Yvette Cooper Warns Iran Blockade of Strait of Hormuz Could Send Millions Hungry

The Foreign Secretary warned that Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz could result in tens of millions going hungry, telling an aid summit that the world risks “sleepwalking into a global food crisis.”

“The Foreign Secretary has warned that Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz could result in tens of millions going hungry as she told an aid summit of the risk of “sleepwalking into a global food crisis””

Newswav

Yvette Cooper said the global south was paying the biggest price as the global trade of fertiliser and heating oil are largely blocked, with markets pricing in weaker harvests and the World Food Programme estimating that 45 million people could fall into acute food insecurity if the conflict does not end by the middle of the year.

Newswav

Cooper said, “We meet against the backdrop of the Hormuz crisis, a strait of water through which 90 ships a day used to pass, but for the last three months it’s been more like five.”

She added that “Heating oil for Asia – stuck in the Strait, fertilisers for Africa – stuck in the strait, 20,000 seafarers, 800 ships – just stuck in the strait,” and said the UK was working with UN agencies and the World Food Programme to “pre-position food supplies.”

In a separate account of Donald Trump’s public remarks, The Independent described a “sudden, urgent press conference” that played out “more like the world’s worst fever dream.”

The Independent said Trump spoke to the nation from the construction site of his brand new White House events space, a partially taxpayer-funded, partly private-investment-with-little-to-no-transparency ballroom, while networks pulled away from the acting Attorney General — his former personal lawyer Todd Blanche — testifying before the Senate about the 2027 budget.

The Hollywood Reporter

The Independent quoted Trump saying, “You can see the very large piping and other things down here — it’s a very complex building,” as drills and excavators noise filled the background.

Later, the outlet reported that a reporter asked if he was going to make a deal with Cuba, and Trump replied, “Oh yeah, I think so,” adding that the Cuban-American people of Miami were “amazing people.”

The Hollywood Reporter tied US political tensions to a film debate, saying Sebastian Stan told a Tuesday press conference at the Cannes Film Festival that it’s “just not a laughing matter” and that “we’re in a really, really bad place.”

“Every president addresses a crisis differently”

The Independent

Stan linked his understanding of Donald Trump to what he described as “the consolidation of the media, censorship, the threats, the supposed lawsuits that seemingly never end, but don’t actually go anywhere,” and said the creative team experienced it with The Apprentice “to the point where we were three days before the festival, unsure if the movie was going to play at the festival.”

In the same Cannes coverage, Cristian Mungiu said the film’s conflict of values “led to the splitting of the society into groups of people that really detest each other,” and he said, “We live in a global world, but we couldn’t be more divided.”

The Hollywood Reporter also quoted Stan describing his own background, saying, “I left in a very chaotic way and I’ve really tried to educate myself about the country,” as he discussed reconnecting with Romania through film.