On Monday, crude oil surged above $100 a barrel on concerns about potential shortages due to prolonged disruption to Middle East energy supplies.

At the weekend, Iran named Mojtaba Khamenei as its new Supreme Leader – a sign that hardliners remain in charge of the country – while some Gulf countries halted oil production and there were fresh airstrikes in the region.

East Asian nations have been hit especially hard by the conflict due to their reliance on energy that comes through the key Strait of Hormuz sea route.

Authorities in South Korea and Thailand said they would set limits on fuel prices.

South Korean president Lee Jae Myung said his government would “swiftly implement” a price cap on petrol products.

The Iran conflict has created a “significant burden” on the country’s economy, which is highly dependent on region’s energy imports, Lee said during an emergency cabinet meeting.

He added that Seoul is ready to step in with additional measures and expand the country’s 100tn won (£50bn; $67bn) financial markets stabilisation programme if necessary.

In Thailand, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul urged people to not stockpile fuel and announced plans to cap the price of diesel for 15 days. Long queues formed at petrol stations around the country in recent days, with supplies running low at some outlets.

South Korea’s trade ministry also warned oil firms that any attempt to take advantage of the crisis will be dealt with, calling for “transparent and fair” pricing after the cost of petrol rose in in recent days.

Vietnam’s finance ministry said it is are preparing to temporarily remove taxes on fuel imports.

In the Philippines, new measures aimed at saving energy came into effect.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr on Friday announced plans for a four-day working week for most public offices, with the exemption of critical services like fire stations and hospitals.

Universities in Bangladesh are also shut from Monday to save energy, according to state media.

US President Donald Trump has said on Sunday that a short-term jump in oil prices was a “small price to pay” for removing Iran’s nuclear threat.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said oil and gas prices will fall when the US destroys Iran’s capability to strike tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for around 20% of the the world’s oil.

Shipments through the strait have come to a standstill after Iran threatened to attack vessels that try to pass through the channel as a response to the US and Israeli airstrikes.

Reopening the strait to shipping is key to easing energy prices for Asia as many major economies in the region are reliant on energy from the Middle East, said Roc Shi from the University of Technology Sydney.

The effective closure of the waterway is a “supply chain crisis, not just a price spike” especially for Japan and South Korea, both of which source the majority of their energy from Gulf states, he added.

Plans to set fuel price caps are “politically attractive” as they offer “visible relief”, but risk backfiring if the move leads to panic buying and a shortage of petrol, Shi said.

How long the surge in oil prices lasts depends on the conflict’s duration and how severely supply is disrupted, said OCBC bank strategist Christopher Wong.

Oil prices could unwind “relatively quickly” if tensions in the region ease, but they could continue climbing if there is any disruption to production or shipments, Wong said.

As the conflict between Iran and the US and Israel continued, the UK gas price surged by more than 46%, following sharp gains on Monday pushing it to it highest price for three years.Brent Crude Oil climbed by more than 5% to just over $81 a barrel.

In the UK, the FTSE 100 index fell by 2.6% while stocks markets in France and Germany also dropped.

Investors are weighing the impact of the conflict on the global economy including what it could mean for inflation and interest rates.

Following a meeting in Mexico City, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also expressed their commitment to a shared partnership with the US.

“We complement the United States, we make them stronger, and we are all stronger together,” Carney told reporters.

Both Canada and Mexico have been hit by US tariffs – 50% on Canadian steel, and 25% on some Mexican pharmaceuticals. President Trump has also levied a 25% “fentanyl tariff” on Mexico, citing border security.

This is Carney’s first official visit to Mexico as prime minister, and it marks an effort to reset relations after tensions flared last year when Canadian officials were accused of seeking a separate trade deal with the US during tariff talks.

At the time, Sheinbaum’s response was that “Mexico must be respected, especially by its trading partners”, and that Canada “could only wish they had the cultural riches that Mexico has”.

The tone between Carney and Sheinbaum on Thursday appeared much warmer, with the two exchanging gifts and later pleasantries at a joint news conference.

“Our agreement today will expand and deepen the partnership, so that the next 30 years hold even greater promise than the last 30 years have delivered,” Carney said.

Canadian officials told reporters earlier that Canada also aims to boost trade with Mexico. Trade between the two was valued at C$56bn ($40.5bn; £30bn) in 2024.

Carney and Sheinbaum also discussed border security and “transnational organised crime” – an issue Trump has cited to justify tariffs on both countries.

Observers say the renewed co-ordination is expected, as the two “don’t want to be pitted against one another when negotiations start”.

“It’s a subtle dance,” said Sebastián Vallejo Vera, a political scientist at Western University. “Canada and Mexico want to show unity, without appearing to gang up on the US.”

The two leaders find themselves facing the same challenge: a protectionist US president who has redefined global and North American trade by imposing widespread tariffs on most countries.

Those levies have been especially disruptive for Canada and Mexico, whose economies have been largely shaped by the United States-Canada-Mexico (USMCA) free trade agreement – a version of which has been in place since 1994.

The USMCA is up for review in 2026. Early stages of that are already underway, with Washington now soliciting feedback from American businesses on the changes they’d like to see.

Canada and Mexico have both supported the agreement, arguing it has helped boost the competitiveness of the North American market.

“We are talking in the hundreds of millions of eggs for the short term,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters at the White House.

It follows the administration’s announcement of a $1bn (£792m) plan to combat a raging bird flu epidemic that has forced US farmers to cull tens of millions of chickens.

Despite President Trump’s campaign promise to reduce prices, the cost of eggs has surged more than 65% over the past year, and it is projected to rise by 41% in 2025.

Rollins said her department was also in talks with other countries to secure new supplies, but did not specify which regions.

“When our chicken populations are repopulated and we’ve got a full egg laying industry going again, hopefully in a couple of months, we then shift back to our internal egg layers and moving those eggs out onto the shelf, ” she said.

Polish and Lithuanian poultry associations said on Friday they had also been approached by US embassies regarding possible egg exports, the AFP reported.

“Back in February, the American embassy in Warsaw asked our organisation whether Poland would be interested in exporting eggs to the US market,” Katarzyna Gawronska, director of the National Chamber of Poultry and Feed Producers, told the news agency.

In February, the US Department of Agriculture unveiled a $1bn, five-point plan to tackle the price of eggs, with a budget of $500m for biosecurity measures, roughly $100m for vaccine research and development, and $400m for farmer financial relief programs.

The Trump administration said it will provide commercial egg farms with best practices and consulting services for free, and pay up to 75% of the costs to address vulnerabilities to help prevent the spread of bird flu.

“Our plan was to invest a significant amount of money to do audits across the country to have USDA help these egg laying companies to secure their barns,” Rollins said. “…and since we began doing that most recently, we’ve seen a significant decline in the bird flu.”

Though the avian flu, or H5N1, has circulated among American poultry flocks for years, an outbreak starting in 2022 has wreaked havoc on farms, killing more than 156 million birds and sending egg prices skyrocketing.

Egg prices became a rallying point for Trump in last year’s presidential run as he sought to capitalise on voters’ frustrations with the rising cost of essential items.

During his address to the US Congress earlier this month, he blamed the soaring egg prices on his predecessor Joe Biden.

“Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control – and we are working hard to get it back down,” he added.

Egg prices rose as the Biden administration directed millions of egg-laying birds to be culled last year amid a bird flu outbreak, though prices have continued rising during the early stages of Trump’s second presidency.

The executive order, which uses cold war era legislation, instructs government agencies, including the defence department, to prioritise mining projects as well as providing technical and financial support to boost critical mineral production.

It comes as a trade war escalates with China, which has overwhelming control over the supply chain of some critical minerals.

Last year, Beijing banned the sale of some critical minerals to the US, forcing American firms to look for other sources of the vital materials.

“Our national and economic security are now acutely threatened by our reliance upon hostile foreign powers’ mineral production,” the executive order said.

“It is imperative for our national security that the United States take immediate action to facilitate domestic mineral production to the maximum possible extent.”

The order also calls for the speeding up of permits for mining and processing projects as well as instructing the US Department of the Interior to prioritise mineral production on federal land.

Despite having some critical mineral deposits, the US relies heavily on other countries for its supplies.

Trump’s tariffs on a wide range of imports have sparked trade tensions with some of its main suppliers like China and Canada.

Critical minerals are vital to the production of key technologies ranging from batteries to advanced weapons systems.

Trump has also been eager to gain access to Ukraine’s critical minerals.

He said on Thursday that a deal will be signed “very shortly”.

“We’re also signing agreements in various locations to unlock rare earths and minerals and lots of other things all over the world, but in particular Ukraine”.

Aside from Ukraine, the US is negotiating a potential deal with the Democratic Republic of Congo over its mineral resources.

The US President Trump has also talked about taking over the semi-autonomous Danish territory of Greenland, which is rich on rare earths.

They will be able to use the allowance through a nannying and babysitting app for the rest of 2025.

“We really, really would like to attract more female drivers onto the Uber platform,” said Uber UK General Manager Andrew Brem.

But the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which represents drivers, said “anyone can see through” what it called a “cynical PR stunt”.

“If Uber really wanted to support families, they would pay drivers enough money so that they could afford time off to be with their children,” it told the BBC in a statement.

“Instead Uber’s insultingly low fees force drivers to spend so long on the roads that in many cases relationships rupture and families are broken up,” it added.

Uber said it trialled free childcare with 1,000 drivers and had an overwhelmingly positive response – with 96% of those who took part saying it made it easier to take on work.

Now, the scheme will be extended to the more than 100,000 Uber drivers in the UK.

“Like some other occupations, [Uber driving] happens to be predominantly male – that’s not something that we’d like,” Mr Brem told BBC News.

He expects the free childcare to initially be used by existing drivers rather than new ones, “but it’s more, I think, to get drivers into the habit of doing this.”

He adds: “By testing it at no cost, you have the experience, and you see the ease of getting childcare through this particular route.”

Uber UK will keep the scheme open for the rest of the year and then “see how it goes,” in terms of extending it further, Mr Brem said.

The firm will hope the move may help assuage drivers who have taken strike action in recent months over what they say is unfair pay.

In October, Uber drivers in Glasgow told the BBC their wages had fallen in 2024, despite price increases being passed on to customers.

Then in January, striking drivers said they were working “too many hours” despite having families at home.

“I haven’t yet come across an employee survey, including our own, where people don’t say that they want to earn more,” said Mr Brem.

“I do understand that our main role in helping them more, though, is to is to keep the platform super busy, so our focus is on actually growth of demand,” he said.

Mr Brem said drivers could now see a weekly breakdown of how much money they earned compared to how much of the fare Uber takes.

He added that, coming out of lockdowns, there was a period of “unusually higher earnings” for drivers, as demand outstripped supply of available rides.

“We’re more in a sort of normal situation now, but that probably affects some of the experiences that [drivers] have had,” he says.

Uber has also highlighted the experience of one mother of three who participated in its childcare pilot and said it had been a “massive boost”.

Tania Naseer said she used the childcare during work and also to go out with friends.

“As a mother, it’s important for me to have my own batteries charged in order to be there for my children,” she told BBC News.

“Now, I can hire a sitter for the weekend and then I can work the weekend, and they are the busiest hours.”

She added: “Ideally, yes, a pay rise would be great, but right now it seems to be working how it is.”

The childcare will be offered through a babysitting and nannying app called Bubble, which matches parents with childminders.

Drivers can use the free hours whenever they want, not just when they are working for Uber.

Mr Brem says he hopes drivers using the childcare scheme will “recognise this is a valuable thing that they wish to carry on themselves” after they have used their free hours.

The complaint alleges that John Barnett was subjected to a campaign of harassment, abuse and humiliation after he raised concerns about safety issues.

It claims that the conduct of the company was “the clear, foreseeable cause” of Mr Barnett’s death.

Boeing said it was saddened by Mr Barnett’s death and extended its condolences to his family.

The former Boeing manager was found dead from what police described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the car park of a Charleston hotel on 9 March last year.

The 146-page lawsuit has been brought by his mother, Vicky Stokes, and his brothers Rodney and Michael on behalf of his estate. It was filed on Wednesday in the US District Court of South Carolina.

It attributes his death to Boeing’s actions, including what it describes as a retaliatory campaign by his managers that amounted to a “hostile work environment”.

“Whether or not Boeing intended to drive John to death or merely destroy his ability to function, it was absolutely foreseeable that Boeing’s conduct would result in PTSD and John’s unbearable depression… Boeing’s conduct was the clear cause, and the clear foreseeable cause, of John’s death,” it says.

It describes Mr Barnett as a dedicated, idealistic worker who “took his role seriously in protecting the flying public” and “believed that he had a personal, legal and moral obligation to ensure… that every possible defect was identified, documented and remedied.”

It describes how he was allegedly harassed, denigrated, humiliated and treated with scorn and contempt, as well as being removed from investigations he was working on and blacklisted from transferring to other quality control positions within the company.

Mr Barnett took early retirement from Boeing in March 2017, at a time when the claim says he had been suffering from symptoms of depression and severe anxiety, and knew he was going to be fired. The lawsuit alleges the company continued to put pressure on him, for example by preventing friends who continued to work there from having any contact with him.

Among the exhibits put forward in support of the claim are an email, in which he says, “Boeing has completely destroyed my outlook on life” and his handwritten final note, which says “I can’t do this any longer!! Enough!!”

John Barnett worked for Boeing for 32 years.

From 2010, he was employed as a quality manager at Boeing’s factory in North Charleston, South Carolina. The facility builds the 787 Dreamliner, a state-of-the-art airliner used mainly on long-haul routes.

During his time at the factory, Mr Barnett raised a number of concerns with management about violations of safety procedures, as well as about defects in aircraft on the production line.

He later took his concerns to the media. In 2019, he told the BBC that:

• under-pressure workers had been deliberately fitting sub-standard parts to aircraft on the production line
• workers had failed to follow procedures intended to track components through the factory, allowing defective components to go missing
• he had uncovered serious problems with oxygen systems on the 787, which could mean one in four breathing masks would not work in an emergency

Boeing denied his assertions. However, a 2017 review by the US regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), did uphold some of Mr Barnett’s concerns.

It established that the location of at least 53 “non-conforming” parts in the factory was unknown, and that they were considered lost. Boeing was ordered to take remedial action.

On the oxygen cylinders issue, the company said that in 2017 it had “identified some oxygen bottles received from the supplier that were not deploying properly”. But it denied that any of them were actually fitted on aircraft.

Safety standards at Boeing have come under a harsh spotlight since an incident last year in which a disused door panel fell off a brand new 737 Max aircraft shortly after takeoff.

The incident, which came five years after two previous catastrophic accidents involving the 737 Max, brought intense scrutiny of the company’s quality control procedures and conditions in the factory.

The company appointed a new chief executive last year, industry veteran Kelly Ortberg, and has produced a detailed action plan to address concerns raised by regulators about issues on the factory floor.

In response to the lawsuit being filed, Boeing issued a brief statement.

“We are saddened by John Barnett’s death and extend our condolences to his family,” it said.

Previously, however, the company has pushed back against the allegations made against it, telling the BBC: “Boeing reviewed and addressed quality issues that Mr Barnett raised before he retired in 2017, as well as other quality issues referred to in the complaint. Engineering analysis determined the issues he raised did not affect airplane safety.”

It also drew attention to a decision made earlier in Mr Barnett’s case, in 2020, in which the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded the company had not breached whistleblower protection law.

It added: “We appreciate employees who raise their voice, and we have systems in place to encourage them to speak up confidentially or anonymously.”

The issue affects more than 46,000 trucks made starting in November 2023, which analysts say amounts to nearly all Cybertrucks.

It comes as Tesla, which did not respond to a request for comment, grapples with falling sales amid a backlash against the firm and its boss Elon Musk.

On Thursday, US Attorney General Pam Bondi said three unnamed people would face charges for setting fire to Tesla cars and charging stations, accusing them of “domestic terrorism”.

Tesla does not break out sales of the Cybertruck, but car tech firm Cox Automotive has estimated roughly 39,000 were sold in the US last year.

Prior Cybertruck recalls involved failing windshield wipers, trapped accelerator pedals, possible loss of drive power to the wheels, and other issues.

Tesla started investigating the latest issue, involving a piece formally known as the cant rail, in January, according to filings with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

“The cant rail, a stainless-steel exterior trim panel, can delaminate and detach from the vehicle,” the notice said.

“A detached panel can become a road hazard, increasing the risk of a crash.”

Tesla told NHTSA it had received about 150 claims from drivers about the issue but was not aware of any accidents caused by the problem.

It estimated that the issue affected about 1% of vehicles involved in the recall.

The issue is covered under a warranty for new owners, and the company will replace the piece free-of-charge.

Tesla’s shares have dropped nearly 40% since January, erasing the jump in value that it enjoyed after the 2024 US election.

The fall has been significantly more than the overall drop in the US stock market over that period.

Dan Ives, an analyst who has historically been very pro-Tesla, said on Thursday the firm was facing a “tornado crisis moment” due to brand damage from Musk’s political role.

The political backlash adds to the challenges the company had already been facing from increased competition and an ageing line-up of offerings.

The Cybertruck was supposed to help reignite buzz around the brand and help it break into the lucrative market for pickup trucks in the US.

It hit the roads in late 2023 and carries a starting cost of more than $72,000 (£55,500).

Data leaked by a former employee reveals more than 800 records of these sites from 1989 to 2018, and indicates the company had failed to report about a fifth of them.

The BBC has also obtained figures showing the company has spilled oil hundreds of times since then.

Ecopetrol says it complies fully with Colombian law and has industry-leading practices on sustainability.

The company’s main refinery is in Barrancabermeja, 260km (162 miles) north of the Colombian capital Bogota.

The huge cluster of processing plants, industrial chimneys and storage tanks stretches for close to 2km (1.2 miles) along the banks of Colombia’s longest river, the Magdalena – a water source for millions of people.

Members of the fishing community there believe oil pollution is affecting wildlife in the river.

The wider area is home to endangered river turtles, manatees and spider monkeys, and is part of a species-rich hotspot in one of the world’s most biodiverse countries. Nearby wetlands include a protected habitat for jaguars.

When the BBC visited last June, families were fishing together in waterways criss-crossed by oil pipelines.

One local said some of the fish they caught released the pungent smell of crude oil as they were cooked.

In places, a film with iridescent swirls could be seen on the surface of the water – a distinctive signature of contamination by oil.

A fisherman dived down in the water and brought up a clump of vegetation caked in dark slime.

Pointing to it, Yuly Velásquez, president of Fedepesan, a federation of fishing organisations in the region, said: “This is all grease and waste that comes directly from the Ecopetrol refinery.”

Ecopetrol, which is 88% owned by the Colombian state and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, rejects the fishers’ claims that it is polluting the water.

In response to the BBC’s questions, it says it has efficient wastewater treatment systems and effective contingency plans for oil spills.

Andrés Olarte, the whistleblower who has shared the company’s data, says pollution by the firm dates back many years.

He joined Ecopetrol in 2017 and started working as an adviser to the CEO. He says he soon realised “something was wrong”.

Mr Olarte says he challenged managers about what he describes as “awful” pollution data, but was rebuffed with reactions such as: “Why are you asking these questions? You’re not getting what this job is about.”

He left the company in 2019, and shared a large amount of company data with US-based NGO the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and later with the BBC. The BBC has verified it came from Ecopetrol’s servers.

One database he has shared, dated January 2019, contains a list of 839 so-called “unresolved environmental impacts” across Colombia.

Ecopetrol uses this term to mean areas where oil is not fully cleaned up from soil and water. The data shows that, as of 2019, some of these sites had remained polluted in this way for over a decade.

Mr Olarte alleges that the firm was trying to hide some of them from Colombian authorities, pointing to about a fifth of the records labelled “only known to Ecopetrol”.

“You could see a category in the Excel where it lists which one is hidden from an authority and which one is not, which shows the process of hiding stuff from the government,” says Mr Olarte.

The BBC filmed at one of the sites marked “only known to Ecopetrol”, which was dated 2017 in the database. Seven years later, a thick, black, oily-looking substance with plastic containment barriers around it was visible along the edge of a section of wetland.

Ecopetrol’s CEO from 2017 to 2023, Felipe Bayón, told the BBC he strongly denied suggestions that there was any policy to withhold information about pollution.

“I say to you with complete confidence that there is not, and was not any policy nor any instruction saying, ‘these things can’t be shared’,” he said.

Mr Bayón blamed sabotage for many oil spills.

Colombia has a long history of armed conflict, and illegal armed groups have targeted oil facilities – but “theft” or “attack” are only mentioned for 6% of the cases listed in the database.

He also said he believed there had been a “significant advance” since then in solving problems that lead to oil pollution.

However, a separate set of data shows Ecopetrol has continued to pollute.

Figures obtained by the BBC from Colombia’s environmental regulator, the Autoridad Nacional de Licencias Ambientales (Anla), show Ecopetrol has reported hundreds of oil spills per year since 2020.

Asked about the 2019 database of polluted sites, Ecopetrol admits it has records of 839 environmental incidents, but disputes that all of them were classed as “unresolved”.

The firm says 95% of polluted sites that have been classed as unresolved since 2018 have now been cleaned up.

It says all pollution incidents are subject to a management process and are reported to the regulator.

The data from the regulator includes hundreds of spills in the Barrancabermeja area where Ms Velásquez and the fishers live.

The fisherwoman and her colleagues have been monitoring biodiversity in the area’s wetlands, which feed into the Magdalena River.

She said there had been a “massacre” of fauna. “This year, there were three dead manatees, five dead buffalo. We found more than 10 caimans. We found turtles, capybaras, birds, thousands of dead fish,” she said last June.

It is not clear what caused the deaths – the El Niño weather phenomenon and climate change may be factors.

A 2022 study by the University of Nottingham lists pollution – from oil production and other industrial and domestic sources – as one factor among several, including climate change, that are degrading the Magdalena river basin.

Mr Olarte left Ecopetrol in 2019. He moved to his family home near Barrancabermeja, and says he met with an old contact to ask about job openings. Soon afterwards, he says an anonymous caller rang his phone threatening to kill him.

“In the call I understood they thought I had put complaints against Ecopetrol, which was not the case,” he says.

Mr Olarte says more threats followed, including a note that he showed to the BBC. He does not know who made the threats and there is no evidence that Ecopetrol ordered them.

Ms Velásquez and seven other people also told the BBC they had received death threats after challenging Ecopetrol.

She said an armed group had fired warning shots at her house and spray-painted the word “leave” on the wall.

The fisherwoman is now protected by armed bodyguards paid for by the government, but the threats have continued.

Asked about the threats Mr Olarte described, the former CEO Mr Bayón said they were “absolutely unacceptable”.

“I want to make it totally clear… that never, at any time, was there any order of that sort,” Mr Bayón said.

Ms Velásquez and Mr Olarte both know the risks are real. Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for environmental defenders, according to the NGO Global Witness, with 79 killed in 2023.

Experts say such killings are linked to Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict, in which government forces and paramilitaries allied to them have fought left-wing rebel groups.

Despite government attempts to end the conflict, armed groups and drug cartels remain active in parts of the country.

Matthew Smith, an oil analyst and financial journalist based in Colombia, says he does not believe Ecopetrol managers are involved in threats by armed groups.

But he says there is an “immense” overlap between former paramilitary groups and the private security sector.

Private security firms often employ former members of paramilitary groups and compete for lucrative contracts to protect oil facilities, he says.

Mr Olarte has shared internal Ecopetrol emails showing that in 2018, the company paid a total of $65m to more than 2,800 private security companies.

“There is always that risk of some sort of contagion between the private security companies, the types of people they employ, and their desire to continually maintain their contract,” Mr Smith says.

He says this could potentially even include kidnapping or murdering community leaders or environmental defenders in order to “ensure that Ecopetrol’s operations proceed smoothly”.

Mr Bayón said he was “convinced that the checks and due diligence were done” regarding the company’s relationships with private security companies.

Ecopetrol says it has never had relationships with illegal armed groups. It says it has a strong due diligence process and carries out human rights impact assessments for its activities.

The BBC contacted other members of Ecopetrol’s former leadership from the time of Mr Olarte’s employment, who strongly deny the allegations in this report.

Now living in Germany, Mr Olarte has been submitting complaints about Ecopetrol’s environmental record to the Colombian authorities and the company itself – so far, without meaningful result.

He has also been in a series of legal cases against Ecopetrol and its management, related to his employment there, which are as yet unresolved.

“I did this in defence of my home, of my land, of my region, of my people,” he says.

Mr Bayón stressed the economic and social importance of Ecopetrol to Colombia.

“We have 1.5 million families who don’t have access to energy or who cook with firewood and coal,” he said. “I believe that we must continue to rely on clean production of oil, gas, all energy sources, to transition without ending an industry that is so important for Colombians.”

And Ms Velásquez remains determined to continue speaking out, despite the threats.

“If we don’t go fishing, we don’t eat,” she said. “If we speak and report, we are killed… And if we don’t report, we kill ourselves, because all these incidents of heavy pollution are destroying the environment around us.”

The Stena Immaculate and cargo ship Solong collided in the North Sea, off East Yorkshire, on 10 March, triggering an explosion and fires, which had now been extinguished.

One crew member, a Filipino national, of the Portuguese-flagged Solong is missing and presumed dead. The Russian captain of the cargo vessel has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter.

HM Coastguard said it was continuing to remove tiny plastic pellets found washed up on north Norfolk beaches and other areas around The Wash.

The Florida-based maritime operations company, Crowley, which was managing the tanker, posted a photo on social media showing 19 crew members.

In a statement, it said: “Our deepest gratitude and respect goes out to our 23 mariners from the Stena Immaculate for their exceptional bravery and quick action during the recent allision to their ship in the North Sea.

“Their decisive efforts and teamwork to execute critical fire and emergency duties helped to save lives, protect the integrity of the vessel and minimize the impact on the environment.

“Against disastrous circumstances, the crew had the operational focus to ensure fire monitors were active in order to provide boundary cooling water, which resulted in limited impact to just one of the 16 cargo holds.”

Crowley thanked all 23 for their courage and “dedication to safety”.

“[It] sets a powerful example for the entire industry,” the company added.

HM Coastguard said 36 people – from both vessels – were rescued and taken safely to shore in Grimsby.

The RNLI thanked volunteer lifeboat crews from Bridlington, Cleethorpes, Humber, Mablethorpe and Skegness for their efforts in the search and rescue operation.

George Pickford, the RNLI’s head of region, said: “We recognise their courage and dedication as they spent hours out at sea, facing challenging conditions.”

Chief coastguard Paddy O’Callaghan said both the Solong and Stena Immaculate were “stable”, with salvage operations continuing.

“Fires on board the Solong have been extinguished and temperature monitoring has been set up,” he said.

Mr O’Callaghan said a “retrieval operation” would continue on Tuesday after small balls of plastic resin, known as nurdles which are used in plastics production, were sighted off The Wash and along the Norfolk shore between Old Hunstanton and Wells-next-the-Sea.

According to the coastguard, nurdles are not toxic but can present a risk to wildlife if ingested.

The Wash is a large inlet of the North Sea stretching from south of Skegness, in Lincolnshire, to near Hunstanton, in Norfolk.

“Regular aerial surveillance flights continue to monitor both vessels and the retrieval operation,” added Mr O’Callaghan.

Steve Rowland, an area manager for the RSPB, said pellets the size of lentils were washing up along miles of the Norfolk coast.

Mark Angelo Pernia, 38, was named by the Crown Prosecution Service as the missing crew member.

The captain of the Solong, Vladimir Motin, 59, of Primorsky in St Petersburg, Russia, appeared at Hull Magistrates’ Court on Saturday charged with gross negligence manslaughter.

He was remanded in custody to appear before the Central Criminal Court in London on 14 April.

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) is trying to establish the cause of the collision.