标签： Oceania

Eight years after his last visit to China, U.S. President Donald Trump touched down in Beijing Wednesday evening for a two-day high-stakes leadership summit, marking the first trip by a sitting U.S. president to the Chinese capital since 2017. Welcomed with traditional ceremonial fanfare, including a red carpet greeting and 300 uniformed Chinese youth chanting welcome and waving both national flags as the U.S. leader pumped his fist descending from Air Force One, the lavish opening sets the stage for discussions on a host of thorny issues that have split the world’s two largest economies and nuclear powers.

Trump’s traveling delegation includes some of America’s most high-profile business leaders, headlined by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Tesla CEO Elon Musk — names the president has highlighted as symbols of the commercial breakthroughs he aims to secure during the meetings. On Thursday morning, Chinese leader Xi Jinping will formally greet Trump at Beijing’s opulent Great Hall of the People, followed by an official state banquet that evening. After the summit, Trump is scheduled to tour the Temple of Heaven, a centuries-old UNESCO World Heritage Site that once served as the ceremonial worship site for Chinese imperial dynasties, before holding informal talks, a tea gathering and working lunch with Xi on Friday ahead of his departure back to Washington.

This summit was originally scheduled for March, but was delayed by the escalating conflict around Iran, a sticking point that will still top the bilateral agenda. Most of Iran’s oil exports, which are sanctioned by the United States, currently flow to China, and Trump has confirmed the two leaders will hold a lengthy discussion on the issue, even as he downplays the need for Chinese cooperation on Washington’s policy toward Tehran.

Trade tensions, the longest-running source of friction between the two nations, will also be a core focus of the talks. Following Trump’s 2017 visit, the U.S. rolled out sweeping tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods, triggering a tit-for-tat trade war that saw retaliatory levies push combined duties to over 100% on many cross-border goods. The two leaders reached a one-year truce on tariffs during an October meeting in South Korea, and this week they are expected to negotiate an extension of that pause — though negotiators on both sides have cautioned a final agreement is far from guaranteed.

Trump has pinned his approach to the talks on his self-described close personal rapport with Xi, telling reporters ahead of the trip he expects a “great big hug” from the Chinese leader, who he has long praised for his firm governing style. Top on the president’s commercial priority list are new trade deals covering U.S. agricultural exports, aircraft sales and wider market access for American companies. Aboard Air Force One en route to Beijing, Trump wrote on social media that he would press Xi to “open up” China’s markets to U.S. firms, saying “these brilliant people can work their magic” given fair access.

For its part, the Chinese foreign ministry struck a constructive tone ahead of the summit, releasing a statement Wednesday saying Beijing “welcomes” Trump’s visit and stands ready to work with Washington to expand bilateral cooperation and productively manage differences. But analysts note China’s global position has shifted significantly since Trump’s last visit in 2017, with Beijing now far more assertive on geopolitical and trade issues, leaving multiple core disputes unresolved.

One of the most sensitive issues on the agenda is Taiwan, the self-governing democracy that Beijing claims as its sovereign territory. Trump confirmed ahead of the trip that he will raise the topic of ongoing U.S. arms sales to Taipei during his talks with Xi — a break from decades of U.S. policy that has refused to consult Beijing on arms sales to the island, a shift that is being closely watched by Taipei and U.S. regional allies.

Other topics slated for discussion include China’s export controls on rare earth minerals, the growing global rivalry in artificial intelligence development, and broader restructuring of the bilateral trade relationship. Both sides enter the summit seeking to secure tangible wins while preventing a further escalation of tensions, a delicate balance that carries major implications for the global economy and international security. Trump is also pushing to lock in a firm date for a reciprocal visit by Xi to the U.S. later in 2026, a move that would serve as a high-profile proof of his claim to have built a strong working relationship with his Chinese counterpart.

In an exclusive interview with Agence France-Presse from her exile home in Costa Rica, a former veteran commander of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) has issued a stark prediction about the future of Nicaragua’s ruling power couple. Seventy-one-year-old Monica Baltodano, who once fought alongside current Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega in the revolution against the Somoza dictatorship, argues that 74-year-old Vice President and first lady Rosario Murillo will not be able to hold onto power once 80-year-old Ortega passes away.

Ortega, a once fiery Marxist revolutionary who led the 1979 uprising that ousted the U.S.-backed Somoza regime, has held the Nicaraguan presidency since 2007. His successive election victories have been widely questioned by the international community, and the United States has formally labeled his administration a dictatorship, accusing it of rewriting the national constitution to consolidate absolute control and systematically suppress all political dissent.

Today, Baltodano has broken completely with the regime she once helped bring to power, describing Ortega and Murillo as figures utterly corrupted by unbridled ambition for power. Speaking from her sunlit Costa Rican home, decorated with Nicaraguan art and personal mementos from her homeland, she reflected on how far the country has strayed from the revolutionary ideals they once shared.

Baltodano recalled that during the fight against the “genocidal” Somoza dictatorship, the FSLN built a broad movement that united civic resistance, armed struggle, public demonstrations and an independent press. By contrast, she argues, modern Nicaragua under Ortega is more closed and repressive than even the Somoza era, comparing its political climate to that of North Korea. She accuses the regime of weaponizing exile and denationalization to silence opponents, brutally repressing the Catholic Church, and eliminating all independent state institutions.

As rumors spread of Ortega’s declining health, opposition sources report that Murillo has already begun a quiet internal purge of the ruling party to solidify her grip on power ahead of Ortega’s death. But Baltodano says Murillo’s efforts are doomed to fail. “Rosario wouldn’t withstand Ortega’s disappearance because she’s still using him as a kind of icon, almost elevated to the level of a deity,” Baltodano explained. “Institutions wouldn’t be subordinated to her the way they are now.”

Baltodano fled Nicaragua in 2021 after publicly denouncing Ortega’s growing authoritarian turn. In 2023, she was stripped of her Nicaraguan citizenship alongside dozens of other exiled dissidents, a common tactic the Ortega regime has used against its opponents. Today, the Nicaraguan government faces sweeping sanctions from the U.S. and European Union, and thousands of Nicaraguans have fled into exile after hundreds of real and perceived opposition figures were jailed by the regime.

Baltodano notes that Ortega and Murillo rule in a climate of constant paranoia, pointing out that the regime now imprisons more dissidents from its own ruling ranks than it does from the formal opposition. Rejecting calls for foreign intervention similar to the recent push against Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, an Ortega ally, Baltodano stressed that Nicaraguans must be the ones to solve their own political future. “We Nicaraguans have to be able to resolve our own problems, not by turning our backs on the international community, but not as the result of interventionist actions by any power either,” she said.

For Baltodano, life in exile grows “doubly painful” each passing year, separated from her homeland. A March report from independent United Nations experts documented the Ortega regime’s growing pattern of targeting Nicaraguan dissidents even in exile, but Baltodano says she refuses to live in constant fear. Though she takes basic safety precautions, she remains absolutely certain that she will one day return to a free Nicaragua.

In a high-stakes vote that exposed deep partisan divides over congressional authority and America’s ongoing military engagement in Iran, U.S. senators on Wednesday narrowly blocked a Democratic-led bid to curtail President Donald Trump’s ability to wage unapproved war against Iran. This marked the first congressional vote on the conflict since a 60-day statutory deadline for the White House to secure formal congressional authorization expired.

The resolution, spearheaded by Oregon Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley, represented the seventh failed Democratic effort to rein in Trump’s war powers since the Iran conflict launched more than 10 weeks earlier. The final vote tally came down to a razor-thin 50-49 margin, with the resolution falling just one vote short of passage.

Democrats argue that under the 1973 War Powers Act, passed in the wake of the Vietnam War to reassert congressional control over military deployment, the Trump administration was required to win formal legislative approval for ongoing strikes against Iran by May 1. The timeline was triggered when Trump notified Congress of the initial Iranian strikes back in early March. By their reading, the president is now openly operating in violation of federal law.

The White House has pushed back against this interpretation, claiming the 60-day clock was paused when a ceasefire was announced more than a month ago. Speaking to reporters after the vote, Merkley suggested many Republican senators held misgivings about the ongoing conflict but feared political backlash from aligning against the sitting president. “I think many of our colleagues are uncomfortable with where they stand, but they’re also uncomfortable with being on the wrong side of Trump,” Merkley said.

The ongoing legal and partisan standoff has emerged as the most high-profile test of congressional war-making authority in the half-century since the War Powers Act became law. The conflict is now in its 75th day, with mounting military costs and growing bipartisan concern over the strain the deployment has placed on overall U.S. military readiness. Before the vote, even Merkley acknowledged that the administration’s decision to pause the clock had muddied the political and legal waters for swing voters.

Despite the resolution’s defeat, Democrats have drawn encouragement from the slow but steady rise in Republican lawmakers breaking ranks with the president to support the measure. Three Senate Republicans crossed the aisle to back the resolution, one more defector than appeared in the previous April vote, shrinking the president’s winning margin to the narrowest possible outcome.

Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, a longtime advocate for reining in unauthorized war powers, told reporters that Democrats would not abandon the fight. “They’ll have another chance to vote next week, and the week after that,” Kaine said, vowing to keep pressure on Republican lawmakers to defend their positions on the conflict. “We’re going to force this vote every week until the Senate says we shouldn’t be at war. And I do believe that day is coming.”

Historically, enforcing the War Powers Act has proven extraordinarily difficult, as federal courts have generally been reluctant to intervene in inter-branch disputes over military policy. Even if the resolution eventually secures passage in the Senate, it still faces substantial obstacles in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, and would almost certainly face an immediate veto from President Trump.

A chaotic incident unfolded at the Philippine Senate complex late Wednesday, when multiple gunshots rang out as fugitive Senator Ronald Dela Rosa, a former police chief wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over crimes against humanity allegations linked to his role in Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly drug war, holed up inside the building to avoid arrest.

According to AFP journalists on the scene, at least five distinct gunshots were heard, forcing senators, staff, and journalists to lock themselves in offices for safety. Television footage captured a visibly shaken crying reporter delivering a live on-air report from inside the locked-down building, while Senator Robin Padilla publicly urged all journalists present to evacuate the premises immediately.

Interior Secretary Juanito Victor Remulla told reporters that no casualties have been reported, and the operation to identify and locate the shooter remains ongoing. Remulla confirmed Dela Rosa remained secured inside the Senate complex, adding that “he is safe. He is with security personnel. He has been informed of our activities. We have assured him that there is no warrant of arrest to be served.”

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. released an immediate public statement denying that any government forces deployed inside or around the Senate compound had fired the shots. He clarified that agents assigned to arrest Dela Rosa had already been ordered to stand down earlier that day, following a Supreme Court directive that required the administration to justify its planned arrest and extradition of the senator to the Netherlands, where the ICC is based.

“The thing to do now is to tell all our people to calm down and we will get to the bottom of this. We will determine who is behind this trouble,” Marcos said in an address broadcast on state television.

The incident is the latest escalation of a long-simmering political crisis tied to the Duterte-era drug war. Dela Rosa, widely known by his nickname “Bato”, served as chief of the Philippine National Police from 2016 to 2018, overseeing the opening phase of Duterte’s brutal anti-narcotics crackdown that human rights monitors say left thousands of mostly low-level drug users and small-scale peddlers dead. Duterte himself was arrested by ICC authorities last March and is currently detained in The Hague awaiting trial on related charges.

Dela Rosa had stayed out of public view since November before making a surprise return this week, casting a critical vote that helped Duterte loyalists seize control of the Senate leadership. Just minutes before the gunshots rang out, Senator Vicente Sotto released a statement reporting that protesters had thrown water bottles at his car as he drove alone out of the Senate complex.

Earlier that same Wednesday, Dela Rosa made a public appeal to current and former members of the Philippine military and police to oppose his extradition, urging uniformed personnel to resist any move by the Marcos administration to hand him over to the international court. “My fellow men in uniform” should “express their sentiment” that the government “should not hand me over to foreigners”, he said.

Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano, who blocked government agents from arresting Dela Rosa earlier this week, wrote on his official Facebook page that authorities had no leads on the source of the gunfire. “We heard gunshots and we don’t know what is happening. Everyone’s locked in their rooms now. We cannot go out, we cannot secure our other staff,” he added. “Why are we under attack here?”

Melvin Matibag, director of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), whose agents attempted to arrest Dela Rosa at the Senate on Monday, denied that any NBI personnel were involved in the shooting. “We were on a stand down,” he told ABS-CBN network in an interview, adding there were no NBI agents inside the Senate building when the gunshots occurred.

As the U.S. Senate gears up to confirm Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Federal Reserve Chair, the incoming leader confronts a trio of extraordinary challenges: unprecedented political interference from the White House, persistent inflationary pressures buffeting the American economy, and deep internal divisions among the central bank’s top policymakers.

The confirmation vote is scheduled for 2:00 pm local time (1800 GMT) Wednesday, with Trump’s Republican party holding a narrow majority that is all but guaranteed to push Warsh’s nomination through to replace departing chair Jerome Powell. Once a well-known hardliner on inflation (commonly referred to as a monetary “hawk”), Warsh has shifted his policy stance in recent months to align with Trump’s aggressive public campaign for deep interest rate cuts. He has also pledged to implement what he calls “regime change” at the central bank, criticizing the institution for what he claims is excessive politicization and overly transparent communication around its monetary policy decisions.

But Warsh’s path to immediate rate cuts faces steep barriers. Inflation currently remains well above the Fed’s long-term 2% target, climbing to 3.8% year-over-year in April amid soaring global oil prices sparked by the escalating conflict between the U.S.-backed Israeli campaign against Iran. With price growth still stubbornly elevated, the new chair faces an uphill battle convincing members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Fed’s rate-setting body, to back an immediate rate reduction. That gridlock sets the stage for renewed public attacks from Trump, who spent years relentlessly criticizing Powell over his policy decisions and has made no secret of his demand for lower borrowing costs to boost the economy ahead of elections.

“Warsh’s biggest challenge will likely be dealing with President Trump,” noted David Wessel, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “The president does not respect the independence of the Fed and he wants interest rates to be lower.”

Trump’s repeated attacks on the Fed and its leadership already represent an unprecedented assault on the central bank’s long-held institutional independence. Earlier this year, Powell claimed a criminal probe launched by the Department of Justice into cost overruns for a Fed building renovation project was a deliberate attempt to pressure him into changing his monetary policy stances. That move came on the heels of a separate Trump administration effort to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook from the central bank’s board.

The Justice Department dropped the criminal probe into Powell as the administration moved to clear procedural hurdles for Warsh’s nomination, but the Supreme Court still has a pending case on the legality of Cook’s attempted removal. Columbia Law School professor Kathryn Judge, an expert in banking regulation, called both actions “unprecedented,” warning that the pressure on Fed officials is unlikely to ease even after Warsh takes office.

“Fed officials have been put on notice that this president is willing to use all available tools to bully them into acceding to his demands,” Judge explained.

Beyond political interference, Warsh takes the helm of the world’s largest economy still reeling from years of successive economic shocks. The COVID-19 pandemic sent inflation soaring to a 40-year peak of 9.1% in mid-2022; while price growth has cooled from that high, American households have still been grappling with persistent above-target price increases that have eroded purchasing power.

The Fed’s dual mandate creates a particularly intractable policy dilemma for the new chair. While the unemployment rate has held steady at roughly 4.3% — a level near historic lows — that stable headline number hides significant underlying turbulence. Monthly job growth has been weak and volatile for months, swinging between small gains and losses, with nearly all new job creation concentrated in the health care sector. The stable unemployment rate is also propped up by a sharp drop in labor supply, driven by both Trump’s aggressive deportation policies and the ongoing aging of the American population.

The conflicting signals leave policymakers stuck between competing goals: raise rates to bring inflation fully back to target, or cut rates to stimulate sagging job growth?

Compounding these challenges is deep internal division on the FOMC over the appropriate path forward. At the committee’s most recent meeting, an unusual three members publicly dissented from the group’s position, arguing the Fed should signal that a rate hike remains a possible option to rein in persistent inflation. Wessel pointed out that these divisions, which sometimes fall along partisan lines, represent a marked shift from the Fed’s traditionally consensus-driven culture of the past.

Adding an extra layer of institutional uncertainty is the unusual situation of outgoing chair Powell, who will remain on the Fed’s board of governors after stepping down from the leadership role — a break from more than 70 years of precedent where departing chairs leave the board when their term as chair expires.

Australia’s main opposition party, the Coalition, is set to table a sharp, interventionist alternative to the Albanese government’s housing and migration policies in its formal budget reply speech on Thursday evening, led by Opposition Leader Angus Taylor. Scheduled to address parliament shortly after 7:30pm, the plan targets what the Coalition frames as Labor’s failed approach to the national housing crisis, centering on two headline pledges: a legally tied annual cap on net overseas migration linked directly to national housing completion numbers, and full abolition of the current government’s signature housing initiatives.