This is The Guardian.

Stock markets reacting really violently, steep falls around the world.

Iran has basically said that anything that passes through the straits, fair game.

They'll set it to blaze, I think was the phrase that they're used. It's effectively like the world's gas station, and there's a huge queue outside it.

Nobody can get in, nobody can get out. It feels like a net result of all of this is you have a far more

uncertain world, and all that feeds through to higher prices. War in the Middle East is sending

shockwaves through the global economy.

But why does the price of oil and gas matter so much?

From The Guardians today in focus, this is the latest with me, Noshinikbar.

Joining me today is the Guardian's head of business, John Collingridge.

John, thank you so much for joining us. We are now on day five of this war. And from the

perspective of the global economy, it doesn't look great, does it? Now, you're our head

of business, so I'm hoping you're going to walk us through this in the most simplest terms.

But how have the markets been responding to all the turmoil in the Middle East?

What we've seen over the last few days, since the attacks over the weekend, stock markets

reacting really violently, steep falls around the world. So overnight, the Asian markets fell

really sharply. In fact, in South Korea, they had to

have to stop, they used a circuit breaker to stop the market for it temporarily because the

falls were so steep. And then on the other side, you've seen commodity costs, particularly

oil and gas, go through the roof. You've seen really sharp increases, particularly in gas,

because this region is such a big exporter of oil

and gas and those ships are stopped from traversing through the Strait of Humus.

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