China’s Shenzhou-19 astronauts return to Earth

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Updated 30 April 2025
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China’s Shenzhou-19 astronauts return to Earth

China’s Shenzhou-19 astronauts return to Earth
  • The Shenzhou-19 crew had worked on the space station since October, where they carried out experiments and set a new record for the longest ever spacewalk
  • A military band and crowds of flag-waving well-wishers bade farewell to the crew before they blasted off on a Long March-2F rocket

BEIJING: Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Wednesday after six months on the country’s space station, state media footage showed, as Beijing advances toward its aim to become a major celestial power.

China has plowed billions of dollars into its space program in recent years in an effort to achieve what President Xi Jinping describes as the country’s “space dream.”

The world’s second-largest economy has bold plans to send a crewed mission to the Moon by the end of the decade and eventually build a base on the lunar surface.

Its latest launch last week ferried a trio of astronauts to the Tiangong space station, heralding the start of the Shenzhou-20 mission.

They have taken over from Shenzhou-19 crew Cai Xuzhe, Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze, whose landing capsule touched down in the northern Inner Mongolia region on Wednesday.

Xinhua state news agency said the group were in “good health” shortly after touching back down on Earth.

Pictures from state broadcaster CCTV showed the capsule, attached to a red-and-white striped parachute, descending through an azure sky before hitting the ground in a cloud of brown desert dust.

Teams of officials in white and orange jumpsuits then rushed to open the golden craft, and one planted a fluttering national flag into the sandy soil nearby.

The Shenzhou-19 crew had worked on the space station since October, where they carried out experiments and set a new record for the longest ever spacewalk.

They were initially scheduled to return on Tuesday, but the mission was postponed due to bad weather at the landing site, according to Chinese authorities.

Wang, 35, was China’s only woman spaceflight engineer at the time of the launch, according to the Chinese Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

Commander Cai, a 48-year-old former air force pilot, previously served aboard Tiangong as part of the Shenzhou-14 mission in 2022.

Song, a 34-year-old onetime air force pilot, completed the group of spacefarers popularly dubbed “taikonauts” in China.

Last week, China saw off the Shenzhou-20 team in a feast of pomp and pageantry at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Base in the barren desert of northwestern Gansu province.

A military band and crowds of flag-waving well-wishers bade farewell to the crew before they blasted off on a Long March-2F rocket.

State media reported that they assumed control of the space station after a handover ceremony with its former occupants on Sunday.

The all-male Shenzhou-20 crew is headed by Chen Dong, 46, a former fighter pilot and veteran space explorer who in 2022 became the first Chinese astronaut to clock up more than 200 cumulative days in orbit.

The other two crew members — 40-year-old former air force pilot Chen Zhongrui, and 35-year-old former space technology engineer Wang Jie — are on their first space flight.

During their six-month stint, the crew will carry out experiments in physics and life sciences and install protective equipment against space debris.

For the first time, they will also bring aboard planarians, aquatic flatworms known for their regenerative abilities.

China’s space program is the third to put humans in orbit and has also landed robotic rovers on Mars and the Moon as it catches up with the two most established cosmic powers, the United States and Russia.

Tiangong — whose name means “celestial palace” in Chinese — is its tour de force.

China has never been involved in the International Space Station due to opposition from the United States.

Washington plans to return to the Moon in 2027, though the election of President Donald Trump brought uncertainty over the mission’s fate.

 


US to send ‘more weapons’ to Ukraine: Trump

US to send ‘more weapons’ to Ukraine: Trump
Updated 16 sec ago
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US to send ‘more weapons’ to Ukraine: Trump

US to send ‘more weapons’ to Ukraine: Trump
  • Ukraine is contending with some of Russia’s largest missile and drone attacks of the three-year war

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Monday the United States will send additional weapons to Ukraine, after the White House announced a halt to some arms shipments for Kyiv the previous week.

“We’re going to have to send more weapons — defensive weapons primarily,” Trump told journalists at the White House.

“They’re getting hit very, very hard,” he said of Ukraine, while saying he is “not happy” with President Vladimir Putin.

Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Russia’s smaller neighbor in 2022 and has shown little willingness to end the conflict despite pressure from Trump.

Ukraine is contending with some of Russia’s largest missile and drone attacks of the three-year war, and a halt to the provision of munitions posed a potentially serious challenge for Kyiv.

Under former president Joe Biden, Washington committed to providing more than $65 billion in military assistance to Ukraine.

But Trump — long skeptical of assistance for Ukraine — has not followed suit, announcing no new military aid packages for Kyiv since he took office in January of this year.


Netanyahu says has nominated Trump for Nobel Peace Prize

Netanyahu says has nominated Trump for Nobel Peace Prize
Updated 19 min 36 sec ago
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Netanyahu says has nominated Trump for Nobel Peace Prize

Netanyahu says has nominated Trump for Nobel Peace Prize

WASHINGTON: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he has nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, presenting the US president with a letter he sent to the prize committee.

“He’s forging peace as we speak, in one country, in one region after the other,” Netanyahu said at a dinner with Trump at the White House.

Trump has received multiple Nobel Peace Prize nominations from supporters and loyal lawmakers over the years, and has made no secret of his irritation at missing out on the prestigious award.

The Republican has complained that he had been overlooked by the Norwegian Nobel Committee for his mediating role in conflicts between India and Pakistan, as well as Serbia and Kosovo.

He has also demanded credit for “keeping peace” between Egypt and Ethiopia and brokering the Abraham Accords, a series of agreements aiming to normalize relations between Israel and several Arab nations.

Trump campaigned for office as a “peacemaker” who would use his negotiating skills to quickly end wars in Ukraine and Gaza, although both conflicts are still raging more than five months into his presidency.

 


Trump to put 25 percent tariffs on Japan and South Korea, new import taxes on 12 other nations.

Trump to put 25 percent tariffs on Japan and South Korea, new import taxes on 12 other nations.
Updated 58 min 36 sec ago
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Trump to put 25 percent tariffs on Japan and South Korea, new import taxes on 12 other nations.

Trump to put 25 percent tariffs on Japan and South Korea, new import taxes on 12 other nations.
  • Trump has also said on social media that countries aligned with the policy goals of BRICS, an organization composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the UAE, would face additional tariffs of 10 percent

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Monday set a 25 percent tax on goods imported from Japan and South Korea, as well as new tariff rates on a dozen other nations that would go into effect on Aug. 1.

Trump provided notice by posting letters on Truth Social that were addressed to the leaders of the various countries. The letters warned them to not retaliate by increasing their own import taxes, or else the Trump administration would further increase tariffs.

“If for any reason you decide to raise your Tariffs, then, whatever the number you choose to raise them by, will be added onto the 25 percent that we charge,” Trump wrote in the letters to Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung.

The letters were not the final word from Trump on tariffs, so much as another episode in a global economic drama in which he has placed himself at the center. His moves have raised fears that economic growth would slow to a trickle, if not make the US and other nations more vulnerable to a recession. But Trump is confident that tariffs are necessary to bring back domestic manufacturing and fund the tax cuts he signed into law last Friday.

He mixed his sense of aggression with a willingness to still negotiate, signaling the likelihood that the drama and uncertainty would continue and that few things are ever final with Trump.

Imports from Myanmar and Laos would be taxed at 40 percent, Cambodia and Thailand at 36 percent, Serbia and Bangladesh at 35 percent, Indonesia at 32 percent, South Africa and Bosnia and Herzegovina at 30 percent and Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Tunisia at 25 percent.

Trump placed the word “only” before revealing the rate in his letters to the foreign leaders, implying that he was being generous with his tariffs. But the letters generally followed a standard format, so much so that the one to Bosnia and Herzegovina initially addressed its woman leader, Željka Cvijanović, as “Mr. President.” Trump later posted a corrected letter.

Trade talks have yet to deliver several deals

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump was by setting the rates himself creating “tailor-made trade plans for each and every country on this planet and that’s what this administration continues to be focused on.”

Following a now well-worn pattern, Trump plans to continue sharing the letters sent to his counterparts on social media and then mail them the documents, a stark departure from the more formal practices of all his predecessors when negotiating trade agreements.

The letters are not agreed-to settlements but Trump’s own choice on rates, a sign that the closed-door talks with foreign delegations failed to produce satisfactory results for either side.

Wendy Cutler, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute who formerly worked in the office of the US Trade Representative, said the tariff hikes on Japan and South Korea were “unfortunate.”

“Both have been close partners on economic security matters and have a lot to offer the United States on priority matters like shipbuilding, semiconductors, critical minerals and energy cooperation,” Cutler said.

Trump still has outstanding differences on trade with the European Union and India, among other trading partners. Tougher talks with China are on a longer time horizon in which imports from that nation are being taxed at 55 percent.

The office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement that the tariff rates announced by Trump mischaracterized the trade relationship with the US, but it would “continue with its diplomatic efforts toward a more balanced and mutually beneficial trade relationship with the United States” after having proposed a trade framework on May 20.

Higher tariffs prompt market worries, more uncertainty ahead

The S&P 500 stock index was down 0.8 percent in Monday trading, while the interest charged on 10-year US Treasury notes had increased to nearly 4.39 percent, a figure that could translate into elevated rates for mortgages and auto loans.

Trump has declared an economic emergency to unilaterally impose the taxes, suggesting they are remedies for past trade deficits even though many US consumers have come to value autos, electronics and other goods from Japan and South Korea. The constitution grants Congress the power to levy tariffs under normal circumstances, though tariffs can also result from executive branch investigations regarding national security risks.

Trump’s ability to impose tariffs through an economic emergency is under legal challenge, with the administration appealing a May ruling by the US Court of International Trade that said the president exceeded his authority.

It’s unclear what he gains strategically against China — another stated reason for the tariffs — by challenging two crucial partners in Asia, Japan and South Korea, that could counter China’s economic heft.

“These tariffs may be modified, upward or downward, depending on our relationship with your Country,” Trump wrote in both letters.

Because the new tariff rates go into effect in roughly three weeks, Trump is setting up a period of possibly tempestuous talks among the US and its trade partners to reach new frameworks.

“I don’t see a huge escalation or a walk back — it’s just more of the same,” said Scott Lincicome, a vice president at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank

Trump initially roiled the financial markets by announcing tariff rates on dozens of countries, including 24 percent on Japan and 25 percent on South Korea. In order to calm the markets, Trump unveiled a 90-day negotiating period during which goods from most countries were taxed at a baseline 10 percent. So far, the rates in the letters sent by Trump either match his April 2 tariffs or are generally close to them.

The 90-day negotiating period technically ends on Wednesday, even as multiple administration officials suggested the three-week period before implementation is akin to overtime for additional talks that could change the rates. Trump plans to sign an executive order on Monday to delay the official tariff increases until Aug. 1, Leavitt said.

Congressionally approved Trade agreements historically have sometimes taken years to negotiate because of the complexity.

Administration officials have said Trump is relying on tariff revenues to help offset the tax cuts he signed into law on July 4, a move that could shift a greater share of the federal tax burden onto the middle class and poor as importers would likely pass along much of the cost of the tariffs. Trump has warned major retailers such as Walmart to simply “eat” the higher costs, instead of increasing prices in ways that could intensify inflation.

Josh Lipsky, chair of international economics at The Atlantic Council, said that a three-week delay in imposing the tariffs was unlikely sufficient for meaningful talks to take place.

“I take it as a signal that he is serious about most of these tariffs and it’s not all a negotiating posture,” Lipsky said.

Trade gaps persist, more tariff hikes are possible

Trump’s team promised 90 deals in 90 days, but his negotiations so far have produced only two trade frameworks.

His outline of a deal with Vietnam was clearly designed to box out China from routing its America-bound goods through that country, by doubling the 20 percent tariff charged on Vietnamese imports on anything traded transnationally.

The quotas in the signed United Kingdom framework would spare that nation from the higher tariff rates being charged on steel, aluminum and autos, though British goods would generally face a 10 percent tariff.

The United States ran a $69.4 billion trade imbalance in goods with Japan in 2024 and a $66 billion imbalance with South Korea, according to the Census Bureau. The trade deficits are the differences between what the US exports to a country relative to what it imports.

According to Trump’s letters, autos would be tariffed separately at the standard 25 percent worldwide, while steel and aluminum imports would be taxed on 50 percent.

This is not the first time that Trump has tangled with Japan and South Korea on trade — and the new tariffs suggest his past deals made during his first term failed to deliver on his administration’s own hype.

In 2018, during Trump’s first term, his administration celebrated a revamped trade agreement with South Korea as a major win. And in 2019, Trump signed a limited agreement with Japan on agricultural products and digital trade that at the time he called a “huge victory for America’s farmers, ranchers and growers.”

Trump has also said on social media that countries aligned with the policy goals of BRICS, an organization composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, would face additional tariffs of 10 percent.

 

 


UN adopts resolution on Afghanistan’s Taliban rule over US objections

UN adopts resolution on Afghanistan’s Taliban rule over US objections
Updated 08 July 2025
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UN adopts resolution on Afghanistan’s Taliban rule over US objections

UN adopts resolution on Afghanistan’s Taliban rule over US objections
  • Since returning to power in Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban have imposed harsh measures, banning women from public places and girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade

UNITED NATIONS: The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution Monday over US objections calling on Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to reverse their worsening oppression of women and girls and eliminate all terrorist organizations.

The 11-page resolution also emphasizes “the importance of creating opportunities for economic recovery, development and prosperity in Afghanistan,” and urges donors to address the country’s dire humanitarian and economic crisis.

The resolution is not legally binding but is seen as a reflection of world opinion. The vote was 116 in favor, with two — the United States and close ally Israel — opposed and 12 abstentions, including Russia, China, India and Iran.

Since returning to power in Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban have imposed harsh measures, banning women from public places and girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade. Last week, Russia became the first country to formally recognize the Taliban’s government.

Germany’s UN Ambassador Antje Leendertse, whose country sponsored the resolution, told the assembly before the vote that her country and many others remain gravely concerned about the dire human rights situation in Afghanistan, especially the Taliban’s “near-total erasure” of the rights of women and girls.

The core message of the resolution, she said, is to tell Afghan mothers holding sick and underfed children or mourning victims of terrorist attacks, as well as the millions of Afghan women and girls locked up at home, that they have not been forgotten.

US minister-counselor Jonathan Shrier was critical of the resolution, which he said rewards “the Taliban’s failure with more engagement and more resources.” He said the Trump administration doubts they will ever pursue policies “in accordance with the expectations of the international community.”

“For decades we shouldered the burden of supporting the Afghan people with time, money and, most important, American lives,” he said. “It is the time for the Taliban to step up. The United States will no longer enable their heinous behavior.”

Last month, the Trump administration banned Afghans hoping to resettle in the US permanently and those seeking to come temporarily, with exceptions.

The resolution expresses appreciation to governments hosting Afghan refugees, singling out the two countries that have taken the most: Iran and Pakistan. Shrier also objected to this, accusing Iran of executing Afghans “at an alarming rate without due process” and forcibly conscripting Afghans into its militias.

While the resolution notes improvements in Afghanistan’s overall security situation, it reiterates concern about attacks by Al-Qaeda and Daesh militants and their affiliates. It calls upon Afghanistan “to take active measures to tackle, dismantle and eliminate all terrorist organizations equally and without discrimination.”

The General Assembly also encouraged UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to appoint a coordinator to facilitate “a more coherent, coordinated and structured approach” to its international engagements on Afghanistan.


Epstein died by suicide, did not have ‘client list’: FBI and Justice Department say

Epstein died by suicide, did not have ‘client list’: FBI and Justice Department say
Updated 07 July 2025
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Epstein died by suicide, did not have ‘client list’: FBI and Justice Department say

Epstein died by suicide, did not have ‘client list’: FBI and Justice Department say
  • A joint memorandum by the FBI and Justice Department on Monday have debunked notable conspiracy theories about Epstein
  • The disgraced US financier died by suicide in a New York prison in 2019 after being charged with sex trafficking

WASHINGTON: Jeffrey Epstein was not murdered, did not blackmail prominent figures and did not keep a “client list,” the FBI and Justice Department said Monday, debunking notable conspiracy theories about the disgraced US financier.

The conclusions came after an “exhaustive review” of the evidence amassed against Epstein, who died by suicide in a New York prison in 2019 after being charged with sex trafficking, the agencies said in a joint memorandum.

Six years later, questions continue to swirl around Epstein’s life and death and the multi-millionaire hedge fund manager’s connections to wealthy and powerful individuals.

The memo, first reported by Axios, squarely rejected one of the leading conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein — that he did not commit suicide but was murdered while being held in jail.

“After a thorough investigation, FBI investigators concluded that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in his cell,” it said.

Video footage from the area where he was being held did not show anyone entering or attempting to enter his cell from the time at night when he was locked in till when his body was found the next morning, it said.

Extensive digital and physical searches turned up a large volume of images and videos of Epstein’s victims, many of them underage girls, the memo said.

“This review confirmed that Epstein harmed over one thousand victims,” it said, but did not reveal any illegal wrongdoing by “third-parties.”

“This systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list,’” the memo said. “There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.”

Epstein’s former assistant, Ghislaine Maxwell, is the only former associate of his who has been criminally charged in connection with his activities.

Maxwell, the daughter of British media baron Robert Maxwell, is serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted in New York in 2021 of child sex trafficking and other crimes.

Among those with connections to Epstein was Britain’s Prince Andrew, who settled a US civil case in February 2022 brought by Virginia Giuffre, who claimed he sexually assaulted her when she was 17.

Giuffre, who accused Epstein of using her as a sex slave, committed suicide at her home in Australia in April.

Billionaire Elon Musk accused President Donald Trump on X last month of being in the “Epstein files” after the pair had a falling out, but he later deleted his posts.

Trump was named in a trove of depositions and statements linked to Epstein that were unsealed by a New York judge in early 2024, but the president has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Supporters on the conspiratorial end of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base allege that Epstein’s associates had their roles in his crimes covered up by government officials and others.

They point the finger at Democrats and Hollywood celebrities, although not at Trump himself.

Prior to the release of the memo, Trump’s FBI director, Kash Patel, and the FBI’s deputy director, Dan Bongino, had been among the most prominent peddlers of conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein.