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has warned the global trading system is experiencing the “worst disruptions in the past 80 years”.

“The world order and the multilateral system we used to know has irrevocably changed,” she said on Thursday, at the WTO ministerial conference. “We cannot deny the scale of the problems confronting the world today.”