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UK To Roll Out Red Carpet For Second Trump State Visit

UK To Roll Out Red Carpet For Second Trump State Visit

Britain will welcome Donald Trump for an unprecedented second state visit in September, Buckingham Palace confirmed Monday, saying he would stay as the guest of King Charles III at Windsor Castle.
The US president "accompanied by the First Lady Mrs. Melania Trump, has accepted an invitation from His Majesty The King to pay a state visit to the United Kingdom from 17 September to 19 September 2025," said a palace statement.
The visit will come only two months after Charles, and his wife Queen Camilla, welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte to Windsor.
Trump was invited by a personal letter from Charles, which Prime Minister Keir Starmer handed to him in February during a visit to Washington.
Starmer has sought to woo Trump with a charm offensive to boost ties and gain better leverage for the UK in tough trade talks with Washington.
A delighted Trump, who has long been a big fan of the British royal family, has called the invitation a "very great honour", and opened the letter from the king in the glare of the world's cameras.
"This is really special, this has never happened before, this is unprecedented," Starmer said in the Oval Office as he handed Trump a hand-signed letter from the monarch.
"This is truly historic."
Britain rolled out the red carpet for Trump in 2019 when he met the late Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles's mother. No foreign leader has ever had a second state visit.
The Times daily said the king had however sought to put off the new visit until later in Trump's second term, but "Starmer has gone against the wishes of the king" in bringing the visit forward.
"The prime minister has expedited a full 'bells and whistles' visit in an attempt to capitalise on the president's fascination with the royal family," The Times said.
Starmer will also meet with Trump this month when the Republican leader is expected to visit Scotland, where he has two golf resorts.
The visit has not been publicly confirmed by the White House, but Downing Street said Monday that Trump would be "visiting in a private capacity" and "the prime minister is pleased to take up the president's invite to meet during his stay".
Trump's threats against Canada have put Charles, who is the country's head of state, in a delicate position.
Trump has threatened to slap a 35 percent tariff on imports from Canada starting August 1 and has regularly mused that Canada should become the 51st US state.
Reading the letter aloud in the Oval Office in February, Trump said he had been invited to the historic Windsor Castle, near London, one of the royal family's ancient homes.
After reading the letter, Trump said of Charles: "He's a beautiful man, a wonderful man -- I've gotten to know him very well, actually. First term and now second term."
He added: "On behalf of our wonderful First Lady Melania and myself, the answer is yes and we look forward to being there and honouring the King and honouring really your country."
Unlike Macron, who addressed the British parliament during his state visit last week, Trump is not currently scheduled to address the House of Commons which will be then on a break.
During the French leader's visit last week, Britain laid on a pomp-filled welcome, including a horse-drawn procession and a lavish banquet in the castle where the leaders hailed a new era in UK-France relations. Head of State King Charles III delivers the speech from the throne next to Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney during the opening of the Canadian parliament in May AFP
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India's Modi And UK PM Starmer Ink Trade Deal
India's Modi And UK PM Starmer Ink Trade Deal

Int'l Business Times

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  • Int'l Business Times

India's Modi And UK PM Starmer Ink Trade Deal

Prime Minister Keir Starmer praised Britain's "unique bonds" with India as he and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi formally signed a recently announced UK-India trade deal during talks on Thursday. Starmer hailed the agreement as a "landmark moment" for both countries as he hosted India's leader at his Chequers country estate, northwest of London. "This is not the extent or the limit of our collaboration with India," added the British premier, whose year-old government is struggling to fire up an economy weakened by years of stagnant growth and high inflation. "We have unique bonds of history, of family and of culture and we want to strengthen our relationship further, so that it is even more ambitious, modern and focused on the long term," he said. Starmer and Modi announced in May they had struck a free trade agreement that the British government says will eventually add GBP4.8 billion ($6.5 billion) a year to the UK economy. The UK and India hope the accord will boost trade between the two countries by GBP25.5 billion, as well as bolstering the British economy and wages. Modi, standing alongside Starmer during a media appearance, described the deal as a "blueprint for our shared prosperity". Britain and India are the sixth and fifth largest global economies respectively, with a trade relationship worth around GBP41 billion and investment supporting more than 600,000 jobs across both countries. The accord slashes tariffs on imports of UK goods into India, including whisky, cosmetics and medical devices. In return, the United Kingdom will cut tariffs on clothes, footwear and food products including frozen prawns from India. Starmer and Modi were also likely to discuss last month's Air India disaster in which 241 people died when a London-bound flight crashed after taking off from Ahmedabad in western India. Some 169 Indian passengers and 52 British nationals were killed in the June 12 crash, one of the deadliest plane disasters in terms of the number of British fatalities. A lawyer for 20 British families said this week the repatriation of victims had been marred by errors with one relative finding that a returned coffin contained "co-mingled" remains. A different family was told a coffin contained the body of someone else entirely, not their loved one, he said, according to UK media. India's foreign ministry has said all remains "were handled with utmost professionalism" and that it is "continuing to work with the UK authorities on addressing any concerns related to this issue". Another tricky topic of discussion could be that of Scottish sikh blogger Jagtar Singh Johal, imprisoned in India since 2017 on accusations of being part of a terror plot against right-wing Hindu leaders. He has not been convicted of a crime and in March was cleared of one of the nine charges against him. His brother Gurpreet Singh Johal said in a statement the case "should be high on the agenda" during the two leaders' meeting. Starmer and Modi have met twice recently, at the G7 summit in Canada last month and at the G20 meeting in Brazil last year. Modi was also due to see King Charles III during his brief stay in Britain, his fourth visit since becoming India's leader in 2014. The accord slashes tariffs on imports of UK goods into India, including whisky, cosmetics and medical devices AFP

Fact check: Why does Donald Trump keep sharing AI fakes? – DW – 07/24/2025
Fact check: Why does Donald Trump keep sharing AI fakes? – DW – 07/24/2025

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Fact check: Why does Donald Trump keep sharing AI fakes? – DW – 07/24/2025

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Nevertheless, whether Trump himself explicitly means it or not, his use of fake content does contribute to a socio-political phenomenon known as the "liar's dividend" — the idea that the prevalence of manipulated media fosters general skepticism, making it easier to dismiss real content as fake. Trump capitalized on this during the election campaign, falsely claiming that a verified image of a large crowd greeting Kamala Harris off the vice-presidential plane ahead of a rally in Detroit had been altered using AI. "[We are] entering the 'nothing is true and everything is possible' phase," commented Renée DiResta, a disinformation expert and former researcher at the Stanford Internet Observatory, on Threads at the time. "The ability to plausibly cast doubt on the real is the unintended consequence of being able to generate unreality." There is, however, one final possible explanation for why Trump and his supporters continue to post content that is demonstrably fake: it reflects a vision of the world they ultimately hope could be real one day. "These pieces of content amount to more than AI slop; they help to create a digital mirror world that reflects the future that Trump imagines, however preposterous it may seem," wrote in March. "In the real world, Trump's vision of Gaza as an ethnically cleansed luxury resort may seem like political fantasy. But, on the internet, Trump Gaza already exists as a virtual beachside destination to like and to share." Mahadevan concurs, explaining: "Trump is affected by AI in the same way that regular people are. You can use AI to manifest a future or a version of yourself that you would dream of. So, I don't think it's too much of a leap to say that Trump and his acolytes are using AI to manifest how they feel the world should be." Following his reposting of the fake "Swifties for Trump" T-shirts in 2024, Trump told : "I didn't generate them. These were all made up by other people. AI is always very dangerous in that way. It's a little bit dangerous out there." But that hasn't stopped him from continuing to post such content.

Macron and wife Brigitte sue US YouTuber Candace Owens  – DW – 07/24/2025
Macron and wife Brigitte sue US YouTuber Candace Owens  – DW – 07/24/2025

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Macron and wife Brigitte sue US YouTuber Candace Owens – DW – 07/24/2025

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