Business and Economy

A nationwide transport strike in Kenya over surging fuel prices, blamed on the United States-Israeli war on Iran, has been suspended for a week after four people were killed in mass protests against the increases.

Kenya, one of many African countries heavily reliant on fuel imports from the Gulf, has raised petrol prices by 20 percent and diesel by almost 40 percent since Iran in effect blocked traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint that normally handles about a fifth of the world’s oil.

The strike was launched on Monday by transport operators, particularly the “matatu” bus operators who provide most of Kenya’s public transport, in response to the latest sharp fuel price hike.

“The strike that is going on is suspended for a period of one week to provide an avenue for consultations and negotiations between the government and stakeholders,” interior minister Kipchumba Murkomen told reporters on Tuesday.

Albert Karakacha, the president of Matatu Owners Association, confirmed the suspension.

Authorities said four people were killed and more than 30 were injured nationwide on Monday. Police said on Tuesday that more than 700 people had been arrested in connection with the protests over fuel price increases.

Rights groups condemned the use of lethal force by security forces, with Amnesty International calling for “maximum restraint”.

The unrest also disrupted Kenya’s main trade corridor, with local media reporting that truck drivers had refused to move cargo amid fears their vehicles could be attacked and set alight by demonstrators.

The national energy regulator said last week the government had spent $38.5m to cushion consumers from rising diesel and kerosene costs.

In a further emergency measure, Kenyan authorities last month temporarily suspended fuel quality standards in a bid to maintain supplies amid growing shortages.

Despite being one of East Africa’s most dynamic economies, Kenya still has deep structural inequalities: about a third of its roughly 50 million people live in poverty and unemployment remains high.

Democratic lawmakers blast move, which follows the establishment of a controversial ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’.

United States President Donald Trump, his family, and his businesses have been granted immunity from any ongoing audits into their tax affairs, according to a directive by the Department of Justice.

The move on Tuesday came as an addendum to Trump’s agreement a day earlier to settle a $10bn lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the leak of his tax information to media outlets between 2018 and 2020.

In a one-page document, signed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the Justice Department said authorities would be “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from “prosecuting or pursuing” tax claims against Trump, members of his family, and his businesses.

The document, which was posted on the Justice Department’s website without any official announcement or press release, stipulates that the waiver applies to inquiries that are “currently pending or that could be pending,” including any related to tax returns filed by Trump before Monday’s settlement.

Democratic lawmakers immediately blasted the move.

Senator Adam Schiff of California accused the Trump administration of engaging in corruption and “self-dealing”.

“The tax-dodging President gets himself and his whole family a tax break, thanks to Todd Blanche,” Schiff said in a statement on social media.

Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer under former President George W Bush, said that exempting Trump from any tax obligations would be unconstitutional.

“If the president or his family owe the IRS money, this is a violation of the domestic emoluments clause of the US Constitution, which specifically says that the president cannot receive any profits or advantages from the US government other than his salary appropriated by Congress,” Painter told Al Jazeera.

The Justice Department and the Trump Organisation did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Justice Department’s directive marks a dramatic expansion in Trump’s settlement, which established a so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate people who claim to have been victims of politically-motivated “lawfare”.

Critics have likened the initiative to a “slush fund”, warning that it is likely to be used to reward Trump’s allies.

Decisions on distributing money from the $1.776bn fund will be made by a five-member commission, four of whom will be directly appointed by Blanche, a Trump appointee who formerly acted as his personal lawyer.

In heated exchanges with Democratic senators on Tuesday, Blanche denied that Trump had directed him to establish the fund or that it would be used in a partisan manner.

“Anybody in this country is eligible to apply if they believe they were a victim of weaponisation,” Blanche said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in China on Tuesday evening for a two-day visit centred on talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as Moscow and Beijing draw closer amid war, sanctions and an increasingly fractured global order.

Putin’s visit is the second face-to-face meeting he has held with Xi in less than a year and coincides with the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, the agreement that formalised ties between Russia and China following decades of ideological rivalry and mutual suspicion.

The visit comes just days after United States President Donald Trump left Beijing following his own two-day visit to the Chinese capital for meetings with Xi.

Both Moscow and Beijing are navigating tricky relations with Washington, with analysts saying the unpredictability of Trump’s foreign policy has had the effect of pushing Russia and China even closer together.

Their deepening partnership also comes against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, mounting tensions around Iran, and disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz – a crisis that has rattled global energy markets and renewed Beijing’s concerns over the security of its oil and gas supplies.

With one of the world’s most strategically vital waterways under threat, China has increasingly turned towards Russia as a reliable overland energy supplier.

Analysts say Xi’s decision to host Trump and Putin within the space of a week is no coincidence, reflecting Beijing’s attempt to cast itself as a trusted actor in an increasingly fragmented and volatile world order.

How have China-Russia relations changed over the decades?

China and Russia have long occupied a complicated place in each other’s histories. Once bound together through communist ideology and shared opposition to Western capitalism, the Soviet Union and Maoist China later became bitter rivals, with tensions along their 4,300km (2,670-mile) border bringing the two countries close to conflict during the Cold War.

However, that border has since transformed from a frontier of insecurity into one of strategic cooperation and trade.

Neither Xi nor Putin is a frequent international traveller. Putin is the subject of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant over the war in Ukraine, while Xi rarely leaves China other than for carefully choreographed state visits. But both leaders have invested heavily in maintaining personal ties with each other.

The two have repeatedly called each other “friends”, and their relationship has deepened, particularly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which pushed Moscow further into international isolation and forced the Kremlin to look southeastwards for trade amid Western sanctions.

“Russia and China look confidently towards the future,” Putin said in remarks carried by Russian state media ahead of the visit.

He said the two countries were “actively developing cooperation in politics, economics, defence, expanding cultural exchanges, and fostering interpersonal interaction”.

“In essence, jointly doing everything to deepen bilateral cooperation and advance global development for the wellbeing of both nations,” Putin added.

Why Russia needs China

China has become an economic lifeline for Russia as the country’s economy has shifted to a wartime footing, with two-way trade between the countries more than doubling between 2020 and 2024, when it reached $237bn for the year.

But the relationship is also uneven. While China is Russia’s largest trading partner, Russia accounts for only about four percent of China’s total international trade. China’s economy is also vastly larger, and Beijing holds considerably more leverage in negotiations between the two sides.

Since the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has become increasingly reliant on Chinese technology and manufacturing. A recent Bloomberg report found Russia was sourcing more than 90 percent of its sanctioned technology imports from China, including components with military and dual-use applications vital to drone production and other defence industries.

China has also emerged as a crucial buyer of Russian oil and other energy products at a time when European markets have largely closed to Moscow in response to the Russia-Ukraine war. With Western sanctions restricting Russia’s options, the Kremlin has few viable alternatives to China’s scale of demand.

Analysts say the imbalance means Beijing is often able to negotiate from a position of strength, securing access to Russian oil and gas at discounted prices while expanding its influence over Moscow’s economic future.

Why China still needs Russia

While the relationship is uneven, it is not one-sided. Russia provides something increasingly valuable in a turbulent world: secure access to vast energy resources beyond vulnerable maritime trade routes.

The war surrounding Iran and disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz have heightened Beijing’s concerns over energy security, given China’s heavy dependence on imported oil and gas passing through contested shipping lanes.

That has renewed attention on the proposed Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, a long-delayed project expected to feature prominently in this week’s discussions.

If completed, the pipeline would transport 50 billion cubic metres of Russian gas annually to China via Mongolia, significantly expanding energy flows between the two countries.

But it is more than just an economic relationship. China also values Russia as a geopolitical partner. Both countries are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and frequently align diplomatically in opposition to US-led policies.

While analysts say China has been careful not to become formally tied to Moscow through a rigid military alliance, the two countries have still gradually reinforced their partnership through increasingly regular joint military exercises, including the “Joint Sea” naval drills that began in 2012.

Last year, China and Russia launched fresh naval drills in the Sea of Japan near the Russian port of Vladivostok, with exercises focused on submarine rescue, anti-submarine warfare, air defence, missile defence and maritime combat operations. Analysts say the drills help signal strategic alignment between Beijing and Moscow without the mutual defence commitments of a formal alliance.

Experts say the strength of the partnership lies in its flexibility. While Western governments have often portrayed the relationship as fragile and driven largely by a shared opposition to the West, analysts say, it may prove more durable because it is rooted in shared economic and strategic interests rather than ideology alone.

New Delhi, India — When Argentina’s Gonzalo Montiel converted a penalty to seal his country’s third FIFA World Cup title in December 2022 in Qatar, Lionel Messi fan Vishwas Banerjee celebrated the Albiceleste’s triumph with abandon in Bangalore, a football-crazy city in southeastern India.

Unable to hold back his excitement, Banerjee screamed and tossed his shirt away as he watched the match on a big screen at a street crossing close to midnight.

“It was one of the best nights, watching Messi lift the World Cup,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Everyone went crazy. We danced on the streets,” Banerjee said, reminiscing about the excitement felt more than 3,000 kilometres (1,900 miles) away in an otherwise cricket-mad country.

While Messi is expected to make his World Cup swan song at the upcoming tournament in North America, football fans in India, the world’s most populous nation, are set to miss out on watching the biggest sporting event.

With just over three weeks to the tournament’s kickoff in Mexico, organisers FIFA have not found any buyers for broadcasting its most coveted product in India.

Here’s what we know about the World Cup broadcast rights crisis in the South Asian nation:

How many people watch the FIFA World Cup in India?

When the World Cup was played in Qatar nearly four years ago, India trailed only China in overall engagement figures, with more than 745 million fans following the action across all media platforms in the country, according to figures released by FIFA.

In television viewing numbers, India was among the top 10 countries – ahead of World Cup participants Germany, France and England – with nearly 84 million viewers.

Digital viewership numbers were also significant in India. For the final alone, an unprecedented 32 million viewers tuned in on Reliance’s JioCinema – a subscription video-on-demand over-the-top streaming service – as the tournament clocked 40 billion minutes of watch time on the platform.

Reliance’s Jio paid $60m for tournament rights in 2022, while Sony Sports secured broadcasting rights for the 2014 and 2018 FIFA World Cups, as well as the Euro 2016 championship, for around $90m in 2013.

So when FIFA began selling media rights for the 2026 tournament and the 2027 Women’s Cup, it expected plenty of takers for an estimated price of $100m.

But with 23 days until the tournament and the asking price reportedly slashed significantly, FIFA is still struggling to find buyers in one of its biggest markets.

Why are there no buyers for the World Cup 2026 in India?

Experts say the kickoff times for the majority of the matches are the biggest concern for Indian broadcasters.

With the tournament being staged in the United States, Canada and Mexico, many games will be played at odd hours for the Indian audience, with a 10-12 hour time difference between the host cities and the South Asian nation.

Only 14 out of the total 104 World Cup games will begin before midnight for fans in India.

The final will be held in New Jersey on July 19, beginning at 12:30am in India (19:00 GMT). By comparison, 98.4 percent of matches at the 2018 World Cup started before midnight, and 82.5 percent at the following edition in Qatar.

Karan Taurani, executive vice president at investment firm Elara Capital, sees TV as a “struggling” medium in India.

“When you have these kinds of sporting events, effectively it is mostly digital that is monetising and raising big money,” Taurani told Al Jazeera. “That is a big reason why no one’s showing interest in the FIFA World Cup.”

Taurani explained that cricket leads the sports economy market in India.

“Only a small fraction of people who watch the Indian Premier League [IPL] will watch the FIFA World Cup,” he said, adding that an even smaller fraction tune in past midnight to watch a match.

For broadcasters and advertisers, Taurani explained, these factors shrink the target audience.

He also pointed out that a recent ban by the Indian government on fantasy real-money betting apps had reduced the macro form of money in the sports entertainment industry.

The World Cup begins 10 days after cricket’s IPL 2026 final, one of the most-watched sports events in India and one where major prime-time advertisers focus the majority of their annual sports spending.

The price of football streaming in India has been going down anyway. The English Premier League rights, which were sold for $145m for three seasons between 2013 and 2016, went for $65m for 2025-28. There are no major takers for La Liga matches in India.

FIFA appears increasingly concerned that weak broadcaster interest in India could dent both revenues and its long-term ambition to grow football in one of the world’s largest media markets.

In the capital New Delhi, the high court is hearing a plea on the lack of a tournament broadcast deal and has sought responses from India’s information and broadcasting ministry and Doordarshan, India’s state-owned public television broadcaster.

“Without timely judicial intervention by this court, the petitioner and millions of Indian citizens will be irreparably deprived of their fundamental rights with no adequate alternative remedy,” the petitioner, a lawyer and football fan, has said in the plea.

He claims that missing out on the tournament violates the constitutional protections of freedom of speech.

“It is important to note that by denying access to the information in question or by not taking necessary steps to broadcast the FIFA World Cup, the respondents have directly infringed the petitioner’s fundamental right to acquire and receive information, which is an integral part of freedom of speech and expression under the constitution,” the petitioner argued in the plea.

With China’s state broadcaster signing a late World Cup deal with FIFA last week, there’s still hope and time for football fans in India. However, if no deal is signed, all eyes will turn to Doordarshan, which last beamed the tournament in 1998.

The continuing uncertainty is chipping away at the excitement of the football World Cup. “I’m heartbroken that we will not have any reliable way to watch the World Cup this year,” said Banerjee, the Messi fan from Kolkata.

“But we will tune to pirated streams anyway,” he added. “No one can stop that.”

On Monday morning, a jury in Oakland, California, announced its verdict in one of the most-watched tech feuds between billionaire Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The nine-member jury handed a decisive victory to Altman, saying Musk had waited too long to bring his claims against the artificial intelligence company and its top executives.

Musk, who cofounded OpenAI as a nonprofit, had filed a $150bn lawsuit against the organisation, Altman and its president, Greg Brockman, accusing them of turning it into a for-profit entity for personal enrichment.

The verdict, however, stopped short of resolving the central question at the heart of the case, whether OpenAI betrayed the nonprofit mission on which it was founded in 2015 as it transformed from a research lab focused on benefitting humanity into one of the world’s most powerful AI companies.

Instead, the case became focused on a procedural issue. After deliberating for less than two hours, the jury unanimously found that the statute of limitations had expired before Musk filed the lawsuit in 2024, meaning jurors concluded he had waited too long to bring his claims under the applicable legal deadline. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted the finding and dismissed the case.

The ruling removes a major legal threat for OpenAI at a pivotal moment for the company, which is deepening its commercial partnerships, expanding its relationship with Microsoft and moving towards what could become one of the largest public offerings in Silicon Valley history; while for Musk, the ruling leaves room to argue that the case was lost on timing rather than substance.

Shortly after the verdict, Musk repeated his accusations on X. “Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity. The only question is WHEN they did it!” Musk wrote on X. “Creating a precedent to loot charities is incredibly destructive to charitable giving in America.”

Musk has decided to appeal, ensuring that the increasingly bitter feud between two of Silicon Valley’s most powerful figures is unlikely to end any time soon.

How did Musk and Altman fall out?

Musk and Altman cofounded OpenAI in 2015 alongside Brockman and other researchers at a time when concerns were growing over how AI could reshape society.

The idea, according to testimony and internal discussions presented during the trial, was that the company could focus on building safe AI systems that benefitted humanity rather than prioritising shareholder returns.

Musk and Altman also believed the nonprofit structure would help OpenAI compete with technology giants such as Google by attracting top researchers and positioning the organisation as a mission-driven alternative.

Musk claims he contributed roughly $38m to OpenAI during its early years, but relations between the founders later deteriorated sharply. He resigned from OpenAI’s board in February 2018, officially citing potential conflicts of interest as Tesla became more focused on AI.

But the split deepened after OpenAI created a for-profit subsidiary and Microsoft invested heavily in the company. Microsoft has since committed tens of billions of dollars to its partnership with OpenAI, helping transform ChatGPT into one of the defining products of the global AI boom.

Musk became increasingly critical of the company, arguing that OpenAI had moved far beyond the nonprofit vision on which it was founded. In 2023, he launched a rival AI company, xAI, the maker of the Grok chatbot, before filing his lawsuit against OpenAI the following year.

Why did the case collapse?

At the centre of the trial was a relatively technical legal question about when Musk became aware that OpenAI was moving towards a profit-driven structure.

Because the lawsuit was filed in 2024, Musk needed to convince jurors that the alleged wrongdoing occurred within the legal time limit for bringing his claims.

Musk argued that his concerns fully crystallised only in 2023, particularly after Microsoft’s big investments into OpenAI’s for-profit arm.

But OpenAI’s lawyers argued that Musk had known for years that the company planned to pursue a commercial structure and raise huge amounts of outside funding.

Evidence presented during the trial showed that discussions about creating a for-profit arm dated back to at least 2017. Jurors also heard testimony that Altman had sent Musk documents in 2018 outlining plans for OpenAI to raise billions of dollars through a for-profit structure.

Ultimately, the jury sided with OpenAI’s argument that Musk could have filed his lawsuit much earlier – and therefore waited too long.

That meant jurors never had to answer the more explosive question at the centre of the case about whether OpenAI had actually betrayed its founding mission.

What did OpenAI argue?

OpenAI maintained throughout the trial that there was never an agreement to remain a nonprofit indefinitely. Its lawyers argued that Musk understood from the beginning that developing cutting-edge artificial intelligence would require extraordinary levels of funding and computing power.

OpenAI also portrayed Musk’s lawsuit as partly motivated by rivalry. By the time the case reached court, Musk’s xAI had emerged as a direct competitor to OpenAI in the race to develop advanced AI systems.

Meanwhile, OpenAI had become one of the most powerful companies in the technology industry, reportedly valued at more than $800bn and moving towards what could eventually become one of the largest public offerings in history.

Lawyers for OpenAI argued that Musk became hostile only after losing influence within the company and watching Altman turn OpenAI into the dominant force in generative AI.

What questions did the trial leave unanswered?

Although the verdict was a clear legal victory for OpenAI, the trial never became the sweeping test case about the future of artificial intelligence that many had expected.

Because the case was resolved on procedural grounds, the court did not answer some of the biggest questions raised by the AI boom: how these systems should be governed, who should benefit economically from them, and whether companies developing increasingly powerful AI tools can still claim to act in the public interest while pursuing enormous commercial growth.

The trial also touched only briefly on broader concerns surrounding AI development, including transparency, labour and the extraction of data used to train AI systems.

Nicole Turner Lee, director of the Centre for Technology Innovation, told Al Jazeera that one of the central problems surrounding AI is that the technology is deeply “extractive”.

“It does undergo theft where people do not consent as to whether or not their information, their image, their voice, their text are actually being extracted,” she said, raising concerns about compensation and consent in AI training systems.

Those issues remained largely outside the scope of the trial due to it ultimately centring on procedural issues.

The ruling, therefore, also removed the possibility of a far more disruptive outcome that could have threatened OpenAI’s corporate structure, its partnership with Microsoft and the wider wave of investment pouring into the AI industry.

But the broader debate over AI’s future is far from settled. With Musk preparing an appeal, the courtroom battle between the two former allies looks set to continue alongside wider questions about how AI should be governed.

United States President Donald Trump has withdrawn his $10bn lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) stemming from a leak of his tax returns and said his administration will create a $1.77bn anti-weaponisation fund that would compensate some of Trump’s political allies.

The court filing, released on Monday in Florida, did not disclose the terms of the deal, including whether either party settled.

However, the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday announced the establishment of a $1.77bn fund called the Anti-Weaponisation Fund that would “provide a systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponisation and lawfare”.

The DOJ said in its press release that it was part of the settlement agreement.

ABC News first reported last week that the president was prepared to drop the lawsuit as part of a deal that would create the fund to pay Trump allies who were perceived as wrongly investigated and prosecuted.

Trump, his adult sons Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization sued the IRS in January, arguing the agency should have done more to prevent a former contractor from disclosing their tax returns to media outlets during the president’s first term.

The case arose from former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn’s leak of Trump’s tax returns to media outlets, including the New York Times and ProPublica, in 2019 and 2020.

Those returns showed that Trump paid little or no income taxes in many years, the Times reported in 2020.

Prosecutors charged Littlejohn in 2023 with leaking tax records of Trump and thousands of other wealthy Americans to the media, saying he was motivated by a political agenda. Littlejohn later pleaded guilty to improper disclosures, and a judge sentenced him to five years in prison.

Trump filed the lawsuit personally, not in his official capacity as president.

Political pushback

While the court filing did not mention the terms of any potential deal, news that the president would create a fund to protect his political allies sparked backlash.

Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, called the idea “unconstitutional”.

“This, of course, is a political grievance fund that Donald Trump can use to pay off his friends,” Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in an interview on Sunday with the ABC News programme This Week.

“If these people have a valid cause of action, they should bring it to the court like every other American does, and use the system of due process, and prove things by clear and convincing evidence, or a preponderance of evidence. Go and prove it. But the idea that Donald Trump can just pass it out like a pardon is absurd,” he said.

California Governor Gavin Newsom also criticised the president amid reports of the deal.

“Donald Trump wants to settle his joke lawsuit against his own IRS department to hand out $1.7 BILLION of OUR TAX DOLLARS to Jan. 6th insurrectionists and his cronies,” Newsom said in a post on X.

“It is an outrage that the American taxpayers are having to pay for this and that we have a president who is exercising such open corruption in front of everyone and expecting us to go along with it,” Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington state, told the progressive MeidasTouch network.

Despite the criticisms, it is not clear who would specifically benefit from the funds.

Trump has long claimed that the DOJ under his predecessor, President Joe Biden, a Democrat, was weaponised against him, pointing to the criminal charges where he faced allegations that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost by more than seven million votes, and that he retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Merrick Garland, the attorney general during the Biden administration, denied allegations of politicisation. The Justice Department also investigated prominent Democrats, including Biden’s son Hunter Biden and former US Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey.

“The machinery of government should never be weaponised against any American, and it is this Department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a release.

However, the Trump administration has actively pursued cases against perceived political enemies, including former FBI director James Comey and former Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, Fed Governor Lisa Cook, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, and California Senator Adam Schiff. 

The DOJ said that there is legal precedent for the fund, pointing to a programme called “Keepseagle” under the administration of former US President Barack Obama, a Democrat. That created a fund to address allegations of racism against the federal government.

The White House referred Al Jazeera to the DOJ for a request for comment. The DOJ did not respond.

The government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) announced on X that it would be investigating how the funds would be used.

“While Americans are struggling with an affordability crisis, President Trump plans to use nearly $1.8bn in taxpayer money to pay off his friends and allies—including potentially the violent insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol on January 6th,” CREW’s president, Donald K Sherman, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

“By settling his absurd $10bn lawsuit against his own administration, Trump and the Justice Department just engaged in the most brazen act of self-dealing in the history of the presidency, and did so quickly in order to avoid the scrutiny of the judicial process, while quite likely violating the Constitution’s Domestic Emoluments Clause in the process. This is one of the single most corrupt acts in American history.”

A long time coming

Lawyers for the president asked a federal judge in April to pause the case for 90 days while the two sides worked to reach a settlement or resolution.

“This limited pause will neither prejudice the parties nor delay ultimate resolution,” the filing in April said. “Rather, the extension will promote judicial economy and allow the Parties to explore avenues that could narrow or resolve the issues efficiently.”

When asked in February how he would handle any potential damages from the case, Trump said, “I think what we’ll do is do something for charity.”

“We could make it a substantial amount,” he said at the time. “Nobody would care because it’s going to go to numerous very good charities.”

The litigation against the IRS raised novel legal questions, including conflicts of interest, about whether a president can sue his own government. It is not clear if the judge will accept Trump’s withdrawal of the case.

Under the US Constitution, federal courts may only hear genuine disputes between litigants with opposing stakes in the outcome.

US District Court Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami, who oversees Trump’s lawsuit, wrote last month that it was unclear whether the parties to the lawsuit were “truly antagonistic to each other”.

Williams had set a court hearing for May 27 to hear arguments on whether she should dismiss the case on those grounds.

Former UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting has announced he will run against Prime Minister Keir Starmer as Labour leader if an election is to take place. Streeting voiced strong support for rebuilding ties with Europe, saying the UK should pursue “a new special relationship” with the EU and potentially rejoin the bloc in the future.

China will buy ‘at least’ $17bn worth of US agricultural goods annually, the White House says.

China will buy “at least” $17bn worth of agricultural goods from the United States annually following US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s summit in Beijing, the White House has said.

China will make the purchases through 2028, with the 2026 target applying to the remainder of the year on a proportionate basis, according to a fact sheet released on Sunday.

The White House said the deal is in addition to China’s commitment to buy at least 87 million metric tonnes of US soya beans, which was made at Trump and Xi’s summit in South Korea in October.

China will also restore market access for US beef by renewing the expired listings of more than 400 production facilities, and resume imports of poultry from states determined by the US Department of Agriculture to be free of avian influenza, according to the fact sheet.

Trump and Xi also agreed to establish two new bodies – the US-China Board of Trade and the US-China Board of Investment – to manage trade and investment between the sides, the White House said.

China has yet to confirm or comment on the White House’s announcement.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The White House’s update provides further clarity on the outcome of Trump and Xi’s two-day summit, which was heavy on pageantry and camaraderie but light on concrete agreements.

During their two days of talks in Beijing, Trump and Xi sought greater alignment on economic issues and trade, while largely skirting the sensitive issues of Taiwan and the US-Israel war on Iran.

In a readout after the summit wrapped up on Friday, the White House said the two sides had discussed ways to “enhance economic cooperation”, and that they agreed on the need to keep the Strait of Hormuz open and that Iran “can never have a nuclear weapon.”

Beijing did not explicitly state that Iran should not have nuclear weapons, but stressed the importance of reaching “a settlement on the Iranian nuclear issue and other issues that accommodates the concerns of all parties”.

Neither White House statement contained any mention of Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing views as an integral part of its territory.

The omission of any reference to the island – the defence of which Washington is committed to supporting under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act – came after Xi warned of “clashes and even conflicts” between the superpowers if the issue is not “handled properly”.

After nearly a decade of tit-for-tat economic salvoes between Washington and Beijing, US-Chinese trade is down sharply from its peak.

Their bilateral trade in goods last year came to some $415bn, down from more than $690bn in 2022.

Military and law enforcement clashed with demonstrators outside La Paz, Bolivia, in an attempt to clear roadways that had been blocked as part of nationwide antigovernment protests.

As many as 3,500 soldiers and police were deployed as part of the operation that began in the early hours of Saturday. Around 57 people were arrested, according to the citizens’ rights ombudsman’s office.

Miners, schoolteachers, Indigenous groups and unions have helped to organise the protests, which aimed to convey outrage against the government of centre-right President Rodrigo Paz.

Bolivia is in the grips of an historic economic crisis, considered the worst the country has seen in decades.

The government’s foreign currency reserves have cratered, as exports from Bolivia have slowed down.

Key among those was natural gas. Vast reserves of the fuel were discovered in the late 20th century, and for nearly three decades, those natural gas deposits powered Bolivia’s economy, transforming the South American country into a major energy exporter.

But in 2022, the dynamic switched, amid mismanagement and dwindling supplies. Since then, Bolivia has had to import fuel from abroad, exacerbating its economic crisis.

Currently, many parts of the country have experienced long lines for fuel and shortages of basic supplies like food.

Paz, who was elected in October, had campaigned on alleviating the economic stress. But since taking office, he has spurred outrage by ending a two-decade-old fuel subsidy and pushing to privatise state-owned companies.

Earlier this month, the protests forced the repeal of a land reform measure, Law 1720, that critics claimed could be used to dispossess small, rural landowners, in favour of bigger holdings.

The Bolivian government has estimated that 22 roadblocks have been erected across the country in recent weeks.

Some of the protesters have demanded Paz’s resignation: His election in October marked the end of nearly two decades of rule by the Movement for Socialism (MAS).

But Paz’s office has blamed the demonstrations for cutting off key supplies to cities like La Paz, which holds the seat of government.

Food prices have increased since the blockades began, and the government claims three people have died after being unable to reach hospitals.

According to presidential spokesperson Jose Luis Galvez, Saturday’s crackdown on the protesters was designed to create a “humanitarian corridor” to ensure the free flow of supplies to hospitals in La Paz.

Earlier this week, Paz also thanked his Argentinian counterpart, Javier Milei, for delivering humanitarian assistance to Bolivia.

“This gesture of solidarity not only strengthens the historic bonds of brotherhood between our nations, but also represents vital relief for our communities in times of great need,” Paz wrote on social media on Friday.

Milei responded by denouncing the protesters as anti-democratic.

“Argentina stands with the Bolivian people and supports their democratically elected authorities against those who seek to destabilise the country and obstruct the path toward freedom and progress,” the Argentinian president said.

Early signs point to the United States and China moving towards a relationship focused on pragmatic areas of common interest following US President Donald Trump’s trip to China, according to analysts, setting aside the turmoil that marked 2025.

Trump was in Beijing for three days this week to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, accompanied by a delegation of American CEOs, including the heads of Apple, Nvidia, BlackRock and Goldman Sachs.

The meeting between the two leaders came just over six months after they agreed to pause the US-China trade war for a year on the sidelines of a multilateral summit in South Korea. While a frequent critic of China’s economic policies at home, Trump appeared to get along with Xi in person throughout his trip and lavished praise on the Chinese leader.

“It’s an honour to be with you, it’s an honour to be your friend, and the relationship between China and the USA is going to be better than ever before,” Trump told Xi on Thursday.

The White House readout of the Trump-Xi meeting on Thursday stressed areas of common ground, stating that the leaders had “discussed ways to enhance economic cooperation between our two countries” by “expanding market access for American businesses into China and increasing Chinese investment into our industries”.

Notably absent from the statement was any mention of China’s export controls on rare earths, critical materials used across the tech, defence and energy sectors. China controls nearly the entire industry, and it has moved to restrict US access.

William Yang, senior Northeast Asia analyst at the Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that Trump’s remarks showed he would likely try to compartmentalise US-China relations into areas where the two sides can work together without being overshadowed by geopolitical concerns.

Xi, while less effusive, also spoke of his desire to move towards a new US-China framework based on “constructive strategic stability”, meaning that the US and China should try to “minimise competition, manage differences and allow stability to be the foundation of the bilateral relationship”, according to Yang.

Both leaders appear to have sidestepped other controversial issues, such as the status of Taiwan, a 23 million-person democracy claimed by Beijing but unofficially backed by Washington.

Xi told Trump during their meeting that Taiwan was the “most important issue” in the US-China relationship, and that mishandling it could lead to “clashes and even conflicts” between the two sides. Beijing objects to Washington’s ongoing military support of Taiwan and has pressed the US to take a more explicit line on Taiwan’s political status.

Although the US does not recognise the government in Taipei, it maintains a deliberately vague policy on China’s territorial claims. Despite the controversy, neither the Chinese nor the US readout mentioned whether Trump discussed Taiwan or the future of arms sales – suggesting he either disagreed with Xi or avoided the topic.

Analysts like Yang say it is still too soon to know whether Trump will heed Xi’s remarks by blocking or delaying a $14bn arms deal reportedly in the works for Taiwan. The deal would need Trump’s sign-off to move forward, according to US legislators.

Xi was equally circumspect on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, which has been shuttered since the US and Israel launched a war on Iran on February 28.

Trump has previously pushed China to encourage Iran to reopen the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passed each year before the war, because of its close relationship with Tehran. China and Iran signed a 25-year “strategic partnership” in 2021, and Beijing buys 80 to 90 percent of Iran’s oil annually.

Trump raised the points again in his meeting with Xi in Beijing, according to the US readout, which said the two leaders “agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open to support the free flow of energy”.

“President Xi also made clear China’s opposition to the militarisation of the Strait and any effort to charge a toll for its use, and he expressed interest in purchasing more American oil to reduce China’s dependence on the Strait in the future. Both countries agreed that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon,” the readout said.

The Chinese readout of their meeting on Thursday did not include mention of Iran or its nuclear programme.

Chucheng Feng, founding partner of Hutong Research based in Beijing, told Al Jazeera that the omissions reflect that Xi and Trump still disagree on key issues, including Iran, but that the overall message from the summit was a desire to move forward.

“For Beijing, the most important thing is to find a floor for the relationship, to set up and enhance guardrails so that no surprises or uncontrolled escalations suddenly emerge. For that, item-by-item disagreements are largely secondary,” he said.

Before arriving for his high-stakes summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, United States President Donald Trump aimed to set expectations high.

He said he would urge Xi to “open up” China’s economy and announced a delegation of top business executives, including Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, to accompany him.

As Trump and Xi prepare to wrap up two days of meetings on Friday, the expectations for their summit’s outcome among observers generally are modest at best.

While Trump and Xi are anticipated to extend the one-year pause in their trade war agreed to in South Korea in October, the expectations are for a stabilisation – not revitalisation – in ties between the world’s two largest economies, which are locked in a rivalry that spans everything from trade and artificial intelligence to the status of Taiwan.

“It is important to be clear-eyed about the state of relations here,” Claire E Reade, a senior counsel at Arnold & Porter who previously worked on China at the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), told Al Jazeera.

“China does not trust the US, and China wants to beat the US in what it sees as long-term global competition,” Reade said.

“This limits what can be agreed.”

While Trump and Xi have yet to announce the final contours of any trade agreement, the US side has flagged various business deals in the pipeline.

In a pre-recorded interview with Fox News that aired on Thursday, Trump said that China would invest “hundreds of billions of dollars” in companies run by the CEOs in his delegation, without providing further details.

Trump also said that Beijing had agreed to purchase US oil and 200 Boeing aircraft.

Trump administration officials have said that the sides are also discussing the establishment of a “Board of Investment” to manage investments between the countries.

“A realistic ‘opening up’ of the Chinese market would likely focus first on sectors where the economic complementarity is most obvious,” Taiyi Sun, an associate professor of political science at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, told Al Jazeera.

“Agricultural goods such as soybeans and beef, as well as high-value-added manufacturing products like Boeing aircraft, are natural areas for expansion because they match existing Chinese demand with American export strengths.”

Sun said a “gradual” opening for US firms in sectors such as financial services could also be possible.

“But those areas are politically and institutionally more sensitive inside China, so progress would likely be incremental rather than immediate,” he said.

Gabriel Wildau, a senior vice president at global business advisory firm Teneo, said both sides will be seeking to address supply-chain vulnerabilities exposed by their trade war.

“The Iran war has likely increased the US’s vulnerability to export controls on rare earths, given the need to rebuild the munition stocks depleted in that war,” Wildau told Al Jazeera.

“Washington will therefore be willing to offer tariff relief – or at least assurances not to impose new tariffs – in exchange for Beijing’s commitment to keep rare earth exports flowing.”

While Trump and Xi agreed to roll back some trade barriers at their summit in South Korea, US-Chinese business and trade remain severely constrained after a decade of tit-for-tat economic salvoes between the sides.

The average US tariff on Chinese goods stood at 47.5 percent after the South Korea summit, up from 3.1 percent before Trump’s first term, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

China’s average tariff on US goods stood at 31.9 percent, up from 8.4 percent in 2018, according to the think tank.

Two-way goods trade amounted to about $415bn in 2025, down sharply from its 2022 peak of $690bn.

Carsten Holz, an expert on the Chinese economy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said China has less incentive to make concessions to the US than before, amid the rise of its domestic industries.

“Across many industrial sectors, PRC [People’s Republic of China] firms hold leading or controlling positions,” Holz told Al Jazeera.

“As a result, the PRC economy has little to gain from opening further to the US and is likely to only offer largely symbolic gestures.”

Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore, voiced similar sentiments about the limits of US leverage.

“Basically, Trump expects China to buy more stuff from America and let US companies operate more freely in China,” Elms told Al Jazeera.

“What is he offering?” Elms said. “Very little, largely because Trump sees the bilateral relationship as one where the US has been fair and China has not.”

Reade, the former USTR official, said Xi would not agree to any measures that “harm Chinese interests in any way.”

“Instead, China will potentially give the US no-cost ‘gifts,’” Reade said, suggesting such measures could include the removal of trade barriers it placed on US beef.

“It may buy US goods it needs,” Reade said.

“If it allows purchases of US tech products, it will only be because it needs them right now,” she added, “But this does not interfere with China’s strategic plans to eliminate dependence on US technology over the longer term.”

Protesters have demanded the resignation of President Rodrigo Paz, who was elected on a platform of economic reform.

Demonstrators, led by mining groups and rural unions, have clashed with law enforcement in Bolivia as tensions simmer over the country’s economic crisis, the worst in decades.

On Thursday, small explosions were heard in the midst of the protest in La Paz, credited to miners setting off small sticks of dynamite. Some protesters were reported as attempting to breach the presidential palace.

The unrest follows weeks of road blockades, as miners, farmers, teachers and rural workers express frustration over the country’s ongoing economic turmoil.

Bolivia used to be a major exporter of natural gas, but in recent years, its reserves began to shrivel, and its production has plummeted. Now, rather than being a fuel exporter, it has become a net importer, reliant on oil and natural gas from abroad.

The collapse of the natural gas industry has been coupled with dwindling supplies of foreign currency in the country. The result has been soaring inflation, supply shortages and higher prices.

Bolivians have experienced long lines for fuel, and hospitals have reported a lack of basic supplies like oxygen and medication.

Centre-right leader Rodrigo Paz was elected in October last year in part on a promise to address the economic tailspin.

His victory marked a political sea change in Bolivia. For much of the past two decades, except for a brief period in 2019, the country has been governed by the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS).

The decline of MAS has been credited, in part, to the uproar over the economy.

But on Thursday, Paz likewise faced calls from protesters for his resignation, just as his MAS predecessor, Luis Arce, had.

Earlier in the day, a group of 20 miners were invited to the presidential palace to meet with Paz and discuss their demands, according to the Reuters news agency.

Ahead of the meeting, Economy Minister Jose Gabriel Espinoza said his government was “open to dialogue”.

Among the issues reportedly discussed were fuel subsidies, welfare benefits and changes to an agrarian reform measure, Law 1720, that was repealed on Wednesday after outcry.

Still, officials have refused demands that Paz step down. “The president is not going to resign,” Mauricio Zamora, the minister of public works, services and housing, said earlier this month.

Some of Paz’s allies have blamed the unrest on former President Evo Morales, a former trade union leader who continues to draw popular support in Bolivia’s rural areas.

Morales, who led Bolivia from 2006 to 2019, previously supported protests against Paz’s predecessor Arce, after splitting from MAS.

He is also the subject of an arrest warrant: Morales has been accused of statutory rape and was held in contempt of court for failing to show up to a hearing last week.

A prolific social media user, Morales posted multiple times on Thursday about the protests, accusing the government of using him as a scapegoat. He also echoed calls for officials to address the shortages of food, fuel and other basic supplies.

“They believe that the thousands of Bolivians currently protesting — in the streets and on the roads — are merely obeying a single individual,” Morales wrote in one post.

“The outraged are driven by their social conscience and their fury against a government that, from day one, betrayed its constituents and the nation.”

Istanbul, Turkiye – When investigations by Al Jazeera and other media outlets in 2024 revealed that Israeli-linked artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as Lavender and Gospel had helped generate thousands of military targets in Gaza, critics warned that warfare was entering a new era – one driven not only by soldiers and bombs, but by algorithms, data, and surveillance technology.

Then, in September 2024, thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by members of Hezbollah exploded in coordinated attacks in Lebanon, widely attributed to Israeli intelligence operations that had turned ordinary communication devices into weapons.

And, last year, reporting by Al Jazeera also raised concerns about the use of cloud and data infrastructure linked to major US technology companies in Israeli surveillance operations involving Palestinians.

For a growing number of scholars, economists and political thinkers, such developments reflect more than just the changing nature of conflict. They show how power in the modern world is increasingly exercised not just through military force, but through technology, finance and control over information.

That argument has revived broader debates around decolonisation – a term historically associated with the dismantling of European empires after World War II, when countries across Asia, Africa and the Middle East gained formal independence.

But many proponents of what is termed “decolonial theory” – a school of thought arguing that colonial-era systems of power and hierarchy still shape modern politics, economics and knowledge – argue that colonial power structures never fully disappeared. Instead, they evolved, embedding themselves in global financial systems, technology platforms, media networks and even the production of knowledge itself.

Dependence of Global South countries on Western technology, digital infrastructure and global markets can create new forms of political and economic vulnerability, particularly across the Global South.

“A generation may have grown up believing they had never experienced colonialism or exploitation,” Esra Albayrak, board chair of the NUN Foundation for Education and Culture and daughter of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told Al Jazeera during the World Decolonization Forum in Istanbul on May 11-12.

“Yet, mentally, they may still be living under colonial influence.”

The war in Gaza marked a turning point, Albayrak says, shining a spotlight on how international principles are not applied equally. Global institutions have so far failed to stop what many countries and rights groups have described as genocide against Palestinians.

“The world is sounding an alarm, and we can no longer afford to remain indifferent to it,” she said.

A techno-feudal era

Albayrak argues that a handful of technology companies are emerging as new, invisible centres of power, shaping how information is produced, circulated and consumed in the digital age.

She describes the digital sphere as the realm of what she calls “future colonialism”, warning that AI systems trained largely on Western-centric data risk reinforcing existing global inequalities.

“When AI systems are run by those tech companies and trained on Western sources, they risk carrying the hierarchies of the past into tomorrow’s digital world, as they now have personalised data, suppressing identity,” Albayrak said.

By this, she means that most major AI models are still trained largely on English-language and Western-produced data – a pattern critics say risks sidelining non-Western languages, cultures and perspectives.

On social media platforms, algorithms tend to amplify some conflicts while rendering others nearly invisible, effectively shaping what billions of users see, discuss and remember online.

Walter D Mignolo, professor at Duke University, argues that while what we historically see as “formal colonialism” may have largely ended, systems of Western dominance continue through economics, culture, technology and knowledge production.

“Coloniality is not over. It is all over the world,” Mignolo said, arguing that modern ideas of development and progress often have the effect of pressuring societies to conform to Western norms.

Rather than simply resisting those systems, he said, societies must find a way to “re-exist” by rebuilding intellectual and cultural autonomy outside dominant global frameworks.

Colonisers in the financial age

The March 2026 Global Debt Report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reveals that 44 countries face severe debt burdens, often aggravated by global conflicts, forcing some governments to spend more on interest payments than on health or education.

This is not a new phenomenon, as developing countries have been labouring under the weight of foreign debt for decades.

But British political economist and author Ann Pettifor told Al Jazeera that modern forms of domination are now increasingly embedded not in empires or nation-states, but in financial systems operating beyond democratic oversight.

Pettifor points to the growing influence of “shadow” banking networks – financial institutions operating largely outside traditional banking regulations – and giant asset managers such as BlackRock, which manages $13 trillion in assets.

Much of the global financial architecture now functions largely outside the regulatory control of governments, she says, including that of Western states themselves.

“This is not a state colonising other states,” Pettifor said. “This is the financial system colonising the whole world, including my country and the US.”

She argues that elected governments increasingly struggle to control key economic realities – from energy prices to commodity markets – because those systems are dictated by global financial actors operating far beyond public accountability.

In Nigeria, for example, Pettifor says, efforts to expand domestic refining capacity continue to face pressure from international financial institutions and global energy markets to keep fuel prices tied to global markets and maintain reliance on imported refined oil products, despite its vast oil reserves.

Coordinated cooperation between developing nations may be necessary to challenge the dominance of Western-centred financial systems, Pettifor says, pointing to growing efforts across parts of West Africa to expand regional refining capacity and reduce dependence on imported fuel. Yet such ambitions can also leave critical sectors dependent on the decisions and influence of a small number of powerful private actors.

Global financial markets, algorithm-driven platforms, and foreign-controlled digital infrastructure increasingly define everyday life – from fuel and food prices to the information people consume online and the technologies governments and societies depend on, observers say.

A ‘mastery complex’

As wars become increasingly influenced by AI, digital infrastructure and financial dependency, debates around colonisation are focusing less on territorial control and more on who influences energy prices, lending systems, access to technology and the flow of information across borders, observers say.

Albayrak draws a parallel between today’s debates around technology and global power and Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem “The White Man’s Burden”, published as the US took control of the Philippines following the Spanish-American War. The poem framed colonial expansion as a moral obligation to “civilise” other societies rather than an exercise of domination.

Albayrak said such traces of “mastery complex” still survive today, though in different forms – not necessarily through military occupation, but through technological, financial and informational influence.

But what the world really needs, she argues, is a global order built not on hierarchy, but on shared responsibility.

“The burden should belong to humanity collectively.”

The next global food crisis is unfolding in a narrow stretch of water.

The United Nations warns that if fertilisers cannot pass through the Strait of Hormuz within just a few weeks, the world could face mass starvation.

It says the consequences could be severe if shipping disruptions linked to the Iran conflict drag on.

Food prices are already at a three-year high, while fertiliser costs critical for agriculture have rocketed.

Aid agencies fear a prolonged disruption could push tens of millions more people into hunger.

For vulnerable economies already struggling with debt and high import costs, the risks are growing fast.

After successfully launching Nigeria’s only operational oil refinery in 2024, billionaire businessman Aliko Dangote has set his sights on East Africa as the next location for another mega refinery project, according to recent reports.

It comes as African countries are actively seeking ways to make energy more secure, following huge global disruptions amid the US and Israel’s war on Iran and Tehran’s subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and natural gas is shipped.

Dangote, Africa’s richest man, appeared to be one of the winners from this fallout when his newly operational refinery, located in Nigeria’s commercial Lagos State, began selling large volumes of crude oil across the continent as the war on Iran escalated in March and global oil prices soared.

At present, West, South and East Africa rely primarily on importing refined petroleum products from the Middle East, meaning they are highly vulnerable to disruptions there.

Neighbours of Nigeria – Cameroon, Togo, Ghana and even Tanzania, further to the east – are among the countries that have turned to Nigeria as supplies from the Middle East dry up.

By the end of March, the refinery, which has the capacity to produce 650,000 barrels per day (bpd), reported it was also receiving orders from beyond the continent, especially for severely scarce jet fuel as hundreds of flights were cancelled across regions.

Supply from Dangote’s refinery has cushioned the impact of the war in terms of fuel supply for Nigeria and neighbouring countries, analysts say.

Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer, and the $19bn project in Lagos is currently the world’s largest single-train refinery, meaning it employs a single processing line rather than multiple units. But it hit full production capacity in February 2026, the same month the war with Iran started.

Nigeria has no functional state-owned refinery, so Dangote’s refinery is now positioning the country to be a net exporter of jet fuel and diesel.

Here’s why more refining capacity in Africa matters for the continent:

What is Dangote’s plan for an East Africa refinery?

In April, Kenya’s President William Ruto announced that East African countries were in talks to build a joint oil refinery at Tanzania’s Tanga port, which would have a similar capacity to Dangote’s Lagos operation.

“We do not want to be held hostage any more by the Strait of Hormuz,” Ruto said at a Nairobi business event in April, which Dangote was present at.

“We do not want to be held hostage by wars that are started by other people. We have our resources here, and we are saying we are going to use our African resources to industrialise our region.”

In an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday, however, Dangote said he would prefer to build the new operation in Kenya rather than Tanzania.

“I’m leaning more towards Mombasa because Mombasa has a much larger, deeper port,” the billionaire told the UK newspaper.

“Kenyans consume more. It’s a bigger economy,” he said, adding that “the ball is in the hands of President Ruto … Whatever President Ruto says is what I’ll do.”

He has projected construction costs of between $15bn and $17bn.

But venturing into East Africa, which has a very different commercial landscape from West Africa, could prove a challenge, analyst Dumebi Oluwole of Lagos-based intelligence firm Stears told Al Jazeera.

“Dangote has proven it [his operation] can build at scale,” she said. “The East African test will be whether it can also navigate the political and logistical landscape of a fragmented, multi-country market.”

Why aren’t African countries already producing more oil?

Despite having sizeable crude reserves, African countries only refine about 44 percent of the total oil consumed themselves, with imports making up the rest, according to a 2022 African Union report.

The top producers of refined oil are Algeria, Egypt and South Africa. There are about 21 refineries in North Africa.

Southern Africa has another seven, while West Africa has 14. However, most refineries in the two regions are either not operating or are producing below the capacity they are equipped to.

East Africa’s only existing refinery is in Mombasa, but it stopped operating in 2013 due to a combination of slow government policies and exiting investors, who deemed it commercially unviable as a result.

There is currently no refining capacity at all in East Africa, despite the region having about 4.7 billion barrels of crude reserves, according to the African Union, mainly in Uganda, South Sudan, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Kenya imported 40 million barrels of petroleum in 2025. It regularly buys oil from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, India and Oman, all of which have been hampered by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Nigeria itself is Africa’s biggest net crude producer with a 1.5 million to 1.6 million bpd capacity. The country has not refined meaningfully since 2019.

What difference will local refineries make for African countries?

Exporting most of its crude to then import refined products is expensive and puts Africa on the back foot, analyst Oluwole said.

More oil refined on the continent would mean lower petrol pump prices, lower transport costs, and more energy available for people and businesses, in theory. It would also mean greater access to by-products like fertilisers for farmers, for example, or petrochemicals for manufacturers.

“Dangote has demonstrated that a viable, scalable, intra-African energy supply option is possible – that proof of concept matters enormously,” said Oluwole.

“It reflects a growing continental conviction that Africa can provide for itself, and that this is no longer wishful thinking,” she added.

In Nigeria’s case, Dangote’s refinery is yet to ease pressures, though. Local airlines, for example, have complained about having to pay high prices for jet fuel even with improved local supplies. Analysts say that could be because Nigeria’s government removed fuel subsidies in 2023. Bureaucracy within the state oil company also forced Dangote’s refinery to import crude.

Still, the refinery is contributing to “a more transparent and competitive market”, Oluwole said, adding that results should eventually show.

Other countries are stepping up. Last week, Angola’s $470m Cabinda refinery began supplying domestic as well as foreign markets. The project is owned primarily by the United Kingdom’s Gemcorp Capital and has a capacity of 30,000bpd, with plans to double by the end of 2026.

Dangote’s planned refinery in Kenya, if completed, could also help to reduce East Africa’s reliance on the Middle East.

A separate, government-funded refinery project in Uganda’s Hoima region is also in the works. Authorities expect the project to be able to refine 60,000bpd when it starts operations in 2029. It will be fed by the joint Uganda-Tanzania East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), an ongoing project which will transport crude from Uganda’s Lake Albert to Tanzania’s Tanga Port.

Uganda also plans to produce diesel, jet fuel, kerosene and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).

With big plans in place, Oluwole says it’s now left to African governments to create enabling business environments for the private sector.

“Dangote has opened the door,” she said. “The question now is whether African institutions and governments will walk through it.”

US Department of Energy moves to transfer 53.3 million barrels amid rising oil prices.

The United States has announced its latest release of emergency oil stockpiles in coordination with the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The US Department of Energy said on Monday that it had begun transferring 53.3 million barrels from the strategic petroleum reserve after awarding contracts to nine companies under its emergency exchange programme.

Trafigura Trading LLC, a Texas-based commodities trading company, was granted the biggest haul of nearly 13 million barrels, with Marathon Petroleum Corporation and ExxonMobil set to receive 12.4 million barrels and 11.4 million barrels, respectively.

Macquarie Commodities Trading US, Atlantic Trading & Marketing, BP Products North America, Energy Transfer Crude Marketing, Mercuria Energy America and Phillips 66 will receive between 1.05 million and 6.55 million barrels each, according to the Energy Department.

Under the department’s exchange scheme, participating firms are required to replenish the stockpile with new barrels at a later date.

“These actions continue to move oil swiftly into the market, address near-term supply needs, and ensure that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve remains strong through the return of premium barrels,” Kyle Haustveit, the head of the department’s Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office, said in a statement.

The transfer comes after US President Donald Trump’s administration agreed in March to release 172 million barrels of crude as part of the IEA’s coordination of the largest unloading of global stockpiles in history.

Oil prices have surged since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran in late February, with Tehran’s retaliatory blockade of the Strait of Hormuz paralysing one of the world’s most important trade routes.

Maritime traffic in the strait has ground to a halt amid Iranian threats against commercial shipping, disrupting about one-fifth of the global oil trade.

Oil prices continued to edge higher on Monday after Trump dismissed Iran’s latest peace proposal and warned that the ceasefire between the sides was “on life support”, dampening hopes for a quick resolution to the conflict.

Facing growing public discontent over rising fuel prices, Trump on Monday also pledged to waive the 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal tax on petrol, though taxation is the purview of the US Congress.

Futures for Brent crude, the international benchmark, were up about 1 percent in Asia on Tuesday morning, topping $105 a barrel.

Senator Hawley plans legislative action supporting President Trump’s bid to waive the petrol tax amid rising consumer costs.

United States President Donald Trump said he will cut the 18-cent federal tax on petrol to offset surging prices that have continued to soar after his comments that the US ceasefire with Iran is on “life support”.

On Monday, Trump said he would suspend the petrol tax, but did not specify an end date.

“Yup, we’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time, and when gas goes down, we’ll let it phase back in,” Trump told CBS News.

Trump later told reporters that he would waive the tax, which generates $2.5bn in funds used for US roadway infrastructure, “till it’s appropriate”.

The US administration hinted at the idea on Sunday, when US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told the NBC News programme Meet the Press that the White House was considering suspending the tax.

While the Republican president claimed he would waive the tax, that is not within the White House’s authority. Suspending a federal tax requires an act of the US Congress.

However, key Trump ally Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, said on the social media platform X that he would introduce legislation on Monday to do that.

In March, Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona, proposed suspending the tax until October.

“I anticipate it would pass, but there could be a procedural delay. It also suggests that President Trump doesn’t see a quick end to the reduced volumes and is trying to cushion the American consumer,” Rachel Ziemba, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Al Jazeera.

“The impact could be greater in states that have also reduced their own petrol taxes and could reinforce differentiation between petrol prices by region.”

US states also tax petrol, with Indiana, Kentucky and Georgia moving to make cuts to give consumers some relief at the pump.

Petrol prices have continued to climb since the initial strikes of the US-Israel war on Iran on February 28. The average price for a gallon (3.78 litres) of regular petrol is $4.52, according to the American Automobile Association, which tracks daily petrol prices, compared with $2.98 when the strikes first began.

However, news of the stumbling ceasefire has sent oil prices surging. Brent crude futures were up $3.17, or 3.13 percent, at $104.46 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude was at $98.32 a barrel, up $2.90, or 3.04 percent. Brent reached a session high of $105.99 and WTI hit a peak of $100.37.

On Wall Street, stocks for oil and gas giants are trending upward. Shell was up 1.6 percent in midday trading, Exxon rose 3.1 percent, BP gained 2 percent, and Chevron climbed 1.7 percent.

Airline bailout?

Trump was also asked by CBS on Monday whether a bailout was planned for the airline industry, which has taken a hit since the war on Iran began.

The president told the outlet that a bailout had not “really been presented” and that “the airlines are doing not badly”.

However, earlier this month, budget carrier Spirit Airlines ceased operations after 34 years. Court documents said the airline shut down because of “recent geopolitical events resulting in a massive and sustained increase in fuel prices”.

That comes as other major US carriers raise prices. In April, United Airlines said it would raise fares by 20 percent amid a surge in jet fuel costs.

Official says US president will likely ‘apply pressure’ on China over Beijing’s purchase of Iranian oil amid war.

Donald Trump is set to arrive in Beijing on Wednesday evening to discuss the Iran war and other issues with his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping.

White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said an opening ceremony and meeting will be on Thursday morning, and the trip will conclude on Friday. The US plans to host the Chinese leader during a reciprocal visit later this year.

Kelly said that this week’s trip would be of “tremendous symbolic significance” and focus on “rebalancing the relationship with China and prioritising reciprocity and fairness to restore American economic independence”.

Trump’s visit, initially scheduled for earlier this year but postponed in March due to the US-Israel war on Iran, comes as the US president struggles to contain the fallout from the war, both at home and abroad.

A senior administration official told news outlets in an anonymous briefing on Sunday that Trump could “apply pressure” to China on Iran in areas such as oil sales and Tehran’s purchase of potential dual-role military-civilian goods.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week accused China of “funding” Iran.

“Iran is the largest state sponsor of terrorism, and China has been buying 90 percent of their energy, so they are funding the largest state sponsor of terrorism,” Bessent told Fox News.

Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to US-Israeli attacks, restricting passage through a key artery of global energy transport.

China has said that it wants to see the war end and hosted Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Arraghchi last week. At the same time, Beijing has refused to recognise Washington’s “unilateral” sanctions on Iran’s oil sector.

Disruptions stemming from the war have disrupted the global economy, with Asian states that depend on imports from the Middle East especially hard hit.

Trump could also bring up China’s support for Russia during the talks, along with trade and rare earth minerals, a vital resource for the US tech sector. Business executives from aerospace manufacturer Boeing and a handful of agricultural companies are set to travel with the US delegation.

The anonymous administration official said that no change was expected regarding the US stance on Taiwan, a main sticking point in relations between Washington and Beijing. China considers the self-ruling island a part of its territory, but the US has deep security and economic commitments to Taiwan.

Tehran, Iran – Skyrocketing inflation is jeopardising food security among households in conflict-hit Iran, new figures show, as diplomatic efforts to end the war launched by the United States and Israel intensify.

“The people must realistically understand the conditions and restrictions of the country,” President Masoud Pezeshkian told a group of officials who gathered on Sunday to discuss rebuilding structures damaged or destroyed in US and Israeli attacks.

“It is natural that there are difficulties and problems in this path, but through people’s cooperation and reliance on national cohesion, problems can be solved,” he was quoted as saying by state media.

Pezeshkian’s comments came a day after the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) said Farvardin, the first month of the Persian calendar year that ended on April 20, had an inflation rate of 73.5 percent compared to the same month of the previous year. The SCI also noted that inflation was five percent higher in Farvardin compared to the previous month.

The Central Bank of Iran, which reports figures based on a different method and with different data sets, reported a slightly lower inflation rate of 67 percent for Farvardin compared to a year earlier, and a seven percent monthly increase.

Although not matched, both figures indicate a considerably accelerating pace for general inflation, which has been among the highest in the world over recent years, and is continuously making Iranians poorer.

A Tehran resident told Al Jazeera she could no longer afford some of the items she could just last month.

“And it’s not just me – I think most people in society right now can’t afford many of the things they want,” she said.

Figures from the institutions also showed that food inflation is much higher than headline inflation, meaning that people are increasingly forced to pay an expanding share of their shrinking salaries on basic items.

The SCI reported a staggering 115 percent food inflation rate for the first month of the year, compared to the same period the year before, with several staple items more than tripling in price.

Solid vegetable oil had the highest increase at 375 percent, followed by liquid cooking oil at 308 percent; imported rice at 209 percent; Iranian rice at 173 percent; and chicken at 191 percent. The lowest price hikes were for butter, at 48 percent, followed by infant formula at 71 percent and pasta at 75 percent.

Majid, a young man who works at a liver kebab shop in the capital, said the eatery has increased prices three times in recent months.

“The price of liver has doubled. When we ask suppliers why, they either say there’s a shortage or that sheep are being exported. Honestly, there’s no real oversight,” he said.

The state-run Consumers and Producers Protection Organization said in a directive sent to 31 governors across Iran on Sunday that new price hikes for cooking oil are “illegal” and “must be returned to previous levels”, without saying how officials expected that to happen amid deteriorating economic conditions.

The country’s embattled currency, the rial, has also been registering new all-time lows over the past two weeks. On Sunday afternoon, it stood at about 1.77 million against the US dollar in Tehran’s open market after marginally recovering. The rate was about 830,000 per US dollar a year ago.

Subsidies and ‘enemy plots’

The response from the government has included offering subsidies and coupons, while trying to crack down on acts such as hoarding that are perceived to be contributing to price hikes.

But this has not been accompanied by a clear macroeconomic stabilisation package as the US presses on with a naval blockade of Iranian ports.

As Iranian media reported on Sunday that Tehran had sent an official response to the text for an agreement earlier proposed by the US through mediator Pakistan, Pezeshkian said, “If there is talk of negotiations, it does not mean surrender.”

The government hands out monthly cash subsidies and electronic vouchers to buy essential goods at select stores, which together amount to less than $10 each month per person. Authorities are considering raising the amount, but a hefty budget crunch has made that more difficult.

Pezeshkian and Central Bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati have said they are aware of the price increases, but have blamed the war that began in late February while coordinating with the judiciary to act against price gauging and hoarding.

A number of lawmakers in Iran’s hardline-dominated parliament, as well as state television hosts and outlets linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have said the price surges are suspicious. They have described the runaway prices as being part of an “economic revenge” campaign by enemies who suffered failures in the military arena.

“I want the people of Iran not to be fooled by the enemy-made price hikes,” a guest on state television’s Ofogh network said on Saturday. “Great things have happened, and great things are ahead. The economic achievements of the war are unrivalled by any other period.”

But some of the economic pain continues to be inflicted as a direct result of a near-total internet shutdown now being imposed by Iranian authorities for a 72nd day.

Numerous officials in the government, internet infrastructure firms, telecommunication companies and other state-linked organisations have emphasised that they are against a tiered internet system that is now being implemented. But they have said they bear no responsibility, since the blackout, which is expected to remain in place until the war ends, is ordered by the Supreme National Security Council.

In the meantime, the combined impact of local mismanagement, Western sanctions, blockade, war and the internet shutdown is squeezing people and businesses hard.

“The startup ecosystem of the country is dead, we are searching for a tombstone for it,” the Guild Association of Internet-based Businesses said in a statement on Saturday.

San Francisco, United States – Greer Dove’s days are packed with studying business and finance, as well as doing administrative work at college, along with caring for her eight-year-old daughter with special needs. But once a week, Dove, a single mother, makes sure to drop in at the food bank in California’s Marin County to pick up vegetables, fruit and other food. Along with the federal government’s food benefits, they keep her housing running.

“We need this so we can keep functioning at a high level,” she says. “She loves fruit, so I make sure to get it,” she says of her daughter.

Dove, who is also looking for a full-time job, has worked in restaurants, event management, retail, television shows, office administration and payroll over the years. But she has been on the federal government’s Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) for six years, and with the food bank, for more than three years. Before she got food benefits, Dove fed her daughter all she had and skipped meals or looked around for snacks in the offices she worked at to get her through the day.

United States President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), passed in June, cut SNAP benefits by more than $186bn over the next 10 years to make up for extending cuts to income tax. This could lead to more than 3 million people nationwide, and 665,000 recipients in California, losing such food benefits, according to estimates.

“This will bring a series of cuts that collectively present an existential threat to food benefits,” says Andrew Cheyne, managing director of government relations and public affairs at the County Welfare Directors Association of California.

California’s proposed billionaire tax, which seeks to impose a one-time 5 percent tax on the assets of the state’s more than 200 billionaires to make up for the funding gap created by the OBBBA, got more than 1.5 million signatures in April. It is likely to be on the ballot for the November midterm election.

While most of the nearly $100bn expected to be raised through the tax will go towards filling the gap in health insurance created by the OBBBA, 10 percent will be used to make up for the retrenchment in food benefits.

In California, where more than 5.3 million people, more than any other state, receive food benefits, the impacts of the cuts began to be felt in April when 72,000 immigrants started losing benefits. June onwards, nearly 600,000 recipients will be screened for work eligibility. Recipients, including those who are homeless, seniors, foster youth and veterans, will have to work, study or volunteer to receive food benefits. Failing the screening to meet work requirements for three months will lead to their food benefits being cut.

Brian Galle, professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley and one of the tax measure’s authors, says that in California, the state that introduced gig work, “jobs are increasingly precarious. You may find enough work or not. You may get tips or not. But nutrition needs are steady.”

Making impossible choices

On a recent Friday morning, new members lined up to enrol at a whitewashed, bunting-festooned La Ofrenda food bank in San Francisco’s Mission district. The food bank doles out fresh vegetables, fruit and bread that have been donated by large grocery stores once those products neared expiration date.

Gladys Lee had taken a 45-minute train ride after a friend told her about it. Lee worked at downtown San Francisco’s Hyatt hotel as a room cleaner for three decades until a back injury meant she could not push the heavy cleaning carts any more and had to leave. After seven years of struggling to find work, food was getting scarce, and Lee found her way to La Ofrenda. She packed what she could into a carton and held it in her arms for the train ride back.

Food benefit rolls have shrunk by more than 3.3 million nationally in the six months from July 2025, when the OBBBA was enacted, to January 2026.

In California, the rolls of Calfresh, as food benefits are known in the state, shrank by 288,000 or 6 percent from July 2025 to February 2026, according to analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington, DC-based think tank. This reduction in rolls happened even before the OBBBA cuts began.

Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary, wrote in a recent essay that the shrinking of SNAP rolls reflected an ebullient economy and buoyant job growth.

“The drop in SNAP recipients affirms that many Americans are moving from welfare to work,” she wrote. “It is no secret that Trump’s massive tax cuts and deregulation efforts are unleashing robust, private sector-led economic growth, which are fueling trillions in investments, booming wage growth”.

But unemployment remained stable at about 4.4 percent since July 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, while SNAP rolls shrank.

“This last time we saw such a steep, quick decline, other than during natural disasters, is three decades ago when welfare reform was enacted,” says Dottie Rosenbaum, senior fellow and director of  Federal SNAP Policy at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

Nationally, SNAP rolls shrank by 8 percent, while in California, they shrank by 5.5 percent, in part because the work eligibility requirements were delayed until June, while some other states have already implemented them.

At La Ofrenda, Roberto Alfaro, executive director of the nonprofit Homey, says he started the food bank when food costs went up during the pandemic. They have stayed high, he says. Now he sees people doing day jobs and night jobs and coming for food when they have paid rent.

“People are making impossible choices,” says Keely O’Brien, a policy advocate at the Western Center for Law and Poverty.

While California is the world’s fourth-largest economy, growth has come with a soaring cost-of-living crisis.

“With rising housing and utility costs, few households can dedicate that much of their income towards food,” O’Brien says.

The OBBA has also shifted the administrative cost of meeting work eligibility requirements to states, and beginning next year, part of the cost of SNAP will also fall on states.

“To make requirements more stringent, you are creating more government, more bureaucratic logjam,” says Jaren Sorkow, state director for the Children’s Defence Fund.

This has already led to a 51 percent drop in SNAP rolls in Arizona, which has begun implementing the OBBBA cuts, according to data by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

Making something from nothing

Several measures to counter the $100bn gap in funding for health insurance and food benefits created by the OBBBA have been floated in California. The biggest of these is the one-time 5 percent tax on those with assets of more than a billion dollars. The tax will raise $100bn, its authors estimate.

As it seems set to be voted on in the November election, it faces mounting opposition from the state’s tech entrepreneurs who have funded measures to undercut the tax.

Tech entrepreneurs have called it an economic 9/11, saying taxing their assets, including shareholding in startups, will lead to a flight of capital and innovation from the state. Sergey Brin, a cofounder of Google Inc, now spends a week in Nevada and a week in his Bay Area offices and has spent more than $57m on opposing the billionaire tax. He has backed two measures that undercut the billion tax, which have also received 1.4 million and 1.5 million signatures and are also set to be on the ballot for the November election.

One of these measures prohibits future taxes on personal property, including financial assets, savings and retirement accounts, as well as intellectual property. The other would increase audits of taxpayer-funded programmes, and includes language that would essentially invalidate the billionaire tax.

In a recent statement to The New York Times, Brin said, “I fled socialism with my family in 1979 and know the devastating, oppressive society it created in the Soviet Union. I don’t want California to end up in the same place.”

The coalition of unions backing the billionaire tax is bracing for the fight ahead. “We expect to be outspent,” says Kris Cuaresma-Primm, director of partnerships for the coalition that is backing the billionaire tax. “We will keep communicating to people that there is a tidal wave of pain coming from the cuts, and we want to reclaim the losses from the OBBBA.”

Giulia Varaschin, senior tax policy adviser at the International Tax Observatory, who recently coauthored a study on wealth taxes, says there is little academic evidence that such taxes cause the wealthy to leave at a notable scale. “There is only a marginal flight with very little, if any, economic impact,” she says.

The study, coauthored with the economist Gabriel Zucman, who supports the California billionaire tax, did find that wealth taxes had not raised as much revenue as estimated in several European countries and became less popular as a result.

Varaschin says this was because these taxes were levied on a larger set of the wealthy, which included homeowners or small businesses, rather than the ultra-rich or billionaires. The taxpayers could hardly afford to pay it, and the government made exemptions instead. These taxes also did not touch assets, where much of the wealth of the ultra-rich lies, Varaschin says.

The California tax remedies this by taxing only billionaires and taxing assets, including shares in companies.

Daniel Shaviro, Wayne Perry professor of taxation at New York University, says, “Traditionally, these taxes can be hard to enforce because tax administration don’t want to go after these people.”

Even if it passes, “The governor could just say this is not a high priority for him and not enforce it,” Shaviro says, referring to Governor Gavin Newsom, who has opposed the tax.

But Primm says, “The governor is out of touch with Californians on this”.

Newsom is in the last year of his last term as governor. However, nearly all the candidates running for the June 2 primary for governor, except billionaire Tom Steyer, who is running as a progressive Democrat, also oppose this measure. While some have said this will lead to a flight of capital, others say the spending plan does not include expenses for education, which was not cut in the OBBBA.

Greer Dove, who gets food through Calfresh and the San Francisco Marin Food Bank for herself and her daughter, says the looming food benefit cuts are worrying. “The anxiety of it all is adding up. I could be next.”

Caught between rising inflation and slowing growth, the United States Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England are keeping interest rates and borrowing costs steady.

That’s despite rising energy bills, fuel and food costs squeezing businesses and households worldwide.

The International Monetary Fund is warning of a global slowdown, and no one knows how long the energy shock set off by the US-Israel war on Iran will last.

The impact will be felt hardest in emerging markets and developing nations. Central banks face a tough choice: fight rising prices or support a weakening economy.

Brent crude rises amid clashes in critical waterway.

Oil prices have jumped after clashes between United States and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz pushed their tenuous ceasefire to the brink.

Futures for Brent crude rose as much as 7.5 percent during a volatile trading session on Thursday, before easing as Asia’s markets opened on Friday morning.

The international benchmark stood at $101.12 per barrel as of 03:00 GMT, down from the day’s high of $103.70.

The latest rise came after the US and Iran exchanged fire in the critical strait, a conduit for about one-fifth of global oil and natural gas supplies, despite the truce announced between the sides on April 7.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said it launched strikes on Iran after three US Navy guided-missile destroyers came under attack from Iranian missiles, drones and small boats in the strait.

Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters earlier accused the US of violating the ceasefire by attacking an Iranian oil tanker and another vessel in the vicinity of the waterway.

The Iranian military headquarters also accused the US of targeting civilian areas, including Qeshm Island.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday appeared to downplay the clashes, saying the ceasefire remained in effect, while Iran’s state-run Press TV said the situation had gone “back to normal”.

Shipping in the strait has been at a near standstill since late February amid the threat of Iranian attacks on the massive oil tankers that usually transport much of the world’s energy supplies.

Brent prices are up about 40 percent compared with before the war amid an estimated shortfall in daily production of 14.5 million barrels.

Asian stock markets opened lower on Friday amid the heightened tensions, with Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225, South Korea’s KOSPI and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index each falling more than 1 percent.

On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 fell about 0.4 percent overnight after hitting an all-time high the previous day.