World News

Meta faces a $2.4bn (£1.8bn) lawsuit accusing the Facebook owner of inflaming violence in Ethiopia after the Kenyan high court said a legal case against the US tech group could go ahead.

The case brought by two Ethiopian nationals calls on Facebook to alter its algorithm to stop promoting hateful material and incitement to violence, as well as hiring more content moderators in Africa. It is also seeking a $2.4bn “restitution fund” for victims of hate and violence incited on Facebook.

French President Emmanuel Macron called on Thursday for European companies to suspend planned investment in the United States

As world leaders reacted to the US president’s “liberation day” tariff policies demolishing the international trading order, about $2.5tn (£1.9tn) was wiped off Wall Street and share prices in other financial centres across the globe.

World leaders from Brussels to Beijing rounded on Trump. China condemned “unilateral bullying” practices and the EU said it was drawing up countermeasures.

While Trump timed his Wednesday evening Rose Garden address to avoid live tickers of crashing stock markets, that fate arrived when Asian exchanges opened hours later.

The murders sparked protests in Messina, Rome and other Italian cities, including Bologna, on Wednesday night. Further events are planned on Thursday.

In March, Giorgia Meloni’s government approved a draft law which for the first time introduced a legal definition of femicide in criminal law, punishing it with life in prison while increasing sentences for crimes including stalking, sexual violence and “revenge porn”.

The law followed the strong public reaction to the killing of Giulia Cecchettin, a 22-year-old student who was murdered by her former boyfriend, Filippo Turetta, in November 2023. Turetta was sentenced to life in prison in December.

Summary

European leaders condemned Trump’s new tariffs as “brutal” and “fundamentally wrong,” urging negotiations to avoid a trade war.

French President Emmanuel Macron suggested suspending new investments in the U.S. and hinted at targeting U.S. tech firms.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the tariffs “a major blow” and pledged countermeasures. The 20% U.S. tariff affects 70% of EU exports, potentially costing €80bn.

Leaders across the EU warned of economic damage and signaled readiness to retaliate.

Everything from crude oil to Big Tech stocks to the value of the U.S. dollar against other currencies fell. Even gold, which has hit records recently as investors sought something safer to own, pulled lower. Some of the worst hits walloped smaller U.S. companies, and the Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks dropped 5.9% to pull it more than 20% below its record.

Wall Street had long assumed Trump would use tariffs merely as a tool for negotiations with other countries, rather than as a long-term policy. But Wednesday’s announcement may suggest Trump sees tariffs more as helping to solve an ideological goal than just an opening bet in a poker game. Trump on Wednesday talked about wresting manufacturing jobs back to the United States, a process that could take years.

If Trump follows through on his tariffs, stock prices may need to fall much more than 10% from their all-time high in order to reflect the recession that could follow, along with the hit to profits that U.S. companies could take. The S&P 500 is now down roughly 11% from its record set in February.

“Markets may actually be underreacting, especially if these rates turn out to be final, given the potential knock-on effects to global consumption and trade,” said Sean Sun, portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management, though he sees Trump’s announcement on Wednesday as more of an opening move than an endpoint for policy.

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The bodies of 14 children and five women were recovered from the school in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City, and the death toll could still rise because some of the 70 wounded had critical injuries, said Health Ministry spokesman Zaher al-Wahidi. More than 30 other Gaza residents were killed in strikes on homes in a nearby neighborhood of Shijaiyah, he said, citing records at Ahli Hospital.

The Israeli military said it struck a “Hamas command and control center” in the Gaza City area, and said it took steps to lessen harm to civilians. Israel gave the same reason — striking Hamas militants in a “command and control center” — for attacking a United Nations building used as a shelter a day earlier, killing at least 17 people.

An Israeli bombing of a school turned shelter in Gaza City has killed at least 27 people, rescuers said, and hundreds of thousands in the Rafah area are fleeing in one of the biggest mass displacements of the war amid Israel’s newly announced campaign to “divide up” the Gaza Strip.

Three missiles hit Dar al-Arqam school in the al-Tuffah neighbourhood on Thursday afternoon, the civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal said, killing several children and wounding 100 people.

Another 20 people were killed in a dawn airstrike on the Shejaia suburb of Gaza City, bringing the total number of casualties reported by the local health ministry to 97 in the past 24 hours.

Summary

Trump’s tariff formula, based on trade deficits divided by export values, has imposed disproportionately high tariffs on poor nations, with Madagascar facing 47%, Lesotho 50%, and Cambodia 49%.

Critics say the method unfairly punishes countries that import little from the U.S. and lacks credible economic basis.

Rich countries like EU members are also affected, with a 20% tariff branded a "colossal inaccuracy."

Economists and trade experts question whether this mechanical approach leaves room for negotiation, warning it strains alliances and undermines global trade norms.

Off the coast of Nigeria, one of the world’s largest oil production ships, called the Bonga, was taking oil from a field on the ocean floor and transferring it to a tanker ship. Such transfers are routine in the offshore oil industry, but something went wrong on the Bonga, owned by energy giant Shell.

A major leak began in one of the lines that connected the two vessels. Over the next three hours, the crew detected that more oil was being pumped from the ship than the tanker was receiving. Another hour passed before an oily sheen was spotted on the water. An hour after that, the crew member in charge of the fueling shut off the flow.

By then, about 40,000 barrels of oil had escaped into the Atlantic Ocean, according to an English High Court evaluation, making the December 2011 incident one of Nigeria’s worst spills in a decade. At the height of the spill, an oil slick spread over 685 square miles (1,776 square kilometers), twice the size of New York City. Nigerian regulators later fined the subsidiary Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) $3.6 billion, an amount being appealed today.

A new corruption allegation is rocking Israeli politics intertwining allegations of bribery, media manipulation, and high-level government interference.

Qatargate, as it has been dubbed, centres on a claim that senior advisers to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received illicit funds from Qatar through intermediaries, allegedly in exchange for promoting pro-Qatar messaging.

The investigation has already led to the arrest of two of Netanyahu’and the prime minister himself has been questioned.

At the same time, Netanyahu’s controversial attempt to replace Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar—who is overseeing the investigation—has raised suspicions that the Prime Minister is trying to obstruct justice.

Forward: ‘Qatargate’ and the web of huge scandals rocking Israel, explained.

Summary

Russia was excluded from Trump’s sweeping tariff list due to existing U.S. sanctions that limit trade, White House officials claimed.

Despite lower trade volumes, countries like Syria were still included, prompting skepticism.

Trump has prioritized ending the war in Ukraine and threatened 50% tariffs on nations buying Russian oil. Russian state media framed the omission as sanctions-based, not favoritism, with some mocking Trump’s harsher stance on allies.

Ukraine, meanwhile, faces a 10% tariff despite the country’s strategic partnership with the U.S.

This is some serious unprecedented bullshit. Especially when their charge was money laundering. Basically he is making money laundering legal. Go ahead and break the law. Trump will pardon you...

On 23 March contact was lost with a team of Palestinian rescue workers and medics in southern Gaza. A week later their bodies were recovered from a mass grave