US lawmakers Wednesday said in their findings on the alleged persecution of Christians in Nigeria that the West African country was the “deadliest” place in the world to be a Christian.

A report on the findings also said that Christians were “subject to ongoing violent attacks” from armed militias and terrorist groups.

The report said blasphemy laws in Nigeria’s northern states are used to silence speech and dissent, target Christians and minorities, and “justify so-called ‘convictions’ without due process.”

igeria faces a complex security challenge from many different armed groups and thousands are killed annually. But the victims are both Christians and Muslims. 

Plus, other attacks also occur as part of conflicts between farmers and herders over dwindling resources like land. Other battles involve ransoms for kidnappings and sectarian tensions.

President Donald Trump last year designated Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern,” due to alleged violations of religious freedom. He said Christianity was facing an “existential threat” in Nigeria.

Nigeria, with a population of 237 million people, is roughly divided between a Muslim-majority north and a Christian-dominated south.

Northern Nigeria has remained affected by the decade-and-a-half-long Islamist insurgency led by Boko Haram and affiliates of the “Islamic State” group.

Two “frankly sadistic” agricultural students have been detained for beating a sheep to death, before inserting explosive bird scarers in its body, while filming the attack.

Leighton Ashby, 22 and from Beckett Road in Ashford, Kent, and Oakley Hollands, 20, of Mussenden Lane in Horton Kirby, Kent, appeared at Hove Crown Court on Monday.

At an earlier hearing the Plumpton College students had admitted killing the sheep in a field near Ditchling Beacon, East Sussex, on 2 November 2023.

Ashby was sentenced to two years in prison, while Hollands has been sent to a young offender institution for 20 months, with both disqualified from owning animals for 10 years.

In passing sentence, Judge Jeremy Gold told the two men: “The fact that you both come from farming backgrounds and were studying at Plumpton at the time makes your callous and frankly sadistic behaviour all the more alarming and difficult to comprehend.”

He said they had carried out the attack for their “own perverse satisfaction”.

Footage of Ashby carrying out the attack was found by police on Hollands’ phone, with the ear tags of the sheep that was killed found in a nearby property.

The judge told both the probation service regarded them “as presenting a high risk to animals in the future”.

In a statement the college said Ashby and Holland’s behaviour had been “completely at odds with the core values and high standards upheld by everyone at Plumpton College”.

The statement added: “We remain committed to maintaining the highest standards of animal welfare, conduct, and professionalism expected of all our students.”

A group of animal rights protesters gathered outside the court ahead of sentencing.

US President Donald Trump’s new global tariffs have come into effect at 10% despite a pledge to introduce them at a higher rate.

After the Supreme Court blocked many of his sweeping import taxes on Friday, the president said he would introduce a 10% global rate. He then said on Saturday that the rate would be 15%.

However, according to official documents, the tariffs have been set at the lower rate from Tuesday with no directive to increase the rate issued. The BBC has contacted the White House for comment.

The White House is working to update the rate to 15% to reflect Trump’s announcement, a White House official told Reuters, without saying when the change might come into force.

“I think it simply adds to the chaos and mess,” said Carsten Brzeski, an analyst with investment bank ING, referring to the fast-changing tariffs and their effects on businesses.

“In terms of uncertainty we’re back to where we were last year,” he told the BBC’s Today programme, adding there was now a higher risk that the US’s trading partners would retaliate.

“The risk of a real fully-fledged tariff war – trade war – escalation is clearly higher than last year,” he said.

An executive order signed by Trump on Friday said the temporary 10% import duty was intended to “address fundamental international payments problems and continue the Administration’s work to rebalance our trade relationships to benefit American workers, farmers, and manufacturers”.

The administration is applying the levy under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, which allows the president to impose the charge for 150 days without congressional approval.

The president has argued that tariffs are necessary to reduce America’s trade deficit – the amount by which imports exceed exports. But the deficit reached a fresh high last year, widening by 2.1% compared to 2024 and hitting roughly $1.2 trillion (£890bn).

The US has already collected at least $130bn in tariffs using the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), according to the most recent official data.

On Friday, the Supreme Court said the president had overstepped his authority by introducing sweeping tariffs using IEEPA last year, a decision that raised the possibility that businesses could get billions of dollars in tariff refunds,

Global transportation and postal company FedEx filed a lawsuit on Monday for a “full refund” on the import taxes it has paid under the IEEPA.

Meanwhile, campaign group We Pay The Tariffs has said it represents over 900 US “demanding full, fast, and automatic refunds of unlawful IEEPA tariffs” in an open letter to the government.

However, experts have raised doubts about the likelihood of the US handing money back, with Trump saying on Friday the issue would be fought in the courts “for the next five years”.

Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh said in the ruling the refund process was likely to be a “mess”.

Trump has been highly critical of the Supreme Court’s decision, calling it “ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American”.

‘Good news, but will it stay that way?’

Fraser Smeaton, chief executive of fancy dress firm Morph Costumes, is a UK-based business that makes costumes in China and exports them to the US.

The business pays the Chinese tariff rate and he says he has not been able to invest as productively as he would want to because he’s had to keep money aside in case of changes in tariff policy.

“The fact that we’re at 10% rather than 20% is better than it was, but will it stay that way?” he asks.

Like many others, he says his business is pursuing a refund for the unlawful IEEPA tariffs, having kept track of “what we’ve paid and when we’ve paid it”.

Daniel Graham, managing director of UK-based tea business Birchall, says the unexpected lower tariff rate is welcome but the lack of clarity is not.

“Good news that it’s come in lower; bad news that it keeps changing,” he says.

The tea business founded by his great, great-grandfather in 1872 imports tea from Africa, packages it in the UK, and then exports it to countries including the US.

He says the firm has been able to deal with tariffs so far because tea is a lower-cost product than cars or other high-end goods, meaning the tariffs do not affect them as much.

However, if Trump’s tariffs were to go too high, he says the business would consider “different territories”.

‘We need to react’

On Monday, Trump threatened to impose higher tariffs on countries that “play games” with recent trade deals, following the Supreme Court’s ruling.

His warning came as countries around the world said they were evaluating what tariffs and trade deals would stand following the decision.

Britain’s Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle said he was confident the basic 10% tariff deal reached by the UK and US would still stand.

“It was the best deal and it remains the best deal, and the fundamental terms that we had negotiated with the United States remain in place,” he told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.

The deal also carved out preferential terms for specific industries including vehicles and planes.

Kyle said higher tariffs were a “lose, lose” situation for both British and American businesses, but added the UK would still like to come to a full trade agreement with the US.

“We have maintained relations, conversations with counterparts, and we are… seeking other opportunities to move forward at pace,” he added.

The European Union said it would suspend its ratification of a deal struck over the summer.

“If we get worse conditions then we need to react,” said the chair of the European Parliament’s delegations for relations with the US, Brando Benifei, adding that the EU had asked the US for clarity over the tariffs.

“I think you should demand respect,” he told the Today programme. “My plea is that all the countries in the world that do not like that we are being treated this way… try to work a bit together.”

India also said it would defer previously scheduled talks to finalise a recent agreement.

By Bonface Mulyungi

BBC -The US ambassador to France, Charles Kushner, has reportedly assured French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot he will not interfere in the country’s affairs, after he failed to explain claims France had seen a “rise” in violence.

The pair spoke by phone on Tuesday after Barrot blocked Kushner, father of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, from access to ministers in response to the US envoy’s apparent snubbing of a summons on Monday evening over his comments.

On Monday, Kushner had cited a prior engagement and sent a deputy instead of answering the summon himself.

The pair have reportedly agreed to meet face-to-face in the coming days. Neither has spoken publicly about Tuesday’s talks.

“[Barrot] reiterated the reasons that had led to the summons: France cannot accept any form of interference or manipulation of its national public debate by the authorities of a third country,” a member of the foreign minister’s team told French media about Tuesday’s call.

“The ambassador took note and expressed his willingness not to interfere in our public debate.”

The diplomatic row began last week, when the US embassy in France posted comments on social media about the murder of far-right nationalist Quentin Deranque, warning that “violent left-wing extremism is on the rise” in France.

Deranque, a 23-year-old maths student, died in hospital on 14 February – two days after being beaten by a gang of masked young men in Lyon, in an attack which ministers from France’s centre-right government blamed on “far-left” militants.

The comments posted by the US embassy angered the French government, with Barrot saying over the weekend: “We reject any use of this tragedy, which has plunged a French family into mourning, for political ends.”

“We have no lessons to learn, particularly on the issue of violence, from the international reactionary movement.”

BBC News has approached the US embassy in France for comment.

Kushner’s failure to turn up on Monday worsened the situation, with the foreign ministry then accusing him of an “apparent failure to grasp the basic requirements of the ambassadorial mission”.

It said Barrot had requested Kushner “no longer be allowed direct access” to government ministers.

Prior to speaking to Kushner on Tuesday, Barrot told Franceinfo that his failure to answer his summons had been “a surprise”.

“When you have the honour of representing your country, the United States of America in France, as ambassador, you abide by the most basic customs of diplomacy and you respond to summonses from the foreign ministry,” said Barrot.

“We do not accept that foreign countries can come and interfere in, then insert themselves into, our national political debate, whatever the circumstances.”

It is not the first time Kushner has found himself in diplomatic hot water with the French government. Last year, he was summoned over what the foreign ministry said were unacceptable allegations of failing to tackle a surge in antisemitism.

Six men suspected of being involved in the fatal assault have been charged over Deranque’s death, while a parliamentary assistant for a deputy from the radical left France Unbowed (LFI) party has also been charged with complicity.

They were all members of, or close to, an organisation called La Jeune Garde (The Young Guard) which used to provide security for LFI before it was banned last year.

LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is a likely contender in next year’s presidential election, has said his party had “nothing to do with this story” and condemned “all forms of violence”.

“We express our consternation, but also our empathy and compassion for [Deranque’s] family and friends,” he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron held a meeting at the Élysée Palace on Tuesday, which he had earlier said would “assess all the violent action groups that are active and have links with political parties”.

Sources told French media after the meeting that the government had begun a process to close branches of La Jeune Garde that they suspected were trying to operate despite the ban.