war

The United States and China have declared a truce in the trade war launched by US President Donald Trump in April, argues Evan Medeiros, former US National Security Council director for China.

Medeiros tells host Steve Clemons that the deal reached between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump resolves the urgent trade issues between the two sides – tariff rates, soya beans and rare earth minerals – but China “remains committed to ensuring that Russia doesn’t lose” in Ukraine.

The US has more than 200,000 soldiers surrounding China, Medeiros adds, but Washington knows that “nobody wants to choose between the US and China.”

Many people remain unaccounted for while camps and towns surrounding el-Fasher are overwhelmed too.

Millions of people across war-ravaged Sudan, particularly its western parts, remain in dire need of humanitarian aid as key generals show no intention of ending the civil war amid ongoing violence and killings in North Darfur’s el-Fasher.

International aid agencies called on Sunday on the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to facilitate increased entry of aid while a roadmap by mediators has failed to produce a ceasefire so far.

A week after the paramilitary force seized el-Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur, after an 18-month siege and starvation campaign, the situation remains catastrophic.

Tens of thousands of civilians are still believed to be trapped in the final major city in the western region of Darfur to fall to the RSF while thousands more are unaccounted for after fleeing el-Fasher.

Only a fraction of those who fled on foot from el-Fasher have made it to Tawila, a town roughly 50km (30 miles) away.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Tawila, an official with a France-based aid agency said only a few hundred more people have turned up in the town over the past few days.

“Those are very small numbers considering the number of people who were stuck in el-Fasher. We keep hearing feedback that people are stuck on the roads and in different villages that are unfortunately still inaccessible due to security reasons,” said Caroline Bouvard, Sudan country director for Solidarites International.

Bouvard said there is a “complete blackout” in terms of information coming out of el-Fasher after the RSF takeover and aid agencies are getting their information from surrounding areas where up to 15,000 people are believed to be stuck.

“There’s a strong request for advocacy with the different parties to ensure that humanitarian aid can reach these people or that at least we can send in trucks to bring them back to Tawila.”

Many of the people who have managed to survive numerous RSF checkpoints and patrols to reach Tawila have reported seeing mass executions, torture, beatings and sexual violence. Some were abducted by armed men and forced to pay a ransom on pain of death.

Many more have been forcibly displaced to the al-Dabbah refugee camp in Sudan’s Northern State. Some have been there for weeks.

Reporting from the camp, Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan said over the past few days, more displaced people have poured in from el-Fasher, exacerbating the humanitarian situation.

People are in need of food, clean water, medication and shelter as many are sleeping out in the open. Thousands more could turn to the camp as well as other surrounding areas over the coming days as people flee the slaughter by RSF fighters.

The United States, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as mediators, have all condemned the mass killings and called for increased humanitarian assistance.

“The RSF must stop engaging in retribution and ethnic violence; the tragedy in El Geneina must not be repeated,” the US Department of State said in a statement on Saturday in reference to the massacre of Masalit people in West Darfur’s capital.

“There isn’t a viable military solution, and external military support only prolongs the conflict. The United States urges both parties to pursue a negotiated path to end the suffering of the Sudanese people,” it said in a post on X.

US lawmakers have also called for action from Washington in the aftermath of the el-Fasher takeover by the RSF.

Republican Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Friday called for the US to officially designate the RSF as a “foreign terrorist organisation”.

The battle over Ukraine’s Pokrovsk rages as both Russia and Ukraine continue to hit each other’s energy infrastructure.

Here is how things stand on Sunday, November 2, 2025:

Fighting

• At least four civilians have been killed and 51 injured across Ukraine by Russian attacks, according to local officials.
• A strike blamed on Russia hit a shop in the Samariivskyi district of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, killing two and injuring multiple people, regional military chief Vladyslav Haivanenko said.
• The Ukrainian military has said Russian forces launched four missiles and dropped 139 guided bombs over the past day, as well as thousands of shells and drones.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its air defences intercepted 164 Ukrainian drones, including 39 over the Black Sea and 26 over Crimea, overnight.
• Fighting continues to intensify near the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, with the Russian army saying its forces destroyed Ukrainian military formations near the railway station.
• Oleksandr Syrskii, Ukraine’s top military commander, said Ukrainian troops were facing a “multi-thousand enemy” force in Pokrovsk, but rejected Russian claims that they were surrounded or blocked.
• Ukraine confirmed that its special forces had been deployed to protect key supply lines in Pokrovsk, while Russia claimed Ukrainian troops were surrendering and some of the special forces were killed while landing in a helicopter.
• Ukraine’s military intelligence announced a strike on the Koltsevoy fuel pipeline near Moscow, claiming all three lines were destroyed.
• A drone attack by Ukraine reportedly hit an oil terminal pier and a tanker in Tuapse town, located on the northeast shore of the Black Sea, setting fire to port infrastructure.

Politics

• Ukraine condemned Russia’s attacks on key energy infrastructure. Its Foreign Ministry accused Moscow of carrying out strikes on a power substation feeding nuclear power plants in “nuclear terrorism”.
• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that its inspectors visited a substation critical to nuclear safety and security in Ukraine, and reported damage “as a result of recent military activities”.
• In a statement on Friday, G7 energy ministers condemned Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, saying they are affecting civilians.
• Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed on Friday that his foreign intelligence service has identified 339 Ukrainian children who have been allegedly abducted by Russia.

Regional security

• Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told the Reuters news agency he is confident that the country’s governing coalition can agree on a new model of military service for implementation next year as planned.
• An unidentified drone was spotted over the Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium on Saturday, the second such sighting over the previous 24 hours.

Ukrainian army chief says effort continues ‘to destroy and dislodge’ Russian forces from strategic Donetsk region city.

Ukraine has deployed special forces to the embattled eastern city of Pokrovsk, the country’s top military commander said, as Kyiv seeks to maintain control of the area amid an intense Russian offensive.

Russia has been trying to capture Pokrovsk, dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk”, since mid-2024 in its campaign to control the entirety of the eastern Donetsk region.

“We are holding Pokrovsk,” Ukraine’s army chief Oleksandr Syrskii said on Facebook on Saturday. “A comprehensive operation to destroy and dislodge enemy forces from Pokrovsk is ongoing.”

Home to more than 60,000 people before the Russia-Ukraine war began in February 2022, Pokrovsk lies on a major supply route for the Ukrainian army.

Taking control of the city would be the most important Russian territorial gain inside Ukraine since Moscow took over Avdiivka in early 2024 after one of the bloodiest battles of the conflict.

Russia and Ukraine have presented conflicting accounts of what has been happening in Pokrovsk in recent days.

The Russian Ministry of Defence on Saturday claimed its forces had defeated the team of Ukrainian special forces that were sent to the city. It later posted videos showing two men it said were Ukrainians who had surrendered.

The footage shows the men, one dressed in fatigues and the other in a dark green jacket, sitting against a peeling wall in a dark room, as they speak of fierce fighting and encirclement by Russian forces.

The video’s authenticity could not be independently verified, and there was no immediate public comment from Kyiv on the Russian ministry’s claims.

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed last week that his forces had encircled the city’s Ukrainian defenders.

But Syrskii, the Ukrainian army chief, said on Saturday that while the situation in Pokrovsk remains “hardest” for Ukrainian forces, there is no encirclement or blockade as Russia has claimed.

“The main burden lies on the shoulders of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, particularly UAV operators and assault units,” Syrskii said.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged on Friday that some Russian units had infiltrated Pokrovsk, but he insisted that Kyiv is weeding them out.

Russian officials say control of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka to its northeast would allow Moscow to drive north towards the two biggest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in Donetsk – Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

Tehran, Iran – President Masoud Pezeshkian unveiled a “Gen Z adviser” about a month ago, posing for a smiling photo with him that went viral online.

The adviser, Amirreza Ahmadi, told local media that he sees his mission as listening to the youth of Iran, “from Tehran to the borders of this country”, going so far as to share his mobile number.

But he later blocked commenting on his social media profiles after criticism from users who claimed that Ahmadi did not “resemble” Gen Z Iranians, was using bots to boost his social media accounts, and had no established connection with youth groups or students demanding change.

The appointment appears to have been part of an effort by the moderate administration, which promised improved social freedoms and lifted sanctions during election campaigns, to connect with younger generations, who have been driving political change across Asia and globally.

Pezeshkian and his administration have struggled, though – partly as a result of indifference from many young Iranians to their overtures, and partly because many of the Iranian establishment’s more hardline factions have little interest in appeasing the youth.

Sanam Vakil, director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, said the Iranian state is struggling to speak the language of a generation that grew up online and outside its ideological frame.

As such, she added, its outreach “feels transactional rather than transformative and ultimately is directed to staving off unrest and protests”, while the hardline elite’s fear of losing control outweighs any concern about losing the young.

“That imbalance keeps Iran locked in a politics of repression rather than renewal. I think the system will be locked between conflicting messages, narratives, and policies,” she told Al Jazeera.

Many of the people defying aspects of state controls are Gen Z youth, who are, like most Iranians, also crushed by the deteriorating economic conditions and rampant inflation amid corruption and mismanagement.

Testing the boundaries

With Israel and its Western allies openly touting regime change in Iran since the 12-day war between them in June, authorities say they recognise that public support is needed to get the country through difficult conditions, including reinstated UN sanctions and the lingering threat of war.

This forced some officials, mostly those in the more moderate or pragmatic camps, to advocate for dialling down some controls on social freedoms.

Former President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate camp leader, last week criticised hardline lawmakers and politicians for advancing legislation opposed by an overwhelming majority of Iranians, in a likely reference to the contentious issue of mandatory hijab.

The government has said it will not enforce the law.

Iranshahr, Tehran

pic.twitter.com/8nIaJAZVAO

— Arash Azizi آرش عزیزی (@arash_tehran) October 25, 2025

But, on the other hand, hardline factions within the establishment have mobilised to reintroduce as many restrictions as possible.

A video recorded in downtown Tehran went viral online this week, showing young men and women, who disregarded the dress code imposed by the theological establishment, enjoying a street music performance.

After years of musicians defying a state ban on street performances, they have become increasingly common, but still face crackdowns if they get too much attention.

At least one of the band members had their Instagram account closed by Iranian authorities, with the police posting on the account that it was shut down by judicial order due to “publishing criminal content”.

The authorities have not publicly confirmed whether the band member could face further punishment.

Hardline conservative media outlets this week reported another crackdown in Tehran.

Ticket sales for a “disco that included naked women dancing with boys” in the Pakdasht area were stopped, and legal cases were opened against organisers, according to the state-run Fars news website, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

This was in reference to an electronic music event that had been running for weeks and was selling tickets legally after obtaining the required permits from the authorities.

Dancing in public spaces, especially when done by men and women together, are prohibited and at times, punished by Iranian authorities.

Drinking alcohol remains outlawed, as well, leading to some Iranians purchasing smuggled goods or dangerous homemade products. Alcohol tainted with ethanol and other chemicals continues to claim dozens of lives each year.

But some cafes and restaurants continue to hire DJs – and at times, serve alcohol – despite the restrictions.

In mid-September, authorities permanently shut down a major restaurant located in Tehran’s Nahjol Balaghe Park because a clip showed people dancing to music inside and because alcohol was allegedly served there.

Several clothing shops and other vendors have been shut down over recent weeks after they held events where young people danced in attendance.

In mid-September, authorities also cancelled a major public concert at Tehran’s iconic Azadi Tower that was initially conceived by the government as a demonstration of national unity.

The apparent contradiction between the positions of different factions within the establishment highlights the nature of Iran – with the government not necessarily having the final say in diffferent matters, and other forces, such as the Revolutionary Guard, able to defy government policy.

Hijab laws, online freedoms

The Supreme National Security Council has ordered authorities to stop heavily enforcing the controversial hijab law, which penalises women and men with prison time, being lashed or paying fines if the state determines their attire is improper.

Iran experienced months of deadly nationwide protests in 2022 and 2023 after the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was arrested over her hijab.

However, some so-called “morality police” vans have been seen in cities across the country, even though Pezeshkian’s government said no budget had been dedicated towards it.

Another group defying the system in Iran are women riding motorcycles, as the state still won’t issue them motorcycle licences.

The government introduced legislation to allow women to ride, but it is stuck in a parliament dominated by hardline lawmakers after a record-low turnout in elections since 2020.

More women are riding motorcycles across the country, however, with hundreds filmed recently taking part in group rides in Tehran.

Pezeshkian’s government has also failed to honour another campaign promise: lifting draconian state bans on almost all global social media and tens of thousands of websites.

The government this week blamed Israel for the continued imposition of the tough internet restrictions, claiming that the controls would have been lifted had it not been for the June war.

Azadeh Moaveni, writer and associate professor at New York University, told Al Jazeera she does not believe any faction of the state enjoys broad support from the younger generation, as they haven’t been able to offer them anything substantial.

“Pragmatists within the state are just offering their own frustration, which is of zero value, and at best pointing out, as the president has, that he won’t enforce laws that the majority of the country opposes, like the hijab law,” she said.

Moaveni said the dynamic of loosening and tightening of social freedoms by the state to manage society was no longer working, partly due to the changes taking place in society and also because of the dire economic conditions and multiple ongoing crises reshaping daily life.

Israeli strikes on Gaza this week have killed more than 100 people following the killing of an Israeli soldier, but the shaky ceasefire continues to hold.

British blogger Kieren Adam Owen, better known as JimmyTheGiant, has become a passionate defender of Ukraine since marrying Vlada after meeting her on a holiday in Thailand

“The first thing you notice about Ukraine is how spotless the toilets are.”

British blogger Kieren Adam Owen, better known as JimmyTheGiant, was taken aback by the sparkling state of the bathrooms in Lviv when he visited the Ukrainian city for the first time after meeting his now-wife, Vlada, whom he had fallen head over heels for during a holiday in Thailand.

But it’s not just the immaculate nature of the WCs that caught Keiren’s eye. He is now a great enthusiast for the food, the coffee, the community life in the countryside and much else in Ukraine.

He is not the only one to have fallen for a nation that has been devastated by the war, or who is willing to go to great lengths to get there. According to data compiled by the State Border Service of Ukraine and VisitKyiv.com for the first half of 2025, foreigners crossed the Ukrainian border 1,194,983 times – 6,000 more than in the same period last year. That is, of course, a much smaller number than before the war and the coronavirus pandemic. In 2019, 13.4million tourists visited Ukraine.

All those who do go are risking their lives to varying degrees. As of 30 September 2025, 14,383 civilians had been killed in the war, according to the OHCHR. The UK Foreign Office states bluntly that it “advises against all travel to parts of Ukraine.”

Kieren is clearly aware of these dangers and not immune to fear. When in the country, whenever the air raid sirens begin to ring out, he immediately rushes down to the shelter: unlike some war-weary Ukrainians. “I can imagine that when you live there, you don’t always want to go to a shelter — probably because it’s a headache, and you know that the actual attacks that hit are fewer than the ones you hear the sirens for. But when you’re traveling, you can kind of do it, so I always just go to the shelter whenever,” he told the Mirror.

READ MORE: UK’s ‘most magical street’ is real-life Diagon Alley with quirky shops and hidden gemsREAD MORE: The UK’s ‘most remote village’ where people get stranded in its ‘perfect pub’

While most today are travelling for work or family events, some head to the war-torn country simply to explore. Others are on pilgrimage to Uman – an annual trip when thousands of Hasidim visit the tomb of Rabbi Nachman, founder of Bratslav Hasidism. Humanitarian trips are common, with large numbers travelling to participate in dozens of reconstruction projects crucial for a country that has been battered by missiles and drone strikes since February 2022.

Surprisingly, it is not in the cities that Keiren has felt most scared. Rather, it is in the rural areas without bomb shelters where he’s most feared for his life. There, he has watched rockets falling right above his head, with nowhere to hide except the house he was living in. “You feel more vulnerable there — there’s only ‘God’s protection’,” he said.

Kieren was once best known for his analytical takes on economics and politics, before he began producing documentary reports from Ukraine. The change in direction came after he married Vlada.

Now he spends a significant portion of his time promoting the lesser-known aspects of one of Europe’s poorest countries.

In a 52-minute YouTube video titled ‘How Ukraine changed my life‘, which he published earlier this year, the Milton Keynes lad explained how the country stole his heart.

“Your image of Ukraine is of this very brutalist, post-Soviet, kind of depressing, poor place, and Lviv just shattered this mental image. You’re walking on these cobbled streets, and you see all these beautiful, stunning, classical buildings. Everyone around you is cooler than you, dressed cooler than you, they’re just stylish, chill bras. Every single restaurant or cafe is on the level of the coolest of cool places in London, even better in some cases. The coffee… I literally became a coffee snob because of that trip.”

Keiren’s adulation for Ukraine stretches to the rural areas, where his in-laws live. There, wages are much lower than in Lviv and the capital Kyiv, yet access to great stretches of arable countryside abounds. Many work the land alongside their day jobs, building up larders with conserves and wines, as small-holding, subsistence farmers.

“I would argue in some regards, they live a much more fulfilling life than many poor people in the UK,” Kieren says in his video, noting the level of community cohesion, access to nature and fresh food many rural Ukrainians enjoy.

Kieren makes clear that he “isn’t saying that their lives are heaven” or that serious poverty, access issues for disabled people, and low life expectancy aren’t serious issues in the country.

Kieren has never been close to the front line, where the level of danger is much higher. Despite the risks he runs by being in Ukraine, he is keen to keep returning to a country he has fallen in love with.

“This is how high-quality everything is. I miss how everywhere you go, everything just feels perfect. That’s super nice. And the vibe. It’s just nice to be in Ukraine — the trees, the streets of Kyiv, the people who, despite the war, remain friendly and create an incredible atmosphere,” he continued.

For many Brits who find a second home abroad, the financial clout of the pound is a significant benefit. As he earns money in Britain, Kieren can afford more than he would back in the UK.

“When you come here, you feel like a millionaire,” he joked. “So you can have a really enjoyable week, constantly visiting various establishments.”

Kieren’s top recommendation is the restaurant 100 rokiv tomu vpered (100 Years Ahead), run by renowned Ukrainian chef Yevgen Klopotenko, who serves up traditional dishes, such as borscht, and the less typical fried bees. Another favourite place is Musafir, a Crimean Tatar restaurant known for its fried, doughy chibereks.

When not indulging in the local fare, Keiren enjoys spending time on Reitarska Street, an artistic hub in Kyiv, and Andriivskyi Uzviz. Kieren also recommends visiting the Golden Gate in the city center, a historic structure that was once the entrance to Kyiv, as well as having a picnic in one of Kyiv’s parks, such as Taras Shevchenko Park.

The top 10 countries by number of entries into Ukraine in the first half of 2025

1. Moldova — 509,219
2. Romania — 197,012
3. Poland — 116,589
4. Hungary — 60,400
5. Slovakia — 35,279
6. Israel — 26,869
7. Germany — 23,687
8. Turkey — 22,858
9. United States — 22,840
10. United Kingdom — 17,210

Here are the key events from day 1,346 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Saturday, November 1, 2025:

Fighting

• Russian forces killed eight people and injured 18 others in Ukraine’s Donetsk region in the past day, the Head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, Vadym Filashkin, reported on Facebook on Friday.
• Five people were killed, and three others injured, when two different cars hit explosive devices in a forest area of Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region on Friday, local police said, adding that they are “investigating the circumstances” of the “two car bombings in the border zone”.
• Russian forces launched 673 attacks on 19 settlements in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region in a day, killing at least three people and injuring 29, governor Ivan Fedorov wrote in a post on Telegram.
• A 56-year-old woman was killed, and four other people were wounded, in Russian shelling of the Dnipro district of Ukraine’s Kherson region, the Kherson Regional Military Administration wrote in a post on Telegram on Friday.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters that 170,000 Russian troops are deployed near the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk but that the city is not encircled, according to Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform.
• Russian forces seized the Ukrainian village of Novooleksandrivka, in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed, according to Russia’s TASS news agency. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the claim.
• Ukrainian shelling left more than 2,000 households without electricity in the town of Kamianka-Dniprovska in Russian-occupied Zaporizhia, TASS reported, citing local officials.
• Ukraine’s navy said on Friday it struck a Russian thermal power plant in the Oryol region and an electric substation in Novobryansk with Neptune cruise missiles.

• Ukrainian forces have hit 160 Russian oil and energy facilities so far this year, the head of the SBU security service, Vasyl Maliuk, told reporters on Friday.

Politics and diplomacy

• Moldova’s parliament chose Alexandru Munteanu as its new prime minister, in support of the country’s efforts to join the European Union and move further away from Russia.

Sanctions

• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday he hopes to convince United States President Donald Trump that Hungary should be exempted from US sanctions on Russian oil because of its high dependence on pipeline networks for its energy supplies. Orban also noted that Germany had sought an exemption for one of its refineries.
• The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday it had banned entrance to Russia for more European Union officials in response to new European sanctions against Russia, without providing a list of banned individuals.
• The European Commission said on Friday that export bans on Ukrainian foods imposed by three EU members – Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – were not justified now that an updated EU-Ukraine free trade agreement has entered force.

Regional security

Weapons

• The Pentagon has told the White House that providing Tomahawk weapons to Ukraine would not negatively impact US stockpiles, CNN reported, citing three unnamed US and European officials.

Relations nosedived in 2018 after Canada arrested a senior Huawei executive and have remained rocky ever since.

The leaders of China and Canada have taken a step towards mending the long-fractured ties between their countries with a meeting in South Korea during the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney met on Friday and called for improving ties in a pragmatic and constructive manner, according to both sides.

“The leaders agreed that their meeting marked a turning point in the bilateral relationship,” a Canadian statement said.

Xi was quoted as saying that relations are showing signs of recovery, thanks to the joint efforts of both sides.

“We are willing to work together with Canada to take this meeting as an opportunity to promote the return of bilateral relations to a healthy, stable and sustainable track as soon as possible,” Xi said, according to an official report distributed by China’s state media.

Carney, who became prime minister in March, accepted an invitation from Xi to visit China, the Canadian statement said, without specifying any date.

Carney also later told reporters he was “very pleased” with the outcome.

“We now have a turning point in the relationship, a turning point that creates opportunities for Canadian families, for Canadian businesses and Canadian workers, and also creates a path to address current issues,” he said.

“The meeting signals a change in tone and an openness to relations at the highest levels, but this is not a return to strategic partnership,” said Vina Nadjibulla, vice president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. “Canada needs to proceed with caution because there’s nothing to suggest the Chinese Communist Party’s actions have changed since the prime minister named China as a foreign security threat.”

She said Carney should keep talking with Chinese leaders but stay mindful of China’s threats to Canada’s security interests, including its efforts to play a greater role in Arctic affairs.

Shaky relations

Relations took a nosedive in late 2018 after Canadian authorities arrested a senior executive of Chinese tech giant Huawei as part of its extradition agreement with the United States. China then arrested two Canadian citizens and charged them with espionage.

Ties did not improve much even after the 2021 release of the two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, and the Chinese executive, Meng Wanzhou, who is the daughter of Huawei’s founder.

More recently, relations have been shaken by Canada’s decision to levy a 100 percent tariff on electric vehicles (EVs) from China in 2024 and a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminium. China retaliated with its own steep tariffs on canola, seafood and pork, and has offered to remove some of those import taxes if Canada drops the EV tariff.

Canada made the move last in tandem with the US.

The Canadian statement said that both leaders directed their officials to move quickly to resolve trade issues and irritants and discussed solutions for specific products such as EVs, canola and seafood.

Xi called for expanding “pragmatic” cooperation in areas such as the economy, trade and energy. Both Canada and China have been hit by tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump.

The attempt at rapprochement comes as Carney looks to diversify Canada’s trade away from the US and as Trump says he plans to raise tariffs on imports of Canadian goods by an extra 10 percent. Canada’s free trade agreement with the US is up for review.

Earlier on Friday, Carney told a business event that the world of rules-based liberalised trade and investment had passed, adding that Canada aimed to double its non-US exports over the next decade.

Nadjibulla said China should not be viewed as the solution to Canada’s issues with the US, however.

“We should not diversify away from the US and go deeper into China,” she said. “Canada’s overdependence on both the US and China has been shown to be a vulnerability we cannot afford.”

Reports of massacres by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Darfur – after the army was pushed out of the region.

Tens of thousands of civilians are now feared trapped in el-Fasher.

The conflict in Sudan has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

So, what can be done to stop the bloodshed?

Presenter: Nick Clark

Guests:

Hamid Khalafallah – Researcher and Policy Analyst

Bakry Eljack – Professor of Public Policy at Long Island University Brooklyn

Justin Lynch – Managing Director, Conflict Insights Group

“No one is safe in el-Fasher.” The UN Security Council condemned escalating violence in Sudan’s Darfur region amid reports of atrocities by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The ambassadors to Sudan and the United Arab Emirates had a heated exchange, with Sudan accusing the UAE of supporting the RSF.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is restricting the number of refugees it admits into the country to 7,500 and they will mostly be white South Africans, a dramatic drop after the U.S. previously allowed in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution from around the world.

The administration published the news Thursday in a notice on the Federal Registry.

No reason was given for the numbers, which are a dramatic decrease from last year’s ceiling set under the Biden administration of 125,000. The Associated Press previously reported that the administration was considering admitting as few as 7,500 refugees and mostly white South Africans.

The memo said only that the admission of the 7,500 refugees during 2026 fiscal year was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.”

Santana writes for the Associated Press.

Russian and Ukrainian forces are interlocked in desperate battles for control of Ukraine’s eastern towns of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, which Moscow considers a gateway to the remaining unoccupied areas of the Donetsk region.

On Sunday, Valery Gerasimov, Russian chief of staff,  told President Vladimir Putin his 2nd and 51st Combined Arms Armies were “advancing along converging axes” and “have completed the encirclement of the enemy” in Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad.

He claimed some 5,500 Ukrainian troops were surrounded, including elite airborne and marine units.

Russian military reporters contradicted these claims, with one named “Military Informant” telling 621,000 Telegram subscribers, “There is simply no encirclement” as the two claws of Gerasimov’s attempted pincer movement were still “several kilometres” apart.

On Thursday, Oleksandr Syrskii, the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, also denied Gerasimov’s claim.

“The statements of Russian propaganda about the alleged ‘blocking’ of the defence forces of Ukraine in Pokrovsk, as well as in Kupiansk, do not correspond to reality,” Syrskii said.

The Russian reporter also thought it “extremely unlikely” that thousands of Ukrainian troops were trapped.

“If earlier urban battles were a classic meat grinder ‘head-to-head’ with battles for each house,” he said, now they are “conducted by small groups of infantry with the support of many drones”.

Geolocated footage showed that isolated Russian groups had entered western and central Pokrovsk on October 23, but they did not appear to control areas within the city, rather to stake out positions and await reinforcements.

Ukraine’s General Staff said the situation around Pokrovsk “remains difficult”, and estimated that some 200 Russian troops had infiltrated the town, but said defending units were conducting sabotage operations that prevented Russian units from gaining a permanent foothold.

The front around Pokrovsk also remained dynamic.

Ukrainian military observer Konstantyn Mashovets reported that Kyiv’s troops were able to ambush Russian rear positions in the village of Sukhetsky, northeast of Pokrovsk, demonstrating the porousness of the front line.

“[Russian] small infantry groups in some places began to collide with Ukrainian corresponding groups quite often and suddenly, even before their deployment or when moving to strengthen and replenish their assault groups directly,” said Mashovets.

“Due to the abundance of drones in the air, which make the movement of any large concentrations of infantry extremely dangerous, the positions of both sides remain mixed,” said Kremlin-aligned Russian military news outlet Rybar. “This leads to the absence of a single front line and prevents the determination of the exact boundaries of the control zones.”

Mashovets estimated that the Russian 2nd Combined Arms Army, which he described as the “main impact force”, had received reinforcements of between 6,000 and 10,500 troops from other areas of the front ahead of the latest assault, which began in mid-October.

“Special attention is focused on Pokrovsk and the neighbouring areas. That is where the occupier has concentrated its largest assault forces,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a Monday evening address. “It is Pokrovsk that is their main objective.”

Ukraine strikes Russian energy hubs

Zelenskyy has often said his objective is to return the war to Russian soil. Ukraine’s long-range drones and cruise missiles were performing that task during the past week.

Ukraine struck the Ryazan oil refinery for the fifth time this year on October 23, setting ablaze a crude oil distillation unit. Russia’s Defence Ministry said 139 Ukrainian drones had been shot down overnight.

Leningrad’s regional governor said “several” Ukrainian drones had been shot down without causing damage or casualties on Saturday.

Ukraine struck a fuel and lubricants container in Simferopol on Wednesday, Crimean occupation Governor Sergey Aksyonov said.

Putin boasts of weapons ‘nobody else in the world has’

Russian officials who have been supportive of US President Donald Trump’s efforts to negotiate a peace directly with Putin changed their tone after Trump cancelled a summit with Putin and imposed sanctions on Russian oil majors Lukoil and Rosneft last week.

“The US is our adversary, and its verbose ‘peacemaker’ is now firmly on the warpath against Russia,” said Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia’s National Security Council, saying Trump was now “completely aligned with mad Europe”.

Over cakes and tea with Russian war veterans on Monday, Putin announced the successful test launch of a new nuclear-powered torpedo with the ability to create radioactive tidal waves targeting coastal regions.

The Poseidon reportedly has a range of 10,000km (6,200 miles) and travels at 185km/h (115mph). As with previous unveilings of Russian weapons, Putin said, “There’s nothing like it in the world, its rivals are unlikely to appear anytime soon, and there are no existing interception methods”.

Duma Defence Committee Chairman Andrey Kartapolov said the Poseidon was“capable of disabling entire states”.

Three days earlier, Putin had announced the successful test of a new nuclear-capable cruise missile, the Burevestnik, which is also nuclear-powered.

“It is a unique ware which nobody else in the world has,” Putin said.

Russia followed a similar political intimidation tactic in November 2024, when it launched the Oreshnik, a hypersonic, intermediate-range ballistic, nuclear-capable missile, to hit a Ukrainian factory in Dnipro. On Tuesday, Putin said he would deploy the Oreshnik in Belarus by December.

Russia also tested the Sarmat, a new intercontinental ballistic missile that Putin said is not yet operational, in the Sea of Japan. None of the tests were independently verified, and it was unclear whether any of the new weapons were battle-ready or whether they could be produced at scale.

On October 22, Moscow conducted a routine strategic forces exercise, sending Tupolev-22M3 long-range bombers over the Baltic Sea, framing it as a reaction to Western aggression.

Trump said on Monday that Putin should instead focus on ending the war.

“I don’t think it’s an appropriate thing for Putin to be saying,” said the US president. “You ought to get the war ended; the war that should have taken one week is now in … its fourth year, that’s what you ought to do instead of testing missiles.”

Aid organisations fear that far fewer people than hoped have been able to leave the besieged Darfur city.

Those who have fled the western city of el-Fasher in wartorn Sudan are recounting scenes of horrific violence at the hands of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as aid workers say they fear only a fraction of the besieged city’s residents have managed to escape.

The RSF has killed at least 1,500 people in el-Fasher, capital of North Darfur state, since seizing it Sunday – including at least 460 at a hospital in a widely-condemned massacre.

More than 36,000 people have fled since Saturday, largely on foot, to Tawila, a town around 70 kilometres (43 miles) west that is already sheltering roughly 650,000 displaced people.

Hayat, a mother of five children, told the AFP news agency via satellite phone that seven RSF fighters ransacked her home, searched her undergarments and killed her 16-year-old son in front of her.

As she fled with neighbours, “we saw many dead bodies lying on the ground and wounded people left behind in the open because their families couldn’t carry them,” she recalled.

Another survivor named Hussein was wounded by shelling but made it to Tawila with the help of a family carrying their mother on a donkey cart.

“The situation in El-Fasher is so terrible — dead bodies in the streets, and no one to bury them,” he said. We’re grateful we made it here, even if we only have the clothes we were wearing.”

Aisha Ismael, another displaced person from el-Fasher recounted to The Associated Press news agency: “Shelling and drones (attacks) were happening all the time. They hit us with the back of the rifles day and night unless we hid in the houses. At 3 in the morning we sneaked outside the houses till we arrived Hillat Alsheth (area in north Darfur) where we were looted. They left us with nothing, I came here barefoot, even my shoes were taken.”

But aid workers in Tawila say they’re still waiting for most of el-Fasher’s supposed evacuees.

Mathilde Vu, advocacy manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council, which manages the Tawila camp, told the Associated Press “the number of people who made it to Tawila is very small”.

“Where are the others?” she said. “That tells the horror of the journey.”

The United Nations moved to approve a $20 million allocation for Sudan from the Central Emergency Response Fund to help scale up response efforts in Tawila and elsewhere in Darfur, UN Secretary-General spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Wednesday.

The UN was “horrified” by the slaughter of more than 450 people at Saudi Hospital, where patients, health workers and residents had sought shelter, Dujarric added.

Elderly people, the wounded and those with disabilities remained “stranded and unable to flee the area”, he said.

Shayna Lewis, a Sudan specialist, told Al Jazeera the massacre of civilians was “most devastating because we in civil society have been warning the international community for over a year about the atrocity risks for the civilian population of North Darfur”.

For 18 months before Sudan’s army withdrew from the city, an RSF siege had trapped hundreds of thousands of people trapped inside without food or essentials.

What’s most “astonishing”, Lewis added, was the ability to see the bloodshed from outer space: Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) reported satellite imagery shows clusters of objects consistent with human bodies and large areas of red discolouration on the ground.

GYEONGJU, South Korea, Oct. 30 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump departed from South Korea on Thursday after a highly anticipated meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping that lowered the temperature on a simmering trade war with agreements on rare earth minerals, fentanyl, soybeans and tariffs.

The two leaders met for the first time since 2019 at Gimhae Air Base in the southeastern city of Busan, shortly after Xi arrived in the country for a three-day state visit to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Speaking to reporters on his way back to Washington aboard Air Force One, Trump described the outlines of a trade deal that he said would be signed “pretty soon.”

According to the president, China agreed to take steps to stop the flow of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl into the United States. In response, Trump said he halved the 20% fentanyl-linked tariffs he had imposed earlier this year.

“Based on [Xi’s] statements today, I reduced it by 10%. So, it’s 10% instead of 20%, effective immediately,” Trump said.

The reduction brings the overall tariff rate on goods from China from 57% to 47%, he said.

Beijing also agreed to resume purchases of American soybeans and set a one-year pause on its planned export controls of rare earth minerals. China dominates the production and processing of the metallic elements, which are crucial for manufacturing a vast array of high-tech products from smartphones to missiles.

“We have not too many stumbling blocks now,” Trump said. “We have a deal. We’ll negotiate at the end of a year, but all of the rare earth has been settled.”

No official announcement from either side has been released yet, but the U.S. president declared the meeting a “great success.”

“Overall, on the scale of from zero to 10, with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12,” Trump said.

One topic the two leaders did not discuss was Taiwan, Trump noted. Some analysts had expected Xi to exert leverage in an attempt to soften U.S. support for the self-governing island of 23 million, which China sees as a breakaway province.

“I’m relieved Taiwan apparently didn’t come up in today’s meeting,” Sean King, senior vice president and East Asia expert at New York-based consulting firm Park Strategies, told UPI.

However, King said that the trade deal does not represent significant progress from when Trump kicked off his global tariff scheme in early April, on what the White House dubbed “Liberation Day.”

“We’re seemingly no further along than where we were on Liberation Day,” King said. “Unlike friendly leaders, Xi gave Trump no golden gifts … Right now, for better or worse, it seems like not too much of major trade substance happened in today’s meeting.”

At the start of the meeting, the two leaders had a brief introductory exchange that was open to the media.

“Given our different national conditions, we do not always see eye to eye with each other and it is normal for the two leading economies of the world to have friction now and then,” Xi said.

Xi called on Trump to join him and “ensure the steady sailing forward of the giant ship of China-U.S. relations.”

“I always believe that China’s development goes hand in hand with your vision to make America great again,” Xi said. “Our two countries are fully able to help each other succeed and prosper together.”

After the meeting, Xi traveled to the nearby city of Gyeongju to take part in the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting. Trump attended the APEC summit on Wednesday, where he struck a trade deal with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and delivered a keynote address at a CEO luncheon.

A residential building floor collapsed as rescue workers were searching through the rubble, following overnight Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine’s southern city of Zaporizhzhia. Officials said six children were among 13 injured in the strikes.

Ben Rhodes, a former United States deputy national security adviser under President Barack Obama, famously called Washington’s foreign policy establishment “the Blob” to describe its entrenched ecosystem of think tanks, former officials, journalists and funders that perpetuate a narrow vision of power, global order and legitimate actors. This apparatus not only sustains conservative inertia but also defines the limits of what is considered possible in policy. In Sudan’s two-and-a-half-year conflict, these self-imposed boundaries are proving fatal.

A particularly insidious practice within the Blob is the invocation of moral and rhetorical equivalence, portraying the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) as comparable adversaries. This ostensibly balanced US stance, evident in establishment analyses and diplomatic statements, represents not an impartial default but a deliberate political construct. By equating a criminalised, externally backed militia with a national army tasked with state duties, it sanitises RSF atrocities, recasting them as mere wartime exigencies rather than orchestrated campaigns of ethnic cleansing, urban sieges and terror.

Reports from Human Rights Watch on ethnic cleansing in West Darfur, civilian killings, rape and unlawful detentions in Gezira and Khartoum and United Nations fact-finding missions confirm the RSF’s deliberate targeting of civilians. Furthermore, a report by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) monitor from late 2024 attributed roughly 77 percent of violent incidents against civilians to the RSF, underscoring this asymmetry, yet the Blob’s discourse frequently obscures it.

This notion has dominated US and international discourse on Sudan’s war since its outbreak when the then-US ambassador to Khartoum, John Godfrey, tweeted in the first month of the war a condemnation of RSF sexual violence but vaguely attributed it to unspecified “armed actors”. By refraining from explicitly identifying the perpetrators despite extensive documentation of the RSF’s responsibility for systematic rapes, gang rapes and sexual slavery, his wording essentially dispersed accountability across the warring parties and contributed to a climate of institutional impunity. RSF militiamen carry out their atrocities with confidence, knowing that responsibility will be blurred and its burden scattered across the parties.

What drives this equivalence? The Blob’s institutions often prioritise access over veracity. Framing the conflict symmetrically safeguards diplomatic ties with regional allies, particularly the RSF’s patrons in the United Arab Emirates while projecting an aura of neutrality. However, neutrality amid asymmetric criminality is not objectivity; it is tacit complicity. Elevating an internationally enabled militia to parity with a sovereign military confers undue legitimacy on the RSF, whose methods – including the besieging and starving of cities such as el-Fasher, the systematic use of rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war, the deployment of drones against mosques and markets, and acts of genocide – are demonstrably systematic, as corroborated by investigative journalism and human rights documentation. To subsume these under “actions by both parties” distorts empirical reality and erodes mechanisms for accountability.

Compounding this is the Blob’s uncritical assimilation of RSF propaganda into its interpretive frameworks. The RSF has strategically positioned itself as a vanguard against “Islamists”, a veneer that conceals its historical criminal nature, patronage networks, illicit resource extraction and foreign sponsorship.

In a similar vein, the RSF has publicly expressed sympathy and strong support for Israel, even offering to resettle displaced Palestinians from Gaza in a bid to align with US interests. This discourse serves as an overture to the Blob, leveraging shared geopolitical priorities to portray the RSF as a pragmatic partner in regional stability.

Certain establishment pundits and diplomats have echoed this narrative, casting the RSF as a viable bulwark against an “Islamist resurgence”, thereby endowing a force implicated in war crimes with strategic and ethical credibility. When the Blob internalises this “anti-Islamist” trope as analytical shorthand, it legitimises an insurgent militia’s rationalisations as geopolitical truths, marginalising the reality of the war and the Sudanese who repudiate militarised binaries and sectarian lenses.

Contrast this with the recurrent accusations of external backing for the SAF from an ideologically disparate coalition, including Egypt, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Iran. These claims, often amplified in mainstream media narratives and aligning with RSF discourse, expose profound inconsistencies: Egypt’s secular anti-Islamist state, Turkiye’s Islamist-leaning government, Saudi Arabia’s Sunni Wahhabi monarchy and Iran’s Shia theocracy embody clashing regional rivalries, evident in proxy wars from Yemen to Libya, rendering their purported unified support for the SAF implausible unless opportunistic pragmatism overrides ideology.

Moreover, the evidentiary threshold falls short of the robust, independent documentation implicating the UAE in RSF operations, relying instead on partisan assertions and circumstantial reports that appear designed to muddy asymmetries. Critically, any verified SAF assistance typically involves conventional arms transactions with Sudan’s internationally recognised government in Port Sudan, a sovereign authority, as opposed to the unchecked provisioning extended to the RSF, a nonstate actor formally designated by the US as genocidal. This fundamental distinction highlights the Blob’s contrived equivalence, conflating legitimate state-to-state engagements with the illicit empowerment of atrocity perpetrators.

Even more corrosive is the Blob’s propensity to credential “pseudo-civilian” entities aligned with the RSF and its external sponsors, particularly those bolstered by UAE influence, such as Somoud, led by former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, who also chairs the Emirati business-promotion organisation, the Centre for Africa’s Development and Investment (CADI). These networks are often presented in Blob forums as “civilian stakeholders” or “pragmatic moderates”, sidelining authentic grassroots entities inside Sudan.

This curation of externally amenable proxies transforms mediation into theatre, channelling international validation towards RSF-aligned gains and ignoring Sudanese agency rather than supporting any real civic architects of Sudan’s democratic aspirations. Documented UAE-RSF logistical and political linkages alongside Gulf-orchestrated narrative amplification should serve as a warning against endorsing such fabricated authority.

These lapses are not merely intellectual; they yield tangible harms. Legitimising the RSF through equivalence or narrative cooption dilutes legal and political tools for redress, confining policy options to performative ceasefires and superficial stability blueprints that preserve war economies and armament flows. It defers genuine deterrence, such as targeted interdictions, robust arms embargoes and the exposure of enablers until atrocities become irreversible.

The repercussions do not end there. They deepen, fuelling the militia’s authoritarian ambitions in alliance with its civilian partners. Drawing on this contrived equivalence, they have recently declared Ta’asis, parallel governing structures in western Sudan, claiming a layer of legitimacy while, at least rhetorically, brandishing the threat of partition despite the clear international consensus against recognising such authority.

To counter the Blob’s pathologies, a paradigm shift is imperative. Analysts and policymakers must abjure false symmetry, distinguishing symmetric warfare from asymmetric atrocity campaigns. Where evidence is found of systematic rights abuses, international rhetoric and actions should reflect this imbalance through targeted sanctions and disruptions while avoiding generic “both-sides” statements.

They must also repudiate RSF narratives. The “anti-Islamist” rhetoric is partisan sloganeering, not objective analysis. US engagement should centre on civilian protection, privileging authentic civil society testimonies over manufactured proxies. The question of who governs Sudan is, first and foremost, the prerogative of the Sudanese people themselves, who in April 2019 demonstrated their sovereign agency by toppling Omar al-Bashir’s Islamist regime without soliciting or relying on external assistance.

Equally important is to withhold recognition from contrived civilians. Mediation roles should hinge on verifiable grassroots mandates. Entities tethered to foreign patrons or militias merit no elevation as Sudan’s representatives.

Finally, policymakers must dismantle enablers. Rhetorical and legal measures must be matched by enforcement through transparent embargo oversight, flight interdictions and sanctions on supply chains. Justice without implementation offers only solace to victims.

Should the Blob prove intransigent, alternative forces must intervene. Sudanese civic coalitions, diaspora advocates, independent media and ethical policy networks can amass evidence and exert pressure to compel a recalibration of global approaches. A diplomacy that cloaks complicity in neutrality perpetuates atrocity machinery. Only one anchored in Sudanese agency, empirical truth and unyielding accountability can forge a viable peace.

Sudanese seek no sympathy, only a recalibration among the influential: Cease equating aggressors with guardians, amplifying perpetrator propaganda and supplanting vibrant civic realities with orchestrated facades. Until Washington’s elite perceives Sudanese not as geopolitical subjects but as rights-bearing citizens demanding justice, its epistemic maze will continue to license carnage over conciliation.

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

United States President Donald Trump expects “a lot of problems” will be solved between Washington and Beijing when he meets China’s President Xi Jinping in South Korea for a high-stakes meeting on Thursday, amid growing trade tensions between the two.

Relations between the two world powers have been strained in recent years, with Washington and Beijing imposing tit-for-tat trade tariffs topping 100 percent against each other this year, the US restricting its exports of semiconductors vital for artificial intelligence (AI) development and Beijing restricting exports of critical rare-earth metals which are vital for the defence industry and also the development of AI, among other issues.

Officials from Washington and Beijing have been locked in trade talks since August to de-escalate trade tensions, and they also came up with a framework for a trade deal during meetings in Malaysia over the weekend.

On the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, on Wednesday, Trump said an expected trade deal between China and the US would be good for both countries and “something very exciting for everybody”.

But only a meeting between Trump and Xi can confirm if a trade deal is really in the making.

Expectations for the agreement are modest, with analysts expecting the two world powers to continue to clash over their myriad differences long-term.

When are the two leaders meeting?

Trump is scheduled to meet Xi on Thursday in the port city of Busan in southeastern South Korea. The meeting is expected to start at 11am local time (01:00 GMT).

It will be the first time the leaders have met in person since Trump returned to the White House in January.

The US president last met Xi in 2019, during Trump’s first term, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Osaka, Japan.

“I think we’re going to have a great meeting with President Xi of China, and a lot of problems are going to be solved,” Trump told journalists on Wednesday on Air Force One while en route to South Korea.

On Wednesday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the meeting between Xi and Trump in a statement and said the leaders “will exchange views on bilateral relations and issues of mutual interest”.

What will Trump and Xi talk about?

Discussions are likely to cover:

• Trade tariffs
• Trafficking of fentanyl, a drug responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in the US each year
• China’s export controls on critical rare-earth metals and its purchase of US soya beans
• US export controls on semiconductors
• Geopolitical and security issues, particularly Russia’s war in Ukraine and Washington’s position on Taiwan
• Port fees on Chinese ships docking in US ports
• Finalising a deal to buy TikTok, the social media platform, from its Chinese owners

Alejandro Reyes, adjunct professor at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong, told Al Jazeera that at this meeting, both sides will want to steady an uneasy rivalry – but for different reasons.

“For Washington, the goal is to show that its tough line on China has delivered results. The Trump team is walking into this summit after signing trade pacts with Malaysia, Cambodia and Japan that link market access directly to national security cooperation. These deals require America’s partners to align with US export controls and supply-chain rules – essentially making ‘economic security’ a shared obligation,” he said.

“For Beijing, the priority is to project calm and endurance. The meeting comes just after the fourth plenum, which reaffirmed Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s authority and set the direction for the next five-year plan. China’s message is that it has weathered Western pressure and is back to focusing on growth and domestic stability,” he added.

But discussions on disputes over trade tariffs, critical rare-earth metals, AI technology and geopolitical strategies, the issues that most define the current relationship between the US and China, according to Reyes, are not going to be easy to resolve.

“The mistrust is structural now – it’s built into how both countries think about power and security,” he said.

What are the sticking points?

Fentanyl

A key issue for the Trump administration is stopping the illegal flow of drugs, particularly fentanyl – a powerful synthetic opiate which is 50 times more potent than heroin – from China to the US. In February, Trump slapped a 20 percent trade tariff on all imports from China, citing Beijing’s lack of effort in curbing the flow of the drug into the US.

In a media briefing note sent to Al Jazeera by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Bonnie Glaser, managing director of GMF’s Indo-Pacific programme, said the fentanyl trade has been “a really contentious issue between the US and China”.

“From what I have heard, a criminal money-laundering cooperation supports the fentanyl trade, and this is where China is willing to cooperate, in a way where it will have minimum negative impact on their domestic situation,” she said at a briefing held in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.

Late on Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that during Thursday’s meeting, “China is expected to commit to more controls on the export of so-called precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl.” The newspaper added that if this agreement is reached, Trump would reduce the tariffs imposed because of fentanyl by as much as 10 percent.

Trade tariffs

Following the fentanyl-related tariffs, in March, China imposed a 15 percent tariff on a range of US farm exports in retaliation, triggering a tit-for-tat tariff war.

In April, Trump raised tariffs on Chinese imports to 145 percent, prompting China to hit back with 125 percent tariffs of its own.

Washington and Beijing later cut tariffs to 30 percent and 10 percent, respectively, in May, and agreed to a 90-day truce in August for trade talks. The truce has been extended twice, but despite repeated talks, a trade agreement has not been reached.

Rare-earth metals and soya beans

China has restricted exports of 12 critical rare-earth metals this year, as well as of the machinery needed to refine these metals, citing security reasons. Beijing also said its restrictions were in response to US restrictions on the Chinese maritime, logistics and shipbuilding industries.

The first seven metals to be restricted were announced in April, while the remaining five were announced on October 10. These metals are crucial for the defence industry and for developing AI technology.

In October, Trump responded by threatening to impose 100 percent tariffs on China from November 1, citing Beijing’s strict export controls on critical rare earths as the reason for the tariffs.

Trump added that the US would also impose export controls on “any and all critical software”.

Reyes noted that while the US wants guaranteed access to rare earths and battery materials, it signed a new agreement with Japan and trade clauses with Malaysia this week, which aim to reduce the US dependence on China for these. “Beijing sees this as an effort to contain its influence,” he said.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent told many US media outlets this week that he expected China to defer its restrictions on rare earths and that Trump’s 100 percent tariff threat was “effectively off the table”.

Bessent added that the Chinese side would agree to increase purchases of US-grown soya beans.

Dylan Loh, associate professor in public policy and global affairs at Nanyang Technological University, said he anticipates some positive movement on solving these trade disputes but does not believe the fundamental economic tension between the US and China will be resolved at the meeting.

“The competition and mistrust go beyond simply economics,” he told Al Jazeera. “But the problems can be managed and must be managed well. It requires political capital and the ability to move beyond zero-sum thinking.”

Technology and TikTok

In September, Trump signed an executive order to transfer TikTok’s US assets to US investors, citing national security reasons. On Sunday, Bessent told US broadcaster CBS that the US and China had “reached a final deal on TikTok”, which will be finalised at the Trump-Xi meeting.

But, Reyes said, “the deal cools one dispute but doesn’t end the fight over chips, AI and digital control”.

In October, Washington blacklisted hundreds of Chinese tech firms, claiming they posed a risk to national security. The US has also restricted companies such as Nvidia from exporting advanced chips, important to manufacture key equipment used for the development of AI, to China, claiming that Beijing would use it to advance its global power.

Beijing has been irked by Washington’s restrictions and has launched antitrust investigations into Nvidia and Qualcomm, and has also increased its export controls on rare-earth elements.

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One en route to South Korea on Wednesday, Trump said he might speak to Xi about Nvidia chips.

“I think we may be talking about that with President Xi,” Trump said.

Geopolitical Issues

According to analysts, Trump is eager to use this meeting with Xi to discuss ways to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Beijing, a close ally of Moscow, has said a prolonged war in Ukraine “serves no one’s interest”. But, in July, according to a report by The South China Morning Post, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the European Union that it can’t afford to have Russia lose the war in Ukraine since the US would then turn its attention to China.

Trump has threatened to slap sanctions and tariffs on countries that buy Moscow’s crude oil in efforts to end the war. It has already imposed an additional 25 percent tariff – bringing the total to 50 percent – on India as a punishment for purchasing Russian oil.

But the US has not yet taken this step with China, which imports about 1.4 million barrels of Russian oil per day by sea.

According to a Reuters report, however, after the US sanctioned two of Moscow’s largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, in October, Chinese national oil companies like PetroChina and Sinopec have said they will refrain from importing seaborne Russian oil for the short term.

“Trump wants a ceasefire and a peace deal in Ukraine. Putin has been unwilling to play ball, and Trump, I think, intends to raise this with Xi Jinping, possibly ask him if he can reach out to Putin and encourage him to come to the negotiating table,” Glaser said.

“We know so far, Xi Jinping has been very, very cautious about getting involved. I think he will be reluctant to pressure Putin to do,” she added.

Besides Ukraine, Beijing will be eager to discuss the US position on Taiwan, according to Glaser.

“Xi Jinping will raise concerns about what Beijing views as the pro-independence policies of Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te, and I think he will want clarification of the US stance and may well press Trump to say that the US opposes Taiwan independence and supports China’s unification,” she said.

“The bottom line is that Trump is not likely to abandon Taiwan because doing so could lead to a PRC [People’s Republic of China] decision to use force, and Trump wants to take credit for ending wars, not starting them,” Glaser added.

Trump, however, told journalists on board Air Force One on Wednesday that he was “not sure” he would discuss Taiwan.

How strong are their negotiating positions?

The balance of power in the respective negotiating positions of China and the US has shifted in the recent past.

Former US President Joe Biden restricted exports of US semiconductors, which are crucial for the development of AI, much to China’s annoyance. Then, early this year, Trump compounded this with 145 percent tariffs on Chinese goods.

China retaliated with 125 percent tariffs on US goods, escalating a trade war, until the two sides agreed in May to pause tariffs to allow for trade talks.

But that was not before China placed export restrictions on seven rare-earth metals in April. In October, China restricted exports of five more rare-earth metals, and Trump threatened 100 percent tariffs again in retaliation.

This week, seeking to diversify trade and its supply chains, China strengthened a trade deal with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). But the US also drew up new trade agreements with Japan, Malaysia and Cambodia. On Wednesday, South Korea announced that it too had reached a trade agreement with the US, and was lowering tariffs on imported US goods.

According to Loh, it is unclear who has the upper hand right now between the US and China.

“While the signing of the FTA [with ASEAN] has certainly enhanced China’s position and influence and is indeed quite significant for ASEAN and China, it does not necessarily have a direct bearing on US-China itself,” Loh said.

“US retains considerable political and economic influence in this part of the world still, as evinced by Trump’s trip here,” he added.

According to Reyes, each side has different kinds of leverage.

“The United States has built a new network of allies who have literally signed on to Washington’s playbook,” he said, referring to the deal Washington signed with Malaysia, which obliges Kuala Lumpur to match US trade restrictions. Malaysia has clarified that this deal would only apply to matters of shared concern.

But Reyes said such a deal “gives Trump’s team political and legal momentum going into the China meeting”.

“China, though, has the economic stamina. It still anchors global manufacturing, dominates critical-mineral processing, and has proven that tariffs couldn’t break its model. China used the trade war to build muscles, resistance and resilience – it learned to do everything faster, cheaper and at scale,” he said.

“So the US has the ‘louder’ hand; China has the steadier one. Washington can escalate, but Beijing can outlast,” Reyes added.

So what is likely to come out of these talks?

The stakes are high with Trump announcing that he anticipates a “great” meeting. But expectations of any “great” outcome are low.

Reyes said he expects a truce in their strained ties with photo opportunities rather than any grand bargain.

“Expect both sides to announce small wins: a delay on tariffs, a joint statement on trade stability, maybe a working group on critical minerals cooperation,” he said.

“This summit won’t end the rivalry – it simply marks a new phase: the US building alliances through treaties, and China doing much the same, while consolidating power through endurance building. This meeting isn’t about ending the rivalry – it’s about learning to live with it,” he said.

Oct. 29 (UPI) — Human rights organization Amnesty International said Wednesday that a U.S. airstrike that hit a Houthi detention center in Yemen in April should be investigated as a war crime.

The April attack on Saada, in the northwestern part of Yemen, was part of Operation Rough Rider and killed civilian migrants held in a Houthi detention center because of their immigration status, Amnesty said.

The migrants often come through Yemen from the horn of Africa to get to Saudi Arabia for work.

At the time of the attack, the Houthis reported that at least 68 African migrants were killed and 47 were injured.

On Wednesday, Amnesty also released a report, It is a miracle we survived: U.S. Air Strike on Civilians Held in Sa’ada Detention Centre, in which it interviewed 15 survivors and did analysis on satellite imagery and footage.

“The harrowing testimonies from survivors paint a clear picture of a civilian building, packed with detainees, being bombed without distinction,” said Kristine Beckerle, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, in a statement.

“This was a lethal failure by the U.S. to comply with one of its core obligations under international humanitarian law: to do everything feasible to verify whether the object attacked was a military objective.”

She called on the United States to give reparations to the migrants and their families, “including financial compensation. Given the air strike killed and injured civilians, the U.S. authorities should investigate this attack as a war crime,’ she said.

“Where sufficient evidence exists, competent authorities should prosecute any person suspected of criminal responsibility, including under the doctrine of command responsibility.”

The U.S. air strikes were conducted to protect the Red Sea from Houthi attacks, which had begun in response to the war between Israel and Hamas. The Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, support Hamas.

“The U.S. must conduct a prompt, thorough, independent, impartial, and transparent investigation into the air strike on the Saada migrant detention center and make the results public,” Beckerle said.

“Survivors of this attack deserve nothing less than full justice. They must receive full, effective, and prompt reparations, including restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition, through an effective and accessible mechanism.”

On April 27, CENTCOM released a statement saying, “These operations have been executed using detailed and comprehensive intelligence ensuring lethal effects against the Houthis while minimizing risk to civilians.

“To preserve operational security, we have intentionally limited disclosing details of our ongoing or future operations. We are very deliberate in our operational approach, but will not reveal specifics about what we’ve done or what we will do.”

Fighters with Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces recorded themselves conducting an execution while surrounded by dead bodies inside el-Fasher’s Saudi Hospital. As Hiba Morgan reports, it’s the latest example of RSF paramilitaries filming their own actions.