PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, July 10: We look at reactions from the Brazilian press after US President Donald Trump imposes tariffs on Brazil over ex-leader Jair Bolsonaro’s criminal charges. Also, five West African leaders meet with Donald Trump in the White House, which garners a lot of interest in the African press. Also: a new AI-powered search engine could change the way we use the internet. Plus: a German hospital invites pre-schoolers to operate on their cuddly toys to break down their fears around hospitals!
There are lots of reactions in the Brazilian papers to Trump‘s threats to impose 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian goods. This is in retaliation for criminal charges levelled against former Brazilian president and Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro. In response to the threats, the current Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva reminded the US that Brazil is a sovereign nation and threatened reciprocal measures in turn, Brazilian daily O Globo reports. The paper slams what it calls the US’s “explicit blackmail” in favour of Bolsonaro’s impunity. The former leader is facing justice for having conspired to stay in power after the 2022 presidential election by commandeering a Jan 6-style presidential uprising. In a strongly-worded opinion piece, the writer for Folha de Sao Paolo says there is only one person responsible for these tariff hikes: Jair Bolsonaro. The paper surmises that Trump’s letter appears to have been written by Eduardo Bolsonaro, one of Bolsonaro’s children; or one of the “patriots who fled Brazil for Disneyland to engineer US foreign intervention in Brazil’s internal affairs.”
Trump also welcomed five West African leaders to the White House on Wednesday: those of Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Gabon and Liberia. The African press hail the pivot from aid to trade in US-Africa diplomacy. The Burkina Faso paper Wakat Sera is thrilled with the Trump method, “which leaves no place for empty words”. The paper’s editors offer a gentle reminder to Trump, who in a cringeworthy moment, congratulated the Liberian president for his excellent English. The paper reminds us that English is the official language of Liberia, a country founded by freed American slaves. “Thank you Uncle Trump”, it says affectionately, noting that Trump could do with being a little less patronising but concedes that this a criticism often levelled against French President Emmanuel Macron as well.
One of the items on Trump’s agenda is convincing the African leaders to accept migrants deported by the US, whose countries of origin refuse to take them back. The Liberian paper New Republic says it’s unclear if the five African leaders agreed to Trump’s so-called third country migrant proposal but notes that it indicates the overlap between the US’s aggressive campaign of deportations and its foreign policies. In any case, if leaders are looking to ingratiate themselves with Trump in his second term, there is a way in: pump him up as a candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize! The Wall Street Journal says that after Pakistan and Israel, the African leaders at the White House were open to the idea of Trump receiving a Nobel Prize, with Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye saying it would be “deserved”. As they say, flattery will get you everywhere!
In other news: Gizmodo reports on an AI search startup’s new web browser that could fundamentally transform how we use the internet. The internet, as we know it, is based on clicks – clicks drive our searches, help us pay for purchases and drive ad revenue as well. On Wednesday, the AI search startup Perplexity launched Comet: a web browser powered by AI. Instead of clicks, it’s described as your second brain – like Chat GPT with a browser tab. It is capable of researching, comparing options, making purchases, briefing you for the day and analysing information at your behest. Now, Comet is coming for Google Chrome, the pioneer of internet searches. Instead of you entering every command with a click, the browser will anticipate your needs and in the process blow up the very lucrative model that Google has established through ad-based searches.
Finally: a German hospital is operating on teddy bears to show children that doctors aren’t scary! The Times of London reports that for a few days each year, the Darmstadt clinic’s teaching hospital becomes a triage centre for injured cuddly toys. Some 600 pre-schoolers were invited so that doctors could teach them about the human body and more importantly, convince them that doctors and hospitals aren’t so scary! The kids were even advised to bring in their own plushies for treatment and got to dress in scrubs and masks for the occasion. The children got to watch medical students applying bandages, taking X-rays and measuring the toys’ temperatures.
You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.
