United States

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – When US President Donald Trump lands in Malaysia for Southeast Asia’s headline summit this weekend, he will be delivering Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim a diplomatic coup.

US presidents rarely visit Malaysia, a multiracial nation of 35 million people sandwiched between Thailand and Singapore, which for decades has maintained a policy of not picking sides in rivalries between great powers.

Trump is just the third US leader to travel to the Southeast Asian country, which is hosting a Sunday-to-Tuesday summit for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), following visits by former US Presidents Barack Obama and Lyndon B Johnson.

After skipping ASEAN summits in 2018, 2019 and 2020, Trump, whose disdain for multilateralism is renowned, will be attending the gathering of Southeast Asian nations for just the second time.

The US president will be joined by a host of high-profile leaders from non-ASEAN countries, including Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Opting not to attend are Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who Trump is expected to meet in South Korea at next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

Trump’s visit, in many ways, is emblematic of the delicate balancing act that Anwar’s government has sought to maintain as Malaysia navigates the headwinds of the heated rivalry between the US and China.

Malaysia is deeply entwined with both the US and Chinese economies.

The US, which has a large footprint in Malaysia’s tech and oil and gas industries, was the Southeast Asian country’s top foreign investor and third-biggest trading partner in 2024.

China, a major purchaser of Malaysian electronics and palm oil, the same year took the top spot in trade and was third for investment.

But Malaysia’s efforts to walk a fine line between Washington and Beijing have become increasingly fraught as the superpowers roll out tit-for-tat tariffs and export controls while butting heads over regional flashpoints such as Taiwan and the South China Sea.

“Optimally, Malaysia wants to productively engage both China and the US on a variety of issues,” said Thomas Daniel, an analyst at the Institute of Strategic & International Studies in Kuala Lumpur.

“It is in our interest,” Daniel told Al Jazeera.

Anwar has cast Trump’s visit as a chance to bolster economic ties, champion regional peace and stability, and elevate ASEAN’s standing on the international stage.

Anwar has also pledged to use the rare opportunity for face time with Trump to constructively raise points of difference between Washington and Kuala Lumpur, particularly the Palestinian cause.

“The through-line is autonomy: avoid entanglement, maximise options, and extract benefits from both poles without becoming anyone’s proxy,” Awang Azman Awang Pawi, a professor at the University of Malaya, told Al Jazeera.

During Trump’s visit, US tariffs on Malaysia, currently set at 19 percent, and China’s mooted export controls on rare earths are expected to be high on the agenda.

For Malaysia, the priority is preserving “rules-based” trade that allows for countries to deepen economic ties despite their political differences, said Mohd Ramlan Mohd Arshad, a senior lecturer at the MARA University of Technology in Shah Alam, near Kuala Lumpur.

A prolonged economic cold war between the US and China is the “worst thing” that could happen to Malaysia, Arshad told Al Jazeera.

Trump, who has made no secret of his ambitions for the Nobel Peace Prize, is also expected to witness the signing of a peace accord between Thailand and Cambodia, which engaged in a brief border conflict in July that left at least 38 people dead.

For Anwar, who has led a multiracial coalition of parties with diverse and competing interests since 2022, the balancing act also involves political considerations at home.

US support for Israel’s war in Gaza has been a bone of contention in Muslim-majority Malaysia, where the plight of Palestinians has inspired frequent public protests.

In the run-up to the summit, critics have demanded that Anwar rescind Trump’s invitation over his role in supporting the war, which a United Nations commission of inquiry last month determined to constitute genocide.

“A person like Trump, no matter how powerful, should not be welcomed in Malaysia,” former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Anwar’s former mentor-turned-nemesis, said in a video message last month.

Defending the invitation, Anwar has stressed his view of diplomacy as “practical work” for advancing his country’s interests “in an imperfect world”.

“It demands balance, discipline, and the courage to stay the course even when the ground shifts beneath us,” he told a conference in Kuala Lumpur earlier this month.

As a small power, Malaysia has always put pragmatism at the centre of its foreign policy, said Sharifah Munirah Alatas, an international relations lecturer at the National University of Malaysia.

“Anwar and Malaysia cannot afford to do otherwise,” Alatas told Al Jazeera.

“And given the current highly unpredictable Sino-American tension induced by the Trump 2.0 era, ASEAN will remain actively non-aligned, without taking sides.”

Awang Azman, the University of Malaya professor, said that while Trump’s visit will elevate Malaysia and ASEAN’s profile by itself, the true test of the summit’s success will be tangible outcomes on issues such as the Thailand-Cambodia conflict and trade.

“It’s not just a photo op if a ceasefire accord and concrete trade language land on paper,” Awang Azman said.

“If either track stalls, the visit is still symbolically significant – given the rarity of US presidential trips to Malaysia – but the narrative will revert to optics over outcomes.”

Petro, however, did acknowledge that a disruption in the two countries’ military cooperation could have serious consequences.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has indicated that a suspension of aid from the United States would mean little to his country, but that changes to military funding could have an effect.

“What happens if they take away aid? In my opinion, nothing,” Petro told journalists on Thursday, adding that aid funding often moved through US agencies and employed Americans.

But a cut to military cooperation would matter, he added.

“Now, in military aid, we would have some problems,” Petro said, adding that the loss of US helicopters would have the gravest impact.

US President Donald Trump had threatened over the weekend to raise tariffs on Colombia and said on Wednesday that all funding to the country has been halted.

Colombia was once among the largest recipients of US aid in the Western Hemisphere, but the flow of money was suddenly curtailed this year by the shuttering of USAID, the government’s humanitarian assistance arm. Military cooperation has continued.

The Trump administration has already “decertified” Colombia’s efforts to fight drug trafficking, paving the way for potential further cuts, but some US military personnel remain in Colombia, and the two countries continue to share intelligence.

Petro has objected to the US military’s strikes against vessels in the Caribbean, which have killed dozens of people and inflamed tensions in the region. Many legal experts and human rights activists have also condemned the actions.

Trump has responded by calling Petro an “illegal drug leader” and a “bad guy” – language Petro’s government says is offensive.

Petro has recalled his government’s ambassador from Washington, DC, but he nevertheless met with the US’s charge d’affaires in Bogota late on Sunday.

Although Trump has not announced any additional tariffs on top of the 10-percent rate already assessed on Colombian goods, he said on Wednesday he may take serious action against the country.

Petro said Trump is unlikely to put tariffs on oil and coal exports, which represent 60 percent of Colombia’s exports to the US, while the effect of tariffs on other industries could be mitigated by seeking alternative markets.

An increase in tariffs would flip a long-established US policy stance that free trade can make legitimate exports more attractive than drug trafficking, and analysts say more duties could eventually bolster drug trafficking.

Although his government has struggled to take control of major hubs for rebel and criminal activity, Petro said it has made record seizures of 2,800 metric tonnes of cocaine in three years, partly through increased efforts at Pacific ports where container ships are used for smuggling.

He also repeated an accusation that Trump’s actions are intended to boost the far right in Colombia in next year’s legislative and presidential elections.

United States President Donald Trump sanctions Russia’s two biggest oil companies – after scrapping a summit with President Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine war.

The European Union has also announced new measures targeting Russian oil and assets.

Will they bring an end to the war any closer?

Presenter: Bernard Smith

Guests:

Anatol Lieven – Director of the Eurasia programme at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

Steven Erlanger – Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for Europe at The New York Times

Chris Weafer – CEO of Macro-Advisory, a strategic consultancy focused on Russia and Eurasia

For decades, China powered spectacular growth through exports, infrastructure and cheap credit. But that old model is running out of steam, even as it hits a record trade surplus with the world this year.

The property sector is drowning in debt, confidence is fading, and consumers are holding back. Now, Beijing faces its toughest test yet: how to keep the world’s second-largest economy growing without relying much on the engines that once drove it.

A new five-year plan promises “high-quality growth” built on technology and self-reliance. But trade tensions with the United States could make the climb even steeper.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says she does not agree with US strikes on boats off the coast of South America, when asked about the recent deadly attacks on what the US has claimed are drug traffickers.

“Every single government shutdown, typically, the party in power is the party that gets blamed for the shutdown.”

US Republican commentator Chet Love explains what’s behind the latest federal government shutdown and how voters could change the course of what he calls “broken” US politics.

Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, talks about the mixed messaging coming from the White House over the Gaza ceasefire.

Washington has announced new sanctions against Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, in an effort to pressure Moscow to agree to a peace deal in Ukraine. This marks the first time the current Trump administration has imposed direct sanctions on Russia.

Speaking alongside Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said he hoped the sanctions would not need to be in place for long, but expressed growing frustration with stalled truce negotiations.

“Every time I speak to Vladimir [Putin], I have good conversations and then they don’t go anywhere. They just don’t go anywhere,” Trump said, shortly after a planned in-person meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Budapest was cancelled.

Trump’s move is designed to cut off vital oil revenues, which help fund Russia’s ongoing war efforts. Earlier on Wednesday, Russia unleashed a new bombardment on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, killing at least seven people, including children.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the new sanctions were necessary because of “Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war”. He said that Rosneft and Lukoil fund the Kremlin’s “war machine”.

How have Rosneft and Lukoil been sanctioned?

The new measures will freeze assets owned by Rosneft and Lukoil in the US, and bar US entities from engaging in business with them. Thirty subsidiaries owned by Rosneft and Lukoil have also been sanctioned.

Rosneft, which is controlled by the Kremlin, is Russia’s second-largest company in terms of revenue, behind natural gas giant Gazprom. Lukoil is Russia’s third-largest company and its biggest non-state enterprise.

Between them, the two groups export 3.1 million barrels of oil per day, or 70 percent of Russia’s overseas crude oil sales. Rosneft alone is responsible for nearly half of Russia’s oil production, which in all makes up 6 percent of global output.

In recent years, both companies have been hit by rolling European sanctions and reduced oil prices. In September, Rosneft reported a 68 percent year-on-year drop in net income for the first half of 2025. Lukoil posted an almost 27 percent fall in profits for 2024.

Meanwhile, last week, the United Kingdom unveiled sanctions on the two oil majors. Elsewhere, the European Union looks set to announce its 19th package of penalties on Moscow later today, including a ban on imports of Russian liquefied natural gas.

How much impact will these sanctions have?

In 2022, Russian oil groups (including Rosneft and Lukoil) were able to offset some of the effects of sanctions by pivoting exports from Europe to Asia, and also using a “shadow fleet” of hard-to-detect tankers with no ties to Western financial or insurance groups.

China and India quickly replaced the EU as Russia’s biggest oil consumers. Last year, China imported a record 109 million tonnes of Russian crude, representing almost 20 percent of its total energy imports. India imported 88 million tonnes of Russian oil in 2024.

In both cases, these are orders of magnitude higher than before 2022, when Western countries started to tighten their sanctions regime on Russia. At the end of 2021, China imported roughly 79.6 million tonnes of Russian crude. India imported just 0.42 million tonnes.

Trump has repeatedly urged Beijing and New Delhi to halt Russian energy purchases. In August, he levied an additional 25 percent trade tariff on India because of its continued purchase of discounted Russian oil. He has so far demurred from a similar move against China.

However, Trump’s new sanctions are likely to place pressure on foreign financial groups which do business with Rosneft and Lukoil, including the banking intermediaries which facilitate sales of Russian oil in China and India.

“Engaging in certain transactions involving the persons designated today may risk the imposition of secondary sanctions on participating foreign financial institutions,” the US Treasury Department’s press release on Wednesday’s sanctions says.

As a result, the new restrictions may force buyers to shift to alternative suppliers or pay higher prices. Though India and China may not be the direct targets of these latest restrictions, their oil supply chains and trading costs are likely to come under increased pressure.

“The big thing here is the secondary sanctions,” Felipe Pohlmann Gonzaga, a Switzerland-based commodity trader, told Al Jazeera. “Any bank that facilitates Russian oil sales and with exposure to the US financial system could be subject.”

However, he added, “I don’t think this will be the driver in ending the war, as Russia will continue selling oil. There are always people out there willing to take the risk to beat sanctions.

“These latest restrictions will make Chinese and Indian players more reluctant to buy Russian oil – many won’t want to lose access to the American financial system. [But] it won’t stop it completely.”

According to Bloomberg, several senior refinery executives in India – who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue – said the restrictions would make it impossible for oil purchases to continue.

On Wednesday, Trump said that he would raise concerns about China’s continued purchases of Russian oil during his talk with President Xi Jinping at the 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea next week.

Have oil prices been affected?

Oil prices rallied after Trump announced US sanctions. Brent – the international crude oil benchmark – rose nearly 4 percent to $65 a barrel on Thursday. The US Benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, jumped more than 5 percent to nearly $60 per barrel.

Pohlmann Gonzaga, however, predicted that the “market will correct from this 5 percent over-jump. You have to recall that sentiment in energy markets is still negative due to the gloomy [global] economic backdrop.”

World Health Organization says 41 critical patients evacuated yesterday as Rafah border remains shut, despite ceasefire.

The figure amounts to roughly $111,000 of debt for every person in the US, think tank says.

The United States national debt has topped $38 trillion, as the gap between government spending and revenues in the world’s largest economy expands at a rapid pace.

The US Department of the Treasury included the staggering figure in its latest report on the nation’s finances, with the debt standing at $38,019,813 as of Tuesday.

The figure amounts to roughly $111,000 of debt for every person in the US, and is equivalent to the value of the economies of China, India, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom combined, according to the Peter G Peterson Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think tank.

The milestone comes a little over two months after debt in the US surpassed $37 trillion in mid-August. The debt stood at $36 trillion in November 2024, and $35 trillion that July.

Michael A Peterson, CEO of the Peter G Peterson Foundation, said US lawmakers were failing to live up to their “basic fiscal duties”.

“Adding trillion after trillion to the debt and budgeting-by-crisis is no way for a great nation like America to run its finances,” Peterson said in a statement.

“Instead of letting the debt clock tick higher and higher, lawmakers should take advantage of the many responsible reforms that would put our nation on a stronger path for the future.”

In May, Moody’s ratings downgraded the US government’s credit rating from Aaa to Aa1, citing the failure of successive administrations to “reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs”.

The move followed similar downgrades by rating agencies Fitch and Standard & Poor’s in 2011 and 2023, respectively.

While there is debate among economists about how much debt the US can take on before triggering a financial crisis, there is widespread agreement that the current trajectory is unsustainable.

In a 2023 analysis, economists at the Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated that financial markets would not tolerate US debt levels above 200 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the debt could reach 200 percent of GDP by 2047, in part due to sweeping tax cuts included in US President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The lawsuit comes amid growing concerns about how AI fuels the spread of misinformation.

Conservative activist Robby Starbuck sued Google, alleging that the tech giant’s artificial intelligence systems generated “outrageously false” information about him.

On Wednesday, Starbuck said in the lawsuit, filed in Delaware state court, that Google’s AI systems falsely called him a “child rapist,” “serial sexual abuser” and “shooter” in response to user queries and delivered defamatory statements to millions of users.

Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said most of the claims were related to mistaken “hallucinations” from Google’s Bard large language model that the company worked to address in 2023.

“Hallucinations are a well-known issue for all LLMs, which we disclose and work hard to minimise,” Castaneda said. “But as everyone knows, if you’re creative enough, you can prompt a chatbot to say something misleading.”

Starbuck is best known for opposing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“No one — regardless of political beliefs — should ever experience this,” he said in a statement about the lawsuit. “Now is the time for all of us to demand transparent, unbiased AI that cannot be weaponized to harm people.”

Starbuck made similar allegations against Meta Platforms in a separate lawsuit in April. Starbuck and Meta settled their dispute in August, and Starbuck advised the company on AI issues under the settlement.

According to Wednesday’s complaint, Starbuck learned in December 2023 that Bard had falsely connected him with white nationalist Richard Spencer. The lawsuit said that Bard cited fabricated sources and that Google failed to address the statements after Starbuck contacted the company.

Starbuck’s lawsuit also said that Google’s Gemma chatbot disseminated false sexual assault allegations against him in August based on fictitious sources. Starbuck also alleged the chatbot said that he committed spousal abuse, attended the January 6 Capitol riots and appeared in the Jeffrey Epstein files, among other things.

Starbuck said he has been approached by people who believed some of the false accusations and that they could lead to increased threats on his life, noting the recent assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Starbuck asked the court for at least $15m in damages.

Starbuck lawsuit comes amid growing concerns that AI-generated content has become easy to create and can facilitate the spread of misinformation. As Al Jazeera previously reported, Google’s VEO3 AI video maker allowed users to make deceptive videos of news events.

Alphabet — Google’s parent company’s stock is relatively flat on the news of the lawsuit. As of 2:30pm in New York (18:30 GMT), it is up by 0.06 percent.

Frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa faced off in the final debate of the New York City mayoral race on Wednesday, in a final push to woo voters before the November 4 vote.

But the attack lines they deployed against each other, and their defences, were mostly along predictable lines, as their track records, United States President Donald Trump and Israel’s war on Gaza dominated their clash at LaGuardia Community College in the borough of Queens.

Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, maintains a sizeable lead in the polls, after surging to a surprise victory in the June primary on a platform of affordability: pushing free buses, rent freezes, and universal childcare, paid for, in part, by raising taxes that favour the wealthy.

Cuomo has sought to portray Mamdani’s promises – most of which would require buy-in from state lawmakers – as unrealistic and has repeatedly taken aim at the 34-year-old Democratic Socialist’s lack of experience in governing. The race has narrowed since the current mayor, Eric Adams, exited the race, leaving just Mamdani, Cuomo and Sliva in the contest.

Here were the top takeaways from the debate:

Experience versus the future

The night began with Cuomo and Mamdani hammering home the themes that have defined the final stretch of the race.

Cuomo called himself the candidate who “can get it done, not just talk about it”.

“He’s never run anything, managed anything. He’s never had a real job,” he said of Mamdani.

Mamdani called himself the “sole candidate running with a vision for the future of this city”.

“He is a desperate man lashing out because he knows that the one thing he’s always cared about, power, is now slipping away from him,” Mamdani said of Cuomo.

Later in the night, Sliwa took a swipe at both his opponents: “Zohran, your resume could fit on a cocktail napkin, and Andrew, your failures could fill a public school library in New York City.”

Countering Trump

The US president has loomed large over the New York City mayoral race. Wednesday’s debate also came hours after immigration agents raided Manhattan’s Chinatown, an escalation of federal enforcement measures in America’s largest city.

Trump has pledged to deploy the National Guard and to cut federal funding to the city if Mamdani is elected. Cuomo, who shares many of the same donors as Trump, has seized on those threats to portray a win for his rival as dangerous for the city.

“[Trump] has said he’ll take over New York if Mamdani wins, and he will, because he has no respect for him. He [Trump] thinks he’s a kid, and he’s going to knock him [Mamdani] on his tuchus,” Cuomo said.

“I believe [Trump] wants Mamdani, that is his dream, because he will use him politically all across our country, and he will take over New York City,” he said. “Make no mistake, it will be President Trump and Mayor Trump.”

Mamdani called Cuomo “Donald Trump’s puppet”.

“You could turn on the TV any day of the week, and you will hear Donald Trump share that his pick for mayor is Andrew Cuomo, and he wants Andrew Cuomo to be the mayor, not because it will be good for New Yorkers, but because it will be good for him,” he said.

Support for Palestine again looms large

Mamdani was again asked about his staunch support for Palestinian rights, which Cuomo has repeatedly decried, baselessly, as anti-Semitic.

Mamdani said he “will be the mayor who doesn’t just protect Jewish New Yorkers, but also celebrates and cherishes them”. He said Cuomo was using false claims of anti-Semitism to “score political points”.

Cuomo accused him of stoking “the flames of hatred against Jewish people”.

Sliwa falsely accused Mamdani of endorsing “global jihad”.

“That is not something that I have said and that continues to be ascribed to me,” Mamdani responded, “and frankly, I think much of it has to do with the fact that I am the first Muslim candidate to be on the precipice of winning this election.”

Mamdani announces pick for police commissioner

The leading candidate also broke some news during the debate, announcing he would ask current Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to stay on in her post if he wins.

That may upset some of Mamdani’s supporters, who could see the police chief, who is serving under current Mayor Adams, as out of step with the police reforms he has promised.

Tisch, whose family is worth billions, has championed increasing so-called “quality of life” enforcement that critics say disproportionately harms minority communities. She has also pushed to make some criminal laws stricter.

Cuomo grilled on sexual assault

Cuomo was repeatedly asked by his opponents about the sexual misconduct allegations from his employees that saw him leave his post as New York governor early in 2021.

Investigators with the state attorney general later found that Cuomo had “sexually harassed a number of current and former New York State employees”.

Cuomo has claimed the cases have been closed “legally”, but litigation in several cases continues.

During the debate, Mamdani revealed that one accuser, Charlotte Bennett, who Cuomo is currently suing for defamation, was in the audience.

“What do you say to the 13 women who you sexually harassed?” he asked Cuomo.

Cuomo pushed back, arguing that the sexual harassment cases have been dropped. “What you just said was a misstatement, which we’re accustomed to,” he responded to Mamdani.

Here are the key events from day 1,337 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Thursday, October 23, 2025:

Fighting

• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces captured the village of Pavlivka in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhia region, as well as Ivanivka village in the Dnipropetrovsk region. The ministry also said it struck Ukrainian energy infrastructure in what it claimed was a response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian targets.
• Russian attacks throughout Ukraine on Wednesday killed six people, including two children, and forced nationwide power outages, Ukrainian officials said.
• Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 405 drones and 28 missiles at Ukraine in an overnight attack targeting energy infrastructure. Ukraine downed 16 Russian missiles and 333 drones, while other missiles eluded defences and directly hit targets, the air force said.
• Ukrainian Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk said Russia is implementing a methodical campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy system and is targeting repair teams working at energy facilities with secondary attacks after initial strikes.
• Russian drones attacked Kyiv for a second night on Wednesday, injuring four people, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city’s military administration, said early on Thursday. Tkachenko said drones damaged several dwellings and other buildings, including a kindergarten.
• Ukraine’s military said it struck a weapons and ammunition plant in the Russian region of Mordovia and an oil refinery in Dagestan in overnight attacks.
• Russian Vice Admiral Vladimir Tsimlyansky said Russia’s army would seek to use reservists to defend civilian infrastructure such as oil refineries after a sharp rise in Ukrainian drone attacks deep into the country over recent months.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw a test of Russia’s nuclear forces on land, sea and air to rehearse their readiness and command structure, according to reports. The test included the launch of a land-based Yars intercontinental ballistic missile, the launch of a Sineva ballistic missile from a nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, and the launch of nuclear-capable cruise missiles from strategic bombers.

Sanctions

• United States President Donald Trump imposed Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia for the first time in his second term, targeting oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft as his frustration grows with President Putin over the failure to implement a ceasefire.
• The US Department of the Treasury said it was prepared to take further action and called on Moscow to agree immediately to a ceasefire in its war in Ukraine.
• “Given President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions.”
• Trump also said he expected to reach a trade agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping, adding that he would raise concerns about China’s purchases of Russian oil during their meeting in South Korea next week.
• European Union countries also approved a 19th package of sanctions on Moscow that includes a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports.
• The LNG ban will take effect in two stages: Short-term contracts will end after six months, and long-term contracts from January 1, 2027.
• Britain has issued a special licence allowing businesses to work with two German subsidiaries of the sanctioned Russian oil giant Rosneft, as they are under German state control. Last week, Britain announced new sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two largest oil firms, accusing them of helping fund the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
• Ukraine is urging European countries not to limit its use of a proposed $163bn loan based on frozen Russian state assets, arguing that it needs to be able to buy non-European arms, repair war damage from Russian attacks and compensate victims. Some EU states have suggested the funds be spent mainly on European-made weapons to boost their defence industries.
• Russia has no plans to seize any European assets, including companies and banks, but will consider its position if the EU confiscates frozen Russian sovereign assets, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev said.

Ceasefire talks

• President Trump said he cancelled a planned summit with President Putin due to a lack of progress in diplomatic efforts to reach peace in Ukraine and a sense that the timing was off.
• “We cancelled the meeting with President Putin – it just didn’t feel right to me,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get. So I cancelled it, but we’ll do it in the future,” Trump said.
• Trump also expressed frustration with the stalled negotiations, saying, “Every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations, and then they don’t go anywhere. They just don’t go anywhere”.
• Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Trump’s call for Ukraine and Russia to freeze the war at its current front lines was “a good compromise”, but he doubted that Putin would support it.

Military and financial aid

• Trump said a news report on the US giving approval for Ukraine to use long-range missiles deep into Russia was false, adding the US “has nothing to do with those missiles”.
• Sweden has signed a letter of intent that could see it supply up to 150 of its domestically produced Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said after meeting President Zelenskyy.
• Zelenskyy said Ukraine aims to receive and start using Swedish Gripen jets next year. “For our army, Gripens are a priority. It is about money, about manoeuvres,” he said.
• Norway is donating another 1.5 billion Norwegian crowns ($149.4m) to Ukraine for the purchase of natural gas to secure electricity and heating, the Norwegian government said.

The US is charging two men allegedly associated with antifa with “terrorism”. The case follows President Donald Trump’s executive order to designate antifa a “domestic terrorist organization”, despite most experts agreeing that antifa is an ideology rather than an organised group. What does the latest move from the Trump administration mean for dissent and free speech in the US?

Group of 27 Congress members call for release of Mohammed Ibrahim, 16, held in Israeli detention for eight months.

A group of United States lawmakers have urged the Trump administration to secure the release of a 16-year-old Palestinian American who has been held in Israeli detention centres for eight months.

In a letter sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, 27 members of the US Congress called for the release of Mohammed Ibrahim amid reports that he faces abusive conditions in detention.

“As we have been told repeatedly, ‘the Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of US citizens abroad,’” the letter, signed by figures such as Senators Bernie Sanders and Chris Von Hollen, states. “We share that view and urge you to fulfil this responsibility by engaging the Israeli government directly to secure the swift release of this American boy.”

Mohammed’s detention, which has now lasted for more than eight months, has underscored the harsh conditions faced by Palestinians held in Israeli prisons with little legal recourse.

“His family has received updates from US embassy staff and former detainees who described his alarming weight loss, deteriorating health, and signs of torture as his court hearings continue to be routinely postponed,” the letter said.

Analysts and rights advocates also say the case is demonstrative of a general apathy towards the plight of Palestinian Americans by the US government, which is quick to offer support to Israeli Americans who find themselves in harm’s way but slow to respond to instances of violence or abuse against Palestinians with US citizenship.

“The contrast has been made clear: The US government simply does not care about Palestinians with US citizenship who are killed or unjustly detained by Israel,” Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel programme at the Arab Center Washington DC, told Al Jazeera.

During his time in prison, Mohammed’s 20-year-old cousin, Sayfollah Musallet, was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. US Ambassador Huckabee called for the Israeli government to “aggressively investigate” the murder, but no arrests have been made thus far, and Israeli settlers who carry out violent attacks against Palestinian communities rarely face consequences.

Musallet’s family have called for the Trump administration to launch its own independent investigation.

“Our government is not unaware of these cases. They are themselves complicit,” said Munayyer. “In many cases where Palestinian Americans have been killed, the government does nothing. This is not unique to the Trump administration.”

In testimony obtained by the rights group Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), Mohammed said that he was beaten with rifle butts as he was being transported and has been held in a cold cell with inadequate food. DCIP states that he has lost a “considerable amount of weight” since his arrest in February.

Israeli authorities have alleged that Mohammed, 15 years old at the time of his initial detention, threw stones at Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. He has not had a trial and denies the charge, and the letter from US lawmakers states that “no evidence has been publicly provided to support this allegation”.

Charges of stone throwing are widely used by Israeli authorities against Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli facilities are notorious for their mistreatment of detainees.

A DCIP investigation into the detention of Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank found that about 75 percent described being subjected to physical violence following their arrest and that 85.5 percent were not informed of the reason for their arrest.

“The abuse and imprisonment of an American teenager by any other foreign power should be met with outrage and decisive action by our government,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement about the case.

“The Trump administration must be America and American citizens first, and secure the release of Mohammed Ibrahim from Israel immediately. This 16-year-old from Florida belongs at home, safe with his family – not in Israeli military prisons notorious for human rights abuses.”

Economists credit US President Donald Trump’s tariff campaign with reducing trade between Germany and the US, its top trading partner last year.

China overtook the United States as Germany’s largest trading partner during the first eight months of 2025, preliminary data from the German statistics office has shown.

The data indicated that German imports and exports with China totalled $190.7bn (163.4 billion euros) from January to August, while trade with the US amounted to $189bn (162.8 billion euros), according to Reuters calculations.

The US was Germany’s top trading partner in 2024, ending an eight-year streak for China. Germany had sought to reduce its reliance on China, citing political differences and accusing Beijing of unfair practices.

But trade dynamics shifted again this year, with US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and his renewed tariff campaign.

The tariffs have pushed down German exports to the US, which fell 7.4 percent in the first eight months of the year compared with 2024.

In August, exports to the US also fell 23.5 percent year-on-year, showing that the trend is accelerating.

“There is no question that US tariff and trade policy is an important reason for the decline in sales,” said Dirk Jandura, president of the BGA foreign trade association.

Jandura added that US demand for classic German export goods, such as cars, machinery and chemicals, had fallen.

With the ongoing tariff threat and the stronger euro, German exports to the US are unlikely to rebound any time soon, said Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro at the financial institution ING.

Exports to China fell even more sharply than those to the US, dropping 13.5 percent year-on-year to $63.5bn (54.7 billion euros) in the first eight months of 2025.

By contrast, imports from China rose 8.3 percent to $126.4bn (108.8 billion euros).

“The renewed import boom from China is worrying – particularly as data shows that these imports come at dumping prices,” said Brzeski.

He warned that the trend not only increases German dependence on China, but could add to stress in key industries where China has become a major rival.

“In the absence of economic dynamism at home, some in Germany may now be troubled by any shifts on world markets,” said Salomon Fiedler, an economist at the bank Berenberg.

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Following the September assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, United States President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have shaped their political agenda by blaming the left for political violence.

“Political violence, it’s just a statistical fact that it’s a bigger problem on the left,” Vance said while guest-hosting The Charlie Kirk Show podcast on October 15 in the aftermath of Kirk’s killing. About a minute later, he added, “Right now that violent impulse is a bigger problem on the left than the right.”

A Vance spokesperson did not answer our questions. When referring to left-wing violence, a White House spokesperson recently pointed to a September 28 Axios article about a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a nonprofit policy research organisation.

Democrats, calling your political opponents Nazis has consequences.

Study: Left-wing terrorism climbs to 30-year highhttps://t.co/30NvIj9nzC

— Abigail Jackson (@ATJackson47) September 28, 2025

The study found that “2025 marks the first time in more than 30 years that left-wing terrorist attacks outnumber those from the violent far right”. The study also showed that for the 30 years before 2025, right-wing attacks had outpaced left-wing violence.

“The rise in left-wing attacks merits increased attention, but the fall in right-wing attacks is probably temporary, and it too requires a government response,” the authors wrote in the study.

Vance’s statement oversimplified political violence and drew from part of one study of a six-month period. The federal government has no single, official definition of “political violence”, and ascribing ideologies such as the left wing and the right wing is sometimes complicated. There is no agreed upon number of left- or right-wing politically violent attacks.

Research before 2025 largely points to higher levels of right-wing violence over longer periods of time.

Trump has used the administration’s statements about rising left-wing violence to label antifa as a domestic “terrorist threat”, and administration officials also said they will investigate what they call left-wing groups that fund violence.

Although political violence is a small subset of violent crime in the US, it “has a disproportionate impact because even rare incidents can amplify fear, influence policy and deepen societal polarisation”, sociology professors at the University of Dayton, Arthur Jipson and Paul J Becker, wrote in September after Kirk’s assassination.

In an email interview with PolitiFact, Becker said the report in question “indicates there MAY be a shift occurring from the Right being more violent but 5 vs 1 incidents in 6 months isn’t enough to completely erase years of data and reports from multiple sources showing the opposite or to dictate new policies”.

Study examined three decades of political violence

The CSIS, a national security and defence think tank, published a September report examining 750 “terrorist” attacks and plots in the US between 1994 and July 4, 2025.

The report defined “terrorism” as the use or threat of violence “with the intent to achieve political goals by creating a broad psychological impact”.

The authors wrote that it is difficult to pinpoint some perpetrators’ ideologies, which in some cases are more of what former FBI Director Christopher Wray called a “salad bar of ideologies”. For example, Thomas Crooks, who allegedly attempted to assassinate Trump in 2024, searched the internet more than 60 times for Trump and then-President Joe Biden in the month before the attack.

The full CSIS report gave a more complete picture of politically motivated violence:

• Left-wing violence has risen from low levels since 2016. “It has risen from very low levels and remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers.”
• Right-wing attacks sharply declined in 2025, perhaps because right-wing extremist grievances such as opposition to abortion, hostility to immigration and suspicion of government agencies are “embraced by President Trump and his administration”. The report quotes Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader pardoned by Trump, who said, “Honestly, what do we have to complain about these days?”
• Left-wing attacks have been less deadly than right-wing attacks. In the past decade, left-wing attacks have killed 13 people, compared with 112 by right-wing attackers. The report cited several reasons, including that left-wing attackers often choose targets that are protected, such as government or law enforcement facilities, and target specific individuals.
• The number of incidents by the left is small. A graphic in the report showing the rise in left-wing attacks in 2025 as of July 4 is visually striking. It is based on a small number of incidents: four attacks and one disrupted plot.

Studies have not uniformly agreed on some attackers’ ideological classifications. The libertarian Cato Institute categorised the person charged in the shooting deaths of two Israeli embassy staffers in May 2025 as “left-wing”, while the CSIS study described the motivation as “ethnonationalist”. Ethnonationalism is a political ideology based on heritage, such as ethnic identity, which can create clashes with other groups. The Cato study counted only deaths, while the CSIS analysis was not limited to deaths.

“While Vance’s statement has a factual anchor for that limited timespan, it selectively emphasises one short-term slice rather than the broader trend,” Jipson, of the University of Dayton, told PolitiFact. “In that sense, it can be misleading: It may give the impression that left-wing violence is generally now more dangerous or prevalent, which is not borne out by the longer view of the data.”

The Cato analysis, published after Kirk’s death, said 3,597 people were killed in politically motivated US “terrorist” attacks from January 1, 1975, through September 10, 2025.

Cato found right-wing attacks were more common than left-wing violence. This research has been highlighted by some House Democrats.

Wrong again, JD. The data is clear: for decades, right-wing extremism has been the greater threat.https://t.co/TkxBZ08Xjg https://t.co/PCWv4EuP4H

— House Homeland Security Committee Democrats (@HomelandDems) October 15, 2025

Cato wrote that during that period, “terrorists” inspired by what it called “Islamist ideology” were responsible for 87 percent of people killed in attacks on US soil, while right-wing attackers accounted for 11 percent and left-wing “terrorists” accounted for about 2 percent. Excluding the September 11, 2001 attacks showed right-wing attackers were responsible for a majority of deaths. Measuring homicides since 2020 also showed a larger number by the right than the left.

Our ruling

Vance said, “Political violence, it’s just a statistical fact that it’s a bigger problem on the left.”

He did not point to a source, but a White House spokesperson separately cited an article about a study that examined political violence from 1994 to July 4, 2025. It found that, in the first six months of 2025, left-wing attacks outnumbered those by the right. It is based on a small number of incidents: four attacks and one disrupted plot.

The study also showed that for 30 years before 2025, right-wing attacks had outpaced left-wing attacks.

The study detailed that the left wing “remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers”. Research before 2025 largely points to higher levels of right-wing violence over longer periods of time.

The statement contains an element of truth because left-wing violence rose in the first six months of 2025. However, it ignores that right-wing violence was higher for a much longer period of time.

We rate this statement Mostly False.

Chief correspondent Louis Jacobson contributed to this fact-check.

US President Donald Trump has explained a decision to postpone plans for a meeting in Hungary with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to discuss the Ukraine war, telling reporters he doesn’t want a ‘wasted meeting’.