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Middle East crisis live: Trump warns Iranian forces they will be ‘blown off the face of the Earth’ if they target US ships

The head of the International Monetary Fund has warned that inflation is already picking up and the global economy could face a “much worse outcome” if the war in the Middle East drags into 2027 and oil prices hit about $125 a barrel. IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said the continuation of the war meant that the global lender’s “reference scenario” assuming a short-lived conflict – which forecast a minor growth slowdown to 3.1% and a minor increase in prices to 4.4% – was no longer possible. Georgieva said: This scenario, with every day that passes, is further and further behind in the rear-view mirror.” The continuation of the war, a forecast of an oil price around or above $100 per barrel and rising inflationary pressures meant the IMF’s “adverse scenario” was already in effect, she said in Washington on Monday, quoted by Reuters.

Ukraine war briefing: Duelling ceasefires as Zelenskyy floats open-ended truce

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has offered a potentially open-ended ceasefire beginning on Wednesday to Vladimir Putin, whose defence ministry has demanded that hostilities should cease for Friday and Saturday so that Russia can mark the anniversary of the second world war defeat of Nazi Germany, 81 years ago. The Russian defence ministry threatened that if its truce demand was not met there would be a “massive missile strike on the centre of Kyiv” – adopting a tone akin to Donald Trump’s recent threats to attack Iranian civilian infrastructure, in what has been condemned as a potential war crime. Its follows a familiar pattern of unilateral ceasefire declarations by the Russian side – most recently around Orthodox Easter – that have had little to no impact. Zelenskyy initially responded that the Russian request was “not serious”, later following up that while Kyiv had not received any official requests for a truce, in the time left until midnight on Wednesday “it is realistic to ensure” that a ceasefire takes effect. “We announce a regime of silence starting from 00.00 on the night of May 5 to May 6.” He gave no end time but said Ukraine would “act symmetrically” according to Russian actions. Noting that Russia had failed to respond to Kyiv’s longstanding calls for a lasting ceasefire, he urged the Kremlin “to take real steps to end their war, especially since Russia’s defence ministry believes it cannot hold a parade in Moscow without Ukraine’s goodwill”. This year, the parade in the Russian capital is scheduled to take place without tanks, missiles and other military equipment for the first time in nearly two decades. Speaking at a summit with European leaders in Armenia on Monday, Zelenskyy said that the Russian authorities “fear drones may buzz over Red Square” on 9 May. “This is telling. It shows they are not strong now, so we must keep up the pressure through sanctions on them.” High global oil prices will not help boost Russian economic growth this year as Ukrainian drone attacks and western sanctions affect crude output and exports, the influential thinktank TsMAKP, which is close to the Russian government, has predicted. “This year, a reduction in exports from Russia is expected compared to 2025,” analysts wrote as TsMAKP cut its forecast for gross domestic product growth. “The main considerations were the risks of reduced production and, consequently, exports of hydrocarbons from Russia due to new attacks on port infrastructure and oil refineries.” TsMAKP cut the GDP growth forecast for this year to between 0.5% and 0.7% from 0.9% and 1.3% one month ago. The government is officially forecasting 1.3% but officials have said this is optimistic and will be revised. New government forecasts are expected later this month. Russia’s economy contracted by 0.3% in the first quarter, its first quarterly contraction since early 2023. Russia was forced to reduce oil output in April due to Ukrainian drone attacks on ports and refineries – what Kyiv calls “kinetic sanctions” – as well as a halt to crude supplies through the only remaining Russian oil pipeline to Europe, according to a Reuters report last month. A Russian missile attack killed seven people and wounded more than 30 in the town of Merefa, in Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region, Ukrainian officials said on Monday. Regional prosecutors said Russian forces appeared to have used an Iskander-type ballistic missile. The governor of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Ivan Fedorov, said a Russian strike killed a husband and wife in the village of Vilnyansk and their adult son was wounded in the strike, along with three other people. In Russia, the governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said a Ukrainian drone killed a civilian resident in a border area and wounded seven others, including a 10-year-old boy. Two people were injured when a Russian drone hit an apartment building in Brovary, Kyiv region, said the head of the regional military administration. Keir Starmer has said the benefit of joining the European Union’s £78bn loan scheme for Ukraine “outweighs the cost”, writes Pippa Crerar, as the British prime minister argued the continent must move at pace to bolster its own defence. Starmer on Monday used a meeting of the European Political Community in Armenia to begin negotiations to participate in the EU scheme. If the UK’s effort to join the EU’s £78bn recovery loan scheme for Ukraine is successful, British defence firms would be able to provide equipment for Kyiv in return for a financial contribution of up to £400m. Weather monitoring equipment at the illegally Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in south-eastern Ukraine was damaged in a drone strike., the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Monday.

Modern slavery at record levels in UK and expected to worsen, report warns

Slavery in the UK is at record levels and is expected to worsen over the next decade, the government’s independent anti-slavery commissioner has warned. According to the number of referrals to the national referral mechanism, which assesses potential victims of slavery and provides support to victims, numbers have almost doubled in the last five years from 12,691 referrals in 2021 to 23,411 in 2025, the highest ever number. In her report, published on Tuesday, Eleanor Lyons said this increase was not only due to better detection of slavery but also to worsening conditions in the UK and across the world. “Poverty, global instability, conflict, global displacement of people and the breakdown of safe migration routes are creating a growing pipeline of vulnerability that traffickers are quick to exploit,” said the report, Anticipating Exploitation: A Futures-Based Analysis. It pulled together research compiled by more than 50 different experts across law enforcement, government, civil society and the charity sector and is the first comprehensive forward-looking analysis of how modern slavery and human trafficking are likely to evolve in the UK over the next decade. Lyons said that unless the UK took action, the situation could become even worse with AI being used to scale up and professionalise exploitation; the increased use of digital labour in “scam compounds” – such as entrapping people into investor and romance fraud; and the integration of cryptocurrencies into trafficking models. The report also raised concerns about the continued growth of gig economy platforms, coercive labour in areas such as agriculture, construction and mining, and an increase in reproductive slavery such as enforced egg harvesting and surrogacy. Lyons called on ministers to increase funding for specialist police units so they can disrupt exploitation, prosecute more businesses exploiting or enslaving workers, and to launch a national campaign to help the public recognise and report exploitation. She is also called on the government to improve victim care. Her report warned that without urgent action criminal networks would become more cunning, less visible and harder to disrupt. “Slavery and the most harrowing forms of exploitation are becoming more widespread in this country and evolving faster than we can respond,” Lyons said. “As exploitation becomes more complex and more hidden, driven by technology and global instability, it will spread further and become harder to stop unless we act now.” A separate evaluation report, also published on Tuesday by the Council of Europe’s influential group of experts on trafficking in human beings, Greta, highlighted a steep rise in potential trafficking victims. While the experts welcomed a series of steps taken by the UK authorities in recent years to tackle human trafficking, such as not holding victims responsible for criminal acts they were forced to carry out by their traffickers, they urged the UK to adopt a number of further measures to bring the country’s anti-trafficking laws, policies and practices fully into line with the convention on action against trafficking in human beings. The report stressed the need for more resources, increased prioritisation and better coordination between law enforcement and other agencies, as well as reinforced financial investigations. It added that further safeguards were needed to prevent trafficking for labour exploitation, as well as the trafficking of people from vulnerable groups – including children, migrants, asylum seekers and homeless people. A Home Office spokesperson said: “Modern slavery is a global scourge that abuses and exploits people for profit. We are committed to reviewing the modern slavery system to reduce opportunities for misuse of the system, whilst also ensuring that we have the right protections for those who need it. “We are working with brave survivors to inform policy development and improve the process of identifying victims. We have also taken immediate action to reduce the backlog of cases, ensuring victims get swift decisions and the support they need to rebuild their lives.”

Norwegian fish farms polluting fjords with waste likened to ‘raw sewage of millions of people’

Norwegian fish farms are filling fjords and other coastal waters with nutrient pollution equivalent to the raw sewage of tens of millions of people each year, a report has found. Norway is the largest farmed salmon producer in the world, and nutrients in fish feed are excreted directly into coastal waters. Analysis from the Sunstone Institute found that Norwegian aquaculture released 75,000 tonnes of nitrogen, 13,000 tonnes of phosphorus and 360,000 tonnes of organic carbon in 2025. The nutrients are equivalent to those contained in the untreated sewage of 17.2 million people for nitrogen, 20 million people for phosphorus, and 30 million people for organic carbon, the report found, raising fears of destructive algal blooms. “Norway is a small country of just 5.5 million people, and the output of aquaculture pollution in terms of these three nutrients is three to five times larger than the population,” said Alexandra Pires Duro, a data scientist at Sunstone and author of the report. “The faeces, the uneaten feed, the urine – everything goes into the water.” Fish in farms are fed pellets of nutrient-rich feed in open-net cages as they are grown for human consumption. The analysts calculated the mass of nutrient inputs that remained in the water using data from the national fisheries directorate and veterinary institute. Researchers found feed consumption had increased by 14.6% over a six-year period, in line with industry expansion, producing nutrient pollution in 2025 that equated to levels expected in the raw sewage of a country about the size of Australia. In a separate analysis, the report authors found that seasonal variation aggravated the problem, with nutrient load highest in summer months when ecosystems are least able to absorb it. Fish sludge from nutrients can fertilise phytoplankton and lead to destructive algal blooms that deplete oxygen levels. Fjords are particularly vulnerable to such effects because they are semi-enclosed bodies of water, allowing for greater accumulation of nutrients. Their oxygen levels are already declining because of global heating. In Sognefjord, the country’s longest fjord, increased nutrient inflows – not just from fish farms – were held responsible for about two-thirds of the oxygen depletion, a study found last year, while warmer water was blamed for the other third. Oxygen levels in deep waters have also declined in the second-longest fjord in Norway, the Hardangerfjord, according to the country governor for Vestland. In March, officials rejected nine applications for fish farms in the fjord on account of the increased emissions they would cause. Tom Pedersen, an environmental adviser for the region who served as an expert reviewer on the Sunstone report, said the figures in its analysis were unsurprising and even “on the conservative side”. “The major concern we experienced in the last few years is that all these algae and plankton and whatever die and they sink down to the bottom of the floor and they decompose – and that process uses oxygen,” he said. “The end result is that the oxygen level in the fjord is going down, and has gone down.” The Norwegian fisheries ministry referred a request for comment to the fisheries directorate, which declined to comment. Krister Hoaas, head of public affairs at the Norwegian Seafood Federation, the main industry association, said the volume of emissions reflected how much food is produced in Norway, and the degree of self-sufficiency the country would have in an emergency. He said the industry was working continuously to make its environmental footprint as small as possible. “It is important to distinguish between current operations and questions about future growth,” he added. “The Institute of Marine Research is clear that a significant increase in production in certain fjord systems could increase the risk of eutrophication locally, but that current production is well within nature’s carrying capacity. This provides a basis for strict, site-specific management, but does not document that current operations are destroying the fjords.”

Trump threatens to blow Iran ‘off the face of the earth’ if it attacks US vessels

Donald Trump has threatened that Iran will be “blown off the face of the earth” if it attacks US vessels trying to reopen a route through the strait of Hormuz. The US launched an operation on Monday to help hundreds of ships trapped with their crews in the Gulf, dragging the region back to the brink of full-scale war. Tehran sought to reassert its blockade on the strait, which is a vital waterway in global trade. While the US military claimed to have destroyed six Iranian small boats and intercepted both Iranian cruise missiles and drones, this was denied by Iran. Over 800 ships and roughly 20,000 crew members remain stranded in the region. In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Trump described the ongoing US naval effort as “one of the greatest military maneuvers ever done”, and claimed that Iranian officials had been “far more malleable” in recent talks than before. Addressing concerns about American weapons stockpiles, he told Fox News: “We have more weapons and ammunition at a much higher grade than we had before. “We have the best equipment. We have stuff all over the world. We have these bases all over the world. They’re all stocked up with equipment. We can use all of that stuff, and we will, if we need it,” he added. Trump’s threats against Iran echo remarks he made in April, when he warned that a “whole civilization will die” if Tehran failed to comply with his demands over the strait of Hormuz – comments that drew widespread domestic and international backlash. His comments call into question the fragile, Pakistan-brokered ceasefire that halted hostilities last month, but failed to open up the strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of international oil supplies usually travel. Earlier on Monday, Iran’s military central command warned that it would strike any US naval vessel approaching the strait, and claimed to have struck a US frigate in the area with two missiles. Meanwhile, US Central Command on Monday said that US forces had redirected 50 commercial vessels amid the ongoing blockade.

US appeals court blocks mail-order access to abortion drugs

Access to mifepristone, the FDA-approved medication used to end pregnancy, could become severely limited following a ruling from a US appeals court on Friday, which temporarily blocked the drug from being dispensed through the mail. The decision is for now the most sweeping threat to abortion access since the supreme court rolled back abortion rights in 2022, said Kelly Baden, vice-president at the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights advocacy group. “If allowed to stand, it would severely restrict access to mifepristone in every state, including those where abortion is broadly legal and where voters have acted to protect abortion rights,” she said. The so-called “abortion pill” is part of a two-drug regimen backed by decades of evidence for its efficacy and safety, and is used in the majority of abortions in the US. Usage has risen in recent years, especially in the aftermath of the 2022 ruling from the supreme court that overturned federal protections for the right to an abortion. In the year after that decision, the FDA formally modified its regulations to allow the drug to be prescribed online, expanding its use even in states where abortion care was being constricted. The drug has become a key target for the anti-abortion movement, and a series of lawsuits have challenged the drug’s initial approval in 2000 and the subsequent rules making it easier to obtain. Friday’s ruling came in response to a Louisiana lawsuit against the FDA. The state sought to pause distribution of the drug through the mail while the litigation proceeds. A conservative three-judge panel of the fifth US circuit court of appeals in New Orleans agreed with Louisiana that the FDA had failed to justify eliminating the in-person dispensing requirement. The ruling was hailed by Louisiana’s Republican attorney general, Liz Murrill, who in a statement said she would “look forward to continuing to defend women and babies as this case continues”. Meanwhile, with the FDA now under Trump, the agency has opened a review of the medication. Once this analysis is completed, officials at the agency said, they will determine if changes to its regulations are warranted. Reproductive rights advocates have voiced concerns that the review could further limit mifepristone’s use, despite the evidence supporting its safety. Developed in France in the 1980s, mifepristone is used around the world and is authorized in 96 countries. Its use is backed by roughly four decades of peer-reviewed research, according to a 2025 brief written by public health experts at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Anti-abortion politicians have just made it much harder for people everywhere in the country to get a medication that abortion and miscarriage patients have been safely using for more than 25 years,” Julia Kaye, a senior staff attorney for the Reproductive Freedom Project of the ACLU, said in a statement. “Louisiana’s legal attack on mifepristone shamelessly packaged lies and propaganda as an excuse to restrict abortion – and the fifth circuit rubber-stamped it.” Use of mifepristone has enabled abortions to continue in states that have enacted bans, including 9,350 provided via telehealth in Louisiana in 2025, according to Guttmacher. This ruling, however, will have a far wider impact. “The decision is a stunning and deeply alarming development,” Baden said. “Reimposing medically unnecessary in-person dispensing requirements for mifepristone will send shock waves of chaos and confusion across the country and dramatically upend patients’ ability to obtain abortion care. Reuters contributed reporting

Donald Trump sends warships to break Iran’s strait of Hormuz blockade

The US has launched Donald Trump’s operation to open a route through the strait of Hormuz for hundreds of ships trapped with their crews in the Gulf, in a move that brought the region back to the brink of full-scale war as Iran sought to reassert its blockade. The US operation, which got under way on Monday after being announced as “Project Freedom” by Trump on Sunday night on his social media site, dramatically raised the stakes in a conflict that had been in a month-long period of uneasy limbo. Speaking hours after the operation began, the head of US Central Command, (Centcom), Adm Brad Cooper, said that US forces had destroyed six Iranian small boats and intercepted both Iranian cruise missiles and drones. He “strongly advised” Iranian forces to remain clear of US military assets in the region, which include guided-missile destroyers, more than 100 land- and sea-based aircraft, drones and 15,000 troops. Iran swiftly denied the claim. On a day of successive claims and counter-claims, it also denied Centcom’s assertion that two US-flagged merchant vessels had “successfully transited” the strait, while US navy guided-missile destroyers had crossed in the opposite direction, travelling westwards, and had begun patrolling the Gulf. Late on Monday, the container shipping company Maersk said the Alliance Fairfax – a US-flagged vehicle carrier – exited the Gulf via the strait accompanied by US military assets. Speaking at a press conference as the standoff became more volatile and dangerous, Trump downplayed tensions, saying Iran had “taken some shots” but had caused no harm apart from damage to a South Korean cargo vessel, which reported an unexplained explosion and fire. “Other than the South Korean Ship, there has been, at this moment, no damage going through the Strait,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform as oil prices jumped over the renewed hostilities. In an interview on Monday, however, the US president heightened fears of a fresh escalation. Trump told Fox News that Iran would be “blown off the face of the Earth” if it attacks US vessels carrying out Project Freedom, while also claiming that the regime had become “much more malleable” in peace negotiations. Iran, where military central command had warned that any US naval vessel approaching the strait would be fired on, earlier claimed to have hit a US frigate in the area with two missiles. Late on Sunday, after Trump’s announcement, a tanker reported having been hit by “unknown projectiles”. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) later said an oil tanker operated by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, the MV Barakah had come under Iranian drone attack off the coast of Oman. No one was injured, it said. The UAE defence ministry said it had intercepted three missiles fired from Iran over its territorial waters, with a fourth one crashing into the sea. More than 850 ships are estimated to have been trapped in the Gulf since the US and Israel launched their attack on Iran on 28 February. Iran imposed a blockade on foreign shipping using the strait of Hormuz soon afterwards and Trump imposed a counter-blockade of ships using Iranian ports on 13 April. A Pakistani-brokered ceasefire, announced by Trump in early April, stopped hostilities but failed to open the strait. An estimated 20,000 sailors are stuck on the tankers, bulk carriers, container ships and other vessels, and there are growing concerns for their welfare. The operation launched by the US does not involve military escorts but aims to provide coordination and guidance for commercial shipping along a southern route through the strait, mostly through Omani territorial waters. Shipping executives responded cautiously to the move, amid uncertainty over how or if it would work. Richard Hext, the chair of Vanmar Shipping and the Hong Kong Shipowners Association, pointed out that Iran had previously declared that unapproved transit of the strait would be considered a “violation of the ceasefire” agreed last month. “Under these circumstances we should be cautious,” Hext told CNN. International response was also circumspect. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said the only way to reopen the strait of Hormuz was “a coordinated reopening by the United States and Iran”. Macron, speaking at a meeting of European leaders in Armenia, added: “We are not going to take part in any military operation in a framework that to me seems unclear.” Announcing the project on Truth Social, Trump said the US had been approached by countries for help in getting their ships out of the strait, and that it would use its “best efforts” to do so. Giving no details on how this would be achieved, the president presented it as a humanitarian gesture “on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran”. “I have told my Representatives to inform them that we will use best efforts to get their Ships and Crews safely out of the Strait. In all cases, they said they will not be returning until the area becomes safe for navigation, and everything else,” Trump said. He added: “If, in any way, this humanitarian process is interfered with, that interference will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully.” On Monday morning, a US-led military organisation, the Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC), said the US had established an “enhanced security area” south of the established prewar shipping lanes through the strait. The route would take ships through Omani territorial waters, the JMIC said, and owing to high anticipated traffic, ship operators were told to coordinate with Omani authorities by radio. Ships were advised to avoid navigating in or close to the usual shipping lanes which “should be considered extremely hazardous due the presence of mines that have not been fully surveyed and mitigated”. Iran’s military command insisted that ships passing must coordinate with them. “We will manage the security of the strait of Hormuz with all might, and inform all commercial ships and tankers to refrain from any attempt to transit without the coordination of the Iranian armed forces stationed in the strait of Hormuz in order not to jeopardise their security,” Maj Gen Ali Abdollahi said, according to Mehr news agency. Earlier, Abdollahi had said Iran would attack “any foreign armed force” that tried to approach or enter the strait, “especially, the aggressive US army”.

Starmer lauds £78bn EU loan for Ukraine amid increased Trump tensions

Keir Starmer has said the benefit of joining the European Union’s £78bn loan scheme for Ukraine “outweighs the cost” as he argued the continent must move at pace to bolster its own defence. The prime minister, who said the UK’s involvement in the recovery loan plan would also help create jobs at home, acknowledged that tensions were high between Donald Trump and Europe, particularly over military issues. With European leaders concerned over the US president’s waning interest in the Ukraine war, Starmer used a meeting of the European Political Community in Armenia to begin negotiations to participate in the EU scheme. “The benefit there outweighs the cost. But more generally, it is important that we see our future as a closer relationship with the EU that’s in our national interest,” Starmer told reporters at the summit. He also used the trip to continue his push for closer ties with the bloc on defence, security and the economy, and to make the case for his reset with Brussels to UK voters before difficult local elections this week. As the Nato military alliance comes under intense pressure from Trump’s threats amid a difference in stances on the war in Iran, Starmer said: “We cannot deny that some of the alliances that we have come to rely on are not in the place we would want them to be. “There is more tension in the alliances than there should be and it’s very important that we therefore face up to this as a group of countries together.” If the UK’s effort to join the EU’s £78bn recovery loan scheme for Ukraine is successful, British defence firms would be able to provide equipment for Kyiv in return for a financial contribution of up to £400m, expected to come from the £3bn already ringfenced for Ukraine. But the EU expects the UK to go further in contributing to its budgets, in return for further access to its markets, after Starmer called for “deeper economic integration”. Brussels has also called for a permanent mechanism for an “appropriate financial contribution” from the UK for more access, with deals already struck with the EU on food and under way for energy as part of the government’s reset. At the summit in Armenia, the prime minister and the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, agreed to start talks on UK participation in an EU innovation fund and to be “ambitious” at this summer’s UK-EU summit. European leaders agreed in March that the UK would have to pay into European structural and investment funds (ESIFs) for the first time since Brexit if it wanted to participate in the EU’s single market for electricity. It said this financial contribution should “appropriately reflect the relative size of the UK’s economy and the proportion of the internal market in which the UK aims to participate”. Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister, accepted the UK was willing to make a financial contribution, arguing the principle was already well established, but suggested a reported figure of £1bn a year was incorrect. “It’s about judging whether in particular areas, it represents our national interest, and value for money with the UK taxpayers. The approach I’ve used the last few years, I’ll continue to,” he told LBC radio. The Cabinet Office is conducting an audit of which sectors could most benefit from further integration, with cars, chemicals and pharmaceuticals seen as a priority. In an interview with the Observer at the weekend, Starmer underlined his wish to negotiate closer links with the EU at the next “reset” summit this summer, saying the world had changed since the Brexit vote. “It [Brexit] has damaged our economy and there’s no doubt in my mind where the national interest lies,” he said. “Britain must be at the heart of a stronger Europe on defence, on security, on energy, and on our economy.”