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Secretary of Energy Chris Wright on Thursday didn't confirm or deny whether oil would hit $200 a barrel as gas prices continue to surge and the conflict in Iran has escalated to a global economic crisis.CNN International host Becky Anderson spoke with anchor and correspondent Eleni Giokos about how the U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran have prompted Iran to block the Strait of Hormuz and strike back at the international oil market. Iran has signaled that it aims to spike oil prices to $200 a barrel. "I think it basically contradicts a lot of what we heard from the Energy Secretary, and we know he was asked about whether oil is going to hit $200 a barrel," Giokos said. "He couldn't definitively say no and I think that's very telling about where we are and also, quite interestingly, when he was asked about naval escorts, he says we were not ready for that yet, it will happen at the end of the month, but hang on, we thought this was hopefully going to end by the end of the month, which obviously isn't the timeline that's realistic." The International Energy Agency's 32 member countries agreed on Wednesday to release 400 million barrels of oil to help lower energy prices amid the Iran war oil supply disruption. "The IEA says this is the largest disruption of supply — ever — in the oil markets, and I think we really need to take that seriously," Giokos said. "We're talking about 8 million barrel deficit, despite the fact that they've released a record number of oil from emergency reserves-400 million barrels. But again, that was supposed to just sort of inject a little bit of confidence in the market. It's not doing that. Oil prices right now are high and you've got the futures in the US also under pressure. It's really indicative of the seriousness of this energy shock that is heading home."President Donald Trump and his administration's changing rhetoric around oil prices also hasn't stopped prices from climbing, Giokos explained. "Six tankers and cargo ships over the last few days have been hit by Iran, and that's really indicative of the seriousness of Iran's threats," Giokos added. "They also said that they warned the world, they promised they're going to keep on choking the Strait of Hormuz, but they also warned that oil prices are going to hit $200 a barrel, and that is what leverage they have. They have leveraged to inflict pain on infrastructure here, which they are doing. Oman and Bahrain depots are on fire. We've seen those images today and they're disrupting trade as well." The disruption has appeared to have left consequences for the global market. "We're looking at some of those images as we face at present, and so when Chris Wright was asked by our colleague Kate, you know whether you can see prices going to 200 bucks on the barrel, and he couldn't answer that, he was right not to answer it," Anderson said. "I mean he doesn't like the idea. You can't answer that question because nobody can at this point. 200 bucks on the barrel would be significantly catastrophic for these markets around the world."

President Donald Trump claims to have lost interest in winning a Nobel Peace Prize following the war he started with Iran.In a Thursday interview with the Washington Examiner, Trump seemed to have cast aside his hopes for the peace prize, saying he had "no idea" if the war in Iran would "get him over the line" with the Nobel Committee."I don't know," the president sulked. "I'm not interested in it.""No, I don't talk about the Nobel Prize," he added. Trump's remarks follow a preliminary assessment finding that the U.S. was responsible for an apparent Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian school that left around nearly 200 girls dead.

The White House's "Rapid Response" team quickly went to work attacking CNN after the network broadcast the first public message from new Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.The White House included a clip from CNN with part of the Iranian message in its attack."Mojtaba Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, in their first public speech, addressing the great nation of Iran and the brave fighters of Iran, the fatalities, those who were injured and also the address the leaders of some neighboring countries. The Islamic leader said that it has been very difficult to be the successor of Khamenei," an Iranian news reader said in a CNN clip amplified by the White House's social media account.The White House responded by smearing the American network."Fake News CNN just aired four straight minutes of uninterrupted Iranian state TV, run by the same psychotic and murderous regime that has prided itself on brutally slaughtering Americans for 47 years," a post by the "Rapid Response" team on X said.

The catastrophic rise in oil prices as a result of the war with Iran will last far longer than experts had first expected, a political analyst has warned.Elizabeth Saunders has suggested that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz will lead to a price hike on oil that will stick around for much longer than experts had first suggested. Speaking to Greg Sargent of The New Republic, Saunders claimed the longer-term struggles of the oil price hike would be felt in the US for some time yet. She said, "This is one of those shocks that is going to be very hard to get back to any sort of status quo before the war. And there’s also no end in sight, because this is not like when the container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal, right? Remember, istheboat stuck.com? Once the boat is unstuck, the canal reopens.""This is not going to be like that, because the Iranians have so much weaponry and power and they’re not going anywhere, because that’s where they live. And so you now basically have 20 percent of the world’s oil flow held hostage, essentially, by Iran."And this has always been a threat. And one of the big reasons why presidents for 20 years who’ve considered striking Iran have been deterred from doing so is because this is such a dramatic shock to the world economy. The oil market is global. And so it’s not as though we can just pump more oil out of the ground in the U.S. to make up for it. It’s a global energy market."Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman also wrote at the time, "Although we import some oil, mainly from Canada and Mexico, while exporting even more oil, mainly from Texas, we buy hardly any oil from the Persian Gulf."Some people have been shocked at the way U.S. gasoline, diesel and heating oil prices have soared over the past few days. But they shouldn’t have been surprised.""It’s almost inconceivable that 1970s-type price controls or excess profits taxes would be imposed today. So US prices of gasoline and other oil products reflect world crude prices, and the fact that America produces a lot of oil doesn’t matter at all."

Global heating linked to rising risk of extreme rain that causes devastating landslides and rising coffee pricesThe record floods that have brought death and destruction to the heartland of Brazil’s coffee industry are expected to intensify if people continue to burn fossil fuels, analysis has shown.Dozens of residents in the state of Minas Gerais have been buried alive in landslides or swept away as roads turned into rivers over the past month. Thousands more have been forced to evacuate their homes, while the wider, longer-term effects are likely to include higher prices for coffee across the world. Continue reading...

New legislation will require schools to use Mandarin by default, taking priority over minority ethnic languages such as Tibetan, Uyghur and MongolianChina’s National People’s Congress (NPC), the state legislature, will vote on Thursday on a suite of new laws agreed at this year’s annual two sessions gathering, including a piece of legislation that will diminish the role of minority ethnic languages in the education system.NPC delegates are expected to approve a new ethnic unity law, along with a new environmental code and the 15th five-year plan, the economic planning document for 2026-2030. Delegates have spent the last week debating Beijing’s proposed bills, which they are all but certain to approve. The NPC, which is often described as a rubber-stamp parliament, has never rejected an item on its agenda. Continue reading...

There might be only one way to put an end to President Donald Trump's war in Iran — something Supreme Court Justice John Roberts pointed out years earlier, according to a report Wednesday. Roberts has been questioned over his views on the unitary executive theory, the idea that the president should have broad control over the government, and Roberts has even helped grant this administration multiple Supreme Court wins. But Roberts previously took a firm stance on how presidents can control the government and who can ultimately stop wars, The Lever reported. As the United States has entered the 12th day of joint strikes with Israel against Iran, questions have surfaced over who can end the conflict and Roberts had offered a legal basis for war and congressional war powers. "But in this era of judicial deference to executive authority, Congress’ power to limit spending remains largely unchallenged, even by some of the most hardline proponents of presidential authority, such as U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts," according to The Lever. "As a Reagan administration lawyer, Roberts told his bosses in 1985, 'Our institutional vigilance with respect to the constitutional prerogatives of the presidency requires appropriate deference to the constitutional prerogatives of the other branches, and no area seems more clearly the province of Congress than the power of the purse,'" The Lever reported.Congress could throttle Trump's power to continue the conflict. "This contrast — between the weakness of Congress’s non-budgetary legislation and the supremacy of its spending power — explains why modern presidents’ ill-advised wars tend to only conclude when lawmakers threaten to use the latter," according to The Lever.

Strike in Shukeiri killed schoolgirls, teachers and healthcare workers in latest incident in three-year warAt least 17 people, most of them schoolgirls, were killed on Wednesday when an explosive-laden drone blamed on Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces struck a secondary school and a health care centre.At least 10 people were wounded in the strike in the village of Shukeiri in the White Nile province, according to Dr Musa al-Majeri, director of Douiem hospital, the nearest major medical facility to the village. Continue reading...