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BBC World News, I'm Tom Dewsbury. Hello.
The Democratic Mayor of Washington, D.C., Muriel Bowser, says President Trump's deployment of the National Guard to the city is unsettling and unprecedented. Speaking at a news conference, she rejected his claims that crime in the capital city was out of control, pointing to a huge reduction in recent years. "We experienced a crime spike post-COVID, but we worked quickly to put laws in place and tactics that got violent offenders off our streets and gave our police officers more tools, which is why we have seen a huge decrease in crime because of those efforts." U.S. media say President Trump's agreed a delay in the imposition of higher tariffs on Chinese goods as talks continue on a trade agreement. Reports say he's signed an executive order postponing the steeper duties for another 90 days. Mr. Trump says he's nominating the conservative economist E.J. Antoni as the next commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Earlier this month, President Trump fired his predecessor, Erica McIntyre, accusing her, without evidence, of manipulating figures which showed a sharply weakening jobs market. The British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and his Canadian counterpart, Mark Carney, have said a peace agreement for Ukraine must not be imposed on the country, but built with it. Their warning comes ahead of a summit between President Trump and the Russian leader in Alaska on Friday, which has led to concerns that Ukraine and Europe are being sidelined. Speaking to the BBC, the EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said Ukraine needed to be at the table. "It is clear that Russia will present outrageous goals and they haven't really changed their goals at all. And now it is up to us to put the pressure on Russia so that they would also want peace and support Ukraine so that they are ready to defend themselves." The Nigerian Air Force says it's carried out raids on the hideouts of criminal gangs in a forested area in northwestern Zamfara state, killing what it said were scores of bandits. Chris Ewokor reports. The authorities said about 400 gunmen were massed in Makakkari Forest in preparation for an attack when they were struck. They said the operation involved precision airstrikes and grand assaults, resulting in the deaths of several notorious bandit leaders and scores of their foot soldiers. Over the past weeks, armed gangs have targeted villages in parts of Zamfara, killing scores of people and kidnapping many more. Kidnapping for ransom is thriving in Nigeria, encouraging criminal gangs to increase their cooperation with jihadist groups who are waging a 16-year-old armed insurgency in the northeast. BBC News. Iraq is experiencing a near-nationwide electricity outage after high temperatures led to a surge in the demand for power. The country is facing a heat wave, which is expected to last more than a week, with temperatures approaching 50 Celsius. Generally unreliable power supply means most Iraqi households use private generators. Funerals have been held in Gaza City for five journalists from the news channel Al Jazeera, who were killed in a targeted Israeli strike on Sunday night, including the prominent reporter Anas al-Sharif. The BBC understands before the war he worked for a Hamas media team, but Israel accuses him of posing as a journalist while serving as the head of a Hamas cell. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has accused Israel of failing to provide evidence to back up its allegations. The Cuban pesos trading at an all-time low of 400 to a dollar on the informal market after the partial dollarization of the economy. The Cuban authorities said last year that using dollars instead of pesos for certain goods and services was needed to fix the ailing economy and control inflation. Government officials have admitted the moves increased inequality in the Communist country. About 40 percent of the population has no access to foreign currency. This resident of the capital Havana expressed her frustration with the peso. "Cuban money here in itself is useless, completely useless. It's only good for buying food and even then, barely. Everything is dollars and dollars and wherever you go, it's dollars. And here, I don't get dollars. The government doesn't give me a dollar." Police in the Indian capital Delhi have detained a number of animal rights activists during demonstrations on Monday night against plans to remove all stray dogs from the city's streets. Earlier, the Supreme Court ordered the authorities to round up the animals and put them in shelters following a spate of attacks. BBC World News. |