Lima: US President Joe Biden and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will meet for the last time Saturday, a day after both leaders warned of turbulent times ahead for the world as Donald Trump returns to the White House.
Their final encounter, taking place on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Peru, has been overshadowed by the prospect of fresh trade wars and diplomatic upheaval when Trump starts his second term.
Trump’s comeback has cast a cloud of uncertainty over efforts by Washington and Beijing to ease their tense relationship, launched in a historic meeting between Xi and Biden in California a year ago.
The White House said Saturday’s Xi-Biden meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit would “mark the progress” in the relationship between the United States and an increasingly assertive Beijing.
But it was also aimed at getting through a “delicate period of transition” and ensuring that competition with China “doesn’t veer into conflict,” US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.
Trump’s crushing election win over Kamala Harris has caused shock waves around the globe and dominated the two-day meeting of heads of state of the 21-member APEC group.
The billionaire Republican has in particular signaled a confrontational approach to Beijing, threatening to impose tariffs of up to 60 percent on imports of Chinese goods to even out what he says is a trade imbalance.
He has also named two major China hawks in his top team, including his pick for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
Xi and Biden, who are meeting for the third time overall, warned separately at the summit on Friday of choppy waters ahead.
The Chinese president raised concerns about “spreading unilateralism and protectionism” in a written speech to the forum, China’s state news agency Xinhua reported.
For his part, Biden said the world had “reached a moment of significant political change,” as he met the leaders of Japan and South Korea — key US allies in Asia.
Biden said US ties with the two countries were essential for “countering North Korea’s dangerous and destabilizing cooperation with Russia” as Pyongyang sends troops to fight in Ukraine.
And with Biden racing to salvage what he can of his foreign policy legacy from Trump, he said the three-way alliance he had pioneered was “built to last. That’s my hope and expectation.”
A senior administration official insisted that Trump’s name had not come up during the meeting with the South Korean and Japanese leaders.
The return of Trump’s “America First” policies, however, threatens alliances Biden has built on issues ranging from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to climate change and trade.
During his first term, Trump repeatedly threatened to cut US defense commitments to Asian and European allies if they did not pay a larger share of the financial burden for their protection.
Economists say Trump’s threat of punitive tariffs would harm not only China’s economy but also that of the United States and its trading partners.
It could also threaten geopolitical stability.
China is building up its military capacity while ramping up pressure on self-governed Taiwan, which it claims as part of its territory.
Sullivan said Xi and Biden were set to discuss Taiwan and tensions in the South China Sea, where Beijing claims large swathes of maritime territory, he said.
They would also focus on keeping communication channels open, particularly military-to-military hotlines restored last year.
The APEC summit will wrap up on Saturday but Trump’s shadow is still set to cloud the international diplomatic agenda at a G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week.
Biden will also be heading there as part of a swing through Latin America in what is likely to be his last major foreign tour.
He will stop in the Amazonian rainforest on Sunday to highlight the impact of climate change — another key policy area likely to be affected by Trump, who has promised to “drill, baby, drill” for fossil fuels.
Xi, Biden to meet as Trump return looms
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Xi, Biden to meet as Trump return looms
- Trump’s comeback has cast a cloud of uncertainty over efforts by Washington and Beijing to ease their tense relationship
Bird flu hits migrating cranes hard in Germany as the virus flares up
Linum, a small village about an hour’s travel from the German capital, is known in summer for its many nesting storks. In the fall and spring, it’s a popular resting spot for thousands of cranes as they migrate between the Baltic and Nordic regions and southern Europe. But this month, many of the birds’ journeys have ended in the ponds and fields that surround it, as well as at other spots in Germany.
Bird flu has flared up early and quickly in the country this year. Since early September, the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, Germany’s national animal health authority, has recorded 30 outbreaks at poultry farms as well as cases among wild birds in various parts of the country, and more than 500,000 chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys so far have been slaughtered as a precaution.
Over the past week the majestic gray-and-white cranes, unusually, have been at the center of attention. It’s not clear where they were infected. Norbert Schneeweiss, an expert with Brandenburg state’s environment office, said that such a severe impact from bird flu hasn’t previously been seen in cranes on this migration route, though there was an outbreak among cranes in Hungary two years ago.
This week, volunteers in full-body protective overalls waded through the water and reeds outside Linum and stuffed the limp, floating bodies of the large birds into sacks.
A sick bird stood listlessly by a path nearby, failing to fly away as people approached. Others have been seen staggering and then collapsing. Still-healthy birds flew overhead and pecked for food in the fields.
By Monday evening, volunteers had picked up 1,875 dead cranes and expected the total to top 2,000 in the coming days.
“There’s not a lot more we can do here other than gather up the birds,” Schneeweiss said. He added that experts have made an effort to make the area less attractive for migrating birds, for example by limiting the water flow to reduce the size of the resting area — but noted that “resting places are rare in Central Europe.”
In earlier years, “we were glad of every crane — it was a natural spectacle every evening when thousands of cranes fly in; a lot of visitors came,” he said. Now, however, the usual guided tours for bird fans have been canceled.
Schneeweiss said the situation appears to be under control locally for now, with the number of dead cranes slowing and no other wild birds yet showing symptoms.
Collecting the birds is hard and depressing work. “We try to convince ourselves that we’re doing something good for conservation and that it’s important,” volunteer Lara Weinmann said. “But of course, it does affect you.”
Bird flu infections in humans are relatively rare. But as it hits other species, including some mammals, scientists fear the virus could evolve to spread more easily among people.
Hometown of drug lord ‘El Chapo’ hit by drone attacks: governor
- The hometown of jailed drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been hit in attacks by explosive-laden drones
CULAICAN: The hometown of jailed drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been hit in attacks by explosive-laden drones, the governor of the northwest Mexican state of Sinaloa said on Tuesday.
Authorities did not specify when the strikes on Badiraguato, Guzman’s birthplace and the historical stronghold of drug trafficking in Mexico, took place. Displaced residents said attacks in the region began in September.
Dozens of residents were forced to leave the area, Governor Ruben Rocha Moya told a news conference.
“Drones were indeed used,” Rocha said, adding that displaced people were being assisted by the government.
Various criminal groups in Mexico use drones to attack their rivals and authorities.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) has been using drones since 2020, according to a report by the Insight Crime think tank.
Some of the displaced, who wished to remain anonymous, told AFP that the most recent attacks targeted the La Tuna farm that belongs to Guzman’s family.
Other properties were also targeted, according to witnesses who said that more than 80 families were threatened by armed groups.
The latest drone attacks began on September 16, according to a resident of Bacacoragua, one of the municipalities of Badiraguato, who left her village in early October.
Armed men blocked access to farms and cut electricity in the area, said another witness who fled a village in the region.
AFP has contacted authorities for confirmation and to seek further details about the reports.
Guzman was sentenced in 2019 to life plus 30 years in prison.
Dutch voters head to polls in a knife-edge election focused on housing and Wilders
- Polls opened in a close-run snap election called after anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders brought down the last four-party coalition in a dispute over immigration
THE HAGUE: Polls opened across the Netherlands on Wednesday in a close-run snap election called after anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders brought down the last four-party coalition in a dispute over a crackdown on immigration.
The campaign focused on migration, a housing crisis and whether parties will work with Wilders in a new coalition if his Party for Freedom repeats its stunning victory from two years ago.
The vote comes against a backdrop of deep polarization in this nation of 18 million and violence at a recent anti-immigration rally in The Hague and at protests across the country against new asylum-seeker centers.
In The Hague, a steady stream of commuters stopped to vote at a polling station set up at the city’s central railway station, next to the Dutch parliament building. Voters could cast their ballots at venues from city halls to schools, but also historic windmills, churches, a zoo, a former prison in Arnhem and the iconic Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam.
Polls suggest that Wilders’ party, which is calling for a total halt to asylum-seekers entering the Netherlands, remains on track to win the largest number of seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, but other more moderate parties are closing the gap and pollsters caution that many people wait until the very last minute to decide who to vote for.
“It hasn’t been this tense for a long time,” Wilders said late Tuesday on Dutch news show Nieuwsuur after leaders held a final debate.
Polls close at 9 p.m. and broadcasters publish an initial exit poll immediately followed by an update a half hour later.
The Dutch system of proportional representation all but guarantees that no single party can win a majority. Negotiations will likely begin Thursday into the makeup of the next governing coalition.
Mainstream parties have already ruled out working with Wilders, arguing that his decision to torpedo the outgoing four-party coalition earlier this year in a dispute over a crackdown on migration underscored that he is an untrustworthy coalition partner.
Rob Jetten, leader of the center-left D66 party that has risen in polls as the campaign wore on, said in a final televised debate that his party wants to rein in migration but also accommodate asylum-seekers fleeing war and violence.
And he told Wilders that voters can “choose again tomorrow to listen to your grumpy hatred for another 20 years, or choose, with positive energy, to simply get to work and tackle this problem and solve it.”
Frans Timmermans, the former European Commission vice president who now leads the center-left bloc of the Labour Party and Green Left, also took aim at Wilders in the final debate, saying he is “looking forward to the day — and that day is tomorrow — that we can put an end to the Wilders era.”
Wilders rejects arguments that he had failed to deliver on his 2023 campaign pledges despite being the largest party in parliament, blaming other parties for stymying his plans.
“If I had been prime minister — which I earned as leader of the biggest party — then we would have rolled out that agenda,” he said.
Wilders backed away from becoming prime minister during negotiations after the last election because he did not have the support of potential coalition partners.
The election could see a reformist party, New Social Contract, that won 20 seats at the last election and joined the outgoing coalition, all but erased from the Dutch political map, with polls predicting it may lose all or almost all of its seats. It’s slump in popularity is an apparent backlash against the party’s decision to join a coalition with Wilders and follows the departure of its popular leader, Pieter Omtzigt, who quit politics in April, citing his mental health.
US aid flows to Nigeria anti-landmine efforts — for now
- US funds help UNMAS provide education for rural farmers and displaced persons on how to detect mines, IEDs and unexploded ordnance from the conflict and how to report them for removal
MAIDUGURI: When the United States suddenly moved to dismantle its foreign aid system earlier this year, the UN’s land mine safety and removal project in Nigeria braced for impact.
Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and unexploded ordnance killed or injured 418 civilians in northeast Nigeria in 2024, more than double the year prior — but workers knew the severity of the crisis was no guarantee that the program would survive.
US President Donald Trump’s cuts came for everything, from malaria treatment to emergency food for starving people.
But then, nothing happened.
“We were very surprised,” said Edwin Faigmane, program chief for the UN Mine Action Service in Nigeria, noting USAID accounted for 20 percent of its funding.
The dismantling of USAID, Washington’s main foreign aid arm, has been catastrophic for people across the world. It has also been confusing.
Faigmane said he “couldn’t really get an answer” for why UNMAS survived cuts in Nigeria, where a violent jihadist insurgency has been raging since Boko Haram’s 2009 uprising.
Earlier this year, AFP reported that malaria clinics in Borno state, the epicenter of the violence, had shut down after USAID funding stopped.
UNMAS’s mission in Mali ended when USAID — its sole sponsor — cut its funding. Washington also clawed back funding for UNMAS in Sudan.
Earlier this year, UNMAS pre-emptively stopped its USAID-funded operations, until Faigmane got confirmation from USAID officials in Abuja, the capital, that they could continue as normal.
“We were able to deploy some other teams in the areas that we were supposed to cover with the USAID funding” during the pre-emptive suspension, Faigmane told AFP. “We were able to survive because of our other donors.”
US funds help UNMAS provide education for rural farmers and displaced persons on how to detect mines, IEDs and unexploded ordnance from the conflict — and how to report them for removal.
With funds from other donors, UNMAS also trains security personnel on disposal — a crucial job as Nigeria builds up a fledgling National Mine Action Center established in 2024.
The US State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
- Civilians on the frontlines -
At the El-Miskin displacement camp in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, workers from the local nonprofit The Big Smile Foundation gather groups for education sessions.
This camp’s activities are funded by other donors, but the Americans’ presence is still felt: USAID logos adorn education materials, including a chutes-and-ladders style game for children.
“We’ve learned how to stay safe... how to mark (suspected) ordnance from a distance, and report it to the community leader,” said Hauwa Inusa, a 60-year-old camp resident who fled her home a decade ago.
She might be forced to use her training soon: the Borno state government has marked the camp for closure.
With violence down from its peak a decade ago, the government in recent years has been shutting down camps and sending people back to the countryside.
But swathes of the rural northeast remain outside of government control.
The long-abandoned town of Darul Jamal, near the Cameroonian border, was recently repopulated with its former residents only for jihadists to massacre scores of them in a September raid.
UNMAS meanwhile isn’t out of the woods yet. After some initial uncertainty, Faigmane said, another tranche of US funding, some $225,000, arrived a few weeks ago, which should last until March 2026.
But if the United States eventually pulls out, “our reach collapses.”
Monarch-loving Trump gifted golden crown once worn by South Korean kings
- In a lavish welcome ceremony in the historic South Korean capital of Gyeongju, Trump was presented with a replica of a crown worn by the kings of Silla, the dynasty that ruled from 57 BC to 935 AD
GYEONGJU: President Donald Trump may be facing protests back home calling for “no kings” in the United States, but in South Korea officials had the perfect gift for the monarch-loving magnate — a replica golden crown.
Trump met South Korean counterpart Lee Jae Myung on Wednesday, part of a visit in which he is expected to hold tense trade talks with China’s Xi Jinping.
And capping a lavish welcome ceremony in the historic South Korean capital of Gyeongju, Trump was presented with a replica of a crown worn by the kings of Silla, the dynasty that ruled from 57 BC to 935 AD.
The gift from South Korea was a replica of “the largest and most extravagant of the existing gold crowns” from the Silla period, Trump was told.
It represented “the divine connection between heavenly and earthly leadership.”
Seoul’s presidential office said the crown symbolizes “peace, coexistence, and shared prosperity on the peninsula — values that mirror the Silla dynasty’s long era of stability.”
Trump has made no secret of his love of monarchies the world over.
Americans rallied across the country this month in opposition to what organizers call Trump’s “king-like” presidency and erosion of democratic norms in the United States.
Trump mocked the rallies on social media, sharing AI-generated posts showing himself wearing a crown while flying a fighter jet emblazoned with the words “King Trump” dumping faeces on protesters.
The US leader was also presented in South Korea with the Grand Order of Mugunghwa — the country’s highest decoration.
The medal had a laurel leaf design that symbolizes prosperity and it was given “in anticipation of the peace and prosperity you will bring to the Korean peninsula,” Trump was told.
“It’s a great honor,” the US president said.
“I’d like to wear it right now.”
Trump’s love of gold is also well-known and he was gifted gold-plated golf balls during a visit to Tokyo this week.
South Korea’s presidential office said Wednesday’s state dinner for Trump will include a “gold-themed dessert” symbolising the “alliance’s enduring trust and the two nations’ shared commitment to peace and prosperity.”
