'Save humanity': Four figures battling it out to lead embattled UN

American actress and filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal will head up the jury of the Venice Film Festival, organisers said Thursday.

Gyllenhaal and the other jurors will select the winner of the prestigious Golden Lion award for Best Film at the festival, which takes place in September.

Gyllenhaal, 48, made her director's debut with her adaptation of Elena Ferrante's "The Lost Daughter", for which she won the festival's Best Screenplay award in 2021. 

Gyllenhaal said in a statement she was "thrilled to accept the invitation to lead this year’s Venice Film Festival jury".

"Venice has always supported truthful, singular voices and I am honored to play a part in continuing that brave and necessary tradition," she said.

Festival director Alberto Barbera praised Gyllenhaal as "an actress capable of giving voice to challenging and multifaceted characters" and "an original filmmaker".

"Having her lead our jury means we can count on an authoritative and independent voice," he said.

The Venice Film Festival is the oldest of its kind in the world.

It takes place every year and forms part of the Venice Biennale, a famed series of arts festivals.

The Biennale recently drew fire for allowing Russia to particiate in this year's art event, the first time the country will be included since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Russia's participation in the Biennale is "morally wrong" in a statement released Tuesday, and reiterated the EU's intention to cut its funding of the festival.

"While Russia bombs museums, destroys churches and seeks to erase Ukrainian culture, it should not be allowed to exhibit its own," she said.

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Nestle, the food giant whose brands include Nespresso coffee and Perrier water, saw first-quarter sales figures slump due to the strong value of the Swiss franc and a baby formula recall, but sales volumes overall edged higher.

The maker of Purina dog food, Maggi bouillon cubes, Gerber baby food and Nesquik chocolate-flavoured drinks has struggled with flagging consumer demand in key markets in recent years.

Nestle shook up its management last year and laid off six percent of its staff.

For the first three months of the year the company reported sales of 21.3 billion Swiss francs ($24.9 billion), a drop of 5.7 percent from the period last year.

The franc has appreciated considerably as investors seek a safe haven amid global uncertainty, resulting a 9.3 percentage point drag on Nestle's sales when it converts international earnings into the Swiss currency.

Excluding currency impacts and changes in business operations, known as organic sales, revenues were up by 3.5 percent.

The results beat expectations of 2.5 percent organic sales growth to 21.2 billion Swiss francs, according to analysts surveyed by Swiss financial news agency AWP.

Nestle's management has been targeting another indicator, real internal growth (RIG), which reflects sales volumes.

This rose by 1.2 percent in the first quarter, surpassing the 0.2 percent expected by analysts.

"Our first-quarter performance demonstrates that our RIG-led growth strategy is delivering," said Nestle's new chief executive, Philipp Navratil.

The company's shares rose six percent, far outpacing the Swiss market that rose one percent overall.

"Nestle is showing early signs of re‑igniting volume growth," said analysts at Vontobel.

"This is the kind of reassurance investors were waiting for and it corroborates management's relatively upbeat tone following" 2025 annual results, they added.

"In an uncertain and complex environment, I would like to thank all our people for their dedication and our customers and consumers for their trust," Navratil added.

That trust was tested at the start of this year when it emerged that Nestle waited for days for a health-risk analysis before alerting authorities after detecting a toxin in its baby formula.

A scare over the toxin cereulide in an ingredient received from a global supplier eventually forced several manufacturers to recall potentially contaminated products in over 60 countries.

Nestle estimated that the recall and impact on consumer demand led to a 0.9 percentage point drop in organic sales.

It said product availability had returned to normal.

"We are already seeing early signs of improvement and expect to fully recover by the end of the year," the company said in a statement.

Navratil said at a press conference that the company was monitoring developments in the Middle East closely, in particular the swings in energy prices.

However, "we have so far seen very little impact in our business globally," he said.

The company said its factories in the Middle East region, which contribute around three percent to sales, continue to operate.

But it warned that the impact of the war on the cost of raw materials, production and distribution, as well as consumer behaviour, remained uncertain.

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The Iran war has exposed Africa's vulnerability to fuel chokepoints and is heading for a 86 million tonne fuel shortfall by 2040, the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) said Thursday.

Africa imports over 70 percent of its refined fuel and some $230 billion worth of essential goods, including fuel, food, plastics, steel, and fertiliser each year, the AFC said in a report released in Nairobi.

Its dependence on fuel imports will continue to rise from 74 million tonnes in 2023 to 86 million tonnes in 2040, said the report by the pan-African finance institution.

That is equivalent to almost three of the giant refineries run in Nigeria by the Dangote group -- by far the biggest in Africa.

"Not only is it importing fuel, but on the eastern side of the continent, those imports are vulnerable to chokepoints -- we've all learned about the Strait of Hormuz this year, and it's not the only chokepoint," said the AFC's chief economist Rita Babihuga-Nsanze at the report's launch.

The Strait of Hormuz, which accounts for a fifth of global fuel transport, has been effectively shut down by the war in the Middle East, leaving import-dependent countries in east Africa facing critical shortages.

Kenyan President William Ruto, speaking at the AFC summit, said the war showed the need for Africa to stop relying on outsiders.

"Our ambitions will remain unrealised if we continue to depend on external capital whose primary interest is securing raw materials for their own industries," said Ruto.

"We cannot continue to export raw materials and import finished products made from them," he added. 

- Infrastructure -

Kenya last year announced an infrastructure splurge, including 50 new hydroelectric dams and 10,000 megawatts of additional power generation within seven years, as well as plans to revamp roads, rail and airports.

"While historical injustices from colonialism to inequities in the global economic order are real, we must also acknowledge that other regions have faced similar challenges, but they have risen above them," Ruto told the summit. 

"We are constrained only by the extent that we accept the status quo through acquiescence, complacency, and limited ambition."

Fixing Africa's energy shortfall requires new hubs and better performance from existing assets, the AFC report said. 

Babihuga-Nsanze highlighted the example of Zambian dams that were not designed to cope with new drought conditions, and two gigawatts of Angolan hydropower that was not connected to the regional grid and therefore went to waste. 

She also highlighted the shortages of fertiliser due to the Mideast war, since a high proportion comes from the Gulf.  

Such vulnerabilities are "strange", said Babihuga-Nsanze, given that Africa has 80 percent of the world's phosphate reserves -- a key fertiliser source -- yet only produces 20 percent of the global stock. 

"There's a real opportunity for Africa to step in the gap here," she said.

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Rising reggae star Meta Dia will headline this year's Stereo Africa Festival in Dakar celebrating contemporary African music and the sounds of the diaspora.

Meta -- who sings in English, French, Wolof and Pulaar -- is renowned for his socially conscious music, unifying messages and captivating performances.

He will take the stage on May 9 for a special concert at the festival, which is now in its fifth year.

"Performing in Senegal is my greatest dream," the Senegalese-born singer-songwriter told AFP. 

Having settled in the United States nearly 25 years ago, his band, Meta and the Cornerstones, is set to release a new album, "Echoes of Time", on May 29.

The international reggae group blends Afro, soul and hip-hop influences atop a roots reggae foundation, and is acclaimed for its overall contributions to modern reggae.

"Senegal shaped me spiritually and that spirituality is the backbone of my music, it is the message I carry with me wherever I go", he said.

"I have travelled the world but I miss the place I call home, so having this opportunity to return and perform in Senegal is a true joy", he said.

The founder of the Stereo Africa Festival, Sahad Sarr, a singer-songwriter and frontman of the Senegalese band SAHAD, will also perform among some 30 concerts that run from May 5 to 10.

He called Meta and the Cornerstones "the ambassador of African reggae, currently the most talented in the world".

Since its inception, the Stereo Africa Festival has attracted more than 10,000 attendees and hosted 250 local and international artists.

It also features a "Stereo Revelations" programme, a springboard for young Senegalese talent which has awarded past recipients a year of professional guidance and support to help establish their careers.

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Environment ministers from G7 nations launched a two-day meeting in Paris on Thursday with climate change kept off the agenda to avoid a row with the United States.

The office of France's ecology minister Monique Barbut had said the Group of Seven would focus on "less contentious issues" to appease its largest and most powerful member, drawing criticism from activists.

Barbut said the G7 "must remain a forum for convergence" and France as host was prioritising unity at a time when environmental protection was slipping down the global agenda. 

"I hope we can send a strong message of unity and ambition", Barbut said at the opening of the meeting.

Italy, Canada, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom sent their environment ministers to Paris but Washington dispatched Usha-Maria Turner, an assistant administrator at the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Ocean conservation, funding for biodiversity, and the transformation of dry areas into desert are on the agenda, among other broad environmental themes.

Barbut's office said it "chose not to address the climate issue head-on because the United States' positions on this subject are well known".

President Donald Trump's administration has withdrawn the United States from global agreements on climate change and weakened environmental protections since he returned to office in 2025. 

Gaia Febvre from Climate Action Network, an alliance of activist groups, said "a G7 moving at the pace of the United States cannot claim to respond to the crises of the century".

"By yielding to pressure, it weakens collective action and renounces its potential leading role," she told AFP.

It takes place just days before more than 50 countries meet in Colombia for the first-ever global conference dedicated to phasing out fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change.

- Forests and funding - 

France is spearheading an initiative to raise public and private finance for the protection of biodiversity and hopes to win the backing of other G7 nations.

Barbut's ministry hopes to announce $800 million in funding for national parks in some 20 African countries, according to sources close to the matter.

Jean Burkard, advocacy director at WWF France, welcomed this inclusion on the G7 agenda but said any funding "must be additional and not compensate" for cuts elsewhere to state budgets for nature. 

The G7 meeting also hopes to reach a political declaration on desertification and security, while sessions on oceans will look to strengthen an alliance on marine protected areas. 

Other sessions are planned, including on water pollution, while a visit to the Fontainebleau forest south of Paris is also scheduled Thursday as part of a session dedicated to woodlands.

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Two commuter trains collided head-on near the Danish capital early Thursday leaving five critically hurt and 12 others with lesser injuries, emergency services said.

Police were unable to provide any information about the cause of the accident, which occurred near a level crossing in a rural wooded area about 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Copenhagen, near the town of Hillerod.

"A total of 17 people were injured. Of them, five were deemed to be in critical condition at the scene," Anders Damm-Hejmdal, chief physician at Copenhagen's emergency medical responders, told reporters. 

Police said they were alerted to the crash at 6:29 am (0429 GMT).

The yellow and grey locomotives of the two trains could be seen smashed and buckled in, the glass from their windshields and windows shattered. Both trains and their carriages remained upright on the rails.

Thirty-eight people were on the two trains.

A large number of ambulances and police cars were dispatched and all the passengers were evacuated and the injured transported to hospitals.

The mayor of Gribskov municipality, Trine Egetved, said on Facebook that some of the injured were flown to hospital on helicopter.

- 'People thrown around' -

Emergency crews wound up their rescue efforts around three hours after the accident, as investigators continued their work at the scene.

"We can't provide any details for now about the cause," police official Morten Kaare Pedersen told reporters.

"We are in the process of gathering the necessary information about the course of events. So there are, and will continue to be for quite some time, a lot of investigations underway."

Damm-Hejmdal said the number of critically injured "could change" over the course of the day.

The number "is obviously dynamic and could change. But that is the status as of now," he told a press conference almost four hours after the accident.

"Initially it is difficult to get an overview of the exact injuries," he said.

"You can imagine two trains colliding. That causes a lot of different injuries, people get thrown around."

Egetved said she had been "deeply upset and shocked".

"This train is used by many residents of Gribskov, workers and students," she said.

Denmark prides itself on its safety record, but a 2019 train crash left eight dead and 16 injured.

In August last year, an express train hit a farm truck on a crossing killing one person and injuring 27.

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A US naval blockade of Iranian ports is likely to squeeze Iran's oil output in the coming weeks but claims it will throw the Islamic republic into economic free fall remain premature, analysts say.

After weeks of bombing and counter-strikes, focus has shifted to the standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, which ordinarily carries around a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas.

In response to Iran's blockade of the strait since the start of the Middle East war, the US imposed a counter-blockade of the Islamic republic's ports, a push to force its leaders into a compromise in peace talks.

That bid, however, looks set to fail, at least in the short term.

"If the blockade lasts for more than two or three months, it can cause more damage" to Iran, economic analyst and professor at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran Saeed Laylaz told AFP.

"If Iran suffers any damage, the damage to the countries in the southern Persian Gulf will definitely be greater," he added. 

There's a limit on how long Iran can bide its time, however.

Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, chief analyst at Global Risk Management said Iran "was expected to run out of storage capacity within approximately one month, but it may already be forced to shut in part of its oil production within a couple of weeks".

- 'Collapsing financially'? -

Trump said Tuesday that Iran was "collapsing financially" under the blockade imposed by the US Navy on April 12, claiming that the country was "starving for cash". 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the blockade meant storage at Iran's Kharg Island, the main export terminal through which most of the country's crude is shipped, "will be full and the fragile Iranian oil wells will be shut in".

Jamie Ingram, managing editor of Middle East Economic Survey (MEES), told AFP it was likely the timeline for Iran to hit its oil storage limits would be measured in "weeks rather than days".

He added it was likely that "Iran will slightly reduce production before getting to the stage where storage constraints start to bite".

According to analysis by oil expert Homayoun Falakshahi shared by energy intelligence firm Kpler, Iran's crude production has already slowed since the start of the war. 

Output fell by around 200,000 barrels per day in March to 3.68 million bpd and is expected to drop a further 420,000 bpd in April to about 3.43 million bpd, reflecting "the broader impact of export disruptions and refining constraints linked to the ongoing conflict," Falakshahi said.

But Laylaz in Tehran said beyond the psychological effect of the blockade, the "real material effect has been small so far".

Ingram said Kharg Island "shouldn't be a particular bottleneck," for Iran. 

"This is the final storage facility used before oil is exported and Iran can divert crude oil to other facilities rather than straight to Kharg," he said.

- 'Mutually assured disruption' -

The MEES expert also said Iran's dependency on oil exports via Hormuz had "deepened due to the damage caused by US and Israeli strikes to other sections of the Iranian economy".

"But Iran has also proven its ability to withstand huge oil-revenue declines during previous rounds of sanctions. I would not underestimate the regime's resilience in this regard," he added.

As the initial two-week truce between Iran and the US was set to expire Trump had said Tuesday he would maintain the ceasefire to allow more time for peace talks.

Iran said it welcomed the efforts by mediator Pakistan but made no other comment on Trump's announcement, while vowing not to reopen Hormuz so long as the US blockade remains in place.

"It will take a long time before such economic pain forces Iran to compromise," Ingram said, explaining it is "more likely economic disruption... pushes China into exerting more pressure on Iran to negotiate". 

Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, said "Iran's economy was battered before the war, is contending with added strains caused during it, and now faces the combination of sanctions, seizures and potential strikes".

"Iran's leadership has previously shown a high threshold for pain even if the pressure on ordinary Iranians increases. It also likely calculates that its own efforts to subdue traffic through Hormuz act as a sort of mutually assured disruption," he added.

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Shares in EssilorLuxottica, the world's top maker of eyeglasses, slid on Thursday as analysts said investors have turned wary of AI glasses.

The French-Italian company has pushed hard into wearable tech and has a tie-up with Meta for its Ray-Ban AI glasses.

The nearly five percent drop in morning trading in Paris, whose overall market was up 0.1 percent, came despite the company posting Wednesday evening a 4.1 percent increase in first quarter sales to 7.1 billion euros ($8.3 billion).

EssilorLuxottica did not provide a breakdown of AI glasses, but said they supported growth and the launch of Ray-Ban Meta’s new optical-first styles had been a success.

EssilorLuxottica's foray into "AI glasses is now seen as a source of risk, after initially being viewed as a major opportunity," analysts at Oddo BHF said in a note.

"Following very satisfactory performance in previous quarters, the stock is going through a tougher patch in 2026," they added. 

While first quarter sales met analyst expectations, and represented a gain of 10.8 percent on an organic basis -- that is stripping out the effects of changes in exchange rates and in business operations.

But "given the macroeconomic uncertainties, we are cautiously lowering our expectations for organic growth in 2026 from 10 to nine percent," said analysts at Jefferies.

EssilorLuxottica does not provide detailed sales and earnings guidance.

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German airline giant Lufthansa Thursday lost a legal battle over a six-billion-euro ($7-billion) pandemic-era government bailout when the EU's top court ruled Brussels mishandled its approval of the cash injection.

Europe's biggest airline group by revenues received the bailout in 2020 to save it from collapse as government lockdowns to prevent the spread of Covid-19 brought air travel to a halt. 

The European Commission approved the move, but Irish no-frills carrier Ryanair and German airline Condor brought legal action, claiming this broke state aid rules.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Thursday dismissed a challenge from Lufthansa, and upheld an earlier ruling by a lower tribunal which had overturned the approval by the commission, the EU executive.

"The Court of Justice dismisses Lufthansa's appeal and thus upholds the General Court's ruling to annul the decision by which the Commission had approved the recapitalisation of Lufthansa," it said in a statement.

The lower court had correctly concluded that the commission had "infringed" emergency rules brought in to allow governments to support the economy during times of crisis, it said.

Lufthansa, which also operates Eurowings, Austrian, Swiss and Brussels Airlines and has acquired a stake in Italy's ITA, has paid back the bailout cash, and it was not clear what impact the court defeat would have. 

Lufthansa said in a statement that it took note of the judgement.

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Business activity in the eurozone contracted for the first time in 16 months in April, as the war in the Middle East drove energy prices up and disrupted global supply chains, a closely watched survey showed Thursday.

The Flash Eurozone purchasing managers' index (PMI) published by S&P Global, an important gauge of the overall health of the economy, registered a figure of 48.6 this month, down from 50.7 in March.

A reading above 50 indicates growth, while a figure below 50 shows contraction.

"The eurozone is facing deepening economic woes from the war in the Middle East, presenting a major headache for policymakers," said S&P chief business economist Chris Williamson. 

"The conflict has pushed the economy into decline in April, while driving inflation sharply higher."

The decline in output was driven by the service sector, which recorded the steepest pace of decline in more than five years. 

Manufacturing production instead continued to rise, expanding at the fastest rate since August. 

But this was partially down to customers placing extra orders to build stocks and secure purchases ahead of possible future price rises and supply shortages, the survey said. 

The fall in business activity was broad-based across the eurozone, with both Germany and France -- the 20-country single currency area's two biggest economies -- posting contractions. 

"In this environment, the ECB once again has the unenviable task of deciding whether to raise interest rates in the face of the worrying inflation picture, or whether this price spike will prove temporary and its focus should instead be on the need to prevent the economy sliding into a deeper downturn," said Williamson.

Analysts have raised their bets on the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank (ECB) hiking interest rates as soon as this month to keep inflation in check.

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