Author: Gulf News Week
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (news agencies) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed Friday to explore “areas of potential cooperation” between Washington and Beijing, and stressed the importance of managing differences, following their first in-person meeting as they wrapped up a two-day regional security forum in Malaysia.Rubio and Wang met Friday on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, regional forum in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as tensions between the two global powers continue to rise over trade, security, and China’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.“Look, we’re two big, powerful…
LONDON (news agencies) — Play was stopped twice during the Wimbledon semifinal match between Carlos Alcaraz and Taylor Fritz because two fans felt unwell in the heat on Friday.The temperature reached 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) at Centre Court when both delays took place — during the eighth game of the second set.Similar stoppages occurred during a women’s semifinal match on Thursday.Fritz grabbed a water bottle from his cooler and directed a ball boy to take it to the ill fan during the first delay. Alcaraz and Fritz then chatted briefly at the net during the second stoppage, which…
DAYTON, Tenn. (news agencies) — A small town in eastern Tennessee courted national publicity and attention a century ago when local leaders planned a test trial over the teaching of evolution in public schools. What they got from the eight-day Scopes trial was more than they bargained for.The trial of the century — and the first to be broadcast over the radio — inspired articles, books, plays and movies, including the popular “Inherit the Wind.”It also characterized Dayton as an uneducated town of strident Christian fundamentalists, a narrative locals have spent decades trying to rewrite.For over 30 years, people in…
WASHINGTON (news agencies) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Washington this week netted President Donald Trump another nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize he covets, but the ceasefire the U.S. leader sought for the war in Gaza didn’t emerge. Despite Trump throwing his weight behind a push for a 60-day truce between Israel and Hamas, no breakthrough was announced during Netanyahu’s visit, a disappointment for a president who wants to be known as a peacemaker and has hinged his reputation on being a dealmaker.“He prides himself or being able to make deals, so this is another test case,”…
LONDON (news agencies) — “The Salt Path” is a memoir of resilience and courage that captured the hearts of millions and which was subsequently adapted for the big screen, with actors Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs taking the lead roles. But now, the book and the film are mired in a controversy that could see them suffer that very modern phenomenon — being canceled.A bombshell report in last Sunday’s “The Observer” newspaper in the U.K. claimed there was more to the 2018 book than met the eye — that key elements of the story had been fabricated. Author Raynor Winn…
WASHINGTON (news agencies) — World leaders, lawmakers and even one Native American tribe are deploying a novel strategy for remaining on good terms with Presidential Donald Trump: Praise his peacemaking efforts and nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize.The announcements of nominations are piling up for the mercurial Republican president, who has long coveted the prestigious award. The honor, according to Albert Nobel’s wishes, is given to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”Peace…
LONDON (news agencies) — Either Amanda Anisimova or Iga Swiatek will leave the All England Club’s grass courts as Wimbledon’s eighth consecutive first-time women’s champion.Why has there been such a revolving door? Chris Evert has some thoughts about various elements that, as she put it ahead of Saturday’s final, “make it difficult to feel completely secure and confident on this elusive surface.”For one, there’s the amount of talent in the game — “deeper now than ever,” said Evert, a Hall of Famer who won three of her 18 Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon in the 1970s and 1980s and was…
BOBO-DIOULASSO, Burkina Faso (news agencies) — Isaka Diallo was playing with friends when a stone struck his left eye. For two weeks, his parents searched hospitals in western Burkina Faso for an eye doctor. The village clinic only prescribed painkillers. Other health workers did not know what to do.When they eventually found Dr. Claudette Yaméogo, Burkina Faso’s only pediatric ophthalmologist, the injury had become too difficult to treat.“The trauma has become severe,” Yaméogo said of Diallo’s condition as she attended to him recently at the Sanou Sourou University Hospital in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso. “Cases like (Diallo’s) must be treated…
To dodge Trump’s tariffs and wrath, five African presidents played the role of loyal colonial subject, and left their dignity behind.On July 9, United States President Donald Trump opened a three-day mini summit at the White House with the leaders of Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, and Senegal – by subjecting his distinguished guests to a carefully staged public humiliation. This was not the plan – or at least, not the part the public was meant to see. A White House official claimed on July 3 that “President Trump believes that African countries offer incredible commercial opportunities which benefit both the…
SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq (news agencies) — Fighters with a Kurdish separatist militant group that has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey began laying down their weapons in a symbolic ceremony on Friday in northern Iraq, the first concrete step toward a promised disarmament as part of a peace process.The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, announced in May that it would disband and renounce armed conflict, ending four decades of hostilities. The move came after PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, urged his group in February to convene a congress and formally disband…