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'Staggering' Iran toll drives up global executions to 40-year high, Amnesty says
The number of worldwide executions jumped to their highest level since 1981 in 2025, pushed in part by a "staggering" increase in Iran's use of the death penalty, Amnesty International said on Monday. The UK-based rights group said it had confirmed the executions of at least 2,707 people globally, 2,159 of which were in Iran. But the UK-based rights group said that, as in previous years, its total "does not include the thousands of executions" that it believed were carried out in China, the world's most prolific user of the death penalty, due to "the state secrecy" over data. France 24, May 18

Trump: ‘Clock is ticking’ for Iran to accept a deal
President Trump has issued another ultimatum to Iran, saying “the clock is ticking” for Tehran to accept a deal to end the war, as attacks on Gulf countries continued. The president spoke with Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, on Sunday after returning from China with no breakthrough in negotiations. “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them,” he wrote on Truth Social. “TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!” He also shared an AI-generated video clip of a US warship firing at and destroying an Iranian fighter jet. In a separate interview with Israel’s Channel 13, Trump said he thought “the Iranians should be afraid of what’s going on right now”. Iran’s foreign ministry said on Monday that it insisted the US unfreeze its assets and lift sanctions, and that the talks mediated by Pakistan were ongoing. The Times, May 18

Donald Trump’s Iran war hits Americans with $40bn fuel bill
Americans have spent more than $40bn extra on fuel since the start of Donald Trump’s war in Iran, according to new research, enough to repair the country’s bridge network or overhaul its air traffic control system. Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs estimates the conflict’s hit to consumers from higher petrol and diesel prices was $41.5bn as of Sunday night - or $316 per US household. “We are spending this huge amount of money as a country on extra fuel costs, which we could have used in a whole bunch of more constructive ways to improve America’s transportation infrastructure - which, frankly, could use the love,” said Jeff Colgan, a political-science professor at Brown. The fallout from the Iran war has ripped across the world’s biggest economy, driving inflation to its highest level since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and creating a growing political problem for Trump. Higher prices at the pump have not only taken a toll on motorists but have also pushed up the cost of everything from groceries to airfares as escalating fuel costs feed through to other sectors. Financial Times, May 18

Mortgage costs rise sharply on Middle East conflict
Mortgage costs across Europe and North America have risen sharply as the economic impact of the Middle East war spills into housing markets, piling pressure on borrowers wanting to buy a new home or refinance. The jump has come even though central banks have refrained from raising interest rates. Mortgage lenders are responding to increases in governments’ borrowing costs and betting that official rates will eventually need to rise to contain the threat of inflation. In the US, the conflict has driven the 30-year mortgage rate to 6.36 per cent, above levels seen in September 2025, before the Federal Reserve began a cycle of three quarter-point rate cuts. In the Eurozone, mortgage rates in the region’s largest economy, Germany, have risen about 0.3 percentage points. The interest rate on popular 10-year loans in the country has increased to about 3.6 per cent, according to data from retail mortgage broker Dr Klein, raising annual interest rate costs for a new €350,000 loan by €1,000 to about €13,000. Financial Times, May 18

UK companies linked to payments for small-boat crossings, BBC finds
People smugglers are directing migrants to pay for illegal Channel crossings using a network of UK-registered businesses, a BBC investigation has found. We secretly filmed staff at a shop in south-east London telling an undercover researcher that nearly £3,000 in cash could be deposited with them and sent to a smuggler in France. "You put your money here. If your friends reach [the UK], you shouldn't come back," we were told at the mobile phone store in Woolwich. Our three-month investigation gives insight into how smugglers appear to be using UK companies' bank accounts to facilitate small-boat crossings - something a leading expert in criminal finance told us he had not seen before. Our findings suggest a "brazen attitude" by smugglers, says Tom Keatinge, from the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) security think tank. "It is a concern that … people feel sufficiently confident they can be out in the open." As well as the phone shop, the smuggler in France provided the bank account details of two UK-registered companies, which he said could both take electronic transfers for migrant crossings. One is a wholesale business in Newcastle upon Tyne, the other is a car wash in Cambridgeshire. The smuggler, who called himself Ahmad, also provided details of several businesses in Europe where payments could be made in cash, including a car wash in Antwerp, Belgium, and a restaurant in Paris, France. BBC news, May 18

China and US ‘feel very similar about Iran’, Donald Trump says
Donald Trump said he and Xi Jinping “feel very similar” about how they want the Iran war to end, as they wrapped up a two-day summit in Beijing that has yet to yield any high-profile agreements. The US president and his Chinese counterpart had tea on Friday at Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party leadership’s closed compound near Tiananmen Square, before a working lunch. Trump departed for Washington in the early afternoon. “We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the straits open,” Trump told reporters in Zhongnanhai. “We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve,” Trump said. “The relationship is a very strong one.” But there was no immediate comment from Xi on Iran and Chinese state media said only that the two leaders have discussed the “Middle East” during the summit. Financial Times, May 15

CIA chief John Ratcliffe makes rare visit to Cuba as island runs out of oil
The head of the CIA visited Cuba on Thursday, an extraordinary step-up in contact between Washington and Havana as the communist-run island reels from US pressure, declaring that it is out of oil. The Central Intelligence Agency, at the heart of the decades-long struggle between the United States and Cuba, confirmed a Cuban government statement about Director John Ratcliffe's visit. Photos posted by the agency on X showed Ratcliffe alongside several people with blurred-out faces meeting with Ramon Romero Curbelo, chief of the intelligence of the Cuban Interior ministry, and other Cuban officials. The visit comes during a deepening crisis in US-Cuba relations, with the island enduring constant power outages prompted by President Donald Trump's fuel blockade. Only one tanker from Russia - a historic ally of the Cuban authorities - has got through. And that oil has now "run out," Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy told state television. "The impact of the blockade is indeed causing us significant harm … because we are still not receiving fuel." France 24, May 14

UK bosses slam Westminster turmoil
Bosses of some of Britain’s biggest companies have voiced dismay at the turmoil in Westminster, warning that uncertainty over Sir Keir Starmer’s future is putting at risk investment decisions and the country’s reputation. Chief executives told the FT that calls for the prime minister to quit, Wes Streeting’s resignation and Andy Burnham’s move to return to parliament were a far cry from the stability and certainty promised by the ruling party before the 2024 general election. One FTSE 100 chief executive said the government had over the past week “myopically focused on its own infighting and scandals, rather than focusing on the long-awaited action it should be delivering”. Another chief executive said days of jeopardy for Starmer since Labour suffered dire losses in local and devolved elections amounted to a “lost week in terms of any progress on objectives”. Former J Sainsbury boss Justin King accused ministers of failing to learn “the lessons of the last years of the Conservative administration”. Financial Times, May 15

Pound tumbles as Burnham sets sights on Downing Street
The pound dropped after Andy Burnham launched his campaign to return to Westminster and become the new prime minister. Sterling has declined by 0.8pc against the dollar since the Mayor of Greater Manchester announced his intention to run in a by-election for the Makerfield seat on Thursday. The pound fell to a one-month low of $1.335, having been above $1.36 on Tuesday, as Mr Burnham took the first steps on his path towards a leadership contest to replace Sir Keir Starmer. His gambit came just hours after Wes Streeting resigned as health secretary decrying the “vacuum” and lack of “vision” of Sir Keir’s leadership and demanding the Prime Minister set a timetable for his departure. The leadership turmoil has left the pound on track for its worst week since the aftermath of Rachel Reeves’s first budget in November 2024, declining by 1.9pc so far. The Telegraph, May 15

Overseas fakers using AI videos to push a narrative of UK decline, BBC finds
The "Great British People" Facebook page, which purports to be from Yorkshire, has had 1.3 million views for its latest video of an elderly white British man crying about his pension. Other videos show reporters discussing "the overwhelming scale of mass immigration" and asking viewers if they miss "the Britain we used to know". But it is not clear whether the creator of the videos knows the UK at all: the account is really run by someone based in Sri Lanka. It is one of dozens of interconnected Facebook and Instagram accounts identified by BBC Panorama and the Top Comment podcast, which create and share anti-immigration AI-generated posts about the UK to large audiences - but the creators are often located hundreds or thousands of miles away. Several are from Sri Lanka, the US and elsewhere in Europe, while others are in Vietnam and the Maldives, or linked to Iran and the UAE, according to information from Facebook's transparency tools, interviews with the content creators and other tell-tale signs on social media such as spelling and accounts they follow. One expert told the BBC that research shows people are worse at detecting AI fakes than they think, and the more AI content they see, the more likely they are to distrust authentic material. BBC news, May 15

British Gas in £100m settlement over prepayment meter scandal
British Gas has agreed a £20 million payout and will write off £70 million of customer debt after Ofgem found that it failed vulnerable customers who had prepayment meters installed without their consent. The energy regulator said its investigation concluded that British Gas had fallen short of the standards expected of suppliers and had breached licence conditions designed to protect customers in vulnerable circumstances. A three-year inquiry into British Gas began after an undercover investigation by The Times revealed in 2023 that the supplier was routinely sending debt collectors to break into customers’ homes and force-fit prepayment meters. As part of a settlement, British Gas has agreed to compensate affected customers from 2018-21. Those payments will be in addition to compensation already paid to customers affected in 2022 and 2023. Customers entitled to money will be contacted directly by British Gas and will not need to apply. The Times, May 15