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The central bank’s increase in the uncollateralised overnight rate, by a quarter of a percentage point from 0.75%, puts it at a three-decade high.
The Bank of Japan has been trying to normalise monetary policy lately after decades of keeping interest rates near or below zero. It adopted ultralow rates to try to encourage more borrowing and spending to counter deflation and pull the economy out of the doldrums.
Inflationary pressures because of the war in Iran, which has sent oil prices soaring in recent months, have hit Japan hard since it imports almost all its oil and gas.
Low interest rates had added to pressures on the Japanese yen, which has fallen lately to about 160 yen to the US dollar.
BOJ Gov. Kazuo Ueda, who has been hospitalised recently, did not attend Tuesday’s policy board meeting. Deputy Gov. Shinichi Uchida was expected to take his place at the news conference set for later in the day.
Before the BOJ decision, Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index briefly topped 70,000 early Tuesday before giving up some of those early gains.
Additional sources • AP
The preliminary deal to end US-Israel war on Iran has sent oil prices tumbling to a three-month low amid hopes that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen.
But it could be months before American consumers see major relief at the petrol pump.
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The closure of the strategic chokepoint disrupted global energy markets for more than three months, cutting off a major shipping route through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes.
On Sunday, US President Donald Trump said prices would “drop like a rock” once the strait reopens, a claim he has made multiple times in the past few weeks.
However, experts caution that a major decline in prices is unlikely to happen as quickly as Trump suggests.
While Asian markets rely more heavily on oil shipped through the Strait of Hormuz than North American markets, tighter supply and steady demand have pushed prices higher worldwide.
On Monday, petrol prices in the US remained above $4 per gallon (3.78 litres), averaging $4.06 nationwide, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). This was a dip from a high in early May of $4.48 per gallon.
By comparison, prices stood at $2.98 per gallon on February 28, when the US and Israel first struck Iran, triggering a ripple effect across global energy markets.
Energy prices have risen sharply in the US in recent months, increasing 7.7 percent over the last two months alone, and are up 40 percent from a year ago, according to last week’s inflation report from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics,
However, prices are beginning to fall, a dip that began as Washington and Tehran entered negotiations.
“The potential deal that the US and Iran agreed to over the weekend certainly could pave the way for even lower prices… in the next two to three days by what we saw over the weekend,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, which tracks petrol prices, told Al Jazeera.
But De Haan expects a plateau and says that consumers may not see gas prices at pre-war levels until 2027, even if the ceasefire holds.
“It may take many months, if not beyond a year, for global oil inventories to recover to pre-war levels,” De Haan said.
Amid strains on the supply chain, producers will also need time to ramp up output, while port bottlenecks and heightened demand during the busy summer travel season could delay any substantial relief for everyday consumers.
“There are some mitigating factors that are going to slow the decline in prices. There are a lot of organisations and companies that have to re-up their stockpiles [like the US’s strategic petroleum reserve] and fulfil contracts that have been on hold for the last few months,” John Deal, managing director of capital markets at the Post Oak Group investment bank, said.
Fixing kinks in the supply chain takes time.
Oil production slumped amid the war. More than 14 million barrels per day, or 14 percent of the world’s demand, has been shut, according to the International Energy Agency.
Deal said it would take time to get oil production back online.
“My sense is that there’s going to be sustained high demand through the summertime, and we probably won’t get back to pre-war levels [on petrol prices] until after the summer, maybe September or October,” Deal said.
Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University, said that producers might be reluctant to bring full operations back online until they can see the ceasefire hold.
The agreement opening the blockade is for a 60-day negotiation period between the two countries.
“Many [producers] may be reluctant to restart production until they are convinced that the peace will hold, because the last thing they want to do is carry out the costly effort to restart production only to see the conflict revived and then have to shut it down once again,” Jones told Al Jazeera.
Getting production back online is also dependent on the impact individual producers have faced throughout the war.
Refineries that were shut as a precaution could reach as much as 95 percent capacity within 40-60 days, Vitol Bahrain’s head of research, Bader Nooruddin, told the Reuters news agency. Those damaged in the fighting could take much longer.
But bottlenecks at ports could be the biggest hurdle, according to Deal.
“There’s a lag time with shipping capacity. Shipping capacity is perhaps the most significant constraint,” Deal said.
This is because there are more than 500 ships still awaiting passage, according to shipping data from Kpler.
With the ships headed all over the world, it will take them weeks to reach their destinations, dock, and unload at the ports.
That also means a wave of empty ships is waiting in limbo for spots at ports to load cargo and ramp back up to normal operations.
Major shipping giants are in a holding pattern.
Norway’s Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Denmark’s Maersk both told Reuters that they have not changed their Middle East operations in the wake of the announcement.
During the war, there was limited passage through the Strait of Hormuz, with an average of 10 ships a day passing through, compared with 135 that normally transit the waterway, according to an analysis by Bloomberg.
“Tankers take months to reach their final destination and then come back again. So the ability to replenish the stocks is going to take until, I think, the early fall, just from a shipping perspective, to get back to the status quo that was in place before the conflict started,” Jones said, referring to the preferred term for the months of September through November in North America.
At the same time, US strategic reserves are running low, at their lowest levels since 1983. Reserves have tumbled by 18 percent since the war began.
“Demand might keep prices high through the summer as strategic reserves get refilled,” Deal added.
Jet fuel demand will also put pressure on consumers amid the normally busy JuneAugust travel season in the US.
“The war has really affected airlines and their ability to schedule and anticipate how the summer months are going to go,” Deal added.
In April, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that airfares for the carrier may have to jump as much as 20 percent on higher fuel prices.
The increase in prices is also hitting food budgets.
The most recent consumer price index report showed US inflation ticked up by 4.2 percent compared with this time last year. While inflationary pressures were mostly driven by fuel prices, the impact has still been felt at the grocery store.
Almost half of the world’s urea, which is used in fertiliser, is produced in the Gulf region and passes through the Strait of Hormuz. For American farmers, that means access to fertilisers for the next crop season is more expensive.
Tomato prices, already driven up by Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, have surged 40 percent in the last year amid rising transportation costs.
Lettuce prices rose by more than 16 percent in May, and the price of ground beef increased by about 12 percent compared with this time last year.
Jones warned that food prices may not go down.
“Many retailers, wholesalers, and producers will keep them where they are or only reduce them if forced to from a sales perspective. Unlike petrol, which tends to ebb and flow with the price of oil, prices for many other goods that have been adversely affected by all of this are much less likely to return to where they were prior to the start of the conflict,” Jones said.
“For groceries, for manufacturing goods, for anything that has gone up during the conflict, the price that is there now often becomes the new baseline from which prices move in the future.”
This can be compared with the COVID-19 pandemic period. When the pandemic stalled supply chains, producers increased prices. A 2024 investigation by the Federal Trade Commission found that retail grocers kept prices elevated after supply chain constraints brought on by the pandemic had eased.
“Some in the grocery retail industry seem to have used rising costs as an opportunity to further raise prices to increase their profits,” the report said.
The Washington institution cut its global growth forecast by 0.4 percentage points to 2.5 percent, citing surging energy prices, inflation and borrowing costs.
Published On 11 Jun 202611 Jun 2026
The conflict in the Middle East is set to bring global economic growth to its slowest since the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Bank has warned.
In its latest Global Economic Prospects report, published on Thursday, the Washington-based institution cut its global growth forecast for 2026 to 2.5 percent from the 2.9 percent it had predicted in January, citing surging energy prices, rising inflation and higher borrowing costs.
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The report highlights the significant economic costs of the conflict, which is at risk of flaring up again, as the fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran is tested on both sides.
The analysis warns that the outlook could decline further if supply disruptions worsen. Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz – a vital passageway for oil and gas transit – in response to the hostilities launched by the US and Israel has put huge stress upon global energy and other supply chains.
The World Bank estimates that Brent crude prices — the international oil benchmark — will average $94 a barrel this year, 36 percent above last year’s average. Fertiliser prices are forecast to increase significantly this year, with knock-on effects for food prices.
Overall, the closure of the strategic waterway will help to push global inflation to 4 percent this year, a substantial increase from last year’s rate of 3.3 percent.
However, the World Bank cautions that global growth could plummet to as low as 1.3 percent this year, should energy supply disruptions worsen, with inflation pushing to 4.4 percent.
The World Bank report also cautions that developing countries are on the front line of the potential impact.
In its report, the institution has downgraded its growth forecasts for two-thirds of countries since January. Global growth is expected to improve to 2.8 percent in 2027, but will remain 0.4 percentage points below the average during the 2010s, during which the world economy was recovering from the global financial crisis.
Excluding China and India, the report worries that developing countries have made little progress towards narrowing their per capita income gap with wealthy nations over the past decade.
“Developing countries have faced a series of challenges over the last decade,” said Ajay Banga, president of the World Bank Group. “The impact differs by country, but the basic test is the same: protect people and preserve stability today, without giving up on growth and jobs tomorrow.”
The World Bank is pledging to assist any developing country experiencing the economic fallout of the Middle East conflict. The organisation says it has set aside up to $60bn to help. It added that if the conflict persists, it can increase its support to $100bn.
WASHINGTON — U.S. retaliatory strikes against Iran will continue after its forces shot down an American helicopter, President Trump said Wednesday, accusing the Islamic Republic of stringing him along over months of negotiations to end the war.
The prospect of a renewed U.S. air campaign cast fresh doubt on the viability of a ceasefire between the United States and Iran that has largely held since April, when the two sides reached a tenuous truce, pausing weeks of fighting. Trump’s decision to resume attacks comes after an exchange of fire between Israel and Iran threatened to spiral into open war over the weekend.
The administration has presented Trump with options to expand U.S. targets beyond the immediate area around the Strait of Hormuz to Iranian power plants across the country, an escalation that will open the president up to accusations he is targeting civilian infrastructure, according to a defense official familiar with the matter.
Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump encouraged the Iranians to accept a framework agreement negotiated between the two sides, and suggested that additional military action might compel Tehran to accept a final truce.
“We hit them hard yesterday, and we’re gonna hit ‘em again hard today,” Trump said. “And we’ll see what happens with the deal. We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along — they keep playing us for suckers.”
The president’s remarks came a few hours after Trump posted on his social media website that Iran “will have to pay the price” for taking too long in negotiating a peace deal.
When pressed by reporters to elaborate, Trump said he meant that bombing would resume but declined to say whether that would include strikes on Iranian power plants and bridges, a threat he has repeatedly issued during the war.
The ongoing conflict, which is in its fourth month, has left a mark on the global and domestic economy. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday that inflation accelerated in May, driven by a surge in energy prices linked to the war with Iran.
The consumer price index rose 0.5% on a seasonally adjusted basis — the largest monthly increase in three years — pushing the annual inflation rate to 4.2%.
Asked whether he was concerned about the inflation numbers, Trump told reporters that the “numbers were great.”
“You know what I really love? I love the inflation. You know why? Because as soon as this war is over…,” Trump said, without finishing the thought.
The remark prompted near instantaneous news releases from Democratic operatives, as well as the party war room, which sent out a statement accusing Trump of mishandling a reckless war that has devastated the economy in the process.
“Donald Trump’s disastrous economic agenda and deadly and costly war with Iran have made life unbearable for millions of Americans,” Kendall Witmer, the Democratic National Committee’s rapid response director, said in a statement.
“Working families are shouldering skyrocketing costs for basic goods, with their wages being eaten up by Trump’s soaring inflation,” she added. “On the campaign trail, Trump promised to ‘defeat inflation,’ and to lower costs on ‘Day One,’ but two years later, Trump can’t get a handle on his war of choice with Iran as he tanks the economy back home.”
Trump then told reporters about a secret military mission to ensure safe passage for oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important commercial waterways. He said the operation had secured the passage of more than 100 million barrels of oil through the strait since it began.
“We took out, the other night, 22 ships late at night with no lights because they don’t have any radar because we blasted the crap out of it,” Trump said.
A couple of hours later, Trump wrote in another post that the military operation had been “wildly successful,” and that it proved the United States — not Iran — was in control of the Strait of Hormuz.
“Their military is defeated, and their economy is lost,” he wrote. “It’s over for Iran!”
Over months of diplomacy with Iran, Trump has sought to avoid a return to conflict, often seeking de-escalation when fighting has flared — and repeatedly pressuring Israel to minimize its attacks in Lebanon, where it continues to battle the militant group Hezbollah, a proxy of Iran.
Israeli strikes continued Wednesday, according to local news reports, while Hezbollah said it carried out attacks on Israeli troops stationed in southern Lebanon.
Speaking to journalists in the Oval Office, the president implied he was losing patience with Iranian tactics at the negotiating table.
“I gave them a break, at the request of Pakistan,” he said. “They still are working on trying them to do what’s right. But we want a deal that’s meaningful. We want a deal that works.”
“It was just tap, tap, tap,” the president added. “I don’t know what they’re doing.”
Asian stocks slide on hot inflation prints; tech rally crumbles on geopolitical flare-up
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The USD-bolívar exchange rate has nearly doubled in 2026. (EFE)
Caracas, June 9, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela has registered the lowest month-to-month inflation figure since October 2024.
According to the Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV), consumer prices went up by 6.3 percent in May. Inflation has fallen for four consecutive months after hitting 32.6 percent in January, following the US military attack and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro.
Overall, prices have more than doubled in the first five months of 2026, and accumulated 12-month inflation currently stands at 525 percent.
Despite the widespread use of the US dollar in cost structures, prices have likewise gone up by 12.5 percent over the last year when measured in USD, meaning a loss of purchasing power even for those with incomes pegged to the official exchange rate.
Venezuela’s inflation remains heavily correlated with currency instability. Despite the Central Bank devaluing the USD-bolívar exchange rate by more than 30 percent since March and providing significantly increased volumes offoreign currency to the private sector, a 30-40 percent gap remains between the official and parallel market rates.
Since January, the BCV has directed over US $5.5 billion in foreign currency via bank-run exchange tables, at more than double the rate of 2025, according to figures from Banca y Negocios. However, the chasmbetween official and parallel rates has persisted.
Many economists have identified the stabilization of the foreign exchange market as a necessary step for macroeconomic recovery, but critics have pointed to a lack of regulation and accountability in forex allocation as fueling currency speculation.
Caracas’ monetary and fiscal policy is presently subject to US control. Since January, the Trump administration has mandated that Venezuelan export revenues, principally oil sales, be deposited in US Treasury accounts. Washington returns an undisclosed portion of the proceeds at a time of its choosing.
The White House has likewise imposed that disbursed funds be channeled directly to the private sector via foreign exchange auctions, as well as outside auditing of Central Bank accounts by consulting giant Deloitte. Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated in January that the Venezuelan government headed by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez would need to submit a “budget request” before accessing its own resources.
For its part, the Rodríguez administration has fast-tracked a series of pro-business reforms tailored to attract foreign investment, including in the oil, mining, and electricity sectors.
As part of efforts to court US investors, Economic Vice President Calixto Ortega reportedly took part in a closed-door meeting with US officials and corporate representatives hosted by the Atlantic Council, a hawkish Washington-based think tank funded by the US government, its allies, and major corporations.
The opening to foreign investment has seen Western business executives flock to Caracas in recent weeks, often escorted by White House officials, to explore opportunities. Pro-Trump tech billionaires such as Fred Ehrsam have made repeated visits, while Peter Thiel’s Erebor Bank struck a corresponding banking agreement with Venezuela’s largest public bank.
Javier Kulesz, a strategist from investment bank Jefferies, relayed optimism after a visit to the South American country and forecast an imminent “stream of announcements” related to the country’s debt restructuring and investments in key economic sectors.
Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.
Tehran, Iran – Iran is facing more energy constraints as its summer season begins, with the widespread use of air conditioning and other needs during hotter months contributing to an imbalance between supply and consumption.
For decades, successive Iranian governments have kept utility bills well below supply costs for households and offices through a mix of implicit oil-and-gas subsidies, administered tariffs, state-controlled pricing, and sometimes direct financial support.
The negative impacts of the war with Israel and the United States on the economy mean the government has fewer tools at its disposal to deal with an energy crisis this summer.
Despite having the world’s third-largest proven crude oil reserves, Iran will have to import fuel again as demand outpaces refinery output.
President Masoud Pezeshkian has repeatedly urged households and offices to take practical steps to limit energy consumption. Last week, he removed his jacket during a government meeting to demonstrate how Iranians can avoid turning down their air conditioning thermostats in their offices.
Even though energy costs for households are much lower than in other parts of the world, corruption, mismanagement, sanctions, chronic inflation and currency devaluation have eroded the benefits Iranians usually feel from subsidised energy prices.
In November 2019, the government announced a tiered gasoline price scheme that would see huge increases for some consumers. This sparked nationwide protests, and since then, the government has been wary about similar price hikes.
While inflation has galloped on, continued subsidies have kept fuel artificially low.
The administration’s attempts to tackle the subsidies burden due to a mounting budget crunch have resulted in only limited increases in petrol through a complex three-tiered pricing system.
This is applied via a government-issued fuel card, giving most users of Iranian-made vehicles access to 60 litres (15.85 US gallons) per month of subsidised petrol at 15,000 rials (0.8 cents) and another 100 litres (26.42 gallons) at 1.6 cents.
Iranians going over this amount then must use an “emergency card” issued at petrol stations, permitting them to an additional 30 litres (7.9 gallons) of fuel a day at 50,000 rials (about 2.9 cents) per litre.
After a new cap was imposed during the war to limit fuel consumption, each card allows only 30 litres of fuel a day. Petrol stations are issued their own “emergency card” for uses beyond this limit.
Due to supply constraints, staff at petrol stations have now reportedly been instructed to limit the use of these cards to 10 to 15 litres (up to 4 gallons) or asked not to issue any new cards at all to customers.
The Iranian government is running similar schemes for natural gas, electricity and urban water, with fears of social unrest making them averse to any sudden price hikes.
There appears to be little the government can do to bridge the divide between lower energy production and growing demand for subsidised fuel, illustrated by the perpetual queues at petrol stations since the start of the war.
“Reforming and increasing the price of energy is currently not feasible and logical due to the current economic conditions and social concerns,” Esmail Saghab Esfahani, a vice president of the state-linked Organization for Energy Optimization and Strategic Management, said earlier this week.
There have been some changes to pricing structures, but this is impacting small businesses that are already struggling with the dire economic conditions in Iran.
One 35-year-old owner of a welding workshop near Tehran, who asked to remain anonymous, told Al Jazeera that a surge in his monthly energy bill from 40 million rials ($23) per month in the previous Persian calendar year to three times that today.
“I went to the electricity company, and they only kept saying the tariffs have gone up,” he said.
“I had a similar message from a friend who is paying much more now for roughly the same usage as before, so it looks like we’re to pay for the cost of war.”
Authorities say that any complaints about escalating bills will be reviewed. They also have a system where normal household energy consumption is kept artificially low, but excessive users can be billed as much as 45 times the normal prices.
Despite having the second-largest proven natural gas reserves in the world, Iran still suffers from perpetual supply shortages during its winter and summer, when consumption is at its highest.
The situation has worsened during the war, with strikes on Iranian energy facilities seeing Iran’s gasoline production capacity drop marginally from 115 million litres (30.37 million gallons) per day to 110 million litres (29.06 million gallons). Meanwhile, consumption has jumped from 10 million litres (2.64 million litres) in 2025 to 140 million litres this year (36.98 million litres).
US President Donald Trump’s threats of more strikes on power plants have heightened fears of further blackouts and gas shortages this summer, meaning the energy crisis is likely to continue in the coming months.
Consumer prices in South Korea rose 3.1% in May from a year earlier, driven by sharp increases in petroleum products, international airfares and overseas group tour fees. Data from National Data Agency. Graphic by Asia Today and translated by UPI
June 2 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s consumer price growth topped 3% in May for the first time in 26 months as a prolonged Middle East war drove up global oil prices, raising concerns that high inflation could continue through the second half of the year.
The consumer price index stood at 119.92 in May, with 2020 set as the base year of 100, up 3.1% from a year earlier, according to consumer price data released Tuesday by the National Data Agency. It was the first increase of 3% or more since March 2024.
Industrial products rose 4.2% from a year earlier, while service prices increased 2.8%. Petroleum prices showed the sharpest increase, jumping 24.2%, the largest gain in three years and 10 months since July 2022, when the Russia-Ukraine war was at its height.
Gasoline prices rose 23.1%, diesel prices climbed 33.3% and kerosene prices increased 21.7%.
Among services, international airfares, which are directly affected by fuel costs, rose 33.5%, while overseas group tour fees increased 26.3%.
The living price index, which tracks frequently purchased items with a high share of household spending, rose 3.3% from a year earlier, showing a worsening burden felt by consumers.
Lee Doo-won, an official in charge of economic trend statistics at the data agency, said petroleum prices rose more sharply because of higher international oil prices caused by the Middle East war.
“International airfares and prices for travel and lodging-related items rose sharply as fuel surcharges linked to global oil prices increased and the number of peak-season days, including holidays, grew,” Lee said.
The government said it will work to reduce price uncertainty by stabilizing petroleum prices.
A Finance Ministry official said the government’s petroleum price cap and fuel tax cut reduced the May consumer price increase by 0.6 percentage point.
“We will make every effort to stabilize prices felt by households through petroleum price stabilization measures and a task force on livelihood prices,” the official said.
Experts said inflation led by higher global oil prices is likely to continue in the second half.
“Although the United States and Iran have announced plans to discuss reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the high oil price trend is likely to continue in the second half even if the war ends, given the destruction of local oil facilities,” said Jeong Se-eun, an economics professor at Chungnam National University.
“For South Korea, which imports all of its oil, oil prices affect overall inflation. There is also concern that abnormal weather forecast for this summer could raise agricultural prices,” Jeong said.
“With no notable downward factor in the second half, inflation is expected to stay around 3%,” she added.
Park Jin, a professor at the Korea Development Institute School of Public Policy and Management, said prices are determined by market supply and demand.
“On the supply side, there are inflation concerns caused by unstable oil prices. On the demand side, there are price-increase factors such as a strong domestic stock market,” Park said. “Preemptive steps, including consideration of an interest rate hike, are needed.”
— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI
© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.
Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260602010000704
ANOTHER UK airport has increased its drop-off fees in a move that has been slammed by passengers.
Dropping someone off at an airport can be pricey – and poses a risk of a hefty fine if you forget to pay the charge.
With many major UK airports hiking the price of their drop-off fees in recent months, Norwich Airport has now done the same.
The East Anglian travel hub operates flights to dozens of locations across the UK and Europe.
With airlines such as Ryanair, KLM, TUI and more in operation at the Norfolk airport, the hub sees thousands of passengers a week.
On June 1, the charge for drivers dropping travellers off was increased from £6 for a 30-minute stay, to £8 for just 20 minutes.
Now, the fee change is being criticised, with passengers and drivers calling it “disgusting” and “mad”.
Meanwhile, taxi operators are being forced to warn customers that the charge will be part of their cab bill when rides are booked.
Mark Streeter, boss of Norwich’s Courtesy Taxis, told Norwich Evening News: “The main annoyance from our side is that we tell customers it’s an extra £5 or so, and now it’s gone up with no warning. So either the customer or the driver has to pay more than expected.”
Norwich Airport has responded to explain that the drop-off fee increase is a result of growing business costs and worsening energy prices.
A spokesperson for Norwich Airport told The Sun: “We understand that no one welcomes increased charges. But our airport group is facing sharp rises in costs, including a tripling of business rates, higher employment costs such as National Insurance and rising energy costs.”
Admitting that there is no choice but to rely on the public to absorb some of the growing costs, the spokesperson added: “At the same time, we continue to invest millions of pounds in maintaining the airport infrastructure needed to provide an essential public service in our regions.
“We cannot keep absorbing these increased costs without passing some of the additional burden on to our customers.”
Norwich’s change in drop-off policy comes alongside Stansted Airport‘s similar changes.
The London airport took its 15-minute express drop-off charge from £7 to £10 in March, with stays of up to 30 minutes now costing £28 instead of £25.
Meanwhile, London Gatwick‘s fee for a 10-minute drop-off now costs £10, up £5 from when it was first introduced in 2021.
Surging bank lending could rekindle inflation risks, SocGen's Albert Edwards warns
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Wall Street closed the week higher as easing Middle East tensions, softer-than-expected inflation data, and strong corporate earnings boosted investor sentiment.
Investor sentiment improved after President Donald Trump said a framework to end the conflict with Iran and restore shipping
Eid al-Adha, one of the most important dates in the Islamic calendar, comes at a critical time for Iranians this year.
Meat from sacrificed animals is often eaten at Iranian tables, but a blockade on Iranian ports and sanctions by the US has led to escalating costs across the country.
Unlike Nowruz, the Persian New Year, Eid al-Adha is not as widely celebrated in Iran, but mosques and other institutions still observe the ritual of animal sacrifice, known as qurbani, through authorised livestock and slaughter centres.
Here, animals are sacrificed according to Islamic law in a hygienic environment. But another goal of the network is to control runaway inflation by offering meat at lower prices than market rates.
A Tehran municipality body announced on Tuesday that each kilogramme of sacrificial meat would be sold at 7.4 million rials ($4.30) at designated shops.
The price for a similar cut on the market can be more than three times that, depending on its quality and the location of the butchers. The minimum wage is currently less than $100 per month in Iran.
“I usually buy meat for a stew or a few dishes around every three weeks; for some families in the neighbourhood, it has become a sort of luxury,” said a middle-aged woman, who lives with her husband and son in Tehran.
She told Al Jazeera that chicken, eggs and legumes have become replacements for red meat, but the costs of these staples have significantly increased, too.
Masoud Rasouli, a meat-packing industry representative, told the state-linked Mehr news agency earlier this week that demand for red meat has decreased by 50 percent compared with last year.
He said some meat was imported to counter any effects of the US blockade, but local demand is currently so low that “existing livestock population is enough for all the needs of the market”.
Data released by the state-linked Iranian Labour News Agency this week showed that the current cheapest government-announced price for one kilogramme of meat during Eid is equal to the price of a 50kg live sheep 10 years ago.
According to the Statistical Center of Iran, year-on-year inflation stood at more than 73 percent in the first month of the Persian calendar year that ended in late April.
Iranian rice was up by 173 percent and chicken by 191 percent in that month compared with a year before, while liquid cooking oil more than quadrupled. Figures for the next month are expected to be worse.
Price-control measures – which have been implemented by authorities to fight a decade of rampant inflation – have been unable to adequately compensate for the ever-decreasing purchasing power of Iranian households living under local mismanagement and US sanctions – and now war and a blockade.
A young man working at a butcher shop in southwestern Tehran said they have had to increase prices several times over recent months after suppliers announced hikes.
“Our sales were a bit higher today because of the Eid, but we see even our most frequent customers far less these days. Most of the conversations with the customers are about the prices,” he told Al Jazeera.
Iran and the US have been holding negotiations through regional mediators to potentially end the war. But amid exchanges of fire and inflexibility over demands, no breakthrough has emerged even as both sides say a memorandum of understanding has mostly been negotiated.
Beyond greetings and congratulatory phone calls with regional peers, Iranian authorities also used the Muslim festival this year to issue political messages.
On Wednesday morning in the capital, the authorities organised a large prayer to mark Eid at the University of Tehran, which was led by ultraconservative Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami.
He said that “submitting to humiliation” is an example of “evil” and the height of vice, at a time when he believes the other side, the US, seeks a surrender from Iran.
“Your enemies, the Iranian nation’s enemies, and this mad enemy sitting in the Black House – which is wrongly referred to as the White House – want your humiliation. But this madman will take that wish to his grave,” he said about US President Donald Trump.
Khatami, a member of the powerful Guardian Council and the clerical Assembly of Experts, also praised the supporters of the government who have taken to the streets every night for almost three months and said this “unprecedented” phenomenon would be repeated on the nights of Eid al-Adha.
President Masoud Pezeshkian had a relatively softer approach, but his comments were still laden with religious symbolism.
“In today’s turbulent world, where the fire of tyranny, occupation, and the arrogance of the hegemonic powers burns bright, Eid al-Adha conveys the message of dignity, liberty, and fearlessness in the face of the pharaohs of our time,” he said.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a message on Wednesday that he hoped for harmony in the Muslim world, amid this difficult time for the region.
“We pray that, by the auspiciousness and blessing of this great Eid, we will witness the deepening and strengthening of Islamic solidarity for cooperation and mutual assistance in confronting war, discrimination and occupation, especially in the West Asia region, and that our world will return to the path of reviving peace and justice,” he said.
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Australia’s annual consumer price inflation slowed more sharply than anticipated in April, cooling to 4.2% from March’s 4.6% print and beating market expectations for a milder drop to 4.4%.
According to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the headline
MILLIONS of families will be able to enjoy discount meals and days out this summer, the Chancellor announced today.
From June 25 to September 1 the Government is temporarily cutting the VAT on attractions and children’s meals in restaurants from 20% to just 5%.
The cut will apply to theme parks, zoos, museums, soft play, fairs and even cinema tickets.
The full list of businesses participating has not yet been announced but several major firms including Merlin Entertainments and Odeon Cinema have confirmed they will be taking part.
If a business chooses to pass on the full benefit then the total saving for a family of two adults and two children could be:
Read more on free days out
The Government said it expects qualifying businesses to pass these savings on to families by lowering the prices people pay on eligible children’s meals and tickets.
As a result, the VAT cut will be directly reflected at the till.
It added that passing on the full saving should help businesses attract more customers over the summer, which could increase footfall and support local economies.
The reduced rate will apply in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The plans are part of a package to help households with the cost of living.
Meanwhile, throughout August all children aged between five and 15 in England will be able to travel for free on any local bus service.
Among the attractions taking part are Alton Towers, Legoland Windsor, Warwick Castle and Cadbury World.
Fiona Eastwood, chief executive officer of Merlin Entertainments, said: “Merlin will be applying this VAT cut to both admission tickets and children’s meals, adding more value to days out and short breaks at our 20 UK attractions.”
Meanwhile, Mark Way, president AMC Europe & managing director at Odeon Cinema Groups, said: “We’re excited that our guests will be able to enjoy the big screen for less over this blockbuster summer.”
The following activities and meals will benefit from the VAT cut:
The reduced rate applies to admission tickets, including adults, for:
But there are several attractions and popular activities that will not be included in the scheme. They include:
The European Commission on Thursday cut its 2026 growth forecast for the European economy, as the ongoing conflict in the Middle East drives energy prices sharply higher.
The EU economy is now expected to grow by just 1.1% in 2026, down from the 1.4% projected in the Commission’s autumn forecast. The eurozone outlook was revised down further to 0.9%.
In its report, the Commission warned that disruption to global energy markets — caused by escalating tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s key oil and gas shipping routes — has significantly worsened Europe’s economic outlook.
“Before the end of February 2026, the EU economy was expected to continue expanding at a moderate pace, alongside a further decline in inflation,” the report said. “However, the outlook has changed substantially since the outbreak of the conflict.”
Inflation is also expected to rise sharply due to the disruption around Hormuz.
EU inflation is forecast to reach 3.1% this year — a full percentage point higher than previously expected — driven mainly by soaring energy costs after oil and gas prices surged amid fears of supply disruptions in the Gulf.
For EU officials, the shock recalls 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered Europe’s worst energy crisis in decades.
The Commission described the latest turmoil as “the second such shock in less than five years”, warning that Europe’s dependence on imported fossil fuels leaves it highly vulnerable whenever geopolitical tensions threaten global energy supplies.
Consumer confidence has already fallen to a 40-month low, according to the forecast, as households prepare for higher heating and fuel bills while businesses face rising operating costs and weaker demand.
Investment is also expected to slow as companies confront tighter financing conditions and growing uncertainty. Export growth is weakening as global demand softens.
Despite the deteriorating outlook, Brussels said the bloc is better prepared than during the Ukraine-related energy crisis, thanks to years of investment in renewable energy, lower gas consumption and efforts to diversify away from Russian supplies.
“The push towards supply diversification, decarbonisation and lower energy consumption has left the EU economy better placed to absorb today’s shock,” the Commission said.
However, EU officials acknowledged that risks remain heavily skewed to the downside.
The report warned that prolonged disruption in the Strait of Hormuz or across wider Middle Eastern supply chains could drive energy prices even higher, derail the expected easing of inflation in 2027 and potentially stall Europe’s recovery altogether.
The Commission also cautioned that shortages of refined oil products, fertilisers and other industrial inputs could spread through global supply chains, increasing food and manufacturing costs across Europe.
Meanwhile, European governments are preparing for growing fiscal pressure. Public deficits across the EU are expected to widen as governments increase spending to protect households from rising energy bills while also boosting defence expenditure amid mounting geopolitical instability.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has recently urged the European Commission to relax fiscal rules for households and industries struggling with soaring energy costs, arguing that energy security should be treated with the same urgency as defence spending.
At the centre of Rome’s request is the EU’s national escape clause, adopted on 8 July, which allows member states temporary fiscal flexibility to increase defence spending under exceptional circumstances.
Meloni said Brussels had already shown a willingness to loosen budget rules in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine and growing concerns about Europe’s military preparedness. Italy is now seeking similar flexibility for emergency energy measures.
SCORES of drivers face a new charge at a major Scottish airport as a price increase begins today.
New drop-off charges have been rolled out at Edinburgh Airport, Scotland‘s busiest air hub which was used by 17 million passengers last year.
It will now cost £8.50 for a ten-minute slot to either drop-off or pick someone up near the main terminal.
The fees have been hiked by £2.50 and were rolled out today.
Bosses have also scrapped a 50 per cent discount for people driving electric vehicles to the airport.
Instead, more spaces have been added to the free drop-off area – where motorists can park for free for 30 minutes.
The price hike has been blamed on a surge in business rates.
Airport chiefs claim they have been hit by a hit by a 142 per cent rise – an £8million increase – which was branded “simply unacceptable”.
Edinburgh Airport’s chief executive Gordon Dewar said: “This decision to impose an unplanned and wholly disproportionate £8million rates increase has an immediate and negative impact on our business.
“We made this clear in correspondence with the Lothians Assessor, who set the increase, and in discussions with the Scottish Government, which has endorsed it.
“A 142% increase reduces our ability to invest, grow and compete. In practical terms, it equates to funding around 200 jobs, two aircraft stands, or five new security lanes. It is not a cost that can be absorbed; it must be covered, and trade-offs like this are unfortunately unavoidable.
“Like many across the hospitality and tourism sectors who have seen business rates soar, we have no choice but to pass part of this cost on to passengers.
“We had not planned to raise fees this year, but the absence of a transitional relief scheme – equivalent to that available in England and Wales – leaves us with no alternative.
“We have always accepted that, given our size, we should pay more, but the scale of this increase is simply unacceptable.”
Bosses previously wrote to the Convenor of the Lothian Valuation Joint Board, which sets non-domestic rates, as well as the First Minister and the Public Finance Minister, to outline their concerns.
Mr Dewar added: “We have made clear to both the Assessor and the Scottish Government that a system which produces such markedly different outcomes for comparable assets operating within the same national economy cannot credibly be described as fair, proportionate or fit for a modern Scotland. This systemic inconsistency lies at the heart of our concern.”
It comes just months after Glasgow and Aberdeen airports – both owned by AGS – increased their drop off fees.
It costs £7 for people to park for up to 15 minutes at both of the sites.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The valuation of all non-domestic property is a matter for the Scottish Assessors who are independent of central and local government.
“The Scottish Government estimates Edinburgh Airport will, with Transitional Relief, have a net non-domestic rates bill of around £8.1 million for 2026-27, compared to £5.4 million before revaluation.
“The Scottish Government’s Revaluation Transitional Relief protects those most affected at revaluation – including airports – and will cap increases in gross liabilities up to the next revaluation in 2029.”
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Long-term US borrowing costs climbed to levels not seen since before the global financial crisis after the Treasury auctioned $25bn (€21.3bn) in 30-year bonds at a high yield of 5.058% on Wednesday, according to the department’s own data.
The sale came only hours after the US Senate voted to confirm former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh as the next chairman, succeeding Jerome Powell.
The auction result immediately complicated the backdrop for Warsh’s arrival at the central bank, underlining the pressure facing policymakers as inflation is rising.
At the time of writing on Thursday, US 30-year bonds are trading at 5.02% while 10-year notes are selling with a yield of 4.44%.
US inflation figures released earlier this week showed consumer prices rose 3.8% from April 2025 as the 10-week Iran war pushed energy costs higher and distanced inflation from the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
Producer price data also pointed to persistent underlying cost pressures across the economy, reinforcing expectations that the central bank may struggle to ease monetary policy quickly.
Rising Treasury yields have broad implications for the economy because they influence borrowing costs on mortgages, corporate debt and other forms of credit.
Higher long-term yields can also increase financing costs for the US government at a time when public debt is nearing $40 trillion (€34.1tn).
Investors are increasingly concerned that a combination of resilient economic growth, elevated energy prices and sustained government borrowing could keep inflationary pressures alive despite two years of restrictive monetary policy.
The yield on the benchmark 30-year Treasury bond being auctioned above 5% is a symbolic threshold last reached in 2007 before the onset of the global financial crisis.
While market conditions today differ substantially from that period, the move nonetheless underscores the sharp repricing that has taken place in global bond markets over the past two years.
Kevin Warsh takes over the Federal Reserve at a delicate moment for the US economy.
The former Morgan Stanley banker and Fed governor has previously argued in favour of maintaining the central bank’s credibility on inflation, while also signalling support for reforms to the institution’s communication strategy and balance sheet policies.
Warsh’s confirmation comes as financial markets remain divided over how aggressively the Federal Reserve should respond to persistent inflation pressures.
Some investors believe rates may need to stay higher for an extended period, while others warn that maintaining tight monetary conditions for too long could weigh heavily on economic growth and employment.
The main driver of the rise in inflation is the current disruption to global energy markets caused by the Iran war which also leaves the central bank at the mercy of geopolitics and not able to effectively control the situation.
Analysts stated that Wednesday’s Treasury auction illustrated the immediate challenge confronting the incoming Fed chair.
Elevated bond yields can help tighten financial conditions without additional rate increases from the central bank, but they can also amplify risks for heavily indebted households, businesses and the federal government itself.
For Warsh, the market reaction served as an early reminder that restoring confidence on inflation may prove more complicated than simply holding interest rates at restrictive levels.
WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed President Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, bringing new leadership to the world’s most powerful central bank at a fraught moment for the global economy.
Warsh was confirmed Wednesday in a largely party-line vote. His nomination had been thrown into doubt in recent months after Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said he would block the nomination while the Justice Department investigated Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell. The Powell inquiry was dropped in April, clearing the way for the Senate to confirm Warsh.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) urged colleagues to support Warsh during a floor speech Wednesday morning, saying it’s crucial that a Fed chair “understand not only the macro” but also “appreciate the microeconomy: and that’s the hardworking Americans, their jobs and their livelihoods.”
“Kevin Warsh is just such a person,” Thune said.
Warsh, 56, a former top Fed official, will become chair at an unusually difficult time for the independent agency.
Inflation has topped the Fed’s 2% target for five years and is now rising faster because of surging gas prices. The Fed’s interest rate-setting committee is divided and saw the most dissenting votes in more than three decades last month. And Powell, after years of personal attacks from the Republican president and an unprecedented legal investigation by the Justice Department, plans to stay on the Fed’s board even after his term as chair ends, potentially creating a competing power center.
The Fed has faced numerous threats to its independence from Trump, who has repeatedly attacked Powell for not cutting interest rates. Trump also sought to fire Fed Gov. Lisa Cook and launched an investigation into brief Senate testimony by Powell on a building renovation.
Kevin Hassett, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, said in a Fox News interview on Sunday that he believes the markets are relieved that Warsh “is going to help lower interest rates over time.”
“Obviously, data driven,” said Hassett. “I’m not putting any pressure on Kevin Warsh.”
In December, Trump said on his social media platform that he wanted a Fed chair who would cut interest rates when the stock market rose — the opposite of what traditional economics would prescribe — and added, “Anyone that disagrees with me will never be the Fed chairman!”
Trump’s comments have fueled concerns over whether Warsh will set rates based on economic conditions or seek to cut rates to appease Trump, even if doing so could worsen inflation. At Warsh’s confirmation hearing last month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, derided him as a “sock puppet” for Trump. Warsh declined to say that Democrat Joe Biden had won the 2020 election against Trump, who has falsely claimed that voter fraud cost him reelection.
Still, Warsh denied at the hearing that Trump had pressured him to reduce the Fed’s key rate.
“The president never once asked me to commit to any particular interest rate decision, period,” Warsh said then. “Nor would I ever agree to do so if he had. … I will be an independent actor if confirmed as chair of the Federal Reserve.”
Warsh has been highly critical of the Fed’s recent track record, particularly the inflation spike in 2021-22, the worst in four decades, and has called for “regime change.” Yet he has provided only broad outlines of what that change would involve.
He has called for limiting the Fed’s communications, which would be a sharp shift after decades of increasing transparency. He has argued that some of its communications tools, such as quarterly forecasts of where its key rate may head, have made it harder for officials to switch gears.
Senate Democrats also have condemned Warsh for not fully divulging the details of his extensive wealth, which disclosures show amounts to at least $100 million. His investments include stakes in Polymarket and SpaceX, but he hasn’t revealed how large those holdings are. He promised to sell all such assets within 90 days of being sworn in.
“He will be the wealthiest Fed chair in history, but he refuses to provide transparency to the American people about who he is entangled with,” Warren said.
The Fed is still grappling with how to respond to the 50% jump in gas prices from the Iran war. The increase has boosted inflation, which reached 3.8% in April.
The Fed is tasked by Congress with keeping prices stable, which it seeks to do by raising its short-term rate to make borrowing and spending more expensive, cooling growth and inflation.
The Fed typically looks past temporary price increases that stem from supply disruptions, such as the war’s cutoff of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, because those prices typically level off — or even fall back down — once the supply is restored.
But the Fed also followed that approach after the COVID-19 pandemic snarled global supply chains for goods, lifting prices for things such as cars, furniture and electronics. Inflation turned out to last longer than expected, and Powell and other Fed officials have acknowledged they waited too long to raise rates. Inflation surged to 9.1% by June 2022.
The Fed’s rate-setting committee has kept rates unchanged for three straight meetings as it evaluates the effect of the gas price spike. At its most recent meeting last month, three members of the committee objected to language that suggested its next move would be a rate cut. They preferred more neutral language that would allow for a hike. Many Fed watchers saw those dissents as a warning shot to Warsh that he won’t be able to easily engineer rate reductions.
A fourth member of the 12-member committee, Stephen Miran, dissented in favor of a rate cut, as he has at every meeting since Trump appointed him to the Fed’s board last September. Miran is serving until a replacement is named, and Warsh will take his spot.
Powell, meanwhile, said at a news conference April 29 that he would remain as a Fed governor until the Justice Department closes its investigation into the Fed’s building project, the first time a chair may stay on the board for an extended period since 1948. His term as a governor lasts until January 2028.
U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro has dropped the government’s investigation, but she has said it could be reopened if the Fed’s inspector general office, which has looked into the renovation project since last July, finds evidence of criminal activity.
Rugaber and Cappelletti write for the Associated Press.
May 13 (UPI) — Final demand wholesale inflation rose by 6% on an annual basis in April, marking the largest increase since 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.
More than three-quarters of the 2% increase in final demand goods in April was attributed to a 7.8% increase in energy prices. Final demand services moved up 1.2%, pushed along largely by a 2.7% increase in trade services.
The producer price index increased by a seasonally adjusted 1.4% in April, double the rate increase in March. The increase outpaced the Dow Jones consensus estimate of 0.5%. It is the largest monthly increase since March 2022.
The annual 6% wholesale inflation increase is the largest since December 2022.
Machinery and equipment wholesaling was another big factor in rising inflation. Final demand service prices for machinery and equipment rose by 3.5%.
Final demand excluding volatile food and energy rose 0.6%, the largest bump since October. For the year ending in April, final demand excluding food and energy was up 4.4%, the largest increase since February 2023.
By commodity type, the index for unprocessed goods went up 4.1%. Intermediate demand goods increased 2.7% for the month, the sixth consecutive monthly increase.
About 80% of the index increase for unprocessed goods for intermediate demand can be attributed to unprocessed energy materials which increased 9.2%. Crude petroleum rose by 11.3%.
Unprocessed non-food materials and excluding energy fell by 1%.
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.
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.
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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.”
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.
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.”
Central banks hold rates steady as energy shock tests inflation fight.
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.
Published On 10 May 202610 May 2026
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