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Hello and welcome to News Hour live from the BBC World Service in London. I'm Rebecca Kesbby.

Today, the International Monetary Fund has warned that if the conflict in the Middle East continues, there could be

another global recession. Delivering its World Economic Outlook report, the IMF suggested that in the

worst case scenario where oil and gas prices stay high, pushing up food prices and unemployment

rates, global growth could fall below 2% for this year and inflation

could rise as much as 6% next year.

Chief economist for the IMF Pierre Oliver Guaranchard told the BBC that central banks need

to be cautious when making interest rate decisions given those lower projected growth rates

and possible higher rates of inflation.

In both of these scenarios, we look at what happened if energy prices become even more elevated,

a longer disruption, more destruction of facilities, more disruption of the flow of energy

through the Strait of Hormuz.

And then if we have that, then we're going to have other things as well. What are we going to have? We're going to have a lot more inflation. And then people are going to look at this inflation, and they're going to think, this is not going away. So we'll see inflation expectations start going up. And then we'll also have financial markets looking at this and say, this is not good.

Well, our economics editor, Faisal Islam, is at the IMF meeting and managed to grab a moment

with the US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant on the fringes. And Faisal asked him about those gloomy

projections from the IMF if the war in Iran continues. Mr. Besant said that he was less concerned about

short-term forecasts than long-term security. Well, earlier in the day, China criticized the

U.S. counter-blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, describing it as dangerous and irresponsible.

Washington argues the move will put pressure on the Iranian regime

to halt its enriched uranium program.

But the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jai Kuhn said

...