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French oil company Maurel & Prom has had its license to operate in Venezuela revoked by the United States as part of the its attempt to cripple Venezuela’s economy and put pressure on leader Nicolas Maduro.

The US Treasury department’s Office of foreign assets has revoked a special license granted last May to Maurel et Prom (M&P) that allowed it to operate in Venezuela despite US sanctions, the company said Monday.

The company, which is majority-owned by the Indonesian government, has until 27 May to wind down its activities.

Venezuela announced Sunday that the US had revoked several transnational oil and gas companies' licenses.

Spanish oil company Repsol said Monday it received notification its license had been revoked, and Italy's Eni on Sunday said it had been notified by US authorities it would no longer be allowed to receive oil from Venezuela's state oil firm PDVSA as payment for gas it produces in Venezuela.

Last week, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order imposing a 25 percent tariff on countries that buy Venezuelan oil or gas.

By cancelling licenses and imposing tariffs, the US is hoping to squeeze Venezuela's oil exports and pressure the country’s leader Nicolas Maduro, whose re-election last year has been contested by the US and many other countries.

Trump has accused Maduro of failing to make progress on electoral reforms and migrant returns.

Venezuela's oil production, which exceeded three million barrels per day (bpd) 25 years ago, is currently producing about one million bpd.

M&P is one of several companies that had been granted authorisation by the previous US administration to continue to source Venezuelan oil for refineries from Spain to India, despite US sanctions.

The company, which produces around 20,000 bpd in Venezuela was granted a license for its interest in the mixed company Petroregional del Lago, which operates the Urdaneta Oeste field in Lake Maracaibo.

US oil giant Chevron was told last month that its license to to operate in Venezuela and export crude oil to the US would be cancelled, with a deadline extended to 27 May.

(with Reuters, AFP)

Tokyo (AFP) – Tourists and Japanese locals marvelled at Tokyo's cherry trees on Monday at the peak of the annual blossom season that traditionally represents fresh starts but also life's fleeting impermanence.

Crowds flocked to the city's top locations to take photos and hold picnics under the elegant dark branches bursting with pink and white flowers, known as "sakura" in Japanese.

The Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) on Sunday declared the country's most common and popular "somei yoshino" variety of cherry tree in full bloom in Tokyo.

Although this year's blooming dates are around the average, the JMA says climate change and the urban heat-island effect are causing sakura to flower approximately 1.2 days earlier every 10 years.

A weak yen is attracting more visitors than ever to Japan, with national tourism figures released in January showing a record of about 36.8 million arrivals last year.

Tehran (AFP) – Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Monday of a forceful retaliation if the United States or its allies bomb the Islamic republic, following a threat by President Donald Trump.

"They threaten to do mischief," Khamenei said of Trump's latest threat, during a speech on Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

"If it is carried out, they will definitely receive a strong counterattack."

In an interview on Saturday, Trump said "there will be bombing" if Iran does not agree to a deal to curb its nuclear programme.

"If they don't make a deal, there will be bombing," he said, according to NBC News, which said he also threatened to punish Iran with what he called "secondary tariffs".

It was not clear whether Trump was threatening bombing by US planes alone or perhaps in an operation coordinated with another country, possibly Iran's nemesis Israel.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei, in a post on X, said that "an open threat of bombing by a head of state against Iran is a shocking affront to the very essence of international peace and security."

Baqaei warned of unspecified "consequences" should the United State choose a path of "violence".

A statement on Monday also said the foreign ministry summoned the charge d'affaires of the Swiss embassy, which represents US interests in Iran, "following the threats by the US president".

Since taking office in January, Trump has reinstated his "maximum pressure" policy, which in his first term saw the United States withdraw from a landmark agreement on Iran's nuclear programme and reimpose biting sanctions on Tehran.

Western countries including the United States have long accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapon, which Tehran has denied, insisting its enrichment activities were solely for peaceful purposes.

The 2015 nuclear deal, sealed between Tehran and world powers, required Iran to limit its nuclear ambitions in exchange for sanctions relief.

On March 7, Trump said he had written to Khamenei to call for nuclear negotiations and warn of possible military action if Tehran refused.

The letter was delivered to Tehran on March 12 by UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash, Iranian news agency Fars reported at the time.

On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the country had delivered a response via intermediary Oman, without delineating its content.

Araghchi said Iran would not engage in direct talks "under maximum pressure and the threat of military action".

In his remarks, however, the minister left open the door for "indirect negotiations".

President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday said that Khamenei, who as supreme leader has the final say in major state policies, had permitted indirect talks.

Oman has served as an intermediary in the past, in the absence of US-Iranian diplomatic relations severed after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Beyond its nuclear programme, Iran is also accused by the West of using proxy forces to expand its influence in the region, a charge Tehran rejects.

Iran leads the so-called "axis of resistance" against Israel, which includes Palestinian movement Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon and other armed group widely proscribed as "terrorist" by Western countries.

Iran does not recognise Israel, its arch enemy and the United States' main ally in the region, and frequently calls for attacks against it.

"There is only one proxy force in this region, and that is the corrupt usurper Zionist regime," Khamenei said, calling for Israel to be "eradicated".

London (AFP) – In a shake-up of long-standing travel rules, European nationals heading to the UK will from Wednesday need a mandatory entry permit, which the British government says will strengthen border security.

The Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) can be bought online in the next few days for £10 (12 euros), but the price is rising swiftly from April 9 to £16.

It is similar to the ESTA system in operation in the United States and will be mandatory for all European visitors to Britain from April 2, following its roll-out for US, Canadian and other visa-exempt nationals in January.

"By digitising the immigration system we are paving the way for a contactless UK border," Migration Minister Seema Malhotra said earlier this month when the website was opened for the first applications.

"Expanding ETA worldwide cements our commitment to enhance security through technology and innovation."

The permit allows visits of up to six months and is valid for two years. It is required for all travellers including minors and babies.

The application, which can be made on a smartphone app or through the government website, has been open to Europeans since the start of March.

From Wednesday, nationals of some 30 European countries -- including all those in the European Union except Ireland -- will need to carry the electronic permit to enter Britain, which left the EU in 2020.

The applicant will need to provide a photo of their passport and their face. The process takes around 10 minutes, according to the Home Office.

In most cases, an application decision is made within minutes. However, the government recommends allowing up to three working days for the application.

If successful, the ETA is digitally linked to the applicant's passport.

Flight passengers transiting airside without crossing the UK border are exempt from the scheme, after pressure from Heathrow which feared a loss of passenger footfall connecting through Europe's busiest airport.

Only Heathrow and Manchester airports have provisions for airside transit in the UK.

Almost 84 million passengers passed through Heathrow in 2024 -- a third from the neighbouring EU.

The scheme was first launched in 2023 for Qatar, before being extended to five regional Gulf neighbours.

In January, it was expanded to nationals of around another 50 countries and territories, including Argentina, South Korea and New Zealand.

Almost 1.1 million visitors were issued with ETAs before the end of 2024, according to the Home Office.

It is not applicable to UK residents or anyone who already has a UK immigration status.

ETA mirrors the ETIAS scheme for visa-exempt nationals travelling to 30 European countries, including France and Germany, which has been delayed until 2026.

The Hague (AFP) – Rodrigo Duterte's lead lawyer said Sunday there was a "compelling" argument to throw out the International Criminal Court case against the former Philippines president before it even comes to trial.

Nicholas Kaufman told AFP in an interview in The Hague he hoped to stop the case before the ICC confirms the charges against Duterte by arguing the court cannot exercise its jurisdiction.

He said the Philippines' withdrawal from the court had become effective well before an investigation was authorised.

Duterte, 80, faces a charge of crimes against humanity for murder over his "war on drugs" that claimed the lives of thousands of mostly poor men, often without proof they were linked to drugs.

British-Israeli lawyer Kaufman, 56, said: "Coming back to the jurisdictional point, obviously you don't need to be the dean of a law faculty to realise that that's going to be a huge issue at pre-trial."

"I think that the jurisdictional argument is compelling as defence counsel. I believe that it should succeed and I would be hugely disappointed if it doesn't succeed," he added.

"We hope to persuade the judges pre-trial that it (the court) cannot exercise its jurisdiction over the case. There won't be a confirmation-of-charges hearing if the judges rule in our favour."

A confirmation of charges hearing, where prosecutor and defence first lay out their evidence, is currently scheduled for September 23.

The issue of jurisdiction is key in this case as the Philippines withdrew from the ICC in 2019.

However, when the court issued its arrest warrant for Duterte, it noted that the alleged crimes took place while the country was still an ICC member.

"As the alleged conduct has taken place between 1 November 2011 and 16 March 2019 on the territory of the Philippines, it falls within the Court's jurisdiction," the ICC said.

The ICC chief prosecutor's application for his arrest said Duterte's alleged crimes were "part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population" in the Philippines.

The families of victims of his war on drugs see the ICC case as a long-awaited chance for justice.

Another likely critical issue for the defence will be Duterte's arrest on March 11 and his rapid handover to the ICC in The Hague.

"I view it as a kidnapping, nothing more or less. It's an extrajudicial rendition. He was given no due process, just slung over to the Hague," Kaufman told AFP.

"This was in complete contravention of Philippines law."

The former president's sudden detention came amid a spectacular deterioration in relations between the two most powerful families in Philippines politics.

The Duterte and Marcos clans teamed up to win an election landslide in 2022 that saw Ferdinand Marcos become president and Sara Duterte -- daughter of the imprisoned Rodrigo -- vice-president.

Sara Duterte has since been impeached on charges that include an alleged assassination plot against the president.

Rodrigo Duterte "should have been brought before a judge before he was thrown onto a plane and dumped in The Hague. That didn't happen. As I've said already, this is a political hit job," said Kaufman.

"The politics in that country basically ended up in a situation where they needed to get him out of the picture. The incumbent government did not want him in the picture anymore."

Kaufman said he was visiting his client virtually every day in the ICC detention centre, a couple of kilometres from the beach in the suburb of Scheveningen.

Duterte was "adjusting to the reality of prison life. That's not easy for anyone," according to his lawyer.

However, the former president was in "good spirits," said Kaufman, whose previous clients at ICC include former Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba and Aisha Kadhafi, daughter of the deceased Libyan dictator.

Kaufman said he was concerned that the ICC, currently under fire from all sides and even US sanctions, would be reluctant to give up such a high-profile case.

"My only fear is that this court is starved of cases at the present moment and might be loath to let a case like that go, to slip through its hands."

Kafr Abū Shanab (Egypt) (AFP) – For almost two years, Emad Mouawad had been repeatedly shuttled from one Sudanese paramilitary-run detention centre to another, terrified each day would be his last.

The 44-year-old Egyptian merchant spent years selling home appliances in neighbouring Sudan before fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) stormed his Khartoum home in June 2023, taking him and six others into custody.

"They accused us of being Egyptian spies," he told AFP, back home in Kafr Abu Shanab, a quiet village in Egypt's Fayoum governorate southwest of Cairo.

The RSF has accused Egypt of involvement in the war, which Cairo has denied.

"We were just traders, but to them, every Egyptian was a suspect," said Mouawad, recalling how his captors searched their phones and home.

They found nothing, but that did not spare the group, who were blindfolded, crammed into a truck and driven to one of the RSF's many detention sites in Khartoum.

It was two months into the RSF's war with the army, and hundreds of thousands of people had already fled to the Egyptian border, seeking safety.

"We couldn't just go and leave our things to be looted," said Mouawad.

"We had debts to pay, we had to guard our cargo at any cost."

In a university building-turned-prison in the Sudanese capital's Riyadh district, Mouawad was confined with eight other Egyptians in a three-by-three-metre (10-by-10-feet) cell without any windows.

Other cells held anywhere between 20 and 50 detainees, he said, including children as young as six and elderly men, some of them in their 90s.

Food, when it came, "wasn't food," said Ahmed Aziz, another Egyptian trader detained with Mouawad.

"They would bring us hot water mixed with wheat flour. Just sticky, tasteless paste," Aziz told AFP.

Water was either brackish and polluted from a well, or silt-filled from the Nile.

Disease spread unchecked, and many did not survive.

"If you were sick, you just waited for death," Aziz said.

According to Mouawad, "people started losing their immunity, they became nothing but skeletons."

"Five -- sometimes more, sometimes fewer -- died every day."

Their bodies were often left to rot in the cells for days, their fellow detainees laying beside them.

And "they didn't wash the bodies", Mouawad said, an important Muslim custom before a dignified burial.

Instead, he heard that the paramilitaries just "dumped them in the desert".

Mouawad and Aziz were among tens of thousands vanished into prisons run by both the RSF and the rival Sudanese army, according to a UN report issued earlier this month.

Since the war began in April 2023, activists have documented the detention and torture of frontline aid workers, human rights defenders and random civilians.

The UN report said the RSF has turned residential buildings, police stations and schools into secret prisons.

Often snatched off the streets, detainees were beaten, flogged, electrocuted or forced into backbreaking labour.

The army has also been accused of torture, including severe beatings and electric shocks.

Neither the army nor the RSF responded to AFP requests for comment.

Soba, an infamous RSF prison in southern Khartoum, may have held more than 6,000 detainees by mid-2024, the UN said.

Aziz, who was held there for a month, described a living nightmare.

"There were no toilets, just buckets inside the cell that would sit there all day," he said.

"You couldn't go two weeks without falling sick," Aziz added, with rampant fevers spreading fear of cholera and malaria.

At night, swarms of insects crawled over the prisoners.

"There was nothing that made you feel human," said Aziz.

Mohamed Shaaban, another Egyptian trader, said RSF guards at Soba routinely insulted and beat them with hoses, sticks and whips.

"They stripped us naked as the day we were born," Shabaan, 43, told AFP.

"Then they beat us, insulted and degraded us."

Both the RSF and the army have been accused of war crimes, including torturing civilians.

Mohamed Osman, a Sudanese researcher at Human Rights Watch, said that while "the army at least has a legal framework in place", the RSF "operates with complete impunity".

The paramilitary force "runs secret facilities where people are taken and often never seen again", Osman told AFP.

Despite their ordeals, Mouawad, Aziz and Shaaban were among the luckier ones, being released after 20 months in what they believe was a joint intelligence operation between Egypt and Sudan's army-aligned authorities.

Finally back home in Egypt, they are struggling to recover, both physically and mentally, "but we have to try to turn the page and move on", said Shaaban.

"We have to try and forget."

Hong Kong (AFP) – Tokyo led another plunge across Asian markets Monday while gold hit a record high as investors steel themselves for a wave of US tariffs this week that has fuelled recession fears.

Equities across the planet have been hammered in recent weeks ahead of Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" on April 2, when his administration will unveil a series of levies against friend and foe alike, citing what he says are unfair trading practices.

His announcement last week that he would also impose 25 percent duties on imports of all vehicles and parts ramped up the fear factor on trading floors, hammering car giants including Japan's Toyota, the world's biggest.

Governments around the world have pushed back on Trump's tariffs, and could announce more countermeasures, while Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told Trump on Friday that he will implement retaliatory tariffs to protect his country's workers and economy.

Adding to the dour mood was data showing the Federal Reserve's preferred gauge of inflation rose more than expected last month amid worries Trump's tariffs will fan price rises and further dent hopes for interest rate cuts.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index plunged more than four percent at one point, extending last week's slide, as Toyota, Nissan and Mazda shed more around three percent, while tech investment titan SoftBank tanked more than five percent.

Zensho Holdings, which owns several Japanese restaurant franchises, plunged five percent after its beef bowl chain Sukiya said it would temporarily shut nearly all of its roughly 2,000 branches after a rat was found in a miso soup and a bug in another meal.

Seoul was also sharply lower.

"Within the Asia-Pacific region, the car levies will hit Japan and South Korea the hardest. About six percent of Japan's total exports are cars shipped to the US. In South Korea's case, it's four percent," Moody's Analytics economists wrote.

"Such a sizeable tariff hike will undermine confidence, hit production and reduce orders. Given the long and complex supply chains in car manufacturing, the impact will ripple through these countries' economies.

"Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest the action could shave 0.2 to 0.5 percentage points from growth in each."

There were also losses in Hong Kong, Sydney, Shanghai, Wellington, Taipei and Manila.

Gold, a safe haven in times of uncertainty and turmoil, hit a record high of $3,106.79.

The selling followed a hefty selloff on Wall Street, where the Dow tumbled 1.7 percent, the S&P 500 lost 2.0 percent and the Nasdaq dived 2.7 percent.

US investors were jolted by figures showing the core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index came in above forecasts in February.

Analysts said that while the reading was not a blowout, its timing amid a period of uncertainty added to the sense of gloom, when traders had been hoping for a little reassurance.

"Markets will now be fully at the mercy of an impending deluge of tariff-related headlines, while highly reactive to any US economic data that accelerates the thematic of slower economic activity and higher expected inflation," said Chris Weston at Pepperstone.

Key figures around 0230 GMT

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 3.9 percent at 35,691.52 (break)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.6 percent at 23,278.18

Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.1 percent at 3,349.68

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.0833 from $1.0838 on Friday

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2958 from $1.2947

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 149.05 yen from 149.72 yen

Euro/pound: DOWN at 83.60 pence from 83.68 pence

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.4 percent at $69.08 per barrel

Brent North Sea Crude: DOWN 0.3 percent at $73.42 per barrel

New York - Dow: DOWN 1.7 percent at 41,583.90 (close)

London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.1 percent at 8,658.85 (close)

Scotland – The people of Shetland, a group of islands north of Scotland, are welcoming the arrival of spring in dramatic style – by burning viking longships. Up Helly Aa was first celebrated in 1881 and is unique to these islands. But it's a tradition that is evolving, with a woman at the heart of it for the first time.

Three hundred people, torches in hand, march through the main street of the fishing village of Cullivoe, on the island of Yell. At the port, they're met by a group of axe-wielding Vikings gathered around a wooden longship.

The leader of the group sets fire to his drakkar – a Viking longship. In the dark of night, one by one, the rest throw their torches onto the blaze. This is the climax of Up Helly Aa.

Alice Jamieson has been preparing for this moment for two years. The 35-year-old, a former Royal Navy nurse now working as a home carer, is the first woman to take on the role of Viking chieftain – a position until now reserved for men.

"I took a week to decide whether or not to accept. But I grew up here, Up Helly Aa celebrates the community and it's always been part of my life," she says.

For the past year, she’s been in charge of organising the four days of celebrations, with the help of her squad of around 20 people.

Jamieson has had to raise funds, build a dragon-headed Viking boat by hand and design emblems, costumes and weapons. Every year a new boat is built and every year a new design is chosen for the costumes and shields: a wolf, a phœnix, a weapon, a rune, a Celtic cross.

"During the creative process, I immersed myself in Norse mythology and came across the figure of the Valkyries, the female Viking warriors," she explains.

"They were also carers, like me. So I chose the wings of the Valkyries on my coat of arms, combined with the symbol of the nurses in the British Navy. In this mythology, the northern lights, which are often seen here, were the sparkling armour of these warriors as they crossed the sky, so their colour was the inspiration for the shields."

Up Helly Aa signifies the end of the winter solstice celebrations, which take place in Shetland from the end of February to the end of March – a festival of fire and a symbol of renewal.

"A friend of mine wasn't well at that time of year," said Brian Spence, who led the celebration in Cullivoe last year. "And his grandmother said to him, 'listen, it's going to be alright, we're going to burn everything that's wrong during the Up Helly Aa, it'll be alright afterwards'."

The analogy between the cremation ceremony and the change of season is easy to see.

"It's reminiscent of a historical re-enactment, with the chief's squad, the Jarl, meticulously recreating the costumes and weapons," historian Brian Smith explains.

An archivist at the Shetland Museum, Smith traces the origins of the festival back to the years just after the Napoleonic wars.

"You have to go back to the years 1815-1820, after the Napoleonic battles. The sailors returning from the wars went back to their villages, but all that awaited them there was the sound of the wind in the night. They wanted warmth, music, colour and laughter," he says.

Two hundred years ago, these young people created an event to mark the arrival of spring, with fireworks, drums and dancing, lit and heated by peat fires.

"It was lively, but a little chaotic, and on several occasions the authorities tried to restrict them," Smith adds.

By 1870, the costumes had become more elaborate. By 1880, Viking imagery had taken over. In every corner of the Shetland archipelago, young people started building dragon-headed boats to burn during the village fete.

"In those years, the history of the Viking peoples and the myth of these conquering warriors was very fashionable in the United Kingdom. Playing up this heritage – Shetland was colonised in the ninth century by the Scandinavians – seemed a natural fit," Smith explains.

Little has changed since 1880, and Up Helly Aa is still dominated by men.

"There are 900 participants and to become Jarl, you have to join the organising committee, which is made up of 15 people. So you know that these men will become Jarl before you do, you'll have to wait about 15 years for your turn," Smith says.

"For some Jarl, it becomes the most eagerly awaited day of their lives, more so than their wedding or the arrival of a child. So, a woman becoming Jarl? I don't see that happening for another 100 years."

It was primary school teacher Brian Spence who picked Jamieson to succeed him as Jarl of Cullivoe.

"I chose a woman because it doesn't make any difference. I think it was just a matter of someone taking the first step and saying ‘it's time’. It wasn't completely unanimous, but it's not a vote," he says.

"I have a son and a daughter, and now my daughter is also talking about ‘when she's the boss’. Alice grew up with Up Helly Aa like me; she's only missed one in her life since she was five. So, gender aside, she's the logical choice. She may be the only woman for 20 years, 50 years, but the precedent has been set."

For this tiny community, Up Helly Aa is a way of renewing social ties. Throughout the year, it's an excuse to get out of the house and meet up with other people to make plans, build the boat or come up with skits to perform at the event.

Lynn Thomson, a retired probation officer, grew up in Edinburgh but moved to Cullivoe.

"We're really isolated here. At times you think it would be so nice to be able to go out to eat or order a pizza. But that's not possible," Thomson says.

"People think Shetland is living in the past. They'll say 'wow, you've got TV and wow, you've got the internet'. But we're proving them wrong. It's no small thing that a woman has been chosen as Jarl. Society is misogynistic and it's time to change things. Of course, it's not going to change the world, but every little thing can help change societies."

After the boat's symbolic cremation, everyone gathers in the village hall for an evening of comedy sketches and, because no party in Scotland is complete without one, a ceilidh, the traditional dance.

The sound of the fiddle and accordion will be heard until the sun comes up – earlier in the day, at last.

Washington (AFP) – US President Donald Trump said Sunday he was "very angry, pissed off" with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, NBC reported, marking a sharp change of tone as Washington seeks to end the war in Ukraine.

NBC's Kristen Welker said Trump had called her to express his anger over Putin questioning Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's future as a leader -- something that Trump himself has done.

Welker, on her NBC show "Meet The Press" on Sunday, quoted directly from an early-morning telephone conversation with the president.

Trump said that "if Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia's fault" then he would impose "secondary tariffs on all oil coming out of Russia."

Welker said Trump told her "I was very angry, pissed off" over Putin's recent comments about Zelensky's credibility and talking about new leadership in Ukraine.

Trump has been pushing for a speedy end to the more than three-year war since taking office, but his administration has failed to reach a breakthrough despite talks with both sides.

Putin rejected a joint US-Ukrainian plan for a 30-day ceasefire, and on Friday suggested Zelensky be removed from office as part of the peace process.

Ukraine has accused Russia of dragging out talks with no intention of halting its offensive, with a fresh attack over the weekend on the northeastern border city of Kharkiv.

Trump told NBC that Putin knows he is angry, but said that he has "a very good relationship with him" and "the anger dissipates quickly... if he does the right thing."

Warming ties between Washington and Moscow since Trump's return to office and his threats to stop supporting Kyiv have bolstered Russia on the battlefield as it pursues its floundering invasion.

Putin, in power for 25 years and repeatedly elected in votes with no competition, has often questioned Zelensky's "legitimacy" as president, after the Ukrainian leader's initial five-year mandate ended in May 2024.

Under Ukrainian law, elections are suspended during times of major military conflict, and Zelensky's domestic opponents have all said no ballots should be held until after the conflict.

Trump has himself had rocky relations with Zelensky, calling him a "dictator" and clashing with him live on camera at the White House last month.

"For too long now, America's proposal for an unconditional ceasefire has been on the table without an adequate response from Russia," Zelensky said in his evening address on Saturday.

"There could already be a ceasefire if there was real pressure on Russia," he added, thanking those countries "who understand this" and have stepped up sanctions pressure on the Kremlin.

Both Moscow and Kyiv agreed to the concept of a Black Sea truce following talks with US officials earlier this week, but Russia said the deal would not enter into force until Ukraine's allies lifted certain sanctions.

Explaining the secondary tariffs threat, Trump told NBC "that would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can't do business in the United States."

"There will be a 25 percent tariff on all oil, a 25 to 50 point tariff on all oil," he added, without giving further details.

Port Sudan (AFP) – Sudan's gold industry has become the lifeblood of its war, with nearly all of the trade channelled through the United Arab Emirates, enriching both the army and paramilitaries, sources say.

The two-year conflict has decimated Sudan's economy, yet last month the army-backed government announced record gold production in 2024.

Demand for the country's vast gold reserves was "a key factor in prolonging the war," Sudanese economist Abdelazim al-Amawy told AFP.

"To solve the war in Sudan, we have to follow the gold, and we arrive at the UAE," said Marc Ummel, a researcher with development organisation Swissaid who tracks African gold smuggling to the Gulf country.

In a statement to AFP, a UAE official rejected "any baseless and unfounded allegation regarding the smuggling or profiting of gold".

But according to Sudanese officials, mining industry sources and Swissaid's research, nearly all of Sudan's gold flows to the UAE, via official trade routes, smuggling and direct Emirati ownership of the government's currently most lucrative mine.

In February, the state-owned Sudan Mineral Resources Company said gold production reached 64 tonnes in 2024, up from 41.8 tonnes in 2022.

Legal exports brought $1.57 billion into the state's depleted coffers, central bank figures show.

But "nearly half of the state's production is smuggled across borders," SMRC director Mohammed Taher told AFP from Port Sudan.

Nearly 2,000 kilometres away, on Sudan's borders with South Sudan and the Central African Republic, lie the mines controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Much of the gold produced by both sides is smuggled to Chad, South Sudan and Egypt, before reaching the UAE, according to mining industry sources and experts.

This month, Sudan filed a case with the International Court of Justice, accusing the UAE of complicity in genocide committed by the RSF in Darfur.

Abu Dhabi, which has repeatedly denied accusations of funnelling weapons to the RSF, has called the case a "publicity stunt" and said it would seek to have it thrown out.

But the UAE has also played a major role in the government's wartime gold rush, indirectly helping to fund its war effort.

According to Taher, 90 percent of the state's legal exports of gold go to the UAE, though the government is eyeing alternatives, including Qatar and Turkey.

In the heart of army territory, halfway between Port Sudan and Khartoum, Sudan's Kush mine is the centrepiece of the government's gold industry.

Evacuated when the war began, it is now back to producing hundreds of kilograms per month, according to an engineer at the Russian-built facility, owned by Dubai-based Emiral Resources.

On its website, Emiral lists Kush as one of its holdings, alongside subsidiary Alliance for Mining, which it says is "the largest industrial gold producer in Sudan".

According to a gold industry source, who spoke on condition of anonymity for his safety, in 2020 the mine "was bought by an Emirati investor who agreed to keep Russian management on".

According to data from Dubai's commodities exchange, the UAE became the world's second-largest gold exporter in 2023, overtaking Britain.

It is also the leading destination for smuggled African gold, according to Swissaid.

Abu Dhabi says it has adopted a "responsible gold sourcing policy", including a regulatory legal framework revised in January 2023, to develop a "well-regulated gold sector".

According to Ummel, "when you look at the figures, that's not the case."

"If this 'Due Diligence Regulations for Responsible Sourcing of Gold' was really implemented, all refineries in the UAE would have to do due diligence, the most basic element of which is to make sure your gold was declared in the country where it comes from," he said.

In 2023, data obtained by Swissaid showed UAE gold imports from Chad – on Sudan's western border – were more than double the country's estimated maximum capacity, suggesting the majority of it was undeclared and smuggled across borders.

Ummel says there is no indication the UAE's conflict-gold market has shrunk in recent years.

In the vast Darfur region, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo has controlled gold mines for years.

According to Sudan expert Alex de Waal, these enabled him to establish a "private transnational mercenary enterprise", mainly through his family's Al-Junaid Multi Activities Co – sanctioned by both the United States and the European Union.

A UN panel of experts last year concluded that Daglo's gold wealth, through a network of up to 50 companies, helped him buy weapons and bankroll his war effort.

Three former Al-Junaid engineers estimated the company's wartime earnings at a minimum of $1 billion per year, based on approximate production and gold prices.

Darfur's southern border area alone produces at least 150 kilograms of gold per month, one former engineer told AFP.

It is sent first to an airport in the South Sudanese town of Raga, "and then transported by plane to Uganda and Kenya, and then to the UAE", the engineer, who had taken the trip himself, said on condition of anonymity.

According to Ummel, "the UAE is not really implementing their regulation, they don't carry out all the necessary controls and at the end they are continuing to fund the war."

Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – For the second consecutive year, traditional Eid al-Fitr celebrations marking the end of Ramadan were absent in Gaza on Sunday, as residents of the Palestinian territory awoke to the roar of Israeli bombardment.

"Eid, which was once a day of family reunions and visits, has now become a day of farewells and funerals," said Nahla Abu Matar, a 28-year-old mother, speaking to AFP.

Like hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents, she has been displaced from her home in northern Gaza and is now living in the southern area of Khan Yunis.

"The mosques where we once prayed have been reduced to heaps of rubble, and the places where we used to gather are now strewn with ruins and bodies," she said.

Gaza’s rescue teams told AFP that eight people, including five children, were killed in a pre-dawn Israeli air strike in Khan Yunis on Sunday.

"Instead of waking up to the sound of takbirs (Eid prayers), we woke up to the roar of air strikes and explosions," Abu Matar said.

At dawn, many Gazans gathered across different parts of the territory to offer traditional morning Eid prayers, an AFP correspondent reported.

Some unrolled their prayer mats in the streets amid the rubble, while others prayed inside mosques -- including the once-majestic Omari Mosque, whose walls have now collapsed under the bombardments.

Many prayed beside makeshift tents sheltering tens of thousands of displaced Gazans, living in dire humanitarian conditions.

At the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, several residents visited the graves of loved ones killed in the war.

As they prayed, the sounds of artillery fire and the buzz of military drones filled the air.

Ezzedine Mousa, a resident of Gaza City, described an overwhelming sense of fear gripping the region.

"People are afraid to visit one another because a rocket could strike at any moment, claiming their lives," he said.

"Our children's eyes reflect their fear, but we do our best to keep them happy with whatever little we have."

Israel resumed its military campaign across Gaza on March 18 [...].

Since then, more than 900 people have been killed across Gaza, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-run territory.

"The world rejoices in Eid while our sons and daughters lie in morgues. How much longer will this tragedy continue?" said Mohamed al-Qadi, who lost his sister and nephew in Sunday's pre-dawn Israeli strike on Khan Yunis.

Medics and witnesses reported that Israeli air strikes continued in Khan Yunis and some other parts of Gaza throughout the day.

An air strike in the southern city of Rafah wounded two children, according to medics.

Bangkok (AFP) – Myanmar's junta has pressed ahead with its campaign of air strikes despite the country's devastating earthquake, with a rebel group telling AFP Sunday seven of its fighters were killed in an aerial attack soon after the tremors hit.

The Myanmar military has increasingly turned to air strikes as it struggles to gain the upper hand against a complex array of anti-coup fighters and ethnic minority armed groups in the civil war.

Friday's massive 7.7-magnitude earthquake, which has killed at least 1,700 people and destroyed thousands of homes and buildings, prompted some armed groups to suspend hostilities while the country deals with the crisis.

But fighters from the Danu People's Liberation Army, an ethnic minority armed group active in northern Shan state, said they were hit by an air strike soon after the quake struck.

Five military aircraft attacked their base in Naungcho township, killing seven fighters, one of their officers told AFP.

"Our soldiers tried to get into bunkers when they heard the sound of aircraft," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"But one big bomb hit one bunker where five female soldiers were killed on the spot."

There have been reports of other air strikes since the quake, but AFP has not been able to verify them.