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...
Residents of a southern Philippine city where Islamic State supporters waged a brutal five-month battle began returning home on Tuesday, but gunfire greeted them as soldiers scoured devastated neighbourhoods for remaining militants. Defence chiefs announced on Monday that the fighting, which claimed more than 1,100 lives and left the eastern half of Marawi in ruins, had ended following a final clash in a mosque in which dozens of gunmen were killed. The militants had occupied Marawi, the Islamic capital of the mainly Catholic Philippines, on May 23 in what President Rodrigo Duterte and security analysts said was a bid to establish a Southeast Asian base for IS. The campaign to oust them turned into the Philippines’ longest urban war, forcing about 400,000 people to flee their homes as the militants defied near daily bombing raids by hiding in basements, tunnels and mosques. “We are afraid but we want to check on our houses,” Jamaliah Lomontong, a village official...