9 d. ago Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy accuses Moscow of doing ‘everything it can’ to sabotage peace talks

President hasn’t committed to Ukraine attending Monday’s meeting with Russia in Istanbul, saying Moscow first has to provide its proposals. What we know on day 1,193See all our Ukraine war coverageUkraine has said it does not expect any results from talks with Russia in Turkey, unless Moscow provides its peace terms in advance, accusing the Kremlin of doing “everything” it can to sabotage the potential meeting. Moscow said it was sending a team of negotiators to Istanbul for a second round of talks on Monday but Kyiv has yet to confirm if it will attend. “For over a week now, the Russians have been unable to present the so-called memorandum,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X on Friday, referring to a document Russia says it has prepared outlining its conditions for peace. “For a meeting to be meaningful, its agenda must be clear, and the negotiations must be properly prepared,” the Ukrainian president added. “Unfortunately, Russia is doing everything it can to ensure that the next pote...

Events

1 week ago 'Inhuman' queues at Spanish airport force officials into emergency meeting

Tenerife's President has called for an emergency meeting after 'inhuman' queues at the Spanish airport left Brits and other tourists waiting for two hours in a 'third world' situation.

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1 week ago Trump tells Powell Fed is making a ‘mistake’ by not cutting interest rates

Central bank chair meets president at the White House to discuss economic expectations

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1 week ago Trump tells Powell Fed is making a ‘mistake’ by not cutting rates

Central bank chair meets president at the White House to discuss economic expectations

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1 week ago Federal Reserve issues rare statement asserting independence amid Trump pressure

Central bank emphasizes nonpartisan role in brief memo after chair Jerome Powell meets with US presidentCan Trump fire Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell?The Federal Reserve issued a rare, strongly worded statement on Thursday after chair Jerome Powell spoke with Donald Trump at the White House Thursday morning, holding firm on the central bank’s independence amid pressure from Trump to lower interest rates.The three-paragraph statement emphasized the Fed’s independent, nonpartisan role in setting monetary policy based on economic data. Continue reading...

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1 week ago Powell tells Trump that Fed’s rates policy will depend on data and outlook

Central bank chair meets US president at the White House to discuss economic expectations

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1 week ago ‘I don’t want freebies’: outgoing AfDB head on why investment, not aid, will shape Africa’s future

After a decade helming the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina hands over to his successor this week. He explains his optimism despite the continent’s challengesThe man known as Africa’s “optimist-in-chief” faces one of his toughest challenges this year: handing over the reins of his beloved institution to his successor. After 10 years at the top of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina will this week see a new president elected at the bank’s annual meeting in Ivory Coast before a handover in September.Adesina will be passing on a bank that has grown dramatically during his tenure. “In 2015, the capital of the bank was $93bn. Today, the African Development Bank is $318bn.” Continue reading...

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1 week ago Donald Trump explodes in furious rant at Vladimir Putin over Ukraine peace talks

Donald Trump has issued a fresh warning to Vladimir Putin after the Russian president made a series of demands for the West to meet in order to secure peace in Ukraine

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1 week ago The Guardian view on a new Syria: nurturing fragile hope amid the rubble | Editorial

Sanctions relief thanks to Donald Trump’s unexpected embrace of the new president gives a shattered country the chance to rebuildThe startled joy that greeted Bashar al-Assad’s fall less than six months ago was always shadowed by the fear of what might follow. Hundreds of thousands of the six million Syrians who fled abroad during 14 years of war have returned. Yet the mood has inevitably grown more sober, and last week Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, warned that the fractured country could be weeks away from “potential collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions”.Mr Rubio was defending Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to lift sanctions after meeting the country’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa – a former al-Qaida fighter who until months ago had a $10m US bounty on his head, but who is also, in Mr Trump’s considered view, a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy”. Whatever the trigger, the suspension of some sanctions by the US, and the lifting of some EU and UK measur...

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1 week ago Zelenskyy says Ukraine has reached defence sector accords with Germany as he meets Merz – Ukraine

Ukrainian president says countries have reached new agreements on defence investments as he meets German chancellor in BerlinZelenskyy bound for Berlin with Merz boxed inTurkey’s foreign minister will travel to Kyiv on Thursday for a two-day visit after discussing peace efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine in Moscow earlier this week, a Turkish foreign ministry source told Reuters on Wednesday.Foreign minister Hakan Fidan held talks in Moscow on Monday and Tuesday, meeting Russian president Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials, including Moscow’s top negotiator at talks in Istanbul earlier this month aimed at ending the three-year war. Continue reading...

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1 week ago Zelenskyy meets Merz as he warns 50,000 Russian troops massing near Sumy region – Ukraine

Ukrainian president meets German chancellor with speculation he could allow Kyiv to use long-range Taurus missilesZelenskyy bound for Berlin with Merz boxed inTurkey’s foreign minister will travel to Kyiv on Thursday for a two-day visit after discussing peace efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine in Moscow earlier this week, a Turkish foreign ministry source told Reuters on Wednesday.Foreign minister Hakan Fidan held talks in Moscow on Monday and Tuesday, meeting Russian president Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials, including Moscow’s top negotiator at talks in Istanbul earlier this month aimed at ending the three-year war. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Trump’s unfounded attack on Cyril Ramaphosa was an insult to all Africans | John Dramani Mahama

If we want to solve injustices in Africa today, we cannot forget the injustices that shaped our shared history John Dramani Mahama is the president of the Republic of GhanaThe meeting at the White House between Donald Trump and the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, was, at its heart, about the preservation of essential historical truths. The US president’s claims of white genocide conflict with the actual racial persecution and massacres that took place during the two centuries of colonisation and nearly 50 years of apartheid in South Africa.It is not enough to be affronted by these claims, or to casually dismiss them as untruths. These statements are a clear example of how language can be leveraged to extend the effects of previous injustices. This mode of violence has long been used against Indigenous Africans. And it cannot simply be met with silence – not any more.John Dramani Mahama is president of the Republic of Ghana Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Trump indicates ‘positive’ progress in US trade talks with EU

Wall Street up in early trading after US president commends bloc for calling to ‘quickly establish meeting dates’Donald Trump has indicated there has been progress in US trade talks with the EU, helping send share prices rising on Wall Street, after he commended the bloc for calling to “quickly establish meeting dates”.“This is a positive event, and I hope that they will,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, saying the EU would be “very happy and successful” if it agreed a deal. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Indonesian president and Chinese premier meet to discuss expanding trade during US trade war

Chinese Premier Li Qiang has met with Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto to discuss ways to expand trade and investment during the U.S. global trade war and while economic globalization faces headwinds

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2 w. ago South Africa’s president praised for ‘calm demeanour’ during Trump meeting

In an Oval Office encounter in which the US president made false claims of ‘white genocide’, Cyril Ramaphosa kept his coolTrump’s ‘white genocide’ claims ignore the reality of life and crime in South AfricaMany South Africans praised their president Cyril Ramaphosa for staying calm when Donald Trump ambushed him in the Oval Office with a video purporting to back up his false claims of a “genocide” against white Afrikaner farmers.Others asked why Ramaphosa, who brought ministers, golfers and a billionaire with him, chose to walk into what he knew was likely to be a trap. Continue reading...

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2 w. ago Trump’s evidence of South Africa ‘white genocide’ contains images from Democratic Republic of Congo

Other images displayed by Trump during meeting with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa were false or misleadingThe evidence of supposed mass killings of white South Africans presented by Donald Trump in a tense White House meeting on Wednesday were in some cases images from the Democratic Republic of Congo, while footage shown during the meeting was falsely portrayed as depicting “burial sites”.“These are all white farmers that are being buried,” said Trump, holding up a print-out of an article accompanied by a picture during the contentious Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Continue reading...

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2 w. ago Ernie Els, Retief Goosen join South African president in White House meeting with Trump

Ernie Els and Retief Goosen spent the day before the Senior PGA Championship as guests of the South African president in a meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House

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2 w. ago Trump ambushes South African president with video and false claims of anti

Cyril Ramaphosa responds to hectoring stunt in Oval Office and egregious claim of white genocide by suggesting calmUS politics live – latest updatesDonald Trump ambushed the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, by playing him a video that he falsely claimed proved genocide was being committed against white people under “the opposite of apartheid”.The hectoring stunt on Wednesday set up the most tense Oval Office encounter since Trump’s bullying of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February. But Ramaphosa – who earlier said that he had come to Washington to “reset” the relationship between the two countries – refused to take the bait and suggested that they “talk about it very calmly”. Continue reading...

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2 w. ago Trump’s attempt at Oval Office ‘gotcha’ moment backfired spectacularly

ANALYSIS: Armed with printouts of tabloid news articles and a montage of video clips, Trump launched into a meandering explanation of the current political situation in South Africa to its president Cyril Ramaphosa, Richard Hall writes.

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2 w. ago Social media erupts over Elon Musk's facial expressions during testy Trump showdown with South African president: Live updates

Donald Trump is meeting with South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House today, calling him 'controversial' in some circles.

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