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THE US has announced it will no longer act as the mediator to negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine after Vladimir Putin refused to accept a full ceasefire.

The State Department said the country is changing “the methodology of how we contribute” to the talks and will no longer “fly around the world at the drop of a hat” for meetings.

The shift comes just hours after Trump’s deputy JD Vance said the war in Ukraine is unlikely to end “any time soon”.

He added: “It is going to be up to the Russians and Ukrainians now that each side knows what the other’s terms for peace are.

“It’s going to be up to them to come to an agreement and stop this brutal, brutal conflict.”

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said that the US will still support efforts to bring peace in war-torn Ukraine, but will step back from its direct role as a mediator.

It added that Kyiv and Moscow must now present “concrete” proposals for ending the war and should meet directly to resolve the conflict.

Bruce said: “We are not going to fly around the world at the drop of a hat to mediate meetings; that is now between the two parties, and now is the time that they need to present and develop concrete ideas about how this conflict is going to end.

“[Trump] knows also that there is another part of the world, a whole globe that needs some attention.

“The Secretary has also made it very clear that while our style will change, the methodology of how we contribute to this will change in that we will not be the mediators,” Bruce added.

Trump previously said he would pull the plug on the peace negotiations if Moscow or Kyiv did not commit to a ceasefire.

He wrote on Truth Social: “If one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say: ‘you’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,’ and we’re just going to take a pass.”

Last week, Marco Rubio warned that they would walk away unless there is a deal in days.

ONE FINAL PUSH?

The shift comes just two days after the US and Ukraine signed a historic minerals deal – and could be a final push by Washington to broker a peace plan between Moscow and Kyiv.

The US initially proposed a 30-day ceasefire deal, which was accepted by Kyiv.

Not only has Moscow rejected the ceasefire deal and other plans to end the bloody war, but the Russian forces have also intensified attacks in Ukraine that have killed civilians.

The US also drafted a seven-point plan, which it hoped would draw a path to peace between Ukraine and Russia.

However, the plan was rejected by Zelensky as it involved the US formally recognising Russian sovereignty over Crimea.

Trump is said to be growing “increasingly frustrated” with both Putin and Zelensky in his attempts to bring the Ukraine war to a close.

The president, who appeared to be cosying up with Putin since taking over the White House in January, ordered Putin to “sit down and sign a deal”.

He said he was both “surprised and very disappointed” that mad Vlad continued to bomb Ukraine, despite the dictator engaging in crunch talks with US peace envoy Steve Witkoff.

GRAND plans are being made for a massive military parade on Donald Trump’s birthday – with some 7,000 troops marching and 50 helicopters flying over Washington DC.

The president reportedly plans to splash a whopping $100 million on the full-blown military spectacle to show the US might.

A source in Washington DC has revealed that Trump is planning a massive military parade to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US Army on June 14 – which also happens to be his birthday.

Plans are to start the procession at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, from where the contingents will snake through the streets of the capital to reach the White House.

The grandiose military parade will showcase soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines marching in their uniforms in front of thousands of spectators, the Washington City Paper reported.

As many as 6,600 troops and seven band contingents have reportedly been called to participate in the military parade.

They will be accompanied by at least 150 military vehicles and some 50 air force choppers.

Some 2,000 civilians could also take march alongside the US military.

Plans are also to roll down battle tanks, massive military equipment, and aircraft and missiles, just as he first envisioned the parade during his first term.

While US officials have yet to release the cost of the planned parade, the figure is expected to reach tens of millions of dollars.

This includes the cost of transporting all the military equipment across Washington and putting up safety measures for the public expected to gather at the parade.

Army spokesman Col. Dave Butler said that the Army is excited about the plans for its anniversary.

He added: “We want to make it into an event that the entire nation can celebrate with us.

“We want Americans to know their Army and their soldiers.

“A parade might become part of that, and we think that will be an excellent addition to what we already have planned.”

And Trump appeared to tease the grand plan in a post on Truth Social, where he wrote: “We are going to start celebrating our victories again!”

He also vowed to rename May 8, now known as Victory in Europe Day, as “Victory Day for World War II,” and to change November 11, Veterans Day, to “Victory Day for World War I”.

FIRST-TERM PARADE SCUTTLED

In 2017, Trump wanted the US military to throw a parade as a show of force after watching a French military spectacle the year before.

President Emmanuel Macron treated the president to an elaborate military display, which Trump is said to have become a big fan of.

After watching the grand spectacle, he said, “We’re going to have to try and top it.”

But Trump’s plans were cut short by district officials and other military leaders, and he was forced to cancel the plan, which reportedly cost $91 million.

THE US and Ukraine have finally signed the historic minerals deal, leaving Vladimir Putin furious.

The long-awaited agreement blames Putin for the three-year-long war, spares Ukraine from payback and will even allow Kyiv to join the EU.

The US and Ukraine signed the minerals deal two months after it was derailed by Trump and Zelensky’s Oval Office bust-up.

It comes as a humiliating blow for Vladimir Putin, who has unsuccessfully tried to break apart the two allies on a number of ocassions.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, celebrated the deal in a press conference on Thursday.

She said: “[The deal] is the first of its kind, economic partnership for the reconstruction and long-term economic success of Ukraine.”

Here are the five reasons the deal will drive Vlad mad.

No payback

Trump previously hinted that Ukraine would have to pay back the £264billion of aid that he claims the US has provided during the war.

The agreement acknowledges the US’ “significant financial and material support to Ukraine” since the beginning of the conflict.

But it seems the US President has made a U-turn – as there is no mention of “debt” anywhere.

Instead Don is banking on making his money back via his newly-agreed access to Ukrainian resources.

The deal also takes a tougher tone with Russian tyrant than we have come to expect from the Trump administration.

The agreement blames Russia for the war calling it “Russia’s full-scale invasion” – a term which is sure to make Putin squirm.

It also says: “No state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine”.

Oil and gas as well as minerals

The deal will give Washington priority access to invest in new projects to develop Ukraine’s natural resources.

Ukraine holds some five per cent of the world’s mineral resources and so-called “rare earth” metals, according to various estimates.

And the country has around 20 per cent of the world’s graphite, an essential material for electric batteries, according to France’s Bureau of Geological and Mining Research.

It is also a major producer of manganese and titanium, and says it possesses the largest lithium deposits in Europe.

But while most of the talk around the deal is about minerals, oil and natural gas are also included, as well as aluminium and graphite.

Oil and gas were not included in earlier drafts of the deal, which suggests that Zelensky has warmed towards the US President.

The resources will still technically belong to Ukraine but it’s still no doubt a blow to Vlad, as the US has gained joint access.

Kyiv can join EU

Zelensky has long expressed his desire to join the European Union.

Talks between Ukraine and the EU formally began last June but they were derailed by concerns surrounding a possible minerals deal with the US.

The EU was previously concerned that Ukraine may give preferential treatment to its US knight in shining armour – but these have now been squashed.

The agreement acknowledges Ukraine’s intention to join the EU as well as the importance of the deal not compromising this.

It also says if Ukraine needs to revisit the terms of the deal because of “additional obligations” then the US will be happy to oblige.

This will likely be salt in Vlad’s wound who has had a strained relationship with the EU since the beginning of the war.

Possible US military commitment

The deal also comes with the possibility of continued military support from the US.

Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko – who flew to Washington DC to sign the deal – said it envisaged the US contributing new assistance in the future, such as air defence systems.

News of any military support for Zelensky is bad news for Putin who has already lost tens of thousands of troops in his meatgrinder war.

But the agreement does not include any concrete security guarantees from the US – despite a push from Ukraine to do so – meaning they could withdraw at anytime.

Since the signing, Trump has already authorised the sale of weapons to Ukraine for the first time since he took office.

Profits may be reinvested in Ukraine

For the first decade of the reconstruction investment fund profits will reportedly be “fully reinvested in Ukraine’s economy” – either in new projects or reconstruction.

Following the ten-year period Kyiv said the profits may be distributed between the two parties.

While this has not been officially inked it may be part of an additional deal down the line.

In contrast with how Chinese fishermen, maritime militia, and even civilian groups have planted flags on disputed reefs, rocks, and islands in the contentious waterway since the 1990s, observers say China’s latest move is a pointed show of control aimed at reflecting its readiness to confront potential escalation amid rising tensions with the United States.

They add that the move carried out on Sandy Cay – a string of three uninhabited sandbars near a Philippine military outpost in the disputed Spratly Islands – also aims to reassure domestic audiences that Beijing remains firm on core interests such as sovereignty – and to portray strength as external pressure mounts.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on April 25 that its coast guard had landed on Sandy Cay “as part of maritime control operations to assert Beijing’s sovereignty”.

The broadcaster said the coast guard had “implemented control” over what it refers to as Tiexian Reef, part of the Sandy Cay feature. Footage showed four personnel in black combat gear holding the Chinese national flag after arriving on the reef aboard an inflatable dinghy.

On April 28, the Philippine Coast Guard released a photo of its personnel raising the national flag on the disputed reef. It said the mission was carried out pre-dawn the day before – a move seen as a direct rebuttal to China’s sovereignty claim.

The developments come amid the largest-ever joint military exercises between the US and the Philippines in nearby waters. They also follow a recent visit to Asia by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who pledged to strengthen defence ties with Manila and “restore deterrence” in the face of what Washington views as growing Chinese assertiveness in the region.

“For now, it’s mostly symbolic. It’s very low level, petty provocations, from (both sides) … It has not reached a stage where it is alarming, yet,” said Adib Zalkapli, Managing Director of Viewfinder Global Affairs and a geopolitical analyst specialising in the Indo-Pacific.

But it’s also a sign of China drawing a line in the sand to state its firm position over the territorial disputes and external pressures, said other analysts.

“It’s a warning for the Philippines (against) further developing closer defence relations with the US … It’s a signal to say, look, this is what we can do to counter you,” said Abdul Rahman Yaacob, a research fellow in the Southeast Asia programme at the Lowy Institute.

CALIBRATED CONFRONTATION

China claims nearly the entire South China Sea, a position that overlaps with those of several countries and territories, and goes against a 2016 international tribunal ruling, which rejected Beijing’s entitlements over the disputed islands and waters.

Sandy Cay lies near Thitu Island, the biggest and most strategically significant outpost held by the Philippines in the Spratly Islands. It is among the island chains, reefs and rocks in the South China Sea where China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan maintain overlapping territorial claims.

On April 29, Chinese state media Global Times released images of a coast guard operation at Tiexian Reef, claiming it was part of efforts to exercise “sovereign jurisdiction”.

The photos showed Chinese coast guard officers displaying the Chinese national flag, and clearing debris such as plastic bottles from the reef flat.

The report claimed that a group of Philippine personnel “illegally” landed on the reef despite repeated Chinese warnings, prompting Chinese officers to “conduct on-site verification and enforcement measures in line with the law”.

Beijing’s latest move was likely timed for symbolic impact, coinciding with the ongoing Philippines-US Balikatan exercises and the approaching Philippine midterm elections, said Abdul Rahman of the Lowy Institute.

While raising a flag does not amount to a formal seizure or legal claim of sovereignty, he noted that the reef’s location remains strategically important due to its close proximity to Philippine-held territory.

“If the Chinese were to build certain military infrastructure there, they could closely monitor activity on nearby Philippine islands,” he said.

“It would also allow them to project their presence much closer to Philippine-held territory. From a military standpoint, the reef holds clear strategic value.”

Abdul Rahman said China’s latest move in the South China Sea presents an early test for US President Donald Trump’s administration, which has vowed to push back against Beijing’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific with a more assertive regional posture.

The observer pointed to Manila’s planned purchase of US-made Typhon missile launchers and ongoing talks to acquire F-16 fighter jets as “among the key factors” that prompted Beijing to respond with what he described as symbolic but calibrated actions.

“China, through flexing its muscle, is sending a message to both Manila and Washington,” he said. “It’s saying: despite your new defence deals and closer military cooperation, the reality on the ground remains unchanged – and that is, Beijing can still impose its will over disputed areas.”

China’s latest action at Sandy Cay may be part of a broader strategy to expand its footprint in the West Philippine Sea – the term the Philippines uses for parts of the South China Sea within its exclusive economic zone – through incremental moves, said Don McLain Gill, a Manila-based analyst and lecturer at the Department of International Studies, De La Salle University.

In an April 29 commentary on the Singapore-based platform ThinkChina, Gill described the act as part of Beijing’s “salami slicing” approach to maritime claims.

“Sandy Cay lies around ten nautical miles away from Subi or Zamora Reef, which China has illegally occupied and converted into a military base with an airstrip,” he wrote.

“Occupying the sand bar would allow Beijing to justify its claims over Subi Reef and eventually serve as a stepping stone to push further into Pag-asa Island, which houses Philippine military facilities and is home to about 250 Filipino residents.”

China’s “salami slicing” in the South China Sea, as described by some observers, refers to a strategy of advancing territorial claims through a succession of small, calibrated moves. Each action avoids triggering armed conflict, but together they steadily tip the balance of control toward Beijing and alter the status quo over time.

One example often cited by analysts is China’s development of artificial islands, which began around 2014. Initially framed by Beijing as serving civilian and public service functions, construction activities on features such as Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratlys later expanded to include airstrips, radar installations, and missile systems.

While China maintains these are defensive in nature, the steady build-up has raised concerns about the long-term militarisation of disputed areas.

Another example often cited by analysts as part of the “salami slicing” approach, is the use of coast guard vessels and maritime militia to reinforce claims in disputed waters without direct confrontation.

At Second Thomas Shoal, Chinese vessels have disrupted Philippine resupply missions with water cannons and close-range manoeuvres. While Beijing frames these as legitimate law enforcement within its claimed waters, analysts see them as calibrated efforts to constrain access and shift control – without provoking a direct military clash.

Gill noted that since 2017, Chinese Coast Guard vessels and maritime militia have stepped up their presence around Sandy Cay, including forming a de facto barrier to prevent Filipino fishing boats from accessing the area.

He added that in 2019, these same forces were involved in large-scale swarming operations near Pag-asa Island – actions he described as instruments of China’s gradual expansionism in the region.

In a move seen as a calculated demonstration of military strength, China’s aircraft carrier Shandong sailed through waters north of the Philippines twice within a week – a rare occurrence coinciding with ongoing joint military drills between the United States and the Philippines, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Tuesday (Apr 30).

The Shandong, accompanied by a flotilla of destroyers, frigates, and support vessels, was first detected last Tuesday about 185km northwest of Burgos in northern Luzon, the Philippines’ main island.

Its transit through the Luzon Strait – a critical waterway between Taiwan and the Philippines – has been widely interpreted by analysts as a signal of Beijing’s intent to assert freedom of movement and challenge US-aligned military activity in the region.

The timing, just as Manila and Washington kicked off their Balikatan exercise featuring complex combat simulations and the deployment of advanced weaponry such as anti-ship missile systems, appeared deliberate, said analysts.

They added that the deployment reflects China’s broader strategic objective of pressing beyond the so-called “first island chain” – a network of US-friendly territories such as Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines – seen as central to its aim to contain Beijing.

“The deployment was certainly a show of force in light of Balikatan when they are conducting drills related to anti-ship techniques, and this was meant to signal that whatever the Filipinos and Americans are doing to conduct sea denial in these passageways, the (Chinese) navy will still force its way through in a conflict,” said Collin Koh, a senior fellow at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

FEAR OF FURTHER ESCALATION

Adib of Viewfinder Global Affairs noted that the prominent coverage on Chinese state media has given the incident greater symbolic weight and an air of official endorsement.

“The timing is also notable,” Adib noted.

“China is under growing pressure from the US, especially with fresh tariffs being imposed. By highlighting this act of sovereignty, Beijing is also addressing a domestic audience – reinforcing the message that, despite mounting external challenges, national interests and territorial claims remain a top priority.”

Abdul Rahman of Lowy Institute agreed that the move also plays to a domestic audience, particularly as China grapples with mounting economic headwinds.

However, he cautioned against drawing a direct link between developments in the South China Sea and Beijing’s escalating trade tensions with Washington.

“States generally separate economic issues from geostrategic competition,” he said.

“Rather than being a direct response to US tariffs, this is more about reassuring the Chinese public that Beijing remains proactive in asserting its position against the Philippines in contested waters.”

The dispute over Sandy Cay has added fresh strain to already tense relations between the Philippines and China, said analysts.

While China has not seized the disputed reef in any substantive way, further unilateral actions – such as deploying troops or constructing permanent facilities – could compel the Philippines to respond, potentially heightening the risk of conflict, said Adib.

“It’s important to note that China hasn’t taken such steps yet, the flag-raising remains symbolic for now,” he said.

“But the fact that it was able to land on the reef shows it has the capability to take more assertive actions if it chooses to. That in itself sends a message to the Philippines.”

Abdul Rahman echoed similar concerns, pointing to fears of a repeat of the 1995 Mischief Reef episode – when China’s construction of initial stilted structures triggered a sharp response from the Philippines, leading to a cycle of escalating actions between the two countries.

Asked whether the Philippines might be pushed by the US to adopt a more assertive posture in the South China Sea – potentially fuelling further escalation – Abdul Rahman said such a scenario remains unlikely.

“In my conversations with Philippine officials, it’s clear their approach to the South China Sea is largely self-directed. They’re cautious about appearing overly influenced by Washington,” he said.

“I don’t see this as an extension of US efforts to economically contain China.”

Under the current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr administration, the Philippines has adopted a more assertive strategy to defend its territorial claims in the West Philippine Sea, according to Gill from De La Salle University.

He argued that while China has yet to establish full control over Sandy Cay, Manila must remain vigilant and sustain its presence in strategically important waters.

Coordinated and recurring joint patrols with defence partners, he added, are critical to pushing back against Beijing’s attempts to unilaterally shape the status quo.

Despite China’s assertive moves in the South China Sea, its broader relations with Southeast Asian countries remain largely cordial and grounded in mutual interests, noted Adib Zalkapli.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-philippines-flag-south-china-sea-sandy-cay-reef-5099936

The United States and Ukraine on Wednesday (Apr 30) signed a minerals deal after a two-month delay, in what President Donald Trump’s administration called a new form of US commitment to Kyiv after the end of military aid.

Ukraine said it secured key interests after protracted negotiations, including full sovereignty over its own rare earths, which are vital for new technologies and largely untapped.

Trump had initially demanded rights to Ukraine’s mineral wealth as compensation for the billions of dollars in US weapons sent under former president Joe Biden after Russia invaded just over three years ago.

After initial hesitation, Ukraine has accepted a minerals accord as a way to secure long-term investment by the United States, as Trump tries to drastically scale back US security commitments around the world.

Announcing the signing of the deal in Washington, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it showed “both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine.”

“This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” Bessent said.

“And to be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.”

In Kyiv, Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said on national television that the agreement was “good, equal and beneficial.”

In a post on Telegram, Shmygal said that the two countries would establish a Reconstruction Investment Fund with each side having 50 per cent voting rights.

“Ukraine retains full control over its subsoil, infrastructure and natural resources,” he said.

Meeting a key concern for Kyiv, he said Ukraine would not be asked to pay back any “debt” for the billions of dollars in US weapons and other support since Russia invaded in February 2022.

“The fund’s profits will be reinvested exclusively in Ukraine,” he said.

Trump had originally sought US$500 billion in mineral wealth – around four times what the United States has contributed to Ukraine since the war.

US PRESENCE AGAINST “BAD ACTORS”

Trump has balked at offering security guarantees to Ukraine and has rejected its aspiration to join NATO.

But Trump said on Wednesday that a US presence on the ground would benefit Ukraine.

“The American presence will, I think, keep a lot of bad actors out of the country or certainly out of the area where we’re doing the digging,” Trump said at the cabinet meeting.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday threatened that the Trump administration would give up on mediation on the conflict – which Trump had vowed during the campaign to end on his first day in office — unless the two sides come forward with “concrete proposals.”

Trump has pressed for a settlement in which Ukraine would give up some territory seized by Russia, which has rejected US-backed overtures for a ceasefire of at least 30 days.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has ruled out any formal concession to Russia of Crimea, the peninsula seized in 2014 and whose annexation by Moscow is roundly rejected internationally.

But Zelensky has taken care to voice support for Trump’s diplomacy after a disastrous February 28 White House meeting where Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated him for allegedly being ungrateful for US assistance.

Zelensky had been due to sign the minerals agreement at the White House but was abruptly shown the door after the stunning on-camera feud.

Ukraine holds some 5 per cent of the world’s mineral resources and rare earths, according to various estimates. But work has not yet started on tapping many of the resources and many sites are in territory now controlled by Russian forces.

Notably, Ukraine has around 20 per cent of the world’s graphite, an essential material for electric batteries, according to France’s Bureau of Geological and Mining Research.

Ukraine is also a major producer of manganese and titanium, and says it possesses the largest lithium deposits in Europe.

Russia controls about 20 per cent of Ukraine’s territory after more than three years of brutal fighting that has killed tens of thousands, including civilians.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/ukraine-us-sign-minerals-deal-tying-trump-kyiv-5100946

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday approved additional relief for domestic automakers from his 25% vehicle and auto parts tariffs set in motion less than a month ago, saying it would help the industry to move more production back to the U.S.
Trump’s latest orders mark the latest softening of his multi-layered tariff assault on trading partners as he seeks to negotiate deals aimed at lowering other countries’ trade barriers to U.S. exports.

ENDS AUTOS TARIFF ‘STACKING’

Spain and Portugal held emergency Cabinet meetings as evacuations from some public spaces took place. Spain’s Interior Ministry has declared a state of emergency for affected regions that need it. Follow DW.

A protracted rift between Malaysia’s national oil corporation Petronas and the Sarawak state government appears to be causing investor disquiet following a surprise withdrawal by United States oil firm ConocoPhillips from an oil project off the Borneo coast.

In a little-publicised surprise move this month, ConocoPhillips decided to withdraw from operating the Salam-Patawali deepwater oil and gas field that the company discovered in 2018 with Petronas in a 50-50 joint-venture that was expected to cost RM13.7 billion (US$3.13 billion).

The withdrawal was first reported by Upstream Online, a widely tracked industry news resource, on Apr 15 but has otherwise gone unreported in Malaysia media.

Two industry sources close to ConocoPhillips separately confirmed the pullout with CNA. They added that the move was part of a “country strategy review” which the company did not elaborate on.

Efforts by CNA to reach company executives in its Kuala Lumpur office were unsuccessful as telephone calls went unanswered.

Industry executives told CNA that ConocoPhillips’ move was in part driven by the uncertain regulatory environment arising from the spat between Petronas and the state government headed by Premier Abang Johari Openg.

The Sarawak government, which owns oil and gas firm Petroleum Sarawak or Petros, is demanding greater control over its resources.

The industry executives with close ties with ConocoPhillips said that the company would now be focusing on its activities in neighbouring Sabah, where it already has operations.

“The sentiment is that foreign companies are uncomfortable because they see that Petronas is under pressure in Sarawak and the oil company (Petronas) is often the joint-venture partner in many exploration projects,” said a senior executive of a Western oil contracting firm based in the capital Kuala Lumpur.

According to ConocoPhillips’ factsheet on its Asia Pacific operations dated April 2024, it has exploration, development and production activities across about 2.7 million net acres in Malaysia.

Net acres refer to the amount of leased real estate that a company holds, pertaining to its working interest.

It has working interests in six production sharing contracts in Malaysia, and Petronas is listed as a “co-venturer” in all six contracts.

The Salam-Patawali exploration block encompasses 300,000 net acres primarily in the Salam and Benum fields off southern Sarawak.

“The company continues to evaluate the block and information from prior well results. A 3D seismic survey was acquired in 2023, and processing and evaluation of this data is currently ongoing,” it stated.

Typically, under production sharing contracts signed with Petronas, private oil companies surrender rights to oil fields back to the Malaysian oil corporation should they decide to discontinue exploration and production plans.

CORPORATE ESPIONAGE?

Industry executives noted that the latest move by ConocoPhillips comes on the heels of another review by a foreign firm.

Upstream Online reported in February that Thailand’s PTTEP – the exploration arm of its national petrochemical firm PTT – is re-engineering the Lang Lebah gas project off Sarawak shore “to improve the economic viability of the project”.

PTTEP has a 42.5 per cent share in the Lang Lebah project, according to a factsheet on its website dated Dec 31, 2024.

The development cost of the project has been reported to be about US$6 billion.

Sources told CNA that PTTEP temporarily suspended the development of the project and has postponed the final decision until sometime next year.

The spat between Sarawak and Petronas isn’t only hurting foreign investor sentiment in Malaysia’s robust oil and gas sector. It has also attracted allegations of corporate espionage.

Former Petronas manager Khairul Akmal Jasni pleaded not guilty in a Sessions Court in Kuala Lumpur on Apr 18 to charges that he had attempted to leak highly confidential information in June last year on the national oil corporation’s inner workings to Petros.

Cases of corporate spying are extremely rare in Malaysia and the allegations that Khairul had sought to share a document titled “Q1 2024 Upstream Business Performance, Operational & Financial” underscore the rising stakes in Sarawak’s quest to break the national oil corporation’s monopoly.

The latest twists are also putting pressure on Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to press both Sarawak and Petronas to reach a solution at a time when the country is grappling with growing headwinds to the economy due to uncertainties from the US’ campaign on global tariffs.

A senior aide to Anwar, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the premier had been briefed by top Petronas officials on the status of the dispute with Sarawak.

“No change. Both parties are in a holding pattern with both holding firm to their positions,” said the aide.

A senior Petronas official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also confirmed that talks with the Sarawak government have not progressed.

Sarawak is challenging the decades-old monopoly Petronas has held since it was incorporated under a parliamentary statute in 1974 known as the Petroleum Development Act or PDA. The PDA, among other things, decrees that the national oil corporation is the sole guardian of the nation’s hydrocarbon reserves.

Sarawak, whose probable and proven reserves of petroleum represent 60.87 per cent of Malaysia’s total and which accounts for 90 per cent Malaysia’s liquified natural gas (LNG) exports, is insisting that PDA does not apply to the state.

Instead, it wants all the hydrocarbon reserves in Sarawak to be regulated under a colonial-era Oil Mining Ordinance 1958 that stipulates that oil and gas resources found within 200 nautical miles of its waters belong to the state.

Both parties have tried to reach a compromise in talks that began sometime in April last year, but talks have broken down twice, with Petronas suspending all negotiations in December, according to executives from the national oil corporation.

Requests to Premier Abang Johari’s office and Petros for comment were declined.

SERIOUS ECONOMIC SETBACK

ConocoPhillips is a major player in Malaysia’s oil and gas sector and its pullout from the Salam-Patawali discovery, which is currently at the feasibility stage, represents a serious setback for the Sarawak economy.

It is unclear how much money ConocoPhillips and Petronas have spent on the Salam-Patawali field, known as the WL4-00 block, at this stage.

Offshore Technology, a widely used resource for the oil and gas sectors, noted development costs for the Salam-Patawali oil fields were pegged at RM13.7 billion, with production set to peak in 2028.

ConocoPhillips and Petronas had also envisaged working the area until the field reaches its economic limit in 2067.

The other production sharing contract operated by ConocoPhillips in Sarawak is known as the SK304 block that encompasses 1.1 million net acres. Exploration there remains at the feasibility stage.

GROWING COMPLEXITIES, IMPACT ON INVESTOR SENTIMENT

ConocoPhillips’ move to withdraw from the Salam-Patawali project highlights the growing complexities facing the oil and gas sector in Sarawak.

The dispute between Petronas and Petros has already produced legal skirmishes in recent months.

The first legal challenge was filed by Petros against Petronas in mid-October at the Kuching High Court over the national corporation’s demand for payment of RM7.05 million tied to a bank guarantee under a gas sales agreement signed in end-December 2019.

In court documents reviewed by CNA, Petros is arguing that the 2019 gas sales agreement is “illegal and void” because Petronas failed to obtain the “necessary licence” under the Distribution and Gas Ordinance enacted by the state in 2016.

Petros added that honouring the RM7.05 million claim would be “endorsing and furthering an illegal agreement”.

In a separate dispute, a Malaysian unit of international oil giant Shell obtained an interim order in January from the Kuala Lumpur High Court to temporarily suspend payment on natural gas supplies from the Bintulu gas facility in Sarawak.

The High Court granted an interim injunction to Shell MDS Malaysia Sdn Bhd to continue its operations without any disruption in supply until the legal tussle between Petronas and Petros is resolved.

While ongoing petroleum projects in Sarawak, such as the Bintulu gas facility, remain operational, several industry executives noted that the ongoing faceoff between Abang Johari’s administration and Petronas could dampen investor sentiment on the oil and gas sector in the Borneo state.

They noted that Petros, which was formed in August 2017, lacks the technological expertise and international experience that Petronas’s exploration arm Carigali possesses.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/malaysia-sarawak-petronas-conocophillips-withdrawal-oil-project-investor-sentiment-5089371

Israel carried out an air strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday, after ordering an evacuation of a building that it said was being used by the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah.

The attack occurred despite a ceasefire that came into force five months ago which put an end to the conflict between Israel and the military group.

Israel said that it had targeted a Hezbollah store of “precision-guided missiles” that “poses a threat to the State of Israel and its civilians”.

The Lebanese presidency condemned the strike and called on the US and France – who brokered the ceasefire in November – to press Israel to cease its attacks on the country.

The attack marks the first time in almost a month that Israel has struck Beirut’s southern suburbs – called Dahieh – where Hezbollah is based.

This will put further pressure on the ceasefire. Despite the deal, Israel has struck targets it says are linked to Hezbollah almost every day. The Israeli government has said that it will respond to any perceived threats from Hezbollah.

Western officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have told the BBC that the militant group has been largely compliant with the truce, while accusing Israel of multiple violations that include air strikes and drone surveillance.

Live footage streamed by Reuters showed a giant plume of smoke billowing from the targeted building an hour after the Israeli army issued an evacuation order to residents of the Hadath neighbourhood.

Lebanon’s Civil Defence later said that no casualties had been recorded and rescue crews had extinguished the fire.

In a statement on X following the strike, the Lebanese Presidency said that President Joseph Aoun condemned the attack.

“The United States and France, as guarantors of the cessation of hostilities agreement, must assume their responsibilities and compel Israel to immediately cease its attacks,” it wrote.

“Israel’s continued undermining of stability will exacerbate tensions and expose the region to real threats to its security and stability.”

Israel’s government said that it had targeted a Hezbollah store of “precision-guided missiles”.

“The storage of missiles in this infrastructure site constitutes a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon, and poses a threat to the State of Israel and its civilians,” the Israeli military said in a statement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that Israel “will not allow Hezbollah to grow stronger”.

“The Dahiyeh neighbourhood in Beirut will not serve as a safe haven for the terrorist organisation Hezbollah,” it added.

UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, wrote on X that the strike “generated panic and fear of renewed violence among those desperate for a return to normalcy”.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9qw3z5xplro

A LIP reader has revealed Trump’s five-word warning to Emmanuel Macron moments before speaking with Volodymyr Zelensky at the Pope’s funeral.

Trump and Zelensky were pictured meeting for the first time since their historic White House spat just before the late pontiff’s final farewell.

The impromptu meeting took place inside the holy St Peter’s Basilica with the pair both pulling up chairs to have an intense one-on-one conversation.

The pair were spotted with French President Emmanuel Macron and Sir Keir Starmer while the chairs were being set up for the meeting.

Pictures show Macron embracing the Ukrainian President, before Trump pulls the French President aside and issues a frosty warning.

Professional lip reader Nicola Hickling analysed the interaction between the world leaders and told The Sun: “Donald reaches his hands out to both of them and brings them towards him.”

“He says to Macron ‘you are not in the right here, I need you to do me a favour, you should not be here.’

“Zelensky nods in agreement and the vicar who is in front of the camera turns his head to the side looking worried at what he has heard between them.”

Hickling also analysed video footage from Zelensky and Trump’s mini peace summit.

According to Hickling, the Ukrainian president said: “I would like you to do that, but no this way.”

Trump replies: “It’s a very interesting strategy. You have reassurance.”

Following the funeral, Zelensky said: “We discussed a lot one on one. Hoping for results on everything we covered. Protecting lives of our people.

“Full and unconditional ceasefire. Reliable and lasting peace that will prevent another war from breaking out.

“Very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results.”

The White House also described it a “very productive discussion”.

Later, Trump posted on Truth Social and blasted Putin for “tapping him along”.

He said: “There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days.

“It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”

This comes after Putin’s barbaric missile strikes on Kyiv earlier this week that left at least 12 dead.

The US president has gone back and forth on his attitude towards Zelensky and previously labelled him a key obstacle to a Ukraine peace deal.

The pair’s meeting marks the first time the two leaders have spoken since their infamous Oval Office spat in February.

Trump blasted Zelensky for “gambling with World War Three” before he booted him out of the White House.

But at Francis’ funeral the presidential pair seemed to put the past behind them for the greater good.

The two were sat alongside hundreds of foreign dignitaries, presidents, prime ministers and even royals in Rome.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/14115132/trump-macron-zelensky-warning-pope-funeral/

A unique letter written by Titanic passenger Archibald Gracie from aboard the doomed ship has sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds at auction in the United Kingdom.

A letter written on board the Titanic by one of the most famous survivors from the ill-fated ship’s maiden voyage sold at auction in the United Kingdom for £300,000 ($399,390) on Saturday.

The lettercard was penned by first-class passenger Archibald Gracie IV to the seller’s great-uncle on April 10, 1912, the day the Titanic set sail from Southampton to New York.

“It is a fine ship but I shall await my journey’s end before I pass judgment on her,” wrote Gracie, before the vessel struck an iceberg off Newfoundland four days later and sank with loss of around 1,500 lives.

Gracie’s letter, believed to be the only one he wrote aboard the Titanic, was purchased by a private collector from the United States for five times the initial estimate price of £60,000 after going under the hammer at Henry Aldridge & Son auction house in the southern English county of Wiltshire.

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge described it as an “exceptional museum-grade piece.”

Titanic: who was Archibald Gracie?

Gracie, whose father had been a Confederate officer during the American Civil War and whose great-grandfather had built Gracie Mansion, the current official residence of the mayor of New York City, in 1799, was returning to New York after traveling to Europe earlier in 1912.

The 54-year-old was a keen amateur historian and had published a book about the 1863 Battle of Chickamauga, in which his father had fought, a year earlier.

When the Titanic struck the iceberg and began to sink, Gracie had jumped into the ocean and scrambled onto an overturned lifeboat, before being rescued by other passengers and being taken to the RMS Carpathia, which picked up the survivors the next morning.

Source :https://www.dw.com/en/titanic-letter-auctioned-for-almost-400000/a-72364998

Several containers at a key Iranian port in the south of the country blew up in a huge explosion on Saturday, authorities said, with reports now speaking of hundreds of injured and at least 14 dead.

State media said the explosion took place at the port of Shahid Rajaei, more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of the capital, Tehran.

Authorities have offered no cause for the explosion. The Interior Ministry said it had launched an investigation into the incident.

The disaster came as Iran was holding a third round of talks on its nuclear program with the US in Oman.

What do we know about the explosion?

Iranian state media have issued frequent updates on the number of injured people, with the latest reports speaking of 750 wounded and 14 dead.

“The cause of this incident was the explosion of several containers stored in the Shahid Rajaei Port wharf area. We are currently evacuating and transferring the injured to medical centers,” a local crisis management official told state TV.

The head of the Red Crescent Society in Hormozgan province, where the port is situated, said four rapid response teams had been sent to the scene after the explosion.

Iranian media said the blast shattered windows within a radius of several kilometers.

State media reported that all the city’s schools and offices were ordered closed on Sunday.

The intensity increased late Saturday after burning for 10 hours, with warnings that the fire could spread to other areas and containers.

What do we know about the port?

Shahid Rajaei is the most advanced container port in Iran, according to the official IRNA news agency, and is located 23 kilometers west of Bandar Abbas, the capital of Hormozgan province.

The port handles some 80 million tons (72.5 million metric tons) of goods a year, according to The Associated Press.

State TV carried a statement from the customs office at the port saying that the explosion likely resulted from a fire in the hazmat and chemical materials storage depot.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/iran-port-explosion-number-of-casualties-on-the-rise/a-72361709

Hours after Pope Francis’ death was announced, Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted a short message on X: “Rest in peace, Pope Francis. May his memory be a blessing.” Several hours later, it was deleted without explanation.

Coming at a time of effusive global mourning over Francis’ death, the decision to delete the post appeared to reflect the tensions that have emerged between Israel and the Vatican over Francis’ frequent criticism of Israel’s conduct during the war in Gaza. The Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the deletion.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is usually quick to issue statements on the passing of major international figures. It took him four days to issue a terse, 28-word statement on the official Prime Minister account, and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has been silent. The only immediate official condolences came from Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role and who praised Francis for being “a man of deep faith and boundless compassion.”

For most of Francis’ papacy, ties between Israel and the Vatican steadily improved — highlighted by a visit to the Holy Land in 2014.

But everything changed after the war in Gaza erupted with Hamas’ deadly attack in southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023.

While expressing sympathy for Israeli victims and hostages, Francis has suggested Israel’s subsequent attacks in Gaza and Lebanon were “immoral” and disproportionate. He also called for an investigation to determine if Israel’s attacks in Gaza constitute genocide, a charge Israel denies while investigations at the U.N.’s top courts proceed.

“Pope Francis condemned what happened on Oct. 7, but he was clear also that what happened on Oct. 7 does not justify what has been happening since Oct. 7,” said Wadie Abunassar, who heads a group that represents Christians in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Pope Francis was like a friend who tells the truth, even if that’s not exactly what you want to hear, Abunassar said.

Throughout the war, Francis walked a delicate balance between his close ties with Israel and condemning the devastating losses in Gaza, according to Amnon Ramon, an expert on Christianity in Israel and a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research. Francis was exceptionally close to Gaza’s local parish priest, who, like the former pontiff, is from Argentina.

A history of tension
Israel has historically had a fragile relationship with the Vatican. It stems from anger over the Vatican’s perceived lack of action during World War II, when critics argue Pope Pius XII kept silent during the Holocaust despite possible knowledge of the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews. Supporters insist he used quiet diplomacy to save Jewish lives.

In the 1960s, the Vatican underwent a series of dramatic transformations, including, among other things, changing the Church’s attitude towards Jews over what was long seen as their collective culpability for the crucifixion of Jesus, Ramon explained. The Holy See formally launched diplomatic relations with Israel in 1993.

Christians make up less than 2% of the Holy Land’s population. There are about 182,000 in Israel, 50,000 in the West Bank and 1,300 in Gaza, according to the U.S. State Department.

At the start of Francis’ papacy, the relationship with Israel warmed significantly. Francis visited the Holy Land in 2014 as one of his first international trips, when he met with Netanyahu, who was prime minister at the time. Then-President Shimon Peres visited the Vatican multiple times, including with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to plant a peace tree in the Vatican Gardens.

But the Israeli government’s rightward shift, and the ongoing war with Gaza, strained the ties.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/pope-francis-jerusalem-israel-funeral-vatican-netanyahu-5e6fd6caa4850b0ee5b4fc8720043e1e

An Israeli airstrike hit a police station in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 10 people, local health authorities said, and Israel’s military said it had struck a command centre of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad groups.
Medics said two Israeli missiles hit the police station, located near a market, which led to the wounding of dozens of people in addition to the 10 deaths. The identities of those killed were not immediately clear.

The Israeli military said in a statement apparently referring to the same incident, that it attacked a command and control centre operated by Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad groups in Jabalia, which militants used to plan and execute attacks against Israeli forces.
It accused Palestinian militant groups of exploiting civilians and civil properties for military purposes, an allegation Hamas and other factions deny.
Local health authorities said Israeli strikes have killed at least 34 other people in separate airstrikes across the enclave, bringing Thursday’s death toll to 44.
The Gaza Health Ministry said the Durra Children’s Hospital in Gaza City had become non-operational, a day after an Israeli strike hit the upper part of the building, damaging the intensive care unit and destroying the facility’s solar power panel system.

No one was killed. There was no Israeli comment on the incident.
Israel’s military said on Thursday that one soldier was killed during combat in the northern Gaza Strip, while an officer and a reservist were severely injured.
Gaza’s health system has been devastated by Israel’s 18-month-old military campaign, launched in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas in 2023, putting many of the territory’s hospitals out of action, killing medics, and reducing crucial supplies.
Since a January ceasefire collapsed on March 18, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,900 Palestinians, many of them civilians, according to the Gaza health authorities, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced as Israel seized what it calls a buffer zone of Gaza’s land.
Efforts by Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have so far failed to reconcile disputes between the two warring parties, Israel and Hamas.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-fire-kills-least-26-people-gaza-hits-police-station-2025-04-24/

The tension between Department of Government Efficiency lead Elon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent came to a head last week when the two had a heated argument in the halls of the White House, two sources familiar with the tiff told The Post.

The conversation — about the IRS — got so tense, Axios first reported, the two men got in each other’s faces in earshot of President Trump.

“Elon was shouting and rambling and Scott just wasn’t putting up with it,” one source close to the White House said.

A second source close to the White House said that the fight was fundamentally about the different visions the two men have for reform, with Musk taking a more aggressive approach.

Elon Musk has been called a Moonshot Master, the Edison of Our Age and the Architect of the Future, but he’s got a big problem at his car company and it’s not clear he can fix it: damage to its brand.

Sales have plunged for Tesla amid protests and boycotts over Musk’s embrace of far right-wing views. Profits have been sliced by two-thirds so far this year, and rivals from China, Europe and the U.S. are pouncing.

On Tuesday came some relief as Musk announced in an earnings call with investors that he would be scaling back his government cost-cutting job in Washington to a “day or two per week” to focus more on his old job as Tesla’s boss.

Investors pushed up Tesla’s stock 5% Wednesday, though there are plenty of challenges ahead.

Who wants a Tesla?
Musk seemed to downplay the role that brand damage played in the drop in first-quarter sales on the investor call. Instead, he emphasized something more fleeting — an upgrade to Tesla’s best-selling Model Y that forced a shutdown of factories and pinched both supply and demand.

While financial analysts following the company have noted that potential buyers probably held back while waiting for the upgrade, hurting results, even the most bullish among them say the brand damage is real, and more worrisome.

“This is a full blown crisis,” said Wedbush Securities’ normally upbeat Dan Ives earlier this month. In a note to its clients, JP Morgan warned of “unprecedented brand damage.”

Musk’s take on the protests
Musk dismissed the protests against Tesla on the call as the work of people angry at his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency because “those who are receiving the waste and fraud wish it to continue.”

But the protests in Europe, thousands of miles from Washington, came after Musk supported far-right politicians there. Angry Europeans hung Musk in effigy in Milan, projected an image of him doing a straight-arm salute on a Tesla factory in Berlin and put up posters in London urging people not to buy “Swasticars” from him.

Sales in Europe have gone into a free fall in the first three months of this year — down 39%. In Germany, sales plunged 62%.

Another worrying sign: On Tuesday, Tesla backed off its earlier promise that sales would recover this year after dropping in 2024 for the first time a dozen years. Tesla said the global trade situation was too uncertain and declined to repeat the forecast.

Here come the rivals
Meanwhile, Tesla’s competition is stealing its customers.

Among its fiercest rivals now is Chinese giant BYD. Earlier this year, the EV maker announced it had developed an electric battery that can charge within minutes. And Tesla’s European rivals have begun offering new models with advanced technology that is making them real Tesla alternatives just as popular opinion has turned against Musk.

Tesla’s share of the EV market in the U.S. has dropped from two-thirds to less than half, according to Cox Automotive.

Pinning hopes on cybercabs
Another rival, Google parent Alphabet, is already ahead of Tesla in an area that Musk has promised will help remake his company: Cybercabs.

One of the highlights of Tesla’s call Tuesday was Musk sticking with his previous prediction that it will l aunch driverless cabs without steering wheels and pedals in Austin, Texas, in June, and in other cities soon after.

But Google’s service, called Waymo, already has logged millions of driverless cybercab trips in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Austin as part of a partnership with ride-hailing leader Uber.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/tesla-trump-musk-evs-doge-cybercab-brand-b9c9151c7852b8f1c10aaacb8fe6c8b8

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a trade agreement at the core of US economic policy on Africa, is soon set to expire.

The US Congress enacted the AGOA Trade Act in May 2000. The pact has been renewed several times, most recently in 2015, when Congress extended it to September 2025.

Since its implementation, AGOA has provided eligible sub-Saharan African countries with duty-free access to the US market for over 1,800 products.

However, trade decisions by the Trump administration, including the imposition of a universal 10% tariff on all countries, threaten the future of AGOA.

Tsonam Akpeloo, President of the Association of Ghana Industries, told DW that Trump’s move could result in people losing their jobs.

“One of our member companies producing fabrics and supplying them to the US market is employing over 5,000 people here in Ghana because of the AGOA, which has a ready market in the US,” Akpeloo said.

“If AGOA is no longer in place, that company will have to pay more taxes and it would mean that the people employed will be affected,” he added.

Trump has imposed steep tariffs on some member countries under AGOA, including Lesotho, with a 50% tariff slapped on the mountainous nation.

Although the tariff imposition is enjoying a 90-day freeze from Trump, experts across the continent are unsure about what lies ahead.

US-Africa trade relations

Between 2017 and 2020, the US was the third-largest destination for Africa’s industrial products after the European Union and intra-African trade, according to the London School of Economics.

Data from the World Economic Forum also suggests that sales from apparel in Kenya under AGOA grew from $55 million (€48 million) in 2001 to $603 million in 2022, accounting for nearly 68% of the country’s total exports to the US.

For these reasons, many fear that an end to AGOA may have a dire impact on the 32 countries trading under the agreement.

If Trump does not renew the pact, economists warn that short-term job losses, hikes in commodity prices and higher costs of doing business will harm African economies.

Is Africa prepared to negotiate with Trump?

“It’s like a big brother is doing you a favor and you have no room to negotiate,” Jane Nalunga, a Ugandan economist, told DW.

For many observers, Africa’s ability to hold a bargaining chip in trade negotiations with the United States is limited.

A area of possible agreement now, experts believe, is the continent’s rare earth minerals, which are of interest to Trump.

For Akpeloo, the continent must refocus on luxury products, such as ornaments and artifacts, which are currently not part of the products with preferential access to the US market.

He also strongly suggests that the continent negotiate an extension to the agreement and prepare measures to mitigate any fallout from its discontinuation.

Strategizing for the future

Economists believe it is better for Africa to negotiate as a collective rather than as individual countries, thereby strengthening the regional value chain.

Ghana’s Tsonam Akpeloo suggests leveraging platforms like the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) as a key strategy for the continent’s economic future.

The AfCFTA is the world’s largest free trade area, both in terms of its geographical scope and the number of participating countries. It comprises 54 countries with a combined population of 1.3 billion and a GDP of about $3.4 trillion.

The World Bank projects that by 2025, the framework will lift nearly 30 million Africans out of extreme poverty and increase intra-African trade by 81% if it is implemented effectively.

Boosting intra-African trade

“What needs to be done in Africa now is for the leaders of Africa to begin to analyze and take major steps in favor of securing the continent. The first thing that readily comes to mind is intra-African trade,” Akpeloo said.

Jane Nalunga, Executive Director of the Southern and Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI), called on Africa’s trade policymakers to return to the drawing board.

“Africa should put its house in order. The failure to do so will continuously shortchange the continent,” Nalunga told DW.

“If we don’t put our house in order, we are going to continue exporting raw commodities, raw materials in the same way so it comes back to us. Whether we get AGOA back or not, it doesn’t matter,” Jane added.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/what-happens-if-trump-trashes-the-agoa-pact/a-72274345

Pope Francis died early Monday after suffering a stroke and heart failure, according to a death certificate released by Vatican doctor Andrea Arcangeli.

The document, made public by the Vatican, stated that the 88-year-old pontiff had slipped into a coma before his death, which occurred early Monday morning.

Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church, suffered double pneumonia this year. Earlier on Easter Sunday, he appeared in an open-air popemobile to welcome cheering crowds in St. Peter’s Square, indicating his convalescence was progressing well.

“Dear brothers and sisters, it is with profound sadness I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis,” Cardinal Kevin Farrell announced on the Vatican’s TV channel.

“At 7:35 (0535 GMT) this morning the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father.”

POPE FRANCIS PREFERRED UNDECORATED GRAVE

No date has been announced yet for the funeral, but the Vatican said it would traditionally be expected to occur at some point between Friday and Sunday. A gathering of cardinals is scheduled to take place on Tuesday and could establish the schedule for the funeral then.

The text specified that Francis wanted to be buried “in the ground, without particular decoration” but with the inscription of his papal name in Latin: Franciscus.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/pope-francis-died-of-stroke-irreversible-heart-failure-vatican-doctor-says-glbs-2712496-2025-04-21

DONALD TRUMP’S defence chief “shared top secret war plans” in another Signal group chat with his wife and brother in a major security breach.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is said to have shared bombshell information on impending US airstrikes on Yemen in the private group.

It would mark the second time Hegseth has faced accusations of sharing top-secret military information on the messaging app with unofficial individuals.

Last month, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of the Atlantic magazine, revealed he was included in a messaging chain alongside Trump’s vice president JD Vance in the incredible security blunder.

Now, the New York Times reported that the Defence Secretary discussed top-secret information on the same March 15 strikes with the second Signal chat.

The second chat included 13 people, the source said, adding that the chat was dubbed “Defense Team Huddle”.

The bombshell intel shared “included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen,” the newspaper reported.

The source also revealed that, compared to the accidental leak where journalist Goldberg was mistakenly included in the group, the chat was actually created by Hegseth.

Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper said: “It included his wife and about a dozen other people from his personal and professional inner circle in January, before his confirmation as defense secretary.”

Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, is a former Fox News producer and journalist.

The group also included his brother Phil and Tim Parlatore, both of who work different roles at the Pentagon.

The messages leaked last month were said to have discussed the strikes against the Houthi terror group in Yemen, with further bombshell claims that Hegseth ripped into America’s European allies, calling them “pathetic free-loaders”.

Several other senior members of the Trump administration were also included such as Hegseth and national security adviser Mike Waltz.

On March 15, Trump ordered the massive attack on Houthi rebels in a stark warning to the militants and their Iranian backers.

The US president ordered a series of airstrikes on capital Sanaa in response to the terror group’s attacks on Red Sea shipping.

WAR PLANS LEAKED

Jeffrey Goldberg revealed he was aware of the plans as he published an article today headlined: “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.”

In the story, Goldberg claimed he spoke with Waltz on the Signal messaging app on March 11.

Days later he was invited to join a chain called the “Houthi PC small group”.

Signal is a private messaging app which is often used to keep texts private and untraceable.

Goldberg claimed that when he was added to the chat he was given the callsign “JG”.

He believes this may have been down to Waltz mistaking his number for Jamieson Greer, the US Trade Representative, due to the initials.

On March 13, Waltz messaged those in the chat and asked them to provide him with the best point of contact from their team who would be able to help with the coming weekend.

Goldberg then revealed a text from Waltz at 8:05am a day later which read: “Team, you should have a statement of conclusions with tasking per the Presidents [sic] guidance this morning in your high side inboxes.”

High side refers to the US government’s classified computer systems.

JD Vance is then said to have messaged the group saying: “I think we are making a mistake.”

He added: “[Three] percent of US trade runs through the [Suez Canal]. 40 percent of European trade does.

“There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.”

Hegseth replied: “I understand your concerns.”

Before arguing “messaging is going to be tough no matter what – nobody knows who the Houthis are”.

Vance then appeared to accept the Pentagon chief’s argument as he wrote: “If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.”

Then an account believed to belong to Stephen Miller said: “As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return.”

Following the strikes, an account said the operation was an “amazing job”.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/14068384/trump-aides-leak-war-plans/

Thousands of protesters rallied in Washington and other cities across the US on Saturday (Apr 19) to voice their opposition to President Donald Trump’s policies on deportations, government firings, and the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.

Outside the White House, protesters carried banners that read “Workers should have the power,” “No kingship,” “Stop arming Israel” and “Due process,” media footage showed.

Some demonstrators chanted in support of migrants whom the Trump administration has deported or has been attempting to deport while expressing solidarity with people fired by the federal government and with universities whose funding is threatened by Trump.

“As Trump and his administration mobilize the use of the US deportation machine, we are going to organize networks and systems of resistance to defend our neighbors,” a protester said in a rally at Lafayette Square near the White House.

Other protesters waved Palestinian flags while wearing keffiyeh scarves, chanting “free Palestine” and expressing solidarity with Palestinians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza.

Some demonstrators carried symbols expressing support for Ukraine and urging Washington to be more decisive in opposing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Since his January inauguration, Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, have gutted the federal government, firing over 200,000 workers and attempting to dismantle various agencies.

The administration has also detained scores of foreign students and threatened to stop federal funding to universities over diversity, equity and inclusion programs, climate initiatives and pro-Palestinian protests. Rights groups have condemned the policies.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/us-iran-report-progress-nuclear-talks-will-meet-again-5076146

Russian President Vladimir Putin says he has ordered his forces to “stop all military activity” in Ukraine, as he declared an “Easter truce” until the end of Sunday.

He said the 30-hour truce would last until 22:00 BST on Sunday (00:00 Moscow time), adding that Russian forces should be prepared to respond to “any possible violations”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv would adhere to the truce, but accused Moscow of breaking it.

“If Russia is now suddenly ready to truly engage in a format of full and unconditional silence, Ukraine will act accordingly – mirroring Russia’s actions,” he said.

“Our actions are and will be symmetrical. The proposal for a full and unconditional 30-day silence remains on the table — the answer to it must come from Moscow,” he wrote on X.

He said fighting continued in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions and Russian drones were still in use, but added that some areas had become quieter.

Zelensky said Ukraine would be ready to extend a truce beyond 20 April, seemingly referring to an earlier proposal from the US for a 30-day ceasefire which Ukraine had already agreed to.

Responding to Putin’s initial announcement, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha wrote on X: “Putin has now made statements about his alleged readiness for a cease-fire. 30 hours instead of 30 days.”

“Unfortunately, we have had a long history of his statements not matching his actions. We know his words cannot be trusted and we will look at actions, not words,” he added.

Putin announced the temporary truce at a meeting with his chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov.

“Based on humanitarian considerations… the Russian side announces an Easter truce. I order a stop to all military activities for this period,” Putin told Gerasimov.

“We assume that Ukraine will follow our example. At the same time, our troops should be prepared to repel possible violations of the truce and provocations by the enemy, any aggressive actions.”

The Russian defence ministry said its troops would adhere to the ceasefire provided it was “mutually respected” by Ukraine.

It is not the first time a pause in fighting has been suddenly announced – a previous attempt at a ceasefire during Orthodox Christmas in January 2023 fell apart after both sides failed to agree on a proposal.

Reacting to Putin’s truce announcement, a Foreign Office spokesman in the UK said: “Now is the moment for Putin to truly show he is serious about peace by ending his horrible invasion and committing to a full ceasefire, as the Ukrainian government has called for – not just a one day pause for Easter.”

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people – the vast majority of them soldiers – have been killed or injured on all sides.

The US has been directly talking to Russia as part of its efforts to end the war, but has struggled to make major progress.

Last month, Moscow rejected a proposal for a full and unconditional ceasefire that had been agreed by the US and Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump on Friday warned Washington would “take a pass” on brokering further talks on ending the war in Ukraine unless there was quick progress.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c787v5gxny7o

US airstrikes targeting an oil port held by Yemen’s Houthi rebels killed 74 people and wounded 171 others, the group said Friday, marking the single-deadliest known attack under President Donald Trump’s new campaign targeting the rebels.

Assessing the toll of Trump’s campaign, which began March 15, has been incredibly difficult as the US military’s Central Command so far has not released any information on the campaign, its specific targets and how many people have been killed.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthi rebels strictly control access to areas attacked and don’t publish information on the strikes, many of which likely have targeted military and security sites.

But the strike on the Ras Isa oil port, which sent massive fireballs shooting into the night sky, represented a major escalation for the American campaign. The Houthis immediately released graphic footage of those killed in the attack.

In a statement, Central Command said that “US forces took action to eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists and deprive them of illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorise the entire region for over 10 years.” “This strike was not intended to harm the people of Yemen, who rightly want to throw off the yoke of Houthi subjugation and live peacefully,” it added. It did not acknowledge any casualties and declined to comment when asked by The Associated Press regarding civilians reportedly being killed.

The Iranian-backed Houthis later Friday launched a missile toward Israel that was intercepted, the Israeli military said. Sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and other areas.

The war in Yemen, meanwhile, further internationalised as the US alleged a Chinese satellite company was “directly supporting” Houthi attacks, something Beijing declined to directly comment on Friday.

US strikes spark massive fireball The Ras Isa port, a collection of three oil tanks and refining equipment, sits in Yemen’s Hodeida governorate along the Red Sea. NASA satellites that track forest fires showed an intense blaze early Friday at the site just off Kamaran Island, targeted by intense US airstrikes over the past few days.

The Houthis’ al-Masirah satellite news channel aired graphic footage of the aftermath, showing corpses strewn across the site. It said paramedic and civilians workers at the port had been killed in the attack, which sparked a massive explosion and fires.

The Ras Isa port also is the terminus of an oil pipeline stretching to Yemen’s energy-rich Marib governorate, which remains held by allies of Yemen’s exiled government.

The Houthis expelled that government from Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, back in 2015. However, oil exports have been halted by the decadelong war and the Houthis have used Ras Isa to bring in oil.

The Houthis denounced the US attack “This completely unjustified aggression represents a flagrant violation of Yemen’s sovereignty and independence and a direct targeting of the entire Yemeni people,” the Houthis said in a statement carried by the SABA news agency they control. “It targets a vital civilian facility that has served the Yemeni people for decades.” On April 9, the US State Department issued a warning about oil shipments to Yemen.

“The United States will not tolerate any country or commercial entity providing support to foreign terrorist organisations, such as the Houthis, including offloading ships and provisioning oil at Houthi-controlled ports,” it said.

The attack follows Israeli airstrikes on the Houthis which previously hit port and oil infrastructure used by the rebels after their attacks on Israel.

Oil depot attack deadliest so far known in Trump’s Yemen campaign The attack represented the deadliest known attack so far in the campaign, analysts said. However, “it’s been so difficult to assess the fatalities,” said Luca Nevola, the senior analyst for Yemen and the Gulf at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

“Since they are targeting civilian areas, there’s a lot more victims but it’s also difficult to assess how many because the Houthis are releasing these umbrella statements that cover all the victims … or tend to stress only the civilian victims,” Nevola said.

Further complicating the situation is the US strikes hitting military targets, said Mohammed al-Basha, a Yemen expert at the Basha Report risk advisory firm. He pointed to an American attack that Trump highlighted online with black-and-white strike footage, that may have killed some 70 fighters.

“Although the Houthis claimed it was a tribal gathering, they neither released any footage nor named a single casualty, strongly suggesting the victims were not civilians but affiliated fighters,” al-Basha said. “However, the overnight strike on the Ras Isa Fuel Port marks the first mass-casualty incident the Houthis have openly acknowledged and publicised.” Chinese satellite firm accused by US of aiding Houthi attacks Meanwhile, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce in a briefing with journalists accused Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co Ltd, a commercial satellite image provider, of “directly supporting Iran-backed Houthi terrorist attacks on US interests.” Bruce did not elaborate in detail, but acknowledged a story by The Financial Times that quoted anonymous American officials saying the firm linked to the People’s Liberation Army has provided images allowing the rebels to target US warships and commercial vessels travelling through the Red Sea corridor.

“Beijing’s support, by the way, of that company, the satellite company, even after we’ve engaged in discussions with them about this … certainly contradicts their claims of being peace supporters,” Bruce said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian, responding to a question about the allegation, said Friday: “I am not familiar with the situation you mentioned.” However, he insisted China is seen as urging countries “to make more efforts conducive to regional peace and stability.” “Since the escalations in the Red Sea situation, China has been playing a positive role in de-escalating the situation,” Lin said. “Who is promoting talks for peace and de-escalating the tensions, and who is imposing sanctions and pressure?” Chang Guang did not respond to request for comment.

The US Treasury sanctioned the company in 2023 for allegedly providing satellite images to the Russian mercenary force the Wagner Group as it fought in Ukraine as part of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

It remains unclear whether Chang Guang is linked to the Chinese government.

The US government in the past has used images taken by American commercial satellite companies to share with allies, like Ukraine, to avoid releasing its own top-secret pictures.

US strikes are part of monthlong intense campaign An AP review has found the new US operation against the Houthis under President Donald Trump appears more extensive than that under former President Joe Biden, as Washington moves from solely targetting launch sites to firing at ranking personnel and dropping bombs on cities.

The new campaign of airstrikes started after the rebels threatened to begin targetting “Israeli” ships again over Israel blocking aid entering the Gaza Strip. The rebels have loosely defined what constitutes an Israeli ship, meaning many vessels could be targeted.

The Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two of them and killing four sailors from November 2023 until January of this year.

That has greatly reduced the flow of trade through the Red Sea corridor, which typically sees USD 1 trillion of goods move through it. The Houthis also launched attacks targeting American warships without success.

Source : https://www.moneycontrol.com/world/us-strikes-on-yemeni-oil-port-kill-74-people-houthis-say-in-deadliest-attack-of-trump-campaign-article-12998253.html#google_vignette

Iran believes reaching an agreement on its nuclear programme with the United States is possible as long as Washington is realistic, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Friday on the eve of a second round of talks with the Trump administration.

“If they demonstrate seriousness of intent and do not make unrealistic demands, reaching agreements is possible,” Araqchi told a news conference in Moscow after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Iran had noted the United States’ seriousness during a first round of talks on the deal, which took place in Oman last week, Araqchi said. The second round is set for Saturday in Rome.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to attack Iran if it does not agree to a deal with the United States over its nuclear programme, which Iran says is peaceful but the West says is aimed at building an atomic bomb.

Lavrov said that Russia was “ready to assist, mediate, and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA”.

Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding UN Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei sent Araqchi to Moscow with a letter for President Vladimir Putin to brief the Kremlin about the negotiations.

Source : https://www.dawn.com/news/1905063/iran-says-nuclear-deal-is-possible-if-washington-is-realistic

President Trump’s tariffs have brought in $250 million a day since he took office — a fraction of the daily $3 billion that he bragged his sweeping levies have generated.

The massive disparity comes from figures provided by the Customs and Border Protection — the agency charged with collecting all tariffs, including the controversial “reciprocal” levies, at the point of entry.

“Since April 5, CBP has collected over $500 million under the new reciprocal tariffs, contributing to more than $21 billion in total tariff revenue from 15 presidential trade actions implemented since Jan 20, 2025,” the agency said.

Counting separate duties imposed on aluminum and steel imports, and foreign vehicles, that amounts to $250 million for each of the 84 days — through Monday when CBP issued its updated report — since Trump returned to the White House.

The Treasury Department also provided figures that fell short of the president’s estimate.

According to its daily statement of total deposits, the department recorded $250 million under “Customs and Certain Excise Taxes” on Tuesday, after netting $305 million the previous day.

Trump claimed Monday that “we were losing $2 billion a day. … Now we’re making $3 billion a day” during a meeting with the president of El Salvador. He has also repeatedly said the tariffs — taxes paid by US firms on imports — are adding $2 billion per day to US coffers.

The Post reached out to the White House for comment.

The discrepancy between what Trump has claimed has been brought in and what the bottom line shows could be due, in large part, to a decrease in imports.

US import bookings on massive container ships dropped 64% from March 24-31 to April 1-8, according to container-tracking software provider Vizion.

Trump announced 10% across-the-board tariffs on most nations and stiffer reciprocal taxes on key trading partners during his “Liberation Day” event in the Rose Garden on April 2. The 10% tariffs went into effect April 5.

He paused the reciprocal tariffs on all countries on April 9 — except for China, which was slapped with a 145% duty after Beijing retaliated with a 125% on US goods.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/04/17/business/trump-claims-tariffs-rake-in-3b-a-day-but-its-actually-much-lower/

Hamas wants a comprehensive deal to end the war in Gaza and swap all Israeli hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel, a senior official from the Palestinian militant group said, rejecting Israel’s offer of an interim truce.
In a televised speech, Khalil Al-Hayya, the group’s Gaza chief who leads its negotiating team, said the group would no longer agree to interim deals, adopting a position that Israel is unlikely to accept and potentially further delaying an end to the devastating attacks that restarted in recent weeks.

Instead, Hayya said Hamas was ready to immediately engage in “comprehensive package negotiations” to release all remaining hostages in its custody in return for an end to the Gaza war, the release of Palestinians jailed by Israel, and the reconstruction of Gaza.
“Netanyahu and his government use partial agreements as a cover for their political agenda, which is based on continuing the war of extermination and starvation, even if the price is sacrificing all his prisoners (hostages),” said Hayya, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We will not be part of passing this policy.”

Egyptian mediators have been working to revive the January ceasefire agreement that halted fighting in Gaza before it broke down last month, but there has been little sign of progress with both Israel and Hamas blaming each other.
“Hamas’s comments demonstrate they are not interested in peace but perpetual violence. The terms made by the Trump Administration have not changed: release the hostages or face hell,” said National Security Council spokesperson James Hewitt.
The latest round of talks on Monday in Cairo to restore the ceasefire and free Israeli hostages ended with no apparent breakthrough, Palestinian and Egyptian sources said.
Israel had proposed a 45-day truce in Gaza to allow hostage releases and potentially begin indirect talks to end the war. Hamas has already rejected one of its conditions – that it lay down its arms. In his speech, Hayya accused Israel of offering a counterproposal with “impossible conditions.”

ISRAELI STRIKES

Israel has continued to tighten its grip on the territory of the Gaza Strip. As a result, more and more of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants are being squeezed into an ever-shrinking space while intense bombardment continues.

On Saturday, Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) had taken over large swathes of territory in the southern Gaza Strip.

“The IDF has now completed the takeover of the Morag axis, which crosses Gaza between Rafah and Khan Younis, making the entire area between the Philadelphia axis and Morag part of the Israeli security zone,” Katz said in a statement.

In a post on X he added that “Gaza will become smaller and more isolated, and more and more of its residents will be forced to evacuate from the fighting zones.” He urged Palestinians to “remove Hamas” to “stop the war.”

The Israeli government had vowed to escalate its offensive and to seize large parts of Gaza to pressure Hamas, designated a terrorist group by many countries, into releasing the remaining 59 hostages, 24 of them believed to be alive, and accept new ceasefire terms.

Civilians paying the price

Once again, the civilian population of Gaza is paying the price. Before the war, the Rafah governorate in the southern end of the Gaza Strip was home to some 200,000 people.

When Abdul Rahman Taha returned to his neighborhood in Rafah after the temporary ceasefire took effect in January, he found “only a small part of the house left standing.” The family stayed in the ruins of their former home. By early April, the Israeli military issued displacement orders to residents, and Taha and his family were forced to leave once again.

“Rafah is almost completely destroyed. There are very few houses left. The streets are already in ruins and will have to be rebuilt. Now they’re going to finish the job and destroy what’s left,” said Taha, who is now back living in a tent in Khan Younis in even harsher conditions.

After the first phase of the ceasefire ended in early March, the Israeli government halted all fuel, food, commercial and humanitarian supplies to Gaza. The United Nations warned on Monday that “the humanitarian situation is now likely the worst it has been in the 18 months since the outbreak of hostilities.”

“Just as we thought the war was over, it returned with a vengeance, with blood flowing nonstop, 24 hours a day,” Abu Taha said. “There’s even more chaos. The internal security situation is starting to deteriorate. It is a terrifying feeling.”

The 51-year-old Palestinian is concerned that his hometown is now part of a “security zone.” The newly created Morag Corridor, a land corridor running about 12 kilometers (7 miles) from east to west, cuts off Rafah from neighbouring Khan Younis and from its border crossing with Egypt.

It is named after a former Israeli settlement that was dismantled in 2005, as was the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, which separates southern from northern Gaza. The IDF controls movement between both areas with checkpoints. The military left the area during the ceasefire but was redeployed in March.

Abu Taha hopes that Israel wants to “intimidate people and exert political pressure” rather than prevent him from ever returning home. However, he said, “the problem is that the whole future of Gaza has become unknown.”

The Israeli government has not shared any plans for the day after in Gaza and has depicted its moves as part of its maximum pressure strategy on Hamas. Human rights groups say the Israeli government appears to be laying the groundwork for long-term military control by dividing the Strip into different parts through corridors and expanding an existing buffer zone along Gaza’s border area with Israel.

Renewed displacement of the population

Abu Taha is one of an estimated 400,000 people newly displaced by the latest offensive, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). While hundreds of thousands of displaced people were able to return from the south to the north during the ceasefire in January, many are now being told by the Israeli military to move further west.

According to OCHA, almost 70% of the territory has been placed under “displacement order” or has been designated as “no-go” zones where the Israeli authorities require humanitarian teams to coordinate their movements. The Israeli military has repeatedly claimed the evacuations are to keep civilians out of harm’s way, and some have targeted areas where Palestinian militants have recently fired rockets into Israel.

Defense Minister Katz reiterated over the weekend that “voluntary passage” to other countries would be allowed for “all those who are interested,” in reference to US President Donald Trump’s controversial “relocation plan” for all 2.3 million Gazans — a plan the UN says amounts to forcible transfer.

Expanded buffer zone flattens villages and farmland

In addition to the displacement and division of the territory, Israel has gradually expanded a pre-existing buffer zone inside Gaza that stretches from the north along the border area with Israel in the east to the southern border with Egypt.

Breaking the Silence, which collects testimonies of former IDF soldiers serving in the occupied Palestinian Territories, released a report last week detailing what they describe as systematic destruction of homes, infrastructure and farmland in the buffer zone. They say that the area is now largely off limits to Palestinians.

“We demolished everything: agriculture fields, graveyards, industrial areas, homes, obviously. The assumption in the IDF is that it would give us more security. Why? Because we can see Hamas or Islamic Jihad approaching,” said Nadav Weiman, executive director of Breaking the Silence.

Much of the land now included in the buffer zone was previously agricultural land, raising questions about the long-term impact and whether Gaza can produce at least some of its own food again. According to estimates by Breaking the Silence, the buffer zone is up to 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) wide in some areas, reaching urban neighborhoods such as Shejaiya in eastern Gaza City.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/israels-gaza-buffer-zone-means-more-misery-for-palestinians/a-72252288

When a severe rice shortage sent prices skyrocketing in Japan last year, Tokyo restaurant owner Arata Hirano did what had once seemed unthinkable: he switched to an American variety.
The price of the Californian Calrose rice he buys has doubled since his first purchase last summer, but even so it’s far cheaper than home-grown grains.

“Unless domestic prices fall below Calrose prices, I don’t plan to switch back,” said Hirano, whose restaurant offers meal sets of fish, rice, soup and sides.

His willingness to embrace foreign rice may presage a seismic change in mindset for Japanese businesses and consumers – one that could allow Tokyo leeway to relax some restrictions if rice becomes a thorny topic in tariff talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has called out Japan’s high levies on its staple grain.
Wholesale prices for domestic rice have surged about 70% over the past year to hit their highest levels since current records began in 2006. Crops were hit by extreme heat while a tourism boom has added to demand. Worries abound that not much will change this year.
With inflation also raising the cost of living, businesses are now betting that a nation of people known for their discerning palates and pride in their staple grain is open to change.

Supermarket giant Aeon (8267.T), last week began selling an 80-20 American-Japanese blend that’s about 10% cheaper than domestic rice after a test sales-run proved a hit. Fast-food chain Matsuya (9887.T), and restaurant operator Colowide (7616.T), began serving pure American rice this year. At supermarket chain Seiyu, Taiwanese rice has been flying off the shelves since last year.
It’s a sharp contrast to 1993, when the Thai rice the Japanese government imported during an acute shortage was largely shunned, leaving supermarkets with piles of unsold bags.
Rare shortages aside, for most of the past six decades, nearly all of Japan’s so-called staple rice – which is consumed at meals as opposed to rice used for feed or ingredients in other products – has been home-grown. There hasn’t been much need for imports while high tariffs, put in place to ensure Japanese self-sufficiency for its most basic food, have protected local farmers from competition.

Japan limits tariff-free “minimum access” imports of staple rice to 100,000 metric tons a year, or around 1% of total consumption. The U.S. accounted for roughly 60% of that amount last fiscal year, trailed by Australia, Thailand and Taiwan. Anything above that is subject to a levy of 341 yen per kilogramme.
When Trump announced sweeping tariffs on much of the world this month, he lambasted Japan for what he said was a 700% tariff on rice, a reference to that levy. Japanese policymakers called his remarks on the sensitive topic “regrettable”. They also dispute the 700% figure, saying it’s based on outdated international rice prices.
It’s unclear, however, just how much – if at all – rice will be discussed in bilateral tariff negotiations that began this week. Some analysts think Trump’s Republican administration might not be focused on rice as exports to Japan come from California, a Democratic-leaning state. Nor is it clear how much Japan might be willing to yield in opening up its rice market.

In one sign that there might be room for some change, a panel advising the finance ministry on Tuesday proposed expanding imports of staple rice, saying that lifting the 100,000-ton tariff-free cap could help stabilise supply.
That said, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party is unlikely to risk angering farmers, traditionally a strong support base, ahead of upper house elections in July.
“It’s not possible to make big concessions on rice just before the elections,” said Junichi Sugawara, senior fellow at Tokyo-based Owls Consulting Group.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/japan/more-japanese-embracing-foreign-rice-even-before-it-became-tariff-topic-2025-04-16/

Harvard University has rejected numerous demands from the Trump administration to crack down on campus activism.

Harvard: Trump administration freezes $2.2 billion in grantsUS President Donald Trump’s administration said on Monday, it would freeze more than $2.2 billion (€1.94 billion) in grants and $60 million in contracts with Harvard.

It comes only hours after Harvard became the first university to refuse to comply with numerous Trump administration demands.

How did Harvard react to the demands from the Trump administration?
“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” the university’s president, Alan Garber, said in a letter to the Harvard community ahead of the government’s decision.

“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

In a letter on Friday, the US Department of Education said that Harvard had “failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment.”

The department called on Harvard to reduce the influence of faculty, staff and students who are “more committed to activism than scholarship.”

Harvard alumni protest Trump threats
The pressure from the Trump administration prompted a group of alumni to write to university leaders, calling on them to “legally contest and refuse to comply with unlawful demands that threaten academic freedom and university self-governance.”

“Harvard stood up today for the integrity, values, and freedoms that serve as the foundation of higher education,” Anurima Bhargava, one of the alumni behind the letter, said. “Harvard reminded the world that learning, innovation and transformative growth will not yield to bullying and authoritarian whims.”

It also sparked a protest over the weekend from members of the Harvard community and from residents of Cambridge, as well as a lawsuit from the American Association of University Professors on Friday.

In their lawsuit, plaintiffs argue that the Trump administration has acted too hastily, failing to follow steps required under Title VI before it starts slashing grants, and giving notice of the reduction to both the university and Congress.

“These sweeping yet indeterminate demands are not remedies targeting the causes of any determination of noncompliance with federal law,” plaintiffs wrote. “Instead, they overtly seek to impose on Harvard University political views and policy preferences advanced by the Trump administration and commit the University to punishing disfavored speech.”

Trump’s White House targets universities
Several students and faculty members at colleges across the United States have been targeted and detained by federal agents in recent weeks amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on activism at college campuses, which has taken aim at pro-Palestinian student activists and critics of the Israeli government.

The Trump administration said the activism of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student at Columbia University, could harm US foreign policy despite being “lawful.”

A US immigration judge ruled on Friday that Khalil can be deported because his beliefs threaten national security.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/harvard-trump-administration-freezes-22-billion-in-grants/a-72245511

The Trump White House has been criticized on X after the White House’s official X account posted a photo Sunday of Elon Musk and his son, X Æ A-Xii Musk, often called Little X, Sunday.

The photo was taken at UFC 314, which was held in Miami on Saturday. Musk and his son watched the event alongside President Donald Trump. The father-and-son duo were seated ringside beside Trump throughout the event.

White House X Account Posts Musk-X Duo
“Elon Musk and the Undisputed Champion Little X,” the White House official X handle posted Sunday night, along with a photo of Musk and his son X, carrying a UFC world championship belt.

Many X users were pleased with the post, especially those who found X adorable as he copied his dad while he touted a fist.

White House Under Scrutiny Over Post
Others took issue with the fact that the photo was posted on the White House’s official X handle, and some said the post appeared to “exploit” the tech titan’s son.

“This is something the White House should be posting … why exactly?” asked one user.

One user directed her question to singer Grimes, Musk’s former partner, whom he shares three children with, including X. “How does it make you feel to see your kid exploited this way?” the user asked, tagging the Canadian singer.

“Did we forget what account this is? Shouldn’t it be used for pressing matters and announcements? It is an official government account,” one user pointed out.

Source: https://www.ibtimes.com/white-house-under-fire-posting-musk-sons-photo-does-elon-run-account-3769962

The world’s first sperm race will take place before a live audience of more than 1,000 in Los Angeles next week. Ironically, even though thousands of spectators are expected for the match-up, they won’t be able to actually see the participants without a microscope.

The world’s first sperm race. It’s just what it sounds like: a race between sperm. Over on its website, Sperm Racing—the name of the startup organizing the sperm races—explains that it’s built a special microscopic racetrack to face off two sperm samples.

What makes the racetrack unique is that it mimics the reproductive system, copying “chemical symbols, fluid dynamics, [and] synchronized starts.”

Importantly, you won’t be able to actually see the sperm in the race without a microscope, since they’re really small. Not to worry, though Sperm Racing says it’ll be tracking each sperm’s movement with high-resolution cameras to track their microscopic moves.

The winner of the race will be the first sperm to cross the finish line.

A spectacle. Of course, it wouldn’t exactly be a noteworthy event if there wasn’t some spectacle, and that’s exactly what the startup promises to offer.

“We’re turning it into a spectacle. Think press conferences. Weigh-ins. Live-streamed races with play-by-play commentary,” Eric Zhu, one of the startup’s founders, writes in its manifesto. “[A]nd, of course, betting.”

The hype will be experienced in person, too. The startup says that the world’s first sperm race will be held in front of a live audience at the Hollywood Palladium on April 25. More than 1,000 seats are available and the event is expected to sell out, though whether it actually does is still up in the air.

A $1 million investment. If you thought this was a huge joke, you’re not alone. I also thought the founders of Sperm Racing were just out to troll us all.

However, according to Traded, an outlet that publishes news about venture capital and other investments, the startup recently raised $1 million for its sperm race. The round was led by Karatage with participation from Figment Capital and Karman.

A matter of health. While Sperm Racing does place a lot of emphasis on the race itself, the startup says the project is about something much bigger: male fertility.

In its company’s manifesto, Zhu cites that male fertility is declining, adding that “nobody’s really talking about it.” He’s not wrong about the declining part. A 2022 study found that human sperm count had fallen by more than 50% around the world over the last 50 years, sparking controversy and alarm among male fertility experts.

Source: https://www.xatakaon.com/health/startup-is-planning-worlds-first-sperm-race-in-angeles-it-isnt-just-a-joke-its-something-much-bigger

Chinese officials are calling on US President Donald Trump to “completely cancel” his so-called reciprocal tariffs, as a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies grinds on.

This week, Trump announced a 90-day pause on a host of global tariffs he had planned, but increased levies on Chinese imports to 145%.

“We urge the US to take a big step to correct its mistakes, completely cancel the wrong practice of ‘reciprocal tariffs’ and return to the right path of mutual respect,” China’s commerce ministry said in a statement.

The Trump administration seemed ready to offer a concession on Friday by announcing that some electronic products – including those produced in China – would be exempt.

But US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told ABC News on Sunday that such exemptions would only be temporary.

He said the administration planned to impose such levies in a separate “semiconductor tariff”, which he said would be announced at a later date.

“We need to have these things made in America,” Lutnick said.

President Trump chimed in on social media, saying there was no exemption for these products and called such reports false. Instead, he said that “they are just moving to a different Tariff ‘bucket'”.

Trump added: “We are taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations.”

The comments inject uncertainty into the just-announced tariff exemptions for technology products such as smartphones, computers and semiconductors.

The Chinese commerce ministry had called the exemptions a “small step” by the US, and said that Beijing was “evaluating the impact” of the move.

But the suggestion by Trump administration officials of plans for future levies may dampen hopes of a thaw in the two rivals’ protectionist posture.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer was asked on Sunday whether there were any plans for Trump to speak with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

“Right now we don’t have any plans on that,” he said during an appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation.

Trump imposed a tariff amounting to 54% on imports of products from China at the beginning of April, before escalating to the current 145% rate.

In its own tit-for-tat tariffs, China imposed levies of 34% on US goods, before increasing it to 84% and then 125%, which took effect on Saturday.

In announcing its latest tariffs, China’s commerce ministry said last week that it would “fight to the end” if the US “insists on provoking a tariff war or trade war”.

Late on Saturday, while travelling to Miami, Florida, Trump said he would give more details of the exemptions at the start of next week.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62z54gwd22o

SHOCKING videos show a riot in Athens as a Molotov-wielding mob turned part of the city into a warzone overnight, torching cars and clashing violently with riot police.

Street battles broke out just after midnight on Saturday as a group of around 50 people hurled petrol bombs, stones and fireworks at officers outside a police station in Exarchia.

Cops responded with tear gas and flash grenades, but the violence spiralled out of control, with fires raging across Kallidromiou, Benaki, Charilaou Trikoupi and Methonis streets.

Dramatic footage shows cars exploding in fireballs as thick black smoke choked the sky.

Stunned residents, meanwhile, watched the chaos unfold from windows.

A total of 21 cars were torched, with five completely destroyed, and a house and a shop were damaged.

The entrance and ground floor of an apartment building on Emmanuel Benaki Street caught fire and had to be evacuated.

Fire crews scrambled to contain the inferno, with 18 firefighters and seven engines tackling the blazes.

Garbage bins were also set alight and used as makeshift barricades as the mob battled police in running street fights that lasted over an hour.

Cops detained 72 people and reported one officer injured during the mayhem.

Reporters on the ground for Greek media said the explosion of unrest calmed as rapidly a it started – and was over by early on Sunday.

Cops suspect the riot – which began after crowds spilled out of a local concert hall and turned on a nearby police station – may be linked to ongoing fury over a 2023 train disaster.

Greece has been gripped with fury over the Tempi crash that saw a passenger train slam into a freight train killing 57 people.

Anger has boiled over regarding the crash – with the government accused of mismangement and a cover-up.

It has manifested in numerous angry protests and clashes with police – and a bomb attack on Friday night is also linked the the outrage.

“Incidents occurred on Saturday night in Exarchia where unknown persons attacked police forces,” Greek Police said.

“According to ELAS, the incidents began shortly before midnight when groups of unknown persons attacked police forces at the intersection of Kallidromiou and E. Benaki streets with Molotov cocktails and stones, with the police responding by using chemical weapons.”

Police are now investigating to identify the attackers, as scorched vehicles and charred debris litter the streets of Exarchia.

It comes just a couple of days after a bomb exploded in central Athens after authorities received a tip from an anonymous caller.

The blast took place outside the Hellenic Train offices – Greece’s main railway company that was involved in the tragic 2023 rail disaster.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/14014125/athens-warzone-mob-attack-police/

More than 1,000 visitors to the Miniatur Wunderland tourist attraction, which is home to what is believed to be the world’s largest model railway, had to be evacuated. It was unclear who was behind the suspected attack.

The building in downtown Hamburg had to be evacuated [FILE: May 27, 2021]Image: Jonas Walzberg/dpa/picture alliance
Tear gas was released at one of Hamburg’s most popular tourist attractions on Saturday, the city’s fire department officials said.

In a statement, the Hamburg Fire Department said it had responded to an alert at Miniatur Wunderland, “where several visitors complained of eye and respiratory irritation.”

After arriving at the scene, firefighters detected “an irritant gas leak” and “immediately” ordered the more than 1,000 visitors in the building to be evacuated.

What do we know about the incident?
Forty-six people were treated at the scene, the fire department said. One person was brought to a nearby hospital.

Visitors were allowed to return about half an hour later after firefighters ventilated the building.

It is unknown who is behind the leak, although a police spokesman said a used canister was found at the scene, according to dpa news agency.

Police have taken over the investigation, the fire department stated added.

Where did the incident take place?
The model railway at Miniatur Wunderland covers more than 1,600 square meters (17,222 square feet) and has a track that is around 17,000 meters (10.5 miles) long.

Miniatur Wunderland, in Hamburg’s city center, was started in 2001 by brothers Gerrit and Frederik Braun.

Almost 1.6 million people from all over the world visited last year.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/tear-gas-attack-at-hamburgs-miniatur-wunderland-injures-46/a-72230286

AUSTIN — On a Friday morning last spring, Mark Suman called out sick from his job as a senior engineering project manager at Apple and made his way downtown to a place called the Bitcoin Commons, a sort of clubhouse for enthusiasts of the world’s largest cryptocurrency, situated a few blocks south of the Texas State Capitol.

At the time, Suman was, in his words, “an active hobbyist,” tinkering with the technology in his spare time. “I actually played around with it a bit within Apple as well,” he says. “There’s not a lot I can say, other than we were always exploring new technologies, and so I was playing around with some of the open-source bitcoin tools within Apple and doing some exploratory work.”

Suman was there for the annual ‘Bitcoin Takeover’ event. He had followed many of the speakers online and when he saw the gathering pop up on his feed, he took the day off to see it for himself.

“I was sitting in the crowd wanting to get into the space and really build something new and build something novel,” Suman recalled.

What happened instead was the beginning of a professional pivot: he struck up a conversation with a developer after a talk at the Commons, and was introduced to other coders who were winding down a project called Mutiny. Within a few months, Suman handed in his notice at Apple and with the developers he’d met, pivoted into something bigger — co-founding Open Secret, a startup reimagining how user data is stored in the cloud. Instead of relying on centralized databases, the company encrypts data to each individual user — even after it’s uploaded. So if there’s a breach, there’s nothing to steal, Suman explained. No honeypot.

The leap was not without stakes.

“There are plenty of sleepless nights,” he said. “I’ve got a family, I’ve got kids, I’ve got a kid off at university.”

He had spent years working on privacy infrastructure — tackling tough technical problems around user protection at scale — but saw a way to do it better with blockchain. “Apple likes to talk a big game about privacy,” he says. “And having been there, I’ve seen very deep within a lot of their systems that they do care about privacy at every level.”

That vision — and the Commons — helped give him conviction. The builders there were all laser focused on creating something that mattered.

Inside Austin’s bitcoin clubhouse
Bitcoin Commons sits on the second floor of the Littlefield Building at the corner of Congress Avenue and Sixth Street — where the broad boulevard to the Capitol collides with the noisy sprawl of Austin’s nightlife district. It’s an apt metaphor for the space itself.

By day, it serves as a clean, open-plan coworking hub for bitcoin operators and builders. At night, it transforms into a gathering place for rogue developers and off-the-record meetups. Events here draw a blend of venture capitalists, open-source contributors, off-grid energy technicians, and Lightning engineers — developers who build software to make bitcoin faster and cheaper to use. On some afternoons, once happy hour hits, the kitchen in the back converts into a bar.

″Bitcoin is the most important technological innovation in any of our lifetimes, and it needs its due,” said Parker Lewis, one of the stewards of the Commons and the author of a new book on bitcoin called “Gradually, Then Suddenly.”

“And so while bitcoin has no CEO and no marketing team, we here at the Bitcoin Commons and Bitcoiners all over the world help educate people about bitcoin, why it’s important, what’s being built, and present a vision for the future,” continued Lewis.

“The vibe, it’s always high signal,” said Dan Lawrence, CEO of OBM, which manages energy use for industrial-scale mining farms. Lawrence said he was “thankful” that the U.S. government had become a little more pro-bitcoin under the new administration, but added, “No matter what happens anywhere, everybody here is always going to bleed bitcoin.”

This year, the Commons feels different — not because bitcoiners have changed, but because the world around them has. The mood is bullish. Strategic. Triumphant, even.

Bitcoin
’s price mirrored this optimism, surging to an all-time high of nearly $110,000 in January, coinciding with Trump’s inauguration. By early April, it had retraced to the low $70,000s before rebounding to nearly $85,000 as of Saturday morning — volatility that underscores the market’s sensitivity to political developments and investor sentiment.

Just a year ago, the vibe in the Commons was cautious. Even bitcoin — the asset largely spared by securities law — felt the chill of an aggressive regulatory regime. Developers were being arrested around the world. Wallet providers were being pressured. Open-source projects landed on sanctions lists. The question then was, who would be next?

Then came the election. Trump’s return to the White House brought with it a full-court press of pro-bitcoin policy moves. Within his first 100 days, he’d pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht and three co-founders of the BitMEX crypto exchange, established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, and appointed a “crypto czar” to oversee the federal government’s digital asset efforts. Even skeptics found themselves nodding.

“I was in Nashville when Trump spoke,” Suman recalled of the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Tennessee, where Trump made his first major address to the crypto industry. “I wasn’t planning on going. But you know, when someone like that is in town, you go see it.”

Suman says he feels Trump has delivered on his promises to the crypto community for the most part. Still, he remains cautious. “I am not one who embraces politicians,” Suman said. “I’m kind of apolitical as far as which side. So I only trust them until I see how it’s actually playing out in our life. So far, I think it’s going well, but it could really change.”

Kevin Hurley, CTO at Lightspark, says Washington’s stance toward crypto appears to be shifting, with regulators like the SEC taking a less combative approach — moving away from lawsuits and toward clearer capital markets rules. “Hopefully now we’re actually going to have some clarity on what is and what isn’t a security, what can actually be done,” he said.

But even in a friendlier political climate, caution over government involvement remains a feature, not a bug, of the crypto community.

Joe Kelly, CEO of Unchained — a startup that helps clients store bitcoin securely by holding their own private keys — said it’s smart to be careful what you wish for when it comes to the U.S. government owning a lot of bitcoin. “That can go other ways,” he said.

To date, the government’s so-called Strategic Bitcoin Reserve has underwhelmed some digital asset advocates, since it’s limited to bitcoin previously seized in enforcement actions — not newly purchased assets or sovereign investment. Still, the administration has directed the Treasury and Commerce Departments to explore budget-neutral ways to acquire more bitcoin.

Kelly acknowledges a shift in the regulatory atmosphere, but he’s also wary of premature celebration, even with big market wins like the launch of exchange-traded funds that allow investors widespread access to bitcoin.

“If something like the ETF had launched too soon, I think it could have distracted from the people building on the actual technology itself,” Kelly said. “We’ve had the fortune that for most of Unchained’s life there wasn’t an ETF,” he added of the firm’s efforts to educate investors on how to store their crypto.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/12/apple-google-cash-app-alums-ditch-big-tech-to-build-on-bitcoin.html

A MYSTERIOUS tower at Area 51 has been spotted on Google Earth, leading social media users to insist it’s “alien technology” straight out of a famed sci-fi film.

Area 51 – a highly classified US Air Force base in Nevada – has been shrouded in alien conspiracies, so it’s no wonder that onlookers are now suspecting something extraterrestrial is afoot with the peculiar installation.

A mysterious tower at Area 51 has been spotted on Google Earth, leading social media users to insist it’s ‘alien technology’ straight out of a famed sci-fi filmCredit: Google MapsThe triangular tower created a shadow in the photo taken by Google Maps.

People on Reddit and Facebook were quick to make assumptions about the mystifying building.

“Obviously alien technology. It pops out when the Earth is done,” one Reddit user said.

In a Facebook discussion about the bizarre tower, one person referenced the hit sci-fi film 2001: A Space Oddessy.

“A Monolith just like in 2001 a Space Oddessy,” the Facebook user said.

Another wrote: “Marker for aliens it is safe to land here.”

“UFO charging dock,” a third said.

One Facebook user was convinced that the tower was a radar cross-section test pylon held at the Tonopah Test Range.

“It is part of a classified U.S. military installation used for stealth and radar signature testing,” he claimed.

Multiple people jested that it was a Carvana car vending machine.

While the tower image sparked a lot of jokes, it adds to the ever-growing conversation about the possibility of alien life and whether the US government knows more about it than they are letting on.

DOC REVEALS NEW ALIEN INFO
An alien documentary titled The Age of Disclosure premiered at South by Southwest last month.

It delved into 80 years of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) research and included reporting of an alleged top-secret program in which US officials have been working on reverse-engineering alien tech, per The Washington Post.

The film, directed by Dan Farah, included dozens of interviews with government officials, scientists and other experts.

Marco Rubio, who now serves as President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, said in the film, “We’ve had repeated instances of something operating in the airspace over restricted nuclear facilities, and it’s not ours.”

“And we don’t know whose it is…Just that statement alone deserves inquiry, deserves attention, deserves focus,” he said.

The film shows a bipartisan call on the government to declassify certain UFO studies for the advancement of society.

There is a big critique of the film, however.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/14006885/area-51-alien-conspiracies-tower-google-maps/

Despite Russia playing down expectations of a breakthrough at the talks, Sky’s Ivor Bennett believes the meeting – Mr Witkoff’s third with Vladimir Putin this year – is significant as a sign of the Trump administration’s “increasing frustration at the lack of progress”.

Putin meets US envoyDonald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff has met Vladimir Putin for talks in Russia – as the US president called on Moscow to “get moving” with ending the war in Ukraine.

Mr Witkoff, who has been pressing the Kremlin to accept a truce, visited Mr Putin in St Petersburg after earlier meeting the Russian leader’s international co-operation envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

Mr Putin was shown on state TV greeting Mr Witkoff at the city’s presidential library at the start of the latest discussions about the search for a peace deal on Ukraine.

Before Friday’s meeting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played down expectations of a breakthrough and told state media the visit would not be “momentous”.

However, Sky News Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett said he believes the meeting – Mr Witkoff’s third with Mr Putin this year – is significant as a sign of the Trump administration’s “increasing frustration at the lack of progress on peace talks”.

Earlier on Friday, Mr Trump issued his latest social media statement on trying to end the war, writing on Truth Social: “Russia has to get moving. Too many people ere [sic] DYING, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war – A war that should have never happened, and wouldn’t have happened, if I were President!!!”

Dialogue between the US and Russia, aimed at agreeing a ceasefire ahead of a possible peace deal to end the war, has recently appeared to have stalled over disagreements around conditions for a full pause.

Secondary sanctions could be imposed on countries that buy Russian oil, Mr Trump has said, if he feels Moscow is dragging its feet on a deal.

Mr Putin has said he is ready in principle to agree a full ceasefire, but argues crucial conditions have yet to be agreed – and that what he calls the root causes of the war have yet to be addressed.

The Russian president wants to dismantle Ukraine as an independent, functioning state and has demanded Kyiv recognise Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and other partly occupied areas, and pull its forces out, as well as a pledge for Ukraine to never join NATO and for the size of its army to be limited.

Zelenskyy renews support calls after attack on home city

Meanwhile, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has renewed his appeals for more Patriot air defence systems after the deaths of 20 people, including nine children, who were killed when a Russian missile hit apartment buildings and a playground in his home city of Kryvyi Rih last week.

Speaking online at a meeting of the so-called Ramstein group of about 50 nations that provide military support to Ukraine, named after a previous meeting at America’s Ramstein air base in Germany in 2022, Mr Zelenskyy said recent Russian attacks showed Moscow was not ready to accept and implement any realistic and effective peace proposals.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/putin-meets-us-envoy-for-talks-as-trump-calls-for-russia-to-get-moving-to-end-war-in-ukraine-13346557

In February, Elon Musk made a $97.4 billion bid for OpenAI’s acquisition. Unfortunately, it did not turn out well for the tech billionaire as Sam Altman replied with a cold “No, thank you” response.

The ChatGPT maker wants to teach Musk a lesson. Recently, it sued Musk in a countersuit that alleges that the Tesla owner is engaged in bad-faith practices to stall the company’s progress and hijack its AI technology for his own benefit.

In a recent document, OpenAI lawyers contend that Musk’s persistent onslaught against the company, a recent “hostile takeover bid” included, is a concerted effort to impede OpenAI’s mission and future development.

The countersuit, which was brought on Wednesday, April 9, claims Musk should be restrained from taking any additional illegal action and held liable for the damage already done to the AI company.

Elon Musk, formerly a co-founder of OpenAI, has been in “bad terms” with the company since last year. In his first lawsuit, he accused OpenAI of becoming detached from its purpose of creating Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) for humanity and becoming interested in generating profits.

Musk’s role, which has continuously questioned the direction of the company, eventually led to him taking legal action against OpenAI.

OpenAI For-Profit Mission
In December, OpenAI released a blog post titled “Elon Musk Wanted an OpenAI for-profit,” which underlined the sharp contrast in vision between Musk and the present leadership. The post presented evidence that Musk’s aspiration for a more profit-oriented model had been a key factor in the legal conflict, The Verge reported.

Musk’s $97 Billion Offer Was Rejected
In early 2025, Elon Musk made another significant move, offering a staggering $97.4 billion to purchase OpenAI. Musk framed the offer as an opportunity to restore OpenAI’s original mission to be an open-source, safety-focused organization. However, the offer was swiftly rejected by OpenAI’s board, calling it a “sham bid.”

He even threatened to drop the takeover bid if OpenAI’s nonprofit status remained.

Source: https://www.techtimes.com/articles/309950/20250410/openai-slaps-elon-musk-countersuit-calls-his-97b-takeover-bid-sham-hijack-ai-power.htm

The island’s population might not be easily convinced as the president tries to clinch one of history’s greatest real estate deals.

Greenland’s economic and strategic value have grown as warming temperatures melt Arctic ice.Credit…Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated PressPresident Trump’s longtime goal of claiming Greenland for America has shifted from rhetoric to official U.S. policy as the White House moves forward on a formal plan to acquire the Arctic island from Denmark.
The plan mobilizes several cabinet departments behind Mr. Trump’s years of talk about wanting Greenland, whose economic and strategic value have grown as warming temperatures melt Arctic ice.
Greenland’s size — 836,330 square miles — also offers Mr. Trump, a former Manhattan developer, the chance to clinch one of history’s greatest real estate deals.
Danish officials angrily insist that the sparsely populated island is not for sale and cannot be annexed. But Mr. Trump has made clear his determination to control it.
“We need Greenland for national security and even international security, and we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it,” he said in an address to Congress last month.
“One way or the other, we’re going to get it,” Mr. Trump added.

The White House’s National Security Council has met several times to put Mr. Trump’s words into action, and recently sent specific instructions to multiple arms of the government, according to a U.S. official.
The plan’s full details are unclear. But despite Mr. Trump’s allusions to the possible use of force, the deliberations led by the security council never seriously considered military options, the official said.
The policy instead emphasizes persuasion over coercion, and features a public relations effort aimed at convincing Greenland’s population of 57,000 that they should ask to join the United States.
Mr. Trump’s advisers have discussed using advertising and social media campaigns to sway public opinion on the island, according to another person briefed on the matter.
It may be an uphill battle. In an election last month, an opposition political party that favors quick independence and closer ties with the United States finished in second place but with just a quarter of the vote.
The U.S. messaging campaign will include an unlikely appeal to Greenlanders’ shared heritage with the native Inuit people of Alaska, nearly 2,500 miles away, the official said.
Greenland’s Inuit population is descended from people who migrated from Alaska hundreds of years ago, and the island’s official language is derived from Inuit dialects that originated in Arctic Canada.

Mr. Trump’s advisers have already begun making their public case, arguing that Denmark has been a poor custodian of the island, that only the United States can protect it from encroachment by Russia and China, and that America will help Greenlanders “get rich,” as Mr. Trump has put it.
The Trump administration is also reminding Greenland that the United States has defended it before.
Last month, Mr. Trump posted a slick 90-second video on social media celebrating the “blood and bravery” of U.S. troops who took positions on the island during World War II to prevent a feared Nazi invasion after Germany occupied Denmark.
Although Denmark hoped that American forces would leave after the war, they never did, and the United States still maintains a military base there.
The Trump administration is also studying financial incentives for Greenlanders, including the possibility of replacing the $600 million in subsidies that Denmark gives the island with an annual payment of about $10,000 per Greenlander.
Some Trump officials believe those costs could be offset by new revenue from the extraction of Greenland’s natural resources, which include rare earth minerals, copper, gold, uranium and oil.

Trump officials argue that American capital and industrial might can gain access to the island’s largely untapped mineral wealth in a way that Denmark cannot. “This is about critical minerals,” Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, told Fox News in January. “This is about natural resources.”

Source: https://archive.is/2025.04.10-164931/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/us/politics/trump-greenland-denmark.html#selection-1023.0-1026.0

Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister slammed US-led efforts to take away North Korea’s nuclear weapons, saying the idea of denuclearising the country was a “daydream”.

Her remarks come after the top diplomats of South Korea, Japan and the United States issued a statement on the sidelines of a NATO meeting last week in which they “reaffirmed their resolute commitment to the complete denuclearisation” of the isolated state.

In a statement published Wednesday by the official Korean Central News Agency (KNCA), the sister of ruler Kim Jong Un said that any discussion of convincing the North to give up its nuclear weapons is “nothing but a daydream that can never come true”.

“If anyone openly talks about dismantling nuclear weapons… it just constitutes the most hostile act of denying the sovereignty of the DPRK,” Kim Yo Jong said Tuesday.

“It only fully exposed the uneasiness of the US, Japan and the ROK, in a desperate plight of having to talk about ‘denuclearization’ in chorus,” she said, referring to the South by its official name.

The statement was Kim’s second in a little over a month.

In early March, she condemned Washington over the visit of a US Navy aircraft carrier to the South Korean port of Busan, accusing US President Donald Trump’s administration of “carrying forward the former administration’s hostile policy”.

Source: https://www.ibtimes.com/kim-jong-uns-sister-says-north-korea-denuclearisation-daydream-3769323

MORE than a hundred Chinese soldiers are fighting alongside the Russians after being recruited on TikTok, President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed.

He said that Kyiv had details of more than 150 Chinese nationals deployed at the frontlines after claiming Ukraine’s army captured two Chinese citizens fighting in the eastern Donetsk region.

A video shared by Zelensky today showed a snippet from interrogations of the two captured Chinese fighters.

The clip also showed pictures of two Chinese passports – understood to belong to them.

In the short five-minute clip, one of the Chinese fighters, named Zhang Renbo, revealed details about his fight against the Ukrainians.

He said: “It was my first combat experience. I was given an AK-47. Before that I have never had a weapon.”

Zelesnky claimed Russia was seeking to recruit Chinese fighters by openly advertising on TikTok and other Chinese social networks.

The Ukrainian intelligence released a document containing the alleged names and passport details of 168 Chinese citizens that Kyiv said had been recruited by Russia’s army.

Zelensky said he believed there were “many more” and that further information was being gathered.

“It is clear how they recruit them. One of the schemes is through social media, in particular TikTok and other Chinese social networks, where Russians distribute commercials,” Zelensky said.

He did not accuse Beijing of having directly sent the soldiers, but said Chinese authorities were “aware” they were being recruited.

The president said: “The ‘Chinese’ issue is serious. There are 155 people with names and passport details who are fighting against Ukrainians on the territory of Ukraine.”

“Beijing is aware of this.”

Zelensky had earlier published a video of one of two alleged captured Chinese citizens wearing military fatigues and with their hands tied off.

In the video, the prisoner mimicked combat sounds and uttered several words in Mandarin.

The Ukrainian army said Chinese ID cards and contracts for Russian military service had been found on them.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian had earlier rejected Zelensky’s previous claim that “many” Chinese citizens had been recruited by Russia to fight as “absolutely groundless”.

He said: “The Chinese government has always asked its citizens to stay away from areas of armed conflict [and] avoid involvement in armed conflicts in any form.”

He added that Beijing was verifying relevant information about the captured Chinese citizens with Kyiv.

Zelensky said he had received signals that Washington viewed Chinese nationals fighting for Russia as “unacceptable”.

It comes at a time when both the countries are involved in a brutal tit-for-tat war of trade.

The president added that China’s involvement in the war is a “clear signal” that Putin wants to drag the war.

“He is looking for a way to continue the war. This definitely requires a reaction. A reaction from the United States, Europe, and everyone in the world who wants peace.”

China is one of the biggest allies of Russia and has been accused by the West of helping Vladimir Putin with weapons.

However, Beijing has repeatedly denied the allegations that it has helped the Kremlin fight against the Ukrainians.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/13977182/chinese-recruited-tiktok-putin-ukraine/

A detailed analysis of a full-sized digital scan of the Titanic has revealed new insight into the doomed liner’s final hours.

The exact 3D replica shows the violence of how the ship ripped in two as it sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912 – 1,500 people lost their lives in the disaster.

The scan provides a new view of a boiler room, confirming eye-witness accounts that engineers worked right to the end to keep the ship’s lights on.

And a computer simulation also suggests that punctures in the hull the size of A4 pieces of paper led to the ship’s demise.

“Titanic is the last surviving eyewitness to the disaster, and she still has stories to tell,” said Parks Stephenson, a Titanic analyst.

The scan has been studied for a new documentary by National Geographic and Atlantic Productions called Titanic: The Digital Resurrection.

The wreck, which lies 3,800m down in the icy waters of the Atlantic, was mapped using underwater robots.

More than 700,000 images, taken from every angle, were used to create the “digital twin”, which was revealed exclusively to the world by BBC News in 2023.

Because the wreck is so large and lies in the gloom of the deep, exploring it with submersibles only shows tantalising snapshots. The scan, however, provides the first full view of the Titanic.

The immense bow lies upright on the seafloor, almost as if the ship were continuing its voyage.

But sitting 600m away, the stern is a heap of mangled metal. The damage was caused as it slammed into the sea floor after the ship broke in half.

The new mapping technology is providing a different way to study the ship.

“It’s like a crime scene: you need to see what the evidence is, in the context of where it is,” said Parks Stephenson.

“And having a comprehensive view of the entirety of the wreck site is key to understanding what happened here.”

The scan shows new close-up details, including a porthole that was most likely smashed by the iceberg. It tallies with the eye-witness reports of survivors that ice came into some people’s cabins during the collision.

Experts have been studying one of the Titanic’s huge boiler rooms – it’s easy to see on the scan because it sits at the rear of the bow section at the point where the ship broke in two.

Passengers said that the lights were still on as the ship plunged beneath the waves.

The digital replica shows that some of the boilers are concave, which suggests they were still operating as they were plunged into the water.

Lying on the deck of the stern, a valve has also been discovered in an open position, indicating that steam was still flowing into the electricity generating system.

This would have been thanks to a team of engineers led by Joseph Bell who stayed behind to shovel coal into the furnaces to keep the lights on.

All died in the disaster but their heroic actions saved many lives, said Parks Stephenson.

“They kept the lights and the power working to the end, to give the crew time to launch the lifeboats safely with some light instead of in absolute darkness,” he told the BBC.

“They held the chaos at bay as long as possible, and all of that was kind of symbolised by this open steam valve just sitting there on the stern.”

A new simulation has also provided further insights into the sinking.

It takes a detailed structural model of the ship, created from Titanic’s blueprints, and also information about its speed, direction and position, to predict the damage that was caused as it hit the iceberg.

“We used advanced numerical algorithms, computational modelling and supercomputing capabilities to reconstruct the Titanic sinking,” said Prof Jeom-Kee Paik, from University College London, who led the research.

The simulation shows that as the ship made only a glancing blow against the iceberg it was left with a series of punctures running in a line along a narrow section of the hull.

Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable, designed to stay afloat even if four of its watertight compartments flooded.

But the simulation calculates the iceberg’s damage was spread across six compartments.

“The difference between Titanic sinking and not sinking are down to the fine margins of holes about the size of a piece of paper,” said Simon Benson, an associate lecturer in naval architecture at the University of Newcastle.

“But the problem is that those small holes are across a long length of the ship, so the flood water comes in slowly but surely into all of those holes, and then eventually the compartments are flooded over the top and the Titanic sinks.”

Unfortunately the damage cannot be seen on the scan as the lower section of the bow is hidden beneath the sediment.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy6gjwd0g6o

SAUDI Arabia is planning an insanely tall skyscraper – and it is set to double the height of the world’s current tallest building.

Rise Tower, which will stand a whopping 2,000 metres (1.2 miles) tall and cost an eye-watering $5billion, is the crown jewel of Saudi Arabia’s futuristic North Pole megaproject.

The breathtaking feat will double the height of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, which is 828 metres (0.5 miles) tall, and surpass the upcoming 1,000 metre (0.6 miles) high Jeddah Tower.

The 678-storey tower is part of the ambitious North Pole development in Riyadh and is designed by Foster + Partners.

The Public Investment Fund has now formally called on international contracting firms to submit bids for project management.

The ridiculously big building is yet another ambition of eco-mad Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.

The bidding comes as Saudi Arabia is looking to complete another bold step in its Vision 2030 program.

The groundbreaking tower will host luxury hotels, entertainment venues, fine dining and much more.

It also aims to become a global tourism and business destination while setting new benchmarks in sustainable urban planning.

The North Pole project is poised to become Riyadh’s next major economic hub and will span a massive 300 square kilometres.

It has been dubbed as the “city of the future”.

It has been envisioned as a fully integrated city, blending residential, commercial and industrial zones.

The design for the tower was announced in August 2023.

Saudi Arabia Holding Co. CEO Mohammed AlQahtani shared plans for the megacity.

He said: “The North Pole project seamlessly blends modernity with the beauty of nature, delivering a unique living experience.

“The project is poised to usher in a remarkable transformation, redefining the region’s economic and social landscape.

“Anticipated to generate new job opportunities, attract foreign investments, and elevate living standards, this visionary project aims to elevate Riyadh’s global standing as a modern metropolis.”

North Pole will also feature advanced transportation infrastructure, including a high-speed metro system and self-driving vehicles.

The urban design will emphasise vertical living, creating a dynamic city with world-class facilities.

Sustainability will be key to the development, with the city powered by renewable energy sources and integrated with green spaces.

The project aims to be another environmental milestone for eco-mad Saudi Arabia who have launched a line of megalomaniac developments in recent years.

Megacity The Line for example will be a car-free, three-dimensional metropolis, according to a top boss on the build.

While Aquellum promises to be a futuristic community hidden in an upside down skyscraper in a mountain.

Saudi Arabia has been forced to scale back on multiple projects and has faced major delays across most of their developments.

The country’s projects have also been plagued with ethical controversies relating to their work practices.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/13962953/saudi-skyscraper-plan/

A “miracle” baby girl has become the first child in the UK to be born to a mother using a donated womb.

The baby’s mum, Grace Davidson, 36, was born without a functioning uterus, and received her sister’s womb in 2023 – in what was then the UK’s only successful womb transplant.

Two years after that pioneering operation, Grace gave birth to her first child in February. She and her husband, Angus, 37, have named their daughter Amy after Grace’s sister, who donated her womb.

Holding baby Amy – who weighed just over two kilos (four and a half pounds) – for the first time was “incredible” and “surreal”, new mum Grace says.

“It was quite overwhelming because we’d never really let ourselves imagine what it would be like for her to be here,” she says. “It was really wonderful.”

Grace and Angus, who live in north London but are originally from Scotland, hope to have a second child using the transplanted womb.

The couple initially wished to remain anonymous, but following the safe arrival of baby Amy are now speaking to the BBC about their “little miracle”.

The surgical team told the BBC they have carried out three further womb transplants using deceased donors since Grace’s transplant. They aim to carry out a total of 15 as part of a clinical trial.

Grace was born with a rare condition, Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, where the womb is missing or underdeveloped, but with functioning ovaries. When the BBC first spoke to her in 2018, she was hoping her mother could donate her uterus to allow her to have children – but it proved to be unsuitable.

The BBC met Grace and husband Angus again in 2019 when one of Grace’s two sisters, Amy Purdie, was being assessed to find out if she could donate her womb to Grace. Amy and her husband already had two children and did not want any more.

Prior to surgery both sisters had counselling. Grace and Angus also had fertility treatment and still have several embryos in storage. Grace says she was given the option of surrogacy or adoption, but carrying her own baby felt “really important”.

“I have always had a mothering instinct,” she says, “but for years I had been suppressing it because it was too painful to go there.”

The first baby born as a result of a womb transplant was in Sweden in 2014. Since then around 135 such transplants have been carried out in more than a dozen countries, including the US, China, France, Germany, India and Turkey. Around 65 babies have been born.

Originally scheduled to take place in late 2019, the sisters’ transplant operation fell through and then looked in doubt for several years during the Covid pandemic.

When it eventually took place, in February 2023, it took a team of more than 30 medics around 17 hours to remove Amy’s womb and transplant it to Grace.

Isabel Quiroga, the surgeon who led the transplant team at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, says although the procedure carried risks for both sisters, it was “life-enhancing and life-creating – and you can’t have better than that.”

Amy says she did not feel the sense of loss some women experience after a hysterectomy, because of the “dramatic” and immediate benefits to her sister. Grace had her first ever period within two weeks of the transplant and became pregnant on the first attempt at IVF.

It was “incredible” to feel her baby’s first kick, she says, adding the entire pregnancy had been “really special”.

Baby Amy was born by Caesarean section at Queen Charlotte’s hospital in west London on 27 February. Grace and Angus say they hope to have a second child – as soon as the medical team say the time is right.

The donated womb will be removed after the birth of a second child. This will allow Grace to stop taking the daily immunosuppressants she is currently on to ensure her body does not reject her sister’s womb. Taking these drugs can increase the risks of developing some cancers, especially if taken over many years – but surgeon Isabel Quiroga says these risks should return to baseline once the womb is removed.

Prof Richard Smith, a gynaecological surgeon at Imperial College London, who led the organ retrieval team, has been researching womb transplantation for more than two decades.

He says his team is thrilled about the birth of baby Amy and that she will give hope to many of the 15,000 women in the UK of childbearing age who do not have a functioning uterus, of whom around 5,000 were born without a womb.

Mr Smith heads a charity called Womb Transplant UK, which paid the NHS costs for Grace’s transplant operation. All the medical staff gave their time for free.

He told the BBC around 10 women have embryos in storage or are undergoing fertility treatment, a requirement for being considered for womb transplantation. Each transplant costs around £30,000, he says, and the charity has sufficient funds to do two more.

The surgical team has permission to perform 15 womb transplants as part of a clinical trial, five with living and 10 with deceased donors. No details have been made public about the three women who have so far received wombs from deceased donor organs. NHS Blood and Transplant told the BBC extra consent is sought from families for such rare donations.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78jd517z87o

A LUXURY penthouse on top of the world’s skinniest skyscraper has hit the market for an eye-watering £85million.

The magnificent apartment features a stunning view of New York City and boasts five bedrooms and six bathrooms.

The lavish apartment is on the top floor of Manhattan’s Steinway Tower that was once home to the historic Steinway & Sons piano company.

The 1920s piano store was converted into a series of luxury apartments in 2022 – and this five bed penthouse is the pick of the lot.

Arranged over four floors, the pad “quadplex” is designed to make the most of the unrivalled views of New York City.

The property boasts two terraces and a multitude of floor-to-ceiling windows throughout.

The bottom floor, which is on the eightieth story, comprises a luxurious entertaining suite – sure to impress any guest.

But it’s the crown suite which is the most impressive – complete with a bar and screening room.

The penthouse’s interior oozes luxury with an abundance of marble, limestone, blackened steel and velvet throughout.

And to top it all off, original artworks by the likes of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse adorn the walls.

If you’re still not convinced the property also comes with 82-foot swimming pool, letting you swim among the clouds.

The Steinway Tower is the world’s skinniest skyscraper with a height-to-width ratio of 24:1.

The tower is an impressive 1,428ft tall but just 57ft wide.

Its design is inspired by New York’s Gilded Age – when the city experienced a period boasted great wealth.

But what really makes the tower stand out is the way its colour and texture changes in the light.

Steinway Tower is an addition to Steinway Hall, once a cultural hub in Manhattan.

The new construction began in 2013 and was completed in 2022.

Steinway tower sits on New York’s Billionaire’s Row, next to the infamous Central Park Tower – the second-tallest building in the city behind One World Trade Center.

Central Park Tower is home to the world’s tallest penthouse which hit the market for £250million.

The penthouse – known as The One Above All Else – is located at 1,416 feet at the top of the tower.

The impressive property has 23 rooms and even offers a view of the Empire State Building.

Dubai is planning to unveil a new skinny skyscraper which will be the second-skinniest in the world after the Steinway Tower.

The Muraba Veil will stand at a huge 1,247 feet high but will only reach 74 feet across.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/13953041/luxury-penthouse-skyscraper-sale-picasso-art/

For the first time since 2019, foreign athletes are competing in the Pyongyang International Marathon, with roughly 200 foreign runners from countries such as China and Romania joining local competitors for a race through the streets of the North Korean capital.

In 2019, some 950 foreign runners joined the race.

North Korea closed its borders when the coronavirus hit and has been very slow to reopen. Although it has allowed groups of Russian tourists into the country, the capital has largely remained closed to the outside world.

The event is one of several in the country that will celebrate the April 15, 1912, birthday of the nation’s founder, Kim Il Sung, grandfather of the nation’s current leader, Kim Jong Un.

Simon Cockerell, who runs Koryo Tours, a Beijing-based company that touts itself as the race’s exclusive travel partner said, “The Pyongyang Marathon is an extremely unique experience as it provides an opportunity to interact with locals.”

Cockerell calls North Korea “a complex and fascinating place,” saying, “while it is definitely not for everyone, it definitely appeals to those curious about the experience of visiting such a country and seeing what they can.”

The race began with locals greeting participants at Kim Il Sung Stadium before the starting gun. Runners will head past landmarks and out into the countryside before returning to a crowd of 50,000 at the stadium.

The marathon, which is listed on the website of global governing body World Athletics, is the largest international sporting event in the country.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/north-korea-stages-first-international-marathon-in-six-years/a-72154880

Asian stock markets are plummeting as the shockwaves from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to reverberate around the world.

Major indexes from Shanghai to Tokyo and Sydney to Hong Kong plunged when they opened on Monday. “It’s a bloodbath,” one analyst told the BBC.

As a region that manufactures so many of the goods sold globally, Asian countries and territories are being hit directly by the tariffs.

They are also particularly sensitive to the impact of fears that a global trade war could trigger a slowdown or even a recession in the world’s biggest economy.

By midday, Japan’s Nikkei 225 benchmark index was down 6%, the ASX 200 in Australia was 4% lower and the Kospi in South Korea was 4.7% lower.

Slumps in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan were exacerbated as investors caught up with the big falls seen in other markets on Friday as they were closed for public holidays.

The Shanghai Composite was down more than 6%, while the Hang Seng and Taiwan Weighted Index plunged by around 10%.

“Tariffs are feeding into expectations around inflation and a recession,” said Julia Lee, Head from FTSE Russell – a subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group.

Goldman Sachs has raised its estimation of a US recession within the next 12 months to 45% – up from a previous estimate of 35% – as the investment banking giant lowered its economic growth forecast for the country.

Other Wall Street firms have also revised their recession forecasts in the wake of Trump’s tariff announcement. JPMorgan now sees a 60% chance of a US and global recession.

A significant slowdown in the US economy would have major repercussions for Asian exports as the US is such an important market for goods from the region.

“Asia is bearing the brunt of the US tariff hike. While there could be some room for negotiation, a new regime of higher tariffs are here to stay,” Qian Wang, Asia Pacific chief economist, at investment firm Vanguard.

“This is negative to the global and Asia economy, especially those small open economies, both in the short term and long term.”

Countries from Vietnam to Bangladesh have become highly-reliant on the US as an export market.

Trump’s announcement last week included a 46% tariff on Vietnam and 37% on Bangladesh.

Several major US brands produce goods in Vietnam, including Nike and Lululemon.

Bangladesh exports $8.4bn (£6.5bn) of garments a year to the US, according to trade body the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

“Asia is likely to feel a disproportionate brunt of this turmoil because Asia sends more exports to the US than to other markets,” said Frank Lavin, a former Undersecretary for International Trade at the US Department of Commerce.

On Friday, the global stock market turmoil deepened, after China hit back at tariffs announced by Trump.

All three major US stock indexes in fell by more than 5%, with the S&P 500 dropping almost 6%, capping the worst week for the US stock market since 2020.

In the UK, the FTSE 100 plunged almost 5% – its steepest fall in five years, while exchanges in Germany and France faced similar declines.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c934qzd094wo

The U.S. Sun is given a harrowing insight into the nightmares suffered by thousands of people duped into become scammers

SCAM factories where thousands of trafficked workers are held for 16-hour shifts have been exposed as the source of fraud messages sent en masse to unwitting Americans every day.

The so-called employees are allegedly beaten, electrically shocked, and held at gunpoint as they send the messages from call center “cities” on the other side of the world on the Myanmar/Thailand border.

Through first-hand accounts and bombshell revelations, investigative reporter Denise Chan helped expose the multi-billion dollar empire of syndicates that traffick people with promises of amazing jobs, before trapping victims in a living hell.

Chan has laid bare to The U.S. Sun the nightmare uncovered in her podcast series Scam Factory which follows two Filipino siblings, Charlie and Max, on their journey and attempted escape from a nightmare situation.

The show follows Charlie, who helps her younger brother Max land a dream job abroad.

But when Max arrives, the job does not exist.

Instead, he is trapped in a heavily-guarded compound where armed guards have shoot-to-kill orders.

For Charlie, the only way to free her beloved brother is to dive deeper into the underworld.

With the help of Thai based Colonel Dominador Matalang, reporter Chan worked tirelessly to help the pair escape the hell of being sucked into the scam culture.

“At its heart,” Chan says, “this is a family story.”

According to a recent report by the United States Institute of Peace, there are an estimated total of more than 300,000 scammers in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos that account for at least $40 billion in stolen funds worldwide.

The fallout from Myanmar’s 2021 military takeover has turned the once-quiet border with Thailand into a hotbed of crime and corruption.

Ruthless Chinese crime syndicates have swooped in, cutting deals with warring factions to replace lush rainforests with shady high-rise hubs dedicated to pulling off massive online scams.

While officials fail to crack down, Myanmar’s militia bosses and Chinese gangsters are smuggling tens of thousands of desperate workers across the border to fuel their criminal empires, according to shocking reports from the United Nations.

Working in conjunction with a local Thai reporter, Los Angeles based Chan was told about how Charlie and Max had just escaped from one of the gleaming new compounds built with dirty money.

Strips of restaurants and hotels have sprung up out of nowhere and, according to Chan, give this nondescript area of Myanmar, which was unaffected by the recent devastating earthquakes.

Initially, Max was told about a job opportunity in Cambodia from friends and, desperate to boost his very modest income, accepted without hesitation.

Max was making about $250 a month driving his family van and doing gig work. This job was offering $1,000 a month.

“The salary was so enticing,” admitted Chan.

SUCKED IN
The adverts mentioned a customer service role for an online gambling casino abroad, which would also appear randomly in chat groups on the likes of Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook.

Interested parties would be told about travelling to Bangkok, with travel and accommodation costs included.

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of everything. We’ll post you up, and then we’ll get you to the compound,” the scammers tell their targets.

As the unwitting employees head onto the bus, they are driven to the border and taken on a boat across the river to Myanmar. The drivers play dumb, stressing they don’t speak the same language, Chan explained.

As the magical mystery tour deepens, worried texts are exchanged with the recruiters. The answers would come back with fake reassurance.

“At that point, they don’t really have any other options,” stressed Chan. “They just have to trust what they’re being told and go along with it. That’s how many of them end up in these compounds.”

They are just luring you until you will be trapped.

Colonel Dominador Matalang
Upon arrival, the now bewildered men and women who’ve been cooped up in a bus for eight hours are greeted by the sight of a “micro city” which has sprung up in the middle of nowhere.

There are mid-rise buildings with dorms and offices, but also casinos, hotels, streets of restaurants, and karaoke bars. It’s like a fully functioning city.

“It’s bizarre,” admitted Chan. “They’re specifically designed to support these scam operations. It’s a whole infrastructure built around exploiting people.”

The luxury amenities, which began springing up during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 when employment and loneliness levels rose exponentially giving scammers a golden opportunity to strike, are for the bosses but the sheer scale, according to the investigative reporter, is “shocking.”

Chan says the pace of building in the last five years has been “insane.”

With Myanmar in the midst of a civil war, it’s allowed the scammers to wreak havoc with people’s lives.

“For law enforcement, especially from outside jurisdictions, it’s nearly impossible to operate in these areas,” continued Chan.

“The lack of centralized control and oversight makes it a hotbed for these kinds of operations.”

PUBLIC ATTENTION
Two high profile incidents involving a Hong Kong pop star and a Chinese actor who became entangled in the plots have forced leaders from China and Thailand to come forward, saying they’re committed to cracking down on these operations.

At the end of February, 7,000 people were freed from several compounds in Myanmar.

Nevertheless, people like Max have already been sucked into the nightmare.

Upon arrival at the compounds, many are able to put the hellish start to the journey to one side after being greeted with the gleaming amenities offered.

Guides usher people to their accommodations, and told to relax before starting work the next day.

It didn’t take long, however, for the fear to set in.

Immediately once entering the office, cell phones were taken away and given to the bosses who would scroll through and monitor their communications. Everything was tightly controlled, they claimed.

They were under constant surveillance. CCTV cameras were everywhere, and their bosses also monitored their computer screens. They’d be given a list of leads and instructed to start contacting people. It’s essentially a numbers game—they’re texting as many people as possible, trying to build relationships and see who takes the bait.

The Colonel admits physical violence is commonplace. Victims are beaten, electronically shocked, and put in “dark rooms” and “water jails.”

They are, continued the Colonel, sold openly between the companies, mainly when their performance is low in scamming, or they complain too much.

All victims were told that they owed the company money.

The fee the companies claim includes food, accommodations, travel, and other items that were agreed upon as being “free.”

Bosses added the cost they used to purchase victims onto victims’ debt.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/13943749/scam-factory-texts-americans-violence-myanmar/

Bitcoin investor Chun Wang took three people on board his private SpaceX flight, which went on a novel journey around the Earth’s poles.

Four space tourists, who orbited the north and south poles, have returned to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.Four space tourists have safely arrived back on Earth after completing a novel space route on board one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX capsules.

Bitcoin tycoon Chun Wang, who chartered the SpaceX flight, and three others splashed down off the Southern California coast on Friday, pumping their fists in celebration of the successful voyage.

After taking off on Monday, it became the first human spaceflight to circle the globe above both the North Pole and South Pole – and the first Pacific splashdown for a space crew in 50 years.

The crew passed over the icy masses roughly every 40 minutes from 270 miles in the air.

The Dragon capsule was kitted out with a domed window that provides 360-degree views of the polar ice caps and everything in between.

The Chinese-born Mr Wang, now a citizen of Malta, had invited three associates – Norwegian filmmaker Jannicke Mikkelsen, German robotics researcher Rabea Rogge and Australian polar guide Eric Philips – to join him on his private flight.

They all met in Svalbard, the Norwegian Arctic archipelago, he wrote on X.

Mr Wang declined to say how much he paid for the three and a half day trip. But the price tag reportedly comes in at $55m (£42m) per person.

It is the sixth fully private space mission for Elon Musk’s space company.

SpaceX and its Dragon craft have dominated the emerging market for private space tourism.

Dragon is the world’s only capsule built by a private company – rather than a state-run organisation – that routinely flies missions in orbit.

Its rival, Boeing’s Starliner capsule, has been held up in development.

‘So epic’

“It is so epic because it is another kind of desert, so it just goes on and on and on all the way,” said researcher Ms Rogge in a video posted by Mr Wang on X while gazing down from miles above Earth.

All four suffered from space motion sickness when they first reached orbit, but adjusted by day two, according to Mr Wang.

The private astronauts conducted 22 research experiments during their mission, including exiting the capsule without the normal assistance from ground crew in a bid to demonstrate how easily people could walk off a spacecraft on the moon or Mars.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/spacex-tourists-return-to-earth-after-historic-flight-13342197

Yoon Suk Yeol, who was officially removed from office on Friday, follows a line of former South Korean leaders who have had their reputations marred or terms interrupted by scandal.

Among them are presidents who have faced indictment, exile and imprisonment.

Yoon, who was South Korea’s public prosecutor, in fact led a probe that landed former president Park Geun-hye in prison.

Now apart from being impeached, Yoon is also being investigated for treason over his botched martial law attempt last December. Some analysts believe that, ironically, the move was driven by his fear of prosecution.

Here is a list of former South Korean presidents whose political careers ended dramatically.

PRESIDENT Donald Trump has unveiled his administration’s new $5 million “gold card” visa, adding that the VIP ticket to the US will be available within two weeks.

In February, the Republican announced his plans to begin selling the visas to foreigners who want to move to America and create jobs, which he dubbed “green-card-privileges-plus”.

He gloated to reporters abord Air Force One: “For $5 million, this could be yours.

“That was the first of the cards. You know what that card is?

“It’s the gold card – the Trump card.”

Trump claimed he was the first buyer of the bombshell card but was unsure on who the second buyer was.

He added that the card will be out in “less than two weeks, probably”.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick made the claim last month that over 1,000 gold cards had been sold.

He also said that over 37 million people globally have the means of buying one.

The EB-5 program grants investors the opportunity to apply for permanent U.S. residence if they “make the necessary investment in a commercial enterprise in the United States” and intend to generate or sustain 10 permanent full-time jobs.

Lutnick described the EB-5 program as “full of nonsense, make-believe and fraud,” adding, “It was a way to get a green card that was low priced.”

Once vetted, gold card holders “can invest in America and we can use that money to reduce our deficit,” he said.

The president projected that the gold card will attract “very high level people” who contribute to job creation.

With these cards, “you’re getting big taxpayers, big job producers, and we’ll be able to sell maybe a million of these cards, maybe more than that,” Trump said.

The US currently offers a range of visas for foreigners who want to live and work in the country, each with its own set of requirements and limitations.

For those seeking long-term residency, the Green Card application process can be rigorous and time-consuming, often taking years.

It’s unclear, however, how long a ‘Gold Card’ would take to obtain and what additional measures – other than financial – would be needed to qualify.

The EB-5 visa program was created by Congress in the 1990s – but with different threshold requirements compared to today.

Referring to the $36.5 trillion national debt, Lutnick explained previously: “There’s a line for EB-5 of 250,000 right now.

“200,000 of these gold green cards [at $5 million] is $1 trillion to pay down our debt.”

Who will qualify for the gold visa?

Trump previously revealed this route was for people “of wealth or people of great talent”.

He also announced this program will be a way to bring in investors who will build companies and provide jobs.

He did not give specific job creation requirements but said applicants will go through vetting to ensure they are “wonderful, world-class global citizens”.

Trump did not confirm if there will be a cap on the number of gold visas handed out but he suggested around one million could be sold to generate money for the government.

How much will the visa cost and what will people get for that money?

This new visa will set the wealthy back around $5million per application.

The program will not give buyers American citizenship straight away.

Gold visa recipients will be lawful residents of the US and will have the right to work towards citizenship.

Typical green card holders must spend five years in the US before they can apply for a US passport.

Has the US previously had a similar visa?

EB-5 visas are open to foreign nationals who invest $1million in an American business that employs at least 10 people.

This path, which was introduced in 1990, gave these rich internationals green cards and the eventual route to citizenship.

The EB-5 has a limit of 10,000 visas per year for people who “make the necessary investment in a commercial enterprise in the United States”.

Slovakia approved on Wednesday a plan to allow the killing of 350 bears, as Environment Minister Toma Taraba said bear attacks on humans are on the rise.

The move comes after the remains of a 59-year-old man were discovered in central Slovakia on Sunday. Authorities later determined he was mauled by a bear.

The brown bear population in Slovakia’s forests is estimated to be around 1,300.

A state of emergency has been called in 55 of the country’s 72 counties over “undesirable” bear presence, which allows the Environment Ministry to issue permission for the cull of the animals.

In approving the cull, Taraba said on Wednesday that 800 bears was a “sufficient number” for the small European country.

Last year, attacks by bears on humans reached 1,900, the government said, with officials allowing the culling of 144 bears as a result.

“We can’t live in a country where people are afraid of going to forests, where people become food for bears,” Prime Minister Robert Fico said.

Conservationists decry cull, call for prevention

Environmental organizations have criticized the move to kill the bears, saying it violates the country’s international obligations.

Slovakia must follow an EU directive that allows culling only of problem bears damaging property or attacking people and only if there is no other solution.

Slovakian journalists from the Jan Kuciak Investigative Center have said there was cause to believe that in 2024 hunters may have killed bears that had not attacked people, based on a study of 50 cases.

Conservationists called on the government to instead focus on preventative measures and teaching people how to stay safe in the outdoors.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/slovakia-calls-for-culling-hundreds-of-bears/a-72120366

It’s 10am, and in a little over two hours, Wayne Hawkins will be dead.

The sun is shining on the bungalow where the 80-year-old lives in San Diego, California with his wife of more than five decades, Stella.

I knock on the door and meet his children – Emily, 48, and Ashley, 44 – who have spent the last two weeks at their father’s side.

Wayne sits in a reclining chair where he spends most of his days. Terminally ill, he is too weak to leave the house.

He has invited BBC News to witness his death under California’s assisted dying laws – because if MPs in London vote to legalise the practice in England and Wales, it will allow some terminally ill people here to die in a similar way.

Half an hour after arriving at Wayne’s house, I watch him swallow three anti-nausea tablets, designed to minimise the risk of him vomiting the lethal medication he plans to take shortly.

Are you sure this day is your last, I ask him? “I’m all in,” he replies. “I was determined and decided weeks ago – I’ve had no trepidation since then.”

His family ask for one last photo, which I take. As usual, Stella and Wayne are holding hands.

Shortly after, Dr Donnie Moore arrives. He has got to know the family over the past few weeks, visiting them on several occasions alongside running his own end-of-life clinic. Under California law, he is what is known as the attending physician who must confirm, in addition to a second doctor, that Wayne is eligible for aid in dying.

Dr Moore’s role is part physician, part counsellor in this situation, one he has been in for 150 assisted deaths before.

On a top shelf in Wayne’s bedroom sits a brown glass bottle containing a fine white powder – a mixture of five drugs, sedatives and painkillers, delivered to the house the previous day. The dosage of drugs inside is hundreds of times higher than those used in regular healthcare and is “guaranteed” to be fatal, Dr Moore explains. Unlike California, the proposed law at Westminster would require a doctor to bring any such medication with them.

When Wayne signals he is ready, the doctor mixes the meds with cherry and pineapple juice to soften the bitter taste – and he hands this pink liquid to Wayne.

No one, not even the doctor, knows how long it will take him to die after taking the lethal drugs. Dr Moore explains to me that, in his experience, death usually occurs between 30 minutes and two hours of ingestion, but on one occasion it took 17 hours.

This is the story of how and why Wayne chose to die. And why others have decided not to follow the same course.

We first met the couple a few weeks earlier, when Wayne explained why he was going ahead with the decision to have an assisted death – a controversial measure in other parts of the world.

“Some days the pain is almost more than I can handle,” he said. “I just don’t see any merit to dying slow and painfully, hooked up with stuff – intubation, feeding tubes,” he told me. “I want none of it.”

Wayne said he had watched two relatives die “miserable”, “heinous” deaths from heart failure.

“I hate hospitals, they are miserable. I will die in the street first.”

Wayne met Stella in 1969; the couple married four years later. He told us it was something of an arranged marriage, as his mother kept inviting Stella for dinner until eventually the penny dropped that he should take her out.

They lived for many years in Arcata, northern California, surrounded by sweeping forests of redwood trees, where Wayne worked as a landscape architect, while Stella was a primary school teacher. They spent their holidays hiking and camping with their children.

Now Wayne is terminally ill with heart failure, which has already brought him close to death. He has myriad other health issues including prostate cancer, liver failure and sepsis which brings him serious spinal pain.

He has less than six months to live, qualifying him for an assisted death in California. His request to die has been approved by two doctors and the lethal medication is self-administered.

It was during our first meeting that he asked the BBC to return to observe his final day, saying he wanted terminally ill adults in the UK to have the same right to an assisted death as him.

“Britain is pretty good with freedoms and this is just another one,” he said. “People should be able to choose the time of their death as long as they meet the rules like six months to live or less.”

Stella, 78, supports his decision. “I’ve known him for over 50 years. He’s a very independent man. He’s always known what he wants to do and he’s always fixed things. That’s how he’s operating now. If this is his choice, I definitely agree, and I’ve seen him really suffer with the illness he’s got. I don’t want that for him.”

Wayne would also qualify under the proposed new assisted dying law in England and Wales. The measures return to the House of Commons later this month, when all MPs will have a chance to debate and vote on changes to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

The proposed legislation, tabled by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, says that anyone who wants to end their life must have the mental capacity to make the choice, that they must be expected to die within six months, and must make two separate declarations – witnessed and signed – about their wish to die. They must satisfy two independent doctors that they are eligible.

MPs in Westminster voted in favour of assisted dying in principle last November but remain bitterly divided on the issue. If they ultimately decide to approve the bill, it could become law within the next year and come into practice within the next four years.

There are also divisions here in California, where assisted dying was introduced in 2016. Michelle and Mike Carter, both 72 and married for 43 years, are each being treated for cancer – Mike has prostate cancer that has spread to his lymph nodes, and Michelle’s advanced terminal ovarian cancer has spread throughout much of her body.

“I held my mother’s hand when she passed; I held my father’s hand when he passed,” Michelle told me. “I believe there’s freedom of choice however for me, I choose palliative care… I have God and I have good medicine.”

Michelle’s physician, palliative care specialist Dr Vincent Nguyen, argued that assisted dying laws in the US state lead to “silent coercion” whereby vulnerable people think their only option is to die. “Instead of ending people’s lives, let’s put programmes together to care for people,” he said. “Let them know that they’re loved, they’re wanted and they’re worthy.”

He said the law meant that doctors have gone from being seen as healers to killers, while the message from the healthcare system was that “you are better off dead, because you’re expensive and your death is cheaper for us”.

Some disability campaigners say assisted dying makes them feel unsafe. Ingrid Tischer, who has muscular dystrophy and chronic respiratory failure, told me: “The message that it sends to people with disabilities in California is that you deserve suicide assistance rather than suicide prevention when you voice a desire to end your life.

“What does that say about who we are as a culture?”

Critics often say that once assisted dying is legalised, over time the safeguards around such laws get eroded as part of a “slippery slope” towards more relaxed criteria. In California, there was initially a mandatory 15-day cooling off period between patients making a first and second request for aid in dying. That has been reduced to 48 hours because many patients were dying during the waiting period. It’s thought the approval process envisaged in Westminster would take around a month.

As the call to prayer rang out in Sagaing last Friday, hundreds of Muslims hurried to the five mosques in central Myanmar.

They were eager to hold their last Friday prayers for Ramadan, just days away from the festive period of Eid that would mark the end of the holy month.

Then, at 12:51 local time (06:21 GMT), a deadly earthquake struck. Three mosques collapsed, including the biggest one, Myoma, killing almost everyone inside.

Hundreds of kilometres away, the former imam of Myoma mosque, Soe Nay Oo, felt the quake in the Thai border town of Mae Sot.

In the following days, he found out that around 170 of his relatives, friends and members of his former congregation had died, mostly in the mosques. Some were leading figures in the city’s close-knit Muslim community.

“I think about all the people who lost their lives, and the victims’ children – some of them are young children,” he told the BBC. “I can’t hold back my tears when I talk about this.”

More than 2,700 people have died in the quake which happened near Sagaing and Mandalay, Myanmar’s second city. The death toll is expected to rise as rescuers continue to pull out bodies from rubble.

While the area was known for its ancient Buddhist temples, the cities were also home to a significant Muslim population.

An estimated 500 Muslims died while praying in their mosques, according to figures given by the country’s leader, Min Aung Hlaing, on Monday.

Eyewitnesses in Sagaing have told the BBC that the road where the mosques were, Myoma Street, was the worst hit in the city. Many other houses on the street have also collapsed.

Hundreds of people have sought shelter by the side of the road, either because they are now homeless, or are too afraid to go back to their homes in case there are aftershocks. Food supplies are reported to be scarce.

In Myoma alone, more than 60 people were said to be crushed in the collapse, while scores more died in the Myodaw and Moekya mosques. More bodies were still being pulled out on Tuesday.

There are indications that the worshippers had tried to escape, according to Soe Nay Oo, who has received multiple reports from surviving members of his community.

He currently lives in the Thai city of Mae Sot with his wife and daughter, after escaping from Myanmar soon after a coup that took place in 2021.

There were bodies found outside of the main prayer hall, he said, in the area where worshippers wash themselves. Some were also found clutching other people’s hands, in what looked like attempts to pull them away from the crumbling building.

Among the many loved ones Soe Nay Oo lost was one of his wife’s cousins. Her death, he said, was “the most painful thing that I have endured” in his 13 years as an imam.

“She was the one who showed her love to us the most,” said Soe Nay Oo. “Everyone in the family loved her. The loss is unbearable for us.”

Another of his wife’s cousins, a well-respected businessman who had performed the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, also died.

“He always called me Nyi Lay [‘little brother’ in Burmese]…When I married my wife, he said we are family now and he always treated me like his own little brother,” said Soe Nay Oo.

“He was always there for us whenever we needed him. I have lost those whom I love like brothers like him.”

Some of the close friends who died include Soe Nay Oo’s former assistant imam, whom he remembered for his strong work ethic and remarkable talent in reciting the Quran.

The principal of the local public school, who was also the only female trustee of the Myoma mosque, also died. She was remembered by Soe Nay Oo as a generous soul who would often pay for mosque programmes out of her own pocket.

He said every time he hears of yet another person from the community who died, he experiences a new wave of grief. “I feel devastated… it always comes to my mind, the memories I cherish of them.

“Even though they were not close relatives, they were the ones who always welcomed me, followed my prayers, and who prayed together.”

The fact that they died during Ramadan is not lost on him. “All the departed have returned to Allah’s home, I would say. They will be remembered as martyrs accordingly,” he said.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2e98xep10o

A volcano erupted to the south of Iceland’s capital on Tuesday, spewing lava and smoke in a fiery display of orange and red that triggered the evacuation of tourists and residents, although air traffic continued as normal.
Referred to as a land of ice and fire for its many glaciers and volcanoes, the North Atlantic island nation has now seen 11 eruptions south of Reykjavik since 2021, when dormant geological systems reactivated after some 800 years.

“Warning: An eruption has begun,” the Icelandic meteorological office said in a statement.
The outbreak penetrated protective barriers close to the Grindavik fishing town, triggering an evacuation of those residents who had returned following previous eruptions, although most houses have stood empty for over a year.
“There is lava coming within the barrier at the moment, but it’s a very limited eruption so far,” said Rikke Pedersen, head of the Nordic Volcanological Center.
Emergency services also evacuated the nearby Blue Lagoon luxury spa in the hours ahead of the eruption, as geologists had warned it was imminent.

Pedersen said the outbreak was similar in size to an eruption from January 2024, which spewed lava into Grindavik.
The eruptions on the Reykjanes peninsula so far have not directly affected the capital city Reykjavik and have not caused significant dispersal of ash into the stratosphere, avoiding air traffic disruption.
Icelandic experts predict that the so-called fissure eruptions, characterised by lava flowing out of long cracks in the earth’s crust rather than a single volcanic opening, could repeat themselves for decades, or even centuries.
The North Atlantic island, home to nearly 400,000 people, attracts thousands of tourists every year who come to explore its rugged nature, including geysers, hot springs and volcanoes.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/volcanic-magma-eruption-begins-iceland-meteorological-office-says-2025-04-01/

OpenAI on Monday said it raised $40 billion in a new funding round that valued the ChatGPT maker at $300 billion, the biggest capital-raising session ever for a startup.

The infusion of cash comes in a partnership with Japanese investment giant SoftBank Group and “enables us to push the frontiers of AI research even further,” the San Francisco-based company said in a post on its website.

“Their support will help us continue building AI systems that drive scientific discovery, enable personalized education, enhance human creativity, and pave the way toward AGI (artificial general intelligence) that benefits all of humanity,” the company said.

AGI refers to a computing platform with human-level intelligence.

The company plans to scale its infrastructure and “deliver increasingly powerful tools for the 500 million people who use ChatGPT every week.”

The funding news came the same day OpenAI announced it was building a more open generative AI model as it faces growing competition in the open-source space from Chinese rival DeepSeek, and Meta.

The move would mark a strategic shift by OpenAI, which until now has been a fierce defender of closed, proprietary models that do not allow developers to modify the basic technology to make AI more adapted to their goals.

OpenAI and defenders of closed models — which include Google — have often decried open models as riskier and more vulnerable to nefarious uses by malicious actors or non-US governments.

OpenAI’s embrace of closed models has also been a bone of contention in its battles with former investor Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, who has called on OpenAI to honor the spirit of the company’s name and “return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.”

Putting pressure on OpenAI, many large companies and governments have proved reluctant to build their AI products or services on models they have no control over, especially when data security is a concern.

The core selling point of Meta’s family of Llama models or DeepSeek’s models is addressing these worries by letting companies download their models and have far greater control to modify the technology for their own purposes and keep control of their data.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said earlier this month that Llama hit one billion downloads, while the release of DeepSeek’s lower-cost R1 model in January rocked the world of artificial intelligence.

“We’ve been thinking about this for a long time, but other priorities took precedence. Now it feels important to do,” OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said on X of the decision to build a more open model.

Source : https://www.ibtimes.com/openai-says-it-raised-40-bn-valuation-300-bn-3768344

Elon Musk fired back at Ashley St. Clair — the conservative influencer claiming to have given birth to the Tesla and SpaceX boss’ 13th child — on Monday after she accused the world’s richest man of cutting back on child support payments.

“I don’t know if the child is mine or not, but am not against finding out,” Musk wrote on X. “ No court order is needed.”

“Despite not knowing for sure, I have given Ashley $2.5M and am sending her $500k/year,” the Department of Government Efficiency chief claimed.

St. Clair charged that Musk was being a “petulant man-child” in a response to Musk’s tweet, denying that he’s willing to take a paternity test.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he was “pissed off” at Russian President Vladimir Putin and will impose secondary tariffs of 25% to 50% on buyers of Russian oil if he feels Moscow is blocking his efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
Trump told NBC News he was very angry after Putin last week criticized the credibility of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s leadership, the television network reported, citing a telephone interview early on Sunday.

Since taking office in January, Trump has adopted a more conciliatory stance towards Russia that has left Western allies wary as he tries to broker an end to Moscow’s three-year-old war in Ukraine.
His sharp comments about Putin on Sunday reflect his growing frustration about the lack of movement on a ceasefire.
“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault … I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” Trump said.

“That would be, that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States,” Trump said. “There will be a 25% tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.”
Trump later reiterated to reporters he was disappointed with Putin but added: “I think we are making progress, step by step.”
Trump said he could impose the new trade measures within a month.
There was no immediate reaction from Moscow. Russia has called numerous Western sanctions and restrictions “illegal” and designed for the West to take economic advantage in its rivalry with Russia.
Trump, who spent the weekend at his estate in Palm Beach, Florida, told NBC News he planned to speak with Putin this week. The two leaders have had two publicly announced telephone calls in recent months but may have had more contacts, the Kremlin said in video footage last week.

The White House had no immediate comment on when the call would take place, or if Trump would also speak with Zelenskiy.
Trump has focused heavily on ending what he calls a “ridiculous” war, which began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, but has made little progress.
Putin on Friday suggested Ukraine could be placed under a form of temporary administration to allow for new elections that could push out Zelenskiy.
Trump, who himself has called for new elections in Ukraine and denounced Zelenskiy as a dictator, said Putin knows he is angry with him. But Trump added he had “a very good relationship with him” and “the anger dissipates quickly … if he does the right thing.”
GROWING PRESSURE TO END WAR
Trump’s comments followed a day of meetings and golf with Finnish President Alexander Stubb on Saturday, during Stubb’s surprise visit to Florida.

Stubb’s office on Sunday said he told Trump a deadline needs to be set for establishing a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire to make it happen and suggested April 20 since Trump would have been in office then for three months.
U.S. officials have been separately pushing Kyiv to accept a critical minerals agreement, a summary of which suggested the U.S. was demanding all Ukraine’s natural resources income for years. Zelenskiy has said Kyiv’s lawyers need to review the draft before he can say more about the U.S. offer.
Trump told reporters on Air Force One he thought Zelenskiy was “trying to back out of the rare earth deal…. if he’s looking to renegotiate the deal, he’s got big problems.” Trump also told reporters that Ukraine would never be part of NATO.
Trump’s latest tariff threats would add to the pain already facing China, India and other countries through trade measures imposed during his first two months in office, including duties on steel, aluminum and cars. More duties on imports from the countries with the largest trade surpluses are slated to be announced on Wednesday.
William Reinsch, a former senior Commerce Department official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the haphazard way Trump was announcing and threatening tariffs leaves many questions unanswered, including how U.S. officials could trace and prove which countries were buying Russian oil.
Trump set the stage for Sunday’s news with a 25% secondary tariff imposed last week on U.S. imports from any country buying oil or gas from Venezuela.
His remarks to NBC suggest he could take similar action against U.S. imports from countries that buy oil from Russia, a move that could hit China and India particularly hard.
The U.S. has not imported any Russian barrels of crude oil since April 2022, according to U.S. government data. Before that, U.S. refiners bought inconsistent volumes of Russian oil, with a high of 98.1 million barrels in 2010 and low of 6.6 million in 2014, according to a review of EIA data since 2000.
India has surpassed China to become the biggest buyer of seaborne Russian crude, which comprised about 35% of India’s total crude imports in 2024.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-threatens-secondary-tariffs-russian-oil-if-unable-make-deal-ukraine-2025-03-30/