UK - Here we go again? In assessing the risks of another financial crisis, many commentators – including yours truly – have drawn parallels between today’s economic forces and those leading up to the 2008 recession. The most striking of these include the advent of and rapid growth in new types of higher risk credit outside the main banking system. A sharp spike in energy prices, which in 2008 helped tip many economies into recession, causing widespread credit impairment, offers a second similarity.

ISRAEL - National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visits the Temple Mount, calling for expanded worshipper access amid wartime restrictions, while criticizing the High Court's approval of larger protests. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir toured the Temple Mount on Monday with Home Front Command officials, calling for the site to be opened to more worshippers amid wartime restrictions limiting access. An additional tour of the site is expected to take place to examine alternative entry options after no agreements were reached on reopening it, Ben-Gvir’s office stated. Participants in the tour included senior officials from both the Israel Police and the Home Front Command.

UK - The Middle East truce has calmed oil markets but supply chain chaos means Britons face a protracted wait for relief at the pump and supermarket. Britons have been warned they will feel worse off for up to six months even if the ceasefire in the Middle East holds, although interest rates may not rise as feared. Experts say that supply chain effects are going to be felt very acutely for months to come. The cost of Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, fell sharply after the ceasefire announcement but fuel prices in the UK continued to rise on Wednesday. There is also uncertainty about the availability of fertiliser and the price of securing it, which could push up food prices into next year.

USA - Ninth Scientist Linked to US Secrets Confirmed Dead Under Highly Suspicious Circumstances — Disturbing Pattern of Deaths and Disappearances Among US Space Program Experts Raises Alarming Questions. A troubling pattern is once again drawing renewed scrutiny after the death of yet another scientist tied to America’s most sensitive space and defense programs. Michael David Hicks, a longtime research scientist at NASA’s prestigious Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), died on July 30, 2023, at just 59 years old, according to the Daily Mail. Hicks was known in scientific circles for his work connected to advanced research initiatives, many of which intersect with highly classified aerospace and defense projects. But nearly three years later, basic questions surrounding his death remain unanswered. While there have been no public allegations of foul play, Hicks’ case marks the ninth person with ties to America’s space or nuclear secrets who has died or mysteriously vanished in recent years, which has set off alarm bells among US national security experts.

UK - ‘Rule, Britannia, Britannia rules the waves’ was once the national chant – but not anymore. While the conflict in Iran is dominating the news cycle, in Europe, the Globalists are hard at work trying to enforce their myriads of sanctions against Russia, notably against what is called its ‘Shadow Fleet’. When it comes to the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has threatened to seize ‘Shadow Fleet’ tankers passing in their territorial waters. Apparently, Starmer forgot that Moscow does get a say in the matter, so it arose today that a Russian warship has escorted sanctioned vessels through the English Channel. The flotilla’s passage is in direct defiance of Starmer’s warning that vessels in Moscow’s shadow fleet could be boarded by British special forces if vessels carried oil destined to fund the invasion of Ukraine.”

MIDDLE EAST - The ceasefire will be a failure if Trump and the Iranians are unable to come to  mutually-acceptable agreement on ending the conflict in totality. And the key word here is “mutual.” Nothing over the last day provides any confidence whatsoever that we’re closer to a full resolution of the war. The war has arguably given Iran more leverage than it had previously; the prospect of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps simply ceding control over one of the world’s most critical shipping routes without tangible guarantees from Trump that the war won’t resume at a later date is difficult to envision.

IRAN - Iran has accused the US of breaching their ceasefire agreement even as Donald Trump insists the truce holds, fresh explosions rock America's Arab allies, and Tehran declares the Strait of Hormuz shut. Iran's parliamentary speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf accused the US of violating three terms of the disputed ceasefire agreement on Wednesday. He said Israel's attacks on Lebanon, drones breaching Iranian airspace, and the White House's insistence that Tehran will not enrich uranium all constitute violations of a 10-point proposal Trump had signed off on.

USA - World mocks bizarre kind of victory: White House declares triumph despite Iran being emboldened and demanding tolls on the still-closed Strait - as attacks continue on Gulf states andLebanon.Donald Trump's peace deal with Iran was hanging by a thread on Wednesday night as Tehran halted tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. It warned that unauthorised ships would be 'targeted and destroyed'. As the White House declared a dramatic and decisive victory in the Middle East, it remained unclear who controlled the vital waterway, through which 20 per cent of the world's oil and gas is transported. Iranian officials said oil tankers using the Strait would have to pay tolls in cryptocurrency of $1 per barrel, potentially amounting to £2.2 million per ship. State media also reported the ceasefire would fail if Israel continued attacking Lebanon, home to Iranian terrorist proxy Hezbollah.

USA - NATO is not about to disappear in a single grand act of American secession. Great alliances rarely end that neatly. They deteriorate first in language, then in habits, and finally in expectations. After the Iran war triggered the latest transatlantic crisis, after Trump’s tantrum over Europe’s refusal to join, and after months of bitter disputes over Ukraine, the alliance appears less like a settled strategic agreement than a structure maintained by memory and convenience. That is why its future is unlikely to involve triumphant renewal or outright disintegration. The more probable fate is a living shell: too established to be abandoned, too mistrusted to inspire confidence, still almost functioning because the alternative is too dangerous and costly. NATO is, above all, a trust institution. Article 5 is not magic; it functions because governments, military leaders, and the public believe that the promise will be honoured in a crisis. That trust is now seriously damaged on both sides. Europe observed Washington initiate a war against Iran outside NATO’s core scope and then demand loyalty for offensive measures in the Strait of Hormuz.

CHINA - China has reserved five patches of airspace off its north-east coast for a 40-day period with no explanation. Beijing normally restricts airspace when it plans to conduct military drills, but it has not announced any exercises during the reserved period, which began on March 27 and will run until May 6. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) drills also do not usually last longer than a few days. The reservation is known as “Notice to Air Missions”, or Notams, and is intended to inform aviation authorities of temporary hazards along a flight route or at a specific location.

USA - The victory was decisive, boasted Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defence who wants to be called the secretary of war. The Middle East could now enter a new “golden age”, said Donald Trump in a post on his Truth Social network. Every sign indicates that Washington wants to wrap the conflict up as soon as possible and return to other business. That will not be easy. Iran may have agreed to a two-week pause in hostilities, but its 10-point proposal for peace negotiations contains enough explosive material to easily derail the process and bring the parties back to war.

USA - The US military – together with its Israeli allies – has already achieved a devastating victory over Iran on the battlefield, one that could be extended even further if the Iranians prove to be recalcitrant in forthcoming talks aimed at making the ceasefire permanent. The latest Pentagon analysis shows that Iran has suffered ruinous losses on a variety of fronts, including 80 per cent of its air defences, the almost total destruction of its navy and the decimation of its weapons production facilities. It is certainly fatuous in the extreme to suggest, as some Western foreign policy “experts” appear to be doing, that Trump’s decision to accept the 11th-hour ceasefire is nothing short of a capitulation. With most of the Iranian regime’s key leaders either dead or severely incapacitated through injury – including, reportedly, Mojtaba Khamenei, the country’s new Supreme Leader – Tehran is now in survival mode, desperately doing anything that will enable the Islamic Republic to survive in power.

USA - Donald Trump has threatened to wipe out Iran on Tuesday if it does not agree to a ceasefire. The US president said he could bomb the Islamic Republic back to the “Stone Ages”, destroying all of its power stations and bridges within four hours, if no deal were in place by 1am UK time. “The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” Mr Trump told a White House press conference on Monday evening. “I hope I don’t have to do it.” He said any deal must be “acceptable” to him, and must include the free movement of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. “We have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night. Where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again,” he said. “I mean complete demolition by 12 o’clock, and it will happen over a period of four hours if we want it to.”

MIDDLE EAST - If the US Navy can’t open the Strait of Hormuz, it’s mad to suggest anyone else can. As the US-Israeli war with Iran enters its sixth week, Tehran has turned the Strait of Hormuz into a weapon. Thirty-five nations – including France, Germany, Italy, Japan and key Gulf partners – gathered in London this week with a clear goal: to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait through diplomatic pressure. It is explicitly not a combat alliance joining the US-Israeli war. Britain has made clear throughout that it will not bomb Iranian targets. One truth remains though: if Iran chooses not to stop shooting and controlling the Strait, there is very little we could do, even collectively. The idea that a disparate collection of well-meaning but medium-capability warships could collectively succeed where the US Navy has so far refused to even try is for the birds. But we should let the diplomatic collective play out – it’s a positive step and we have the lead.

USA - A strange reading of the Bible by some evangelical Protestants is worryingly influential on this administration’s foreign policy. Holy Week coincided with a Holy War: America v Iran, the clash of the fundamentalisms. At a Pentagon prayer meeting, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Divine Vengeance, whose rippling body is tattooed with an AR-15 and a Jerusalem cross, asked God to “let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation”. It probably sounded better in the original Persian. And at a White House Easter lunch, pastors compared Donald Trump to Jesus – “betrayed and arrested and falsely accused” – or an Old Testament monarch who saved the Jews from ancient Persia.