US President Donald Trump embarks on a major trip to Asia this week with all eyes on a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping that has huge implications for the global economy.Trump said Wednesday he was making a “big trip” to Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, his first visit to the region since he returned to the White House in a blaze of tariffs and geopolitical brinkmanship.The highlight will be his talks with Xi in South Korea, which Trump’s spokeswoman confirmed would take place on October 30 on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.Trump had previously threatened to scrap the meeting amid a flare-up in the trade war between Washington and Beijing, but he said Wednesday he now hoped for a “deal on everything.” The host nations are meanwhile set to roll out the red carpet to ensure they stay on the right side of the unpredictable 79-year-old, and win the best deals they can on tariffs and security assistance. – Malaysia and Japan – Trump will leave Washington on Friday and arrive on Sunday in Malaysia for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit — a meeting Trump skipped several times in his first term.He is set to ink a trade deal with Malaysia — but more importantly to oversee the signing of a peace accord between Thailand and Cambodia, as he continues his quest for a Nobel Peace Prize.”President Trump is keen to see the more positive results of the peace negotiations between Thailand and Cambodia,” Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said.The US leader may also meet Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on the sidelines of the summit to improve ties after months of bad blood, officials from both countries told AFP.Trump’s next stop will be Tokyo on Monday and he will meet conservative Sanae Takaichi, named this week as Japan’s first woman prime minister, on Tuesday.Japan has escaped the worst of the tariffs Trump slapped on countries around the world to end what he calls unfair trade balances that are “ripping off the United States.” – Trump and Xi in South Korea -The climax of the trip is expected to be South Korea, with Trump due to land in the southern port city of Busan on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.Trump will then meet South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, address an APEC lunch with business leaders and meet US tech bosses for dinner, the White House said, on the sidelines of the APEC summit in the city of Gyeongju.The next day Trump will meet Xi for the first time since his return to office.Global markets will be watching closely to see if the two men can halt the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies, especially after a recent row over Beijing’s rare earth curbs.Trump initially threatened to cancel the meeting and imposed fresh tariffs, before saying he would go ahead after all.He said Wednesday that he hoped to make a deal with Xi on “everything” and also hoped the Chinese leader could have a “big influence” on getting Russia’s Vladimir Putin to end the Ukraine war.Analysts warned not to expect any breakthroughs.”The meeting will be a data point along an existing continuum rather than an inflection point in the relationship,” said Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution.South Korea, seeking its own trade deal, is reportedly considering the rare step of awarding Trump the Grand Order of Mugunghwa — the country’s highest decoration — during his visit. North Korea will also be on the agenda. The country fired multiple ballistic missiles on Wednesday, just days before Trump was due to visit.South Korea has halted tours in parts of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, officials said Thursday, fueling speculation of a new meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump has said he hopes to meet Kim again following several meetings during the US president’s first term, but there has been no confirmation of reports that the White House was looking at a new meeting this time.burs-dk/sst

An inmate convicted of murdering a man over a $200 drug debt by burning him alive was executed by nitrogen gas in the southern US state of Alabama on Thursday.Anthony Boyd, 54, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence, was sentenced to death in 1995 for the murder two years earlier of 32-year-old Gregory Huguley.He was pronounced dead at 6:33 pm Central time (2333 GMT) at a state prison in the town of Atmore, the state department of corrections announced.At trial, prosecutors said that Boyd and three other men abducted Huguley at gunpoint because he allegedly failed to pay for $200 of cocaine.Huguley was driven to a baseball field, bound with duct tape, doused with gasoline and set on fire.Boyd was convicted largely on the testimony of a co-defendant, Quintay Cox, who was spared the death penalty.This was the 40th execution in the United States this year, the most since 2012, when 43 inmates were put to death.Florida has carried out the most executions with 14, followed by Texas and Alabama with five each.Nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a face mask, causes the prisoner to suffocate.The use of nitrogen gas as a method of capital punishment has been denounced by United Nations experts as cruel and inhumane.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and, on his first day in office, called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

US President Donald Trump has pardoned the convicted Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the White House press secretary said Thursday, accusing Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden of behaving in a “very hostile” manner toward the crypto industry.Binance was created in 2017, and swiftly became the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, turning Zhao into a billionaire.Following an investigation into the firm’s operations, Zhao pleaded guilty to violating US anti-money-laundering laws in late 2023, and served a four-month prison sentence for it in 2024.Zhao’s pardon could help pave the way for Binance to return to the United States, around two years after it agreed to suspend its US operations in a deal to resolve the Department of Justice’s criminal investigation.  “This was an overly prosecuted case by the Biden administration,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters in Washington on Thursday, accusing the previous administration of pursuing an “egregious over-sentencing of this individual.”The previous administration had also been “very hostile” to the cryptocurrency industry, she continued, adding that Trump had pardoned Zhao in order to “correct this overreach of the Biden administration’s mis-justice.”Trump later defended his decision, telling reporters at the White House that “a lot of people” had told him Zhao was not guilty.Binance has spent almost a year pursuing a pardon for Zhao, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, noting that Binance has been a “key supporter” of the Trump family’s crypto venture World Liberty Financial. Despite stepping down as chief executive in 2023, Zhao remains the majority shareholder of Binance.In a social media post on Thursday, he said he was “deeply” grateful to Trump for “upholding America’s commitment to fairness, innovation, and justice.”Democrats were quick to criticize Trump’s decision to pardon the convicted crypto billionaire. “CZ pleaded guilty to a criminal money laundering charge and was sentenced to prison. But then he financed President Trump’s stablecoin and lobbied for a pardon. Today, he got it,” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote in a post on X. “If Congress does not stop this kind of corruption, it owns it,” added Warren, a high-profile figure on the left of the party who sits on the US Senate’s finance committee. Since his presidential campaign, Trump has become a defender and promoter of the cryptocurrency sector, reversing his past criticism.He has eased the regulatory framework imposed on the cryptocurrency industry, which contributed more than $100 million to his reelection campaign.The Trump family’s various crypto businesses have netted them a pre-tax profit of around a billion dollars over the past 12 months, according to a recent Financial Times investigation.Trump’s pardon of Zhao follows a string of other similarly controversial moves, such as his decision to issue a blanket pardon for people convicted of violence in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. The US president has also commuted the sentence of the disgraced former Republican lawmaker George Santos, who was convicted of committing wire fraud and identity theft. 

The man suspected of deliberately causing one of the deadliest fires in California history pleaded not guilty when he appeared in court on Thursday.Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, is charged with deliberately starting a blaze in the hills above the wealthy Los Angeles enclave of Pacific Pallisades early on New Year’s morning.Prosecutors say that fire was initially supressed by firefighters, but was rekindled by powerful winds a week later, growing into an inferno that tore through some of America’s most desireable real estate.A separate blaze, likely started by a fault in the electrical distribution system, began almost at the same time near the Altadena neighborhood.The two huge fires burned for weeks, and together killed 31 people, as they left thousands more homeless and laid waste to thousands of acres (hectares).Rinderknecht, wearing white jail garb with a chain around his waist, told US Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver he understood the charges of destruction of property by means of fire, arson affecting property used in interstate commerce, and timber set afire. He denied them all.If convicted of the three federal charges Rinderknecht would face up to 45 years in prison, prosecutors said.Rinderknecht, who remains in federal custody, was ordered to return to court on November 12, with a trial tentatively set for December 16.The two major fires that gripped the Los Angeles area in January were among the deadliest in California history.They were also among the costliest natural disasters ever, with estimates of damage running into hundreds of billions of dollars.Firefighters struggled for days to contain the blazes, hampered by winds up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) an hour that prevented their using helicopters and planes.The sheer scale of the inferno created difficulties, as did an urban water supply that was never designed to cope with such enormous conflagrations.Rinderknecht’s arrest in Florida this month came after a lengthy investigation into the cause of the Pallisades Fire.In July, the Southern California Edison power company said it would begin paying compensation to those affected by the Eaton Fire that devastated Altadena.While no official cause of the fire has been revealed yet, the finger of blame has been pointing for months at a power line in the hills behind Altadena.Several videos and witness accounts suggest the equipment produced sparks that could have caused the fast-moving flames.

Demolition workers have finished tearing down the White House’s entire East Wing to make way for US President Donald Trump’s giant new $300 million ballroom, satellite pictures showed Thursday.The completion of the wrecking work came as the White House released a list of donors to the ballroom including Apple, Google and Meta.A gray and brown patch of rubble can now be seen in the area that used to be occupied by the iconic building, according to the images shared with AFP by Planet Labs PBC and dated Thursday.Satellite photos taken just under a month earlier show the wing that housed the offices of the US first lady intact. The complete destruction of part of one of the world’s most famous landmarks is a far more extensive demolition than previously announced by Trump — and happened virtually without warning.When the former property magnate unveiled his plans in July, Trump said that the 90,000-square-foot ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building” and that it would be “near it but not touching it.” But after work started this week, Trump said Wednesday that he had decided after consulting architects that “really knocking it down” was preferable to a partial demolition.He insists the 1,000-seat ballroom is essential because state dinners and other large events currently have to be held in tents that are temporarily erected on the White House lawn.Trump also said that the new ballroom would cost $300 million, raising the cost from the $250 million quoted by the White House days before, and the $200 million it cited in July.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told an AFP reporter in a briefing that $300 million was now the definitive number but said that “it’s not going to cost the taxpayers a dime.”- Tech donors – Billionaire Trump says the ballroom will be funded entirely by private donors and by himself.The White House released a list of the donors to AFP on Thursday. They include US tech titans Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Palantir, as well as defense giant Lockheed Martin.Individual donors include the family of Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who were made famous as jilted investors in the movie “The Social Network” about the birth of Facebook.”How much am I donating? I won’t be able to tell you until it’s finished,” Trump told reporters on Thursday. “I’ll donate whatever’s needed, I’ll tell you that.”Many US presidents have carried out upgrades to the White House but Trump’s ballroom is the biggest in more than a century.While lower profile than the West Wing where the president works, the East Wing had stood in one form or another for 123 years since the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.It received a major makeover in 1942 from President Franklin Roosevelt and was until this week home to the first lady’s offices. It was also the main point of entry for guests for tours and parties.As criticism mounted about the demolition, the White House Historical Association — an independent group that helps preserve the history of the presidential home — said it had been helping with preservation work.The association had carried out a “comprehensive digital scanning project and photography to create a historic record,” it said in an email to members obtained by AFP.It added that “historic artifacts have been preserved and stored.”Trump’s wrecking of the East Wing has provoked howls of outrage led by his Democratic opponents, including former first lady and 2016 presidential election rival Hillary Clinton.Another top US historic group, however, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, had urged Trump to pause the demolition.It said in a letter on Tuesday that it was “deeply concerned that the massing and height of the proposed new construction will overwhelm the White House itself” and urged the plans be put before the agency that oversees work on government buildings in Washington.The White House argues that Trump had the authority to go ahead with the demolition without needing the agency’s sign-off.

Colombia’s leftist president ramped up denunciations of Donald Trump’s anti-drug air strikes and swatted aside US threats to freeze hundreds of millions of dollars in aid Thursday.Fueling a spat that threatens to shatter ties between the long-allied nations, Gustavo Petro said, “Mr Trump has slandered me and insulted Colombia.”Petro accused Trump of “carrying out extrajudicial executions” that “violate international law” by striking alleged drug-trafficking boats. The US has destroyed nine vessels and killed at least 37 people in under two months, according to US government accounts. “The deaths keep increasing like a taxi meter,” said Petro.At least one Colombian is among the dead, a fisherman who Petro now admits may have become involved in trafficking “intermittently” to escape poverty.Colombia has publicly demanded that Washington halt the attacks, infuriating Trump, who has branded Petro a “thug” and drug trafficker.  As retribution, Trump has announced an end to hundreds of millions of dollars of US aid to Colombia and threatened tariffs on Colombian goods.If enacted, the cuts would stifle decades of security cooperation to curb the flow of cocaine from the world’s biggest producer, Colombia, to its biggest consumer, the United States.- ‘Seize oil wells’ -Petro dismissed the impact of aid cuts, saying the cash goes to fund US non-governmental groups and to buy US arms. “What happens if they take away the aid? In my opinion, nothing,” he said.The United States provided Colombia with almost $750 million in aid in 2023, according to US figures.There are growing fears among Colombia’s allies that a withdrawal of US funds could harm years-long efforts to stop the country from sliding back into conflict.Despite peace accords a decade ago, pockets of the country are still controlled by guerrillas, cartels, and other armed groups.The United States and other donors provide military aid as well as funding for coca eradication and demobilization projects. Petro — a former guerrilla who will leave office after the May elections — has not shied away from the feud, which plays well with some of his core leftwing supporters.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt noted Petro’s renewed attacks Thursday: “I don’t think we’re seeing a de-escalation from the unhinged leader of Colombia right now.” Petro also lashed out at Trump’s September decision to put Colombia on a list of countries classified as not helping in the drug war.Describing it as “an insult,” he insisted Colombia was successfully countering cartels, despite cocaine production and exports hitting record levels. “We have been the most effective in cocaine seizures in world history,” Petro claimed, adding that Trump was being fed misinformation by his opponents on Colombia’s “far right.”He said they aimed to influence Colombia’s 2026 presidential election, to “strike Colombian progressivism and seize oil wells” in Venezuela.Trump has said he is preparing attacks against traffickers operating on land, claiming maritime routes are being reduced.”Any ground aggression is invasion and a rupture of national sovereignty,” warned Petro.Behind the scenes diplomats from both countries have been working to keep relations form rupturing completely.On Thursday a string of Colombian ministers met with the top US diplomat in Bogota, for what the Colombian foreign ministry called a “frank dialogue.”They announced Colombia’s ambassador to the United States Daniel Garcia-Pena would return to Washington, after being recalled in protest.