Global Pulse

分类： world

  • Iran signals re-closure of Hormuz as it rejects uranium transfer abroad

    Iran signals re-closure of Hormuz as it rejects uranium transfer abroad

    A fresh standoff between the United States and Iran has thrown the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz back into crisis, as Tehran rejected Washington’s unsubstantiated claims of a planned enriched uranium transfer and threatened to reclose the global energy chokepoint if the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports remains in place. The escalation unfolded Saturday even as a small group of commercial vessels began transiting the waterway, marking days of fragile progress that has been put at sudden risk.

    The chain of tensions traces back to a U.S.-brokered 10-day ceasefire that halted Israel’s ongoing war in Lebanon, which prompted Iran to end its initial closure of the Strait of Hormuz this past Thursday. But just one day later, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the American naval blockade imposed on Iranian ports earlier this week would remain in force until a comprehensive final agreement is reached between the two nations.

    In the wake of Trump’s announcement, Iran quickly reversed its earlier stance on opening the strait. Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf emphasized in a post on X that the waterway would not stay open as long as the U.S. blockade remains in place. “What they call a naval blockade will definitely be met with an appropriate response from Iran,” Ghalibaf wrote. As of overnight, U.S. Central Command confirmed it had ordered at least 21 ships to turn away from the region since the blockade was first implemented.

    Hours before Iran issued its new threat, a convoy of eight commercial vessels — including one very large crude carrier (VLCC), oil product tankers, chemical carriers, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carriers — was observed transiting Iranian waters south of Larak Island on Saturday morning, with additional vessels anchored in the Gulf preparing to follow the convoy. A spokesperson for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had previously stated that the limited passage was permitted under temporary negotiation terms, though it remains uncertain whether the initial convoy will be allowed to complete its full transit.

    The Strait of Hormuz is widely recognized as the world’s most important energy chokepoint, carrying roughly one-fifth of the global supply of crude oil and liquefied natural gas. The International Energy Agency has already warned that any extended closure would trigger the largest global energy supply disruption in history: cutting more than 10 million barrels of daily oil output and reducing global LNG supplies by 20 percent.

    Beyond the strait standoff, Tehran has issued a firm denial of a separate claim made by Trump Friday, in which the U.S. president stated that Iran had agreed to transfer its stockpile of enriched uranium to the United States. Trump told supporters at an Arizona rally that the U.S. would “very soon” retrieve what he called “nuclear dust” remaining from U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June 2024. “We’re going to get it together. We’re going to go in with Iran, at a nice leisurely pace, and go down and start excavating with big machinery… We’ll bring it back to the United States,” Trump said.

    Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei rejected the claim outright in comments to state television, saying: “Iran’s enriched uranium is not going to be transferred anywhere. Transferring uranium to the United States has not been an option for us.” Currently, Iran is estimated to hold more than 900 pounds of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, just a step away from weapons-grade material. The Trump administration has repeatedly listed preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon as a core war goal, while Iran has consistently maintained its uranium enrichment program is exclusively for peaceful civilian energy and medical purposes.

    Negotiations between the two sides have also hit snags over other key sticking points, including the unfreezing of billions of dollars in Iranian assets held abroad. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that a preliminary agreement had been reached on the issue, but Trump denied any such deal Friday, saying “no money will exchange hands in any way, shape or form.” On nuclear terms, Washington has proposed a 20-year full suspension of all Iranian nuclear enrichment activity, while Tehran has countered with an offer of a three to five-year pause, according to anonymous sources familiar with the talks cited by Reuters. Two Iranian sources have noted preliminary signals of a possible compromise that would see part of Iran’s uranium stockpile removed, but no formal deal has been announced.

    The broader conflict that sparked this crisis began on February 28, when the U.S. and Israel launched a massive coordinated barrage of strikes on Iranian targets across the Islamic Republic. Tehran responded with its own strikes against Israeli and Gulf targets, and the initial closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Days after the conflict began, Israel launched a ground invasion of Lebanon, which has killed more than 2,000 Lebanese people to date.

    As tensions spike again, regional powers are ramping up diplomatic efforts to de-escalate. Pakistan concluded two parallel high-level diplomatic visits Saturday aimed at securing a permanent end to the conflict. Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir completed a three-day visit to Tehran, where he held meetings with Iran’s president, foreign minister, parliament speaker, and top military commanders, according to an official statement from the Pakistani military. Separately, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif wrapped up a three-day tour of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey focused on building regional consensus for a peace deal.

    A second round of direct high-level talks between the U.S. and Iranian delegations is scheduled to take place in Islamabad next week. The first round, held last week, marked the highest-level face-to-face diplomatic engagement between the two nations in decades, with Ghalibaf and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi leading the Iranian delegation to the Pakistani capital.

  • Pope arrives in Angola on Africa tour overshadowed by Trump

    Pope arrives in Angola on Africa tour overshadowed by Trump

    Pope Leo XIV touched down in Angola on Saturday, kicking off the third stop of his 11-day four-nation African pilgrimage, even as he expressed regret that the entire trip has been overshadowed by a public verbal dispute with former U.S. President Donald Trump. After arriving in the coastal nation’s capital of Luanda, the pontiff made his way through cheering crowds lining motorcade routes in his popemobile for a scheduled meeting with Angolan President Joao Lourenco, following a concluding open-air mass that wrapped up his previous stop in Cameroon.

    Speaking to reporters aboard his flight from Cameroon to Angola, Pope Leo pushed back against widespread media narratives that framed a recent speech he delivered as a deliberate jab at Trump. During an address in Cameroon’s restive northwestern city of Bameroon, the epicenter of a 10-year separatist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives, the pontiff condemned authoritarian tyrants for laying waste to global order. U.S. media outlets widely interpreted the remarks as a direct response to earlier criticism of the pope from Trump, but Pope Leo clarified that the full text of his speech was finalized long before Trump launched his public critique.

    “There’s been a certain narrative that has not been accurate in all of its aspects,” the pope told reporters. “And yet it was perceived as if I were trying to start a new debate with the president, which doesn’t interest me at all.” The dispute traces back to April 12, when Trump stated publicly that he was “not a big fan of Pope Leo,” and accused the American-born pontiff of recklessly engaging with Iran as the country pursues nuclear development capabilities. Pope Leo emphasized Saturday that he has no intention of engaging in a public back-and-forth with the U.S. political figure, noting that the focus of his African tour is meant to center on the challenges and needs of the continent, not transatlantic political sparring.

    Beyond the unwanted controversy, Pope Leo has used his tour, which launched in Algeria earlier this month, to deliver sharp warnings on a range of pressing global and regional issues: endemic corruption on the African continent, the systematic plunder of African natural resources by foreign and domestic actors, and the unregulated risks posed by rapid artificial intelligence development. In his opening address to Angolan government officials Saturday, the pontiff doubled down on these themes, condemning the destructive “logic of exploitation” that has created widespread social and environmental harm across the resource-rich nation.

    Angola ranks among Africa’s top crude oil exporters and holds vast reserves of diamonds and other minerals, but decades of extractive economic policy have left the country with crippling systemic inequality. World Bank data shows that roughly one-third of Angola’s 36.6 million residents, a majority of whom are young people, live below the $2.15-per-day international poverty line, with little of the nation’s natural resource wealth trickling down to working-class and low-income communities. Pope Leo also used his address to urge Angolan authorities to embrace open discourse, telling officials they “should not be afraid of dissent.”

    Lourenco’s socialist MPLA party has governed Angola continuously since the nation gained independence from Portugal in 1975, and human rights groups have repeatedly criticized the government for cracking down on freedom of expression, including harsh responses to peaceful public demonstrations. Last July, a three-day wave of looting and unrest broke out amid a national strike over fuel price hikes; roughly 30 people were killed in a subsequent police crackdown that drew widespread international condemnation, with hundreds of protestors arrested and jailed.

    For many of the hundreds of Angolans who lined the motorcade route Saturday, the papal visit carries personal significance: roughly 44% of Angola’s population identifies as Catholic, making the nation one of the largest Catholic-majority states in southern Africa. Pope Leo is only the third sitting pontiff to visit the country, following trips by John Paul II in 1992 and Benedict XVI in 2009. “There is a lot of suffering, a lot of poverty in Angola. I hope the pope will see with his own eyes the needs of the youth here,” said 33-year-old Luanda-based engineer Antonio Masaidi ahead of the visit.

    Looking ahead, Pope Leo is scheduled to lead a large open-air mass on Sunday in the Kilamba suburb of Luanda, before traveling by helicopter to the historic village of Muxima, a key Catholic pilgrimage site home to a 16th-century century church located roughly 130 kilometers southeast of the capital. On April 20, the pontiff will journey more than 800 kilometers from Luanda to Saurimo, where he will visit a local retirement home and celebrate a second mass before departing the next morning for the fourth and final stop of his African tour in Equatorial Guinea.

  • Pope says ‘tyrants’ speech was not aimed at Trump

    Pope says ‘tyrants’ speech was not aimed at Trump

    Pope Leo XIV touched down in Angola on Saturday, the latest stop on his multi-nation tour of Africa, and used the opportunity to clear up widespread misinterpretation of recent comments he made about global authoritarianism and military spending. The pontiff told reporters traveling with him that his earlier remarks criticizing world leaders he labeled “tyrants” for pouring billions of dollars into conflict were drafted two weeks before former U.S. President Donald Trump launched a high-profile public attack on him. There was never any intention, he stressed, to enter into a public debate with the American leader.

    The back-and-forth between the two figures began earlier this month, after Pope Leo publicly voiced criticism of the U.S.-Israeli military campaign in Iran and pushed back against Trump’s warning that an entire civilization would be destroyed if Tehran did not accept Washington’s demands to end the conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. That critique prompted Trump to unleash a scathing social media attack on the first American-born pope, calling him “terrible for foreign policy,” “WEAK on crime,” and saying he was “not a big fan” of the pontiff. Trump also briefly shared an AI-generated image that depicted him as a Jesus-like figure before removing it, and later told reporters that while he accepted the Pope’s right to his own views, he retained the right to disagree.

    Days after Trump’s initial attack, Pope Leo delivered a speech in Cameroon, another stop on his African tour, that drew immediate scrutiny. In that address, he condemned leaders who “turn a blind eye to the fact that billions of dollars are spent on killing and devastation, yet the resources needed for healing, education and restoration are nowhere to be found.” He added, “The masters of war pretend not to know that it takes only a moment to destroy, yet often a lifetime is not enough to rebuild.” The pontiff also used the speech to denounce the nearly decade-long insurgency that has left a bloodstained trail of destruction across parts of Cameroon, decrying what he called “an endless cycle of destabilisation and death.”

    Many political analysts and media outlets quickly framed that speech as a direct response to Trump, a narrative the Pope pushed back on firmly Saturday. “A certain narrative that has not been accurate” has taken root, he told reporters, fueled by the political tension that emerged after Trump’s original criticism. “Which is not in my interest at all,” he added, emphasizing that entering political sparring matches with the U.S. leader was never his goal.

    The four-country African tour, which includes stops in 11 cities, marks Pope Leo’s second major international visit since his election to the papacy in 2024. The trip underscores the outsized importance of the Catholic faith across the African continent: 2024 Vatican data shows that more than 20% of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics – approximately 288 million people – currently reside in Africa, a share that is projected to grow steadily in coming decades.

  • At least five killed in Kyiv as gunman opens fire and takes hostages

    At least five killed in Kyiv as gunman opens fire and takes hostages

    A horrific mass shooting in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv has left a minimum of five people dead and multiple others wounded, in an attack that unfolded in a busy residential district on April 19, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed.

    The violence erupted in southern Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi district, local law enforcement officials confirmed. According to initial police accounts, the 58-year-old attacker first opened fire on random civilians on a public street, before retreating to a nearby supermarket and taking bystanders hostage.

    Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko told reporters that after the gunman exchanged fire with responding officers from inside the supermarket, law enforcement teams moved in and fatally shot the attacker. All four hostages taken by the gunman were successfully rescued without fatal harm, President Zelensky confirmed.

    Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko updated casualty figures to note at least 15 people suffered injuries in the attack, 10 of whom – including one minor child – have been admitted to local hospitals for ongoing medical care. Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko clarified the breakdown of fatalities: four of the victims were killed during the initial street shooting, while one additional fatality occurred inside the supermarket.

    Kravchenko also confirmed that the attacker is a 58-year-old man originally from Moscow, Russia, and that he carried out the attack using a fully automatic firearm. Unconfirmed reports suggest the shooter may have detonated an explosive device, and responding authorities confirmed a fire broke out at the attacker’s local apartment following the shooting. The motive behind the attack remains under active investigation as of publishing.

  • France blames Hezbollah for French peacekeeper’s death in Lebanon

    France blames Hezbollah for French peacekeeper’s death in Lebanon

    Just two days after Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 10-day ceasefire to negotiate an end to six weeks of cross-border conflict, a deadly ambush targeting United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon has left one French soldier dead and three more wounded, with French President Emmanuel Macron publicly holding the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah responsible — an accusation the organization has forcefully denied.

    The fallen service member was identified as 24-year-old Staff Sergeant Florian Montorio, who died from a close-range gunshot wound during the attack Saturday in the Ghandouriyeh-Bint Jbeil region near the Israeli-Lebanese border. French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin confirmed in a post on X that Montorio’s unit was moving to resupply a UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) outpost that had been isolated by days of ongoing combat when they were ambushed by an armed faction. Despite Montorio’s comrades pulling him to safety under active fire, medical efforts to revive him were unsuccessful, Vautrin added.

    In his own public statement on X, President Macron said “Everything points to Hezbollah being responsible for this attack,” and called on Lebanese national authorities to immediately apprehend and prosecute those behind the killing. This is not the first French military fatality linked to the broader regional conflict sparked by the October 7 Hamas attacks: last month, another French soldier, Arnaud Frion, was killed by an Iranian-designed drone in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

    Hezbollah, which has repeatedly denounced the upcoming ceasefire negotiations with Israel as a surrender of Lebanese sovereignty, quickly rejected all claims of involvement. In an official statement, the group said it “denies any connection to the incident that occurred with UNIFIL forces in the Ghandouriyeh-Bint Jbeil area,” and called for “caution in making judgments and assigning responsibilities” until the Lebanese army completes its official probe into the attack.

    Senior Hezbollah official Mahmud Qamati doubled down on the group’s opposition to the talks Saturday, describing the negotiations led by the Lebanese government as “a failure, weak, defeated… and submissive,” and stressed the organization would not be bound by any outcome of the discussions. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has pushed back against Hezbollah criticism, saying the negotiations do not represent any concession of Lebanese interests, marking the first direct formal talks between Lebanon and Israel in decades.

    UNIFIL’s initial assessment echoed French claims that the attack was likely carried out by Hezbollah, with the peacekeeping force noting the gunfire came from non-state actors as peacekeepers cleared explosive ordnance from a local road to reach the cut-off outpost. UNIFIL added that the incident “may amount to war crimes,” and has launched an independent internal investigation into the attack. Both Lebanese President Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have condemned the killing, with Salam ordering a national probe and Aoun pledging to hold all responsible parties accountable. In the wake of the attack, Macron held urgent phone calls with both Aoun and Salam to press for full guarantees of security for all UNIFIL personnel deployed in the country.

    Tensions around UNIFIL’s mission have escalated sharply since the Israel-Hezbollah border conflict began six weeks ago, when Hezbollah launched rocket attacks on Israel in solidarity with Hamas, drawing Lebanon into the broader regional war. The peacekeeping force, which has served as a neutral buffer between Lebanon and Israel for nearly 45 years, has repeatedly been targeted by both Israeli and Hezbollah forces during the current fighting. Last month, three Indonesian UNIFIL peacekeepers were killed: a preliminary UN investigation found one was killed by Israeli tank fire, while the other two died in an improvised explosive device attack widely linked to Hezbollah. In separate incidents earlier this year, Israeli troops destroyed surveillance cameras at UNIFIL’s headquarters, and just last week an Israeli tank rammed two UNIFIL patrol vehicles, causing damage but no injuries. UNIFIL’s current mandate is set to expire at the end of 2024, adding further uncertainty to the force’s future in the region.

  • UK police investigate an arson attempt on a building once used by the Jewish community

    UK police investigate an arson attempt on a building once used by the Jewish community

    LONDON – A coordinated investigation led by London’s counterterrorism policing unit is underway after a string of suspicious arson attempts targeting sites associated with London’s Jewish community and Iranian opposition groups across the city’s northwest districts.

    The most recent incident unfolded on Friday evening in Hendon, a residential neighborhood just a short distance from Golders Green, one of London’s most prominent Jewish population centers. Law enforcement officials confirmed that witnesses observed a male suspect drop a canvas bag holding three flammable liquid-filled bottles outside a former Jewish community facility. The suspect attempted to ignite the cache before fleeing the scene; the material failed to fully catch fire, and no injuries were reported. As of Saturday, no suspects have been taken into custody.

    This attempted attack is the latest in a series of arson incidents targeting relevant sites that have shaken the capital in recent weeks. On March 23, four vehicles belonging to a Jewish charity ambulance service were destroyed in a deliberate fire in Golders Green, four people have already been charged in connection with that attack. Just two days before the Hendon incident, two separate arson attempts were recorded across northwest London: one targeted a local synagogue, while the second saw an ignited container thrown into the headquarters of a Persian-language media organization based in Wembley. Three suspects – two adult men and one teenage boy – have been charged with arson over that incident. No people have been hurt in any of the five linked events.

    While detectives have not formally connected the Friday Hendon attack to the earlier incidents, counterterrorism officials have taken lead of the ongoing probe due to clear thematic and operational similarities across all events. Originally, investigating officers had not classified any of the attacks as confirmed terrorist acts, but the pattern of targeting has drawn significant attention from national security officials.

    A key line of ongoing inquiry centers on whether the attacks have any connection to the Iranian government. British authorities have repeatedly publicly accused Iran of leveraging criminal proxy networks to carry out covert attacks on European soil, specifically targeting Jewish community institutions and Iranian opposition media outlets operating in exile. The UK’s domestic intelligence agency MI5 previously disclosed that it foiled more than 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots against targets in the country in the 12-month period ending last October.

    Metropolitan Police have not released a detailed description of the Hendon suspect as of Saturday, and have appealed to any members of the public who witnessed suspicious activity in the area Friday night to come forward with information to aid the investigation.

  • Macron says 1 French soldier was killed and 3 injured in attack on peacekeepers in Lebanon

    Macron says 1 French soldier was killed and 3 injured in attack on peacekeepers in Lebanon

    BEIRUT, PARIS – A deadly ambush targeting United Nations peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon has claimed the life of a French service member and wounded three more, triggering an urgent diplomatic response from French leadership just one day after a fragile 10-day ceasefire took hold along the Lebanon-Israel border.

    French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed the fatal attack in a social media statement Saturday morning, noting that all preliminary evidence points to Hezbollah bearing responsibility for the strike on the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) patrol. The fallen soldier was identified as Staff Sergeant Florian Montorio, a 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment member based in the southwestern French city of Montauban. Macron added that the three injured service members have already been evacuated for medical care.

    “In this moment of grief, the entire nation bows in respect for our fallen comrade, and extends its unwavering support to Montorio’s family, as well as all French military personnel deployed to advance peace in Lebanon,” Macron wrote.

    This death marks the second French peacekeeper fatality in less than a month. In mid-March, a drone strike on a Kurdish military base in Iraq’s Erbil region killed Chief Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion and left six other French service members wounded.

    French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin later clarified details of the Saturday incident, confirming the ambush unfolded in the Deir Kifa region of southern Lebanon. The patrol was carrying out a critical operational mission: clearing a secure path to a UNIFIL outpost that had been cut off from supply and reinforcement for several days, amid escalating cross-border clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces that have roiled the region for months.

    Montorio was ambushed at close range by fighters from an armed group, Vautrin explained in a post on the social platform X. “He was struck immediately by a direct round from a light weapon. His comrades pulled him to cover under active enemy fire, but were unable to resuscitate him,” she wrote.

    Within hours of the attack, President Macron held separate urgent calls with Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam to deliver France’s formal demands. According to a readout from Macron’s office, the French leader called on Lebanese officials to launch a full, transparent investigation into the strike, rapidly identify the perpetrators and bring them to prosecution, and take all necessary measures to protect UNIFIL personnel, who operate under international mandate to maintain stability in the region and are never legitimate targets.

    Macron used the diplomatic exchange to reaffirm two core French priorities for the region: that all parties must fully comply with the newly implemented ceasefire, and that France remains deeply committed to upholding Lebanon’s full sovereignty, a pillar of broader stability across the Middle East that benefits all Lebanese citizens.

    The ceasefire that went into effect Friday was negotiated without input from Hezbollah, leaving international observers uncertain whether the group would respect the truce. Saturday’s fatal attack, which comes just 24 hours after the truce was supposed to take hold, has already raised new concerns about the durability of the pause in fighting.

  • Pope brings Africa tour to Angola as Trump feud drags on

    Pope brings Africa tour to Angola as Trump feud drags on

    Pope Leo XIV has launched the third stop of his historic 11-day, four-nation African pilgrimage, arriving in Angola Saturday after wrapping up a high-profile three-day visit to Cameroon, where he delivered sharp social and political critiques amid a worsening war of words with former U.S. President Donald Trump over the ongoing Middle East conflict.

    The American pontiff, who was elected to the papacy in May 2025 after the passing of Pope Francis, marked the end of his Cameroon leg with a massive open-air mass at Yaoundé’s airport that drew more than 200,000 adoring worshippers, who greeted him with traditional songs and festive dances. Speaking in French during his homily, Pope Leo thanked the Cameroonian people for their warm welcome, before issuing a pointed call for the nation to find the courage to break from harmful long-standing habits and outdated power structures. His remarks came against the backdrop of 42 years of authoritarian rule by 93-year-old President Paul Biya, who has held power since 1982.

    Following the mass, Pope Leo departed midday for Angola’s capital Luanda, where he is scheduled to meet with President Joao Lourenco and deliver a policy address before wrapping up his visit on Tuesday. Only two other popes have traveled to the resource-rich southern African nation: John Paul II in 1992 and Benedict XVI in 2009, with roughly 44% of Angola’s population identifying as Catholic. Organizers and local officials expect tens of thousands of worshippers to travel across the country to catch a glimpse of the head of the global Catholic Church, which counts 1.4 billion followers worldwide.

    For many Angolans, the papal visit carries deep personal and national meaning. “It’s as if God were very close to us,” Helena Maria Miguel, a 40-year-old human resources manager based in Luanda, told reporters ahead of the pope’s arrival.

    Pope Leo’s consistent calls for global peace are expected to resonate particularly strongly in Angola, a nation that only emerged from a brutal 27-year civil war in 2002. The conflict broke out immediately after Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975, leaving deep socioeconomic scars that persist decades later. Despite the country’s vast fossil fuel reserves, an estimated one-third of Angolans still live below the poverty line, with the national economy overly reliant on volatile global oil prices and long plagued by systemic corruption that has even reached the inner circle of former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

    Many local residents hope the pope’s visit will shine a light on the unmet needs of Angola’s young population. “There is a lot of suffering, a lot of poverty in Angola. I hope the pope will see with his own eyes the needs of the youth here,” said 33-year-old engineer Antonio Masaidi.

    The visit comes as Pope Leo has adopted a far more assertive public tone after facing repeated sharp criticism from Donald Trump, breaking from the more low-key, measured approach he took immediately after his election. Up until the public feud erupted, the new pope had positioned himself as more discreet than his predecessor, Pope Francis, who led the church from 2013 to 2025. Throughout the African tour, the pontiff has repeatedly called out global corruption, the exploitative plunder of Africa’s natural resources by foreign and domestic actors, and the unregulated risks of artificial intelligence, even as his public clash with Trump continues to unfold. After Trump’s Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, publicly called on the Vatican to stay out of political affairs and “stick to matters of morality”, Pope Leo fired back Thursday, arguing the world is “being ravaged by a handful of tyrants” and doubling down on criticism of actors who misuse religious doctrine to justify armed conflict. During his time in Cameroon, he doubled down on these critiques, demanding local leaders root out graft and condemning “those who, in the name of profit, continue to seize the African continent to exploit and plunder it”.

    On Sunday, Pope Leo will lead a second massive open-air mass in Kilamba, a suburb of Luanda, where local authorities have built new infrastructure including a large public food court to accommodate the expected crowds of worshippers. In the afternoon, he will travel by helicopter to the riverside village of Muxima, roughly 130 kilometers southeast of the capital, which is home to a 16th-century church that has grown into one of southern Africa’s most important Catholic pilgrimage sites. The village, where enslaved Africans were once baptized before being forcibly shipped out of the continent, is currently the site of a multi-million-dollar government development project to build a new basilica and transform the area into a major international religious tourism destination.

    “It is a historic moment of grace, a moment of profound emotion, with tears in our eyes and gratitude in our hearts,” Father Mpindi Lubanzadio Alberto, rector of the Muxima shrine, told the Catholic outlet ACI Africa ahead of the visit. On April 20, the pope will travel more than 800 kilometers from Luanda to Saurimo, where he will visit a local retirement home and lead another mass before departing Angola the following morning. After wrapping up his time in Angola, Pope Leo will travel to Equatorial Guinea for the fourth and final stop of his 18,000-kilometer journey, which launched in Algeria earlier this month.

  • China-US youth mark 55th anniversary of ‘ping-pong diplomacy’

    China-US youth mark 55th anniversary of ‘ping-pong diplomacy’

    Fifty-five years after a historic table tennis exchange broke decades of ice between China and the United States, young players from both nations gathered in Yinchuan, the capital city of northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, on Thursday to honor the legacy of what is now widely known as “ping-pong diplomacy”.

    Organized around the shared passion for table tennis that first connected the two peoples half a century ago, the commemorative event brought together young collegiate table tennis athletes from Northwestern United States and eight elite young players from China. Rather than sticking to rigid, country-versus-country competition formats, organizers reimagined the tournament to reflect the core values of the original diplomatic breakthrough: connection and mutual understanding.

    All players were split into two mixed transnational squads, named “Peace” and “Friendship”. In a symbolic twist that embodied the event’s spirit of cooperation alongside friendly competition, athletes paired with cross-national partners for doubles matches, and faced off against peers from the other country in singles rounds. This structure encouraged collaboration even as it highlighted the players’ sharp competitive skills.

    Throughout the day, participants displayed remarkable technical proficiency and exemplary sportsmanship, drawing warm, sustained applause from the local audience that turned out to watch the historic commemoration. Moving away from traditional hierarchical medal ceremonies that prioritize winning above all else, every athlete at the event received a custom commemorative medal in recognition of their role in advancing people-to-people exchange.

    Beyond the confines of the competition court, the gathering functioned as an informal platform for deep cultural exchange. Players discussed table tennis technique, swapped recommendations for favorite films, and shared personal stories, small interactions that helped bridge lingering cultural gaps and build new personal connections between the younger generations of both nations. Organizers noted that the event echoes the original 1971 ping-pong diplomacy, which proved that people-to-people exchange can lay the groundwork for greater mutual understanding between nations, even when official relations face challenges.

  • Son of 85-year-old French widow home after 16 days in US immigration custody says she needs rest

    Son of 85-year-old French widow home after 16 days in US immigration custody says she needs rest

    An 85-year-old French widow who endured a traumatic 16-day detention by U.S. immigration authorities has safely returned to her home country, where her family is now prioritizing her recovery and emotional healing. Marie-Thérèse Ross, who had married a retired American military veteran decades after he was stationed in France, was held by federal immigration officials for overstaying her 90-day visitor visa, a detention that has sparked diplomatic criticism from French officials.

    Speaking publicly outside Orvault, the western French town that has long been Ross’s home, her son Hervé Goix told reporters Friday that the family’s sole immediate focus is protecting Ross as she processes the harrowing experience. “To preserve her health and her rest, and for her to be able to rebuild herself,” Goix said, speaking alongside Ross’s three other children. “We are particularly relieved today to see our mother again, to have her back. She has necessarily gone through a difficult ordeal.”

    French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot confirmed Ross’s repatriation on Friday, issuing a sharp rebuke of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over their handling of the case. Without going into further detail, Barrot said ICE’s treatment of Ross “was not in line” with French standards for detainee care, and “not acceptable to us.”

    Court documents trace the origins of the incident back to a bitter family estate dispute following Ross’s husband’s death. The retired soldier, who first met Ross when he was posted to France in the 1960s, married her last June, and she moved to the U.S. to join him. When he died of natural causes in January, a conflict over his estate erupted between Ross and her stepson — a U.S. federal employee. An Alabama judge later found the stepson had intervened to push for Ross’s immigration detention.

    According to U.S. Department of Homeland Security records, ICE agents took Ross into custody at her Alabama home on April 1. Detention records show agents arrested the elderly widow while she was wearing only a nightgown, and she was not allowed to bring her phone, passport, or any form of personal identification with her. She was transferred to a detention facility in Louisiana, where she remained for 16 days while French diplomatic officials lobbied for her release, raising repeated concerns about her health and well-being. Goix told the Associated Press that Ross had already begun the application process for a U.S. green card when she was detained.

    “the essential thing is that she is truly safe, that she regains her comfort, that she is surrounded by her children and grandchildren,” Goix added of the family’s priorities for Ross in the coming weeks.

    Orvault mayor Sébastien Arrouët, who spoke with Ross shortly after her return, told French reporters that the 85-year-old is overjoyed to be home. “she is delighted, she is happy, she is relieved,” Arrouët said. “Put yourselves in her place, in a country she knows a little bit, it all happened to her so suddenly. We don’t realize the psychological violence. She needs to process all this, and the most important thing is that she is back with us.”