Category: World

Rising global energy prices are adding a fresh inflation risk to the United States even as the International Monetary Fund said the world’s largest economy remains on a solid growth path, with trade and fiscal changes expected to narrow the current-account deficit only modestly over the medium term.The IMF’s latest assessment said growth in the US is projected to reach 2.4 per cent in 2026, while employment growth is slowing and unemployment is expected to stay near 4 per cent.

U. S. Treasuries fell across the curve after President Donald Trump used a televised address to harden his stance on Iran, unsettling investors who had been looking for signs of de-escalation and instead got a warning of heavier military action that sent oil prices sharply higher and revived fears of another inflation pulse through the global economy.The move in government debt reflected a quick reassessment of the inflation outlook. Brent crude climbed to around $108 a barrel and U.

Britain has sharpened its language on security, raised its military ambitions and promised a larger defence budget, but the test now lies in whether those commitments produce forces that can respond quickly and credibly to a widening arc of threats from Europe to the Middle East. The question has come into sharper focus after London moved a nuclear-powered submarine into the Arabian Sea about a month into the Iran war, a deployment that underlined both its willingness to signal resolve

Cordros Securities has projected a calmer but still constructive second quarter for Nigeria’s equities market, arguing that the sharp gains posted in the first three months of 2026 may give way to more selective buying, with bank stocks likely to remain at the centre of investor attention. That view comes after a powerful first-quarter rally on the Nigerian Exchange, where banking counters were among the strongest performers and recapitalisation momentum continued to reshape sentiment.The brokerage’s stance suggests the market

Uganda’s Parliament has stepped up pressure on the government over a health cooperation deal with the United States that includes provisions for sharing pathogen specimens and certain health-related data, opening a wider argument about privacy, sovereignty and whether ministers gave lawmakers enough visibility before signing. The agreement sits inside a five-year Uganda–US health framework worth nearly $2.3 billion, signed on December 10, 2025, under which Washington is set to provide up to $1.7 billion while Kampala increases domestic health spending.

Copper and other industrial metals fell on Wednesday after US President Donald Trump renewed threats to strike Iran’s power plants and other civilian infrastructure if talks fail to halt a war that has entered its second month, adding another layer of risk to commodity markets already strained by conflict in the Gulf. Bloomberg reported the move across metals markets on April 2, while Reuters and AP reporting over the past week showed Trump had repeatedly tied any pause in attacks

North Korea is sharpening its nuclear posture after the military battering of Iran reinforced Kim Jong-un’s long-held argument that smaller states without an ultimate deterrent risk coercion, attack and political humiliation. In a speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly on March 23, Kim declared the country’s nuclear status “irreversible”, said Pyongyang would permanently strengthen its “self-defensive nuclear deterrent”, and framed the global order as one in which sovereign states can be violated by force unless they can impose costs on

Donald Trump’s administration is making a fresh attempt to draw U. S. oil companies into Venezuela, offering regulatory relief and political backing as Washington tries to turn the country’s vast crude reserves into a strategic and commercial prize. Yet the campaign is meeting resistance from executives wary of sinking billions into a battered industry still shadowed by political risk, legal uncertainty and years of neglect.The push comes almost three months after Nicolás Maduro was removed from power in a U.

Global energy markets are facing a supply shock more severe than the oil crises of 1973 and 1979 combined with the gas disruption that followed Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, according to International Energy Agency executive director Fatih Birol, who said mounting losses of oil and liquefied natural gas from the Middle East were set to intensify through April.Birol said more than 12 million barrels of oil had already been lost since the conflict widened around Iran and the

Ryanair has warned that jet fuel supplies into Europe could come under pressure from May if the US-Israeli war with Iran continues, with chief executive Michael O’Leary saying as much as a quarter of the airline’s fuel could be at risk during May and June if disruption around the Strait of Hormuz is not resolved by the middle or end of April.The warning, made on April 1, comes as Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers said it had not

 Berkeley Group is halting new land purchases and slowing construction, marking one of the sharpest signals yet that Britain’s housing recovery remains vulnerable to higher costs, planning friction and tighter development economics. The FTSE 100 housebuilder said the pressure from taxes, regulation and wider market uncertainty has made fresh land buying harder to justify, even as it tries to protect margins and preserve cash.The decision matters beyond Berkeley because the company is one of the country’s most closely watched developers,

French President Emmanuel Macron is due to meet Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Tokyo on Wednesday, with the war involving Iran and the growing scramble for critical minerals set to dominate talks that reach far beyond bilateral ties.The meeting comes as Japan and France face the same strategic question from different angles: how to protect economic security in a world where energy supplies, shipping routes and industrial inputs are increasingly exposed to conflict and geopolitical pressure. Officials in Paris

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to stop work on a planned $400 million ballroom at the White House, ruling that such a major alteration cannot move ahead without approval from Congress. The order, issued on Tuesday by U. S. District Judge Richard Leon, marks the sharpest legal setback yet for President Donald Trump’s attempt to reshape one of the country’s most recognisable public buildings.The ruling came after preservationists challenged the project, arguing that the administration overstepped

Coca-Cola and its authorised bottling partners in South Africa have set out plans to invest 17.6 billion rand, about $1 billion, in the country through 2030, betting that wider production capacity and a stronger distribution network will deepen their footprint in one of the group’s most important African markets. The announcement was made in Johannesburg at the sixth South Africa Investment Conference and covers Coca-Cola Beverages South Africa and Coca-Cola Peninsula Beverages alongside the parent company.The scale of the

Baidu’s Apollo Go robotaxi service suffered a sharp setback in Wuhan after a system failure caused more than 100 driverless taxis to stop on roads across the city late on March 31, stranding passengers, disrupting traffic and triggering a wave of police calls that has revived scrutiny of autonomous vehicle safety in China’s biggest testing grounds. Police said no injuries were reported, but the scale of the stoppage and the time some passengers spent trapped inside vehicles have raised fresh

Questions over staffing and tower procedures at New York’s LaGuardia Airport have intensified after documents indicated air traffic control roles may have been combined before the time allowed under local operating rules on the night an Air Canada regional jet collided with a fire truck, killing both pilots. The collision took place at about 11:37 pm local time on March 22, when Air Canada Express Flight 8646, operated by Jazz Aviation, struck the vehicle on Runway 4.The focus of

Nigeria has forfeited a potential revenue surge from elevated crude prices during the Iran war because it could not raise production enough to match the market opportunity, according to Dele Oye, chairman of the Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics, who said the lost upside could amount to about $20.2 billion a year. He argued that Brent’s climb far above Nigeria’s budget benchmark should have delivered a major fiscal cushion, but weaker output left the country exposed instead of enriched.

Vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has begun to edge higher for ships deemed acceptable by Tehran, but the Gulf’s main maritime chokepoint remains tightly controlled and effectively shut to most commercial operators without Iranian clearance. Tracking data cited by Bloomberg showed a gentle rise in signal-on transits, while Reuters and other maritime reports indicate that only a narrow stream of ships linked to countries Iran considers non-hostile has been able to move through.That shift does not amount

Warren Buffett has left open the possibility of making further donations to the Gates Foundation, even as renewed scrutiny of Bill Gates’ past dealings with Jeffrey Epstein complicates one of the most prominent relationships in modern philanthropy. The 95-year-old investor said he is watching developments before deciding whether his long-running annual gifts should continue.The remarks mark a careful shift rather than a clean break. Buffett said he would “wait and see what unfolds” after the United States Department of

South Africa will cut a fuel tax for April to soften the hit from surging global oil prices, as Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana moves to contain a steep rise in petrol and diesel costs that threatens to feed inflation across Africa’s most industrialised economy. The step comes as oil markets remain under strain from conflict-linked supply disruption in the Middle East and as the rand has weakened against the dollar, compounding the pressure on imported fuel.Godongwana said the levy

Nasdaq is accelerating the route into its flagship Nasdaq-100 index for large newly listed companies, a rule change that could materially benefit future market debuts such as SpaceX by shortening what has often been a wait of many months. The exchange said the revised methodology will take effect on May 1, allowing certain newly public companies to be assessed by their seventh trading day and, if they qualify, enter the benchmark after their 15th trading day.The change marks a

Japan’s investors are being pushed back towards overseas yield trades as the war involving Iran unsettles the country’s traditional refuge assets, weakens the yen and lifts the cost of imported energy. What had looked like a steadier domestic backdrop at the start of 2026 has been disrupted by a surge in oil prices, renewed pressure on the currency and a sharp reassessment of where Japanese savers and institutions can still find acceptable returns.The immediate trigger is the energy shock

France is expanding its annual energy cheque scheme to an additional 700,000 households, widening a support measure that Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said would begin reaching 3.8 million households from this week as pressure on household budgets intensifies. The extra recipients are due to start receiving the aid from 1 May after the government used broader data matching to identify more eligible homes. Lecornu said the programme would deliver an average of €153 per household, with €600 million mobilised from

Electronic interference that had scrambled vessel tracking across the Persian Gulf eased over the weekend, allowing ships stranded in the war-affected waterway to show positions closer to their true locations and giving operators a clearer picture of navigation risks in one of the world’s most important energy corridors. Maritime security guidance issued on 29 March said GNSS, GPS and AIS disruption had moderated over the previous 24 to 48 hours and was now judged “sporadic and localised”, a marked change

South Africa’s Western Cape High Court has authorised life-saving surgery for a six-year-old girl after her parents withheld consent on cultural and religious grounds, in a ruling that is likely to sharpen debate over the limits of parental authority when a child’s survival is at stake. The case centred on Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, where doctors said urgent amputations were the only viable treatment to prevent further harm after the child developed severe complications from

North Korea has carried out a ground test of a newly upgraded high-thrust solid-fuel engine, with leader Kim Jong-un saying the development would strengthen the country’s strategic strike capability and advance its military modernisation drive. State media said Kim observed the test and described it as an important step in the ruling party’s five-year defence plan, a programme that has centred on building faster-launching missiles and a more survivable nuclear force.The reported test, disclosed by the Korean Central News