Category: 2. World

BEIRUT: The United States is urging Lebanon to agree to a plan that would see Hezbollah give up its weapons by the end of the year, along with ending Israel’s military operations in the country, according to a copy of a Lebanese cabinet agenda reviewed by Reuters.

The proposal also calls for Israeli forces to withdraw from five positions in south Lebanon, in a bid to ease tensions along the border and prevent further clashes.

The plan, submitted by US President Donald Trump’s envoy to the region, Tom Barrack, and being discussed at a Lebanese cabinet meeting on Thursday, sets out the most detailed steps yet for disarming the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which has rejected mounting calls to disarm since last year’s devastating war with Israel.

Lebanese Information Minister Paul Morcos said following the cabinet meeting on Thursday that the cabinet approved only the objectives of Barrack’s plan but did not discuss it in full.

“We did not delve into the details or components of the US proposal. Our discussion and decision were limited to its objectives,” Morcos said.

The objectives of the US proposal would include phasing out the armed presence of non-state actors including Hezbollah, deploying Lebanese forces to key border and internal areas, ensuring Israel’s withdrawal from the five positions, resolving prisoner issues through indirect talks, and permanently demarcating Lebanon’s borders with Israel and Syria.

The US welcomed the Lebanese government’s decision to task the Lebanese Armed Forces to bring all weapons under state control, a State Department spokesperson said on Thursday.

The Israeli prime minister’s office declined to comment, while the defence ministry did not immediately respond.

Hezbollah had no immediate comment on the proposal, but three political sources told Reuters that ministers from the Iran-backed group and their Muslim Shi’ite allies withdrew from Thursday’s cabinet meeting in protest at discussions of the proposal.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Iranian state TV on Wednesday that this was not the first time attempts have been made to disarm the Iran-backed group, adding that the final decision rests with the group itself.

“We act as a supporter but we do not interfere in their decision-making,” Araqchi added.

Israel dealt major blows to Hezbollah in an offensive last year, the climax of a conflict that began in October 2023 when the Lebanese group opened fire at Israeli positions at the frontier, declaring support for its militant Palestinian ally Hamas at the start of the Gaza war.

The US proposal aims to “extend and stabilise” a ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel brokered in November.

“The urgency of this proposal is underscored by the increasing number of complaints regarding Israeli violations of the current ceasefire, including airstrikes and cross-border operations, which risk triggering a collapse of the fragile status quo,” it said.

Phase 1 of the plan would require the Beirut government to issue a decree within 15 days committing to Hezbollah’s full disarmament by December 31, 2025. In this phase, Israel would also cease ground, air and sea military operations.

Phase 2 would require Lebanon to begin implementing the disarmament plan within 60 days, with the government approving “a detailed (Lebanese army) deployment plan to support the plan to bring all arms under the authority of the state”. This plan will specify disarmament targets.

During Phase 2, Israel would begin withdrawing from positions it holds in south Lebanon and Lebanese prisoners held by Israel would be released in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

During Phase 3, within 90 days, Israel will withdraw from the final two of the five points it holds, and funding will be secured to initiate rubble removal in Lebanon and infrastructure rehabilitation in preparation for reconstruction.

In Phase 4, within 120 days, Hezbollah’s remaining heavy weapons must be dismantled, including missiles and drones.

In Phase 4, the United States, Saudi Arabia, France, Qatar and other friendly states will organise an economic conference to support the Lebanese economy and reconstruction and to “implement President Trump’s vision for the return of Lebanon as a prosperous and viable country”.

The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, has said he is ready to “pay a very heavy price” for resisting US attempts to dictate the country’s trade policies, as India took a defiant position in the wake of Trump’s punitive export tariffs.

In an executive order signed on Wednesday, Trump slapped India with an additional 25% tariff, in a move he described as punishment for continuing to purchase large quantities of Russian oil and “fuelling Russia’s war machine”. It came on top of a 25% tariff for Indian exports already announced by the US president.

India’s foreign ministry hit back almost instantly, calling the additional tariff “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable” and accusing the US of double standards, as other countries also importing Russian oil have not faced the same punitive action.

In a speech on Wednesday night which did not directly mention Trump or the new tariffs, Modi appeared defiant as he addressed one of the biggest sticking points in India’s ongoing trade negotiations with the US over tariffs.

According to Indian officials, the US has been pushing India to allow for the import of American genetically modified (GM) crops into the country and for duty-free imports on US farm and dairy products.

However, protecting India’s hundreds of millions of farmers – who are a powerful political lobby – is seen as a highly sensitive area for the Modi government. Indian officials said these areas were “non-negotiable on principle” and were firm that “we can’t import GM”.

That stance was reflected in Modi’s speech on Wednesday night. “India will never compromise on the interests of its farmers, livestock rearers and fisherfolk,” he said. “And I know that I will personally have to pay a very heavy price for this, but I am ready.”

While trade negotiations continue between Indian and US officials, it was widely acknowledged they had been torpedoed by Trump’s announcement of a total 50% tariffs for India, which will come into effect on 27 August unless another deal is agreed in time.

Shashi Tharoor, an MP for the opposition Congress party, said the tariffs seemed to signal “some other hidden message from Washington” and declared that India should “also impose a 50% tariff on US goods”.

The Congress party president, Mallikarjun Kharge, slammed the US attempt to use tariffs to coerce India into shifting its trade and foreign policies, which have seen it maintain a relationship with Russia for decades.

“India’s national interest is supreme,” said Kharge. “Any nation that arbitrarily penalises India for our time-tested policy of strategic autonomy … doesn’t understand the steel frame India is made of.”

The opposition also directed anger towards the BJP government and the prime minister, with opposition MP Tejashwi Yadav accusing Modi of “dancing to America’s tune”.

Not long ago, Indian media had been celebrating the “special relationship” between Modi and Trump and its benefits for India, but by Wednesday the mood had shifted, and anti-American and anti-Trump sentiment was rife across India’s newspapers and TV channels.

“India’s sovereignty is non-negotiable and its foreign policy choices cannot be manipulated by other countries, no matter how significant their own ties with India are,” ran an editorial in The Hindu newspaper.

In his Indian Express column, Pratap Bhanu Mehta called Trump “imperialism on steroids” and said that “capitulating to this emerging American imperial state, under the euphemisms of reform, realism or capitalist reset, is an affront to both India’s dignity and its interests”.

Trump was widely accused of hypocrisy, as China – another major buyer of Russian oil – was not facing the same punishing tariffs and neither was Turkey. There was also deep-rooted scepticism that Trump was making the decision for the benefit of Ukraine and the feeling that the president had ultimately shot himself in the foot by turning on India.

“Before the latest dust-up, India remained one of the few nations on earth where Trump was not deeply disliked,” wrote the author Jonah Blank. “In sorting through what went wrong, Indians should remember two pieces of advice often given to the lovelorn. First: it’s not you, it’s him. Second: he’s not capable of a relationship with anyone.”

Walter Ladwig, a senior lecturer in international relations at King’s College London, who specialises in south Asia, emphasised that trade had long been a “testy issue” between New Delhi and Washington, but while “what’s happening now is not unprecedented, it is sharper in tone and more coercive in method”.

“This is the most serious public rift in years, but neither side benefits from a rupture,” he said. “I expect India to hold firm on buying Russian oil, frame it as a matter of sovereignty and energy security, and quietly look for an off-ramp.”

The US is India’s largest export market, where shipments totalled nearly $87bn (£65bn) in 2024. Experts said the economic impact of 50% tariffs on Indian exports to the US was likely to be sizeable, particularly in certain sectors such as textiles, ready-made clothes, auto-components, steel and gems, and would put India at a major disadvantage compared with regional competitors such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and China.

“This is a severe setback. Nearly 55% of our shipments to the US will be affected,” said SC Ralhan, the president of the federation of Indian export organisations.

Prerna Prabhakar, a senior associate at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, a Delhi thinktank, emphasised that the US was “definitely a very important export destination for India”. She said that if the 50% tariffs do come into play “some sectors are going to have a very, very hard time”, with smaller textile and apparel firms likely to take a major hit.

However, Prabhakar emphasised that India’s own high tariffs meant it still only accounted for 2% of exports globally. Rather than responding to Trump by raising tariffs, Prabhakar said that India’s approach should instead be to reduce them, to better integrate itself into global markets and open up other trade opportunities with regions such as the EU, Africa and Latin America.

“If India wants to offset this problem of being at a disadvantage in the US market, it has to work on its own competitiveness issues,” she said. “Fundamental to that is lowering its own tariffs.”

Kyiv, Ukraine
 — 

A Trump-Putin meeting has been floated by both sides for some time. So why might either side want it to happen now?

US President Donald Trump wants to bring the force of his personality to bear on forging a deal, believing that six months of intransigence from Moscow might be overcome by meeting the Kremlin head face to face. He seems still to cling to the idea the Kremlin can be cajoled into stopping the war, despite his Russian counterpart recently suggesting the maximalist position that the Russian and Ukrainian people are one, and wherever a Russian soldier steps is Russia.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin wants to buy time, having already rejected a European, US and Ukrainian unconditional ceasefire proposal in May, offering instead two unilateral, short and inconsequential pauses. His forces are surging ahead on the front lines in a summer offensive that might bring him close enough to his goals that negotiations in the fall are over a very different status quo in the war.

If the two men do meet, one apparent American objective is a trilateral summit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss an end to the war – the very summit format Russia rejected in Istanbul in May. The Russian purpose is likely to allow Putin to drag Trump back into the orbit of Moscow’s narrative.

Still, a summit – floated before, delayed before – may happen this time, and it raises the question of how the war might end. Here are five possible scenarios:

Highly unlikely. It’s improbable that Putin would agree to a ceasefire in which the front lines stay as they are – the United States, Europe and Ukraine already demanded such a pause in May, under the threat of sanctions, and Russia rejected it. Trump backed away from sanctions, preferring low-level talks in Istanbul which went nowhere. A 30-day ceasefire earlier this year against energy infrastructure met with limited adherence or success.

The Kremlin is currently turning incremental gains on the front line into strategic advantages and would see no point in stopping this progress now, as it reaches its height. Not even the threat of secondary sanctions against China and India – who appear resistant to US pressure – will change that immediate military calculus for the remainder of the summer. Until October, at least, Putin will want to fight because he is winning.

2. Pragmatism and more talks

The talks could agree on more talks later, that seal in Russian gains when winter sets in, freezing the front lines militarily and literally around October. Putin may have taken the eastern towns of Pokrovsk, Kostiantynivka and Kupiansk by then, giving him a solid position to sit the winter out and regroup. Russia can then fight again in 2026, or use diplomacy to make these gains permanent. Putin might also raise the specter of elections in Ukraine – delayed because of the war, and briefly a Trump talking point – to question the legitimacy of Zelensky and even unseat him for a more pro-Russian candidate.

In this scenario, US and European military aid to Ukraine helps them minimize concessions on the front line in the coming months, and leads Putin to seek to talk, as his military have yet again failed to deliver. Pokrovsk may fall and other eastern Ukrainian strongholds may be threatened, but Ukraine could see the Russian advance slow, as it has before, and the Kremlin could even feel the bite of sanctions and an overheating economy.

European powers have already formulated advanced plans for a “reassurance force” to be deployed to Ukraine as part of security guarantees. These tens of thousands of European NATO troops could sit around Kyiv and other major cities, providing logistical and intelligence help to Ukraine as it rebuilds, and create a sufficient deterrent that Moscow decides to leave the front lines as they are. This is the very best Ukraine can hope for.

And if Putin does not stop and diplomacy fails? The next options are not as clean:

4. Catastrophe for Ukraine and NATO

Putin could correctly see the cracks in Western unity after a summit with Trump that improves US-Russian relations but leaves Ukraine to fend for itself. Europe could do their utmost to back Kyiv, but fail to tip the balance without American backup. Putin could see small gains in the east of Ukraine transform into the slow rout of Ukrainian forces in the flat, open terrain between the Donbass and the central cities of Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and the capital. Ukrainian defenses could prove weak, and Kyiv’s military manpower crisis turns into a political disaster when Zelensky demands wider mobilization to prop up the country’s defense.

Kyiv’s safety looks in peril again. Putin’s forces move forwards. Europe’s powers assess it would be better to fight Russia in Ukraine than later inside actual European Union territory. But Europe’s leaders ultimately lack the political mandate to join a war for land inside Ukraine. Putin moves forward. NATO fails to deliver a unified response. This is Europe’s nightmare, but is already the end of a sovereign Ukraine.

Russia could blunder on, expending thousands of soldiers’ lives a week, for relatively small gains, and seeing sanctions erode his alliance with China, and revenue from India. Moscow’s sovereign wealth fund financial reserves could ebb, and its revenues dip. Dissent among the Moscow elite could rise at how the Kremlin has dismissed diplomatic off-ramps in its war of choice, in favor of military doggedness and an unsustainable proxy conflict with NATO. Trump becomes a lame duck, and the US focus after the mid-term elections returns to traditional foreign policy norms of opposing Moscow and its backer Beijing.

In this scenario, the Kremlin could meet a moment where its resistance to the banal inconveniences of reality, and the economic hardship of its own people, turns toxic. Similar poor political calculus sustained the Soviets’ ultimately fruitless occupation of Afghanistan in another war of choice. Similar moments of unexpected Kremlin weakness have already emerged in the Ukraine war, as when Putin’s confidante, Yevgeny Prigozhin, appears to have stumbled into leading a shortlived revolt on the capital.

Putin is strong on the surface, until he appears frail, and then he might be exposed as critically weak. It’s happened before to both an expansionist Soviet Russia, and Putin. The problem with this scenario is it remains the best hope of Western strategists who can neither entertain NATO’s full entry into the war to help Ukraine win, nor Kyiv’s ability to push Moscow back militarily.

None of the options are good for Ukraine. Only one of them spells the actual defeat of Russia as a military power and threat to European security. And none of them can spring from Trump meeting Putin alone, without Ukraine becoming part of any deal later.

Thailand and Cambodia agreed on Thursday to extend a shaky ceasefire deal that followed five days of deadly hostilities along their border last month.

At least 43 people were killed in the conflict that ended on Tuesday last week after a long-standing dispute over border temples erupted into violence.

A truce was brokered by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim — chair of the ASEAN regional bloc — after cajoling by US President Donald Trump and a team of Chinese mediators.

The deal dictated a ceasefire, followed by a meeting of rival regional commanders, before defence officials held three days of talks in Kuala Lumpur that concluded with a joint statement on Thursday.

“Both sides agree to a ceasefire involving all types of weapons, including attacks on civilians and civilian objects and military objectives of either side, in all cases and all areas,” it said.

“This agreement must not be violated under any circumstances.”

Both Thailand and Cambodia accused each other during the first days of the truce of breaching the deal, with limited skirmishes along their shared 800-kilometre (500-mile) border, although clashes quickly dropped off.

The joint statement signed by Thai Deputy Defence Minister Nattaphon Narkphanit and Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Seiha said they had agreed to continue a freeze on border troop movements and patrols.

“We are here for a detailed ceasefire arrangement to stop bloodshed and the suffering by soldiers and civilians of both sides,” Tea Seiha told reporters at a news conference.

“The steps are life-saving measures and lay groundwork for restoring confidence, trust, and normalcy between our two countries.”

The statement scheduled another meeting within a month and said both sides would also “agree to refrain from disseminating false information or fake news in order to de-escalate tensions”.

“In order for our discussions today to result in concrete outcomes, both sides needed to show cooperation and sincerity,” Natthaphon told reporters. 

– ‘High tension’ –  

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the meeting in Kuala Lumpur, describing it as “an important step forward in solidifying the ceasefire agreement”.

“President Trump and I expect the governments of Cambodia and Thailand to fully honor their commitments to end this conflict,” Rubio said in a statement.

US ambassador to Malaysia Edgard Kagan, who attended Thursday’s meeting as an observer, earlier cautioned that the agreement was just one step towards lasting peace.

“We have to be honest and say that there is still a very high level of tension, there’s a high level of distrust,” he told reporters.

“We think that it is going to be important for both sides to show strong commitment at the highest levels, and that it is messaged clearly down to the soldiers and policemen who are on the border,” Kagan said.

The contested temples are claimed by both nations because of a vague demarcation made by Cambodia’s French colonial administrators in 1907.

Last month’s clashes were the deadliest in the region in more than a decade and forced more than 300,000 people to flee combat areas on both sides of the border.

More than 60 countries around the world are scrambling to respond to the latest wave of US tariffs announced by Donald Trump, which came into force on Thursday.

Industry representatives in rich and poor countries warned of job losses as the tariffs upended a decades-old world trading system with rates ranging from 10% to 39%, 40% and 41% for Switzerland, Brazil and Syria.

All over the globe, leaders were attempting to put contingencies in place after Trump’s tariff threats turned to reality at a minute past midnight Washington time.

The Brazilian government said it was planning a state aid plan for companies affected. The president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said the duties were “unacceptable blackmail”.

Switzerland said it was seeking new talks with the US after a last-gasp mission to Washington by its president, Karin Keller-Sutter, failed to stop a 39% tariff blow that industry group Swissmem described as a “horror scenario”.

In a statement after an emergency meeting with Keller-Sutter, the Swiss cabinet said the tariffs would “place a substantial strain on Switzerland’s export-oriented economy”.

“For the affected sectors, companies and their employees, this is an extraordinarily difficult situation,” Keller-Sutter told reporters.

Taiwan is also continuing talks with the US. Its president, Lai Ching-te, said the 20% rate imposed on the key Washington ally was “temporary”.

Ireland, which is locked into an EU-US deal setting the tariff ceiling at 15%, said it would publish a new plan for diversifying an economy that relies heavily on US multinationals including Intel, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, all in Trump’s crosshairs.

Despite a last minute reprieve from Trump for Lesotho with tariffs dropping from 50% to 15%, the impoverished African nation said it was already hurting.

Textile industry players in the country – which produces jeans and other garments for US companies including Levi and Walmart – said the uncertainty around tariffs over the past few months had already devastated the sector, with orders cancelled and jobs cut.

Laos, which, like Brazil and Myanmar, was hit with a 40% rate, was among those handed a steep increase in import duties because of a trade imbalance with the US.

“A 40% tariff is just a nail in the coffin for any industry trying to ship to the United States,” Johannes Somers, the executive chair of the garment manufacturing firm Diep Vu, told Agence France Presse.

“We estimate about 20,000 workers or more could be impacted,” added Xaybandith Rasphone, the head of the Association of the Lao Garment Industry.

The sweeping “reciprocal” rates were announced by the White House a week ago, just before a previous 1 August deadline was due to elapse.

Just before the tariffs came into effect at midnight, Trump claimed on social media that billions of dollars would start flowing into the US as a result.

However, while the customs duties make countries’ exports more expensive and less competitive, they are payable on import and usually passed on to the customer.

“The only thing that can stop America’s greatness would be a radical left court that wants to see our country fail,” the president wrote in capital letters, referencing an ongoing case in the US court of appeals, which is considering whether he exceeded his authority in imposing the tariffs.

Some trading partners had already secured reductions through negotiations or by striking deals, including the UK, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Pakistan and the EU.

The EU is the only trading partner where its baseline rate of 15% will include previous tariffs. It means, for example, cheeses that are normally hit with import duties of 14.9% will be taxed at 15% and not 29.9%.

However, the deal has only been implemented in part with tariffs of 27.5% still being imposed on EU car imports while the details of the US-EU deal are being finalised.

Hildegard Müller, the president of the German car industry federation, said the EU-US deal had “brought no clarity or improvement” to the industry.

“The sectoral tariffs on cars and automotive parts of 27.5%, which have been in effect since April and May respectively, remain in place and place a significant burden on German automakers and automotive suppliers, as well as on transatlantic trade.

“It is important that the promised agreement is reached now and the relief measures are implemented promptly,” she said.

India’s 25% tariff rate could rise to a total of 50% after Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday imposing an additional levy in retaliation for the country’s purchase of oil from Russia. Delhi has 21 days to respond. Trump has threatened to use the same tactic on other countries that supply Russia.

A massive wildfire that has scorched through 16,000 hectares of forest and villages in southern France since Tuesday has lost intensity but is still not under control, officials said on Thursday.

France’s biggest wildfire in nearly eight decades has killed one person and destroyed dozens of houses. Plumes of smoke rose over the forest area in the Aude region.

Three people are missing and two people, including a firefighter, are in critical condition, local authorities said.

Drone footage showed swathes of charred earth after the fire swept across an area one-and-a-half times the size of Paris.

The blaze, around 100 km (60 miles) from the border with Spain, not far from the Mediterranean Sea, has spread unusually rapidly, fanned by strong winds and very dry vegetation, following months of drought in the area.

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It is now advancing more slowly, Environment Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher told France Info radio on Thursday morning.

“The night was cooler, the fire is progressing more slowly, but it remains the most significant wildfire France has experienced since 1949,” Pannier-Runacher said.

“This is a wildfire that is a consequence of climate change, of drought in this region,” she added.

Christophe Magny, one of the officials leading the firefighting operation, told BFM TV that he hoped the blaze could be contained later in the day. But he warned: “As of now, the fire has not been brought under control.”

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Officials said an investigation was under way to determine what caused the blaze.

Scientists say the Mediterranean region’s hotter, drier summers put it at high risk of wildfires.

France’s weather office has warned of a new heatwave starting in other parts of southern France on Friday and expected to last several days.