Finance

United States President Donald Trump has accused China of violating an agreement to mutually roll back tariffs and trade restrictions for critical minerals, as he suggested China was in “grave economic danger” until he agreed to cut a deal earlier this month.

Posting on his Truth Social platform on Friday evening, Trump said he made a “fast deal” with China for both countries to back away from triple-digit tariffs for 90 days to “save” Beijing from a “very bad situation”.

The US leader said his tariffs of up to 145 percent on Chinese imports had made it “virtually impossible” for China to trade with the US market, resulting in closed factories and “civil unrest” in the country.

“China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!” Trump added.

Trump did not specify in his post how China had violated the agreement – made following trade talks in Geneva, Switzerland, in mid-May – or what action he planned to take at their alleged failure to comply with its terms.

Asked by reporters about the China deal later on Friday in the Oval Office, Trump said: “I’m sure that I’ll speak to [China’s] President Xi [Jinping], and hopefully we’ll work that out.”

Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, told reporters that China’s failure to fulfil its obligations “opens up all manner of action for the United States to ensure future compliance”.

Miller added that Trump hoped China would open up to American business in a similar manner to the way the US has been open to Chinese business “for a very long time now”.

China’s embassy in Washington said Beijing has maintained communication with its US counterparts since the Geneva talks, but said they had concerns about recently imposed US export controls.

“China has repeatedly raised concerns with the US regarding its abuse of export control measures in the semiconductor sector and other related practices,” embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in a statement.

“China once again urges the US to immediately correct its erroneous actions, cease discriminatory restrictions against China and jointly uphold the consensus reached at the high-level talks in Geneva,” Liu added.

Broken promises

Earlier this week, media reports suggested the Trump administration had ordered US firms offering software used to design semiconductors to stop selling their services to Chinese groups.

On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the US Department of Commerce confirmed that it was reviewing exports of strategic significance to China, and “in some cases … suspended existing export licences or imposed additional licence requirements while the review is pending”.

On Friday, shortly after lamenting China’s lack of compliance with the Geneva agreement, President Trump also announced plans to increase tariffs on foreign imports of steel from 25 percent to 50 percent on June 4.

The agreement two weeks ago dialling back tariffs for 90 days prompted a massive rally in global stocks, as it effectively lowered the US tariff rate on Chinese goods to the mid-teens from about 25 percent in early April.

As part of the deal, China also agreed to lift trade countermeasures restricting exports of critical metals needed for production by US semiconductors, electronics and defence industries.

But Trump administration officials have publicly stated that China has been slow to adhere to their Geneva commitments and have so far failed to comply.

The Reuters news agency also reported on Friday that global auto executives are sounding the alarm on a looming shortage of rare-earth magnets from China that could force car factories to close within weeks.

“Without reliable access to these elements and magnets, automotive suppliers will be unable to produce critical automotive components, including automatic transmissions, throttle bodies, alternators, various motors, sensors, seat belts, speakers, lights, motors, power steering, and cameras,” the Alliance for Automotive Innovation said in a letter to the Trump administration.

Here’s where things stand on Saturday, May 31:

Fighting

• Eight people, including two teenagers, were injured in a Russian attack on the village of Vasyliv Khutir in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.

• The Ukrainian Air Force said that Russia launched 90 drones and two ballistic missiles against Ukraine that targeted the country’s Kharkiv, Odesa and Donetsk regions.

• The Kharkiv region’s main city came under Russian drone attack, which targeted a trolleybus depot and injured two people, the city’s Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. He said more than 30 nearby apartment buildings were damaged, while one trolleybus was completely destroyed, and 18 others sustained varying degrees of damage.

Ceasefire

• Ukraine has resisted US and Russian pressure to commit to attending another round of peace talks in Istanbul on Monday, saying it first needs to see Russian proposals for a ceasefire. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia “is doing everything it can to ensure that the next potential meeting brings no results”.

• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the planned second round of talks between Ukraine and Russia will pave the way for peace in a phone call with Zelenskyy, according to a readout issued by the Turkish presidency. Erdogan said it is important that both parties join the talks with strong delegations.

• Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha also said Kyiv needed to see the Russian ceasefire proposals in advance for the talks to be “substantive and meaningful”, without spelling out what Kyiv would do if it did not receive the Russian document or a deadline for receiving it.

• Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky will again head Russia’s delegation in Istanbul for the second round of Russia-Ukraine talks and will bring a memorandum and other ceasefire proposals to the meeting.

• Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, told the UN Security Council that Moscow was ready to consider a ceasefire, provided Western states stopped arming Ukraine and Kyiv stopped mobilising troops.

• Influential US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on a visit to Kyiv that the Republican-led US Senate is expected to move ahead with a bill on sanctions against Russia next week. Graham, who met Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Friday, said he had talked with Donald Trump before his trip and the US president expects concrete actions now from Moscow.
• Trump told reporters that both Putin and Zelenskyy were stubborn and that he had been surprised and disappointed by the Russian bombing of Ukraine while he was trying to arrange a ceasefire.
• Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said Russia’s concern over the eastward enlargement of NATO was fair and Washington did not want to see Ukraine in the US-led military alliance.
• Commenting on Kellogg’s statement, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was pleased, adding that a Russian delegation would be travelling to Istanbul and ready for talks with Ukraine on Monday morning.
• Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told reporters in Kyiv that the next step after talks in Istanbul would be to try to host a meeting between Trump, Putin, and Zelenskyy.

Economy

• Ukraine’s finance ministry has announced that it would not be paying more than half a billion dollars due to holders of its GDP warrants – fixed income securities indexed to economic growth – marking the first payment default since it created the financial instruments in 2015. Ukraine owes $665m on June 2 to holders of the $3.2bn worth of warrants, based on 2023 economic performance.

Washington, DC – When the Heritage Foundation, a prominent right-wing think tank in the United States, released a playbook last year for how to destroy the Palestine solidarity movement, it did not garner much attention.

But more than eight months later, the policy document – known as Project Esther – now faces heightened scrutiny from activists and media outlets, in part because President Donald Trump appears to be following its blueprint.

The authors of Project Esther have presented their report as a set of recommendations for combating anti-Semitism, but critics say the document’s ultimate aim is to “poison” groups critical of Israel by painting them as Hamas associates.

Project Esther was created as a response to growing protests against the US support for Israel’s war on Gaza, which United Nations experts and rights groups have described as a genocide.

So, what is Project Esther, and how is it being applied against activists? Here is a look at the document and its ongoing implications for the US.

What is the Heritage Foundation?

The Heritage Foundation is an influential conservative think tank in Washington, DC, whose stated mission is to “formulate and promote public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense”.

Yet, critics argue that Project Esther calls for government interference to curb individual freedoms, including the rights to free speech and association when it comes to opposing Israeli government policies.

According to a New York Times report published earlier this month, the project is overseen by Victoria Coates, a vice president at the Heritage Foundation who served as deputy national security adviser during Trump’s first term.

The Heritage Foundation is also behind Project 2025, which critics describe as an authoritarian playbook for the second Trump presidency.

Ahead of the elections last year, Democrats repeatedly invoked Project 2025 to criticise Trump, but the then-candidate distanced himself from the document.

What does Project Esther aim to achieve?

The initiative says that it aims to “dismantle the infrastructure that sustains” what it calls the “Hamas Support Network” within 24 months.

What is the ‘Hamas Support Network’, according to Project Esther?

The authors claim that groups engaged in advocacy for Palestinian rights are members of the Hamas Support Network (HSN).

They define the supposed network as “people and organizations that are both directly and indirectly involved in furthering Hamas’s cause in contravention of American values and to the detriment of American citizens and America’s national security interests”.

In short, the document alleges that the “pro-Palestinian movement” is “effectively a terrorist support network”.

Does the ‘Hamas Support Network’ exist?

No.

There is no such network in the US, which has stern laws against providing material support to groups designated as “terrorist organisations”, including Hamas.

Beth Miller – the political director at Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a group that the Heritage Foundation names as part of the network – called Project Esther’s allegations “outlandish”.

“It exposes the length of lies and of absurdity that they are going through to try to tear down the Palestinian rights movement,” Miller told Al Jazeera.

The Heritage Foundation did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

How does Project Esther plan to take down the Palestinian rights movement?

The document calls for a multi-faceted campaign against supporters of Palestinian rights, targeting them legally, politically and financially.

The initiative outlines 19 goals that it labels as “desired effects”.

They include denying Palestinian rights supporters who are not US citizens access to universities, ensuring that social media platforms do not allow “anti-Semitic content”, and presenting evidence of “criminal activity” by Palestine advocates to the executive branch.

It also calls for refusing to grant permits for protests organised in support of Palestinian rights.

Project Esther suggests that Israel’s backers should conduct “legal, private research” into pro-Palestine groups to “uncover criminal wrongdoing” and undermine their credibility.

“We must wage lawfare,” it reads, referring to the tactic of using litigation to pressure opponents.

Is the Trump administration turning Project Esther recommendations into policy?

It appears to be the case.

“The phase we’re in now is starting to execute some of the lines of effort in terms of legislative, legal and financial penalties for what we consider to be material support for terrorism,” Coates told The New York Times.

Trump’s crackdown on college protests seems to align with what Project Esther is trying to achieve.

For example, the US administration has been revoking the visas of foreign students critical of Israel. This echoes a proposal in Project Esther, which calls for identifying students “in violation of student visa requirements”.

The Heritage Foundation also extensively cites Canary Mission – a website dedicated to doxxing and smearing pro-Palestine students – in its footnotes for Project Esther. The Trump administration is also suspected of relying on the website, along with other pro-Israel groups, to identify students for deportation.

In addition, Project Esther singles out the “Middle East/North Africa or Islamic studies” programmes as having professors who are “hostile to Israel”.

The Trump administration has been pressuring elite universities to revamp academic departments, including Middle East studies programmes, that it views as biased in favour of Palestinians. Columbia University, for instance, appointed a provost to review its programmes at Trump’s request, “starting immediately with the Middle East” department.

The White House did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

What groups does Project Esther name as targets?

The initiative explicitly identifies several Arab, Muslim and progressive Jewish organisations as well as student groups as part of the so-called Hamas Support Network.

The initiative claims that “the network revolves around” American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), an educational and civic advocacy group.

Osama Abuirshaid, AMP’s executive director, said Project Esther points the finger at the group because it has “Muslim” in its name, playing on Islamophobic bigotry.

“American Muslims for Palestine is an easy target. Given the Islamophobic tendencies, it’s easy to assume guilt of American Muslims, Palestinians. That’s a name that sticks,” Abuirshaid told Al Jazeera.

He added that the group is also a target because it is effective and has a “solid constituency”.

“If they can cripple and bring down AMP, that will have a chilling effect within the movement. So they think, if they can bring us down, other organisations will stop working on Palestine solidarity,” Abuirshaid said.

Why focus on universities?

Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a US policy fellow at Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian think tank, said Project Esther targets universities because Israel is bleeding support among young people in the US.

“That’s why there’s such an overwhelming focus on universities and college campuses,” he told Al Jazeera’s The Take podcast.

Kenney-Shawa explained that support for Israel’s war on Gaza has been trending downwards across US demographics. But on college campuses, the change is more pronounced.

“While this change is absolutely across the political spectrum, it’s obviously a lot more acute in the left and among young Americans,” Kenney-Shawa said.

A recent poll from the Pew Research Center showed that 53 percent of US respondents had negative views of Israel, a number that rises to 71 percent among Democrats below the age of 50.

Is Project Esther working?

Advocates say that, in the immediate future, the crackdown on the Palestine solidarity movement threatens the safety and wellbeing of activists, especially foreign students. But it has also sparked a backlash.

“The extreme nature of these attacks has also emboldened people to defiantly continue to speak out in the face of these attacks,” JVP’s Miller said.

“And it has actually, in many cases, awoken people – who weren’t paying attention before – to the hypocrisy that has so long existed in the willingness to silence and censor Palestinian rights activists.”

Earlier in May, several right-wing lawmakers and Trump allies came out in opposition of a bill that aimed to expand restrictions on boycotts of Israel, citing free speech concerns.

Abuirshaid echoed Miller’s comments. He acknowledged that the media attacks, arrests and lawsuits against advocates and student protesters have been “distracting” from the mission of focusing on Palestine.

However, he added, “I’m going to be clear: It’s energising us to continue this fight.”

United States President Donald Trump has bid goodbye to Elon Musk at a White House event marking the billionaire’s departure from his role in government.

Speaking from the Oval Office on Friday, Trump showered Musk with praise for his work as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an initiative to reduce federal bureaucracy and spending.

“ I just want to say that Elon has worked tirelessly helping lead the most sweeping and consequential government reform programme in generations,” Trump said.

He credited Musk with delivering “a colossal change in the old ways of doing business in Washington” and called Musk’s service “without comparison in modern history”.

Still, the president also assured reporters that DOGE would continue its work even after Musk is gone.

“With Elon’s guidance, [DOGE is] helping to detect fraud, slash waste and modernise broken and outdated systems,” Trump said.

The joint appearance comes as the two men seek to downplay reports of a growing rift, particularly after Musk criticised Trump’s signature budget bill on CBS News. It also coincides with the publication of a New York Times report alleging that Musk has struggled with increasing drug use and personal turmoil behind the scenes.

Musk declined to comment on the Times report during his Oval Office appearance. He also avoided remarking on speculation that his departure was connected to tumbling sales at his car company, Tesla.

Instead, he pointed out that, as a special government employee, he cannot work in the Trump administration for a period exceeding 130 days without facing stricter disclosure and ethics requirements.

He also focused on promoting his work with DOGE and criticising those on the political left who would impede Trump’s agenda.

“This is not the end of DOGE, but really at the beginning,” Musk said, clad in a black T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “The Dogefather”, written in the style of the gangster film The Godfather. “The DOGE team will only grow stronger over time.”

Trump, meanwhile, emphasised that his relationship with the billionaire – a prominent backer of his 2024 re-election campaign – would continue.

“Elon’s really not leaving. He’s going to be back and forth, I think,” Trump said.

Unclear accounting

Despite White House claims about its efficacy, the extent of DOGE’s cost-savings has remained foggy.

As of Friday, the panel claimed it had achieved an estimated $175bn in savings, made up of “asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions”.

But DOGE’s transparency and methodology have been repeatedly questioned. The only accounting made available to the public adds up to less than half of the claimed figure.

An analysis published on Friday by the news agency Reuters also suggests the actual sum is much lower. Using US Treasury summaries, Reuters found that only $19bn in federal spending had been cut, though it noted that some savings may require more time to be reflected in the Treasury Department’s data.

Regardless, all of those figures fall far short of the goal of $2 trillion saved that Musk initially set out to achieve.

When asked about the discrepancy on Friday, Musk maintained that $1 trillion in savings remained a long-term goal.

“I’m confident that over time, we’ll see a trillion dollars of savings, a reduction – a trillion dollars of waste and fraud reduction,” he said.

But critics have questioned if DOGE will continue with the same verve following Musk’s departure.

Musk and DOGE have long been lightning rods for public criticism, as they implemented sweeping changes to the federal government. Since Trump started his second term as president in January, organisations like the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have seen their funding cut and their staffing slashed.

As a result, employees, contractors, labour groups and state officials have sued to block DOGE’s efforts, with varying levels of success.

Behind the scenes, there have also been reports that Musk clashed with members of Trump’s cabinet, who may seek relief from cuts to their departments after Musk’s exit.

Musk’s foray into government has caused blowback for his companies as well, with protests at Tesla dealerships spreading across the country. Profits plunged 71 percent at Tesla in the first three months of the year, with shareholders calling for Musk to return to work.

When asked by a reporter if Musk’s time in government was “worth it”, he was circumspect. He explained that he felt DOGE had become seen as a “boogeyman”, blamed for any effort to overhaul the federal government.

But he reaffirmed his commitment to being a “friend and adviser to the president” and said the experience was worthwhile.

“I think it was. I think [it] was an important thing,” he added. “I think it was a necessary thing, and I think it will have a good effect in the future.”

French President Emmanuel Macron warned that France will have to toughen its stance on Israel if it continues to block humanitarian aid to Gaza. He urged Israel to allow food, water, and medicine, and reiterated France’s support for a two-state solution.

The ruling means people from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua can be targeted for deportation as lawsuits continue.

The conservative-dominated United States Supreme Court has handed President Donald Trump another major victory, allowing his administration to revoke a temporary legal status from more than 500,000 immigrants as legal challenges continue in lower courts.

Friday’s decision applies to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian and Nicaraguan people who were granted humanitarian parole under the administration of former President Joe Biden.

That parole status allowed them to enter the US due to emergencies or urgent humanitarian reasons, including instability, violence and political repression in their home countries.

But the Supreme Court’s ruling means that the beneficiaries of humanitarian parole could be targeted for deportation prior to a final ruling on whether the revocation of their immigration status is legal.

The ruling by the top court, which is dominated six-to-three by conservatives, reverses a lower court’s order temporarily halting the Trump administration from yanking humanitarian parole from Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans.

The Supreme Court’s decision was unsigned and did not provide reasoning. However, two liberal justices on the panel publicly dissented.

The outcome “undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending”, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote.

She noted that some of the affected individuals had indicated in court filings that they would face grave harm if their humanitarian parole were cut short.

Trump has targeted programmes like humanitarian parole as part of his efforts to limit immigration into the US. His administration has accused Biden of “broad abuse” in his invocation of humanitarian parole: Trump has said Biden was lax on immigration and oversaw an “invasion” of the US from abroad.

Since taking office in January, Trump’s administration has also indefinitely suspended applications for asylum and other forms of immigration relief.

The plaintiffs in Friday’s humanitarian parole case warned the Supreme Court they could face life-threatening conditions if they were not allowed to seek other avenues for immigration and were forced to leave the country.

If they were deported “to the same despotic and unstable countries from which they fled”, lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that “many will face serious risks of danger, persecution and even death”.

Earlier in May, the Supreme Court also allowed Trump to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) — another temporary immigration pathway — for about 350,000 Venezuelans living in the US. TPS allows non-citizens to remain in the US while circumstances in their home countries remain unsafe or unstable.

As with Friday’s case, the Supreme Court’s ruling on TPS allowed the Trump administration to move forward with removals while a legal challenge to Trump’s policy plays out in lower courts.

Biden had encouraged the use of programmes like TPS and humanitarian parole as alternatives to undocumented immigration into the US.

Humanitarian parole, for instance, allowed recipients to legally live and work in the US for two years. Trump’s efforts to end the programme would cut that timeframe short.

The countries in question — Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti — have all experienced significant economic and political crises in recent years.

In Venezuela, for instance, critics have accused President Nicolas Maduro of detaining and disappearing political dissidents and activists, and an economic collapse caused hyperinflation that put basic necessities beyond the means of many Venezuelans. Millions have fled the country in recent years.

One of the other countries, Haiti, has been ravaged by a spike in gang violence since the assassination of President Jovenal Moise in 2021. Federal elections have not been held since, and gangs have used violence to fill the power vacuum.

As much as 90 percent of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, has fallen under gang control, according to the United Nations, and thousands have been killed.

Obeid hospital suffers severe damage in paramilitary assault, worsening health crisis in Sudan’s civil war.

At least six people have been killed in a suspected drone attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on a hospital in southern Sudan, the latest civilian facility targeted in the brutal civil war, officials and rights advocates have said.

The Emergency Lawyers, a rights group, blamed the RSF for the attack on Friday on the Obeid International Hospital, al-Dhaman, in Obeid, the capital city of North Kordofan province. At least 15 others were wounded in the attack, it said.

In a statement on social media, the hospital said the attack resulted in severe damage to its main building. Services at the hospital, the main medical facility serving the region, were suspended until further notice, it said.

A Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) source told the AFP news agency that the bombardment also hit a second hospital in the city centre.

The city is a key staging post on the army’s supply route to the west, where the besieged city of el-Fasher is the only state capital in the vast Darfur region still under the army-led government’s control.

El-Fasher has witnessed attritional fighting between SAF and RSF since May 2024, despite international warnings about the risks of violence in a city that serves as a key humanitarian hub for the five Darfur states.

Cholera outbreak

Adding to humanitarian woes on the ground, the Health Ministry in Khartoum state on Thursday reported 942 new cholera infections and 25 deaths the previous day, following 1,177 cases and 45 deaths the day before.

Aid workers say the effort to control the cholera outbreak is deteriorating due to the near-total collapse of health services, with about 90 percent of hospitals in key warzones no longer operational.

Since August 2024, Sudan has reported more than 65,000 suspected cholera cases and at least 1,700 deaths across 12 of its 18 states. Khartoum alone has seen 7,700 cases and 185 deaths, including more than 1,000 infections in children under five, as it contends with more than two years of fighting between the army and the RSF.

“Sudan urgently needs an increase in aid to help combat the cholera outbreak, hundreds of cases per day, which has even exceeded the more than 1000 cases per day,” Jean-Nicolas Armstrong Dangelser, Doctors Without Borders’s, known by its French initials MSF, emergency coordinator in Sudan, told Al Jazeera.

“This is only the tip of the iceberg, because nobody has the full picture at the moment, unfortunately,” Dangelser said.

Fighting in the al-Salha district, south of Ondurman, where there was a pocket of people sick with cholera, “greatly contributed” to the spread of the disease, said Dangelser. The army said on May 19 it had seized control of the al-Salha district, considered the last stronghold of the RSF in Khartoum State.

“Now it’s not just the returnees to Khartoum that are exacerbating the situation because of the devastated water system and the lack of healthcare, but it’s also now spreading to Darfur, where people have been displaced by fighting,” Dangelser added.

Violence and death follow Sudanese fleeing the war beyond their country’s borders. On Friday, 11 Sudanese refugees and a Libyan driver were killed in a car crash in the desert in Libya, according to local authorities.

Since fighting between the RSF and SAF broke out in April 2023, the UN has said 11 million people have been forced out of their homes, including 250,000 who have escaped into neighbouring Libya.

Tens of thousands have been killed in the civil war.

Jury found that the BBC had not acted in good faith and awarded Adams 100,000 euros ($113,000) in damages.

Former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has won a libel case against the BBC over a report alleging he sanctioned the killing of an informant in the Irish republican movement.

A jury at Ireland’s High Court on Friday found that the BBC had not acted in good faith and in a “fair and reasonable” way and awarded Adams 100,000 euros ($113,000) in damages.

Adams brought the lawsuit over a claim in a 2016 documentary and online article that he sanctioned the killing of Denis Donaldson, a long-serving Sinn Fein official who acknowledged in 2005 that he had worked for British intelligence. He was shot dead at his cottage in rural Ireland four months later.

The BBC “Spotlight” investigation included an anonymous allegation that the murder was sanctioned by the political and military leadership of the Irish Republican Army and that Adams gave “the final say”.

Adams denies any involvement.

Speaking outside court, Adams, 76, said the case was “about putting manners on the British Broadcasting Corporation”. His solicitors said Adams was “very pleased with this resounding verdict”.

Adams, 76, is one of the most influential figures of Northern Ireland’s decades of conflict, and its peace process. He led Sinn Fein, the party linked to the IRA, between 1983 and 2018. He has always denied being an IRA member, but former colleagues have said he was one of its leaders.

The BBC argued that it acted in “good faith”, that its programme was “fair and reasonable” and in the public interest, and that the allegation made in the documentary was supported by five other sources.

Speaking outside Dublin High Court alongside Spotlight reporter Jennifer O’Leary, BBC Northern Ireland director Adam Smyth told reporters they were disappointed with the verdict.

“We believe we supplied extensive evidence to the court of the careful editorial process and journalistic diligence applied to this programme and accompanying online article,” Smyth said.

“Moreover, it was accepted by the court, and conceded by Gerry Adams’ legal team, that the Spotlight broadcast and publication were of the highest public interest.”

Adams brought the case in Dublin as the Spotlight programme could be watched in Ireland, where it was seen by about 16,000 people.

An online article also had about 700 hits in Ireland during a 14-month period after its publication in September 2016.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s salvo against Chinese students, promising to “aggressively revoke” their visas, is the latest move in heightening tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

Despite a temporary tariff truce reached between them earlier this month, divisions between Washington and Beijing remain wide, with recent ruptures over higher education, artificial intelligence (AI) chips and rare earth minerals.

Here’s all we know about how relations between China and the United States are worsening despite diplomatic efforts.

What did the US and China agree on tariffs?

A US-China trade spat escalated after Trump’s administration raised tariffs on Chinese goods to 145 percent earlier this year, with cumulative US duties on some Chinese goods reaching a staggering 245 percent. China retaliated with 125 percent tariffs of its own on US goods.

Under an agreement reached on May 12 following two days of trade talks in Geneva, tariffs on both sides were dropped by 115 percentage points for 90 days, during which time negotiators hope to secure a longer-term agreement. For now, the US has maintained a 30 percent tariff on all Chinese goods while Beijing has a 10 percent levy on US products.

In the weeks since the temporary reprieve, however, Washington and Beijing appear to have had only limited discussions.

On Thursday, US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that trade talks between the US and China are “a bit stalled”, and may need to be reinvigorated by a call between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

In the meantime, the Trump administration has announced new, strict visa controls on Chinese university students and told US companies to stop selling their advanced chip software used to design semiconductors to Chinese groups.

Why is the US targeting Chinese students?

On Wednesday, Rubio announced that the US will “aggressively revoke” the visas of Chinese students studying in the country. He also pledged to ramp up scrutiny of new visa applicants from China and Hong Kong.

The Trump administration’s decision to carry out deportations and to revoke student visas is part of wide-ranging efforts to fulfil its hardline immigration agenda.

China is the second-largest country of origin for international students in the US, behind India. Chinese students made up roughly a quarter of all foreign students in the US during the 2023-2024 academic year – more than 270,000 in total.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticised the decision to revoke visas, saying it “damaged” the rights of Chinese students. “The US has unreasonably cancelled Chinese students’ visas under the pretext of ideology and national rights,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said.

The Trump administration also banned Harvard University from enrolling any foreign students on May 22, accusing the institution of “coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party”. That move has since been blocked by a US federal judge.

Still, the largest portion of foreign students at Harvard – almost 1,300 – are Chinese, and many top officials, including the current leader Xi Jinping, have sent their children to the Ivy League school.

How is the US taking aim at Chinese semiconductors?

On May 13, just after the end of trade talks in Geneva, the US Commerce Department issued guidance warning American firms against using Huawei’s Ascend AI semiconductor chips, stating that they “were likely developed or produced in violation of US export controls”. 

The move marked the latest in a series of efforts by the Trump administration to stymie China’s ability to develop cutting-edge AI chips. The tiny semiconductors, which power AI systems, have long been a source of tension between the US and China.

China’s Commerce Ministry spokesperson fired back against the guidance last week, accusing Washington of “undermining” the consensus reached in Geneva and describing the measures as “typical unilateral bullying and protectionism”.

Then, on May 28, the US government ramped up the row by ordering US companies which make software used to design semiconductors to stop selling their goods and services to Chinese groups, The Financial Times reported.

Design automation software makers, including Cadence, Synopsys and Siemens EDA, were told via letters from the US Commerce Department to stop supplying their technology to China.

Why is the US targeting Chinese semiconductors?

The US has been tightening its export controls on semiconductors for more than a decade, contending that China has used US computer chips to improve military hardware and software.

Chinese officials and industry executives deny this and contend that the US is trying to limit China’s economic and technological development.

In his first term as president, Trump banned China’s Huawei from using advanced US circuit boards.

Huawei is seen as a competitor to Nvidia, the US semiconductor giant which produces its own-brand of “Ascend” AI chips. In April, Washington restricted the export of Nvidia’s AI chips to China.

But Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, recently warned that attempts to hamstring China’s AI technology through export controls had largely failed.

How could China be affected by US measures?

The suspension of semiconductor sales will limit supplies for aerospace equipment needed for China’s commercial aircraft, the C919, a signature project in China’s push towards economic and transport self-reliance.

Christopher Johnson, a former CIA China analyst, told The Financial Times that this week’s new export controls underscored the “innate fragility of the tariff truce reached in Geneva”.

“With both sides wanting to retain and continue demonstrating the potency of their respective chokehold capabilities, the risk the ceasefire could unravel even within the 90-day pause is omnipresent,” he added.

Will China ease restrictions on rare earth minerals exports?

US officials had expected the Geneva talks to result in China easing its export restrictions on rare earth elements. So far, there have been few signs of that, however.

Rare earth minerals are a group of precious minerals required to manufacture a wide range of goods in the defence, healthcare and technology sectors.

Rare earth metals, which include scandium and yttrium, are also key for producing components in capacitors – electrical parts which help power AI servers and smartphones.

China processes some 90 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals and instituted export controls in April to counter Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April, triggering alarm among US companies.

Last week, for instance, Ford temporarily closed a factory in Chicago which makes utility vehicles after one of its suppliers ran out of a specialised rare earth magnet.

In most new cars, especially elevate vehicles (cars with robotic technology allowing them to “climb” over obstacles), these high-tech magnets are used in parts which operate brake and steering systems, and power seats and fuel injectors.

The restrictions on the supply of rare earth minerals provide Beijing with a strategic advantage in future negotiations, as it can limit supplies of crucial technologies for US industry.

A total of 79 people were injured after a car drove into a crowd after Liverpool Football Club’s trophy parade.

A former British marine has appeared in court accused of driving a vehicle into a crowd of people celebrating Liverpool Football Club’s Premier League title win.

Paul Doyle briefly appeared at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court on Friday morning, where he read out his personal details, according to United Kingdom media reports.

Doyle, 53, is facing seven charges, including dangerous driving and causing grievous bodily harm with intent, which carry a maximum life sentence if convicted, after a dark Ford Galaxy drove into Liverpool Football Club supporters attending a parade in the city centre to celebrate the club winning the Premier League.

A total of 79 people, aged between nine and 78, were injured in the incident, and no deaths were reported.

Merseyside Police Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Sims told reporters on Thursday that seven people remained in hospital.

According to local reports, Doyle lives in a suburb of Liverpool and is a businessman with three teenage children.

The charges followed what Crown Prosecution Service’s Sarah Hammond described as a “complex and ongoing investigation”.

“Prosecutors and police are continuing to work at pace to review a huge volume of evidence,” she said.

“This includes multiple pieces of video footage and numerous witness statements. It is important to ensure every victim gets the justice they deserve,” she added.

Shortly after the incident, Merseyside Police quickly ruled out possible terrorism as the reason behind the crash and revealed that the suspect was a white British man, in a move to stop the spread of misinformation online.

Last year, misinformation circulating online about an attacker who killed three girls in the Southport area led to anti-immigration and Islamophobic riots in parts of England.

US President Donald Trump’s move to relax laws around cryptocurrency while promoting his own coins has been criticised by political opponents and US ethics groups. Here’s a look at his relationship with crypto.

Opapo, Kenya – Perched in the grass alongside the Rongo-Homa Bay Road in Kenya’s Migori County, a rusted sign announces the Melkio St Joseph Missions of Messiah Church in Africa. Beyond it, a sandy path meets big blue and purple gates that barricade the now-deserted grounds from view.

Just more than a month ago, the church in Opapo village was thrust into the spotlight when reports of secret burials and “cult-like” practices emerged.

On April 21, local police stormed the grounds and discovered two bodies buried within the fenced compound – including that of a police officer who was also a church member – as well as dozens of other worshippers who had been living there.

During the raid, 57 people were rescued and taken into custody. In the weeks since, most have been released, but police have banned them from returning to the church and sealed off the compound.

For Kenyans, the incident has unearthed the memory of other controversial churches steeped in allegations of abuse, like the 2023 case where more than 400 people linked to a church-cult starved to death in the Shakahola Forest.

In Opapo village, residents are troubled by the deaths and the decades-long secrecy surrounding the church. Many want to see the permanent closure of the compound and the exhumation and return of the bodies buried there.

Brian Juma, 27, has lived directly beside the church all his life. He told Al Jazeera locals believe it was started by a man who fashioned himself as a sort-of god figure, and who the followers of the church prayed to.

Juma claims that when the church leader died 10 years ago, followers did not immediately bury him but prayed for three days in the hope that he would rise.

Pauline Auma, a 53-year-old mother of six who also lives near the church, said the congregation was set up in their area in the early 1990s, although she could not recall the exact year.

“When it came, we thought it was a normal church like any other. I remember my sister even attended a service there, thinking it was like other churches, only to come and tell us things that were not normal were taking place. For example, she said the Father there claimed to be God himself,” Auma recounted.

In the years that followed, the church recruited members from different locations across the country. Juma said congregants were not from around the area, spoke different languages, and never left the compound to go to their own homes.

According to Caren Kiarie, a human rights activist from neighbouring Kisumu County, the church has several branches across the Kenyan Nyanza region, and sends members from one location to the other.

Many people came to worship and live within the church full time, Opapo villagers remember.

“They were very friendly people who did business around the Opapo area and interacted well with the people here,” Juma said. “But they would never live outside the church, as they all went back inside in the evening. Within the church compound, they had cattle, sheep, poultry and planted crops for their food.”

Though the worshippers could interact with outsiders, locals say the children living there – some with their parents and others who neighbours said were taken in alone – never attended school, while members were barred from seeking medical care if they were sick.

On the day of the police raid and rescue, many of the worshippers looked weak and ill, said Juma, who over the years befriended some young people whose parents belonged to the church. “They were sickly, as they were never allowed to go to the hospital or even take pain medication,” he said, quoting what his neighbours had told him. Auma believes those who were rescued that day were the sickly ones, as the others had escaped.

The 57 initially refused to leave the compound at all, insisting the church was their only “home”. But police took them to the nearby Rongo Sub-county Hospital to be treated. They again refused medical care and instead began singing Christian praise songs in the Dholuo language. Auma said the songs were chants asking God to save them and take them home to heaven.

Disturbed by the commotion, health workers recommended that they be moved from the hospital because they were making other patients uncomfortable. That’s when they were taken into police custody. According to the assistant county commissioner, Josphat Kingoku, the worshippers were released from police custody two weeks ago, but he did not know their whereabouts.

Seeking news about loved ones

In Kwoyo in Homa Bay County, Linet Achieng worries about her 71-year-old mother, who left home to join the Migori church 11 years ago and never returned.

Her mother was introduced to the church by a neighbour who was originally from Migori, Achieng said.

“Initially, she had gone to seek healing from a backache that had troubled her for years,” said the 43-year-old, explaining that the church offered promises of health.

The family initially kept in touch with their mother, asking when she would come home after being healed. She kept making promises to return, but never did. Achieng tried to convince her mother to leave the place, she said, but her attempts were in vain.

“At some point, she stopped talking to us, and when my younger brother and I went to inquire how she was doing, we were sent away from the church and told that unless we were willing to join the church, we were not welcome in there,” she said.

After the raid last month, Achieng learned her mother was among those rescued but says she does not want anything to do with her family.

While many worshipers’ families wait to hear about their relatives, one family knows for sure they will never see their loved one again.

Dan Ayoo Obura – a police constable – was one of those who died at the church compound, reportedly on March 27, according to local media reports.

He had been introduced to the church by his wife, who was a leader there, his relatives said.

Obura had left his workplace at the General Service Unit police headquarters in Nairobi in February before travelling home to Kisumu County on sick leave, according to his uncle Dickson Otieno.

He was taken to a hospital in the area, but after a week at the facility, “he disappeared”, Otieno told Al Jazeera.

“We reported to the police and started looking for him everywhere, panicked that we might never see him again. Later, we had information from some neighbours that he is in Migori at a church. That’s when we went there to ask the church leaders where he was. They told us he was not at the church and had not seen him.

“About a month later, they called us to say that the person we were looking for had died the previous night and that they had buried him that day.”

The family then informed the police and human rights activists like Kiarie, and travelled to Opapo to try and locate his body.

Kiarie, who is a rights defender and paralegal at the Nyando Social Justice Centre, accompanied the family to Opapo in March.

“We’ve not been given the body,” she told Al Jazeera, explaining that she interviewed residents and church members while in Opapo and heard concerning reports about what was happening at the compound.

No one was allowed to have an intimate relationship at the church, she said, while husbands and wives were required to separate after joining. These practices were echoed by the compound’s neighbours in Migori.

“There are also serious claims of sexual violence at the church where the male leaders were having sex with the girls and women there,” Kiarie said. “That was why they did not want any man inside to touch the women because they belonged to them,” she alleged.

Kiarie said since the police raid, the compound’s neighbours have also reported there may be more than just two bodies buried inside – which she said could be what is delaying Obura’s exhumation. “They’re still waiting because they said the issue has been picked up by the national government, and they [the national authorities] want to exhume the other bodies [that may be there],” she said.

Kiarie feels the Migori church may prove to be another case like the Shakahola cult “massacre” if it is found that more people indeed died and were buried there without their families’ knowledge.

From Shakahola to Migori

The events in Migori have opened wounds for many survivors and relatives of the 429 people who were starved to death in Kilifi County’s Shakahola, in 2023.

Led by Pastor Paul McKenzie, the congregants there also left their families and abandoned property, seeking to go to heaven and meet their messiah. But news reports said that at the church, they were radicalised and brainwashed, convinced that if they stopped eating they would die peacefully, go to heaven and meet their god.

Both Grace Kazungu’s parents and two of her siblings perished in the Shakhola church cult, says the 32-year-old mother of three from Kilifi.

Whenever she and her brother tried to question the church’s teachings, the others would not hear a word against it, she told Al Jazeera.

“They would argue that we were ‘anti-Christ’ and that their church was the only sacred and holy way to heaven,” she said.

“Months later, I heard from my brother that they had sold the family’s property and were going to live inside the church after ditching earthly possessions.

“We tried to reach them but were blocked by their leader. My husband broke the news to me one morning after a year that they had been found inside the forest and they were dead and buried.”

After their deaths, they were buried in mass graves within the Shakahola Forest where the church was located. Upon discovery, following a tip from the local media, the police launched an operation to cordon off the area so they could exhume the bodies, test for DNA, and return the deceased to their relatives for proper burial.

They later arrested the church leader, McKenzie, and charged him with the murder of 191 people, child torture, and “terrorism”. He and several other co-accused remain in police custody, pending sentencing.

Unlike Shakahola, the Migori church allowed its followers to work, eat and run businesses in the nearby Opapo and Rongo towns. But like Shakahola, it also kept them living apart from the rest of society, barred them from accessing school, marriage and medical care, and severely punished supposed transgressions, according to locals who heard and witnessed violent beatings and fights inside the compound.

In many societies, religious leaders are widely respected and trusted, and they often influence beliefs and actions in the private and public spheres, explained Fathima Azmiya Badurdee, a postdoctoral researcher in the faculty of Religion, Culture and Society at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

“People are in search of ‘hope’ in the daily issues they confront. Religious leaders are pivotal in this role in providing hope to sustain their futures … or even in life after death,” she explained.

Still, “awareness among religious communities on opportunistic leadership and cult dynamics is needed,” she said, referring to the Opapo and Shakahola forest cases.

“Many people blindly trust religious leaders without questioning them. Words and opinions of religious leaders are taken as the gospel truth. The lack of questioning, critical thinking skills, or even the lack of religious literacy often influences individuals to believe in any extreme forms propagated by these leaders,” she added.

‘I fear she might die’

Most of the 57 Migori worshippers are now back in society once more. However, police extended the detention of four key suspects while investigations and autopsies continued this month.

Assistant county commissioner Kingoku declined to provide details to Al Jazeera about any charges against the worshippers, saying they did not appear in court.

Meanwhile, the Kenya National Police Service spokesperson Michael Muchiri told Al Jazeera: “All individuals found culpable will be taken through the prosecution process as guided by the law.”

Investigations are ongoing into Obura’s cause of death, verification of additional burials alleged by residents, and a probe into whether the church operated as an unregistered “company” rather than a licensed religious organisation.

According to the county commissioner, Mutua Kisilu, the church had been irregularly registered as a company. After the raid last month, Nyanza regional commissioner, Florence Mworoa, announced a region-wide crackdown on unregistered churches.

Muchiri said the government regulates religious outfits in the country and will bring to book all those found to have broken the law.

“Any illegally operating organisation – the government has been clear about it – is quickly shut down. Prosecution, like in the Migori case, follows. Identification of such ‘cult-like’ illegal religious entities is through the local intelligence and security teams and information from the local people,” Muchiri said.

In the meantime in Homa Bay, Achieng finally heard from her mother one last time after the worshippers were released from custody. She told her daughter that she had found a new home and that her family were “worldly” people who she should never associate with again.

“I thought of going to get her from police custody and secure her release, but I [was] worried that she will not agree to go home with me,” Achieng told Al Jazeera. She believes her mother will never return home. “I fear she might die [at the church].”

Meanwhile in Kisumu, Obura’s family continues to mourn him as they work with Kiarie’s organisation and the police to try and secure a court order allowing them to exhume his remains.

All they want, they say, is to transfer him from the church to his ancestral home to bury him according to Luo culture and traditions.

“We are not interested in a lot of things,” Otieno said. “We just want the body of our son so we can bury him here at home. Just that.”

By Tina Teng

Published on
30/05/2025 – 8:03 GMT+2

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A Federal appeals court temporarily blocked a ruling from the Court of International Trade that barred most of the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs on global trading partners. The legal development reignited uncertainty, sparking renewed selloffs in US stock markets and dragged the US dollar sharply lower from its intraday high.

The decision provides the White House with additional time to defend the legality of the president’s efforts to reshape global trade relations. Federal officials signalled that the same level of import levies could be reintroduced under alternative legal authorities, although enacting tariffs via other sections of the Trade Act could take several months.

“I can assure the American people that the Trump tariff agenda is alive, well, healthy and will be implemented to protect you, to save your jobs and your factories, and to stop shipping foreign wealth — our wealth — into foreign hands,” Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade adviser, said on Thursday.

Trump had invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose the so-called reciprocal tariffs announced in early April. However, on Wednesday, the trade court ruled that the president does not have the authority to impose such broad levies under the IEEPA.

“America cannot function if President Trump — or any other president, for that matter — has their sensitive diplomatic or trade negotiations railroaded by activist judges,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. “Ultimately, the Supreme Court must put an end to this for the sake of our Constitution and our country.”

Wall Street pares early gains

The US stock markets initially jumped on the original court ruling, alongside positive quarterly earnings results from Nvidia. However, major indices gave up early gains despite a higher close on Thursday. During Friday’s Asian session, US stock futures continued to fall as risk-off sentiment prevailed.

As of 4 am CEST, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 0.08%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures both declined 0.26%.

European markets are also expected to open lower, according to futures pricing. The Euro Stoxx 50 was down 0.19%, and Germany’s DAX slipped 0.15%. German equities extended losses for a second consecutive day on Thursday, following a record high on Tuesday. Investors will be closely watching the progress of US-EU trade talks, though the legal battle surrounding the Trump administration’s tariffs is adding complexity to the outlook.

Asian equity markets also traded mostly lower on Friday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 1.4%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 1.39%, and South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.61%. Australia’s ASX 200 was flat as of 3:10 am CEST.

The US dollar tumbles as haven assets rise

The latest court developments have once again dented investor confidence in US assets, particularly the dollar. Yields on US government bonds initially jumped to 4.5% but later pulled back to 4.42% as Treasury prices came under renewed pressure.

Meanwhile, haven assets have rallied. Gold jumped, and the euro, the Swiss franc, and the Japanese yen all strengthened significantly. The euro rebounded sharply from an intraday low against the dollar on Thursday after the tariff ruling was paused. The EUR/USD pair fell as low as 1.1210 before surging to 1.1353 as of 3:11 am CEST on Friday. Gold futures also swung higher, climbing to $3,321 per ounce from an intraday low of $3,269 on Thursday.

Hong Kong leader John Lee Ka-chiu said the body’s status would be on par with the UN’s International Court of Justice.

The Chinese government has signed a convention establishing an international mediation organisation located in Hong Kong, with Beijing hoping it will rival the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as the world’s leading conflict resolution body.

The Convention on the Establishment of the International Organisation for Mediation (IOMed) was signed into law on Friday, in a ceremony presided over by Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi in Hong Kong.

The ceremony was attended by representatives from several countries, including Indonesia, Pakistan, Laos, Cambodia and Serbia. Representatives from 20 international bodies, including the United Nations, also attended the ceremony, according to Hong Kong’s RTHK public broadcaster.

A video shown at the signing ceremony said the scope of cases handled by the body would include disputes between countries, between a country and nationals of another country, and between private international entities.

Beijing plans for the body to cement Hong Kong’s presence as a top global mediation hub, as it hopes to bolster the city’s waning international credentials.

In an un-bylined opinion piece published in China’s state-run Global Times newspaper, IOMed was described as the “world’s first intergovernmental international legal organisation dedicated to resolving international disputes through mediation”.

IOMed would fill a “critical gap in mechanisms focused on mediation-based dispute resolution”, it said.

“The establishment of the International Organisation for Mediation marks a milestone in global governance and highlights the value of resolving conflicts in an ‘amicable way’,” it added.

The ICJ – the principal judicial organ of the UN, also known as the World Court – is currently the top body for solving legal disputes between member states in accordance with international law. It also provides advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by UN bodies.

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said this week that IOMed’s status would be on par with the UN bodies the ICJ and the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.

Lee said it would also help bring “substantial” economic benefits and job opportunities, as well as stimulate various sectors including hospitality and transport, to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has experienced sustained economic stagnation since its handover back to Chinese rule in 1997 after more than a century and a half as a British colony.

Investor confidence has been rocked by Beijing’s increasing control over all aspects of life in the territory – including the economy – while gloom also persists about the state of China’s post-pandemic recovery.

In an opinion piece published in the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s Justice Secretary Paul Lam said IOMed would help Hong Kong cope with challenges presented by “hostile external forces” that are “attempting to de-internationalise and de-functionalise” it.

“To cope with such a challenge, Hong Kong needs to make good use of the IOMed headquarters as a focus for strengthening the city as an international dispute resolution centre, so as to give full play to its institutional advantages under the ‘one country, two systems’ framework,” Lam said, referring to China’s model of governing Hong Kong, which nominally allows it a level of autonomy.

The IOMed headquarters, due to open by the end of this year or in early 2026, will be located at a former police station in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district.

A ceasefire proposal with Israel tabled by the administration of United States President Donald Trump is “still under discussion” by Hamas, but in its current form will only result in “the continuation of killing and famine” in Gaza, an official from the Palestinian group has said.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that Israel had “signed off” on the ceasefire proposal, and the Trump administration’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, had submitted it to Hamas for consideration.

Hamas political bureau member Basem Naim told the Reuters news agency that the deal “does not meet any of our people’s demands, foremost among them, halting the war”.

“Nonetheless, the movement’s leadership is studying the response to the proposal with full national responsibility,” Naim added.

The details of the new proposal have not been made public, but senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that, crucially, it did not contain commitments from Israel to end its war on Gaza, withdraw Israeli troops from the enclave, or allow aid to freely enter the war-torn territory.

The Israeli government has not publicly confirmed that it approved the latest proposal.

Reports in Israeli media this week suggested that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the families of captives still held in Gaza that he is prepared to move forward with Witkoff’s temporary ceasefire proposal.

Akiva Eldar, an Israeli political analyst, told Al Jazeera it was “unusual” for Israel to come out and agree to a proposal first, and that Netanyahu may be betting on the plan being impossible for Hamas to accept so that he can paint them as the “bad guys” and continue the war.

“It happened before… and Netanyahu put the blame on them,” Eldar said.

Conflicting reports

Attempts to restore a ceasefire in Gaza have been scuppered by deep differences on conditions for ending the conflict, including Israel’s demand that Hamas completely disarm, and the Palestinian group’s demand that Israeli forces withdraw from Gaza.

Reports of this latest proposal follow conflicting reports earlier this week, when Hamas claimed it had reached an understanding for a ceasefire “general framework” with Witkoff and only awaited a “final response”.

“We have reached an agreement on a general framework with Witkoff that ensures a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from Gaza, and the unhindered entry of humanitarian aid,” the group said in a statement.

The agreement also reportedly included “the establishment of a professional committee to manage Gaza’s affairs once a ceasefire is declared”, according to the Hamas statement.

As part of the deal, Trump would also reportedly guarantee that a ceasefire would be established within 60 days and ensure the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Witkoff, however, later denied that these were the terms of any deal he had proposed, telling Reuters that what he had seen was “completely unacceptable”.

An anonymous US official close to Witkoff also rejected the claim, telling Al Jazeera that the group’s claims were “inaccurate” and “disappointing”. Israel also dismissed the claim, with one unnamed official calling the statement “psychological warfare” and “propaganda” in comments to The Times of Israel.

Israel resumed its war on Gaza on March 18, after breaking a six-week temporary ceasefire, with Netanyahu announcing that fighting had resumed with “full force”.

The months since have seen the Israeli military resume its relentless assault across Gaza, killing close to 4,000 people since breaking the truce and propelling the overall death toll in the enclave to more than 54,000, according to health authorities in Gaza.

Israel has also imposed a deadly, months-long blockade on humanitarian aid entering the Palestinian enclave, which UN officials say has pushed the population to the brink of famine.

Israel partially lifted its blockade on May 19, allowing a trickle of aid to enter Gaza, but United States Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described it as a mere “teaspoon” of what is needed.

There were chaotic scenes this week as crowds of starving Palestinians attempted to reach life-saving supplies distributed by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – a new and controversial group that said it would deliver aid in the besieged enclave.

A federal appeals court has temporarily reinstated (PDF) US President Donald Trump’s tariffs a day after a trade court ruled that it exceeded the authorities granted to the president.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington temporarily blocked the lower court’s decision on Thursday, but provided no reasoning for the decision, only giving the plaintiffs until June 5th to respond.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted an emergency motion from the Trump administration arguing that a halt is “critical for the country’s national security”.

The White House has applauded the move.

“You can assume, even if we lose tariff cases, we will find another way,” trade adviser Peter Navarro said.

Wednesday’s surprise ruling by the US Court of International Trade had threatened to halt or delay Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs on most US trading partners, as well as import levies on goods from Canada, Mexico and China related to his accusation that the three countries were facilitating the flow of fentanyl into the US.

The International Court of Trade said tariffs issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which is typically used to address issues of national emergencies rather than addressing the national debt, were considered overreach.

Experts said the IEEPA, which was passed in 1977, is narrow in scope and targets specific countries, US-designated “terrorist organisations”, or gang activity pegged to specific instances. The US, for example, used the law to seize property belonging to the government of Iran during the hostage crisis in 1979 and the property of drug traffickers in Colombia in 1995.

“The 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act doesn’t say anything at all about tariffs,” Bruce Fain, a former US associate deputy attorney general under Ronald Reagan, told Al Jazeera.

Fein added that there is a statute, the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows tariffs in the event of a national emergency. However, he said, it requires a study by the commerce secretary and can only be imposed on a product-by-product basis.

‘Product-by-product’

Despite the appeal court’s reprieve, Wednesday’s decision has been viewed as a blow to the administration’s economic agenda that has thus far led to declining consumer confidence and the US losing its top credit rating.

Experts believe that, ultimately, the tariffs will not last.

Posting on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday, lawyer Peter Harrell, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote that, if the trade court’s decision “is upheld, importers should eventually be able to get a refund of [IEEPA] tariffs paid to date. But the government will probably seek to avoid paying refunds until appeals are exhausted.″

“The power to decide the level of tariffs resides with Congress. The IEEPA doesn’t even mention raising tariffs. And it was actually passed in order to narrow the president’s authority. Now the president is using it to rewrite the tariff schedule for the whole world,” Greg Schaffer, professor of international law at Georgetown Law School, told Al Jazeera.

The US trade court did not weigh in on tariffs put in place by other laws, such as the Trade Expansion Act – the law used to justify tariffs on steel, aluminium, and automobiles.

There are additional targets for similar narrow tariffs, such as pharmaceuticals from China. In April, the White House announced that the US Department of Commerce launched an investigation to see if the US reliance on China for active ingredients in key medications posed a national security threat, thus warranting tariffs.

“This is not an issue of whether the president can impose tariffs,” said Fein, the former associate deputy attorney general. “He can under the 1962 act after there’s a study and after showing that it’s not arbitrary and capricious and that it’s a product-by-product, not a country-by-country approach.”

“If he doesn’t like that, he can ask Congress to amend the statute.”

Royal Challengers Bengaluru demolishes Punjab Kings with eight-wicket win to reach first IPL final since 2016.

Virat Kohli inched closer to a maiden Indian Premier League title after Royal Challengers Bengaluru thrashed Punjab Kings by eight wickets in a lopsided qualifier to reach the final of the 10-team tournament.

A superlative performance by their bowlers in Thursday’s game left Bengaluru needing only 102 to make Sunday’s final and they reached the target in just 10 overs with opener Phil Salt, who made 56 not out, leading the charge.

Punjab can still make the final if they can win the second qualifier against the winner of Friday’s eliminator between Mumbai Indians and Gujarat Titans.

Kohli made 12, but has been Bengaluru’s leading scorer this season.

The former India captain has been with the franchise since the inaugural 2008 edition of the league. Bengaluru reached the finals in 2009, 2011 and 2016 but were beaten on all three occasions.

“It’s a great feeling right now,” Salt said. “Obviously, we had a second bite at the cherry, but it’s such a good feeling to get that out of the way first-time.

“It just gives us that momentum. It’s such a cliche, but it’s so true at the back end of the tournament.”

Bengaluru have looked formidable this season and,

electing to field, their fiery pace attack, led by a returning Josh Hazlewood, bundled out Punjab in 14.1 overs.

Having recovered from a shoulder niggle, Hazlewood led Bengaluru’s superb pace display as they reduced Punjab to 71-7 at the halfway stage of their innings.

Hazlewood’s (3-21) victims included rival skipper Shreyas Iyer, while Bhuvneshwar Kumar claimed the important wicket of Prabhsimran Singh, Punjab’s leading scorer this season.

Marcus Stoinis made 26 before losing his stumps to leg-spinner Suyash Sharma, who claimed 3-17 in his three overs.

Kyle Jamieson removed Kohli in the fourth over, but Bengaluru raced to 61-1 in their six powerplay overs, compared with Punjab’s 48-4, with Salt hitting boundaries almost at will.

Salt took 23 balls to bring up his fifty and skipper Rajat Patidar hit a six to seal Bengaluru’s victory in a match that lasted only 24.1 overs.

US envoy Thomas Barrack praises interim government in Damascus, calls for ‘dialogue’ between Israel and Syria.

The United States envoy to Syria says the conflict between Israel and Syria is “solvable” as he visited the capital, Damascus and praised the interim government, as the political and economic thaw between the nation and Western powers continues apace.

Thomas Barrack, who raised the flag over the US ambassador’s residence for the first time since it closed in 2012 amid Syria’s civil war, said solving the issues between Syria and Israel needed to start with “dialogue”.

“I’d say we need to start with just a non-aggression agreement, talk about boundaries and borders,” he told journalists on Thursday.

In recent months, the US has begun rebuilding ties with Syria under its new administration.

Earlier in May, the US also lifted sanctions on the country in a surprise announcement, offering a nation devastated by nearly 14 years of war a critical lifeline. The European Union followed suit days later.

Barrack said that Syria would also no longer be deemed by the US as a state sponsor of “terrorism”, saying the issue was gone “with the [former President Bashar al-Assad regime being finished”, but added that the US Congress still had a six-month review period.

“America’s intent and the president’s vision is that we have to give this young government a chance by not interfering, not demanding, by not giving conditions, by not imposing our culture on your culture,” Barrack said.

Reporting from Damascus, Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdel Wahed said the warming ties between Syria, the US and other Western countries were a “major shift in the political dynamic of the region”.

Wahed explained that as Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani continues to meet representatives from Western countries and officials from the European Union and the United Nations, it will bring “a lot of benefits” for the new Syrian administration and the Syrian people.

“This is some kind of recognition of the new leadership – giving a chance to the new leadership to boost its economy, to bring more Western investment to help the government rebuild war-torn Syria,” he added.

Syria-Israel relations

Since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and Israel’s subsequent occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, the two countries have had a fraught relationship.

Shortly after al-Assad was deposed in December following a lightning offensive by opposition fighters, Israel seized more Syrian territory near the border, claiming it was concerned about the interim administration led by Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Israel has carried out frequent attacks in Syria both during the al-Assad rule and since his ouster.

During a meeting between US President Donald Trump and al-Sharaa in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, earlier in May, the US leader urged al-Sharaa to normalise relations with Israel.

While al-Sharaa has not commented on possible normalisation with Israel, he has supported a return to the terms of a 1974 ceasefire agreement that created a United Nations buffer zone in the Golan Heights.