Chloe’s Economist 美國和非洲的政治 Donald Trump appeared before a judge in Manhattan to plead not guilty to 34 charges of falsifying business records. They relate to payments he made before the 2016 election to a pornographic actress as hush money over an alleged fling. The charges were laid by a grand jury after the Manhattan district attorney revived the case. The violence from his supporters that some had feared ahead of Mr Trump’s appearance did not materialise. Mr Trump is the first former American president to be charged with a crime. He described the case against him as a “witch hunt”. Burkina Faso, which experienced two military coups last year, lurched further away from France and America, which have been helping it fight a jihadist insurgency. It expelled two French journalists, one of whom had investigated a video in which Burkinabè soldiers appear to have filmed themselves murdering teenage boys. Burkina Faso also said it wants to buy weapons from North Korea. 經濟 The euro zone’s annual rate of inflation slowed significantly in March, to 6.9% from 8.5% the previous month. However, core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices and which economists worry about most at the moment, hit a new high of 5.7%. 亞洲議題 The 11 countries in Asia and the Pacific that comprise the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership agreed to let Britain join the free-trade pact. The British government hailed this as a big post-Brexit win, but the gains to the British economy will be small, if not negligible. Najib Razak, a former prime minister of Malaysia, lost his final appeal against a corruption verdict for which he has been sentenced to 12 years in prison. Meanwhile, the Malaysian Parliament voted to scrap mandatory death sentences, giving leeway to judges to impose other punishments, such as whipping. A moratorium on executions has been in place since 2018. 石油+能源 Oil prices rose sharply after OPEC+ announced a surprise cut to production. The cartel said it wanted to support stability in the market, which is another way of saying it didn’t like the dip in oil prices in mid-March. It also wanted to deter speculators who have been betting on softer oil prices. OPEC+ is lowering output by a further 1.15m barrels per day, taking its reduction in supply to 3.66m bpd, or 3.7% of global demand. ️Virgin Orbit filed for bankruptcy protection in America. The satellite-launch firm, backed by Sir Richard Branson, went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange in 2021 by merging with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC). But its business of offering cheap, small-scale launch services to the rapidly growing space industry couldn’t capture a significant slice of an increasingly competitive market. Teck Resources, a Canadian mining company, rejected an unsolicited takeover bid from Glencore, which wants to spin off their combined coal businesses. Mining coal is still profitable, despite the turn to renewable energy. Teck also owns several copper mines, an attractive asset at a time when miners can’t get enough of the metal, which is prized because of its extensive use in building new energy infrastructure for electric cars, solar, wind and the like. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

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