Ukraine launched a drone strike against a Russian airfield some 700km behind the front line. Ukrainian officials said that the base hosts strategic bombers that Russia uses to target Ukraine. Meanwhile Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, said that Russia was preventing a full ceasefire by making “unnecessary demands that only prolong the war”. On Thursday Ukraine and Russia agreed to halt attacks on energy infrastructure.
At least 85 people were killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza, according to health officials in the enclave. Hamas responded by three launching rockets at Israel, all of which were intercepted or landed off target. The exchange followed Israel’s resumption of ground operations in Gaza, particularly around the Netzarim corridor, which separates the north and south of the territory.
Authorities in Turkey arrested nearly 40 people for social-media posts in support of Ekrem Imamoglu, Istanbul’s mayor, who was arrested on Wednesday. The government said it was searching for more than 200 others suspected of making similar posts. Mr Imamoglu was set to be named as the main opposition candidate to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the authoritarian president.
M23 rebels captured the town of Walikale, a tin and gold mining hub in eastern Congo, according to the Congolese army. The town is the furthest west that the Rwanda-backed group has reached since it began a big offensive in January. On Tuesday Félix Tshisekedi, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Paul Kagame, his Rwandan counterpart, called for a ceasefire.
The Bank of England held its benchmark interest rate at 4.5%, warning that trade tensions caused by Donald Trump’s tariff policies were causing “a lot of economic uncertainty”. The bank lowered interest rates from 4.75% at its last meeting on February 6th. The annual rate of inflation, which was 3% in January, remains above the bank’s target of 2%.
Softbank said it had agreed to buy Ampere Computing for $6.5bn. Ampere makes processors for cloud servers based on a design by Arm, a British chipmaker that Softbank acquired in 2016. The deal will help the Japanese technology fund with its foray into artificial intelligence. Arm plans to start manufacturing its own chips for AI, rather than just designing them.
Kirsty Coventry, Zimbabwe’s sports minister, was elected as the president of the International Olympic Committee. The 41-year-old swimmer, who won two Olympic gold medals, will be the first woman, the first African, and the youngest to hold the position. Sebastian Coe, the British president of World Athletics who had been among the favourites for the role, came third.
Figure of the day: $38trn, the amount held by American households and non-profit organisations in shares of listed firms. Read the full story here.
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