Donald Trump and Xi Jinping discussed trade tensions, technology and AI risks at the White House, with both leaders emphasising the scope for greater cooperation. Xi’s visit marks the first visit by a Chinese president to Washington in over a decade.
Published On 24 Sep 202624 Sep 2026
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UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called for coordinated international action to address AI risks as fears rise about the dangers of the fast-evolving technology.
“National action is essential. But global coordination is also indispensable,” he told reporters. “AI does not stop at borders and neither do its risks.”
“AI has enormous potential — to accelerate sustainable development, enhance learning, strengthen health systems, boost climate resilience, and so much more,” Guterres said.
“But a growing number of those building it are sounding the alarm — warning that development is racing ahead of our understanding of the risks.”
“The world cannot afford a race to the bottom on AI safety,” he warned.
Concerns about AI safety have escalated in recent weeks, with workers at major AI developers resigning over concerns about the dangers posed by the technology.
President Donald Trump has dismissed warnings against AI risks as a “hoax” and pushed back against calls for tighter oversight.
HELEN Flanagan has put on a busty display and risked popping out of her racy black dress on a night out.
The former Coronation Street star, 36, took to Instagram to share some new snaps as she enjoyed a meal out at Gaucho restaurant in Manchester.
She wore a long ribbed black dress as she showed off plenty of cleavage in the revealing outfit.
Helen threatened to spill out of her attire as she only had three small gold clasps holding her boobs in.
The figure hugging dress perfectly cinched her waist as she displayed her hourglass figure.
She wore her blonde locks in a curly hairstyle and opted for a chic make-up look, complete with false eyelashes, eye shadow and a pink gloss.
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Helen appeared to be in great spirits as she beamed from ear to ear and enjoyed some beverages.
The actress simply used a kissing lip emoji as the caption.
Her followers rushed to the comments section to compliment her as one gushed: “The most gorgeous woman ever.”
Another person enthused: “Stunning and classy.”
Somebody else commented: “Sydney Sweeney ain’t got nothing on you.”
Yet another joked: “I mean…..come on, give the other women a chance.”
While a fifth follower added: “You are so gorgeous.”
Helen’s night out comes just days after she joked about selling her knickers to pay for her solicitors fees, amid her ongoing feud with her ex Scott Sinclair.
The Sun revealed how she has had some recent financial concerns after the father of her kids, 37, recently sold their family home, forcing her to downsize.
In a post on Monday, she shared a video where she quipped that she was going to flog her underwear for cash.
In the short clip, Helen was seen shimmying out of her knickers from underneath a long dress, before swinging them in the air.
In the next shot, she headed into the Post Office where she purchased an envelope.
The saucy star was then seen leaving the shop empty handed, implying she had posted her knickers to a fan.
Helen wrote over the top of the video: “When you have to figure out a way to pay for solicitor fees.”
WASHINGTON — A bold military push by Iran and its proxies to create a choke hold on global oil supplies has once again caught the Trump administration off guard, threatening a market shock and a steep political backlash in the U.S. midterm elections.
A drone attack on Saudi Arabia’s most crucial pipeline, which siphons crude oil from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, has led to the line’s closure, potentially taking 4% of the world’s supply off the market.
And a lightning advance by Iran-backed Houthi rebels along Yemen’s Red Sea coast threatens commercial traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, second only to Hormuz in its importance to regional shipping.
The strikes put the Trump administration in a newly precarious position less than two months until the November midterms. President Trump’s military advisors have warned him that any retaliation could lead to a further depletion of critically low U.S. munition stockpiles, endanger American personnel in the field and risk escalation that could spiral out of Washington’s control.
A semi prepares for departure from a Pilot fuel station Monday in Buda, Texas.
(Brandon Bell / Getty Images)
On Tuesday, the global price of oil topped $107 a barrel — the first time in U.S. campaign history that an incumbent president has faced rising pump prices at this stage of an election.
The Iranian strikes come as Europe and the United States are facing increased energy needs entering the fall and winter months, and as Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure have surged, pushing diesel prices up to record highs.
Signs are emerging that the latest attacks could trigger an acute market panic, with Brent crude buyers paying a steep premium for early delivery — an indication that the industry fears an impending supply crisis.
“I fear there is a considerable risk of much higher gas and diesel prices in the weeks to come,” said Michael O’Hanlon, director of research of the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution.
“No one is quite sure how to predict the fuel markets,” he added, “but the military dynamics are seriously worrisome.”
Last week, Trump told reporters that the Iranian government is “desperate to try and affect the election” and could be trying to keep oil prices elevated to hurt Republican prospects.
“Right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward,” Trump said. “I think it’s going to take a little bit longer than the midterm.”
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Monday morning.
(Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)
Polls have found that likely voters are prioritizing the economy far beyond any other policy matter going into the fall election season, with a New York Times poll published Tuesday showing voters trusting Democrats to handle the economy more than Republicans.
“There’s no quick fix,” said Simon Henderson, the director of the Washington Institute’s Gulf and Energy Policy program. “The main question is whether it is a big shock to the oil market or just another more minor shock. The answer depends on whether the damage to the East-West pipeline cable is repaired quickly.”
The latest Iranian campaign threatens Saudi Arabia’s economic core, straining a long-standing alliance built on robust U.S. defense of Riyadh’s vital interests.
The attack on the East-West oil pipeline originated in Iraq, where Iran continues to operate proxy militias, according to government officials in Riyadh and Baghdad. Saudi Arabia agreed not to retaliate militarily against targets on Iraqi soil, temporarily staving off a regional conflagration.
While the Iraqi militia group denied involvement, it also praised the Houthi advance in Yemen and the militants’ “ongoing battlefield victories against Saudi forces.”
Israel has been providing Saudi Arabia with intelligence to help thwart further attacks, using American military intermediaries, according to Israeli media reports.
Active combat in the war between Iran and the United States eased after a ceasefire was brokered in June. While that truce collapsed in July, the two sides have opted for asymmetric tactics over the resumption of direct attacks, with the United States maintaining a full naval blockade of Iranian ports.
The Trump administration has since focused instead on targeting Iran’s economic partners with aggressive secondary sanctions, seeking to further pressure Tehran into a meaningful peace agreement. But negotiations have failed for months to get back off the ground.
When he first launched the war in February, Trump projected the mission would last roughly six weeks. He said the goal of the U.S. operation was to incapacitate Iran’s ballistic missile program, its navy and its nuclear program.
Trump was warned ahead of the war by his joint chiefs of staff that Iran could attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz in response. But he dismissed the threat, anticipating Tehran would quickly back down from a direct confrontation with the United States.
More than six months on, Iran’s ballistic missiles continue to pressure U.S. defense systems across the Middle East. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted and discussions on Iran’s future nuclear work have broken down. In private, Trump administration officials fear the war could drag through the remainder of the president’s term.
GENEVA: The United Nations rights chief called Monday for countries and “frontier” artificial intelligence companies to act urgently to rein in a technology he warned posed “unprecedented risks”.
In a letter sent to countries and AI developers and shared with the media, Volker Turk cautioned that the world was “on the cusp of irreversible change, affecting not just us but generations of humanity to come”.
“The current race towards ever more powerful AI is a step change towards greater existential risks to every aspect of our lives.”
He sent the letter at a time when worries over the risks of “superintelligent” computer systems have been on full display, after a researcher publicly resigned from leading AI firm Anthropic over fears that the technology could escape human control.
Another Anthropic employee, who did not resign, stated publicly that “we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans”, and that he thought the chances were greater than “10 percent within the next decade”.
Amid the outcry, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called Saturday for AI companies to “pace the frontier” — or coordinate a slowdown in the technology’s development, with his chief competitors, xAI’s Elon Musk and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, publicly supporting him.
“In today’s world, we are almost entirely reliant on a small number of powerful companies to make the right choices on Al development for all of humanity,” Turk lamented.
“I call on States and companies to mobilise urgently through multilateral fora to chart a path for action to govern advanced, frontier AI models, grounded in international human rights law.”
The US-China G-2 concept is both normatively exclusionary and strategically constraining. The inherent limits of a G-2 framework—hierarchy, power structure, and systematic constraints—make it a non-starter in a multipolar reality. Here, I completely agree; the concept of a G2 is unworkable and constitutes a strategic exclusion of many international actors in a multipolar world order characterized by a complex distribution of power and multiple centers of decision-making. The Structural and Political Constraints, represented in:
· Unacceptable Hierarchy: This framework attempts to impose a bipolarity that ignores the rise of major regional and international powers such as the European Union, India, and Russia.
· Lack of Methodological Flexibility: This framework fails to accommodate global issues that transcend borders and require broad collective cooperation, not just bilateral understandings.
· Conflicting Interests: The current strategic and geopolitical competition between Washington and Beijing makes it impossible to manage the international system through joint governance. The structural conflict of interests between Washington and Beijing renders joint management of the international system impossible, amidst a fierce struggle for technological leadership, economic dominance, and the reshaping of national security rules. This manifests itself in:
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– First: The Roots of the Strategic Conflict
A) The Challenge to Hegemony: China seeks to reshape international rules and challenge absolute American supremacy.
B) The American Shift: Washington adopts a strategy of confrontation and containment to reduce Chinese influence and supply chains.
– Second: Arenas of International Conflict
A) Technology and Trade: The chip war, tariffs, and control over advanced technology.
B) Regional Sovereignty: The escalating competition in the South China Sea and the Taiwan issue.
Trump’s China policy has shifted from confrontation to accommodation. If we wonder how true that is, to claim that Donald Trump’s policy toward China has completely shifted from confrontation to accommodation is inaccurate. It is merely a superficial shift toward de-escalation and managing disputes through deals, while the underlying geopolitical and structural competition remains intense.
– Manifestations of De-escalation and Deals (Tactical Accommodation)
· Diplomatic Summits: A state visit to Beijing in mid-May 2026 and frequent summits with President Xi Jinping to reduce escalating tensions.
· Trade Settlements: Temporarily reducing some reciprocal tariffs and concluding major deals, such as Boeing aircraft orders and easing chip restrictions for major companies.
· Regional Crisis Management: Seeking cautious coordination or neutralizing China’s role in some global energy and shipping crises.
– Constants of Conflict and Confrontation (Ongoing Competition)
· Technological Restrictions and Economic Structure: The complex core of the conflict over intellectual property and control of advanced technology remains unresolved.
· Legal and Institutional Pressures: Reciprocal restrictions and legislation continue, with China activating its blocking statute to counter extraterritorial US sanctions.
· The Taiwan file and military strategy: Divergent major strategic interests and military deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region.
China wants to be seen on par with Washington. The Chinese gave Trump everything he wanted but nothing of substance. Taiwan was off the table at the Beijing May 2026 meet. Here, political assessments of the Beijing summit held in May 2016 vary. Some believe China successfully established itself as a rival to Washington, while others consider the results to have ranged from symbolic gains to continued ambiguity regarding issues such as Taiwan and trade deals. The summit’s dimensions and outstanding issues can be summarized as follows:
· International parity: Beijing sought to solidify its image as a major power capable of competing with and managing the power struggle with the United States.
· Taiwan’s position: Taiwan was naturally absent from the direct bilateral talks between the two leaders, amidst strong Chinese warnings to Washington about the dangers of arms sales to the island.
· Mutual gains: Opinions differed regarding the extent of concessions. Analysts believe the Trump administration did not secure any decisive, substantive commitments on certain regional issues in exchange for a temporary easing of trade tensions.
Beijing has sought to solidify its image as a major power capable of rivaling and managing the struggle for influence with the United States. It aims to establish itself as a major power on par with Washington through a variety of economic, technological, and military tools, skillfully managed through a policy of gradual retaliation and the management of international competition. This is achieved through:
– First: Economic and Technological Tools
– Second: Geopolitical and Diplomatic Presence
There were some raised questions related to whether US-China friendship is bad for India and whether their infighting is bad for India too. Here, I partially agree with this view, as the interaction between Washington and Beijing presents both gains and risks for India. The conflict grants New Delhi strategic room for maneuver and security alignment with the US, but sharp conflicts or a sudden rapprochement between the two giants could exert economic and political pressure on India’s interests.
– First: Risks of US-China Conflict and Friendship for India
· Bilateral Accords Between Washington and Beijing: If the two powers reach trade agreements or strategic stability without India’s involvement, it could diminish New Delhi’s importance as a crucial ally for containing China.
· Economic and Trade Pressure: Global conflicts, tensions, and reciprocal tariffs affect the stability of markets and supply chains upon which India depends.
· Regional Military Escalation: Direct conflict increases the likelihood of India’s regional involvement due to its direct border disputes with China.
– Second: Opportunities and Gains for India from Competition
· Strengthening Strategic Partnerships: US-China competition is driving Washington and Western countries to deepen military and technological cooperation with India to counterbalance Beijing’s influence.
· The strategy of multiple independence: India benefits from competition by implementing a policy of multiple alignment, protecting its decision-making independence without being completely dependent on any party.
The interaction between Washington and Beijing presents India with both opportunities and risks, most notably strategic room for maneuver, security cooperation with the US, and potential economic pressures. In terms of gains and risks, these can be assessed as follows:
– Strategic Gains
· Role for Maneuvering: New Delhi skillfully balances its relations between the two powers.
· Security Cooperation: Stronger cooperation with the US and the Quad countries to counter China’s influence.
· Economic Gains: Global companies are seeking to relocate their factories from China to India.
– Risks and Threats
· Military Escalation: A direct confrontation could force India to choose sides.
· Sudden Rapprochement: Any major deal between the US and China could marginalize India’s regional role.
· Economic Pressures: Markets and supply chains could be affected by any trade tensions between the two giants.
Beyond the US and China, India and others are building a G Minus Two for Indo-Pacific. Here, the fundamental error in the statement lies in describing India and other countries as building a G-2 alliance with the United States and China. The G-2 concept actually refers to a potential bipolar hegemony or joint management of the world solely by Washington and Beijing, while India and other regional powers are pursuing a strategy known as G-Minus Two to expand their options for independence. This can be understood through:
– Rejection of Bipolar Hegemony:
India adopts a policy of strategic independence and rejects any bipolar system or joint US-China hegemony that diminishes the role of emerging powers.
– The G-Minus Two Strategy:
New Delhi is working with partners such as Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Australia, and Indonesia to build a network of flexible partnerships that balance influence and protect regional interests.
Here, the statement of Beyond US and China, India, and others building a G Minus Two for Indo-Pacific, accurately describes the shift of major regional powers like India towards building a network of independent strategic partnerships, moving away from the bipolar hegemony of the US and China. This is achieved through:
– Concepts of International Alliances
– Dimensions of the G-Minus Two strategy
WASHINGTON: The IMF said the global economy had weathered the energy shock caused by the war in the Middle East better than feared and global economic output was still expected to expand by about 3 percent in 2026, but it cautioned that risks remained high.
Julie Kozack, spokesperson for the International Monetary Fund, said oil and gas prices remained elevated and the energy shock from the war was not over.
Global debt pressures were also mounting and the disinflation process over the 2022 cost-of-living crisis had stalled.
Global inflationary expectations have risen but remain well-anchored over the longer run, Kozack told a regular IMF briefing.
“So far, despite six months of war in the Middle East, the global economy has been resilient,” Kozack said, adding that the use of oil and gas reserves had allowed some countries to cope with energy shocks caused by the war, while others had shifted to new energy sources or acted to curb demand.
“We remain on track for world growth of around 3 percent but uncertainty, as we’ve been saying for quite some time, continues to remain high,” she said.
The IMF in July forecast 2026 global growth at a sluggish 3 percent, compared with an average of 3.5 percent seen in 2024 and 2025, and its April forecast of 3.1 percent.
At the time, it said that forecast assumed the war would wind down in mid-July, but Iran and the US have both escalated their attacks and the war has widened with increased military activity in Yemen.
The global lender will release an updated forecast during the annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank in Bangkok from Oct. 12 to 18.
Pulled in opposite directions
Kozack said the global economy was being pulled in opposite directions by the negative energy supply shock that was driving prices of energy, fertilizers, food and other commodities sharply higher, while the AI-led technology cycle was providing a positive demand shock.
Risks remain high, with many countries needing to restock their oil and gas reserves, and energy demands set to rise as winter approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, she said.
Pressures are also mounting on global public debt, which is already at nearly 100 percent of gross domestic product — the highest level since World War Two — and is set to rise further, Kozack said. Many advanced economies have particularly high public-debt-to-GDP ratios.
Liquidity problems are also building in developing countries, including in Africa, partly due to a reduction in bilateral assistance, Kozack said.
The IMF is urging central bankers to stick to their price stability mandates, while encouraging fiscal policymakers to develop medium-term consolidation plans, she said.
“We’re not in a situation where fiscal consolidation needs to take place overnight, but having a clear, laid-out plan and strategy for how deficits and debt are going to come down is very important for fiscal authorities,” Kozack said.
The IMF was also urging authorities to focus on lifting growth prospects through structural reforms and removing “self-inflicted” barriers to growth, she said.
Kozack said the IMF would look closely at the impact of new US sanctions against Iran, including secondary sanctions aimed at firms in third countries that support Tehran.
A fuller report was expected in the upcoming global outlook, she said.
TELLURIDE, Colo. — For four days every Labor Day weekend, the Telluride Film Festival turns this tiny mountain town into something of a refuge from the outside world. Tucked into a box canyon and far from the usual machinery of Hollywood, moviegoers spend their days seeing films they may have known little about before arriving and talking about them almost nonstop.
Artificial intelligence, apparently, did not get the memo.
This year, even Telluride’s usually self-contained movie bubble couldn’t keep out the existential anxieties surrounding AI. On Saturday, the festival devoted two events to the subject, beginning with “The Humanity Dilemma,” an hourlong multimedia presentation mixing dire warnings with live music and imagery, and continuing with a panel bluntly titled “AI AI AI,” featuring Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
Introducing “The Humanity Dilemma” at the nearly packed Sheridan Opera House, festival executive director Julie Huntsinger acknowledged that Telluride normally steers clear of taking political sides. “We just let the program speak for us,” Huntsinger said.
But on AI, she made an exception.
“We are a very humanist festival — that’s how we identify,” Huntsinger said. “AI is a threat.” While acknowledging potentially beneficial applications, she urged the audience to become more engaged in the debate over its development.
“We all need to be very alert and vigilant and loving and kind and stop this s—,” she said, earning loud whoops of approval from some in the crowd.
AI already occupies an uneasy place in Hollywood, where filmmakers and studios are experimenting with the technology even as actors, writers and other creative workers fight to protect their jobs and likenesses from being exploited or replaced.
For all of Huntsinger’s warnings, Telluride is not treating AI as off-limits. Its program includes “Love, Rendered,” a short documentary directed by Liz Garbus and produced by Darren Aronofsky about an elderly couple confronting the husband’s memory loss. Using AI along with family photographs and stories from loved ones, the filmmakers recreate the moment the couple first met and fell in love 70 years earlier. On Sunday, the film’s creative team is scheduled to discuss the project at an event titled “Filmmaking and Technology With Empathy: AI for Societal Benefit.”
“The Humanity Dilemma” was presented by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, co-founders of the Center for Humane Technology, who appeared in the 2020 documentary “The Social Dilemma,” along with artist and researcher Joy Mauthe and violinist Andrei Matorin. Harris and Raskin also appear in this year’s “The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist.”
The presentation was designed to work on the emotions as well as the intellect. Original songs about humanity’s relationship to AI ran through much of the hour, with Mauthe singing and playing guitar and Matorin on violin, as Harris and Raskin delivered warnings accompanied by images of environmental devastation, poverty and figures in the AI race including Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Larry Ellison.
Their argument was stark: The race to build more powerful AI is moving far faster than governments or the public can keep up. Their deepest fear is that humans could eventually lose control of increasingly capable AI systems altogether.
At the same time, they acknowledged the technology’s potentially transformative benefits.
“AI is confusing because it represents both simultaneous utopia and dystopia,” Raskin said. “Just imagine having to reason about a nuke that could also solve cancer.”
By the end, Harris was calling for a halt to the development of more powerful systems.
“We need to pause frontier AI development and pivot and steer towards a pro-human future,” he said.
The hour concluded with Mauthe leading the audience in a final refrain, singing that the future is “still in our hands.” It was the kind of unabashedly earnest moment that could easily have tipped into awkwardness, but many in the room seemed to embrace it.
A few hours later, Harris and Raskin returned for “AI AI AI,” held outdoors at the Abel Gance Open Air Cinema in Telluride’s Elks Park, joined by Gates and filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer, director of the Oscar-nominated documentaries “The Act of Killing” and “The Look of Silence,” who served as a moderator.
From left, Bill Gates, Aza Raskin, Tristan Harris and filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer discuss the risks and potential benefits of artificial intelligence at the Telluride Film Festival on Saturday.
(Josh Rottenberg)
For Gates, who has spent decades focusing much of his philanthropy and public advocacy on global health and poverty, the rise of AI has forced him to make room for a new priority. In an essay published last week, he warned that the technology was improving faster than he anticipated and called for a new framework to manage its risks.
At Telluride, Gates said he now feels compelled to devote some of the political influence he has long used to advocate for causes such as malnutrition, polio and malaria to raise alarms about AI as well.
“Is this the greatest problem humanity has ever faced?” Gates said. “That is just a fact.”
Gates said his concerns have grown as AI systems have become more capable, particularly at writing computer code, something he has been obsessed with since he was 13.
“The AIs are superhuman, i.e., better than I am at writing code,” Gates said.
He laid out five broad areas of concern: jobs, biotechnology, cyberattacks, psychosocial harms and whether humans will be able to maintain control over the systems they are building.
Oppenheimer said that after spending hours digging into AI risks ahead of the panel, he had come away “absolutely terrified.” He read aloud an answer he had received after asking ChatGPT to estimate the risks if the race toward increasingly powerful AI continued with little regulation.
The chatbot put the chance of “persistent dystopian outcomes for all humanity” at 25% to 40%, a civilization-scale catastrophe at 5% to 15% and human extinction or permanent loss of human control at 5% to 10%.
“That’s what AI thinks,” Oppenheimer said.
Gates stressed AI’s potential upside, citing advances in medicine, education and assistance to farmers in poor countries. But pressed on whether development should be slowed until safety measures catch up, he said he would be open to the idea.
“If there was a credible plan that would cause this to be either slowed down or, you know, even held in stasis for a period of time, I would likely support that,” Gates said.
The difficulty, he said, is that multiple developers in both the U.S. and China are pushing closer to the technological frontier. Still, Gates rejected the argument that competition with China makes meaningful regulation impossible.
“China does not want cyberattacks, bioattacks or loss of control,” Gates said.
The discussion was punctuated by a pair of outbursts from the audience. At one point, as Gates discussed the economic incentives driving AI development, a man shouted that they represented “everything that’s wrong with America” and invoked Jesus Christ. Gates paused before responding dryly: “Anyway, not everything is wrong with America, according to me.”
Gates argued that government and civil society need to move much more quickly.
“This five-year period, in my view, is a very critical period,” he said, adding that responses that take five or six years to get underway could come too late.
Despite the dire warnings, Harris pointed to signs that pressure for safeguards is growing, including calls from AI-industry employees to limit the development of more powerful systems. Just last week, Meta agreed to pay $17 billion to settle claims by 29 states that Facebook and Instagram harmed young users while also agreeing to new child-safety measures on the platforms.
“I just want to leave you with not naive optimism, but momentum,” Harris said.
Near the end, Raskin suggested that President Trump’s well-documented desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize might provide an incentive for him to pursue a U.S.-China pause on more powerful AI systems.
“What’s better than solving one war?” Raskin said. “Saving all of humanity forever from uncontrollable AI.”
Gates, with a wry smile, called the Nobel angle “smart.”
“Whoever really takes the step to solve this AI problem would deserve the Nobel Prize,” he said.
Later that night, the festival would hold an outdoor screening of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” featuring HAL 9000, one of cinema’s most famous rogue artificial intelligences.
Gates framed the current stakes in similarly cinematic terms.
“There are these movies where the aliens are coming, and you see unprecedented levels of cooperation between China and the U.S.,” he said. “Well, believe me, the aliens are here.”
The global ratings agency has also maintained the country’s sovereign rating at AA.
Published On 5 Sep 20265 Sep 2026
Fitch Ratings has removed Qatar from “Rating Watch Negative” while maintaining its sovereign rating at AA amid the US-Israel war on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz blockade.
The global ratings agency announced the decision on Friday, citing reduced risks to the country’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities since March.
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The agency, however, kept a negative outlook on the rating, citing ongoing risks surrounding the movement of gas exports through the blockaded Strait of Hormuz.
“The impact of the war on the credit profile will take longer to discern,” the agency said in a statement.
Qatar, one of the world’s largest gas exporters, continues to face export disruptions and shortages caused by damaged energy facilities during the war on Iran, which began six months ago.
Earlier this year, credit agencies S&P and Moody’s also affirmed Qatar’s ratings, noting that the country’s sizeable financial cushion helps protect it from the economic impact of the war.
Last week, Israel attacked Syrian territory yet again. Israeli forces shelled a hilltop near Beit Jinn in the western Damascus countryside, while soldiers raided a village in Quneitra province.
The attacks came just days after Israeli fighter jets struck the Abu al-Duhur military base in northern Syria, inflicting significant damage. Israel said the strike was intended to prevent a possible Turkish military deployment there, although both Damascus and Ankara disputed these claims. The Israeli attacks have persisted despite Syrian efforts to de-escalate through diplomacy, and criticism from Washington of the Abu al-Duhur strike.
While avoiding confrontation, the government of Ahmed al-Sharaa continues to insist that Israel withdraw from Syrian territory it has occupied and that Damascus must remain free to rebuild its armed forces and cooperate with the partners of its choosing.
All this reveals more than Syria’s military weakness. It suggests that the new Syrian leadership believes sovereignty can be recovered by rebuilding state capacity first. This strategy, however, carries potential risks: Israel may continue to encroach on Syrian sovereignty while taking advantage of Syrian restraint; and the Syrian government may eventually begin to lose the trust of Syrians and the wider Arab public, among whom Israel is overwhelmingly viewed as a threat.
Syria’s weakness is real. In late 2024, after the army of former President Bashar al-Assad collapsed, Israel struck strategic military assets across the country. The new government then had to begin assembling a national security architecture from dysfunctional institutions and a patchwork of armed groups.
For now, a Syrian military response capable of altering Israel’s behaviour is difficult to imagine.
Instead, al-Sharaa has placed economic recovery and international legitimacy at the top of his priorities. His government has focused on rebuilding state institutions, restructuring the security sector, restoring energy supplies, improving foreign relations and reconnecting Syria to the international economy. But rebuilding Syria is an enormous challenge.
The World Bank estimates that reconstructing Syria’s damaged physical assets will cost about $216bn. A state facing needs on that scale cannot restore its authority through military institutions alone. It needs revenue, electricity, functioning administration, banking access, investment and external relationships.
Al-Sharaa has achieved significant progress on the international front. Washington dismantled the broad Syria sanctions programme in 2025, while the European Union lifted its economic sanctions, although targeted and security-related measures remain. On August 24, Washington also removed Syria from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, eliminating another key obstacle to financial normalisation and investment.
For Damascus, these steps expand the resources with which the state can govern; they are not simply an economic dividend of avoiding war.
This also makes the dispute with Israel more consequential. Syria’s reconstruction strategy now depends heavily on precisely the international access that years of isolation denied it. A major military escalation with Israel could undermine investor confidence, complicate Syria’s reintegration into international banking and weaken the diplomatic support on which its recovery depends.
It could also expose Damascus to renewed political pressure by Washington and the EU, even if this does not automatically translate into the reimposition of broad sanctions.
The dilemma is therefore becoming sharper: Restraint helps Damascus preserve the international environment it needs to rebuild the state, but it also gives Israel room to constrain the very military and strategic capacity Syria is trying to reconstruct.
Israel has security concerns about the new Syrian government, whose leadership emerged from an armed Islamist movement, and it is increasingly alarmed by Turkiye’s military relationship with Damascus. But Israeli demands have extended well beyond preventing hostile forces from approaching its border.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for the demilitarisation of Syria’s Quneitra, Deraa and Suwayda provinces. His government has also opposed the deployment of forces belonging to Syria’s new army south of Damascus and has sought to restrict the scope of Damascus’s military cooperation with Turkiye.
Israel clearly wants to limit the rebuilding of Syria’s military capacity. It sees such interference through the prism of preventive security. Damascus sees the same issue through the prism of sovereignty: A state that cannot decide where its army deploys or with whom it trains has not fully recovered strategic autonomy.
This is one of the central risks of al-Sharaa’s strategy. Syria is avoiding an unwinnable confrontation partly to rebuild the capacities of state power, while those same capacities are increasingly becoming objects of Israeli pressure.
There are limits to what restraint can achieve. Syria has the backing of other Arab states, while the United States and EU have supported the reconstruction of a functioning Syrian state as part of their approach to regional stability. Damascus has also repeatedly expressed interest in reaching a security agreement with Israel.
And yet, none of this has stopped Israeli military action.
The other risk concerns Syrian public opinion. Appearing indefinitely unable to respond to Israeli attacks could eventually damage al-Sharaa’s public standing and the legitimacy of his government.
A large survey by the Arab Center Washington DC conducted in 2025 found that 74 percent of Syrians opposed recognising Israel, 70 percent rejected an agreement that did not include the return of the Golan Heights, and 88 percent believed Israel threatened Syria’s security and stability. At the same time, 61 percent said the current government’s foreign policy reflected the views of the Syrian people.
The findings are important precisely because they complicate the picture. The survey predates the latest confrontations and does not tell us whether Syrians favour military retaliation. It establishes political red lines, not a public demand for war.
Wider Arab polling points in the same direction. Across the countries surveyed in the 2025 Arab Opinion Index, opposition to recognising Israel remained overwhelming.
That said, Syria under the al-Assads also generally avoided confrontation with Israel while retaining a reputation for belonging to the regional “resistance” camp. The old model combined avoidance of direct war with alliances and armed networks that gave Damascus regional leverage.
Al-Sharaa’s government appears to be making a different bet, focusing on consolidated institutions, economic recovery, international access and a rebuilt national military.
This does not replace territorial sovereignty. It is an attempt to rebuild the means of exercising it.
The bet will become harder to defend, both at home and abroad, if restored state capacity does not eventually give Syria greater control over its territory, its security choices and its foreign relations.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
