Chief-Exec.com

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

China's Xi promises more trade but warns Trump over Taiwan as summit kicks off in Beijing
Chinese President Xi Jinping warned his US counterpart Donald Trump that the issue of Taiwan could push their two countries into "conflict" if mishandled, a stark opening salvo as a superpower summit set to tackle numerous thorny issues began in Beijing on Thursday. Trump had arrived in China with accolades for his host, calling Xi a "great leader" and a "friend" as he predicted that their countries would have "a fantastic future together". But beyond the pomp as he welcomed Trump, Xi used less effusive tones, saying the two sides "should be partners and not rivals" and highlighting the issue of self-ruled democratic Taiwan - which Beijing claims as its territory - straight off the bat. "The Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations," Xi said, according to state broadcaster CCTV … Top of Trump's wish list for the summit will be business deals on agriculture, aircraft and other topics. Xi told a delegation of US business executives travelling with Trump, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Tesla boss Elon Musk, that China would "open wider" to the world. France 24, May 14

UK navy says vessel seized off UAE coast and heading for Iran
The UK’s navy said on Thursday that a ship had been seized off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and was heading towards Iranian waters. The UK Maritime Trade Operations Centre said the vessel was anchored 38 nautical miles north-east of Fujairah, one of the seven emirates that make up the UAE, when it was taken by “unauthorised personnel”. It provided no details about the ship, saying it was investigating the incident. Shipping in the Gulf has been severely disrupted since the US and Israel launched their war against Iran, with the Islamic regime slowing the flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz close to a standstill. The US has imposed its own naval blockade to prevent ships entering or leaving Iranian ports, with the warring parties locked in a stand-off amid a fragile ceasefire. Financial Times, May 14

Ukraine arms maker plans satellite push to cut reliance on US
One of Ukraine’s leading weapons manufacturers says it launched two satellites this year and plans “dozens” more in 2027, as the country seeks to lessen its reliance on the US government and western tech companies. Denys Shtilierman, co-founder and chief designer at Fire Point, told the FT the company was expanding production of cruise and ballistic missiles and developing a “pan-European air-defence shield” to avoid dependence on specific manufacturers. “The idea behind our weapons is that we sell not only weapons and not only security, but independence in security,” Shtilierman said. Ukraine has stepped up its domestic innovation after last year’s Oval Office clash between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which prompted the US to suspend intelligence sharing with Kyiv for a week. The Ukrainian army’s reliance on Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system has also proved a vulnerability at times, notably when it emerged that Russia was using it to guide its attack drones in Ukraine. Financial Times, May 14

UK economy grew at the fastest pace in a year in the first quarter
The UK economy expanded by 0.6 per cent in the first quarter, the fastest pace in a year and a rebound from almost no growth at the end of last year. Official figures showed that gross domestic product accelerated in line with forecasts from City analysts at 0.6 per cent between January and March. It is the best performance since the same quarter last year and a rebound from the 0.2 per cent expansion in the final quarter of the year. The Office for National Statistics said monthly growth was up by 0.3 per cent in March, after a 0.4 per cent jump in February. Economists had expected a 0.2 per cent contraction amid rising energy prices and disruption from the US–Iran war. The dominant services sector, which accounts for more than three quarters of economic output, expanded by 0.8 per cent in the first quarter and was the economy’s best-performing sector. The Times, May 14

London AI office space leases rise tenfold in year
The amount of office space leased by artificial intelligence firms in London has increased more than tenfold in the past year, figures show. Last month, more than 450,000 sq ft of office space was leased by companies whose core business is the creation of AI models, the data from real estate analysts CoStar found. The average across 2025 was 40,000 sq ft. Almost half of deals were done for offices in the areas around King's Cross and Euston stations with good links to Cambridge and London's education providers. Patrick Scanlon, CoStar's senior director of market analytics, said: "It's almost a graduation moment in terms of offices for the sector … This isn't looking like a bubble." He added: "We're hearing from people in the market that there is a lot of latent demand from AI firms in the market." Last month, a City Hall report found at least a million jobs done by Londoners were either "highly or significantly exposed" to the impact of AI. BBC news, May 14

Midsize cities held steady as US population growth declined
Midsize US cities held steady in population over the past year, even as the national population grew at one of the slowest rates in history, according to new numbers released on Thursday by the Census Bureau. Across the country, the growth of large cities was outpaced by that of surrounding midsize cities, defined as municipalities with populations ranging from about 25,000 to 70,000. Fort Mill, S.C., was the fastest-growing city, increasing its population by 6.8 per cent, to 38,673. Its growth outpaced that of nearby Charlotte, N.C., the nation’s 14th-largest city. The new census estimates capture changes in the population from July 1, 2024, to July 1, 2025, a period when immigration declined under the tighter border policies imposed toward the end of the Biden administration and the aggressive enforcement under the Trump administration. The figures also reflected the continuing effects of declining birthrates, as the country’s fertility rate fell to a record low. New York Times, May 14