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The 77-year-old Indian activist is the first Kannada-language author to win the award, which also recognizes the work of translators: Deepa Bhasthi also played a central role in the book's success.

"This book was born from the belief that no story is ever small; that in the tapestry of human experience, every thread holds the weight of the whole," author Banu Mushtaq said in her acceptance speech for theInternational Booker Prize, which she won for "Heart Lamp" on May 20.

"In a world that often tries to divide us, literature remains one of the last sacred spaces where we can live inside each other's minds, if only for a few pages," theIndianwriter added.

The English-language translation of her book "Heart Lamp" (original title: "Hridaya Deepa") becomes the first short-story collection to win the prestigiousprize for translated fiction. Mushtaq is also the first Kannada-language author to win the award.

The Booker jury describes Mushtaq's writing as "at once witty, vivid, moving and excoriating, building disconcerting emotional heights out of a rich spoken style. It's in her characters — the sparky children, the audacious grandmothers, the buffoonish maulvis [a learned teacher or doctor of Islamic law] and thug brothers, the oft-hapless husbands, and the mothers above all, surviving their feelings at great cost — that she emerges as an astonishing writer and observer of human nature."

But before landing in the international spotlight, there were also moments in the now 77-year-old writer's life that were so dark that she no longer wanted to live.

She recalled in a recent interview with Indian magazineThe Weekthat she once poured white petrol on herself and was ready to set herself on fire. Her husband managed to persuade her out of doing it by placing their baby at her feet, saying, "Don't abandon us."

"I realized then what a terrible thing I was about to do. Looking back, it might have been post-partum depression. But it felt deeper, heavier ― like something inside me was breaking."

As a new mother, she turned to writing to explore what she was going through.

"Everything in my stories is somewhat autobiographical. That experience made me more empathetic," she said.

Mushtaq was born in 1948 into a Muslim family in Karnataka, a state in the southwestern region of India. Defying her community's conventions, she attended university and married for love at age 26.

During the 1980s, Mushtaq got involved in Karnataka's growing social movements that aimed to abolishcaste and class hierarchies.

While learning about social structures and the plight of marginalized communities, she supported her family by working as a reporter for a local tabloid, and a decade later, she became a lawyer.

As a Muslim woman lawyer with deep roots in her community, she developed a unique voice in her short stories, building in her own spirit of resistance and resilience in her female characters.

She emerged as one of the rare female voices to significantly contribute to Bandaya Sahitya (Rebel Literature), a literary movement that emerged in Karnataka as a protest against social injustices.

Her activism and writing has however made her the target of hostility and threats.

In an interview withThe Hindu, she recalls the severe backlash she faced for advocating for Muslim women's right to enter mosques in 2000. A fatwa — a legal decree under Islamic law — was issued against her, and a man once attempted to attack her with a knife.

Despite the dangers, Mushtaq nevertheless pursues her work as an activist and a writer.

"I have consistently challenged chauvinistic religious interpretations," she toldThe Weekmagazine. "These issues are central to my writing even now. Society has changed a lot, but the core issues remain the same. Even though the context evolves, the basic struggles of women and marginalized communities continue."

"Heart Lamp" is a collection of 12 short stories written by Mushtaq between 1990 and 2023. Her oeuvre includes six short story collections, a novel, a poetry compilation and numerous essays.

The International Booker Prize recognizes the essential work of translators, with the prize money of 50,000 pounds (€60,000, $67,000) divided equally between the authors and translators.

In this case, translator Deepa Bhasthi also served as an editor of the book, having selected the stories for the collection.

"I was lucky to have a free hand in choosing what stories I wanted to work with, and Banu did not interfere with the organized chaotic way I went about it," Bhasthi told the Booker Prizes organizers.

The jury particularly praised Bhasthi's skilful translation as "something genuinely new for English readers. A radical translation which ruffles language, to create new textures in a plurality of Englishes. It challenges and expands our understanding of translation."

Mushtaq's first language is actually Urdu. She started learning Kannada, Karnataka's official state language, at the age of eight when she was enrolled in a convent school by her father.

It became the language she chose for her literary work. But her writing reflects the linguistic diversity of her region, often blending Kannada with Dakhni Urdu (a mix of Urdu, Kannada, Marathi and Telugu).

She sees using colloquial language as not just a medium of communication but a tool for cultural expression and resistance.

The English translation conveys the original approach, combining different languages, as Bhasthi retains several Kannada, Urdu and Arabic words.

The Booker Prize website states that an estimated 65 million people speak Kannada. Last year, it became the 53rd language of Vatican Radio.

But like many other Indian languages, Kannada has often been sidelined in favor of English or Hindi in India's publishing industry.

Mushtaq's success disrupts that trend, contributing to increased funding and translation efforts for other regional works, especially those by women and marginalized writers.

China hopes Tianwen-2 will match the success of its US and Japanese space rivals by exploring an unusual Near-Earth Asteroid and returning rock samples.

China's Tianwen-2 mission will mark the country's first attempt to survey and sample an asteroid and put it in league with the US, Russia and Japan.

Tianwen-2 will investigate a nearby asteroid called Kamo'oalewa, which orbits the sun at a distance relatively close to Earth.

The entire mission could last a decade. If it successfully retrieves and returns samples from the asteroid, it will continue to explore the solar system with a second trip to the main asteroid belt.

Tianwen-2 will launch at the end of May 2025 on a Long March 3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan province, according to a statement published by the China National Space Administration (CNSA). CNSA has yet to confirm an exact launch date.

The first target for Tianwen-2 will be the asteroid Kamo'oalewa. If successful, it will mark the first time China has collected samples from an "interplanetary" body in the solar system.

China has, however, previouslyreturned samples from the moon.

Interplanetary bodies — literally natural space objects between planets, including asteroids, comets and meteors — are common near Earth and have been explored for years by other space agencies, such asNASA, Roscosmos and JAXA.

After Kamo'oalewa, Tianwen-2's next destination is the comet 311P/PANSTARRS. Comet 311P/PANSTARRS in the solar system's main "asteroid belt" between Mars and Jupiter. The probe won't gather samples from the comet but will instead orbit and analyze its composition.

Kamo'oalewa is an unusual asteroid, estimated to be between 40-100 meters (131–328 feet) in diameter.

It's described as a "quasi-satellite" because, while it orbits thesun, its current location near Earth means it also loops around our planet in the process.

Astronomers think Kamo'oalewa may be a boulder that was blasted off the surface of our moon following an impact with another space object.

It will take about two-and-a-half years for Tianwen-2 to complete its initial mission to Kamo'oalewa.

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Tianwen-2 will attempt to sample Kamooalewa with a "touch-and-go" technique that was successfully used by theOSIRIS-RexandHayabusa2missions. This method uses an extended robotic armto scrape an asteroid's surfaceas the probe flies past.

It will also attempt to land on the surface using a second "anchor and attach" technique. This would see four robotic arms extend and drill into the surface to retrieve material.

As with other space sample missions, the samples would then be dropped back to Earth before the probe continues towards its secondary mission in the asteroid belt.

Tianwen is the name of a work by Chinese poet Qu Yuan, who died around 278 BCE. It translates as "Heavenly questions."

This series of missions began with the launch ofTianwen-1in July 2020, which sent an explorer to Mars.

After landing on the surfacein May 2021, the rover was put into hibernation mode but failed to restart as planned at the end of 2022.

Tianwen-3 is the next scheduled mission, due to begin in 2028. That will be China's first attempt to return samples from the surface of Mars.

Donald Trump's recent visit to the Middle East was defined by a flurry of artificial intelligence investment deals involving Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Critics say it could help China gain access to critical technology.

One of the marquee events of US PresidentDonald Trump'srecent trip to the Middle East was a high-powered lunch at the royal court inSaudi Arabia'scapital Riyadh.

The guest list of those joining Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman caught the eye. Alongside Tesla chief confidanteElon Muskwere some of the biggest names in globalartificial intelligence (AI)— Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Sam Altman ofChatGPTparent OpenAI,Googlepresident Ruth Porat andAmazonCEO Andy Jassy, to name a few.

Their collective presence soon made sense, when several UStech firmsannounced a range of deals with Saudi Arabia on AI funding worth tens of billions of dollars during the Trump visit.

Among the most eye-catching: Nvidia agreed to sell hundredsof thousands of high-end chips to Humain, a new state-back Saudi AI venture unveiled the day before Trump arrived. Meanwhile the chip designer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and chipmaker Qualcomm also made major commitments.

It comes as Saudi Arabia ramps up investment in artificial intelligenceand as the Trump administration seeks to cement US supremacy in machine learning and the production of high-endsemiconductors.

Karen E. Young, a Middle East expert at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy in New York, believes the US and Saudi Arabia are natural partners when it comes to artificial intelligence, due to Riyadh's capacity to build and run data centers.

"They are able to deploy enormous electricity supply from gas and solar power and they do not hesitate in regulatory issues or citing for data centers or power plants and can deploy quickly. This gives them an advantage," she told DW.

Yet the deal spree has led to criticism in Washington, including from within Trump's administration. The critics' argument is that providing high-end chips to Middle Eastern countries could ultimately benefit China in the global race for AI supremacy with the US.

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China has deep commercial and political ties in the Middle East and some believe chips sold by the US tothe region could end up finding their way to China.

In order to sell AI-capable chips to the Middle East,the Trump administration scrapped rulesintroduced by former US PresidentJoe Bidentowards the end of his time in office in 2024 prohibiting their sale to certain countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Companies such as Microsoft and Nvidia had criticized this so-called AI Diffusion Rule, saying it stifled innovation.

However, the widespread fears over possible Chinese access is reflected in the fact that theUS House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party has introduced new legislation"to stop advanced US AI chips from falling into the hands of adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)."

Martin Chorzempa, an expert on China with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, says whether China benefits depends on whether it is "able to access the chips or the models they produce or run."

"There is a concern that China may be able to either divert the chips themselves or gain access remotely to them," he told DW.

David Sacks, chair of Trump's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the self-styled White House AI czar, pushed back strongly against criticism that the Gulf deals could benefit China in a post onmessaging platform X.

The alternative was to "exclude critical geo-strategic, resource-rich friends and allies from our AI ecosystem," he wrote, adding: "Every country will want to participate in the AI revolution. If we align with them, we will pull them into our orbit. If we reject them, we will drive them into China's arms."

Whatever about China, it is clear that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have major AI ambitionsas they look to reduce their economic dependence on oil.

"Saudi Arabia is very serious about AI as a strategic sector for diversification," said Karen E. Young. "It plays to its assets in abundant energy supply, and it allows the kingdom a bridge to future energy demand."

She considers the UAE "likely more advanced" in AI development than Saudi Arabia, having pushed it from an earlier date.

Another deal announced during Trump's Gulf tour saw the US and UAE agree to build the largest AI campus outside the US, with the agreement giving the UAE access to US-made advanced chips.

The UAE has established atechnology group called G42as its main AI outlet, with Microsoft having already invested more than $1.5 billion (€1.34 billion).

For US companies seeking investment,the Gulf states increasingly represent an attractive opportunitygiven their own enthusiasm to develop and their control of some of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds.

Humain, the new Saudi vehicle, is entirely owned by the county's Public Investment Fund (PIF) which has close to $1 trillion at its disposal. The PIF previously launched other AI ventures, while state oil company Saudi Aramco has struck partnerships with US chipmakers Cerebras and Groq.

"These places have two of the most important ingredients to become major AI powers, and are lacking now just computing and talent," said Martin Chorzempa. "But with enough power, capital, and it appears soon chips, the talent may flock there."

According to Karen E. Young, access to advanced tech is a "national priority" for Saudi Arabia, and Trump's willingness to engage as a "transactional issue rather than a security issue or policy challenge" helps that goal.

Yet, while the flurry of investment appears to put the Gulf states on a solid footing to become vital AI hubs of the future, experts believe it is not automatically going to be "win-win."

Chorzempa, for example, sees a risk that local companies, unconstrained by capital or energy concerns, could develop their own models to compete with the US. He also points to the possibility that China will not necessarily benefit from obtaining the chips themselves, but by sending its people to work in the region and learn.

"One of the most interesting questions is whether Chinese AI talent, which is top-notch and may not be able to come to the United States, can get access to the main ingredient they are missing — chips — by working in the Middle East," he said. "This will be a key US concern."

Mayuri Chari and Janhavi Khemka's artwork is very different. But they both have powerful artistic visions informed by personal experiences of gender, disability and family — and they're both making names for themselves.

Janhavi Khemka's mother has always been the source of her inspiration as an artist. Her earliest memories of making art involve her mother: "My mother would help me with my school assignments, explaining them through hand gestures, facial expressions, and body language."

Khemka (above right), who was born inVaranasi,Indiain 1993, is hearing-impaired. Her mother taught her to read lips in Hindi at a young age and encouraged her artistic exploration. But she died when Khemka was 15.

"The impact she left on me helped me navigate an able-bodied world, further inspiring my art through light, touch, experimental sound, and tactile mediums," Khemka said in a written interview with DW.

It is in this able-bodied world that Khemka is making a name for herself as an interdisciplinary artist working across a diverse array of mediums, from woodcut to painting to performance and animation. She earned an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) from the prestigious School of the Art Institute of Chicago and, prior to that, one from Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan, a historic education center based in West Bengal that is deeply rooted in Indian culture and traditions.

"Santiniketan opened a new world for me, as it was my first time being away from home. It helped me grow, understand how my disability shapes my identity. It was transformative, helping me expand my perspectives, connect with people and artists, and deepen my engagement with art."

Friends and mentors have supported Khemka's career as an artist, but she still faces alack of accessibility and is "constantly self-aware" and having to explain her experience to others, which can be "exhausting."

Khemka's arthas been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Much of it relates to her being a hearing-impaired person who experiences sound through vibration. Some of her works, like "Impress/ion" and "Your name, please?" are interactive, involving a direct exchange with individual audience members.

In 2021, she created "Letter to My Mother" — a vibrating platform adorned in a projected animated light pattern consisting of lips made from woodcut prints. It recalls how her mother taught her to lip read on a mat. For her, "It's a personal experience that connects me with my mom in a way that words alone cannot express." For viewers, it allows them to experience sound in a tactile fashion and ushers them into an intimate moment in the artist's life.

"My greatest success is feeling comfortable in the world, where I can exist freely and confidently," Khemka says.

A free and confident existence: This is always what conceptual artist Mayuri Chari hopes for herself as a woman — and for women everywhere.

She prefers the term priorities to success. And her priorities are speaking through her work, which focuses on the female body, and expressing what she wants to tell people, not what people want her to tell.

In fact, they don't always like what her art tells.

Whether through print, textile, film or even cow dung, Chari examines and challengeshow women are seen, positioned and treatedacross various strata of Indian society.

"They are not stories or tales," she says of her artwork's messages about women. "They are reality."

She started experimenting with the female body as a subject during her MFA at the University of Hyderabad. For one semester show, she made large prints of her own body. She saw the work artistically, for its texture and colors. "But they," she said of her classmates and other viewers, "their gaze was totally different. They saw it as a vulgar thing and suggested that I shouldn't do this openly."

Their response only got her thinking more. "I started to question why: Why are people seeing the body as something vulgar, sexy? Why not as a creative thing?" she told DW in a phone interview from her home in rural Maharashtra.

In Chari's work, the female body is neither a goddess nor an object of consumption but rather a statement of self-awareness. Yet her art has been controversial in India for simply featuring nude female bodies — realistic, imperfect, bold. Indian galleries have rejected her works and exhibition venue owners have asked her to remove pieces.

Despite such institutional rejection, her work resonates strongly with Indian women, who see themselves and their experiences reflected in her art. Chari says that women often come up to her at shows and whisper in her ear, "I feel the same thing. This happens to me, also."

Her work has been garnering international attention in recent years. Her installation "I WAS NOT CREATED FOR PLEASURE," wasfeatured at the 12th Berlin Biennale, in 2022, and she was an artist in residence at the 2024 India Art Fair.

Like Janhavi Khemka, Chari's family also influenced her path as an artist — though not always positively. Born in the coastal state ofGoain 1991, Chari spent a lot of time as a child watching and helping her father, a carpenter, create furniture and carvings. She started making art in school, where her teachers encouraged her.

But after her father died, Chari was forbidden by her family, in particular her elder uncle, from pursuing higher-level studies. She defied them and did it anyway, earning a master's in fine arts with the help of friends and scholarships. Her now husband and fellow artist, Prabhakar Kamble, provided her with important support and resources in her early days out of school.

While Chari's work centers on society's positioning of women, she feels it is caste, more than gender, that has affected her reception.

"Everything depends on the caste, where you come from. I came from a low caste, and big galleries always appreciate the high caste people. They notice them, and they always want people who speak well in English, and who have money," she explains.

Chari's current projects include a short documentary about the lives of rural female sugar laborers and textile projects dealing with trousseau-making — a bridal needlework practice that Portuguese colonizers brought to her home state of Goa and that continues to be passed on today from mother to daughter; she learned it from her own mother.

Janhavi Khemka's mother will also continue to be at the forefront of her work. In the future, she hopes to make a movie using woodcut print animation exploring their relationship. Drawing on her own experience, she tells younger artists to "face failure with courage, hold on to patience and hope, and be ready to meet challenges head-on."

Chari, for her part, advises younger artists to make sure they remain free and independent thinkers. "They shouldn't follow others," she says. "Or follow the thoughts, ideas, what other artists are doing, but don't copy them."

Germany coach Julian Nagelsmann has named his squad for the UEFA Nations League Final Four. While key players are missing due to injury, two have been given their first callups.

Missing from the 26-man squad named bynational team coach Julian Nagelsmannon Thursday are Kai Havertz, who has just returned from hamstring surgery for Arsenal, as well as the injured Jamal Musiala,Antonio Rüdiger, Tim Kleindienst and Nico Schlotterbeck.

Stuttgart forward Nick Woltemade and midfielder Tom Bischof, who recently signed forBayern Munichfrom Hoffenheim, have both been given their first callups to the senior national team, who are to face Portugal in theirUEFA Nations League Final Foursemifinal on June 4 inMunich.

"Nick (Woltemade) is a good option in attack especially with the absence of Kleindienst, Nagelsmann said of the Stuttgart player, who will join the squad after Saturday'sGerman Cupfinal against Arminia Bielefeld.

Woltemade has also been included in Antonio di Salvo's squad for the under-21 Euros later in June.

Notable names returning to the national team roster include goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen, Florian Wirtz, Niclas Füllkrug, and Serge Gnabry.

Nagelsmann was particularly pleased to get back his No. 1 keeper, who just recently returned to action for Barcelona after missing most of the season due to knee injury.

"Of course, he hasn't played that many games yet," Nagelsmann conceded. But he said he had complete confidence in ter Stegen after speaking with the player and being assured byBarca coach Hansi Flickthat he was "in top shape."

Nagelsmann expressed confidence that Germany could get past Portugal to advance to the final on June 8, "but we can't let up a single yard compared to the best moments in the quarterfinal against Italy, because I consider the Portuguese to be a very strong team."

France and Spain meet in the other Nations League semifinal in Stuttgart on June 5.

Washington plans a 5% tax on remittance transfers that would cover millions of foreigners living in the US. With about $160 billion sent by Latin Americans alone, their home countries would be among the hardest hit.

Mexico'sPresident Claudia Sheinbaum chose a symbolic stage for shooting back at US PresidentDonald Trump'sproposal for taxing remittances, called "remesas" in Spanish-speaking Latin America.

During the construction ceremony for the Los Cabos Regional General Hospital in Baja California Sur on Sunday (May 18), she stressed that the US "can't tax people twice when they're already paying taxes."

By choosing this setting, Sheinbaum visually reinforced the social and political dimension of the US regulation, which is causing widespread concern across the entire region.

Republicanlawmakers have included the plan for a 5% tax on remittance transfers in Donald Trump's so-calledOne, Big, Beautiful Bill, a sweeping multi-trillion-dollar piece of legislation aimed at advancingTrump's agendaon taxes,migration, energy, defense and the national debt.

According to the annual report from the Migration Department of the Inter-American Development Bank, remittances from the US to Latin America and the Caribbean reached $160.9 billion (€142.53 billion) in 2024 — an increase of $7.7 billion over the previous year.

The largest recipients were Mexico ($64.7 billion) and Guatemala ($21.5 billion). Transfers to Mexico alone average about $177 million per day.

Jesus Alejandro Cervantes Gonzalez from the Center for Latin American Monetary Studies (CEMLA) in Mexico City has broken down the 2024 figures in an interview with DW. He said remittances make up "20% of GDP in Guatemala, 27% in Nicaragua, 26% in Honduras, 24% in El Salvador, 20% in Haiti, and 19% in Jamaica."

The economic and social significance of these funds for the receiving countries is immense, he said, as they "alleviate financial constraints for millions of households and reduce poverty."

"They enable a higher standard of living and help fund spending on consumer goods, education, health, housing, and sometimes investments in small family businesses," he said.

According to CEMLA, which specializes in the economics of remittances, about 4.5 million households and 9.8 million adults in Mexico receive such transfers from the US, with poorer rural areas benefiting the most.

According to leading Spanish economic and financial news portalEl Economista, based in Madrid, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is reportedly considering requiring identity verification for money transfers, meaning senders would have to prove they are legally employed in the US.

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The measure, intended to block remittances fromundocumented migrants, has been criticized by Mexican Senator Antonino Morales from the ruling Morena party as "blatantly discriminatory and racist."

Morales also said beyond the remittance tax, undocumented migrants could also "lose access to [health care] programs like Obamacare and Medicare."

"In principle, the tax would only apply to immigrants who are not US citizens. That includes undocumented migrants as well as those who are legally residing in the country," CEMLA expert Gonzalez told DW.

If implemented in 2026 as proposed, the remittance tax could significantly reduce the flow of money from the US to Latin America and the Caribbean.

For countries such as Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua —where remittances account for a high share of GDP — the impact would be especially severe.

Gonzales says that these countries would face a double blow as the tax would be imposed "in addition to ongoing deportations of undocumented immigrants," and comes at a time when there are "signs that employment among Latin American immigrants in the US is declining."

He also warns of unintended consequences. "The remittance tax could push transfers into informal channels — through couriers or digitalcryptocurrencytransactions," which could raise the risk of black market activity.

But the backlash may already be taking shape. Harsh images of Latin American migrants being arrested in the US and the steady stream of negative news affecting Hispanic Americans have intensified pressure on Republican politicians ahead of the November 2026 midterm elections. These elections will decide all seats in the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate.

In the2024 presidential election, a significant number of Latinos voted for Republicans and Donald Trump — more than in the previous 2020 election. But some Latino voters, particularly in Republican strongholds like Florida, now feel betrayed by the party.

President Sheinbaum has explicitly called on Mexican Americans to voice their concerns to local US politicians. TheRepublican-controlled House of Representatives on Thursday passed the tax cut and spending billby a narrow margin. The bill will now move to the Senate for a vote before President Trump can sign it into law.

This article was originally written in German.

US President Donald Trump has threatened the European Union with a 50% tariff on goods, saying current negotiations with the bloc were "going nowhere." Can the EU still step back from a major tariff war?

US PresidentDonald Trumpon Friday threatened a 50%tariff on goodsfrom theEuropean Unionstarting June 1, citing a lack of progress in current trade negotiations.

"Their powerful Trade Barriers, Vat Taxes, ridiculous Corporate Penalties, Non-Monetary Trade Barriers, Monetary Manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against Americans Companies, and more, have led to a Trade Deficit with the U.S. of more than $250,000,000 a year, a number which is totally unacceptable," he wrote in a Truth Social post Friday morning.

"Our discussions with them are going nowhere! Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50 percent Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025," he added.

The new threat came hours before a call between EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to seek a basis for negotiation to head off a transatlantic trade war.

The call takes place just days after Brussels responded to the Trump administration with a new list of concessions it is willing to offer under efforts to reach a similar deal on trade like China and the UK.

Following a tense standoff, Washington and Beijing reached atemporary dealtwo weeks ago, slashing punitive tariffs from over 100% to more sustainable levels. As negotiations for a long-term deal intensify, for the next 90 days Chinese goods entering the US will incur a 30% tariff, while exports from the US toChinawill face a 10% levy.

Days earlier, Trump secured thefirst outline of a trade dealsince proclaiming April 2 as "Liberation Day," when he announced stiff worldwide tariffs. The broad pact with theUnited Kingdomreduces tariffs on British carmakers exporting to the US and grants American exporters, including farmers and ethanol producers, enhanced access to the UK market.

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While Trump continues to play hardball with Brussels, claiming in his post that the EU was "formed with the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States," Andrew Kenningham, chief Europe economist for the London-based Capital Economics research house, thinks economic pressures will prevent him from pushing Brussels too far.

"The two new deals will make EU negotiators more confident that they can stick broadly to the policy already set out, which is to try to avoid escalation, threaten some retaliation but with a delay, while at the same time be willing to negotiate," Kenningham told DW.

Even so, Capital Economics warned in a research note that an EU-US deal "appears harder to reach," pointing to the bloc'slarge goods trade surplus with the USand the challenge of reaching consensus among the 27 EU member states.

The EU has already threatened new tariffs on €95 billion ($107 billion) of US goods in response to Trump's earlier tariffs on aluminum, steel andEuropean automakers, but paused them to allow negotiations to proceed. Brussels is also considering curbs on scrap steel and chemical exports to the US.

Claudia Schmucker, head of the Center for Geopolitics, Geoeconomics, and Technology at the German Council on Foreign Relations, doesn't think the China and UK deals really "change anything."

"Trump is still expecting that the EU will offer something he feels is valuable enough," Schmucker told DW, adding that the president's demands from Europe remain a "mystery," but are likely to include more agriculture and energy imports.

Olof Gill, a spokesperson for the European Commission, declined to comment immediately after Trump's new tariffs threat, saying he was waiting until after the call between Sefcovic and Greer, reportedly scheduled for later on Friday.

TheFinancial Timesreported earlier on Friday, that Greer is likely to reject the EU's new list of proposals, demanding unilateral concessions instead of mutually reducing tariffs.

The new EU proposal reportedly seeks to boost EU purchases in strategic sectors, such as energy, as well as developing cooperation on 5G and 6G mobile networks. It would also ramp up strategic cooperation in sensitive sectors that have undergone trade investigations resulting in US tariffs, such as steel and aluminum, semiconductors and cars.

The EU offer also includes more imports of nonsensitive agricultural goods.

Last year, the US had a $235.6 billion (€210 billion) trade deficit in goods with the EU, a 12.9% increase on the previous year, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative. The latest 2023 data from Eurostat, the EU's statistics agency, puts the EU goods surplus at €157 billion.

Claudia Schmucker thinks the president's negative rhetoric, plays into Brussels' hands as it tries to reach consensus on how to proceed, even as Hungary, Italy and some others push for bilateral deals.

"Even though some EU states are not fully on board with Brussels' negotiating position, Trump's antagonism is enough to help boost EU unity," she said.

Miguel Otero, senior fellow for international political economy at Spain's Elcano Royal Institute, believes the US "has a lot to lose" from any Trump misstep.

"The EU has a big deficit when it comes to services, especially financial and digital services and entertainment platforms," Otero told DW. "The US cannot afford to lose the European market. If we act as a single entity, then the EU has as much leverage as China."

Although the EU has a significant goods surplus with the US, with a fifth of EU goods crossing the Atlantic last year, the bloc also accounts for 25% of US services exports, worth $275 billion in 2024. Including Switzerland and the UK, 42% of US services exports are sent to the European market.

TheEuropean Commission, the bloc's executive arm, has vowed to launch a dispute at the World Trade Organization (WTO) against Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs and levies on cars and auto parts.

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As the July 8 deadline for the 90-day pause on "reciprocal" tariffs on the EU approaches, the window for a deal is narrowing even more after Trump's latest tariffs announcement.

Capital Economics predicts  Trump may push negotiations to the brink, maintaining pressure on trading partners.

German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche, however, struck a more optimistic tone last week, emphasizing the US' vital role as a trade partner for the EU.

"We negotiate from a position of economic strength … but one that must be wielded carefully," Reiche said. "A solution is essential, as escalation will leave no winners."

This article was first published on May 16, and updated on May 23 to include Donald Trump's latest tariff announcement.

An event dubbed "Olympics on Drugs" and backed by the Trump family has moved a step closer to reality. The Enhanced Games claim one of its doped athletes has already broken a world record and now has a venue and date.

Whatever its legitimacy, the organizers of theEnhanced Gamesknow how to grab attention. A launch on Wednesday was accompanied by a glossy one-hour film, a sales platform for prescription performance enhancers and the claim of a new 50-meters freestyle world record by Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev.

"He should be retired, but in fact, he'sswimming fasterthan any human being has ever done so. Why? Because he used technology and science to enhance his performance," boasted founder Aron D'Souza.

"Once the world realizes that, I think everyone is going to want it. Every middle-aged guy who once played competitive sport and is now suffering from back pain is going to say, 'What is he on and how do I get it?'"

Gkolomeev, who has failed to reach the podium in his fourOlympicperformances, will not be credited by any official body for a number of reasons; there is no independent adjudication, he was wearing an inline full-body open water suit that falls outside World Aquatics standards and, most pertinently, there was nodoping control. In fact, performance-enhancing drugs are demanded by organizers who also claim Gkolomeev broke another world record in jammers, shorts which are allowed in the Olympics.

Not in any meaningful sense. World Aquatics, who govern swimming, have been as dismissive of the Enhanced Games as most of their fellow sporting bodies.

"The Enhanced Games are not a sporting competition built on universal values like honesty, fairness and equity: they are a circus, built on shortcuts," read a statement from swimming's global governing body.

While it's apparent that Gkolomeev was doped, it is not clear what with. The Enhanced Games have not revealed what substances the 31-year-old took, citing personal confidentiality, despite consistently promising transparency.

Much of the promotion has been around two things – money and drugs. At Wednesday's launch, D'Souza revealed that the first event would feature four swimming races, four athletics sprints and a weightlifting competition. Each event winner is to receive $500,000 (€440,000) with a $1 million bonus for world records in the 50-meters freestyle and 100-meter sprint and $250,000 for other world records.

Investors including Donald Trump Jr., Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel, German tech investor Christian Angermayer and former Coinbase Chief Technology Officer Balaji Srinivasan will hope to profit from the organization's "Telehealth Platform" it says will launch in August in a number of US states. The website currently offers "priority access" to a "fully tailored enhancement plan” for a fee of $99. The Enhanced Games say this is all legal with most banned substances in high-level sport available on prescription in the United States. They also insist they will go by the book.

While the drug-selling aspect of the Enhanced Games will be operational soon, the actual event will not take place until next May 21-24 in Las Vegas. This will be less than a month before the United States co-hosts thefootball World Cupand two years before Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Olympics.

Only four athletes, all swimmers, have so far confirmed their participation. They are: Andriy Govorov, the Ukrainian 50-meters butterfly world record holder and bronze medallst at the 2017 World Championships, 21-year-old Bulgarian swimmer Josif Miladinov, a silver medalist at the 2019 European Championships and retired Australian world champion James Magnussen.

The worlds of sports and medicine have been near-universal in their condemnation of the concept.

"Thinking that because you do medical checks on the spot is going to give you a good idea of the health risks of abuse of doping substances, again, is medical and scientific nonsense," said World Anti-Doping Agency science director Olivier Rabin.

"It's like the Roman circus, you know, you sacrifice the lives of people purely for entertainment. What's the value of this? I don't think any responsible society should move in that direction."

Speaking to DW earlier this year, Chris Raynor, a sports medicine doctor at Cornwall Community Hospital in Canada, told DW the dangers are dramatic.

"There are always effects associated with these medications. It can lead to cardiac arrhythmias, a heart attack, sudden cardiac death," he explained .

Former US swimmer and Olympic medalist Allison Wagner, who was beaten at major events by many swimmers who were either proven or suspected dopers, said that sport itself is at stake.

"For me and for so many athletes, sport has been about learning and incorporating values such as integrity and fair play, and these Enhanced Games make a mockery of that."

D'Souza argues that doping in professional and amateur sport is inherent and his proposal is a safer method that "makes sport a fair, level, transparent field so that innovation can be illustrated in a very public way to support technological progress."

Speaking to DW earlier this year, he added that "individuals should be able to take risks for themselves with free and informed consent."

Magnussen said the Enhanced Games have reinvigorated his passion for the sport but sees them as separate from clean competition.

"I was waking up each day with an enthusiasm to train, to compete. I felt so healthy, so motivated. It's honestly the happiest I've been in seven years," he said.

"As athletes we have a greater risk appetite than the general population and see an event like the Enhanced Games as an opportunity."

Myanmar is caught in a scramble for minerals. Their exploitation is causing deaths and environmental harm in the country's Kachin State, activists tell DW. Can the region's independence movement make a difference?

Lahtaw Kai draws an imaginary mountain into the air with her hands and uses her fingers to dot it with holes.

"At the top of the mountains, they drill holes and then pour chemicals like ammonium nitrate into the ground to extract the rare earth minerals at the bottom," the Myanmar environment activist told DW.

Lahtaw Kai — whose name we've changed for security reasons — was illustrating the so-called in-situ leaching technique, which has been applied for decades in miningrare earthsinMyanmar'snorthern Kachin state.

The process begins at the top of the mountains, where chemicals are injected into the earth through a network of pipes. As the solution tracks downslope, it gathers rare earth elements, which are then collected in large ponds.

At hundreds ofmining sitesin the region, in-situ leaching is proving to be a huge risk to both the environment and local villagers.

"The rare earth sludge dries out in wood-fired kilns, and areas close to the mining sites constantly smell bad," said Lahtaw Kai, adding that she and her research team cannot stay there for more than 30 minutes because it's hard to breathe.

"But people are working there without gloves and masks. Companies don't provide protection. So, the workers get sick and then [the company] fires them and brings in new workers," she added.

Seng Li, a human rights activist currently based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, has researched mining sites in Myanmar's north and says the mountains used to be green before mining started.

"Now those mountains are very ugly, the river turned red. Some of the chemicals they use in the mining pools, they just dump into the waters," he told DW.

DW met both Lahtaw Kai and Seng Li on the sidelines of a recent tour of Europe, where they were campaigning for support of their cause. They want to make Europeans aware of what happens at the beginning of global supply chains that finally lead to products such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, medical equipment, and even weapons.

Julie Klinger, assistant professor at the University of Delaware in the United States, explains that the term rare-earth elements refers to 17 chemically similar elements in the so-called periodic table of elements.

"The thing that distinguishes these elements is their fantastic, magnetic and conductive, and in some cases thermal properties," she told DW.

Also called the "spice of industry," rare earths can be used in relatively small quantities to enhance industrial processes.

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Dysprosium, for example, is used as a catalyst in petrochemical refining, said Klinger, and can be found in Myanmar's north. The element with a metallic silver luster is essential for battery production, increasing their heat efficiency and longevity, making it a key component for thegreen energy transition.

Dysprosium is also used in producing permanent magnets capable of maintaining a constant magnetic field needed for modern power generators in electric vehicles or wind turbines.

Nonprofit organizationGlobal Witness reported in 2024that Chinese producers of permanent magnets are sourcing rare earths from Myanmar.

Among the customers of China-made rare-earths products specifically named by the report are global auto giants Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan, Ford and Hyundai, as well as wind power firms like Siemens Gamesa and Vestas.

Another report compiled by Adams Intelligence— a consultancy for strategic metals and minerals based in Toronto, Canada — found Germany to be China's biggest customer for sourcing permanent magnets in 2024.

China has reduced domestic mining for rare-earth elements, increasing the exploitation of deposits in neighboring Myanmar.

Chinese imports of so-called heavy rare earth elements from Myanmar skyrocketed from their previous highs of 19,500 tons in 2021 to 41,700 tons in 2023, the Global Witness report says.

"That's like a page out of the US playbook from the 20th century," said Julie Klinger, referring to the US approach of strategically not mining its domestic uranium deposits to safeguard them for later.

Lahtaw Kai says people in Myanmar don't want the Chinese to continue mining, and adds: "If the international community wants to continue buying these minerals, they should be responsibly sourced."

Myanmar's lucrative trade in rare earths  — worth $1.4 billion (€1.2 billion) in 2023, according to Global Witness — risks financing conflict and destruction in a highly volatile region.

In 2018, Myanmar’s civilian-led government had banned exports and ordered Chinese miners to wind down operations, but since 2021, extraction has continued in the context ofa ruthless dictatorship and widening civil conflict.

In late 2024, theKachin Independence Organization (KIO)and its allied military forces wrested control of most of the mineral-rich region in the north from forces allied with the central government. KIO has been fighting for the region's independence since the 1960s.

This power shift has led to new negotiations between KIO and Chinese producers on taxing rare earth extraction.

While the KIO enjoys broad popular support in Kachin and greater legitimacy than government-allied militias, the 2024 Global Witness report says that on "both sides, this largely unregulated mining is environmentally devastating, and the threat it poses to ecosystems and to human health is becoming ever more urgent."

Lahtaw Kai and Seng Li demand more public oversight of safety at the operations.

"So far, civil society groups and the people have been excluded from the process of policy-making on mining […] international organizations and governments should directly engage with the KIO to strengthen their governance," said Seng Li.

And although Seng Li doesn't think rare-earth mining can be stopped, he said conditions must be improved to "benefit not only the armed actors and the Chinese investors." The local populations and the state should "share the benefits, through systematic and regulated processes."

After decades of state censorship and imprisonment, the Iranian director won the prestigeous Palme d'Or for best film with his highly political piece "It Was Just an Accident."

Jafar Panahinever set out to be a political filmmaker. "In my definition, a political filmmaker defends an ideology where the good follow it and the bad oppose it," the Iranian director says. "In my films, even those who behave badly are shaped by the system, not personal choice," he tells DW.

But for more than a decade, Panahi, the winner of the 2025 Palme d'Or, the Cannes Film Festival's top prize, has had little choice. Following his support for the oppositionGreen Movement protests, the director of "The White Balloon" and "The Circle," was handed a 20-year ban on filmmaking and international travel in 2010 by Iranian authorities. That didn't stop him.

Over the years, he found new ways to shoot, edit, and smuggle out his films — from turning his living room into a movie set ("This Is Not a Film") to using a car as a mobile studio (in "Taxi,"which won the Golden Bear at the 2015 Berlinale).

This week, Panahi stepped back into the spotlight — not through smuggled footage or video calls, but in person. For the first time in over two decades, the now 64-year-old filmmaker returned to the Cannes Film Festival to present his latest feature, "It Was Just an Accident," premiering in competition to an emotional 8-minute standing ovation.

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The road to Cannes has been anything but smooth. Panahi was arrested again in July 2022 and detained inTehran's notorious Evin prison. After almost seven months anda hunger strike, he was released, in February 2023. In a stunning legal victory, Iran's Supreme Court overturned his original 2010 sentence. Panahi was legally free, but artistically still bound by a system he refuses to submit to. "To make a film in the official way in Iran, you have to submit your script to the Islamic Guidance Ministry for approval," he tells DW. "This is something I cannot do. I made another clandestine film. Again."

That film, "It Was Just An Accident," may be Panahi's most direct confrontation yet with state violence and repression. Shot in secret and featuring unveiled female characters in defiance ofIran's hijab law, the movie tells the story of a group of ex-prisoners who believe they've found the man whotortured them— and must decide whether to exact revenge. The taut, 24-hour drama unfolds like a psychological thriller.

Stylistically, "It Was Just An Accident" is a sharp break from the more contained, and largely self-reflexive works Panahi made while under his official state ban, but the plot remains strongly autobiographical.

The film opens with a banal tragedy — a man accidentally kills a dog with his car — and spirals into a slow-burning reckoning with state-sanctioned cruelty. Vahid (Valid Mobasseri), a mechanic who is asked to repair the damaged car, thinks he recognizes the owner as Eghbal, aka Peg-Leg, his former torturer. He kidnaps him, planning to bury him alive in the desert. But he can't be sure he's got the right man, because he was blindfolded during his internment. "They kept us blindfolded, during interrogation or when we left our cells," Panahi recalls of his time in prison. "Only in the toilet could you remove the blindfold."

Seeking reassurance, the mechanic reaches out to fellow prisoners for confirmation. Soon Vahid's van is packed with victims seeking revenge on the man who abused them for nothing more than voicing opposition to the authorities. There's a bride (Hadis Pakbaten) who abandons her wedding, together with her wedding photographer and former inmate Shiva (Maryam Afshari), to go after the man who raped and tortured her. There's Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr), a man so traumatized and so furious by his experience he doesn't care if the man they've caught is the right guy; he just wants vengeance. "Even dead, they're a scourge on humanity," he says of all the intelligence officers serving under the regime.

As the group debates vengeance vs non-violence, alongside brutal descriptions of the beatings and torture they endured, Panahi inserts sly moments of humor and touches of the absurd. The hostage-takers cross paths with Eghbal's family, including his heavily pregnant wife, and suddenly find themselves rushing her to the hospital to give birth. Afterwards, as is tradition in Iran, Vahid heads to a bakery to buy everyone pastries.

"All these characters that you see in this film were inspired by conversations that I had in prison, by stories people told me about the violence and the brutality of the Iranian government, violence that has been ongoing for more than four decades now," says Panahi. "In a way, I'm not the one who made this film. It's the Islamic Republic that made this film, because they put me in prison. Maybe if they want to stop us being so subversive, they should stop putting us in jail."

Despite a career defined by resistance, Panahi insists he's simply doing the only thing he knows how. "During my 20-year ban, even my closest friends had given up hope that I would ever make films again," he said at the Cannes press conference for "It Was Just An Accident."

"But people who know me know I can't change a lightbulb. I don't know how to do anything except make films."

That single-minded dedication is what kept him going, even at his lowest.

"I remember just before I was given this very heavy sentence of 20 years, banned from making films and from traveling, and I thought: 'What will I do now?' For a little while, I was really upset," he recalls. "Then I went to my window, I looked up and I saw these beautiful clouds in the sky. I immediately got my camera. I thought: 'This is not something they can take away from me, I can still take pictures of the clouds.' Those photos were later exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in Paris … There's no way they can stop me from making films. If cinema is really what is sacred for you, what gives sense to your life, then no regime, no censorship, no authoritarian system can stop you."

While many Iranian filmmakers have fled into exile — including Panahi's close friendMohammad Rasoulof, director of theOscar-nominated "The Seed of the Sacred Fig,"who now lives in Berlin — Panahi says he has no plans to join them. "I'm completely incapable of adjusting to another society," he says. "I had to be in Paris for three and a half months for post-production, and I thought I was going to die."

In Iran, he explained, filmmaking is a communal act of improvisation and trust. "At 2 a.m., I can call a colleague and say: 'That shot should be longer.' And he'll come join me and we'll work all night. In Europe, you can't work like this. I don't belong."

So, even after his Cannes triumph, Panahi will return home. "As soon as I finish my work here, I will go back to Iran the next day. And I will ask myself: 'What's my next film going to be?'"

This article was updated on May 24, 2025, to reflect Jafar Panahi's Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or win.