World, in brief

China's leader Xi Jinping arrives in Washington on Wednesday for a state visit, the first by a Chinese leader to the United States in ten years. [2][5]

Three people briefed on the preparations told Reuters that Xi will ask Trump to end American arms sales to Taiwan, the self-governing island China claims as its own. [1]

He is expected to quote the third of three joint statements the two countries signed in 1982. In it the US said it intended to reduce arms sales to Taiwan over time, and did not seek to keep selling them for the long term. [1]

President Ronald Reagan attached a memo of his own at the time. It said the US willingness to reduce sales was conditioned absolutely on China staying committed to settling its differences with Taiwan peacefully. [1]

Chinese forces have operated around Taiwan almost every day for the past five years, including war games with live missile tests. [1]

Trump approved an $11bn package of weapons for Taiwan last December, the largest ever. A second package worth about $14bn has sat unsigned for months, and he has called it a very good negotiating chip. [1]

China has also asked the US to stop delivering weapons Taiwan already ordered. [1]

In return, China is offering to help put pressure on Iran over the war in the Middle East, the same people said. [1]

Trump has less room to push than he did a year ago. China mines up to 70% of the world's rare earth metals, refines 85% of them and makes about 90% of the magnets built from them, which go into cars, chips and fighter jets. [3]

China cut those exports last year in answer to Trump's tariffs, and US officials have kept their recent measures small and announced them months early to avoid provoking him. [3]

China's trade surplus with the rest of the world is on course to pass $1 trillion for a second year running. [4]

The two countries fought a tariff war through 2025 before agreeing a truce last October that capped the tariffs on each other. That truce runs out on 10 November and was discussed in New York on Sunday without either side saying it would be extended. [6][7]

China's official People's Daily newspaper said on Tuesday that if Taiwan is handled badly it could push relations between the two countries towards a very dangerous situation. [1]

Formal talks are on Thursday, with a state dinner after them, and Xi visits the US National Archives on Friday. [1][3]

Why it matters. Watch whether Trump signs the $14bn weapons package for Taiwan in the weeks after Xi leaves; a White House official said he will decide in a fairly short time.

The United States and China will meet again on artificial intelligence safety in two months in Shenzhen, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said. [7] He and Chinese vice premier He Lifeng led preparation talks in New York on Sunday. [4] He said both sides want to agree what the leading dangers are, naming software agents nobody can control and hackers who work for no government. [7] Bessent said the companies building these systems should be liable for what they do, and that the labs can slow down whenever they want to. [7]

Why it matters. The two governments competing hardest on artificial intelligence have fixed a date to discuss its dangers, which is further than they have got on trade. [7]

Twenty-seven Democratic members of the US House of Representatives urged Trump to keep the ban on Chinese carmakers selling into the American market, days before his meeting with Xi. [8] The letter was led by Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan. [8] It asked him to maintain protections against Chinese cars and connected-vehicle technology, and to make sure China cannot get in through direct imports, factories built inside the US, or other routes around the rule. [8]

Why it matters. Michigan builds cars, and its representatives want the closure written down before it can be offered in a room they will not be in. [8]

China's foreign minister Wang Yi told his German counterpart Johann Wadephul in a call that the two sides are comprehensive strategic partners and that China and Europe should not fight trade wars. [9] Germany has been one of the loudest European voices complaining about Chinese industrial overcapacity and an undervalued currency. [9] Germany's foreign ministry said both agreed trade must rest on fair rules and a real level playing field. [9] Wang also asked Germany to help keep the peace in the Taiwan Strait. [9]

Why it matters. China worked on Europe in the same week it works on the United States, and raised Taiwan in both conversations. [9]

The United States, Denmark and Greenland were due to sign an Arctic security agreement at the UN in New York at 10:30am on Tuesday. [10] Three people who know the terms told Reuters the US will reopen Narsarsuaq, a southern airfield it left in the 1950s, and put forces at Mestersvig, an east coast outpost used by a Danish dog-sled patrol. [10] The text has not been published. [10] Trump says the deal gives the US permanent control; Denmark and Greenland say it does not touch Greenland's sovereignty. [11]

Why it matters. Greenland is a semi-autonomous Danish territory, and Trump's threats about it earlier this year set off a diplomatic crisis inside NATO before Denmark agreed to talk. [11]

The UN General Assembly's high-level week opened in New York on Tuesday, with Trump due to address it. [12] Diplomats arriving described a world in turmoil: wars in Iran, Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Congo and Myanmar, and a shipping route effectively closed. [13][14] Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said power is shifting and the institutions must change with it. [13] The UN is 81 years old and the countries that can veto anything at its Security Council are still the winners of the Second World War. [14] Trump has scaled back American funding for it. [12]

Why it matters. Almost every other story on this page is being settled in side rooms at the same building this week, by two governments at a time rather than by the 193 in the hall.

Britain's new prime minister Andy Burnham said the Royal Air Force will provide air-to-air refuelling for Saudi planes fighting Yemen's Houthis, using a single Voyager tanker based at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. [15][16] He said the arrangement is for a matter of weeks and will be kept under review. [15] The Houthis seized the port of Mokha and islands near the Bab al-Mandab strait earlier this month, through which about 12% of world trade normally passes, and have fired missiles and drones at Saudi cities including its capital. [15]

Why it matters. British officials had previously declined to comment on operational matters, and refuelling is the quiet way one country joins another's air war without dropping any bombs itself. [15]

Houthi official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said the group is not targeting the United States or any country in the strait, with the single exception of Saudi Arabia. [17] His comments followed US reports that Trump pulled back from striking Houthi positions at the last minute on Sunday, hours after a call with Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. [17] Two people told Reuters that Trump made no direct pledge of military support in a separate call with Yemen's president. [18] The Houthis say the attacks will continue until Saudi Arabia lifts its blockade. [17]

Why it matters. The group is fighting the world's top oil exporter while formally exempting the world's largest navy, which keeps the one force that could break the blockade on the sidelines. [17]

The European Union's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc's naval mission protecting shipping in the Red Sea would need more than ten warships, and said there are not that many in the area now. [19] Diplomats say six are currently operating. [19] The mission, called Aspides, was launched in 2024 to protect merchant ships from Houthi attacks. [19] Kallas spoke in New York on Monday, on the edge of the UN meeting. [19]

Why it matters. Naming the gap out loud is how a European official asks member governments for ships they have so far not sent.

More than 3,000 Yemenis have arrived on the African side of the Red Sea in recent days, many of them whole families crossing in fishing boats. [20] The UN estimates more than 120,000 people have been displaced by the sudden fighting along Yemen's Red Sea coast this month. [20][16] Saudi air strikes on the port city of Mokha killed at least six people including two children and a woman, according to Houthi-linked media cited by AFP; Saudi Arabia has not commented. [16] The Houthis took Yemen's capital Sanaa in 2014, which drew Saudi Arabia into the war. [21]

Why it matters. This is the part of the Red Sea fight that does not appear in shipping figures or oil prices: fishermen loading their children and their goats into a boat. [20]

Russian bombardment of Zaporizhzhia late on Sunday hit apartment blocks, a university and a shopping centre, wounding five people, Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky said. [22] Russia struck nine other Ukrainian regions the same night, he said. [22] Russia's defence ministry said it had targeted logistics hubs, warehouses and ports. [22] The strikes answered a Ukrainian drone swarm of more than 1,000 aircraft launched over the weekend, hundreds of them aimed at the Moscow region during the final day of Russia's parliamentary election. [22][24]

Why it matters. Zelensky expects to meet Trump in New York this week and said Russia is sending signals it is ready to widen the war rather than end it. [22]

The Moscow refinery owned by Gazprom Neft has halted crude oil processing after fires broke out at both of its primary distillation units during Ukraine's weekend drone attack, three industry sources told Reuters. [23] Repairs could take several weeks. [23] The plant processed about 230,000 barrels a day in 2024 and produced 2.9 million tonnes of petrol and 3.2 million tonnes of diesel. [23] Its fuel has not been offered on the St Petersburg exchange since 21 September. [23] Ukraine said the strike used ten types of home-built drone and missile, including a new one called Pelican. [24]

Why it matters. Ukraine cannot hold more ground, so it is taking out the plants that turn Russian crude into the fuel its army and its drivers use. [23][24]

France's president Emmanuel Macron said he discussed with Trump the idea of a moratorium on Russian and Ukrainian attacks on each other's energy sites. [25] He called the conversation very good and very constructive, and said the two agreed Ukraine needs interceptor missiles faster. [25] Macron said he would raise the energy idea with Zelensky the same evening. [25] He gave no detail on what the moratorium would cover or who would police it. [25]

Why it matters. A pause like that would stop the two things each side has left while the front line does not move: Ukraine burning Russian refineries and Russia cutting Ukraine's heating. [23][26]

Ukrainians are preparing for what many expect to be the worst wartime winter of air strikes since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. [26] Last winter's long sub-zero spell cut heating, water and sewage in Kyiv and other cities for weeks at a time. [26] Russia's drones have become more sophisticated and Ukraine is short of interceptors. [26] Some people are stocking firewood or buying equipment and warm clothing; others are considering moving abroad. [26] Britain's prime minister said he will press Trump for more interceptor missiles this week. [57]

Why it matters. Ukraine is short of interceptors and its cities lost heating for weeks last winter, which is why interceptors are the first thing European leaders ask the US president for. [26][57]

United Russia, the party behind President Vladimir Putin, kept its decisive majority in the national parliament, near-complete results showed on Monday. [27] Putin had presented the three-day vote as a test of support for the war in Ukraine. [27] Yabloko, the only anti-war party on the ballot, failed to enter the national parliament but appears to have won a small foothold in one regional assembly. [27] Senior figures including Dmitry Medvedev and foreign minister Sergei Lavrov visited party headquarters when the preliminary results came in. [27]

Why it matters. The result gives Russia's government a fresh claim that the country endorses the war, weeks before the winter fighting season. [27]

German chancellor Friedrich Merz said he will keep his coalition together for the sake of the country's democratic future, after two state election defeats on Sunday. [30][29] In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania the far-right AfD came first and Merz's Christian Democrats did not reach the 5% needed to enter the state parliament, the party's worst regional result since the war. [34][31] Merz called it a disaster and a profound turning point but rejected the idea that his own low ratings caused it. [30] He has been in office 16 months. [29]

Why it matters. A German Marshall Fund analyst told Reuters that Germany is entering a period where workable coalitions get harder to build, and that this does not bode well for Europe when Germany is its de facto leader. [28]

Die Linke, the hard-left party, came first in Berlin's state election on Sunday, ahead of Merz's Christian Democrats, with the far-right AfD also gaining. [31][33] That puts Elif Eralp, 45, on course to become Berlin's first governing mayor of Turkish descent, in coalition with the Social Democrats and Greens. [32][33] She was born in Munich to Turkish socialists who fled the 1980 military coup in Turkey. [32] Her party wants to cap rents and take much of Berlin's housing into public ownership. [28] Merz said he would protect German Jews after the result. [33]

Why it matters. Voters in the same country on the same day went to the far right in one state and the hard left in the other, which is what an eroding centre looks like from the ballot box. [28]

European Union ambassadors are close to removing Alisher Usmanov, a Russian metals billionaire, from the bloc's sanctions list, after France demanded it. [35] Sanctions on more than 2,600 people and companies accused of supporting Russia's war expire at midnight on Tuesday unless all 27 governments agree to roll them over. [35] Euronews reports that France and Uzbekistan agreed privately that Usmanov would come off the list in exchange for Azerbaijan pardoning and releasing two French citizens from prison. [35] Several member states are angry at the precedent. [35]

Why it matters. A rule written in 2022 requiring everyone to agree is now the lever one government uses to take a single name off a list the other 26 want kept. [35]

Trump said the United States is working on a massive deal to buy potash from Belarus at prices well below what it pays Canada. [36][37] Potash is a potassium salt used to make fertiliser. [36] Canada currently supplies most of the potash used by American farmers. [36] The announcement follows a year of talks led by US envoy John Coale, in which Belarus's president Alexander Lukashenko pardoned hundreds of political prisoners in exchange for the easing of US sanctions on Belarusian firms, including the state producer Belaruskali. [36] The European Union still bans Belarusian potash. [36]

Why it matters. Belarus let Russia use its territory to stage the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and the European Union still bans its potash while the United States is now discussing buying it. [36]

Lithuania's foreign minister Kestutis Budrys said there is no reason for Europe to soften its position on Belarus, because Belarus is not changing its behaviour. [38] He told Reuters at the UN meeting that he welcomed the prisoner releases, but said about 1,000 political prisoners remain and that European sanctions still work. [38] Lithuania borders Belarus and takes in many of those who are freed. [38] Budrys said his country would prefer to coordinate sanctions policy with the United States. [38]

Why it matters. The neighbour that absorbs the consequences is asking the distant partner not to trade away the pressure, and has no vote in Washington. [38]

The Trump administration has prepared sanctions against the entire International Criminal Court and plans to announce them soon, two people familiar with the matter said. [39] Dutch officials were told by the US that the measures could be levied as early as Monday, and were encouraged to withdraw the Netherlands from the court, which it hosts in The Hague. [40] The US has already sanctioned more than a dozen current and former staff, including half the sitting judges. [40] The court has issued arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who denies the allegations. [40]

Why it matters. When its former chief prosecutor was sanctioned in 2025 he lost his email, his bank accounts were frozen and he could not enter the US, so the same measures against the institution would reach every member of staff. [40]

A UN special rapporteur, Ben Saul, concluded that US air strikes on vessels said to be carrying drugs broke international law and could amount to crimes against humanity. [41] He counted at least 68 strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific since September last year, outside US territorial waters, killing 223 people. [41] Saul said that even if those on board belonged to designated terrorist groups, they had not attacked the United States, so there was no right of self-defence. [41] The US military said its most recent strike, two days earlier, killed four people it described as narco-terrorists. [41]

Why it matters. The finding lands in the same week the US is preparing to sanction the court that would normally examine exactly this kind of allegation. [39][41]

Seven Ethiopian armed groups announced an alliance aimed at overthrowing prime minister Abiy Ahmed's government, including forces that fought on opposite sides of the 2020-2022 Tigray war. [42][43] The new body, the Ethiopian Peoples' Forces Alliance for Survival, includes the Tigray People's Liberation Front and the Amhara Fano National Movement, which fought for Ethiopia's federal government against the TPLF before turning against it in 2023. [42] Its statement was read out by Fano leader Zemene Kassie on Tigrayan television. [42] The Tigray war killed hundreds of thousands of people. [42]

Why it matters. An adviser to Abiy said last month that any such grouping would cause havoc but could not overthrow Ethiopia's federal government, and that is the claim now being tested. [42]

Al Qaeda-linked fighters from JNIM killed more than 100 Malian soldiers in an attack at Dioura on 10 September, security and diplomatic sources told Reuters. [44] One security source put the death toll at 130 with more than 100 taken hostage; a diplomatic source said around 120; JNIM claimed 150. [44] Mali's army acknowledged losses without giving numbers. [44] JNIM also said it struck air defences at Sevare airport, and a resident reported six consecutive nights of shelling and about 40 wounded Malian and Russian fighters at the local hospital. [44]

Why it matters. Russia's Africa Corps fights alongside Mali's army in both places, so this is also a test of what Russian support is worth in the Sahel. [44]

Petrol in Lagos and Abuja has risen to about 1,400 naira a litre this month, from roughly 1,200 a month earlier, with some northern stations charging 1,500. [45] Diesel sells for more than 2,000 naira. [45] The rise followed the Dangote refinery raising its wholesale price to 1,350 naira a litre, tracking higher crude costs. [45] Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer and votes in a general election on 16 January 2027. [45] Opposition politicians have made fuel prices the central test of President Bola Tinubu's record since he removed the petrol subsidy. [45]

Why it matters. Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer and its pump prices still follow the world crude price, so a truck driver in Abuja says there is little left for his family after he fills the tank. [45]