WASHINGTON, Sept 19 — US President Donald Trump said yesterday that his eldest son had reimbursed a Kremlin-linked Russian businessman who paid for two days of wedding celebrations in the Bahamas in May.

Donald Trump Jr. and Bettina Trump confirmed on Monday that their “dear friend” Umar Kremlev “very generously hosted two incredible nights.”

The lavish gift sparked questions about ethics and foreign influence.

“It’s totally allowed but as I understand it, he paid him back,” Trump said when an AFP reporter asked him in the Oval Office if it had been appropriate for his son to accept the gift.

“I guess a friend of his gave him a wedding party. That’s very common, I’ve heard of many people giving wedding parties. I’ve given many parties.”

Pressed on the fact that Don Jr. had not previously mentioned paying back Kremlev, Trump replied: “When I heard the story, I asked about it and he said ‘No, I’m paying him back, Dad,’ and that was a while ago, so I’ve heard he’s paid him.”

The wedding payment first emerged after the ProPublica investigative website reported that Kremlev footed the bill for the parties, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Trump said at the time that he did not know Kremlev. He did not attend the wedding, saying he was too busy with talks on the Iran war.

Don Jr. and Bettina Trump had confirmed the gift in a joint Instagram post in which they defended it.

“It’s unfortunate that something so personal and happy can be recast as something political or sinister simply because of who someone is or where they come from,” the post added.

Kremlev is head of the International Boxing Association (IBA), with which the International Olympic Committee severed links after repeated warnings over financial governance and ethical concerns.

Russian President Vladimir Putin presented Kremlev with the “Order of Friendship” award in April 2026, according to an IBA press release, which featured a photo of Putin and Kremlev shaking hands.

The IBA website also featured photos of Donald Trump Jr. on stage with Kremlev at an event in Istanbul in September 2025.

ProPublica posted a group photo from the wedding that it said showed the top of Kremlev’s head.

According to Russian investigative media outlet Proekt, Kremlev is a Tajik native who worked as a mid-level boxing promoter and cultivated links with the Federal Protective Service (FSO), whose role is to protect high-level officials in Russia.

Kremlev is also a member of the pro-Kremlin Night Wolves biker club, it reported.

The Night Wolves rode en masse to Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula just after it was annexed by Russia in March 2014, and members have also fought side by side with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

During his first term, President Trump faced an investigation into alleged collusion between his 2016 election campaign and Russia, which the Republican billionaire branded a “witch hunt.” — AFP

COPENHAGEN, Sept 19 — An agreement due to be signed by Denmark and Greenland with the US on strengthening security in the autonomous Danish territory is “good for Nato and Europe,” Denmark’s prime minister said yesterday.

Mette Frederiksen said the deal “strengthens our common security in the Arctic and the North Atlantic area,” adding that it was expected to be signed on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly next week.

She said the agreement “recognises the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom (of Denmark) and the right of the Greenlandic people to self-determination.”

Once signed, the agreement will have to go through the necessary parliamentary procedures to enter into force, according to a statement from Frederiksen’s office.

Trump said yesterday that he had struck an “infinite” deal with Denmark to give the US control over Greenland’s security and bar foreign adversaries from setting up bases there.

“I am pleased to announce that the US of America has entered into an Agreement with The Kingdom of Denmark, and Greenland, that gives the US permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.

“From now on, no US adversary can EVER have a base in Greenland, have a military presence in Greenland, or make sensitive investments in Greenland, without our express written approval.”

“It is gratifying that we are about to enter into an agreement that ensures and strengthens the security of Greenland, the Kingdom of Denmark, the US and the Western alliance,” said Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the head of Greenland’s government.

It “recognises Greenland’s interests and our place in international cooperation,” he added.

Since returning to the White House in January 2025, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needed to control Greenland for strategic reasons, alarming Nato ally Denmark and sparking fierce pushback from the alliance.

Several media outlets have reported that the US wants to open three new military bases in southern Greenland, in addition to the Pituffik base it already has in the north of the territory. — AFP

WASHINGTON, Sept 19 — US President Donald Trump said yesterday he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House, accusing them of spreading “fake news” about his administration.

The 80-year-old Republican — who has long had a fiery relationship with the media — warned that other outlets could face a similar fate but did not say which ones.

The move by Trump drew immediate accusations that it was unconstitutional and would be thrown out by the courts, while the impacted news outlets said they would not be cowed.

“I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW...and Politico...from the White House as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

Trump did not say what prompted the move but added that “media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the US.”

Later in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters: “I think that somebody has a right to keep them away if they’re going to write false stories all the time.”

Asked if any particular stories had sparked the ban, he replied: “It’s really just cumulative stories over the last two years.”

“You get sick of it,” he said. “They purposely write negative news, and they do that because they want to try and diminish the Republicans and a Republican administration.”

US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host who has brought in tight restrictions at the Pentagon, backed Trump’s new ban and accused the outlets of having “endangered troops” with unspecified stories.

‘Illegal assault’ 

Journalists for broadcasters CNN and MS NOW — which was until recently known as MSNBC — and Politico remained on White House premises following Trump’s announcement.

Reporters for the two TV news channels could still be seen broadcasting from their stations on the White House driveway.

CNN said Trump’s ban was an “illegal assault” on US press freedom, adding that its reporting was “fair and accurate” and was protected under the US Constitution.

Politico vowed yesterday to “vigorously defend our First Amendment rights against any attempt to restrict them.”

The White House Correspondents Association — the independent body representing journalists covering the presidency — said it “stands in defence” of the journalists “who are being singled out for doing their jobs.”

Both of Trump’s White House terms have seen him lash out repeatedly at media whose coverage displeases him.

He has filed multiple defamation suits against news outlets, attacked the press on Truth Social and verbally assaulted several reporters, notably women, including CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins.

‘Flatly unconstitutional’ 

But it is rare for US presidents to outright bar news outlets — although Trump banned CNN reporter Jim Acosta in his first term, a ban which a court subsequently overturned.

Last year, Trump barred The Associated Press from some events because of the news agency’s decision to continue referring to the “Gulf of Mexico” — and not the “Gulf of America” as decreed by Trump.

It has also put stricter controls on journalists in Trump’s second term, including taking control of which outlets can cover events as part of the “pool” admitted to tight spaces such as the Oval Office and Air Force One.

Trump’s surprise announcement yesterday comes at a time when his approval ratings are at record lows and his Republican Party risks losing control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.

The war in Iran and rising prices, particularly at the gas pump, are among the factors that have contributed to his sinking political fortunes.

Bruce Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said a ban on the media outlets would be “flatly unconstitutional.”

“The First Amendment is clear that once the White House invites in some journalists, it can’t ban others because it doesn’t like their reporting,” Brown said. “This is textbook viewpoint discrimination and will be quickly struck down by the courts if challenged.” — AFP

WASHINGTON, Sept 19 — Nvidia boss Jensen Huang and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman are among tech leaders expected to attend a White House state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping next week, a US official said yesterday.

“It’ll be a very popular and hot-ticketed event,” the official said on condition of anonymity, adding that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, SpaceX and Tesla chief Elon Musk, Apple head Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai will also attend.

Their presence comes as artificial intelligence is set to loom large in the talks between the two leaders, with the US and China the two dominant powers in the AI race.

The AI debate in the US remains dominated by the idea that the country’s leading developers — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta — cannot afford to slow their pace of innovation, whatever the risks, for fear that China will pull ahead.

China, long seen as trailing the US on cutting-edge AI, has been closing that gap fast.

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang records an interview ahead of an AI conference at Dumfries House in Cumnock, Scotland, on September 17, 2026. — AFP pic

Washington has long tried to slow China’s progress with export controls on the advanced chips needed for cutting-edge AI, blocking access to top-end US semiconductors such as those made by Nvidia.

Despite their bitter rivalry, hope remains that the two superpowers can agree on something regarding the technology when the leaders meet in Washington.

But anything ambitious, such as agreeing to slow development or craft global safeguards, is likely out of reach.

The call for safeguards has been amplified by dire warnings from industry insiders about the threat the technology poses to humanity.

Jacob Coxon, a former AI researcher at Anthropic, set off the latest round of alarm by describing how those building the technology “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei published an essay soon after urging caution and a slowdown in development.

Altman and Musk lent their support to that idea, as did Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis, who himself has called for a US-led global regulatory body for the technology.

US President Donald Trump this week dismissed fears over AI as a hoax and is urging American AI companies to keep advancing to stay ahead of China.

According to analysts, Chinese policymakers have been more focused on immediate risks, from deepfakes to child safety.

However, the country’s spy agency chief warned this week that the technology could jeopardise national security. — AFP

RIYADH, Sept 19 — Explosions were heard in Riyadh today, an AFP journalist reported, after an air raid alert was issued by Saudi Arabian authorities, who have been regularly targeted in recent days by attacks from pro-Iranian Houthis in Yemen.

“The area is under a hostile aerial threat,” a message received by residents of the Saudi capital read.

This is the first time the capital has been directly affected since the conflict in neighbouring Yemen intensified in July. — AFP

WASHINGTON, Sept 19 — The US yesterday lifted sanctions on Eritrea imposed in 2021 over the deadly conflict in neighbouring Ethiopia, as Washington seeks to “advance US regional interests” in a country that borders the strategic Red Sea.

The US imposed the sanctions in November 2021, which targeted the Eritrean Defence Force and President Isaias Afwerki’s political party, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, as well as other players in the authoritarian state.

Eritrean troops were accused of committing atrocities during the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, in which they backed the Ethiopian federal army. That war ended in late 2022 with the signing of a peace deal between Addis Ababa and Tigray rebels.

The US sanctions had been renewed each year under a presidential declaration of a “national emergency,” including last year by President Donald Trump.

But yesterday, the US Treasury published a notice saying that the national emergency had “expired.”

The State Department said Trump had chosen not to renew the measures targeting Eritrea “to advance US regional interests.”

The conflict left at least 600,000 people dead, and sparked a major humanitarian crisis. Several hundred thousand people remain displaced.

A State Department told AFP that while the parties’ implementation of the deal to end the war had been “uneven,” the US felt it was “time to adapt our foreign policy to current realities and collaboratively engage with both countries to advance US interests.”

Eritrea’s Horn of Africa location could be key amid the ongoing conflict with Iran, as the Red Sea has become a key oil shipping route with the Strait of Hormuz blocked.

Tensions have once again been mounting in Tigray, raising fears of a return to armed conflict. — AFP

OIAPOQUE, Sept 19 — Indigenous chief Wagner Karipuna gazes worriedly at the tranquil river flowing past his village in the Brazilian Amazon as he imagines the nightmare scenario of an oil spill being carried here by the tides.

His village, Manga, is located around 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the centre of Oiapoque, a town bordering French Guiana that has been buzzing since Brazilian oil giant Petrobras began offshore exploration in the region a year ago.

The state-run company announced in August that it had identified signs of oil in a well about 175 kilometres (109 miles) off the coast of northern Brazil’s Amapá state.

Leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is seeking re-election on October 4, promptly visited the area, calling the oil a “passport to the future”.

Reaching Oiapoque requires travelling 600 kilometres (370 miles) from state capital Macapá, part of it along a red dirt road riddled with potholes. Makeshift wooden bridges are used to cross waterways.

Many streets in the town have no pavements and are lined with low-rise buildings with run-down facades, although numerous construction projects are underway.

Thais Pereira de Souza, 32, poses for a photo with her son in front of their home in the Nova Conquista neighborhood in Oiapoque, Amapa state, Brazil on September 4, 2026. Residents are caught between hopes of an economic boom and fears of an oil spill. — AFP pic

‘Disappointed’ with Lula 

While many residents are excited about a potential oil bonanza in their poverty-stricken town, Karipuna is far from convinced.

“In the event of a spill, we will inevitably be affected. Water has no borders,” said the 57-year-old chief.

He fears an “immense disaster” if an oil leak off the coast is carried into the Curipi River, which runs alongside his village of 1,800 inhabitants.

Petrobras has said its analyses do “not indicate the probability” of oil “reaching the coast in the event of a spill”.

“There is no such thing as zero risk in offshore exploration,” Jean Paul Prates, who headed Petrobras in 2023-2024 and now chairs the energy and natural resources thinktank Cerne, told AFP.

“It is a low-probability risk, but with potentially high consequences.”

Boats anchored along the banks of the Oiapoque River in Oiapoque, Amapa state, Brazil, on the border with French Guiana, on September 3, 2026 where residents are closely following the oil exploration off the coast of the Amazon, a controversial project promoted by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is seeking reelection in October 2026. — AFP pic

Karipuna says he is “disappointed” with Lula, who presents himself as a defender of the environment and Indigenous peoples.

Lula has said that while he is against fossil fuels, he believes the world cannot live without them yet, and that oil can finance the transition to clean energy.

Karipuna said he is already feeling the impact of oil exploration because of “the noise from planes and helicopters”, which he said scares away birds and game.

His concerns are shared by Joelso Mendonca, vice president of a group of nearly 400 traditional fishermen.

“If there is an oil spill, nobody is going to want to buy our fish,” the 50-year-old said, while repairing his net in a stilted shack on the riverbank.

Petrobras told AFP it had “maintained continuous dialogue” with civil society and Indigenous communities.

Regarding air traffic, the company said it had made “adjustments” following consultations with Indigenous leaders.

‘Starting from scratch’ 

While some see the potential oil as a curse, Jacqueline Cadete considers it a “sign from God”.

The 45-year-old evangelical pastor moved to Oiapoque at the end of 2025, attracted by oil “opportunities” after living abroad for many years in French Guiana and metropolitan France.

According to a study by the National Industry Observatory, more than 50,000 jobs could be created in Amapá.

And any royalty payments Petrobras will have to make once production begins could provide a considerable windfall for local authorities.

Oiapoque mayor Inacio Monteiro Maciel speaks during an interview with AFP in Oiapoque, Amapa state, Brazil on September 3, 2026. — AFP pic

However, Petrobras president Magda Chambriard announced in August that production was not expected to begin for another “six or seven years”.

In the meantime, Mayor Inacio Monteiro Maciel is “very optimistic” about the future, even though the city will have to “practically start from scratch” in terms of infrastructure and social policies.

More than half of the roughly 28,000 inhabitants recorded in the town’s 2022 census receive Bolsa Familia, a benefit paid to Brazil’s poorest households.

But the city has experienced an influx of newcomers in recent years, which has “intensified” since Petrobras began drilling, the mayor said.

He estimates that 40,000 to 45,000 people already live in Oiapoque.

‘The new Dubai’ 

The mayor said that a rise in “real estate speculation” has pushed many families out of the city centre into new peripheral neighbourhoods, where conditions are often precarious.

A fisherman carries a fishing net in Oiapoque, Amapa state, Brazil on September 3, 2026 where residents are caught between hopes of an economic boom and fears of an oil spill. — AFP pic

In a neighbourhood called Nova Conquista, 32-year-old Thais Pereira de Souza lives in a tiny house with a corrugated metal roof, without water or electricity, alongside her husband, her two sons and her pregnant daughter-in-law.

They are crammed into a single room with two mattresses and two hammocks, after they were no longer able to afford their studio apartment in the city centre.

She expects “life to improve” thanks to the oil.

Lilma Campos, president of Oiapoque’s Commercial and Industrial Association, anticipates a “radical change” but prefers to keep her feet on the ground.

“Just because oil has been found, some people think this will become the new Dubai, but we really don’t know what’s going to happen.” — AFP

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 18 — Two decades into an insurgency that has killed thousands in southern Thailand, the leader of the main Malay-Muslim separatist group vowed this week to keep fighting until its goals are achieved.

“This struggle will continue until the end of time,” Nikmatullah Seri, spokesman for the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) peace negotiation delegation, told AFP in a rare interview.

“As long as our objectives remain unachieved, we will continue to fight.”

Militants from BRN have fought for an independent Islamic nation in Thailand’s Muslim-majority south since the 1960s, although the current unrest began in 2004.

Thailand has been negotiating with the BRN under Malaysian mediation since 2013, with the most recent high-level talks taking place in December.

But the process has repeatedly stalled, and Bangkok suspended dialogue in July following an attack that killed five soldiers.

“The objective remains the same, which is the demand for independence,” Nikmatullah said in a hotel in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

Syariah in the south

The southern region was once part of the former Malay-Muslim Patani sultanate, but was annexed by Buddhist-majority Thailand, then Siam, in the early 1900s.

Since 2004, more than 7,000 people – militants, Thai security forces and civilians – have been killed, according to monitor Deep South Watch.

Nikmatullah neither confirmed nor denied the BRN’s responsibility for a recent flare-up in violence, but said it was the “driving force behind a struggle”.

He said the group has proposed a power-sharing arrangement with Bangkok, and implied the BRN would take office without elections.

“We want political power. That is, the BRN should be able to govern” over the region, spread across four Thai provinces near the Malaysia border.

It would be administered by Syariah police and courts following Islamic law — although only for Muslims, he said.

There would be a “transitional period of five or 10 years during which we govern”, he said.

“After that, we will hand it over to the people to choose democratically.”

Checkpoints, curfews

Nikmatullah said ethnic Malay Muslims face “obvious discrimination” against their language and culture, and “have never felt safe” — something Thailand has rejected.

Bangkok’s lead negotiator, Thanut Suvarnananda, told local media in August there was “no talk of secession at the negotiating table”.

Instead, Thanut – appointed in April – said ceasefire zones and reducing checkpoints and other security measures that disrupted daily life were under consideration.

Since 2005, the region has been administered under special security laws allowing Thai authorities to detain suspects without charge and impose curfews, drawing criticism from rights groups.

Nikmatullah said the BRN’s military wing recorded 1,000 fighter deaths over the past two decades, but said “warfare was a last resort”.

“We do not target vulnerable groups — our target is the government,” said the negotiator, who was born in southern Thailand and joined the BRN aged 18.

Charred vehicles sit outside a government office in Narathiwat province on August 23, 2026, following dozens of coordinated arson attacks across southern Thailand's insurgency-hit region. — AFP pic

Last month, scores of coordinated nighttime attacks injured several people and damaged government property and private businesses.

In July, five Thai soldiers died in a shooting and bomb attack at a checkpoint that also injured six civilians, according to Thai authorities.

Nikmatullah would not say if the BRN was involved: “We are not intelligence agents for the colonisers.”

But the soldiers’ deaths caused Thailand to put dialogue “on hold”, the foreign ministry told AFP, while stressing it remained committed to the process.

In a statement, it said it was focused on a three-pronged approach to the south, “namely socio-economic development, maintenance of security and peace dialogue”.

Back-channel talks

Wearing a black leather jacket and songkok, a traditional black cap worn by Muslim men, he was vague about where he lives.

But he claimed the BRN has the support of local people and was funded by member donations.

Weapons were taken from its “enemies”, he said.

“We take them for free, because they’ve come here and are wreaking havoc on our land.”

Nikmatullah said the peace talks had been hampered by the absence of a Malaysian mediator, but said the BRN could potentially go to “back-channel negotiations” with Thailand in October.

In a statement to AFP, Malaysian Defence Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said the appointment of a new mediator was “under consideration”. He said Kuala Lumpur’s priority was a peaceful resolution.

“Malaysia respects Thailand’s sovereignty and recognises that matters concerning its citizens are within Thailand’s domestic jurisdiction,” Mohamed Khaled said.

He declined to apportion blame for the unrest, but said Malaysia would not allow itself “to be used as a refuge or hideout by any party that resorts to violence or rejects the peace process”.

Nikmatullah said the BRN was playing the long game.

“This is not a short-lived struggle. It will take a long time.” — AFP

JERUSALEM, Sept 18 — On a street in southern Israel, a graffiti artist paints a mural depicting the filmmakers behind the award-winning documentary NAZA. But this is not a tribute.

Red targets are painted next to the two Israeli directors, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, whose faces are branded with the word “TRAITORS”.

A month ahead of close-fought elections, the documentary, which uses anonymous military sources to speak about Israel’s widespread killing of civilians in Gaza, has unleashed a political storm.

An ensuing wave of threats and intimidation has targeted the film’s creators and their families.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has even said he intends to introduce legislation aimed at revoking the citizenship of people who “defame IDF soldiers.”

“Their place is not among us,” Netanyahu said in a video posted on X late on Wednesday.

At the same time his video appeared on social media, dozens of protesters were gathering outside the home of Szor’s parents in central Israel, shouting “You’re not welcome here!”

The gathering in Savyon was organised by a far-right influencer, Mordechai David, an ally of Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

“This is only the beginning!” David vowed.

In the southern port city of Ashdod, the artist behind the mural of Abraham and Szor unleashed a torrent of insults at the filmmakers, who are currently abroad.

“I have zero sympathy for all those pro-Palestinians talking abroad,” Dudi Shuval told AFP.

Broad condemnation

The fierce outrage at the film highlights surging nationalist sentiment following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,221 people, mostly civilians, in the country’s deadliest ever attack.

Netanyahu’s handling and response to the attack are set to play a central role in the election, scheduled for October 27.

After its premiere at the Venice Film Festival last week, NAZA received a record-breaking 25-minute ovation and later won the special jury prize.

Israeli directors, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, at the 63rd Venice Film Festival at Venice Lido on September 12, 2026. — AFP pic

The chilling documentary about Israel’s AI-assisted killing of civilians in Gaza uses testimonies from 24 different Israeli military or intelligence whistleblowers who spoke on condition that their identities be protected.

NAZA draws its name from a euphemism used by Israeli intelligence to indicate the number of civilians that are expected to be killed in an airstrike.

The Israeli military has firmly denied the testimonies in the film and insisted it does everything possible to avoid civilian casualties.

It has also criticised the film’s use of anonymous sources, whose identity and involvement in military activity in Gaza it says cannot be verified.

Israel’s political figures have almost unanimously condemned the documentary.

Opposition politician Gadi Eisenkot, who has emerged as the main challenger to Netanyahu, on Monday denounced “moral blindness, a detachment from reality, and harm to the State of Israel in a difficult hour”.

The head of the centre-left Democrats party, Yair Golan, issued a curt “I condemn” the following day.

Golan accused Netanyahu of using the episode to deflect attention over his reaction on October 7, an issue that has flared anew in recent days.

Taboo discussion

In Israel, criticising the military — in which nearly all Israelis serve — is taboo and carries a heavy cost.

“There’s clearly an intention to not have discussion around the crimes that were committed and to prevent people from speaking about them,” Abraham told AFP on the sidelines of the Venice Film Festival last week.

In a rare dissenting voice, the Israeli-Palestinian movement Standing Together praised the film which it said “exposes another chapter in the war of annihilation in Gaza”.

The Union of Journalists in Israel denounced threats against the filmmakers, saying in a statement that “without freedom of expression, there is no democracy”.

On Wednesday, Culture Minister Miki Zohar, who accused the directors of “treason against the state”, referred the matter to the domestic intelligence services to demand a probe into the film’s anonymous sources.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 73,700 people, according to the territory’s health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and does not distinguish between combatants and civilians, and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations. — AFP

NARATHIWAT, Sept 18 — Two volunteer defence corps members were killed while 16 others were injured in a bomb explosion and gunfight in Sukhirin, Narathiwat, on Friday.

In the incident at around 3.10pm local time, a truck carrying 18 volunteer defence corps members was on its way back after undergoing boat-rowing training in Narathiwat city.

Sukhirin Police Chief Pol Col Prapoj Lormkhet said initial investigations found that an improvised bomb planted by the roadside was detonated as the truck passed the scene.

“An exchange of gunfire also took place,” he told reporters.

He added that security forces rushed to the scene and conducted an inspection to gather evidence.

All the injured were also rushed to a nearby hospital for further treatment, he said.

Prapoj said security forces have stepped up security measures at the scene and surrounding areas following current developments. — Bernama

BANJARMASIN (Indonesia), Sept 18 — Indonesian authorities were preparing on Friday to right a capsized passenger ferry that went down in the Java Sea last week, a navy official said, with dozens of people still missing.

The Virgo Transport 8 carried 213 passengers and 30 crew when it lost contact with its shipping company after departing from Indonesia’s second city of Surabaya on Java island on Sunday, headed for Banjarmasin on Borneo island.

At least six people have died and 129 are missing, according to the national search and rescue agency, Basarnas. Some of the victims are feared trapped inside the vessel, which is now submerged.

An expert team has been brought in to assist the operation to right the ferry, local navy commander Galih Nurna Putra told reporters on Friday.

“The salvage operation is underway,” Galih said, adding that “there was an observation yesterday”.

The head of the Banjarmasin search and rescue agency, I Putu Sudayana, said teams would be able to resume the recovery of bodies once the vessel is righted.

Before that process is completed, divers face risks if they try to enter the capsized ship, he said.

“We understand the psychological condition of the victims’ families, but please also understand the situation faced by the joint search and rescue team, because they must also pay attention to (operational) safety.”

The capsized vessel has drifted from its original position and sunk farther into the sea, from an initial depth of 21 metres (69 feet) to 29 metres, Basarnas operation director Yudhi Bramantyo said on Thursday.

Marine accidents are a regular occurrence in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands that relies heavily on boat connections for daily transport and tourism.

Lax safety standards and unpredictable weather are the main reasons for the disasters.

On Thursday, rescuers formally called off a search for eight people, including five journalists sent to cover a volcanic eruption, nearly two weeks after their speedboat went missing in waters between Java and Sumatra islands. — AFP

MANILA, Sept 18 — The Philippine Coast Guard said on Friday it confiscated 12.5 tonnes of ammonium nitrate and 130 cases of dynamite aboard a vessel sitting at port in Palawan province.

The explosive substances were found on Sunday alongside materials used in detonations inside two trucks on a ferry that carried both cargo and passengers, the coast guard said in a statement.

Ammonium nitrate, a chemical used in fertilisers, is safe if stored properly, but there can be catastrophic consequences when mishandled or mixed with explosives.

A stash of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate left to degrade in a Beirut warehouse killed more than 220 people and laid waste to swathes of the Lebanese capital when it exploded in 2020.

“The explosives and components were discovered inside (two trucks) aboard the RoRo (roll-on, roll-off) passenger vessel,” the coast guard said in a Friday statement, adding the cargo had been “improperly declared”.

“The confiscated explosives and components are currently under the custody of the Philippine National Police,” they said.

“The (coast guard) will work closely with the PNP to determine the role of the accompanying personnel in the shipment of said cargo.”

It was unclear if any arrests had been made as of Friday afternoon, and the name of the involved company has not been disclosed.

A coast guard officer tasked with port safety had been “relieved from his post to ensure impartial investigation”, the statement said.

The discovery comes in the wake of a series of deadly ferry accidents.

On September 9, a fire ripped after an explosion in the cargo hold of the M/V June Aster near the resort area of Coron, Palawan, burning dozens of passengers to death.

In January, a triple-decker ferry carrying more than 340 people sank off the southern Philippines, killing at least 52 people. — AFP

SYDNEY, Sept 18 — A shark killed a man as he swam off a popular beach near Perth in Western Australia today, police said.

It was the fourth death from a shark attack in Australia this year.

“It was reported a male swimmer had been bitten by a shark while swimming along the coast,” a Western Australia state police spokeswoman said in a statement.

“The swimmer died as a result of the attack.”

Police helicopters and boats scoured waters off Sorrento Beach after emergency services were called to the beach in the morning, officials said.

Authorities closed beaches in the area until further notice.

Local media reported that witnesses had seen blood in the water.

“It was like a scene off Jaws where a body is flicked around like a rag doll,” an unidentified male witness on the beach told local broadcaster Seven.

Surf Life Saving WA said in a social media post that an unidentified species of shark was involved in the incident about 50 metres offshore.

It was the second shark attack in Western Australia this week, after a man lost part of his leg when he was bitten at Glenfield Beach, north of Perth.

There have been multiple shark attack fatalities around the country this year.

A 12-year-old boy died after he was bitten by a shark while swimming in Sydney Harbour in January.

Three divers were fatally mauled in separate incidents between May and June — two in Western Australia and the third in Queensland.

Also in June, a woman had to have part of her left arm amputated after she was mauled by a shark at one of Australia’s most popular beaches, Coogee, in Sydney.

There have been around 1,300 shark incidents around Australia since 1791, of which more than 260 resulted in death, according to a database of their encounters with humans. — AFP

MANILA, Sept 18 — At least two people were killed in a school shooting in the southern Philippines today, a regional disaster agency worker told AFP, the country’s third deadly campus incident since June.

Local rescuers received a call about gunfire on the campus of Banga National High School in South Cotabato province in Mindanao at about 1.30pm (0530 GMT/1.30pm Malaysian time).

“From what I know, they are both students. There’s really no complete details as of now,” disaster agency worker Rolly Aquino said of the two victims, adding that at least seven people were being treated in hospital.

It was not immediately clear how many shooters were involved.

“For now, we are trying to let our fellow citizens know that the situation is stable and the case is contained,” said South Cotabato provincial governor Reynaldo Tamayo.

“We never thought that this would happen.”

In a video posted to Facebook and confirmed by AFP, a man can be seen carrying what appears to be a wounded child from the school, rushing him into the sidecar of a waiting motorbike.

In another, a teacher speaking in a local dialect can be heard saying that there were two shooters, with a student insisting they were outsiders.

Nationwide live shooter drills were conducted this month to strengthen security following two rare school shootings that shook the Philippines in the past few months. — AFP

SYDNEY, Sept 18 — Australia will detain tourists who overstay visas to send a message of deterrence under new rules aimed at reducing levels of migration, a minister said today.

Australia’s ruling Labour party has denied it is tightening visa rules in response to the rise of the far-right One Nation, which has become one of the country’s most popular parties this year with pledges to drastically slash migration.

Under reforms announced yesterday, Australia will stop family members accompanying students, introduce ballots for working holiday makers and crack down on overstayers.

Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs Matt Thistlethwaite said today that tourists would be put in immigration detention to reduce the level of visa overstayers, which has risen to 77,000.

“Once the word gets around, ‘hey, I overstayed on my tourist visa for a couple of weeks, I got picked up and I spent a couple of weeks in immigration detention, it’s not a nice place, I’m going home’. Once that gets around, then we think that obviously that deterrence will ensure that people abide by the conditions,” he told broadcaster News24.

People who don’t have the right to remain in Australia will face a “consequence” and be removed, he added.

Since 2015, Australia’s immigration detention centres have swelled with people with criminal convictions awaiting deportation after a policy change that saw mandatory cancellation of permanent visas for certain criminal offences.

Immigration Minister Tony Burke, announcing the new policy on Thursday, said the government would open 250 beds and add 100 compliance officers to house the visa overstayers in different facilities.

Australian Tourism Industry Council chief executive Erin McLeod said talk of detaining tourists was not good for Australia’s image.

“I don’t think it does our reputation as a welcoming destination any good and can become quite damaging — tourism is an important part of the Australian economy,” she told AFP.

The council represents thousands of small tourism businesses.

Refugee Council of Australia director of policy Rebecca Eckard said the move raised safety and legal concerns.

“It is being framed as punitive to change behaviour. The use of punitive detention is not permitted under Australia’s immigration act,” she told AFP.

“There has been a major problem with immigration detention,” she added, pointing to concerns raised by the government ombudsman over insufficient staffing and healthcare access. — AFP

WASHINGTON, Sept 18 — The United States has approved a US$24.3 billion (RM99.5 billion) sale of 48 F-35 stealth warplanes to Saudi Arabia, the State Department said yesterday, the kingdom’s latest major arms purchase since the start of the Iran war.

Saudi Arabia has long sought to buy F-35s, but officials from Israel — currently the only country in the Middle East to operate the jets — has voiced concern about their sale to Riyadh despite a push for the kingdom to normalize relations.

“The proposed sale will improve Saudi Arabia’s capability to deter current and future threats by strengthening its homeland defence, and improving interoperability with US forces,” the State Department said in a statement.

It “will also augment Saudi Arabia’s operational aircraft and enhance its air-to-air, and air-to-ground self-defence capability,” the statement said.

The Saudi embassy in Washington praised the transaction, saying it “reflects the strength and enduring nature” of the relationship with the United States.

It added that the security cooperation between the two countries “has contributed to regional stability, strengthened our collective defence capabilities, and advanced our shared security interests.”

Saudi Arabia has been repeatedly targeted with drone and missile strikes by Tehran’s forces since the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran in February, and has also been hit by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

Yemen’s civil war had been dormant for years, but fighting between Houthis and the internationally recognized, Riyadh-backed government reignited in July, with the rebels declaring a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and targeting its ships in the Red Sea.

Washington has not directly entered the conflict, but a US official said earlier this week that an American military task force is working to enhance intelligence sharing and planning assistance for Saudi forces.

Congressional approval pending 

The State Department has notified Congress about the proposed sale, which would require the approval of US lawmakers. It did not provide a time frame for the delivery of the jets.

The F-35 sale “will not alter the military balance in the region,” the State Department said, in keeping with longstanding US policy that Israel must have a military edge over potential regional adversaries.

The United States has so far only allowed the sales of F-35s to its closest allies, including a number of European Nato allies and Israel.

Washington kicked Nato member Turkey out of the F-35 program in 2019 because Ankara’s purchase of a Russian air defence system sparked fears that Moscow could acquire the plane’s technology.

Billions in arms sales

Washington also has concerns about potential Chinese espionage related to the jets.

The New York Times reported this week that US intelligence analysts have raised the possibility that Beijing could acquire F-35 technology through its partnerships with Riyadh.

US Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, expressed opposition to the sale on those grounds.

It should not go ahead “when our own intelligence community is warning that it could put the crown jewels of American military technology within reach of the Chinese Communist Party,” Krishnamoorthi said in a statement.

The F-35 sale is the latest in a series of major arms buys by Saudi Arabia this year.

The State Department announced the approval of a US$5 billion sale of more than 10,000 bombs — including highly destructive 2,000-pound weapons — to Riyadh earlier in September.

Washington also signed off on the sale of 60 tank engines and related equipment to Saudi Arabia at a cost of US$750 million this month, and a US$1.96 billion deal in July for the kingdom to buy guidance sections that can convert rockets into precision weapons. — AFP

SEOUL, Sept 18 — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister accused the United States of escalating regional tensions through frequent military drills and warned of a “more offensive” response from Pyongyang, according to a statement published by state media today.

The comments came amid an escalation in rhetoric from Pyongyang, even as US President Donald Trump has sought to revive diplomacy and improve ties with North Korea but received little response to his overtures.

“The present situation, in which new records are set in terms of practical action hostile toward the DPRK, stresses the need to break records in our responsive action, proportional or more offensive in its nature,” Kim Yo Jong said, using North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, according to her statement carried by KCNA news agency.

Describing joint military drills held in recent months by US forces and allies in the Asia-Pacific region as a “US-led war rehearsal,” Kim vowed that “our will to defend our sovereignty will be expressed in clearer action and there will be never ever change in the course of intensifying the nuclear war deterrence.”

“I remind the enemy once again that if it is judged that the supreme interests of our nation and its military sovereignty and security environment in the region have been seriously violated by their military manoeuvres,” Kim went on, North Korea’s military will “mobilise all means available to cope with it.”

In a sharply-worded statement a day earlier, Kim mocked those who wish to see North Korea abandon its nuclear programme.

“The DPRK’s position as a nuclear weapons state is absolute which can not reverse with anything,” she said.

The statement came during a general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, with Kim dismissing “familiar silly talk” of efforts to denuclearise the North.

“If they believe that it is really possible, they will only hear the word of idiots,” she said.

North Korea has legally enshrined its status as a nuclear weapons state, with its leadership declaring the country’s nuclear arsenal permanent and irreversible.

Trump recently said Pyongyang possesses 57 “very powerful” nuclear weapons, with Seoul putting the figure at between 80 and 120.

The North’s nuclear arsenal has expanded since a second summit between Kim and Trump collapsed in 2019 over what Pyongyang would receive in return for taking steps towards denuclearisation. — AFP

PARIS, Sept 18 — A policeman who follows “a violent radical far-right ideology” has been arrested in France on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack, sources told AFP late yesterday.

Confirming a report by the TF1/LCI broadcaster, a judicial source said that the man was also suspected of having manufactured weapons, among other crimes.

A separate source close to the case told AFP that the police officer, aged 35, was “apprehended on the street” on August 23.

He has since been placed in detention while awaiting trial.

According to TF1/LCI, the officer “is suspected of having planned to carry out violent attacks against the interests of the state” and of having “manufactured 3D-printed weapons”, among other things.

The policeman faces charges including preparing a terrorist act, the unauthorised manufacture or trade in weapons in connection with a terrorist organisation and unauthorised weapon possession.

He is also charged with incitement to terrorism through social media.

The police officer’s lawyers had not responded to AFP as of yesterday evening.

The news comes in the wake of revelations that France’s far-right National Rally (RN) party expelled another policeman after body cam footage of him making racist comments sparked outrage.

The RN’s Marine Le Pen hopes to become France’s president in next year’s elections after years of seeking to make the anti-immigration party she inherited from her father more palatable to the wider public. — AFP

WASHINGTON, Sept 18 — US President Donald Trump said yesterday there had been “major progress” towards establishing an American military base in Poland, after Warsaw said it was holding talks with Washington on the issue.

“Thanks to the bold leadership of my friend, Karol Nawrocki, President of Poland, major progress is being made toward establishing a US Army base in Poland,” Trump said on social media.

“If this happens, the location will be announced very soon. This will be a historic step for our Great US/Polish Alliance.”

Trump’s announcement comes despite his administration launching a formal review of its military presence in Europe, raising fears among allies that it could cut back its forces in European nations.

But Poland, which borders both Ukraine and Russia on Nato’s eastern flank and spends around five per cent of its GDP on defence, is working to strengthen the US presence on its soil.

“We are ready to continue our efforts to strengthen our defence cooperation: seriously, responsibly, and always together,” Nawrocki said on X.

“I can assure you that the Polish government will do its utmost to provide the best possible location for the US Army base.”

Nawrocki is a conservative ally of Trump, and he visited the White House last year. During that visit Trump offered to send more US troops to Poland.

Polish deputy defence minister Pawel Zalewski said in August that his country was discussing with the United States whether to set up a permanent US base on its territory.

“We have already completed the initial stage (of the process), not to mention the political will, which was expressed long ago,” Zalewski told public broadcaster TVP.

Almost 10,000 US soldiers are currently stationed in Poland — which is also an EU member state — but almost exclusively on a rotational basis.

Washington has levied heavy criticism against a number of European countries that refused to allow US forces to use Nato bases on their territory in their war with Iran.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had also threatened to reduce his country’s contribution to the alliance’s budget if certain states refused to honour the commitments made last year at the Nato summit in The Hague.

At that summit, Nato allies pledged to devote by 2035 at least five per cent of their GDP to security spending, including 3.5 per cent devoted strictly to military expenditures. — AFP

ANKARA, Sept 18 — Exasperated by the ongoing Black Sea attacks, Turkiye has sent a proposal to Russia and Ukraine to end strikes on civilian ships, a Turkish diplomat told AFP yesterday.

The move follows a sharp increase in attacks on commercial ships in the Black Sea in recent months, often using drones, among them many Turkish vessels.

In August alone, “almost 90 ships” were attacked, a Turkish defence source said this month.

And at least 22 Turkish-owned ships were attacked in the two months to August 27, Turkiye’s IMEAK chamber of shipping said.

Four more have been hit since, including one early yesterday.

Over the same period, at least three Turkish nationals have been killed and several others injured.

“We have shared a text of a memorandum, a draft text, with the Russians and the Ukrainians to come up with a solution,” the diplomat said.

Last month, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan demanded a “moratorium” on such attacks, which have intensified as the war rages for a fifth year.

But Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov dismissed it as “unrealistic” and “impossible to monitor”.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriï Sybiga said a halt to Black Sea attacks could emerge from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s talks with US President Donald Trump at the UN General Assembly.

The aim is “achieving a ceasefire. There could be at the same time an energy ceasefire and a ceasefire in the Black Sea,” he told reporters, saying Kyiv had “proposals from other countries to make this real”.

Soaring Black Sea attacks 

Figures from IMEAK show 226 civilian and commercial vessels have been hit since the war began in February 2022.

Seventy per cent — or 163 attacks — took place in first eight months of this year.

Nato-member Turkiye maintains relations with Kyiv and Moscow and has declined to join Western sanctions against Russia.

Its ships are very active in the Black Sea, sailing under various countries’ flags, with several hit by drones believed launched by Ukraine.

Last month, Ankara summoned Ukraine’s envoy following an attack on the Lider Bordo Mavi container ship and a subsequent attack on the Lider Kocatepe which was sent to tow it away.

Anchored in the north-eastern port of Trabzon, the Lider Bordo Mavi appeared to have sustained major fire damage to its bridge and the two decks below, AFP correspondents said.

Grain-corridor mechanism? 

Turkiye has repeatedly raised the idea of reviving the grain corridor format to safeguard shipping with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussing the matter with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in November.

The Turkish diplomat said the proposal was “inspired by” a 2022 deal brokered by Turkiye and the UN to grant safe passage for Ukrainian grain to be exported via the Black Sea without risk of attack.

Although Russia pulled out a year later, Ukraine set up an alternative shipping route that hugs the coast of Romania and Bulgaria.

“In that mechanism, there is maybe a four- or five-mile gap where the Ukrainian ship has to leave the national territorial waters and travel in international waters, which is the risky part,” the diplomat explained.

The official also suggested another route along the eastern and southern Black Sea shores.

“We want to use the territorial waters of the adjacent states, including Turkiye — and Georgia, if they are willing,” the diplomat said.

But experts said it would be difficult to get both sides to agree.

“The justification for the original deal was that it would be for the common good of the global south. In this case, without a comparable beneficiary, it will be very difficult to convince parties to agree on such a safe corridor,” said Serhat Guvenc, a professor of international relations at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.

“A safe corridor will be in the interests of countries operating merchant vessels in the Black Sea but Russia and Ukraine are... doing their best to force the other side to surrender,” he told AFP. — AFP

TEHRAN, Sept 18 — Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said today they struck an oil tanker sailing under the Togolese flag in the Strait of Hormuz, state news agency IRNA reported.

Tehran has imposed an effective blockade of the strait since the United States and Israel struck Iran in late February.

The Islamic republic wants to charge tolls for passage, attacking ships it accuses of attempting to circumvent its preferred route.

“The Togo-flagged oil tanker ‘Trend’ had been targeted and detained after a fire broke out on board,” the statement said, referring to an attempted “illegal passage” through the vital waterway.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) announced Thursday a “security incident in the Strait of Hormuz, 16 nautical miles (29.6km) northeast of Khasab, Oman”.

UKMTO did not provide details about the vessel involved, and it is unclear whether it is the same mentioned by the Revolutionary Guards. — AFP

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 18 — OpenAI committed “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions” when it used millions of news articles to train its artificial intelligence models, the New York Times alleged in a court document unsealed yesterday.

The San Francisco-based artificial intelligence lab scraped content from more than 10 million articles, nearly a third of which came from the New York Times alone.

The document claims Microsoft’s Director of Applied Science Brent Hect called it “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions” and possibly the “largest theft of labour in human history.”

Hect also allegedly warned that OpenAI might have engaged in an “accidental cover up” in its attempts to identify content in its systems that came from the New York Times and the lawsuit’s other plaintiffs.

Microsoft considers Hect’s statements the opinions of “one employee’s individual perspective” and they “do not represent the company’s views,” a spokesperson for Microsoft told AFP in a statement.

The newspaper sued OpenAI and Microsoft three years ago in New York federal court for allegedly stealing its copyrighted material to train OpenAI’s flagship model, ChatGPT. Microsoft first invested in OpenAI in 2019.

Several other news publishers also joined the lawsuit, including Ziff Davis — which owns CNET and other tech news publications — as well as the parent company of the magazine Mother Jones, the investigative news site The Intercept, and multiple local newspapers across the United States.

They are seeking damages for each article that was allegedly stolen and used by OpenAI’s models, though it is unclear what the total amount of penalties could reach.

OpenAI has signed content licensing deals with many news publishers around the world since it launched ChatGPT in late 2022, but concerns persist that generative AI software is reducing traffic to internet news sites.

AI companies have tried to alleviate those concerns by adding citations with links to user queries, but the effort has been criticised as insufficient.

“No matter how prominently we show the links, users won’t click,” one of OpenAI’s own engineers admitted, according to the court document.

Microsoft and OpenAI argue that their use of news content is transformative and falls under “fair use” laws.

In early September, the US Department of Justice filed a brief in support of OpenAI and Microsoft, in which it invoked “scientific progress,” economic growth, and “national security.”

The plaintiffs have requested a summary judgment in their favour.

If granted by US District Judge Sidney Stein, the case would not go to trial, but a ruling is not expected until 2027. — AFP

BEIJING, Sept 17 — Trade frictions between the world’s top two economies are set to take centre stage next week when US President Donald Trump hosts Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the White House.

Although a shaky truce was reached last October that halted the frenzied escalating tariff battle launched by Trump, a comprehensive and permanent deal has remained elusive.

Here is where things stand ahead of the summit, which is expected to take place on September 24:

How high are current levies?

Tariffs have represented a major hurdle in the China-US trade relationship since 2018, during Trump’s first term.

In April 2025, the base US tariff rate on Chinese goods reached an eye-watering 145 per cent –  matched by China’s reciprocal levies of 125 per cent – although both sides have since significantly reduced rates.

Tolls are now imposed by both sides in a complex patchwork of sector-specific policies.

The effective tariff rate for imports from China, which balances various duties paid across all items, was 22.8 per cent as of July, the highest among all major US trading partners, according to research organisation the Penn Wharton Budget Model.

Among the highest effective tariff rates for Chinese goods heading to the United States are 40.5 per cent on steel and aluminium, it said.

China still maintains a 10 per cent levy on all US goods, with additional rates applicable in other specific sectors, such as 15 per cent on liquid natural gas.

How much is still being traded?

Trade between the world’s two largest economies has continued despite the turbulence caused by the tariffs.

Total imports and exports hit US$400.8 billion (RM1.69 trillion) in January through August this year, Chinese customs data shows, a 5.4 per cent rise from the same period in 2025.

But the balance is lopsided, with Chinese exports accounting for 75 per cent of that.

Beijing’s soaring trade surplus has long ruffled feathers in Washington, while a similar asymmetry with the European Union is also exacerbating tensions with Brussels.

What is being discussed?

Trump told reporters on Sunday that he would be discussing “almost everything” with Xi at the summit.

Tariffs, however, are “the main issue on the agenda”, Dan Wang, a director on Eurasia Group’s China team, told AFP. “Xi wouldn’t go if there were no deliverables on tariffs or a trade truce,” she said.

Beijing and Washington are currently in consultation about a tariff reduction framework covering US$30 billion (RM126.6 billion) worth of products on each side, China’s commerce ministry said last week.

That goal was agreed at Xi’s last meeting with Trump in Beijing in May, during which they also agreed to establish trade and investment councils intended to manage friction.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that he will meet his Chinese counterpart He Lifeng this weekend for talks expected to lay the groundwork for the White House summit.

What is China’s leverage?

Beijing successfully pressured Washington to back down from its sky-high tariffs last year after imposing stringent controls on exports of rare earths, the critical minerals used for various high-tech products whose processing is dominated by China.

“China still has the upper hand” going into next week’s talks, said Wang of Eurasia Group.

The country’s supply chains are “very flexible”, and its historic boom in exports has not been significantly dented by tariffs so far, she noted.

Xi’s diplomatic clout has also been on full display recently, having met this month with several leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, travelling to Bishkek, Cairo and New Delhi.

What is Trump seeking?

With global oil prices spiking following renewed fighting in the US war with Iran, the Trump administration is looking to allay concerns about the economy ahead of crucial midterm elections in November.

Securing Chinese guarantees to purchase US agricultural goods, particularly soybeans, has been a recurring objective in trade talks with Beijing.

The meeting will also give Trump the chance to project statesmanship while hosting a high-stakes diplomatic engagement at the White House — Xi’s first visit to the US capital in 11 years.

What are other potential pitfalls?

Several other fraught issues threaten to derail any sweeping agreement.

Beijing’s economic and diplomatic support for Tehran is one major sticking point, with recent reports by the Wall Street Journal claiming that Chinese entities supplied Iran with satellite imagery of a military base housing US troops in Jordan.

Fierce technological competition is also ongoing, particularly in the closely watched artificial intelligence sector.

The US government last week accused Chinese AI labs of stealing the capabilities of US firms on an “industrial scale”. — AFP

JAKARTA, Sept 17 — Indonesian rescuers formally called off a search Thursday for eight people, including five journalists sent to cover a volcanic eruption, nearly two weeks after their speedboat went missing in waters between Java and Sumatra islands, an official said.

“The national search and rescue said that as this search and rescue operation has been deemed ineffective, with a heavy heart the joint operation... is hereby declared terminated,” Banten province governor Andra Soni told reporters. — AFP

TOKYO, Sept 17 — Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi retained her key ministers in a cabinet reshuffle Thursday aimed at solidifying the ruling coalition and advancing a food tax cut despite concerns over how it will be financed.

Prime ministers in Japan routinely shuffle their cabinets to refresh the government’s public image and to distribute ministerial posts to loyal supporters and experienced lawmakers from their party.

But Takaichi – who has unusually high approval ratings nearly a year into office – kept core members of her team, according to a cabinet list announced by her right-hand man and top government spokesman, Minoru Kihara.

They include Kihara, finance minister Satsuki Katayama, foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi, and defence minister Shinjiro Koizumi.

“Without economic growth, we can’t maintain sustainable finance,” Takaichi told reporters, pledging to keep pursuing her “responsible, proactive fiscal policy”.

Through inducing domestic investment, thereby increasing employment and household income, “we aim to realise a virtuous cycle” of economic growth that allows Japan to increase tax revenue, she said.

The prime minister also retained key economic ministers, including trade and industry minister Ryosei Akazawa, who has led Japan’s tariff negotiations with the United States, and economic growth strategy minister Minoru Kiuchi, who favours active fiscal spending.

Under finance minister Katayama, Japan has repeatedly intervened in the foreign exchange market to prop up the falling yen, including a rare joint intervention with the United States.

The small-scale reshuffle comes as Takaichi navigates rising inflation and a weak yen while pursuing a consumption tax cut on food starting next year.

While Takaichi’s tax cut pledge is popular among voters, economists have criticised the plan, warning that she has failed to identify around five trillion yen (RM134.4 billion) needed annually to fund it.

Takaichi’s policy of expansive government spending – as well as the Bank of Japan’s relatively low-key interest rate – has also rattled the markets, pushing Japan’s benchmark bond yield to around 3.0 per cent, its highest level in three decades.

“We will ensure market confidence by strengthening communication” with voters and market participants, giving explanations of policy “with a high level of transparency”, she said when asked about market concerns over her fiscal policy’s sustainability.

On defence, Koizumi remains tasked with updating Japan’s foundational national defence strategy documents alongside implementing a push to expand sector spending.

“Revising our strategy is something that has a major impact on Japan’s security and on the entire region,” Koizumi told reporters after he was reappointed.

He said the defence ministry “must marshal all our resources and move forward with a greater speed” with the review.

Takaichi also assigned the post of minister in charge of regulatory reform to Hiroshi Nakatsuka, 70, a member of the LDP’s coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party.

The JIP formed a ruling alliance with Takaichi’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party in October but until now had chosen not to join her cabinet. — AFP

JOHANNESBURG, Sept 17 — South African police on Thursday recovered the ninth body of a woman east of Johannesburg in two months, as a string of murders continues to stoke public anxiety.

Police have imposed a lockdown in Kempton Park in the Ekurhuleni municipality and officers mounted roadblocks after three of the partially naked bodies were found this week.

“We cannot continue picking up bodies,” deputy police chief Tebello Mosikili told journalists in Dawn Park, where the latest body was found on the side of the road.

Police have offered a 400,000 rand (RM80,800) reward for any information that could lead to the arrest of the killer or killers, while the Democratic Alliance, the second largest political party in South Africa, offered US$31,000 (RM121,800).

Mosikili said officers will investigate whether Thursday’s discovery was linked to the earlier murders or if they were dealing with a copycat.

Gender-based violence is endemic in South Africa, where one in three women experiences physical or sexual violence during her lifetime, according to the United Nations, despite years of government pledges to tackle it.

One of the victims, 38-year-old Elizabeth Moselakgomo, left her eight-year-old daughter at home to go for a jog and never returned. Her body was found on September 12 behind a hotel.

Her disappearance drew public attention after fellow runners launched a social media campaign to find her, bringing renewed focus to earlier cases and, later, to the discovery of more bodies.

The first victim, a 37-year-old woman, was found naked and bound with cable ties on July 15. A suspect was arrested two days later and appeared in court on Wednesday, police said.

Mosikili said the man was a foreigner but could not say from where.

The second woman, 32, was found partially clothed on August 24, while a third was discovered naked and in an advanced state of decomposition on September 10. — AFP

ALEPPO, Sept 17 — Syria’s judiciary issued its first verdicts on Thursday over last year’s killing of hundreds of members of the Alawite minority on the Syrian coast.

The court sentenced a former member of government forces to 20 years in prison for murder, while two supporters of the deposed government received a death sentence and life in prison.

Fourteen people were accused of involvement in the massacres, in a trial that opened last November. They were seven government forces members and seven supporters of former President Bashar al-Assad.

Further verdicts are expected next week.

Several of the defendants believed to be Assad supporters pleaded not guilty at the opening of the trial, with one claiming he was in Lebanon during the violence.

The death sentence issued was for “assault aimed at provoking civil war and sectarian clashes”.

The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, expressed criticism that “one of the largest mass massacres Syria has seen during the transition period is being reduced to just a few cases”.

“Putting a few people on trial does not constitute real justice,” he told AFP.

The massacres last year, which authorities say broke out after attacks by Assad supporters against their forces, left at least 1,426 people dead, according to a national commission of inquiry.

The Observatory said more than 1,700 people were killed.

The commission said it had verified serious violations leading to the deaths of mostly civilians, and identified 298 suspects.

It claimed 238 members of the security forces and army had been killed in attacks attributed to Assad’s supporters.

Islamist authorities then sent reinforcements to the region, with the commission estimating their number at 200,000 fighters.

Syrian and international monitoring groups reported sectarian massacres, in which entire families were killed by government forces, armed groups allied with the government and armed volunteers, including summary executions.

Assad, an Alawite, was toppled by an Islamist-led offensive in December 2024.

Despite assurances from the new authorities, Syria’s religious minorities have since expressed safety concerns. — AFP

PANGANDARAN, Sept 17 — Indonesia’s army will review nearly 3,400 bridges it and the police have built nationwide after a suspension bridge collapsed in West Java on the day it was due to be inaugurated.

Army chief-of-staff General Maruli Simanjuntak said the review was ordered after the Pongpet suspension bridge in Margacinta village gave way on August 30, with around 50 people on it at the time.

No one was killed, although several villagers suffered minor injuries and abrasions, according to the army.

“I apologise, but there are indeed technical matters where we may have been negligent, in supervising the rules for bridge use or perhaps the quality of bridges we have built,” Maruli told CNA in an exclusive interview published today.

The 60-metre bridge, which spans a river about three metres below, is expected to cost 400 million rupiah (RM103,000) to rebuild.

Maruli said the army would review the bridges to identify any problems and improve their safety.

“So that, hopefully, things will be better going forward,” he said.

The Pongpet bridge was among 2,700 so-called Garuda bridges completed by the army in less than a year, including about 800 serving disaster-hit areas.

Suspension bridges account for about 30 per cent of the total, while busier routes use concrete bridges and prefabricated designs are used elsewhere to reduce costs.

Maruli said the army’s engineering corps had long been involved in bridge construction as part of its wartime duties.

“One of its duties is to build bridges under wartime conditions. If they can do that in war, then in peacetime the work should certainly be better. We can also bring in experts to help; that is not a problem,” he said.

The army’s bridge-building programme is part of a wider push by President Prabowo Subianto to expand the military’s role in civilian projects.

The bridges, along with 3,000 clean-water facilities built by the army, were formally inaugurated by Prabowo via video conference last month.

He described the projects as proof the military was “truly the people’s military”.

Maruli said the army’s approach involved training representatives from each region before they helped build the bridges themselves through a self-managed, labour-intensive system.

“When we go there with a self-managed, labour-intensive approach, we gain three advantages. First, the cost is clearly much lower,” he said.

“Second, we revive the spirit of mutual cooperation, gotong-royong, within the community. Third, the money circulates directly in the local area instead of going to a contractor from far away.”

For 16-year-old Ibrahim Firdaus, who lives in Margacinta, the bridge is an important route to school and work.

“I need it to go to school. Because otherwise, I would have to make a U-turn, and also for our parents to go to work,” he told the Singapore-based news outlet.

PANGANDARAN, Sept 17 — As haze from Indonesia’s forest fires drifts into parts of Malaysia and Singapore, the Indonesian military says it is throwing everything it has at the problem — soldiers on the ground, wells in the earth, and helicopters in the sky.

Army chief-of-staff General Maruli Simanjuntak told Singapore-based news outlet CNA that President Prabowo Subianto has taken direct charge of coordinating the response, pushing the military to move faster and work more effectively as fires continue to rage across Kalimantan and Sumatra.

“The president has repeatedly led efforts on this directly, asking how we can all move more effectively to address the haze and ensure irrigation and water supplies are available,” Maruli said in the interview published today.

Wells are now central to the strategy. The army has drilled more than 400 water points specifically to fight forest and land fires, part of a broader clean-water infrastructure push that has expanded rapidly since Prabowo threw his weight behind it.

Before that support arrived, progress was slow. 

Maruli recalled struggling to secure funding for water projects during an earlier posting commanding forces across Bali and the Nusa Tenggara islands, managing barely 50 water points a year by seeking out donors himself.

“More recently, we received the president’s full support… and he will continue supporting us,” he said.

Indonesian villagers travel by boat through thick haze blanketing Benua Melayu Darat, West Kalimantan, as forest fires continue to choke Borneo, Sumatra and South-east Asian neighbours Malaysia and Singapore in September 2026. — AFP pic

On the fires themselves, Maruli said Prabowo had ordered the military to deploy its helicopters more aggressively, including for weather modification — cloud-seeding operations aimed at inducing rainfall over fire-hit areas.

“So we are truly deploying all available resources to deal with this situation,” he said.

Thousands of soldiers have also been sent into fire-affected regions, going village to village to discourage the slash-and-burn land-clearing practices that fuel much of the annual haze crisis — an approach Maruli admitted has had limited success in the past.

“This has actually been done for a long time, but it was not very effective. Hopefully, deploying thousands of soldiers to reach villages and provide guidance will yield better results. The president has also said that enforcement against people who start fires will be firm,” he said.

The military’s growing footprint on the ground has drawn scrutiny from some non-governmental groups, who question whether it signals mission creep into civilian territory. Maruli brushed the concern aside, framing the deployment as an extension of the army’s core purpose rather than a distraction from it.

“There’s no need to worry too much about where the military is heading. We simply want to help people who are struggling,” he said.

He pointed to Indonesia’s continued strong standing among foreign militaries as proof the civilian work hasn’t blunted the army’s professionalism. 

“Yet 21 countries want to conduct joint exercises with us... they even tell me they want to take part in our civic mission programmes.”

The fire response is part of a wider disaster mitigation push, according to Maruli.

Prabowo ordered the development of a comprehensive disaster mitigation masterplan on September 7, as Indonesia contends simultaneously with the aftermath of a deadly earthquake, heightened volcanic activity and the forest fires.

The Indonesian National Disaster Mitigation Agency said last Tuesday that it is widening firefighting operations beyond the six original priority provinces – Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, South Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan – to also cover high-risk sites such as Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park and Mount Butak in East Java, where water-bombing helicopters are now active, Indonesian state news agency Antara reported.

Joint firefighting teams are additionally running operations in North Maluku, Central Java, North Kalimantan, Central Sulawesi, Lampung and Southeast Sulawesi, as authorities race to bring the fires – and the haze choking the region – under control.

TOKYO, Sept 17 — Japan should overhaul its prostitution law to punish those who seek to buy sex, experts recommended Thursday in proposals likely to lead to changes to the decades-old legislation.

Currently, street sex workers face fines or imprisonment for public solicitation, but their customers face no punishment, making Japan an outlier among developed countries.

Calling for the abolition of this asymmetry, the panel of legal experts proposed in a report that clients also be penalised for solicitation both in public and online.

It is seen as almost certain that the justice ministry will make legal amendments based on the panel’s conclusions.

Acts such as negotiating paid sex in public and loitering on the street to “browse” sex workers should be considered punishable, the panel said.

Some campaigners have demanded a “Nordic model” that decriminalises selling sex while criminalising paying for it – adopted by countries like Sweden, Norway and France.

However, the panel did not recommend decriminalising sex work altogether or redefining prostitution to include acts beyond vaginal intercourse.

Some sellers, the panel said, “willingly” joined the sex trade and their solicitation “disrupts social order”.

Risa, a member of the sex trade survivor group Toka (”Light”), said if the laws continue to target sellers, “they won’t be able to report violence and other terrible experiences to police, for fear of being labelled criminals”.

The concept of free will in sex work is a myth given that compounding difficulties like poverty, trauma and disability push many women into the trade, the 37-year-old told AFP, using a pseudonym.

In her 20s, “I did think I was doing it voluntarily” to survive adversities including her abusive, drunk father, a job loss and depression, Risa said.

But “I wonder how many people would still say they want to keep doing it” if they had a chance at re-education, employment and mental health treatment, she added.

“I had to act like a doll, switch off all emotions and pretend to be pleased no matter what was done to me.”

When enacted in 1956, Japan’s anti-prostitution laws viewed sex workers as an “evil” who seduced married men, the antithesis of the “chaste wives” that society expected women to be, feminist lawyer Yukiko Tsunoda told a recent symposium in Tokyo.

“Nobody even thought of the sex trade as violence” against women, she said.

Any legal change is overdue for Nao, a Toka member who fled abuse by her mother and lived under a bridge from age 14, turning to street prostitution to “survive the day”.

As morning arrived, the “mostly middle-aged men on their way to work” would approach her and offer around 5,000 yen ($32) for sex, she told AFP.

Back then, “I needed to feel that I had something that made my life worthwhile”, recalled the now 25-year-old Nao – a pseudonym she uses when campaigning.

“But now I know I was a victim of sexual exploitation.” — AFP

BERLIN, Sept 17 — Two German state elections Sunday could deal a double blow to embattled Chancellor Friedrich Merz, two weeks after his party suffered a stunning defeat at the hands of the far-right AfD.

Tight races for power – each with their own unique electoral dynamics – are expected in the city-state of Berlin and the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

The Alternative for Germany is expected to make strong gains in both, a fortnight after it trounced Merz’s centre-right CDU by a margin of almost 44 to 17 per cent in the ex-communist eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.

The AfD triumph badly rattled Merz and fuelled speculation that the 70-year-old leader, who took power in May last year, may not sit out the end of his four-year term as leader of Europe’s top economy.

Amid speculation about a potential change at the top, eight CDU state premiers closed ranks Wednesday and declared jointly that Germany needs “stability now more than ever” rather than “discussions about personnel”.

Merz has vowed to reboot Germany’s flagging economy, rearm the country to deter a hostile Russia and contain irregular immigration to soothe voters’ fears and lure them away from the AfD.

Instead, the AfD now leads nationwide polls, Merz’s personal approval ratings hover around 10 per cent, and his coalition with the centre-left SPD is increasingly torn by infighting.

“In Merz’s case, we are now observing the possibility of a tipping point – an implosion rather than a slow erosion of authority,” said Oliver Lembcke, a political scientist at Ruhr University Bochum.

“When election defeats, poor personal ratings and internal party doubts reinforce one another, political authority can collapse very quickly.”

Two close election battles

In one election Sunday, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Merz’s party is an onlooker to the main battle between the SPD of popular state premier Manuela Schwesig and the AfD.

While the AfD was polling at 37 per cent against the SPD’s 35 in the latest INSA survey, Merz’s CDU, at just seven per cent, may drop dangerously close to the five-per cent hurdle needed to stay in the state parliament.

A CDU crash below that line would be a historic first and heap enormous pressure on Merz.

If the CDU “were indeed to fail to clear the five-percent threshold, I consider it quite likely that Mr Merz would be pressured by his party to step down,” said Ursula Muench of the Academy for Political Education in Tutzing.

“Barring such a drastic turning point, I do not foresee this happening for the time being.”

In Berlin, the ruling CDU is running a neck-and-neck race against the far-left Die Linke, which is popular with many young people and promises drastic steps to solve a dire housing crisis.

A CDU defeat in the capital would be another black eye for Merz.

The AfD is meanwhile expected also to do well in Berlin, although it is set to remain shut out of power in both states because all other main parties have agreed on a “firewall” of non-cooperation with it.

‘Dissatisfaction running high’ 

Whoever wins either poll, the AfD is sure to again channel voter discontent with the mainstream parties.

“I do hope they vote for the AfD here, I can tell you, because the CDU have been in power for years and they haven’t got their act together,” said Berlin retiree Manuela Schmidt, 63.

She pointed to poverty-stricken pensioners collecting bottles off the streets to collect the deposits.

“They’ve worked for 45 years, get a pension of 500-something (euros per month), and go out at night to collect bottles, only to be driven away by foreigners in the end... and that simply can’t go on,” Schmidt told AFP.

Merz – bracing for a tough Sunday evening – has scheduled a CDU executive committee meeting then to quickly discuss the election results and the way forward.

He also cleared his calendar for the coming week by scrapping plans to travel to the UN General Assembly, sending his foreign minister to New York instead.

“Dissatisfaction is evidently running high” in the CDU camp, said Muench, adding, however, that cooler heads might eventually prevail to avoid boosting the AfD under co-leader Alice Weidel.

“It must surely be clear to level-headed CDU politicians that replacing the CDU chairman and chancellor would not serve their own interests,” she said. “It would just fuel the AfD’s pipe dreams of a ‘Chancellor Alice Weidel’.” — AFP

SYDNEY, Sept 17 — Australia will reduce migration by curbing “visa hopping”, tightening rules on students and working holiday makers as well as cracking down on overstayers, its interior minister said Thursday, as the far-right surges in the polls.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told the National Press Club in Canberra that immigration was “fundamentally a strength” for Australia, but accepted that housing pressures required changes.

He denied his ruling Labor party was tightening visa rules in response to the rise of One Nation, which has become one of the country’s most popular parties this year with pledges to drastically slash migration. Business groups warned such cuts would cause economic damage.

“We need immigration to soften enough that housing has a chance to catch up,” he said, while stressing the housing shortage was not caused by migrants.

Net overseas migration – the net gain or loss to the population through movement to and from Australia – reached a peak of 538,000 in 2022 after a surge in arrivals when borders re-opened after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Numbers fell to 292,100 in the year to March, data on Thursday showed.

Burke said this was 47 per cent below the post-Covid peak – and that policy changes would help to reach a target of 225,000 for next year.

Australians want to know the government was “taking control” of migration but also “being decent about it”, he said.

Students are the largest group of arrivals, with 753,000 international students in Australia, most from China and India, data shows.

Under the new rules, family members seeking to join students in Australia will face new curbs and it will become harder for students to move between courses to extend their stay, Burke said.

A backlog of applications from the UK for working holiday visas would continue to be processed slowly after a record 80,000 applications – a matter that is under discussion with the UK government, he said.

Working holiday makers in rural areas will enter a ballot to stay for a second or third year, with just 5,000 visas available for the latter.

Family members seeking to visit Australians will have “no further stay” conditions attached to their temporary visas.

Migrants with construction and housing skills will be prioritised for visas, he said.

Australia would return to a policy of a decade earlier in which visa overstayers were given two weeks to leave the country or face detention and deportation, he said.

An additional 100 compliance officers and 250 more beds in immigration detention centres would show there are consequences to overstaying a visa, he said.

But he stressed “this is not the sort of operation that some people have seen on TV happening in other countries” – a nod to hardline immigration policies in the United States.

A third of Australia’s resident population of 27.6 million was born overseas, the latest census data shows. — AFP

WASHINGTON, Sept 17 — The US military honour guard has been rehearsing and the new White House helipad is ready. But will Xi Jinping and Donald Trump achieve lift-off at their summit next week?

Warnings of an AI apocalypse hang heavy over the Chinese president’s first talks at the White House with his US counterpart, with both countries racing for supremacy in this technology.

Trump’s Iran war casts a long shadow too, as China seeks to avoid US sanctions against countries dealing with Tehran, despite reports that Beijing supplied Tehran with intelligence for a strike on US troops.

A trade war is of even greater concern and the world’s two largest economies are still seeking to mitigate the fallout from Trump’s global tariffs. The threat of war over Taiwan looms large as well.

Behind it all is a desire to manage tensions between a superpower keen to keep its place at the top and a rapidly rising rival determined to make the 21st century a Chinese one.

“I’ll be discussing almost everything with him,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, ahead of their meeting on September 24.

‘Don’t expect much’ 

But the two leaders are more likely to simply extend a relative truce rather than produce any concrete results, like when Xi hosted Trump in Beijing four months ago, experts said.

“I don’t expect much to come out of this,” Jonathan Czin of the Brookings Institution told AFP.

“In many ways, this is going to be a recapitulation of Trump’s visit to Beijing back in May, where the focus was really on the ostensible rapport between the two leaders.”

With fears about AI making global headlines, agreement to cooperate on regulation or a slowdown is expected to be a major topic of discussion between Trump and Xi.

But any major deals are “politically out of reach for now,” said Wang Dong, a professor at Peking University, as Beijing and Washington both fear losing out in the race for AI dominance.

Tensions over Iran will also come up. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is due to meet his Chinese counterpart He Lifeng this weekend for pre-summit talks including on Iran sanctions.

Trump has, however, played down reports that Chinese entities supplied Iran with satellite imagery for an attack on a US military base in Jordan, saying Xi had “behaved reasonably well” and that “we spy on them, too.”

On trade, there is “room for progress on tariffs, agricultural purchases and selected export controls”, Yue Su of The Economist Intelligence Unit told AFP.

The son of jailed Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai made an appeal to President Xi from Washington that his 78-year-old father be released.

Trump said in May that he had discussed Lai’s fate with Xi, but his release was unlikely.

But Beijing did release the founder of an underground church, Ezra Jin, after Trump raised his case with Xi.

‘Spectacle’

Yet Trump has, as so often before, appeared more interested in the optics of his meeting with a powerful foreign leader than with the substance.

“This is less a summit and more a spectacle. This is designed for deep public consumption,” said Kurt Campbell, former US Deputy Secretary of State and now Chairman of The Asia Group.

Trump pushed for a new granite helicopter landing pad on the White House South Lawn to be open in time for Xi’s visit, which will include a grand state dinner.

Troops in flashy uniforms have been rehearsing on the White House driveway this week ahead of the welcome ceremony.

Trump’s only disappointment is that his under-construction $400 million ballroom won’t be ready – though he has said that when finished it will “top” Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, where Xi hosted him in May.

During the Beijing trip Trump showered praise on Xi, only for the Chinese leader to warn about possible “conflict” over Taiwan.

Fears of a possible Chinese invasion of the self-governing island and global semiconductor hub – which Beijing claims as its territory – remain the most sensitive topic between Washington and Beijing, said Peking University’s Wang.

One possible concrete deliverable is an announcement of further summits.

Trump and Xi are expected to meet in November at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Shenzhen, China. The Kremlin has suggested a three-way meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump is meanwhile expected to invite Xi to the G20 summit in December at his Doral resort in Miami. — AFP

WASHINGTON, Sept 17 — The United States has denied Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas an entry visa to attend the UN General Assembly in New York next week, a source familiar with the case said Wednesday.

In a separate statement that did not mention Abbas by name, the State Department say it would deny visas to members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and officials with the Palestinian Authority (PA), “as a consequence of their failure to reform, contrary to their commitments to the United States, and their ongoing activities that undermine the prospects for peace.”

A source familiar with the matter confirmed to AFP that the Palestinian Authority president, Abbas, was covered by the measure.

The Trump administration took the same step last year, forcing the Palestinian leader, a regular at the UN General Assembly, to address the body of global leadership by video.

In its statement Wednesday, the State Department said that the PLO and PA had “once again, failed to live up to their commitments.”

“This includes initiating and supporting actions at international organizations that undermine and contradict prior commitments,” the department also said.

Washington also accused the organizations of “taking actions to internationalize the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict including through the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ), seeking to bypass negotiations through seeking unilateral recognition, and continuing to pay stipends to terrorists and to glorify acts of terrorism and terrorists in public pronouncements and school textbooks.”

The move puts the United States at odds with numerous countries, including France, that recognised a Palestinian state at the United Nations last year.

A total of 142 UN member states endorsed it following the conference on a two-state solution co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia.

The decision comes as violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians has escalated in recent months in the West Bank.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and violence there has surged since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.

According to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry data, Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed at least 1,109 Palestinians in the West Bank – fighters and civilians – since October 7, 2023, when a Hamas-led attack killed more than 1,200 people.

The ensuing Israeli military campaign waged relentless strikes on Gaza that have killed more than 73,700 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

The international community has expressed concern over the violence, but the United States has remained largely quiet on the issue, saying only that the US government opposes any annexation of Palestinian territory. — AFP

WASHINGTON, Sept 17 — The son of jailed Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai called for his release on Wednesday ahead of a visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“A week from now, President Xi will be a guest in this city,” Sebastien Lai told a hearing of the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

“Our appeal to him is simple,” Lai said. “My father poses no threat. His imprisonment makes him a symbol of injustice.

“His death in prison would be a disgrace,” he said. “Let Jimmy Lai come home to his family.”

Jimmy Lai, the 78-year-old founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in February after being found guilty of foreign collusion and seditious publication.

The sentence was the harshest penalty doled out so far under a national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing after widespread pro-democracy protests in 2019 and received international condemnation.

At a separate event in the US capital Wednesday, campaigners and religious leaders called for the release of others who have been detained in China, urging Beijing to allow for freedom of religion.

Xi is scheduled to meet with US President Donald Trump at the White House on September 24.

Trump said in May following a visit to China that he had discussed Lai’s fate with Xi but his release was unlikely.

Freeing Lai is a “tough one for him to do,” the US president said.

But China released the founder of an underground church, Ezra Jin, after Trump raised his case with Xi – and family members of others who have been detained are hoping for more breakthroughs.

“This summer, I saw reason to hope,” said Ziba Murat, the daughter of retired Uyghur physician Gulshan Abbas.

Abbas has been held for around eight years following alleged terrorism charges. But Murat believes that her mother’s detention was linked to the human rights activism of her aunt – who is American.

“This is bigger than my family,” Murat told an event in Washington, adding that Chinese authorities can threaten relatives of Americans to pressure them.

She urged Trump to call for her mother’s release: “Her case sends a message about what America will and will not allow foreign governments to do to its citizens.” — AFP

WASHINGTON, Sept 17 — US President Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to cut trade with the European Union after the bloc proposed to make Canada its first ever associate member.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen raised the prospect a day before Canadian leader Mark Carney was due to address the European Parliament.

Her pitch comes as both Canada and the European Union seek to pivot away from an aggressive United States under Trump’s leadership.

“I think it’s laughable,” Trump told reporters when asked about the plan.

“If they do that, if I think it’s at all a hostile act, I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe, on many things.”

He added: “If it’s a good intention, that’s fine. If it’s a bad intention, we’ll put very heavy tariffs on Europe, which is a possibility.”

Von der Leyen pitched closer cooperation on tech, defence and energy to Carney, who became the first non-European head of government to attend the annual “State of the European Union” speech.

The German told the European Parliament in Strasbourg that, as democracies face a “fracture in the international rules-based system,” Brussels and Ottawa needed to pull closer together.

“I would like to work with you on opening the door for Canada to be the first associate member of the EU,” von der Leyen told the Canadian premier, drawing a standing ovation in the chamber.

A broader alliance

Carney has been pursuing closer ties with the European Union as Canada gets drawn ever deeper into a trade war with the United States.

He is set to address the parliament on Thursday, with his visit meant to act as a catalyst ahead of an EU-Canada summit in Montreal next month.

Von der Leyen said it was time to move from cooperation based on trade to a broader “alliance for the future” and “bring the relationship with Canada to the highest level possible.”

“We will work on intelligent manufacturing. We will create a tech alliance. We will integrate defence industrial bases. We will make the Arctic a flagship joint project,” she said.

She listed energy, critical minerals, batteries, AI, cyber and economic security as other fields of cooperation.

“This is a partnership not against anyone else, but for our common strength,” she said.

But both the EU and Canada have been buffeted by tariffs and territorial threats from the US and competition from China.

“In a more dangerous and divided world, Canada is forging stronger relationships with trusted partners,” Carney’s office said in a statement.

What’s in a name

While EU treaties do not envision the possibility of becoming an “associate member,” the idea was first floated by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz this year for Ukraine.

Under that plan, which met a cold reception from a country pushing for full membership, Ukraine would have been allowed to attend the bloc’s summits and have a representative in the European Commission.

It would have also benefited from parts of the EU budget, but without full voting rights.

“We don’t really know yet what it means,” said Tobias Cremer, a center-left European lawmaker from Germany and the main sponsor of a resolution urging stronger EU-Canada cooperation, after von der Leyen’s “associate membership” pitch.

Under EU rules, member states have to approve any form of partnership with a third country and it was unclear how much support von der Leyen’s proposal would receive from capitals.

Brussels and Ottawa already enjoy a considerable level of cooperation.

The CETA free-trade agreement that abolished almost all tariffs has been credited with boosting trade in goods and services by more than 80 per cent since 2016.

And this year Canada became the first non-EU country to join a flagship defence loan programme.

Carney later flew to Britain for his first meeting with new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

They attended a football match between Everton and Wolverhampton together before Carney’s return to Strasbourg for his Thursday speech. — AFP

RIYADH, Sept 17 — Yemen’s Houthis reported fresh Saudi airstrikes on Wednesday, as Riyadh accused the group of launching a “cowardly” attack targeting Islam’s holy city of Mecca.

The Houthis swiftly rejected as a “lie” Riyadh’s early morning statement that it had shot down a drone heading towards Mecca, but the accusation prompted a chorus of outrage from around the Muslim world.

Renewed fighting between the Houthis and Yemen’s Riyadh-backed government has dragged in the kingdom, after the Houthis declared a maritime blockade on Saudi ships in the Red Sea.

Last week, the Houthis seized control of the entirety of Yemen’s Red Sea coast and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a vital artery for Saudi oil exports as the wider Middle East war chokes off the Strait of Hormuz shipping route.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry condemned the targeting of Mecca as a “cowardly terrorist attack” and reaffirmed the kingdom’s right to “defend the security of the two holy mosques, the pilgrims, and the entire Saudi territory”.

Houthi politburo member Hazem al-Assad, however, dismissed the accusation as “a worn-out lie that has been used before and no longer fools anyone”.

One Mecca resident who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity said they “saw a few people panicking, running to the window to see what happened” after locals received an alert on their phones warning of an attack.

But, they added, “life is normal in Mecca”.

Saudi Arabia has accused the Houthis of launching attacks towards the city in an earlier conflict.

The Saudi-led coalition battling the group vowed retaliation, saying “the security of the Two Holy Mosques and the pilgrims is a red line”.

“The coalition will not hesitate to take the necessary and deterrent measures against the Terrorist Houthi Militia.”

On Wednesday evening, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said “Saudi warplanes launched 40 airstrikes... targeting the provinces of Taiz, Marib, and Hodeidah over the past 24 hours”.

He had previously put the number of Saudi strikes launched over the past week at more than 450, saying that in response, the group had targeted a Saudi air base and a state oil company facility in the Red Sea port city of Yanbu.

The group also claimed on Wednesday to have shot down a Saudi fighter jet.

A handout picture released by Ansarullah Media Centre shows burning military vehicles targeted in al-Jawf on September 15, 2026. — AFP pic

‘Aren’t they Muslims?’

Saudi Arabia had issued alerts on Tuesday warning of possible attacks in Mecca and across parts of the south.

“I won’t hide that we were scared,” another Mecca resident said on condition of anonymity.

“Aren’t they Muslims? They’re targeting the holiest city. What’s inside to target?”

During this year’s hajj pilgrimage, the Saudi defence ministry released a video showing advanced air defence batteries positioned on the outskirts of Mecca.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation – a bloc of 57 Muslim countries – condemned the “heinous attacks”, while Arab League chief Nabil Fahmy called it “a matter of extreme gravity”.

Turkey’s foreign ministry “strongly” condemned the attack. The governments of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Pakistan also voiced outrage.

Yemen’s civil war has been largely dormant since 2022, but fighting flared in July when the Houthis, who have for years controlled swathes of the north, launched a large-scale offensive against government forces.

The conflict in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country has forced more than 100,000 people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

Yemen’s permanent representative at the UN, Abdullah al-Saadi, said the government was fighting to restore “national institutions across every inch” of the country, and called on the international community to take action against the Houthis.

A battle tank advances during ongoing fighting between Houthi and Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces along the frontlines in al-Kadha, west of Taiz on September 16, 2026. — AFP pic

Clashes near the border

Yemeni government forces are clashing with Houthi fighters near the Saudi border, with AFP footage showing soldiers in armoured vehicles and trucks pushing across desert terrain under the crackle of machine-gun fire.

Two military sources told AFP on Wednesday that government forces were fighting the Houthis for control of Al-Labanat camp, whose capture would theoretically clear the path to Al-Hazm, the capital of Al-Jawf governorate, 50 kilometres away.

With the Houthis targeting Saudi ships in the Red Sea, the kingdom’s de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called on Tuesday for free navigation in the waterway, which serves as a gateway to the Suez Canal, a crucial source of revenue for Cairo.

US media reported last week that the crown prince made a personal request to President Donald Trump for US intervention, but was turned down.

A US military task force is working to enhance intelligence-sharing and planning assistance for Saudi forces, a US official told AFP on Tuesday.

The Houthis have insisted there is no threat to navigation in the Bab al-Mandab Strait except for Saudi vessels, but any attacks in the waterway are likely to make it less attractive to shippers. — AFP

PARIS, Sept 17 — The European Union is to unveil proposals yesterday aimed at curbing addictive features of social media for minors, as a growing number of countries look to restrict children’s access to the platforms.

More than 20 countries around the world have now taken steps to block or restrict children going online on social media, according to an AFP tally.

Seven have measures already in place or set to be implemented, with their policies targeting children under the age of 15 or 16.

Australia was the first country to introduce a blanket ban on social media for under-16s, at the end of 2025.

The US state of California has also recently moved to tighten restrictions on minors’ access to social media.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is due to present her proposals to the European Parliament yesterday, after months of considering ways to protect minors from features designed to keep users hooked.

Restrictions in place 

Social media has been banned for under-16s in Australia since December 2025.

However, the ban so far appears to have been widely circumvented by teenagers, according to data released in August.

Brazil began implementing measures in March requiring platforms to link the accounts of users aged under 16 to those of their parents, while also requiring platforms to verify users’ ages.

In China, where the internet is tightly regulated by the state, minors’ access to social media has been restricted progressively since 2019.

Initial measures imposed time limits and curfews on online gaming, before similar restrictions were extended in 2023 to social media and streaming platforms.

Indonesia has banned social media for under-16s since March.

Malaysia has taken a similar approach, with legislation coming into force in June excluding under-16s from major platforms.

Turkey is set to join the list after passing legislation to bar under-15s from social media in April.

The law is expected to take effect in late 2026.

The United Arab Emirates announced a ban on social media for under-15s last month, with implementation set for around in a year’s time.

The governor of the US state of California, Gavin Newsom, signed around a dozen laws on September 10 aimed at protecting children online, including one banning platforms from offering addictive features to under-16s. The law will take effect in early 2027.

Across the 27-nation EU, the Greek government announced in early April that it intends to ban social media access for under-15s from January 2027. — Picture by Yusof Isa

Restrictions announced 

Across the 27-nation EU, the Greek government announced in early April that it intends to ban social media access for under-15s from January 2027.

Austria and Slovenia are also preparing legislation to prohibit access for under-14s and under-15s, respectively.

In Germany, where Chancellor Friedrich Merz supports restricting or even banning social media for children, an expert commission has proposed two options: gradual restrictions by age, or platform-specific restrictions.

A similar debate is under way in Sweden, where a government commission has proposed banning social media for under-15s by early 2028.

In Denmark, the government announced in October 2025 that it would propose banning “several social media platforms” for under-15s.

The Irish government has warned that it is considering legislating in the absence of an EU decision.

Outside the EU, the Norwegian government will present a bill by the end of the year to ban access for those under 16.

Britain is looking to ban social media for under-16s by early 2027 under a measure planned by its former prime minister, Keir Starmer.

A curfew would also be implemented for children aged 16 and 17 as part of the plan.

Canada unveiled a bill on June 10 that would also set the minimum age at 16.

New Zealand followed Australia’s lead in August with a bill that would ban social media platforms from offering their services to under-16s.

Bills in parliament 

In Portugal, lawmakers from the ruling right-wing party introduced a bill in February that would set the age of “digital majority” at 16 for independent access to social media platforms, online services, games and apps.

In Spain, a bill unveiled in March 2025 and now under consideration would raise the minimum age for opening a social media account to 16.

Italy is also considering legislation that would ban social media for under-15s.

In France, parliament approved legislation this summer to ban social media for under-15s, but the Constitutional Council, the country’s highest constitutional authority, struck it down on freedom-of-expression grounds.

President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to introduce a new “legally robust” law by spring 2027. — AFP

SAN LORENZO (Honduras), Sept 17 — Animals are dropping dead amid the worst drought in living memory for many Central Americans, who are grappling with the unforgiving effects of the powerful El Nino weather pattern.

“Sometimes I break down in tears. Sometimes you eat, sometimes you don’t,” said Lidia Ochoa in San Lorenzo, southern Honduras.

The same scene is playing out across the Central American Dry Corridor, which includes parts of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

More than 10 million people live here, and 80 per cent of small-scale producers in the corridor are poor, United Nations figures show.

Extreme weather events are common in this part of the world, but this year’s El Nino — expected to be the strongest since comparable records began four decades ago — has bewildered locals.

“We had never seen anything like this,” said 76-year-old Ochoa.

At this time of year, corn should be growing abundantly on the plot belonging to fellow resident Francisco Molina.

But the field lies barren, surrounded by livestock carcasses decaying under the boiling heat.

The same disaster is unfolding in El Salvador.

Maria de la Paz Portillo manages an increasingly thirsty water tank that supplies the northeastern El Matazano community, where temperatures have reached a record-breaking 42C.

“This is the first year that we’ve seen this shortage and this need for water,” the 31-year-old said.

Francisco Molina walks through a corn field that failed to germinate at the village of Los Piches in San Lorenzo, Department of Valle, Honduras September 4, 2026. — AFP pic

Harvests lost 

El Nino raises surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean and causes global changes in winds and rainfall as well as erratic weather conditions.

Farmers, no longer able to depend on excess crops to feed themselves, are cutting down on how much they eat.

Governments have declared national emergencies but are facing accusations of neglecting affected communities, with many depending on NGOs for help.

“All the corn harvests are going to be lost,” said Indigenous leader Elvira Pasa from a remote village in the municipality of Cunen, northern Guatemala.

Pasa’s country suffers serious child malnutrition problems that are being exacerbated by the drought.

A woman washes clothes in a river near the village of Los Piches in San Lorenzo, Department of Valle, Honduras September 4, 2026. — AFP pic

‘Outrageously expensive’ 

He says some villagers are already buying corn at prices 50 per cent higher than normal.

Back in Honduras, the same predicament troubles Ochoa.

“We eat with just one tortilla and then we don’t eat again because everything is outrageously expensive,” she said.

El Matazano’s tank used to supply around 50 families and fill a pond where locals raised tilapia, a freshwater fish, to sell and to eat.

But the latter project has been abandoned and the water is being saved for other, more pressing needs.

“It’s affecting us because... we’re not eating tilapia, and also financially because it was a source of livelihood,” said 32-year-old resident Maria del Carmen Portillo.

Sixteen million people across Latin America could face food shortages due to El Nino, Lena Savelli, regional director of the UN World Food Programme, told AFP.

The climate phenomenon is predicted to peak at the end of the year, but experts say the consequences will stretch far into 2027.

A calf suckles from a cow at the village of Los Piches in San Lorenzo, Department of Valle, Honduras September 4, 2026. — AFP pic

Skin and bone 

The drought is also killing off malnourished livestock, and some San Lorenzo farmers are rushing to sell their cattle before they perish.

The Honduran village has seen around 100 cows die in recent months, their skeletons littering the parched fields as farmers milk the scrawny creatures that remain.

Since conditions intensified in June, Darwin Cruz has had to sell two of his dairy cows, while another one died.

The three cows left produce just a quarter of their usual output.

That marks a heavy blow to a small producer like him, with his wife and two daughters dependent on his dwindling income.

Cruz doesn’t know what to do if the rain doesn’t come. The less-than-ideal solution, he says, is to “sell my little cows.”

El Matanzo resident Vilma Ortiz is trying to adapt by producing crops that require less water.

The 53-year-old is growing chili peppers, which she believes are “braver” than her usual choice of tomato plants in the face of drought.

Indigenous leader Pasa meanwhile cannot escape the anxiety seeping from the cracked ground in Guatemala.

“The truth is, I’m starting to get scared because we don’t know what we’re going to live on,” he said. — AFP

TAMBOV (Russia), Sept 17 — “Terrified” by escalating Ukrainian drone attacks, locals in the Russian city of Tambov head to parliamentary elections this weekend under no illusions that the pro-peace candidate stands a chance of victory.

At first glance, the city of around 250,000 — some 500 kilometres south-east of Moscow — exudes calm.

Its quaint 19th-century houses and Soviet architecture seem far away from the Russian offensive in Ukraine, where hundreds of thousands have been killed.

Until that tranquillity was shattered on a July night, when a Ukrainian drone smashed into a warehouse of online retail giant Wildberries outside the city.

Seven people were killed and 25 wounded. A repeat attack a month later completely destroyed the site, where some 5,000 people used to work.

“It’s terrifying, impossible to put into words just how awful it is,” said Diana, an 18-year-old student in the city.

Pedestrians walk past a billboard announcing the upcoming election for Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, in Tambov, Russia September 10, 2026. — AFP pic

‘Go and vote’ 

Despite the result of the September 18-20 vote being in no doubt — President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party set for a comfortable majority — many in Tambov, including Diana, see the poll as crucial.

“It’s essential to go and vote, because the future, I believe, depends on us,” said Daria, a 35-year-old manicurist.

“It’s very important to choose the right party, to cast your vote, not to ignore this moment.”

She was backing Yabloko because they are “against military action”.

The anti-war party has been banned from running at the national level but is still fielding a handful of candidates in constituency races across the country.

They stand little chance against the pro-Putin ruling United Russia party — set to retain its majority — and the other pro-war paper opposition groups that will share the rest of the seats.

“Almost everyone is going to vote for United Russia. I know I’ll vote against,” said 76-year-old Vladimir Vinogradov.

He plans to back the Communist Party, which supports the offensive in Ukraine.

Andrei Zhidkov, the party’s 64-year-old candidate in Tambov, told AFP he opposes peace talks with Kyiv.

“Victory... means survival, the survival of the state,” he said, sitting in front of a bust of Communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin and a red flag.

“Any war ends in peace. But peace proposals during a war are always a dangerous path. That’s why we are a fighting party.”

Several members of the local party are fighting against Ukraine. Six have been killed, he said.

Yana Zenkina, the Yabloko party candidate for the State Duma in the 2026 parliamentary elections, gives an interview to AFP journalists in Tambov September 10, 2026. — AFP pic

Dangerous ‘peace’ 

Yabloko candidate Yana Zenkina, 32, is the only one calling for an end to Russia’s offensive.

In her modest office, a poster bears a famous quote from legendary Soviet rock group Kino: “Our hearts demand changes.”

Her campaign videos have been banned from local television after the station and local election officials alleged they displayed “signs of an extremist nature”.

“The word ‘peace’ is considered offensive, dangerous,” Zenkina told AFP, smiling.

Nevertheless, she said she has felt “enormous support from young people and even from the older population”.

“People are tired,” with the conflict dragging through its fifth year.

“It’s a heavy burden, economically and socially. Everyone is already exhausted, and naturally, they want to live in calm, in peace, to be safe.”

The Russian economy has stagnated over the last year, with Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries triggering nationwide fuel shortages and pushing prices higher.

The party was banned at the national level after seeing a jump in membership and winning the support of the exiled Russian opposition—outlawed in Russia as traitors and enemies of the state.

Across Tambov, posters encourage voters to go to the polls with the slogan: “Your voice is Russia’s strength.”

The Kremlin sees securing a high turnout as a way to legitimise Putin’s rule, analysts say.

Ukrainian attacks — even the one on Wildberries close to Tambov — have not triggered any “influx” into the pro-peace camp, Zenkina said.

The factory was one of the best-paying blue-collar jobs in the area.

But the head of the city’s employment centre, Olga Meshcheryakova, told AFP there were good alternatives.

“Enterprises in the city and region can offer comparable salaries... in the defence industry.” — AFP

PONTIANAK, Sept 16 — Struggling to breathe through the acrid haze emanating from wildfires on Indonesia’s Borneo island, residents told AFP today they feared for their health but had little to do but wait out the foul-smelling hazard.

Indonesia, which shares Borneo with Malaysia and Brunei, is grappling with forest fires that have ravaged swathes of the island, partly caused by the El Nino climate phenomenon that has also affected other countries in South-east Asia and beyond.

In Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan province, the thick, yellow smoke was so intense that it had paralysed the international airport over the weekend.

“My eyes sting, my head hurts. Over the past week it’s been getting worse,” resident Anggita Putri told AFP.

“While working, my chest feels tight, my head dizzy, my eyes burning. Even with this unhealthy air, we still must work,” she said.

The air quality index for Pontianak briefly exceeded 1,100 over the weekend, Anggita said — nearly four times the hazardous limit.

“I leave my child at home, so of course I have worries that go beyond just my own health. I’m also concerned about my child’s condition,” said the 28-year-old, who has a three-year-old son.

Another Pontianak resident, 35-year-old university lecturer Djunita Permata Indah, also said she was concerned for her two children, aged two and four.

“The situation is quite bad. I’m worried about the children’s health. Even as an adult, I feel my head aching and dizzy because of the smoky air,” she told AFP.

“But parents still must work, so the children are forced to keep going to daycare, where they remain exposed to the smoke that has already started to enter the house.”

The health ministry said last week that more than 113,000 cases of upper respiratory tract infections had been recorded across seven provinces since the fires began to rage early this year.

Brief rainfall yesterday, which some residents had hoped could alleviate the risk, did little to help and only intensified the thick smoke, Djunita said.

A peatland firefighting task force extinguishes a fire in the Tambang area of Kampar, in the Riau province August 27, 2026. — AFP pic

‘Surrounded by smoke’ 

Local authorities said they were intensifying efforts to bring the haze under control, including by water bombing and cloud seeding.

Indonesia regularly battles wildfires during the dry season, which typically runs from July to October, but the blazes this year have been particularly bad in part because the powerful El Nino — expected to be the strongest since comparable records began four decades ago.

Experts also blame climate change, decades of forest degradation and slash-and-burn land clearing practices that have changed the naturally fire-resistant landscape.

From Borneo, the haze has also spread to neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia.

The Indonesian government has said that between January and July, more than 202,000 hectares of land burned across the country.

The Nusantara Atlas project put that figure close to 300,000 for the same period, and last week estimated the total area affected, including August, was nearly 896,000 hectares.

For many residents on Borneo, the haze has not only affected their health but also disrupted their livelihood.

“My house is surrounded by smoke... For more than a month, I haven’t opened the windows,” said snack seller Desia, who like many Indonesians only has one name.

She told AFP she had stopped working two weeks ago because she could no longer spend much time outside.

“It’s like we’re breathing toxin every day,” she said.

Desia’s two children, aged 10 and 11, have not gone to school in over a month, spending most of their time in the only room in the house that has an air purifier.

“Right now, I just hope for rain,” she said. “I’ve stopped hoping for anything from the government.” — AFP

LONDON, Sept 16 — An English village of around 350 people announced today that a vast majority of residents had voted yes in an “independence referendum” staged to protest plans to house over 1,200 migrants in a nearby facility.

Piddington in central England, 25 kilometres from the university city of Oxford, has grabbed headlines with its tongue-in-cheek breakaway vote.

The village’s parish council announced that with 312 ballots counted, 285 had voted to secede from Britain over plans to house asylum seekers in a nearby disused military site, in a symbolic vote with no recognised legal basis.

Residents were handed a ballot paper with the statement: “I support Piddington seeking to secede from the United Kingdom and pursuing self-determination.”

The local parish council chair Tim McNally said that the village will now be known as the “principality of Piddington”.

McNally told Sky News: “For us, it’s about proportionality — how does a small village of 350 odd people assimilate with 1,250 males?”

He accused the government of “trying to rush this whole plan through”.

“I think what this result shows is that Piddington campaigners have done an incredible job to highlight their concerns about the proposed asylum centre,” the leader of Oxfordshire county council, Tim Bearder, told the BBC.

The council chief warned the planned centre “will be a lightning rod to the far right, who come here to protest” and “potentially attack” asylum seekers.

But Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told the BBC that a former military base “is a better option for housing asylum seekers” than hotels or rented accommodation.

“We do have to house people somewhere while we get a grip on the asylum chaos... and that base will go ahead,” she said.

Around Britain, regular protests have been staged in towns and villages against the housing of asylum seekers in hotels and other facilities.

A resident places his ballot in a box at the local village hall in Piddington, Oxfordshire, north-west of London on September 15, 2026, as the town of fewer than 400 inhabitants votes on a symbolic referendum on leaving the UK. — AFP pic

‘I voted to leave’ 

The Piddington referendum was a play on the British comedy film Passport to Pimlico.

In the 1949 classic, a small group of Londoners discover treasure and declare independence making them exempt from post-war rationing and other bureaucratic restrictions.

“I voted to leave the United Kingdom,” 76-year-old Piddington resident Herbert Owen, told AFP during the vote, saying it felt like the government did not “care” about the bucolic village in the Oxfordshire countryside.

“We have a village hall, a 12th-century church and a playing field—and that’s it,” another villager Ian Darby, 63, said, questioning how the migrants would spend their time.

“It is a takeover of our village, it’s four times the people of this village. They are going to want to get out and about (locally) and that raises serious issues,” he said.

“I’ve lived here, my whole life... I won’t really feel safe enough to walk around anymore,” 17-year-old student and part-time stablehand Dita Jackson told AFP.

According to the government, the proposed centre would be used for a minimum of 10 years to house single adult male asylum seekers.

The “safety and security” of the migrants, staff at the base and the local community would be “of the utmost importance”, it said.

The centre-left Labour Party, in power since July 2024, is phasing out the use of hotels as migrant accommodation, a policy it inherited from the previous Conservative government.

It has vowed to completely end their use by the end of this parliament, due in 2029, turning instead to ex-military bases. — AFP

STRASBOURG, Sept 16 — EU chief Ursula von der Leyen raised the prospect today of Canada becoming the 27-nation bloc’s first “associate member’, as she pitched closer cooperation on tech, defence and energy to Canadian leader Mark Carney.

Von der Leyen told the European Parliament in Strasbourg that, as democracies face a “fracture in the international rules-based system”, Brussels and Ottawa needed to pull closer together.

“I would like to work with you on opening the door for Canada to be the first associate member of the EU,” von der Leyen told the Canadian prime minister, who was attending her annual keynote speech — drawing a standing ovation in the chamber.

Carney has been pursuing closer ties with the European Union, as both seek to pivot away from a hostile United States under President Donald Trump.

The first foreign head of government to attend the annual “State of the European Union” speech — before addressing the parliament himself the next day — his visit is meant to act as a catalyst ahead of an EU-Canada summit in Montreal next month.

Von der Leyen said it was time to move from cooperation based on trade to a broader “alliance for the future” and “bring the relationship with Canada to the highest level possible”.

“We will work on intelligent manufacturing. We will create a tech alliance. We will integrate defence industrial bases. We will make the Arctic a flagship joint project,” she said.

She listed energy, critical minerals, batteries, AI, cyber and economic security, as other fields of cooperation.

“This is a partnership not against anyone else, but for our common strength,” she added.

What’s in a name 

EU treaties do not envision the possibility of becoming an “associate member”. But the idea was first floated by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz this year vis-a-vis Ukraine.

Under that plan, which met a cold reception in Kyiv as it pushes for full membership, Ukraine would have been allowed to attend the bloc’s summits and have a representative in the European Commission.

It would have also benefited from parts of the EU budget, but without full voting rights.

“We don’t really know yet what it means,” said Tobias Cremer, a centre-left European lawmaker from Germany and the main sponsor of a March resolution urging stronger EU-Canada cooperation, after von der Leyen’s “associate membership” pitch.

But a closer alliance “inherently” made sense, he added. “Not just because we share values and history but because we share common interests, we share a strategic vision,” he told AFP.

Valerie Hayer, the head of the centrist Renew group, envisaged an even broader partnership as she took the floor after von der Leyen, telling lawmakers Ottawa and Brussels must respond together to tariffs and “trade coercion”, and foster university exchanges among other things.

Others were less enthusiastic.

“Who has given you a democratic and popular mandate to do that?” Manon Aubry, a French lawmaker from the Left group asked von der Leyen.

Under EU rules, member states have to approve any form of partnership with a third country and it was unclear how much support von der Leyen’s proposal would receive from capitals.

‘Shared future’ 

Buffeted by US tariffs and competition from China, Brussels and Ottawa already enjoy a considerable level of cooperation.

A free-trade agreement (CETA) that abolished almost all tariffs has been credited with boosting trade in goods and services by more than 80 per cent since 2016.

And this year Canada became the first non-EU country to join a flagship defence loan programme.

On Tuesday, Canada’s ambassador to the EU Jonathan Wilkinson cited a deal to ship Canadian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Germany, and Canadian AI firm Cohere’s investments in the same European country, as examples that could inspire broader collaboration.

Ottawa was also hoping to get over the line a deal allowing the European Investment Bank (EIB) to put money behind Canadian critical minerals projects, he told AFP.

Carney was to hold talks with von der Leyen today before flying to Britain for his first meeting with Britain’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham.

He will also attend a Premier League football match between Everton and Wolverhampton before returning to Strasbourg ahead of his Thursday speech.

“We believe that power does not belong to the strongest, the richest or the loudest — but to all of us. That democracies have the freedom to choose with whom to work,” von der Leyen said.

“We share one ocean, one set of values, one way of seeing the world. And we will now build our shared future as well,” she concluded. — AFP

THE HAGUE, Sept 16 — Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte appeared in person at the International Criminal Court for the first time today, as he faces charges over his “war on drugs” that killed thousands.

The 81-year-old had appeared by video link when he was first brought to the court in The Hague, but had since skipped hearings, with his defence team saying he was too ill.

Dressed in a dark suit and white shirt with no tie, the former president sat with his chin resting on his hands as proceedings opened.

Judge Joanna Korner noted his appearance in court for the first time, and said he could leave the court at any time without seeking permission from the bench.

But he stayed throughout the hearing, which lasted one hour and 15 minutes, showing no emotion and seeming to follow proceedings through headphones.

Duterte did not speak during the hearing but waved at the public gallery when the judge had left the courtroom at the end.

He is the first Asian former head of state to face trial at the ICC, which prosecutes individuals for the world’s worst crimes such as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Duterte faces three counts of crimes against humanity, with prosecutors alleging his involvement in at least 76 murders between 2013 and 2018 during his offensive against drug users and sellers.

Korner has set November 30 as the start date of the trial, which could take months or even years.

The only time Duterte had been seen since his arrest in March 2025 was an initial appearance via video, where he seemed confused and tired, his speech barely audible.

‘It’s impossible’ 

Today’s hearing was a “status hearing” for the parties and the judge to fix logistical details.

Lawyers clashed over evidence filed by the prosecution, which they said was around 15,000 pieces but the defence put at more than 62,000 documents.

“It’s quite enormous. It’s impossible,” said defence lawyer Peter Haynes. “We haven’t got a prayer of reading” such a mountain of documents before the trial starts, said Haynes.

“The current state of the case is a mess. If I had a younger, healthier client, I would invite you to put back the trial by six months... but I don’t,” said Duterte’s lawyer.

Korner chided the prosecution for “wholesale dumping” of documents and urged the parties to work together to reduce the size of the case file.

Relatives of some of those killed in the anti-drugs campaign welcomed Duterte’s appearance in court.

Randy Delos Santos, 48, an uncle of Kian Delos Santos, a teenager killed by police in August 2017, when Duterte was president, told AFP: “Of course, we are very happy that he is now able to attend in person.

“We hope that his being physically fit will help speed up the hearings,” Santos told AFP in Manila.

In a submission published yesterday, Duterte’s lawyers said he suffered from “significant memory impairment that prevents him from retaining recent information and reliably accessing memories”.

Judges are weighing whether he is mentally fit to be tried and have ordered a medical assessment by three experts.

That assessment has not been made public but Duterte’s defence cited the results of examinations contained in the report.

According to the defence, these examination showed Duterte thinks he is living in 2007 or 2008, that he is 84 or 85 years old, and could not recall the name of the current US president.

‘Bluster and hyperbole’ 

During hearings in February, the prosecution alleged Duterte killed thousands of suspected drug dealers and users, first as mayor of Davao City, then as president.

The true number of killings during his campaign in the Philippines is thought to be in the thousands, and lawyers for the victims have argued that a full trial could encourage more families to come forward.

His then defence lawyer Nicolas Kaufman told the court in February his client “absolutely” maintained his innocence.

Kaufman told ICC judges the evidence against Duterte was “wholly insufficient” and the charges “grievously misplaced and politically motivated”.

He argued that while Duterte used “bluster and hyperbole” in his speeches, he also frequently ordered authorities only to shoot in self-defence.

Duterte remains popular in the Philippines, where many favoured his tough approach to crime. — AFP

PARIS, Sept 16 — The mayor of Paris today expressed his “deepest regrets” over multiple cases of physical and sexual assault on children by school staff, admitting there had been a lack of transparency in handling the crisis.

Parents in the French capital have been deeply unsettled by the scandal which saw multiple allegations of sexual or physical violence emerge in recent months against monitors the city employs to look after children outside the classroom, such as during lunchtime, after lessons or in holiday camps.

“I wish to express my deepest regrets. Personal regrets first, but also those of the city of Paris, which I represent in an official capacity,” Emmanuel Gregoire told a fact-finding inquiry of the upper house Senate.

Gregoire, elected mayor earlier this year to succeed his fellow Socialist Anne Hidalgo who held the post for 12 years, acknowledged that the city of Paris may have “lacked transparency,” particularly because “public meetings with parents and advocacy groups were not held systematically”.

Like Hidalgo, who appeared before the inquiry yesterday, he appeared to stop short of issuing a personal apology, saying that the city of Paris “never failed to meet the legal recruitment obligations”.

The comments by Gregoire, who had previously served as Hidalgo’s first deputy mayor, came a day after a Paris court imposed the heaviest sentence since the allegations emerged.

Michael M., 38, admitted during his trial to having sexually assaulted nine children aged five to 10 between September 2022 and January 2024. The court handed him a five-year term, four of which were suspended, and ordered him to serve the one-year term under house arrest with an ankle tag.

Prosecutors are investigating whether Gregoire and Hidalgo should be held responsible after parents filed several complaints alleging mismanagement. Since the start of the year, Paris has suspended 132 aides, including 52 suspected of sexual abuse. — AFP

* If you are experiencing sexual violence, the following hotlines offer free and confidential support: Talian Kasih at 15999 or WhatsApp 019-2615999 (24/7); All Women’s Action Society at 016-2374221/016-2284221 (9.30am-5.30pm); and Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) at 03-30008858 or SMS/WhatsApp TINA 018-9888058 (24/7)

BEIJING, Sept 16 — China opened a major canal today that will provide landlocked areas with direct access to the sea, state media said, reducing transport times and costs as the country aims to bolster trade ties with regional neighbours.

The 134-kilometre Pinglu Canal took four years to build and links Nanning, in the southern manufacturing region of Guangxi, to the Gulf of Tonkin, flanked by China and Vietnam.

Goods from south-western China previously had to be transported to the southern metropolis of Guangzhou in order to reach the sea, but the new canal will cut the journey by more than 560 kilometres, state news agency Xinhua said.

The canal will also reduce transport costs by 18 to 30 per cent, and generate annual savings of more than five billion yuan (RM3.01 billion) in the sector, it added.

State broadcaster CCTV broadcast footage of the first barge to pass through the canal and aerial video of ships navigating its calm waters, describing the waterway as “the project of our century”.

The canal “opens up the shortest, most economical and most convenient route” to Southeast Asia and will boost economic development, Xinhua said.

The new route is particularly important to rural parts of Sichuan, Chongqing and Yunnan, among others, which are less well-connected than more prosperous regions in eastern China.

Coal, ore, cereals, chemicals, agricultural produce and other materials will now be able to reach foreign markets more easily.

The bulk of the canal’s construction work involved widening, deepening and modifying existing waterways, while a small section had to be excavated, Xinhua said.

The project, which began in August 2022, cost a total of 72.7 billion yuan, it added. — AFP

NEW DELHI, Sept 16 — India summoned Pakistan’s top diplomat in New Delhi today to lodge a “strong protest” blaming its arch-rival’s navy for a collision between naval units in international waters.

“A strong protest was lodged with him over the unacceptable and unprofessional conduct of Pakistani naval units at sea that led to a collision with a unit of the Indian Navy,” New Delhi’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

It said that the incident took place in international waters, and “did not cause any major damage”.

A senior Indian official said that the incident happened late yesterday in the north of the Arabian Sea.

“A Pakistan naval ship closed in on a frontline Indian naval warship on a routine surveillance mission... at high speed, manoeuvring in a unprofessional and unsafe manner,” the official told AFP.

Pakistan’s envoy to India was instructed to tell Islamabad of “the need for all military units to observe due care and respect the provisions of the relevant agreements between the two sides in order to prevent any repeat of such incidents”, the Indian foreign ministry’s statement added.

Nuclear-armed arch-rivals India and Pakistan share a deep distrust and have fought multiple wars since gaining independence in 1947, primarily over Muslim-majority region of Kashmir, which both countries claim.

They also have tens of thousands of heavily-armed soldiers deployed all along their long and militarised border.

In May 2025, the two countries fought a deadly four-day conflict after armed gunmen killed over two dozen tourists, mostly Hindus, in Kashmir.

New Delhi blamed Islamabad for the attack, a charge Pakistan denied. — AFP

HONG KONG, Sept 16 — Hong Kong’s government unveiled plans today to significantly boost investment on innovation and technology as it aims to align the financial hub with mainland China’s development goals.

City leader John Lee made the announcement as he unveiled Hong Kong’s first Five-Year Plan, outlining its economic and social strategy to 2030.

The city will aim to make research and development account for three percent of gross domestic product after 2030, up from 1.63 percent in 2024, according to an official document.

China, the world’s second-largest economy, has made scientific and technological self-reliance a priority, investing heavily in industries including semiconductors and artificial intelligence as a way to reduce dependence on the United States.

Its ruling Communist Party has used five-year plans modelled on those of the former Soviet Union to set its development targets and social priorities since the 1950s.

Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997 and is now a Chinese “special administrative region” with different economic and trade regulations to the mainland.

It has long benefitted financially from its semi-autonomous position as a free-market gateway for investment into and out of China, though Beijing has asserted greater control over the city’s governance since quashing widespread protests in 2019.

Lee vowed that the inaugural plan would uphold Hong Kong’s capitalist system.

“I want to make it very clear: the five-year plan is not a planned economy,” he told reporters on Tuesday ahead of its publication.

Christine Loh, a former government official and lawmaker, told AFP that it will give Hong Kong a “useful governance tool” to implement longer-term, strategic planning.

The move was “primarily to synchronise” Hong Kong with China’s national Five-Year Plan released in March, said Dylan Loh, an associate professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

To Beijing, Hong Kong’s plan signals “proactive loyalty and a commitment to integrating into national development goals”, he added.

“What it does portend, to me, is that Hong Kong will accelerate its economic intertwining with Beijing.”

‘Dissolve the borders’ -

Hong Kong’s Five-Year Plan also aims to speed up development of the Northern Metropolis—a development project to build a massive tech hub near the border with mainland China.

First proposed in 2021, the project will eventually cover a third of Hong Kong’s total land area.

Critics and locals have raised concerns over its potential environmental impact as well as the strain it will put on the city’s public finances.

Eilo Yu, a political scientist who specialises in Hong Kong and Macau development, said the programme announced on Wednesday reflects “how the entire system (in Hong Kong) can be fully integrated with China’s development”.

The Northern Metropolis and Hengqin Island—a landmass adjacent to Macau and three times its size—are both part of China’s vision, he said.

Yu added that Beijing hopes, through the “geographical integration” of the two cities, “to gradually dissolve the borders”. — AFP

LOS ANGELES, Sept 16 — Three people were killed yesterday in a fiery crash when a US news media helicopter covering a deadly bus crash came down in a Los Angeles neighborhood.

Media in the city had scrambled to cover a deadly accident, after an SUV ploughed into a bus in the Chatsworth area, northwest of downtown, killing another three people and injuring many others in a city where news outlets routinely fly over large incidents.

Reporters who were at the scene of the bus crash said there was a loud bang, with some saying they saw a helicopter come down around a block away, sending plumes of smoke into the air.

Aerial footage showed a large fire that appeared to involve shipping containers and cars, and the wreckage of a helicopter, whose mangled tail and rotors could be seen in the flames.

There was no immediate confirmation of the identity of those aboard the helicopter, but police confirmed early on it was a media chopper and the local NBC4 affiliate reported live that it was unable to make contact with its crew.

Then, during sometimes emotional live coverage on NBC4, veteran news anchor Colleen Williams confirmed it was the local news station’s helicopter that crashed.

”We knew it was a news chopper. We knew we’d lost contact with our people out there, and we’ve just received confirmation,” Williams said.

Dozens of firefighters were sent to the scene, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.

”Four patients have been assessed. Three patients have been determined deceased on scene. One patient has been transported to a local hospital in unknown condition,” a statement said.

One of the dead appeared to be a person who was a pedestrian on the ground when the crash happened.

Los Angeles, America’s second biggest city, is a competitive and crowded media market, where TV stations compete aggressively for stories.

Many of them routinely make use of aerial coverage, sending helicopters into the city’s already busy skies to cover everything from fires to dramatic car chases.

There are usually two people on board a news media helicopter—the pilot and the reporter-camera operator who frequently reports live from the sky. — AFP

GAZA CITY, Sept 16 — Rescuers searched today for dozens of people missing after an apartment block in Gaza collapsed, killing eight people including children, authorities in the war-torn enclave said.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said the six-storey building in the Tal al-Hawa area was home to people displaced by the war with Israel, and collapsed onto residentials and nearby tents.

Agency spokesman Mahmoud Basal told AFP the building had sustained structural damage from Israeli strikes.

“The bodies of eight martyrs including children and 15 injured individuals have been recovered from the rubble,” Basal said.

He said more than 60 people were missing. — AFP