00:00You've got this global confrontation.
00:04Also, because that area is where most of the oil comes from,
00:08well, not most of the oil, but a large proportion of the world's oil
00:10is found in the Persian Gulf area and goes through the Straits of Hormuz,
00:15which is the narrow strait at the end of this Persian Gulf area,
00:18which through 20% of the world's oil goes.
00:23Now, one of the things which has happened this week
00:26is that the Iranians have begun to close down the Straits of Hormuz.
00:30Once you close down the Straits of Hormuz,
00:31then no tankers can go through that narrow strait.
00:34So all the tankers are stuck in the Persian Gulf.
00:39Some want to go in, some want to go out, but trade is stopping.
00:44Is that going to make any difference to the world?
00:47It certainly is.
00:50It says here, the Iran has threatened to set fire to ships
00:54with about 200 tankers effectively stranded.
00:56Oil prices have risen to their highest level more than two years.
01:00After Qatar's energy minister warned he expects all oil and gas exporters
01:04in the Gulf to stop production within days.
01:09That's going to have an effect upon all of us.
01:13Because even if we don't get our oil and gas from that area,
01:16and we do get some of it, quite a lot of it,
01:19it's going to affect the prices around the world.
01:23If you go to the tumps today,
01:25you'll find it's gone up about four or five pence already.
01:28It'll continue to go up.
01:32This man from Qatar, he said,
01:34if this war continues for a few weeks,
01:36GDP growth around the world will be impacted.
01:38Everyone's energy price is going to go higher.
01:40There will be shortages of some products.
01:42There will be a chain reaction in factories that can't supply.
01:48So you've got a potential situation going to affect the whole world.
01:53And once it's started, it's very difficult to stop these things.
01:57If they do start firing at tankers,
01:59then that will be not just a material disaster,
02:04it'll be an ecological disaster as well.
02:05Well, I typed into my Google thing,
02:08what happens if they sink tankers in the Persian Gulf?
02:12So it'll be an ecological catastrophe.
02:15It'll cause oil to spill.
02:18If you sink a full tanker and it sets fire,
02:23you're going to have a massive disaster,
02:25ecologically killing wildlife,
02:26but also poisoning the water itself.
02:30And apart from anything else,
02:31many of these Gulf countries actually get their water supply
02:34from desalination parts on the Persian Gulf.
02:36So if you've got them being contaminated with oil,
02:39it's going to affect their water as well.
02:42And another point about this whole scenario
02:44is that water is one of the big issues in the whole region.
02:49Talk about wars over oil.
02:53Water in Iran is a big problem.
02:55It's a big problem in Iraq.
02:56It's a big problem in the whole region
02:58because of cutting down of water,
03:00also of building dams in the wrong places, and so on.
03:05But this whole scenario in Iran started
03:06when the president said that they were running out of water
03:08and they might have to shift the whole population of Tehran
03:11out because there's no water there.
03:13So you've got these issues.
03:15Which do you need more, water or oil?
03:20Water, yeah?
03:22So you've got these things
03:24which are coming upon this whole region
03:26and affecting the whole world.
03:28You've got an environmental problem,
03:30you've got a massive kind of economic problem coming
03:34and the possibility of a global recession
03:38which could affect us here as well, of course.
03:41Our own government is in poor shape.
03:42You've got all these forces
03:44pushing us this way and that in the UK.
03:46Okay.
03:46All right.
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