The hunt for Austin Tice, part 2
In the second episode of our three part series on The Weekend Intelligence, Middle East correspondent, Gareth Browne, finds out what the Americans knew about Austin's whereabouts and traces diplomatic efforts to get him back. He also goes deeper into the inner workings of Bashar al-Assad's security state to understand how an American could get lost in it.
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Western Telegraph
25 minutes ago
- Western Telegraph
Donald Trump announces trade deal with Japan
'This Deal will create Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs – There has never been anything like it,' Mr Trump posted on Truth Social, adding that the United States 'will continue to always have a great relationship with the Country of Japan'. The president said Japan would invest 'at my direction' 550 billion dollars into the US and would 'open' its economy to American cars and rice. The 15% tax on imported Japanese goods is a meaningful drop from the 25% rate that Mr Trump, in a recent letter to Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, said would be levied starting on August 1. Early Wednesday, Mr Ishiba acknowledged the new trade agreement, saying it would benefit both sides and help them work together. Japanese PM Shigeru Ishiba acknowledged the new trade agreement (Kyodo News via AP) With the announcement, Mr Trump is seeking to tout his ability as a dealmaker — even as his tariffs, when initially announced in early April led to a market panic and fears of slower growth that for the moment appear to have subsided. Key details remained unclear from his post, such as whether Japanese-built cars would face a higher 25% tariff that Mr Trump imposed on the sector. But the framework fits a growing pattern for Mr Trump, who is eager to portray the tariffs as a win for the US. His administration says the revenues will help reduce the budget deficit and more factories will relocate to America to avoid the import taxes and cause trade imbalances to disappear. The wave of tariffs continues to be a source of uncertainty about whether it could lead to higher prices for consumers and businesses if companies simply pass along the costs. The problem was seen sharply on Tuesday after General Motors reported a 35% drop in its net income during the second quarter as it warned that tariffs would hit its business in the months ahead, causing its stock to tumble. A staff member distributes an extra edition of a newspaper reporting that President Donald Trump announced a trade framework with Japan (Eugene Hoshiko/AP) As the August 1 deadline for the tariff rates in his letters to world leaders is approaching, Mr Trump also announced a trade framework with the Philippines that would impose a tariff of 19% on its goods, while American-made products would face no import taxes. The president also reaffirmed his 19% tariffs on Indonesia. The US ran a 69.4 billion dollar trade imbalance on goods with Japan last year, according to the Census Bureau. America had a trade imbalance of 17.9 billion dollars with Indonesia and an imbalance of 4.9 billion dollars with the Philippines. Both nations are less affluent than the US and an imbalance means America imports more from those countries than it exports to them. The president is set to impose the broad tariffs listed in his recent letters to other world leaders on August 1, raising questions of whether there will be any breakthrough in talks with the European Union. At a Tuesday dinner, Mr Trump said the EU would be in Washington on Wednesday for trade talks. 'We have Europe coming in tomorrow, the next day,' Mr Trump told guests. The president earlier this month sent a letter threatening the 27 member states in the EU with 30% taxes on their goods to be imposed starting on August 1.
The Herald Scotland
44 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Talk on Gaza is cheap. Why not take some proper action?
There may be a grain of truth in the Israeli foreign minister's retort that yesterday's joint statement is "disconnected from reality". There is something unreal about declaring opposition (or worse, expressing concern for Israel's reputation) and threatening further action while again doing nothing. There will be something equally unreal and disconnected in its maintaining it took every possible action to prevent it should all Gaza's people shortly be concentrated in the "humanitarian city" being built on the ruins of Rafah, to ready their displacement. Martin Johnstone, Lochwinnoch. Read more letters Drop-off charges are a disgrace Mike Dooley (Letters, July 19) is right to question the puerile excuses of the chief executive of Airport UK for dropping-off charges. However I can confirm that my taxi to the airport does suffer a dropping-off fee. Nevertheless that taxi produces the same fumes and occupies the same road space as a family car would, so the dropping-off charge does not help any environmental or traffic relief as claimed in those excuses. Outwith airports there are friends, family, or taxi drivers waiting in lay-bys or side streets to limit picking-up charges of pounds for minutes. Does this also help to reduce pollution or traffic flow? After the Glasgow Airport ram raid in 2007 all airports had to install expensive barriers and traffic control systems. Parking and drop-off charges were needed to cover these costs. That money has been recovered long ago so why are the charges for parking maintained at a higher level and why is a dropping-off charge needed at all? How do most European airports manage to balance their books without dropping-off fees? It is interesting that our hospitality industry questions possible tourist tax levies when airport charges must have a similar effect, albeit built into a different part of travel and stay costs home or away. We are perhaps fortunate that hospital parking is not priced in a similar manner. JB Drummond, Kilmarnock. Grease: a lost opportunity Brian Ferguson anticipates change at Pitlochry Festival Theatre ("Will Alan Cumming help Pitlochry become Scotland's next culture capital?", The Herald, July 22). Unfortunately a great opportunity has been missed this season. Last Saturday my wife and I were in the audience at the theatre for a performance of Grease. Musically, the show was excellent, with a cast of superb musicians and singers. (Take an extra bow, the girl on the bass guitar.) However, our enjoyment of the production was much diminished as the diction of the spoken passages was virtually unintelligible, due largely to the use of stupid American accents. Grease is, of course, originally set in late-fifties USA. But what an opportunity was missed to transpose the show to 1959 Scotland and present it in a Scottish idiom with local dialect and accents. Perhaps a little imagination by an artistic director will reap dividends. By the time we return, later in the summer, for The Great Gatsby, I hope some change may have been effected. Eric Begbie, Stirling. Foreign Secretary David Lammy (Image: Maja Smiejkowska/PA Wire) Ze answer I fully agree with your correspondents who dislike the use of "they/them" as being ungrammatical and confusing (Letters, July 18, 19, 21 & 22). May I point out that there already exists a gender-neutral pronoun in English? Though little used, it would be ideal for those not wishing to employ he or she. The word is "ze", pronounced "zee". It should, I think, be more widely used, and should be widely publicised. Do other correspondents agree? H Shearer, Cumbernauld. Grammar and the control freak I have been enjoying the recent correspondence about the poor use of grammar. Of course, football players, commentators and managers seem to take this to extremes. I'm sure many of the common mistakes they make are familiar to most of us: "The boy done good"; "The ball clearly has went over the line"; "He literally killed him with that tackle". Is it fair though that we expect those involved in the beautiful game to speak as eloquently as Cicero? Can we not offer congratulations when they have obviously been swotting up on the beautiful language? Listening to the radio as I drove home on the last day of the previous football season, I heard an interview with an under-pressure football manager prior to a very important game. I must applaud him for his wonderful use of the rhetorical device polyptoton: a figure of speech in which the same word is used in different forms in the same sentence. The example used by the beleaguered yet eloquent manager? "We can only control what we can control so we're going to be controlling the controllables." I'm not sure if his team won or if the match was lost due to his players' uncontrollability, but his copy of The Dark Arts of Rhetoric was obviously money well spended. Gordon Fisher, Stewarton. • While working in an inner city school in the late 1950, I heard 'I seen", "I done", 'I have went" and 'my pencil's broke" so often that I became converted and I began to believe that they were correct. Isobel McEwan, Skelmorlie.
South Wales Argus
an hour ago
- South Wales Argus
Deadly Israeli strikes continue in Gaza
More than half of those killed were women and children. Desperation is mounting in the Palestinian territory of more than two million, which experts say is at risk of famine because of Israel's blockade and nearly two-year offensive. People in #Gaza, including UNRWA staff, are fainting due to starvation and severe hunger. People including children are dying from severe malnutrition. People are being starved. UNRWA alone has thousands of trucks in neighbouring countries waiting to enter Gaza – banned by… — UNRWA (@UNRWA) July 23, 2025 A breakdown of law and order has led to widespread looting and contributed to chaos and violence around aid deliveries. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since May while trying to get food in the Gaza Strip, mostly near aid sites run by an American contractor, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday. More than 100 human rights groups and charities signed a letter published on Wednesday demanding more aid for Gaza and warning of grim conditions causing starvation. More than 59,000 Palestinians have been killed during the Israel-Hamas war, according to Gaza's health ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. Israeli activists take part in a protest against the war in the Gaza Strip (AP) Its count does not distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says that more than half of the dead are women and children. The UN and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties. The Israeli military said in a statement on Wednesday that forces were operating in Gaza City, as well as in northern Gaza. It said that in Jabaliya, an area hard-hit in multiple rounds of fighting, an air strike killed 'a number of' Hamas militants. "Silencing voices. As if banning international media is not enough. Humanitarian workers are also banned when they report on atrocities committed in #Gaza and elsewhere in the occupied Palestinian territory. The denial of a visa to our colleague from @OCHAopt is the latest in… — UNRWA (@UNRWA) July 22, 2025 Troops struck roughly 120 targets throughout Gaza over the past day, including militant cells, tunnels and booby-trapped structures, among others, the military said. One Israeli strike hit a house on Tuesday in the north-western side of Gaza City, killing at least 12 people, according to the Shifa Hospital, which received the casualties. The dead included six children and two women, according to the health ministry's casualty list. Another strike hit an apartment in the Tal al-Hawa area in northern Gaza, killing at least six people. Palestinians are relying on aid in an increasingly dire humanitarian situation (AP) Among the dead were three children and two women, including one who was pregnant. Eight others were wounded, the ministry said. A third strike hit a tent in the Naser area in Gaza City late on Tuesday and killed three children, Shifa Hospital said. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strikes. It blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the militants operate from populated areas.
