Headlines

The United States, Israel and Iran have agreed to a two-week ceasefire, reached with Pakistani mediation, and U.S. and Iranian officials are expected to hold talks on Friday to discuss a long-term settlement. While Tehran and Washington have agreed to talks, Iran's 10-point proposals - which U.S. President Donald Trump said offered a "workable basis" for negotiations - show little overlap with a 15-point plan Washington previously put forward, suggesting there will be major gaps to [Read more]

Remember global imbalances? They're back. In a fractured world increasingly marked by self-interest and protectionism, the prospects for a coordinated response among the major economic powers to fix them and avert a crisis look remote. The U.S. current account deficit - and the corresponding surpluses of China, oil producers, the euro zone, and other advanced economies - has been widening since the COVID-19 pandemic, reversing a decade of steady decline after the global financial [Read more]

U.S. crude stocks rose while gasoline and distillate inventories fell last week, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Crude inventories rose by 3.1 million barrels to 464.7 million barrels in the week ended April 3, the EIA said, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 701,000-barrel rise. Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub rose by 24,000 barrels in the week, the EIA said. Oil futures pared earlier losses following the report. [Read more]

The Iranian navy threatened ships attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without Tehran's permission with destruction, adding that transit through the waterway remained shut, according to several shipping sources. "Any vessel trying to travel into the sea... will be targeted and destroyed..." the message said. (Reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar, Renee Maltezou, Yannis Souliotis, and Arathy Somasekhar; Editing by Sharon Singleton) [Read more]

* GCC growth forecast cut to 1.3% for 2026 due to lower hydrocarbon revenues * Kuwait and Qatar economies expected to contract this year * World Bank warns of lingering risks for the region DUBAI, April 8 - The World Bank has slashed its 2026 growth forecast for Middle East economies as a consequence of the war between the U.S.-Israel and Iran, and warned of pervasive risks in a report published on Wednesday. President Donald Trump late on Tuesday announced a two-week ceasefire in [Read more]

Saudi Arabia's crucial East-West oil pipeline, currently its only outlet for crude exports, was hit in an Iranian attack and other facilities in the kingdom were also targeted, an industry source told Reuters on Wednesday. The pipeline was diverting around 7 million barrels per day (bpd) from the kingdom's oil heartland in the east to the Red Sea port of Yanbu after Iran effectively shuttered the Strait of Hormuz, trapping huge volumes of oil and gas and sending world energy markets [Read more]