The Guardian

Self-styled world’s greatest peacemaker calls Meloni ‘beautiful’ and Erdoğan a ‘friend’, but takes jab at Iraqi and Canadian leaders
The chief interest at Monday’s largely pointless Gaza summit in Sharm el-Sheikh lay in whether Donald Trump insulted or feted his fellow global leaders as they approached the self-styled world’s greatest peacemaker to shake hands and pose for a thumbs-up photograph.
As the host of the party, the US president had arrived – unapologetically – more than two hours late, musing to the Israeli parliament before boarding his flight from Tel Aviv that he feared his wealthy guests would already have left, leaving him with only two poor countries remaining.
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Some questions that must be answered if Donald Trump’s approach is to avoid repeating the failure of the Oslo accords
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The release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel, and the extraordinary images of catharsis and relief that followed, were the best possible argument for the virtues of Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who helped broker the deal, boasted that “deal guys” like him had succeeded because they were prepared to leave the details for later; the Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, similarly said on Friday that “if we went for full-package negotiations, we wouldn’t have reached these results”.
But now the difficulties of that approach will start to come into focus – and the plan repeats a pattern seen in past attempts to engineer a lasting peace.
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Hostage and prisoner releases are bringing joy to families. But there is no guarantee that the ceasefire will end Palestinian suffering
The reprieve brought by the end of fighting in Gaza is immense. In Israel, the release of the living hostages has led to widespread elation. In Gaza and the West Bank there are also celebrations, as up to 2,000 Palestinian detainees start to be released – though there is distress, too, due to uncertainty about who is being freed and where they will be sent. In northern Gaza, people can finally return to dig through rubble for the remains of an estimated 10,000 missing people.
As recently as three weeks ago, the likelihood of a ceasefire appeared remote. But it has taken effect, and on Monday Donald Trump travelled from Jerusalem, where he was cheered in the Knesset, to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. There, he joined a high-powered peace summit of more than 20 world leaders, including Sir Keir Starmer. The plan for peace begun there is due to be continued at..

All eyes are on the Middle East where there have been emotional scenes in Israel as hostages were released, while tens of thousands of Palestinians are able to return to the ruins of their homes in Gaza. As global leaders, including Donald Trump and Keir Starmer, meet for a peace summit, Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey discuss the UK’s role in securing the ceasefire and in the next phases of the peace plan. Plus, what has Tony Blair’s contribution been to the ceasefire, and what part could he play in future?
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Trump has threatened 100% tariffs after Beijing’s fresh curbs on rare earths, a month before deadline to agree a deal
With nearly a month to go before the deadline for the US and China to reach a deal in their trade war, goodwill between the two countries appears to have been swept off the table in recent days. China announced that it was once again restricting the export of critical minerals, prompting the US president, Donald Trump, to announce tariffs of 100% on US-bound Chinese exports, scuppering – at least for now – hopes that global economic turmoil could be averted.
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Turkish president threatens to pull out of Sharm el-Sheikh conference unless Israeli PM’s attendance ruled out
A last-minute plan by Donald Trump to invite Benjamin Netanyahu to a multinational Gaza summit in Egypt had to be aborted after the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said he would not land his plane in Sharm el-Sheikh if the invitation stood.
The mid-air power struggle started after it was announced that the Israeli prime minister had accepted a late invitation from Trump to the conference being jointly chaired by the US president and his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, in Egypt.
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Donald Trump has declared that the ceasefire agreement marks the end of Israel’s war on Gaza, as well as the end of the ‘age of terror and death’. The US president was addressing the Israeli parliament as Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners were released
Middle East blog – live updates
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US president says he may warn Russian counterpart ‘look, if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks’. What we know on day 1,328
Donald Trump has threatened to send longe-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine if Vladimir Putin does not end his invasion. “I might talk to him [Putin]. I might say, ‘look, if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks,’” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on his way to the Middle East. The US president said Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy had asked for Tomahawks in a call on Saturday when they were discussing a fresh supply of weapons for Kyiv. “Tomahawks are a new step of aggression,” added Trump. “Do they [Russian forces] want to have Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so.” Trump has been mulling potential supplies of the long-range missiles to Kyiv via European allies ever since his meeting with Putin in Alaska in August failed to produce a peace deal. Putin has previ..

US president says Middle East will ‘normalize’ before he boarded flight to Israel for world leaders’ peace summit
The war in Gaza has ended and the Middle East is going to “normalize”, Donald Trump said on Sunday as he flew to Israel, which was waiting for Hamas to release Israeli hostages as world leaders were gathering to discuss the next steps toward peace.
“The war is over, you understand that,” Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One as he began a flight from Washington DC to Israel.
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Tariffs have caused a Chinese exit from the soybean market – and midwestern farmers are waiting on a solution
At the Purfeerst farm in southern Minnesota, the soybean harvest just wrapped up for the season. The silver grain bins are full of about 100,000 bushels of soybeans, which grab about $10 a piece.
This year, though, the fate of the soybeans, and the people whose livelihoods depend on selling them, is up in the air: America’s soybean farmers are stuck in the middle of a trade war between the US and China, the biggest purchaser of soybean exports, used to feed China’s pigs.
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