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 German court has kept former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont in custody pending possible extradition to Spain to face "rebellion" charges, as fresh demonstrations blocked several main roads in the Spanish region on Tuesday. Puigdemont will "remain in detention for the time being, until a decision is made concerning the extradition procedure," the regional court in Kiel, northern Germany, announced Monday, a day after Puigdemont was arrested. The ex-leader's detention in Germany has sparked angry protests in Catalonia and demonstrators blocked several major roads in the region on Tuesday, including briefly the two main access roads into Barcelona. Puigdemont's arrest comes five months after he went on the run as Spanish prosecutors sought to charge him with sedition and rebellion in the wake of Catalonia's failed independence bid in October last year. He was detained on Sunday after crossing the border into Germany from Denmark, u...