French President Emmanuel Macron urged investment in Africa on Monday as he co-hosted an economic summit in Kenya, after defending European involvement on the continent.
The European leader, speaking at the University of Nairobi, said Africa “needs investment to become more sovereign”, replacing aid with economic opportunities.
Speaking in French, Macron said that previously European chiefs would lecture African leaders on what they needed, but, “this is no longer what Africa needs or wants to hear”.
“That’s just as well, because we, too, no longer have the means, if we’re being honest,” he said.
Ahead of the summit, in an interview with the magazines Jeune Afrique and The Africa Report, the French leader said he first strongly condemned colonialism when he came to power in 2017.
In contrast, the United States and China were locked in a trade standoff, with no respect for the rules, he added.
On critical minerals and rare earths, China, he said, “operates according to a predatory logic: it does the processing at home” and creates “dependencies with the rest of the world”.
Macron, leading the two-day summit aimed at renewing France’s engagement with Africa after years of strained ties with its former colonies, said Europe was instead promoting “a strategy of autonomy” for both continents.
Central to transforming Africa’s fortunes should be an overhaul of international finance, to set up a system of financial guarantees to bring in private investment, he added. (Channels)
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged Monday to prove the “doubters” in his own party and among the electorate wrong as he struggled to fight off growing demands to step down after devastating local election results for his Labour Party.
Starmer said he would “face up to the big challenges” and restore hope to the country, in part by forging closer ties with the European Union, six years after the UK’s acrimonious departure from the bloc.
“I know I have my doubters and I know I need to prove them wrong, and I will,” Starmer said during a speech in London intended to kickstart his fightback against detractors.
It did not appear to have the intended effect. In the hours after the speech a steady stream of Labour lawmakers spoke to the media or posted on social media saying Starmer should resign, either now or soon.
Several of those calling for him to go were ministerial aides, in an apparently coordinated move aimed at putting pressure on Starmer’s Cabinet to deliver an ultimatum, perhaps at its weekly meeting on Tuesday.
Labour has been plunged into gloom by heavy losses last week in local elections across England and legislative votes in Scotland and Wales. The elections have been interpreted as an unofficial referendum on Starmer, whose popularity has plummeted since he swept to power in a landslide less than two years ago.
Starmer’s government has struggled to deliver promised economic growth, repair tattered public services and ease the cost of living, and been hamstrung by repeated missteps and policy U-turns on issues including welfare reform. He has been further hurt by his disastrous decision to appoint Peter Mandelson, a scandal-tarnished friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as Britain’s ambassador to Washington.
Last week’s elections saw Labour squeezed from both right and left, losing votes to both Reform UK and the “eco-populist” Green Party. The result reflects the increasing fragmentation of British politics, long dominated by Labour and the Conservatives.
Starmer had hoped to regain momentum with his speech and an ambitious set of legislative plans to be set out in a speech Wednesday by King Charles III at the State Opening of Parliament.
In Monday’s speech, he vowed to prove to millions of people “tired of a status quo that has failed them” that the government is on their side.
He said Labour is in “a battle for the soul of our nation,” and warned Britain will go down “a dark path” if Reform UK, the anti-immigration party led by Nigel Farage, comes to power.
Starmer told an audience of party lawmakers and activists that the government will take control of Britain’s energy, economic and defense security and make the country fairer. He announced plans to nationalize what is left of the once-mighty British Steel, a move that could save some industrial jobs in an area where working-class voters have deserted Labour for Reform UK.
Starmer also pledged to put Britain “at the heart of Europe” and forge closer ties with the 27-nation EU. Farage, who spearheaded the Brexit campaign, and Reform UK oppose any move to get closer to the EU.
Brexit has been a drag on the British economy, and President Donald Trump’s “America First” economic and foreign policy has spurred Britain to seek closer defense, security and economic cooperation with its European neighbors.
Labour supporters are largely anti-Brexit, which failed to deliver the benefits its backers promised. But Starmer has been reluctant to reopen a debate that bitterly divided the country. He has ruled out seeking to reenter the EU, or to rejoin the bloc’s customs union or single market, things that would make a big economic difference.
British politics allows parties to change leader midterm without the need for a new election.
None of the high-profile Labour politicians considered potential challengers to Starmer — including former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham — has yet called for him to resign.
Rayner did not explicitly call for Starmer to quit, but accused him of presiding over “a toxic culture of cronyism” and said the government must “stay true to Labour and social democratic values” and ease the cost of living for working people.
Labour lawmaker Catherine West, who had vowed to trigger a leadership challenge if Monday’s speech didn’t mark a major turning point, said she would hold off for now, though she urged Starmer to resign by September.
More than 60 other lawmakers, out of Labour’s total of 403, also urged him to announce a departure date, with the number ticking up in the hours after the speech.
“I don’t think we saw a plan from the prime minister this morning in order to implement the kind of change that this country needs,,” lawmaker Chris Curtis told Sky News.
Another legislator, Joe Morris, said: “the message from last week’s elections was clear: The prime minister has lost the confidence of the public.”
But some who attended Starmer’s speech said kicking out the man who led them to victory in 2024 would be counterproductive.
“You can’t be changing prime ministers two years in,” said Kevin Craig, a former local councilor in London. “It’s really important we stay grown-up now.” (JapanToday)
Ted Turner, the outspoken founder of CNN, has died aged 87.
Turner, who launched the first 24-hour all-news TV network in 1980, died on Wednesday, according to Turner Enterprises website.
No cause of death was given, but his website said he died “after a long battle with Lewy body dementia”.
In September 2018, Turner revealed he had the degenerative nerve disease that causes a mental decline with physical symptoms similar to Parkinson’s.
His website described him as “the audacious cable pioneer, arguably best known for creating CNN and Turner Broadcasting”.
The billionaire, who was known for being brash and outspoken, owned professional sports teams in Atlanta and was an avid yacht racer, defending the America’s Cup in yachting in 1977.
He was a philanthropist, donating $1bn to United Nations charities, which he called “the best investment I’ve ever made”. (SkyNews)
Britain’s King Charles III has used a speech in front of the United States Congress to pledge NATO unity and call for support for Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.
The address on Tuesday came during the royal’s four-day visit to the US, with the US-Israel war with Iran, US President Donald Trump’s criticism of NATO, and trade tensions between the longtime allies looming large.
But Charles avoided any reference to specific frictions during his speech at the US Capitol, instead striking a light tone in his joke-heavy opening.
He praised what he called the shared history and values of the two countries, quipping at one point that Washington, DC was “a tale of two Georges”, the first US President George Washington and his ancestor, the UK’s King George.
He assured lawmakers, to laughs, he was not in the US “as part of some cunning rearguard action” in a delayed continuation of the Revolutionary War.
“I am here on this great occasion in the life of our nations to express the highest regard and friendship of the British people to the people of the United States,” the sovereign said to repeated standing ovations.
But amid broad themes of unity, more pointed messages lurked.
Charles did not directly address the US-Israel war with Iran or Trump’s outspoken criticism of NATO allies who have rejected joining Washington’s war efforts.
Instead, he praised support for NATO and the alliance’s invocation of its Article 5 collective defence treaty in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
“We answered the call together, as our people have done so for more than a century, shoulder to shoulder through two world wars, the Cold War, Afghanistan and moments that have defined our shared security,” he said.
He then turned to funding for Ukraine, an increasingly pointed issue in the Republican-controlled US Congress.
“Today, Mr Speaker, that same unyielding resolve is needed for the defence of Ukraine and her most courageous people,” he said, referring to House Speaker Mike Johnson.
In one instance, Charles hailed the “$430 billion in annual trade that continues to grow, the $1.7 trillion in mutual investment that fuels that innovation”.
Last week, Trump threatened to impose a “big tariff” on the UK if it did not drop a digital services tax on US tech companies.
At another point, Charles pointed to global environmental concerns.
“We ignore, at our peril, the fact that these natural systems, in other words, nature’s own economy, provide the foundation for our prosperity and our national security,” he said.
Trump has called climate change a “con job” and withdrew from the landmark Paris Agreement climate accords during his first and second terms. His administration has since pursued deregulation of fossil fuels and pivoted away from green energy, an approach embraced by many members of the president’s Republican party.
Other messages appeared to gently reference political trends in the US, where critics have accused Trump of using the Department of Justice for political retribution and of overturning long-standing norms of presidential authority.
Charles described the “common ideals” of the US and UK: “The rule of law, the certainty of stable and accessible rules, an independent judiciary, resolving disputes and delivering impartial justice”.
He also drew a throughline between the Magna Carta, the 13th-century document that established that the British king was subject to law, and constitutional and legal precedent in the US, calling it “the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances”.
The address came shortly before Trump was set to host Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla, for an official state dinner.
The pair were then set to visit New York and Virginia, before an official farewell ceremony at the White House on Thursday. (AlJazeera)
The US’s top media watchdog announced on Tuesday that it is accelerating the review of eight local broadcasting licenses used by ABC, in a move critics see as a clear example of political and regulatory retribution against a disfavored broadcaster.
The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) announcement comes after the White House launched a full-on attack against the ABC’s late-night host, Jimmy Kimmel, over a joke he made last week about Melania Trump.
On Monday, Donald Trump called for Kimmel to be fired over the segment, in which Kimmel said that the first lady has “a glow like an expectant widow”. The joke was made two days before an attempted shooting – allegedly targeting Trump’s administration – interrupted the annual White House correspondents’ dinner.
The FCC – led by Trump-appointed chair Brendan Carr – does not grant licenses to national television networks; rather, it licenses each individual station that broadcasts using the public airwaves.
ABC owns and operates eight stations, though it has content agreements with many more. Those eight stations – WABC-TV New York, KABC-TV Los Angeles, WLS-TV Chicago, WPVI-TV Philadelphia, KTRK-TV Houston, KGO-TV San Francisco, WTVD-TV Raleigh-Durham and KFSN-TV Fresno – are the ones being targeted by Carr’s FCC.
Those stations were not scheduled to have to apply for renewal until 2028 at the earliest and 2031 at the latest. But now they are required to file for renewal by 28 May, years ahead of when they were originally required to do so. The FCC announcement appears connected to an investigation launched by the agency early last year into ABC parent company Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices.
“Specifically, FCC rules provide that whenever the FCC regards an application for a renewal of a license as essential to the proper conduct of an investigation, the FCC has the authority to call the broadcaster’s licenses in for early renewal. Doing so both allows the FCC to conduct its ongoing investigation and enables the FCC to ensure that the broadcaster has been meeting its public interest obligations more broadly,” David J Brown, chief of the video division at the FCC’s media bureau, wrote in a memo. “The FCC determines that calling in Disney’s ABC licenses for early renewal, at this time, under the Communications Act’s public interest standard is essential within the meaning of agency regulations.”
In a statement, a Disney spokesperson acknowledged that the company has received notice of the expedited renewal process. “ABC and its stations have a long record of operating in full compliance with FCC rules and serving their local communities with trusted news, emergency information and public‑interest programming,” the spokesperson said. “We are confident that record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the first amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels. Our focus remains, as always, on serving viewers in the local communities where our stations operate.”
On a conservative podcast published on Tuesday, Carr weighed in on the DEI-related investigation and said: “There’s evidence that Disney has been pretty bad. There’s evidence suggests that Disney literally was dividing and categorizing employees based on race and gender, and potentially – we’ll see what the evidence establishes, ultimately – giving different opportunities to people based on their race or gender or other protected class. And we’re going to get some more discovery from Disney on that. But that could raise character questions about the company long-term.”
Carr, on the podcast, said that license renewals can be “accelerated” if there are “significant concerns” about how a network is operating, and questions about whether it is doing so in the public interest. If the FCC determines that a broadcaster is in violation, the next step would be a hearing designation, which Carr said was a “multi-month process”.
Anna M Gomez, the lone Democrat on the FCC, has decried any attempt to speed up the license renewal process for ABC – or any other television network that has been targeted by the Trump administration. “This is unprecedented, unlawful, and going nowhere,” she wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. “This political stunt won’t stick. Companies should challenge it head-on. The First Amendment is on their side.”
In an interview with the Guardian last month, Gomez said the license renewal apparatus is intentionally onerous and time-consuming to prevent any appearance of partisan decision-making.
“If they are trying to take adverse action through the license renewal process, that is an arduous, long, process with multi-layers of decisions that have to be made by different parties that are meant to protect broadcasters from capricious and arbitrary action from the commission,” Gomez said.
Tom Wheeler, who served as chair of the FCC during Barack Obama’s presidency, told the Guardian on Tuesday that Carr “has turned [the FCC] into a political organization using policy to achieve political goals” rather than “a policy agency operating in a political environment”.
While Wheeler said that Carr has the ability to schedule consideration of ABC’s license renewals, any adverse decision would ultimately be appealable – and he noted that license denials are exceedingly rare.
Wheeler said that a denial of ABC’s licenses “would have a hard time at the courts”, though he doesn’t see that as the goal. “There are two message: there’s a message that goes to the Maga base that says, ‘Boy, I’m going at them.’ There’s a message that goes to the president that says, ‘Boy, am I carrying forth what you want me to do.’ And then there’s a message to every licensee of the FCC that says, ‘I can do this to you too.’”
In February, Carr confirmed that the FCC is also investigating the ABC daytime talkshow The View for a potential violation of rules around providing equal time for opposing political candidates.
Despite calls by Trump and his wife Melania for ABC to take action against Kimmel, his show aired as scheduled on Monday night. “It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am,” Kimmel explained to viewers. “It was not – by any stretch of the definition – a call to assassination. And they know that. I’ve been very vocal for many years, speaking out against gun violence, in particular.”
In September, Carr reportedly pressured television station groups to pre-empt Kimmel’s show as punishment for a comment that he made in the wake of the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. Two right-leaning broadcast groups, Sinclair and Nexstar, did so, and ABC opted to “indefinitely” pull Kimmel’s show. Kimmel ultimately returned to the air a week later. Carr later claimed that his comments about Kimmel’s show did not amount to a threat.
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation, issued a statement on Tuesday calling out Carr’s FCC. “The FCC is neither the journalism police nor the humor police,” he said. “This is nothing but illegal jawboning intended to intimidate ABC into kissing the ring.”
“The FCC has no authority to cancel broadcasters’ licenses because of their perceived political views. But this isn’t just about the rights of Disney and ABC. President Trump is trying to consolidate control over what Americans see and hear on the radio, television, and social media,” Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in a statement.
“If he gets his way, we’ll have only government-aligned media organizations that broadcast only government-approved news and commentary. It would be difficult to imagine an outcome more corrosive to democracy or more offensive to the first amendment.” (Guardian)
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says his government is developing a government-owned investment fund.
Carney said on Monday that the fund, a first for the country, will invest in major Canadian industrial projects in areas such as energy, infrastructure, mining, agriculture and technology. It will begin at 25 billion Canadian dollars (US$18bn).
The prime minister said the federal government will put up funds alongside private investors. The money will help finance major projects that Carney’s government is focused on building as Canada seeks to diversify away from the United States.
US President Donald Trump has threatened Canada’s economy and sovereignty with tariffs and claims that Canada could be “the 51st state” in the US.
Carney is a former central banker in England and Canada as well as chairman of the board of directors for Bloomberg.
“We take a lesson from other jurisdictions that had the foresight many decades ago to start sovereign wealth funds,” Carney said. “In some cases, they began with a domestic focus then outgrew the scale of the domestic focus.”
Sovereign wealth funds invest in assets, such as stocks, bonds and real estate. They are typically funded by a country’s budgetary surpluses, which Canada currently does not have. The announcement came a day before Carney’s government announces its spring economic update.
There are more than 90 sovereign wealth funds around the world. They manage more than $8 trillion in assets, according to the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds, a London-based organisation made up of roughly 50 of these entities.
Trump ordered the creation of a US sovereign wealth fund last year. In the US, more than 20 sovereign wealth funds exist at the state level, according to an analysis from the Center for Global Development, a Washington, DC-based nonpartisan think tank. (AlJazeera)
The UK and French governments signed a new multimillion-euro deal on Thursday aimed at reducing the number of migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, with increased police patrols and enhanced surveillance in northern France.
UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez formally endorsed the three-year agreement during a joint visit to the Dunkirk region.
Mahmood praised the new deal as providing “the right mix of skills and capabilities that we know will work on the beaches in order to reduce the crossings.”
Nuñez said that it will help in “combating illegal immigration networks, human trafficking networks, which are obviously extremely harmful.”
Under the agreement, the UK will provide 500 million pounds ($675 million) to strengthen measures in northern France, with an additional 160 million pounds ($216 million) depending on the success of new tactics to curb Channel crossings. If those efforts fail, the additional funding will be halted after one year, the UK Home Office said.
The plan aims at increasing the number of officers deployed on the ground from 907 now to 1,392 for the 2026—2029 period, along with the creation of an additional police unit dedicated to combating irregular migration, funded by France, the French Interior Ministry said.
It will also include the deployment of new technologies aimed at reducing departures of “taxi boats,” the term authorities use for small motorized vessels that are typically inflatable and used by smugglers to pick up migrants along long stretches of the northern French coast.
Unlike boats that migrants carry into the water themselves, “taxi boats” typically set off largely empty from secluded coastal areas and pick up migrants at prearranged meeting points on beaches.
The deal also expands surveillance capabilities through drones, helicopters and electronic monitoring, to better prevent crossing attempts.
“Our work with the French has already stopped tens of thousands of crossings and this government has deported or returned nearly 60,000 people with no right to be here,” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said.
Since taking office nearly two years ago, Starmer’s center-left Labour government has pushed through a series of policies that it hopes will sharply reduce immigration.
Small boat crossings have become a potent political issue in the UK over recent years. Anger at the seeming inability of successive governments to get a handle on the issue has been behind a series of demonstrations and riots over the past few years and fueled the rise of the hard-right Reform UK party, which has been leading in opinion polls for more than a year and is predicted to make sweeping gains in a raft of elections on May 7. (JapanToday)
North Korea fired ballistic missiles into the sea on Sunday, accelerating its missile launches amid Iran war tensions and talk of possible meetings with the U.S. and South Korea.
Pyongyang’s intense missile activity – this was the fourth such launch this month and the seventh of the year – is meant to display its self-defence capabilities while gaining international leverage, some experts said.
“The missile launches may be a way of showing that – unlike Iran – we have self-defense capabilities,” said South Korean former presidential security adviser Kim Ki-jung.
“The North also appears to be exerting pressure preemptively and make a show of force before engaging in dialogue with the United States and South Korea,” he said.
The seven-week-old U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, which has as one aim the curbing of Tehran’s nuclear program, could reinforce Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, experts and former South Korean officials say.
U.S. President Donald Trump, preparing for a summit in China next month, and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung have repeatedly expressed interest in holding talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. There are no publicly known plans for any meetings.
Lee recently conveyed regret to the North for drone incursions from the South, receiving rare praise from Pyongyang.
Sunday’s missiles were fired from near the city of Sinpo on North Korea’s east coast toward the sea around 6:10 a.m. and flew about 140 km, South Korea’s military said in a statement.
Japan’s government posted on social media that the missiles were believed to have fallen near the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, and no incursion into Japan’s exclusive economic zone had been confirmed.
South Korea’s presidential Blue House convened an emergency security meeting, calling the launches a provocation that violated U.N. Security Council resolutions, according to media reports. It urged Pyongyang to “stop the provocative acts”.
It was not clear what kind of ballistic missiles were fired, but Sinpo has submarines and equipment for test-firing submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The North last fired a ballistic missile from a submarine in May 2022, and it flew as far as 600 km.
North Korea has made “very serious” advances in its ability to turn out nuclear weapons, with the probable addition of a new uranium enrichment facility, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday.
In late March, North Korean leader Kim said Pyongyang’s status as a nuclear-armed state was irreversible and expanding a “self-defensive nuclear deterrent” was essential to national security. (JapanToday)
Pope Leo XIV has criticised foreigners who exploit the wealth of Africa for profit during his visit to a conflict-hit region of Cameroon.
It is one of several forthright remarks he has made over the last day, including blasting those who spend billions on wars and telling Cameroon’s government to root out corruption for peace to prevail.
He has spent the day in Bamenda, a city at the centre of Cameroon’s brutal and long-running separatist rebellion.
Internal problems were exacerbated by outsiders who “in the name of profit, continue to lay their hands on the African continent to exploit and plunder it”, he told an estimated 20,000 worshippers at a Mass at Bamenda Airport.
Earlier, joyful crowds sang, drummed and waved flags to welcome the leader of the Catholic Church, who arrived under military escort in a bullet-proof white vehicle.
Ahead of his visit, Anglophone separatists had announced a period of “safe travel passage”.
The Pope’s first stop was at a peace meeting in Bamenda held at Saint Joseph’s Cathedral about the nearly 10-year insurgency in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions that has left at least 6,000 people dead and many more forced from their homes.
“Those who rob your land of its resources generally invest much of the profit in weapons, thus perpetuating an endless cycle of destabilisation and death,” said the 70-year-old Pope.
Since 2017, those seeking to create a breakaway state in Cameroon’s Anglophone region have been fighting government forces.
They are angered by what they see as the marginalisation of Cameroon’s English-speaking minority by the Francophone-dominated government.
Religious leaders and victims of the Anglophone conflict took turns to share the impact of the fighting with the Pope.
A Muslim leader decried the killing of members of the Mbororo indigenous community, looting of cattle and other items.
A nun revealed details of her kidnap by separatist fighters, highlighting the severity of the conflict.
Another man shared how he was forced to flee his home.
The Pope commended their work and said it was a model for the whole world: “Let us thank God that this crisis has not degenerated into a religious war.”
Commentators say the Pope has been unusually blunt in his speeches in Cameroon.
On Wednesday at the presidential palace in the capital, Yaoundé, he gave pointed advice to the government during at address also attended by President Paul Biya.
“In order for peace and justice to prevail, the chains of corruption – which disfigure authority and strip it of its credibility – must be broken,” he said. (BBC)
South African opposition leader Julius Malema has been sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of firing a rifle into the air at a political rally.
A magistrate’s court delivered the ruling on Thursday, sentencing the 45 years old politician over a 2018 incident at a stadium in Eastern Cape province, where he discharged a weapon in a public place.
Malema, a prominent figure in South African politics, was convicted last year on multiple charges, including unlawful possession of a firearm and reckless discharge of a weapon. He had pleaded not guilty to all charges.
His legal team swiftly applied for leave to appeal the sentence shortly after it was delivered in a court in KuGompo City, formerly known as East London.
If upheld after the appeals process, the sentence could disqualify Malema from holding public office, dealing a significant blow to his Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party.
The EFF, currently the fourth-largest party in parliament, has built a strong following among young South Africans, particularly those frustrated by persistent inequality since the end of apartheid in 1994.
Authorities say the case marks a significant moment in enforcing firearm laws, as the country continues to grapple with public safety concerns. (AriseNews)
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