The Argentine-born Jorge Mario Bergoglio brought a breath of fresh air into a 2,000-year-old institution that had seen its influence wane during the troubled tenure of Pope Benedict XVI, whose surprise resignation led to Francis’ election.
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Published: April 11, 2025 7.12pm BST, The Conversation
Author Linggong Kong Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, Auburn University
Linggong Kong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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When Donald Trump pulled back on his plan to impose eye-watering tariffs on trading partners across the world, there was one key exception: China.
While the rest of the world would be given a 90-day reprieve on additional duties beyond the new 10% tariffs on all U.S. trade partners, China would feel the squeeze even more. On April 9, 2025, Trump raised the tariff on Chinese goods to 125% – bringing the total U.S. tariff on some Chinese imports to 145%.
The move, in Trump’s telling, was prompted by Beijing’s “lack of respect for global markets.” But the U.S. president may well have been smarting from Beijing’s apparent willingness to confront U.S. tariffs head on.
Continue reading In trade war with the US, China holds a lot more cards than Trump may think − in fact, it might have a winning handBy John Liu and Hassan Tayir, CNN
7 minute read
Published 9:27 PM EDT, Wed March 26, 2025
BYD’s logo is seen at a showroom in Warsaw, Poland on March 22, 2025. Stringer/NurPhoto/Getty ImagesHong KongCNN —
In the world of electric vehicles, there’s a Chinese company outdoing Elon Musk’s Tesla. And it’s just getting started.
BYD, the Shenzhen-based Chinese EV champion, eclipsed Tesla in annual sales last year. Last week, it unveiled a revolutionary battery charging technology that it says adds 250 miles of range in five minutes, outpacing Tesla’s Superchargers, which take 15 minutes to add 200 miles. And last month, BYD launched “God’s Eye,” an advanced driver-assistance system rivaling Tesla’s Full Self-Driving feature, at no extra cost for most of its cars.
Continue reading It’s the world’s hottest car company. You can’t buy one in America
Al Jazeera English – 17-3-2025
Far from being a tragedy for Africa, the demise of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) at the hands of President Donald Trump’s administration should be cause for celebration, argues Arikana Chihombori-Quao, the former ambassador of the African Union to the US.
Chihombori-Quao tells host Steve Clemons that USAID doesn’t have much to show for its decades of education and healthcare projects in Africa and often destabilised countries under the guise of environmental, human rights or social justice agendas.
And if the US is not interested in Africa, African leaders shouldn’t beg for better relations, she said. “It takes two to tango,” the former diplomat said.
WSJ News – 4-2-2025
WSJ’s Shelby Holliday breaks down why President Trump and Elon Musk have targeted USAID, the DC-based international aid organization with more than 10,000 employees and relief operations around the world. Photo: Kenny Holston/The New York Times/Zuma Press/Will Oliver/Shutterstock
Analysis by Simone McCarthy, CNN
7 minute read
Published 9:19 PM EST, Wed January 29, 2025
This photo illustration shows the DeepSeek app on a mobile phone in Beijing this month. Greg Baker/AFP/Getty ImagesHong KongCNN —
Previously little-known Chinese startup DeepSeek has dominated headlines and app charts in recent days thanks to its new AI chatbot, which sparked a global tech sell-off that wiped billions off Silicon Valley’s biggest companies and shattered assumptions of America’s dominance of the tech race.
But those signing up for the chatbot and its open-source technology are being confronted with the Chinese Communist Party’s brand of censorship and information control.
Ask DeepSeek’s newest AI model, unveiled last week, to do things like explain who is winning the AI race, summarize the latest executive orders from the White House or tell a joke and a user will get similar answers to the ones spewed out by American-made rivals OpenAI’s GPT-4, Meta’s Llama or Google’s Gemini.
Continue reading DeepSeek is giving the world a window into Chinese censorship and information control
Analysis by Matt Egan, CNN
5 minute read
Updated 9:02 AM EST, Sun February 2, 2025
New York CNN —
President Donald Trump is on the verge of hitting America’s three biggest trading partners with sweeping tariffs, a far more aggressive use of his favorite economic weapon than anything he did during his first term.
The looming import taxes on Mexico, Canada and China will be a major test of Trump’s unorthodox use of tariffs, which he’s described as “the greatest thing ever invented.”
It’s an enormous gamble, arguably a bigger one than any economic policy Trump enacted during his four-plus years in the White House. And this strategy has the potential to upend the thing many voters care about the most: the economy and the cost of living.
But Trump’s tariffs pose a big risk: They could backfire, lifting already-high consumer prices at the grocery store, rocking the shaky stock market or killing jobs in a full-blown trade war.
Continue reading Trump’s tariffs are a $1.4 trillion gamble with the economy and pricesThe president ordered the withdrawal of the country from the Paris climate agreement and took action on immigration policy and other issues such as creating the Department of Government Efficiency.
“So I am revoking nearly 80 destructive, radical executive actions of the previous administration, they’ll all be null and void within about what, five minutes. Is that them over there? Five minutes.” “The first item that President Trump is signing is the rescission of 78 Biden era executive actions, executive orders, presidential memoranda and others.” [cheering] “Thank you, sir.” [cheering] “The next item here is the withdrawal from the Paris climate treaty.” [cheering]
17 January 2025
Default image copyright and description© UNCTAD Photo | The Trade and Development Board meets for its 33rd special session in Geneva on 17 January.
The 16th session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD16) will take place Viet Nam in October 2025 under the theme “Shaping the future: Driving economic transformation for equitable, inclusive and sustainable development”.
Continue reading UNCTAD16: Countries to meet in Viet Nam to propel development in a multipolar worldHere are some stories you might have missed this week, curated by Times editors and personalized for you.
January 15, 2025By Victor Cha and Ellen Kim, CSIS
Updated 9:12 PM EST, Tue January 14, 2025
A burned car left in the wake of the Palisades Fire is seen in the Santa Monica Mountains at sunrise on Tuesday, January 14.
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By Natasha Bertrand and Katie Bo Lillis, CNN
Updated 4:48 PM EST, Wed January 8, 2025
When President-elect Donald Trump mused about buying Greenland from Denmark during his first administration, the Danish prime minister called the idea “absurd” and rebuffed him outright.
Now, Danish officials are being warned by Trump allies and advisers that he is serious, multiple Danish officials told CNN. And they’re carefully weighing how to respond without sparking a major rupture with a close ally and fellow NATO member.
“The ecosystem supporting this idea is totally different now” than it was in 2019, when Trump first proposed it, said one senior Danish official. “This seems much more serious,” said another senior Danish official.
Continue reading Danish officials fear Trump is much more serious about acquiring Greenland than in first termBy Michael Williams, CNN
6 minute read
Updated 6:15 PM EST, Wed January 8, 2025
A ship is guided through the Panama Canal’s Miraflores locks near Panama City on April 24, 2023. Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty ImagesCNN —
Editor’s Note: This story originally published on December 23, 2024. It has been updated to reflect recent developments.
President-elect Donald Trump is not letting up on his suggestions that the US should retake the Panama Canal, an idea that has been rejected by the government of Panama, which has controlled the passage for decades.
In social media posts and remarks to supporters, Trump has accused Panama of charging the US “exorbitant rates” to use the canal and hinted at growing Chinese influence over the crucial waterway. And at an hour-long news conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, he said the nearly half-century-old decision by the US to hand over control of the canal was a “terrible thing to do.”
Continue reading What’s the history of the Panama Canal, and why is Trump threatening to retake control of it?
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