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Xi Jinping told Donald Trump that Putin might ‘regret’ invasion of Ukraine
Xi Jinping told Donald Trump during their talks last week that Russian President Vladimir Putin might end up regretting his invasion of Ukraine. According to several people familiar with the US assessment of last week’s summit in Beijing, the Chinese president made the comments during wide-ranging talks that touched on Ukraine and included Trump suggesting that the three leaders should co-operate against the International Criminal Court. Xi’s comments about Putin’s decision to launch his full-scale invasion of Russia’s neighbour in 2022 appeared to go further than in the past. One person familiar with Xi’s meetings with former president Joe Biden said that while the leaders had held “frank and direct” conversations about Russia and Ukraine, Xi had not offered an assessment of Putin and the war. The revelation comes as Putin prepares to arrive in China on Tuesday for a summit with Xi, four days after the Chinese leader hosted the US president for only their second meeting since Trump returned to the White House. Financial Times, May 19

Russia to conduct three-day nuclear drills on May 19-21
Russia's army on Tuesday began three days of nuclear weapons drills involving thousands of troops across the country, as Kyiv escalates its drone attacks and with President Vladimir Putin headed to China. Throughout its more than four-year offensive in Ukraine Moscow has flaunted its possession of nuclear weapons and repeatedly threatened to use them. The drills also come months after the last nuclear arms pact between Russia and Washington broke down and amid a fresh spate of comments from Putin touting the prowess of Moscow's atomic forces. "From May 19 to 21, 2026, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are conducting an exercise on the preparation and use of nuclear forces in the event of a threat of aggression," the defence ministry said. France 24, May 19

Israel seizes 1,000 sq km under Benjamin Netanyahu’s war strategy
Israel has seized about 1,000 sq km of territory since Hamas’s October 7 attack as Benjamin Netanyahu forged a new, more aggressive military doctrine in the wake of the nation’s worst security failure. Israeli forces have established positions in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, taking control of land equivalent to roughly 5 per cent of Israel’s 1949 borders, according to FT calculations. While the approach of Netanyahu’s far-right government has been cheered by ultranationalist settlers, who have long sought to expand Israel’s borders, the offensives have displaced millions, destroyed urban areas and sparked deep unease in the region. More than half the roughly 1,000 sq km is in southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces have advanced as much as a dozen kilometres to create what officials call a “security zone”. Their aim is to push Hizbollah back so the militant group may struggle to fire anti-tank missiles at Israel’s border communities. Financial Times, May 19

Musk loses OpenAI court battle after jury finds he waited too long to sue
A California jury has tossed out Elon Musk's high-profile lawsuit against OpenAI and its boss Sam Altman. In a unanimous verdict, the jury agreed that Musk had waited too long to file his lawsuit, leaving all of his claims essentially expired. Musk had accused Altman of breaching a non-profit contract by shifting the ChatGPT-maker to a for-profit company after Musk donated $38m (£28.5m) early in OpenAI's history. Musk claimed Altman had deceived him by accepting his money and then reneging on OpenAI's original non-profit mission to develop artificial intelligence (AI) technology for the benefit of humanity. Jurors spent just about two hours on Monday deliberating on the case, but they had spent three weeks viewing internal correspondence and hearing testimony from Musk, Altman and other tech industry executives, such as Microsoft's chief executive Satya Nadella. Musk had accused Microsoft of aiding and abetting OpenAI in its allegedly improper transition to a more for-profit company. BBC news, May 18

UK unemployment rate unexpectedly rises
The UK unemployment rate has unexpectedly gone up while the number of job vacancies has fallen to its lowest level in five years as the initial impact of the Iran war on firms starts to be felt. The unemployment rate rose slightly to 5 per cent in the three months to March from 4.9 per cent in the three months to February. Analysts said the figures show the first effects of the Middle East war on the jobs market, and warned demand for workers would likely continue to weaken the longer the conflict goes on. The rise in unemployment combined with slowing wage growth will give the Bank of England more time to decide whether interest rates need to rise to contain inflation, experts added. Early estimates from the Office for National Statistics suggest the number of job openings fell by 28,000, or 3.9 per cent, to 705,000 between February and April, its lowest level since April 2021. "Lower-paying sectors such as hospitality and retail have seen some of the largest falls in vacancies and payroll numbers, both in recent months and over the last year," ONS director of economic statistics Liz McKeown said. BBC news, May 19

BA demands millions from Heathrow over latest baggage failure
British Airways has demanded that Heathrow airport pays millions of pounds in compensation for a system failure that left thousands of passengers without their bags. A technical fault on Friday with the baggage system at Terminal 5, the main hub for British Airways, meant that bags could not be processed for several hours. Passengers arriving had to wait for their bags, and some went home without them. Departing passengers flew off with their bags still at the airport, meaning that an estimated 20,000 bags failed to arrive at their destinations. British Airways is working through the backlog by using courier services and carrying extra bags on its other flights, but it may take until Thursday for the backlog to be cleared. Some passengers will have been without their belongings for almost a week. The Times, May 19

'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