Author: Daily Sabah With DPA

Top representatives from the European Union and the United States held a video conference on Friday to discuss President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on European imports. EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said he spoke for two hours with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. Šefčovič, writing on X, described the discussion as “frank.” “I was clear: US tariffs are damaging, unjustified,” he wrote. “The EU-US trade relationship needs a fresh approach. The EU’s committed to meaningful negotiations but also prepared to defend our interests.” Šefčovič ended with: “We stay in touch.” No further details were…

Israel’s military on Monday ordered residents of Rafah and nearby villages in southern Gaza to evacuate immediately, citing plans to resume operations “with great force” against resistance groups in the area. A map published with the announcement shows that most of Rafah is affected by the order. Residents were told to go to al-Mawasi, a sprawling and squalid series of encampments along Gaza’s south-west Mediterranean coast. Al-Mawasi was previously designated a “safe zone,” although Israeli forces have conducted strikes there to target what they describe as Hamas facilities. Following a ceasefire that took effect on January 19, many internally displaced…

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has once again rejected direct negotiations over the country’s nuclear programme with the government of US President Donald Trump. “We responded to the US president’s letter via Oman and rejected the option of direct talks, but we are open to indirect negotiations,” Pezeshkian said at a Cabinet meeting in Tehran on Sunday. Iran is not opposed to negotiations, he said, but the United States must first correct its past “misconduct” and create a new basis for trust, the ISNA news agency cited Pezeshkian as saying. In a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Trump…

Greenland’s newly elected Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen firmly rejected US threats to take control of the Arctic territory on Sunday, just days after taking office. “Let me be clear: the US will not get Greenland. We do not belong to anyone else. We determine our own future,” Nielsen wrote on Facebook. Since taking office, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to bring Greenland under US control, arguing that the resource-rich island of around 57,000 people is of strategic importance for the United States. Nielsen advised a calm response to the threats. “We should not react out of fear. We…

US President Donald Trump has threatened that Iran will be bombed if it persists in developing nuclear weapons. “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” NBC News said the president told one of its correspondents in an interview late Saturday. It said he also threatened to punish Iran with what he called “secondary tariffs.” Trump’s language represented a sharpening of his comment a few days earlier that if Tehran refused to negotiate a new nuclear agreement, “bad, bad things are going to happen to Iran.” It was not clear whether Trump was threatening bombing by US planes…

Yemenis were on Sunday marking the first day of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr festival amid an escalating military faceoff between the Iran-aligned Houthi militia and the United States as well as economic woes in the war-devastated country. Eid al-Fitr, one of the holiest occasions in the Islamic calendar, marks the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. Early Sunday, the militia-affiliated media said several US airstrikes were launched against sites in the Houthi-controlled provinces of Sana’a and Sa’ada. The media did not report casualties. A Houthi military spokesman claimed the group’s forces had clashed with “hostile” warships and the…

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip solemnly marked the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr between ruins and the threat of further air raids on Sunday. Instead of the usual cheer at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, the streets were silent and many people exchanged condolences for lost relatives, rather than wishing each other a happy Eid, eyewitnesses said. Many people are instead preoccupied by Israel’s resumption of bombings of the Gaza Strip after a brief ceasefire. “I used to dress my children in their best clothes and visit relatives with them,” Amina Al-Nadjar from the city of Rafah…

Ukraine is firmly rejecting the classification of US military aid in its fight against Russia’s invasion as a loan. “We are grateful for the support, but this is not a loan, and we will not allow it,” President Volodymyr Zelensky told journalists in Kiev on Friday. Zelensky also confirmed that Ukraine has received a new draft of a stalled mineral resources agreement from the US. Shortly after taking office in January, US President Donald Trump tied military aid to Ukraine’s access to its valuable rare earth minerals. However, a deal that was set to be signed collapsed in February following…

Ukraine is firmly rejecting the classification of US military aid in its fight against Russia’s invasion as a loan. “We are grateful for the support, but this is not a loan, and we will not allow it,” President Volodymyr Zelensky told journalists in Kiev on Friday. Zelensky also confirmed that Ukraine has received a new draft of a stalled mineral resources agreement from the US. Shortly after taking office in January, US President Donald Trump tied military aid to Ukraine’s access to its valuable rare earth minerals. However, a deal that was set to be signed collapsed in February following…

A photo of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posing in front of a painting depicting a burning Kremlin published by Time magazine provoked anger in Moscow on Tuesday. “This probably best shows the level of intellectual development and the internal state of those who pose for photos like this,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the photo published by the US magazine on Monday, according to the TASS state news agency. Time described its report as an exclusive on the endgame in Ukraine. The 2022 painting entitled “Dream” by Georgian artist Sandro Antadze is said to be Zelensky’s favourite symbol of…