AMERICA
Trump Threatens EU, Apple with Stiff Tariff
American President, Donald Trump, today threatened the European Union, (EU), and Apple with stiff sanctions.
In a social media post, he threatened the EU with 50 per cent trade tariff, unless the ongoing talks between officials of the EU and America made accelerated progress on a deal to avert a tariff war between both America and the EU.
He said the new tariff regime would take effect on June 1, 2025.
Trump equally threatened Apple, an American firm, with a 25 per cent tariff if it failed to ship its production of iPhones to America from China and India.
Apple, like many other Western firms, produce most of their products in Asia where low labour cost makes them more competitive.
The threat followed the controversial trade talks between Trump and South African leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, earlier this week.
The botched talks followed the successful negotiations between officials of America and Britain earlier this month.
It came on the heels of a diplomatic shuttle to America by British Prime Minister, Keith Starmer.
RUSSIA/UKRAINE
Officials of the warring countries of Russia and Ukraine are expected to engage in a huge prisoner exchange.
About 2,000 troops could be exchanged evenly between both countries.
The exchange came on the heels of last weekend’s low level talks between officials of both countries aimed at kick starting talks on ending their 39- month long war.
The talks were held in Istanbul, Turkey, and it was dogged by Russia’s hand over of the remains of 909 fallen troops to Ukraine.
The exchange is the fifth this year and the 64th since the war began some three years ago.
American President Donald Trump, a major force behind the diplomatic efforts to end the war, which was triggered by the invasion of Ukraine by Russia three years ago, reacted rather positively, to the exchange.
In a tweet today, he hailed the exchange of Prisoners, saying great good news come come from it.
ROME
American,Iranian Diplomats Begin Talks on Iranian Nuclear Programme
Diplomats from America and Iran are to begin talks on how to resolve the gulf in their positions on their mutual talks on the nuclear programme of Iran.
The talks are holding in Rome, Italy and they are the fifth effort of the officials on the same subject.
Iran’s nuclear programme has been a matter of global concern, following the strong objections by the West, via the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Israel.
Both the West and Israel, a major ally of the West, fear that Iraq could enrich its Uranium to weapon- grade level, and threaten global peace, with the nuclear weapon, if it was allowed to produce one.
But Iran has stoutly denied that it has a weapons ambition regarding its programme.
After rounds of exploratory talks, America insists that Iran would not have a nuclear weapon, and could not enrich its Uranium by even 1 (one) per cent.
Iran, on its part, says while it had no need to want to develop a nuclear weapon, it reserved the right to enrich its Uranium.
Israel, which has its own nuclear weapons, insists that not only must Iran not be allowed to develop the highly prestigious weapons, it must have its nuclear programme forcibly dismantled by military fire power.
Aside from America ( which built the world ‘s first nuclear bomb under the aegis of the Manhattan Project led by Enrico Fermi and Oppenheimer)and Israel ( which developed its own with American technical support), France( which has the single largest stock in Europe), North Korea, Britain, China, India, Pakistan and Russia ( which has the single largest stock, country -by -country, in the world ) are the other holders of the nuclear weapon in the world.
Five of the nuclear states – America, Russia, China, Britain and France – are veto – wielding members of the United Nations Security Council.
