Morning Brief, Thursday 4 June

Iran launched 13 ballistic missiles and 17 drones at Kuwait International Airport, according to Kuwaiti authorities, killing an Indian national, wounding at least 63 people and forcing all flights to stop. Iran's Revolutionary Guard first described regional strikes as retaliation for US actions, then an IRGC spokesman denied attacking Kuwait and blamed malfunctioning US interceptors; the US military rejected that account and said Iranian drones deliberately hit the airport before American forces struck a ground-control station on Qeshm Island.

Donald Trump said talks with Iran were progressing and predicted a possible deal by the weekend, but his description of a ceasefire sounded less like diplomacy than weather commentary.

“I'd say in that part a world a ceasefire is when you're shooting in a more moderate manner.”

The House then voted 215 to 208 to direct Donald Trump to withdraw US forces from hostilities in Iran unless Congress authorises them, with four Republicans joining Democrats. The measure still faces the Senate and a likely veto, but it gives congressional unease a number.

• For withdrawal resolution215
• Against withdrawal resolution208

Israel and Lebanon meanwhile announced a conditional ceasefire plan built around Lebanese army pilot zones and the withdrawal of Hezbollah operatives from the South Litani Sector. Hezbollah rejected partial arrangements, Israeli strikes killed at least nine people in southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah claimed rocket fire into northern Israel, which left the agreement looking more like a framework than a halt. The danger is not that diplomacy has vanished; it is that every side now treats violence as a negotiating language.

Ukrainian drones struck infrastructure in three districts of St Petersburg as Russia opened its showcase economic forum, giving Vladimir Putin's investment pageant a plume of smoke for a backdrop. Russian regional officials said air defences shot down 59 drones overnight, while Volodymyr Zelenskiy named the St Petersburg oil terminal and military targets at the Kronstadt naval base as Ukrainian targets. Pulkovo airport restricted flights, and local outlets reported more than 30 cancellations or delays.

“Tonight, important targets on Russian territory were hit. Among them, the oil terminal in St Petersburg. From our Ukrainian state border to this target of the Russian oil industry, which works for the war, there are about 1,100 kilometres.”

The strike followed one of the largest Russian attacks on Kyiv and Dnipro, which killed 22 people, including a three-year-old child and the child's mother in Dnipro. Russia also accused Ukraine of killing at least 12 civilians in other attacks, including eight people on a passenger bus travelling toward occupied Crimea, while Mark Rutte arrived in Kyiv on a solidarity visit.

North Korea added a second pressure point by showing Kim Jong Un at a newly inaugurated nuclear-material production plant. State media said Kim had ordered an exponential expansion of nuclear forces, claimed weapons-grade material capacity had more than doubled in five years and linked the push to threats from hostile powers; independent verification remains unavailable, though the IAEA has already assessed a very significant expansion. One war is forcing Russia to guard its showcase cities, while another regime is reminding Washington that deterrence problems rarely queue politely.

The OECD set out two paths for the global economy, and neither looks cheerful. In its central case, global growth slows to 2.8% in 2026 from 3.4% in 2025 before recovering to 3.1% in 2027, while G20 inflation reaches 4.0% this year. In its darker case, a prolonged Middle East disruption drags growth to 2.1% in 2026 and 1.8% in 2027, with G20 inflation climbing above 5% and oil holding near $115 a barrel.

“The energy shock and rising inflation are worsening the outlook for the global economy.”

• 2026 central case2.8
• 2026 downside case2.1
• 2027 central case3.1
• 2027 downside case1.8

The chokepoint is the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran effectively closed after the February 28 US-Israeli attack on Iran, according to the OECD's framing. Recent violence around Kuwait and Bahrain has kept the risk premium alive, while damaged infrastructure and rerouted shipping mean even a peace deal would not give energy markets instant relief.

Central banks face the nastiest mix: hotter fuel prices, weaker demand and governments tempted to cap prices or cut taxes in ways that blunt energy savings. The OECD says the Federal Reserve and peers may need to raise rates by at least half a point in the downside case, just as investment, including energy-hungry AI spending, starts to weaken. A narrow shipping lane has become the world's central-bank meeting.

Britain's Competition and Markets Authority ordered Google to let publishers opt out of AI-powered search summaries without disappearing from ordinary search results. The ruling covers AI Overviews and AI Mode, demands clearer attribution and gives Google nine months to implement the changes, with two compliance reports due in the first year. The regulator says Google handles more than 90% of UK digital searches, which explains why a technical toggle has become a competition weapon.

“With features like AI Overviews rapidly reshaping online search, it is crucial that content publishers, including news organisations, have appropriate bargaining power over how their content is used.”

The compromise still carries a sting. Google says publishers that opt out of generative AI features will not receive traffic or impressions from those features, though the choice will not affect ranking outside AI search. That gives newspapers and other sites a cleaner right to refuse, but not a guarantee that refusal will pay.

SpaceX, in a very different market test, filed to sell about 555.6m shares at $135 each, raising $75bn and valuing the company near $1.77tn. The proposed proceeds would dwarf Saudi Aramco's $29.4bn 2019 record, while Elon Musk would keep more than 80% of voting control and reserve 30% of the offering for retail investors.

• SpaceX proposed IPO75
• Saudi Aramco 2019 IPO29.4

Regulators and investors are pricing the same scarce asset from opposite sides: control over the pipes through which attention, data and money now move.

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has spread across Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu since it was declared on May 15. Authorities have confirmed 344 cases of the Bundibugyo strain and 60 deaths, while Uganda has reported 15 confirmed cases and one death after the virus crossed the border. This strain has no approved vaccine or medicine, and getting a candidate vaccine into the field could take months.

“The outbreak had a big head-start and we're still behind.”

• DR Congo confirmed cases344
• DR Congo deaths60
• Uganda confirmed cases15
• Uganda deaths1

Contact tracing is the weak link. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said only about 45% of contacts have been followed up, far below the 90% needed to get ahead of Ebola, and health workers face armed groups, displacement, misinformation and attacks on health centres. Doctors Without Borders warned that limited testing and poor access mean the true scale remains hard to judge.

Aid cuts have made the job harder. The United States had financed roughly 70% of humanitarian work in Congo before USAID programmes were slashed, and former officials argue the outbreak would probably have been detected earlier if those systems had remained intact. Kenya's plan to build a quarantine centre for Americans and Kenyans exposed another tension: countries want protection, but regional trust is thin. A virus that thrives on delay has found exactly the delays it needs.