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Terms and conditions apply. on board in the Strait of Hormuz.
I can see several ships are around me.
Most of them are oil tanker and all of them are loaded.
Getting two ships out under heavy air cover and opening the strait are so far apart.
It's World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
This is Andrew Peach.
On the way, are ships moving and could it lead to the resumption of hostilities in the Gulf?
Also today, why artificial intelligence is back in court in the US and the rewards and challenges being promoted to the English Premier League.
First, the US and Iran have exchanged fire in the Persian Gulf in a flare-up of violence during Monday that also drew in the United Arab Emirates, prompting calls for renewed strikes on Iranian targets and casting doubt on the fate of the four-week ceasefire.
The US military says its warships have helped two US flag vessels transit the Strait of Hormuz, breaking the Iranian blockade.
It also denied Iranian reports that one US warship was forced to turn back.
BBC Verify has been trying to look at whether these American flag ships have moved.
So far we've not been able to locate them because it is possible for ships to turn off their location transmissions.
Our Middle East analyst, Sebastian Usher, has been talking to my colleague, Rebecca Kesby, about the latest developments.
Well, what we've heard from the UAE is that there have been four missiles fired at it, three of them intercepted, one fell into the sea.
But also that one of its main petroleum energy hubs is on fire after a strike.
And we've heard from the Omani authorities that a residential building was hit there.
Two people injured injured.
Didn't name Iran, but this is a town that is on the coastline of the Strait of Hormuz.
So it seems that it probably is Iran who had fired those strikes.
And that's a big escalation from Iran.
There haven't been strikes like that on its Gulf neighbours during the ceasefire.
It shows that Iran is ready to respond very quickly to what it sees as escalation by the US.
And briefly, we've heard a couple of cargo ships were hit today as well.
Yes, there was a South Korean ship, which the South Korean authorities say was set on fire.
No one injured on there.
The crew was safely taken from the ship.
Also from maritime organisation that two other ships were also struck, but again no injuries reported.
So not major incidents, but again a sign that Iran is is stepping immediately to try and prevent the US from undoing its closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The US operation to escort ships in the strait is called Project Freedom.
Tom Sharp is a retired Royal Navy commander who served for over 25 years and specialised in military planning and anti-submarine warfare.
He's been talking to my colleague Tim Franks about its chances of success.
I would start by saying nothing today has changed.
There's still two blockades sort of sitting awkwardly alongside each other.
There's still Iran threatening violence against ships that try and break their blockade, and that hasn't changed.
That's been in place since the 1st of March when they started this.
There's still the US saying that they will interdict any ships involved in Iranian ports, and that's been in place for the last 10 days or so, with threats of violence both ways.
So in reality, very little has changed.
So we're finding here that warm words and positive discussions about shipping lanes don't actually reopen the straits.
And yet, I mean, if it is indeed the case that the US military have managed with their warships, and managed to escort two US flagged vessels out of that narrow strip or through the narrow strip that is the Strait of Hormuz, I suppose they could claim well look, you know, we've shown that it works.
Now it's up to everybody else to escort their flagged vessels.
Yeah, I think there's a really interesting nuance in there.
And I've thought that, the five US flagships in the Gulf.
I'm surprised it's taken this long to hoik them out, frankly.
I think a sort of smash and grab job where you go in with unsustainable levels of air cover, but impressive nonetheless, and get those five ships out.
I thought that's been an option all along.
It now looks like two of them happened last night.
But...
Getting two ships out under heavy air cover and opening the strait are so far apart in reality that it's almost irrelevant.
But the nuance is you get all five out and the US can claim victory.
So we've opened it.
And now the rest of it, that's up to you who need those ships.
Off you go.
It's been more than two months that the Strait has been closed to all but a few Iranian-approved vessels.
The ceasefire had reduced the fighting between the US, Israel and Iran but, as we've been hearing, there have now been shots and missiles fired.
In the meantime, around 2000 ships are thought to be trapped inside the Persian Gulf, with 20000 sailors on board.
The BBC has been hearing from one captain of a crude oil tanker that's stuck in the straight because of the fighting.
Hello, I'm Captain Raman Kapoor from India.
And I'm speaking on behalf of all the seafarers who are stranded in this region.
We are in the north part of the Persian Gulf.
It's a little far from the Hormuz.
We are stranded here ever since the war started on 28 February.
And the situation had been pretty tense in the beginning and we have witnessed various attacks, various missiles, explosions.
My crew underwent, you know, various situations, various mindsets and stress, anxiety.
All those things were there.
And ever since the ceasefire announced on 8th April, things have been pretty okay, pretty normal, as there are no attacks happening on any ship.
Even now, we don't witness any missiles or any explosions.
I can see several ships are around me.
Most of them are oil tanker and all of them are loaded, waiting for oil to go out from this region.
And the weather is pretty nice.
It's a sunny day.
Temperature is raising day by day as summers are coming.
This morning uh, as usual, i woke up around you know seven o'clock in the morning and then get up and have tea, coffee or whatever, then go to bridge and take round on around the ship and uh, give orders necessary.
It's been pretty normal days, just regular work.
Everyone was doing and waiting for their repatriation.
As per company office, they have been lining up a few crew members whoever is, you know a So hopefully in a couple of days I may get my reliever on board.
It's like, you know, ever since war started, many of my crew wanted to go home.
But repatriation was not possible because airports were not operating in this region and sea routes were also blocked.
So we were trapped inside.
So everyone is counting their days, you know, and very happy also, same time that yes, things have improved and where we can go home.
We have started packing our stuff and, you know, so that we don't waste time.
For me, it's been six months now.
My contract is normally four months.
So I have done two months over contract. my contract.
We miss being with our family, with our loved ones friends, and you know everyone is praying for our safe return to India.
You know our home country.
So this time it's going to be a little different, a little more happiness.
Let's go live now to Captain John Conrad, the CEO of the maritime news site GCaptain, who's back with us live on World Business Report from New York.
Good to be talking to you, John.
What are you seeing going on in the strait?
Well, we're seeing the prioritization, as Tom Sharp said, of bringing the U.S. flagships out.
I'm a US merchant marine captain and right prior to the war We got I got interviewed Pete Hegseth, the secretary of war, and he said he was going to prioritize the protection of US merchant marine ships.
And now it's been months and many of us were questioning if that was going to happen.
We've only gotten two of the three ships out, but we know one of those ships was Maersk.
Maersk released a statement saying that this was a pre-planned event, that they worked very closely with the US.
Navy. to advance communications and defense systems in order to make this transit possible.
We also know from Admiral Cooper that now there are U.S. destroyers in the Persian Gulf.
If they will be escorting more ships out, we're not sure, but that seems to be the plan.
We heard there from Rahman Kapoor.
What are ships' owners and captains who you're able to speak to telling you?
They remain extremely cautious.
And I think that is the underlying bedrock of this whole delay.
Every side.
The European Navy seemed very reluctant to respond, participate and have casualties on the NATO side.
The US Navy has been taking their time because they do not want any casualties on their side.
And the ship owners.
They've been able to work out insurance plans, but they don't want to put their crew members at risk.
For two reasons.
There's increased awareness within the maritime community, at places like the International Maritime Organization, to treat seafarers better.
That's part of it.
The second part is just as these attacks come, it's more prevalent for seafarers to take video of attacks.
And I don't think any ship owner wants to see their company logo covered in blood on TikTok.
Of course.
Obviously the pressure.
The other way is about the welfare of the seafarers, 20000 of them, many from the Philippines who've now been on board these vessels.
Do you think what we're heading towards is each country having to decide to basically do the same thing to follow the US's lead?
If this works,
Well, I don't think we other nations really have the ability to put a lot of destroyers into the Gulf.
The Europeans have mostly downgraded their fleets to frigates.
The UK has a few destroyers, but had trouble getting the HMS Dragon out.
A few Asian nations Japan and Korea do have capable destroyers, but they don't want to leave their backdoor open in case China decides to take Taiwan.
So I think the U.S. is going to have to do some of the heavy lifting here.
And I think we are starting to see ships move through.
But as Tom said earlier, they're not moving through right now.
Just yesterday, besides these US ships, there were only seven ships, according to the maritime intelligence firm Windward, which we posted on GCaptain.
So you're not – it's going to take time.
I think the US will start with the US flagships and then make deals with allies to get some of those ships out.
The Philippines could be a priority, because we're working very closely with the Philippines on a military-to-military basis right now.
John, thank you.
Always great having you on the programme.
John Conrad from GCaptain.
This is World Business Report with Andrew Peach from the BBC World Service.
And from New York to South Carolina.
Now Walter Todd, President and Chief Investment Officer at Greenwood Capital, is with me.
More uncertainty in the straight.
Oil prices go up, Walter.
The SP 500 here in the US was down less than half a percent for the day, despite oil being up three to five dollars, despite interest rates being up five to seven basis points.
A really resilient market just seems to try to look through a lot of these headlines.
It's just all priced in, is it, now?
The market thinks, oh, yeah, stuff going on in the Strait of Hormuz.
Tell us something we don't know.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, well, yes, yes.
The market investors, as we see here today, seem to be taking that attitude.
I would submit that.
There's a lot not priced into this market in terms of downside risk if things were to escalate.
And I think we saw a little window into that today at various kind of points in time, as the headlines were coming back and forth.
So I do think there's a continued risk of a potential escalation here.
There's the possibility of Donald Trump increasing tariffs US tariffs on cars from the European Union, currently 15.
Everyone's talking about them going up to 25%.
Has that happened?
I don't think that is a I know it was kind of floated out there on Friday, maybe over the Internet.
But I don't think it's officially happened yet.
I mean, tariffs, that's a 2025 story, Andrew.
Don't get me going down that road.
But yeah, I mean, obviously it would be another headwind, potentially not only for Europe but for US consumers as well.
And just finally, GameStop want to buy eBay and they want to buy it for $56 billion.
Yeah, so this is so emblematic of this market right now because you've got GameStop, who's an 11 billion company trying to pay 56 billion for eBay.
Let that sink in for a minute.
An $11 billion company trying to buy a $56 billion company.
So pretty highly unlikely I think this deal gets done.
But I think it just speaks to kind of the risk-taking that's going on out there in this market.
Walter, thank you so much.
Walter Todd from Greenwood Capital with us from South Carolina.
Now, the tech trial of the decade has resumed in Oakland, California.
Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX fame is suing OpenAI and particularly the chief executive, Sam Altman, saying they breached a commitment to develop artificial intelligence as a non-profit to benefit humanity.
Now it's been revealed today that Mr Musk sent text messages to the OpenAI president, Greg Bachman, a couple of days before the trial started, aimed at gauging OpenAI's interest in settling the case, but the judges decided that texts can't be entered into evidence for the jury to see.
Let's catch up with our North America tech reporter, Lily Jamali, who's back with us on World Business Report.
Talk us through what's happened in court today, Lily.
Right.
So, before we got started with the jury coming in, this morning, as you alluded to just a moment ago, we got this sort of very revealing text that Elon Musk, or set of texts, sent to OpenAI President Greg Brockman.
The focus there was really this notion that Musk was seemingly trying to settle this.
He said at one point in these texts by the end of this week, you and Sam will be the most hated men in America.
If you insist, so it will be.
So that is the tenor of the correspondence between Elon Musk and Greg Brockman last week.
And, as you said, this is not material that will go before the jury, but it certainly reveals Musk's thinking.
Today, we heard from Greg Brockman, the OpenAI president.
A lot of focus today on his personal wealth, how much he has made through his involvement in OpenAI.
OK.
I mean, trying to settle the case in this way is a standard part of justice in the United States.
It just doesn't normally involve so much money and such big names, I suppose.
But the principle is the same.
I mean, what could the outcome of this be?
What will the jury in the end have to decide?
Ultimately, they have to decide if Elon Musk is telling it like it happened, when he says that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman deceived him into making 38 million in donations.
And then turned around away from the nonprofit mission of OpenAI the nonprofit mission to develop AI in a safe way for the benefit of humanity and turn it into their personal piggy bank, this sort of for-profit arm which
You know, Brockman did not at any point contribute to financially.
I focus on him because he has been on the stand today.
His stake is now worth as much as 30 billion with a B dollars.
And so it was interesting hearing Musk's lawyer question him and saying you know, do you, do you think you would donate most of that to OpenAI's nonprofit arm?
And he said, I don't think I like that.
That was his exact response to Stephen Molo, Musk's attorney.
What happens next and how long is all this going to go on?
We're going to hear a lot more from Greg Brockman tomorrow.
He is now being questioned by his own lawyers.
Talking about you know how the company got started already.
We've gotten a bit of that with him, sort of painting OpenAI as his idea along with Sam Altman, not Elon Musk's idea.
Elon Musk coming on later and offering to spend the money to make this happen.
We're also going to hear from Siobhan Zillis.
That is a former OpenAI board member who is also the mother of four of Musk's children.
That will be very interesting testimony to watch, to be sure.
And how much coverage is this getting in the US?
There's obviously a lot going on.
Quite a lot.
It's a little bit more subdued today.
Last week, because Elon Musk was here for three days in a row.
It was a bit of a circus, to say the least.
There was a long line, you know, some media waiting hours to get into the courthouse today.
Pretty much everyone got in who wanted to.
And it's a little bit quieter, a little bit calmer with Greg Brockman, who just is not a household name here or anywhere else outside of Silicon Valley perhaps.
You know, that's why it's been a little bit quieter.
We're still following it for you.
Thank you very much indeed, Lily.
Now, over the weekend, Ipswich were promoted from the second tier of English football to the Premier League.
Today fans have been lining the streets of Coventry in the Midlands to see the team who've taken their
Team back to the big time for the first time in 25 years, parading the trophy through the streets on an open-top bus.
I've been waiting for this since 1987.
I just can't believe we've done it.
We're back in the Premier League.
I don't live round here.
I'm from our little village just outside of Leamington.
So to come over to Coventry and be in the thick of it all today is just so, so, so special.
I had a season ticket in League Two, so to see us go all the way down and all the way back up is just unreal.
The real prize though, isn't so much the trophy and the love of the fans, but the financial boost a club gets, with annual income likely to double or treble or more, but with rapidly rising costs.
The transition to being a Premier League side, one of the hardest to make in world sport.
Dr Christina Philippou is professor at the University of Portsmouth and an expert in football finance.
If you look at the top of the championship to the bottom of the Premier League, roughly it's 100 million plus.
So if we look at say, Coventry in 24 25, they had 34 million and Ipswich had 155 million, Southampton 157 million.
So we're talking about over 100 million jump in revenue if you go from the top of the championship to bottom of the Premier League.
And what is that money?
It's TV rights and also presumably increased ticket sales, merchandise sales, those kind of things.
Generally, we break up the revenue into three pieces, right?
One is match day.
Now match day is going to go up a little bit because you generally put up prices.
You're Because attendances are pretty high.
Anyway, the amount of money difference fits in the thousands rather than in the hundreds of thousands.
Commercials, so that's partnerships, go up a little bit.
Merchandising, some better sponsor deals because Premier League warrants that.
There is a little bit of an increase in the commercial side, but yeah, the biggest chunk of money is in broadcasting.
So if you look at championship broadcasting, so the EFL has a broadcasting deal which is split 70-18-12 in terms of percentages across Championship, League 1 and League 2.
That's worth £187 million million pounds per year for the whole EFL, compared to 28 billion for just the Premier League.
So there is a huge amount of difference in the amount of broadcasting money that comes into the Premier League compared to the EFL.
And that is what makes the big difference.
Even if you're a Wrexham who is way punching above their weight in terms of the commercial side and the commercial deals and all the sponsors and all that kind of money coming in, it's the broadcasting that really makes the difference in the Premier League.
So the team succeed.
You get to the promised land, you get to the Premier League.
Someone gives you £100 million.
How do you know as a business what to do with it?
Because it strikes me that any business worth £30, £40 million suddenly given £100 million to spend would find that difficult.
You would think so.
I don't think so.
The amount you get in parachute payments when you're back in the championship is less, because you only get it for two years effectively, compared to three if you've been in the Premier League for over a year.
What that means is, even if you are going to go down because you think well, we're going to be punching above our way to stay in the Premier League long term.
The ideal scenario is to try and stay in the Premier League for over a year, because that's when the big money comes in.
And in order to do that, you need to make sure that you can compete.
And in order to compete, you need to pay the players, which tend to have much higher wages.
And therefore what we see is wage bills start to climb quite rapidly when you go into the Premier League.
So if you take Ipswich Town, for example, they went from £44 million to £70 million wage bill from Championship to Premier League.
That's the kind of jumps we tend to see.
Some clubs are a little bit better with this management.
There's also relegation clauses.
So if you do bring on new players, then at least you know that if you get relegated there will be some cuts to their wage bills.
But It is a problem.
You're never going to be able to put in relegation clauses in people's contracts that say oh well, if we go down, we're going to pay you 80 less because nobody's going to sign that contract.
So it is a very, very difficult balancing act between making sure you try and stay up in the Premier League, but also making sure that that you don't go bankrupt, which is the most likely scenario.
You have to go straight back down.
That's Dr Christina Philippou, Professor of Football Finance at the University of Portsmouth, speaking to me a little earlier.
Now, the vintage clothing industry has been booming, particularly since the pandemic.
But as shoplifting rates have risen across the UK in recent months, second-hand sellers are becoming victims of their own success.
Samuel Owers reports now from the Portobello Road in the west of London, where organised criminals are targeting traders.
I've got a film.
They're loading the stuff in from the shop now.
You're hearing a recording of the moment a London vintage store was robbed of thousands of pounds worth of bags and clothes last October.
Shop owner, Charlotte Cohue, explained the security measures the robbers breached.
Had a glass panel with bars and that was completely wiped out.
They drove a motorcycle into it.
Charlotte founded Lovers Lane on Portobello Road in 2021, riding a post-pandemic success wave in vintage fashion.
People don't want to go rob the Chanel store or the Gucci shop.
The money is now with the vintage pieces.
They've been subject to a series of increasingly sophisticated break-ins, as mum and co-director Kimberly Cohue explains.
Each time, we have upped our security.
So it went to bars behind the windows, and then it went to, you know, like a two-tonne shutter.
But even that didn't deter the thieves.
They got the shutter up, bent it in half, crawled under, and had a field day.
I can't describe it.
The worst feeling.
Up the road from Charlotte and Kimberly's shop is Portobello Road Market, which has been the beating heart of London's second-hand goods trade since the 1940s.
But the profile of sellers here is changing.
Young traders selling designer clothing in the open air are especially vulnerable to theft.
I spoke to Khalid Ainsworth, who's been selling vintage clothes since the age of 15.
It's definitely become, at least as I've started working here, a lot more prevalent.
Khalid agrees that these thefts aren't the work of petty criminals.
There's always been a sense of organisation behind it.
The Office for National Statistics said that retail theft reached a record high last year, a fact experts have linked to the growing involvement of organised crime.
They're not the peaky blinders.
They are clever, they're calculating, and they're quite vicious.
That's Andrew Goodacre from the British Independent Retailers Association.
He says gangs are recruiting vulnerable people with addiction issues who steal to order like a little army of professional shop thieves.
The Metropolitan Police says tackling retail theft is a top priority and that they've solved nearly double the number of shoplifting cases last year, while arresting 50 more people.
The thieves behind the raid on Charlotte and Kimberley's shop haven't been found, but they're finding solace in the support of the Portobello Road community, the outpouring of kindness and support that was the best part of humanity.
And that's it from World Business Report.
Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from me, Andrew Peach and the team.
Thank you for being with us on the BBC World Service.
