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A global stock market rout deepened on Monday and fears of recession rose after China retaliated against US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and Europe calibrated its response to the escalating trade war.European equities were deep in the red but Asia fared worse, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index crashing 13.2 percent, its biggest drop since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 falling an eye-watering 7.8 percent.A 10-percent “baseline” tariff on imports from around the world took effect on Saturday but a slew of countries will be hit by higher duties from Wednesday, with levies of 34 percent for Chinese goods and 20 percent for EU products.While other countries weigh their options, Beijing announced last week its own 34-percent tariff on US goods, which will come into effect on Thursday.The tit-for-tat duties “are aimed at bringing the United States back onto the right track of the multilateral trade system”, Chinese vice commerce minister Ling Ji said.”The root cause of the tariff issue lies in the United States,” Ling told representatives of US companies on Sunday, according to his ministry.EU trade ministers gathered in Luxembourg on Monday to discuss the bloc’s response, with Germany and France having advocated a tax targeting US tech giants.”We must not exclude any option on goods, on services,” said French Trade Minister Laurent Saint-Martin.The 27-nation bloc should “open the European toolbox, which is very comprehensive and can also be extremely aggressive”, he said.German Economy Minister Robert Habeck likewise said Europe should be prepared to use its trade “bazooka” — a new anti-coercion mechanism allowing it to punish any country using economic threats to exert pressure on the EU.But signs of divergence already emerged, with Ireland, whose low corporate tax rate has attracted US tech and pharmaceutical companies, warning against that course of action.Targeting services “would be an extraordinary escalation at a time when we must be working for de-escalation”, said Irish Trade Minister Simon Harris.EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said Europe was facing a “paradigm shift of the global trading system”.- Recession fears -Trump on Sunday doubled down on his demand to slash deficits with trading partners, saying he would not cut any deals unless that was resolved.”Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” said Trump, whose administration has shrugged off the market panic.He told reporters aboard Air Force One that world leaders were “dying to make a deal”.Trillions of dollars have been wiped off stocks worldwide since Trump announced the tariffs last week, and the losses deepened on Monday.Taipei recorded its heaviest loss on record as it sank 9.7 percent.In Europe, Frankfurt’s DAX sank as much as 10 percent in early deals but the German index pared back losses and was down just under four percent shortly after midday, with similar losses in Paris and London.US markets were expected to open deep in the red later on Monday.The main US oil contract dropped below $60 a barrel for the first time since April 2021 on worries of a global recession.”The market’s telling you in plain language: global demand is vanishing, and a global recession is on the cards and coming on fast,” said Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management.- Status quo ‘gone’ -US officials said more than 50 countries have reached out to Trump to negotiate.Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, whose country faces a 24-percent levy, said Tokyo would present Trump with a “package” of measures to win relief from US tariffs ahead of a mooted call between the leaders.Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel — hit with 17 percent tariffs, despite being one of Washington’s closest allies — was due on Monday to become the first leader to meet Trump since last week’s announcement.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned in a newspaper op-ed that “the world as we knew it has gone”, saying the status quo would increasingly hinge on “deals and alliances”.Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse with a big trade surplus with the United States, has already reached out and requested a delay of at least 45 days to thumping 46-percent tariffs.US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC’s Meet the Press that Trump has “created maximum leverage for himself”.”I think we’re going to have to see what the countries offer and whether it’s believable,” Bessent said.Other countries have been “bad actors for a long time and it’s not the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks”, he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington on Monday to meet Donald Trump, whom he will likely ask for a reprieve from US tariffs while seeking further backing on Iran and Gaza.Netanyahu becomes the first foreign leader to meet Trump in the US capital since the “Liberation Day” tariffs announcement sent global markets crashing.He was also due to discuss the war in Gaza, following the collapse of a short-lived truce that the United States had helped broker.Arriving in Washington direct from a visit to Hungary, Netanyahu’s chief objective was to try to persuade Trump to reverse the decision, or at the very least to reduce the 17 percent levy set to be imposed on Israeli imports before it takes effect.Upon arrival, Netanyahu met with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, according to his office.Before leaving Budapest, Netanyahu had said his discussions would cover a range of issues, including “the tariff regime that has also been imposed on Israel”.”I’m the first international leader, the first foreign leader who will meet with President Trump on a matter so crucial to Israel’s economy,” he said in a statement.”I believe this reflects the special personal relationship and the unique bond between the United States and Israel, which is so vital at this time.”Analysts said Netanyahu would seek to secure an exemption from the tariffs for Israel.”The urgency (of the visit) makes sense in terms of stopping it before it gets institutionalised,” said Jonathan Rynhold, head of political studies at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv.Such an exemption would not only benefit Trump’s closest Middle East ally but also “please Republicans in Congress, whose voters care about Israel, but are unwilling to confront Trump on this at this point,” he said.Israel had attempted to avoid the new levy by moving preemptively a day before Trump’s announcement and lifting all remaining duties on the one percent of American goods still affected by them.But Trump did not exempt Israel from his global salvo, saying the United States had a significant trade deficit with the country, the top beneficiary of US military aid.- Gaza truce, Iran -The Israeli leader’s visit is “also a way for Netanyahu to play the game and show Trump that Israel is going along with him,” said Yannay Spitzer, a professor of economics at Hebrew University.”I would not be surprised if there is an announcement of some concession for Israel… and this will be an example for other countries.”Netanyahu will also discuss the war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack, the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, and the “growing threat from Iran”, his office said.Israel resumed intense strikes on Gaza on March 18, and the weeks-long ceasefire with Hamas that the United States, Egypt and Qatar had brokered collapsed.Efforts to restore the truce have failed, with nearly 1,400 people killed in renewed Israeli air and ground operations, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory.Palestinian militants in Gaza are still holding 58 hostages, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.On Iran, Trump has been pressing for “direct talks” with Tehran on a new deal to curb the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme.But Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghai said Tehran’s proposal for indirect negotiations was “generous, responsible and wise”.There has been widespread speculation that Israel, possibly with US help, might attack Iranian facilities if no agreement is reached.Baghai also said that Iran was ready to respond in case of attack.”Should the threats against Iran be realised, they would precipitate a swift, immediate and global response from Iran’s side,” he said.

Asian and European equities collapsed on a black Monday for markets after China hammered the United States with its own hefty tariffs, ramping up a trade war many fear could spark a recession.Trading floors were overcome by a wave of selling as investors fled to the hills, with Hong Kong’s loss of 13.22 percent its worst in nearly three decades. Taipei socks suffered their worst fall on record, tanking 9.7 percent, while Frankfurt dived 10 percent and Tokyo shed almost eight percent.Futures for Wall Street’s markets were also taking another drubbing, while commodities slumped.US President Donald Trump sparked a market meltdown last week when he unveiled sweeping tariffs against US trading partners for what he said was years of being ripped off and claimed that governments were lining up to cut deals with Washington.But after Asian markets closed on Friday, China said it would impose retaliatory levies of 34 percent on all US goods from April 10. Beijing also imposed export controls on seven rare earth elements, including gadolinium — commonly used in MRIs — and yttrium, utilised in consumer electronics.On Sunday, vice commerce minister Ling Ji told representatives of US firms that Trump’s tariffs “firmly protect the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises, including American companies”.Hopes that the US president would rethink his policy in light of the turmoil were dashed Sunday when he said he would not make a deal with other countries unless trade deficits were solved.”Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” he said of the ructions that have wiped trillions of dollars off company valuations.- No sector spared -The savage selling in Asia was across the board, with no sector unharmed — tech firms, car makers, banks, casinos and energy firms all felt the pain as investors abandoned riskier assets.Among the biggest losers, Chinese ecommerce titans Alibaba tanked 18 percent and rival JD.com shed 15.5 percent, while Japanese tech investment giant SoftBank dived more than 12 percent and Sony gave up 10 percent.Hong Kong’s 13-percent drop marked its worst day since 1997 during the Asian financial crisis — while Frankfurt plunged 10 percent at one point.Shanghai shed more than seven percent, with China’s state-backed fund Central Huijin Investment vowing to help ensure “stable operations” of the market.Singapore plunged nearly eight percent, while Seoul gave up more than five percent, triggering a so-called sidecar mechanism — for the first time in eight months — that briefly halted some trading. Sydney, Wellington, Manila and Mumbai were also deep in the red, while London and Paris both dropped around five percent. “We could see a recession happen very quickly in the US, and it could last through the year or so, it could be rather lengthy,” said Steve Cochrane, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Moody’s Analytics. “If there’s a recession in the US, of course, China will feel it as well because demand for its goods will be hit even harder,” he added.Concerns about demand saw oil prices sink more than three percent at one point Monday, having dropped around seven percent Friday. Both main contracts are now sitting at their lowest levels since 2021. Copper — a vital component for energy storage, electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines — also extended losses.- Carnage on Wall Street -The losses followed another day of carnage on Wall Street on Friday, where all three main indexes fell almost six percent.”Over Thursday and Friday, the S&P 500 fell by a massive 10.53 percent in total, making it the fifth-worst two-day performance since World War Two,” said analysts at Deutsche Bank.”Indeed, the only other times we’ve seen a double-digit loss over two sessions were during Covid-19, the height of the (global financial crisis), and Black Monday 1987.”That showing came after Federal Reserve boss Jerome Powell said US tariffs will likely cause inflation to rise and growth to slow, and warned of an “elevated” risk of higher unemployment.”Powell’s hands are tied,” said Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management. “He’s acknowledged the obvious — that tariffs are inflationary and recessionary — but he’s not signalling a rescue.” While Powell has so far refused to announce any rate cuts, markets are betting he will do soon.- Key figures around 0815 GMT -Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 7.8 percent at 31,136.58 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 13.2 percent at 19,828.30 (close)Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 7.3 percent at 3,096.58 (close)London – FTSE 100: DOWN 4.6 percent at 7,686.66West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 4.1 percent at $59.41 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 4.0 percent at $62.99 per barrelDollar/yen: DOWN at 145.80 yen from 146.98 yen on FridayEuro/dollar: UP at $1.1019 from $1.0962Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2911 from $1.2893Euro/pound: UP at 85.36 pence from 85.01 penceNew York – Dow: DOWN 5.5 percent at 38,314.86 (close) 

World markets crashed on Monday with Asia leading the rout, as US President Donald Trump held firm on his swingeing tariffs despite China retaliating and global recession warnings growing louder.Hong Kong’s Hang Seng plunged more than 13 percent, its biggest drop since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, while in Japan the Nikkei 225 index fell an eye-watering 7.8 percent. Countries mostly have been scrambling to blunt the new US tariffs without retaliating, but Beijing is responding in kind, escalating the trade war between the two biggest economies.Beijing’s new 34-percent tariffs announced on Friday “are aimed at bringing the United States back onto the right track of the multilateral trade system,” vice commerce minister Ling Ji said.”The root cause of the tariff issue lies in the United States,” Ling told representatives of US companies on Sunday, according to his ministry.Trump on Sunday doubled down on his demand to slash deficits with trading partners, saying he would not cut any deals unless that was resolved.”Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” Trump said on Sunday.He told reporters aboard Air Force One that world leaders are “dying to make a deal”.Trillions of dollars have been wiped off stocks worldwide, and on Monday Asian equities took an even heavier hammering as investors moved to safer assets.In Europe, Frankfurt’s DAX sank a massive 10 percent with Paris diving more than six percent and London sliding nearly six percent.US oil dropped below $60 a barrel for the first time since April 2021 on worries of a global recession.”(This) is blunt-force economic warfare,” said Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management.”The market’s telling you in plain language: global demand is vanishing, and a global recession is on the cards and coming on fast,” Innes said.- ‘Deals and alliances’ -Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel — which has been hit with 17 percent tariffs, despite being one of Washington’s closest allies — was due Monday to become the first leader to meet Trump since last week’s announcement.Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned in a newspaper op-ed that “the world as we knew it has gone,” saying the status quo would increasingly hinge on “deals and alliances.”Trump’s staggered deadlines have left space for some countries to negotiate, even as he insisted he would stand firm and his administration warned against any retaliation.”More than 50 countries have reached out to the president to begin a negotiation,” Kevin Hassett, head of the White House National Economic Council, told ABC’s This Week on Sunday, citing the US Trade Representative.Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse that counted the US as its biggest export market in the first quarter, has already reached out and requested a delay of at least 45 days to thumping 46 percent tariffs imposed by Trump.- ‘Bad actors’ -Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also told NBC’s Meet the Press that 50 countries had reached out.But as for whether Trump will negotiate with them, “I think that’s a decision for President Trump,” Bessent said. “At this moment he’s created maximum leverage for himself… I think we’re going to have to see what the countries offer, and whether it’s believable,” Bessent said. Other countries have been “bad actors for a long time, and it’s not the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks,” he claimed.Peter Navarro, Trump’s tariff guru, has pushed back against the mounting nervousness and insisted to investors that “you can’t lose money unless you sell,” promising “the biggest boom in the stock market we’ve ever seen.”Russia has not been targeted by the latest raft of tariffs, and Hassett cited talks with Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine as the reason for their omission from the hit list.On Wednesday a White House official suggested the reason for Russia’s omission was because trade was negligible thanks to sanctions.Trump has long insisted that countries around the world that sell products to the United States are in fact ripping Americans off, and he sees tariffs as a means to right that wrong.”Some day people will realize that Tariffs, for the United States of America, are a very beautiful thing!” Trump wrote on Truth social Sunday.But many economists have warned that tariffs are passed on to US consumers and that they could see price rises at home.”I don’t think that you’re going to see a big effect on the consumer in the US,” Hassett said.

Boeing is poised to face a jury trial from Monday over the fatal 2019 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX plane, the first civil case related to the disaster to reach court.The Chicago trial, expected to last two weeks, was to feature two plaintiffs who lost family members in the calamity. But one of the complaints was resolved in an out-of-court settlement late Sunday, a judicial source told AFP, in line with most earlier litigants.Barring another last-minute settlement, the trial will begin Monday with the selection of an eight-person jury.”We have had some ongoing discussion that may continue throughout the day and the ensuing days,” Robert Clifford, who represents relatives of several crash victims, told the US District court on Wednesday at a pre-trial hearing.A deal could also be struck even while the trial is underway.- Canadian victim -The Boeing plane crashed on March 10, 2019, just six minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa on its way to Kenya, killing all 157 people on board.Relatives of 155 of the victims had sued Boeing between April 2019 and March 2021 for wrongful death, negligence and other charges.As of late last month, there were 18 complaints still open against Boeing, a source familiar with the case told AFP.Sunday’s deal meant that a further three cases had been settled since then, multiple judicial sources told AFP.This week’s Chicago litigation will now examine only the case of Canadian Darcy Belanger.Belanger, 46, who lived in Colorado, was a founding member of environmental NGO, the Parvati Foundation, and also worked in construction. He had been visiting Nairobi for a UN conference.US Judge Jorge Alonso has split the Boeing lawsuits into groups of five or six plaintiffs, annulling a potential trial if all the suits settle.In November, the aviation giant reached a last-minute agreement with the family of a woman killed in the crash.The Ethiopian Airlines disaster followed another fatal crash involving a MAX plane — that of a Lion Air jet that crashed in Indonesia in October 2018, killing all 189 people on board.Boeing also faced dozens of complaints from Lion Air family victims. Just one case remained open, as of the end of March. – Long-running case -Boeing’s settlements with civil plaintiffs have been confidential.The US manufacturer has “accepted responsibility for the MAX crashes publicly and in civil litigation because the design of the MCAS… contributed to these events,” a Boeing lawyer said during an October hearing.The MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) flight stabilizing software was implicated in both the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air crashes.The disasters led to congressional hearings, with irate lawmakers demanding answers, and to leadership shake-ups at the aviation company. The entire 737 MAX fleet was grounded for more than 20 months.Boeing later revised the MCAS program under scrutiny from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which ultimately cleared the jets to resume service in November 2020. The Chicago trial comes as Boeing also faces a potential criminal trial in June in Texas over the MAX.That trial follows on from a January 2021 deferred prosecution agreement between Boeing and the US Justice Department over the two MAX crashes. In May 2024, the Justice Department notified the court that Boeing had violated terms of the accord. That came after a January 2024 incident in which an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX was forced to make an emergency landing when a panel blew out mid-flight.US District Judge Reed O’Connor last month ordered a jury trial from June 23 after earlier throwing out a proposed settlement between Boeing and the Justice Department.

Asian equities collapsed on a black Monday for markets after China hammered the United States with its own hefty tariffs, ramping up a trade war many fear could spark a recession.Trading floors were overcome by a wave of selling as investors fled to the hills on the worst day for equities since the pandemic, with Hong Kong shedding 10 percent, Tokyo briefly diving eight percent and Taipei more than nine percent.Futures for Wall Street’s markets were also taking another drubbing, while concerns about the impact on demand also saw commodities slump.Donald Trump sparked a market meltdown last week when he unveiled sweeping tariffs against US trading partners for what he says was years of being ripped off and claimed that governments were lining up to cut deals with Washington.But after Asian markets closed on Friday, China said it would impose retaliatory levies of 34 percent on all US goods from April 10. It also imposed export controls on seven rare earth elements, including gadolinium — commonly used in MRIs — and yttrium, utilised in consumer electronics.Hopes that the US president would rethink his policy in light of the turmoil were dashed Sunday when he said he would not make a deal with other countries unless trade deficits were solved.He denied that he was intentionally engineering a selloff and insisted he could not foresee market reactions.”Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” he said of the ructions that have wiped trillions of dollars off company valuations.- No sector spared -The selling in Asia was across the board, with no sector unharmed by the savage selling — tech firms, car makers, banks, casinos and energy firms all felt the pain as investors abandoned riskier assets.Among the biggest losers, Chinese ecommerce titans Alibaba tanked more than 14 percent and rival JD.com shed 13 percent, while Japanese tech investment giant SoftBank dived more than 10 percent and Sony gave up 9.6 percent.Shanghai shed more than six percent and Singapore eight percent, while Seoul gave up more than five percent triggering a so-called sidecar mechanism — for the first time in eight months — that briefly halted some trading. Sydney, Wellington, Manila and Mumbai were also deep in the red. Steve Cochrane, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Moody’s Analytics, said: “We could see a recession happen very quickly in the US, and it could last through the year or so, it could be rather lengthy. “And if there’s a recession in the US, of course, China will feel it as well because demand for its goods will be hit even harder. Harder than they would have been hit just because of the tariffs.”Concerns about demand saw oil prices sink more than three percent Monday, having dropped around seven percent Friday. Both main contracts are now sitting at their lowest levels since 2021. Copper — a vital component for energy storage, electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines — also extended losses.”The market is in free-fall mode again, punching through floors,” said Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management. “Trump’s team isn’t blinking. The tariffs are being treated as a victory lap, not a bargaining chip.”The losses followed another day of carnage on Wall Street on Friday, where all three main indexes fell almost six percent.That came after Federal Reserve boss Jerome Powell said US tariffs will likely cause inflation to rise and growth to slow and warned of an “elevated” risk of higher unemployment.The measures by Trump are likely to give US central bankers a headache as they try to balance the need for interest rate cuts to support the economy with the need to keep a lid on prices.His comments came after Trump had insisted “my policies will never change” and urged the Fed to cut rates.”Powell’s hands are tied,” said Innes. “He’s acknowledged the obvious — that tariffs are inflationary and recessionary — but he’s not signalling a rescue. “And that’s the problem. This time, the Fed’s inflation mandate is forcing it to keep the safety net rolled up while asset prices get torched.”Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade, said: “Traders are nervously watching the two biggest economies going toe to toe on tariffs and are fearing that both could receive knockout blows from a prolonged economic fight.”Neither the US nor China are backing down when it comes to slapping new tariffs on each other and in this escalatory environment it’s not surprising to see that risk assets are being avoided like the plague.”- Key figures around 0400 GMT -Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 6.2 percent at 31,699.95 Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 10.7 percent at 20,405.96 (break)Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 6.3 percent at 3,130.17 (break)West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 2.7 percent at $60.31 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 2.7 percent at $63.84 per barrelDollar/yen: DOWN at 146.33 yen from 146.98 yen on FridayEuro/dollar: DOWN at $1.0950 from $1.0962Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.2889 from $1.2893Euro/pound: DOWN at 84.96 pence from 85.01 penceNew York – Dow: DOWN 5.5 percent at 38,314.86 (close) London – FTSE 100: DOWN 5.0 percent at 8,054.98 (close)

Talks on Monday between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump are expected to be dominated by Washington’s shock tariffs on Israel and escalating tensions with Iran.Netanyahu becomes the first foreign leader to meet with Trump in the US capital since the president unveiled sweeping levies on multiple countries in his “Liberation Day” announcement on Wednesday.Arriving in Washington direct from a visit to Hungary, Netanyahu’s chief objective will be to persuade Trump to reverse the decision, or at the very least to reduce the 17 percent levy set to be imposed on Israeli imports before it takes effect.Before leaving Budapest, Netanyahu said his discussions would include a range of issues, including “the tariff regime that has also been imposed on Israel”.”I’m the first international leader, the first foreign leader who will meet with President Trump on a matter so crucial to Israel’s economy,” he said in a statement.”I believe this reflects the special personal relationship and the unique bond between the United States and Israel, which is so vital at this time.”Analysts said Netanyahu will seek to secure an exemption from the tariffs for Israel.”The urgency (of the visit) makes sense in terms of stopping it before it gets institutionalised,” said Jonathan Rynhold, head of political studies at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv.Such an exemption would not only benefit Trump’s closest Middle East ally but also “please Republicans in Congress, whose voters care about Israel, but are unwilling to confront Trump on this at this point,” he said.Israel had attempted to avoid the new levy by moving preemptively a day before Trump’s announcement and lifting all remaining duties on the one percent of American goods still affected by them.But Trump still went ahead with his new policy, saying the United States had a significant trade deficit with Israel, a top beneficiary of US military aid.- Gaza truce, hostages -The Israeli leader’s US trip is “also a way for Netanyahu to play the game and show Trump that Israel is going along with him,” said Yannay Spitzer, a professor of economics at Hebrew University.”I would not be surprised if there is an announcement of some concession for Israel… and this will be an example for other countries.”Netanyahu will also discuss the war in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli hostages still held in the Palestinian territory, and the growing “threat from Iran”, his office said.Israel resumed air strikes on Gaza on March 18, ending nearly two months of ceasefire with Hamas that had been brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar.Efforts to restore the truce have since failed, with more than 1,330 people killed in renewed Israeli air and ground operations, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory.Palestinian militants there still hold 58 hostages, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.On Iran, Trump has been pressing for “direct talks” with Tehran on a new deal to curb the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme.Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Sunday rejected the idea of direct negotiations with the United States as “meaningless”.There has been widespread speculation that Israel, possibly with US help, might attack Iranian facilities if no agreement is reached.

The music industry is fighting on platforms, through the courts and with legislators in a bid to prevent the theft and misuse of art from generative AI — but it remains an uphill battle.Sony Music said recently it has already demanded that 75,000 deepfakes — simulated images, tunes or videos that can easily be mistaken for real — be rooted out, a figure reflecting the magnitude of the issue.The information security company Pindrop says AI-generated music has “telltale signs” and is easy to detect, yet such music seems to be everywhere.”Even when it sounds realistic, AI-generated songs often have subtle irregularities in frequency variation, rhythm and digital patterns that aren’t present in human performances,” said Pindrop, which specializes in voice analysis.But it takes mere minutes on YouTube or Spotify — two top music-streaming platforms — to spot a fake rap from 2Pac about pizzas, or an Ariana Grande cover of a K-pop track that she never performed.”We take that really seriously, and we’re trying to work on new tools in that space to make that even better,” said Sam Duboff, Spotify’s lead on policy organization.YouTube said it is “refining” its own ability to spot AI dupes, and could announce results in the coming weeks.”The bad actors were a little bit more aware sooner,” leaving artists, labels and others in the music business “operating from a position of reactivity,” said Jeremy Goldman, an analyst at the company Emarketer.”YouTube, with a multiple of billions of dollars per year, has a strong vested interest to solve this,” Goldman said, adding that he trusts they’re working seriously to fix it.”You don’t want the platform itself, if you’re at YouTube, to devolve into, like, an AI nightmare,” he said.- Litigation -But beyond deepfakes, the music industry is particularly concerned about unauthorized use of its content to train generative AI models like Suno, Udio or Mubert.Several major labels filed a lawsuit last year at a federal court in New York against the parent company of Udio, accusing it of developing its technology with “copyrighted sound recordings for the ultimate purpose of poaching the listeners, fans and potential licensees of the sound recordings it copied.”More than nine months later, proceedings have yet to begin in earnest. The same is true for a similar case against Suno, filed in Massachusetts.At the center of the litigation is the principle of fair use, allowing limited use of some copyrighted material without advance permission. It could limit the application of intellectual property rights.”It’s an area of genuine uncertainty,” said Joseph Fishman, a law professor at Vanderbilt University. Any initial rulings won’t necessarily prove decisive, as varying opinions from different courts could punt the issue to the Supreme Court.In the meantime, the major players involved in AI-generated music continue to train their models on copyrighted work — raising the question of whether the battle isn’t already lost.Fishman said it may be too soon to say that: although many models are already training on protected material, new versions of those models are released continuously, and it’s unclear whether any court decisions would create licensing issues for those models going forward.- Deregulation -When it comes to the legislative arena, labels, artists and producers have found little success.Several bills have been introduced in the US Congress, but nothing concrete has resulted. A few states — notably Tennessee, home to much of the powerful country music industry — have adopted protective legislation, notably when it comes to deepfakes.Donald Trump poses another potential roadblock: the Republican president has postured himself as a champion of deregulation, particularly of AI. Several giants in AI have jumped into the ring, notably Meta, which has urged the administration to “clarify that the use of publicly available data to train models is unequivocally fair use.”If Trump’s White House takes that advice, it could push the balance against music professionals, even if the courts theoretically have the last word.The landscape is hardly better in Britain, where the Labor government is considering overhauling the law to allow AI companies to use creators’ content on the internet to help develop their models, unless rights holders opt out.More than a thousand musicians, including Kate Bush and Annie Lennox, released an album in February entitled “Is This What We Want?” — featuring the sound of silence recorded in several studios — to protest those efforts.For analyst Goldman, AI is likely to continue plaguing the music industry — as long as it remains unorganized.”The music industry is so fragmented,” he said. “I think that that winds up doing it a disservice in terms of solving this thing.”

In 2008, scriptwriter Ed Bennett-Coles said he experienced a career “death moment”: he read an article about AI managing to write its first screenplay.Nearly two decades later, he and friend Jamie Hartman, a songwriter, have developed a blockchain-based application they hope will empower writers, artists and others to own and protect their work.”AI is coming in, swooping in and taking so many people’s jobs,” Hartman said. Their app, he said, responds “no… this is our work.””This is human, and we decide what it’s worth, because we own it.”The ever-growing threat of AI looms over intellectual property and livelihoods across creative industries.Their app, ARK, aims to log ownership of ideas and work from initial brainchild to finished product: one could register a song demo, for example, simply by uploading the file, the creators explained to AFP.Features including non-disclosure agreements, blockchain-based verification and biometric security measures mark the file as belonging to the artist who uploaded it.Collaborators could then also register their own contributions throughout the creative process.ARK “challenges the notion that the end product is the only thing worthy of value,” said Bennett-Coles as his partner nodded in agreement.The goal, Hartman said, is to maintain “a process of human ingenuity and creativity, ring-fencing it so that you can actually still earn a living off it.”- Checks and balances -Due for a full launch in summer 2025, ARK has secured funding from the venture capital firm Claritas Capital and is also in strategic partnership with BMI, the performing rights organization.And for Hartman and Bennett-Coles, its development has included a lot of existential soul-searching.”I saw a quote yesterday which really sums it up: it’s that growth for growth’s sake is the philosophy of the cancer cell,” said Bennett-Coles. “And that’s AI.””The sales justification is always quicker and faster, but like really we need to fall in love with process again.”He likened the difference between human-created art and AI content to a child accompanying his grandfather to the butcher, versus ordering a slab of meat from an online delivery service.The familial time spent together — the walk to and from the shop, the conversations in between running the errand — are “as important as the actual purchase,” he said.In the same way, “the car trip that Jamie makes when he’s heading to the studio might be as important to writing that song as what happens in the studio itself.”AI, they say, devalues that creative process, which they hope ARK can reassert.It’s “a check and a balance on behalf of the human being,” Hartman said.- ‘Rise out of the ashes’ -The ARK creators said they decided the app must be blockchain-based — with data stored on a digital ledger of sorts — because it’s decentralized.”In order to give the creator autonomy and sovereignty over their IP and control over their destiny, it has to be decentralized,” Bennett-Coles said.App users will pay for ARK according to a tiered structure, they said, levels priced according to storage use needs.They intend ARK to stand up in a court of law as a “recording on the blockchain” or a “smart contract,” the scriptwriter explained, calling it “a consensus mechanism.””Copyright is a pretty good principle — as long as you can prove it, as long as you can stand behind it,” Hartman added, but “the process of registering has been fairly archaic for a long time.””Why not make progress in copyright, as far as how it’s proven?” he added. “We believe we’ve hit upon something.”Both artists said their industries have been too slow to respond to the rapid proliferation of AI.Much of the response, Bennett-Coles said, has to start with the artists having their own “death moments” similar to what he experienced years ago.”From there, they can rise out of the ashes and decide what can be done,” he said. “How can we preserve and maintain what it is we love to do, and what’s important to us?”

A measles outbreak has killed a second child in the southwestern United States, authorities said Sunday, with almost 650 people now infected as the highly contagious disease spreads. “We are deeply saddened to report that a school-aged child who was recently diagnosed with measles has passed away,” Aaron Davis, vice president of UMC Health System, a medical center in Texas, told AFP.The child had been receiving treatment for “complications of measles” in hospital, he said, adding they were “not vaccinated against measles and had no known underlying health conditions.”As the US grapples with its worst measles outbreak in years, President Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has alarmed health experts with his past rhetoric downplaying the importance of vaccines.Kennedy, however, posted on X Sunday that “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.”He added that his Health and Human Services (HHS) department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were supporting distribution of the shots in Texas.Kennedy, who said he had traveled to Texas to comfort the child’s family, also tallied “642 confirmed cases of measles across 22 states, 499 of those in Texas” as of Sunday.Questioned by journalists aboard Air Force One, Trump appeared to downplay the outbreak as “so far a fairly small number of people relative to what we’re talking about.”But he added that if it “progresses, we’ll have to take action very strongly,” without giving further details.- ‘Importance of vaccination’ -The CDC has recorded cases stretching from Alaska to Florida, as well as in New York City.Texas had reported its first measles death, also of a child, in late February — marking the first US fatality from the disease in nearly a decade.The death of a New Mexico adult last month was also classified by the CDC as a measles-related fatality. The vast majority of measles cases tallied by the CDC — 97 percent — are patients not vaccinated against the measles, it said on April 3.Some 196 of them were under five years old, 240 were aged 5-19, and an additional 159 were aged 20 years or older, with a few others of unknown age, the health agency said. The CDC, which defines an “outbreak” as three or more related cases, has recorded six outbreaks so far in 2025. Some 93 percent of the confirmed cases are related to those outbreaks.”For comparison, 16 outbreaks were reported during 2024 and 69 percent of cases (198 of 285) were outbreak-associated,” it said on its website.”This unfortunate event underscores the importance of vaccination,” Davis, of UMC Health System in Texas, said in an email regarding the latest death.”We encourage all individuals to stay current with their vaccinations to protect themselves and the broader community.”