The US needs to “stop whining” about being a victim after “taking a free ride on the globalisation train”, China’s official state media has said, as the trade war between the two countries continued to spiral.

Last week’s tit-for-tat tariff hikes appear to have paused, but the conflict between the two biggest economies is showing no signs of letting up.

On Tuesday evening China Daily, the ruling Chinese Communist party’s (CCP) English-language mouthpiece, published an editorial saying Donald Trump’s frequent claims of the US being “ripped off” were “hoodwinking the US public”.

“The US is not getting ripped off by anybody,” it said. “The problem is the US has been living beyond its means for decades. It consumes more than it produces. It has outsourced its manufacturing and borrowed money in order to have a higher standard of living than it’s entitled to based on its productivity. Rather than being ‘cheated’, the US has been taking a free ride on the globalisation train.”

It added, “The US should stop whining about itself being a victim in global trade and put an end to its capricious and destructive behaviour.”

The CCP has refused to capitulate to Trump’s demands to come to the table and renegotiate their terms of trade.

In a statement delivered by the White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, Trump said on Tuesday “the ball is in China’s court”.

“China needs to make a deal with us. We don’t have to make a deal with them,” the statement said. “There’s no difference between China and any other country except they are much larger.”

Analysts and officials expect the trade war to have significant impact on both economies – China was already struggling to rebound since the pandemic with low consumer spending and high youth unemployment.

On Wednesday, Beijing announced better-than-expected economic figures, driven in large part by exporters rushing to move products to the US before the tariffs came into effect.

China’s national bureau of statistics said the economy grew 5.4% in the first quarter, above analyst predictions. Sheng Laiyun, a senior official at the statistics bureau, warned however that the US tariffs “will put certain pressures on our country’s foreign trade and economy”.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is now visiting several Asian nations, on a trip that, although planned before the tariff war, has served to boost Beijing’s public and private efforts strengthen trading relationships with other countries.

“China would be willing to partner with Malaysia and other Asean countries, following the trend of peace and the development of history, fend off the undercurrent of geopolitics and tribalism, break the unilateralism and protectionism, and create high-level strategic alliance between China and Malaysia that leads to a close community of common destiny,” Xi said in an editorial published ahead of his arrival in Malaysia on Wednesday.

While tariff rises appear to have paused at 145% on Chinese imports to the US and 125% on US imports to China, the two governments are finding other ways to raise the stakes.

China has reportedly ordered its airlines to pause purchases of aircraft-related equipment and parts from American companies, including Boeing. It was also reportedly considering ways to support airlines that lease Boeing jets and are facing higher costs.

About 10 Boeing 737 Max jets are being prepared to join Chinese airlines, and if delivery paperwork and payment on some of them were completed before Chinese “reciprocal” tariffs came into effect, the planes may be allowed to enter the country, sources told Bloomberg.

On Wednesday the Hong Kong postal service announced it would stop accepting US-bound packages. When sending items to the US, people in Hong Kong “should be prepared to pay exorbitant and unreasonable fees due to the US’s unreasonable and bullying acts”, Hong Kong Post said in a statement. Other postal items containing documents only, without goods, would not be affected.

Hong Kong is subject to the same tariffs as mainland China, although has not imposed any retaliatory tariffs of its own.

Meanwhile, Trump has announced an inquiry into further tariffs on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors – which would affect many of the US’s trading partners – and ordered a probe that may result in tariffs on critical minerals, rare-earth metals and associated products such as smartphones.

China dominates global supply chains for rare metals and has imposed export controls on several rare earth elements since the trade war with the US erupted.

Additional research by Jason Tzu Kuan Lu

Hong Kong Post said on Wednesday it had suspended goods mail services by sea to the US and will suspend its air mail postal service for items containing goods from 27 April due to “bullying” US tariffs.

When sending items to the US, people in Hong Kong “should be prepared to pay exorbitant and unreasonable fees due to the US’s unreasonable and bullying acts”, Hong Kong Post said in a statement.

“The US is unreasonable, bullying and imposing tariffs abusively,” it said. “Hong Kong post will definitely not collect any so-called tariffs on behalf of the US.”

Other postal items containing documents only, without goods, would not be affected.

Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, has been subjected to the same tariffs as China, according to a US government notice.

Hong Kong Post said its suspension was due to the US government’s elimination of the “de minimus” exemption and the increase in tariffs for postal items from Hong Kong containing goods to the US from 2 May.

Hong Kong has long been known as a free and open trading hub, but China’s imposition on the former British colony of a sweeping national security law in 2020 drew criticism from the US and led it to end the financial hub’s special status under US law.

Hong Kong Post said on Wednesday it had suspended goods mail services by sea to the US and will suspend its air mail postal service for items containing goods from 27 April due to “bullying” US tariffs.

When sending items to the US, people in Hong Kong “should be prepared to pay exorbitant and unreasonable fees due to the US’s unreasonable and bullying acts”, Hong Kong Post said in a statement.

“The US is unreasonable, bullying and imposing tariffs abusively,” it said. “Hong Kong post will definitely not collect any so-called tariffs on behalf of the US.”

Other postal items containing documents only, without goods, would not be affected.

Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, has been subjected to the same tariffs as China, according to a US government notice.

Hong Kong Post said its suspension was due to the US government’s elimination of the “de minimus” exemption and the increase in tariffs for postal items from Hong Kong containing goods to the US from 2 May.

Hong Kong has long been known as a free and open trading hub, but China’s imposition on the former British colony of a sweeping national security law in 2020 drew criticism from the US and led it to end the financial hub’s special status under US law.

A federal judge sharply rebuked the Trump administration and scolded officials on Tuesday for taking no steps to secure the return of a man wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, as the US supreme court had ordered in a contentious ruling last week.

The US district judge Paula Xinis said that Donald Trump’s news conference with El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, where the leaders joked that Kilmar Ábrego García would not be released, did not count as compliance.

“To date nothing has been done,” Xinis said, a day after senior Trump officials also mounted an effort to sidestep the supreme court decision by offering increasingly strained readings of the order to claim they were powerless to bring back Ábrego García.

The judge ultimately said she would require the administration to produce details under oath about its attempts to return Ábrego García to US soil in two weeks, an unusually expeditious timeline for discovery that indicated how she intends to move with the case.

At issue at the hearing in federal district court in Maryland was the administration’s narrow reading of the supreme court order that compelled it to “facilitate” the return of Ábrego García, who was supposed to have been shielded from being sent to El Salvador.

The administration had earlier conceded Ábrego García’s deportation was an administrative error. But it has since taken the position that it is powerless to bring him back beyond removing domestic obstacles, and that courts lack the constitutional power to dictate the president to do more.

The lead lawyer for the administration, Drew Ensign, also said in legal filings before the hearing that even if Ábrego García were returned to the US, the justice department would deport him to a different country or move to terminate the order blocking his removal to El Salvador.

But the judge rejected the administration’s narrow reading of “facilitate”, noting the plain meaning of the word meant officials needed to secure Ábrego García’s release – and that US immigration and customs enforcement had previously taken a number of positions on its meaning.

“Your characterization is not bound in fact,” Xinis said. “I need facts.”

The administration argued it had sought to comply with the supreme court’s order when Trump addressed the case and Bukele questioned whether he was supposed to smuggle Ábrego García across the border – which Ensign argued showed the matter had been raised at the “highest levels”.

The judge appeared unimpressed by the argument. “It’s not a direct response,” Xinis said. “Nor is the quip about smuggling someone into the US. If you were removing domestic barriers, there would be no smuggling, right? Two misguided ships passing in the night.”

The judge told Ábrego García’s lawyers to prepare by Wednesday their questions for the administration about what steps it had taken. She said they could depose up to six officials, including Robert Cerna, a top official at Ice, and Joseph Mazarra, the acting general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security.

“Cancel vacation,” Xinis told Ensign. “Cancel appointments. I’m usually pretty good about this in my courtroom, but not this time.”

After the hearing, Ábrego García’s lawyer Rina Gandhi called the hearing a win but added they were not yet done. “We have not brought Kilmar home,” she told reporters, “but we will be able to question those involved and get information and evidence as required.”

She also accused the administration of acting in bad faith. “This case is about the government unlawfully – and admitting to unlawfully – removing a gentleman from this country, from his home, his family, his children, and taking no actions to fix them as ordered by the supreme court,” Gandhi said.

A federal judge has sharply rebuked the Trump administration and is evaluating whether officials are in contempt of court for failing to secure the return of a man wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

The US supreme court last week ordered that the Trump administration to facilitate the release and return of Kilmar Ábrego García, a refugee who has legally lived in the US for 25 years.

Meanwhile, immigration authorities reportedly apprehended and deported a 19-year-old Venezuelan, Merwil Gutiérrez, despite agents’ realizing he was not whom they meant to arrest in a targeted operation.

Catching up? Here’s what happened on 14 April 2025.

A 19-year-old Venezuelan in New York City reportedly was apprehended by Trump administration immigration authorities and deported to El Salvador despite agents’ realizing he was not whom they meant to arrest in a targeted operation.

Merwil Gutiérrez, whose family opened an asylum case after arriving in the US, was deported from the Bronx to the notorious Cecot prison in El Salvador despite his relatives’ insistence that he has no gang ties or criminal history, according to Documented, a newsroom dedicated to telling the stories of immigrants in New York City. The Gutiérrez family says it has been left without information or answers.

The teen was detained alongside 237 other Venezuelans on 24 February by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). His father, Wilmer Gutiérrez, told Documented: “I feel like my son was kidnapped.

“I’ve spent countless hours searching for him, going from one precinct to another, speaking with numerous people who kept referring me elsewhere. Yet, after all this, no one has given me any information or provided a single document about his case.”

The elder Gutiérrez reportedly said he overheard Ice agents saying that his son had not been the person they had come to get.

“The officers grabbed him and two other boys right at the entrance to our building. One said: ‘No, he’s not the one,’ like they were looking for someone else. But the other said: ‘Take him anyway,’” he recalled.

Gutiérrez has no criminal record either in Venezuela or the US, his family said. He also did not have any tattoos, which is a feature that US law enforcement often use to link people to the Tren de Aragua gang – a transnational criminal organization from Venezuela – and to justify their expulsions from the country.

Despite this, Gutiérrez was arrested and later deported to El Salvador, to which he has no ties.

Wilmer Gutiérrez says he discovered through a news report that his son had been deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. He watched videos on social media that showed detainees facing harsh conditions, such as having their heads shaved by authorities and being marched to their prison cells.

“I could have understood if he’d been sent back to Venezuela,” he said. “But why to a foreign country he’s never even been to?”

The Gutiérrez family’s reported ordeal comes after the Trump administration admitted to wrongly deporting a Maryland man, Kilmar Abrego García, to the same Cecot facility.

The president of El Salvador said in a meeting with Trump on Monday that the Salvadoran government would not order the return of Abrego García to the US.

Monday’s meeting at the White House came amid a broader push by the Trump administration to remove noncitizens from the US, including people who are here legally and have not been charged with crimes.

Trump has also openly stated that he would like to remove US citizens who commit unspecified violent crimes and send them to the same Salvadoran prison as Abrego García and Gutiérrez.

Tuvalu, one of the world’s most remote nations, has unveiled its first ever ATMs, at the headquarters of the National Bank of Tuvalu in the village of Vaiaku on Funafuti, the country’s main island.

Tuesday’s ceremony marked a historic shift for the island nation of 12,000 people, which has never before had access to electronic banking. Attended by prime minister Feleti Teo, the governor general, traditional leaders, members of parliament and representatives from the diplomatic and business sectors, the event celebrated a long-anticipated move toward financial modernisation.

Until now, all banking in Tuvalu has been done in cash. On pay day, workers are required to queue at the bank to withdraw their salaries, a process that often leads to long lines and limited access after the bank closes at 2pm. Daily transactions for groceries, hotels and services remain almost entirely cash-based.

“Today not only marks a momentous occasion but it is also historic as the bank moves into a totally new era, not just in terms of its services but also in terms of its strategic direction,” Teo said during his keynote speech.

Initiated in 2021, the total cost of the ATM and point-of-sale rollout exceeded A$3m, according to the bank’s general manager, Siose Penitala Teo, who spoke to the Guardian at the main office of the bank.

“We’ve been in an analogue space all along, these were dreams for us,” Teo said. “These machines don’t come cheap. But with government support and sheer determination, we were able to roll out this service for our people.”

The prime minister said the bank initially worked with an external adviser but later contracted Pacific Technologies Limited in Fiji to deliver and install the systems, which will now be operational at multiple locations on Funafuti, including at the airport and within local villages. Five ATMs have been installed, and 30 point-of-sale terminals will be installed across the island.

“We explored different options and undertook due diligence to find cost-effective solutions tailored to our customers’ needs,” Teo said. “That’s how we procured the ATMs and point-of-sale systems that are now operational.”

For now, only prepaid cards can be used at the machines. Teo said customers would have to obtain prepaid cards before they could use the ATMs.

The bank plans to roll out Tuvalu-issued debit cards next, with the goal of eventually providing Visa debit and credit card functionality that can be used overseas for travel and online purchases.

With about 6,000 banking customers, many of whom hold multiple accounts, the introduction of electronic banking is expected to ease congestion, reduce reliance on cash and improve access to financial services across the outer islands.

“We’re providing the service for free until people get the hang of it,” Teo said. “In time we’ll look at fees, but right now this is about accessibility and progress.”

Irregular crossings at Europe’s borders have fallen by 30% in the first quarter of the year compared with the same period last year, in a decrease that rights groups partly attributed to EU policies that have emphasised deterrence while seemingly turning a blind eye to the risk of rights abuses.

The decline was seen across all the major migratory routes into Europe, the EU’s border agency Frontex said in a statement, amounting to nearly 33,600 fewer arrivals in the first three months of the year.

The largest decrease, at 64%, was along the routes that cross Albania, Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia, while crossings into the UK were down 4%.

While migration patterns are influenced by a mix of factors that range from weather to conflict, the data appears to suggest a continuation of the downward trend seen in 2024, when irregular border crossings into Europe dropped by 38% compared with the previous year, said Judith Sunderland of Human Rights Watch.

The organisation is among the many that have argued that the EU’s increased focused on deterrence and sealing its borders was pushing people to take riskier routes into Europe.

“It’s not only about the statistics. Let’s not forget that this is coming at a cost of people drowning in the Mediterranean, of people being beaten up at the Poland-Belarus border and being pushed back into Belarus; it’s people getting stranded in various swamps, forests and deserts in and on the outskirts of the EU,” said Sunderland. “There’s a massive human cost behind those numbers.”

The falling number of arrivals comes as the bloc has increasingly struck agreements with countries outside Europe, such as Libya and Tunisia, where practices such as beatings, sexual violence and imprisonment have been documented.

“The bottom line is that, insofar as the drop in arrivals is due to the EU’s deterrence measures, those measures are accompanied very clearly by human rights abuse that the EU is therefore complicit in,” said Sunderland.

The sentiment was echoed at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights(ECCHR), which has filed two complaints to the international criminal court related to the treatment of migrants and refugees in the central Mediterranean region.

“The decline in official numbers does not mean we’re seeing fewer people on the move,” said Allison West, a senior legal adviser at the ECCHR. “It means we’re seeing more people being contained in horrific conditions in Libya and Tunisia that amount to crimes against humanity, with EU cooperation and approval.”

For years the EU and its member states have continued to work with Libya to stem migrant arrivals to Europe, despite evidence of arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence and enslavement, West said in a statement. “These abuses are not unintended side-effects of European migration policy. They are foreseeable consequences of a strategy that prioritises containment over protection.”

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said its data suggested an increase in the interceptions of boats attempting to depart from some north African countries, such as Libya and Tunisia, which may have partly contributed to the decline in arrivals.

“Despite the downward trend, IOM remains concerned about migrant deaths, which, according to our data, are still very high,” a spokesperson for IOM said in a statement.

In the first three months of the year, at least 555 people lost their lives while trying to cross the Mediterranean or Atlantic to reach Europe, adding to the more than 3,500 lives lost last year along these routes, IOM data showed. “We continue to advocate for policies that allow for safer, regular migration channels, which can serve as safer alternatives to irregular migration,” the spokesperson added.

According to a Unicef statement released on Tuesday, about 3,500 children have died or gone missing in the central Mediterranean while trying to reach Italy in the last 10 years.

Irregular crossings at Europe’s borders have fallen by 30% in the first quarter of the year compared with the same period last year, in a decrease that rights groups partly attributed to EU policies that have emphasised deterrence while seemingly turning a blind eye to the risk of rights abuses.

The decline was seen across all the major migratory routes into Europe, the EU’s border agency Frontex said in a statement, amounting to nearly 33,600 fewer arrivals in the first three months of the year.

The largest decrease, at 64%, was along the routes that cross Albania, Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia, while crossings into the UK were down 4%.

While migration patterns are influenced by a mix of factors that range from weather to conflict, the data appears to suggest a continuation of the downward trend seen in 2024, when irregular border crossings into Europe dropped by 38% compared with the previous year, said Judith Sunderland of Human Rights Watch.

The organisation is among the many that have argued that the EU’s increased focused on deterrence and sealing its borders was pushing people to take riskier routes into Europe.

“It’s not only about the statistics. Let’s not forget that this is coming at a cost of people drowning in the Mediterranean, of people being beaten up at the Poland-Belarus border and being pushed back into Belarus; it’s people getting stranded in various swamps, forests and deserts in and on the outskirts of the EU,” said Sunderland. “There’s a massive human cost behind those numbers.”

The falling number of arrivals comes as the bloc has increasingly struck agreements with countries outside Europe, such as Libya and Tunisia, where practices such as beatings, sexual violence and imprisonment have been documented.

“The bottom line is that, insofar as the drop in arrivals is due to the EU’s deterrence measures, those measures are accompanied very clearly by human rights abuse that the EU is therefore complicit in,” said Sunderland.

The sentiment was echoed at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights(ECCHR), which has filed two complaints to the international criminal court related to the treatment of migrants and refugees in the central Mediterranean region.

“The decline in official numbers does not mean we’re seeing fewer people on the move,” said Allison West, a senior legal adviser at the ECCHR. “It means we’re seeing more people being contained in horrific conditions in Libya and Tunisia that amount to crimes against humanity, with EU cooperation and approval.”

For years the EU and its member states have continued to work with Libya to stem migrant arrivals to Europe, despite evidence of arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence and enslavement, West said in a statement. “These abuses are not unintended side-effects of European migration policy. They are foreseeable consequences of a strategy that prioritises containment over protection.”

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said its data suggested an increase in the interceptions of boats attempting to depart from some north African countries, such as Libya and Tunisia, which may have partly contributed to the decline in arrivals.

“Despite the downward trend, IOM remains concerned about migrant deaths, which, according to our data, are still very high,” a spokesperson for IOM said in a statement.

In the first three months of the year, at least 555 people lost their lives while trying to cross the Mediterranean or Atlantic to reach Europe, adding to the more than 3,500 lives lost last year along these routes, IOM data showed. “We continue to advocate for policies that allow for safer, regular migration channels, which can serve as safer alternatives to irregular migration,” the spokesperson added.

According to a Unicef statement released on Tuesday, about 3,500 children have died or gone missing in the central Mediterranean while trying to reach Italy in the last 10 years.

Joe Biden on Tuesday accused Donald Trump and his billionaire lieutenant, Elon Musk, of “taking a hatchet” to the social security administration as they moved at warp-speed to dismantle large swaths of the federal government.

In his first public remarks since leaving office, the former president avoided any explicit mention of Trump – his predecessor and successor – but he was sharply critical of the new administration for threatening social security, which Biden called a “sacred promise” that more than 70 million Americans rely on each month.

“In fewer than 100 days, this new administration has done so much damage and so much destruction,” Biden said, addressing the national conference of Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled in Chicago. “It’s kind of breathtaking that it could happen that soon.”

He said Trump administration had applied the Silicon Valley concept of “move fast and break things” to the federal government: “They’re certainly breaking things. They’re shooting first and aiming later.”

On Tuesday, Democrats across the country held a day of action to “sound the alarm” over the Trump administration’s plans to downsize the social security administration, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said earlier on Tuesday. Biden referenced the sweeping cuts to the agency’s workforce and its services in his remarks.

Though it is unusual for a former president to return to the national stage so soon after exiting it, Biden, 82, said he felt the issue was a matter of grave importance to millions of retirees and disabled Americans fearful that the check they rely on each month might not arrive on time – or at all.

“In the 90 years since Franklin Roosevelt created the social security system, people have always gotten their social security checks,” Biden said. “They’ve gotten them during wartime, during recessions, during a pandemic. No matter what, they got them. But now for the first time ever, that might change. It’d be a calamity for millions of families.”

Asked earlier on Tuesday about Biden’s speech, the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt mocked his age and acuity. “I’m shocked that he is speaking at nighttime. I thought his bedtime was much earlier than his speech tonight.” Trump is 78.

Biden also joked about his age, tweaking Trump for falsely claiming that millions of people born over a century ago are still receiving social security benefits. “I want to meet them because I’d like to figure out how they live that long,” he said, drawing laughs from the audience. “I’m looking for longevity.” Though Trump and Musk have both misleadingly pointed to the inclusion of people in the database with no recorded death date as evidence of widespread fraud, the glitch is well known and almost none of the people listed receive payments.

Trump has pledged that his administration would not touch social security and congressional Republicans have accused Democrats of spreading lies about their support for the popular program.

In a series of tweets on X, the social media platform owned by Musk, the social security agency rebutted many of the points made in Biden’s speech, writing that the president has “repeatedly promised to protect social security and ensure higher-take home pay for seniors by ending taxation on social security benefits”.

Yet the Trump administration’s assault on the agency has left it in turmoil.

Since Musk’s cost-cutting initiative called the Department of Government Efficiency targeted the agency, it has announced plans for deep staff reductions and dozens of offices closures, while policy changes have already begun to impact the program’s operations, leaving many beneficiaries anxious.

In his remarks, Biden spoke of the “profound” psychological impact on beneficiaries who rely on the social security checks. “How do you sleep at night?” he said.

He also criticized Musk for calling the program a “Ponzi scheme” and comments made by Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, also a billionaire, who said his 94-year-old mother-in-law wouldn’t complain if she didn’t receive her social security check one month. “A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining,” he said on the business and tech podcast All-In last month.

“She’s probably a lovely woman,” Biden said of Lutnick’s mother-in-law, but agreed that she would probably not miss the payment. “No kidding, her son-in-law is a billionaire. What about the 94-year-old mother living all by herself?”

On Tuesday, Trump signed a presidential memo titled Preventing Illegal Aliens from Obtaining Social Security Act Benefits – a benefit undocumented people are already ineligible for under US law. The directive orders an expansion of the social security administration’s full-time fraud prosecutor program and directs officials to scrutinize earnings reports for “persons age 100 or older”. It also establishes a similar prosecution program for Medicare and Medicaid.

During Biden’s speech on Tuesday, he briefly reflected on the current state of affairs, urging Americans to uphold “fundamental American values”.

“Nobody’s king,” he said, before lamenting how divided the nation had become. Healing the “soul of America” was a campaign theme that elevated Biden to office in the depths of the pandemic in 2020, but the divisions seemed only to deepen over the next four years. In an apparent aside, he said there was roughly “30%” of the country that “has no heart” – a remark Trump supporters immediately as interpreted an insult.

“It’s what we see in America,” he continued. “It’s what we believe in – fairness. And that’s the America we can never forget or walk away from.”

A Peruvian court has sentenced former president Ollanta Humala and his wife, Nadine Heredia, to 15 years in prison for laundering funds received from the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht to finance Humala’s 2006 and 2011 campaigns.

The judges of the national superior court found that Humala and Heredia received several million dollars in illegal contributions for these campaigns from Odebrecht and the government of the then Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez.

The verdict makes Humala the third former Peruvian president to be imprisoned for corruption in the last two decades. He joins Alejandro Toledo, sentenced in 2024 to 20 years for Odebrecht-related crimes, and Alberto Fujimori, who received multiple convictions for corruption and human rights abuses.

The trial began in 2022, and alongside the 62-year-old former military officer and his 48-year-old wife, the court convicted eight others. Both Humala and Heredia were held in pre-trial detention from 2017 to 2018 at the prosecutor’s request to prevent their flight.

Odebrecht’s 2016 admission of widespread bribery across Latin America preceded the initial investigations against Humala, which started in 2015, a year before the company’s revelations.

Most of the presidents who have governed Peru since 2001 have faced legal problems due to their connections with Odebrecht. Toledo is currently imprisoned, while the former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski is under house arrest. Alan García, who served two non-consecutive terms, died by suicide in 2019 as authorities moved to arrest him in connection with Odebrecht bribes.

In addition to former presidents, prominent figures such as the former presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori and numerous ex-governors are also under investigation.

Equalities campaigners in the UK are braced for a supreme court ruling that could have a significant impact on the rights of transgender people to use single-sex services.

Five judges on the UK supreme court will rule on Wednesday morning whether or not the definition of woman in the Equality Act 2010 includes transgender women with gender recognition certificates (GRC).

The court’s decision is expected to lead to calls for the act to be rewritten, and could have a profound effect on the rights of transgender women to take places on public boards reserved for women, and to use spaces and services intended for women.

The case against the Scottish government was brought by the gender critical campaign group For Women Scotland after judges in Edinburgh ruled that ministers were right to say that trans women with a GRC could sit on public boards in posts reserved for women.

FWS, which is partly funded by the writer JK Rowling and has support from the campaign group Sex Matters, argues that the Equality Act’s definition of woman is limited only to people born biologically female.

They argue that a very clear definition by the court on what a woman is would also help clear up an ambiguity about who qualifies to use women’s services. They say people who self-identify as trans but do not have a gender recognition certificate are being allowed to use women-only services and spaces.

The Scottish government has defended its decision. Backed by trans rights advocates and lawyers it has told the court that the Gender Recognition Act 2004 makes clear that a gender recognition certificate changes sex “for all purposes”.

The government’s lawyers argue that means someone with that certificate is entitled to legal protections “just as much as others enjoy those protections who are recorded as a woman at birth”.

If the court rules in favour of the Scottish government, it may recommend that the Equality Act is clarified to set out the rights of trans women.

If it rules in favour of FWS, there will be substantial pressure on the UK government to amend the act to exclude trans women from women-only spaces, and the Scottish government will need to reverse its policies on public boards.

The court has been criticised after it refused to allow trans women to take part in the hearings, although it did allow the civil rights group Amnesty UK to participate on the Scottish government’s side.

Victoria McCloud, a retired judge who changed her legal sex more than 20 years ago, was refused permission to be heard in the case. She said that meant “the only affected group was excluded”.

She said the FWS case had failed at all previous stages. “If the legal sex of trans people is reversed without our consent then we will lose equal pay rights with men, to cite one example, and we will be ‘two sexes at once’ which is a nonsense,” she said.

Walking at a brisker pace could lower the risk of a wide range of heart rhythm problems, according to a study.

The peer-reviewed research, published in BMJ Heart, analysed data from 420,925 participants of the UK Biobank who had provided data on their walking speed. Of these, 81,956 gave more detailed data on the amount of time they spent walking at different paces.

According to the study, a slow pace was defined as less than 3mph; steady/average pace as 3–4mph; and a brisk pace as more than 4mph. Just over 6.5% of participants had a slow walking pace, 53% had an average walking pace and 41% had a brisk walking pace.

Tracking these individuals for an average of 13 years showed that 36,574 participants (9%) developed some form of heart rhythm abnormality.

After accounting for background demographic and lifestyle factors, an average or brisk walking pace was associated with, respectively, a 35% and 43% lower risk of all heart rhythm abnormalities compared with a slow walking pace.

These higher walking speeds were also associated with lower risks of atrial fibrillation and other cardiac arrhythmias.

While the amount of time spent walking at a slow pace was not associated with the risk of developing heart rhythm abnormalities, more time spent walking at an average or brisk pace was associated with a 27% lower risk.

Overall, around 36% of the association between walking pace and all heart rhythm abnormalities was influenced by metabolic and inflammatory factors.

Demographic and lifestyle factors accounted for by the study included that participants reporting a faster walking pace were more likely to be men and tended to live in less deprived areas and have healthier lifestyles.

Atrial fibrillation is a condition where the heart’s upper chambers beat irregularly and too fast, while ventricular arrhythmias occur when an abnormal heart rhythm starts in the lower chambers.

Heart rhythm problems can increase the risk of stroke, heart failure and cardiac arrest if left untreated. They can occur when there is a problem with the electrical system that makes the heart beat.

The researchers noted that the study was observational, meaning that no firm conclusions could be drawn on whether walking at a brisk pace was a direct cause of a lower risk of heart rhythm abnormalities.

The study was also limited by the fact the participants were self reported and did not reflect a broad spectrum of ages and ethnic backgrounds. The average age was 55, 55% were women and 97% were white.

The researchers, led by Prof Jill Pell of the University of Glasgow, said: “This study is the first to explore the pathways underpinning the association between walking pace and arrhythmias, and to provide evidence that metabolic and inflammatory factors may have a role: walking faster decreased the risk of obesity and inflammation, which, in turn, reduced the risk of arrhythmia.

“This finding is biologically plausible because cumulative epidemiological studies have shown that walking pace is inversely associated with metabolic factors, such as obesity, HbA1c [fasting glucose], diabetes, and [high blood pressure] which, in turn, are associated with the risk of arrhythmias.”

Worldwide consumption of wine fell in 2024 to its lowest level in more than 60 years, the main trade body has said, raising concerns about new risks from US tariffs.

The International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) said on Tuesday that 2024 sales fell 3.3% from the previous year to 214.2m hectolitres.

The OIV, whose report was based on government figures, said this would be the lowest sales figure since 1961, when sales were 213.6m hectolitres.

Production is also at its lowest level in more than 60 years, having fallen 4.8% in 2024 to 225.8m hectolitres.

The OIV’s statistics chief, Giorgio Delgrosso, said the wine industry had been hit by a perfect storm as health concerns drive down consumption in many countries and economic factors added to troubles.

“Beyond the short-term economic and geopolitical disruptions, it is important to consider the structural, long-term factors also contributing to the observed decline in wine consumption” the IOV’s annual report said.

The OIV said the consumer was now paying about 30% more for a bottle now than in 2019-20 and overall consumption had fallen by 12% since then.

In the United States, the world’s top wine market, consumption fell 5.8% to 33.3m hectolitres.

Delgrosso said tariffs ordered by the US president, Donald Trump could become “another bomb” for the wine industry.

Sales in China remain below pre-Covid levels. In Europe, which accounts for nearly half of worldwide sales, consumption fell 2.8% last year. In France, one of the key global producers, 3.6% less wine was consumed last year. Spain and Portugal were among the rare markets where consumption increased.

The OIV said production had been hit by environmental extremes such as above-average rainfall in some regions and droughts in others.

Italy was the world’s top producer with 44m hectolitres, while France’s output fell 23% to 36.1m hectolitres, its lowest level since 1957.

Italy is also the biggest wine exporter and its trade increased because of the popularity of sparkling wines such as prosecco.

Spain produced 31m hectolitres, while US wine output fell 17.2% to 21.1m hectolitres, mainly because of extreme heat.

The OIV could not predict if consumption would take off again and industry players, such as the French chain of wine shops Nicolas, say there is a “generational” fall in drinking.

“People do not drink in a festive way any more and young people consume less than their parents,” the company said in a statement to Agence France-Presse.

However, “people drink less, but better”, Nicolas said, and so are ready to spend more.