Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump reiterates that Tehran will not have a nuclear weapon.

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez has disputed the government’s account of what led to his shooting during a Doordash delivery in Austin, Texas.

A Venezuelan asylum seeker who was shot in the back by a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Texas is facing a federal assault charge, after prosecutors accused him of striking the officer with his car’s side-view mirror.

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, appeared in federal court in Austin on Tuesday, where he was charged with assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer. He could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

The charge stems from a September 20 encounter that began while Garces Perez was making a DoorDash food delivery near a shopping centre in Austin, the Texas state capital.

A federal complaint filed on Monday says immigration officers noticed that Garces Perez’s car had its emergency lights flashing, and they ran a database check. They found it was registered to Garces Perez, who was subject to a final order of removal from the US.

When the officers approached, Garces Perez handed over his driver’s license through a partially opened window but did not get out of the car, the complaint says. He asked the officers to wait until his wife could arrive to retrieve the vehicle.

Court documents describe the exchange up to that point as “pleasant and not aggressive”.

About a minute later, however, court documents say Garces Perez “abruptly” closed his window and drove off, striking one of the officers in the torso with his driver’s side mirror.

That officer chased Garces Perez in his own vehicle and caught up with him a short time later. In the complaint, the officer alleges that Garces Perez then tried to drive into him, prompting him to open fire.

There is no publicly available footage showing the events described in the complaint, including the shooting.

Videos, however, have circulated online showing the shooting’s aftermath, with Garces Perez injured in his car.

The complaint relies on unreleased body-camera footage from one of the two ICE officers who stopped Garces Perez.

The second officer was not wearing a body camera, according to the affidavit. That officer says he was struck by Garces Perez’s side mirror and later shot him.

Garces Perez, however, gave federal investigators a different account of the moments immediately before he was shot.

He told investigators that, after a brief chase, a law enforcement SUV struck his car, causing it to spin around, according to the affidavit. He said the officer then opened fire, shooting him in the back.

Garces Perez has been held in a detention facility in south Texas since the shooting.

His lawyer, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, said on Sunday the bullet was still lodged in his body and that he has a fractured clavicle. In a social media post, Lincoln-Goldfinch explained that his supporters were worried he could develop sepsis or suffer permanent damage if he didn’t undergo surgery soon.

The Department of Homeland Security has argued, however, that Garces Perez is receiving adequate medical care.

Garces Perez’s legal team is also seeking to stop his removal from the US.

The Venezuelan national entered the US in 2024 through CBP One, an online programme expanded under former President Joe Biden to allow asylum seekers to make appointments with immigration authorities at the US-Mexico border.

Trump ended the programme on his first day back in office, accusing the app of contributing to an immigration crisis in the US. His administration has since relaunched CBP One as CBP Home, a self-deportation portal.

Lincoln-Goldfinch has said Garces Perez was legally seeking asylum in the US and had a valid work permit. She has asserted that he was ordered to be deported after missing an immigration court hearing because the notice had been sent to an old address.

Garces Perez is due back before a federal immigration judge on Wednesday for a separate hearing on whether he can remain in the country.

The case comes amid a surge in immigration enforcement during Trump’s second term, with ICE reporting more than 50,000 arrests in both July and August.

The high court grants an emergency petition ahead of expected arguments in the case, slated for December.

The United States Supreme Court has allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to continue third-country deportations, halting a lower-court ruling that paused such removals over questions of due process.

On Tuesday, the high court granted the administration’s emergency request to resume the deportations, which involve sending immigrants to countries they may have no connection to.

The court’s order was unsigned, as is typical for an emergency petition. It also does not include an explanation or a list of how the justices voted.

But at the bottom of Tuesday’s order, the court’s three left-leaning justices – Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan – indicated they would have denied the Trump administration’s petition.

The Supreme Court’s decision to pause the lower court ruling is temporary. The order calls for arguments to be heard in December.

That hearing comes as Trump administration continues its appeal against the lower court’s ruling, handed down by Judge Brian Murphy in Boston, Massachusetts.

Murphy had ruled that immigrants must be given a “meaningful” chance to raise safety concerns before their removal to third-party countries.

In pausing such deportations, Murphy indicated that some immigrants may have been denied the opportunity to challenge their deportations as part of their due process rights.

Tuesday, however, is not the first time the Supreme Court justices have weighed in on the practice of forcibly sending people to third countries, which Trump dramatically stepped up since his return to office in 2025.

Trump campaigned on a pledge to implement the “largest deportation operation in American history”, and his officials have argued that third-country deportations are a means of removing individuals whose home countries may not accept them.

In June 2025, the Supreme Court also issued an unsigned order allowing such removals to proceed.

That cleared the way for eight men, including nationals of Cuba, Myanmar and Vietnam, to be deported to South Sudan, a country the US State Department advises against visiting because of “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict”.

The Department of Homeland Security at the time called the removals “a win”, while rights groups said the move flouted basic legal protections.

Critics have expressed concern that many of the governments receiving third-country deportations have a record of human rights abuses.

Third-country deportations have been used to bypass court protection orders that prevent immigrants from being sent back to their home countries due to fears of persecution.

But advocates say that some of those third-party countries have ultimately sent deportees, including asylum seekers, back to the places where they feared they would be at risk of torture or other harms.

At least 35 countries have signed agreements with the Trump administration to take in the third-country nationals, according to a tally by the nonprofits Refugees International and Human Rights First.

The groups estimate that more than 25,000 people have been subject to third-country deportations so far.

On Monday, human rights experts at the United Nations wrote to the ‌US ‌government urging a halt to such removals, warning they were putting deportees at heightened risk of abuse.

“At gravest risk are children, women, persons with disabilities, victims of trafficking, LGBT persons, human rights defenders, stateless persons and other people in extremely vulnerable situations,” the experts said.

On Tuesday, Burundi became the latest country to enter an agreement with the US to take non-citizen deportations.

Officials said the country would only take in people who were not facing prosecution and had no links to “terrorism”.

Trump retaliated against Canada’s counter-tariffs on $20bn worth of US imports by banning $1bn of Canadian goods.

The United States is implementing a ban on nearly $1bn in imports from Canada, including alcoholic beverages, dairy products and motorcycles.

The ban took effect early Tuesday and is likely to further strain already-tense relations between the two neighbours.

Ottawa and Washington DC have long been allies and trade partners, with approximately $880bn worth of annual two-way trade. That relationship has been upended during US President Donald Trump’s second term as he unleashed tariffs on most trading partners, including Canada, and referred to the northern neighbour as the 51st state of the US.

Most recently, the US slapped 50 percent levies on Canadian goods worth $20bn, including dairy and motorcycles, on August 22 after trade negotiations failed. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney retaliated, saying Ottawa will match US tariffs “dollar for dollar in order to protect Canadian workers, farmers, families and businesses”. Canada levied tariffs of 15 percent, 25 percent and 50 percent on US exports of a similar value.

Tuesday’s ban was Trump’s punishment for Canada’s retaliatory tariffs.

“The impact of such a ban will be minor, it is only $1bn while we trade hundreds of billions with Canada,” Professor Gary Shields at Wayne State University’s School of Business told Al Jazeera. “It is, however, rather astonishing how President Trump treats our allies in Canada and Europe, while rolling out the red carpet for China’s dictator when he visited the US last week”.

“It is a tit-for-tat. It will not reduce people’s taxes and won’t put money in their pockets. It is kind of personal and a way of showing off toughness,” Shields added.

Canada’s economy grew by an estimated 0.2 percent in August after remaining unchanged in July, according to Statistics Canada. But the new US-Canada tariffs, tighter financial conditions and a shrinking population should further weaken growth in late 2026 and early 2027, Michael Davenport, senior Canada economist at Oxford Economics, said in a note provided to Al Jazeera.

America.gov for now functions like a chatbot comparable to ChatGPT or Claude, pointing users to official gov’t websites.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has launched a new website called America.gov aimed at simplifying access to government information.

The website functions much like a chatbot comparable to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude and points users to official government sources for questions such as passport renewals.

The president announced the new site on Tuesday alongside several Cabinet officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.

In a speech, the president claimed that the website would not store user information and used the opportunity to tout simplified access to information about elections and applications for citizenship.

The site is powered by Google’s Gemini AI and xAI’s Grok, according to the chief design officer, Joe Gebbia.

The executive order announcing the new site calls it “a unified digital front door to the Federal Government for every individual in the United States seeking Federal information or services”.

It also says the site will provide “an entry through which an individual may sign in, communicate in plain language, receive accurate answers, and, where authorized and technically available, complete Government transactions without being required to navigate the websites of multiple agencies.”

White House officials told Al Jazeera that the website will abide by the security protocols of the government agency users inquire about, and it will be retained by those agencies and not America.gov, for example, Medicare.

Al Jazeera tested the answers the website provides to see how they align with the president’s views.

When asked “who is the fake news?”, it said, “I don’t label news outlets or comment on media.” When asked who won the 2020 presidential election, it said Joe Biden. When asked whether the department in which Pete Hegseth is secretary is the Department of Defense or Department of War, it said, “Department of Defense (DoD). That is still the name in statute until Congress changes it.”

When asked about obtaining specific records, such as individual tax information, citizenship records, political donations or Securities and Exchange Commission filings, it directed users to the government websites that provide that data for individuals.

However, in the presentation announcing the new site, Rubio showed that, in the future, the website may be able to help Americans apply for passports directly through the site and even take and upload their passport photos.

The website was created in coordination with the National Design Studio, which is part of the Executive Office of the President and was established by Trump in August 2025.

As US President Donald Trump announced a $15bn steel megaplant while seated at his Oval Office desk on Monday, he had a lineup of mostly US politicians standing behind him – from cabinet members to elected representatives from Iowa, where the mill is to be built. There was one exception: an Indian man with a receding hairline and a lilac pocket handkerchief, standing behind the US president’s right shoulder.

Ravi Ruia is a cofounder of the Essar Group, which owns Mesabi Metallics, the Minnesota-based firm that’s building the steel mill, which is expected to be the United States’s largest once it is complete. A decade earlier, in October 2016, his brother Shashi was in the photo frame with a different president during the signing of another major deal: Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Steel and metallics aren’t Essar’s only association with minerals and natural resources. The conglomerate had been involved for years with oil, before it sold one of India’s largest private oil refineries to a Russian-led consortium in 2016 for nearly $13bn. Essar Oil was rebranded as Nayara Energy.

Today, Nayara Energy is half-owned by Russian gas major Rosneft, which is under heavy US and European sanctions over Moscow’s war on Ukraine. Nayara has also emerged as a supplier of petroleum products to Russia at a time when the country is facing a fuel crisis following multiple Ukrainian attacks on its oil and gas depots.

And as part of a 99-year deal, Nayara is continuing to use Essar’s branding in India, where the company runs thousands of petrol stations. Nayara is under European Union sanctions.

The White House is touting the Iowa steel project, unveiled just before the US midterm elections, as a major economic win for Americans, promising hundreds of jobs and billions of dollars in revenue. And there is no evidence that the steel project is in violation of any Russia-specific US sanctions.

But Trump’s announcement of a mega project with an Indian firm closely tied to Russian investments under Western sanctions underscores how the US has struggled to isolate Moscow economically despite an unprecedented economic pressure campaign.

And the timing of the steel mill announcement raises questions, because it comes days after Trump signed a law that empowers him to punish countries that buy Russian oil with up to 100 percent tariffs. India is Russia’s second-largest oil buyer. But the legacy Indian conglomerate that best epitomises the country’s links to Russian energy is now also behind the US’s biggest steel factory.

What’s the steel factory project about?

The new project would integrate its iron ore mining operations in Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range with the upcoming steel complex in Iowa.

The White House and the company’s announcements said that the Iowa steel plant is expected to create at least 1,750 permanent jobs – “while continuing to work with suppliers and businesses throughout Iowa and the Midwest” – and support up to 6,000 construction jobs.

Washington also noted that the mill will produce 7.5 million tonnes of steel per year in its first phase, expected to rise to 10 million tonnes. First steel production is expected in 2030.

The first phase of the project is expected to generate $95bn in total economic impact during construction and its first 10 years of operation, according to the White House.

Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, told the reporters that “these are your 232 tariffs, the steel tariffs at work.” He added: “Without those tariffs, this mine and steel plant doesn’t get built.”

Trump chipped in, too. “Soon after my inauguration, I imposed powerful 50 percent tariffs on all foreign steel, and now our steel industry is roaring back to life,” Trump said. “Everyone’s building their plant here because they don’t want to pay tariffs.”

But the steel project is also evidence of how countries and companies have skirted US economic pressure – and how it gives them leverage to continue to do so.

What are Essar’s ties to Russia?

Essar Oil, the group’s energy arm, began refining crude in 2008 at its refinery in Vadinar on the coast of the western Indian state of Gujarat.

But by 2016, the company was in deep debt, listed as a defaulter by the Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, and desperately looking for a buyer who would take over its oil operations. The timing was opportune. President Putin in Russia was at the time trying to get Rosneft, his country’s energy giant, to offload some stakes in exchange for foreign capital.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi played matchmaker, helping stitch together a series of deals between 2014 and 2016 that helped Rosneft and Essar. First, Indian public sector oil majors bought stakes in Rosneft, giving it the cash it needed. Rosneft, in turn, joined hands with other investors to buy the Vadinar refinery, freeing Essar from its debts.

Essar Oil became Nayara Energy – a company in which Rosneft owns a 49 percent stake, and United Capital Partners, a Russian asset management company, owns another 49 percent. The buyers paid Essar $12.9bn for the deal. As part of the agreement, Nayara got to use Essar’s branding – including on thousands of petrol stations across India – for 99 years.

Is Nayara under Western sanctions?

Yes. The European Union imposed sanctions on Nayara in July last year as part of the broader 18th package of sanctions against Russian oil.

The sanctions banned the import of petroleum products processed using Russian crude oil and restricted the refinery’s access to EU shipping insurance, as well as financial and other services.

Nayara’s Vadinar refinery in western India has been processing only Russian oil since other suppliers backed out following the sanctions. Since then, Nayara has relied on international traders to import crude and export refined fuels.

In July this year, Nayara Energy sold petroleum to Russia as Ukrainian attacks targeted oil refineries across the country, triggering a fuel crisis.

In recent months, Ukrainian forces have targeted Russian oil facilities, setting them ablaze and causing long lines for fuel across the country, including in the capital, Moscow. The fuel crisis, unprecedented for Russia, a country that is one of the world’s biggest energy producers, has led to rationing in many regions.

These Russian links have brought Nayara Energy under wider scrutiny, prompting companies, including SAP, to suspend services to the refiner, citing sanctions and obligations under EU law.

Nayara challenged the move in the Delhi High Court, which ordered SAP India to restore its services earlier this month.

Are Essar or the steel plant violating any sanctions?

While Nayara is under EU sanctions, Essar does not face any US or EU sanctions.

In October 2016, after Essar struck its deal with Rosneft and United Capital Partners to sell the Vadinar refinery, the US – at the time under the Barack Obama administration – said that the agreement was not in violation of any sanctions.

“I don’t think we see any violation of any US-EU sanctions stemming from this deal,” State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said at the time. Essar also said that the deal was compliant with US sanctions.

There is no evidence of any sanctions breach in Essar’s investment in Mesabi, or in the planned investment to set up the steel factory in Iowa.

But Essar’s relations with Russia have nevertheless attracted scrutiny, including in the United Kingdom, where the Ruia brothers have long had major investments.

At the time of the sale of the Vadinar refinery to Russian buyers, the Russian bank VTB also gave Essar a $3.9bn loan for debt reconstruction.

The bank was hit by major US and EU sanctions in February 2022, right after Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine. Essar, reporting published in April 2026 by The Guardian and investigative journalism platform SourceMaterial, showed, moved the VTB loan to Mauritius, a tax haven, allegedly to avoid the sanctions. Essar owns the Stanlow oil refinery in the UK.

Why is the timing of the steel plant announcement significant?

Trump’s Republican Party is heading for crucial midterm congressional elections in November, while his approval rating has been plumbing all-time lows in the face of voter concerns about inflation, the cost of living, and the war on Iran.

In his second term, Trump has made tariffs and a revival of US manufacturing a cornerstone of his economic vision, claiming that higher barriers to imports will drive investment back to the US.

Moreover, Washington introduced legislation that would allow the president to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on imports from countries that continue economic engagement with Russia or Iran, aiming to put pressure on countries that continue buying Russian energy.

New Delhi is particularly exposed since it became one of the largest buyers of discounted Russian crude after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Trump imposed an additional 25 percent tariff on Indian imports in 2025 over the issue, before removing it in February 2026 after India committed to stop buying Russian crude.

Russia has remained India’s largest source of crude, although purchases have declined as the threat of US penalties has grown. The news agency Reuters reported that India imported approximately 2.1 million barrels per day of Russian crude in August.

There is also a recent parallel to underscore the incentives for investment in Trump’s US. In May this year, Washington moved to dismiss the criminal fraud and bribery charges against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, while his lawyers had told the Justice Department that Adani was prepared to invest $10bn in the United States. A federal judge subsequently dismissed the criminal case in August.

International crude oil prices climbed further on Tuesday morning amid uncertainty over US-Iran talks, as hopes of reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway crucial to oil shipments, faded.

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Hopes that Middle East tensions would ease were dashed at the weekend when Donald Trump rejected Iran’s offer of a seven-day truce.

Mediators are working with the US and Iran on a deal to end the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, officials told the Associated Press. The disruption to shipping through the waterway has affected global trade and added to inflation.

Iran has proposed reopening the strait if the US lifts its blockade of Iranian ports and eases sanctions, among other conditions. Washington says any deal must also address Iran’s nuclear programme. Officials said the two sides disagree over the timing of concessions and who should act first.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, gained nearly 2% and traded above $107 a barrel early Tuesday, well above its price of roughly $72 a barrel in late February before the Iran war.

US West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.8% to more than $94 a barrel.

High oil prices have renewed inflation concerns and expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates again next month. Government bond prices have fallen as a result, pushing yields to multi-year highs.

The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield rose above 5.27% on Monday, its highest level in 19 years, following a rise of nearly half a percentage point through September. Yields rise when bond prices fall, and this month’s sell-off is the heaviest in two years.

The US two-year yield has risen even further, climbing by more than 0.57 percentage points this month to nearly 5%. In Europe, Germany’s benchmark 10-year bond yield reached 3.62%, its highest level since June 2009.

Government bond yields help set borrowing costs across the economy, from mortgages to company loans. As yields rise, governments, businesses and households face higher costs, while stocks can become less attractive to investors.

In Japan, a 40-year government bond auction drew its strongest demand since 2020 as relatively high yields attracted investors, according to Bloomberg.

Stock markets also struggled after all three main Wall Street indexes fell on Monday.

In Europe, Tuesday’s open showed a mixed reaction.

The Euro Stoxx 50 was flat in early trading while the broader pan-European Stoxx 600 traded 0.2% higher.

The UK’s FTSE 100, Italy’s FTSE MIB, Spain’s IBEX 35 and the Netherlands’ AEX all traded between 0.1% and 0.2% higher than their Monday close.

However, France’s CAC 40 and Germany’s DAX 30 both dropped about 0.5%.

Over in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 1.3%, South Korea’s Kospi declined 0.9% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.6%. Hong Kong-traded shares of Shein fell 11.7% after the online retailer reported a 67% fall in quarterly adjusted net profit from a year earlier.

The Shanghai Composite was little changed following a report from China’s official Xinhua News Agency late Monday that its State Council had discussed ways to make economic policies more effective.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was down more than 0.1% by early morning in Europe.

Australia’s central bank raised its key interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.6% on Tuesday, a 15-year high, as rising oil prices fuelled inflation. The Reserve Bank said higher fuel costs were pushing up prices across the economy, while growth and inflation had been stronger than expected.

The US dollar edged up to 157.42 Japanese yen from 157.39 yen. The euro fell to $1.1362 from $1.1371.

Gold remained near $4,160 after steep losses on Monday, as expectations of further rate rises weighed on the metal, which pays no interest.

Investors are also awaiting key US inflation and jobs data this week that could influence the Fed’s next decision. Markets are pricing in another rate rise at the end of October.

Additional sources • AP

Iran’s foreign minister says his visit to the UN General Assembly last week was mainly to outline Tehran’s position on regional conflicts and the critical security situation in the Strait of Hormuz.

Hate speech against Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis in the United States has risen sharply online, according to a report that traces the surge to US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and rhetoric, economic anxiety, and the South Asian community’s growing visibility in US life.

The report, titled “The Rising Tide of Anti-South Asian Hate in the United States”, by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), published on Sunday, found that the monthly volume of hate towards South Asians in the US on the social media platform X rose 240 percent between January 2024 and June 2026, from 12,904 posts to 43,843.

Researchers identified more than 542,000 hateful posts on the platform between January 2025 and June 2026 alone towards people from South Asia living in the US, with five of the six highest-volume months falling at the end of that period.

The researchers used the United Nations definition of hate speech. They tracked recurring anti-South Asian slurs and narratives online, reviewing posts to exclude criticism that did not meet the UN threshold.

They found that nearly half of the hate posts on X accused South Asians of invading the US, stealing jobs or threatening the country demographically, while the derogatory slur “pajeet” and its variants showed up in 30 percent of hateful posts on X and 45 percent on fringe platforms.

Posts depicting South Asians as dirty or unhygienic grew by 171 percent on X, “the fastest of all narratives”.

The hate frequently collapsed South Asian ethnic and religious groups into one, with Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis conflated with one another, and Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians also treated as a monolith.

So why now?

Racism against Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis has a long history in the US, but researchers argue the current surge reflects a confluence of longstanding prejudices and new political and economic pressures.

The report points to the H-1B visa programme, which allows US employers to hire skilled foreign workers, as a major flashpoint. Indians account for more than 70 percent of H-1B visa holders, and researchers linked several spikes in anti-South Asian hate to political fights over the programme, such as when Trump imposed a $100,000 payment requirement on certain new H-1B petitions in September 2025.

“Such actions serve a powerful symbolic function, in the bargain reinforcing the hostility of Trump’s base toward South Asians,” said the report.

The report makes the same argument about the administration’s rhetoric, highlighting Trump’s speech at an AI summit in July 2025, in which he criticised US technology companies for outsourcing jobs to India, after which researchers saw a sharp spike in anti-South Asian rhetoric online.

As more recent examples, the report points to a since-deleted September 2026 Department of Homeland Security post titled “Transformers: Age of Deportations”, featuring a Sikh man identified as “Mr Singh” and telling him to “get off our roads”.

Days later, the Department of Education posted “Make College Football Great Again”, after Texas Republican Bo French had complained about the presence of South Asians at a University of Texas football game.

The report argues that such rhetoric reinforces the idea of South Asians as outsiders who “can never truly belong in the country”.

From ‘model minority’ to job thieves

Economic resentment is another factor, researchers wrote, with the success of some South Asians increasingly being weaponised against them.

Indian Americans once stereotyped as a “model minority” are now portrayed as “opportunists and cheats”, and South Asians are used more broadly as a scapegoat for anger over jobs and the economy.

This comes as South Asians have become increasingly visible in US politics, from former Vice President Kamala Harris and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani to Vice President JD Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, and politician Vivek Ramaswamy. The report documents racist attacks against figures across party lines and highlights how, for example, Mamdani’s primary and mayoral victories triggered spikes in anti-South Asian and Islamophobic abuse.

Researchers say both trends are now also tied up with “anxieties on the part of the majority about loss of status”, and feed the “Great Replacement Theory”, a conspiracy about the white population in Western countries being replaced by an orchestrated takeover.

Social media has also turned those narratives into targeted harassment.

Researchers found X accounts doxxing South Asians accused of taking jobs or committing visa fraud, while influencers have confronted people at their homes and workplaces and posted the encounters online. Doxxing refers to exposing a person’s private details, such as their home address, online.

In one example, right-wing influencer Sara Gonzalez posted a video to more than half a million followers in which the report says she harassed a South Asian person she accused of exploiting the H-1B programme.

Meanwhile, generative AI has made that content even easier to produce, researchers say, depicting South Asians as  “filthy and unclean, sexually predatory, culturally backward, or a demographic threat”.

While the report tracks hate largely through what is happening online, researchers write that online hate “does not exist in isolation from offline forms of hostility”. It cites a July incident in which an Indian Muslim mall employee in Utah was repeatedly stabbed in an attack that federal prosecutors charged as a hate crime. In September, a Sikh truck driver was stabbed 17 times at a Wyoming truck stop.

“Online and offline hate can reinforce one another”, the researchers wrote, “as narratives, stereotypes, and forms of demonization move between digital platforms, political discourse, media, and everyday life”.

Amid tight Iowa midterm races, President Trump emphasises steel industry revival with project announcement.

Just weeks before the midterm elections, United States President Donald Trump has announced that a Minnesota-based steel manufacturer intends to build a $15bn steel mill project in Iowa, as the White House tries to highlight its focus on domestic manufacturing.

On Monday, joined by executives from Mesabi Metallics, which recently opened Minnesota’s first new iron ore mine in 50 years, Trump announced the project. It is expected to begin production in 2030 and could bring more than 1,700 jobs to the region, with an initial production capacity of 7.5 million tonnes per year.

The first phase of construction for the project will generate 5,000–6,000 construction jobs, a White House official told Al Jazeera.

The plant in Iowa will use iron ore from the Mesabi Iron Range in nearby Minnesota. Mesabi, which is owned by Indian conglomerate Essar Group, invested more than $2.5bn to build the mine in Minnesota.

“President Trump is delivering on his promise to rebuild American industry, re-shore manufacturing, and create new jobs. Today’s announcement underscores the president’s historic efforts to revitalize the US steel industry—supporting local communities, strengthening supply chains, and protecting our national security,” White House Spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement to Al Jazeera.

The steel industry has loomed over the first half of Trump’s second term in office. The president imposed 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminium imports last year in an effort to boost domestic production, but also threatened to increase prices of products that use those materials, from soda cans to washing machines to cars.

“These are your 232 tariffs, the steel tariffs at work. Without those tariffs, this mine does not get built, and this steel plant does not get built”, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in the Oval Office on Monday.

Trump also solidified the US government’s stake in US Steel, which was acquired by Japan’s Nippon Steel in June 2025. As part of the deal, the US government received a so-called “golden share”, which gives the president the authority to appoint a board member to weigh in on decisions that would impact domestic steel production.

Midterm stakes

The announcement comes a little more than a month ahead of the US midterm elections, and the economy is top of mind for US voters.

Among Republicans, Trump is losing steam on his handling of economic issues, with a new September 21 Ipsos poll finding that 56 percent approve of his handling of the economy, down from 80 percent.

Iowa is in play as a seat Democrats could flip in the midterm elections, with Republican Ashley Hinson facing Democrat Josh Turek in November and with polls suggesting a tight race.

Hinson joined the president in the Oval Office for the announcement.

A poll conducted by the Republican-aligned pollster the Trafalgar Group showed Hinson with a two-point lead, while an InsiderAdvantage poll, which is considered more nonpartisan, found Turek leading by two points.

Cuba’s deputy foreign minister slams US sanctions, labelling them ‘equivalent to genocide’.

A senior official in Cuba has warned that any prospective United States military action taken against the island nation would constitute a serious international crime, and has rejected claims made by US President Donald Trump that Cuba is a failed state.

On Sunday, Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, the country’s deputy foreign minister, told the US cable television channel C-SPAN’s flagship programme, Washington Journal, that it would be an “atrocious international crime for the US to use military force against Cuba, which is a peaceful neighbouring country”.

His comments come after Trump said during his Tuesday speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) that “freedom will be coming” to the island. His remarks prompted the Cuban delegation to exit the assembly hall. On Saturday, Trump brought up military action, telling reporters, “I don’t think we’ll need the military. Cuba is failing very badly.”

Fernandez de Cossio said that coercing nations who do not “submit” by disrupting their commercial shipments, attempting to handicap a population through starvation, depriving it of stable healthcare and withholding fuel, as the US has “done for nine months now”, is “equivalent to a genocide”.

The US has maintained a foreign policy of maximum economic pressure against Cuba for more than 60 years. The Trump administration has previously said that it wants a shake-up in Cuba’s government. Earlier this year, the administration enforced an additional oil and fuel blockade against the island, which has crippled the nation’s infrastructure, causing widespread fuel scarcity and rolling power outages. Government officials in Cuba cited systemic difficulties in securing food supplies and other basic necessities for the country of more than 10 million.

Fernandez de Cossio said Havana must ready its citizens for the prospect of US military aggression, adding that while Cuba recognises it might stand alone, it will still exercise its legitimate right to self-defence.

He explained that bilateral diplomatic channels with the US remain open but have yielded minimal results due to the economic stranglehold of ongoing sanctions, adding that Havana remains willing to engage with Washington in a “respectful manner” only if discussions accommodate mutual dignity, benefit both populations, and respect state sovereignty.

Several countries condemned the US’s continued economic sanctions and blockade of Cuba during the UNGA earlier this week.

The US president said he would end a so-called ‘EV mandate’ that steered consumers to electric vehicles.

United States President Donald Trump has announced new fuel economy standards that roll back requirements adopted under his predecessor, arguing they will lower automobile prices and encourage manufacturers to expand production in the US.

In a social media post on Saturday, Trump said the new standards would “TERMINATE” what he called former US President Joe Biden’s “EV (electric vehicle) mandate”, accusing the previous administration of imposing costly requirements on carmakers and steering consumers towards electric vehicles.

“These new Standards will take the waste out of building cars in America. That means LOWER PRICES, saving families thousands on a new, beautiful, and safe car,” Trump wrote.

The changes form part of a broader Trump administration effort to reverse Biden-era policies supporting lower-emission vehicles, increasing the gap between US policy and global trends favouring electric vehicles.

While Trump and US Republicans have used the term “EV mandate” to describe higher fuel efficiency requirements instituted under Biden, a Democrat, there are no federal guidelines or laws that require Americans to buy electric cars or bar the sale of ones powered by petrol.

At the centre are Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. This system, established by the US Congress in 1975, requires automakers to meet average fuel economy targets across all cars and light trucks they sell, meaning that a brand that sells an inefficient vehicle would also have to sell a more efficient one to help comply with the government’s standards.

Under rules finalised by the Biden administration in 2024, the required fleetwide fuel economy was scheduled to rise from 39.1 miles per gallon (mpg) to about 50.4mpg by 2031. The administration said then the measures would reduce fuel consumption and emissions to combat climate change while helping motorists save money at the pump.

As a result, auto manufacturers have ramped up production of EVs to help meet the Biden-imposed fuel economy requirements. The Republican-controlled US Congress, however, gutted consumer tax incentives last year for electric vehicles as part of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Trump did not provide details regarding what the new fuel economy standards would be. But in December 2025, he announced a proposal that would set the industry fleetwide average for light-duty vehicles at roughly 34.5mpg by 2031, more than 30 percent lower than the Biden-era rule.

In a reposting of Trump’s announcement, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said an announcement would be “COMING MONDAY”.

Al Jazeera has reached out to the White House for comment.

Man, we Latino men have it rough.

Americans have demonized us as criminals, buffoons, lechers, invaders, criminals and job stealers since the fall of the Alamo. Latino culture typecasts hombres as eternal machos always a few drinks away from brawling or bawling. Educators view us as underachievers. The political class long stereotyped Latino men as a sleeping giant who could change the country, if only we showed up to vote with the same enthusiasm as attending a Raiders game or lining up for a sneaker drop.

And then came Donald Trump.

So many of us fell for his siren call that 48% of Latino voters of all genders chose Trump in 2024, the highest percentage ever captured by a Republican presidential candidate. Progressives immediately blamed Latino men for Trump’s victory while holding up Latinas as the brave heroines who stood up against tyranny.

The blame game continues. A study released this month by UCLA’s Latino Policy & Politics Institute basically paints Latino men as little better than MAGA minions, trumpeting a gender gap on standing up to this administration’s deportation deluge, defending democracy and “fighting the Trump agenda.” To the media and to outraged internet commentators, it didn’t matter that two-thirds of Latino men had responded that each of those three issues was “very important” or “somewhat important.”

We just aren’t anti-Trump enough, which marks us as alien to the president’s critics. The UCLA paper’s cover page even features a red man and a blue woman conversing in what look like Aztec speaking glyphs — as if the sexes can’t understand each other and probably never will.

To explain the Latina-Latino political chasm, UCLA offers hypotheses straight out of “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.” The women supposedly work more in caretaker jobs like teaching and healthcare, softening their views toward the least of us. The men are in blue-collar sectors with a Darwinian outlook. But it doesn’t take a fancy academic paper to come to that conclusion — all you need to do is, you know, talk to Latino men.

When Trump descended that damned escalator in 2015 to announce his first presidential run by sliming Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers, I knew that this racist excuse for a leader — the most anti-Latino politician in our nation’s history — would nevertheless appeal to many Latino men.

The reasons were evident: Trump’s fame. His strongman persona. His riches. His default setting of, as we Mexicans say, me vale madre — I don’t give a damn what people think. Yet three successive Democratic presidential campaigns willfully ignored these flashing sirens, instead insisting that Green New Deals and diversity, equity and inclusion programs would appeal to working-class Latino men.

Pundits thought we were still motivated by the radical politics of the Chicano movement, as previous generations were. What they didn’t realize was that assimilation had transformed Latino men into the modern equivalent of President Nixon’s silent majority.

A “Latino Americans for Trump” office in Reading, Pa., during the 2024 elections.

(Joe Lamberti / Associated Press)

I’ve always thought Latino male Trumpers were deluded — but I’ve always understood where they’re coming from. They’re believers in rancho libertarianism, my neologism for the individualistic politics exemplified by the Mexican men who raised me and who I grew up with.

Rancho libertarians, like their Scotch-Irish cousins from another mother, are forever skeptical of government, respect insurgents who want to take on the establishment, love their people and subscribe to a bootstraps approach to life. Not as praiseworthy is a tendency to dislike being told what to do, and in proving a point, to not only cut off their nose to spite their face but to lop off their heads as well.

No wonder so many Latino men went for Trump. To quote another Mexican saying, por eso estamos como estamos. That’s why we’re the way we are.

And look at what it’s earned us.

MAGA has been a miasma on this land, but especially for the blue-collar Latinos whom Trump increasingly courted with each election cycle. Immigration agents have arrested U.S.-born Trump supporters and thrown their friends and family members into squalid detention centers to await certain deportation. Diesel and gas prices are outrageously high, after Trump started a war with Iran that seems to have no end.

Nothing has degraded more for Latino men, however, than the simple pleasures of life.

When my dad and my brother had a pool party for some cousins and their children last month at our Anaheim home — no more than 15 people — the cost of carne asada, chicken, chorizo and tortillas from a local carnicería was more than $200. That side of the family never supported Trump while not exactly being wokosos, either. As Spotify blasted Antonio Aguilar and Banda El Recodo, they complained about the economy and the Republicans who have rubber-stamped the Trump agenda, when we should have been talking about the Dodgers and vacations back to our ancestral Mexico state of Zacatecas.

If my Arellano cousins are ready to stick it to Trump on election day, so should the Latino men who supported him two years ago.

In 2024, Latinos were the pivotal vote that delivered swing states to Trump. In this year’s midterms, Latino men are the swing vote within that constituency, from congressional races once considered safely red in Texas and Florida to local elections across the country. It’s gotten so dire for Republicans that Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar put out a television ad warning Trump that “the same Hispanics who brought you to the White House … feel betrayed today.”

Honor remains big among rancho libertarians, and no politician has insulted the Latino way of life more than Trump. Helping to flip the House and Senate to the Democrats wouldn’t end his influence, but it sure would help. Plus, it would be a perfect rebuke to a pendejo who fooled too many good Latino men.

American society, whether the left or the right wing, will never fully accept us. We’ll always be thought of as too conservative, too dumb, too reactionary, too violent by too many.

Well, if we’re going to be loathed, we might as well stand on the right side of history. It’s time for Latino men to stand up and hit Trump with another Mexican saying:

Ya, güey. Enough already, man.

US Central Command says they redirected 122 commercial vessels to “ensure strict compliance” with the US blockade against Iran.

Diesel prices have hit record highs as the tensions between the United States and Iran, along with the war between Russia and Ukraine, disrupt key oil and fuel trade routes.

On Friday, the average price for a gallon (3.79 litres) of diesel was $6.50, up from $5.61 a month earlier, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), which tracks fuel prices daily.

The spike has prompted the administration of US President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers to consider restricting US diesel exports ahead of upcoming midterm elections.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in August found that 47 percent of voters said the cost of living was the single most important factor in deciding how they would vote in the midterms — more than twice the share who cited the next-most important issue, “democratic values and norms”.

A new Marist poll also found that Americans have more confidence in Democrats than Republicans to handle the economy, with 42 percent choosing Democrats compared with 34 percent for Republicans.

Amid that voter sentiment, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Thursday that he was in touch with major oil refiners to gauge interest in a potential voluntary restriction on diesel exports, according to the Reuters news agency.

That followed remarks by Trump on Tuesday that he supported restricting diesel exports from the US, the world’s largest diesel exporter.

Energy analysts and industry groups have warned that an export ban could have unintended consequences, potentially pushing up fuel prices in the US and abroad.

Why are diesel prices so high?

Even though the US is the world’s largest diesel exporter, diesel is traded on a global market.

Disruptions to refineries in Russia and the Middle East have reduced the amount of fuel available worldwide, putting more pressure on US producers to fill the gap. In Russia, for example, drone attacks have damaged major refineries, forcing a cutback or halt in production.

“While US refineries are running at full tilt and higher than normal, the global gaps remain,” Rachel Ziemba, senior adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Al Jazeera.

It comes as US diesel supplies are also shrinking. As of September 11, inventories had fallen to 107.9 million barrels, the lowest in more than four decades, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

With global supplies tightening, diesel prices have risen around the world — including in the US. Because American producers can sell their fuel into the global market, they are drawn to the soaring global prices rather than simply setting a lower price for domestic consumers.

Why is the US considering an export ban?

In Washington, DC, leaders have flirted with the idea of pushing US companies to stop or slow exporting diesel.

Republicans have been pushing for a slowdown or outright ban of exports in an effort to lower costs for consumers ahead of the pivotal midterm elections, where cost of living is becoming a critical issue.

Such a move, they hope, would reduce local diesel prices, which is significant as diesel is used in trucks to haul food and most products, Ziemba said, adding that US diesel exports are equivalent to about 40 percent of domestic consumption.

On Tuesday, Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, called on the president to put in place a temporary halt on exports.

“I encourage President Trump to put a temporary embargo on diesel exports through executive action,” Grassley said.

Republican Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska made a similar call: “The cost of diesel is just too damn high. I’m calling for a temporary pause of American diesel exports so that we can rebuild our reserves ahead of winter,” Sullivan said in a statement on Tuesday.

In the House of Representatives, Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee introduced two bills that would restrict US diesel exports: One would impose a ban through January 2027, while the other would restrict exports if the national average price reaches $5 a gallon.

The administration has not made any official policy announcements, and the White House told Al Jazeera that the president is evaluating all options.

Oil and gas industry experts say that a ban could drive up prices rather than bringing them down.

“Diesel trades on a world market, just like corn. farmers don’t sell cheaper to Americans, and refiners can’t either since they buy crude at global prices. force a lower price and they’ll make less diesel. less supply means higher prices, not lower,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said in a post on X.

How would an export ban work?

A ban would prevent or restrict US refiners from selling diesel to buyers overseas, theoretically leaving more fuel available in the domestic market.

Analysts at Wood Mackenzie, a research and consulting firm, say that keeping more diesel stateside would ultimately fill up US storage tanks but also force refineries to cut production. That could affect other markets that rely heavily on US fuel, including Latin America and Europe, forcing them to compete with other global buyers for supplies and driving up prices for the global market.

Wood Mackenzie says China is the only major producer with enough spare refining capacity to potentially make up much of the shortfall.

“China is currently the only country with material spare refining capacity that could cover the loss of US refinery throughputs. However, China may well decide it is not in its interest to intercede,” analysts said.

Wood Mackenzie has warned that a ban could quickly fill US diesel inventories, forcing refiners to cut crude runs and potentially increasing US petrol imports.

That was also the view of an S&P Global analysis, which found that a complete ban could also mean that production would be reduced as storage capacity is filled up with unsold diesel. According to the analysis, that could lead to production cuts of as much as 750,000 barrels a day, which could put the US into being a net importer of petrol in the fourth quarter of this year.

Who would an export ban affect?

An export ban would affect US refiners and consumers, as well as countries that rely on US diesel.

“They [export bans] may provide temporary relief, but diesel is a global commodity. Treat one part of the system, and the effects travel elsewhere. Trade-offs are inevitable. Refiners are unlikely to cheer a blanket ban. Voluntary, controlled export reductions would generally be less disruptive in the short term,” Maksim Sonin, visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy, told Al Jazeera.

Disruptions to US exports could reduce the amount of fuel available on the global market. Wood Mackenzie analysts say countries in Europe and Latin America that rely heavily on US fuel could be forced to compete with other producers for supplies.

“If implemented, it would lead to European and Asian product prices increasing as the buyers of US fuel, mostly in Latin America, scramble to find new supplies, bidding up supplies. European crack spreads could widen, and overall we might see more disruptions,” Ziemba added.

“Given these issues, the US may opt for a mixture of carrots and sticks aiming to incentivise refineries to keep producing, perhaps including penalties if they cut production. There may be voluntary export quotas rather than a formal ban, and there may be exemptions for countries that provide crude oil to the US, like Mexico,” Ziemba said.

That could put pressure on consumers not only at the petrol pump but in the skies as well.

Airlines for America, an airline industry trade group, has also warned that an export ban could lead to higher prices for airlines and travellers, according to the Reuters news agency. The trade group did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

The broader concern from analysts is that restricting exports could reduce US refinery production rather than simply redirecting diesel to US consumers, potentially putting upward pressure on fuel prices both domestically and internationally.

“It’s unlikely to help US consumers much given how it fails to solve underlying problems and could backfire if refineries hold on to production. The best way to address this is to end the conflicts prompting the shortages,” Ziemba said.

Voting rights groups have warned system may falsely identify voters as non-citizens, leading to disenfranchisement.

The United States Supreme Court has allowed the administration of US President Donald Trump to use a controversial voter verification system just weeks away from the midterm election in November.

The court’s emergency order on Friday allows the Department of Homeland Security to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, programme in its efforts to verify the eligibility of voters on state voter rolls.

Voting rights groups have argued the use of the system, which was revamped under the Trump administration in 2025, risks falsely identifying individuals as non-voters, potentially leading to individuals being wrongfully purged from voter rolls.

Those challenging the administration’s use of the database have charged that information on citizenship can be out of date. They pointed to a Travis County, Texas election official who found that up to 25 percent of the “non-citizens” identified by the system in the jurisdiction were in fact US citizens.

US states oversee election administration under the country’s constitution and are not required to use the SAVE system, but several Republican-led state governments have voluntarily opted to use the database.

Still, it was not immediately clear if Friday’s decision would have any meaningful impact on the midterm elections on November 3, in which voters will determine which parties control the US House of Representatives and the Senate.

Existing law blocks most states from systematically purging voters from their rolls within 90 days of an election. The emergency order is not also the final say on the matter, only granting the administration the ability to use the system until the court makes a final ruling.

The three liberal justices on the panel, which has a 6-3 conservative supermajority, issued a dissenting opinion, saying the majority disregarded “the harms that the modified SAVE system has caused, and will likely continue to cause, to lawful voters”.

The Citizens for Ethics watchdog group charged that the decision “puts millions of Americans at risk of being unlawfully targeted by the admin’s unreliable voter purge system weeks before the midterms”.

Trump has focused heavily on election administration in the run-up to the midterm vote, which could serve as a major check on his authority in the final two years of his term.

He has for years claimed, without evidence, that US elections are marred by widespread fraud and has repeatedly falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, was “stolen”.

Evidence has suggested that fraud of any kind, including instances of non-citizens voting in the US, has been glancingly rare in the country.

In September, the Supreme Court rejected a bid from Trump to restrict mail ballot procedures before the midterm election.

Laura Fernandez dismissed the foreign minister over his attendance at “Shield of the Americas” meeting in New York.

Costa Rican President Laura Fernandez has fired Foreign Minister Manuel Tovar after he attended a US-led regional security summit with United States President Donald Trump without notifying her, an omission the government has said blocked her own participation and caused major strategic harm to the country’s interests.

Fernandez said that she should have been the one to attend the meeting of Trump’s anti-cartel “Shield of the Americas” alliance in New York. The coalition says its mission is to combat drug trafficking and organised crime across the region.

Tovar attended “without giving prior notice or informing” the president, a conservative Trump ally, of his participation, Costa Rica’s government said.

Several right-wing Latin American presidents also participated in the meeting, which took place on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Fifteen coalition members issued a joint statement declaring their intent to impose asset freezes and visa restrictions and seek criminal liability for members and supporters of 24 criminal organisations.

The gathering was the administration’s latest effort to rally the region behind a more aggressive approach to drug trafficking. Since returning to office last year, Trump has designated cartels as foreign “terrorist” organisations and ordered dozens of strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that US officials say were carrying narcotics bound for the US.

Costa Rica, a tourist haven that has long been seen as a beacon of stability in Latin America, is grappling with a surge in drug-related violence.

Tovar avoided commenting on his dismissal and simply thanked Fernandez, in power since last May, for including him in her cabinet.

Indiana Trejos, Costa Rica’s current Minister of Foreign Trade, has been named acting foreign minister and will assume the role upon returning from her mission at the UNGA.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has used his platform at the United Nations General Assembly to attack detractors and allies alike, and his presence sparked uproar in the chamber.

Speaking before the UNGA on Thursday, Netanyahu attacked New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, critics and Iran’s leadership, as well as allied countries like the United Kingdom and France.

Back home, the prime minister is locked in a tight race to stay in power ahead of an election on October 27, and analysts say his UNGA speech was aimed as much at people back home as it was at international viewers.

Dozens of envoys from around the world walked out as the speech began, some jeering and booing, while Netanyahu’s own team stood and applauded, and the speaker of the session shouted for order.

“If there are any other moral cowards who haven’t left this hall, please do so now,” Netanyahu said to those turning their backs on him.

He addressed the war that the US and Israel launched on Iran in February, saying: “Devastating Iran’s nuclear facilities was hard, was very hard to do.”

“But for me, it was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make as prime minister”, claiming that if he had not, “we’d all be dead”, he added.

In his own speech before the UNGA on Wednesday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also addressed the nuclear issue and called out the “double standard”.

“The nuclear weapon is in Israel, but the inspectors are in Iran. Israel kills, but Iran is subject to sanctions,” Pezeshkian said.

Netanyahu on Thursday said that Israel was fighting a “seven-front war”, including Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen’s Houthis and militias in Iraq.

“We are going to win. We have no other choice,” Netanyahu declared, repeating the words of his older brother Yonatan Netanyahu, who was killed in 1976 during Operation Entebbe in Uganda.

Criticising allies

The United Kingdom and France, historic partners of Israel, were also in Netanyahu’s firing line. They have become increasingly outspoken in their criticism of the country’s actions and have both imposed limited sanctions on Israeli exports from the occupied West Bank.

“They accuse Israel, tiny Israel, of colonialism – some colonialism. And who’s accusing us? Among them are people in Britain and in France. For God’s sakes, they invented the term,” he said.

But Netanyahu thanked his “friend”, United States President Donald Trump.

“In this battle against the barbarians, we’ve had no greater partner than President Trump,” he said, as the US delegation joined the Israeli one in applauding Netanyahu’s remark.

“I thank him,” said Netanyahu, adding that Israel and the US had acted together as pilots from both countries “flew joint missions over the skies of Iran”.

Netanyahu said the US and Israel also “worked together to bring back our remaining hostages [from Gaza]”, as he defended Israeli actions in the enclave against charges of genocide.

“To all those spreading lies about my country, whether they sit in this hall or in the office of the anti-Semitic mayor of New York, I say this: shame on you,” Netanyahu said as he attacked Zohran Mamdani, who had previously said he would push for the arrest of the Israeli prime minister during his visit to the city.

“Mr Mamdani, you tried to stop me from coming here. You tried to silence me. Well, you can’t silence me,” Netanyahu said as he denied that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.

Reacting to Netanyahu’s comments, Mamdani called the accusations against him “baseless lies” meant to “sanitise his genocide of Palestinians”.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has faced repeated accusations of genocide in Gaza, as well as systematic war crimes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) said in 2024 it had reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu was responsible for war crimes in Gaza, where over 73,000 Palestinians have been killed. Netanyahu denies the ICC charges.

Netanyahu attended the UNGA meeting despite an ICC warrant calling for his arrest. While he was welcomed, the Trump administration denied a visa for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who addressed the UNGA through a prerecorded video statement from Ramallah earlier in the day.

‘War criminal’

As Netanyahu spoke, activists from US-based organisation Jewish Voice for Peace protested outside, accusing the United Nations of “playing host to a war criminal”.

“All across New York, Jews, Palestinians and people of conscience are rising up to demand an end to US support for the livestreamed horrors, rigged ceasefires and forever wars,” Sonya Meyerson-Knox, the group’s communications director, told Al Jazeera.

Meyerson-Knox said that “solidarity with Palestinian freedom has never been greater, and here in the US we are demanding with one voice to stop arming Israel”.

Adding to tensions, dozens of protesters, some brandishing “stop the genocide” banners, gathered near the UN. Several demonstrators were detained, including prominent actor Susan Sarandon.

Inside the UN, but addressing divisions back home in Israel, Netanyahu said: “Throughout this long war, our goal never wavers – to win with unwavering resolve … What unites us is so much stronger: our history, our values, our courage.”

Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, said the Israeli prime minister delivered a “good speech” at the UNGA but that he did so in the “wrong forum”.

“That speech should be given at an election rally in Israel; this is who he’s communicating to,” Cohen told Al Jazeera. “He is making points that should be made to the Israeli audience for his political survival.”

Netanyahu is only making a whirlwind stop in New York before rushing back to Israel, where the election campaign is in full swing. He is not scheduled to meet any top US leaders.

Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez took to the stage yesterday at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York City to deliver a rather bland speech, in which she thanked United States President Donald Trump for resuming “diplomatic relations and cooperation” with Venezuela.

This was a different vibe, to be sure, than the one she opted for at the same venue in September 2019, when, as vice president under Nicolas Maduro, she accused the US of perpetrating “economic terrorism” that did not require the use of bombs “but rather through banks and insurance companies”.

Denouncing the global superpower’s militarisation of international relations and punishment of millions of innocent people “in order to apply regime change doctrines and steal other nations’ resources”, the Rodriguez of 2019 went on to cite Venezuelan economic losses to the tune of $130bn between 2015 and 2018 alone on account of US sanctions.

She additionally offered her opinion that the domination of the US political system by “plutocratic minorities” made the country unqualified to impose its model on other countries.

Seven years later, US plutocracy is going strong with Trump at the helm – the same Trump alongside whom a grinning Rodriguez appeared in a photograph taken in New York on Tuesday, less than nine months after he oversaw regime change in Venezuela by kidnapping Maduro.

The kidnapped president is now also in New York, albeit in jail, and is scheduled to stand trial in June 2027. This despite his attempts to remind everyone that, as a sitting head of state, his prosecution in a foreign court contravenes international law.

Then again, abducting other countries’ presidents is also pretty glaringly illegal. But Trump has made it clear that he alone is in charge of deciding what is and is not permissible on any given day.

The abduction took place on January 3, when the US military launched air attacks on Venezuela, killing some 100 people and whisking Maduro and his wife away.

He is accused of an array of misdeeds, including being the leader of the “Cartel of the Suns” – which, mind you, does not actually exist – and engaging in “conspiracy to possess machineguns and destructive devices”.

This is quite the accusation coming from the country that just used all manner of destructive devices to bomb Venezuela and kill a bunch of people.

Anyway, bald-faced hypocrisy is nothing new in the land of the “plutocratic minorities”.

Now, the waning corporate media interest in Maduro’s fate amounts to another coup for US impunity, as folks go about more or less forgetting that there is a foreign head of state sitting in a Brooklyn prison.

But Maduro’s disappearance works out well for Rodriguez, as she goes about enabling the very theft of resources she once decried.

Rodriguez took the stage at the UN the day after Trump, who used the platform to pat himself on the back for the trampling of Venezuelan sovereignty that conveniently culminated in last month’s announcement from the White House of the “biggest oil deal in world history”, securing US majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven oil reserves.

Speaking to his international audience, Trump boasted: “To the victor belong the spoils. You’ve all heard that.”

Never mind that you’re not technically supposed to admit that you attacked a country just to get its oil. (You’re also not, in polite company, supposed to threaten to annihilate Iran – another of Trump’s UN talking points.)

Since January, the US has lifted many coercive economic measures against Venezuela (including against Rodriguez herself), easing the brutal sanctions regime that as of 2020 was estimated to have already killed 100,000 Venezuelans, according to former UN independent expert Alfred-Maurice de Zayas.

But trading sanctions for de facto colonialism isn’t a great deal, either.

Meanwhile, Trump’s continued manic bombing of vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, which a recent UN report warned may constitute crimes against humanity, suggests the US is nowhere near to kicking its old habit of terrorism – and is all the more reason that Rodriguez might have refrained from thanking the US leader for his “cooperation”.

As Gregory Wilpert, founder of the Venezuelanalysis website and author of Changing Venezuela by Taking Power, diplomatically put it to me: “One cannot help but wonder whether Delcy Rodriguez is over-complying with Trump in some aspects of her negotiations with him.”

Noting that Rodriguez is “in a highly vulnerable position”, Wilpert ran through a few of the options she faces, such as “the possibility that the Trump administration could treat her as it treated Maduro – by attempting to kidnap her – or as it treated Iran, by targeting the country’s highest levels of government”.

Or, Wilpert said, there is always the Cuba approach, which would entail “the kind of economic siege” that is undertaken “with the aim of starving an entire country”.

In her UN address, Rodriguez promised that Venezuela would hold elections at some unspecified point in time – not that the US, for its part, really cares about democracy as long as the right people are in power.

And although it’s still too early to tell, Rodriguez might just be one of those people.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.