Global stocks sank Wednesday after US President Donald Trump said he was not satisfied with talks that are aimed at averting a trade war with China. Equities were also dented by poor eurozone economic data, and as Trump cast doubt on a planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “Trump (is) continuing to drive uncertainty over global trade,” said analyst Joshua Mahony at trading firm IG. “European markets are following their Asian counterparts lower, as a pessimistic tone from Trump is compounded by downbeat economic data,” he added. Markets had surged Monday after US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said they had agreed to pull back from imposing threatened tariffs on billions of dollars of goods, and continue talks on a variety of trade issues. However, Trump has declared that he was “not satisfied” with the status of the talks, fuelling worries that the world’s top two economies could still slug out an economically pain
A former Ivorian minister was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday for complicity in a 2012 attack in western Ivory Coast that killed 18 people, including seven UN peacekeepers.
Hubert Oulaye, 64, ex-public works minister under former president Laurent Gbagbo, “provided the financial means to establish a rebellion in the west” of the country, the attorney general said.
“The accomplice is sometimes more dangerous than the perpetrator,” she added.
Oulaye dismissed the verdict as a “political conviction” and returned home while his lawyers vowed to appeal the decision.
The attack happened as Ivory Coast was reeling from violence caused when Gbagbo refused to step down after losing presidential polls to current leader Alassane Ouattara.
Gbagbo is currently on trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for alleged crimes against humanity committed during the crisis, in which 3,000 people were killed.
Oulaye’s lawyer Rodrigue Dadje called the verdict “a political decision” and warned it would create a dangerous and vindictive precedent.
“We are going to be in an unending cycle of vengeance. We need justice that is equitable and transparent, not one that hand down 20 year sentences without any proof,” he said.
Oulaye was arrested six months after his return from exile in Ghana, and several days after participating in a meeting of the “rebels” of Gbagbo’s party, the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI).
The “rebels” consider themselves the guardians of the Gbagbo legacy and boycott all polls.
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