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The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is hearing a case brought by Sudan accusing the United Arab Emirates of being “complicit in the genocide” during the current civil war.
Good morning.Beijing’s 84% retaliatory tariffs came into force on Thursday morning, hours after Donald Trump said he was freezing steep levies on dozens of countries, except China.His announcement helped financial markets recover, after the most uncertain stretch since the Covid pandemic. Markets in east Asia soared, while the Nasdaq in the US climbed 12.2% to clinch its best day in 24 years on Wednesday evening.However, Trump has implemented a broad 10% tariff for dozens of countries, and the picture for China-US trade was much worse. US tariffs against Chinese goods are at 125%, and the trade row does not appear likely to simmer down.A China Daily editorial on Wednesday night stated that “caving in to the US pressure is out of the question for Beijing”. The intensifying dispute could reduce trade in goods between the two countries by 80%, warned the head of the World Trade Organization, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
What impact could this have on the rest of the world? Given trade between the US and China makes up 3% of global trade, it could “severely damage the global economic outlook”, Okonjo-Iweala said.
Pentagon chief says US could ‘revive’ Panama basesView image in fullscreenThe US defence secretary has suggested that US troops could be invited to return to Panama to “secure” its strategically important canal – an idea immediately rejected by the Central American country’s government.Speaking during a visit to Panama, Pete Hegseth said the US “by invitation” could “revive” former US military bases to once again host American troops in the country that it invaded 35 years ago.Hegseth added that the US was seeking free passage through the canal for its warships – a demand that Trump has repeatedly and forcefully made since returning to power in January.
What did Panama say? “Panama made clear, through President Mulino, that we cannot accept military bases or defence sites,” its security minister, Frank Abrego, said.
France could recognize Palestinian statehood by JuneView image in fullscreenParis plans to recognize a Palestinian state within months, and could do so at a UN conference in New York in June on settling the Israel-Palestinian war, the French president has said.Emmanuel Macron made the comment about the move, which would mark a significant policy switch, during an interview broadcast on Wednesday. “We must move towards recognition, and we will do so in the coming months,” he told the broadcaster France 5, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. He added that this could happen in June.Macron said he hoped the move would also put pressure on those who support Palestinian statehood to also recognize the state of Israel. “I will do it because I believe that at some point it will be right and because I also want to participate in a collective dynamic, which must also allow all those who defend Palestine to recognise Israel in turn, which many of them do not do,” he said.
How has Israel responded? With criticism. Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said France recognizing a Palestinian state would be a “prize” for terrorism, AFP reported.
In other news …View image in fullscreen
Anti-protest legislation has boomed under the Trump administration, with people resisting the US-backed war in Gaza and the climate emergency particularly targeted.
Emergency workers in the Dominican Republic on Wednesday ended the search for survivors of a nightclub roof collapse that killed 184 people.
Apple has poured cold water on the White House’s claims that it could manufacture iPhones in the US, amid the Trump administration’s trade dispute with China, citing workforce issues.
Jillian Lauren, wife of the Weezer bassist Scott Shriner, was shot by police on Monday before being booked for attempted murder, according to Los Angeles police.
Stat of the day: Energy demands from AI datacentres to quadruple by 2030View image in fullscreenThe massive growth of artificial intelligence means the energy consumption of the datacenters that power it will quadruple by 2030, a report has found. Datacenters consume as much electricity as 100,000 households – but some of those being built will need 20 times more.Don’t miss this: Farmers have one of the highest rates of suicide. This social worker believes the solution is buried in their landView image in fullscreenFor the social worker Kaila Anderson, tackling the mental health crisis faced by farmers was personal: her father had experienced a period of depression and considered harming himself during the peak of the 1980s farm crisis. She has since developed a novel way to train healthcare workers to support people in the agricultural sector that centers farmers’ relationship to their land to help them open up.Climate check: Green activist group is pausing work after backlash by investorsView image in fullscreenA green shareholder activist group has decided to stop putting pressure on fossil fuel companies to cut their emissions for the first time since it began a decade ago, as investors turn their backs on climate action. The Netherlands-based group Follow This has been one of the most successful shareholder activists of recent years – in 2021, its resolution against the board of Chevron calling for emissions reductions was backed by 60% of shareholders.Last Thing: Sex, patriotism and … Donald Trump cologne: the US ads that explain the 00sView image in fullscreenAdvertising can tell us a lot about the state of society at a certain time, and commercials from the 2000s are no different. The newest edition of All-American Ads reflects on the nostalgia-soaked era – here are six ads that sum up the era, including the Evian mermaid – so iconic that it must have inspired that scene in the Zoolander movie.Sign upFirst Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you’re not already signed up, subscribe now.Get in touchIf you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.com
The Outer Worlds 2 is still set for release sometime this year, and our Ziffly chums at Ian Games have gone got their hands on 11 minutes of exclusive footage from the RPG. That video is below. Watch it in isolation for a guaranteed blissful Reuben-free experience, or keep scrolling to read my awful opinions. Spoiler warning for one small part of one quest, and opinion warning now: I, uh, I don’t love it!
An online influencer whom Elon Musk frequently boosts on X has been conducting in-person interviews with Russian figures and key allies of Vladimir Putin.Musk, Donald Trump’s billionaire ally and the owner of X, has consistently reposted and engaged with Mario Nawfal, a Dubai-based Australian influencer who with Musk has given a platform to far-right figures and movements around the world.Musk shares Nawfal’s posts almost daily, including Nawfal’s promotion and praise of Tesla, Doge and Musk himself. In the two-week span between 23 March and 3 April alone, Musk reposted or quote-tweeted Nawfal 28 times, including posts based on misinformation.Nawfal founded the kitchen-appliance online store Froothie in 2013, then started a crypto consulting company in 2017. He has 2.1 million followers on X and was reported as one of the fastest-rising stars on Musk’s X platform in 2023 by NBC News.In recent months, Nawfal has conducted interviews with Putin allies including the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić; the Russian minister of foreign affairs, Sergey Lavrov; the Belarusian president, Aleksandr Lukashenko; far-right Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, who is referred to as “Putin’s brain” due to his influence on Russian politics; the Slovakian prime minister, Robert Fico, who has claimed the west has demonized Putin; and the Romanian pro-Russia presidential candidate Cǎlin Georgescu.“Musk has cultivated, attracts and also welcomes people in all various media who support his views and Nawfal is an example of that,” said Paul Levinson, a professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University.In Nawfal’s interview with Lukashenko, the Belarusian president praised Trump and blamed the war in Ukraine on the west. Lukashenko has been in power for three decades, winning an election in January 2025 with nearly 88% of the vote. The election has been characterized as a sham by western governments as he has jailed or exiled all opposition dissident leaders.“He does not just talk about peace. He genuinely wants it. It is almost personal. The most important thing is he wants peace,” Nawfal said at a press conference with state media in Belarus about the interview with Lukashenko, in which they discussed relations between Belarus and the west. “You can trust your president who has been in office for 30 years pursuing a consistent policy.”Belarusian and Russian governments promoted the interviews with Lavrov and Lukashenko, claiming they were done with a “US blogger”.Nawfal said this characterization was “factually incorrect and misleading” as he is Australian and lives in Dubai, but did not comment on the Belarusian and Russian governments characterizing and promoting the interviews with the error.Paul Goode, a Russian studies professor at Carleton University, said it is highly improbable what Lukashenko said was not vetted by the Kremlin, given the country’s close ties with Russia and Putin.“Russian propaganda frequently uses figures that it claims to represent authentic sentiment in the US in support of its foreign policy claims”, Goode said about Nawfal. “For Russia’s purposes, these kinds of interviews not only provide a platform for recirculating propaganda claims about Russia as a defender of normal states, against western imperialism, globalists in Washington, Nazis in Ukraine, etc … but also provide access to wider audiences in the US and elsewhere through their social media channels.”Ian Garner, an assistant professor of Russia, war and propaganda at the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw, Poland, noted the level of access these figures give Nawfal.“They don’t tend to typically give interviews to anyone but friendly media,” he said.Garner said the blogger sphere that Nawfal inhabits is “very convenient for somebody that is trying to spread propaganda” and to show support between the US right and Russia.“Ultimately, what all of this is about is propaganda, and it is using a very large online audience that somebody like Nawfal has to be able to speak directly to people all over the world, and in particular, to speak to people in America,” Garner added. “They’re trying to suggest that there is a new sort of spiritual and ideological alignment between the rightwing crowds that are watching Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, listening to Nawfal, and the Russian media sphere.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNawfal said in an email to the Guardian that the interviews with Putin allies and Russian figures were “broader journalistic initiative to present all sides of key geopolitical issues – including perspectives often excluded from mainstream Western media”.He said he also interviewed the president of Kosovo, a Nato ally and critic of Putin, and conducted interviews in Ukraine.“I have received no compensation or material support – financial or otherwise – from any government or foreign entity, including Russia or Belarus,” he told the Guardian.“The framing of these interviews as ‘propaganda’ is both inaccurate and defamatory. It reflects a broader and dangerous pattern of attempting to discredit independent journalism through baseless insinuation. My work involves publishing direct, unedited conversations with global figures, with the aim of promoting transparency and dialogue across ideological divides. Viewers are free to form their own conclusions.”Other recent interviews by Nawfal raise similar concerns about propaganda.On 2 April, Nawfal published an interview with Serbian president Vučić, who claimed recent corruption protests in Serbia were “a mutiny and unrest organized by wealthy and mainly rich people. There are no poor people in the streets.”In February, Nawfal interviewed Georgescu, Romania’s pro-Russian presidential candidate, touting it as his first interview since Georgescu was detained. Georgescu was banned from participating in a May 2025 rerun election in Romania following evidence of Russian interference in the first round of last year’s presidential election.Nawfal has previously claimed Georgescu should have been president.Manuela Caiani, an associate professor of political science at the Scuola Normale Superiore who studies international far-right movements, said Musk and Nawfal play an important role in “an increasing international network of radical right forces not only in Europe, but also all around the globe”.“The radical right is increasingly becoming connected in terms of ideas, norms, values, initiatives and networking,” Caiani added. “Internalization and mainstreaming go hand in hand, the more they become normalized. It’s about legitimatization.”
A spokesperson for China’s Commerce Ministry said Thursday that Beijing hoped the U.S. would work to de-escalate the trade war between the world’s two largest economies after President Trump announced a pause on higher tariffs he had imposed on many other countries.”China’s position is clear and consistent: the door to talks is open, but dialogue must be conducted on an equal basis with mutual respect,” Commerce Ministry spokeswoman He Yongqian said. “China will stand by its position until the end. Pressuring, threatening, and blackmailing are not the correct ways to deal with China. We hope that the U.S. will work with China. Based on the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and a win-win cooperation, we will properly resolve differences through dialogue and consultation.”Mr. Trump announced a pause on the planned implementation of higher tariffs for almost all nations late Wednesday, leaving a 10% universal tariff in place, but said he was raising tariffs on China from 104% to 125%. The heightened levies took effect Thursday, at the same time as Beijing’s retaliatory tariffs of 84% took effect on U.S. imports to China.
Experts answer your questions about Trump’s tariffs
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“I have reiterated China’s position many times, and it is very clear. We do not provoke trouble, nor do we fear trouble. The legitimate development rights of the Chinese people and the people of the world cannot be taken away. China’s and like all other countries’ sovereignty, security, and development interests should not be infringed upon,” He said.China’s foreign ministry took a harsher stance, and vowed to fight on.”The U.S.’s reckless and unjust actions go against the will of the people and are doomed to fail in the end,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian said. “I want to reiterate that in a tariff war or trade war, there are no winners. China does not want a trade war, but we are not afraid of one. We will never stand by and watch the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese people be undermined, nor will we allow international trade rules and the multilateral trading system to be trampled upon. If the United States insists on waging a tariff war or trade war, China will fight to the end.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he believed he could come to a resolution with China.”China wants to make a deal,” the president said at the White House. “They just don’t know how quite to go about it.”EU announces its own 90-day pause on any retaliatory tariffsIn other parts of the world, as markets rallied in response to Mr. Trump’s tariff rollback after days of steep losses, leaders and economists continued to express concern about economic uncertainty, but there was also more potentially positive news for stock traders.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a social media post that the 27-nation bloc would put its own plans to impose retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports on hold for 90 days, matching Mr. Trump’s latest move.
“We want to give negotiations a chance,” Von der Leyen said. “While finalizing the adoption of the EU countermeasures that saw strong support from our Member States, we will put them on hold for 90 days.”The EU leader had earlier warned that “clear, predictable conditions are essential for trade and supply chains to function.””The risks remain huge,” Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg, said, according to the Reuters news agency.
A 10-year-old Australian girl is dead and more than 20 other people are injured after a raging fire tore through a cooking school.Sixteen children and six adults were rushed to hospital, where a 10-year-old girl died, after a fire at the Tomato Cooking school in Singapore, according to local media.The Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed it is providing consular assistance to the family of an Australian who died in Singapore.“We send our deepest condolences to the family at this difficult time,” a spokeswoman said.“Owing to our privacy obligations we are unable to provide further comment.”The blaze on the second and third floors of the three-storey building which houses the cooking school was raging when authorities were alerted on Wednesday morning.The Singapore Civil Defence Force arrived to find several people hanging on a ledge on the third floor.“Members of the public, including construction workers, used a metal scaffolding and a ladder to reach those stranded and brought a number of them to safety,” it said on Facebook.The defence force rescued the remaining people stuck on the third-floor ledge as firefighters fought the flames, bringing them under control within 30 minutes.About 80 people from the affected shophouse and nearby buildings were evacuated, the defence force said.
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Tomato Cooking school, which runs cooking lessons and camps for children, said it was deeply saddened and shocked by the fire that occurred at the shophouse.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We cannot express our sadness in words for the affected families and what they are going through,” it said in a statement on Facebook.“At this moment, our priority remains the safety and well-being of everyone involved. We will continue to work closely with the authorities and will provide updates when appropriate.”The Singapore Civil Defence Force, which is leading the investigation into the blaze, said preliminary findings indicated the fire likely started in a storage area on the second storey of the shophouse.“Preliminary investigations also found fire safety non-compliances, including unauthorised works involving the erection of partitions within the premises,” it said.The investigation is ongoing.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Sudan told the United Nations’ top court on Thursday that the United Arab Emirates is breaching the genocide convention by arming and funding the rebel paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces, in a case vigorously contested by the UAE. The northeast African country is asking the International Court of Justice to issue emergency orders, known as provisional measures, including telling the UAE to do all it can to prevent the killing and other crimes targeting the Masalit people during Sudan’s two-year civil war. “The genocide against the Masalit is being carried out by the Rapid Support Force, believed to be Arab from Darfur, with the support and complicity of the United Arab Emirates,” acting Justice Minister Muawia Osman said in his opening statements at The Hague-based court. In a briefing ahead of the hearing, a top official at the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs told journalists the case was baseless. “This is not a legitimate legal action; it is a cynical and baseless PR stunt, designed to distract from the Sudanese Armed Forces’ own appalling record of atrocities,” Reem Ketait said. Ketait will make arguments on behalf of her country later on Thursday afternoon. Both Sudan and the UAE are signatories to the 1948 genocide convention. The United Arab Emirates, however, has a caveat to part of the treaty which legal experts say makes it unlikely that the case will proceed. “The ICJ has previously said that this kind of reservation is allowed and is a barrier to a case going forward. The court is most likely to say the same thing in this case, meaning that this case will not go forward,” Melanie O’Brien, an associate professor of international law at the University of Western Australia and an expert on the Genocide Convention, told The Associated Press. Sudan descended into a deadly conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary rebels broke out in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to other regions.Both the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces have been accused of abuses.The UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula and a U.S. ally, has been repeatedly accused of arming the RSF, something it has strenuously denied despite evidence to the contrary.Conflict Observatory, a monitoring group which is funded by the U.S. State Department and has been monitoring the war in Sudan, has identified aircraft it says carried UAE arms transfers to the RSF. Those flights went through Maréchal Idriss Deby international airport in Amdjarass, Chad. The UAE says the purpose of the flights was to support a local hospital.In January, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that RSF leader Mohammad Hamdan Daglo Mousa, also known as Hemedti, had been targeted for sanctions along with seven RSF-owned companies in the United Arab Emirates, including one handling gold likely smuggled out of Sudan. That came as the U.S. declared the RSF rebels are committing genocide.The war has killed more than 24,000 people and driven over 14 million people — about 30% of the population — from their homes, according to the United Nations. An estimated 3.2 million Sudanese have escaped to neighboring countries.The Sudanese Armed Forces have broadly retaken Khartoum from the RSF. Last month, the military said it had recaptured Khartoum’s international airport. ——— Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
Sapphire Nitro+ RX 7900 XTX is currently going for just $999.99 at Woot (owned by Amazon), and that’s genuinely impressive considering it usually hovers around $1,100 in 2025. If you’re on the hunt and buidling yourself a high-end gaming PC, this GPU is definitely worth considering at this price.
You’re getting the top-end version of AMD’s flagship card for less than MSRP, and it even ships free if you’ve got an Amazon Prime Membership. If not, it’s six bucks. Not exactly a deal-breaker, but this listing will expire by April 12th, so keep that in mind as well.
I think what really makes this one stand out is the way it’s built. Nitro+ is basically what happens when a graphics card decides it’s done playing nice. The frame is metal, the cooler is massive, and it looks like it was designed to survive re-entry. It’s not just for show either. That oversized cooler actually works. The card runs cool, quiet, and without the drama you get from some other high-end options.
In my opinion, this is what a high-performance GPU should feel like. It’s already overclocked out of the box, and the thermals are so well-managed that it barely notices. You can push it hard in 4K games and it just keeps humming along. No coil whine, no jet-engine fan noise, no buyer’s remorse.
It’s also the only RX 7900 XTX I’d personally recommend if you’re trying to keep things quiet without sacrificing performance. The Nvidia camp has a few answers, but most of them are overpriced or simply nowhere to be found. Nitro+ holds its own without needing any gimmicks. It just works the way it should, and that’s weirdly refreshing.
I don’t think this deal will hang around. Inventory on these has been sketchy for months, and finding a good model like this at a decent price is rare. If you’ve been waiting to finish a build or upgrade something ancient, now’s the time. This one’s worth it.
The Taliban’s morality police have detained men and their barbers over hairstyles, and others for missing prayers at mosques during Ramadan, a U.N. report said Thursday, 6 months after laws regulating people’s conduct came into effect.The Vice and Virtue Ministry published laws last August covering many aspects everyday life in Afghanistan, including public transport, music, shaving and celebrations. Most notably, the ministry issued a ban on women’s voices and bare faces in public.That same month, a top U.N. official warned the laws provided a “distressing vision” for the country’s future by adding to existing employment, education, and dress code restrictions on women and girls. Taliban officials have rejected U.N. concerns about the morality laws.Thursday’s report, from the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, said in the first 6 months of the laws’ implementation, over half of detentions made under it concerned “either men not having the compliant beard length or hairstyle, or barbers providing non-compliant beard trimming or haircuts.”The report said that the morality police regularly detained people arbitrarily “without due process and legal protections.”During the holy fasting month of Ramadan, men’s attendance at mandated congregational prayers was closely monitored, leading at times to arbitrary detention of those who didn’t show up, the report added.The U.N. mission said that both sexes were negatively affected, particularly people with small businesses such as private education centers, barbers and hairdressers, tailors, wedding caterers and restaurants, leading to a reduction or total loss of income and employment opportunities.The direct and indirect socio-economic effects of the laws’ implementation were likely to compound Afghanistan’s dire economic situation, it said. A World Bank study has assessed that authorities’ ban on women from education and work could cost the country over $1.4 billion per year.The Taliban leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has emphasized the primacy of Islamic law and the role of the Ministry of Vice and Virtue in reforming Afghan society and its people. In a message issued ahead of the religious Eid Al-Fitr festival that marks the end of Ramadan, Akhundzada said it was necessary “to establish a society free from corruption and trials, and to prevent future generations from becoming victims of misguided beliefs, harmful practices and bad morals.”More than 3,300 mostly male inspectors are tasked with informing people about the law and enforcing it, according to the report.Nobody from the Vice and Virtue Ministry was immediately available for comment about the report.
BRUSSELS — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday welcomed President Donald Trump’s decision to temporarily halt most U.S. tariffs, but she did not say whether the European Union intends to press ahead with its own retaliatory measures.“I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE,” Trump said, after recognizing the more than 75 countries that he said have been negotiating on trade and had not retaliated against his latest increases in tariffs. Countries subject to the pause will now be tariffed at 10%. The EU’s rate was 20%, but it was not entirely clear how the 27-nation bloc would be impacted.China was not included. Trump further jacked up the tax rate on Chinese imports to 125%.Von der Leyen described the halt on reciprocal tariffs as “an important step towards stabilizing the global economy. Clear, predictable conditions are essential for trade and supply chains to function.”Before Trump’s announcement on Wednesday, EU member countries voted to approve retaliatory tariffs on $23 billion in goods in response to his 25% tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. The EU, the largest trading partner of the U.S., described them as “unjustified and damaging.” The tariffs are set to go into effect in stages, some on April 15 and others on May 15 and Dec. 1. The EU commission didn’t immediately provide a list of the goods. The bloc’s top trade official has shuttled between Brussels and Washington for weeks trying to head off a conflict.But Von der Leyen gave no sign that the EU’s timetable has changed. Spokesman Olof Gill noted that the commission “will now take the necessary time to assess this latest development, in close consultation with our member states and industry, before deciding on next steps.”Members of the EU – the world’s largest trading bloc – repeated their preference for a negotiated deal to settle trade issues, and von der Leyen underscored that commitment, “with the goal of achieving frictionless and mutually beneficial trade.”Still, the head of the EU’s executive branch – which negotiates trade deals and disputes on behalf of the member countries – said that Europe intends to diversify its trade partnerships.She said that the EU will continue “engaging with countries that account for 87% of global trade and share our commitment to a free and open exchange of goods, services, and ideas,” and to lift barriers to commerce inside its own single market.“Together, Europeans will emerge stronger from this crisis,” von der Leyen said.