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The two-hour marathon is done – but other records remain to be broken

Bad news for anyone who secretly fancies themselves every time they lace up their trainers: the two-hour marathon record has gone. Sabastian Sawe’s astonishing effort at the London marathon on Sunday – cruising across the finish line in the Mall in 1hr 59m 30s like a man who has just jogged a parkrun – shattered a record long seen as beyond human capability. “They said it couldn’t be done!” roared BBC commentator Steve Cram. And then, 11 seconds later, Yomif Kejelcha did it too – and he’d never even run a marathon before. Even Jacob Kiplimo in third came close to breaking one of the most talismanic athletic barriers in history, beating the previous world record but missing the “sub two” by 28 seconds. The men’s two-hour marathon in race conditions has been comprehensively done. Find yourself a new challenge. Happily, humans are not yet all-powerful and a few records and firsts – athletic and otherwise – remain to be achieved. Here are a few to inspire your next sponsored challenge. The first Pacific swim Yes, some people see this as an achieveable goal, and one person has even tried it, if one adopts an elastic definition that allows for taking the world’s biggest ocean in stages. French swimmer Benoît Lecomte set off from Choshi in Japan in 2018 with a plan to swim 40 nautical miles (64km) a day until he hit San Francisco, resting at night on his support boat. However, he was forced to give up after a mere 1,500 miles when the boat suffered irreparable damage. Lecomte already claims a world first on swimming the Atlantic, after he crossed from Massachusetts to Brittany in northern France in 1998 (with a week off in the Azores halfway through). Guinness World Records does not recognise the attempt, however, due to uncertainty over the distance he swam. The first circumnavigation of Great Britain, on the other hand, has officially happened. (“It was brutal,” said 33-year-old Ross Edgley on finally coming ashore in Margate in 2018.) The 9-metre long jump Another near miss, American Mike Powell’s world record long jump of 8.95 metres in 1991 has never been surpassed (though he jumped a wind-assisted 8.99 metres the following year at altitude). His 35-year record is not the longest to stand in athletics, however. Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 100m in 10.49 seconds and 200m in 21.34 seconds, both set in 1988, are unsurpassed, as are the women’s 400m and 800m records, set in 1985 and 1983 by athletes from the former German Democratic Republic and Czechoslovakia respectively. Even Jonathan Edwards’s 18.29-metre triple jump has stood for more than 30 years (it was set in 1995), which he believes is because athletics has “not kept pace with the professionalism of sport”. The 30-minute breath hold Croat Vitomir Maričić got to 29 minutes and 3 seconds in 2025, but the big 30, as probably no one calls it, has never been achieved. Croatia, indeed, appears to be a centre of excellence for the sport, the record was held by his countryman Budimir Šobat, whose time of 24 minutes and 37.36 seconds, was, noted Guinness World Records, longer than an episode of the Simpsons. Perhaps encouragingly for late starters, Šobat did not take up freediving until the age of 48, and said his age helped him stay calm at critical moments. “Of course, you have to be a little bit mad,” he added. The first ascent of Gangkhar Puensum At 7,570 metres (24,836 ft), Gangkhar Puensum is actually a tiddler – only the 40th highest mountain on Earth and more than a kilometre shorter than Everest. However, the highest mountain in Bhutan is also the highest unclimbed peak on earth, a status that would ordinarily send mountaineers clamouring for their crampons. There were a number of unsuccessful attempts in the 1980s, but for now at least, we can be confident the mountain whose name means “White Peak of the Three Spiritual Brothers” will remain unconquered. In 1994, Bhutan banned the climbing of all peaks over 6,000m, citing respect for local spiritual beliefs.

US is being ‘humiliated’ by Iran’s leadership, says Friedrich Merz

The US is being “humiliated” by Iran’s leadership, according to Friedrich Merz, Germany’s chancellor, who suggested the Trump administration was being outwitted at the negotiating table by Tehran. Two days ago Donald Trump cancelled a trip by US negotiators to Islamabad for indirect talks with an Iranian delegation. A previous round in the Pakistani capital two weeks earlier, when JD Vance, the American vice-president, led the US delegation, broke up without progress. Merz’s trenchant assessment of the stalled US-Iranian talks, which appeared certain to deepen the severe transatlantic rift between the US and its Nato allies, directly contradicts Trump’s effort to cast the limbo in a positive light. A day earlier, the US president told Fox News: “We have all the cards,” adding that if Tehran wanted to talk, “they can come to us, or they can call us”. Speaking to students in Marsberg, Merz suggested it was Trump’s team that was being outplayed. “The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skilful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result,” he said. “An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so I hope that this ends as quickly as possible.” Iran put forward a new proposal on Monday for a ceasefire deal focused on opening the strait of Hormuz, setting aside discussions on nuclear weapons, missiles, sanctions and other issues for later, according to officials in the region. Under a bill being prepared by Iran’s parliament, shippers would have to pay Tehran for “services” involved in passing through the strait, which was free before the war. The proposal, conveyed to Washington by Pakistani mediators, would help to resolve a global economic and energy crisis created by the US-Israeli attack on Iran in February, but it would achieve none of Washington’s professed war aims, which included a permanent end to Iran’s nuclear programme. The UN’s International Maritime Organization firmly rejected the idea of imposing fees on ships passing through the strait of Hormuz. Arsenio Dominguez, the IMO’s secretary general, said: “There’s no legal basis for the introduction of any tax, any customs, or any fees on straits for international navigation.” The “Hormuz first” offer from Iran does, however, suggest a significant shift in Tehran’s position. The regime had previously sought to use its blockade on oil, gas and other Gulf exports as leverage to win broad security guarantees. But after the breakdown of the Islamabad talks, Trump imposed a counter-blockade of shipping using Iranian ports, exacerbating Iran’s deep economic crisis. The International Monetary Fund has forecast a 6.1% contraction in Iran’s gross domestic product this year, while year-on-year inflation is running at nearly 70%, with prices for food staples and healthcare rising at even higher rates. The blockade has also stopped Iran’s empty tankers returning to port, where they could serve as storage facilities. Iran is running very low on ways to store its output, and winding down production would have long-term damaging effects to its energy sector. Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, met Vladimir Putin and a high-powered Russian delegation in Moscow on Monday, seeking in part to mitigate the crippling effects of the blockade. According to official media, Putin pledged that Russia “will do everything that serves [Iranian] interests, the interests of all the people of the region, so that peace can be achieved as soon as possible”. Araghchi said “the world has now realised Iran’s true power”, adding: “It has become clear that the Islamic republic of Iran is a stable, solid and powerful system.” Nikita Smagin, an analyst of Russian-Iranian relations, said the talks focused on Russian military and economic support, including transit routes for Iranian trade. “If the US blockade continues, then the Caspian Sea and the land link with Russia will become one of the few remaining routes for connecting Iran with world markets,” Smagin wrote in a commentary on the Telegram messaging platform. Israel attacked the Caspian route in March with the bombing of Bandar Anzali, an Iranian port. But even before the Israeli strike, it fell far short of becoming a substitute for the Hormuz strait, the gateway to more than 90% of Iran’s prewar trade. Ali Vaez, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group, said Trump and his team had misjudged how much the economic squeeze would force Tehran into concessions on its nuclear programme. “Undeniably, the blockade is basically sharpening the economic pain that Iran was under even before the war started,” Vaez said. “But Iranian resilience is not a question of economic pain because Iran is in an existential battle and is willing to absorb a much higher price than it has so far. And the Iranian regime doesn’t hesitate to transfer this pain to its population.” He said Trump was more politically sensitive on a number of fronts: the political cost of high petrol prices and general inflation at home, the president’s desire to resolve the crisis before meeting Xi Jinping in Beijing in mid-May and the fear that a global shortage of jet fuel could ruin the World Cup, due to be held in North America in June and July. If Trump accepted Iran’s offer of a deal to reopen the strait of Hormuz, he could conceivably declare victory by pointing to the damage that the US and Israeli bombing had inflicted on Iran’s nuclear programme and military capabilities. However, such a deal would leave Iran with its stockpile of 440kg of highly enriched uranium, enough in theory for a dozen nuclear warheads. Ariane Tabatabai, the vice-president of research, security and defence at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, said Iran could also reconstitute at least some of its military might quite rapidly. “Their whole military doctrine is based on building and deploying capabilities that they can acquire and maintain and use on the cheap,” said Tabatabai, a former Pentagon policy adviser. Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu raised the prospect of fresh Israeli military action in Lebanon, saying rockets and drones possessed by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, remained a threat. “There are still two central threats from Hezbollah: the 122mm rockets and the drones,” said the Israeli prime minister in a statement issued by his office. “This demands a combination of operational and technological activity.”

Bomb blast on Colombia highway leaves 21 dead amid pre-election violence

The death toll in a Colombian highway bombing blamed on cocaine-trafficking rebels has risen to 21, the government said on Monday, in the country’s worst attack on civilians in decades and just ahead of elections. The attack on Saturday left 56 injured and buses and vans mangled on the Pan-American Highway, in the restive south-western Cauca department. The governor, Octavio Guzmán, described the bombing as the area’s “most brutal and ruthless attack against the civilian population in decades”, adding that it left a crater 200 cubic metres in size. Several cars were flipped over by the force of the explosion. Of the injured, three people remained in intensive care. Five children were also injured but were “out of danger”. The military chief, Hugo López, told a news conference on Saturday that the bomb had exploded after assailants stopped traffic by blocking the road with a bus and another vehicle. “It is a terrorist attack against the civilian population,” López said. The attack occurred just over a month before national elections, in which voters will pick a successor to the leftist president, Gustavo Petro. “Those who carried out this attack … are terrorists, fascists and drug traffickers,” Petro said on X. “I want our very best soldiers to confront them.” Petro blamed the bombing on Iván Mordisco, the alias used by the South American country’s most-wanted criminal, whom the president has compared to the late cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. Mordisco is the leader of a dissident faction of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) that operates in the region. A bomb attack on Friday on a military base in Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, injured two people and set off a string of attacks in the Valle del Cauca and Cauca departments. According to López, 26 attacks have been recorded in the two departments over the past two days. Authorities have boosted military and police presence in the areas, the defence minister, Pedro Sánchez, said Saturday. Colombia has a history of armed groups – which finance their operations through drug trafficking, illegal mining and extortion – attempting to influence elections through violence. Farc remnants who rejected a 2016 peace deal with the government have been actively trying to disrupt stalled peace talks with Petro. Security is one of the central issues of the 31 May presidential elections. Political violence was brought into sharp focus last June, when the young, conservative, presidential frontrunner Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot in broad daylight while campaigning in the capital, Bogotá. He died two months later of his injuries. A leftist senator, Iván Cepeda, an architect of Petro’s controversial policy of negotiating with armed groups, is ahead in the polls. He is trailed by the rightwing candidates Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia, both of whom have pledged to take a hard line against rebel groups. All three have reported receiving death threats and are campaigning under heavy security.

Pro-Palestine activists appear in court over attack on Israeli arms factory in Germany

Five pro-Palestinian activists have appeared in court over an attack on an Israeli arms company in Germany, charged with causing approximately €1m of damage. Prosecutors say the defendants, aged 25 to 40, trespassed and yelled pro-Palestinian statements as they destroyed office equipment, sensitive measuring devices and smashed windows at a site linked to Elbit Systems in the southern city of Ulm. The activists published videos online in which they claimed responsibility for the attack, which they said was aimed at drawing attention to Germany’s support for Israel and its military actions in Gaza. The trial opening on Monday was described as chaotic by those present. The defence lawyers left the courtroom after being refused permission to sit with the defendants, who were separated from the public gallery by a wall of thick security glass. After a two-hour adjournment at Stuttgart’s regional court, the lawyers took their seats in the defendants’ chairs and refused the judge’s order to move to their own seats. The hearing was subsequently adjourned, and is expected to resume in a week’s time. In a statement sent out after the adjournment, the defendants’ lawyers said they had filed a motion for recusal against the presiding judge, accusing the court of “an unacceptable violation of the defendants’ right to a fair trial”. The Berlin-based activists, who are British, Irish, German and Spanish citizens, have been held in pre-trial detention in separate prisons since 8 September, when they are alleged to have mounted the attack and called the police. The group, known as the Ulm 5, have been charged with trespass, destruction of property and membership of a criminal organisation – Palestine Action Germany – under section 129 of the German criminal code. The section 129 charge means authorities consider the accused a threat to society, allowing them to deny bail. Families of the defendants say they have been locked up for up to 23 hours a day and had access to visits, books, phone calls and mail restricted. If found guilty, they face up to five years in prison. Speaking on behalf of all the defendants ahead of the trial, Benjamin Düsberg, a lawyer for Daniel Tatlow-Devally, 32, from Dublin, said he believed the German state was trying to make an example of the five, none of whom has a previous conviction. The attack on the weapons factory was an action in “defence of others” in trying to obstruct the movement of arms to Israel, he said. Düsberg, one of eight defence lawyers, said: “We intend to use the proceedings to essentially turn the tables. We want to show that it’s not our clients who should be on the hook, but rather the Elbit bosses, who continued delivering weapons even during the genocide.” Elbit Systems is the most important land-based weapons supplier to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It has been approached for comment on the trial. Referring to section 32 of the German criminal code, Düsberg said: “Our central argument will be that the actions of our clients there – namely the destruction of laboratory equipment and office equipment – were justified under the grounds of emergency assistance.” Under this clause, an otherwise unlawful act can be justified if there is no other way to avert imminent harm or attack, he said. Germany is the second biggest supplier of arms to Israel, after the US. The defence team will argue that as soon as the international court of justice ruled in 2024 that the claim of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza was “plausible”, Berlin should have stopped all deliveries. Israel rejected the ICJ accusation as “outrageous and false”. Mimi Tatlow-Golden, the mother of Tatlow-Devally, a philosophy graduate, said she feared the case had a political dimension and the five would “face a show trial” as the German state sought to send a message about the potential penalties of such actions. She said: “The friends carried out only property damage, at a specific location and with the aim to end a genocide. They did not hide their identities and presented themselves for arrest. They represent no harm to the public. Using section 129 to keep them in detention … before the trial can, in my view, only be viewed as serving a political purpose.” Matthias Schuster, another of the defence lawyers, said: “Our clients are not dangerous but [authorities] believe they should be seen as such to justify the strict custody conditions in which they have been held.” Nicky Robertson, the mother of Zo Hailu, 25, who is being held in a prison in Bühl, Baden-Württemberg, said the “extreme treatment” the group had received felt “like a disproportionate response for property damage”. Hailu, a British citizen, was strip-searched on arriving at the prison and forced to wear an adult nappy, Robertson said. “These are people who love the environment and children, who are caring, creative, sporty, decent team players. They’re not a danger to society. Quite the opposite,” she added. Rosie Tricks, whose 25-year-old sibling, Crow Tricks, another British citizen, is being held at the maximum-security Stuttgart-Stammheim prison, said visits had been restricted to two hours a month. “It’s lovely to see them, but knowing Crow as a sociable, bubbly, fun person, the light of our family, it’s really hard to see them in this position,” said Rosie of Crow. “Their health has definitely suffered. They look OK but inside there’s a lot of anxiety and worry.” The other defendants are Vi Kovarbasic, a 29-year-old German, and Leandra Rollo, a 40-year-old Spanish citizen from Argentina. The five have continued to be denied bail, even after the six-month limit of pre-trial detention passed. A spokesperson for the Stuttgart-Stammheim court said: “The code of criminal procedure allows, under certain conditions, for the extension of pre-trial detention.” In a special detention review last month, Stuttgart’s higher regional court “examined these conditions … and ordered the continuation of pre-trial detention for all defendants”, basing its decision “on the existence of a risk of flight, which would not be sufficiently mitigated even by the posting of bail”. The trial is expected to run until the end of July.

EU faces ‘China shock’ as EV imports drive Beijing’s record surplus with bloc

The EU is experiencing a prolonged “China shock” as a flood of Chinese EVs into Europe helped push Beijing to a record surplus with the bloc. New data showed China’s trade surplus – where its exports to the EU exceeded imports from the bloc – was $83bn (£61bn) in the first three months of 2026. China sold goods worth about $148bn to the EU in the first quarter, but imported just $65bn from the bloc, according to analysis of 2026 customs data by Mercator Institute for China Studies (Merics). The surplus for the whole of 2025 stood at €360bn. The record was driven in part by Europeans’ apparent unstoppable appetite for Chinese cars, including BYD which has declared it wants to become the world’s biggest automaker. Sales of Chinese electric and hybrid cars almost doubled from $11bn (£8.1bn) in the first three months of 2025 to $20.6bn for the same period this year. This accounted for a third of the value of all Chinese EV exports. When the UK, Norway and Switzerland are included, Europe accounts for 42% of Chinese sales of EVs, which have seen a 50% surge in March in the wake of the Iran war. Merics, which crunched the numbers along with Chinese trade site Soapbox, said China’s economy had so far shown resilience in the face of the Iran war with the “largest quarterly growth figures … since 2022”. Soapbox figures released last week showed that exports from the EU to China fell 16.2% in February, with pork shipments notably in decline. Although China imports a lot of its oil from the Gulf – where traffic through the crucial strait of Hormuz has ground to a near standstill – it has been less impacted than other Asian countries and has been able to tap into substantial reserves. “So far, China’s trade with the world has been barely affected by the conflict in the Middle East,” Merics said. In February, the thinktank Bruegel said the EU was “experiencing a severe and accelerating ‘China shock’” with Xi Jinping’s new five-year plan showing no signs of change in export policy in Beijing. The bloc has proposed a “Made in Europe” industrial strategy in an attempt to protect “strategic sectors” of European industry. China has warned the EU it will retaliate with “countermeasures” if the new laws discriminate unfairly against Chinese exports to the bloc. Its ministry of commerce said the EU Industrial Accelerator Act would result in discrimination that “runs counter to basic market economy principles such as commercial voluntariness and fair competition”. The UK has also complained it discriminates against British car exports. A spokesperson for the European Commission said the proposed legislation complied with World Trade Organization rules and China benefited from access to “one of the most open markets in the world” and it expected the “openness to be mutual”. The commission’s deputy chief spokesperson, Olof Gill, said policy proposals “are carefully calibrated to achieve certain economic and wider goals for our citizens, for our businesses” and it was “happy to engage” with China on any issue. Over the last three years the EU has deployed a “good cop, bad cop strategy” with Beijing, with EU leaders courting investment but at the same time arguing for a rebalancing or “derisking” of the trade relationship. In February, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said the yawning trade gap was “not healthy” and he wanted to reduce the trade deficit that had “quadrupled” in five years. Brussels has tried to dampen imports of Chinese cars, imposing tariffs of up to 35% on some brands in 2024. It has also introduced initiatives to help EU companies reduce reliance on rare earths such as permanent magnets, used in everything from car window locking systems to fridge and washing machine doors. The new customs data showed that China still accounts for 93% of permanent magnets with import volumes increasing 18% year on year. There are no rare earth mines in Europe but there are high hopes that LKAB, a state-owned iron ore mine in the Swedish Arctic, could be close to making extraction and processing viable. Industry leaders have noted how ineffective the EU’s trade measures can be, with the boss of Europe’s first plant producing lithium hydroxide, a key ingredient in car batteries, warning that the EU may as well “be a province of China” due to its reliance on their imports.

Odesa bears brunt of latest Russian attacks on Ukraine – as it happened

… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today! French president and Andorra’s co-prince Emmanuel Macron is expected to arrive in the microstate and intervene in a tricky abortion debate, endorsing the government’s plans to reform the existing draconian laws, according to Élysée Palace’s briefing to the French media (16:01). The European Commission and the incoming Hungarian government are expected to hold further talks about unfreezing billions of euros in EU funds this week, amid preparations for Péter Magyar to take office in early May after his election win over Viktor Orbán earlier this month (15:17). At least 14 people were injured in overnight Russian attacks on Ukraine, with the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressing the need to keep investing in the air defence systems (12:30). Lithuania has charged 13 people with two attempted murders linked to Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, the chief of the Baltic country’s criminal police said (9:47, 14:16). And since most news are a bit grim these days, here is something to clean your palate and give you some hope: A Polish social media influencer has raised more than £50m after a nine-day, non-stop online stream during which he was joined by a parade of celebrity guests to help a charity supporting children battling cancer (12:46). If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Mali’s militant attacks expose limits of Putin’s power in Africa

When Assimi Goïta, the leader of Mali’s military junta, sat down with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in the Kremlin last summer, it symbolised Moscow’s commanding sway over Mali at the expense of the west. As the two men spoke, roughly 3,500 miles to the south, about 2,000 Russian troops were propping up the regime in the landlocked desert country, as part of Moscow’s broader push for influence across the Sahel region. But in the last few days, a wave of coordinated, surprise attacks by jihadist militants and a separatist group has exposed the limits of Moscow’s reach and military might in the impoverished west African state. Over the weekend, rebel fighters launched one of their most effective assaults in years against the Russian-backed authorities. Fighting continued into Monday, with the full picture still unclear. The rebels have so far achieved at least one major victory. Russia’s Africa Corps, the successor to the Wagner group, said on Monday it had pulled out of Kidal, a strategically important northern town. “This crisis is definitely affecting the credibility of Russia’s interventions in the region,” said Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim of the International Crisis Group thinktank. Mali’s eastern neighbours, Burkina Faso and Niger, expelled French and American forces following coups in 2022 and 2023 respectively. They, too, turned to Moscow, with the three countries forming a Russian-backed bloc across the heart of the Sahel. But it is in Mali that Russia’s presence runs deepest. “Questions will be raised now over whether the Russians can provide the kind of solution that African nations facing insurgencies are looking for,” Ibrahim said. The Africa Corps has acknowledged some casualties in the fighting, saying it had evacuated its wounded and heavy equipment. Military bloggers close to the defence ministry, meanwhile, said a Russian helicopter had been shot down near the city of Gao, killing those onboard. The losses also extend to the highest levels of the Malian government. The junta confirmed late on Sunday that Sadio Camara, Mali’s defence minister and a key architect of the partnership with Russia, died of wounds sustained in a suicide attack on his residence. When Mali’s military seized power in 2021, Camara was the driving force behind the country’s quick shift in alliances, Ibrahim said. The junta expelled France – which had maintained troops in the country since its 2013 intervention against Tuareg and Islamist militants – and turned to Russia as its primary political and military backer. Since then, Moscow has sought to replicate in Mali a model it has used elsewhere in Africa, offering security support and political backing in return for access to plentiful resources. The junta initially turned to the Wagner Group, the notorious paramilitary network backed by Russia and led by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin. Around 1,000 mercenaries arrived in late 2021 and helped secure a series of battlefield gains. In November 2023, Wagner-backed Malian forces retook Kidal, a Tuareg stronghold that had been in rebel hands for more than a decade. But Wagner’s fortunes shifted after Prigozhin’s failed march on Moscow and his murky death in a plane crash two months later, as the Kremlin moved to bring his mercenary empire to heel. Wagner was wound down, and its fighters in Mali were absorbed into the Africa Corps, a new structure under the direct command of Russia’s defence ministry. The restructured Russian force has struggled to match Wagner’s military effectiveness and political reach, analysts and former members say, with its most capable forces either fighting in Ukraine or killed there. The Africa Corps first ran into serious trouble in the summer of 2024, when up to 50 Russian soldiers were ambushed and killed by rebels in Mali – thought to be the deadliest single incident for Russia on the continent. “Africa Corps is nowhere near as good at its work as its predecessor,” said Marat Gabidullin, a former Wagner commander who remains in contact with members of the new formation. “Morale is low, commanders are often not qualified, and the soldiers are poorly trained.” The loss of Kidal now marks a sharp reversal of Russia’s fortunes in Mali. Ibrahim said: “Losing Kidal after first recapturing it is a major symbolic setback for the Russians.” But, he added, without Russian backing the junta’s losses would likely have been far heavier. “It would have been much more catastrophic for the military regime if the Russians were not stationed in the big cities,” he said. Moscow has so far struck a cautious tone. The foreign ministry issued a brief statement condemning the attacks but offered little detail on Russia’s role in the fighting. But state media and pro-Kremlin Telegram channels were quick to emphasise Moscow’s involvement, crediting Russian forces with helping to hold the rebels at bay. The Russian newspaper Kommersant wrote: “Largely thanks to the fighters of the Russian armed forces’ Africa Corps stationed in Mali, most of the attacks were repelled.”

China blocks $2bn Meta takeover of AI agent developer Manus

China has blocked Meta’s $2bn (£1.5bn) acquisition of an AI startup as it cracks down on US investments in domestic tech companies. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced the acquisition of Manus, a developer of autonomous AI agents, in December. However, the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said on Monday it had cancelled the takeover. In a statement, China’s top economic planning body said that it will “prohibit the foreign investment in the acquisition of the Manus project” and “requires the parties involved to withdraw the acquisition transaction”. Bloomberg reported last week that Chinese regulators are planning to block tech firms, including leading AI startups, from accepting US investment without government approval. Several private firms have reportedly been warned in recent weeks that they should reject US funding unless it receives explicit approval from Beijing, in a policy move triggered by the Manus deal. Manus, which launched in Beijing but is now based in Singapore, described the deal as “validation of our pioneering work with general AI agents”. AI agents are designed to carry out multiple tasks – such as planning holidays, handling customer queries or drafting research presentations – without human intervention and are important products for tech executives touting the labour-saving possibilities of the technology. Meta, which is pouring billions of dollars into its AI drive, said when it announced the deal it would bring a “leading agent to billions of people and unlock opportunities for businesses across our products”. Asked to comment on the NDRC move, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said: “The transaction complied fully with applicable law. We anticipate an appropriate resolution to the inquiry.” China and the US are the leading AI superpowers, with all of the top 20 best-performing models produced by a developer from one of those countries. The US president, Donald Trump, claimed in January that “we’re leading China by a tremendous amount” in what the White House has billed as a straight race between Beijing and Washington for AI dominance. The sudden move comes weeks before a planned mid-May summit between the US president, Donald Trump, and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Beijing. China rarely orders corporate deals to be unwound after completion, in a sign of heightened regulatory scrutiny amid US-China tech competition. China’s request to unwind the Manus deal is the latest high-profile case of it blocking a cross-border transaction. Last year, China criticised billionaire businessman Li Ka-shing’s CK Hutchison for agreeing a $23bn sale of dozens of ports worldwide to a consortium led by US asset manager BlackRock. The deal was welcomed by Trump. Manus was hailed early last year by state media and commentators as China’s next DeepSeek – one of the country’s leading AI startups – after releasing what it said was the world’s first general AI agent. Manus does not produce its own AI model, but an agent framework that operates on top of existing western large-language models.