Rwanda-DR Congo peace deal is 'historic', Trump's Africa envoy Boulos says
He stressed that Rwandan President Paul Kagame was fully committed to implementing the peace accord as well as to reining the M23 rebel group, which has taken control of large swaths of eastern DR Congo in recent months and is backed by Rwanda, according to the United Nations.
Boulos expressed hope that ongoing talks in Doha between the M23 rebels and DR Congo's government could reach a "final round" this week.
The senior Trump adviser also confirmed that a mineral deals between the US, DR Congo and Rwanda would be "made public" once signed at the White House, with American companies investing in both countries under a new "regional economic integration framework". He also pledged that there was no willingness to plunder the riches of DR Congo.
Eastern DR Congo is rich in cobalt, copper and lithium – minerals key to our technological future and crucial components of smartphones. Control of them has been a major source of tension between the two neighbouring countries.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
LeMonde
2 hours ago
- LeMonde
'The ideological fusion between the American right and the media did not start with Trump, but he accelerated it'
The American radical right has always been ahead of its European counterparts when it comes to developing media ecosystems. What is happening today in the United States often signals, a little in advance, the major trends that will also emerge in Europe. It didn't all start with Donald Trump's arrival on the political scene, far from it. The right's conquest of the media can be traced back to radio: In the 1970s and 1980s, the AM band, which was then largely underused and faced few content restrictions, became the preferred platform for American conservatives. Rush Limbaugh embodied this trend with The Rush Limbaugh Show, which had an impressive run: Launched in 1984, the talk show continued until his death in 2021. Such programs were a success with the public and helped secure the victories of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984, and later George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. At the same time, there was a boom in televangelists – preachers hosting religious television programs – who came to dominate many local radio and television stations. It was also during this period that Reagan, in 1985, granted American citizenship to media magnate Rupert Murdoch, originally from Australia – allowing him to enter the US media market with the goal of shifting it to the right. Murdoch replicated in the US the successful strategies he had already employed in Australia and the United Kingdom. In 1996, he launched Fox News, which would revolutionize the American right and its communication methods. Murdoch was not alone. Other right-wing magnates also set out to conquer the media market: John Dickey bought a small Atlanta radio station and, in 1997, turned it into Cumulus Media – a conglomerate that is now the second-largest owner and operator of AM and FM radio stations in the US (nearly 500). During the Bush era, another competitor, Sinclair Broadcast Group, owned the most television stations in America, and Steve Bannon launched the website Breitbart, which became the spearhead for the nationalist and populist far right.
France 24
9 hours ago
- France 24
M23 says it wants ceasefire deal with DR Congo's government
Africa 13:24 In tonight's edition: M23 rebels are laying out their demands in eastern DR Congo, including the release of prisoners and the dropping of arrest warrants, as peace talks continue in Doha. Also, PM Narendra Modi's visit is the first to Ghana by an Indian leader in three decades. And Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam is now complete, marking Africa's largest hydroelectric project.
Euronews
14 hours ago
- Euronews
US agencies altered health datasets in ‘gender ideology' crackdown
The Trump administration quietly altered massive US health datasets to remove any mention of gender, according to a new analysis. Scientists around the world rely on health data from US government agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But since President Donald Trump took office in January, these agencies have been altering data labels, mostly without disclosure, according to the investigation published in The Lancet, a leading medical journal. The authors argue that the 'hidden' changes could cast doubt on the integrity of American science. The database edits 'might be politically motivated and [are] not transparent,' Dr Aaron Kesselheim, a professor at Harvard Medical School, and Janet Freilich, a law professor at Boston University, said in the paper. Their analysis included 232 US health datasets that were edited from late January to late March, covering veterans' health care use, global tobacco consumption, stroke deaths, nutrition, exercise, and obesity. It did not include datasets that are updated on a regular basis. About half of these datasets were 'substantially altered' during the two-month period, but only 15 acknowledged that changes had been made, the study found. The parts of the datasets meant for these disclosures remained empty as of early May, the researchers said. In most of the edited datasets – 106 of them – the word 'gender' was swapped out for 'sex'. US agencies have not confirmed or explained the changes, but Freilich and Kesselheim suspect they were made to comply with a Trump order to remove 'messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology'. The executive order, issued on Trump's first day in office, said it aimed to restore 'biological truth' to US agencies, and set a national policy 'to recognise two sexes, male and female,' they said. It was part of a flurry of activity to clamp down on LGBTQ protections. Some data was initially removed from federal websites, but was largely restored due to a court order. The Lancet analysis indicates that not all changes were reversed. It is not clear if the actual numbers were altered, or only the labels about gender or sex. But Freilich and Kesselheim said the distinction is important because some people will respond to surveys differently based on each term. That can undermine the quality of the data and lead researchers to draw inaccurate conclusions, they said. They described the undisclosed changes as a 'crisis' that could make US data 'untrustworthy and unusable'. They called on governments elsewhere in the world to invest in other data sources.
