内容摘要：Percussionists play instruments known the world over — snare and bass drums — but also traditional local instruments like the tamborim hand drum, the cuica friction drum, the double-sided repique, metal shakers known as chocalhos and the agogo, a two-headed cowbell originating in West Africa.

Percussionists play instruments known the world over — snare and bass drums — but also traditional local instruments like the tamborim hand drum, the cuica friction drum, the double-sided repique, metal shakers known as chocalhos and the agogo, a two-headed cowbell originating in West Africa.

The U.S. State Department declined to comment on a potential deal, but said engagement with foreign governments is an important part of the U.S. government’s policy to deter illegal migration.Local media reports in Rwanda have suggested the U.S. likely would fund a program to have migrants integrated into society through stipends and job assistance initiatives.

with Rwanda in 2022 to send migrants who arrive in the U.K. as stowaways or in boats to the East African country, where their asylum claims would be processed and, if successful, they would stay.The plan was stalled by legal challenges and criticized by human rights groups, who called it unethical to deport migrants to a country 4,000 miles (6,400 miles) away that they don’t want to live in.The plan collapsed last year after the new Labour government took charge. The U.K.’s new home secretary called the plan the “most shocking waste of taxpayer money I have ever seen” and estimated the cost at 700 million pounds ($904 million) in public funds.

No flights to Rwanda took off under the plan, but the U.K. government said the failed plan’s costs included 290 million pounds in payments to Rwanda. Rwanda has said it was not obligated to refund the money.Human rights advocates have long raised concerns over the deaths in Rwandan custody of some perceived government critics, as well as the alleged killings of others who sought exile in places like South Africa. Rwanda at times has responded with angry denials to reports documenting human rights abuses – including the

who was tricked onto a Kigali-bound aircraft while visiting Dubai. He was later freed after Biden administration pressure.

Rwanda is also criticized over its aggressive military actions in the region. United Nations experts have documentedUkraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gestures during a news conference at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, May 28, 2025.(AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

After the United States, Germany has been the biggest individual supplier of military aid to Ukraine.“Ukraine will be able to fully defend itself, including against military targets outside its own territory” with its own missiles, Merz said at a joint news conference.

Hours after Merz’s pledge, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov publicly invited Ukraine to hold direct peace talks with Moscow in Istanbul on June 2.In a video statement, he said that Russia would use the meeting to deliver