Tens of thousands of people gathered in cities across America and Europe to protest against Donald Trump’s policies, including his baseline levy of 10% on all imports which came into effect on Saturday. The rallies were the first big anti-Trump demonstrations since he began his second term in January. Meanwhile, Mr Trump urged Americans to “hang tough” and described the market turmoil caused by his tariffs as an “economic revolution”.
Indonesia, South-East Asia’s largest economy, said it would not retaliate against a trade tariff of 32% imposed on it by Donald Trump. Instead, the finance minister said that the country would pursue negotiations with America and sell more into European markets. The region was hit hard by the new tariffs; Vietnamese businesses have asked America to delay the introduction of a 46% levy on their goods.
A Russian air attack on Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, killed at least one person and wounded several others. The city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, added that fires were blazing in three districts. This followed a similar Russian assault on Kryvyi Rih, the home city of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, which left at least 19 dead, on Friday.
America revoked all visas issued to South Sudanese passport holders. The move came after the sub-Saharan country, which is on the verge of another civil war, refused to accept its citizens deported from America. Marco Rubio, America’s secretary of state, accused South Sudan’s transitional government of “taking advantage” of his country.
The Israel Defence Forces admitted that its soldiers had made mistakes in the killing of 15 aid workers in Gaza on March 23rd. The IDF claimed at first that the workers’ convoy of vehicles had no lights on when it approached an Israeli checkpoint. But video on the mobile phone of one of the dead showed that the vehicles had lights showing.
The death toll from the 7.7-magnitude earthquake that hit Myanmar last week topped 3,300. The United Nations renewed its call for aid to the country; a top official said that the damage across Mandalay, a central city, was “staggering”. The UN has accused Myanmar’s junta of blocking humanitarian assistance from reaching parts of the country that it thinks support rebel groups.
Ronin, a giant African pouched rat, set a new landmine-sniffing record, uncovering more than 100 mines in Cambodia. Landmines from consecutive wars in the country have killed tens of thousands of people there in the past four decades. Rats like Ronin are trained to sniff out chemicals used in the weapons. The Guinness Book of World Records congratulated the rodent for his “crucial work”.
Word of the week: Mütterrente (“mothers’ pension”), a German benefit to compensate parents for years spent raising children rather than working. Read the full story.
Donald Trump has begun his second term at a blistering pace. Keep up with his executive orders, legal challenges against them and what Americans think about it all on our presidential tracker.