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Beijing (AFP) – China vows it will take “firm and forceful” steps to protect its interests, after steep US tariffs of 104 percent came into effect.

Torreón (Mexique) (AFP) – Images outside a hospital in Torreon where a three-year-old girl has become Mexico’s first human fatality from H5N1 bird flu, according to health officials. The girl from the northern state of Coahuila died of multiple organ failure after infection with the virus, health secretary Eliud Aguirre says, adding that there were no other known cases of infection. IMAGES

Images of the scene of a bus accident in southeastern Brazil, in which ten people, including two children, died and 18 others were injured. IMAGES

Santo Domingo (AFP) – Relatives of those trapped in the rubble of the nightclub roof collapse in Santo Domingo wait outside as rescuers race to find survivors. At least 27 people have died, and more than 150 have been injured in the accident. IMAGES

Panama City (AFP) – US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth arrives at the presidential palace in Panama City where he will meet President Jose Raul Mulino. IMAGES

Thousands of Indigenous people join the “Our Future Is Not for Sale!” march at the Free Land Camp (ATL-Acampamento Terra Livre) in Brasilia. Around 8,000 Indigenous people from across Brazil, South America, and Oceania gather in the capital for a week of demonstrations, demanding that their leaders have an “equal voice and power” with heads of state at the COP30 climate change conference in Brazil this November. IMAGES

(AFP) – In Brazil, the Groves’ Titi, a bushy-bearded monkey is listed as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Deforestation is eating away at the limited domain of the monkey known locally as zogue-zogue. Farmers clearing land for soybeans and other crops are chiefly blamed for the forest’s fate, but deforestation is not the only threat to the monkeys. Locals say one side of the animals’ territory has been cut off by flooding from a nearby hydroelectric plant run by a company partly owned by French energy giant EDF.

Kiew (AFP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukrainian troops have captured two Chinese citizens fighting alongside Russian forces in the Donetsk region. “Out of six Chinese soldiers, two are captured. Accordingly, they have documents, their passports, even credit cards,” Zelensky tells a press conference in Kyiv.

Yakutsk (AFP) – At a laboratory in Russia’s far east, scientists carry out a post-mortem — the body they are dissecting is a baby mammoth who died around 130,000 years ago. Discovered last year, the calf — nicknamed Yana, for the river basin where she was found — is in a remarkable state of preservation, giving scientists a glimpse into the past and, potentially, the future as climate change thaws the permafrost in which she was found.

Tikal (AFP) – An altar from Mexico’s ancient Teotihuacan culture, dating back to between 400 and 450 AD, has been discovered in the Guatemalan Mayan city of Tikal. Located in the jungle near the Mexico border the altar is further proof of ties between the two pre-Hispanic societies, according to archaeologists.

Peking (AFP) – China accuses the United States of “pressure, threats and blackmail” after President Donald Trump floated additional tariffs of 50 percent on the world’s second-largest economy. “Tariff wars have no winners, and protectionism has no way out,” says foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian.

Spin Boldak (AFP) – Afghans arrive at a UN migration centre in Spin Boldak in the region of Kandahar after having crossed the border from Pakistan as Islamabad ramps up pressure for them to return to their country of origin. Pakistan last month set an early April deadline for some 800,000 Afghans carrying Afghan Citizen Cards (ACC) issued by Pakistan authorities to leave the country, another phase in Islamabad’s campaign in recent years to repatriate Afghans. Human rights activists have been reporting for months the harassment and extortion of Afghans in Pakistan, a country mired in political and economic chaos.