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US tech giant Nvidia said on Friday it will supply 260,000 of its most cutting-edge chips to South Korea, as CEO Jensen Huang met President Lee Jae Myung and the heads of the country’s biggest companies on the sidelines of the APEC summit. South Korea is home to two of the world’s leading memory chip makers — Samsung Electronics and SK hynix — which manufacture chips essential for artificial intelligence products and the data centres that the fast-evolving industry relies on.President Lee has also expressed his hope that the country can become the world’s third AI power after the United States and China.Speaking to media after the announcement, Huang said that goal was “ambitious”.But, he said, “there’s no reason why Korea cannot achieve it — you have the technology, you have the software expertise and you also have a natural ability to build manufacturing plants”.Nvidia has been caught in the middle of that geopolitical tussle.Its chips are currently not sold in China due to a combination of Beijing government bans, US national security concerns and ongoing trade tensions.Huang has urged the United States to allow the sale of US-made AI chips in China in order to ensure Silicon Valley companies remain a global powerhouse in providing artificial intelligence.”The US government and the Chinese government have to decide what role they would like Nvidia to play,” Huang told reporters on Friday. “I’ve been very clear that having Nvidia technology in China is in the best interest of the United States and in the best interest of China as well,” he said.”I’m optimistic,” he added.And asked if he wanted Nvidia’s most high-tech chip, the Blackwell, to be sold in China, he said: “I hope so”.”But that’s a decision for President Trump to make.”Nvidia’s chips featured in talks between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Gyeongju this week.Beijing has ramped up its chip industry to beat Washington’s export restrictions on the critical component used to power AI systems.- Chicken and chips -Under Friday’s deal, 50,000 of the graphics processing units will go towards a new “AI factory” being built by Samsung Electronics. “By deploying more than 50,000 Nvidia GPUs, AI will be embedded throughout Samsung’s entire manufacturing flow,” the Korean tech giant said.SK Group and Hyundai Motor Group will also receive 50,000 chips for use in AI facilities.NAVER Cloud — which operates South Korea’s largest search engine — will receive 60,000 to expand its AI infrastructure. A further 50,000 will be deployed across Seoul’s National AI Computing Center and to cloud service and IT providers.Huang has sought to forge closer ties with South Korean tech giants in his visit to the country this week.He met Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Eui-sun on Thursday for “chimaek” — a beloved South Korean pairing of fried chicken and beer — in the capital Seoul.The restaurant, Kkanbu, was reportedly chosen by Nvidia because the term — popularised by Netflix’s megahit “Squid Game” and meaning “friend” — was intended to highlight the spirit of friendship underpinning their AI and chip collaborations.Nvidia in July became the first company to top $4 trillion in market capitalisation, and followed that up by becoming the first to hit $5 trillion following an event on Tuesday where it announced new ventures building on its AI technology.

A year after Donald Trump swept to power, Republicans face their first major test at the polls, with voters in two of the most populous US states set to deliver their verdict on the president’s return to the White House. The high-profile mayoral contest in New York City may be grabbing the headlines, but the races for the governor’s mansions in New Jersey and Virginia — home to a combined 18 million people — offer a sharper preview of next year’s midterm elections.Both pit centrist Democrats against Republicans aligned with Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, and could signal whether middle-of-the-road voters have made peace with the president’s radical cost-slashing agenda — or plan to give his party a bloody nose in 2026.Trump has sent a steamroller through government since returning to office in January, shuttering entire agencies and cutting an estimated 200,000 jobs even before the government shutdown.”If Democrats sweep — or even win — Virginia and edge New Jersey, it signals the suburbs haven’t forgiven MAGA,” California-based financial and political analyst Michael Ashley Schulman told AFP.The election in Virginia, which is second only to California in the size of its federal workforce, will be a historic showdown between two women vying to become the state’s first female governor. Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer and three-term congresswoman, faces Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, a Marine veteran and staunch Trump ally. Polls show Spanberger — who has leaned on her national security credentials and cast herself as a bulwark against Trump’s aggressive federal downsizing — holding a steady lead of about seven points.She has vowed in stump speeches to be “a governor who will stand up” for the thousands of federal workers laid off by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.- ‘Tooth and nail’ -Earle-Sears opened her campaign on red meat to fire up conservatives, mirroring the playbook of outgoing Governor Glenn Youngkin to focus on culture war issues such as transgender athletes and abortion.Her lagging campaign was boosted by an endorsement from Trump and a down-ticket scandal involving Democratic attorney general nominee Jay Jones, who reportedly sent violent text messages about a political rival in 2022.Over in New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherrill — another 2018 “blue wave” alum and former Navy pilot — is also ahead, but locked in a tighter battle with Republican businessman Jack Ciattarelli. “Given New Jersey’s traditional Democratic lean, a loss for the party in the 2025 election would raise concerns about its national prospects heading into the 2026 midterms,” said Janie Mackenzie, a communications specialist who worked on John Kerry’s 2008 Senate campaign.Polls show Sherrill narrowly ahead, bolstered by strong early Democratic turnout.Trump’s decision to freeze funding for the Hudson Tunnel project — a vital link between New Jersey and New York — may yet prove to be the biggest boost of the campaign for Sherrill, who has vowed to “fight this tooth and nail.” Ciattarelli, who has embraced Trump more openly than in previous runs for office, focuses on affordability, promising to cap property taxes and cut corporate rates.Keith Nahigian, a veteran of six presidential campaigns and former member of Trump’s transition team, said a focus on the economy — including “the high cost of electric” — would benefit Ciattarelli.For Democratic strategist Mike Nellis, Tuesday’s vote will be “a referendum on where the country is right now.””It’s the first major opportunity for Democrats to show they can win again,” the former advisor to ex-vice president Kamala Harris told AFP.”It’s a chance for voters to make themselves heard on what’s happening in this country with Donald Trump.”

More than a hundred American state and local leaders will attend next month’s COP30 climate talks in Brazil, including governors, state officials and mayors, even as the Trump administration is expected to stay away.”We are showing up in force,” Gina McCarthy, co-chair of the “America Is All In” coalition told reporters on a call Thursday.The group represents around “two-thirds of the US population and three quarters of the US GDP, and more than 50 percent of US emissions,” said McCarthy, who served as a climate advisor to former president Joe Biden, and as ex-president Barack Obama’s environment chief.President Donald Trump announced he was withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate accord for a second time on his return to office in January.But McCarthy said that would not halt American participation in global climate efforts.”We’ll deliver on the promises we made to the American people and our international colleagues,” she said. “Local leaders here have authority to act on their own behalf, to take climate action at home and abroad.”She pointed to the work of the 24-state “US Climate Alliance” that have slashed emissions by a quarter relative to 2005 while growing their economies. Because the Paris accord requires a one-year notice period for withdrawal, the United States remains a party for a few more months.But Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who was also on the call, said it appeared unlikely the administration would send an official delegation to COP, given it had not put in embassy support for the Americans attending.”But who knows?” added Whitehouse. “This is a very mercurial administration. They can decide at the last minute to send a plane to Belem, full of climate deniers and fossil fuel operatives.”While Trump also exited the Paris deal in his first term, his administration has gone further this time, exerting its clout to boost fossil fuels globally. This includes, for example, threatening countries with retaliatory measures if they agreed to a carbon pricing system by the UN’s International Maritime Organization, effectively curtailing its implementation.Climate advocates fear the administration could seek to withdraw from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change — the treaty that underpins the Paris Agreement.Doing so could prevent future administrations from re-entering the deal, but it is not clear if the executive branch has the legal authority to undo a Senate-ratified treaty.

A stone’s throw from Venezuela, in the eye of a political storm fueled by a US naval deployment, fishermen from the archipelago of Trinidad and Tobago fear getting caught up in the tumult.Between Venezuelan military preparations in response to muscular US “provocation” on the one hand, and Trinidad-backed American strikes on alleged drug boats on the other, people who normally ply their trade in the sea told AFP they are keeping a low profile.In Cedros, a village in the extreme southwest of the island of Trinidad, a group of them chatted in hammocks on the beach, their boats unusually idle.The fishers eyed the Venezuelan coast, about a dozen kilometers (seven miles) away, as they discussed their dilemma.Barefoot and dressed in shorts, Kendrick Moodee told AFP he and his comrades were taking “a little more caution,” with the Venezuelan coast guard “a bit tense” these days.There has been closer policing, the 58-year-old said, of fishing in Venezuelan territorial waters where boats from Trinidad and Tobago were previously left to operate undisturbed.Several Cedros fishermen said Venezuelan patrols have been violently repelling Trinidadian vessels, and beatings and extortion have increased.Their territory curtailed, the fishermen have seen their yields and income dwindle.- ‘Anything can happen’ -US strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific have killed at least 62 people on boats Washington claims were ferrying drugs in recent weeks. Family members and victims’ governments have said some of them were fishermen at sea.Earlier this month US President Donald Trump hailed the success of the operation, saying: “We’re so good at it that there are no boats. In fact, even fishing boats –- nobody wants to go into the water anymore.”At least two of those killed were Trinidadians, according to mourning loved ones, though the government of the US-aligned nation of 1.4 million people has refused to confirm the identities.”This (fishing) is the only thing we have to… make a dollar,” 42-year-old Rakesh Ramdass told AFP, saying he was afraid of the diplomatic fallout, but without an alternative.”You have to take a chance,” he said. But at sea, “anything can happen.”Fishermen said the Trinidadian coast guard was also making life more difficult for them in an area known as a hotspot for the trafficking of drugs, arms and people — including Venezuelans fleeing dire economic straits in their own country.Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar is a fierce critic of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and a friend of Trump, and has welcomed the US strikes.Maduro accused her of turning Trinidad and Tobago into “an aircraft carrier of the American empire” after Washington sent a guided-missile destroyer there for four days for a joint military exercise within striking distance of the Venezuelan mainland.Caracas fears the US deployment of war vessels is part of a regime change plan under the guise of an anti-drug operation.- ‘Everyone becomes suspect’ – The diplomatic standoff has meant that “everyone becomes suspect, even simple fishermen,” a Western diplomat in Trinidad and Tobago told AFP on condition of anonymity.Those who fish “find themselves caught in the crossfire,” said the diplomat, and “normal economic life is disrupted.”In Icacos, a village near Cedros, Alexsi Soomai, 63, lamented that fishermen like him were going out to sea less frequently. “Better safe than sorry,” he said. Icacos is the arrival point for many undocumented Venezuelans seeking a better life elsewhere.A few steps from the beach, a hamlet with houses made of salvaged wood shelters several families, including that of Yacelis Garcia, a 35-year-old Indigenous Venezuelan who left that country six years ago. In Venezuela, she recounted, “sometimes we ate, sometimes we didn’t.”Her brother-in-law Juan Salazar said he now lives “solely from fishing.”But he does not dare venture far in the current political climate, fearing he will be caught and sent back.

A double-digit combination set the social media sphere ablaze among teens in 2025, leaving parents and teachers befuddled — and now it has officially been crowned Dictionary.com’s “Word of the Year”: 67.  But even the organization that unveiled the winning word — pronounced “six-seven” and never “sixty-seven” — admitted it was not exactly sure about its meaning. “You might be feeling a familiar vexation at the sight of these two formerly innocuous numerals,” Dictionary.com said, addressing parents as it announced the winner this week.Members of Gen Alpha, it added, might be “smirking at the thought of adults once again struggling to make sense of your notoriously slippery slang.” Dictionary.com said the origin of the word might be traced to “Doot Doot (6 7),” a song by the US rapper Skrilla. Use of the word went viral in schools and on social media this year. It can be taken to mean a variety of things, with context, tone and absurdity all playing a role in determining its definition in the moment.”67″ beat out some stiff competition from other words that were short-listed for “Word of the Year.” These included “broligarchy,” “Gen Z stare,” and an entry from the world of emoticons — the dynamite emoji.Its use exploded online with news of the engagement between pop superstar Taylor Swift and American football star Travis Kelce, as it was used as shorthand to refer to the “TNT” couple.  

Amazon’s share price skyrocketed by more than ten percent on Thursday after the online retail behemoth reported better than expected earnings, powered by surging demand for its cloud computing services.Quarterly sales rose 13 percent to $180.2 billion across the company, it said. Net income climbed to $21.2 billion from $15.3 billion a year earlier.Stoking investor sentiment, the company forecast fourth-quarter sales of $206-$213 billion, representing growth of 10-13 percent.The e-commerce giant’s Amazon Web Services division, which recently suffered a global outage, saw revenues jump 20 percent to $33 billion in the third quarter, marking its fastest growth rate since 2022 as companies race to build AI capabilities.Amazon’s major rivals in the cloud computing space on Wednesday also reported sales increases in their cloud computing business, with all companies pointing to adoption of AI services as the main driver.The tech giants are all making huge investments to build up their AI computing capabilities, money that the companies insist will be justified by increasing adoption of AI tools and applications by customers across the globe.While the company did not break out its specific investment in AI capabilities, Amazon said it increased year-on-year purchases of property and equipment by $50.9 billion, which is a massive jump in spending.Amazon also said it added 3.8 gigawatts of power capacity over the past year to support AI infrastructure — more than any other cloud provider — and launched a massive computing cluster with nearly 500,000 custom AI chips.AI computing demands enormous amounts of electricity, far more than traditional computing, and can put a strain on local resources, notably water supplies needed for cooling data center activity.Operating income, however, remained flat at $17.4 billion after Amazon took two major charges: $2.5 billion for a legal settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and $1.8 billion in severance costs tied to planned job cuts.Amazon said Tuesday it was reducing its workforce by 14,000 posts to streamline operations as it invests in artificial intelligence.The cuts are expected to target areas such as human resources, advertising, and management in a group that has 350,000 office positions, out of a total of more than 1.5 million employees.The settlement with the FTC was over long-running allegations from the US regulator that it used deceptive practices to enroll consumers in Amazon Prime and made it difficult to cancel subscriptions.The online retail giant, which admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement, paid $1.5 billion into a consumer fund for refunds and $1 billion in civil penalties.Shortly after the results landed, Amazon’s share price was up by 11 percent in after-hours trading.

In his first term as US president, Donald Trump reportedly suggested nuking hurricanes. In his second he has caused fresh concern by ordering the Pentagon to start nuclear weapons tests.His latest remarks, made minutes before a landmark meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, follow a pattern of deeply contradictory signals about atomic bombs.One day Trump talks about making a deal with Russia and China to give up their arsenals. The next he appears — though no one is sure — to be talking about overturning a three-decade halt on testing.But the subject also appears to fascinate him.Barely a speech goes by without him addressing the destructive power of nuclear weapons with a kind of awe that befits a 79-year-old who grew up during the Cold War.”It’s been on his mind since the 80s. He wants to solve this issue,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, told AFP.”My concern is that his current approach as president is incoherent, inconsistent, and his team is not constructed or managed in a way that can follow through on his best intentions.”- ‘Rocket man’ -The threat — and promise — of nuclear weapons has been a thread through both of Trump’s presidencies.During his first he spent much time and energy on summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — after initially dubbing Kim “Rocket Man” and threatening Pyongyang with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”Trump’s three encounters with Kim failed to produce any deal with the only country known to have carried out nuclear tests in the 21st century.But the US president has continued to hold out hope of a breakthrough, saying he would have liked to meet Kim during his trip to Asia this week and hailing their “great relationship.”It wasn’t just nuclear proliferation on Trump’s mind in his first term.A report emerged in 2019 that Trump had asked national security officials whether it would be possible to drop an atomic bomb in a hurricane to stop it approaching US shores. Trump said the report was “fake news.” After his return to the White House in January, Trump swiftly rekindled his old obsession.He has repeatedly suggested a deal with Russia and China for “de-nuking,” and in February even suggested an extraordinary three-way summit with Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the subject.”There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons,” Trump told reporters at the time. “We already have so many you could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over.”- ‘Madman’ theory -Yet at other times he has rattled the nuclear saber. Discussing his recent decision to deploy two US submarines after what he said were nuclear threats by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, Trump even referenced a racial slur.”I call it the n-word. There are two n-words and you can’t use either of them,” Trump said in a speech to top US military officers in September.Trump’s comments ordering the Pentagon to “start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis” with Russia and China have, however, caused unusual confusion and alarm.Why would Trump talk about restarting full tests? It was possible that Trump was using the “madman” theory of bold threats to coerce adversaries into deals — an approach he has often relied on in trade and other negotiations, said Kimball, the arms control expert.But he added that “for the president to make such provocative, ambiguous statements is irresponsible and dangerous and frankly incompetent.” Kimball compared the situation to the recently released movie “A House of Dynamite,” a nuclear thriller in which a US president faces the dilemma of how to respond to a lone missile strike as he evacuates Washington in his helicopter.Trump, he pointed out, “is the same guy who would be sitting on Marine One.”

Stock markets wobbled Thursday as traders digested a high-stakes meeting between the US and Chinese presidents, mixed company earnings and uncertainty over further US interest rate cuts.US President Donald Trump described his meeting in South Korea with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping — their first since 2019 — as “amazing.”The two leaders agreed to calm the US-China trade war that has shaken global markets, with Washington cutting some tariffs and Beijing committing to keep supplies of critical rare earths flowing.But the two sides have yet to produce a signed agreement, which means “continued uncertainty about how that relationship will play out, because both sides, the US and China, have shown that they’re kind of willing to ruffle some feathers when they think it’s necessary,” said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare.Anticipation of the meeting had helped lift stocks to new records. But momentum has faded.Wall Street indices retreated, with the Nasdaq dropping the most of the three major indices at 1.6 percent. “The market was vulnerable to this,” said CFRA’s Sam Stovall, alluding to lofty equity valuations that positioned equities to drop at the “one two punch” of Wednesday’s Federal Reserve decision and disappointing tech earnings.Asia markets ended mostly lower, while in Europe both Frankfurt and London ended the day flat after wobbling in afternoon trading. Shares in Meta dove around 11.3 percent after it reported an 83 percent drop in profits to $2.7 billion following a roughly $16-billion hit from a one-time accounting shift due to a US fiscal overhaul legislation favored by Trump.Microsoft shares shed 2.9 percent and shares in Google-parent Alphabet rose 2.5 percent.Analysts described the market reaction as stemming from the investor understanding that the AI boom may not be without bumps.”The business models of the big technology firms are becoming more capital intensive, as they build out their AI capabilities,” said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould. If AI fails to deliver revenue streams, “the effect on share prices could be brutal,” he added.However Forex.com analyst Fawad Razaqzada said that “unless there’s a significant negative surprise from the remaining tech giants yet to report, equities could well have further room to climb.”Amazon and Apple report after US markets close on Thursday.Seoul’s stock market got a lift from tech giant Samsung Electronics posting a 32-percent rise in on-year profits for the third quarter, driven by AI-fueled market demand for memory chips.The European Central Bank held interest rates steady, as expected, as inflation hovers around its target and the eurozone economy holds up. Data on Thursday showed the eurozone economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter of 2025. The Bank of Japan also held interest rates steady on Thursday, sending the yen higher, after the US Federal Reserve delivered a second quarter-point rate cut. Fed chair Powell’s announcement, however, cast doubt on an additional cut in December, jolting US markets and lifting the value of the dollar on Wednesday.- Key figures at around 2015 GMT -New York – Dow: DOWN 0.2 percent at 47,522.12 (close)New York – S&P 500: DOWN 1.0 percent at 6,822.34 (close)New York – Nasdaq Composite: DOWN 1.6 percent at 23,581.14 (close)London – FTSE 100: FLAT at 9,760.06 (close)Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 0.5 percent at 8,157.29 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: FLAT at 24,118.89 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: FLAT at 51,325.61 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.2 percent at 26,282.69 (close)Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.7 percent at 3,986.90 (close)Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1564 from $1.1601 on WednesdayPound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3142 from $1.3194Dollar/yen: UP at 154.06 yen from 152.73 yenEuro/pound: UP at 87.98 from 87.92 penceBrent North Sea Crude: UP 0.1 percent at $65.00 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: UP 0.2 percent at $60.57 per barrelburs-jmb/des

The Trump administration announced plans on Thursday to drastically cut back the number of refugees to be accepted annually by the United States to a record low and give priority to white South Africans.Under the new policy, the United States would welcome 7,500 refugees in fiscal 2026, down from more than 100,000 a year under Democratic president Joe Biden.The vast majority of those being accepted during the fiscal year which began on October 1 would be white South Africans and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands,” according to a White House memo.”The admissions numbers shall primarily be allocated among Afrikaners from South Africa,” it said.Republican President Donald Trump essentially halted refugee arrivals after taking office in January, but has been making an exception for white South Africans despite Pretoria’s insistence that they do not face persecution in their homeland.A first group of around 50 Afrikaners — descendants of the first European settlers of South Africa — arrived for resettlement in the United States in May.Trump campaigned for the White House on a pledge to deport millions of undocumented migrants and signed an executive order in January suspending the US Refugee Admissions Program.Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said that since 1980 more than two million people fleeing persecution have been admitted into the United States under the program.”Now it will be used as a pathway for White immigration,” Reichlin-Melnick said on X. “What a downfall for a crown jewel of America’s international humanitarian programs.”- ‘Lifeline’ -Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of another immigration-focused group, Global Refuge, also criticized the move by the Trump administration.”For more than four decades, the US refugee program has been a lifeline for families fleeing war, persecution, and repression,” Vignarajah said in a statement.”At a time of crisis in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the program’s purpose as well as its credibility.”In addition to slashing refugee numbers, the Trump administration has moved to strip Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Afghans, Haitians, Venezuelans and nationals of several other countries.The United States grants TPS to foreign citizens who cannot safely return home because of war, natural disasters or other “extraordinary” conditions.Trump has said the Afrikaners being taken in as refugees by the United States are fleeing a “terrible situation” back home and has even gone so far as to describe it as “genocide,” an allegation widely dismissed as absurd.Whites, who make up 7.3 percent of South Africa’s population, generally enjoy a higher standard of living than the Black majority. They still own two-thirds of farmland and on average earn three times as much as Black South Africans.Mainly Afrikaner-led governments imposed the race-based apartheid system that denied Black people political and economic rights until it was voted out in 1994.

US President Donald Trump landed back in Washington Thursday after a surprise directive to begin nuclear weapons testing that raised the specter of renewed superpower tensions.The announcement on social media was issued just before Trump — who boasts frequently about being a peace president —  went into a summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea.But the announcement left much unanswered — chiefly about whether he meant testing weapons systems or actually conducting test explosions, something the United States has not done since 1992.Vice President JD Vance said that the US nuclear arsenal needed to be tested to ensure it actually “functions properly,” but did not elaborate on what type of tests Trump had ordered.The president’s statement “speaks for itself,” Vance told reporters at the White House.”It’s an important part of American national security to make sure that this nuclear arsenal we have actually functions properly, and that’s part of a testing regime,” he added.Trump’s statement nevertheless amounted to unusual nuclear sabre rattling.It came came days after Russia declared it had tested nuclear-capable, nuclear-powered cruise missiles and sea drones. “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Trump said on Truth Social.Trump also claimed that the United States has more nuclear weapons than any other country and that he had achieved this in his first term as president.That however appeared to be untrue. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says in its latest annual report that Russia possesses 5,489 nuclear warheads, compared to 5,177 for the United States and 600 for China. In his post, Trump said — minutes ahead of his Xi summit — that China was expected to “be even within 5 years.”- Russia pushes back -The Kremlin questioned whether Trump was well-informed about Russia’s military activities.The recent weapons drills “cannot in any way be interpreted as a nuclear test,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists. “We hope that the information was conveyed correctly to President Trump.”Peskov then implied that Russia would conduct its own live warhead tests if Trump did it first.Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun urged the United States to “earnestly abide” by a global nuclear testing ban.Both countries observe a de facto moratorium on testing nuclear warheads, though Russia and the United States do regularly run military drills involving nuclear-capable systems.United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said through his deputy spokesman that “nuclear testing can never be permitted under any circumstances.”The United States has been a signatory since 1996 to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which bans all atomic test explosions, whether for military or civilian purposes.Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that it had been “many years” since the United States had conducted nuclear tests, but it was “appropriate” to start again.Further muddying the waters, Trump also repeated in his remarks to reporters a previous claim that he wants negotiations with Russia and China on reducing nuclear weapons forces.”Denuclearization would be a tremendous thing,” he said.- Last US test in 1992 -The United States conducted 1,054 nuclear tests between July 16, 1945, when the first test was conducted in New Mexico, and 1992, as well as two nuclear attacks on Japan during World War II.It is the only country to have used nuclear weapons in combat.The last US nuclear test explosion was in September 1992, with a 20-kiloton underground detonation at the Nevada Nuclear Security Site.Then-president George H.W. Bush imposed a moratorium on further tests in October 1992 that has been continued by successive administrations.Nuclear testing was replaced by non-nuclear and subcritical experiments using advanced computer simulations.Nevada congresswoman Dina Titus responded that she would introduce legislation to “put a stop” to any move at restoring live weapons testing in her state.burs-sms-dk/bgs