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After China announced retaliatory tariffs against the United States, walkers along Shanghai’s waterfront were stoic Tuesday in face of both the cold and the prospect of an escalating trade war.The tariffs on US energy, vehicles and equipment were unveiled minutes after additional levies on Chinese goods announced Saturday by US President Donald Trump came into …

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Israel said it was sending a team to negotiate the next phase in its fragile ceasefire with Hamas, signalling possible progress ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Donald Trump on Tuesday.Netanyahu will be the first foreign leader to meet Trump in the White House since his return to power last month, and will likely face some pressure to honour the ceasefire the US leader has claimed credit for.Hours before their meeting, Netanyahu’s office said Israel would send a delegation to the Qatari capital Doha later this week for negotiations.Hamas has said it is ready to negotiate the second stage of the ceasefire, mediated by Qatar, the United States and Egypt, and which should focus on a more permanent end to the war.The first phase, which took effect on January 19, halted more than 15 months of bombardment and fighting that has levelled much of the Gaza Strip.In line with the agreement, Hamas and Israel have begun exchanging hostages held in Gaza for prisoners held in Israeli jails.”Israel is preparing for the working-level delegation to leave for Doha at the end of this week in order to discuss technical details related to the continued implementation of the agreement,” Netanyahu’s office said following meetings with Trump’s advisors, including Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.- ‘Redrawn the map’ -The war began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, taking into Gaza 251 hostages, dozens of whom have since been confirmed dead.The conflict has devastated much of Gaza, while families of the Israeli hostages have been urging all sides to ensure the agreement is maintained so their loved ones can be freed.Relatives of the youngest hostages, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, made a plea on Monday for information on the two boys and their mother, Shiri, after their father Yarden Bibas was released in the latest swap.”Shiri, Ariel and Kfir, we miss you so much and are waiting for you with Yarden now,” Ofri Bibas, Yarden’s sister, said.Trump has touted a plan to “clean out” Gaza, calling for Palestinians to move to Egypt or Jordan.Both countries have flatly rejected his proposal, as have the territory’s own residents.”We are the owners of this land; we have always been here, and will always be. The future is ours,” said Majed al-Zebda, a father of six whose house was destroyed in the war.Before leaving for Washington, Netanyahu said Israel’s wars with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and its confrontations with Iran had “redrawn the map” in the Middle East.”But I believe that working closely with President Trump we can redraw it even further, and for the better,” he said.Netanyahu hailed the fact he would be the first foreign leader to meet Trump since his inauguration as “testimony to the strength of the Israeli-American alliance.”Trump, who prides himself on his dealmaking abilities, will be pushing Netanyahu to stick to the agreement, possibly offering incentives such as a normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia.Efforts under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden for normalisation froze with the Gaza war, and Saudi Arabia has in recent months hardened its position.- Focus on West Bank? -Trump said Sunday that talks with Israel and other Middle Eastern countries were “progressing” — but warned that he had “no assurances” that the truce in Gaza would hold.”I have no assurances that it will hold, I mean I’ve seen people brutalised, nobody’s ever seen anything like it, no I have no guarantees that the peace is going to hold,” he said.Witkoff, who met Netanyahu on Monday over terms for the second phase of the truce, said however that he was “certainly hopeful”.Since the truce took effect, Israel has turned its focus to the occupied West Bank, launching a deadly operation in the area around Jenin, a hotbed of Palestinian militancy.UN aid agency UNRWA, which is now banned in Israel, warned the refugee camp of Jenin was “going into a catastrophic direction”.On Tuesday, the Israeli army said a gunman killed two Israeli soldiers in an attack on a military post in Tayasir in the West Bank. The assailant was also killed.Asked about how he viewed a possible annexation of the West Bank, Trump told reporters: “It’s a small country in terms of land.””It’s a pretty small piece of land. And it’s amazing that they’ve been able to do what they’ve been able to do,” he said.Under the Gaza ceasefire’s ongoing 42-day first phase, Hamas was to free 33 hostages in staggered releases in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.Four hostage-prisoner exchanges have already taken place, with militants freeing 18 hostages in exchange of some 600 mostly Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.The truce has also led to a surge of food, fuel, medical and other aid into Gaza, and allowed people displaced by the war to return to their neighbourhoods in the north of the Palestinian territory.Hamas’s attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people on Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory response has killed at least 47,518 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN considers these figures as reliable.burs-ser/dv

Stock markets mostly rebounded and there strong gains for Mexico’s peso and Canada’s dollar Tuesday after Donald Trump said he would delay tariffs on imports from the US neighbours.It did little to soothe trade war worries, however, as Beijing announced levies on some imports of US goods in retaliation for tariffs on items arriving from …

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A romantic drama about an elderly couple who share a night together to escape their loneliness has landed its Iranian directors with legal charges and pressure to stop its release internationally. The feel-good movie called “My Favourite Cake” has been lauded on the festival circuit and appeared in cinemas in more than a dozen countries at the end of 2024.With favourable reviews mounting and more international releases expected in coming weeks, Tehran-based directors Maryam Moghadam and Behtash Sanaeeha are facing rising intimidation from Iranian authorities.”They want us to stop the release of the film in different countries,” Sanaeeha told AFP by videocall from the Iranian capital.”When a film goes to festival or starts a new release in a new country, they call us … and then push us to stop the film, in France, in Italy, in Germany and everywhere,” he added.After forces from the Revolutionary Guards raided their office in 2023, the pair were charged with “propaganda against the regime”, “spreading the libertinism and prostitution” and breaking Islamic law with “vulgarity”. Once a month or more since then, the directors of the 2020 film “Ballad of a White Cow” have had to report to police for questioning and have had their passports confiscated.Other acclaimed Iranian directors from Jafar Panahi to Mohammad Rasoulof, who fled Iran last year, have faced similar pressure.”Now we are waiting for the final decision of the court,” Sanaeeha explained.- ‘Story of reality’ -Subtle and moving, “My Favourite Cake” defies Iran’s strict censorship rules with its intimate portrayal of everyday life — something the director couple knew was a risk. “From the beginning, we knew that it was going to have consequences for us,” Sanaeeha continued. “Not only me and Maryam … The actors are now on trial, the same as us, with less charges, but they are in the same case.”The film touches on many sensitive issues for Iran’s Islamic regime, portraying a couple that remembers life before the social restrictions brought in following the 1979 Iranian Revolution.It also about a relationship between two unmarried adults — a widow and a widower — while the female lead, Lili Farhadpour, does not wear a veil.”We wanted to tell the story of the reality of our lives, which is about those forbidden things like singing, dancing, not wearing hijab at home, which no one does at home,” Moghadam, who is also an actress, told AFP.”Being a normal person, having desires, touching each other, all these things have been forbidden. But to tell these realities was very important for us,” she added.”In Iranian films, for 45 years, you would see an Iranian woman waking up in bed with a hijab. It’s absurd because it’s not happening in reality in Iranian houses!” Sanaeeha added.- ‘Shocked’ -Filming started two weeks before the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protest movement in Iran in 2022 sparked by the arrest of a 22-year-old student Mahsa Amini for a dress code violation who later died in police custody.The protests were suppressed by a deadly crackdown that left hundreds dead, according to human rights groups.”We were shocked. We stopped the shooting (of the film),” Sanaeeha explained. “Then after two days, we all came together… and we talked for a couple of hours and we reminded ourselves that the film that we were making was the same topics of the movement.”The film comes out in France on Wednesday and is set to release in Brazil, Greece, Norway and Belgium this year, while negotiations are underway for theatrical releases in seven other countries, including the United States. For the moment, Iranians can only watch it through illicit downloads or pirated versions shared on encrypted messaging services such as Telegram. “We believe that we have to be here. We have to stand and we have to fight,” Moghadam said of the risks the couple are taking.”We don’t know what will happen in the future,” she added.

China has made good on its threats to retaliate in the escalating trade war with the United States, imposing tariffs on American imports of energy, cars and machinery parts. That came just minutes after a 10 percent tariff hike on Chinese goods, announced by US President Donald Trump on Saturday, came into effect.Here’s the state of …

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To applause, percussionist Bahjat Antaki took the stage with Syria’s national symphony orchestra, marking the first classical concert at the Damascus opera house since president Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.The concert was a way of saying “we are here and able to produce art,” despite more than years of devastating war, Antaki told AFP after last week’s performance, which drew an audience of hundreds.”We will continue, and we will be stronger and more beautiful,” the 24-year-old said.After Islamist-led rebels ousted Assad on December 8, the orchestra’s rehearsals and concerts were halted as Syria embarked on a delicate transition away from decades of one-family rule enforced by a repressive security apparatus.While the country has breathed a sigh of relief, many in the capital — known for being more liberal than other parts of the country — have expressed apprehension about the direction the new Islamist leaders may take on personal freedoms and potentially the arts.The new authorities have said repeatedly they will protect Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, and that the country’s transition will be inclusive.”There aren’t fears, but worries,” said violinist Rama al-Barsha before going onstage.”We hope for more support — under the old regime, we had no financial aid or even symbolic support,” the 33-year-old said.The concert was conducted by Missak Baghboudarian, a member of Syria’s Armenian minority, and included works by Beethoven and Tchaikovsky but also by Syrian composers.In the audience were European and Gulf Arab diplomats as well as new Health Minister Maher al-Sharaa and his family.- Homage ‘to the martyrs’ -Sharaa is the brother of interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa, who until recently led the Islamist group that spearheaded the offensive against Assad.The group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has its roots in Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate but cut ties in 2016.Last month, the opera house also hosted its first concert by well-known Islamic music singer known as Abu Ratib, who returned after decades in exile for his political views and whose recordings until recently were sold in secret.The orchestral performance paid homage “to the martyrs and the glory of Syria”.A minute’s silence was held for the more than 500,000 people killed during the civil war which erupted after Assad brutally repressed anti-government protests in 2011.Images of the destruction wreaked by more than 13 years of fighting were projected on the back wall of the stage, along with pictures of mass demonstrations.Also shown were photographs of Alan Kurdi, the toddler who became a tragic symbol of the Syrian refugee crisis when his tiny body was washed up on a Turkish beach in 2015 after his family’s failed attempt to reach EU member Greece by small boat.- ‘The Syria we want’ -In a reminder of the heavy economic cost of the war, the venue was unheated for the concert despite the winter cold. Organisers said they could not afford the fuel, and both musicians and technical staff performed for free.Audience member Omar Harb, 26, acknowledged concerns about the future of the arts in Syria’s Islamist-led political transition but said after the performance that “it seems that nothing will change”.”We hope that these events will continue — I want to come back again,” said the young doctor, after watching his first concert at the opera house.Yamama al-Haw, 42, said the venue was “a very dear place”. “What we see here today is the Syria that I love… the music, the people who have come to listen — that’s the best image of Damascus,” she said, beaming, and wearing a white hijab.She expressed optimism that the country was headed towards “better days”.”Everything suggests that what will come will be better for the people… we will have the Syria we want.”