NEWS

A record high of 79 percent of US respondents in a Gallup survey say immigration is a ‘good thing’ for the country.

A new poll shows support for immigration in the United States has increased since last year, while backing for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants has gone down.

The survey, released on Friday from the research firm Gallup, suggests a shift in public opinion as President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown concludes its sixth month.

Gallup found that 79 percent of respondents say immigration is a “good thing” for the country — a record high that represents a 15-point increase from last year.

Among supporters of Trump’s Republican Party, the number rose sharply to 64 percent, up from 39 percent in 2024.

Only 38 percent of respondents said they back “deporting all immigrants who are living in the United States illegally back to their home country”, down from 47 percent last year.

Support for expanding the US-Mexico border wall also went down to 45 percent, a drop of eight percentage points. The survey, conducted in June, featured interviews with 1,402 US adults.

“Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55 percent in 2024 to 30 percent today,” Gallup said.

Trump made mass deportations a key promise of his 2024 re-election campaign, often using language to demonise migrants, including by using a poem to compare them to poisonous snakes.

He seized on the public concern over the uptick in the number of undocumented immigrants who crossed into the US from Mexico in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, under Democratic President Joe Biden.

Since returning to the White House in January, he has launched an all-out campaign on immigration, including by gutting the refugee resettlement programme, unleashing agents to round up undocumented migrants and sending suspected gang members to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador without due process.

The Trump administration also ended protected status for nationals of several countries, including Venezuela and Haiti, who had been shielded from deportation due to dangerous conditions in their homelands.

Meanwhile, it has been pushing to remove foreign students critical of Israel from the US.

But while the crossings have sharply decreased this year, it appears that the US public may have soured on the anti-immigration campaign.

“With illegal border crossings down sharply this year, fewer Americans than in June 2024 back hard-line border enforcement measures, while more favor offering pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the US,” Gallup said.

Trump’s immigration policies have sparked outrage and lawsuits, as well as accusations of executive overreach and violations of the US Constitution.

A majority of respondents in the Gallup survey — 62 percent — said they disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, while 36 percent said they approve.

David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, described the findings of the survey as an “absolute bloodbath” for Trump.

“Support for cuts to immigration has plummeted 25 points since last year,” he wrote in a social media post. “Deporting ‘all illegal immigrants’ has gone back to a right-wing only view.”

Potocari, Bosnia and Herzegovina – In a grassy valley dotted with white gravestones, thousands of people gathered to mark 30 years since the Srebrenica massacre on Friday.

Seven victims of the 1995 genocide, some of whose remains were only discovered and exhumed in the past year from mass graves uncovered in Liplje, Baljkovica, Suljici and Kamenicko Brdo, were buried during the sombre anniversary on Friday.

Limited remains of one of the victims, Hasib Omerovic, who was 34 when he was killed, were found and exhumed from a mass grave in 1998, but his family delayed his burial until now, hoping to recover more.

Zejad Avdic, 46, is the brother of another of the victims being buried. Senajid Avdic was just 19 when he was killed on July 11, 1995. His remains were discovered in October 2010 at a site in Suljici, one of the villages attacked that day by Bosnian Serb forces.

“When the news came, at first, I couldn’t – I didn’t – dare tell my mother, my father. It was too hard,” Avdic told Al Jazeera, referring to the moment he learned that some of his brother’s remains had been found.

“What was found wasn’t complete, just a few bones from the skull.”

Families like Avdic’s have waited decades for even a fragment of bone to confirm their loved one’s death. Many have buried their loved ones with only partial remains.

The Srebrenica massacre was the crescendo of Bosnia’s three-year war from 1992 to 1995, which flared up in the aftermath of Yugoslava’s dissolution, pitting Bosnian Serbs against the country’s two other main ethnic populations – Croats and Muslim Bosniaks.

On July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serb forces stormed the enclave of Srebrenica, ​​a designated United Nations-protected safe zone, overrunning the Dutch UN battalion stationed there. They separated at least 8,000 Bosniak men and boys from their wives, mothers and sisters, slaughtering them en masse.

Thousands of men and boys attempted to escape through the surrounding woods, but Serb forces chased them through the mountainous terrain, killing and capturing as many as they could. Women and children were expelled from the city and neighbouring villages by bus.

Thousands of people attended the commemoration for victims of the massacre on Friday, which began with a congregational Islamic prayer – men, women and children prostrating in unison among the rows of gravestones.

After the prayer, the remains of the victims, who have been identified using extensive DNA analysis, were carried in green coffins draped with the Bosnian flag.

The coffins were lowered into newly prepared graves. At each site, groups of men stepped forward to take turns covering the caskets with soil, shovelling from nearby mounds in a solemn conclusion to the proceedings.

After the remains had been buried, the victims’ families crowded around the sites, wiping away their tears as an imam recited verses over the caskets.

‘I will keep coming as long as I’m alive’

Fikrera Tuhljakovic, 66, attends the memorial here each year, but this year her cousin was among the victims being buried.

She said she is determined to ensure he is remembered and that all of the victims are never forgotten.

“I will keep coming as long as I’m alive,” Tuhljakovic told Al Jazeera.

Forensic scientists and the International Commission on Missing Persons have, in the decades since the mass killings, worked to locate the remains of those killed.

More than 6,000 victims have been buried at the memorial site in Potocari, but more than 1,000 remain missing.

In 2007, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared the events in Srebrenica and the surrounding area a genocide. Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic were both convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison.

In total, the tribunal and courts in the Balkans have sentenced almost 50 Bosnian Serb wartime officials to more than 700 years in prison for the genocide.

But many accused remain unpunished. Denial of the genocide also continues – especially among political leaders in Serbia and the Serb-majority entity of Republika Srpska, which was established in the northeast of the country at the start of the war in 1992 with the stated aim of protecting the interests of the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to Emir Cica, Islamic Relief’s Bosnia country director, international institutions have not done enough to prevent events like Srebrenica from happening again, with similar atrocities happening in Gaza at the moment.

“When we see what has happened, for example, in Gaza, it is very painful for us because we understand this [experience],” Cica told Al Jazeera.

For Avdic, Gaza is indeed a painful reminder of history repeating itself.

“Today we are burying our victims of genocide, and today in Gaza, genocide is happening, too,” he said solemnly.

“I don’t know what kind of message to send; there’s no effect on those in power who could actually do something.”

Washington, DC – The United States government has acknowledged its use of Canary Mission — a shadowy pro-Israel website — to identify pro-Palestine students for deportation, sparking anger and concern by rights advocates.

Activists have long suspected that the administration of US President Donald Trump is gathering information from the Canary Mission website to target students and professors.

But on Wednesday, that suspicion was confirmed when a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official testified in a court case challenging Trump’s efforts to deport pro-Palestinian student protesters.

Peter Hatch, an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said the department had assembled a specialised group — dubbed a “tiger team” — to work on removing pro-Palestine college students from the country.

He indicated to the court that some tips about students were communicated verbally, before explaining that the team had also combed through the nearly 5,000 profiles Canary Mission had compiled of Israel’s critics.

“You mean someone said, ‘Here is a list that the Canary Mission has put together?’” Judge William Young asked Hatch, according to court transcripts.

The official answered with a simple “yes”.

Heba Gowayed, a sociology professor at the City University of New York (CUNY), said the government’s reliance on an online blacklist that posts personal information to harm and intimidate activists is “absurd and fascist”.

“Canary Mission is a doxxing website that specifically targets people for language that they deem to be pro-Palestinian and therefore, they’ve decided, is anti-Semitic. Its sole purpose is to target and harass people,” Gowayed told Al Jazeera.

“How do you use a hate group … to identify people for whether or not they have the right to be present in the country?”

The crackdown

As demonstrations opposing the Israeli atrocities in Gaza swept college campuses last year, Israel’s advocates portrayed the protest movement as anti-Semitic and a threat to the safety of Jewish students.

While activists pushed back against the accusations, saying that the protests were aimed at combatting human rights abuses against Palestinians, conservative leaders called to crush the demonstrations and penalise the participants.

Shortly after returning to the White House in January, Trump himself signed a series of executive orders that laid the groundwork for targeting non-citizens who took part in the student protests for deportation.

“It shall be the policy of the United States to combat anti-Semitism vigorously,” one of the orders read.

It called on government officials to create systems to “monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff”.

In March, Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil — a permanent resident married to a US citizen — became the first prominent victim of Trump’s campaign.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked a seldom-used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act to order Khalil’s removal, on the basis that the Columbia student’s presence has “adverse” effects on American foreign policy.

After Khalil, many other students were detained by immigration authorities. Some left the country voluntarily to avoid imprisonment. Others, like Khalil, continue to fight their deportation.

Free speech advocates decried the campaign as a blatant violation of constitutionally protected freedoms.

But the Trump administration asserted that the issue is an immigration matter that falls under its mandate.

Before last year’s presidential elections, the Heritage Foundation, a prominent right-wing think tank, released a policy document titled Project Esther designed to dismantle the Palestine solidarity movement in the US.

Project Esther called for identifying students and professors critical of Israel who are in violation of their visas, and it cited Canary Mission extensively.

A ‘witch hunt’ against students

For years, Palestinian rights advocates have condemned Canary Mission for publishing identifying information about activists — their names, photos and employment histories — while keeping its own staff anonymous.

In its ongoing deportation campaign against student activists, the Trump administration has said that it is targeting students who engaged in violent conduct, promoted anti-Semitism and had ties to “terrorist” groups.

But none of the prominent students detained by ICE have been charged with a crime, and some only engaged in mild criticism of Israel.

For example, the only accusation against Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish scholar at Tufts University, is that she co-authored an op-ed asking her school to honour a student resolution calling for divestment from Israeli companies.

That column, published in the university’s student newspaper, landed Ozturk on the Canary Mission’s blacklist, which appears to have led to the Trump administration’s push to deport her.

Andrew Ross, a New York University professor of social and cultural analysis, said the US administration’s use of Canary Mission’s data shows that the government’s push is “sloppy” and biased.

He added that while Canary Mission appears well funded, its content is curated to paint its targets in a certain light.

“They’re looking for material and content that they can manipulate and spin and present as if the person being profiled is anti-Semitic basically,” said Ross, who has his own Canary Mission profile for criticising Israel.

The professor accused the Trump administration of “fundamental dishonesty”, describing the deportation campaign as a “witch hunt”.

How does Canary Mission work?

While Canary Mission does not appear to fabricate data, it portrays criticism of Israel as bigoted and dangerous.

Some profiles denounce individuals for actions as innocuous as sharing materials from Amnesty International condemning Israeli abuses.

The profiles seem to be optimised for internet searches. So, even if the accusations lack merit, targeted individuals often report that their Canary Mission profiles sit at the top of online searches for their names.

Advocates say the tactic can have a detrimental impact on careers, mental health and safety.

“It has caused people to lose jobs. It has caused people all kinds of adverse effects,” Gowayed said.

For his part, Ross said he has received hate mail because of Canary Mission. He worries the website can be especially harmful for marginalised groups.

“Those, as we are seeing, who don’t have full citizenship status are particularly vulnerable at this point in time. But it could be anyone,” he said.

The website was founded in 2015, and it has been expanding since. Nevertheless, barring a few media leaks over the years, the operators and funders of Canary Mission remain anonymous.

In 2018, Haaretz reported that Israeli authorities have relied on the website to detain people and bar them from entering the country.

That same year, the outlet The Forward found that Canary Mission is linked to an Israel-based non-profit called Megamot Shalom. Since then, media reports have revealed the names of a few wealthy American donors who have made contributions to the website through a network of Jewish charities.

‘Silencing dissent’

On Thursday, Palestine Legal, an advocacy group, accused the Trump administration of racism for relying on the website.

“Under Trump, ICE has now publicly admitted they are abducting pro-Palestinian student activists based on an anonymously-run blacklist site,” Palestine Legal said in a social media post.

“Both the mass deportation machine, and these horrific blacklists, clearly run on racism.”

J Street, a group that describes itself as pro-Israel and pro-peace, also decried the government’s use of the website.

“Canary Mission is feeding the Trump Administration’s agenda, weaponizing antisemitism to surveil and attempt to deport student activists,” it said. “This isn’t about protecting Jews — it’s about silencing dissent.”

The State Department did not respond to Al Jazeera’s query on the government’s use of Canary Mission. Instead, a department spokesperson referred to a statement by Secretary of State Rubio from May.

“The bottom line is, if you’re coming here to stir up trouble on our campuses, we will deny you a visa. And if you have a visa, and we find you, we will revoke it,” it said.

DHS did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

But the Trump administration may also be using more extreme sources than Canary Mission to deport students.

At Wednesday’s court hearing, Hatch was asked about other sources the government is using. He replied that there was one other website he could not recall.

The court asked Hatch if it might be Betar, a far-right, Islamophobic group with links to the violent Kahanist movement in Israel.

According to transcripts, Hatch replied, “That sounds right.”

Gowayed, the City University of New York professor, called the government’s approach an “egregious overstep and distortion of any kind of notion of justice or legality”.

But she added: “What is more troubling to me is they don’t know which hate group they used.”

Thousands of Bosnian Serbs participated in the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995, killing more than 8,000 mostly Muslim men and boys in just three days. But only 54 people have ever been convicted. So why are so many killers walking free? Soraya Lennie has the details.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for a second time in two days on Friday, with the war in Ukraine the focal point of their huddle. They had met for 50 minutes on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Malaysia on Thursday.

While campaigning for re-election, US President Donald Trump had promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office.

But more than four months later, the prospects of a ceasefire appear as remote as ever, with Russia launching a fierce bombardment of Ukraine in recent days.

After the Thursday meeting, Rubio told reporters that Trump was  “disappointed and frustrated that there’s not been more flexibility on the Russian side” to bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

So has Trump’s view of the war changed – and what are his next options?

Has Trump’s position on Russia shifted?

Rubio’s comments come at a time when Trump has increasingly been publicly critical of Putin, after previously accusing Ukraine of not wanting peace.

“We get a lot of b******t thrown at us by Putin. He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless,” Trump said on Tuesday.

Since February, the US has held separate talks with Russia and Ukraine, and brokered direct talks between them in May in Istanbul for the first time since the early months of Russia’s full-fledged invasion in 2022.

But while Putin has offered brief pauses in fighting, he has not accepted the US proposal for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire. Ukraine has accepted that proposal. Russia argues that Ukraine could use the truce to remobilise troops and rearm itself.

When asked by reporters this week whether he would act on his frustration with Putin, Trump responded: “I wouldn’t be telling you. Don’t we want to have a little surprise?”

However, experts caution against concluding that Trump was ready to act tough against Russia.

“Western media is full of commentary on what it calls Trump‘s ‘changing stance’ on Putin. But as yet, there is no reason to think that anything has changed at all,” Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at the London-based Chatham House think tank, told Al Jazeera.

“There is a wave of optimism across the world that this might finally lead to a change in US policy. But, on every previous occasion, this has not happened.”

Indeed, after the Thursday meeting between Rubio and Lavrov, both sides suggested that they were willing to continue to engage diplomatically.

Arming Ukraine to fight off Russia

In early July, the Trump administration announced a decision to “pause” arms supply to Kyiv. A week later, he reversed this decision.

“We’re going to send some more weapons. We have to. They have to be able to defend themselves. They are getting hit very hard now,” said Trump on July 8.

On Thursday, Trump told NBC that these weapons would be sold to NATO, which will pay fully for them. NATO will then pass them on to Ukraine.

“We’re sending weapons to NATO, and NATO is paying for those weapons, a hundred percent,” Trump told NBC, adding that the US will be sending Patriot missiles to the alliance.

Trump said this deal was agreed on during the NATO summit in The Hague in June.

Trump had also frozen aid to Ukraine in February, after a falling out with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy following a rancorous meeting in the White House. Trump accused Zelenskyy of talking the US into “spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won”.

Trump resumed the supplies weeks later. Between January 2022 and April 2025, the US has provided Ukraine with about $134bn in aid, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Trump’s MAGA [Make America Great Again] base has been critical of the funding that the US provides Ukraine.

Following Trump’s announcement that the US will resume sending weapons to Ukraine, several conservative Americans have responded with disappointment.

“I did not vote for this,” wrote Derrick Evans on X on July 8. Evans was one of Trump’s supporters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 and was arrested, to be pardoned by Trump in January this year.

Conservative social media duo Keith and Kevin Hodge wrote on X on July 8: “Who in the hell is telling Trump that we need to send more weapons to Ukraine?”

Sanctioning Russia

When asked on July 8 about his interest in a Congress bill proposing additional sanctions on Russia, Trump responded, “I’m looking at it very strongly.”

Since the war in Ukraine started in 2022, the US and its allies have imposed at least 21,692 sanctions on Russian individuals, media organisations, and institutions across sectors such as the military, energy, aviation, shipbuilding and telecommunications.

However, while these sanctions have hit Russia’s economy, it has not collapsed the way some experts had predicted it would in the early months of the war.

In recent months, Zelenskyy has repeatedly requested his allies in the West to tighten sanctions on Russia, to put pressure on Putin to end the war.

Most recently, Zelenskyy posted on X on Friday following a Russian drone attack in Kharkiv: “Sanctions must be strengthened. We are expecting the adoption of a new sanctions package. Everything that will put pressure on Russia and stop it must be implemented as quickly as possible.”

A bipartisan Senate bill sponsored by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham aims to levy tariffs on countries that import oil, gas and uranium from Russia.

In 2023, crude petroleum, petroleum gas and refined petroleum constituted nearly 54 percent of total Russian exports, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC).

According to the OEC, China and India buy a bulk of Russia’s oil and gas products.

In 2024, Russian oil accounted for 35 percent of India’s total crude imports and 19 percent of China’s oil imports. Turkiye also imports Russian oil, with as much as 58 percent of its refined petroleum imports sourced from Russia in 2023.

But the West has not weaned itself off Russia, either.

In 2024, European countries paid more than $700m to buy Russian uranium products, according to an analysis by Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, based on data from the European Union’s statistical office, Eurostat.

In late March this year, Trump expressed anger with Putin and threatened “secondary tariffs” on any country that buys Russian oil if a ceasefire deal is not reached, but these tariffs were not imposed.

“If a new sanctions bill does pass, and the United States does impose costs on Moscow for the first time during the current administration, this would be a radical departure from Trump’s consistent policy,” Giles said.

“It remains to be seen whether Trump will in fact allow this, or whether his deference to Putin will mean he continues to resist any possible countermeasures against Moscow.”

Walking away from the conflict

On April 18, US Secretary of State Rubio said his country might “move on” from the Russia-Ukraine war if a ceasefire deal is not brokered.

“We are now reaching a point where we need to decide whether this is even possible or not,” Rubio told reporters in Paris after talks between American, Ukrainian and European officials.

“Because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on. It’s not our war. We have other priorities to focus on,” Rubio continued.

On the same day, Trump echoed Rubio’s statements to reporters. However, Trump did not say that he is ready to walk away from peace negotiations.

“Well, I don’t want to say that, but we want to see it end,” Trump said.

More diplomacy

The second day of talks between Rubio and Lavrov, however, suggests that the US has not given up on diplomacy yet.

Rubio told reporters on Thursday that the US and Russia have exchanged new ideas for peace in Ukraine. “I think it’s a new and a different approach,” Rubio said, without offering any details of what the “new approach” involved.

“I wouldn’t characterise it as something that guarantees a peace, but it’s a concept that, you know, that I’ll take back to the president,” Rubio added.

Following Rubio and Lavrov’s meeting on Thursday, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a news release that the US and Russia had “a substantive and frank exchange of views on the settlement in Ukraine” and will continue constructive dialogue.

The statement added: “[Russia and the US] have reaffirmed mutual commitment to searching for peaceful solutions to conflict situations and resuming Russian-US economic and humanitarian cooperation.”

On July 9, United States President Donald Trump opened a three-day mini summit at the White House with the leaders of Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, and Senegal – by subjecting his distinguished guests to a carefully staged public humiliation.

This was not the plan – or at least, not the part the public was meant to see.

A White House official claimed on July 3 that “President Trump believes that African countries offer incredible commercial opportunities which benefit both the American people and our African partners.”

Whether by coincidence or calculated design, the meeting took place on the same day the Trump administration escalated its trade war, slapping new tariffs on eight countries, including the North African nations of Libya and Algeria. It was a telling contrast: Even as Trump claimed to be “strengthening ties with Africa”, his administration was penalising African nations. The optics revealed the incoherence – or perhaps the honesty – of Trump’s Africa policy, where partnership is conditional and often indistinguishable from punishment.

Trump opened the summit with a four-minute speech in which he claimed the five invited leaders were representing the entire African continent. Never mind that their countries barely register in US-Africa trade figures; what mattered was the gold, oil, and minerals buried beneath their soil. He thanked “these great leaders… all from very vibrant places with very valuable land, great minerals, great oil deposits, and wonderful people”.

He then announced that the US was “shifting from AID to trade” because “this will be far more effective and sustainable and beneficial than anything else that we could be doing together.”

At that moment, the illusion of diplomacy collapsed, and the true nature of the meeting was revealed. Trump shifted from statesman to showman, no longer merely hosting but asserting control. The summit quickly descended into a cringe-inducing display, where Africa was presented not as a continent of sovereign nations but as a rich expanse of resources, fronted by compliant leaders performing for the cameras. This was not a dialogue but a display of domination: A stage-managed production in which Trump scripted the scene and African heads of state were cast in subordinate roles.

Trump was in his element, orchestrating the event like a puppet master, directing each African guest to play his part and respond favourably. He “invited” (in effect, instructed) them to make “a few comments to the media” in what became a choreographed show of deference.

President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani of Mauritania led the way, both physically and symbolically, by praising Trump’s “commitment” to Africa. The claim was as misleading as it was surreal, given Washington’s recent aid cuts, punitive tariffs, and tightened visa restrictions on African nations.

In one especially embarrassing moment, Ghazouani described Trump as the world’s top peacemaker – crediting him, among other things, with stopping “the war between Iran and Israel”. This praise came with no mention of the US’s continued military and diplomatic support for Israel’s war on Gaza, which the African Union has firmly condemned. The silence amounted to complicity, a calculated erasure of Palestinian suffering for the sake of American favour.

Perhaps mindful of the tariffs looming over his own country, Ghazouani, who served as AU Chair in 2024, slipped into the role of a willing supplicant. He all but invited Trump to exploit Mauritania’s rare minerals, praised him and declared him a peacemaker while ignoring the massacres of tens of thousands of innocents in Gaza made possible by the very weapons Trump provides.

This tone would define the entire sit-down. One by one, the African leaders offered Trump glowing praise and access to their countries’ natural resources – a disturbing reminder of how easily power can script compliance.

Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye even asked Trump to build a golf course in his country. Trump declined, opting instead to compliment Faye’s youthful appearance. Gabon’s President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema talked of “win-win partnerships” with the US, but received only a lukewarm response.

What did capture Trump’s attention was the English fluency of Liberia’s President Joseph Boakai. Ignoring the content of Boakai’s remarks, Trump marvelled at his “beautiful” English and asked, “Where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Where were you educated? Where? In Liberia?”

That Trump seemed unaware English is Liberia’s official language, and has been since its founding in 1822 as a haven for freed American slaves, was perhaps less shocking than the colonial tone of his question. His astonishment that an African president could speak English well betrayed a deeply racist, imperial mindset.

It was not an isolated slip. At a White House peace ceremony on June 29 involving the DRC and Rwanda, Trump publicly commented on the appearance of Angolan journalist and White House correspondent Hariana Veras, telling her, “You are beautiful – and you are beautiful inside.”

Whether or not Veras is “beautiful” is entirely beside the point. Trump’s behaviour was inappropriate and unprofessional, reducing a respected journalist to her looks in the middle of a diplomatic milestone. The sexualisation of Black women – treating them as vessels of white male desire rather than intellectual equals – was central to both the transatlantic slave trade and European colonisation. Trump’s comment extended that legacy into the present.

Likewise, his surprise at Boakai’s English fits a long imperial pattern. Africans who “master” the coloniser’s language are often seen not as complex, multilingual intellectuals, but as subordinates who’ve absorbed the dominant culture. They are rewarded for proximity to whiteness, not for intellect or independence.

Trump’s remarks revealed his belief that articulate and visually appealing Africans are an anomaly, a novelty deserving momentary admiration. By reducing both Boakai and Veras to aesthetic curiosities, he erased their agency, dismissed their achievements, and gratified his colonial ego.

More than anything, Trump’s comments on Boakai reflected his deeper indifference to Africa. They stripped away any illusion that this summit was about genuine partnership.

Contrast this with the US-Africa Leaders Summit held by President Joe Biden in December 2022. That event welcomed more than 40 African heads of state, as well as the African Union, civil society, and private sector leaders. It prioritised peer-to-peer dialogue and the AU’s Agenda 2063 – a far cry from Trump’s choreographed spectacle.

How the Trump administration concluded that five men could represent the entire continent remains baffling, unless, of course, this wasn’t about representation at all, but control. Trump didn’t want engagement; he wanted performance. And sadly, his guests obliged.

In contrast to the tightly managed meeting Trump held with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 8, the lunch with African leaders resembled a chaotic, tone-deaf sideshow.

Faye was especially disappointing. He came to power on the back of an anti-imperialist platform, pledging to break with neocolonial politics and restore African dignity. Yet at the White House, he bent the knee to the most brazen imperialist of them all. Like the others, he failed to challenge Trump, to assert equality, or to defend the sovereignty he so publicly champions at home.

In a moment when African leaders had the chance to push back against a resurgent colonial mindset, they instead bowed – giving Trump space to revive a 16th-century fantasy of Western mastery.

For this, he offered a reward: He might not impose new tariffs on their countries, he said, “because they are friends of mine now”.

Trump, the “master”, triumphed.

All the Africans had to do was bow at his feet.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Unite says it has suspended Angela Rayner from her membership of the union, amid a deepening row over the long-running bin strikes in Birmingham.

The deputy prime minister has been urging striking bin workers to accept a deal to end the dispute, which has seen mountains of rubbish pile up in the city.

The union said it would also re-examine its relationship with Labour after an emergency motion at its conference in Brighton.

Bin collection workers walked out in January, with an all-out strike going on since March. Unite is a major donor to the Labour Party, and has previously donated to Rayner herself.

‘Positive trend’ in US-Russia ties remains despite Washington’s ‘zigzag’ policy, Moscow says.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio have met again at the ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur, according to Russia’s state-run TASS agency, with the war in Ukraine the key focus.

The conversation followed a longer 50-minute meeting between the two top diplomats the previous day.

While no details have yet emerged from Friday’s exchange, Rubio told reporters after Thursday’s talks that the two sides had discussed a possible “new and different approach” to reviving peace efforts over Ukraine.

“I wouldn’t characterise it as something that guarantees peace,” he said, “but it’s a concept that I’ll take back to the president.”

Lavrov said on Friday that he set out the Kremlin’s position on settling the war. “We discussed Ukraine. We confirmed the position that President [Vladimir] Putin had outlined, including in his July 3 conversation with President [Donald] Trump,” Lavrov told Russian media on the sidelines of the ASEAN gathering.

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the diplomats held a “substantive and frank exchange” of views on Ukraine, as well as on Iran, Syria and broader global issues.

The meeting marked a rare moment of direct engagement between Washington and Moscow as bilateral relations remain fraught. However, Russian officials downplayed suggestions that ties were deteriorating.

“I do not agree that the positive trend in relations between Moscow and Washington is fading,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told the RIA news agency. “I think that the current US administration acts in a zigzag manner. We don’t dramatise over this.”

Ryabkov said a new round of US-Russia talks on unresolved bilateral issues could be held before the end of the summer.

Despite the strain, both Moscow and Washington appeared to leave the door open to further dialogue, though with caution. “We are talking, and that is a start,” Rubio said. “But much depends on what comes next.”

Top US, Chinese diplomats set to meet

Rubio, on his first official trip to Asia since assuming office, is also set to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Kuala Lumpur on Friday. The in-person meeting is their first and comes as the US aims to reassert its presence in the Asia Pacific.

The US secretary of state is attending the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum, which brings together key players including Japan, China, Russia, Australia, India and the European Union.

The flurry of diplomatic meetings comes amid worsening US-China trade relations. Beijing has warned Washington against reintroducing sweeping tariffs next month, after being slapped with duties exceeding 100 percent during earlier tit-for-tat exchanges.

China has also warned of retaliation against countries that support efforts to exclude Beijing from critical global supply chains.

While Rubio’s trip signals a renewed US focus on Asia, tensions stemming from Trump’s global tariff strategy continue to cast a long shadow.

From August 1, steep import tariffs targeting eight ASEAN nations, including Malaysia, as well as close allies Japan and South Korea, are due to take effect.

Washington has said the move is part of its effort to “rebalance trade,” but critics warn the policy could undermine the very partnerships the US is seeking to strengthen.

ASEAN’s foreign ministers noted their concern on Friday over rising global tensions and underscored how critical a “predictable, transparent, inclusive, free, fair, sustainable and rules-based multilateral trading system” was in a joint communique.

“We reaffirmed our commitment to work constructively with all partners to this end,” the regional bloc’s foreign ministers said.

England midfielder Jordan Henderson is set to sign for Brentford after his exit from Ajax.

The 35-year-old will join the Bees on a two-year deal after the Dutch club agreed to end his contract a year early.

Henderson had considerable interest from top clubs in England and Europe but Brentford have won the race to sign the former Liverpool skipper.

Playing in the Premier League will provide Henderson with the platform to stay in Thomas Tuchel’s England squad before next summer’s World Cup.

Issa Amro, a human rights activist, describes life in the occupied West Bank – the increased Israeli restrictions on movement and settler violence making life increasingly miserable for Palestinians there.

Ovidio Guzman Lopez plans to change his not guilty plea during a hearing after arrest in 2023.

A son of the infamous Mexican drug cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is expected to plead guilty in a wide-ranging United States drug trafficking case at a court hearing in Chicago.

Court records for Ovidio Guzman Lopez indicate he intends to change his not-guilty plea as part of a deal with federal prosecutors at the hearing on Friday.

If confirmed, it would be the first time one of El Chapo’s sons has struck such an agreement.

Federal prosecutors allege that Ovidio and his brother, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, who became known locally as Los Chapitos, led a powerful faction of the notorious Mexican Sinaloa cartel.

They are accused of masterminding a major fentanyl trafficking operation that funnelled what prosecutors described as a “staggering” amount of the synthetic opioid into the US. The US has suffered a major opioid crisis in the last few decades, which has resulted in large numbers of deaths, addiction, and lawsuits.

Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is currently serving a life sentence in a US federal prison following a 2019 conviction. After his capture, Ovidio Guzman Lopez and his siblings reportedly took on key leadership roles within the cartel.

Ovidio Guzman Lopez was arrested by Mexican authorities in early 2023 and extradited to the US months later. He originally pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking, money laundering and firearms charges.

His brother, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, and longtime cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada were arrested in Texas in 2024 after arriving on a private plane. Both men have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges.

Their high-profile capture set off a wave of violence across Sinaloa as rival factions scrambled for control, vying for control of routes used to produce and transport narcotics, including fentanyl, that are often destined for the US.

The groups are split between members loyal to the Sinaloa Cartel cofounders, “El Chapo” Guzman and Zambada.

Watching the president of France and the prime minister close up was to see two men under the cosh, behind in the opinion polls and fighting for what they see as the essence of their political creed.

It boils down to this – how do Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron make the case for what they see as the virtues of patience, nuance, subtleties and trade-offs in an era of growing impatience at the perceived repeated failures of those in high office?

There were just two lecterns and two speakers at the news conference the leaders hosted, but two other parties hovered in the air.

Reform UK and National Rally, the party of Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen, were never mentioned explicitly. Nor were their leaders. But they were repeatedly mentioned implicitly.

The two parties on either side of the Channel are not the same, but they have the same capacity to frighten the life out of those in power now.

They do it with an anti-establishment zeal, a knack of communicating in plain language and at a time of disillusionment with the traditional political classes. Quite the combination.

“Whilst we have been working hard to get a returns agreement, others have been simply taking pictures of the problem,” the prime minister told us.

Whoever could he possibly have been thinking of?

“That is where the politics is. We have to show that pragmatic politics is the way to deliver the results that matter for both of our peoples,” he added, to ensure people weren’t seduced by what he called “the politics of easy answers”.

Reform leader Nigel Farage had spent the morning on a boat in the English Channel in the company of a camera from GB News and regards this new deal between Paris and London as a humiliation for the UK.

He says the UK should abandon the European Convention on Human Rights and makes a wider argument that the country can escape the funk many feel it is trapped in by embracing a party willing to be unorthodox, noisy and pick a few fights. Why not, after the last few years, goes the argument.

President Macron, confronting similar arguments back home from National Rally, made similar arguments to the prime minister.

There was a need, the president argued, to recognise “the complexity of the world” and to avoid what he saw as the “temptation” for some of those he described as “populists”.

As I wrote here the other day, this is the latest evidence we are seeing of the prime minister’s shifting argument – a sharpening public critique of Farage and what Sir Keir believes will be the choice at the next election: one of the two of them in Downing Street.

And an outsized part of the argument between the two of them, today and in the coming years, will be over small boat crossings.

New polling for Portland Communications suggests 26% of Labour’s voters in last year’s general election who have since switched to Reform would be much more likely to come back to Labour if the number of small boat crossings fell.

The same polling suggests that eight out of ten Reform-leaning voters say that after one year, Labour has had enough time to improve things across the piece.

And nearly half of all voters see Nigel Farage as the leader who most represents change.

This is an insight into the challenge and, potentially, opportunity for the prime minister.

Hoping for patience in an era of the opposite, but arguing his opponent is offering a false promise.

Hoping the levers of government can, in time, deliver. Let’s see.

One final thought.

On two separate occasions this week I have spoken privately to senior figures in both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, who, unprompted, offered near identical reflections about how the next few years may pan out.

It won’t surprise you that both the people I spoke to don’t want to see Reform UK win a general election.

Both acknowledged that it was a real possibility, but both had a deep worry beyond that.

They both reflected that many in the electorate concluded last year that the Conservatives had failed and many in the electorate are concluding this year, or may soon conclude, that Labour are failing too.

Reform could deliver in a way its predecessors never managed.

But what happens, pondered the two people I spoke to, if Nigel Farage was to win and he too was subsequently deemed to have failed?

Where, they wonder, and in what political direction would the country turn in next?

The Hague court’s Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan warns civil war ‘has reached an intolerable state’.

A senior International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has concluded that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity” are being committed in war-ravaged Sudan’s western Darfur region.

ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan presented her assessment before the United Nations Security Council on Thursday of the devastating conflict, which has raged since 2023, killing more than 40,000 people and displacing 13 million others.

Khan said the depth of suffering and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur “has reached an intolerable state”, with famine escalating and hospitals, humanitarian convoys and other civilian infrastructure being targeted.

She said it was “difficult to find appropriate words to describe the depth of suffering in Darfur”.

“On the basis of our independent investigations, the position of our office is clear. We have reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been and are continuing to be committed in Darfur,” she said.

The prosecutor’s office focused its probe on crimes committed in West Darfur, Khan said, interviewing victims who fled to neighbouring Chad.

She detailed an “intolerable” humanitarian situation, with apparent targeting of hospitals and humanitarian convoys, while warning that “famine is escalating” as aid is unable to reach “those in dire need”.

“People are being deprived of water and food. Rape and sexual violence are being weaponised,” Khan said, adding that abductions for ransom had become “common practice”.

In June, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan warned that both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had escalated the use of heavy weaponry in populated areas and weaponised humanitarian relief, amid the devastating consequences of the civil war.

ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan had told the Security Council in January that there were grounds to believe both parties may be committing war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide in the region, while the administration of then-US President Joe Biden determined that the RSF and its proxies were committing genocide.

The Security Council had previously referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC in 2005, with some 300,000 people killed during conflict in the region in the 2000s.

In 2023, the ICC opened a new probe into war crimes in Darfur after a new conflict erupted between the SAF and RSF.

The RSF’s predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, was accused of genocide two decades ago in the vast western region.

ICC judges are expected to deliver their first decision on crimes committed in Darfur two decades ago in the case of Ali Mohamed Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, known as Ali Kosheib, after the trial ended in 2024.

“I wish to be clear to those on the ground in Darfur now, to those who are inflicting unimaginable atrocities on its population – they may feel a sense of impunity at this moment, as Ali Kosheib may have felt in the past,” said Khan.

“But we are working intensively to ensure that the Ali Kosheib trial represents only the first of many in relation to this situation at the International Criminal Court,” added Khan.

The world number 12 reaches maiden Grand Slam final with a tough three-set win over top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka.

An inspired Amanda Anisimova has torn up the script and soared into her maiden Wimbledon final by outclassing world number one Aryna Sabalenka 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 with a display of fierce determination and fearless shot-making.

Anisimova’s victory on Thursday extended her win-loss record over her equally big-hitting rival to 6-3 and kept alive American hopes of a third women’s Grand Slam champion this year after Madison Keys won the Australian Open and Coco Gauff the French Open.

“This doesn’t feel real right now, honestly,” a beaming Anisimova said in an on-court interview.

“Aryna is such a tough competitor, and I was absolutely dying out there. Yeah, I don’t know how I pulled it off. I mean, she’s such an incredible competitor, and she’s an inspiration to me and I’m sure so many other people.

“We’ve had so many tough battles. To come out on top today and be in the final of Wimbledon is so incredibly special. The atmosphere was incredible. I know she’s the number one, but a lot of people were cheering for me. Huge thanks to everyone.”

On a Centre Court where the temperature climbed to 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), Sabalenka twice rushed to the aid of ill fans by supplying bottles of cold water and an ice pack before she cracked under pressure from her opponent in the 10th game.

The 23-year-old Anisimova, playing in her first major semifinal since her 2019 French Open run as a gifted teenager, made her opponent sweat for every point and wrapped up the opening set when Sabalenka produced a double fault.

With her back against the wall, Sabalenka roared back like a tiger, the animal that has become her totem, and broke for a 4-3 lead en route to levelling up the match at one set apiece after some sloppy errors from 13th-seeded Anisimova.

Having matched each other’s decibel levels in a cacophony of grunting, the duo swapped breaks at the start of the decider, but Anisimova pounced again when Sabalenka sent a shot long and went on to book the final with either Iga Swiatek or Belinda Bencic.

Anisimova, who took a mental health break in 2023, expressed disbelief in making the final of a Grand Slam for the first time at Wimbledon.

“It’s been a year turnaround since coming back and to be in this spot, … I mean, it’s not easy, and so many people dream of competing on this incredible court,” Anisimova added.

“It’s been such a privilege to compete here, and to be in the final is just indescribable.”

Watching Thursday’s second semifinal, which will determine her next opponent, was very much on Anisimova’s mind despite her nearly three-hour battle in testing conditions.

“It’s going to be an incredible match, and whoever comes out on top, it’s going to be a battle in the final,” she said.

Sabalenka, who was beaten in the title match of the Australian Open and French Open, was left to lick her wounds after missing the chance to become the first woman since Serena Williams in 2014-2015 to reach four straight major finals.

Former leader accused of using a broker married to his personal secretary to secure government insurance policies.

Argentina’s former President, Alberto Fernandez, has been ordered to stand trial for alleged corruption related to insurance policies taken out by the government for the public sector during his 2019-2023 term.

Fernandez will be prosecuted for “negotiations incompatible with the exercise of public office”, according to Judge Sebastian Casanello’s ruling published in Argentinian media on Thursday, and confirmed by the former leader’s lawyer, Mariana Barbitta.

The 66-year-old stands accused of fraudulent administration over his government’s use of brokers – one of whom allegedly had ties to his office – to contract insurance policies that could have been negotiated directly.

The judge noted in his order that in December 2021, in the middle of his presidency, Fernandez issued a decree that forced the entire public sector to contract exclusively with Nacion Seguros SA, an insurance company then led by Alberto Pagliano, a friend of Fernandez.

It resulted in a boon and tremendous growth for the company.

The main broker of the deal was allegedly the husband of Fernandez’s personal secretary.

The court ordered a freeze on about $10m of Fernandez’s assets as the case proceeds, according to Thursday’s ruling.

Some 33 other people are also named in the case. Fernandez did not immediately comment on the case.

Fernandez did not seek re-election after serving a single term, handing the keys of the presidential palace to self-described “anarcho-capitalist” President Javier Milei in December 2023.

The corruption allegations emerged when a court ordered an examination of his secretary’s phone while investigating assault claims made against Fernandez by his ex-partner Fabiola Yanez.

Yanez filed a complaint accusing Fernandez of having beaten her during their relationship, which ended after he left office.

He faces a separate trial on charges of domestic abuse.

Fernandez’s leftist Peronist movement, which dominated Argentinian politics for most of the country’s post-war history, has been dogged by allegations of corruption.

Ex-President Cristina Kirchner, another senior Peronist, is serving a six-year sentence under house arrest after being convicted of fraud involving public works contracts awarded during her two terms.

UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese tells Al Jazeera Washington’s move is retaliation for ‘pursuit of justice’ in Israel’s war on Gaza.

United Nations expert Francesca Albanese has slammed the decision by the United States to sanction her as “obscene”, saying she is being targeted for calling out Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Thursday, Albanese, who serves as the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, said she would not be cowed into silence by the US move against her on Wednesday.

Albanese stressed that the penalties imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration would not stop her “quest for [the] respect of justice and international law”.

The special rapporteur said Washington’s tactics reminded her of “Mafia intimidation techniques” before suggesting that “sanctions will only work if people are scared and stop engaging”.

“I want to remind everyone [that] the reason why these sanctions are being imposed is the pursuit of justice,” Albanese said.

“Of course I’ve been critical of Israel. It has been committing genocide and crimes against humanity and war crimes,” she added.

While announcing the sanctions on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio charged Albanese with waging a “campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel”.

The UN rapporteur hit back on Thursday, noting that the atrocities being committed in Gaza were not just down to “the unrelinquished territorial ambitions of Israel” and the backing of its supporters but also “companies who are profiting from it”.

Last week, she released a report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza in breach of international law.

Albanese told Al Jazeera that she was still evaluating the effects the US sanctions would have on her.

However, she said her problems are nothing compared with what Palestinians face in Gaza during Israel’s ongoing bombardments, ground operations and blockade of the territory.

Albanese also took aim at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), calling it a “death trap”. The Israeli- and US-backed group runs the aid distribution sites where hundreds of Palestinians have been shot and killed since late May while queueing for food.

Move against Albanese ‘a dangerous precedent’

The UN expert also defended the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) investigation into Israeli actions in Gaza and its decision to call for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest on charges of war crimes.

Rubio has described Albanese’s push for the prosecution of Israeli officials at the ICC as the legal basis for the sanctions.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman was among those to criticise the US sanctions on Albanese.

While highlighting that Albanese reports to the UN Human Rights Council rather than the secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric called the decision “a dangerous precedent”.

“The use of unilateral sanctions against special rapporteurs or any other UN expert or official is unacceptable,” he said.

UN Human Rights Council Ambassador Jurg Lauber also lamented the move against Albanese.

“I call on all UN member states to fully cooperate with the special rapporteurs and mandate holders of the council and to refrain from any acts of intimidation or reprisal against them,” Lauber said.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has destroyed most of the territory and killed more than 57,575 Palestinians over the past 21 months, according to local health officials.