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The world in brief

Catch up quickly on the global stories that matter

Articles updated less than 1 hour ago.

Audio recorded 6 hours ago

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Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, announced a three-day ceasefire in Ukraine from May 8th to
coincide with the anniversary of the end of the second world war in Europe. During the period Mr
Putin is expected to host foreign leaders—including China’s president, Xi Jinping—for
commemoration events. Ukraine’s foreign minister said the proposal showed Russia did not want
peace and called for an immediate 30-day ceasefire.

Millions of people in Spain and Portugal were without electricity after a huge power cut. Power is
now being restored to several regions. Portugal’s electricity operator said extreme variations in
temperature in Spain contributed to the outage, while the European Commission ruled out a cyber
attack as the cause. Airports, metro systems and some online-banking services were shut down by
the power cut.

Voting began in Canada’s election. Donald Trump urged Canadians to choose him as their leader and
get rid of the “artificially drawn line” between the two countries. The American president’s
threats have inspired a surge in patriotism in Canada: our forecast model suggests the leader of the
Liberals, Mark Carney, who wants to stand up to Mr Trump, is overwhelmingly likely to win.

IBM announced plans to invest $150bn in America over the next five years, including more than
$30bn for research into developing quantum computers. The computing firm’s announcement—
which follows similar pledges by Apple and Nvidia, two tech giants—is probably aimed at currying
favour with Donald Trump. On April 23rd IBM said it had lost 15 government contracts amid Mr
Trump’s efficiency drive.

America said it was urging India and Pakistan to find a “responsible solution” as tensions rise
between the nuclear-armed neighbours. On April 22nd an attack by Islamist militants killed 26
tourists in Indian administered Kashmir, a region that both countries claim. India accused Pakistan of
involvement, which it denies. Pakistan called for a neutral probe.

Mediobanca made a €6.3bn ($7.2bn) offer for another Italian bank, Banca Generali, saying the deal
would create a “European market leader”. The former is trying to thwart the efforts of Monte dei
Paschi di Siena, the world’s oldest bank and one of Italy’s largest, to take it over. MPS made a
€13.3bn bid for Mediobanca in January.

Nepal said it would only allow experienced climbers up Mount Everest to reduce overcrowding on
the world’s tallest summit. It plans to restrict permits to those who have climbed at least one
mountain taller than 7,000 metres in the country. Nepal has been accused of admitting too many
novice climbers, leading to queues on Everest and causing several deaths in recent years.
Figure of the day: 5,000, the number of Africans living in Scotland in 2001. The figure had increased
more than 11-fold by 2022. Read the full story.

We update The world in brief on our app and website as news happens. Check back throughout the
day for our latest analysis.

Donald Trump’s first 100 days back in the White House have brought exceptional changes to
American politics—with consequences for the rest of the world, too. Read The US in brief, a daily
update of the domestic political stories that matter.

Photograph: Getty Images

Canada votes in the shadow of Trump

On Monday Canadians will vote in a national election. Donald Trump’s return to the White House has
transformed the campaign. He has bullied Canada with tariffs and threatened to turn it into
America’s 51st state. Mr Trump’s bluster has inverted the standing of Canada’s two main parties over
the five-week campaign. The governing Liberal Party, led by Mark Carney, has overtaken Pierre
Poilievre’s Conservatives in opinion polls.

Mr Carney, a former central-bank governor, has vowed to stand up to Mr Trump. He wants to

diversify Canada’s trading ties so that it can better cope with Mr Trump’s tariff wall. Mr Poilievre has
focused on the cost of living and crime. Our forecast model suggests that the Liberals are
overwhelmingly likely to win, despite a narrow lead in the polls; Conservative voters are
concentrated inefficiently in western strongholds. Anxiety over Mr Trump’s threats has also caused
those who normally vote for the left-leaning New Democratic Party to switch to the Liberals.
Photograph: AFP

A testing week for the “Magnificent Seven”

After propelling the stockmarket to dizzying heights in 2024, America’s tech giants have faltered. First
DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial-intelligence model, undermined their claims to AI dominance. Then
Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs threatened the international supply chains on which they depend.
An equal-weighted average of the share prices of the “Magnificent Seven”—Alphabet, Amazon,
Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla—is down by 25% since December.

This week presents another hurdle. Meta and Microsoft report results on Wednesday, followed by
Amazon and Apple on Thursday. The global economy’s worsening outlook has focused attention on
each company’s unique risks, such as Apple’s reliance on Chinese manufacturing—a bête noire of Mr
Trump. The Magnificent Seven’s profit growth is slowing, too. For firms which owe their sky-high
valuations to expectations of big future earnings, that is a worry. So too is it for investors in American
stocks: the Magnificent Seven make up more than a quarter of the S&P 500’s market value.
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Photograph: EPA
The next phase in the Ukraine peace talks

The meeting on Saturday between Presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, feet away from
the coffin of Pope Francis in St Peter’s Basilica, raised hopes that a ceasefire deal between Ukraine
and Russia could be near. Afterwards Mr Trump criticised Russia for recent missile attacks on Ukraine.
The next truce talks are expected to be direct negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian officials.

Whether the talks will go anywhere is another matter. Many view the “deal” Mr Trump reportedly
favours as a betrayal of Ukraine. It formally recognises Russia’s claim to Crimea, gives de facto
recognition of its right to the other Ukrainian territories it occupies and rules out Ukraine ever
joining NATO. Meanwhile Ukraine insists there must be no restrictions on the size of its armed forces
and that there should be a European peacekeeping force, backed by America, deployed on its
territory—conditions that Russia rejects. America and Ukraine will both hope to avoid the blame if
negotiations collapse.

Photograph: AP
Beyoncé goes on the road

A host of big-name artists are going on tour in the coming months. But Beyoncé, whose “Cowboy
Carter” tour begins on Monday in Los Angeles, stands out. The megastar’s only previous arena
performance of material from the album of the same name was for the half-time show during
an NFL American football game on Christmas Day last year. The performance drew 27m views on
Netflix, a streaming service, in America alone.

Beyoncé’s embrace of country music has had a big impact. Her song “Texas Hold ’Em” topped
Billboard’s country singles chart last year, making it the first by a black woman to do so. It was
knocked off its top spot by “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey, a hip-hop artist who also features on
“Cowboy Carter”. Things have changed since Lil Nas X, a rapper, was controversially excluded from
the country singles chart in 2019. Beyoncé’s star power has made black artists in country impossible
to ignore.

Illustration: The Economist

Daily quiz

We will serve you a new question each day this week. On Friday your challenge is to give us all five
answers and, as important, tell us the connecting theme. Email your responses (and include mention
of your home city and country) by 1700 BST on Friday to QuizEspresso@economist.com. We’ll pick
randomly from those with the right answers and crown three winners on Saturday.

Monday: Which prefix is used to mean both “cleverly self-referential” and “occurring later than”?

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to him his
own.

Benjamin Disraeli

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