• Two adjacent four-storey buildings collapsed in Fez.
• Search and rescue operations ongoing, injured taken to hospital.
• Fez is a former capital, located in northeastern Morocco.

At least 19 people were killed and 16 injured early on Wednesday by the collapse of two buildings in Morocco’s northeastern city of Fez, a former capital, the state news agency said.

Local authorities in the Fez prefecture reported two adjacent four-storey buildings had collapsed overnight, the state news agency said.

The buildings were inhabited by eight families and were in the Al-Mustaqbal neighbourhood, it reported.

As soon as they were informed of the incident, local authorities, security services, and civil protection units moved to the scene and immediately began search and rescue operations, it said.

The injured were transported to the university hospital centre in Fez, while search and rescue operations continued around the clock to find others who may still be trapped under the rubble, the news agency reported.

Most of Morocco’s population, financial, industrial hubs and vital infrastructure are concentrated in the northwest, with the rest of the country reliant on farming, fisheries and tourism.

• Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado named winner in October.
• Machado dedicated honour in part to US President Donald Trump.
• Maduro says Trump aims to oust him to seize Venezuela’s oil.
  

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado will not receive the Nobel Peace Prize in person at Wednesday’s award ceremony in Oslo, the director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute said on Wednesday, with her current whereabouts unknown.

Machado, 58, was due to receive the award at a ceremony at Oslo City Hall in the presence of King Harald, Queen Sonja and Latin American leaders, including Argentine President Javier Milei and Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa.

The ceremony starts at 1 pm (1200 GMT).

Machado was due to receive the award in defiance of a decade-long travel ban imposed by authorities in her home country and after spending more than a year in hiding.

“She is unfortunately not in Norway and will not stand on stage at Oslo City Hall at 1 pm when the ceremony starts,” Kristian Berg Harpviken, the director of the institute and the permanent secretary of the award body, told broadcaster NRK.

Asked where she was, Harpviken said: “I don’t know.”

Dedicated to Trump

The ceremony will still go ahead. When a laureate is unable to attend, a close family member usually steps in to receive the prize and deliver the Nobel lecture in place of the laureate.

In this case, it will be Machado’s daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, Harpviken said.

When she won the prize in October, Machado dedicated it in part to US President Donald Trump, who has said he himself deserved the honour.

President Nicolas Maduro, in power since 2013, says Trump is trying to overthrow him to gain access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and that Venezuelan citizens and armed forces will resist any such attempt.

The Nobel Institute did not immediately reply to a request for further comment.

US military strikes

Machado has aligned herself with hawks close to Trump who argue that Maduro has links to criminal gangs that pose a direct threat to US national security, despite doubts raised by the US intelligence community.

The Trump administration has ordered more than 20 military strikes in recent months against alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and off Latin America’s Pacific coast.

Human rights groups, some Democrats and several Latin American countries have condemned the attacks as unlawful extrajudicial killings of civilians.

Venezuela’s armed forces are planning to mount a guerrilla-style resistance or sow chaos in the event of a US air or ground attack, according to sources with knowledge of the efforts and planning documents seen by Reuters.

In 2024, Machado was barred from running in the presidential election despite having won the opposition’s primary by a landslide. She went into hiding in August 2024 after authorities expanded arrests of opposition figures following the disputed vote.

The electoral authority and top court declared Maduro the winner, but international observers and the opposition say their candidate handily won, and the opposition has published ballot box-level tallies as evidence of its victory.

Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, said the Nobel prize had given “a strong signal of international validation … (of) the democratic results that had been forgotten”.

He told Reuters it had also elevated Machado to “a person that … the international community and the world can hang their hopes on,” he said.

“Oftentimes, democratic movements need a face. They need a story.”

US and Indian trade negotiators opened two days of discussions on Wednesday as both sides seek progress toward a long-delayed agreement, despite heightened geopolitical strains following Washington’s imposition of steep tariffs on New Delhi over its purchases of Russian oil.

The United States introduced 50% duties on most Indian goods in August, arguing that India’s import of discounted Russian crude was helping fund Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Deputy US Trade Representative Rick Switzer’s visit comes just a week after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin in New Delhi. India’s foreign ministry, however, described Switzer’s trip as “familiarisation meetings.”

India was among the early countries to begin trade negotiations after former US President Donald Trump rolled out sweeping global tariffs, but it remains one of the few major economies yet to reach a deal—raising risks for jobs, exports and overall economic growth.

What’s at stake

India, the world’s fastest-growing major economy, recorded a $45.8 billion goods trade deficit with the United States in 2024.

Although key export sectors like smartphones and generic pharmaceuticals are exempt from US tariffs, labour-intensive industries—including textiles, seafood, and gems & jewellery—are facing severe pressure.

Exports to the US plunged nearly 12% year-on-year in October, with some categories seeing declines of 37–60% between May and September, according to the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI).

The fallout is rippling through financial markets as well: foreign investors have pulled out over $16 billion from Indian equities this year, contributing to the rupee sliding past 90 per dollar to a record low.

The International Monetary Fund has also trimmed India’s 2026–27 growth forecast from 6.4% to 6.2%, assuming the US tariffs remain in place.

GTRI estimates that India’s total exports could fall to $49.6 billion this fiscal year from $86.5 billion last year, potentially shaving up to 80 basis points off GDP growth.

The role of Russian oil

India enthusiastically bought discounted Russian crude after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine as Moscow was hammered with severe sanctions including on its sale of oil.

But Trump’s decision to link trade policy to geopolitics upended US-India relations in August, with roughly half of the tariff burden stemming from Washington’s attempt to penalise those purchases.

The US president has repeatedly claimed India either plans to stop, or has already mostly stopped, buying Russian oil — a claim New Delhi has neither confirmed nor denied.

But when in the Indian capital, Putin offered to “continue uninterrupted shipments of fuel”. Modi did not comment directly on oil flows.

However, top buyer Reliance Industries said in November it stopped importing Russian oil for its export-focused refinery, while smaller refiners like HPCL-Mittal Energy have said they have stopped entirely.

Analysts at trade intelligence platform Kpler expect a “notable dip” in India’s December–January imports.

Whether that decline will sway Washington is unclear.

Other issues

Talks also stalled over agriculture, with India resisting pressure to cut tariffs on staples like rice and wheat — wary of angering its farmers, a politically powerful constituency.

A senior Indian commerce ministry official told AFP that these issues are “largely resolved”, although Trump on Monday also criticised the country for “dumping” rice into the United States.

Negotiating a trade pact is complicated by the need to address Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs, though both tracks are linked, officials say.

“These are two separate, parallel negotiations that are going on, but one will feed into another,” Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal told an industry event last week.

Is a breakthrough likely?

Relations have improved since August, with several smaller deals advancing.

That includes US approval in November for two arms sales worth nearly $93 million, and New Delhi’s “significant” deal for the United States to supply nearly 10 percent of its liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) imports.

Energy commitments have anchored past US trade deals, and experts say the LPG contract may help convince Washington that India is reducing its reliance on Russia.