‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington
The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest,In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world,But then came the Iran war,“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings,“The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.
”Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles.“You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked.But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group.
“There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about.But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog.Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.
”A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial.Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade.The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.
But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier.“We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year.But that was in private.”At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.
The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty.Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee.
“You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy.But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back.And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war.
The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s,Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems,In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view,“It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian,Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.
“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess.But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said.“The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess.But it’s almost impossible to do.”
Growing knowledge, growing yield: British wine-making comes of age
Rows of vines stretch across the rolling hills of rural Dorset. Currently waist height, they appear bare against a bleak spring sky. Up close, you can see they are already dotted with tiny woolly buds as they exit their winter dormancy for a new growth cycle.Come summer these rows will be laden with chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier grapes, ready to make the latest batch of English sparkling wine from the Langham estate near Dorchester.Although it was only 2009 when the first vines were planted here on former arable farmland, the estate has already produced award-winning wines that beat established European rivals
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UK’s OnlyFans tops $3bn valuation amid talks to sell stake to US investor
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Finance leaders warn over Mythos as UK banks prepare to use powerful Anthropic AI tool
British banks will be given access in the next week to a powerful AI tool that was deemed too dangerous to be released to the public, as a series of senior finance figures warned over its impact.Anthropic, which has so far limited the release of the new model to a small clutch of primarily US businesses, including Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, said it would expand that to UK financial institutions.“That is in the very near term, in the next week,” Pip White, Anthropic’s head of UK, Ireland and northern Europe operations, said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “As you would expect, the engagement I have had from UK CEOs in the last week has been significant.”Anthropic, which is the company behind the Claude family of AI tools, has said that its latest model, Mythos, poses an unprecedented risk because of its ability to expose flaws in IT systems
AFC Bournemouth’s owner Bill Foley behind US takeover of Exeter Chiefs
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‘I’m extremely lucky to be here’: Jelena Dokic on childhood dreams and talking tennis
Australia’s former world No 4 player and now respected pundit speaks about highs and lows in her life, and the importance of family on successAll sports stars know that dealing with highs and lows comes with the territory, as part of the job. But few have been through such extremes as Jelena Dokic, who spent her whole career, and much of her life, navigating painful moments. Abused, physically and psychologically, by her father, Dokic suffered from depression, an eating disorder and, at the very lowest moments, contemplated suicide.But Dokic never gave up, showing rare resilience, built from her experience growing up in a war-torn country and being a refugee, twice. (Dokic was born in Croatia – part of the former Yugoslavia – and moved to Serbia, before settling in Australia)
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