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Global food prices rose in March to their highest level since December 2025, marking the second consecutive monthly increase. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported on Friday that its Food Price Index, which tracks changes in a basket of internationally traded food commodities, reached 128.5 points in March, up 2.4 percent compared to adjusted February level. In a separate report, the FAO slightly raised its forecast for global cereal production in 2025 to 3.036 billion tons, representing an annual increase of about 5.8 percent. Source link
US President Donald Trump has dismissed Attorney General Pam Bondi, appointing her deputy Todd Blanche as acting head of the Justice Department. Trump praised Bondi as a great patriot, crediting her with leading a broad anti-crime campaign, and said she will move to a private sector role. During her tenure, Bondi strongly backed the president’s agenda and drew criticism over the Justice Department’s independence. Source link
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. (Reuters/File Photo) US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday said there will have to be a transition phase in Venezuela and the country will need free and fair elections, though he added that there needs to be patience until that point is reached.”Ultimately, there will have to be a transition phase,” Rubio said in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” show. “There will have to be free and fair elections in Venezuela. And that point has to come.””We have to be patient, but we also can’t be complacent.”The US military seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a deadly raid in January that was ordered by President Donald Trump. The United Nations’ human rights office has said the raid was a violation of international law.At the time, Trump said Washington would “run” Venezuela. Maduro’s former vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, subsequently took over and has been governing the country under US oversight.Following US moves in Venezuela, Trump has talked of acting against Cuba and pressuring its leadership.Rubio said in Tuesday’s interview that Cuba needed economic and political reforms and Washington would soon have more news on that country.”So I think Cuba is in need of two things, economic reforms and political reforms, you cannot fix their economy if you don’t change their system of government,” Rubio said.The US cut off Venezuela’s oil exports to Cuba after toppling Maduro in early January and Trump threatened to apply punishing tariffs on any other country that sent crude to Cuba.Cuba’s energy crisis has caused blackouts across the country of 10mn. Health officials say the crisis has increased the mortality risk for cancer patients, especially children.Human rights experts say Trump’s focus on exploiting Venezuelan oil and his threats against Cuba echoed an imperialist approach. Related Story Source link
US President Donald Trump, alongside Attorney-General Pam Bondi (right), speaks during a news conference. (AFP/File photo)) US President Donald Trump fired Attorney-General Pam Bondi Thursday and named his former personal lawyer to serve as the acting chief of the Justice Department.The move, which the Republican president announced in a social media post, comes amid criticism of Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files and her failure to successfully prosecute several perceived Trump political foes.”Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country.”Bondi “will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector to be announced at a date in the near future,” the president said, and will be replaced on an interim basis by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.Bondi has been a staunch ally of the president but has drawn fire from some Trump supporters for her handling of the release of the Justice Department files on convicted Jeffrey Epstein.The Epstein affair has been a major political liability for Trump, who was a longtime friend of the disgraced financier.Bondi has also reportedly drawn Trump’s ire by falling short with efforts to prosecute perceived Trump opponents such as former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney-General Letitia James.According to The New York Times, Trump may name former Republican congressman Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to be the next attorney-general.In the meantime, the post will be filled by Blanche, who was one of the personal lawyers who defended Trump in the multiple criminal cases he faced after he left the White House in 2021.Bondi’s ouster comes nearly a month after Trump fired Kristi Noem as the head of the Department of Homeland Security.Democratic lawmakers welcomed Bondi’s firing.”Good riddance,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.”Under Attorney-General Pam Bondi, the Department of Justice (DOJ) became a cesspool of corruption,” Warren said. “Bondi will be remembered for blocking the release of the Epstein files (and) weaponising the DOJ to go after Trump’s political opponents.”Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said Bondi’s “botched handling of the Epstein files” had “denied victims transparency and further undermined trust in our justice system.””Americans deserve a Justice Department that is actually focused on delivering justice, not on serving a president’s agenda of personal and political self-interest,” Warner said.Bondi joined Trump’s legal team during his first term impeachment trial, in which he was alleged to have pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to find political dirt on Democrat Joe Biden.Trump was impeached by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives but acquitted by the Republican-majority Senate.Bondi helped push Trump’s false claims of voter fraud after he lost the 2020 election to Biden.She made television appearances on behalf of Trump and pushed to delegitimise vote counting in battleground states as part of the push by the former president to overturn the results of the vote.Bondi also criticised the criminal cases brought against Trump, appearing in solidarity at his New York trial, where he was convicted of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star.Bondi served as a prosecutor for 18 years before being elected Florida’s attorney-general in 2010, the first woman to hold the post. She was re-elected to a second term in 2014. Related Story Source link
The Artemis II crewed lunar mission lifts off from Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Wednesday. (AFP) Four astronauts blasted off aboard a massive Nasa rocket on Wednesday on a long-anticipated journey around the Moon, the first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years.With a thunderous roar that reverberated far beyond the launchpad, the enormous orange-and-white rocket carried three Americans and one Canadian away from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center at approximately 6:35pm (2235 GMT) local time.Nasa teams and spectators alike were ecstatic as the spacecraft ascended into a radiant sky atop a cascade of flames.The team, who donned bright orange suits with blue trim as the mission began, includes Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch along with Canadian Jeremy Hansen.”We have a beautiful moonrise. We’re headed right at it,” said Wiseman, the mission commander.US President Donald Trump praised “our brave astronauts,” calling the successful launch “quite something” at the top of his televised address on the war against Iran.The astronauts are now in orbit around the Earth, where they will remain while performing various checks to ensure the reliability and safety of a spacecraft that has never carried humans before.They successfully completed “promixity operations” demonstrations, which tested how their Orion capsule can move relative to another spacecraft and included various manoeuvres that mimic what would be needed to dock with a lunar lander.”Great flying with you, Houston. Nice vehicle,” said pilot Glover.Early on teams identified a number of kinks to work out, including “a controller issue with the toilet when they spun it up,” said Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator, during a post-launch briefing.”We’re just getting started,” he added.Nasa head Jared Isaacman also noted a temporary communication problem with the spacecraft that had since been resolved.The astronauts were “safe, they’re secure, and they’re in great spirits,” he said.Isaacman also emphasised the historic nature of Wednesday’s launch: “NASA is back in the business of sending people to the Moon.”If all goes well the Artemis 2 team is expected to head out on Thursday on its three-day journey towards the Moon, which it will then loop around to capture new images and make naked-eye observations.The voyage should last approximately 10 days in total, and aims to pave the way for a Moon landing in 2028.Scientist Sian Proctor ventured to Florida’s Space Coast to witness the moment along with the approximately 400,000 people local authorities said had gathered to watch.”I’m just so happy that we’re going back to the Moon,” Proctor said.”Everybody should be excited and be following the next 10 days, because this is a big step for humanity.”The mission marks a series of historic accomplishments: it will send the first person of colour, the first woman and the first non-American on a lunar mission.If the plan proceeds as expected, the astronauts will set a record by venturing farther from Earth than any human before.It is also the inaugural crewed flight of Nasa’s new lunar rocket, dubbed the Space Launch System.SLS is designed to allow the United States to repeatedly return to the Moon, with the goal of establishing a permanent base that will offer a platform for further exploration.It was meant to take off as early as February after years of delays and massive cost overruns.But repeated setbacks stalled it and even necessitated rolling the rocket back to its hangar for investigation and repairs.”NASA really needs this win right now,” Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, told AFP, noting the US space agency’s recent budget turmoil and a workforce exodus that have challenged morale.The current era of American lunar investment has frequently been portrayed as an effort to compete with China, which aims to land humans on the Moon by 2030.During the post-launch briefing, Isaacman said competition was “a great way to mobilise the resources of a nation.””Competition can be a good thing,” he said. “And we certainly have competition now.”The Artemis program has come under pressure from Trump, who has pushed its pace with the hope that boots will hit the lunar surface before his second term ends in early 2029.But the projected date of 2028 for a landing has raised eyebrows among experts, in part because Washington is relying on the private sector’s technological headway.Earlier in the day Trump said on Truth Social that the US is “WINNING.””Economically, Militarily, and now, BEYOND THE STARS. Nobody comes close! America doesn’t just compete, we DOMINATE, and the whole World is watching,” he posted. Related Story Source…
Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodriguez meets with US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright (out of frame) at the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas. (AFP/ File Photo)…
Different varieties of coffee are displayed at the Campinas Agronomy Institute during an interview with Brazilian researchers in Campinas, Brazil. (Reuters) Under a baking sun, agronomist Oliveiro Guerreiro Filho meanders through a hodgepodge of coffee plants at the Campinas Agronomy Institute where, unlike the uniform rows on most Brazilian coffee farms, each cluster is different from the next.This menagerie of coffee species — some squat, others soaring — includes 15 uncommon and non-commercial breeds such as racemosa, liberica and stenophylla, the genes of which could shore up future supplies of arabica coffee, researchers hope.Scientists warn that crops of arabica — the world’s most common coffee bean — will be severely affected by a rapidly changing climate, with output from countries including No 1 grower Brazil expected to decline.Climate change could make 20% of areas now growing arabica globally unsuitable for coffee crops by 2050, a report from lender Rabobank said this week.By introducing genetic material from more rustic coffee species into new hybrids, scientists at the research institute in Sao Paulo state aim to create more resistant arabica varieties.For example, liberica’s hardiness in the face of hotter and drier conditions has drawn praise from farmers in Indonesia and Malaysia planting small plots of the species to see how they hold up against drought.”Liberica can tolerate heat and high temperature environments very well, and it is disease-resistant,” Jason Liew, the founder of My Liberica, a coffee plantation in Malaysia’s Johor state, told Reuters.While farmers prize those qualities among less common species, the Brazilian researchers have specialised in bringing those traits to more productive and popular arabica plants.”We’ve been working at the institute for many years to transfer drought tolerance genes from the racemosa species to arabica,” Guerreiro Filho said. “We’re trying to create drought-tolerant arabica varieties.”That can take decades of research. Scientists must produce cross-bred saplings and expose those hybrid varieties to harsh conditions in order to evaluate and identify the most robust plants, he said, a process that can take 20-30 years.Hybrids are also tested for increased resistance to pests and diseases, as well as improved quality. Arabica crossed with liberica has proven more resistant to coffee rust, a fungal infection, for instance, while arabica bred with racemosa does better against larvae of coffee leaf miner moths, Guerreiro Filho noted.That makes research like the studies underway at the institute key to the future of coffee, said Rodolfo Oliveira, head of Brazilian state research agency Embrapa’s coffee unit.”Working with alternative species of coffee … is vital because arabica has an extremely narrow genetic base, making it highly vulnerable to pests, diseases, and climate change,” Oliveira said, underscoring the value of introducing new, “wild” genetic material from less common species. Source link
Cubans on electric tricycles decorated with Cuban flags ride past the US embassy during the anti-imperialist youth march in Havana on April 2, 2026. (AFP) Cubans on electric tricycles decorated with Cuban flags ride past the US embassy during the anti-imperialist youth march in Havana Thursday. …
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper prepares to speak during a virtual summit at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London, Thursday. (Reuters) British foreign minister Yvette Cooper stressed Thursday the “urgent need” to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and slammed Iran’s “recklessness” as she convened a meeting of some 40 countries on the vital shipping route.Cooper said Iran’s blockading of the waterway was “hitting our global economic security” as she kicked off the virtual meeting of international allies.The strait has been virtually closed since the US-Israeli war against Iran started on February 28, impacting global supplies of important commodities including oil, liquid natural gas, and fertiliser.That has led to a sharp rise in energy prices.Cooper said foreign ministers and representatives from more than 40 countries had joined the call to discuss “the urgent need to restore freedom of navigation for international shipping, and the strength of our international determination to see the Strait reopen once more”.A total of 37 countries have signed a statement, first published last month, expressing “readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through” the shipping lane.Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands are among those to have signed it.The US, China, and most Middle Eastern countries have not, according to a list provided by the UK government.”We have seen Iran hijack an international shipping route to hold the global economy hostage,” Cooper added in her opening remarks, broadcast before the rest of the meeting took place behind closed doors.Cooper said the discussions would focus on the “collective mobilisation of our full range of diplomatic and economic tools and pressures” to “enable a safe and sustained opening of the Strait”.A spokesperson for the French foreign ministry said securing the Strait of Hormuz could “only take place once the intense phase of the bombing is over”.French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking on a visit to South Korea, meanwhile, said a military operation to liberate the Strait of Hormuz was “unrealistic”, while lamenting Trump’s differing daily statements on the Iran war and Nato.”There are those who advocate for the liberation of the Strait of Hormuz by force through a military operation, a position sometimes expressed by the US,” Macron said.”I say sometimes because it has varied, it is never the option we have chosen and we consider it unrealistic,” he said.The virtual meeting came after Trump urged oil-importing nations to show “courage” and seize the narrow strait.”The countries of the world that… receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage,” Trump said in a prime-time address at the White House late Wednesday.”Just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves,” he added.Trump has said he would consider a ceasefire only when Hormuz is “free and clear”.Western officials have insisted any operation to protect seafarers using the strait could only come after a ceasefire.”We are also convening military planners to look at how we marshal our collective defensive military capabilities, including looking at issues such as de-mining or reassurance once the conflict eases,” Cooper told Thursday’s meeting.Around a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes through the strait in peacetime.The channel normally sees around 120 daily transits, according to shipping industry intelligence site Lloyd’s List.But since March 1, commodities carriers have made just 225 crossings, according to maritime intelligence firm Kpler, a 94-percent decrease on peacetime. Related Story Source…
Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah (centre) and Rastriya Swatantra Party President Rabi Lamichhane (second left) arrive to attend the parliament session in Kathmandu Thursday. (AFP) Nepal’s newly elected lawmakers met Thursday for the first parliamentary session since deadly anti-corruption protests toppled the government in September 2025 and left the old parliament building in flames.Lawmakers, elected in March, met within the new parliament building, with many of the politicians taking their seats for the first time.That includes the Himalayan nation’s new leader, rapper-turned-politician Prime Minister Balendra Shah, who led the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) to sweep the polls, winning 182 of the 275 seats, just short of a two-thirds majority.Shah, 35, was dressed all in black, including his trademark dark sunglasses that he kept on inside the hall.The prime minister has remained silent publicly since his RSP party won the election, beyond taking the oath as leader and the release of a rap song, where he said that the “strength of unity” was his “national power”.Rabi Lamichhane, president of the RSP, spoke to lawmakers Thursday.”The votes we have received are not just of support, but for change… and I can proudly say we have begun that change,” he said.”Our work, and the government’s work, will speak,” he said.Lamichhane asked the opposition to “monitor us 24 hours”, and use their experience to point out their mistakes.The new parliament is markedly younger compared to the previous government, with nearly 60 directly elected members under the age of 40.The deadly September demonstrations began over a brief social media ban but tapped into longstanding fury over corruption and economic hardship.At least 76 people were killed over two days of unrest.Three high profile arrests — including four-time ex-prime minister KP Sharma Oli — linked to the unrest have been made so far.An inquiry commission into the violence had recommended that Oli and ex-home minister Ramesh Lekhak, as well as the capital Kathmandu’s former chief district officer Chhabilal Rijal, be investigated under laws addressing deaths caused by negligence.Oli, Lekhak and Rijal have denied responsibility for the violence and no charges have been laid. …