USA - Spring has sprung, which means seeds that were planted in late winter are starting to germinate. They’re hungry and will only grow to their full nutritional potential if they’re well fed. But that, apparently, isn’t happening, as fertilizer supplies are interrupted by yet another pointless Middle East war. The result? Global food shortages that might dwarf the COVID-era Costco-hoarding mess of recent memory. The biological calendar does not negotiate. Corn requires nitrogen at the V6 to VT growth stage or kernel set is permanently reduced. Wheat requires it at tillering and jointing or grain fill collapses. Rice requires it at transplanting or yield drops 20 to 40 percent in low-input systems. These are not economic models. They are cellular processes. The plant either receives nitrogen during the window or it does not. If it does not, no subsequent application, no price increase, no policy reversal can recover what was lost. The damage is written into the biology of the seed.

UK - Ministers are scrambling to deal with the threat of diesel shortages within weeks as experts warn the energy shock from Middle East chaos could be worse than the 1970s. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are holding crisis talks amid mounting fears over the looming impact from the Iran war. The Government has admitted it is drawing up contingency plans, despite appealing for Brits to continue their lives as normal. Sir Keir will meet Shell, BP and Norwegian energy company Equinor in Downing Street later to take stock. But warnings are becoming more stark about the scale of the hit to the UK - and how long it might last - with soaring pump prices just the tip of the iceberg.

USA - Donald Trump has said that he could 'take the oil in Iran' and boasted that he can invade Kharg Island 'easily'. It comes as the number of US troops in the Middle East swelled to 50,000, roughly 10,000 more than usual. Tehran has promised to set American soldiers on fire should the US President order a ground invasion of the country, after the Pentagon drew up plans for potential raids on Kharg Island - the Islamic Republic's main oil export hub - and attacks on coastal sites near the Strait of Hormuz. An attack on the five-mile-long Kharg Island - located 15 miles from the Iranian coast in the Strait of Hormuz - would be risky, raising the chances of more US casualties and prolonging the cost and duration of the conflict.

USA - President Donald Trump said Sunday a deal 'could be soon' amid negotiations with Iran and revealed 20 more oil tankers are set to pass through the Strait of Hormuz as a 'sign of respect'. Trump claimed Tehran was 'basically begging' for peace negotiations and the regime was desperate to cut a deal after suffering what he characterized as heavy losses on the battlefield. 'We’re doing extremely well in that negotiation. But you never know with Iran, because we negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up,' he added while speaking to reporters on Air Force One. 'I think we’ll make a deal with them, but it’s possible that we won't,' Trump continued. 'I do see a deal in Iran. It could be soon.' When asked by Libby Alon of Channel 14 Israel whether the US could take control of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump replied: 'Yes, of course, it's already happening.'

VATICAN - Pope Leo XIV picks a top Rothschild executive to head the Vatican Bank, sending the conspiracy theories into overdrive. Conspiracy theorists immediately seized on Pauly’s ties to the powerful Rothschild group – one of the most famous international banking families in history that has been alleged to be part of the secret society known as the Illuminati. While no one needs to believe in the Illuminati, the notion that elite bankers, politicians, Freemasons and powerful families worldwide act to manipulate governments and world events is hardly controversial anymore.

USA - Almost a month into Donald Trump’s war with Iran, two things are clear. First, the president has sparked a global conflict that has resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen US service members and wounded hundreds more, while killing thousands of civilians in the region and displacing millions more. Second, Trump’s war threatens to deliver a gut punch to a teetering American economy. If he does not end his war immediately, he risks a recession that will shutter small businesses and toss millions of workers out of their jobs — all while more American troops arrive home in coffins.

USA - BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has publicly shifted toward what he calls energy pragmatism, admitting that society now demands a balanced approach to meeting power needs rather than adherence to rigid climate agendas. This could be a pivotal moment for global energy policy, as one of the planet’s most powerful financial players steps back from decades of ill-advised “green” mandates. BlackRock is the world’s top financial manager, overseeing more than $10 trillion in assets that sway markets, companies and even governments. After years of climate-driven experimentation – forced by deluded or dishonest politicians and business titans – the failures became too many and too consequential to be ignored. Little wonder that Larry Fink has turned his ear away from the rhetoric of alarm and toward client demands for strategic guidance.

EUROPE - Europe has just crossed a line that, until very recently, many believed was impossible to cross. The European Parliament has approved the most radical plan for detaining and deporting illegal migrants ever proposed within the Union — an overhaul that dramatically tightens border controls and speeds up the removal of those who enter irregularly. The approval has triggered a political shockwave in Brussels. Not only because of how forceful the measures are, but because of how quickly they will take effect: deportations and returns will be enforced immediately, without long bureaucratic delays, without months of waiting, and without the legal loopholes that for years allowed thousands of migrants to remain in Europe despite having final expulsion orders. The message from the European Parliament is unmistakable: the era of vague policies, half-measures, and empty declarations is over.

USA - US President Donald Trump threatened to abandon NATO on Friday night after his European allies declined to intervene to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said the US does not 'have to be there for NATO', in his latest comments hitting out at his allies for not joining in his and Israel's war on the Islamic Republic. Speaking to an investment forum in Miami on Friday night, the President said he was upset that European NATO countries had declined to provide material support to the US as the conflict enters its second month.

MIDDLE EAST - Suez Canal could be closed by Houthi attacks and Western economy shattered as Yemeni militia enter Iran war with attack on Israel. Israel's military said it had successfully intercepted the strike, but the move raises concerns that the armed militia could join Tehran in attacks on shipping in the region. The Houthis could target ships in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a choke point which leads to the Suez Canal, or even the canal itself, Mohamad Elmasry, a professor of Media Studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, has said. This would mean a second major shipping route closed in addition to the Strait of Hormuz, potentially causing significant harm to the global economy - with vessels unable to retain insurance to travel through the region.

MIDDLE EAST - Donald Trump was today warned that launching an amphibious operation to secure the Strait of Hormuz would be a 'nightmare'. General Sir Richard Shirreff, former deputy commander of NATO forces in Europe, raised fears that US troops could face drone attacks from 'hundreds of miles inland' if they landed on Iranian islands in the Strait. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that while the Iranians held the Strait, Trump 'is losing' against a battered but 'angry, vengeful' Tehran regime which still held sway over the waterway. The dire warnings come against the backdrop of a build-up of American land forces in the Gulf with new reports that some 10,000 US troops would now be deployed on top of Marine expeditionary forces. But Sir Richard raised fears over the perils of an operation to seize control of the Strait of Hormuz even if it was attempting to run a one-off convoy through.

USA - Pentagon chiefs have expressed alarm at the rate the US is burning through its stockpiles of Tomahawk missiles just four weeks into the war with Iran. The US has already launched 850 Tomahawks, each costing between $2 million and $3.6 million depending on the variant, and prized because they allow the Navy to strike targets up to 1,000 miles away without risking pilots. Concerns about the stockpiles are now being whispered within Pentagon walls due to the difficulty in manufacturing the cruise missiles. One official told the Washington Post the stockpile was 'alarmingly low.' Tomahawk cruise missiles have been a staple of American military might since they were first used in the Gulf War by George H W Bush.

INDIA - Delhi and Moscow are deepening their energy cooperation, with both sides agreeing to prepare for Russia to resume direct sales of liquefied natural gas. As India's diplomats negotiated an accord that would ease punitive US tariffs on the South Asian country's exports in January, New Delhi slashed its purchases of Russian crude oil in a move that was widely seen as a painful concession to President Donald Trump.

UK - The war in the Gulf has hit the epicentre of global fertiliser production. It has shut off the supply of urea, ammonia and sulphur for 27 critical days in the agricultural calendar. China, Russia and Turkey have now greatly compounded the shortage by imposing their own curbs on fertiliser exports in recent days. Close to 45 percent of globally traded nitrogen is cut off, disrupted or at risk. The crunch is happening just as the big farming belts of the northern hemisphere near the spring planting season and just as Australia approaches winter planting. It is the blackest of black swans.

MIDDLE EAST - The New York Times reported that many of the 13 American bases across Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had become close to uninhabitable as a result of persistent strikes. Of all the bases, Ali Al Salem in Kuwait has suffered most hits – a total of 23 – according to Mr Hinz. Camp Arifjan and Camp Buehring follow, with 17 and six geolocated strikes respectively. Satellite imagery from these three bases shows damage to hangars, communications infrastructure, satellite equipment, fuel stores, and – following a strike on Ali Al Salem on Wednesday – a large warehouse. Iran has struck four sites hosting components for the American-made Thaad system, which tracks and intercepts incoming missiles, Mr Hinz said. An early-warning radar in Qatar and other radar installations across the region were also hit. That may have made it harder to intercept Iranian missiles.