As other Asian economies race to conserve energy, China has huge reserves of oil and gas as well as alternative energy sources like wind and solar

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Xi Jinping has been preparing for a crisis like this for years. China must secure its energy supply “in its own hands”, its president was reported to have said during a visit to one of its vast oilfields in 2021.

The US-Israel war on Iran plunged the Middle East into a deep conflict, with the strait of Hormuz – one of the most important waterways in global trade – all but closed and key energy facilities across the region under attack.

The Swedish flight tracking tool, spun out of a price comparison portal, is tracking the travel chaos sparked by the US-Israel war on Iran in real time

Mikael Robertsson and Olov Lindberg did not set out to build one of the pre-eminent monitors of global airspace. In a bid to draw more eyes to their Swedish flight price comparison portal, the entrepreneurs added a page charting air traffic.

That page became Flightradar24, the portal that people around the world now turn to when there is chaos – and drama – in the skies.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers remain stranded, with key air hubs in Middle East closed amid fallout from US-Israeli strikes on Iran

• US-Israel war on Iran – live updates

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Thousands more flights were cancelled on Monday as the turmoil in global air travel caused by the US-Israel war on Iran continued, with hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded.

Gulf airports and airlines have suspended normal operations until at least 10.00 GMT on Tuesday. However, a limited number of special services were due to depart from the UAE on Monday evening.

Brent crude jumped by 13% during early trading and stock markets came under pressure as US-Israeli strikes on Iran raised fears of disruption

Oil prices rose and stock markets came under pressure on Monday after intense US-Israeli strikes on Iran prompted fears of significant global economic disruption.

Brent crude jumped by as much as 13% during early trading – to hit $82 per barrel, a 14-month high – as the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz, one of the most important arteries for global trade, intensified concerns over oil supplies.

Economies such as the UK, India, Japan and the EU raced to hammer out agreements, but the blanket rate has left them wondering where they stand

“America is WINNING again,” Donald Trump declared last week, unveiling the first batch of Japanese-backed projects under a mooted $550bn investment surge into the US as part of his trade pact with Tokyo.

After the US president tore up the global economic order in 2025, Japan was one among the countries scrambling to strike a deal. They pledged to dramatically increase investment in the US in exchange for lower US tariffs on Japanese exports.