The Guardian

US president says he ordered Pentagon to begin planning for action, without mentioning Muslim persecution
Donald Trump on Saturday said he had ordered the Pentagon to begin planning for potential military action in Nigeria as he stepped up his criticism that the government was failing to rein in the persecution of Christians in the west African country.
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump posted on social media. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!”
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US forces and CIA actions target Venezuela’s leader, recalling coups and assassinations across the region
The ghosts of sometimes deadly Latin American coups of the past are being evoked by Donald Trump’s relentless military buildup targeting Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s autocratic socialist leader, whom Washington has branded a narco-terrorist.
Salvador Allende, the democratically elected Marxist president of Chile toppled in a military coup in 1973, and Rafael Trujillo, the longstanding dictator of the Dominican Republic who was assassinated in 1961 in an ambush organized by political opponents, are just two regional leaders whose fates serve as a warning to Maduro.
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Majed al-Ansari calls for international force to be set up urgently to pave way for Israeli withdrawal
Gaza risks sliding towards a deadly limbo where a ceasefire is nominally in place but killing continues, a top Qatari diplomat has warned, calling for rapid progress in setting up the international security force and administration to pave the way for full Israeli withdrawal.
“We don’t want to reach a situation of no war, no peace,” said Majed al-Ansari, adviser to Qatar’s prime minister and spokesperson for the foreign ministry.
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Miller is one of the most powerful officials in Trump’s White House, illustrating how it has sought to overcome a ‘deep state’ of professional diplomats
US politics live – latest updates
The historic shifts in US immigration under Donald Trump have been dictated by a relentless voice over a telephone line: Stephen Miller, the president’s immigration czar, who in recent months has turned the state department’s visa and refugee operations into what some current and former diplomats have described as a personal fiefdom.
Each morning, usually at 10am, a small circle of conservative diplomats allied with Miller, including those who have assumed control of the state department’s consular and refugee operations, dial in for what some have termed the “Stephen Miller call”, an interagency discussion of immigration measures led by Miller, the White House’s homeland security adviser.
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Mark Carney warns Asia-Pacific leaders global economy undergoing profound change, as China’s president mounts defence of free trade
The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, has warned that the era of free trade and investment that formed the foundations of the postwar global economy has ended.
In a stark message to Asia-Pacific leaders at the Apec summit in South Korea on Friday, Carney said rules-based open trade no longer worked in a global economy that was undergoing one of its most profound periods of change since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
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Uncertainty surrounds the signing of this week’s trade deals amid the failure to secure reciprocity from the US to cut tariffs
On Donald Trump’s whirlwind tour of Asia – which involved stops in Malaysia, Japan and Korea – the US president triumphantly collected new trade deals from countries hoping for a reduction in the tariffs he slapped on them earlier this year.
However – China aside – analysts were left asking just how much Asian nations got out of it.
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Less than an hour before Donald Trump met the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, to discuss a deal that could end the trade war between the two superpowers, the US president posted on Truth Social that he had directed the Pentagon to match Russia and China in nuclear weapons testing.
Jonathan Freedland speaks to Jonathan Czin, the former director for China at the National Security Council, about why Trump did this and whether he or Xi left South Korea feeling the strongest
Archive: NBC News, BBC News, WHAS11, Sky News, The White House, NewsNation, NPR, ABC News
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Though the US president’s meeting with Xi Jinping appears to have staved off a global trade war, this is far from a win for Washington
The diverging verdicts offered by the Chinese and American leaders after their talks in South Korea on Thursday reflected more than the chasms between their personal styles and political cultures. Donald Trump gushed about an “amazing” meeting, scoring it 12 out of 10; Xi Jinping reportedly noted that a consensus had been reached, with the two sides needing to finalise follow-up steps rapidly.
Mr Trump’s usual trade approach – shout loudly and wave a big stick – faltered when Beijing raised its own bludgeon. No tribute of gold crowns or Nobel nomination pledges were on offer from Mr Xi. The US president blinked first – but, predictably, attempted to repackage the underwhelming result as a great success.
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Outcome appears closer to truce than durable peace but outline of broader diplomatic relationship is visible
Five key takeaways from Trump-Xi meeting
When Donald Trump launched his trade war against China in April, threatening tariffs as high as 145%, the Chinese government said it would never bow to blackmail and vowed to “fight to the end”.
The question now is whether the consensus reached between Trump and Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, on Thursday means that the fight really has come to an end, and if so on whose terms.
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Israel’s airstrikes have exposed the fragility of Trump’s ‘peace plan’. Without international support, it risks crumbling altogether
Israel’s recent airstrikes in Gaza, which have killed more than 100 people, show just how fragile this arrangement truly is. This is not the first violation since it came into effect on 10 October, but rather one of many over past weeks – showcasing that without stronger enforcement mechanisms and determined planning this is a ceasefire in name only.
According to Israel, this round of violence resulted from Hamas fire against IDF forces in Rafah, an area still under Israeli control, resulting in the death of an IDF reservist. Hamas has denied involvement. Israel responded with additional strikes on Gaza City and Khan Younis. With each side interpreting violations to suit its own interests, the ceasefire’s vague structure leaves a wide margin for miscalculation and opportunism.
Sanam Vakil is the director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at C..