NEED TO KNOW
ME Further escalations in the Iran-US/Israel war and death toll rising: Three weeks into an escalating war in the Middle East, the US is reportedly sending more warships and Marines to the region, while Iran launched more attacks on Israel and energy sites in neighboring Gulf states, as the region marked Eid, one of the holiest days on the Muslim calendar. Iran also threatened on Friday to expand its retaliatory attacks to include recreational and tourist sites worldwide. The death toll has risen to more than 1,300 people in Iran, over 1,000 people in Lebanon, 15 in Israel and 13 US military members in the region, while millions of people in Lebanon and Iran have been displaced.
ME US asks for help to open Strait of Hormuz, without success: President Trump labeled NATO allies "cowards" on Friday after several nations declined to join a US-led military effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which remains effectively blocked by Iranian forces. While countries like the UK and France eventually issued a vague pledge to ensure "safe passage," they provided no specific military commitments, leading Trump to warn that the alliance has a "very bad future" without their active support.
ME Energy “tit for tat” strikes: An Israeli strike on Iranian facilities in the South Pars gas field marked a significant escalation in the war, prompting Tehran to attack major energy facilities of its Gulf neighbors and Israel. Qatar said that Iranian missiles caused “extensive damage” at Ras Laffan Industrial City, the largest LNG export facility in the world. President Trump released a statement on social media claiming that the US “knew nothing” of the Israeli attack on South Pars, but also threatened to “massively blow up” the world’s largest gasfield if Iran retaliated.
ME US lifts sanctions on some Iranian oil as energy prices surge: In a stunning reversal of longstanding American policy, the US Treasury Department issued a 30-day "general license" on March 20 temporarily lifting sanctions on Iranian oil already at sea. This emergency waiver allows for the sale and delivery of crude oil currently on vessels in order to address the severe supply shortage caused by the ongoing conflict. This comes after the suspension of some sanctions on Russian oil last week.
CH Switzerland suspends weapons exports to the US: The Swiss Federal Council announced on Friday that it has suspended the issuance of new licenses for the export of "war materiel" to the US due to its involvement in the ongoing conflict with Iran, citing the nation's long-standing policy of strict neutrality,.
US Director of the US National Counterterrorism Center resigns over Iran war: Joe Kent resigned his position and published an open letter to President Trump stating he could not support a war that "serves no benefit to the American people” and he claimed that Iran "posed no imminent threat" to the US, directly contradicting the administration’s position. Kent also said it was "clear" the war in Iran was started "due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”. Within 24 hours of the high-profile resignation, it was reported that the FBI has opened an investigation into Kent for a possible intelligence leak.
SCAND SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) cancels over 1,000 flights scheduled for April: The announcement cited fuel costs that doubled in just ten days as the reason for the cancellations. Other major carriers have echoed these concerns, with Europe’s biggest airlines saying the rise in fuel prices will drive up fares and advised passengers to book early. While they have partly hedged the price of jet fuel, airline bosses said they could not avoid passing on additional costs to passengers for much longer.
US Elon Musk found liable in Twitter case: A San Francisco jury has found Elon Musk liable for misleading investors by deliberately driving down Twitter's stock price in the tumultuous months leading up to his acquisition of the company in 2022. While the jury absolved him of some fraud allegations, finding that he did not "scheme" to mislead investors, they determined his tweets about the deal being "on hold" were deceptive, potentially exposing him to billions of dollars in damages to shareholders.
EU "EU Inc." proposal for fast business setup: The European Commission unveiled the "EU Inc." initiative, a new legal framework developed to allow entrepreneurs to start a company anywhere in the EU within 48 hours for less than €100. The initiative will also remove in-person formalities, provide digital procedures for financing operations, and simplify the transfer of shares, while it will also allow Member States to give EU Inc. companies access to the stock exchange. This move is part of a broader strategy to simplify cross-border operations, to attract talent and to help European startups compete more effectively with the US and China.
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ME Hormuz closure threatening more than energy supply
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has triggered a critical supply shock for global agriculture, as it serves as the primary exit point for a third of all fertilizer shipped globally. Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iran are important producers of fertilizer, and they also export the raw ingredients that other countries need to make their own fertilizers. Countries like Pakistan, India and Brazil heavily rely on these supplies and some plants in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan have reportedly been forced to stop fertilizer production entirely.
Maximo Torero, chief economist for the United Nations Food and Agriculture organization, told NPR: "The loss of Gulf exports creates an immediate global shortfall with no quick substitutes”, highlighting that there are no strategic international fertilizer stockpiles like there are for oil. "Immediately the countries that will be the most impacted in south Asia are Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In East Africa will be Sudan, Kenya and Somalia. And in the Middle East, Turkey and Jordan.”
The disruption to the oil supply is also adding to the threats to agriculture. As Torero pointed out: "When you want to grow commodities, you need tractors. You need machinery that requires oil. When we want to move our maize or we want to move our commodities to the market, we require transportation, and that requires oil”.
Experts warn that this could result in significantly higher food prices. Rice is a good example of the impact this could have, as the crop is critical for economies and people's diet across South Asia and even a modest price increase could be devastating to hundreds of millions of low income families in the region, putting children at particularly high risk of malnutrition.
The Hormuz closure is also posing a serious threat to Gulf countries, that are highly dependent on imported staples. according to Institute for Public Policy Research, they are almost entirely import-dependent when it comes to rice (77%), corn (89%), soybeans (95%) and vegetable oils (91%).
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US Breathalyzer company hack locks drivers out: Intoxalock, a major US provider of vehicle ignition breathalyzers, suffered a cyberattack that disrupting its servers and prevented required device calibrations. This left some drivers that are legally required to use the devices unable to start their cars.
GR Operation “Ark” repatriates owners and pets from the UAE: The Greek government organized a special Aegean Airlines flight from Abu Dhabi to evacuate citizens and their pets stranded by the regional war. The flight was specifically arranged to accommodate 45 pets alongside 101 passengers, as standard evacuation routes were refusing to transport animals in cabins or cargo holds. The move also shone a light on the thousands of pets that have been abandoned in Dubai by owners fleeing the war.
US AI streaming fraud case: Michael Smith of North Carolina pleaded guilty this week to a massive streaming fraud scheme that siphoned over $8 million in royalties. Smith used artificial intelligence to generate hundreds of thousands of songs and then deployed a fleet of "bot accounts" to stream the tracks billions of times across platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
ME Shipping companies consider invoking 19th-century law: The Financial Times reported that, as a result of the shipping crisis caused by the Strait of Hormuz closing, global carriers such as MSC, Maersk, and Hapag-Lloyd have told customers they may discharge containers at ports other than the agreed destination. Most bills of lading include what is known as a “liberties clause” or “deviation clause”, which allows shipping lines to discharge containers at the nearest safe port instead of the contracted destination, shifting the entire logistical burden and additional transport costs to their clients.
AI YouTube Targets "AI slop" videos: YouTube has begun rolling out a new feedback tool that asks viewers to rate whether a video feels like "AI slop" or low-quality generated content. The move is part of the company’s efforts to fight the influx of repetitive, low-effort AI videos that reports from video editing firm Kapwing suggest now make up over 20% of the platform's recommendations. While YouTube claims the data will be used to demote spam, critics argue the platform is actually using user feedback to train its own models to produce higher-quality synthetic content.
AI Pokemon Go maker Niantic trained AI on images collected from players: The company reportedly used 30 billion images crowdsourced from players around the world over almost a decade to develop a "visual positioning" AI. This technology allows robots to navigate urban environments with centimeter-level precision by recognizing visual landmarks, a significant upgrade over inconsistent GPS signals in crowded city environments. While Niantic insist that the data was gathered through voluntary "AR Mapping" scans, reports suggest a lack of explicit awareness among many users that their scans were being used for training AI navigation systems.
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