“This energy crisis calls for all hands on deck & international cooperation,” Birol said on social media platform X, stressing the need for the three institutions to support governments worldwide

International News via Reuters:

The leaders of the International Energy Agency, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will discuss the energy crisis triggered by the Iran war next Monday, IEA executive director Fatih Birol said on Tuesday.

“This energy crisis calls for all hands on deck & international cooperation,” Birol said on social media platform X, stressing the need for the three institutions to support governments worldwide amid the economic fallout from the war.

Birol, the IMF’s chief Kristalina Georgieva and the World Bank’s Ajay Banga agreed last week to form a coordination group to help deal with the regional disruption that has caused one of the largest supply shortages in global energy market history.

Their response mechanism could include targeted policy advice, assessing potential financing needs and providing support, including through low- or zero-percent financing, as well as unspecified risk mitigation tools, they said.

Birol’s statement came as U.S. President Donald Trump issued a threat to Iran that “a whole civilisation will die tonight” unless Tehran accepted an ultimatum to open the Strait of Hormuz, previously an international waterway through which a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas typically passed.

Birol recently told French newspaper Le Figaro that the current oil and gas crisis triggered by Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is “more serious than the ones in 1973, 1979 and 2022 together”.

Reporting by Dominique Vidalon, America Hernandez,; Writing by Charlotte Van Campenhout and Forrest Crellin; Editing by Gareth Jones

Media reported that two police officers had been injured in the incident, which occurred immediately outside a tower where the Israeli consulate is located in Istanbul’s financial district

International News via Reuters:

At least two attackers were killed and one was seriously injured in an extended gun battle between police and assailants directly outside the building housing the Israeli consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday, according to media reports and Reuters video. 

Reuters video showed police officers pulling out guns and taking cover as shots rang out for at least 10 minutes. One person was covered in blood. 

Other footage obtained by Reuters showed an apparent attacker moving among parked white police and security buses and firing over several minutes with an automatic rifle and handgun. Two bodies lay on nearby streets and grassy areas. 

Media reported that two police officers had been injured in the incident, which occurred immediately outside a tower where the Israeli consulate is located in Istanbul’s financial district. 

Since the Hamas-Israel war began in 2023, a heavily armed police presence has been maintained in the area near the Israeli consulate. 

A source with knowledge of the matter said there were no Israeli diplomats stationed in Turkey at present.

Reporting by Emin Caliskan and Bulent Usta; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Jonathan Spicer

The war has triggered the worst-ever disruption in global energy supply, with millions of barrels of oil production shuttered due to Iran’s effective blockage of the Strait of Hormuz

International News via Reuters:

The war in the Middle East will lead to higher inflation and slower global growth, the head of the International Monetary Fund told Reuters on Monday, ahead of a forecast for the world economy planned by the global lender for next week.

The war has triggered the worst-ever disruption in global energy supply, with millions of barrels of oil production shuttered due to Iran’s effective blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, crucial for shipping one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas. Even if the conflict is swiftly resolved, the IMF is set to reduce its forecast for economic growth and bump up its outlook for inflation, Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF, said.

The war is expected to dominate discussions among finance officials from around the world at next week’s spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington.

The Fund is expected to release a range of scenarios in its upcoming World Economic Outlook due on April 14. It signaled a possible downgrade in a March 30 blog post, citing the asymmetric shock of the war and tighter financial conditions. Without the war, Georgieva said the IMF had expected a small upgrade in its projection for global growth of 3.3% in 2026 and 3.2% in 2027 as economies continue to recover from the pandemic.

“Instead, all roads now lead to higher prices and slower growth,” said Georgieva, who will preview the spring meetings in a speech on Thursday. World Bank President Ajay Banga will present his view at an Atlantic Council event on Tuesday.

“We are in a world of elevated uncertainty,” the IMF chief said, citing geopolitical tensions, technological advancements, climate shocks and demographic shifts. “All of this means that after we recover from this shock, we need to keep our eyes open for the next one.”

The war has shrunk global oil supply by 13%, Georgieva said, with the impact rippling through oil and gas shipments and into related supply chains such as helium and fertilizers.

Even a rapid end to hostilities and a fairly rapid recovery will result in a “relatively small” downward revision of the growth forecast and an upward revision of its inflation forecast, she said. If the war is protracted, the effect on inflation and growth will be greater.

POOR COUNTRIES WILL BE HIT HARDEST

Poor, vulnerable countries with no energy reserves will be hardest hit, Georgieva added, noting that many countries had little to no fiscal space to help their populations weather the price increases caused by the war, which in turn also increased the prospects of social unrest.

Georgieva said some countries had already asked for funding help, but did not name them. She said the IMF could augment some existing lending programs to meet countries’ needs. Eighty-five percent of the IMF’s members are energy importers.

Broad energy subsidies were not the answer, she said, urging policymakers to avoid government payments that could further inflame inflationary pressures.

The impact has been asymmetric, hitting energy-importing countries hardest, but even energy exporters such as Qatar are feeling the effect from Iranian strikes against their production facilities.

Qatar expects it will take three to five years to restore 17% of its natural gas production because of the damage, Georgieva said, while the International Energy Agency has reported 72 energy facilities have been damaged in the war, one-third of which have suffered significant damage.

“Even if the war is to stop today, there would be a lingering negative impact to the rest of the world,” she said.

FOOD SECURITY A CONCERN

After the U.S. and Israel attacked on February 28, Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, sending the price of crude oil and liquefied natural gas sharply higher. The international Brent crude benchmark settled near $110 on Monday, with cash benchmarks sourced to the Middle East at a substantial premium to that price.

The heads of the IMF, IEA and World Bank said last week they would form a coordinated effort to assess the energy and economic effects of the war.

Georgieva said the IMF was also engaging with the United Nations’ World Food Programme and Food and Agriculture Organization on food security.

The World Food Programme said in mid-March that millions of people will face acute hunger if the war continues into June. Georgieva said the IMF did not see a food crisis yet, but that could happen if the delivery of fertilizers was impaired.

Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by David Gaffen, Rod Nickel

The six-hour survey of the normally hidden hemisphere of Earth’s only natural satellite was highlighted by the astronauts’ direct visual observations of “impact flashes” from meteors

International News via Reuters:

The four astronauts of NASA’s Artemis II mission flew deeper into space on Monday than any humans before them, as they cruised through a rare flyby of the shadowed far side of the moon that revealed a lunar surface under cosmic bombardment.

The six-hour survey of the normally hidden hemisphere of Earth’s only natural satellite was highlighted by the astronauts’ direct visual observations of “impact flashes” from meteors pelting the darkened and heavily cratered lunar surface.

About two dozen scientists packed a conference room adjacent to mission control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to record the lunar phenomena witnessed by the Artemis crew in real time as their Orion spacecraft, about the size of an SUV, sailed around the moon roughly a quarter million miles (402,000 km) from Earth.

The six-hour flyby, which swooped to within 4,070 miles of the lunar surface, came six days into a spaceflight marking the world’s first voyage of astronauts to the vicinity of the moon since NASA’s Cold War-era Apollo missions more than half a century ago.

Six of those missions landed two-man teams on the moon between 1969 and 1972 – the only 12 humans ever to walk on its surface.

Artemis, a successor to the Apollo program, aims to repeat that achievement by 2028, ahead of China’s first landing, and to establish a long-term U.S. lunar presence over the next decade, including a moon base to serve as a proving ground for potential future missions to Mars.

While designed as a crewed dress rehearsal for future lunar excursions, Artemis II generated a wealth of new material for lunar scientists to study, including meteor impact flashes recorded during Monday’s flyby that were reminiscent of sparks and streaks of light described by some of Apollo’s astronauts.

The Artemis II crew, riding in their Orion capsule since launching from Florida last week, began their sixth day of spaceflight as they awoke on Monday to a pre-recorded message from the late NASA astronaut Jim Lovell, who flew aboard the Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 moon missions.

“Welcome to my old neighborhood,” said Lovell, who died last year at age 97. “It’s a historic day, and I know how busy you’ll be, but don’t forget to enjoy the view… good luck and Godspeed.”

Hours later, the crew consisting of U.S. astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, made spaceflight history by venturing farther from Earth than any humans have before, at 252,756 miles.

The previous record, roughly 248,000 miles, was set in 1970 by Apollo 13 after a nearly catastrophic spacecraft malfunction cut short that mission, forcing Lovell and his two crewmates to use the moon’s gravity to help return them safely to Earth.

NAMING CRATERS

En route to the far side of the moon, the Artemis astronauts spent some time assigning provisional new names to lunar features that previously lacked official designations.

In a radio message to mission control in Houston, Hansen suggested one crater be dubbed Integrity, after the name given to the crew’s Orion capsule, and that another be named in honor of Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll, who died of cancer in 2020.

“A number of years ago we started this journey, our close-knit astronaut family, and we lost a loved one,” Hansen said of the mission commander’s late spouse, his voice choking with emotion as he described the position of her lunar namesake. “It’s a bright spot on the Moon, and we would like to call that Carroll.”

Hansen later said the crew had viewed a number of lunar features that “no human has ever seen before, not even in Apollo.”       

As Orion hurtled around the moon’s far side, the astronauts photographed a rare moment in which Earth, dwarfed by their record-breaking distance from the planet, set and rose with the lunar horizon as they swung around the moon, a striking celestial reversal of the rising and setting moon typically seen from Earth.

Because the moon rotates at the same speed as it revolves around the Earth, its far side always faces away from our planet and only the Artemis and Apollo astronauts have ever gazed directly on its surface.

RARE DETAILED PHOTOS

Monday’s lunar flyby plunged the crew into darkness and a 40-minute communications blackout as the moon blocked them from NASA’s Deep Space Network, a global array of massive radio communications antennas the agency has been using to talk to the crew.

Following the flyby, U.S. President Donald Trump congratulated the four crew members on an audio link from the White House as they appeared on camera by live satellite feed from space.

“Today, you’ve made history and made all America really proud, incredibly proud,” Trump said. “You’ve really inspired the entire world. Really, everybody’s watching.”

Koch told Trump that one of her most unforgettable moments of the flyby was “coming back from the far side of the moon and having the first glimpses of planet Earth again.”

Asked by the president how they felt when all communication with Earth was cut off as Orion flew behind the moon, Glover answered, “I said a little prayer, but then I had to keep rolling.”

Reporting by Joey Roulette in Houston and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Don Durfee, Aurora Ellis, Bill Berkrot and Jamie Freed