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Iran says students can protest, but must respect 'red lines'
University students have the right to protest but everyone must "understand the red lines", the Iranian government's spokeswoman said Tuesday, in the first official reaction to renewed rallies on campuses since the weekend. "Sacred things and the flag are two examples of these red lines that we must protect and not cross or deviate from, even at the height of anger," Fatemeh Mohajerani said. She said Iran's students "have wounds in their hearts and have seen scenes that may upset and anger them; this anger is understandable". University students in Iran started a new semester on Saturday with pro- and anti-government rallies, according to local media, reviving slogans from nationwide demonstrations that peaked in January and led to thousands of deaths. France 24, February 24

In Ukraine, Russia is losing more soldiers than it’s recruiting
More Russian soldiers are dying than are being recruited for the first time since the Ukraine war began, western officials have said on the fourth anniversary of President Putin’s full-scale invasion. About 30,000 to 35,000 Russian troops are recruited each month and thrown into the “meat grinder” along Ukraine’s eastern front, according to military intelligence. For the past three months, however, the number of casualties suffered by the invading forces has been greater. Al Carns, the armed forces minister, compared the threat facing Europe from Russia to that posed by Germany on the eve of the Second World War. “If you were to go back to 1936, ’37, ’38, there’s definitely a lot of similarities,” he said. Carns, who was in the Royal Marines and special forces, described the Ukraine war as “the most defining conflict of my 24 years of service”. The Times, February 24

Donald Trump’s global tariff takes effect at 10%
Donald Trump is implementing a new global tariff at 10 per cent rather than the 15 per cent rate announced at the weekend after his defeat at the Supreme Court, according to a notice from the US customs agency. Trump’s move to apply a 10 per cent global levy from 12.01am on Tuesday, delaying the enactment of the 15 per cent tariff, follows a backlash to the higher rate from several US trading partners, including the EU and the UK. The White House signalled that Trump was still committed to setting a global tariff of 15 per cent. “It is being worked on and will come later,” an official said, without specifying a timeline. After the Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the sweeping levies Trump imposed on US trading partners based on emergency powers were illegal, the president quickly moved to replace them under a different statute with a temporary global levy of 10 per cent for 150 days starting on Tuesday. But on Saturday, in a Truth Social media post, Trump said he was “immediately” raising that global levy to 15 per cent - an increase that has not yet materialised. Financial Times, February 24

France blocks US ambassador’s access to officials after he fails to attend meeting
Donald Trump’s envoy to Paris will not be permitted to carry out his diplomatic duties until he has explained his refusal to comply with a foreign ministry summons over US comments about the killing of a far-right activist, France’s top diplomat has said. Charles Kushner “needs to be able to have this discussion with us, with [the foreign ministry], so that he can resume the normal exercise of his duties as ambassador in France”, the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said on Tuesday. Kushner, whose son Jared is married to the US president’s daughter Ivanka, did not show up for a meeting at the ministry at 7pm on Monday to which he had been summoned after the US embassy in Paris reposted state department comments about the case. In response, the ministry said on Monday night it had requested that the US ambassador be denied direct access to French government ministers, although he would continue to be allowed to talk to foreign ministry officials. Barrot suggested on Tuesday, however, that Kushner would now also be blocked from talking to government officials until he explained his refusal to respect what the minister called the “basic” rules of conduct and behaviour of foreign diplomats. The Guardian, February 24

UK: chocolate kept in anti-theft boxes as shops warn it's being stolen to order
Chocolate bars are being locked in plastic boxes in some UK shops as retailers and police forces warn thieves are stealing them to order. Sainsbury's said it had begun using "boxes on products which are regularly targeted", with £2.60 bars of Cadbury Dairy Milk locked up in one London branch. Chocolate was more recently being "sold on by criminals and is now being targeted more frequently by prolific offenders," according to the Association of Convenience Stores. Some individual police forces told us they had seen a specific trend of chocolate being targeted. The National Police Chiefs' Council said it was working to tackle this type of crime. In recent months some police forces have posted videos of chocolate being stolen to highlight the issue. West Midlands Police shared CCTV footage of a man grabbing trays of chocolate from a shop in Stourbridge, while Wiltshire Police shared a video of a man dragging a whole shelving stand of chocolate out of a shop door. And earlier last year a man was arrested by Cambridgeshire Police with a coat full of Cadbury's Creme eggs. Cambridgeshire Police told the BBC: "Chocolate is one of a number of high-value items thieves often target, along with products such as alcohol, meat and coffee. BBC news, February 24

Gold jumps and dollar slides as global trade faces new Trump tariff threat
Gold rose and the dollar fell on Monday after Donald Trump deepened uncertainty over global trade by imposing a new 15 per cent tariff following a landmark US Supreme Court ruling that his previous policy was unlawful. The US president responded to Friday’s ruling from America’s top court by announcing a flat-rate tariff on the country’s trading partners, which is set to come into force on Tuesday. The new duty relies on the 1974 Trade Act and will allow Trump to set import restrictions for up to 150 days. In its ruling, the Supreme Court said that the president had exceeded his authority in using emergency powers to impose his “liberation day” tariffs last year. Trump’s launch of his trade war last April convulsed currency, bond and equity markets but stocks, powered by the AI boom, have since recovered to hit record highs. In early London trading on Monday, gold, a haven asset, rose 0.6 per cent to $5,133 a troy ounce while the dollar weakened 0.3 per cent against a basket of its peers. Financial Times, February 23

Zelensky says Putin has started WW3 and must be stopped
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to send out a firm message of defiance. When he spoke to the BBC on the weekend in the government headquarters in Kyiv, he said that far from losing, Ukraine would end the war victorious. He was firmly against paying the price for a ceasefire deal demanded by President Vladimir Putin, which is withdrawing from strategic ground that Russia has failed to capture despite sacrificing tens of thousands of soldiers. Putin, Zelensky said, has already started World War Three, and the only answer was intense military and economic pressure to force him to step back. "I believe that Putin has already started it. The question is how much territory he will be able to seize and how to stop him … Russia wants to impose on the world a different way of life and change the lives people have chosen for themselves." BBC news, February 22

Iran agreed secret shoulder-fired missile deal with Russia
Iran agreed a secret €500mn arms deal with Russia to acquire thousands of advanced shoulder-fired missiles in its most significant effort to rebuild air defences shattered during last year’s war with Israel. The agreement, signed in Moscow in December, commits Russia to deliver 500 man-portable “Verba” launch units and 2,500 “9M336” missiles over three years, according to leaked Russian documents seen by the FT and several people familiar with the deal. The Verba is one of Russia’s most modern air-defence systems, a shoulder-fired, infrared-guided missile capable of targeting cruise missiles, low-flying aircraft and drones. Operated by small mobile teams, it allows ground forces to quickly create dispersed defences without relying on fixed radar installations that are more vulnerable to strikes. The leaked details of the Iran-Russia deal have emerged just as Donald Trump has assembled a vast US military force in the Middle East, threatening Tehran with strikes unless it accepts curbs on its nuclear programme. Financial Times, February 22

Gunmen run riot in World Cup city after Mexico kills cartel boss
Mexico has assassinated the head of the country’s most powerful cartel, prompting violent unrest in Guadalajara, the second-largest city, where visitors were warned to take shelter. Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, 59, grew up in poverty selling avocados before rising to become the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which traffics cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and fentanyl into the US. He had a $15 million bounty on his head and was killed after the Mexican government came under pressure from the Trump administration to adopt a more forceful approach to the cartels. The Times, February 22

UK job vacancies ‘fall to lowest level since pandemic’
The number of job vacancies in the UK has tumbled to the lowest level in five years, research suggests, falling to levels not seen since the pandemic. The number of jobs being advertised slid by 3 per cent in January to 695,000, according to the job search site Adzuna, marking the first time advertised vacancies have dropped below 700,000 since January 2021. Graduate jobs fell below 10,000 for the first time since Adzuna began tracking this in 2016. The research comes days after official figures showed unemployment in the UK had risen to a five-year high of 5.2 per cent, at a time when wage growth is slowing and concerns are increasing that young people are bearing the brunt of the slowdown in hiring. The Guardian, February 23

Paris court to review Nicolas Sarkozy's request to merge sentences in graft case
A Paris criminal court will on Monday examine former president Nicolas Sarkozy's request to merge two sentences for convictions in separate cases related to graft and illegal campaign financing. The one-term president from 2007 to 2012 has faced a series of legal challenges since leaving office, receiving two definitive convictions in recent years. "A request to merge sentences is an extremely routine procedure in this situation," his lawyer Vincent Desry told AFP. France 24, February 23