music

Witness tells jurors of coercive sex, transporting drugs for Combs

BY MAGGY DONALDSON

  • Jane told jurors Friday that she, assistants of Combs or the artist himself would book travel for the escorts, who would frequently be paid in thousands of dollars in cash or via apps.
  • An ex-girlfriend of Sean Combs testified Friday of sex with a network of paid male escorts at the music mogul's behest and that he asked her to transport drugs for him.
  • Jane told jurors Friday that she, assistants of Combs or the artist himself would book travel for the escorts, who would frequently be paid in thousands of dollars in cash or via apps.
An ex-girlfriend of Sean Combs testified Friday of sex with a network of paid male escorts at the music mogul's behest and that he asked her to transport drugs for him.
The woman speaking under the pseudonym Jane took the stand for a second day in the sex trafficking and racketeering trial, delivering emotional, graphic testimony in the trial of Combs, the 55-year-old superstar known as "Diddy."
He faces life in prison if convicted, and has denied all charges.
Jane told jurors Friday that she, assistants of Combs or the artist himself would book travel for the escorts, who would frequently be paid in thousands of dollars in cash or via apps.
The payment was in exchange for choreographed sexual encounters that would sometimes last days, which Jane described as "hotel nights" and which a previous star witness, Casandra Ventura, said were called "freak-offs."
Jane spoke through tears as she recounted one of several instances that she told Combs she did not like having sex with the escorts while he watched -- but that he was "dismissive" when she tried to protest.
Among the tranche of text exchanges between Jane and Combs was one message in which she described the pattern of hotel nights as a "Pandora's box" that she couldn't shut.
"I'm so much more than being loved in the dark in hotel rooms doing things that make me feel disgusted," she texted Combs. "I don't want to play this role in your life anymore."
"It's dark, sleazy and makes me feel disgusted with myself," she continued, saying that she felt he was paying her rent in exchange for the sex parties. 
"I don't want to feel obligated to perform these nights with you in fear of losing the roof over my head," Jane wrote.
"Girl stop," Combs wrote back.

Flying with drugs

Jane's testimony of paying for the travel of escorts is key to the prosecution's argument that Combs trafficked men and women across state lines with the intent of prostitution.
She also told jurors that she transported illegal drugs for Combs on two occasions.
When she expressed to a high-ranking staff member of Combs that it felt "unsafe" to fly with drugs from Los Angeles to Miami, the staffer replied that "it's fine" and "I do it all the time."
In their opening statements, the defense insisted that Combs's relationship with Jane was consensual.
But she described struggling to get through the hotel nights without the aid of drugs, recounting once instance when she attempted to have sex with multiple men for hours in front of Sean to the point that she threw up, saying she was "repulsed."
"Sean came in and I told him I had just thrown up and he was like, 'that's good then you'll feel better.'"
'"Let's go because the guy is here, the third guy,'" Jane said he told her.
Jane previously told jurors that her relationship with Combs continued up until his arrest in September 2024.
Prosecutors say he ran a criminal enterprise of employees and bodyguards who enforced his power and fulfilled his desires with illicit acts including trafficking, kidnapping, bribery and arson. 
Along with Ventura and Jane, witnesses have included former employees of Bad Boy Enterprises, Combs's company.
Jane's testimony could last days, with court proceedings expected to continue at least another month.
mdo/bgs

Trump

Trump scuppers idea of calling Musk after row, may ditch Tesla

BY DANNY KEMP

  • "The president does not intend to speak to Musk today," a senior White House official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
  • US President Donald Trump has no plans to speak to billionaire Elon Musk and may even ditch his red Tesla car, the White House said Friday after a stunning public divorce fraught with risk for both men.
  • "The president does not intend to speak to Musk today," a senior White House official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
US President Donald Trump has no plans to speak to billionaire Elon Musk and may even ditch his red Tesla car, the White House said Friday after a stunning public divorce fraught with risk for both men.
Trump's camp insisted that he wanted to move on from the row with the South African-born Musk, with officials telling AFP that the tech tycoon had requested a call but that the president was not interested.
The Republican instead intended to focus on getting the US Congress to pass his "big, beautiful" spending bill -- Musk's harsh criticisms of which had triggered the astonishing meltdown on Thursday.
Fallout from the blow up between the world's richest person and its most powerful could be significant, as Trump risks political damage and Musk faces the loss of huge US government contracts.
Trump phoned reporters at several US broadcast networks to insist that he was looking past the row. He called Musk "the man who has lost his mind" in a call to ABC and told CBS he was "totally" focused on the presidency.
The White House meanwhile squashed earlier reports that they would talk.
"The president does not intend to speak to Musk today," a senior White House official told AFP on condition of anonymity. A second official said it was "true" that Musk had requested a call. 

Tesla giveaway?

Tesla stocks tanked more than 14 percent on Thursday amid the row, losing some $100 billion of the company's market value, but recovering partly Friday.
Trump was considering either selling or giving away the cherry red Tesla S that he announced he had bought from Musk's firm at the height of their relationship. 
The electric vehicle was still parked on the White House grounds on Friday.
"He's thinking about it, yes," a senior White House official told AFP when asked if Trump would sell or give away the Tesla.
Trump and Musk had posed inside the car at a bizarre event in March, when the president turned the White House into a pop-up Tesla showroom after viral protests against Musk's role as head of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

'Expiration date'

The move came despite apparent efforts by Musk to de-escalate.
On Thursday, the SpaceX boss briefly threatened to scrap his company's Dragon spacecraft -- vital for ferrying NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station -- after Trump suggested he could end Musk's giant government contracts.
But later in the day, Musk sought to deescalate, writing on his X social media platform:  "OK, we won't decommission Dragon."
The tech magnate also kept a low profile early Friday.
But there is no clarity on how the two big egos will repair the relationship, which had already been fraying badly, causing tensions in the White House.
Trade Advisor Peter Navarro, whom Musk once called "dumber than a sack of bricks" in an argument over Trump's tariffs, refused to gloat but said the tycoon had an "expiration date."
"No, I'm not glad or whatever," he told reporters. "People come and go from the White House."
Vice President JD Vance also stuck by Trump amid the blazing row -- blasting what he called "lies" that his boss was "impulsive or short-tempered" -- but notably avoided criticizing Musk. 
The tensions burst into the open this week when Musk called Trump's flagship spending bill an "abomination" because it raises the US deficit. 
Then in a televised Oval Office diatribe on Thursday, Trump said he was "very disappointed" with Musk.
The pair traded insults for hours on social media, with Musk at one point suggesting impeachment of Trump and signalling interest in forming a new political party.
dk/sms

children

New push in Europe to curb children's social media use

BY RAZIYE AKKOC

  • It is currently investigating Meta's Facebook and Instagram, and TikTok under its mammoth content moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), fearing the platforms are failing to do enough to prevent children accessing harmful content.
  • From dangerous diet tips to disinformation, cyberbullying to hate speech, the glut of online content harmful to children grows every day.
  • It is currently investigating Meta's Facebook and Instagram, and TikTok under its mammoth content moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), fearing the platforms are failing to do enough to prevent children accessing harmful content.
From dangerous diet tips to disinformation, cyberbullying to hate speech, the glut of online content harmful to children grows every day. But several European countries have had enough and agree the EU should do more to prevent minors' access to social media.
The European Union already has some of the world's most stringent digital rules to rein in Big Tech, with multiple probes ongoing into how platforms protect children -- or fail to do so.
Backed by France and Spain, Greece spearheaded a proposal for how the EU should limit children's use of online platforms as a rising body of evidence shows the negative effects of social media on children's mental and physical health.
They discussed the plan Friday with EU counterparts in Luxembourg to push the idea of setting an age of digital adulthood across the 27-country bloc, meaning children would not be able to access social media without parental consent.
France, Greece and Denmark believe there should be a ban on social media for under-15s, while Spain has suggested a ban for under-16s.
Australia has banned social media for under-16s, taking effect later this year, while New Zealand and Norway are considering a similar prohibition.
After the day's talks in Luxembourg, it appeared there was no real appetite at this stage for an EU-wide ban on children under a specific age.
But Danish Digital Minister Caroline Stage Olsen indicated there would be no let-up. "It's going to be something we're pushing for," she said.
Top EU digital official Henna Virkkunen admitted specific age limits would be "challenging" for multiple reasons, including cultural differences in member states and how it would work in practice.
But the European Commission, the EU's digital watchdog, still intends to launch an age-verification app next month, insisting it can be done without disclosing personal details.

'Very big step'

The EU last month published non-binding draft guidelines for platforms to protect minors, to be finalised once a public consultation ends this month, including setting children's accounts to private by default, and making it easier to block and mute users.
French Digital Minister Clara Chappaz said it would be "a very big step" if the EU made platforms check the real age of their users, as theoretically required under current regulation.
The worry is that children as young as seven or eight can easily create an account on social media platforms despite a minimum age of 13, by giving a false date of birth.
"If we all agree as Europeans to say this needs to stop, there needs to be a proper age verification scheme, then it means that children below 13 won't be able to access the platform," Chappaz said.
France has led the way in cracking down on platforms, passing a 2023 law requiring them to obtain parental consent for users under the age of 15.
But the measure has not received the EU green light it needs to come into force.
France also gradually introduced requirements this year for all adult websites to have users confirm their age to prevent children accessing porn -- with three major platforms going dark this week in anger over the move.
TikTok, also under pressure from the French government, on Sunday banned the "#SkinnyTok" hashtag, part of a trend promoting extreme thinness on the platform.

In-built age verification

France, Greece and Spain expressed concern about the algorithmic design of digital platforms increasing children's exposure to addictive and harmful content -- with the risk of worsening anxiety, depression and self-esteem issues.
Their proposal -- also supported by Cyprus and Slovenia -- blames excessive screen time at a young age for hindering the development of minors' critical and relationship skills.
They demand "an EU-wide application that supports parental control mechanisms, allows for proper age verification and limits the use of certain applications by minors".
The goal would be for devices such as smartphones to have in-built age verification.
The EU is clamping down in other ways as well.
It is currently investigating Meta's Facebook and Instagram, and TikTok under its mammoth content moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), fearing the platforms are failing to do enough to prevent children accessing harmful content.
And last week, it launched an investigation into four pornographic platforms over suspicions they are failing to stop children accessing adult content.
raz/ec/rmb

diplomacy

Tensions spiral between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago

BY PRIOR BEHARRY WITH PATRICK FORT IN CARACAS

  • Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar warned of the risk of an incursion from the Venezuelan side and said she would consider using "deadly force" against unidentified Venezuelan vessels entering Trinidadian waters.
  • Venezuela on Friday suggested Trinidad and Tobago could be behind an alleged incursion of mercenaries onto its territory, ratcheting up a row with its neighbor, which has threatened "deadly force" against Venezuelan vessels.
  • Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar warned of the risk of an incursion from the Venezuelan side and said she would consider using "deadly force" against unidentified Venezuelan vessels entering Trinidadian waters.
Venezuela on Friday suggested Trinidad and Tobago could be behind an alleged incursion of mercenaries onto its territory, ratcheting up a row with its neighbor, which has threatened "deadly force" against Venezuelan vessels.
The small English-speaking archipelago of Trinidad and Tobago lies about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the Venezuelan coast.
Venezuela's foreign ministry made its accusation days after announcing the arrest of a Trinidadian "mercenary" who allegedly entered the country as part of a group carrying "weapons of war."
Trinidad and Tobago reacted angrily to the accusations which marked a sharp deterioration in usually cordial relations between the Caribbean neighbors.
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar warned of the risk of an incursion from the Venezuelan side and said she would consider using "deadly force" against unidentified Venezuelan vessels entering Trinidadian waters.
Venezuela's foreign ministry responded Friday by saying that her "virulent" rhetoric "raises serious suspicions of complicity" in the alleged mercenary plot.
Ties between two countries have until now weathered Venezuela's fallout with much of the international community, with the two countries collaborating on offshore oil exploration projects.
Persad-Bissessar has vowed to align her position on Venezuela with that of US President Donald Trump, who has partially banned travel to the United States from the South American country.
Venezuela's foreign ministry warned that her attitude "compromises the good relations" with Caracas.

Venezuelan migrants told to leave

The dispute began on Tuesday when Venezuela's left-wing authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro said a group had entered Venezuela from Trinidad and Tobago carrying weapons.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello later announced the arrest of a Trinidadian "mercenary," whom he accused of being part of a group of "terrorists."
The Venezuelan government regularly denounces imaginary or real plots to overthrow Maduro, whose re-election last year in polls marred by fraud has been widely discredited.
Persad-Bissessar rejected any Trinidadian involvement in the latest purported plot.
On Thursday, the former lawyer, who returned to power last month a decade after her first term as leader, called on Venezuelan migrants to leave her country.
The twin-island nation of 1.4 million people is battling a surge in violence, linked partly to the presence of gangs such as Venezuela's infamous Tren de Aragua, which Washington has designated a terrorist group.
A total of 623 murders were recorded last year -- up from 577 in 2023.
The US State Department ranks Trinidad and Tobago the sixth most dangerous nation in the world last year.
Persad-Bissessar has accused Venezuelan migrants of worsening insecurity.
"Crime involving Venezuelans continues to increase," she said on Thursday.
pb-pgf/cb/bgs

hajj

Muslim pilgrims 'stone the devil' as hajj nears end in Saudi Arabia

BY AYA ISKANDARANI

  • The end of the hajj coincides with the beginning of Eid al-Adha -- an annual feasting holiday marked by the slaughter of an animal -- typically a goat, sheep, cow, bull or camel. ds-aya/th/ysm
  • Huge crowds of pilgrims "stoned the devil" in the last major ritual of the hajj pilgrimage on Friday, as Muslims around the globe celebrated the beginning of the Eid al-Adha holiday.
  • The end of the hajj coincides with the beginning of Eid al-Adha -- an annual feasting holiday marked by the slaughter of an animal -- typically a goat, sheep, cow, bull or camel. ds-aya/th/ysm
Huge crowds of pilgrims "stoned the devil" in the last major ritual of the hajj pilgrimage on Friday, as Muslims around the globe celebrated the beginning of the Eid al-Adha holiday.
Starting before dawn, 1.6 million-plus pilgrims began throwing stones at three giant concrete walls symbolising the devil at the Jamarat complex, near the holy city of Mecca.
Despite the throngs, the annual pilgrimage has seen its lowest numbers in decades and a range of new precautions after 1,301 people died in extreme heat last year.
Temperatures hit 42 degrees Celsius (108 Fahrenheit) on Friday, still well below the high of 51.8C (125F) that caused major difficulties in 2024.
However, after three days of long treks in the summer sun, many pilgrims were clearly feeling the effects.
Walking back from the Jamarat, one Egyptian in a white veil told AFP: "I can't talk, the heat is killing me" as sweat trickled down her face. 
A Sudanese man in his fifties said he had walked 20km (12 miles) in the heat that day, adding: "I am happy but all the energy has left my body."

300,000 an hour

Droves of pilgrims, some in wheelchairs, set out from their accommodation in the sprawling tent city in Mina before day-break, taking advantage of the cool temperatures.
The ritual commemorates Abraham's stoning of the devil at the three spots where it is said Satan tried to dissuade him from obeying God's order to sacrifice his son.
Saudi officials have revamped Jamarat, building concrete walkways and bridges, after a 2015 stampede left 2,300 people dead, the hajj's worst tragedy.
The complex was operating at full capacity, handling up to 300,000 pilgrims an hour, the official Saudi Press Agency said.
"Our experience in Mina was easy and simple," said 34-year-old Wael Ahmed Abdel Kader, from Egypt, after carrying out the ritual at dawn. 
"We entered and within five minutes we had completed the stoning of the devil at the Jamarat."
Howakita, a pilgrim from Guinea, said: "When I threw the stones I felt at ease. I was truly proud."
A day earlier, pilgrims converged on Mount Arafat, praying and reciting Koranic verses at the 70-metre (230-foot) rocky rise where the Prophet Mohammed is believed to have given his last sermon.
Many climbed the mount despite the searing heat, though numbers had thinned by midday following official warnings for them to stay inside between 10:00 am and 4:00 pm.

Source of prestige

That was one of a number of measures to avoid over-exposure to the heat, including expanding shaded areas, providing thousands more medics and installing hundreds of cooling units.
Saudi officials also cracked down hard to prevent unauthorised pilgrims, who lack access to amenities such as air-conditioned tents and made up the bulk of the victims last year.
This hajj season has recorded the lowest number of pilgrims in over three decades, barring the years of Covid restrictions from 2020-2022.
Last year, 1.8 million Muslims took part, according to official figures.
Hajj permits are allocated to countries on a quota basis and distributed to individuals by a lottery system.
But even for those who can secure them, the high costs spur many to attempt the hajj without a permit, even though they risk arrest and deportation if caught.
Saudi Arabia earns billions of dollars a year from the hajj, and the lesser pilgrimage known as umrah, undertaken at other times of the year.
The pilgrimages are also a source of prestige and legitimacy for the Saudi monarch, who is known as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques of Mecca and Medina.
The end of the hajj coincides with the beginning of Eid al-Adha -- an annual feasting holiday marked by the slaughter of an animal -- typically a goat, sheep, cow, bull or camel.
ds-aya/th/ysm

Kashmir

India's Modi opens strategic railway in contested 'crown jewel' Kashmir

  • New Delhi calls the Chenab span the "world's highest railway arch bridge", sitting 359 metres (1,117 feet) above a river.
  • Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his first visit to Kashmir on Friday since a conflict with arch-rival Pakistan, opening a strategic railway line to the contested region he called "the crown jewel of India".
  • New Delhi calls the Chenab span the "world's highest railway arch bridge", sitting 359 metres (1,117 feet) above a river.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his first visit to Kashmir on Friday since a conflict with arch-rival Pakistan, opening a strategic railway line to the contested region he called "the crown jewel of India".
Modi launched a string of projects worth billions of dollars for the divided Muslim-majority territory, the centre of bitter rivalry between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947.
Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan fought a four-day conflict last month, their worst standoff since 1999, before a ceasefire was agreed on May 10.
"Pakistan will never forget... its shameful loss," the Hindu nationalist premier told crowds a month since India launched strikes on its neighbour after an attack on tourists in Kashmir.
"Friends, today's event is a grand festival of India's unity and firm resolve," Modi said after striding across the soaring bridge to formally launch it for rail traffic.
"This is a symbol and celebration of rising India," he said of the Chenab Bridge which connects two mountains.
New Delhi calls the Chenab span the "world's highest railway arch bridge", sitting 359 metres (1,117 feet) above a river.
While several road and pipeline bridges are higher, Guinness World Records confirmed that Chenab trumps the previous highest railway bridge, the Najiehe in China.

'Our troubles'

Modi said the railway was "an extraordinary feat of architecture" that "will improve connectivity" by providing the first rail link from the Indian plains up to mountainous Kashmir.
With 36 tunnels and 943 bridges, the new railway runs for 272 kilometres (169 miles) and connects Udhampur, Srinagar and Baramulla.
It is expected to halve the travel time between the town of Katra in the Hindu-majority Jammu region and Srinagar, the main city in Kashmir, to around three hours.
The new route will facilitate the movement of people and goods, as well as troops, that was previously possible only via treacherous mountain roads and by air.
Modi's Hindu nationalist government revoked Kashmir's limited autonomy and took the state under direct rule in 2019.
Pakistan's foreign ministry in a statement said India's "claims of development... ring hollow against the backdrop of an unprecedented military presence, suppression of fundamental freedoms, arbitrary arrests, and a concerted effort to alter the region's demography".
Around 150 people protested against the project on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
"We want to tell India that building bridges and laying roads in the name of development will not make the people of Kashmir give up their demand for freedom," said Azir Ahmad Ghazali, who organised the rally attended by Kashmiris who fled unrest on the Indian side in the 1990s.
"In clear and unequivocal terms, we want to say to the Indian government that the people of Kashmir have never accepted India's forced rule."
More than 70 people were killed in missile, drone and artillery fire during last month's conflict.
The fighting was triggered by an April 22 attack on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi accused Pakistan of backing, a charge denied by Islamabad.
Rebel groups in Indian-run Kashmir have waged an insurgency for 35 years demanding independence for the territory or its merger with Pakistan.
Modi also announced further government financial support for families whose relatives were killed, or whose homes were damaged, during the brief conflict --- mainly in shelling along the heavily militarised de facto border with Pakistan, known as the Line of Control.
"Their troubles are our troubles," Modi said.
bb/pjm/ecl/rsc

conflict

Israel warns of more Lebanon strikes if Hezbollah not disarmed

BY JONATHAN SAWAYA

  • Lebanon's leaders accused Israel of a "flagrant" ceasefire violation by launching strikes ahead of the holiday.
  • Israel warned Friday that it would keep striking Lebanon until militant group Hezbollah has been disarmed, hours after hitting south Beirut in what Lebanese leaders called a major violation of a November ceasefire.
  • Lebanon's leaders accused Israel of a "flagrant" ceasefire violation by launching strikes ahead of the holiday.
Israel warned Friday that it would keep striking Lebanon until militant group Hezbollah has been disarmed, hours after hitting south Beirut in what Lebanese leaders called a major violation of a November ceasefire.
Thursday's attacks on what the Israeli military said were underground Hezbollah drone factories came after an Israeli evacuation call on the eve of Eid al-Adha, a key Muslim religious festival, and sent huge numbers of residents of Beirut's southern suburbs fleeing.
It was the fourth and heaviest Israeli bombardment of the heavily populated area, known as a bastion of support for Hezbollah, in the six months since a ceasefire deal aimed at ending hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel. The last attack was in late April.
"There will be no calm in Beirut, and no order or stability in Lebanon, without security for the State of Israel," Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
"Agreements must be honoured and if you do not do what is required, we will continue to act, and with great force."
The state-run National News Agency reported around a dozen strikes, while Health Minister Rakan Nassereldine said several people were wounded by flying glass.
AFP photographers on Friday saw huge destruction as residents, some wearing masks, inspected the still-smouldering debris and damage to their homes.
A Hezbollah statement said a preliminary assessment showed nine buildings were completely destroyed and dozens of others damaged. 
A woman in her 40s who lives near one of the strike sites said she fled on foot with her young children including a three-month-old baby.
"Thank God" the building was not destroyed, she told AFP after returning Friday morning to find the windows of her flat shattered.

'Blatant act'

Fatima, 40, another south Beirut resident, said she and her family were continuing with their usual Eid traditions on Friday. 
"Life goes on," she said, adding that she and her children, aged seven and nine, only returned home in the early hours after fleeing.
Hezbollah sparked months of deadly hostilities by launching cross-border attacks on northern Israel in stated solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas following its October 7, 2023 attack.
Lebanon's leaders accused Israel of a "flagrant" ceasefire violation by launching strikes ahead of the holiday.
President Joseph Aoun late on Thursday voiced "firm condemnation of the Israeli aggression" and "flagrant violation of an international accord... on the eve of a sacred religious festival".
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam condemned the strikes as a violation of Lebanese sovereignty.
Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Ammar on Friday urged "all Lebanese political forces... to translate their statements of condemnation into concrete action", including diplomatic pressure, to halt the Israeli attacks.
Hezbollah backer Iran called the strikes "a blatant act of aggression against Lebanon's territorial integrity and sovereignty", foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said.
The war left Hezbollah massively weakened, with top commanders including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah killed and weapons caches incinerated.
Under the ceasefire, overseen by a monitoring committee whose members include the United States and France, Lebanon should disarm Hezbollah, once reputed to be more heavily armed than the state.
A Lebanese military official told AFP the committee received no warning before the Israeli evacuation order.
The Lebanese army "attempted to go to one of the sites... but Israeli warning shots prevented it from carrying out its mission", the official said, requesting anonymity.

'Refusal to cooperate'

Lebanon's army said the Israeli military's ongoing violations and "refusal to cooperate" with the ceasefire monitoring mechanism "could prompt the (Lebanese) military to freeze cooperation" on site inspections.
The Israeli military had said Hezbollah was "operating to increase production of UAVs (drones) for the next war", calling the activities "a blatant violation" of the truce understandings.
Under the ceasefire, Hezbollah fighters were to withdraw north of the Litani river, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure there.
Israel was to withdraw troops from Lebanon but has kept them in five areas it deems "strategic" and has continued to launch regular strikes on south Lebanon.
The Lebanese army has been deploying in the south and removing Hezbollah infrastructure, with Salam saying Thursday it had dismantled "more than 500 military positions and arms depots" in the area.
Israel's military also issued an evacuation warning for the southern village of Ain Qana. It then struck a building there that it alleged was a Hezbollah base, according to the NNA.
bur-ser/lg/dcp

music

Black Sabbath's hometown gig to be streamed worldwide

  • "With the concert ... selling out in under 16 minutes, those who missed out on being there in person can immerse themselves in what is set to be the greatest heavy metal show ever," the band said Friday.
  • Ozzy Osbourne's final ever gig as Black Sabbath's frontman will be streamed worldwide after fans snapped up tickets for the hometown show, starring the original line-up, in just 16 minutes, the band said Friday.
  • "With the concert ... selling out in under 16 minutes, those who missed out on being there in person can immerse themselves in what is set to be the greatest heavy metal show ever," the band said Friday.
Ozzy Osbourne's final ever gig as Black Sabbath's frontman will be streamed worldwide after fans snapped up tickets for the hometown show, starring the original line-up, in just 16 minutes, the band said Friday.
Osbourne, who revealed in 2020 that he has Parkinson's disease, will join Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward for the all-day "Back To The Beginning" show in Birmingham, central England, where the heavy metal giants formed in 1968.
The July 5 gig at Aston Villa Football Club's Villa Park stadium will also feature sets by US rockers Metallica, Guns N'Roses, Tool and Slayer among others, as well as a short solo set by Osbourne.
It will be the original line-up's first show together in 20 years and Osbourne's swansong.
"With the concert ... selling out in under 16 minutes, those who missed out on being there in person can immerse themselves in what is set to be the greatest heavy metal show ever," the band said Friday.
Fans were able to buy live-stream tickets from 3:00 pm (1400 GMT) on Friday for £24.99 (about 30 euros), allowing them to watch the concert live, although with a two-hour delay from the start in the arena, and continue to view it for another 48 hours.
"We had such an overwhelming demand from fans from around the globe, who couldn't get tickets to the show, and they took to social media, pleading with us to broadcast a live-stream of the show," said Osbourne's wife Sharon.
"Being this is such a historic event, we just couldn't let them down." 
Black Sabbath have sold over 75 million albums worldwide and are widely recognised as one of the pioneers of heavy metal music.
All profits from the show will go to charities including Cure Parkinson's and Birmingham Children's Hospital.
Osbourne's diagnosis led to him pausing touring. But Sharon told the BBC the Villa Park gig would be his last. "This is his full stop," she was quoted as saying.
jwp/jkb/giv

accident

Indian police detain four after deadly cricket stampede

  • The deaths have sparked widespread anger, and top police officers including the city's police commissioner have been suspended.
  • Indian police Friday detained four people including a senior executive at Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after 11 fans were crushed to death during celebrations for the team's first IPL title.
  • The deaths have sparked widespread anger, and top police officers including the city's police commissioner have been suspended.
Indian police Friday detained four people including a senior executive at Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after 11 fans were crushed to death during celebrations for the team's first IPL title.
Hundreds of thousands packed the streets in the southern city of Bengaluru on Wednesday to welcome home their hero Virat Kohli and his RCB cricket team after they beat Punjab Kings in the final of the Indian Premier League.
But the euphoria of the vast crowds ended in disaster with a stampede near M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, where the players were parading the trophy.
Karnataka state's Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said Friday he had directed police to arrest the representatives of RCB, event organisers DNA, and Karnataka State Cricket Association.
Police brought Nikhil Sosale, a senior RCB official, and three other representatives of DNA before a judge in Bengaluru, an AFP journalist saw.
All four were later arrested and sent to 14-day judicial custody, broadcaster NDTV reported. 
Siddaramaiah had earlier said a first information report, which marks the start of a police investigation, had been "registered against them".
The deaths have sparked widespread anger, and top police officers including the city's police commissioner have been suspended.
Local media reported that the accusations include culpable homicide, not amounting to murder, among others.
There was no immediate comment from RCB.

'Made to pay'

Siddaramaiah, who only uses one name, also pointed the finger at some senior police.
"These officers appear to be irresponsible and negligent and it has been decided to suspend them," he said.
The dead were aged between 14 and 29, and were among a sea of people who had poured onto the streets to catch a glimpse of their heroes.
RCB offered financial aid of $11,655 to each family of the victims, calling the deaths "unfortunate".
Indian media have widely reported the team earned $2.3 million in prize money alone for taking the title.
Kohli, who top-scored in the final, said he was "at a loss for words" after the celebrations of a first IPL crown turned to tragedy. 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the accident "absolutely heartrending". 
Siddaramaiah has said that the stadium had a capacity of 35,000 people "but 200,000-300,000 people came".
Deadly crowd incidents are a frequent occurrence at Indian mass events, such as religious festivals, due to poor crowd management and safety lapses.
"The grim truth is that the fan, who drives the commerce of every sport, is the last priority for administrators," The Hindu newspaper wrote in its editorial on Friday. 
"Asphyxia was the primary cause of death besides injuries suffered in the stifling rush," it added. 
The pioneering IPL sold its broadcast rights in 2022 for five seasons to global media giants for an eye-popping $6.2 billion, putting it up amongst the highest-ranked sport leagues in cost-per-match terms.
"The world's richest cricket tournament can't cut corners when it comes to fans' safety," the Indian Express newspaper wrote in an editorial. 
"A fitting tribute to those dead, therefore, is not mere signing a cheque but holding those in charge responsible -- ensuring that heads roll, and those who dropped the ball Wednesday are made to pay."
ash-pzb/pjm/rsc

election

Bangladesh's Yunus announces elections in April 2026

BY SHEIKH SABIHA ALAM

  • The interim government had already repeatedly vowed to hold elections before June 2026, but said the more time it had to enact reforms, the better.
  • Bangladesh will hold elections in early April 2026 for the first time since a mass uprising overthrew the government last year, interim leader Muhammad Yunus said Friday.
  • The interim government had already repeatedly vowed to hold elections before June 2026, but said the more time it had to enact reforms, the better.
Bangladesh will hold elections in early April 2026 for the first time since a mass uprising overthrew the government last year, interim leader Muhammad Yunus said Friday.
The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since former prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted by a student-led revolt in August 2024, ending her iron-fisted rule of 15 years.
"I am announcing to the citizens of the country that the election will be held on any day in the first half of April 2026," said Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who leads the caretaker government.
Political parties jostling for power have been repeatedly demanding Yunus fix an election timetable, while he has said time is needed as the country requires an overhaul of its democratic institutions after Hasina's tenure.
"The government has been doing everything necessary to create an environment conducive to holding the election," he added in the television broadcast, while repeating his warning that reforms were needed.
"It should be remembered that Bangladesh has plunged into deep crisis every time it has held a flawed election," he said, in a speech given on the eve of the Eid al-Adha holiday in the Muslim-majority nation.
"A political party usurped power through such elections in the past, and became a barbaric fascist force."
Hasina's rule saw widespread human rights abuses, and her government was accused of politicising courts and the civil service, as well as staging lopsided elections.
The interim government had already repeatedly vowed to hold elections before June 2026, but said the more time it had to enact reforms, the better.

Reform of 'utmost importance'

The key Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), seen as the election frontrunner, has in recent weeks been pushing hard for polls to be held by December.
Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman, in a speech to officers in May, also said that elections should be held by December, according to both Bangladeshi media and military sources.
Days after that speech, the government warned that political power struggles risked jeopardising gains that have been made.
"Those who organise such elections are later viewed as culprits, and those who assume office through them become targets of public hatred," Yunus said on Friday.
"One of the biggest responsibilities of this government is to ensure a transparent... and widely participatory election so that the country does not fall into a new phase of crisis," he added. 
"That is why institutional reform is of utmost importance."
Up to 1,400 people were killed between July and August 2024 after Hasina's government launched a crackdown in a bid to cling to power, according to the United Nations.
Hasina, 77, fled by helicopter to her old ally India and she has defied an extradition order to return to Dhaka.
Her trial opened in absentia this month.
Yunus said "reforms, trials, and elections" were the three "core mandates" of his government. 
"The sacrifices made by our students and people will be in vain if good governance cannot be established," he said. 
The Election Commission will "present a detailed roadmap" for the vote "at an appropriate time", the interim leader said without specifying a date.
"We have been in dialogue with all stakeholders to organise the most free, fair, competitive, and credible election in the history of Bangladesh," Yunus added.
sa/pjm/rsc

conflict

France opens 'complicity in genocide' probes over blocked Gaza aid

BY JULIA PAVESI, GUILLAUME DAUDIN AND ALICE HACKMAN

  • The two investigations, opened after legal complaints, were also to look into possible "complicity in crimes against humanity" between January and May 2024, the anti-terror prosecutor's office (PNAT) said. 
  • French anti-terror prosecutors have opened probes into "complicity in genocide" and "incitement to genocide" after French-Israelis allegedly blocked aid intended for war-torn Gaza last year, they said on Friday.
  • The two investigations, opened after legal complaints, were also to look into possible "complicity in crimes against humanity" between January and May 2024, the anti-terror prosecutor's office (PNAT) said. 
French anti-terror prosecutors have opened probes into "complicity in genocide" and "incitement to genocide" after French-Israelis allegedly blocked aid intended for war-torn Gaza last year, they said on Friday.
The two investigations, opened after legal complaints, were also to look into possible "complicity in crimes against humanity" between January and May 2024, the anti-terror prosecutor's office (PNAT) said. 
They are the first known probes in France to be looking into alleged violations of international law in Gaza, several sources with knowledge of the cases told AFP.
In a separate case made public on the same day, the grandmother of two children with French nationality who were killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza has filed a legal complaint in Paris, accusing Israel of "genocide" and "murder", her lawyer said.
The French judiciary has jurisdiction when French citizens are involved in such cases.
Rights groups, lawyers and some Israeli historians have described the Gaza war as "genocide".
Israel, created in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust of Jews during World War II, vehemently rejects the accusation.
The French probes were opened after two separate legal complaints.
In the first, the Jewish French Union for Peace (UFJP) and a French-Palestinian victim filed a complaint in November targeting alleged French members of hardline pro-Israel groups "Israel is forever" and "Tzav-9".
It accused them of "physically" preventing the passage of trucks at border checkpoints controlled by the Israeli army.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs, Damia Taharraoui and Marion Lafouge, told AFP they were happy a probe had been launched into the events in January 2024 -- "a time when no-one wanted to hear anything about genocide".
A source close to the case said prosecutors last month urged the investigation in relation to events at the Nitzana crossing point between Egypt and Israel, and the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel into Gaza. 
Around that time, hardline Israeli protesters -- including friends and relatives of hostages held in Gaza -- blocked aid lorries from entering the occupied Palestinian territory and forced them to turn back at Kerem Shalom.
A second complaint from a group called the Lawyers for Justice in the Middle East (CAPJO) accused members of "Israel is forever" of having blocked aid trucks.
It used photos, videos and public statements to back up its complaint.

'Genocide' complaint

No court has so far concluded that the ongoing conflict is a genocide.
But in rulings in January, March and May 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations' highest judicial organ, told Israel to do everything possible to "prevent" acts of genocide during its military operations in Gaza, including through allowing in urgently needed aid.
In the separate case, Jacqueline Rivault, the grandmother of six- and nine-year-old children killed in an Israeli strike, filed her complaint accusing Israel of "genocide" and "murder" with the crimes against humanity section of the Court of Paris, lawyer Arie Alimi said.
Though formally against unnamed parties, the complaint explicitly targets Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli government and the military.
The complaint states that an Israeli missile strike killed Janna, six, and Abderrahim Abudaher, nine, in northern Gaza on October 24, 2023.
"We believe these children are dead as part of a deliberate organised policy targeting the whole of Gaza's population with a possible genocidal intent," Alimi said.
The children's brother Omar, now five, was severely wounded but still lives in Gaza with their mother, identified as Yasmine Z., the complaint said.
A French court in 2019 convicted Yasmine Z. in absentia of having funded a "terrorist" group over giving money in Gaza to members of Palestinian militant groups Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

Famine warnings

Israel said last month it was easing the complete blockade of Gaza it imposed on March 2 but on May 30 the United Nations said the territory's entire population of more than two million people remained at risk of famine.
A US-backed aid group last week began distributions but reports that the Israeli military shot dead dozens of Palestinians trying to collect food has sparked widespread condemnation. The UN and major aid organisations have refused to cooperate with the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund, citing concerns that it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.
Hamas fighters launched an attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. A total of 1,218 people died, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
The militants abducted 251 hostages, 55 of whom remain in Gaza, including 32 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel's retaliatory war on Hamas-run Gaza has killed 54,677 people, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry there, figures the United Nations deems reliable.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
It also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif over similar allegations linked to the October 7 attack but the case against him was dropped in February after confirmation Israel had killed him.
jpa-gd-ah/sjw/gil

politics

Hong Kong charges jailed activist for 'collusion with foreign forces'

  • Wong was accused on Friday of asking foreign countries or individuals and institutions to "impose sanctions or blockade, or engage in other hostile activities" against Hong Kong and China, according to a charge sheet seen by AFP.  It said Wong, the self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others also requested that foreign entities "seriously disrupt the formulation and implementation of laws or policies" in Hong Kong and China. 
  • Hong Kong charged prominent activist Joshua Wong again under the city's Beijing-imposed national security law on Friday, accusing him of collusion with foreign forces in a move slammed by rights groups.
  • Wong was accused on Friday of asking foreign countries or individuals and institutions to "impose sanctions or blockade, or engage in other hostile activities" against Hong Kong and China, according to a charge sheet seen by AFP.  It said Wong, the self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others also requested that foreign entities "seriously disrupt the formulation and implementation of laws or policies" in Hong Kong and China. 
Hong Kong charged prominent activist Joshua Wong again under the city's Beijing-imposed national security law on Friday, accusing him of collusion with foreign forces in a move slammed by rights groups.
Wong, who is already serving a prison sentence for subversion, is one of the most recognisable faces of Hong Kong's now-quashed democracy movement.
The 28-year-old became a household name during student-led protests more than a decade ago and was also involved in the huge and sometimes violent democracy rallies in 2019 that triggered the imposition of the national security law the following year.
Wong was accused on Friday of asking foreign countries or individuals and institutions to "impose sanctions or blockade, or engage in other hostile activities" against Hong Kong and China, according to a charge sheet seen by AFP. 
It said Wong, the self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others also requested that foreign entities "seriously disrupt the formulation and implementation of laws or policies" in Hong Kong and China. 
These actions in 2020 were likely to cause "serious consequences", the charge sheet said.
The charge can carry a sentence of up to life imprisonment. 
Rights groups said the move was a deliberate attempt to keep Wong behind bars as long as possible.
Human Rights Watch called the decision to charge Wong "arbitrary, cruel, and outrageous" and urged governments around the world to push for his release.
Amnesty International also criticised the new charge.
"Hong Kong's National Security Law is turning five years old at the end of the month, and these new charges against Joshua Wong show that its capacity to be used by the Hong Kong authorities to threaten human rights in the city is as potent and present as ever," Amnesty International's China Director Sarah Brooks said. 
China and Hong Kong say the law was needed to curb political unrest, while critics say it has crushed once-vibrant civil society as well as political opposition in the financial hub.
Wong appeared in court but did not speak except to acknowledge the charge, local media reports said. 
Law declined to comment when reached by AFP. 
The case was adjourned until August 8. 
twa/reb/pbt

Global Edition

Funny old world: the week's offbeat news

  • Eye-catching CGI that channelled hit TV show "Squid Game" also included the pair battling to unblock a WC with a toilet brush.
  • From the Earth trembling as two of its biggest alpha males fall out to Korean leaders doing battle with toilet brushes, your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.
  • Eye-catching CGI that channelled hit TV show "Squid Game" also included the pair battling to unblock a WC with a toilet brush.
From the Earth trembling as two of its biggest alpha males fall out to Korean leaders doing battle with toilet brushes, your weekly roundup of offbeat stories from around the world.

 'Sad, so sad'

It has been a bruising week for the world's richest man and his former friend, the world's most powerful one.
First Elon Musk turned up in the Oval Office with a black eye he said he got from "horsing around with lil' X" -- his five-year-old son whose full name is X Æ A-Xii.
"I said, 'Go ahead punch me in the face,'" and the boy duly obliged, the 53-year-old tech billionaire told reporters when asked how he got the shiner as President Donald Trump thanked his "friend" for his "great work" for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Six days later the two were at each other's throats, with Musk saying that the president should be impeached, that "without me Trump would have lost the election", and mocking the US leader's connections to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, saying the president is "in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public."
Trump took time out from welcoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to the White House -- telling him D-Day "was not a pleasant day for you" -- to hit back hard.
"I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot," he said, before taking to his own social network to call Musk "crazy", saying that he had sacked him and that he could save "billions and billions" by cancelling Musk's government contracts and subsidies.
The falling out -- sparked by Musk criticising Trump's "big, beautiful" spending bill as an "abomination" -- sent markets into a spin with Musk's Tesla electric car marker losing $100 billion in share value in a few hours.
Trump, however, appears to have made a new friend from the spat, Ashley St Clair, the mother of Musk's 14th child, who is suing him for child support.
"Let me know if u need any breakup advice," said the rightwing writer, reaching out to the president on her ex's X social network.

Trust the Dutch

With friends falling out, the world needs love -- though possibly not of the kind depicted on an early prophylactic which has gone on display in the venerable Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
The 19th-century condom made from a sheep's appendix is adorned with an erotic scene involving a nun and three gentlemen of the cloth displaying parts of their person better kept under their cassocks.
The very rare printed piece from around 1830 "embodies both the lighter and darker sides of sexual health", said the museum, whose curators believe it was a souvenir from a brothel.

Lavatorial politics

To South Korea, where broadcasters outdid themselves on election night with wacky graphics to illustrate the battle for votes between the liberal challenger Lee Jae-myung and conservative Kim Moon-soo.
Eye-catching CGI that channelled hit TV show "Squid Game" also included the pair battling to unblock a WC with a toilet brush. In the end it was Lee who mounted the throne after winning a thumping election victory.
"Can we go this far with people who might become the president?" wondered journalist Son Hyoung-an from broadcaster SBS, which is famous for its cheeky graphics. 
Too late now...
burs-fg/jxb

tech

Musk 'very welcome' in Europe after Trump bust-up, official says

  • At the commission's daily briefing, spokesperson Paula Pinho was asked whether Musk had reached out to the European Union with a view to relocating his businesses, or setting up new ones.
  • Elon Musk is "very welcome" in Europe, a spokesperson for the European Commission quipped Friday, following the tech billionaire's spectacular public falling-out with US President Donald Trump.
  • At the commission's daily briefing, spokesperson Paula Pinho was asked whether Musk had reached out to the European Union with a view to relocating his businesses, or setting up new ones.
Elon Musk is "very welcome" in Europe, a spokesperson for the European Commission quipped Friday, following the tech billionaire's spectacular public falling-out with US President Donald Trump.
The Trump-Musk political marriage blew up on Thursday as the president declared himself "very disappointed" in criticisms from his former aide and top donor -- before the pair hurled insults at each other on social media.
At the commission's daily briefing, spokesperson Paula Pinho was asked whether Musk had reached out to the European Union with a view to relocating his businesses, or setting up new ones.
"He's very welcome," she replied with a smile.
The commission's spokesperson for tech matters, Thomas Regnier, followed up by stressing -- straight-faced -- that "everyone is very welcome indeed to start and to scale in the EU".
"That is precisely the objective of Choose Europe," he said, referencing an EU initiative in favour of start-ups and expanding businesses.
Musk has been a frequent critic of the 27-nation EU -- attacking its digital laws as censorship and berating its leaders, while cheering on the ascendant far-right in Germany and elsewhere.
The tycoon's row with Trump saw the president threaten to strip him of government contracts estimated at $18 billion -- with Musk vowing in response to end a critical US spaceship programme.
Explaining the rift, Trump said Musk had gone "crazy" about a plan to end electric vehicle subsidies in the new US spending bill -- as the bust-up sent shares in Musk's Tesla car company plunging.
adc/ec/del/jxb

Britain

Slain UK journalist's book on saving the Amazon published

BY PABLO SAN ROMAN

  • Phillips, who had taken a break from journalism to write his book, was seeking to raise the alarm about the environmental damage and illegal activities plaguing the region.
  • Three years after UK journalist Dom Phillips was murdered, his widow and colleagues have published the book he was working on to expose illegal destruction of the Amazon and seek solutions to save the rainforest.
  • Phillips, who had taken a break from journalism to write his book, was seeking to raise the alarm about the environmental damage and illegal activities plaguing the region.
Three years after UK journalist Dom Phillips was murdered, his widow and colleagues have published the book he was working on to expose illegal destruction of the Amazon and seek solutions to save the rainforest.
"I think of him every day," his widow, Alessandra Sampaio, told AFP of her husband, who was shot dead in the Amazon on June 5, 2022 along with Indigenous-rights activist Bruno Pereira.
She was in London for the global launch of "How to Save the Amazon", which Phillips, a freelancer for The Guardian and the Washington Post, was researching when he was killed.
The double murders triggered an international outcry and drew attention to the lawlessness fuelling the destruction of the world's biggest rainforest.
Brazilian federal police have concluded the men were killed because of Pereira's monitoring of poaching and other illegal activities in a remote reach of the Amazon.
Three years to the day after the murders, a prosecutor from Amazonas state indicted the suspected mastermind, the state prosecutor's office said in a statement Thursday. So far, several suspects have been charged in the killings.
Phillips, who had taken a break from journalism to write his book, was seeking to raise the alarm about the environmental damage and illegal activities plaguing the region.
"He died trying to show the world the importance of the Amazon," said Sampaio.
Pereira was a former senior official with Brazil's Indigenous affairs agency, and disappeared along with Phillips as they travelled through a remote Indigenous reserve, close to the borders of Colombia and Peru.
Their hacked-up bodies were found and identified days later, after an alleged accomplice confessed to burying them.
Phillips, 57, was shot in the chest, while Pereira, 41, sustained three gunshot wounds, one of them to the head.
They were killed in the northwestern Javari Valley, where drug traffickers, illegal fishermen and hunters, and gold miners operate.
"It was his second-to-last trip. One more was left, and he would have finished the book," said Sampaio, adding Phillips had already written the first four chapters.

'Dom's book'

After his death, his widow spent months collecting his extensive writings, journals and reams of notes.
"He had two or three notebooks from each trip, with dates, places, explaining everything," she said. But she confessed that at times she had to stop as she got "too emotional".
Each new chapter has been written by a group of six journalists and writers: Britons Jonathan Watts and Tom Phillips; Americans Andrew Fishman, Stuart Grudgings, and Jon Lee Anderson; and Brazilian Eliane Brum.
The book is "dedicated to everyone fighting to protect the rainforest".
They all travelled to the region, and interviewed new people following Phillips's trail in a bid to faithfully complete his manuscript.
The afterword has been written by Beto Marubo, a leader of the Indigenous Marubo people, with Amazonian activist and writer Helena Palmquist.
Sampaio, who lives in Brazil's northeastern Salvador da Bahia region, paid tribute to the "loyal friends" who helped complete the book, which she says is also a tribute to activist Pereira.
"There's no way to separate Dom and Bruno. They're there together. It's a message for everyone to understand the importance of the Amazon and its people," she said.
Watts, global environment writer with The Guardian, said: "It's more than a tribute to Dom, it is Dom's book."
"In this process, I'm always imagining what would Dom think, but it's my imagination," he added.
"I'm sad that Dom is not here to see it, but I'm very happy that we are here."
The murders threw a spotlight on a long-threatened corner of the planet, and stoked criticism of the policies of Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro, accused of encouraging the plundering of the rainforest.
The book, launched simultaneously in Britain, Brazil and the United States, ends with a plea from Marubo for more people like Phillips and Pereira, who he says wanted to "truly help" save the Amazon.
"They were brave and they acted. If everyone did the same we might begin to see change," Marubo writes.
psr/jkb/jwp/jhb

Trump

Trump and Musk alliance melts down in blazing public row

BY DANNY KEMP

  • Trump finally suggested hitting the "crazy" entrepreneur where it hurts, threatening Musk's multibillion-dollar government contracts including for launching rockets and for the use of the Starlink satellite service.
  • Americans considered the consequences Friday of the spectacular split between Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump, who threatened to strip the world's richest man of his huge government contracts.
  • Trump finally suggested hitting the "crazy" entrepreneur where it hurts, threatening Musk's multibillion-dollar government contracts including for launching rockets and for the use of the Starlink satellite service.
Americans considered the consequences Friday of the spectacular split between Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump, who threatened to strip the world's richest man of his huge government contracts.
Trump and Musk's unlikely political marriage exploded in a fiery public divorce Thursday.
The president said in a televised Oval Office diatribe that he was "very disappointed" after his former aide and top donor criticized his "big, beautiful" spending bill before Congress.
The pair then hurled insults at each other on social media -- with Musk even posting, without proof, that Trump was referenced in government documents on disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The row could have major political and economic fallout, as shares in Musk's Tesla car company plunged and the South African-born tech tycoon vowed that he would end a critical US spaceship program.
But Trump played down the feud during an interview with Politico on Thursday, saying: "Oh it's okay. It's going very well, never done better."
A call with Musk has been scheduled by the White House on Friday in the hope of diffusing the situation, according to the outlet.
Speculation had long swirled that a relationship between the world's richest person and its most powerful could not last long -- but the speed of the meltdown took Washington by surprise.
"I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as visiting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz looked on silently.
"Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore."
A hurt-sounding Trump, 78, said it had been only a week since he hosted a grand farewell for Musk as he left the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Trump later insisted he had asked the tycoon to leave because he was "wearing thin."

'Ingratitude'

Musk, who was Trump's biggest campaign donor to the tune of $300 million, slammed the president for "ingratitude" and said the Republican would not have won the 2024 election without him.
As the spat got increasingly vindictive, Musk also posted that Trump "is in the Epstein files," referring to US government documents on the sex offender who killed himself while awaiting trial.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told AFP that Musk's Epstein tweet "is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' because it does not include the policies he wanted."
Musk, on his X social media platform, replied "yes" to a post suggesting the president should be impeached, and blasted Trump's global tariffs for risking a recession.
Trump finally suggested hitting the "crazy" entrepreneur where it hurts, threatening Musk's multibillion-dollar government contracts including for launching rockets and for the use of the Starlink satellite service.
"The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts," Trump said on Truth Social.
Again Musk fired back, with the SpaceX chief saying he would begin "decommissioning" his company's Dragon spacecraft which is vital for ferrying NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
He later appeared to walk that back, replying to a user on X: "OK, we won't decommission Dragon."

'Abomination'

When the crossfire finally relented after several astonishing hours, Tesla had seen more than $100 billion wiped off the company's value.
Trump and Musk's whirlwind relationship had initially blossomed, with the president backing DOGE's cost-cutting rampage through the US government and the tycoon sleeping over at the White House and traveling on Air Force One.
But the 53-year-old ultimately lasted just four months on the job, becoming increasingly disillusioned with the slow pace of change and clashing with some of Trump's cabinet members.
The two men had however kept tensions over Trump's tax and spending mega-bill relatively civil -- until Musk described the plan, the centerpiece of Trump's domestic policy agenda for his second term, as an "abomination" because he says it will increase the US deficit.
Washington will now intently watch the fallout from the row.
Musk posted a poll on whether he should form a new political party -- a seismic threat from a man who has signaled he is ready to use his wealth to unseat Republican lawmakers who disagree with him.
Trump ally Steve Bannon -- a vocal opponent of Musk -- meanwhile called for the tycoon to be deported, the New York Times reported.
dk/acb/sla/tc/rsc

ElSalvador

Venezuelan family feels full force of Trump's crackdown

BY WITH MARGIONI BERMUDEZ IN MARACAIBO

  • Juan, meanwhile, has decided to remain in the United States.
  • Mercedes Yamarte's three sons fled Venezuela for a better life in the United States.
  • Juan, meanwhile, has decided to remain in the United States.
Mercedes Yamarte's three sons fled Venezuela for a better life in the United States. Now one languishes in a Salvadoran jail, another "self-deported" to Mexico, and a third lives in hiding -- terrified US agents will crash the door at any moment.
At her zinc-roofed home in a poor Maracaibo neighborhood, 46-year-old Mercedes blinks back tears as she thinks about her family split asunder by US President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
"I wish I could go to sleep, wake up, and this never happened," she says, as rain drums down and lightning flashes overhead.
In their homeland, her boys were held back by decades of political and economic tumult that have already prompted an estimated eight million Venezuelans to emigrate.
But in leaving, all three brothers became ensnared by politics once more, and by a US president determined to bolt the door of a nation once proud of its migrant roots. 
For years, her eldest son, 30-year-old Mervin had lived in America, providing for his wife and six-year-old daughter, working Texas construction sites and at a tortilla factory.
On March 13, he was arrested by US immigration agents and summarily deported to a Salvadoran mega jail, where he is still being held incommunicado.
The Trump administration linked Mervin and 251 other men to the Tren de Aragua -- a Venezuelan gang it classifies as a terrorist group.
Washington has cited tattoos as evidence of gang affiliation, something fiercely contested by experts, who say that, unlike other Latin American gangs, Tren de Aragua members do not commonly sport gang markings.
Mervin has tattoos of his mother and daughter's names, the phrase "strong like mom" in Spanish and the number "99" -- a reference to his soccer jersey not any gang affiliation, according to his family.

The journey north

Mervin arrived in the United States in 2023 with his 21-year-old brother Jonferson. Both hoped to work and to send some money back home.
They had slogged through the Darien Gap -- a forbidding chunk of jungle between Colombia and Panama that is one of the world's most dangerous migration routes.
They had trekked north through Mexico, and were followed a year later by sister Francis, aged 19, who turned around before reaching the United States and brother Juan, aged 28, who continued on. 
When the brothers entered the United States, they registered with border officials and requested political asylum.
They were told they could remain legally until a judge decided their fate.
Then US voters voted, and with a change of administration, at dawn on March 13, US immigration agents pounded the door of an apartment in Irving, Texas where the trio were living with friends from back home.
Immigration agents were serving an arrest warrant when they saw Mervin and said: "You are coming with us too for an investigation," Juan recalled.
When the agents said they had an arrest warrant for Mervin too, he tried to show his asylum papers. 
"But they already had him handcuffed to take him away," Juan said.
He was transferred to a detention center, where he managed to call Jonferson to say he was being deported somewhere. He did not know where.
Three days later, Jonferson saw his brother among scores of shorn and shackled men arriving at CECOT, a prison built by El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele to house alleged gang members.
Jonferson saw his handcuffed brother kneeling on the floor staring off into space. He broke down crying and called his mother. 
She had also seen Mervin in the images. "My son was kneeling and looked up as if to say: 'Where am I and what have I done to end up here?'" said Mercedes.
"I have never seen my son look more terrified" she said.

The journey south

After his brother's arrest, Jonferson had nightmares. The fear became so great that he fled to Mexico -- what some euphemistically describe as "self-deportation".
There, he waited a month to board a Venezuelan humanitarian flight to return home. 
"It has been a nightmare," he told AFP as he rode a bus to the airport and from there, onward home. 
Juan, meanwhile, has decided to remain in the United States. He lives under the radar, working construction jobs and moving frequently to dodge arrest.
"I am always hiding. When I go to the grocery store I look all around, fearful, as if someone were chasing me," he told AFP asking that his face and his whereabouts remain undisclosed.
As the only brother who can now send money home, he is determined not to go back to Venezuela empty-handed. He also has a wife and seven-year-old son depending on him.
But he is tormented by the thought of his brother Mervin being held in El Salvador and by the toll it has taken on the family.
"My mother is a wreck. There are days she cannot sleep," Juan said.
"My sister-in-law cries every day. She is suffering."

The journey home

Jonferson has since returned to Maracaibo, where he was greeted by strings of blue, yellow, and red balloons and a grateful but still forlorn mother.
"I would like to be happy, as I should. But my other son is in El Salvador, in what conditions I do not know," Mercedes said.
But her face lights up for a second as she hugs her son, holding him tight as if never wanting to let him go.
"I never thought the absence of my sons would hit me so hard," she said. "I never knew I could feel such pain."
For now, the brothers are only together in a screen grab she has on her phone, taken during a video call last Christmas.
mav-mbj/lbc/dw/arb/tc

Kashmir

India's Modi arrives in Kashmir to open strategic railway

  • Modi strode across the bridge waving a giant Indian flag to formally declare it open for rail traffic soon after his arrival.
  • Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Kashmir on Friday, his first visit to the contested Himalayan region since a conflict with arch-rival Pakistan last month, and opened a strategic railway line.
  • Modi strode across the bridge waving a giant Indian flag to formally declare it open for rail traffic soon after his arrival.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Kashmir on Friday, his first visit to the contested Himalayan region since a conflict with arch-rival Pakistan last month, and opened a strategic railway line.
Modi is launching a string of projects worth billions of dollars for the divided Muslim-majority territory, the centre of bitter rivalry between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947.
Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan fought an intense four-day conflict last month, their worst standoff since 1999, before a ceasefire was agreed on May 10.
His office broadcast images of Modi at a viewing point for the Chenab Bridge, a 1,315-metre-long (4,314-foot-long) steel and concrete span that connects two mountains with an arch 359 metres above the river below.
"In addition to being an extraordinary feat of architecture, the Chenab Rail Bridge will improve connectivity," the Hindu nationalist leader said in a social media post ahead of his visit.
Modi strode across the bridge waving a giant Indian flag to formally declare it open for rail traffic soon after his arrival.
New Delhi calls the Chenab span the "world's highest railway arch bridge". While several road and pipeline bridges are higher, Guinness World Records confirmed that Chenab trumps the previous highest railway bridge, the Najiehe in China.
The new 272-kilometre (169-mile) Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla railway, with 36 tunnels and 943 bridges, has been constructed "aiming to transform regional mobility and driving socio-economic integration", Modi's office says.
The bridge will facilitate the movement of people and goods, as well as troops, that was previously possible only via treacherous mountain roads and by air.
The railway "ensures all weather connectivity" and will "boost spiritual tourism and create livelihood opportunities", Modi said.
The railway line is expected to halve the travel time between the town of Katra in the Hindu-majority Jammu region and Srinagar, the main city in Muslim-majority Kashmir, to around three hours.
More than 70 people were killed in missile, drone and artillery fire during last month's conflict.
The fighting was triggered by an April 22 attack on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi accused Pakistan of backing -- a charge Islamabad denies.
Rebel groups in Indian-run Kashmir have waged a 35-year-long insurgency demanding independence for the territory or its merger with Pakistan.
bb/pjm/pbt

Global Edition

Bacteria cancels water shows at Japan's World Expo

  • Organisers said Thursday that high levels of legionella bacteria had forced them to close an area with shallow water where visitors, including children, could cool off.
  • The discovery of high levels of bacteria has led the World Expo in Japan's Osaka to suspend daily water shows and use of a shallow play pool, organisers said.
  • Organisers said Thursday that high levels of legionella bacteria had forced them to close an area with shallow water where visitors, including children, could cool off.
The discovery of high levels of bacteria has led the World Expo in Japan's Osaka to suspend daily water shows and use of a shallow play pool, organisers said.
It comes after visitors also complained that swarms of tiny flying insects had invaded the vast waterfront site where Expo 2025 runs until mid-October.
Nearly six million people have visited exhibits from more than 160 countries, regions and organisations since it opened in April.
Although polls showed that public enthusiasm for the Expo was lukewarm before its opening, organisers say crowds have been growing, especially in recent weeks.
But concerns were raised over environmental conditions at the reclaimed island site in Osaka Bay, which was once a landfill.
Organisers said Thursday that high levels of legionella bacteria had forced them to close an area with shallow water where visitors, including children, could cool off.
That followed a statement released Wednesday saying daily fountain shows with music and lights at an artificial pond had been suspended for the same reason.
They said they were cleaning the affected areas, adding that a decision would come on Friday on whether the shows could resume.
Days before the Expo opened, a level of methane gas high enough to potentially ignite a fire was detected at the site.
More recently, organisers sprayed insecticide to deter swarms of non-biting midges bothering guests.
Also known as a World's Fair, the Expo phenomenon, which brought the Eiffel Tower to Paris, began with London's 1851 Crystal Palace exhibition.
It is now held every five years in different global locations.
hih/kaf/fox

conflict

Taliban hang up Kalashnikovs to pen memoirs of Afghan war

BY CLAIRE GOUNON

  • For 20 years, the war pitted Taliban militants against a US-led coalition of 38 countries supporting the Afghan Republic and its forces. 
  • Since trading the battlefield for Afghanistan's halls of power, some Taliban members have also swapped their weapons for pens to tell their version of the 20-year conflict with Western forces, who they accuse of distorting "reality".
  • For 20 years, the war pitted Taliban militants against a US-led coalition of 38 countries supporting the Afghan Republic and its forces. 
Since trading the battlefield for Afghanistan's halls of power, some Taliban members have also swapped their weapons for pens to tell their version of the 20-year conflict with Western forces, who they accuse of distorting "reality".
A flood of books has been written, mostly from a Western perspective, about the war between the US-led forces that invaded Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks until the Taliban's return to power in 2021. 
But in the years since, a proliferation of writings by Taliban figures -- praising their exploits and the achievements of the "Islamic Emirate" -- is now the reigning narrative in Afghanistan.
"No matter what foreigners have written... they have largely ignored the reality of what happened to us and why we were forced to fight," author Khalid Zadran told AFP. 
A member of the Haqqani network -- long viewed as one of the most dangerous militant factions in Afghanistan -- he now serves as the spokesman for the capital's police force.
In his 600-page tome in Pashto published in April, he recounts US incursions in his home province of Khost, his childhood steeped in stories of soldiers' "atrocities", and his desire to join the Taliban in the name of his country's "freedom".
"I witnessed horrific stories every day -- mangled bodies on the roadside," he writes in "15 Minutes", a title inspired by a US drone strike he narrowly escaped. 
Muhajer Farahi, now a deputy information and culture minister, penned his "Memories of Jihad: 20 Years in Occupation" to "state the facts", he said.
"America, contrary to its claims, has committed cruel and barbaric acts, destroyed our country with bombs, destroyed infrastructure, and has sown discord and cynicism between nations and tribes," he told AFP from his office in central Kabul.
Little attention is paid in either book to the thousands of civilians killed in Taliban attacks -- many of them suicide bombings that entrenched fear across the country for nearly two decades.
Farahi insists the Taliban "were cautious in saving civilians and innocent" lives, while criticising fellow Afghans who collaborated with the pro-Western police as a "stain" on the country.
Rights groups accuse the current Taliban authorities of widespread abuses -- particularly against women and girls, who the United Nations say are victims of what amounts to "gender apartheid".
In his book published in 2023, Farahi claims the Taliban attempted to negotiate -- in vain, he insists -- with the United States over the fate of Osama bin Laden, whose capture or death Washington demanded after his plane hijackers killed around 3,000 people in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, who had been based in Afghanistan, was killed by US forces in Pakistan in 2011.

American 'bloodthirsty dragon'

"It was clear... that the Americans had already planned the occupation of Afghanistan," writes Farahi in the English version of his book, which has been translated into five languages.
In the wake of the September 11 attacks, Afghans thought it would "have nothing to do with our country", he continues, but soon realised that Afghanistan would face "punishment".
For 20 years, the war pitted Taliban militants against a US-led coalition of 38 countries supporting the Afghan Republic and its forces. 
Tens of thousands of Afghans died in the fighting and in Taliban attacks, as did nearly 6,000 foreign soldiers, including 2,400 Americans.
For Farahi, the war reflects the West's desire to "impose its culture and ideology on other nations".
His disjointed journal mixes battlefield memories with polemical chapters railing against the American "bloodthirsty dragon".
The book "reveals the truths that were not told before because the media, especially the Western media, presented a different picture of the war", he said.
According to him, the "mujahideen", or holy warriors, despite being far less equipped, were able to rely on their unity and God's aid to achieve victory.

New front

Only a few of the new wave of Taliban books have been autobiographies, which appeal to an audience seeking to understand the war "from the inside", according to Zadran.
His book, initially 2,000 copies in Pashto, sold out quickly and another 1,000 are in the works -- along with a Dari-language version, he said.
Many chapters mention Bowe Bergdahl, the US soldier held hostage for five years by the Haqqani network. 
He recounts treks through the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to move him between hideouts, efforts to convert him to Islam and conversations about his girlfriend back in the United States.
Both accounts end in 2021, before the transformation of the fighters who moved from remote mountain hideouts to the carpeted offices of the capital.
There, their battle has turned diplomatic: the Taliban are now fighting for international recognition of their government.
"The war is over now," Farahi said, "and we want good relations with everyone" -- even with the "bloodthirsty dragon".
cgo/sbh/sw/fox/sco