US deportations raise serious human rights concerns, UN says
NewsFeed The United Nations raised alarm over the large number of people being deported from the United States, particularly the hundreds sent to a mega-prison in El Salvador. The rights office warned that the whereabouts and legal status of many remain unknown, raising serious human rights concerns. Published On 13 May 202513 May 2025 Adblock test (Why?)
Is Israel’s ‘template for genocide’ being used in Sudan?
NewsFeed Israel’s ‘template for genocide’ is being used in Sudan, according to international law expert Luigi Daniele, who says the paramilitary RSF is using carefully chosen terminology to whitewash killing civilians. Published On 13 May 202513 May 2025 Adblock test (Why?)
Gutted
Fault Lines and Mother Jones investigate how a private equity firm gutted a hospital chain for profit, endangering patients. Fault Lines and Mother Jones magazine investigate how a private equity firm gutted a major United States hospital chain in pursuit of profit, leaving patients without critical care and families shattered. The film follows Nabil Haque, whose wife died after childbirth at a Boston hospital that lacked essential equipment. It also tells the story of Lisa Malick, whose newborn daughter died after delays at a Florida facility that lacked a functioning neonatal intensive care unit. Together, their stories reveal the devastating consequences of turning healthcare into a business. The investigation uncovers how Steward Health Care executives drained hospitals of resources, saddled them with crushing debt and triggered one of the largest hospital bankruptcies in US history – while walking away with millions. Adblock test (Why?)
Why did the US and China slash tariffs – and what’s next?
The United States and China reached a deal on Monday to suspend heavy tariffs against each other’s imports for 90 days. The recent breakthrough marked a detente in the tariff war launched by US President Donald Trump since he returned to office in January. While Trump initially unveiled tariffs against most countries, he then paused most of them – except against China, the US’s biggest economic rival. Tit-for-tat tariffs that the US and China imposed on each other had snowballed into heavy duties, as high as 145 percent on Chinese goods looking to enter the US, and 125 percent on US products looking to access the Chinese market. On Monday, Trump said he could speak with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping by the end of the week, adding that the economic negotiations had led to a “reset” between the two countries. What did China and the US say? The US and China released a joint statement on Monday announcing the suspension of tariffs. The suspension came after two days of trade talks in Geneva, Switzerland. In recent weeks, Trump had repeatedly said tariff talks with China were under way, but officials in Beijing had denied any ongoing negotiations before the meetings in Geneva. Advertisement In the statement on Monday, the two countries said they recognise the importance of their “bilateral economic and trade relationship” as well as the importance of a “sustainable, long-term, and mutually beneficial economic and trade relationship”. The statement said both nations would take steps to suspend most tariffs by Wednesday. What are the specific terms of the tariff reductions? The US brought down the tariff on Chinese goods from 145 percent to 30 percent, while China brought down the tariff on the US from 125 percent to 10 percent. On April 2, the US had imposed a “reciprocal tariff” of 34 percent on Chinese goods, on top of 20 percent tariffs that Trump had previously imposed on Chinese products since starting his current term. Those earlier tariffs were driven by Trump’s accusation that China was to blame for the fentanyl crisis that has ravaged thousands of American lives and led to several deaths in the US. In effect, on April 2, Chinese goods were tariffed at 54 percent. Beijing hit back with a 34 percent tariff on imports from the US. What followed was a tit-for-tat escalation, where the US and China kept hiking tariffs against each other. At the end, the US had imposed a 145 percent tariff on China while China had imposed a 125 percent tariff on the US. On May 12, they both agreed to slash all tariffs imposed on April 2 and subsequently to 10 percent. But if pre-April 2 tariffs are accounted for, Chinese goods still face a 30 percent tariff. Additionally, specific products from China, such as electric vehicles, steel and aluminium, are subject to even higher, separate tariffs imposed in recent years. Advertisement All the tariff suspensions are only for 90 days as of now – subject to review based on broader trade negotiations between the US and China. What is the main goal of this 90-day suspension? The US and China agreed, per their joint statement, to establish a mechanism to continue talking about their trade relations. “This move is significant primarily because it reflects a strategic retreat by the US, rather than a genuine shift in the broader trajectory of US-China relations,” Carlos Lopes, a Chatham House associate fellow for the Africa Programme, told Al Jazeera. Lopes, whose areas of expertise include international trade and China, explained that the rolling back of tariffs underscores that China held its ground, compelling the US to revise its approach. “In that sense, the rollback signals the limits of grandstanding and unilateralism in a deeply interconnected global economy. It’s a tactical pause, not a strategic realignment.” Why did Trump revise his tariff approach? “The reversal is a recognition of domestic economic pressures,” Lopes said. He added that the tariffs were raising prices for American consumers and undermining key manufacturing sectors, particularly those reliant on Chinese intermediate goods. “The US economy, despite its scale, cannot isolate itself from global supply chains without serious collateral damage. Moreover, President Trump thrives on projecting strength through negotiation – but bargaining without structure or a clear endgame eventually reveals weakness. The rollback reflects this internal contradiction,” he said. Advertisement Fentanyl – and China’s role in the supply chain of the deadly synthetic opioid – was never the major factor behind Trump’s tariffs against Beijing, Lopes said. “Fentanyl was part of the public discourse but not a fundamental driver of the tariff decision. It served more as a symbolic issue for political messaging, particularly to domestic audiences. The core dynamics at play here are structural – supply chain interdependence, inflationary concerns, and electoral calculations – not drug policy,” the Chatham House analyst said. What mechanisms have been established to ensure this works? In the statement, both countries named representatives for negotiations. Vice Premier of the State Council He Lifeng has been named to represent China. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer have been named to represent the US. How have global markets responded to this agreement? The Monday announcement caused stocks and the dollar to see a surge. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 gained 184.28 points, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1,161 points and the Nasdaq composite gained 779.43 points. The euro went down by 1.5 percent at $1.1078. The yen weakened and the US currency shot up 2.1 percent at 148.49. In the wake of Trump’s tariff threats, global markets had seen a considerable fall. US-China trade: Deeper challenges The world’s two largest economies, the US and China, have both long competed for economic preeminence and relied on each other as major trading partners. Advertisement The US is China’s largest export market, constituting 12.9 percent of Chinese exports in 2023, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC). China is the US’s third-largest export market, behind Canada and Mexico. Chinese
Kurdish leader Ocalan told the PKK to disband, it did: Here’s what to know
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) says it is disbanding after more than 40 years of armed struggle against the Turkish state. The announcement came after the PKK held its congress in northern Iraq on Friday, about two months after its imprisoned founder, Abdullah Ocalan, also known as “Appo”, called on the group to disarm in February. For most of its history, the PKK has been labelled a terrorist group by Turkiye, the European Union and the United States. It fought for Kurdish autonomy for years, a fight that has been declared over now. This is all you need to know about why Ocalan and the PKK have given up their armed struggle. Who is Abdullah Ocalan? Ocalan was born to a poor Kurdish farming family on April 4, 1948, in Omerli, Sanliurfa, a Kurdish-majority part of Turkiye. He moved to Ankara to study political science at the university there, where he became politically active; driven, biographers say, by the sense of marginalisation that many Kurds in Turkiye felt. By the mid-1970s, he was advocating for Kurdish nationalism and went on to found the PKK in 1978. Advertisement Six years later, the group launched a separatist rebellion against Turkiye under his command. Ocalan had absolute rule over the PKK and worked to stamp out rival Kurdish groups, monopolising the struggle for Kurdish liberation, according to Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence, by Aliza Marcus. At the time, Kurds were denied the right to speak their language, give their children Kurdish names or show any expression of nationalism. Despite Ocalan’s authoritarian rule, his charisma and positioning as a champion of Kurdish rights led most Kurds across Turkiye to love and respect him, calling him “Appo”, which means Uncle. What was the armed rebellion like? Violent. More than 40,000 people died between 1984 and 2024, with thousands of Kurds fleeing the violence in southeastern Turkiye into cities further north. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Ocalan led operations from neighbouring Syria, which was a source of tensions between the then-Assad regime and Turkiye. The PKK resorted to brutal tactics beginning in the late 1980s and early 90s. According to a report by the European Council on Foreign Relations from 2007, the group, under Ocalan, kidnapped foreign tourists, adopted suicide bombing operations and attacked Turkish diplomatic offices in Europe. Perhaps even worse, the PKK would repress Kurdish civilians who did not assist the group in its guerrilla warfare. Supporters of pro-Kurdish DEM Party wave flags with portraits of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan at a rally for Newroz in Istanbul, Turkiye, March 17, 2024 [Umit Bektas/Reuters] Did Ocalan change his views? Eventually, more than a decade after he was caught. Advertisement In 1998, Ocalan was forced to flee Syria due to the threat of a Turkish incursion to capture him. A year later, Turkish agents arrested him on a plane in Nairobi, Kenya, thanks to intel received from the US. He was brought back to Turkiye and handed the death penalty, yet his sentence was changed to life in prison after Turkiye abolished capital punishment in 2004 in a bid to become a member of the EU. By 2013, Ocalan changed his stance on separatism and began lobbying for comprehensive Kurdish rights and greater regional autonomy in Turkiye, saying he no longer believed in the effectiveness of armed rebellion. This radical shift led to the start of a shaky peace process between the PKK and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), headed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The peace process led to some freedoms for Kurds, yet fighting erupted between the government and the PKK in 2015 due in part to fears that the party was trying to create a Kurdish statelet in neighbouring Syria during its civil war. At the time, many Kurds from southern Turkiye had left for Syria to help the Kurds there fight against ISIL (ISIS). In 2015, the AK Party had also formed a new alliance with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which was staunchly opposed to any peace process involving the PKK. What’s different about this peace process? In announcing its disarmament, the PKK said it has “completed its historical mission” by “breaking the policy of denial and annihilation of our people and bringing the Kurdish issue to a point where solving it can occur through democratic politics”. Advertisement However, analysts argue that there are other reasons behind the decision. The PKK and its Kurdish allies in the region are more vulnerable than before due to recent developments, according to Sinan Ulgen, an expert on Turkiye and senior fellow at Carnegie Europe in Brussels. “The reason the PKK gave up its armed struggle has to do with the change in the international context,” Ulgen explained. US President Donald Trump does not see Syria as a “strategic focal point” for foreign policy and is, therefore, unlikely to keep supporting Kurdish armed groups in the country as it had during the fight against ISIL, he explained. In addition, the new government in Syria is on good terms with Turkiye, unlike under the now-overthrown Assad regime. This new relationship could significantly hurt the ability of the PKK and its Syrian offshoot, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), to operate along the Syria-Turkiye border. MHP leader Devlet Bahceli, left, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan greet supporters at a rally while campaigning for the presidential election on May 7, 2023, in Istanbul [Burak Kara/Getty Images] Will Turkiye follow through? The political climate seems ripe for that. Main political parties, such as the AK Party and its rival Republican People’s Party (CHP), have vocally or tacitly supported a new peace process. But it was the MHP, long opposed to any overtures to the Kurds, that created the window for a new peace process. In April 2024, MHP leader Devlet Bahceli invited Ocalan to renounce “terrorism” in front of Turkiye’s parliament in exchange for possible parole. Advertisement “The fact it was Bahceli … was kind of unbelievable,”
Trump offers to join Russia-Ukraine direct peace talks in Istanbul
Zelenskyy welcomes the US leader’s initiative, insists Putin should also be in the Turkish city ‘in person’. United States President Donald Trump has offered to join the talks that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin suggested should be held directly with Ukraine, after criticism of the Western “ultimatums” to end the conflict between the two Slavic nations. Trump said on Monday he was “thinking about actually flying over” to the Turkish city of Istanbul to attend the negotiations expected to take place on Thursday. The initiative was welcomed by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but there was no immediate reaction from Moscow. “All of us in Ukraine would appreciate it if President Trump could be there with us at this meeting in Turkey. This is the right idea. We can change a lot,” Zelenskyy said. Trump publicly asked Zelenskyy to attend, after Putin on Sunday proposed the direct talks following a rejection of a 30-day ceasefire Ukraine and its Western allies insisted should come first. The Ukrainian leader said he would, but that Putin should also attend in person. On Tuesday, his adviser Mykhailo Podolyak reiterated that Zelenskyy would only meet Putin and no other members of the Russian delegation. Advertisement The Kremlin has made no comment on whether or not Putin will travel to Turkiye himself. “We are committed to a serious search for ways of a long-term peaceful settlement,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. If Zelenskyy and Putin were to meet on Thursday, it would be their first face-to-face meeting since December 2019. I have just heard President Trump’s statement. Very important words. I supported @POTUS idea of a full and unconditional ceasefire — long enough to provide the foundation for diplomacy. And we want it, we are ready to uphold silence on our end. I supported President Trump… — Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 12, 2025 Meanwhile, Ukraine said its air defence units destroyed all 10 drones that Russia launched overnight on Tuesday. This is the lowest number of drones that Russia has launched in an overnight attack in several weeks. The Ukrainian military’s general staff said as of 10pm (19:00 GMT) on Monday, there had been 133 clashes with Russian forces along the front line since midnight, when the ceasefire proposed by European powers was to have come into effect. Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksandr Syrskii, was quoted by Zelenskyy as saying the heaviest fighting still gripped the Donetsk region, the focus of the eastern front, and Russia’s western Kursk region, nine months after Kyiv’s forces staged a cross-border incursion. Meanwhile, Russia accused Ukraine of attacking its Belgorod region, with the governor Vyacheslav Gladkov saying on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces used 65 drones and more than 100 rounds of ammunition to attack his region in the past day. Advertisement Adblock test (Why?)
US-Israeli soldier Edan Alexander reunites with family after release
[unable to retrieve full-text content] Video from the Israeli military showed the moment of US-Israeli citizen Edan Alexander reuniting with his family.
Trump signs executive order to bring down prescription drug prices
President makes push to bring down drug prices that have long been a source of financial strain for US patients. United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that he says will bring down the price of prescription drugs in the US by as much as 90 percent. In an announcement on Monday, Trump said drug companies who have been “profiteering” will have to bring prices down but laid the blame for high prices primarily on foreign countries. “We’re going to equalise,” Trump said during a news conference. “We’re all going to pay the same. We’re going to pay what Europe pays.” People in the US have long been an outlier when it comes to the prices they pay for numerous types of life-saving medication, often paying several times more than their peers in other rich countries for nearly identical drugs. That phenomenon is often attributed to the substantial economic and political influence that the pharmaceutical industry wields in the US. The high cost of medical drugs has been a source of popular discontent in the US for years, and Trump accused the pharmaceutical industry of “getting away with murder” in 2017. Advertisement But in his remarks on Monday, the US leader also seemed to say that US pharmaceutical companies were not ultimately to blame for the difference in prices. Trump instead framed those high prices in the familiar terms of a trade imbalance with partners such as the European Union and said the US has been “subsidising” lower drug prices in other nations. That perspective seems to align with the framing of the pharmaceutical industry itself. The industry’s most powerful lobbying arm stated the cause of high prices for US consumers is “foreign countries not paying their fair share”. Senator Bernie Sanders, a left-wing politician who has railed against the high prices paid by US patients for years, said Trump’s order wrongly blames foreign countries rather than US companies for those prices. “I agree with President Trump: it is an outrage that the American people pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs,” Sanders said in a statement. “But let’s be clear: the problem is not that the price of prescription drugs is too low in Europe and Canada. The problem is that the extraordinarily greedy pharmaceutical industry made over $100bn in profits last year by ripping off the American people.” A fact sheet shared by the White House said the administration will “communicate price targets to pharmaceutical manufacturers to establish that America, the largest purchaser and funder of prescription drugs in the world, gets the best deal”. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr speaks after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on drug prices at the White House in Washington, DC, on May 12, 2025 [Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo] The stock prices of US drugmakers ticked upwards after the announcement. Experts have cast doubt on Trump’s optimistic assertion that drug prices would drop quickly and substantially. Advertisement “It really does seem the plan is to ask manufacturers to voluntarily lower their prices to some point which is not known,” Rachel Sachs, a health law expert at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, told The Associated Press news agency. “If they do not lower their prices to the desired point, HHS [the Department of Health and Human Services] shall take other actions with a very long timeline, some of which could potentially, years in the future, lower drug prices.” Adblock test (Why?)
Trump administration welcomes 59 white South Africans as refugees to the US
Move comes as US administration largely closes refugee admissions from countries experiencing widespread violence and poverty. A group of 59 white Afrikaners from South Africa has arrived in the United States as part of a refugee programme set up by the administration of US President Donald Trump to offer sanctuary from what Trump has depicted as racial discrimination against white people. In a press conference on Monday, Trump mirrored the claims of a myth popular on the far right that white people in South Africa have been subjected to systematic violence since the end of white minority rule in that country. “It’s a genocide that’s taking place,” Trump told reporters at the White House, a claim that has drawn criticism from government officials, news media, and even some Afrikaners themselves. The move comes as the Trump administration blocks nearly all refugee admissions from non-white countries and leans into rhetoric about an “invasion” of immigrants from poor countries. While people fleeing widespread violence and persecution in countries such as Haiti and Afghanistan have found a closed door, Al Jazeera correspondent Patty Culhane says that the Trump administration “has made a priority of getting these people [white South Africans] into the United States and paying for them to get here”. Advertisement ‘Wrong end of the stick’ The South African government has called Trump’s claims that Afrikaners face persecution “completely false”, noting that they have remained among the richest and “most economically privileged” groups, even after the end of the apartheid system that upheld white minority control of the political, economic, and military resources of the country and denied basic rights to the Black South African majority. South African whites still own about three-quarters of all private land in the country, and have about 20 times the wealth of the Black majority, according to the international academic journal the Review of Political Economy. “We think that the American government has got the wrong end of the stick here, but we’ll continue talking to them,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, himself a veteran of the struggle to end apartheid, said on Monday. Tensions between the Trump administration and the government of South Africa have been high, with the US expelling South Africa’s ambassador over previous criticism of Trump and at odds with the African nation’s prominent position in a case before the International Court of Justice accusing US ally Israel of genocide in Gaza. The Trump administration offered in February to resettle Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa, stating that they face discrimination and violence against Afrikaner farmers. “I want you all to know that you are really welcome here and that we respect what you have had to deal with these last few years,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau told the group of Afrikaners who arrived in the US on Monday. “We respect the long tradition of your people and what you have accomplished over the years.” Advertisement Bill Frelick, refugee policy director with Human Rights Watch, said the fast-track process of bringing Afrikaners into the US was unprecedented. “These are people who were not living in refugee camps; who hadn’t fled their country. They were the group that was most associated with the oppression of the Black majority through apartheid,” said Frelick. “It’s not like these are among the most vulnerable refugees of the world.” Adblock test (Why?)
Ivory Coast opposition leader resigns but vows to still fight for victory
Tidjane Thiam’s campaign has been halted as presidential candidates are not allowed to hold dual citizenship. Ivory Coast’s main opposition leader has said he is resigning as party leader but would still lead the fight to win the election, after having been barred from standing in an October presidential vote. “In the interest of the party, I’ve decided to place my mandate as president of the party in your hands, the activists,” Thiam said in a speech published on social media on Monday. “This decision does not change the commitment I made in December 2023 to personally lead our party to victory in October 2025.” President Alassane Ouattara, 83, who has been in power since 2011, has yet to say whether he plans to run again but has said he is eager to “continue serving my country”. Tidjane Thiam’s campaign for the presidency of the West African country has been mired in tussles over his nationality, as presidential candidates are not allowed to hold dual citizenship. Thiam was born in the Ivory Coast and renounced his French passport in March to enable his run for the top job. However, a court in Abidjan struck him off the electoral list last month, saying the 62-year-old politician had lost Ivorian nationality when he acquired French citizenship in 1987. Advertisement Thiam also faces a legal case against his election as head of the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast–African Democratic Rally (PDCI) after a party member also contested his Ivorian nationality at the time he was chosen. PDCI deputy president Ernest N’Koumo Mobio assumed the party’s interim leadership following Thiam’s announcement. He appealed for “cohesion, serenity and discipline” and called a party meeting early Monday due to “the urgency linked to the political situation”. Three other opposition figures have also been excluded from the presidential race, including former President Laurent Gbagbo due to court convictions. Thiam alleged irregularities on Monday. “While we had the right to hope for inclusive, transparent and peaceful elections, it is clear that the unjustified removal of the PDCI candidate is part of the logic of eliminating the leaders of the main opposition parties to ensure tailor-made elections and a certain victory,” he said. The authorities regularly reject claims of any political intervention in the electoral process, saying decisions are taken by an independent judiciary. Adblock test (Why?)