Politics

The United Arab Emirates said it was leaving OPEC after nearly 60 years as a member. The UAE has long resented the quotas on output that the oil cartel imposes to keep prices stable, and preferably high, and has regularly broken them. However, the Emirates is unlikely to be able to ramp up production or exports in the short term. The decision highlights a deepening rift with Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s biggest exporter. It also underscores the tensions among Gulf countries that have intensified as a result of the Iran war.

Diplomatic efforts stalled between Iran and America to find a deal to end their conflict. Donald Trump cancelled a trip by his peripatetic envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to Islamabad for more talks. Iran put forward a new proposal to end the conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which would leave negotiations over the country’s nuclear programme to a later date. America rejected the idea. America and Iran maintained their blockades of the strait. In a social-media post Mr Trump said that Iran “better get smart soon”.

Mali’s defence minister was killed in an apparent suicide-attack, as militants from JNIM, the Sahel’s dominant jihadist network, and ethnic Tuareg separatists staged co-ordinated assaults on military targets across the country. The attacks weakened the grip of the military junta that has ruled Mali since a coup in 2021, and raised doubts about the capability of the Russian mercenaries it has hired for protection.

A commission appointed by Tanzania’s president concluded that over 500 people were killed in violence around the election last October. It blamed the deaths on “trained agitators” supported by “outside forces”. Human-rights groups and the opposition reckon the real number is far higher and that most victims were killed by security forces.

Romania’s Social Democrats decided to team up with the Alliance for the Union of Romanians to try to bring down the government with a motion of no confidence. The Social Democrats recently pulled out of the centrist governing coalition led by Ilie Bolojan, the prime minister, claiming his austerity measures had gone too far. The party’s alliance with the hard-right AUR has raised eyebrows in Europe. The AUR is Eurosceptic, and wants to enlarge Romania by creating a union with Moldova.

In Britain a bill to legalise assisted dying failed to pass Parliament after it was obstructed in the House of Lords and ran out of time. More than 1,200 amendments were added in the Lords, 800 of which were introduced by just seven members of the chamber who opposed the legislation. Supporters of the act intend to re-introduce the bill in the House of Commons, which the Lords will not be able to block for a second time.

Two Jewish men were stabbed and wounded in Golders Green, a London neighbourhood where around half the residents identify as Jewish. The assailant was arrested. It was the most serious episode in a recent spate of antisemitic attacks in the capital. The police are treating it as a terrorist incident. Shortly before the stabbings a memorial wall in Golders Green was set ablaze.

Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, told the American government that her country’s “constitution and national security law” must be respected in any co-ordinated security operation. Two Americans, who reportedly worked for the CIA, died in a car crash recently following an anti-drugs raid in Chihuahua. Mexico’s federal government hadn’t known about their operation. Meanwhile, America’s Justice Department charged the governor of Sinaloa state and nine current and former Mexican officials with conspiring with the Sinaloa gang to import drugs.

In Brazil the Senate rejected the nomination of a judge to sit on the Supreme Court. It was a stinging defeat for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is the first president in over a century to have his nominee to the court blocked.

A bomb on the Pan-American Highway in southern Colombia killed at least 20 people, the worst attack on civilians in decades. The leftist government offered a record reward for the leader of a dissident group of former FARC rebels suspected of being behind the bombing. The incident thrusts the issue of security into the presidential election, the first round of which is on May 31st.

The Argentine government said it would like to initiate negotiations with Britain over the Falkland Islands. This came after a leaked memo from the Pentagon suggested that America was preparing to drop its support for Britain’s sovereignty of the islands in retaliation for not supporting the Iran war. The British government reiterated that sovereignty was a matter for Britain, and the “islands’ right to ​self-determination is paramount”.

Mark Carney announced the creation of Canada’s first sovereign-wealth fund. The prime minister said money from the fund would be invested in infrastructure such as pipelines and nuclear projects, though at C$25bn ($18bn) it will be tiny compared with similar entities in the Middle East and Norway, which has the world’s largest sovereign-wealth fund worth $2trn.

A 31-year-old man was charged with trying to assassinate Donald Trump, the third attempt on his life within two years. The gunman rushed past security at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner that is attended by senior politicians and the media elite. The suspect travelled from his home in Los Angeles via Chicago and checked into the same hotel in Washington that was hosting the dinner, reportedly concealing two guns and knives.

The state visit of King Charles to America went ahead, despite concerns over security after the assassination attempt. The king’s trip came amid Mr Trump’s annoyance at Britain’s lack of support for the Iran war, but the president spoke warmly of America’s ally, saying that “Americans have had no closer friends than the British”.

The Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s new congressional-district boundaries, which were designed to create another black-majority seat. The court said this was racial gerrymandering, but it upheld the broader constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act, legislation that protects minority-voting rights. The court’s liberal justices dissented, arguing that the ruling would “eviscerate” the spirit of the act. Meanwhile, Florida’s legislature approved a new district map that could give the Republicans four more seats in the congressional midterms.

The uneasy truce between Afghanistan and Pakistan seemed to be in jeopardy, after the Taliban government in Kabul accused Pakistan of attacking a university in the border province of Kunar. Pakistan denied it had targeted a university, describing the claim as fake news. It is the first allegation from either side of breaking the truce since China hosted talks in early April.

Sabastian Sawe of Kenya became the first person to run a marathon under two hours in race conditions. Mr Sawe’s finishing time at the London Marathon was 1:59:30. Eliud Kipchoge was the first person to run under two hours with a time of 1:59:40, but the event in 2019 was specifically tailored for him to achieve that aim. The winning time at the first modern marathon in 1896 was 2:58:50, and that was over 25 miles, not 26.