Watch: Trump welcomed by parade of red Cybertrucks and camels during Qatar visit
Donald Trump 's motorcade was welcomed by a parade of red cybertrucks and camels during his visit to Qatar.
The president landed at Doha 's Hamad International Airport to meet Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani on Wednesday (14 May).
Trump's motorcade was then led to the the Amiri Diwan by police cybertrucks that had been painted red and gold. A parade of camels welcomed him in front of the presidential office.
Qatar is the second country Trump is visiting during his tour of the Middle East, after first stopping in Saudi Arabia.
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Hide the pain: how a war reporter keeps going when their own family are victims
Purpose was never something Wael al-Dahdouh struggled with. Even when struck by personal tragedies, the Palestinian journalist would take his place in front of Al Jazeera's cameras to report the news from Gaza. He returned to work almost immediately after his wife, two of his children and his toddler grandson were killed by an Israeli airstrike in October 2023. He showed the same determination seven weeks later when he was himself injured, and his friend and colleague Samer Abu Daqqa killed, as they reported on the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on a school. He again was back at work immediately after the funeral of his eldest son, Hamza, a cameraman killed in a targeted Israeli strike on a car carrying a group of reporters in January 2024. But his family persuaded him to leave Gaza that same month, and though Dahdouh gives interviews and travels the world to speak about the war there, he still struggles with the fact that he is no longer reporting alongside colleagues who have persisted through danger and hunger. 'It was as if I had been poisoned when I left the Gaza Strip,' he says. 'I can't exaggerate to say often it is more difficult than when I was inside, and this deepens every time I see a disaster in Gaza that affects the journalists, the people, my relatives.' Dahdouh adds: 'At least when I was in Gaza I felt like I could do something valuable, to report on the people's suffering, about the massacres they faced, about their stresses, their problems.' Now separated from his microphone and camera, Dahdouh – who still wears a brace on his injured arm – focuses on his own recovery and that of his surviving family who were able to get out of Gaza. He says he finds the only limited way he can reprise some of the purpose he felt as a journalist is to speak to international audiences, as he did last week at the Amnesty Media Awards, calling for solidarity with Gaza's journalists as he picked up the prize for outstanding contribution to human rights journalism. At least 225 Palestinian journalists and media workers are known to have been killed in Gaza since the start of the Israeli onslaught, according to the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate, and many of the most experienced have had to leave because of the danger they faced. This has meant respected and well-known faces such as Dahdouh, who covered every war in Gaza since 2005, have been replaced by younger, less experienced journalists who are having to learn their craft while living in tents, under the threat of death and often while hungry. He says the new generation of media reports in Gaza combine traditional skills with citizen journalism, with social media accounts often posting information from areas reporters cannot reach because of the danger they face. Dahdouh has no doubt that the Israeli military has journalists in its sights and that his own family were targeted because of his work, but he believes those reporting from Gaza will continue working because the circumstances force them to continue. Sign up to Global Dispatch Get a different world view with a roundup of the best news, features and pictures, curated by our global development team after newsletter promotion 'Honestly, I took my strength from God. That's how I was able to bear the pain of what I saw with my eyes and what I experienced in my heart, to overcome it, to hide the pain to return to work as if nothing had happened,' says Dahdouh. 'People do not have options. Even when you want to get rid of these people, where do you go? To a hospital, to a camp, to a street, to a house, or whatever is left of houses? 'There is no safe place. Your back is against the wall so all you can do is continue. The cost [of being a journalist] is high and everyone pays the price, but you must continue.' Last week, more than 140 media rights groups and news organisations joined the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters without Borders demanding of Israel that it allow foreign journalists into Gaza and calling the killing, displacement and threats against Palestinian journalists 'a direct attack on press freedom and the right to information'. Dahdouh says journalist colleagues in safer regions have a duty to support those in Gaza by speaking out for them, raising awareness about the killing of journalists and putting pressure on Israel to protect members of the media. 'I used to wish that Hamza's blood would be the last of the blood of journalists and civilians, but after these long months, there is a lot of blood flowing from the journalists and the civilians,' says Dahdouh. 'I want to see the journalists' colleagues from all over the world using their conscience, morals and international law to do what they can for their colleagues and brothers in the Gaza Strip. At least then we can feel that we were not abandoned and the world did not silence our murder.'
The Independent
6 hours ago
- The Independent
Syria's post-war economic recovery will require 'substantial' international support, IMF says
Syria will need 'substantial international" support for its efforts to rehabilitate the economy, meet urgent humanitarian needs, and rebuild essential institutions and infrastructure, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday. Syria cannot afford hundreds of billions of dollars of damages and losses from the conflict that first started as protests in 2011 against former President Bashar Assad 's totalitarian government. Since current President Ahmad al-Sharaa led an insurgency that ousted the Assad dynasty in December 2024, countries have gradually restored ties with Syria. During a five-day visit by the IMF in early June — the first to Syria by the 191-country lending organization since 2009 — its team met with officials from the public and private sectors, notably the finance minister and central bank governor. 'Syria faces enormous challenges following years of conflict that caused immense human suffering and reduced its economy to a fraction of its former size,' the IMF said. 'While the years of conflict and displacement have weakened administrative capacity, staff at the finance ministry and central bank demonstrated strong commitment and solid understanding.' Some 6 million people fled Syria during the conflict, and the United Nations estimates that 90% of those who stayed lived in poverty and relied on humanitarian aid to survive. Half a million people were killed in the conflict. Damascus now anticipates investments and business projects with Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and others, as they reestablish flight paths and hold high-level political and economic meetings. U.S. President Donald Trump said that Washington will lift decadeslong sanctions against Syria, but it is unclear how long that process could take. Britain and the European Union had eased some restrictions. Meanwhile, oil-rich nations Saudi Arabia and Qatar paid off Syria's debt to the World Bank, valued at near $15 billion. The IMF said it is developing a roadmap for Syria's policy and capacity building priorities for key economic institutions, including the finance ministry, central bank, and statistics agency. But Syria has a laundry list of reforms it must undertake, including improving its tax collection system, making sure its national budget can pay public sector salaries and basic healthcare and education, empowering the central bank to take measures to bring back confidence to the local currency, and rehabilitate its outdated and battered banking system in line with international standards. In 2017, the United Nations estimated that rebuilding Syria would cost about $250 billion. Since Assad was overthrown, some experts say that number could be as high as $400 billion.
Daily Mail
9 hours ago
- Daily Mail
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Surviving Syria's Prisons: Bravery of two brothers who exposed the atrocities of Assad's evil regime
Surviving Syria's Prisons (BBC2) What a strange power the television camera exercises over people. Point a lens at them and they will confess to crimes that, in court or under police questioning, they'd deny to their dying breath. Filmed in silhouette, their faces in shadow, torturers and prison guards described the atrocities they routinely inflicted on political detainees, in the This World documentary Surviving Syria 's Prisons. Their testimony was often self-serving. Each one pleaded he had no choice but to mete out brutality and murder. Henchmen took the age-old line that they were 'only obeying orders'. Officers claimed the men below them were an ill-disciplined rabble who could not be restrained. Despite their excuses, all admitted to sadistic abuse and such extremes of violence that, in an international court, they would surely be facing life sentences. Even Syria's deposed dictator, Bashar al-Assad, who was overthrown last December, was not immune to the power of the TV camera. In 2011, he appeared on a U.S. talk show, attempting to justify his reign of terror by claiming the thuggish security services were not under his control. 'They are not my forces. They are military forces that belong to the government,' he said. 'I don't own them. I am president, I don't own the country.' Chinless and goggle-eyed, like a serial killer invented by P.G. Wodehouse, Assad looked desperately pleased with himself to be interviewed by veteran American journalist Barbara Walters. Clearly, he was achieving a long-held ambition to appear on a prestigious U.S. show, and the fact millions of Americans would learn how his regime ruled by mass murder was a price worth paying. The limitless evil exposed to daylight in this film was balanced by the extraordinary bravery of two brothers whose work made the programme possible. Shadi and Hadi Haroun were subjected to years of torment inside Assad's most notorious prison, Saydnaya, as punishment for their role in the Arab Spring protests. They took us into the derelict shell of Saydnaya, 'the human slaughterhouse', where the regime dealt with anyone suspected of opposing Assad's Ba'ath party by word, deed or thought. Executions by hanging were daily events, not on a gallows but with a noose and a chair. Guards frequently beat men to death or even buried them alive. Satellite photos reveal the existence of around 130 mass graves. The Haroun brothers were regularly suspended by their arms from the ceiling pipes, side by side, or with their hands manacled behind their backs and doubled over in what they called the 'ghost method'. How anyone could live through years of that treatment defies comprehension. This was 75 minutes of necessary but relentlessly depressing television. The only relief came from the brothers' devotion to each other. Grey-bearded Hadi told how the worst agony was being forced to listen to his brother's screams. 'I'd always try to be the one who took the beating rather than him,' he said. Truly nightmarish. Small Change of the Night: Bullion robber Charlie (Sam Spruell) had a headache laundering £10million offshore in The Gold (BBC1). These days, as Oliver Bullough's brilliant book Moneyland makes plain, that's petty cash for tax-evading crooks and tech billionaires.
