And at least 70 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes.
Happy Thursday and welcome to your morning wrap of the latest political and business headlines from around the world.
First up this morning, the United States has a signed several strategic deals with Qatar that it claims will generate at least $1.2 trillion in “economic exchange” between the two countries.
US President Donald Trump is into day two of a four-day tour of the region, which started with him securing a $600b investment package from Saudi Arabia yesterday.
The BBC reports the Qatar deals include an order of up to 210 jets from Boeing worth US$96b.
Trump was quoted as saying the agreement is the “largest order of jets” in the history of the company. The aircraft manufacturer’s shares hit a one-year high on the news.
The two countries also signed a deal for the supply of US drones to Qatar and a statement of intent on defence cooperation.
A White House fact sheet said the agreements would “generate an economic exchange worth at least $1.2 trillion”.
Before Trump’s meeting with Qatar’s leader, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, he met with Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia, who swept to power at the head of a group that Washington has called a terrorist organisation and once pledged allegiance to al Qaeda.
Ahmed Al-Sharaa.
It was the first encounter between the two nations in 25 years and comes after Trump announced the US would lift all sanctions on the country.
According to Reuters, Trump said that Sharaa would be willing to eventually join the Abraham Accords, which is a US-brokered agreement that saw the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco normalise relations with Israel.
"I told him, 'I hope you’re going to join when it’s straightened out.’ He said, ‘Yes.’ But they have a lot of work to do," Trump said, according to a White House pool report.
Trump also described Sharaa as a young, attractive guy with a very strong past.
To Gaza, where Associated Press reports that Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 70 people in the Palestinian enclave, according to local hospitals and health officials.
The attack comes a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was “no way” he would halt the offensive before the militant group Hamas was defeated.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said 22 children were among those killed in the strikes around Jabaliya alone.
Israel’s military has refused to comment on the attack. It warned residents in Jabaliya to evacuate earlier this week, citing militant infrastructure in the area.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has hit out at a group of 59 white South Africans who have resettled in the United States, calling them “cowards”.
The BBC reports the group of Afrikaners arrived in the US on Monday after Donald Trump granted them refugee status, saying they faced racial discrimination.
Ramaphosa said those who wanted to leave were not happy with efforts to address the inequities of the country’s apartheid past.
Trump and his ally, South African-born Elon Musk, have said there was a “genocide” of white farmers in the country – a claim that has been widely discredited – and accused the government of seizing land from white farmers without compensation.
The South African government passed a controversial law in January allowing it to seize land without compensation in certain circumstances when it is deemed in the public interest. However, the government says no land has been seized.
More than 30 years since the end of rule by South Africa’s white minority, black farmers own only a small fraction of the country’s best farmland, which has led to anger over the slow pace of change.
In business news, global consultancy firm Bain & Co is forecasting that global sales of luxury goods are likely to fall between 2% and 5% this year, sharply downgrading its previous estimate of sales growth of between 0% and 4%.
The forecast, which was reported by Reuters, said economic pressures and price fatigue had weighed on demand. It also noted that some shoppers were waiting for new, more creative products from brands to come to market.
While the majority (75%) of luxury shoppers polled by the consultancy said tariffs would not temper their demand in the future, around half of those who had already pulled back over the past year said it was due to price increases.
Top labels including Gucci, Chanel and Dior have appointed new designers as the sector faces its worst downturn in years, with a property crisis weighing on the Chinese market and US consumers pulling back amid economic uncertainty.
