User Articles

Allies sanction far-right ministers

Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway have imposed sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, accusing them of repeatedly inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. The five countries have frozen the assets and imposed travel bans on Israel’s national security minister Ben-Gvir and finance minister Smotrich, both West Bank settlers. “Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights. These actions are not acceptable,“ British foreign minister David Lammy said in a joint statement with the foreign ministers of the other countries.

Reuters

Gaza

Gunfire kills 17 near aid site

Israeli gunfire killed at least 17 Palestinians and wounded dozens as thousands of displaced people approached an aid distribution site run by a US-backed humanitarian group in central Gaza, local health authorities said. Medics said the casualties...

Reuters

Military

13 hours ago

Hegseth defends troops in LA

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has defended a $134-million deployment of Marines and National Guard to Los Angeles, saying they would safeguard officers from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose roundups of alleged immigration offenders...

Reuters

13 hours ago

Argentina

14 hours ago

Markets jump on new measures to boost reserves

Argentina’s benchmark stock index jumped more than 3.7% after the government unveiled details on a broad package of economic measures aimed at boosting the country’s depleted foreign currency reserves. The measures include a planned repurchase...

Reuters

14 hours ago

Politics

21 hours ago

Reform appoints new chairman

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has appointed David Bull, a doctor and television presenter, as its new chairman who will have the job of trying to end the party’s infighting and turn it into a political force capable of winning a general election. Reform, which has five members of parliament, has recently seen a surge in support in opinion polls, overtaking British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s governing Labour as Britain’s most popular political party.

Reuters

21 hours ago

Government

10 Jun 2025

Defence ramp up to include £6 billion submarine boost

Britain will invest over £6 billion ($8.13 billion) in its submarine building capacity, supporting firms like defence group BAE Systems and engineering multinational Rolls-Royce, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves is set to announce. Responding to US President Donald Trump’s insistence that Europe take more responsibility for its own security, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged the largest sustained increase in British defence spending since the end of the Cold War.

Reuters

10 Jun 2025

Protest

Trump would back Newsom arrest

California officials blamed US President Donald Trump for inflaming an already tense situation in Los Angeles by sending in National Guard troops, while the White House argued the sometimes violent demonstrations justified ramping up deportation efforts even further. Trump said he would support the arrest of California Governor Gavin Newsom over possible obstruction of his administration’s immigration enforcement measures amid the protests. As the city faced a fourth day of protests over Trump’s immigration policies, Democrats and Republicans clashed over what has become the biggest flashpoint in the Republican administration’s aggressive efforts to deport migrants who are in the country illegally.

Reuters

Trade

Superpowers meet for pivotal talks

Top US and Chinese officials were meeting in London to try to defuse a trade dispute that has widened from tariffs to restrictions over rare earths, threatening a global supply chain shock and slower economic growth. On the first of likely two days of talks, officials from the two superpowers were meeting at the ornate Lancaster House to try to get back on track with a preliminary agreement struck last month in Geneva that had briefly lowered the temperature between Washington and Beijing. Since then the US has accused China of slow-walking on its commitments, particularly around rare earths shipments.

Reuters

Conflict

Russia still willing to honour prisoner exchange

The Kremlin says Russia is still ready to honour agreements with Ukraine on a new prisoner of war exchange and on the repatriation of dead soldiers despite what it says is Kyiv’s failure to so far honour its side of the bargain. Russia accused Ukraine on Saturday of indefinitely postponing the exchanges, something Kyiv denied.

Reuters

Politics

‘Stressed’ Musk mistaken in Trump challenge

The row between Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and US President Donald Trump was triggered by stress on both sides and Elon made a mistake by publicly challenging Trump, Musk’s father has told Russian media in Moscow. Musk and Trump began exchanging insults last week on social media with Musk denouncing the president’s sweeping tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination”.

Reuters

Travel

Countdown to US travel ban

US President Donald Trump’s order banning citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States goes into effect at 12:01 am ET (0401 GMT) on Monday, a move the president promulgated to protect the country from “foreign terrorists.“ The countries affected by the latest travel ban are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The entry of people from seven other countries - Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela - will be partially restricted.

Reuters

Trade

China’s rare earth changes contours of trade battlefield

China has signalled for more than 15 years that it was looking to weaponise areas of the global supply chain, a strategy modelled on longstanding American export controls Beijing views as aimed at stalling its rise. The scramble in recent weeks to secure export licences for rare earths, capped by Thursday’s telephone call between US and Chinese leaders Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, shows China has devised a better, more precisely targeted weapon for trade war. Industry executives and analysts say while China is showing signs of approving more exports of the key elements, it will not dismantle its new system. Modelled on the United States’ own, Beijing’s export licence system gives it unprecedented insight into supplier chokepoints in areas ranging from motors for electric vehicles to flight-control systems for guided missiles.

Reuters

Ukraine

Russia advances amid row over dead soldiers

Russia says its forces have advanced to the edge of the east-central Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk amid a public row between Moscow and Kyiv over peace negotiations and the return of thousands of bodies of soldiers who fell in the war. Amid talk of peace, the war is stepping up with Russian forces grabbing more territory in Ukraine and Kyiv unfurling high-profile drone and sabotage attacks on Russia’s nuclear-capable bomber fleet and, according to Moscow, on railways.

Reuters

Preview

Reeves to set out £2 trillion make or break spending plan

Chancellor Rachel Reeves will allocate £86 billion in this week’s spending review to fund research and development, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) says. It said the package, funding everything from new drug treatments and longer-lasting batteries to artificial intelligence breakthroughs, would be worth over £22.5 billion a year by 2029/30, driving new jobs and economic growth. Reeves will divide more than £2 trillion of public money between her ministerial colleagues on Wednesday, making choices that will define what the year-old Labour government can achieve in the next four years.

Reuters

Politics

Reform UK chair returns to party two days after quitting

Zia Yusuf says he will return to the Reform UK party, two days after quitting as its chair, blaming his abrupt resignation on exhaustion from the job. Yusuf, a businessman who is not an MP himself, resigned on Thursday hours after a row with a Reform MP over her call for a ban on the burqa, the full-length garment worn by some Muslim women. Yusuf became Reform chair last year, tasked by party leader Nigel Farage with professionalising the party.

Reuters

Migration

Deportee returns to face charges

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man mistakenly deported from Maryland to El Salvador by the Trump administration, has returned to the United States to face criminal charges of transporting illegal immigrants to the US. Abrego Garcia faces two criminal counts in an indictment filed in federal court in Tennessee on May 21, more than two months after Abrego Garcia’s March 15 deportation, court records showed. The charges stem from a 2022 vehicle stop in which the Tennessee Highway Patrol suspected him of human trafficking. A report released by the Department of Homeland Security in April states that none of the people in the vehicle had luggage, while they listed the same address as Abrego Garcia.

Reuters

Government

Trump and Musk urged to reconcile

As the Republican Party braces for aftershocks from President Donald Trump’s spectacular clash with Elon Musk, lawmakers and conservative figures are urging détente, fearful of the potential consequences from a prolonged feud. At a minimum, the explosion of animosity between the two powerful men could complicate the path forward for Republicans’ massive tax and border spending legislation that has been promoted by Trump but assailed by Musk.

Reuters