A major regional economic summit scheduled for next week will be held in South Korea, according to the White House, which will include a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trump will meet with Xi in South Korea on October 30 for a “bilateral meeting,” according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, before heading back to Washington.
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On October 31 and November 1, the city of Gyeongju will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, an intergovernmental forum promoting free trade between 21 nations located along the Pacific Rim.
Trump’s participation in the APEC summit itself was not made clear by Leavitt.
Trump earlier confirmed his meeting with Xi by saying the leaders “have a pretty long meeting scheduled,” before adding that he hoped the superpowers could “work out a lot of our doubts and questions.”
“I believe something will work out,” he said. Trump said as he addressed questions with NATO’s Mark Rutte at the White House, “We have a very good relationship, but that will be a significant one.”
In the midst of rising trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies, Trump and Xi will meet. If there isn’t a deal reached, the US leader threatened to impose higher levies on Chinese imports into the US. He has already imposed a 30% tariff.
After imposing his first sanctions against Moscow on Wednesday since returning to the White House, Trump added that he will press Xi to avert Chinese companies from purchasing Russian oil.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to “end this senseless war” in Ukraine was the cause of the sanctions package, according to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, which targeted Russia’s two biggest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil.
Leavitt stated that Trump would leave the White House on Friday night before setting foot in Malaysia for the ASEAN summit, which will take place on Sunday morning, local time. Leavitt also stated that the US leader would travel to the White House on Friday night.
On Sunday, President Trump will meet with the Malaysian prime minister’s counterpart in the afternoon and then attend the ASEAN leaders’ working dinner that evening, she said.
The US leader will then travel to Tokyo on Monday morning for a meeting with Sanae Takaichi, the country’s new prime minister, on Tuesday.
Leavitt stated that Trump would then “visit Busan on Wednesday [October 29] morning for a bilateral meeting with the president of the Republic of Korea, deliver a keynote address at the APEC CEO luncheon, and attend the leaders’ working dinner that evening.”
According to The Korea Economic Daily newspaper, Korean government officials later confirmed that the meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung would take place in Gyeongju, where the APEC summit is being held this year.
According to the officials, the mix-up is most likely related to Busan’s alleged location, which is where the US-China summit will take place. In her remarks to reporters on Thursday, Leaditt did not confirm where Trump would meet with Xi.
According to South Korean security adviser Wi Sung-lac, President Lee intends to meet with Trump and Xi separately.
We will highlight South Korea’s role as a platform as well as foster consensus for peace, prosperity, and stability in the region through a series of summits, according to Wi told reporters.
He continued, “South Korea is hoping to move forward with Washington on issues involving tariffs and security,” but he had no idea when a deal would be reached.
A man was found guilty of murder in the state of Alabama in 1993, and the state administered the execution by using nitrogen gas, a contentious method of execution that some have called “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Anthony Boyd, 54, was put to death in the United States on Thursday evening after killing a man by lighting him on fire in response to a $200 drug debt.
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Boyd has continued to defend his innocence in his most recent statements. I “didn’t kill anyone,” he said. He said on Thursday, “I didn’t take part in killing anyone,” according to CBS News. “Justice can’t exist until we change this system,” says the statement.
Since January 2024, Alabama has used nitrogen gas on death row prisoners for the seventh time since Boyd’s death.
According to the US Death Penalty Information Center, the method was chosen over an intravenous lethal injection because of the difficulties with administering it and, more recently, because of the combination of toxic drugs.
The length of an execution can be increased by using nitrogen gas, which is a particular contentious use. Boyd had previously requested that he be executed by firing squad, but his request was rejected. He then made an appeal to several courts.
Additionally, his claim that nitrogen gas violates the US Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, which forbids “cruel and unusual punishments,” was rejected by the US Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, objected to the court’s majority decision. In her dissention, Sotomayor referred to nitrogen gas as a “torturous suffocation” in contrast to other techniques in her dissention.
She wrote, “Boyd asks for the most lenient form of mercy: to die by a firing squad, which would instantly kill him.” He would be granted that grace by the Constitution. Not even my coworkers. Thus, this Court rejects Boyd and the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
The entire process, according to Sarah Clifton, a local reporter who observed Boyd’s execution for the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper on Thursday, lasted almost 40 minutes from the moment he was strapped down until he was declared dead.
At 5:30 p.m. local time, the state ignited nitrogen gas, but Boyd continued to splutter and scream for more than 20 minutes before lying still at 6:30 p.m., according to Clifton. At 6:27 p.m., the state shut off the gas, and Boyd was declared dead at 6:33 p.m.
Boyd had spent 30 years in prison prior to his death. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, he was given the death penalty in 1995 after receiving a 10-to-2 jury verdict in Gregory “New York” Huguley’s murder.
Mahnoor Omer, who was raised in the city of Rawalpindi and is close to Islamabad, recalls the shame and anxiety she experienced during her period in school. Going to the toilet with a sanitary pad was an act of stealth, like trying to cover up a crime.
Omer, who is from a middle-class family with her father a businessman and her mother a homemaker, recalls how she used to hide her pad up her sleeve like I was taking narcotics to the bathroom. Teachers would dismiss you if someone mentioned it. A classmate once told her that her mother considered pads “a waste of money”.
Omer remarks, “That’s when it hit me.” Imagine how far out of reach these products are for others if middle-class families think that.
Now 25, Omer has gone from cautious schoolgirl to national centrestage in a battle that could reshape menstrual hygiene in Pakistan, a country where critics say economics is compounding social stigma to punish women – simply for being women.
What she and many others claim is a “period tax” that Pakistan’s more than 100 million women are actually subject to in September, Omer, a lawyer, filed a petition with the Lahore High Court in September.
According to the Sales Tax Act of 1990, Pakistani governments have long imposed customs duties of 25% on imported sanitary pads, as well as on raw materials used to make them, on top of the country’s sales tax law. Add on other local taxes, and UNICEF Pakistan says that these pads are often effectively taxed at about 40 percent.
In contrast to a number of constitutional rights, including those that protect equality and dignity, eradication of exploitation, and promotion of social justice, Omer’s petition contends that these taxes, which specifically affect women, are discriminatory.
Omer and other legal professionals who back the petition claim that the taxes make it even more difficult for most Pakistani women to obtain sanitary products in a nation where menstruation is already a taboo topic for most families. A standard pack of commercially branded sanitary pads in Pakistan currently costs about 450 rupees ($1.60) for 10 pieces. That’s the price of a meal of rotis and dal for a low-income family of four in a nation with a monthly per capita income of $120. Reduce the cost by 40%, and the calculations are easier to compare to sanitary pads.
At the moment, only 12 percent of Pakistani women use commercially produced sanitary pads, according to a 2024 study by UNICEF and the WaterAid nonprofit. The rest frequently don’t have access to clean water and frequently use improvised materials like cloth or other materials.
Hira Amjad, the founder and executive director of the Pakistani nonprofit Dastak Foundation, says that if the petition is circulated, it will make pads more affordable.
And that, say lawyers and activists, could serve as a spark for broader social change.
The case is Mahnoor Omer vs. senior Pakistani government officials, according to the court docket. However, Omer doesn’t experience that type of emotion.
“It feels like women versus Pakistan”.
Women in Pakistan receive period kits from menstrual rights activist Mahwari Justice.
It’s not blatant, they say.
Bushra Mahnoor, founder of Mahwari Justice, a Pakistani student-led organisation whose name translates to “menstrual justice”, realised early just how much of a struggle it could be to access sanitary pads.
No relation to Omer, Mahnoor had four sisters growing up in Attock, a city in the Punjab province of Pakistan. I had to check whether there were enough pads each month. If my period came when one of my sisters had hers too”, finding a pad was a challenge, she says.
The conflict persisted in the classroom, where periods were associated with shame, as was the case with Omer. One teacher once forced a classmate to stand for two entire lectures due to the stained uniform of her teacher. “That was dehumanising”, she says.
Mahnoor’s first period was when she was 10 years old. “I was unsure of how to use a pad.” I stuck it upside down, the sticky side touched my skin. It caused pain. Nobody teaches you how to handle it.
She says that shame was never hers alone, but it’s part of a silence which starts at home and accompanies girls into adulthood. According to a study on menstrual health in Pakistan, eight out of ten girls express embarrassed or uneasy feelings when discussing periods, and two out of three girls claim to never have been informed about menstruation before it started. This silence, according to research published in the Frontiers in Public Health journal in 2023, is related to poor hygiene, social exclusion, and missed school days.
In 2022, when floods devastated Pakistan, Mahnoor began Mahwari Justice to ensure that relief camps did not overlook the menstrual needs of women. She says, “We started distributing pads, but we later realized there was so much more to be done.” Her organization has produced rap songs and comics to normalize conversations about menstruation, as well as distributed more than 100, 000 period kits containing pads, soap, underwear, detergent, and painkillers. “When you say the word ‘ mahwari ‘ out loud, you’re teaching people it’s not shameful”, she says. It’s simply life, they say.
Even though Amjad, the founder of the Dastak Foundation, has been in business for ten years, was affected by the same floods. Its work now also includes distributing period kits during natural disasters.
According to Amjad, the social stigma associated with menstruation is also closely related to economics in terms of how Pakistani women are affected by its effects.
She says that in the majority of households, men are responsible for making financial decisions. “Even if the woman is bringing the money, she’s giving it to the man, and he is deciding where that money needs to go”.
And that’s frequently compromised if the health of women feels too expensive. There is no discussion about whether we should buy pads in many homes because of the tax’s exorbitant prices, she says. “It’s an expense they cannot afford organically”.
Over half of Pakistani women are unable to purchase sanitary pads, according to the Frontiers in Public Health study conducted in 2023.
The advantages of menstrual hygiene will go beyond just being healthy, according to Amjad, if the taxes are eliminated and menstrual hygiene is made more affordable.
School attendance rates for girls could improve, she said. According to the United Nations, more than half of Pakistan’s girls between the ages of five and sixteen are not currently in school. “We will have women who are stress-free.” We will have happier and healthier women”.
In the lawsuit requesting the end of the “period tax,” lawyer Ahsan Jehangir Khan, co-petitioner with Mahnoor Omer. [Photo courtesy of Ahsan Jehangir Khan]
“Feel of justice”
Omer says her interest in women’s and minority rights began early. She says, “Seeing the blatant mistreatment every day inspired me.” “I never felt comfortable with the economic, physical, or verbal exploitation that women experience on the streets, in the media, or inside homes.”
She credits her mother for making her grow up to be an empathetic and understanding person.
She worked at Crossroads Consultants, a Pakistan-based company that collaborates with NGOs and development partners on gender and criminal justice reform after graduating from college. She has since made a commitment to volunteering at Aurat March, an annual women’s rights protest that takes place every year in Pakistan on International Women’s Day, which she attended when she was 19 years old.
Her first step into activism came at 16, when she and her friends started putting together “dignity kits”, small care packages for women in low-income neighbourhoods of Islamabad. She recalls that “we would use our own money to raise money from bake sales or use our own.”
With the funding she received, she was able to distribute about 300 dignity kits that she and her friends made themselves. They each contained pads, underwear, pain medication and wipes. But she desired more.
In the spring of 2025, she began working as a law clerk at the Supreme Court. She’s currently pursuing postgraduate studies in gender, peace and security at the London School of Economics and says that she will go back to Pakistan to resume her practice after she graduates.
She and fellow lawyer Ahsan Jehangir Khan, who is skilled in constitutional law and taxation, became close friends. Their discussions revealed the strategies to challenge the “period tax.”
“He pushed me to file this petition and try to get justice instead of just sitting around”.
Khan, a co-petitioner in the case, asserts that justice is the key to reducing the taxes rather than accessibility and affordability of sanitary pads. He claims that it’s a tax on a biological function.
Tax policies in Pakistan, he says, are written by “a privileged elite, mostly men who have never had to think about what this tax means for ordinary women”. He continues, “it is very clear that you can’t have anything discriminatory against any gender whatsoever,” according to the constitution.
The fight for menstrual hygiene is closely linked to Amjad, the founder of the Dastak Foundation, to her other passion, which is the fight against climate change. The extreme weather-related crisis, such as floods, that Pakistan has faced in recent times, she says, hit women particularly hard.
She recalls the trauma that many of the women she worked with described to her in the 2022 floods. She says, “Imagine you are sleeping in a tent and experiencing mahwari [menstruation] for the first time.” “You are not mentally prepared for it. You are attempting to save your life. You are not in charge of security or safety. That trauma is a trauma for life”.
Women will need to change sanitary pads more frequently during their periods, according to Amjad, and a lack of adequate access will become a bigger issue. She supports the elimination of taxes on cotton-based sanitary pads, but only those that are made of cotton rather than plastic ones, which “take thousands of years to decompose.”
Amjad is also campaigning for paid menstruation leave. She claims that “I’ve seen women who were fired because they couldn’t work because of their pain.” One area of your brain is engaged in menstruation, according to the saying. You can’t really focus properly”.
In the meantime, tax opponents hope that Omer’s petition will encourage Pakistan to impose itself on its own country, including India, Nepal, and the United Kingdom, which have all abolished their period taxes.
Omer struggled to accept that position in opposition to the government’s policies. Her parents, she says, were nervous at first about their daughter going to court against the government. She claims that taking on the state is never a wise decision.
They are now proud of her, she claims. “They understand why this matters”.
Donald Trump, president of the United States, claimed that all trade negotiations with Canada had been ended as a result of a phony television commercial where late President Ronald Reagan criticized tariffs.
Late on Thursday, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, “The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, in which Ronald Reagan speaks negatively about tariffs.”
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“The ad was for $75, 000. Trump argued that they had no intention of obstructing the US Supreme Court’s and other courts’ decisions.
“All trade ties to Canada are HEREBY TERMINATED,” Trump continued. “Based on their egregious behavior, ALL trade negotiations with Canada are HEREBY TERMINATED.”
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute reported earlier on Thursday on social media that a government of Ontario in Canada TV advertisement “misrepresents the ‘Presidential Radio Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade’dated April 25, 1987.”
The foundation claimed that Ontario had not been given permission to use and edit the late US president’s remarks.
The foundation urged the public to watch Reagan’s address’ uncut video, which added that it was “reviewing legal options in this matter.”
Trump’s attention was reportedly sparked by the advertisement in question, which featured President Reagan criticizing tariffs on foreign goods while claiming they caused job losses and trade wars, according to Ontario’s premier Doug Ford, earlier this week.
The president apparently heard our advertisement, I’ve heard. He must have been overly happy, Ford said on Tuesday.
Ford stated in a previous social media post that she would continue to use “every tool we have to make the case against American tariffs on Canada.” Working together is the key to prosperity, he said.
Official news: Ontario’s new U.S. advertising campaign has begun.  ,
We’ll never stop bringing up tariffs on Canada using every tool we have. Working together is the key to prosperity.
After Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he wanted to double his country’s exports to nations outside the US as a result of the threat posed by the Trump administration’s tariffs, Trump made an announcement about the end of trade talks.
In the event of unsuccessful negotiations with Washington, Carney also told reporters that Canada would not permit unfair US access to its markets.
After Trump imposed tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum, and autos earlier this year, prompting Canada to respond in kind, Canada and the US have been in talks for weeks about a potential deal.
Trump’s statement that all discussions had ended as a result of the advertisement was not immediately addressed by the Canadian prime minister’s office.
Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, celebrated the opening of a museum in memory of the fallen soldiers with the “invincible” alliance that his country has with Russia.
Kim addressed the families of North Korean soldiers who “fought in the operations for liberating Kursk” at the groundbreaking ceremony in Pyongyang’s capital on Thursday, claiming that their deployment to Russia “marked the start of a new history of militant solidarity” with Moscow.
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According to state news agency KCNA, Kim said, “The years of militant fraternity, in which a guarantee has been provided for the long-term development of the bilateral friendship at the cost of precious blood, will advance nonstop.”
Relations between Russia and North Korea can be hampered by “domination and tyranny,” Kim continued.
Kim’s visit to the ceremony marked the most recent public service award for North Korean troops who had fought to stop Ukrainian forces from entering Russia’s Kursk region in 2024.
The museum, which will house soldiers from overseas detachments, will be the “first of its kind” in North Korean history, according to Kim.
He stated that today we are holding the Memorial Museum of Combat Feats’ groundbreaking ceremony, which will dedicate the distinguished lives of the heroes and fallen soldiers from overseas operations units, as well as the outstanding Korean citizens and defenders of justice.
NATO, the United States, and South Korean intelligence agencies reported finding proof that North Korean troops had been stationed alongside the Russian military in October 2024.
A mutual defense pact was officially ratified by Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin a month later, causing concern about growing military cooperation between the nuclear-armed countries.
Both nations are required to use “all means” to immediately assist one another in terms of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnerships, as required by the Treaty.
North Korea confirmed that its forces had retaken Ukrainian territory held by Russia for the first time in April by sending a contingent of soldiers to the front line to fight alongside Russian troops.
According to KCNA, the soldiers were deployed to “annihilate and wipe out the Ukrainian neo-Nazi occupiers and liberate the Kursk area in cooperation with the Russian armed forces.”
According to Kyiv and Seoul, North Korea reportedly provided Russia with financial and technological assistance in exchange for more than 10,000 troops.
There are a lot of different estimates for the casualty rate among the North Korean forces.
Around 2, 000 North Korean soldiers were reported dead in September by South Korea’s intelligence agency. After suffering significant casualties in the fighting, Ukraine claimed in January that North Korean troops had been withdrawn from combat. How many North Koreans are still fighting alongside Russian forces is unknown.
Ukraine claimed earlier this month that North Korean troops stationed in Russia were conducting reconnaissance missions using drones across the border, marking the first time North Korean soldiers have been documented on the battlefield.
The Ukrainian General Staff reported that “the Defense Forces of Ukraine have intercepted communications between Russian army personnel and North Korean drone operators.”
While Congress will be informed of operations, the recent spate of bombings of ships in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean will be followed by strikes on land, as President Donald Trump has stated that attacks on alleged “narco-terrorists” do not need a declaration of war.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday, “Well, I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war.”
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“I believe we will simply kill those who enter our country with drugs,” he said. OK? Trump declared, “We’re going to kill them.”
The US president echoed similar threats he has made in recent weeks that include expanding his administration’s attacks to the territories of nations Washington accuses of allowing drug cartels to smuggle narcotics into the US. “Now they]drugs] are coming in by land… you know, the land is going to be next,” the president said.
At least 37 people have died in what Washington has hailed as a military operation against “narco-terrorists” so far, but the US military hasn’t provided any evidence to back up its claims of criminality. At least nine vessels have been attacked by the US military in the Caribbean and Pacific since early September.
US naval ships, F-35 fighter jets, a nuclear submarine, and thousands of troops have been dispatched to the Caribbean region as a result of Washington’s growing combat against samoyed Latin American drug cartels.
Venezuelan and Colombian presidents Gustavo Petro and Nicolas Maduro have been accused of involvement in drug trafficking by the US in an additional offensive.
Venezuela claims that the US is conducting its anti-cartel campaign as part of a plot to overthrow President Maduro, who claimed on Wednesday that his armed forces have 5, 000 Russian surface-to-air missiles in order to counter any US military intervention in his nation.
As US forces are deployed in waters off Venezuela’s coast, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has warned the country against any military assaults.
According to flight tracking data, at least one US B-1B bomber flew over the Caribbean Sea off Venezuela on Wednesday, which is the second US airpower show in a week, according to the AFP news agency.
A B-1B bomber made a U-turn and headed north on Wednesday afternoon before disappearing from view before disappearing from view.
Trump responded to the question “it’s false” at a White House event before stating that the US is “unsatisfied with Venezuela for a number of reasons.”
The military described the mission as a “proactive deterter adversary threats, enhance crew training, and ensure the global force readiness necessary to respond to any contingency or challenge,” as a result of US-based B-52 bombers circled off Venezuela’s coast for several hours last week.
Two B-1B “Lancer” Long-Range Heavy Bombers, (BART21) and (BART22), have just begun to appear on flight radar over the Southern Caribbean, about 50 miles off Venezuela’s coast. The bombers appear to be conducting strike rehearsals, likely in order to get ready for the… twitter.com/Uh0zU5y7bM
“Every international law is broken,” declares the statement.
Trump added that “the entire world should now be aware” that drug cartels, some of which the US has labeled “foreign terrorist organizations,” are the “ISIS]ISIL of the Western Hemisphere.
Pete Hegseth, US defense secretary, compared Trump’s expanding operations against Latin American drug gangs to the so-called “war on terror” of the US.
In a post on social media on Wednesday, Hegseth stated that there will be no refuge or foreboding, but instead, “these cartels are waging war on our border and our people” and that there will be only justice.
A chorus of voices voices voices calls for Washington to attack ships in international waters that are suspected of smuggling drugs as a violation of international law, including Colombia’s president Claudia Sheinbaum.
We do not share the same views, of course. International laws dictate how operations must be conducted in international waters when alleged illegal drug or weapon transportation occurs. Sheinbaum said on Thursday that the United States government has been informed of this.
Petro, a Colombian who has been at odds with Trump since being referred to as a “thug” by the US president, claimed on Thursday that the US is “carrying out extrajudicial executions” that “violate international law.”
“Military bombings in the Caribbean are prohibited by Amnesty International. In a post on social media above a news report about Trump’s attacks on ships in the Caribbean, which has since expanded to the Pacific, Petro stated that all international law is broken in the Caribbean.
The Mexican government is launching an international appeal against the misile bombardments of the Caribe. Todo the international derecho, and his rompe in the Caribe. https: //t. k/o gWRkSYZkBU
![Lawyer Ahsan Jehangir Khan, the co-petitioner with Mahnoor Omer, in the case demanding an end to the 'period tax'. [Photo courtesy Ahsan Jehangir Khan]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/ahsan-and-mahnoor-2-1761274814.jpg?w=696&ssl=1)
