China has raised its tariffs on US products to 125% in the latest salvo of the trade dispute with Washington, just hours after Xi Jinping said there were “no winners in a tariff war”.

Xi made the comments during a meeting with the Spanish prime minister in which he invited the EU to work with China to resist “bullying”, part of an apparent campaign to shore up other trading partners.

The Chinese commerce ministry announced on Friday it was raising the 84% tariffs on all US imports to 125%, again saying that China was ready to “fight to the end”. The statement also suggested it may be Beijing’s last move in the tit-for-tat tariff rises as “at the current tariff level, there is no market acceptance for US goods exported to China”.

“If the US continues to impose tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the US, China will ignore it,” it said, flagging that there were other countermeasures to come.

Some markets continued to tumble on Friday, as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, described the US president’s 90-day tariff pause – which sets most tariffs at 10% until July – as “fragile”.

Asian indices followed Wall Street lower on Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei down nearly 5% and Hong Kong stocks heading towards the biggest weekly decline since 2008. Oil prices were also expected to drop for a second consecutive week.

Chinese officials have been canvassing other trading partners about how to deal with the US tariffs, after the country was excluded from Trump’s 90-day pause of the steepest global tariffs. Instead the US president made consecutive increases to duties on Chinese imports, which are now 145%.

On Friday, Xi welcomed Spain’s Pedro Sánchez, after also talking to counterparts in Saudi Arabia and South Africa. According to the official Chinese summary of the talks, Xi said “there will be no winners in a tariff war, and going against the world will isolate oneself”, in an apparent reference to the US.

“China and the EU should fulfil their international responsibilities, jointly maintain the trend of economic globalisation and the international trade environment, and jointly resist unilateral bullying, not only to safeguard their own legitimate rights and interests, but also to safeguard international fairness and justice, and to safeguard international rules and order,” the summary said the Chinese president told Sánchez.

Spain said Sánchez told Xi his country favoured a more balanced relationship between the EU and China based on negotiations to resolve differences and cooperation in areas of common interest.

Xi plans to travel to south-east Asia, including Vietnam and Cambodia, next week.

Macron wrote on X early on Friday that Trump’s partial tariff suspension, pausing new rates on various countries that would have risen as high as 50%, “sends out a signal and leaves the door open for talks. But this pause is a fragile one.”

He added: “This 90-day pause means 90 days of uncertainty for all our businesses, on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond.”

Battered financial markets were given a brief reprieve on Wednesday when Trump decided to pause duties on dozens of countries. However, his escalating trade dispute with China, the world’s second-largest economy, has continued to fuel fears of recession and further retaliation.

The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, tried to assuage the fears of sceptics by telling a cabinet meeting on Thursday that more than 75 countries wanted to start trade negotiations, and Trump had expressed hope of a deal with China.

But the uncertainty in the meantime extended some of the most volatile trading since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The US’s S&P 500 index ended 3.5% lower on Thursday and was now down about 15% from its all-time peak in February. Some analysts believe stocks have further to fall owing to the uncertainty surrounding the US tariff policy.

Bessent shrugged off the renewed market sell-off on Thursday and predicted that striking deals with other countries would bring more certainty.

The US and Vietnam agreed to begin formal trade talks after Bessent spoke to the Vietnamese deputy prime minister, Ho Duc Phoc, the White House said.

The south-east Asian manufacturing hub is prepared to crack down on Chinese goods being shipped to the US via its territory in the hope of avoiding tariffs, Reuters reported on Friday.

Taiwan’s president said his government would also be among the first batch of trading partners to enter negotiations. Taiwan, listed for a 32% tariff, has offered zero tariffs as a basis for talks.

Japan’s prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, has set up a taskforce led by a close aide that hopes to visit Washington next week, according to local media.

While Trump suddenly paused his “reciprocal” tariffs on other countries hours after they came into effect this week, he did not include China, instead increasing duties on Chinese imports as punishment for Beijing’s initial move to retaliate.

Trump had imposed tariffs on Chinese goods of 145% since taking office, a White House official said.

Meanwhile, Trump told reporters at the White House he thought the US could make a deal with China, but reiterated his argument that Beijing had “really taken advantage” of the US for a long time.

“I’m sure that we’ll be able to get along very well,” the US president said, referring to Xi. “In a true sense, he’s been a friend of mine for a long period of time, and I think that we’ll end up working out something that’s very good for both countries.”

Xi and Trump are not known to have spoken since before Trump’s inauguration. Beijing has said it has no intention of backing down to what it terms as Trump’s “bullying” with tariffs.

“We will never sit idly by and watch while the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese people are infringed, nor will we sit idly by as international economic and trade rules and the multilateral trading system are undermined,” the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian, said on Thursday.

As well as retaliatory tariffs, Beijing has restricted imports of Hollywood films, and put 18 US companies on trade restriction lists.

The commerce ministry said China’s door was open to dialogue but this must be based on mutual respect.

The US tariff pause does not apply to duties paid by Canada and Mexico, whose goods are still subject to 25% fentanyl-related tariffs unless they comply with the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement’s rules of origin.

With trade hostilities persisting among the top three US trade partners, Goldman Sachs estimates the probability of a recession at 45%.

Even with the rollback, the overall average import duty rate imposed by the US is the highest in more than a century, according to Yale University researchers.

It also did little to soothe business leaders’ worries about the fallout from Trump’s trade dispute and its chaotic implementation: soaring costs, falling orders and snarled supply chains.

One reprieve came, however, when the EU said it would pause its first counter-tariffs.

Amid the global fallout from Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement, it appears nowhere is safe. Crashing share prices, a sell-off in bonds and currency chaos erasing trillions of dollars of wealth in a matter of days.

On Friday, the dollar fell by more than 1% relative to a basket of other currencies to reach its lowest level in three years, compounding an almost 10% slide since the start of the year. In the space of a week, it has lost about 3 cents against the pound and 4 cents against the euro.

Even after the president’s partial U-turn – freezing tariffs at 10% on all US imports except those from China for 90 days – markets swung from relief rally to fresh rout, as investors questioned the once unthinkable: could the US dollar be losing its unassailable safe haven status?

“The damage has been done,” said George Saravelos, the head of foreign exchange research at Deutsche Bank. “The market is reassessing the structural attractiveness of the dollar as the world’s global reserve currency and is undergoing a process of rapid de-dollarisation.”

Unlike in a typical market sell-off, the Trump crash has included US equities, government bonds, known as treasuries, and the dollar losing value in sync. That is unusual because investors normally plough into dollars and Treasury bonds in periods of uncertainty and financial distress.

For the past 80 years, the dollar has held a status as the world’s primary reserve currency; used as a store of value around the globe, as the grease in the wheels of the financial system and as the medium of exchange in trade.

The belief is that a currency backed by the government sitting atop the world’s pre-eminent economy, with the deepest capital markets, most powerful military and a political system that respects the rule of law is about as good as things get.

However, Trump is changing all that, having slapped punitive tariffs on the US’s traditional allies and enemies alike.

Raghuram Rajan, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and an ex-chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said the currency crisis stemmed from investor worries over the US economy and Trump’s erratic policy changes.

“There is a worry about how volatile and unpredictable US policy has become, as well as increasing fears that if the high level of tariffs are to stay, the US will head into a recession,” he said. “[Though] of course, tariff policy seems to be a moving target.”

The sudden loss of confidence has been stark in the US Treasury market, widely considered to be the most important in the world because investors normally use it as the “risk free” benchmark to determine the price of every other financial asset.

In the sharpest weekly move since 1982, the yield – in effect the interest rate – on 30-year US government bonds rose from about 4.4% to 4.8%. The yield on 10-year bonds has also risen.

Investors say a lot is going on. While a clear confidence crisis is brewing, the turbulence for the US dollar and treasuries also reflects the likely economic damage Trump’s policies will inflict; including a more than 50-50 probability of a US recession and the rising chance of the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates.

Amid the wider market rout – with more than $5tn (£3.8tn) wiped off from US share prices – the sell-off in bonds also reflected hedge funds rushing to sell Treasuries to cut back on risky trades, as well as investors dashing for cash.

“I think Trump’s trade views are folly and madness. He is going to harm the US economy and has created a needless crisis,” said Mark Sobel, a former top US Treasury official who is now the US chair of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, a central banking thinktank.

“My basic thesis is that the dollar will remain the dominant global currency for the foreseeable future as there are not viable alternatives. But I think that Trump, by weakening America’s economic and institutional foundations by not being a trusted partner, is undermining the underpinnings of what has given rise to dollar dominance.

“His actions over the last week will decidedly accelerate the erosion in dollar dominance as well as give rise to a lot more market volatility globally.”

Figures compiled by the IMF showed the US dollar being the reserve currency of choice for countries around the world, accounting for almost 60% of global foreign exchange reserves. The euro is a distant second, at about 20%, followed by the Japanese yen at almost 6%. Sterling – the global reserve currency before the US’s rise to dominance after the second world war – accounts for about 5%.

Sobel said there had been a recent uptick in the use of the Canadian and Australian dollar, as well as Swiss francs and the yen. The euro has made little ground, while the Chinese yuan – backed by a communist government, with an economy relatively closed to the wider world – still lacks global favour.

Some within Trump’s administration, however, view the dollar’s status as the international reserve currency with distaste, as another sign of the world freeloading off the US.

The president has long wanted a weaker dollar with the idea it would help make US goods cheaper to overseas buyers, supporting domestic manufacturing and helping to reduce the country’s trade deficits.

Stephen Miran, the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, has suggested a plan with parallels to the 1985 Plaza accord – when the US agreed with Japan, Britain, West Germany and France to depreciate the dollar – in what could be called the “Mar-a-Lago accord” after Trump’s Florida residence.

Typically trade deficits – when imports exceed exports – balance over time, as they create downward pressure on a country’s currency (as the result of demand for foreign currency exceeding that of domestic currency). However, the US’s “exorbitant privilege” atop the global reserve currency – guaranteeing dollar demand – has enabled the country to run a persistent trade deficit since the 1970s.

Many economists see little problem with this; if consumers are benefiting from cheaper imported goods.

There are also fears among investors that the US could pursue a strategy of forcing other countries to pay for the “exorbitant privilege” of using the dollar as the reserve currency. That, however, would come with severe damage for the world economy, while further undermining confidence in the dollar.

“The world should be prepared [for this],” said Karsten Junius, a chief economist at J Safra Sarasin Sustainable Asset Management. “We consider it likely that the US will try to combine preferential tariff treatment, access to its market and financial infrastructure to countries that follow the US in isolating China.

“Countries would need to take sides, which would be particularly difficult for European and east Asian countries that have equally important relationships with both the US and China.”

In response to the dollar’s uncertain future, the EU in particular is looking at contingency plans. José Luis Escrivá, the governor of the Bank of Spain and a member of the European Central Bank’s governing council, told the Financial Times the bloc could emerge as a more attractive alternative.

“We can offer a very large economic area and a solid currency, which benefit from the stability and predictability which result from sound economic policies and the rule of law.”

Pascal Lamy, the former EU trade commissioner and ex-head of the World Trade Organization, also said Trump’s trade war could lead other countries to work more closely together.

“The EU is the obvious candidate to rally a number of others. It won’t work if China does it or even if India does it,” he said.

“It is an American crisis. It’s not a global crisis. The US is 13% of world imports. But there is no reason for the 87% remaining to be contaminated by these voodoo economics.”

Divers returned to New York’s Hudson River on Friday morning to salvage sections of a tourist helicopter that crashed on Thursday killing all six people on board, as witnesses spoke of hearing sounds “like gunshots” immediately before the aircraft plummeted.

A recovery operation that was suspended overnight began again at first light to retrieve what Jersey City mayor Steve Fulop said were “major parts” of the Bell 206 helicopter that broke apart in midair and plunged into the water.

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, earlier offered his condolences to friends and relatives of a Spanish family killed along with the pilot.

The victims were identified as Agustín Escobar, an executive of the technology company Siemens, his wife, Mercè Camprubí, who was celebrating her 40th birthday, and their three children aged 11, five and four. The pilot has not yet been publicly named.

Videos posted on social media captured large chunks of the helicopter, including rotor blades spinning independently of the fuselage, falling from the sky and splashing into the river on Thursday afternoon, not long after the tourist flight had taken off from a popular heliport at the tip of Manhattan.

Other footage showed the aircraft mostly submerged, upside down in the water, and rescue vehicles crowding the streets in New Jersey as emergency workers raced in.

The Hudson River divides the west side of Manhattan from New Jersey and flows into the New York Harbor past the Statue of Liberty. The weather on Thursday afternoon featured gray skies, light winds and cold rain.

On Friday, witnesses spoke of the shocking moments shortly after 3pm when the sightseeing helicopter, operated by New York Helicopter Tours, broke into pieces about 18 minutes into flight.

“I heard very loud sounds, I thought it had to be gunshots, it was that level loud,” Dani Horbiak told ABC’s Good Morning America.

“When I looked out my window I saw a helicopter falling into pieces. It all happened in seconds.”

Another witness, Bruce Wall, said he also saw the helicopter breaking up in flight.

“I heard some crackling, looked up, and I just see a plane falling apart,” he said. “The tail broke off and the plane tumbled into the water with the propeller still in the air.”

Sean Duffy, the US transportation secretary, said officials from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) were on site and leading the investigation, and that the aircraft was not being monitored on the ground at the time.

“The tour helicopter was in the special flight rules area established in New York which means no air traffic control services were being provided when the helicopter crashed,” he said.

Tributes were paid in Spain to Escobar, 49, chief executive of Rail Infrastructure at Siemens Mobility, and his family, who were enjoying a sightseeing excursion of New York City.

“We have had devastating news about the helicopter accident in the River Hudson,” Sánchez, Spain’s leader, posted in a message on X on Friday. “Five Spaniards from the same family, three of them children, lost their lives along with the pilot. It’s an unimaginable tragedy. I share the pain of the victims’ loved ones in this heartbreaking moment.”

Spain’s transport minister, Óscar Puente, said : “Reading with horror that the victims of the awful helicopter accident in the US were Agustín Escobar and his family. I met him over the past year in his capacity at Siemens Spain. He was a charming, hard-working and talented person.”

The German industrial conglomerate Siemens later confirmed that Escobar worked for the company as head of rail infrastructure at its mobility division.

“We are deeply saddened by the tragic helicopter crash in which Agustín Escobar and his family lost their lives,” Siemens said in a statement.

A person briefed on the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press (AP) that Camprubí, Escoabar’s wife, was a global manager at an energy technology company.

Fulop said in a post to X on Friday that Escobar was in New York for work, and his family joined him for some leisure time.

“I’m sharing this because life moves quick and we don’t always think about the fact it is unpredictable and extremely fragile,” he wrote.

“The husband was here for a business trip and the family flew out to extend the trip a couple days in NYC. They were celebrating the mom’s 40th birthday with the tourist helicopter flight.”

Fulop said a relative was arriving from Spain on Friday to take home the family members’ remains.

Jessica Tisch, the New York City police commissioner, said most of the passengers were already dead when they were removed from the water, but two were taken to a nearby hospital, where they died soon after.

Tisch said the helicopter took off from a downtown helicopter pad at about 3pm and flew north over the Hudson. It turned south when it reached the George Washington Bridge and crashed minutes later, hitting the water upside down and sinking near Lower Manhattan about 3.15pm, just off Hoboken, New Jersey.

Experts said investigators will likely focus on catastrophic mechanical failure as a cause of the tragedy.

Justin Green, an aviation lawyer and former Marine Corps helicopter pilot, told the AP: “There’s no indication they had any control over the craft. No pilot could have prevented that accident once they lost the lifts. It’s like a rock falling to the ground.”

The agency said at least 38 people have died in helicopter accidents in New York City since 1977. A collision between a plane and a tourist helicopter over the Hudson in 2009 killed nine people, and five died in 2018 when a charter helicopter offering “open door” flights went down into the East River.

The spot where the helicopter crashed Thursday is less than three miles (4.8km) south of where US Airways captain Chesley Sullenberger expertly landed the passenger plane he was piloting, on the water, with no lives lost, after the engines were put out in a bird strike after takeoff from nearby LaGuardia airport.

The 2009 incident became known as “the miracle on the Hudson”.

The crash of a tourist helicopter on New York’s Hudson River on Thursday that killed a pilot and a Spanish family of five was “entirely predictable”, according to advocates who are calling for the closure of the region’s three heliports to non-essential traffic.

“A lot of these helicopters are 30 or even 40 years old, and this one was 21 years old, which is still pretty old,” said Andrew Rosenthal, chair of the Stop the Chop group that has campaigned for an end to helicopter sightseeing trips over New York City and the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area.

“In New York if you have a yellow cab you have to get a new one every five to eight years, yet here we are letting these things fly in the sky at 30 and 40 years of age. There’s no age limit that I’m aware of, which is crazy.

“This was entirely predictable, and preventable. If we had a rollercoaster that killed people every two years, we would not keep it operating, yet we have the same kind of joy ride in the sky that kills people every couple of years, and we keep changing nothing,” he said.

Investigators are working to establish the cause of Thursday’s crash, in which witnesses reported seeing the helicopter break up in midair and plunge in pieces into the river that runs between the west side of Manhattan and the eastern shore of New Jersey.

According to the Associated Press, at least 38 people have died in helicopter accidents in New York City since 1977.

A collision between a plane and a tourist helicopter over the Hudson in 2009 killed nine people and five died in 2018 when a charter helicopter offering “open door” flights went down into city’s the East River.

Stop the Chop has documented a succession of other non-fatal incidents involving helicopters in and around New York City in recent years, and Rosenthal said it was beyond time that city officials ended tourism flights from the downtown Manhattan heliport from which the Bell 206 chopper took off on Thursday, and two other public-use helipads on the island of Manhattan.

According to the Aviation Property Network, a specialist real estate company, the facilities generate a combined $2.7m annually for New York in lease payments from companies that operate more than 42,000 sightseeing trips annually.

“The mayor can close down the Manhattan downtown heliport tonight, if he wanted to, one stroke of a pen and no other legislation needed,” said Rosenthal, whose group said more than 30,000 of the flights took off from there.

“This is not the first crash, it’s another one in a long series. It’s predictable. It’s going to happen again, it’s just a matter of numbers. We’re OK with police, military, government, news, those are considered essential in our definition, but these non-essential flights are totally not needed.”

Eric Adams, the New York mayor, was asked about sightseeing flights on Friday on the Good Day New York TV show.

“After any form of malfunction, crash or challenge, sometimes that’s [the] immediate thought … we should ban the helicopters or we should not have this tourism type of attraction in our city,” he said.

“We have 65 million tourists that came into the city last year. This is all part of the attraction of being in New York. People want to see the city from the sky.

“What is crucial is that any airport or any air device, that is done with the proper maintenance and proper safety. And that’s what this investigation is going to determine.”

The head of the US military base in Greenland has been fired for criticising Washington’s agenda for the Arctic island after JD Vance visited two weeks ago.

Col Susannah Meyers, who had served as commander of the Pituffik space base since July, was removed amid reports she had distanced herself and the base from the US vice-president’s criticism of Denmark and its oversight of the territory.

Greenland has its own government but is also part of the kingdom of Denmark, which previously ruled it as a colony and continues to control its foreign and defence policies. Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to acquire the island and has not ruled out military or economic force to do so.

The US Space Force said in a statement on Thursday night that Meyers had been removed from the position of commander on Thursday due to a “loss of confidence” in her ability to lead.

“Commanders are expected to adhere to the highest standards of conduct, especially as it relates to remaining nonpartisan in the performance of their duties,” it added.

The statement did not expand further, but the US website Military.com said Meyers sent an email to all personnel at Pituffik on 31 March “seemingly aimed at generating unity among the airmen and guardians, as well as the Canadians, Danes and Greenlanders who work there, following Vance’s appearance”.

Vance visited the base on 28 March in a trip that was substantially changed at the last minute amid increasingly strained relations between the US, Greenland and Denmark. During the visit he told troops that the US had to gain control of the Arctic island to stop the threat of China and Russia. He also criticised Denmark, which he said had “not done a good job by the people of Greenland”.

Originally, the delegation had been planned to be led by his wife, the second lady, Usha Vance, who had been scheduled to visit the capital, Nuuk, and a dog sled race in Sisimiut. But after outrage over the timing after the election – the new coalition government had yet to be sworn in – the plans were changed.

The vice-president said during a press conference at the base: “Our message to Denmark is very simple: you have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have underinvested in the people of Greenland and you have underinvested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful land mass.”

In her email Meyers wrote: “I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the US administration discussed by vice-president Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik space base.”

The Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said on X: “Actions to undermine the chain of command or to subvert President Trump’s agenda will not be tolerated at the Department of Defence.”

Trump has said the US needs control of Greenland for national and international security.

The US Space Force said Meyers had been replaced with Col Shawn Lee.

Meyers appears to be the latest in a Trump administration purge of high-ranking military officers and commanders. Others include Air Force Gen Tim Haugh, the director of the National Security Agency, and V Adm Shoshana Chatfield, who served with Nato.

Joe Kasper, the chief of staff at the US department of defence, said: “Civilian control of the military is a bedrock principle of our armed forces. Actions to undermine the chain of command or to subvert President Trump’s agenda will not be tolerated at the defence department.”

The Danish defence department declined to comment. The Pituffik space base has been contacted for comment.

An Iranian court has handed two Iranian film directors suspended jail terms over a film that angered authorities in its home country but was acclaimed in Europe and the US, rights groups said on Thursday.

Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha were convicted earlier this week by a revolutionary court for their film My Favourite Cake, the Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) and Dadban legal monitor said in separate statements. The film, which competed at the 2024 Berlin film festival and won prizes in Europe and the US, shows the romantic awakening of a woman in Tehran who notably appears without the headscarf that is obligatory for women in Iran.

The pair were sentenced to 14 months in prison, suspended for five years, and a fine on charges of “spreading lies with the intention of disturbing public opinion”, Dadban said. In addition, they were sentenced to one year in prison, also suspended for five years, and all equipment ordered confiscated for the charge of “participating in the production of vulgar content”. Another fine was ordered on the charge of “showing a film without a screening licence”, it added.

The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran commented on the verdict, saying: “Artists in Iran endure significant hardships, including increasing censorship, arbitrary detentions and the constant threat of legal repercussions for expressing dissent through their work.”

Even before their conviction, Moghaddam and Sanaeeha were banned from leaving Iran to attend the Berlin film festival and then promote the film when it was released in Europe. “We wanted to tell the story of the reality of our lives, which is about those forbidden things like singing, dancing, not wearing hijab at home, which no one does at home,” Moghaddam said earlier this year.

News of the verdict came as the Cannes film festival announced that the new movie by another leading director banned from leaving Iran, Jafar Panahi, would be screened at its 2025 edition. Another recent Iranian film, Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which explicitly deals with the 2022-23 protest movement, resulted in the director and several of its actors fleeing the country, and those who remained unable to leave and subject to prosecution.

Ukraine’s allies have announced a record €21bn (£18.2bn) in additional military support for Kyiv and have accused Vladimir Putin of dragging his feet and delaying US-led negotiations over a ceasefire deal.

Speaking at a meeting of the Ukraine defence contact group in Brussels, the British defence secretary, John Healey, said the Russian president had rejected a 30-day pause in fighting proposed a month ago by Donald Trump.

Healey said: “Putin said he wanted peace, but he rejected a full ceasefire. His forces continue to fire on Ukraine, military and civilian targets alike.”

The UK and Germany jointly convened Friday’s Ramstein meeting, which was attended by more than 40 countries but not the US. Pete Hegseth, Trump’s defence secretary, joined by video instead.

Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, played down the Trump administration’s absence. He conceded that peace “appears to be out of reach in the immediate future” and said Ukraine was at the “epicentre of a broader conflict”.

“It is between freedom and oppression, between the recognition of global standards and aggressive imperialism, between democracy and authoritarianism,” Pistorius said, adding that military support for Ukraine would continue.

The US’s attempts to bring about a quick end to the war have so far not succeeded. Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, held talks on Friday with Putin’s investment aide Kirill Dmitriev in St Petersburg. This followed a visit last week by Dmitriev to Washington.

Witkoff was also due to meet Putin, as the Kremlin cautioned that “no breakthroughs” and “nothing momentous” should be expected.

In conversations with the White House, Russia has refused to make concessions. Moscow demands control over four Ukrainian regions, the removal of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s pro-western government and a ban on Nato membership for Ukraine. It also wants the lifting of sanctions.

Trump issued a rare warning to Putin before the meeting on his social media platform Truth Social. “Russia has to get moving. Too many people ere [sic] DYING, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war – A war that should have never happened, and wouldn’t have happened, if I were President!!!” he wrote.

Trump has previously said he is “pissed off” by Putin’s failure to stop fighting but he has not taken any serious measures to put pressure on Russia’s president. In interviews, Witkoff has parroted Kremlin talking points, telling the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions had voted to join Moscow.

Since Ukraine agreed to a US ceasefire last month, Russia has dramatically escalated its aerial bombing campaign. This week it launched a big military push in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions, seizing several border villages.

There is speculation Russia is trying to grab as much territory as possible by 9 May, the day Russia celebrates its victory during the second world war, and ahead of a possible peace deal.

Estonia’s defence minister, Hanno Pevkur, said: “This is why we need to speed up the deliveries as quickly as we can.”

Addressing the Brussels meeting by video, Zelenskyy urged his allies to provide new Patriot air defence systems. This week a Russian ballistic missile hit a playground in the city of Krivhy Rih , where Zelenskyy grew up, killing nine children and 11 adults.

“Our priority is air defence. Patriots that remained unused in storage with our partners should be protecting lives,” Zelenskyy said, adding that 10 more were urgently needed.

Speaking at a press conference after the Ramstein meeting, Pistorius said Germany had already given four Patriot systems to Kyiv and was waiting for more to be delivered. He said a global search was under way. “We will buy anything we can get,” he said.

Germany will provide four Iris-T air defence systems as well as 15 Leopard 1 tanks, more reconnaissance drones and 100,000 artillery rounds, he added. Other governments announced fresh contributions.

Healey said the UK and Norway would supply radar systems, anti-tank mines and “hundreds of thousands of drones” as part of a $560m defence package, on top of £4.5bn committed by Downing Street this year. The figure includes the repair of military vehicles damaged on the battlefield.

Friday’s meeting did not clarify how many countries were ready to send troops to Ukraine as part of a “coalition of the willing”. The UK, France and Baltic nations have said they will put boots on the ground in the event of a peace settlement. The news agency AFP reported that six nations had signed up.

This week Healey described a plan for a so-called reassurance force as “well-developed”. It envisages foreign soldiers being deployed away from the 1,000km-long frontline and boosting existing Ukrainian ground forces, he suggested.

Russia has categorically rejected the idea. Sweden’s defence minister, Pål Jonson, said Stockholm needed answers to “a number of questions” before it could make a commitment. “It’s helpful if there’s a clarity of what that mission would entail, and what do we do – if we are peacekeeping, deterrence or reassurance,” he said.

The UK has said the US military “backstop” – meaning comprehensive air cover – is essential for any mission to work. The Trump administration, however, has ruled this out and has indicated that Ukraine’s future security needs are now Europe’s problem.

The Biden administration set up the Ukraine defence contact group after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion and chaired meetings. In February the US relinquished this leadership role, handing it over to London and Berlin. Hegseth said the Trump administration had priorities elsewhere – in Asia and on America’s own borders.

Ukraine’s allies have announced a record €21bn (£18.2bn) in additional military support for Kyiv and have accused Vladimir Putin of dragging his feet and delaying US-led negotiations over a ceasefire deal.

Speaking at a meeting of the Ukraine defence contact group in Brussels, the British defence secretary, John Healey, said the Russian president had rejected a 30-day pause in fighting proposed a month ago by Donald Trump.

Healey said: “Putin said he wanted peace, but he rejected a full ceasefire. His forces continue to fire on Ukraine, military and civilian targets alike.”

The UK and Germany jointly convened Friday’s Ramstein meeting, which was attended by more than 40 countries but not the US. Pete Hegseth, Trump’s defence secretary, joined by video instead.

Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, played down the Trump administration’s absence. He conceded that peace “appears to be out of reach in the immediate future” and said Ukraine was at the “epicentre of a broader conflict”.

“It is between freedom and oppression, between the recognition of global standards and aggressive imperialism, between democracy and authoritarianism,” Pistorius said, adding that military support for Ukraine would continue.

The US’s attempts to bring about a quick end to the war have so far not succeeded. Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, held talks on Friday with Putin’s investment aide Kirill Dmitriev in St Petersburg. This followed a visit last week by Dmitriev to Washington.

Witkoff was also due to meet Putin, as the Kremlin cautioned that “no breakthroughs” and “nothing momentous” should be expected.

In conversations with the White House, Russia has refused to make concessions. Moscow demands control over four Ukrainian regions, the removal of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s pro-western government and a ban on Nato membership for Ukraine. It also wants the lifting of sanctions.

Trump issued a rare warning to Putin before the meeting on his social media platform Truth Social. “Russia has to get moving. Too many people ere [sic] DYING, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war – A war that should have never happened, and wouldn’t have happened, if I were President!!!” he wrote.

Trump has previously said he is “pissed off” by Putin’s failure to stop fighting but he has not taken any serious measures to put pressure on Russia’s president. In interviews, Witkoff has parroted Kremlin talking points, telling the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions had voted to join Moscow.

Since Ukraine agreed to a US ceasefire last month, Russia has dramatically escalated its aerial bombing campaign. This week it launched a big military push in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions, seizing several border villages.

There is speculation Russia is trying to grab as much territory as possible by 9 May, the day Russia celebrates its victory during the second world war, and ahead of a possible peace deal.

Estonia’s defence minister, Hanno Pevkur, said: “This is why we need to speed up the deliveries as quickly as we can.”

Addressing the Brussels meeting by video, Zelenskyy urged his allies to provide new Patriot air defence systems. This week a Russian ballistic missile hit a playground in the city of Krivhy Rih , where Zelenskyy grew up, killing nine children and 11 adults.

“Our priority is air defence. Patriots that remained unused in storage with our partners should be protecting lives,” Zelenskyy said, adding that 10 more were urgently needed.

Speaking at a press conference after the Ramstein meeting, Pistorius said Germany had already given four Patriot systems to Kyiv and was waiting for more to be delivered. He said a global search was under way. “We will buy anything we can get,” he said.

Germany will provide four Iris-T air defence systems as well as 15 Leopard 1 tanks, more reconnaissance drones and 100,000 artillery rounds, he added. Other governments announced fresh contributions.

Healey said the UK and Norway would supply radar systems, anti-tank mines and “hundreds of thousands of drones” as part of a $560m defence package, on top of £4.5bn committed by Downing Street this year. The figure includes the repair of military vehicles damaged on the battlefield.

Friday’s meeting did not clarify how many countries were ready to send troops to Ukraine as part of a “coalition of the willing”. The UK, France and Baltic nations have said they will put boots on the ground in the event of a peace settlement. The news agency AFP reported that six nations had signed up.

This week Healey described a plan for a so-called reassurance force as “well-developed”. It envisages foreign soldiers being deployed away from the 1,000km-long frontline and boosting existing Ukrainian ground forces, he suggested.

Russia has categorically rejected the idea. Sweden’s defence minister, Pål Jonson, said Stockholm needed answers to “a number of questions” before it could make a commitment. “It’s helpful if there’s a clarity of what that mission would entail, and what do we do – if we are peacekeeping, deterrence or reassurance,” he said.

The UK has said the US military “backstop” – meaning comprehensive air cover – is essential for any mission to work. The Trump administration, however, has ruled this out and has indicated that Ukraine’s future security needs are now Europe’s problem.

The Biden administration set up the Ukraine defence contact group after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion and chaired meetings. In February the US relinquished this leadership role, handing it over to London and Berlin. Hegseth said the Trump administration had priorities elsewhere – in Asia and on America’s own borders.

Donald Trump’s executive order imposing sanctions on the international criminal court (ICC) is facing a legal challenge from two US human rights advocates who argue it is “unconstitutional and unlawful”.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court on Friday, the advocates said the order had forced them to stop assisting and engaging with the ICC out of fear the US government would punish them with criminal prosecution and civil fines.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed the case on the advocates’ behalf, argued that Trump’s order violated the first amendment by prohibiting their constitutionally protected rights to share information with the ICC’s chief prosecutor and his staff.

They said the plaintiffs “wish to continue communicating with the [prosecutor’s office], but are chilled from doing so because of the substantial risk that they will be penalised”.

Under the order signed by Trump in February, the US has imposed economic and travel sanctions against the prosecutor, Karim Khan, prohibiting US citizens, permanent residents and companies from providing him with services and material support.

Khan, a British lawyer, leads a division of the ICC, a permanent court in The Hague, which investigates and prosecutes individuals accused of committing atrocities.

Trump issued the order in response to the court’s decision last year to approve Khan’s requests for arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

The aggressive order established a framework for imposing additional sanctions on ICC officials and directed the US treasury department to submit to Trump the names of other individuals to be targeted, raising the prospect of a more expansive campaign against the court.

The legal challenge against Trump’s order, filed in the US district court for Maine, has been brought by Matthew Smith, the co-founder of Fortify Rights, a south-east Asia-focused human rights organisation, and Akila Radhakrishnan, an international lawyer.

According to the lawsuit, Smith has provided the ICC prosecutor’s office with “evidence of the genocide and forced deportation of Myanmar’s Rohingya people” and assisted the court’s investigators in analysing and developing sources of evidence relating to atrocity crimes.

In a statement issued by the ACLU, Smith said the order meant he had been “forced to stop helping the ICC investigate horrific crimes committed against the people of Myanmar, including mass murder, torture and human trafficking”.

“This executive order doesn’t just disrupt our work – it actively undermines international justice efforts and obstructs the path to accountability for communities facing unthinkable horrors,” he added.

Radhakrishnan, the second plaintiff, has worked with the ICC as an external advocate and adviser, engaging extensively with the prosecutor’s office on sexual and gender-based crimes in countries such as Afghanistan and Myanmar.

In December, according to the lawsuit, Radhakrishnan accompanied a group of Afghan women to The Hague where they met with the prosecutor’s office and its investigators working on its Afghanistan inquiry.

Radhakrishnan said she was bringing the case “to prevent my own government from punishing me for trying to hold the Taliban accountable for its systematic violence against women and girls from Afghanistan”.

The ICC prosecutor’s office – which has an active criminal investigation into crimes committed in Afghanistan as well as the situation in Myanmar and Bangladesh – frequently collects evidence and information from third parties, such as NGOs, victims’ groups and UN investigators.

In their lawsuit, Smith and Radhakrishnan have asked the US court for a declaration that Trump’s order violates the first amendment and does not comply with emergency powers legislation. They also want the court to prevent the government from “enforcing the speech restrictions” imposed by the order.

In 2021, a federal court in California considered a similar legal challenge after Trump imposed sanctions against Khan’s predecessor. In that case, the judge barred the government from enforcing the order against four law professors who assisted the ICC prosecutor, who she said were “likely to succeed on their first amendment challenge”.

Zimbabwe has started to make compensation payments to white former farm owners, 25 years after Robert Mugabe’s government began confiscating land.

The government paid $3.1m (£2.3m) to a “first batch” of 378 farms, the ministry of finance said in a statement on Wednesday, the first payout under a 2020 agreement to pay $3.5bn in compensation.

The remainder of the $311m due to this group of farmers will be paid in US dollar-denominated treasury bonds with two- to 10-year maturities and interest of 2%. That is much lower than the current yield on a two-year US treasury bond of about 3.8%.

Zimbabwe’s finance minister, Mthuli Ncube, said: “The payments will continue. We are very serious about this.”

Mugabe’s government seized more than 4,000 mostly white-owned farms, often violently, from about the year 2000 to redistribute to black people in what it claimed was restitution for the dispossession of British colonial rule.

However, Mugabe and his cronies took nearly 40% of the 14m hectares (about 35m acres) confiscated for themselves, according to a 2010 investigation by a local news outlet, ZimOnline. Agricultural production, which had accounted for 40% of exports, plunged and the economy collapsed, with hyperinflation reaching a staggering 500bn% in 2008.

Zimbabwe cannot borrow from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as it has been in arrears since 2000 and 2001, respectively. Government debt was $21bn late last year, about half of which was arrears and penalties.

The compensation payments to the displaced farmers are one of the requirements of international lenders to start a debt restructuring process with Zimbabwe, including a new IMF programme.

Andrew Pascoe, who signed the 2020 compensation deal while head of the Commercial Farmers’ Union, confirmed the first payments had been received on 24 March and thanked Zimbabwe’s government, in comments included in the ministry of finance statement. He said: “We are extremely grateful.”

However, Tony Hawkins, a retired University of Zimbabwe economics professor, called the payments a “publicity stunt”, noting that the US could block an IMF programme. A US law “restricts US support for multilateral financing to Zimbabwe until Zimbabwe makes concrete governance and economic reforms”, according to the US state department.

Of using government bonds to pay farmers, Hawkins said: “We continue to accumulate arrears because we are unable to service our foreign debt, so we can’t really afford to take on new debt commitments … It’s derisory, the more you look at it.”

About 1,000 former farmers had signed up for compensation, said Harry Orphanides, one of Pascoe’s co-negotiators. He said: “Look, it’s not a perfect deal. But there was no other alternative.”

The US supreme court upheld on Thursday a judge’s order requiring Donald Trump’s administration to facilitate the return to the United States of a Salvadoran man who the government has acknowledged was deported in error to El Salvador.

US district judge Paula Xinis last week issued an order that the administration “facilitate and effectuate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, in response to a lawsuit filed by the man and his family challenging the legality of his deportation.

The supreme court, in an unsigned decision, said that the judge’s order “properly requires the government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador”.

However, the court said that the additional requirement to “effectuate” his return was unclear and may exceed the judge’s authority. The justices directed Xinis to clarify the directive “with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs”.

The administration, meanwhile, “should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps”, the court directed.

Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who was living in Maryland and has had a work permit since 2019, was stopped and detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was deported on 15 March on one of three high-profile deportation flights to El Salvador that also included alleged Venezuelan gang members.

Justice department lawyers in a supreme court brief had argued that the judge’s order, by requiring the Trump administration to “effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return, had impermissibly encroached on presidential authority on foreign relations in violation of the US constitution’s separation of powers between its judicial and executive branches.

“The United States does not control the sovereign nation of El Salvador, nor can it compel El Salvador to follow a federal judge’s bidding,” justice department lawyers wrote.

The supreme court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal justices on Thursday issued a statement agreeing with the court’s decision, but said they would have denied the administration’s request outright.

“To this day, the government has cited no basis in law for Abrego Garcia’s warrantless arrest, his removal to El Salvador, or his confinement in a Salvadoran prison. Nor could it,” liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the statement.

Sotomayor added that the administration had requested “an order from this court permitting it to leave Abrego Garcia, a husband and father without a criminal record, in a Salvadoran prison for no reason recognized by the law”.

Abrego Garcia is married to a US citizen with whom he is raising a US citizen child in addition to his wife’s two children from a prior relationship. He had never been charged with or convicted of any crime, according to Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, who have denied the justice department’s allegation that he is a member of the criminal gang MS-13.

Israel’s military is organising hiking tours for civilians in newly occupied Syrian territory during the Passover holiday, local media has reported.

The twice-daily tours in the contested Golan Heights will run for a week beginning this Sunday. Tickets sold out almost immediately.

Under a military escort in bulletproof buses, small groups will travel up to 2.5km into Syrian territory that was off limits until the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) seized the Golan buffer zone after the fall of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December. Israel has occupied the Golan Heights since 1967 and now controls hundreds more square kilometres of Syrian land.

The itinerary includes the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, which overlooks Damascus, and Lebanon’s Shebaa Farms at the foot of the mountain. The Israeli-occupied strip of Lebanese land, reputedly the site of God’s covenant with Abraham, has been a flashpoint for violence between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah for decades.

Visitors will also be able to hike and swim in the Ruqqad river valley which flows into the Yarmouk on the border with Jordan, and see parts of the abandoned Ottoman Hejaz railway, which used to connect the empire’s capital in Istanbul to Haifa, Nablus and holy sites in present day Saudi Arabia.

The trips have been organised by the IDF’s 210th Division, the Golan regional council, the Keshet Yehonatan religious education centre, the environmentalist Golan Field School and the Israel nature and parks authority, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported.

The tours are part of a wider initiative, “Returning to a Safer North”, after the end of last year’s Israel-Hezbollah war, which was part of the regional fallout ignited by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel and the ensuing war in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said: “It’s important for us to restore heritage and tourism to the region and to tell the story of the battles fought during the war.”

Tourists sign up at their own risk and the trips may be cancelled at short notice if there are security issues. In response to questions from Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the IDF said that the tour was “inside Israel”, rather than Syria, although the visits take place in the Golan Heights demilitarised buffer zone, internationally recognised as Syrian territory.

The IDF began a heavy bombing campaign across Syria targeting the regime’s weapons stockpiles shortly after Assad fled the country, while ground troops advanced in violation of a 1974 agreement.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has demanded that forces belonging to Syria’s new Islamist-led transitional government stay away from the border area and that the IDF remain until an alternative arrangement can be found.

Given demand, organisers have said that they hope the security situation will permit additional tours to Syria after Passover.

The ChatGPT developer OpenAI has countersued Elon Musk, accusing the billionaire of harassment and asking a US federal judge to stop him from “any further unlawful and unfair action” against the company.

OpenAI was co-founded by Musk and its chief executive, Sam Altman, in 2015. However, the two men have been at loggerheads for years over its direction as it transitions from a complex non-profit structure into a more traditional for-profit business.

Musk sued OpenAI over its restructuring plans about a year ago, accusing it of betraying its foundational mission by putting the pursuit of profit ahead of the benefit of humanity. He dropped the suit in June, but then filed a fresh one in August.

In February this year he led a consortium of investors in a surprise $97.4bn bid for the company. Altman quickly rejected the bid, writing on X: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” Musk bought Twitter, since rebranded as X, in 2022 for $44bn.

In documents filed at a district court in California this week, OpenAI said: “Through press attacks, malicious campaigns broadcast to Musk’s more than 200 million followers on the social media platform he controls, a pretextual demand for corporate records, harassing legal claims, and a sham bid for OpenAI’s assets, Musk has tried every tool available to harm OpenAI.”

The company asked the judge to stop Musk from any further attacks, as well as “be held responsible for the damage he has already caused”. A jury trial is expected to begin in spring 2026.

Musk left OpenAI in 2018 and the world’s richest man started his own company called xAI. The bid for OpenAI this year was backed by xAI and several investment firms, including one run by Joe Lonsdale, who co-founded the spy technology company Palantir.

The Tesla boss has openly accused OpenAI of abandoning its original charitable mission by establishing a for-profit subsidiary to raise money from investors, such as Microsoft. OpenAI, which was founded as a non-profit with the aim of safely building futuristic AI that helped humanity, has argued the new model is necessary to develop the best AI models.

Last month OpenAI raised $40bn in a funding round from SoftBank and other investors that valued the company at $300bn. The company has said it plans to use the money to “push the frontiers of AI research even further” and develop its computer infrastructure to deliver more powerful tools for the estimated 500 million people who use ChatGPT every week.

OpenAI has had several corporate dramas since ChatGPT went viral in 2022. In 2023 the board sacked Altman over an alleged failure to be “candid in his communications”. He was reinstated less than a week later after many at the company threatened to resign unless he returned to his role.