Al Jazeera reporter Ibrahim al-Khalili reunites with his brother for the first time in almost two years, after his brother Mohammed was released from Israeli detention. He had been held in an Israeli jail without charge for 19 months.
United States President Donald Trump will oversee a formal peace deal between Cambodia and Thailand on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, according to Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan.
Trump will visit the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur on October 26 to witness the agreement, Hasan told reporters.
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“During the summit, we hope to see the signing of a declaration known as the Kuala Lumpur Accord between these two neighbours to ensure peace and a lasting ceasefire,” he said.
The 47th ASEAN Summit is due to take place in Kuala Lumpur from October 26 to 28, bringing together heads of state from 10 Southeast Asian nations and other dialogue partners.
Before the announcement on Tuesday, it was unclear whether the US president would, in fact, attend this year’s ASEAN summit. Trump has been similarly non-committal about whether he will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea the following weekend.
US news outlet Politico reported last week that Trump’s participation at ASEAN was contingent on whether the bloc would hold an official ceasefire ceremony with him at the helm.
Trump also reportedly requested that Chinese officials not join the ceremony, Politico said, although China and Malaysia also played a major role in the ceasefire negotiations between Thailand and Cambodia.
Trump has instead largely taken credit for ending the five-day conflict in July that killed at least 43 people and displaced more than 300,000, in a dispute over unmarked sections of the Thai-Cambodian border.
The border spans more than 800km (500 miles) and is an ongoing area of dispute that has led to violent confrontations between Cambodia and Thailand in the past.
Despite the ceasefire, clashes persisted into September along a disputed segment of the border.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet earlier this year nominated Trump for the Nobel Prize for his role in negotiating the deal and “in recognition of his historic contributions in advancing world peace”.
Trump’s attitude towards the Thai-Cambodian border conflict mirror his actions in the Middle East, where he took credit for a ceasefire deal this week between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Al Jazeera’s Nils Alder has been seeing how Lithuania’s military forces are staying ready, at a time of increasing concern over Russia’s military activity.
Here is how things stand on Tuesday, October 14, 2025:
Various locations, Lithuania – Along the banks of the Nemunas River, flags appear to be a fundamental feature.
On one side, in the sleepy Lithuanian town of Panemune, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and European Union flags flutter in the wind.
On the other, a Russian flag towers over the Russian city of Sovetsk. On a nearby building is an illuminated decorative Z, a symbol used to show support for the Russian military’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022.
A solitary fisherman carefully sails under the Queen Louise Bridge, which connects Lithuania with the Kaliningrad region, a sliver of Russian territory sandwiched between two NATO member states. A Lithuanian flag flaps at the rear of his boat.
Vehicles have been banned from crossing the checkpoint on the Lithuanian side since 2022, and dragon’s teeth – concrete pyramidal anti-tank obstacles – have been installed.
The message is clear: tensions are high, and travel across the bridge is not encouraged.
But this was not always the case.
Titas Paulkstelis, a 28-year-old wind turbine technician and resident of Panemune, remembers when people lined up on either side.
“Life here was booming, with people going back and forth,” he said.
It used to be normal to take a day trip to buy products that were cheaper on each respective side, he added.
Paulkstelis said traffic across the bridge slowed after Russian-backed separatists invaded eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014.
Following Russia’s full-scale onslaught in 2022, the rural town was thrust into the forefront of geopolitical sabre-rattling.
Walking through his lush garden bursting with autumnal colours, Paulkstelis told Al Jazeera about unusual activity over the past year, including a weeks-long jamming of telephone signals, which he suspects may have been a Russian attempt to test Lithuania’s ability to respond.
He appeared amused by most of the activity, calling it “childish”.
An open-air cinema on the Russian side, clearly visible to the residents of Panemune, has been airing a near-constant stream of old Soviet war films since 2022, he said.
However, at times, he feels unsettled.
On several occasions, he has heard rapid gunfire, which he thinks emerges from military exercises in Kaliningrad. One explosion was so powerful that the ground beneath him shook.
In recent weeks, NATO-Russia tensions have exploded, with a number of NATO countries reporting unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) entering their airspace.
On October 2 and 3, Germany’s Munich Airport closed its runways for several hours after drones were sighted.
Estonia has said Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered its airspace for 12 minutes.
The implications feel scary for some in Panemune, Paulkstelis said, but there is a sense that there is little they can do given their precarious location.
The town is nestled by Kaliningrad, which is home to nuclear-capable Iskander missile systems and is also close to the Suwalki Gap, a narrow 65-kilometre (40-mile) land corridor between Poland and Lithuania that separates Kaliningrad from Belarus and is seen as NATO’s most vulnerable chokepoint.
“If they’re coming, they will come for here”, he said, referring to the Russian military.
The United States soya bean harvest is under way, and in rural Maryland, farmer Travis Hutchison cracks open a pod to show that the field is nearly dry enough for reaping.
But a decent yield is not enough to secure his income this year, with China – once the biggest buyer of US soya bean exports – halting orders amid a trade dispute triggered by President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs.
Soya bean prices “are really depressed because of the trade war”, Hutchison told the AFP news agency.
“I wasn’t against the president trying it, because I think we needed better trade deals,” added the 54-year-old of Trump’s policies. “I was hoping it would get resolved sooner.”
The world’s second-biggest economy bought more than half of the $24.5bn US soya bean exports in 2024. But exports to China have fallen by more than 50 percent in value this year, as Chinese buyers have held off on new orders.
Due to lower demand, soya bean prices are down about 40 percent from three years ago.
After Trump slapped tariffs on Chinese products in his second presidency, Beijing’s counter-duties on US soya beans have risen to 20 percent.
This makes them “prohibitively more expensive” than exports from South America, where US farmers face growing competition, said the American Soybean Association (ASA).
Last month, Argentina suspended its export tax on key crops like soya beans, making them more attractive to Chinese buyers.
Trump pledged to tap tariff revenues to help US farmers but has not provided details.
On Friday, the US president threatened additional 100 percent tariffs on China and to scrap talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping over Beijing’s rare earth industry export curbs.
“These latest developments are deeply disappointing at a moment when soya bean farmers are facing an ever-growing financial crisis,” said ASA President Caleb Ragland.
ASA chief economist Scott Gerlt warned the situation is especially harsh in Midwestern states like North and South Dakota.
“This year’s going to be a very, very tough year,” farmer David Burrier, based in Union Bridge, Maryland, told AFP. “Forty percent of our acres are probably going to be breakeven or under breakeven.”
Burrier said it would be a “four-alarm fire” if China stopped soya bean purchases for good.
From 2018 to 2019, retaliatory tariffs caused more than $27bn in US agriculture export losses. The government provided $23bn to help farmers hit by trade disputes.
But they enter this trade war under greater financial stress, Gerlt said.
Crop revenues are lower, yet costs for everything from fertilisers to equipment have ballooned as Trump’s new tariffs bite.
“Getting parts to fix your combines and your planters and everything is costing more because of the tariffs,” Hutchison said. “It’s going to affect our bottom line.”
US farm bankruptcies this year have surged about 50 percent from 2024, said Professor Chad Hart of Iowa State University.