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
Lionel Messi announced that he and his wife Antonella Roccuzzo had become parents for a third time on Saturday. “Welcome Ciro!!! Thank God, everything went perfectly. He and his mummy are doing very well. We are super happy!!!” wrote Messi on his Instagram account, accompanying the post with a photo of the baby’s hand. Ciro is a brother to five-year-old Thiago and Mateo, who is two. Messi had pulled out of Barcelona’s squad for Saturday’s La Liga match at Malaga to be present for the birth. The club tweeted: “Change to the squad. Messi is out for personal reasons and Yerry Mina takes his place.” The Argentinian couple, both 30, first met in their home town, Rosario, in 1996 and started going out a decade later. They were married last year in Rosario. Barcelona, who face Chelsea in the second leg of their last-16 Champions League tie at the Camp Nou on Wednesday, have an eight-point lead over Atletico Madrid at the top of La Liga.