China’s government says it will “fight to the end” if the US continues to escalate the trade war, after Donald Trump threatened huge additional tariffs in response to China’s retaliatory measures.

On Tuesday, China’s commerce ministry accused the US of “blackmail” and said the US president’s threats of additional 50% tariffs if Beijing did not reverse its own 34% reciprocal tariff were a “mistake on top of a mistake”.

It vowed to “resolutely take countermeasures”, adding: “China will fight to the end if the US side is bent on going down the wrong path.”

On Tuesday Asian markets appeared to improve slightly in early trading, a day after torrid day on the global markets that prompted the billionaire investor Bill Ackman, one of the US president’s backers in the 2024 race for the White House, to call for a moratorium.

Tuesday’s response from Beijing is the latest in a worsening tit-for-tat between the two countries. Last week Trump announced a swathe of tariffs ranging from 10%-50% against US trading partners to come into effect this Wednesday. He placed a 34% tariff on imports from China – in addition to a previous 20% levy. Beijing then retaliated with a reciprocal 34% tariff on all US imports. That prompted Trump on Monday to threaten an additional 50% tariff on to Chinese imports if Beijing did not reverse theirs.

“If China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose additional tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated!”

A scathing editorial in Chinese official state news outlet Xinhua accused Trump of “naked extortion”.

“Utterly absurd is the underlying logic of the United States: ‘I can hit you at my will, and you must not respond. Instead, you must surrender unconditionally’,” it said. “This is not diplomacy. It is blunt coercion dressed up as policy.”

On social media a 1987 speech by then US president Ronald Reagan posted by China’s foreign ministry has been widely shared. The video clip, in which Reagan criticises the use of tariffs as leading to retaliation and ultimately hurting the US economy, “has a new meaning in 2025”, China’s The Paper said.

Wen-ti Sung, a non-resident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub said the US and China were “locked in a game of chicken”. “Like two race cars driving directly toward each other, whoever swerves first will stand to lose prestige and profit,” Sung told the Guardian.

“China seems determined to signal that the world is still bipolar, and that Beijing will not let Washington get to call the shots, lest it sets the tone for the years to come. Plus China is still waiting to get more assurance from Trump that if it accommodates Trump’s demand will it get China out of his crosshairs or whether it will only whet his appetite more.

“If not, China’s main option is to respond with proportional retaliatory trade sanctions against the US, while trying to negotiate with Washington at the same time.”

On Tuesday, Japan’s Nikkei index rose 6%, rebounding from an 18-month low on Monday, after Trump and Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba agreed to open trade talks in a phone call late on Monday.

Chinese blue-chips climbed 0.7%, recouping a fraction of the more than 7% slide on Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index jumped 2% after suffering the worst day since 1997. US stock futures also pointed higher after a rollercoaster session in which it touched its lowest level in more than a year.

Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs targeted dozens of countries, and China is not the only one to respond. The European Commission has proposed counter-tariffs of 25% on a range of US goods, including soybeans, nuts and sausages, while saying they stood ready to negotiate a “zero for zero” deal with Trump.

EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic said at a news conference: “Sooner or later, we will sit at the negotiation table with the US and find a mutually acceptable compromise.”

The 27-member EU, which had already been hit with tariffs on vehicles and metals, faces another 20% on other items from Wednesday. Trump has also threatened to impose tariffs on alcoholic drinks from the bloc.

Taiwan, which faces a 32% reciprocal tariff and saw its worst ever market fall on Monday, has said it is ready to negotiate “at any time”, with president Lai Ching-te proposing a zero-tariffs agreement, removal of trade barriers, and increased investment in the US.

Taiwan has repeatedly said its large trade surplus with the US is due to the US’s soaring demand for tech, given its companies are major suppliers to companies such as Apple and Nvidia.

A libertarian group that has been funded by Leonard Leo and Charles Koch has mounted a legal challenge against Donald Trump’s tariff regime, in a sign of spreading rightwing opposition to a policy that has sent international markets plummeting.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a suit against Trump’s imposition of import tariffs on exports from China, arguing that doing so under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) – which the president has invoked to justify the duties on nearly all countries – is unlawful.

The group’s actions echo support given by four Republican senators last week for a Democratic amendment calling for the reversal of 25% tariffs imposed on Canada.

Last Wednesday’s amendment passed with the support of Mitch McConnell, the former Republican Senate majority leader, and his fellow GOP members Rand Paul, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who argued that tariffs on Canada would be economically harmful.

The action from the alliance has the potential to be even more emblematic, given its past backing from Koch, a billionaire industrialist, and Leo, a wealthy legal activist who advised Trump on the nomination of three conservative supreme court justices during his first presidency, which has given the court a 6-3 rightwing majority. The group received money from organisations affiliated with Leo and Koch in 2022. A spokesperson for Stand Together, a group partially-funded by Koch and that has supported the alliance, said it was not involved in the legal case.

The alliance has tabled its action on behalf of Simplified, a Florida-based home goods company whose business is heavily reliant on imports from China. It argues that the president has exceeded his powers in invoking the IEEPA to justify tariffs.

“This statute authorizes specific emergency actions like imposing sanctions or freezing assets to protect the United States from foreign threats,” the alliance said in a statement. “It does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. In its nearly 50-year history, no other president – including President Trump in his first term – has ever tried to use the IEEPA to impose tariffs.”

The alliance also argues that power to impose tariffs lies not with a sitting president, but with Congress, and warns that those imposed by Trump could run afoul of US supreme court rulings.

“His attempt to use the IEEPA this way not only violates the law as written, but it also invites application of the supreme court’s major questions doctrine, which tells courts not to discern policies of ‘vast economic and political significance’ in a law without explicit congressional authorization,” its statement said.

Mark Chenoweth, the alliance’s president, said the court in Pensacola – where the suit has been filed – would have to observe this legal precedent.

“Reading this law [IEEPA] broadly enough to uphold the China tariff would transfer core legislative power,” he said. “To avoid that non-delegation pitfall, the court must construe the statute consistent with nearly 50 years of unbroken practice and decide it does not permit tariff setting.”

The suit argues that there is no connection between the fentanyl epidemic – which Trump has cited as a reason for invoking the emergency powers – and the tariffs.

“The means of an across-the-board tariff does not fit the end of stopping an influx of opioids, and is in no sense ‘necessary’ to that stated purpose,” the complaint filed on behalf of Simplified argues.

“In fact, President Trump’s own statements reveal the real reason for the China tariff, which is to reduce American trade deficits while raising federal revenue.”

The legal case adds to rumbling disquiet on tariffs among some of Trump’s usually vocal supporters, including the billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.

Paul, a senator from Kentucky who has been one of the most consistent congressional anti-tariff voices, told the Washington Post that other Capitol Hill Republicans shared his concern.

“They all see the stock market, and they’re all worried about it,” Paul said. “But they are putting on a stiff upper lip to try to act as if nothing’s happening and hoping it goes away.”

Speaking in support of last week’s Democratic amendment, sponsored by the Virginia senator Tim Kaine, Paul said: “I don’t care if the president is a Republican or a Democrat. I don’t want to live under emergency rule. I don’t want to live where my representatives cannot speak for me and have a check and balance on power.”

Trump attacked Paul and the three other Republican senators who backed the amendment and suggested they were driven by “Trump derangement syndrome”.

In another sign of Republican concern, the GOP senator from Iowa Chuck Grassley – along with a Washington Democrat, Maria Cantrell – introduced a bill that would limit Trump’s ability to impose or increase tariffs by requiring Congress to approve them within 60 days. The White House budget office said on Monday that Trump would veto the bill.

Global stock markets fell catastrophically on Monday following President Trump’s tariff rollout.

Despite the economic turmoil, the US president doubled down on his plan, threatening to impose an additional 50% tariff on imports from China on Wednesday, unless the country rescinds its retaliatory tariffs on the United States by Tuesday.

Trump has defended his sweeping tariffs, saying: “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something”. Top officials in the administration have brushed aside fears of a recession and reiterated the tariff policy will be implemented as planned.

Here are the key stories at a glance:

Catching up? Here’s what happened on 6 April 2025.

South Korea will hold a presidential election on 3 June, the country’s acting president said on Tuesday, after predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached and removed from office over a disastrous declaration of martial law.

The government “is to set June 3 as the date for South Korea’s 21st presidential election”, prime minister Han Duck-soo said, adding that the day would be designated as a temporary public holiday to facilitate voting.

Yoon was removed by the constitutional court for violating his official duty by issuing the martial law decree on 3 December and mobilising troops in an attempt to halt parliamentary proceedings.

The law requires a new presidential election within 60 days if the position becomes vacant.

South Korea has faced months of political turmoil since Yoon stunned the country by declaring martial law, triggering his impeachment by parliament and the impeachment of prime minister Han Duck-soo, who is also acting president.

Han’s impeachment was later overturned by the constitutional court and he will continue in the role of acting president until the election.

The power vacuum at the top of South Korea’s government has overshadowed Seoul’s efforts to deal with the administration of US President Donald Trump at a time of spiralling US tariffs and slowing growth in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

Lee Jae-myung, the populist leader of the opposition liberal Democratic party who had lost to Yoon by a razor-thin margin in 2022, is a clear front-runner but faces legal challenges of his own under multiple trials for charges including violating the election law and bribery.

Yoon’s conservative People Power party has a wide-open field of candidates, led by labour minister Kim Moon-soo, who announced his intention to run on Tuesday.

According to a Gallup poll published on 4 April, 34% of respondents supported Lee as the next leader, 9% backed conservative Kim Moon-soo, 5% former ruling party leader Han Dong-hoon, 4% Daegu mayor Hong Joon-pyo, and 2% Seoul mayor Oh Se-hoon.

With Reuters and Agence France-Presse

Autopsies conducted on 15 Palestinian paramedics and civil emergency responders who were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza show they were shot in the upper body with “intent to kill”, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, which is demanding an international investigation into the attack.

The killings took place in the southern Gaza Strip on 23 March, days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory, and sparked international condemnation.

The results of the postmortems join a growing body of evidence that sharply contradicts Israel’s account of the incident, including video footage that shows the vehicles were travelling with headlights and flashing red lights that identified them, with personnel wearing hi-vis vests, at the time they were fired on.

Germany, one of Israel’s closest backers in the EU, called for an urgent investigation into the incident on Monday. “There are very significant questions about the actions of the Israeli army now,” the foreign ministry spokesperson Christian Wagner said after the video footage emerged.

“An investigation and accountability of the perpetrators are urgently needed,” he said, adding that a full investigation of the incident would be “a question that ultimately affects the credibility of the Israeli constitutional state”.

Those killed included eight Red Crescent staff, six members of the Gaza civil defence agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

The bodies were later found buried near the site of the shooting in the Tal al-Sultan area of Rafah city, in what the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs described as a mass grave.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initially said its soldiers “did not randomly attack” any ambulances, insisting they fired on “terrorists” that were approaching in “suspicious vehicles”.

Lt Col Nadav Shoshani said troops had opened fire on vehicles that had no prior clearance from Israeli authorities and had their lights off, a statement contradicted by video recovered from the mobile phone of one of those killed.

The IDF later changed its story and conceded its earlier account had been “mistaken”. It claimed on Sunday that at least six of the medics were linked to Hamas, but has provided no evidence. None of those killed were armed.

It said on Monday that its initial investigation into the killings had shown that the incident occurred “due to a sense of threat”, and claimed six Hamas militants had been in the vicinity.

The Israeli army chief, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir ordered a more in-depth investigation into the attack after completion of the initial one.

The president of the Red Crescent in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Younis al-Khatib, told journalists in Ramallah: “There has been an autopsy of the martyrs from the Red Crescent and civil defence teams. We cannot disclose everything we know, but I will say that all the martyrs were shot in the upper part of their bodies, with the intent to kill.”

He called for an international investigation into the killings, which the IDF has separately announced it was looking into.

“Why did you hide the bodies?” Khatib asked of the Israeli forces involved in the attack. “We call on the world to form an independent and impartial international commission of inquiry into the circumstances of the deliberate killing of the ambulance crews in the Gaza Strip.

“It is no longer sufficient to speak of respecting the international law and Geneva convention. It is now required from the international community and the UN security council to implement the necessary punishment against all who are responsible.”

In the past 18 months of war Israeli forces have conducted attacks that have killed hundreds of medical workers and the staff of NGOs and UN organisations, including foreign nationals working in Gaza. Six members of World Central Kitchen, including the Briton James Kirby, died in a sustained Israeli attack on their clearly marked vehicles.

Human rights organisations have long accused Israel of a culture of impunity with few soldiers ever facing justice.

A Palestinian journalist was killed and several others wounded on Monday, when Israel struck a media tent near Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.

According to the Palestinian Civil Defence, an organisation affiliated with Hamas’s interior ministry, two people – Helmi al-Faqawi and a civilian, Yousef al-Khazandar – were killed when the Palestine Today agency’s tent was struck.

An Israeli airstrike on a tent camp within a hospital complex in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis has killed 10 people, including a journalist, while seriously injuring dozens more after their encampment caught fire.

Images and video from the courtyard of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis showed people desperately attempting to extinguish the fires as it burned through a row of tents. One video showed people screaming as a bystander attempted to move a burning piece of furniture, while a journalist, later identified as Ahmed Mansour of the news outlet Palestine Today, sat upright engulfed by the blaze.

His colleague Helmi al-Faqawi was killed in the strike, while at least nine other journalists were among the wounded. Mansour received treatment for severe burns while the photographer Hassan Aslih was reportedly in a stable condition after suffering a head injury and cuts to his right hand.

The Palestinian foreign ministry in Ramallah said 10 people had been killed in the airstrike, with many more wounded. The ministry called al-Faqawi’s death an act of “extrajudicial killing,” labelling it part of growing crimes against journalists and an attempt to prevent the media from covering events on the ground.

Dozens of journalists in Gaza joined al-Faqawi’s relatives to bury the slain reporter in the hours after the attack, placing a blue flak jacket on top of the white shroud covering his body on a stretcher. His killing has brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed since October 2023 to 207, according to the Palestinian foreign ministry in the occupied West Bank.

“We will continue to deliver the message and convey the truth to the whole world. This is our humanitarian duty,” the journalist Abd Shaat told Reuters. He said that the noise of the airstrike had woken them, only for them to see that a nearby tent sheltering their colleagues was on fire.

Since the beginning of Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip hundreds of people have sought shelter in encampments in hospital grounds across the besieged territory, hoping that proximity will provide a measure of safety.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet security agency said the airstrike on the hospital grounds was targeting Aslih, whom they accused of being a member of Hamas. In a statement, the IDF accused Aslih of taking part in Hamas’s attack on a string of Israeli towns and kibbutzim on 7 October 2023, when 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.

He took part in the attack by uploading “footage of looting, arson and murder to social media”, the IDF said. Aslih has documented the impact of Israeli attacks on Gaza by uploading photos and video to his Instagram page, followed by 571,000 people.

His most recent post showed the funeral of the journalist Islam Miqdad, her blue flak jacket also draped across the white shroud over her body, in a burial ritual for journalists. Miqdad was killed in an attack on the building where she was sheltering with her young son in western Khan Younis.

“My daughter is innocent. She had no involvement, she loved journalism and adored it,” Miqdad’s mother Amal Kaskeen told the Associated Press.

Last year was the deadliest on record for journalists, with Israel responsible for 70% of the total deaths of media workers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Israel’s assault on Gaza claimed the lives of 82 Palestinian journalists in 2024, according to CPJ.

Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza after a fragile ceasefire collapsed last month. The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees said another 142,000 people were displaced in just six days in March after the resumption of fighting.

Fifty-nine hostages, including 24 understood to be alive, are still held by militants in Gaza. Israel’s assault on the territory has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians in 18 months of war, a third of them children, according to the health ministry in Ramallah.

A Danish chef couple who attracted international acclaim with a “forest resort” in Sweden have been tracked down to Guatemala after apparently going on the run from tax authorities, leaving behind 158 barrels of human waste.

Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk founded their purportedly eco-friendly retreat, Stedsans, in Halland, southern Sweden, after claiming to have “felt the call of the wild” in Copenhagen, where they ran a popular rooftop restaurant.

Stedsans, formed of 16 wooden cottages looking out on to nature, attracted praise from influencers and reviewers, who described it as “magical” and “enchanting luxury”.

But a few months ago it was discovered that the couple had vanished, leaving multiple animals behind and 158 barrels of human waste, an investigation by newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Politiken has found. It also found that wastewater was left to run into the forest.

Staff said multiple animals – including ducks – had died as a result of being left outside through the night by the couple, and others were left abandoned after the owners vanished.

Stedsans was declared bankrupt in March and the couple reportedly registered themselves as living abroad before Christmas.

According to the investigation, they left the Danish capital, where they owed millions of kroner in debt to Danish tax authorities, in 2016 to move to Sweden. There they set up Stedsans, but started accumulating debt to Swedish tax authorities, which reportedly amounted to 6m SEK (£470,000). They have since started a new hotel business in Guatemala.

In a message posted on their website, they said: “We came very far with Stedsans, but we also had to realise on the way that being soul-driven entrepreneurs on a mission in a country where taxes are some of the highest in the world and bureaucracy is relentless, it is an impossible task.”

They added: “When you read this we have probably been declared bankrupt by the Swedish tax authorities. All we ever wanted was to be a part of creating a more beautiful planet.”

Local authorities described their actions as “environmental crime”. Daniel Helsing, head of building and environment for the local county, Hylte, told Dagens Nyheter: “Voilà. Over 150 barrels of human shit.”

Hansen denied any problems with handling animals when approached by the newspaper. He described Swedish tax authorities as a “narcissistic entity” and said he believed he owed them “over 7m” SEK. He also claimed he was now “sentenced to a life in poverty”.

The Guardian contacted the Danish and Swedish tax authorities. The Danish tax agency said: “We have no comments here subject to confidentiality.” The Swedish tax agency did not comment on the case.

The Guardian has contacted Hansen and Helbæk for comment.

Donald Trump has announced that the US is to hold direct talks with Iran in a bid to prevent the country from obtaining an atomic bomb, while also warning Tehran of dire consequences if they fail.

Sitting beside Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the Oval Office, Trump indicated that discussions would start this coming weekend, though he also implied communications had already begun.

He said the talks were happening in an effort to avoid what he called “the obvious” – an apparent reference to US or Israeli military strikes against the regime’s nuclear facilities.

“We’re having direct talks with Iran, and they’ve started. It’ll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting, and we’ll see what can happen,” he told reporters.

“And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious. And the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with, or, frankly, that Israel wants to be involved with, if they can avoid it.

“So we’re going to see if we can avoid it. But it’s getting to be very dangerous territory. And hopefully those talks will be successful. And I think it would be in Iran’s best interests if they are successful.”

He gave no details of where the talks would take place or which officials would be involved. When questioned by journalists, Trump issued a thinly veiled threat if the talks failed, saying Iran would be in “great danger”.

“I think if the talks aren’t successful with Iran … Iran is going to be in great danger, and I hate to say it – because they can’t have a nuclear weapon,” he said.

“It’s not a complicated formula. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Right now we have countries that have nuclear power that shouldn’t have it. But I’m sure we’ll be able to negotiate out of that too as part of this later on down the line.

“And if the talks aren’t successful I actually think it will be a very bad day for Iran.”

During his presidency, Trump pulled out of a deal signed by Barack Obama known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. That deal offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for limitations on its uranium enrichment activities – resorting instead to a policy of “maximum pressure” that tightened economic embargoes.

Critics say Iran nevertheless accelerated its nuclear program and is now closer to building a bomb than ever before. Attempts by Joe Biden at reviving the deal negotiated by Obama faltered.

Netanyahu, who views Iran as an existential threat to Israel, actively undermined Obama’s agreement and has long railed against any deal that would allow the country’s theocratic rulers to maintain a program that could converted to nuclear weaponry.

Iran, for its part, has consistently denied any intent to build a bomb and said its program is meant for purely civilian purposes.

Iran and the US have had no direct diplomatic relations since 1980, when ties were severed after revolutionaries stormed the American embassy in Tehran and held 53 diplomats hostage for 444 days.

Donald Trump has announced that the US is to hold direct talks with Iran in a bid to prevent the country from obtaining an atomic bomb, while also warning Tehran of dire consequences if they fail.

Sitting beside Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the Oval Office, Trump indicated that discussions would start this coming weekend, though he also implied communications had already begun.

He said the talks were happening in an effort to avoid what he called “the obvious” – an apparent reference to US or Israeli military strikes against the regime’s nuclear facilities.

“We’re having direct talks with Iran, and they’ve started. It’ll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting, and we’ll see what can happen,” he told reporters.

“And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious. And the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with, or, frankly, that Israel wants to be involved with, if they can avoid it.

“So we’re going to see if we can avoid it. But it’s getting to be very dangerous territory. And hopefully those talks will be successful. And I think it would be in Iran’s best interests if they are successful.”

He gave no details of where the talks would take place or which officials would be involved. When questioned by journalists, Trump issued a thinly veiled threat if the talks failed, saying Iran would be in “great danger”.

“I think if the talks aren’t successful with Iran … Iran is going to be in great danger, and I hate to say it – because they can’t have a nuclear weapon,” he said.

“It’s not a complicated formula. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Right now we have countries that have nuclear power that shouldn’t have it. But I’m sure we’ll be able to negotiate out of that too as part of this later on down the line.

“And if the talks aren’t successful I actually think it will be a very bad day for Iran.”

During his presidency, Trump pulled out of a deal signed by Barack Obama known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. That deal offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for limitations on its uranium enrichment activities – resorting instead to a policy of “maximum pressure” that tightened economic embargoes.

Critics say Iran nevertheless accelerated its nuclear program and is now closer to building a bomb than ever before. Attempts by Joe Biden at reviving the deal negotiated by Obama faltered.

Netanyahu, who views Iran as an existential threat to Israel, actively undermined Obama’s agreement and has long railed against any deal that would allow the country’s theocratic rulers to maintain a program that could converted to nuclear weaponry.

Iran, for its part, has consistently denied any intent to build a bomb and said its program is meant for purely civilian purposes.

Iran and the US have had no direct diplomatic relations since 1980, when ties were severed after revolutionaries stormed the American embassy in Tehran and held 53 diplomats hostage for 444 days.

A major new report on New Zealand’s environment has revealed a worrying outlook for its unique species and highlighted declining water health, while also noting some improvements in air quality.

The ministry of the environment’s three-yearly update, Our Environment 2025, collates statistics, data and research across five domains – air, atmosphere and climate, freshwater, land, and marine – to paint a picture of the state of New Zealand’s environment.

James Palmer, the ministry’s secretary for the environment, said the findings in the report were a “mixed bag”.

“It does highlight the real risks to people, communities and places, which left unaddressed threaten our livelihoods and our quality of life for generations to come,” Palmer said. “But the report also shows that there are reasons for optimism.”

The report painted a sobering picture for New Zealand’s indigenous animals, with 76% of freshwater fish, 68% of freshwater birds, 78% of terrestrial birds, 93% of frogs, and 94% of reptiles threatened with extinction or at risk of becoming threatened.

“New Zealand’s unique biodiversity has a high proportion of threatened or at-risk species – one of the highest amid the global biodiversity crisis”, the report said, noting that land use, pollution, invasive species and climate change can all have an impact on biodiversity.

The report also found the most widespread water quality issue affecting groundwaters was the presence of E coli – a bacteria found in the guts of animals and humans that can cause serious illness and has been linked to farming and cities in New Zealand.

Of more than 1,000 groundwater monitoring sites, nearly half failed to meet the drinking water standard for E coli on at least one occasion between 2019 and 2024, while nearly half of the monitored rivers shows worsening E coli trends.

Meanwhile, a significant proportion of groundwaters have accumulated excess nitrate due to activities such as intensive farming, logging and urbanisation, which also affects water quality and degrades surface water ecosystems.

Dr Mike Joy, a senior research fellow in freshwater ecology and environmental science at Victoria University of Wellington, said the report revealed the ongoing and – in most cases – worsening decline of the environment. “The report reveals starkly the fallacy of the label ‘clean green New Zealand’ and the urgent need for this to be taken seriously by government,” he said.

New Zealand also faced a significant problem with pest plants. “The most spectacular of those, arguably, is the wilding conifer,” Palmer said.

Around 2m hectares are thought to be invaded by wilding conifers, an introduced pest plant that spreads from plantation forests. Their area is expanding by around 90,000 hectares a year and, without proper management, could invade about a quarter of New Zealand’s land within 30 years, the majority of which would be conservation land.

The report traverses how New Zealanders will be affected by the climate crisis and the increasing severity and frequency of extreme weather events such as Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023. Around 750,000 people and 500,000 buildings, are near rivers and in coastal areas already exposed to extreme flooding, while low-lying communities are vulnerable to sea-level rise, and rural communities are at risk of wildfires.

“We’ll face some tough choices about our priorities as a country, including about where we put our efforts and our scarce dollars,” Palmer said.

The report identified some environmental improvements, particularly in air quality. While road transport remains the main source of nitrogen oxide pollution, air pollution from motor vehicles was reducing due to stronger emission standards, more people choosing to use lower-emission vehicles, and improvements to engines and fuel.

“We’ve started to turn the corner in meaningful ways on some of our measures – choices about the cars we drive, the heating we use for our homes, for example, are showing up in better air quality, which is likely to flow through into better health,” Palmer said.

“That underscores that we can make a difference, and we can build on the momentum that is already underway by doing more.”

A Belgian prince has lost a legal battle to claim social security benefits on top of his royal allowance, with a court ruling his claim – the first of its kind in the country’s nearly 200-year history – “unfounded”.

Prince Laurent, the youngest of three children of the former king and queen, had argued that his work entitled him to the coverage granted to independent entrepreneurs – and that he was acting out of “principle” rather than for money.

But a Brussels court found on Monday that the 61-year-old’s duties were more akin to those in the civil service, where categories of workers receive specific benefits but there is no overarching social security system.

A lawyer for the prince, Olivier Rijckaert, said his client was considering whether to appeal. “We’re not where we wanted to be, but the judgment is very detailed, very reasoned, I understand the reasoning,” Rijckaert told Agence France-Presse.

In 2018, his annual state allowance was cut by 15% for a year because he met foreign dignitaries without the federal government’s approval.

Laurent received €388,000 (£333,000) last year from state coffers and lives in his home rent-free. “This is not about financial means but principle,” he told Belgian broadcaster RTBF. “When a migrant comes here, he registers, he has a right to it. I may be a migrant too, but one whose family established the state in place,” he added.

The prince did not take legal action on a “whim”, lawyer Rijckaert said in an article in Le Soir newspaper. Social security is “a right granted by Belgian law to every resident, from the poorest to the biggest billionaire”, he said.

He said Laurent received a salary worth only 25% of his allowance, because the rest went on covering professional expenses including travel and wages for a staff member.

Rijckaert said this results in a monthly net wage for the prince of €5,000 which is comparable to the “average salary of a senior executive in Belgium” but without the usual “full social security coverage”.

Laurent and his British wife, Claire, have three children now in their 20s. He pointed to medical costs and his concerns over his family’s financial well-being, since the royal allowance will be cut when he dies.

Without the social security coverage, Laurent cannot claim reimbursement for certain medical expenses, or sick pay if he is unable to work.

The prince has had an animal welfare foundation offering free veterinary care in clinics for the past 10 years. He said the foundation work, alongside dozens of visits representing Belgium and participation on several boards, meant he has a busy schedule.

He is not the only Belgian royal to have been unhappy about money. When King Albert II abdicated in favour of his son Philippe in 2013 after reigning for 20 years, the ex-monarch found his €923,000 a year insufficient.

Donald Trump may continue using a 1798 law to deport alleged gang members to Venezuela, the supreme court ruled on Monday, however it will apply certain limits. Any challenges to the wartime law, called the Alien Enemies Act, must take place in Texas, where the migrants were held, and not in Washington DC, the court said.

In a 5-4 ruling, the court granted the Trump administration’s request to lift a Washington DC-based judge’s order temporarily blocking the deportations.

However, the court did not immediately address whether the administration improperly utilized the act, writing in its order instead that such a determination must be made in Texas court: “The detainees are confined in Texas, so venue is improper in the District of Columbia.”

Despite siding with the administration, the court’s majority placed limits on how deportations may occur, emphasizing that judicial review is required.

Detainees “must receive notice after the date of this order that they are subject to removal under the Act. The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs,” the majority wrote.

Trump celebrated the ruling on social media on Monday, writing on Truth Social: “The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself. A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA.”

The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett and the court’s three liberal justices dissented.

Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act on 15 March to swiftly deport the alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang, attempting to speed up removals with a law best known for its use to intern Japanese, Italian and German immigrants during the second world war.

In a legal challenge handled by the American Civil Liberties Union, a group of Venezuelan men in the custody of US immigration authorities on the same day sued on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated, seeking to block the deportations. They argued, among other things, that Trump’s order exceeded his powers because the Alien Enemies Act authorizes removals only when war has been declared or the United States has been invaded.

The Alien Enemies Act authorizes the president to deport, detain or place restrictions on individuals whose primary allegiance is to a foreign power and who might pose a national security risk in wartime.

In a concurrence, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that the “only question” the court had considered is where judicial review of the Act should occur: “As the court stresses, the court’s disagreement with the dissenters is not over whether the detainees receive judicial review of their transfers — all nine members of the court agree that judicial review is available.”

US judge James Boasberg, an appointee of the Democratic president Barack Obama based in Washington DC, had temporarily blocked the deportations. But Trump’s administration allowed two planes already in the air to continue to El Salvador where American officials handed 238 Venezuelan men over to Salvadoran authorities to be placed in the Central American country’s “Terrorism Confinement Center.”

The judge also has scrutinized whether the Trump administration violated his order by failing to return the deportation flights after his order was issued. Justice department lawyers said the flights had left US airspace by the time Boasberg issued a written order and thus were not required to return. They dismissed the weight of Boasberg’s spoken order during a hearing two hours earlier calling for any planes carrying deportees to be turned around.

Trump’s administration has argued that Boasberg’s temporary ban encroached on presidential authority to make national security decisions.

On 18 March, Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment by Congress – a process that could remove him from the bench – drawing a rebuke from the US chief justice John Roberts. Trump on social media called Boasberg, who was confirmed by the US Senate in 2011 in a bipartisan 96-0 vote, a “Radical Left Lunatic” and a “troublemaker and agitator”.

The DC circuit upheld Boasberg’s order after holding a contentious hearing that involved heated language. Judge Patricia Millett told a justice department lawyer, Drew Ensign, that “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here.” Ensign responded: “We certainly dispute the Nazi analogy.”

Family members of many of the deported Venezuelan migrants deny the alleged gang ties. Lawyers for one of the deportees, a Venezuelan professional soccer player and youth coach, said US officials had wrongly labeled him a gang member based on a tattoo of a crown meant to honor his favorite team, Real Madrid.

Surgeons are hailing an “astonishing” medical breakthrough as a woman became the first in the UK to give birth after a womb transplant.

Grace Davidson, 36, who was a teenager when diagnosed with a rare condition that meant she did not have a uterus, said she and her husband, Angus, 37, had been given “the greatest gift we could ever have asked for”.

They named their five-week-old girl Amy Isabel – after Grace’s sister, Amy Purdie, who donated her own womb during an eight-hour operation in 2023, and Isabel Quiroga, a surgeon who helped perfect the transplant technique.

Davidson said she felt shocked when she first held her daughter, who was born by planned NHS caesarean section on 27 February at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea hospital in London. She said: “It was just hard to believe she was real. I knew she was ours, but it’s just hard to believe.”

The couple always had “a quiet hope” the womb transplant would be a success and enable them to start a family, Davidson said. “But it wasn’t really until she arrived that the reality of it sunk in.”

The development will offer new hope to women born without a womb or whose womb fails to function. Three more womb transplants have been carried out in the UK, using deceased donors, with medics hoping the recipients of those wombs will have babies.

About 10 more women are going through the process of approval for a £25,000 womb transplant in the UK, but hundreds more have expressed an interest in the programme, which is funded by Womb Transplant UK.

The charity has permission for 10 deceased donor transplants and five living donor transplants. It hopes the NHS may provide funding in future.

The arrival of Amy Isabel follows 25 years of pioneering research led by Prof Richard Smith, clinical lead at the charity, who was in the operating theatre with Quiroga when the 2.04kg (4.5lb) baby was delivered.

Smith told PA Media: “I feel great joy actually, unbelievable – 25 years down the line from starting this research, we finally have a baby, little Amy Isabel. Astonishing, really astonishing.”

Smith, a consultant gynaecological surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare NHS trust, said: “There’s been a lot of tears shed by all of us in this process – really quite emotional, for sure. It is really something.”

Quiroga, a consultant surgeon at the Oxford Transplant Centre, part of Oxford University hospitals, said: “For me, it’s total joy, delight. I couldn’t be happier for Angus and Grace, what a wonderful couple. It was overwhelming actually, it remains overwhelming. It’s fantastic.”

Davidson, an NHS dietitian from north London, was born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, a rare condition that affects about one in every 5,000 women, meaning they have an underdeveloped or missing womb. The ovaries remain intact and still function to produce eggs and female hormones, however, making conceiving via fertility treatment a possibility.

Before receiving the donated womb, Davidson and her husband had fertility treatment to create seven embryos, which were frozen for IVF in central London.

She had surgery in February 2023 to receive the womb from Purdie, 42, who has two girls aged 10 and six. Several months later, one of the stored embryos was transferred via IVF to Davidson.

Angus Davidson said the moment his daughter arrived was very emotional. He said: “Having waited such a long time, it’s kind of odd getting your head around that this is the moment where you are going to meet your daughter.

“The room was full of people who have helped us on the journey to actually having Amy. We had been kind of suppressing emotion, probably for 10 years, and you don’t know how that’s going to come out – ugly crying, it turns out!

“The room was just so full of love and joy and all these people that had a vested interest in Amy for incredible medical and science reasons. But the lines between that and the love for our family and for Amy are very much blurred – it felt like a room full of love.

“The moment we saw her was incredible, and both of us just broke down in emotional tears.”

Purdie said watching her sister and brother-in-law become parents had been “an absolute joy” and “worth every moment” of what she had been through to donate her womb.

Davidson took immunosuppressants during her pregnancy to ensure her body did not reject her sister’s womb. She said she definitely wanted to have another child.

More than 100 womb transplants have been carried out worldwide, with at least 50 babies thought to have been born as a result.

The first successful birth after a transplant took place in Sweden in 2014, with the baby – Vincent – born to a 36-year-old woman who described him as “perfect”.

More people were executed in 2024 than in any other year over the past decade, mainly reflecting a huge increase in executions in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, according to Amnesty International’s annual report on the use of the death penalty.

The human rights NGO said that although the number of countries carrying out executions was the lowest on record, it had confirmed 1,518 executions globally in 2024, a 32% increase over the previous year and the highest since the 1,634 carried out in 2015.

The real total was far higher, Amnesty added, because its figure did not include thousands believed to have been executed in China, the world’s biggest executioner, or North Korea and Vietnam, also thought to use the death penalty extensively.

Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which accounted for 91% of executions worldwide, were responsible for the increase. Iraq almost quadrupled its executions from at least 16 to at least 63 and Saudi Arabia doubled its yearly total from 172 to at least 345.

Iran executed 119 more people than in 2023, raising its tally to at least 972 – a figure that included 30 women and represented 64% of the global total. All known executions in Iraq were for terrorism offences, while about half of those in Iran were for drug-related offences.

Other countries where executions increased included Egypt (from eight in 2023 to 13 last year); Singapore, where executions nearly doubled (from five to nine); and Yemen, where the total more than doubled from at least 15 to at least 38.

The total of 25 executions in the US was one more than in 2023 and the most since 2018. The period studied covers Joe Biden’s last year in office. His successor, Donald Trump, has said he aims to “vigorously pursue” the death penalty as a tool to protect people “from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters”.

Only 15 countries were known to have executed people in 2024, the lowest on record for the second year running, Amnesty said, adding that 113 countries were now fully abolitionist and 145 had abolished the death penalty in law or in practice.

The campaign organisation also noted that several countries had legally limited their use of the death penalty, and that for the first time, more than two-thirds of all UN member states had voted in favour of a resolution on a moratorium.

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said it was clear that countries that retained the death penalty were an “isolated minority”. She added that the tide was turning against “a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment”.

But Callamard said the death penalty was still being weaponised in some countries under the “false pretence” it would improve public safety, and in others such as Iran and Saudi Arabia to silence political dissent from “those brave enough to speak out”.

Amnesty also noted that more than 40% of executions in 2024 were carried out for drug-related offences, which it said was not only unlawful under international human rights law and standards but had no proven effect in reducing drug trafficking.