Trump heads to Asia aiming to make deals with Xi
US President Donald Trump is set to embark on a major trip to Asia this week with all eyes on an expected meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping that has huge implications for the global economy.Trump said on 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.Much of the trip remains shrouded in uncertainty. The White House has given almost no details, and Trump has warned that his anticipated sit-down with Xi in South Korea may not even happen amid ongoing tensions.But Trump has made it clear he hopes to seal a “good” deal with China and end a bitter trade war between the world’s two largest economies that has caused global shockwaves.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 – His first stop is expected to be Malaysia for the October 26-28 summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) — a grouping Trump skipped several times in his first term.Trump 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 on Wednesday.The US leader may also meet Brazilian counterpart 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 is expected to be Tokyo where he will be able to meet conservative Sanae Takaichi, named this week as Japan’s first woman prime minister.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.” At the same time, Trump wants Japan to halt Russian energy imports and has also urged Tokyo to follow Western allies in increasing defense spending.- Xi in South Korea? -But the climax of the trip is expected to be in South Korea, where Trump is due to arrive on October 29 for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit — and potentially meet Xi.The first meeting between the two leaders since Trump’s return to office could smooth over the trade war between Washington and Beijing — but Beijing’s rare earth curbs have also infuriated Trump.Trump initially threatened to cancel the meeting and imposed fresh tariffs, before saying he would go ahead after all. But he added on Tuesday that still “maybe it won’t happen.”He said on 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.Trump has said he hopes to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un 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/sla/lb
L’odyssée d’une Brésilienne dans l’Arctique: “De moins en moins de glace”
Il y a 30 ans, la traversée du passage du Nord-Ouest ne pouvait se faire qu’en brise-glace. La navigatrice brésilienne Tamara Klink l’a accomplie à la voile et en solitaire, un exploit rendu possible par la fonte des glaces dans l’Arctique liée au réchauffement climatique.A 28 ans, elle est devenue en septembre la deuxième femme au monde et la première personne latino-américaine (hommes et femmes confondus) à avoir parcouru ainsi les 6.500 km entre le Groenland et l’Alaska, à bord de “Sardinha 2” (Sardine 2), un monocoque en acier de seulement dix mètres de long. “Très peu de personnes ont traversé le passage du Nord-Ouest en solitaire (elle est la 14e au total, ndlr), non seulement parce que c’est un vrai défi, mais aussi parce que c’était impossible. L’eau était gelée tout l’hiver et partiellement en été”, dit-elle lors d’un entretien à l’AFP à Rio de Janeiro.”Je n’ai trouvé de la glace que sur 9% de la traversée. C’est très peu. En discutant avec des scientifiques et avec la population locale, avec des chasseurs et des pêcheurs inuits, je comprends que cela fait partie d’une tendance générale à avoir de moins en moins de glace de mer chaque année”, alerte la Brésilienne.Selon l’ONU, 2024 a été l’année la plus chaude jamais enregistrée, avec une température moyenne supérieure de 1,5°C à celle de la période pré-industrielle (1850-1900).”Ce sera très compliqué d’inverser la tendance si nous ne prenons pas de décisions fermes et courageuses au cours de cette décennie”, insiste-t-elle, alors que son pays, le Brésil, accueille en novembre la COP30, conférence de l’ONU sur le climat, dans la ville amazonienne de Belem.- “Bon voyage” -Fille d’Amyr Klink, célèbre navigateur brésilien, Tamara a hérité de lui son amour pour l’exploration.”J’avais 12 ans quand j’ai demandé à mon père de m’aider à commencer à naviguer seule. Il m’a dit qu’il m’aiderait avec zéro bateau et zéro conseil. Il m’a juste répondu: +Dis-moi quand tu seras prête et bon voyage+”, raconte-t-elle.”Il avait toutes les réponses et tous les outils, mais il m’a donné le droit de commettre mes propres erreurs et d’apprendre à être qui je suis”, ajoute la jeune navigatrice.La traversée du passage du Nord-Ouest est “le point d’orgue d’un projet de deux ans”.”D’abord, j’ai navigué (5.000 km) depuis la France jusqu’au Groenland, j’y ai passé l’hiver, puis j’ai navigué vers l’Alaska”.Avant la traversée, qui a duré deux mois, elle a passé les huit mois d’hiver dans son voilier dans la baie de Disko, au Groenland.En 2021, Tamara Klink avait accompli son premier exploit en solitaire en traversant l’Atlantique sur 13.000 km entre la Norvège et le Brésil, à bord du premier “Sardinha”, acheté au “prix d’un vélo”.
Taiwan detects first cases of swine fever
Taiwan has culled dozens of pigs after detecting its first cases of African swine fever, with the agriculture ministry saying Thursday no other infections have been detected elsewhere on the island.The virus — which does not affect humans — is highly contagious and fatal for pigs, and an outbreak is potentially devastating for the pork industry, experts say.”No abnormalities have been observed (elsewhere) so far,” Deputy Agriculture Minister Tu Wen-jane told a news conference in the central city of Taichung where the infections were detected. Samples of dead pigs at a farm in Wuqi district tested positive for swine fever this month and 195 pigs were culled, the ministry said Wednesday.Taichung authorities were tracing the whereabouts of 28 pigs from the farm that were sold in markets, Lin Nien-nung, from the ministry’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency, said Thursday.The ministry said a three-kilometre (nearly two-mile) “control zone” was set up to prevent the infection from spreading, while the transport and slaughter of pigs across the island is banned for five days.Taiwan has around five million pigs and the pork industry generates about NT$70 billion (US$2.3 billion) a year, official data show.President Lai Ching-te has urged the public to “not panic” and called on local governments, livestock associations and pig farmers to be “highly vigilant”.”If any abnormal deaths or suspected animal infections are found among pigs, please immediately report them to the local animal quarantine authorities,” Lai said in a Facebook post.
New York City mayoral candidates condemn immigration raid
In a rare moment of agreement, the three candidates vying to be mayor of New York City all denounced on Wednesday a federal immigration raid that targeted street vendors.The Department of Homeland Security said federal agents detained nine “illegal aliens” on Tuesday on suspicion of various crimes, including selling counterfeit goods. In the second and final debate of the mayoral race, Democratic frontrunner Zohran Mamdani slammed the department’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unit as “a reckless entity that cares little for the law and even less for the people that they’re supposed to serve.”His adversaries, Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat running as an independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa, both argued that any crackdowns on counterfeit sales should be conducted by the city’s police, not federal agents.Cuomo, 67, said such work is “a basic policing function” for local officials.Sliwa, 71, agreed, saying “the feds should not have stepped into this situation.”Cuomo added that if he had been the city’s mayor, he would have called US President Donald Trump — who initiated the crackdowns across the country — to tell him he was out of bounds.Trump, a native New Yorker who has never won an election in his own state, has frequently sounded off on the mayoral race in the nation’s largest city, calling Mamdani a “communist.”On Tuesday, Trump told reporters the next mayor will have to “go through the White House.”New Yorkers responded to the federal immigration raid with protests on Tuesday and Wednesday evening.”It’s really important to show solidarity for our neighbors who are being targeted by what is increasingly an authoritarian and corrupt state,” Emma Ehrlich, a 37-year-old protester, told AFP.”We value immigrants, whether they’re documented or undocumented. They contribute so much to this city,” she added.New York State Attorney General Letitia James, a staunch opponent of Trump’s, called on the public to provide information, photos and videos about ICE activities in the city.The New York City Council and religious leaders plan to hold a press conference Thursday, calling on the president not to send National Guard troops as he has done in other major Democratic cities, including Portland, Chicago, Washington, Memphis and Los Angeles. Voting in New York’s mayoral race begins Saturday.
Flush with cash, US immigration agency expands weaponry and surveillance
The agency overseeing Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown is spending tens of millions of dollars on guns, ammunition, body armor and surveillance technology, according to procurement records reviewed by AFP.Spending across the categories is vastly higher than under both the Biden presidency and the first Trump administration.ICE — the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency — has been tasked with deporting an unprecedented number of unauthorized migrants from the United States.Data gleaned from federal contracts shows an agency that critics say is transforming itself into a paramilitary force, aided by a budget that now equals or surpasses the military spending of many smaller nations.Since Trump took office on January 20, ICE has placed more than $70 million of purchase orders in the “small arms, ordnance, and ordnance accessories manufacturing” category.By contrast, from January 20 to October 20, 2024, it spent $9.7 million on small arms and accessories in total.This September alone, ICE placed orders for $10 million of firearms and magazines from Quantico Tactical Incorporated, and another $9 million on long guns and accessories from automatic weapons manufacturer Geissele Automatics.The agency also bought more than $10 million worth of body armor, holsters and related equipment in the same month.This extensive purchase of hardware and munitions is happening in tandem with a spending spree on monitoring and surveillance software, records show.In September, ICE spent $3.75 million on software and related services from facial recognition company Clearview AI.In the nine months since the start of the second Trump administration, it has bought products from Magnet Forensics and Cellebrite, both of which make software to extract data from mobile devices, and Penlink, which provides access to location data from hundreds of millions of mobile phones.This is in addition to a $30 million contract with Palantir to build “Immigration OS,” billed as an all-in-one platform to target unauthorized migrants and identify which are in the process of voluntary return to their country of origin.Over the same time period, the agency also reactivated a $2 million contract with Paragon, an Israeli spyware provider.The contract had been placed under review by the Biden administration, after a 2023 executive order prohibiting the purchase of spyware that could pose national security risks to the United States.- 24/7 monitoring -Beyond the contracts that have already been signed, the agency is soliciting proposals for projects that will bolster its social media surveillance.A request for proposals (RFP) published in early October sought responses from contractors capable of creating a social media monitoring center staffed with almost 30 analysts for an around-the-clock operation to “obtain real-time and mission critical person-specific information” from information shared online.Though surveillance operations play an important role in law enforcement activities, rights advocates have long raised concerns over the scope of information collected in the social media age.Large-scale surveillance of social media threatens the right to free expression, said Cooper Quintin, a Senior Staff Technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation digital rights group.”If people know that ICE is on social media… looking for anybody who demonstrates any sort of allegiance to their [home] country, that’s going to chill people’s willingness to say anything publicly,” Quintin told AFP.The possibility of buying data through third parties also means that agencies can surveil vast numbers of people without obtaining any warrant, he said.ICE did not respond when contacted with a request for comment from AFP.- Soaring budget -ICE’s recent purchases have been made possible by a flood of money allocated to the agency in the most recent Congressional budget.The Republican budget passed in July gave ICE an operating budget of $75 billion over four years, or $18.8 billion per year on average.This is almost double the agency’s operating budget of $9.6 billion in the previous 2024 fiscal year.Though other government departments are operating at reduced capacity during the government shutdown, ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, have been mostly unaffected.But a spokesperson from the agency confirmed to US media that the Office of Detention Oversight — the division that oversees standards at detention facilities — had been shut down.
Inside India’s RSS, the legion of Hindu ultranationalists
Brandishing bamboo sticks and chanting patriotic hymns, thousands of uniformed men parade in central India, a striking show of strength by the country’s millions-strong Hindu ultranationalist group. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh — the National Volunteer Organisation, or RSS — marked its 100th anniversary this month with a grand ceremony at its headquarters in Nagpur. AFP was one of a handful of foreign media outlets granted rare access to the group, which forms the ideological and organisational backbone of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in power since 2014.Like the 75-year-old prime minister, critics accuse it of eroding the rights of India’s Muslim minority and undermining the secular constitutionAt the parade, RSS volunteers in white shirts, brown trousers and black hats marched, boxed and stretched in time to shrill whistles and barked orders.”Forever I bow to thee, loving Motherland! Motherland of us Hindus!” they sang, in a scene that evoked paramilitary drills of the past.”May my life… be laid down in thy cause!”- ‘Proud’ -Hindus make up around 80 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people.Founded in 1925, the RSS calls itself “the world’s largest organisation”, though it does not give membership figures.At the heart of its vision is “Hindutva” — the belief that Hindus represent not only a religious group but are India’s true national identity.”They are willing to fight against those who will come in their way… that means minorities, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and other Hindus who do not subscribe to the idea,” historian Mridula Mukherjee said.RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat uses softer language, saying that minorities were accepted but that they “should not cause division”.Anant Pophali, 53, said three generations of his family had been involved with the group.”The RSS made me proud to be an Indian,” the insurance company worker said.- Bloody origins -The RSS was formed during the imperial rule of the British.But it diverged sharply from that of independence efforts by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party, whose leader Jawaharlal Nehru considered them “fascist by nature”.Mukherjee said archives showed “a link between the RSS and fascist movements in Europe”.”They have said, very clearly, that the way the Nazis were treating the Jews should be the way our own minorities should be treated,” she told AFP. The RSS does not comment directly on such parallels, but Bhagwat insisted that “today we are more acceptable”.The RSS was an armed Hindu militia during the bloody 1947 partition of India and the creation of Muslim-majority Pakistan.Hindu extremists blamed Gandhi for breaking India apart.A former RSS member assassinated him in 1948, and the group was banned for nearly two years.But the RSS rebuilt quietly, focusing on local units known as “shakhas” to recruit.Today, it claims 83,000 of them nationwide, as well as over 50,000 schools and 120,000 social welfare projects.At a shakha in Nagpur, Alhad Sadachar, 49, said the unit was “meant to develop togetherness”.”You can get a lot of good energy, a lot of good values, like helping those in need”, he said.At a shaka that AFP was allowed to attend, dozens of members –- many middle-aged or elderly, and not in uniform –- gathered for an hour of calisthenics and song.But in a show of symbolism, they congregated beneath a saffron flag — the colour of Hinduism — rather than India’s tricolour.- ‘A country that is one’ -The RSS remains deeply political.The group re-emerged in the late 1980s, spearheading a movement that ended with a violent mob demolishing a centuries-old mosque in Ayodhya -– now replaced by a gleaming temple to the Hindu god Rama.”That was the turning point,” said Mukherjee, the historian, adding that the RSS was “able to create a mass mobilisation on religious issues, that became at its heart clearly anti-Muslim”.The group helped deliver Modi’s BJP party an electoral landslide in 2014.Since then, Modi -– a former RSS “pracharak”, or organiser — has pursued policies that critics say marginalise India’s estimated 220 million Muslims, 15 percent of the population.”There has been a clear increase in terms of violence, lynching and hate speech since Modi has taken over,” said Raqib Hameed Naik, director of the US-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate.RSS leaders deny it has participated in atrocities.”Those allegations are baseless,” Bhagwat said.”Atrocities were never done by the RSS. And if it happens anyway, I condemn that.”Under Modi, it has expanded its reach.”The RSS has been able to stir Indian society in a direction that is more nationalistic, less liberal in a Western sense,” said Swapan Dasgupta, a former nationalist parliamentarian.But volunteer Vyankatesh Somalwar, 44, said the group only pushed “good values”. “The most important thing is to contribute to your country,” he said. “A country that is one, above all.”