Author: DW

A charter plane carrying 59 white South Africans arrived at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, DC, on Monday. For these 59 people, including families and children, the United States is their new home. US President Donald Trump himself had fast-tracked their arrival. Back in February, he had announced a new program to take in refugees from South Africa who, in his view, were suffering from racist policies. While many refugees wait years before they are approved to travel to the United States,  the Afrikaners who arrived on Monday were admitted in under three months. Refugee status ‘based on lies’ On Monday, Trump…

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that he was open to discussing the potential deployment of his country’s nuclear weapons elsewhere in Europe. The comments came in an interview with French broadcaster TF1 on Tuesday evening. Macron noted that the United States already stations nuclear-armed aircraft in Europe. “The Americans have the bombs on planes in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Turkey,” Macron said. “We are ready to open this discussion.” “I will define the framework in a very specific way in the weeks and months to come,” he said. Macron lists conditions for sharing France’s nuclear umbrella In the interview,…

Latin America’s largest economy, Brazil, is planning a major rail link to Peru’s Chancay megaport on the Pacific — a project backed by Chinese financing with the aim of reconfiguring the Asian powerhouse’s trade routes and reduce dependency on traditional Atlantic shipping lanes. Brazilian business magazine Valor wrote recently that Chinese interest in new investments in Brazil is on the rise. Colombia, too, is reportedly weighing participation in China’s so-called Belt and Road Initiative, and Venezuela is actively pursuing deeper ties with Chinese oil firms.Why is China’s new megaport in Peru facing pushback?To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web…

Dozens of white South Africans have arrived in the US after the Trump administration granted them refugee status in the country, having deemed them victims of racial discrimination. The first 59 Afrikaners were greeted by Christopher Landau, the US deputy secretary of state, at Washington’s Dulles International Airport on Monday. President Donald Trump invited Afrikaners, the descendants of mainly Dutch settlers, to move to the US in February to escape the alleged discrimination they face at the hands of the black majority in South Africa.Mr Trump echoed his white South African-born ally Elon Musk, who used to be his US national…

President Donald Trump said on Sunday a 100% tariff would be introduced on movies made outside of the United States, claiming the American film industry was “dying a very fast death.” Trump said this was due to the incentives that other countries were offering to attract American movie makers. “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Trump said he was authorizing the relevant government agencies, such as the Department of Commerce, to immediately begin the process of imposing a 100% tariff on all…

Test cricket great Virat Kohli announced on Monday he had retired from the format. This comes days before India names its squad for a tour to England. Kohli scored 9,230 runs in 123 matches at an average of 46.85. He peaked at an average of 55 between 2011 and 2019, with his test form falling to 23.56 in the past two years. He is considered to be among the safest catchers and the fastest retrievers of the ball. When did Kohli rise to greatness? “King Kohli” also revolutionized the fitness culture in the India dressing room. The batting legend made his debut in…

Hamas announced on Monday that it had released Edan Alexander, believed to be the last living US hostage in Gaza, as it strives to restart ceasefire talks. The Palestinian militant group, listed as a terrorist organization by several countries, including the US, announced on Sunday that it had held rare direct talks with US representatives in Doha. Who is Edan Alexander, the American hostage released by Hamas? Edan Alexander — an American-Israeli soldier who was abducted from his military base in southern Israel during Hamas’ October 7, 2023, cross-border attack that set off the war in Gaza — had been held hostage in the Gaza Strip for more…

Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 3.4% in 2024, the World Bank said in a new report published Monday. That’s the highest rate of growth since 2014, excluding the 2021-2022 COVID-19 rebound, the bank said. The acceleration in Nigeria’s GDP growth was driven mainly by a continued oil and gas sector recovery and strong growth in the tech and finance industries, according to the latest Nigeria Development Update. The World Bank expects the rate of growth of Nigeria’s economy to slightly increase in 2025 to 3.7%. At the same time, the country’s agriculture sector showed slow growth, the bank warned,…

The United States and China agreed on Monday to step back from the brink in their massive tariff war that roiled financial markets and intensified trade tensions. The two sides agreed to slash import tariffs on each other’s goods for 90 days from Wednesday. The respite follows high-stakes negotiations in Geneva last weekend over US President Donald Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs, which are meant to ease the US trade imbalance, but caused Beijing to retaliate with similar measures. Until Monday, China was the sole country that Trump declined to grant a tariff pause. What do we know up to this point? US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and…

Of all the fronts in Donald Trump’s trade war, none was as dramatic and economically threatening as the sky-high tariffs he imposed on China.There are a couple of reasons: first, because China is and was the single biggest importer of goods into the US and, second, because of the sheer height of the tariffs imposed by the White House in recent months. In short, tariffs of over 100% were tantamount to a total embargo on goods coming from the United States’ main trading partner. That would have had enormous economic implications, not just for the US but every other country…