Hundreds of thousands at funeral mourn pope ‘with an open heart’

(1st ROW - L3 TO R) French President's wife Brigitte Macron, France's President Emmanuel Macron, Finland's President Alexander Stubb, US President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump, Estonia's President Alar Karis, Spain's King Felipe VI ans his wife Spain's Queen Letizia, (2nd ROW) Poland's President Andrzej Duda (C), Philippines' President Ferdinand Marcos Jr (R3) and his wife First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos (R2) observe the coffin of late Pope Francis during the funeral ceremony at St Peter's Square in The Vatican on April 26, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 26 April 2025
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Hundreds of thousands at funeral mourn pope ‘with an open heart’

  • Some waited overnight to get a seat in the vast square in front of St Peter's Basilica, with the Vatican reporting some 250,00 people attended
  • More than 50 heads of state were also present at the solemn ceremony, including Trump who met world leaders in a corner of the basilica beforehand

Vatican City: Hundreds of thousands of mourners and world leaders, including US President Donald Trump packed St. Peter’s Square on Saturday for the funeral of Pope Francis, “pope among the people” and the Catholic Church’s first Latin American leader.

Some waited overnight to get a seat in the vast square in front of St. Peter’s Basilica, with the Vatican reporting some 250,00 people attended, in an outpouring of support for the Argentine pontiff.

More than 50 heads of state were also present at the solemn ceremony, including Trump — who met several world leaders in a corner of the basilica beforehand, notably Ukraine’s Volodomyr Zelensky, in their first face-to-face since their Oval Office clash in February.

The crowds applauded as the pope’s coffin was carried out of the basilica by white gloved pallbearers, accompanied by more than 200 red-robed cardinals, and then again as it was taken back after the approximately two-hour mass.

Francis, who died on Monday aged 88, was “a pope among the people, with an open heart,” who strove for a more compassionate, open-minded Catholic Church, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said in his funeral homily.

There was applause again from the masses gathered under bright blue skies as he hailed the pope’s “conviction that the Church is a home for all, a home with its doors always open.”

Francis sought to steer the centuries-old Church into a more inclusive direction during his 12-year papacy, and his death prompted a global outpouring of emotion.

“I’m touched by how many people are here. It’s beautiful to see all these nationalities together,” said Jeremie Metais, 29, from Grenoble, France.

“It’s a bit like the center of the world today.”




Members of the clergy attend the funeral Mass of Pope Francis, at the Vatican, on April 26, 2025. (REUTERS)

Italian and Vatican authorities mounted a major security operation for the ceremony, with fighter jets on standby and snipers positioned on roofs surrounding the tiny city-state.

After the funeral, the pope’s simple wooden coffin was put onto a white popemobile for a slow drive through the streets of Rome to the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where he will be buried.

The funeral sets off the first of nine days of official Vatican mourning for Francis, who took over following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI in 2013.

After the mourning, cardinals will gather for the conclave to elect a new pope to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

Many of Francis’s reforms angered traditionalists, while his criticism of injustices, from the treatment of migrants to the damage wrought by global warming, riled many world leaders.

Yet the former archbishop of Buenos Aires’s compassion and charisma earned him global affection and respect.

“His gestures and exhortations in favor of refugees and displaced persons are countless,” Battista Re said.




The coffin of Pope Francis passes the Colosseum in Rome, on April 26, 2025. (AP)

He recalled the first trip of Francis’s papacy to Lampedusa, an Italian island that is often the first port of call for migrants crossing the Mediterranean, as well as when the Argentine celebrated mass on the border between Mexico and the US.

Trump’s administration drew the pontiff’s ire for its mass deportation of migrants, but the president has paid tribute to “a good man” who “loved the world.”

Making the first foreign trip of his second term, Trump sat among dozens of leaders from other countries — many of them keen to bend his ear over a trade war he unleashed, among other subjects.

The White House said Saturday that the president had a “very productive” meeting with Zelensky before the funeral, while a second meeting was planned after, the Ukrainian presidency said.

Kyiv published a photo of the encounter, the two men sitting face to face in red and gold chairs in the basilica, as well as another showing Zelensky huddled with Trump, Britain’s Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron.

In the homily, Battista Re highlighted Francis’s incessant calls for peace, and said he urged “reason and honest negotiation” in efforts to end conflicts raging around the world.

“’Build bridges, not walls’ was an exhortation he repeated many times,” the cardinal said.

Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden also attended the funeral, alongside UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, and Lebanon’s Joseph Aoun.

Israel — angered by Francis’s criticism of its conduct in Gaza — sent only its Holy See ambassador. China, which does not have formal relations with the Vatican, did not send any representative.

Italian mourners Francesco Morello, 58, said the homily about peace was a “fitting, strong and beautiful message.”

Of the world leaders gathered, Morello noted: “He could not bring them together in life but he managed in death.”




Pallbearers carry the coffin of Pope Francis inside the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major (Santa Maria Maggiore) during his funeral, in Rome, on Italy, April 26, 2025. (REUTERS)

Francis died of a stroke and heart failure less than a month after he left hospital where he had battled pneumonia for five weeks.

He loved nothing more than being among his flock, taking selfies with the faithful and kissing babies, and made it his mission to visit the peripheries, rather than mainstream centers of Catholicism.

His last public act, the day before his death, was an Easter Sunday blessing of the entire world, ending his papacy as he had begun it — with an appeal to protect the “vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants.”

The Jesuit chose to be named after Saint Francis of Assisi, saying he wanted “a poor Church for the poor,” and eschewed fine robes and the papal palace.

Instead, the Church’s 266th pope lived at a Vatican guesthouse and chose to be interred in his favorite Rome church — the first pontiff to be buried outside the Vatican walls in more than a century.

Catholics around the world held events to watch the proceedings live, including in Buenos Aires, where Francis was born Jorge Bergoglio in the poor neighborhood of Flores in 1936.

“The pope showed us that there was another way to live the faith,” said Lara Amado, 25, in the Argentine capital.




A man holds a rose outside the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major (Santa Maria Maggiore), on the day of the funeral of Pope Francis, in Rome, Italy, on April 26, 2025. (REUTERS)

Francis asked to be put inside a single wooden coffin to be laid in a simple marble tomb, marked only with the inscription “Franciscus,” his name in Latin.

Francis’s admirers credit him with transforming perceptions of the Church and helping revive the faith following decades of clerical sex abuse scandals.

He was considered a radical by some for allowing divorced and remarried believers to receive communion, approving the baptism of transgender believers and blessings for same-sex couples, and refusing to judge gay Catholics.

But he also stuck with some centuries-old dogma, notably holding firm on the Church’s opposition to abortion.

Francis strove for “a Church determined to take care of the problems of people and the great anxieties that tear the contemporary world apart,” Battista Re said.

“A Church capable of bending down to every person, regardless of their beliefs or condition, and healing their wounds.”


Netanyahu says has nominated Trump for Nobel Peace Prize

Updated 5 sec ago
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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.

Updated 39 min 5 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 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

Updated 08 July 2025
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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

Updated 07 July 2025
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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.


Lula says BRICS do not want ‘emperor’ after Trump threat

Updated 07 July 2025
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Lula says BRICS do not want ‘emperor’ after Trump threat

  • Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva: ‘We are sovereign nations. We don’t want an emperor’

RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazil’s president said Monday that emerging BRICS economies did not want to live under an “emperor,” after Donald Trump declared a 10 percent tariffs hike on members for their allegedly anti-American policies.
“We are sovereign nations,” Lula said as he ended a two day summit of 11 nations that include US allies and foes alike. “We don’t want an emperor.”