NATO Chief Mark Rutte will go to Washington D.C. on Monday July 14 and Tuesday July 15 the place he’ll meet with U.S. President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, NATO stated in a press launch.
The press launch didn’t give a right away cause for Rutte’s go to however Trump stated in a current interview with NBC News that the U.S. could be prepared to provide weapons to Ukraine through NATO and that he would make a “major statement” on Monday.
The Trump administration has to date solely despatched weapons authorised by former President Joe Biden, who was a staunch supporter of Kyiv.
Türkiye’s highway freight to Syria surged 60% within the first 5 months of 2025 in comparison with the identical interval final 12 months, pushed by enhancing circumstances within the nation and renewed efforts to reopen transit corridors to the Gulf, in response to the top of a Turkish worldwide transport affiliation.
Şerafettin Aras, chairperson of the board on the International Transporters Association (UND), stated Türkiye made practically 113,000 highway shipments to Syria between January and May 2025, up from round 70,000 in the identical interval of 2024.
“In the coming period, the number of trips from Türkiye to Syria will increase further,” Aras advised Anadolu Agency (AA) on Saturday. “I believe that the 50,000 transit numbers to Syria, before 2011, will increase three, four or fivefold.”
He stated Syria and Iraq stay very important to Türkiye’s commerce routes and famous progress following final month’s Global Transportation Corridors Forum in Istanbul, which introduced collectively ministers, deputy ministers and senior officers from practically 40 international locations.
“Our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also attended the opening ceremony. The importance of Türkiye’s position as a corridor country was once again underlined,” he stated.
Transit revival
Aras recalled that following the outbreak of battle in Syria in 2011, items have been typically returned on the Cilvegözü Border Gate. Transit exercise to Syria fell to a standstill, and bilateral commerce with Iraq and Syria slowed sharply. “Previously, we needed to transport items by means of northern Iraq and switch them into Syria from there,” he stated.
Despite a 3% year-over-year lower in general bilateral transport to Iraq and Syria, Aras stated the transit mannequin is now gaining floor once more. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) on transit transport with Syria was signed throughout the Istanbul discussion board.
He stated one among Türkiye’s transit vehicles lately departed from Izmir and delivered items to a port in Iraq for onward cargo to Gulf international locations, marking the nation’s entry into Iraq’s Truck Permit System. Three different vehicles have been loaded in Konya and routed by means of Iraq to Jordan and Kuwait.
“This improve in transit transport will deliver critical advantages to the sector and increase international trade inflows to our nation,” he stated.
Strategic worth of land routes grows
Aras pointed to present instability in maritime routes because of the Israel-Palestine battle, saying land transport by means of Syria and Iraq will turn into more and more essential for shipments to the Gulf.
He stated Türkiye won’t solely have the ability to transport European items by means of this hall but additionally increase its personal exports to international locations such because the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.
“Given our country’s location, as our president said at the Global Transportation Corridors Forum, we are a corridor country, Aras said. “If we resolve the regional points round us, transit transportation will generate extra international forex for this nation than tourism.”
Last 12 months, the Turkish transport sector accomplished round 493,000 journeys to Iraq and 190,000 to Syria. Aras stated he expects these journeys to rise considerably in 2025 as safety improves and agreements start to take impact.
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Marc Marquez cemented his standing because the “King of Sachsenring” on Sunday by successful the German Grand Prix in his two hundredth MotoGP begin, a grueling race that noticed solely 10 riders attain the end line.
Marquez’s ninth MotoGP victory on the Sachsenring stretched his championship lead over brother Alex, who completed second, to 83 factors, whereas Marc’s teammate Francesco Bagnaia completed third to take a seat 147 factors behind.
Alex had began fifth on the grid and took second in his one centesimal MotoGP begin regardless of nonetheless recovering from a fractured hand he suffered on the Dutch Grand Prix two weeks in the past that required surgical procedure.
Several riders crashed over the course of the race, particularly at flip one, together with VR46 Racing’s Fabio Di Giannantonio and Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi once they had been in second place.
But the day belonged to Marc as he marked his newest triumph at his favourite searching floor by standing on his bike and doing a jig as he handed the chequered flag – a fourth straight weekend the place he had received each the dash and the race.
“One more (win at the Sachsenring) was super special. From the beginning, I felt good, the confidence when I started the weekend was super high because we were coming from three victories in a row,” Marc stated.
“We are in an incredible moment. Now we can say that half the season is done. Now (the second) half, we still need to be super concentrated.”
Marc had clinched his seventh pole place of the season Saturday earlier than successful a moist dash regardless of a mistake on the first flip, however this time he had the dream begin to take the lead into flip one forward of Bezzecchi and Di Giannantonio.
As Marc slowly however absolutely began to stretch his lead, he was unaware of the battles for place behind him as Bezzecchi and Di Giannantonio swapped locations whereas Alex and Pedro Acosta fought for fourth place on the sweeping corners.
Acosta grew to become the third rider to crash early on after Lorenzo Savadori and Miguel Oliveira, with the younger Spaniard gesturing at his fallen machine in frustration.
Di Giannantonio had damaged the lap report in Friday’s observe and given Marc a tricky time early within the dash.
But the Italian was unable to push any more durable to catch as much as Marc, who discovered a cushty rhythm and tempo to surge greater than two seconds forward regardless of easing off the throttle on two laps to preserve his tires.
As Marc’s lead stretched to greater than three seconds, Di Giannantonio’s problem got here to an finish on the downhill braking zone on flip one when he misplaced management and crashed, along with his bike tumbling throughout the gravel whereas he escaped unharmed.
LCR Honda’s Johann Zarco, who began second on the grid earlier than getting pushed down the order, crashed on the identical flip seconds later.
Bezzecchi had moved as much as second however the Aprilia rider additionally bit the mud on the very subsequent lap at flip one, transferring Alex as much as second whereas Bagnaia out of the blue discovered himself within the podium positions.
“I tried to give my 100%. Also, I was a little bit lucky because (riders) sliding in front of me crashed. But this is racing, so you need to be there,” stated Alex, holding an ice pack on his left hand.
“Today, it was important to survive … So I’m really, really happy. It’s unbelievable to be here (after surgery).”
The crashes didn’t finish there as Trackhouse Racing’s Ai Ogura misplaced his steadiness on flip one and ended up taking out Honda’s Joan Mir within the course of, leaving solely 10 of the 18 starters.
Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo completed fourth forward of Alex’s Gresini Racing teammate Fermin Aldeguer.
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At least six individuals have been killed throughout Ukraine Saturday when Russia launched greater than 620 drones and long-range missiles, whereas Kyiv introduced it was nearing a deal to amass further Patriot air protection techniques.
“The Russians continue to use their specific tactics of terror against our country, striking concentrated blows at one city or another, at one region or another,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mentioned in his night deal with.
Moscow has stepped up aerial strikes over latest months as U.S.-led cease-fire talks have stalled.
“Twenty-six cruise missiles and 597 attack drones were launched, of which more than half were ‘Shaheds,'” Zelenskyy mentioned, referring to Iranian-made drones.
The Ukrainian air pressure mentioned it had downed 319 Shahed drones and 25 missiles, including that one missile and about 20 drones had hit “five locations.”
Zelenskyy mentioned the strikes had killed at the very least two individuals and wounded 20 within the southwestern Chernivtsi area, removed from the entrance strains of the east and south.
Twelve individuals have been wounded in Lviv, additionally within the west, whereas within the east, two individuals died in Dnipropetrovsk and three have been wounded in Kharkiv, native officers mentioned.
Russia additionally “dropped two guided aerial bombs on the homes of civilians” within the northeastern Sumy area, killing two, the native prosecutors’ workplace mentioned.
‘Deliberate and despicable’
Zelenskyy mentioned that a few of the drones despatched by Russia had been “simulators” supposed to “overload the air-defense system and make it more difficult to shoot down the ‘suicide drones.’ This is their deliberate and despicable terror.”
The Russian Defense Ministry mentioned it had focused firms in Ukraine’s military-industrial advanced in Lviv, Kharkiv and Lutsk and a navy aerodrome.
In a video message, Zelenskyy mentioned “we are close to reaching a multi-level agreement on new Patriot systems and missiles for them.” Ukraine was stepping up manufacturing of its personal interceptor techniques, he added.
A person inspects the positioning of a Russian glide bomb strike, Kharkiv, Ukraine, July 12, 2025. (EPA Photo)
U.S. particular envoy Keith Kellogg is because of start his newest go to to Ukraine on Monday as a Washington-led peace effort flounders. U.S. President Donald Trump additionally mentioned he would make a “major statement … on Russia” on Monday.
On Friday, the Kremlin restated its opposition to a European peacekeeping pressure in Ukraine, after French President Emmanuel Macron mentioned Kyiv’s allies had a plan “ready to go … in the hours after a cease-fire.”
Trump referred to as Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin final week however mentioned afterwards that there had been no progress towards ending the conflict.
The Kremlin mentioned Putin wouldn’t hand over on Russia’s conflict objectives however would nonetheless proceed to participate in negotiations.
Moscow says its goal in Ukraine is to do away with the “root causes” of the battle and has demanded that Kyiv hand over its NATO ambitions.
Weapons, sanctions
Washington’s announcement earlier this month that it might pause some armament deliveries to Ukraine was a blow to Kyiv, which is reliant on Western navy assist.
On Saturday, Zelenskyy urged his Western allies to ship “more than just signals” to cease the conflict launched by Russia in February 2022.
“The pace of Russian air strikes requires swift decisions and it can be curbed right now through sanctions,” he mentioned on social media.
Zelenskyy particularly demanded penalties for many who “help Russia produce drones and profit from oil.”
Oil exports are essential for the Russian economic system, particularly within the face of present Western sanctions.
Sanctions imposed on Russia – the world’s largest fertilizer producer – after the invasion spared its grain and fertilizer exports.
But costs skyrocketed, fueling fears of meals insecurity.
The United Nations signed a cope with Russia in July 2022 to facilitate exports of meals and fertiliser to restrict international value will increase.
But on Friday, it mentioned the accord wouldn’t be renewed when it expires on July 22.
Russia has repeatedly complained that the settlement does little to guard it from secondary sanctions.
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A political settlement was reached to advance the EU-Indonesia free commerce settlement (FTA), European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen mentioned Sunday.
The commerce deal, dubbed CEPA and brief for Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, will create extra alternatives in key industries comparable to agriculture and the automotive sector, von der Leyen added.
“There’s a lot of untouched potential in our trade relationship, and therefore this agreement comes at the right time because the new agreement will open new markets,” she mentioned at a news convention with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.
“We consider Europe to be very important to us. That’s why we would like to see more European presence and more European participation in our economy,” Subianto mentioned. “I think that in this era of instability or confusion, we are setting the right example.”
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As the primary version of the expanded Club World Cup wrapped up Sunday, FIFA President Gianni Infantino is asking it a significant success, even because the soccer world adjusts to the fact of a flawed match seemingly right here to remain.
Infantino’s flagship competitors – initially imagined to be launched in 2021 earlier than the pandemic intervened – was derided by many, particularly in Europe, earlier than it kicked off.
It was seen as an pointless addition to a crowded calendar, whereas there have been additionally doubts as as to if it will win over the general public.
Even after it started, former Liverpool supervisor Jurgen Klopp dismissed the competitors because the “worst idea ever implemented in football.”
However, the final month within the United States has proven that such a viewpoint is unquestionably an exaggeration.
FIFA has earned criticism for the variety of empty seats at many matches, however followers have turned out, with round 2.5 million attending video games throughout the nation.
South American supporters specifically helped create vibrant and colourful atmospheres and the common crowd of virtually 39,000 earlier than Sunday’s ultimate between Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea was just under that of the English Premier League final season.
“The decisive factor is if the fans like it or not, and the attendances were much higher than expected,” insisted Arsene Wenger, FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development.
The FIFA Club World Cup trophy is seen on show on the Trump Tower in New York, U.S., July 12, 2025. (AFP Photo)
“I don’t share the opinion of Jurgen Klopp at all because I feel a real Club World Cup is needed and if you ask all the clubs who were here at this competition, I am sure all of them would want to do it again.”
What they would favor to not need to take care of once more is the form of temperatures that include enjoying throughout the afternoon in a North American summer time.
Many matches have been impacted by the warmth and a number of other confronted lengthy delays because of thunderstorm warnings.
That appears to be like set to trigger main complications for FIFA on the World Cup in North America subsequent yr.
“Playing in these temperatures is very dangerous, and obviously for the spectacle … the pace of play is not the same, it slows everything down,” complained Chelsea’s Enzo Fernandez.
That may be checked out for future tournaments, however it’s going to absolutely be more durable for FIFA to do something in regards to the dominance of Europe’s main golf equipment.
Europe offered each finalists however didn’t have issues all its personal manner, with Fluminense of Brazil flying the flag for the remainder of the world.
They knocked out Inter Milan en path to reaching the semi-finals, whereas fellow Brazilians Palmeiras received to the final eight together with Saudi Arabia’s Al-Hilal.
Advertising for the FIFA Club World Cup ultimate match between France’s Paris Saint-Germain and England’s Chelsea is displayed on a display at Times Square in New York, U.S., July 12, 2025. (AFP Photo)
Further extension?
The majority of the match’s enormous $1 billion prize fund nonetheless went to European groups, however the cash distributed to competing golf equipment from world wide might give them a greater likelihood of holding their greatest gamers for longer.
Infantino accepts that his match can be a higher draw if extra of Europe’s greatest names have been concerned however insists it’s going to stay open to golf equipment from across the globe – even when meaning mismatches like Auckland City dropping 10-0 to Bayern Munich.
“Auckland represents to some extent 99.9% of all players, who would like to be like them but will never have the chance – there must be a place for everyone,” he mentioned.
“Of course I would have liked to have Liverpool here, Arsenal, Manchester United, Barcelona, Tottenham, AC Milan, Napoli … but you have to qualify.”
Adding extra video games – as much as seven for the finalists – to an already crowded calendar is problematic.
Nevertheless, the dedication of PSG to go all the way in which following their Champions League triumph, or Manchester City’s disappointment once they went out, means that they have been totally invested.
“We are very used to not having holidays unfortunately, because the schedule is crazy,” City’s Bernardo Silva mentioned after his crew’s quarterfinal exit.
“But when we are in a competition, we take it very seriously and we had a lot of ambition for this Club World Cup.”
And there shall be one other Club World Cup, even when Infantino has to this point performed down strategies the match could possibly be instantly expanded additional, and staged extra usually.
“It will happen every four years, it is planned, and the next edition is in 2029,” mentioned Wenger.
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For weeks whereas again house in Warsaw final 12 months, Iga Swiatek frolicked with buddies and made new ones, however did not dare inform them a couple of doping case that was hanging over her.
“Obviously, in the back of my mind,” she stated Saturday night on the All England Club, “I had this thing.”
There was extra occurring, too, and she or he solely opened as much as her household and her crew. A training change. An extended-for-her title drought. A rating drop. Her grandfather’s passing.
“It all (happened) together,” Swiatek stated. “It wasn’t easy.”
And so, in some methods, the Wimbledon championship Swiatek claimed Saturday with a 6-0, 6-0 victory – sure, learn that rating once more – in 57 minutes over Amanda Anisimova may very well be seen as greater than merely a major on-court end result.
It mattered, after all, that she lastly conquered grass courts, usually, and that venue, particularly. The 24-year-old from Poland grew to become the youngest lady with no less than one main trophy on all three surfaces since 2002, when Serena Williams did it at age 20. That Swiatek now wants solely an Australian Open title to finish a profession Grand Slam.
In the larger image, although, this triumph adopted a tough 12-plus months and offered the next takeaway, in Swiatek’s phrases: “The lesson is just that even when you feel like you’re not on a good path, you can always get back to it if you put enough effort and you have good people around you.”
There was a not-long-ago stretch through which she was thought-about far and away the very best in girls’s tennis.
“She’s an unbelievable player,” Anisimova stated.
Swiatek held the No. 1 rating for many of the previous three seasons. She put collectively a 37-match profitable streak in 2022 that included six match titles till it ended – the place else? – at Wimbledon.
She received 5 Grand Slam titles, 4 on the pink clay on the French Open and one on the exhausting courts on the U.S. Open, and established herself as a bona fide star.
Except there was at all times the matter of what went on when she performed on grass. Zero titles. Zero finals. One quarterfinal run on the All England Club.
The questions stored arising, from herself and from others. Then these doubts unfold to different occasions and different surfaces.
She left the 2024 Olympics, held at Roland-Garros, with a bronze medal after dropping within the semifinals. She departed Wimbledon final 12 months within the third spherical, the U.S. Open within the quarterfinals. She exited the French Open final month within the semifinals, ending her bid for a fourth consecutive championship there.
In all, Swiatek went greater than a 12 months with out reaching a last anyplace.
Then there was the matter of a one-month doping ban she accepted after failing an out-of-competition drug take a look at. The International Tennis Integrity Agency accepted her rationalization that the end result was unintentional and attributable to the contamination of a non-prescription medicine she was taking for points with jet lag and sleeping.
“The second half of last year was extremely challenging for me, especially due to the positive doping test and how circumstances completely beyond my control took away my chance to fight for the highest sport goals at the end of the season,” Swiatek wrote in a social media submit in March, including that the episode “forced me to rearrange certain things within myself.”
Eventually, Swiatek was in a position to Saturday, “I came back to being my old kind of self,” even when she nonetheless is “way more scared about eating something that will be contaminated.”
On June 12, a month to the day earlier than going through Anisimova – Swiatek checked her telephone’s calendar to make sure – and every week after her 26-match French Open profitable streak got here to an in depth, it was time to get to work.
Swiatek headed to the Spanish island of Mallorca to apply on grass. Next was a visit to Germany for extra coaching earlier than getting into a match there. She made all of it the way in which to that last earlier than dropping and tearing up throughout the post-match ceremony.
Two weeks later, at Wimbledon, Swiatek was all smiles, and as she left her final interview of the day, she joked: “That was a good therapy session.”
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TRT 12 Punto, Türkiye’s first and solely challenge devoted to the nationwide movie trade, returns for its seventh version from July 13-20. Ahead of the occasion, organizers held a press convention Sunday with opening remarks by TRT Secretary General Ibrahim Keleş and TRT Cinema Director Faruk Güven.
Billed as Türkiye’s largest script growth and coproduction platform, TRT 12 Punto goals to help initiatives of their early script phases, contribute high quality screenplays to Turkish cinema, and assist rework these initiatives into accomplished movies.
The weeklong program, which incorporates members from 35 international locations – administrators, producers, and cinema professionals – will convey collectively distinguished figures from the worldwide movie trade. The occasion will function masterclasses, panels and shows by award-winning administrators, producers, and trade consultants.
Speaking on the press convention, Keleş stated TRT 12 Punto has grow to be a typical floor for cinema fanatics and has grown to be one in every of Turkish state broadcaster TRT’s most distinguished manufacturers over the previous seven years. Güven emphasised the platform’s position in bringing collectively main filmmakers and professionals to develop essential initiatives for each Turkish and world cinema.
A common view of members on the seventh version of TRT 12 Punto, Istanbul, Türkiye, July 13, 2025. (Courtesy of TRT 12 Punto)
Each yr, the worldwide jury of TRT 12 Punto includes a few of the most influential names in world cinema. This yr’s jury consists of celebrated Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner, Golden Globe President Helen Hoehne, ARTE France Cinema Director Olivier Père and award-winning Palestinian actress Yasmine Al Massri.
As a part of this system, two modern Palestinian quick movies, “Orange from Jaffa” and “UNDR,” will display screen on the TRT 12 Punto Open Air Cinema. Feature movies corresponding to “Uzun Hikâye” directed and produced by Osman Sınav and the TRT coproduced Club Zero, which competed at Cannes in 2023 underneath Hausner’s path, may even be screened totally free and open to the general public.
A brand new initiative added this yr is the “Editing Consultation” program. Acclaimed editor Benjamin Mirguet will present steerage on two earlier 12 Punto-winning initiatives at the moment in post-production.
Winners of the “TRT Short Film Production Award,” first launched in 2020, will once more obtain script growth session from Wim Vanacker, a range committee member for the Official Short Film Competition on the Cannes Film Festival.
Events at Istanbul’s Feriye venue might be broadcast dwell on TRT 12 Punto’s social media accounts. TRT 2 may even air a particular every day program titled 12 Punto Special every night at 7 p.m. from July 13 to twenty.
On July 19, the worldwide jury will consider pitches from 12 finalist initiatives. Of these, three will obtain the “TRT Co-Production Award,” three will earn the “TRT Pre-Buy Award,” and 6 might be granted the “TRT Project Development Award.” Projects profitable the “TRT International Co-Production Award” may even be introduced through the ceremony.
Track report of success
Since its inception in 2019, TRT 12 Punto has grow to be one of the crucial intently watched occasions within the worldwide movie calendar, serving to help and form a few of the most notable latest works in Turkish and world cinema. Over seven years, it has granted awards to 128 initiatives in varied classes, together with 21 Co-Production Awards, 21 Pre-Buy Awards, 18 Project Development Awards, 14 International Co-Production Awards, and 54 Short Film Production Awards.
The platform has awarded 97 Turkish feature-length and quick movie initiatives with co-production or pre-buy help since 2019. This yr’s alternatives will convey that quantity to 103. Films like “Gülizar,” “Bir Tutam Karanfil,” “Kanto,” “Tavşan Imparatorluğu,” Tereddüt Çizgisi,” “Hayat,” “Neandria,” “Kamış” and “Hara” – a lot of them supported by TRT 12 Punto – have premiered at main festivals in Venice, Berlin, Tokyo, Tallinn, Toronto, Shanghai, Warsaw, Antalya, Istanbul and Boğaziçi, usually profitable worldwide recognition.
Support for int’l co-productions
Since 2020, this system has prolonged help to worldwide movies the place Turkish producers are minority co-producers. All 14 movies awarded underneath the “TRT International Co-Production Award” have premiered at A-list festivals. Among them are “Klondike” (Ukraine-Türkiye), “Quiet Life” (France-Türkiye-Germany-Sweden-Greece-Estonia-Finland), “The Sacred Spirit” (Spain-Türkiye-France), “Advice to the Fish” (Azerbaijan-Türkiye-Mexico), “The Green Border” (Poland-Türkiye-France) and “Shambhala” (Nepal-Türkiye-France), all of which debuted at prestigious festivals corresponding to Sundance, Berlin, Locarno, and Venice, incomes awards and worldwide acclaim.
Growing variety of candidates
Since 2019, greater than 100 feature-length movie initiatives within the script or growth part have utilized yearly to TRT 12 Punto. A five-member pre-selection jury of unbiased Turkish filmmakers, producers, and screenwriters selects 12 finalists annually.
Additionally, 54 quick movies have acquired manufacturing help via the “TRT Short Film Production Award” since 2020. Some of those movies have had world premieres at high festivals: “Rutubet” at Venice, “Birlikte Yalnız” and “Zemberek” at Sarajevo. More than 2,100 quick movie initiatives have utilized to the award program, and profitable entries now obtain script session from Wim Vanacker, bringing world trade experience to rising filmmakers.
Global jury, yr after yr
TRT 12 Punto has constantly attracted high names in worldwide cinema. Past jurors have included Academy President John Bailey, European Film Academy President Mike Downey, Oscar-winning director Pawel Pawlikowski, actor Ghassan Massoud, director Rithy Panh, Oscar-winning producers Cat Villiers and Ewa Puszczynska, Cannes Cinefondation Director Georges Goldenstern, Berlinale Co-Production Market Director Martina Bleis, European Film Market Director Dennis Ruh, Oscar-nominated director Jasmila Žbanić, Palme d’Or-winning producer Philippe Bober, Eurimages Director Susan Newman-Baudais, FIPRESCI President Ahmed Shawky, Oscar-winning filmmaker Danis Tanović, and Sarajevo Film Festival Founder Mirsad Purivatra.
This yr’s jury continues that custom.
Evolution, growth
When it launched in 2019, TRT 12 Punto targeted on script and pitching growth. Over time, it advanced right into a globally acknowledged trade occasion. In 2022, the “TRT 12 Punto Meetings” program was launched, bringing representatives from high festivals, manufacturing firms, and gross sales companies to Türkiye to satisfy with finalists. In 2023, consultants from 22 international locations participated; this yr, that quantity has grown to 35.
Panels, masterclasses
Over the previous seven years, masterclasses and panels hosted throughout TRT 12 Punto have grow to be main highlights for trade professionals and cinephiles alike.
Participants attend a masterclass through the seventh version of TRT 12 Punto, Istanbul, Türkiye, July 13, 2025. (Courtesy of TRT 12 Punto)
Leading figures from throughout the movie world have shared insights on present traits, whereas veteran administrators and producers have spoken about their careers intimately. These occasions have helped set up TRT 12 Punto as a central hub for the Turkish movie trade, offering a platform for schooling, dialogue and collaboration.
Just every week had remained earlier than scientists in South Africa have been to start scientific trials of an HIV vaccine, and hopes have been excessive for an additional step towards limiting considered one of historical past’s deadliest pandemics. Then the e-mail arrived.
Stop all work, it mentioned. The United States, beneath the Trump administration, was withdrawing all its funding.
The news devastated the researchers, who dwell and work in a area the place extra individuals dwell with HIV than wherever else on the planet. Their analysis challenge, referred to as BRILLIANT, was meant to be the newest to attract on the area’s genetic range and deep experience within the hope of benefiting individuals all over the place.
But the $46 million from the U.S. for the challenge was disappearing, a part of the dismantling of international help by the world’s largest donor earlier this yr as President Donald Trump introduced a deal with priorities at residence.
South Africa has been hit particularly arduous due to Trump’s baseless claims concerning the focusing on of the nation’s white Afrikaner minority. The nation had been receiving about $400 million a yr by way of USAID and the HIV-focused PEPFAR.
Now that is gone.
Glenda Grey, who heads the Brilliant program, mentioned the African continent has been very important to the event of HIV medicine, and the U.S. cuts threaten its functionality to do such work sooner or later.
Significant advances have included scientific trials for lenacapavir, the world’s solely twice-a-year shot to stop HIV, lately accredited to be used by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. One research to point out its efficacy concerned younger South Africans.
“We do the trials higher, quicker and cheaper than wherever else on the planet, and so with out South Africa as a part of these applications, the world, in my view, is far poorer,” Gray mentioned.
She famous that in the course of the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa performed an important function by testing the Johnson & Johnson and Novavax vaccines, and South African scientists’ genomic surveillance led to the identification of an essential variant.
A staff of researchers on the University of the Witwatersrand has been a part of the unit growing the HIV vaccines for the trials.
Inside the Wits laboratory, technician Nozipho Mlotshwa was among the many younger individuals in white robes engaged on samples, however she might quickly be out of a job.
Her place is grant-funded. She makes use of her wage to assist her household and fund her research in a rustic the place youth unemployment hovers round 46%.
“It’s very sad and devastating, honestly,” she mentioned of the U.S. cuts and general uncertainty. “We’ll additionally miss out collaborating with different scientists throughout the continent.”
Professor Abdullah Ely leads the staff of researchers. He mentioned the work had promising outcomes, indicating that the vaccines have been producing an immune response.
But now that momentum, he mentioned, has “all form of needed to come to a halt.”
The BRILLIANT program is scrambling to search out cash to save lots of the challenge. The buy of key tools has stopped. South Africa’s well being division says about 100 researchers for that program and others associated to HIV have been laid off. Funding for postdoctoral college students concerned in experiments for the initiatives is in danger.
South Africa’s authorities has estimated that universities and science councils may lose about $107 million in U.S. analysis funding over the following 5 years as a result of help cuts, which have an effect on not solely work on HIV but in addition tuberculosis, one other illness with a excessive variety of circumstances within the nation.
South Africa’s authorities has mentioned will probably be very tough to search out funding to switch the U.S. assist.
And now the variety of HIV infections will develop. Medication is tougher to acquire. At least 8,000 well being employees in South Africa’s HIV program have already been laid off, the federal government has mentioned. Also gone are the info collectors who tracked sufferers and their care, in addition to HIV counselors who may attain weak sufferers in rural communities.
For researchers, Universities South Africa, an umbrella physique, has utilized to the nationwide treasury for over $110 million for initiatives at a few of the largest faculties.
During a go to to South Africa in June, UNAIDS govt director Winnie Byanyima was nicely conscious of the stakes and the lives in danger, as analysis and well being care battle in South Africa and throughout Africa at massive.
Other nations that have been extremely depending on U.S. funding, together with Zambia, Nigeria, Burundi and Ivory Coast, are already rising their very own sources, she mentioned.
“But let’s be clear, what they are putting down will not be funding in the same way that the American resources were funding,” Byanyima mentioned.
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There is a small variety of belongings and corporations that proceed to withstand the rising uncertainty attributable to tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Two of them demonstrated their resilience this week by marking a brand new all-time excessive and turning into the one firm that reached a market valuation above $4 trillion. Yes, we’re speaking about bitcoin and chipmaker Nvidia.
In a extremely risky market dynamic, bitcoin on Friday topped $118,000 for the primary time, in what analysts described as a response to the pleasant insurance policies of the brand new Trump administration for digital belongings and stablecoins.
At the identical time, this previous week was marked by Nvidia, which on Wednesday made historical past by hitting $4 trillion mark, as soon as once more cementing its function because the bellwether of the synthetic intelligence growth.
Both developments come regardless of international headwinds and the onset of the introduction of steep levies that put many firms, people and broader economies in danger. Tariffs have additionally resulted within the worst first half of the 12 months for the U.S. greenback since at the least 1973.
The foremost catalyst behind the meteoric rise of Nvidia is undoubtedly the adoption of AI and excessive demand for its superior graphics processing items (GPUs), that are seen as a “must-have” by firms growing massive language fashions (LLMs), knowledge facilities and new software program.
Only a 12 months in the past, in spring of 2024, the corporate primarily based in Santa Clara, California, managed to eclipse Saudi oil large Saudi Aramco to turn into, on the time, the world’s third most dear agency. Fast ahead one 12 months and Nvidia sits forward of Microsoft and Apple, whereas Aramco dropped to seventh place on the listing.
At the identical time, a fast have a look at the desk reveals that the market valuation of Nvidia is sort of as a lot as the worth of Alphabet ($2.19 trillion) and Meta Platforms ($1.8 trillion) mixed.
Valued at near $165 per share, the chipmaker, led by Jensen Huang, is seen as one among Wall Street’s most-favored shares. Despite sure ups and downs, resembling when the launch of DeepSeek shook the complete U.S. inventory market, Nvidia has seen a gradual rise prior to now couple of years, and traders stay largely bullish on the inventory.
However, the corporate additionally stays one of many sticky factors in tech tensions between the U.S. and China, as Washington, by curbing shipments of its most superior chips, appears to solidify the perceived lead within the synthetic intelligence sector.
This week, Huang is visiting Beijing and forward of the journey, he met Trump. What was on the agenda between the 2 males is unclear, Bloomberg reported.
The assembly nonetheless underscores the excessive stakes of the corporate itself and comes as Huang earlier acknowledged the significance of the Chinese marketplace for Nvidia.
Since 2022, the U.S. authorities has imposed restrictions on the export of Nvidia’s most superior chips to China, citing issues over potential army functions.
The U.S. additionally imposed a ban earlier this 12 months on gross sales of Nvidia’s H20 synthetic intelligence chips to the nation, which had been Nvidia’s strongest AI chip cleared for Chinese gross sales.
The firm, for now, managed to climate the influence of the curbs and tariffs because it continued to spice up revenues within the first quarter of the 12 months. In distinction, the businesses in lots of different sectors, together with automotive and the retail industries, flagged the influence of tariffs, typically pointing to losses amounting to billions of {dollars}.
Huang has dubbed AI “the next industrial revolution,” and Nvidia’s GPUs are designed to carry out synthetic intelligence duties sooner and extra effectively than general-purpose chips like CPUs.
Bitcoin run
Similarly, this week, bitcoin, amid smooth greenback outperformed expectations, climbed to as excessive as $118,856 early Friday. The world’s hottest cryptocurrency later fell just below the $118,000 mark and nonetheless near this degree as of Sunday afternoon.
Spot bitcoin ETFs opened up cryptocurrency investing extra extensively after launching final 12 months – and analysts have pointed to document inflows lately.
Last month, the U.S. Senate additionally handed laws that might regulate a type of cryptocurrency generally known as stablecoins, the primary of what the business hopes will likely be a wave of payments to bolster its legitimacy and reassure customers.
Known because the GENIUS Act, the invoice would set up guardrails and shopper protections for stablecoins, a sort of cryptocurrency usually pegged to the U.S. greenback. The acronym stands for “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins.”
The fast-moving laws comes on the heels of a 2024 marketing campaign cycle by which the crypto business ranked among the many prime political spenders within the nation.
Bitcoin’s rise additionally arrives amid a wider backdrop of financial uncertainty, notably the worldwide turmoil spanning from Trump’s on and off tariffs imposed towards key buying and selling companions worldwide.
“Bitcoin has shown resilience this year rebounding in-line with its macro exposures following tariff announcements,” Citi analysts wrote in a Friday analysis perception.
But once more, they famous that the Trump administration “has been positive for Bitcoin” total, and attributed bitcoin’s latest rally to total modifications to the outlook of U.S. regulation, in addition to investments into spot ETFs.
Bitcoin’s backers have typically argued that the asset is sort of a “digital gold” that may act as a hedge towards volatility, however many have remained skeptical of that comparability. Larger market situations have additionally beforehand confirmed to sway bitcoin’s value.
In April, amid a wider selloff following Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariff bulletins, bitcoin briefly dipped under $75,000. That marked the cryptocurrency’s lowest value since earlier than Trump’s Election Day victory in November.
While bitcoin has since rebounded considerably, it is vital for traders to do not forget that it is nonetheless a extremely risky and comparatively new asset that has seen wild swings in worth earlier than.
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