‘We will not leave,’ say Gazans as Trump and Netanyahu meet

Like most Palestinians, Hatem Azzam, a resident of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, was incensed by US President Donald Trump’s remarks suggesting Gazans should relocate to Egypt or Jordan.”Trump thinks Gaza is a pile of garbage — absolutely not,” the 34-year-old said, attacking Trump’s choice of words when he told reporters last week of his plan to “clean out the whole thing”.Calling him “delusional”, Azzam said that Trump “wants to force Egypt and Jordan to take in migrants, as if they were his personal farm”.Both Egypt and Jordan have flatly rejected Trump’s idea, as have Gazans and other neighbouring countries.Azzam’s outrage comes as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are set to meet in Washington later Tuesday and discuss plans for the Palestinian territory ravaged by more than 15 months of war.”Trump and Netanyahu must understand the reality of the Palestinian people and the people of Gaza. This is a people deeply rooted in their land — we will not leave,” Azzam told AFP.Ihab Ahmed, another Rafah resident, deplored that Trump and Netanyahu “still don’t understand the Palestinian people” and their attachment to the land.”We will remain on this land no matter what. Even if we have to live in tents and on the streets, we will stay rooted in this land,” the 30-year-old said.Ahmed told AFP that Palestinians had learned lessons from the 1948 war that followed the British mandate, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were chased from their homes at the creation of Israel, and never allowed to return.”The world must understand this message: we will not leave, as happened in 1948.”-‘Owners of this land’-Standing near crumbling buildings blocks destroyed by war in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia, Raafat Kalob is concerned about the consequences that the Trump-Netanyahu meeting will have on his life.”I expect Netanyahu’s visit to Trump to reflect his future plans to forcibly displace the Palestinian people and redraw the Middle East,” he said.”I sincerely hope this plan does not succeed.”Behind him, rows of tents provided by charity organisations line a patch of land at the foot of concrete buildings whose facades still bear marks of war: bullet holes, blown away windows and facades stripped of their stone finishing.In Jabalia and Gaza’s north, areas that were particularly hard-hit by the war, displaced Palestinians who returned after a ceasefire took effect on January 19 have taken residence in tents next to their destroyed homes.Some were nevertheless optimistic, like Majid al-Zebda, a 50-year-old resident of Jabalia.Trump “will pressure Netanyahu to end this war” permanently, he said.The first phase of the ceasefire brought a fragile end to fighting in Gaza and started the process of a hostage and prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, but negotiations have yet to begin for a permanent end to war.Zebda, a father of six who lost his home in the war, said neither he nor any Gazan would leave the coastal territory.”We are the owners of this land; we have always been here, and will always be. The future is ours,” he said.

US greenlights pig kidney transplant trials

Two US biotech companies say the Food and Drug Administration has cleared them to conduct clinical trials of their gene-edited pig kidneys for human transplants.United Therapeutics along with another company, eGenesis, have been working since 2021 on experiments implanting pig kidneys into humans: initially brain-dead patients and more recently living recipients. Advocates hope the approach will help address the severe organ shortage. More than 100,000 people in the United States are awaiting transplants, including over 90,000 in need of kidneys.United Therapeutics’s approval, announced Monday, allows the company to advance its technology toward a licensed product if the trial succeeds.The study authorization was hailed as a “significant step forward in our relentless mission to expand the availability of transplantable organs,” by Leigh Peterson, the company’s executive vice president.The trial will initially enroll six patients with end-stage renal disease before expanding to as many as 50, United Therapeutics said in a statement. The first transplant is expected in mid-2025.Meanwhile, rival eGenesis said it had received FDA approval in December for a separate three-patient kidney study.”The study will evaluate patients with kidney failure who are listed for a transplant but who face a low probability of receiving a deceased donor offer within a five-year timeframe,” the company said.Xenotransplantation — transplanting organs from one species to another — has been a tantalizing yet elusive goal for science. Early experiments in primates faltered, but advances in gene editing and immune system management have brought the field closer to reality.Pigs have emerged as ideal donors: they grow quickly, produce large litters, and are already part of the human food supply.United Therapeutics said trial patients would be monitored for life, assessing survival rates, kidney function, and the risk of zoonotic infections — diseases that jump from animals to humans.Currently, there is only one living human recipient of a pig organ: Towana Looney, a 53-year-old from Alabama who received a United Therapeutics kidney on November 25, 2024.She is also the longest-surviving recipient, having lived with a pig kidney for 71 days as of Tuesday. David Bennett of Maryland received a pig heart in 2022 and survived 60 days.

Lack of regional cooperation hampering Lake Chad jihadist fightTue, 04 Feb 2025 15:33:16 GMT

Lack of military coordination and tension among countries in Africa’s Lake Chad region are hindering efforts to end a more than decade-long jihadist insurgency, according to local officials and security sources.The region, comprising the four countries that surround Lake Chad — Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria — has been battling insurgency since 2009, after a …

Lack of regional cooperation hampering Lake Chad jihadist fightTue, 04 Feb 2025 15:33:16 GMT Read More »

Mexico begins deployment of 10,000 troops on US border

Mexico began Tuesday the 10,000-strong border troop deployment it had promised US President Donald Trump in exchange for delaying a 25-percent tariff on exported goods, President Claudia Sheinbaum said.”The deployment has already started,” she told reporters a day after announcing a last-minute deal with Trump to tighten measures against illegal migration and cross-border smuggling of the drug fentanyl.Trump on Saturday announced sweeping measures against the United States’s three biggest trading partners: Canada, China and Mexico.Its immediate neighbors were to pay an export tariff of 25 percent, the president announced, and China an additional 10 percent on top of existing duties.Canada and Mexico announced reciprocal levies before both countries’ presidents managed to strike a deal with Trump Monday that saw him delay the tariffs by a month.Markets had slumped Monday after the weekend threats sparked fears of a global trade war.Sheinbaum said Tuesday troops had been taken from parts of the country that “do not have as much of a security problem.”More than 450,000 people have been murdered countrywide since Mexico launched a major offensive against drug cartels in 2006.The US border deployment “does not leave the rest of the country without security,” the president insisted.

Des policiers dans la rue pour réclamer une augmentation de leurs moyens

Plusieurs milliers de policiers se sont rassemblés mardi devant l’Assemblée nationale à Paris, à l’appel du syndicat Alliance Police Nationale, pour réclamer “un budget à la hauteur” pour la police, au lendemain de l’utilisation par le Premier ministre François Bayrou du 49.3 pour faire adopter sans vote le budget de l’Etat.Sous les yeux du ministre de l’Intérieur Bruno Retailleau, du préfet de police de Paris Laurent Nuñez ou du directeur de la police nationale Louis Laugier, près de 5.000 policiers, selon le syndicat majoritaire, ont manifesté leur mécontentement, rappelant aux parlementaires qu’il fallait “investir massivement dans la sécurité” ou bien “accepter d’être complices de son effondrement”.Venus de l’Yonne, de Bretagne, de Vendée, de Normandie ou de Toulouse notamment, ils ont été rejoints devant le palais Bourbon par d’autres syndicats, Synergie-Officiers, le Syndicat indépendant des commissaires de police (SICP), le Syndicat national indépendant des personnels administratifs techniques et scientifiques (SNIPAT) ou le Syndicat autonome des préfectures et de l’administration centrale du ministère de l’Intérieur (SAPACMI).”Tout le monde nous dit que le budget est passé, le 49.3 est fait… mais non, ce n’est pas fini: ce n’est qu’une petite bataille, il peut y avoir une loi rectificative, avec un budget supplémentaire. Parce que, aujourd’hui, le budget n’est pas en adéquation avec ce que nous méritons et les moyens matériels pour pouvoir travailler d’une manière confortable”, a expliqué le secrétaire général du syndicat Alliance Fabien Vanhemelryck.”Ce n’est pas le tout de dire qu’on va lutter contre l’immigration clandestine. Ce n’est pas le tout de dire qu’on va lutter contre le narcotrafic, la délinquance du quotidien… sans avoir les moyens de le faire!”, a-t-il poursuivi.Le syndicat avait déjà fait pression sur Bruno Retailleau début janvier, promettant de “descendre dans la rue” si le budget 2025 du ministère de l’Intérieur ne leur convenait pas.

La guerre commerciale USA-Chine est lancée, discussions au sommet attendues

Un échange entre le président chinois Xi Jinping et son homologue américain Donald Trump est attendu mardi au premier jour de la guerre commerciale entre les deux géants, marqué par la réplique de la Chine aux droits de douane imposés par Washington.Lundi, la Maison Blanche avait indiqué que Donald Trump prévoyait de s’entretenir avec son homologue chinois dans “les 24 heures”.Depuis, Pékin a annoncé qu’il allait taxer les importations d’hydrocarbures, de charbon et de certains véhicules en provenance des Etats-Unis.Il s’agit d’une réplique à l’entrée en vigueur mardi de droits de douane américains renforcés ciblant les produits chinois, une escalade dans le bras de fer commercial engagé par Donald Trump.Dans le détail, la Chine imposera à partir du 10 février des droits de douane de 15% sur les importations de charbon et de gaz naturel liquéfié (GNL) américains, a précisé le ministère chinois des Finances.Des taxes douanières de 10% seront par ailleurs appliquées aux importations de pétrole américain et à d’autres catégories de biens venant des Etats-Unis: machines agricoles, véhicules de sport de grosse cylindrée et camionnettes.Ces mesures ont été annoncées quelques minutes après l’entrée en vigueur de 10% de droits de douane additionnels américains sur l’ensemble des produits importés de Chine.Le Mexique et le Canada étaient initialement aussi visés par des droits de douane (de 25%) à compter de mardi. Mais Donald Trump leur a accordé lundi un délai de grâce d’un mois après avoir reçu des engagements sur le renforcement de la sécurité aux frontières.Donald Trump présente ces droits de douane comme une réponse à l’afflux de clandestins et de drogues aux Etats-Unis. Il dénonce le manque de contrôle aux frontières, accuse la Chine de passivité face à la production sur son sol de précurseurs chimiques du fentanyl, un opioïde de synthèse meurtrier qui fait des ravages aux Etats-Unis. Ces taxes promulguées par Donald Trump “ne font rien pour résoudre les problèmes propres (aux Etats-Unis) et perturbent la coopération économique et commerciale” entre les deux pays, a affirmé le ministère chinois des Finances.Pékin a annoncé avoir déposé plainte contre Washington auprès de l’Organisation mondiale du Commerce (OMC), dénonçant les intentions “malveillantes” de Washington.La Chine a par ailleurs ouvert une enquête antimonopole contre le géant technologique américain Google, et annoncé avoir placé plusieurs sociétés américaines –le groupe de prêt-à-porter PVH Corp., qui possède Tommy Hilfiger et Calvin Klein– et le géant de la biotech Illumina– sur sa liste d'”entités peu fiables”.”La Chine n’avait pas d’autre choix que de riposter”, a estimé auprès de l’AFP Karen Zhang, 42 ans, depuis la promenade du bord de mer, à Shanghai.”Les Etats-Unis ont pris des mesures très dures à l’égard de la Chine, qui ne peut pas se laisser malmener sans rien faire”, a-t-elle ajouté.  -Réplique ciblée-“La riposte chinoise n’est pas agressive, car la Chine ne cible que certains produits alors que les droits de douane américains visent l’ensemble des exportations chinoises”, tempère Zhiwei Zhang, économiste pour Pinpoint Asset Management. “Il ne s’agit probablement que du début d’un long processus de négociation entre les deux pays”, ajoute l’expert.Donald Trump, qui a déclaré à de nombreuses reprises que “tariff” (droit de douane) était l’un des plus beaux mots du dictionnaire, reconnaît volontiers y recourir comme une arme de négociation pour obtenir des concessions politiques.Le Mexique s’est notamment engagé à envoyer 10.000 soldats supplémentaires à la frontière avec les Etats-Unis afin de lutter contre la migration illégale. Leur déploiement a débuté mardi, selon la présidente mexicaine Claudia Sheinbaum.Le Canada a, lui, promis de nommer un responsable entièrement dédié à la lutte contre le trafic de fentanyl, de lancer une force d’intervention conjointe avec les Etats-Unis contre le crime organisé et d’inscrire les cartels mexicains sur sa liste des organisations terroristes.Le compromis annoncé a convaincu la province de l’Ontario, poumon économique du Canada, de renoncer lundi soir à bannir les entreprises américaines des contrats publics.Le Mexique, le Canada et la Chine sont les principaux partenaires commerciaux des Etats-Unis et représentent au total plus de 40% des importations du pays.burs-myl/mg/

Stocks fluctuate as Trump delays tariffs

Stock markets wavered on Tuesday, with investors bracing for volatile trading in the coming weeks as President Donald Trump pressed on with tariffs against China after delaying duties on Mexican and Canadian imports.Oil prices retreated as Beijing announced retaliatory tariffs against US products, including hydrocarbons, shortly after US levies came into force on Tuesday.”Chinese imports of US crude and oil products are relatively modest,” Jorge Leon, an economist at Rystad Energy, told AFP.”However, the key question is where we go from here. Is this the start of a tit-for-tat trade war between the two biggest economies in the world? If so, the downside risk to global economic growth would be significant,” he said.Gold, a haven asset in uncertain times, traded close to recent record highs.Investors also tracked mixed earnings from major companies — including alcoholic drinks giant Diageo, which scrapped a key performance target as it predicted sales of tequila and Canadian whisky in the key US market would be hit by the tariffs.Markets from Japan to New York were sent tumbling Monday after news at the weekend that Trump had signed off 25 percent duties against Mexico and Canada, fanning concerns for the stuttering global economy.Hours before the tariffs were due to kick in, Trump said he would postpone the measures until March.China, Canada and Mexico are the United States’ three biggest trading partners.”A risk is that this is the beginning of a tit-for-tat trade war, which could result in lower GDP growth everywhere, higher US inflation, a stronger dollar and upside pressure on US interest rates,” said Stephen Dover, chief market strategist and head of Franklin Templeton Institute.”The uncertainty surrounding the permanence of these tariffs makes it challenging for companies to make informed capital investment decisions,” he added.Trump has warned that the European Union would be next in the firing line and has not ruled out tariffs against Britain.The volatile start to February on markets follows their roller-coaster ride last week after China’s DeepSeek unveiled a cheaper artificial intelligence model rivalling those of US tech giants, sparking questions over the vast sums invested in the sector in recent years.”One thing we can say for sure. Markets are going to remain subject to massive headline risk in coming hours… days… and years,” forecast Ray Attrill, foreign currency strategist at National Australia Bank.- Key figures around 1445 GMT -New York – Dow: DOWN 0.1 percent at 44,388.98 pointsNew York – S&P 500: UP 0.2 percent at 6,003.73New York – Nasdaq: UP 0.5 percent at 19,487.61London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.3 percent at 8,561.71 Paris – CAC 40: UP 0.4 percent at 7,888.02Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.2 percent at 21,459.97Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 0.7 percent at 38,798.37 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 2.8 percent at 20,789.96 (close)Shanghai – Composite: Closed for a holidayEuro/dollar: UP at $1.0350 from $1.0302 on MondayPound/dollar: UP at $1.2442 from $1.2407Dollar/yen: UP at 155.02 yen from 154.80 yenEuro/pound: UP at 83.19 pence from 83.03 penceWest Texas Intermediate: DOWN 2.2 percent at $70.96 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 1.6 percent at $74.34 per barrel