Taiwan opposition leader calls for ‘reconciliation’ after meeting Xi

Taiwan opposition leader calls for ‘reconciliation’ after meeting Xi

KMT leader Cheng Li-wun stressed shared cultural heritage and suggested she would slow-down Taiwan’s military build up

Cheng Li-wun, chairperson of the Kuomintang (KMT), Taiwan's largest opposition party, greets China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China April 10, 2026 [CTI via REUTERS TV]

By Erin Hale
Published On 10 Apr 2026


Taipei, Taiwan – Opposition leader Cheng Li-wun and Chinese President Xi Jinping have met in Beijing, where both leaders stated their opposition to Taiwan independence and expressed a desire for a “peaceful” resolution to the long-running dispute over the island’s future.

They posed for photos at the Great Hall of the People and exchanged public remarks, in addition to holding their closed-door meeting.

Cheng is the highest-ranking Taiwanese leader to meet Xi since President Ma Ying-jeou talked with the Chinese leader in Singapore in 2015. They met again in China two years ago when Ma was a private citizen.

Both Cheng and Ma are members of the Kuomintang, the conservative-leaning Taiwanese political party that advocates for greater engagement with China by Taiwan’s self-ruled democratic government.

During her public remarks, Cheng stressed that Chinese and Taiwanese leaders should work to “transcend political confrontation and mutual hostility”.

“Through the unremitting efforts of our two parties, we hope the Taiwan Strait will no longer become a potential flashpoint of conflict, nor a chessboard for external powers,” Cheng said, according to an English translation.

“Instead, it should become a strait that connects family ties, civilisation and hope – a symbol of peace jointly safeguarded by Chinese people on both sides,” she said.

Cheng’s remarks were sprinkled with well-known Chinese Communist Party talking points, praising its success in eradicating absolute poverty to its goal of achieving the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

“During their open-door meeting, Xi also emphasised Taiwan and China’s shared history and culture, stating that “people of all ethnic groups, including Taiwanese compatriots,” had “jointly written the glorious history of China.”

“All sons and daughters of China share the same Chinese roots and the same Chinese spirit. This originates from blood ties and is deeply embedded in our history – it cannot be forgotten and cannot be erased,” Xi said.

He added that together with the KMT and other members of Taiwanese society, Beijing was ready to “work for peace” across the Taiwan Strait.

Both leaders said they oppose “foreign meddling” in Taiwan-China relations – a reference to US interference – while Cheng suggested that she would slow Taiwan’s military build up, according to Wen-ti Sung, a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.

“She talked about the ‘institutional arrangement for war prevention,’ which was a euphemism for saying that under her leadership, the KMT would not be seeking a defence and deterrence-oriented approach to war prevention,” he told Al Jazeera.

The message, in short, was that “Taiwan ought to slow down on defence buildup and buying US arms,” Sung said.

Taiwan’s military expansion has been a hotly debated issue in the legislature, where the KMT has for months blocked a $40bn special budget to acquire US weapons. The opposition party alleges that the defence bill is too large and too vague. It offered a smaller $12bn alternative instead.

Writing on Facebook ahead of the meeting, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) wrote that the KMT continues to “deliberately avoid cross-party negotiations” while delaying approval of the special defence budget.

Lai said that his government also supports peace, but not “unrealistic fantasies”. Despite promises of peace from Xi, China has steadily ramped up its military presence in the waters and airspace around Taiwan in recent years. Since 2022, China’s armed forces have had six rounds of multi-day live-fire military drills in the Taiwan Strait, the 180-kilometre wide waterway dividing Taiwan from mainland Asia.

“History tells us that compromising with authoritarian regimes only sacrifices sovereignty and democracy; it will not bring freedom, nor will it bring peace,” Lai wrote on Facebook.

China accuses the ruling DPP’s leadership of pushing a “separatist” agenda. The DPP advocates for a distinct Taiwanese identity and, over the past decade, has tried to raise Taiwan’s profile on the world stage — which has provoked anger in Beijing.

The Chinese leadership cut off formal contact with Taipei shortly after the DPP came to power in 2016, although it continues to communicate through different groups, including the KMT.

That is partly why Cheng’s trip to China has been viewed with scepticism in some corners of Taiwan, particularly among the ruling DPP.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Cheng sidestepped questions of whether she supported Taiwanese and Chinese unification, but said her main goal was to seek “reconciliation” based on shared history and culture.

However, the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party have not always got along.

They fought a bloody civil war from the 1920s to the 1940s during China’s republican era, only pausing to fight the Japanese during the Second World War.

The KMT-led Republic of China government later retreated to Taiwan, a former Japanese colony, in the late 1940s, vowing to one day return to China. The conflict was never fully resolved. The CCP continues to claim Taiwan as a province, and remains committed to annexing it one day, peacefully or by force.

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council – which sets Taiwan’s policy towards China – said this week that Cheng’s talking point that Taiwan and China are “one family” mischaracterises Taiwan’s sovereignty dispute as an internal disagreement rather than one between two governments.

While still formally known as the Republic of China, Taiwan has undergone a cultural and political sea change since democratisation in the 1990s, accompanied by a rise in Taiwanese nationalism.

In 2025, a national identity survey by the National Chengchi University in Taiwan found that 62 per cent of respondents identified as “Taiwanese”, up from 17.6 per cent in 1992, the first year of the survey.

The percentage of respondents who identify as “Taiwanese and Chinese” has fallen from 46.4 per cent to 31.7 per cent over the same period, while respondents identifying as “Chinese” fell from 25.5 to 2.5 per cent.

Inside the church of Pete Hegseth, the man who has been leading the US through war

Inside the church of Pete Hegseth, the man who has been leading the US through war

By correspondent Rachel Clayton in Washington DC

13 hours ago




Pete Hegseth has been one of the chief spokesmen for the US's war on Iran. (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)



By the time I arrived at Pete Hegseth's church, the entire block had been cordoned off by police officers and the National Guard.

Across the road, protesters screamed incoherent messages into megaphones directed at the brick building.

Sirens cut through the demonstrators as a convoy of seven black Suburbans pulled up, lights flashing.

The US secretary of defense, his wife and their seven children emerged from their vehicles and were whisked inside by Secret Service agents.

"You can go in now," an officer told me once the Hegseth family had disappeared.

I walked into Mr Hegseth's church, eager to better understand a belief system that challenges the legitimacy of democracy and key principles in the US constitution yet is shaping the man leading the world's most powerful military.

Inside, I looked down at my pants. Around me, every woman wore flowing floor-length dresses. Every man had his polo shirt tucked neatly into belted slacks. The children sat still.

Christ Church in Washington DC is inside a nondescript double-storey brick rowhouse. (ABC News: Bradley McLennan)

A security guard introduced me to someone in charge who had immediately sized me up as a reporter.

"We were expecting a journalist," he said to me with a smile. I could stay, he said, but no photos and no asking anyone any questions.

I was shown to a seat with a direct line of sight to the US defense secretary. To my right sat a young man. To my left, a young couple who clutched each other through the entire 90-minute service.

Outside, the competing drone of screaming megaphones persisted.

The pastor didn't ignore it. Instead, he told the crowd of roughly 185 people that if two people can make that much noise, the potential for those in the room to spread the message of Christ was infinite.

'Far outside mainstream American Christianity'

From the outside, the church is easy to miss; a double-storey brick rowhouse with mirrored windows, no steeple, no cross, and no open doors with a welcome sign.

But inside, those who frequent this place belong to a particularly hardline strand of conservative Christianity in the United States.

Pastor Doug Wilson has argued women's priorities should be "in the home" and laws against sodomy should be brought back. (AP: Lindsey Wasson)


Christ Church (also called Christ Kirk) lies opposite the Library of Congress in Washington DC. It is part of a network of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) founded by Doug Wilson, a pastor from Idaho who has spent decades promoting biblical governance.

"I do believe in the separation of church and state," Mr Wilson told the ABC. "But I don't believe in liberal democracy, and I want education to be privatised."

Some of the most contentious ideas promoted by church leaders relate to the role of women.

Mr Wilson said he believed their "priority is the home". They should submit to their husbands and fathers, and should "not ordinarily" hold political roles, he told the ABC.

Mr Hegseth has publicly backed some of these views in interviews and online.

Last year, he shared a CNN segment on social media featuring church leaders, including Mr Wilson, arguing that in an ideal society, women would not be able to vote. In the video, Mr Wilson also said America should outlaw sodomy. Mr Hegseth captioned it: "All of Christ for All of Life."

In a podcast interview, he said a "misreading of the First Amendment" had resulted in "progressives, communists, Marxists … removing God from the school system" in the 1800s.

The US "is a republic, not a democracy, and our education system pumps democracy down people's throats", he said.

It is not uncommon for US politicians to be outspoken Christians but Mr Hegseth stands out, said Matthew Taylor, a visiting scholar at the Centre on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University.

"What's different in the case of somebody like Pete Hegseth is just how extreme his ideas are, how far outside of what we could call mainstream American Christianity he is," Professor Taylor said.

Conservative religious beliefs become "extremely concerning", he said, when they are so publicly and unapologetically projected from a position of authority.

Prayers at the Pentagon

Mr Hegseth's branch of conservative Christianity has already filtered into policy, leadership, and expectations within the ranks.

In press briefings on the war with Iran, he characterised combat as preparation for the return of Jesus Christ and he prayed for US troops from the Pentagon's press podium.

"May his almighty and eternal arms of providence watch over them and protect them and bring them peace in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen," he said at one recent briefing.

Earlier this year, he began monthly Christian worship services at the Pentagon, which are broadcast on internal TV stations. He told military personnel and civilian employees that "every month it is fitting to be right here" at church service.

Mr Wilson, the church founder, led the February service. Mr Hegseth hosted it in March.

The Pentagon argues the prayer services "undoubtedly improve morale" and "are constitutionally protected".

Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said attendees were not given special treatment and no-one was punished for not attending.

"We mostly do it [the monthly service] because I need it more than anybody else," Mr Hegseth told a recent meeting of Christian broadcasters.

"We hear a lot from the freedom-from-religion crowd. They hate it," he said. "The left-wing shrieks, which means we're right over the target."

'Tidal wave' of complaints

Since the war with Iran began, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has reported a "tidal wave" of about 200 complaints about evangelical messages being pushed in the military.

The organisation advocates for religious freedom for the 100,000 personnel across all branches of the US military.

Founder Mikey Weinstein said when Christian nationalism was pushed on people within "the most lethal organisation ever created by humankind" — the US military — "it's a national security threat internally to our country. And it's a planetary security threat".

Complaints to the foundation include officers telling their subordinates the Iran war was "all part of the plan of the Book of Revelation to … bring their version of weaponised Jesus back to the Battle of Armageddon", Mr Weinstein said.

"This stunned people. Superiors invited their subordinates to their homes for Bible studies. It's about as bad as it ever has been, and I'm sure it's going to get worse."

Last month, a member reported that a poster depicting Jesus Christ launching a mortar round was displayed in a command centre headquarters overseas.

A poster of Jesus holding a mortar that was reported as on display at an overseas US military base. (Supplied: Military Religious Freedom Foundation)


Professor Taylor said this crossed a line.

"The US Army should not be fighting on behalf of Christianity," he said. "It fights on behalf of the United States and in the interests of United States citizens.

"This conflation of America with Christianity … only threatens to turn this into a holy war."

Mr Hegseth's visible displays of his faith have been under scrutiny, too.

He was questioned during his Senate confirmation hearing last year about his tattoos, some of which show symbols that have become popular among the far right and some white supremacy groups. They include the Latin phrase Deus Vult, which means "God wills it", and the Jerusalem Cross.

A tattoo of the Arabic word kafir — used in Islam to describe an infidel or non-believer — has also been criticised as being Islamophobic.

Peter Hegseth has the Arabic word kafir tattooed on his right arm. (X: Pete Hegseth)


Mr Hegseth pointed out at the hearing that the Jerusalem Cross also featured on the program for former president Jimmy Carter's funeral, which he had recently attended.

A small church that could be underestimated

While only a minority of Christian Americans subscribe to the same denomination as Mr Hegseth, they "punch way above their weight", Professor Taylor said.

"They are some of the most ardent supporters of Donald Trump and view both Trump administrations as their vehicles for the re-Christianising of America," he said.

"If they can hold on to this very dedicated, die-hard [MAGA] group, then maybe they can thwart the rules of democracy and turn the United States more into an autocratic power.

"We write them off as hucksters or as conmen at our own peril."

The allegations Pete Hegseth faced ahead of his confirmation as defense secretary





When he was preparing to face the Senate confirmation hearing, Pete Hegseth claimed he was the victim of a media smear campaign.

Mr Wilson, the church's founder, told the ABC he wanted his congregation in DC to lobby politicians to help achieve the goal of a Christian nation.

But ultimately, he believed that goal would "be accomplished by planting churches and schools, evangelising, publishing books", he said.

On the war in Iran, Mr Wilson said he wished the US was "still under the older system where … the president was the executive of the war".

"But as a pragmatist, I believe that the Middle East is likely to be a lot more peaceful after this. God draws straight with crooked lines," he said.

He described his relationship with Mr Hegseth as "cordial and friendly", but said he did not advise him on policy decisions.

"That would be totally inappropriate," he said.



Topic: Explainer

Julie Ingersoll, a religious studies professor at the University of North Florida who has studied the decades-long movement of evangelical Christianity, said the church had never enjoyed such proximity to power.

"I think that we still underestimate the significance of this movement," she said.

"These folks … are 75 years into a long strategy, and they should not be dismissed because they're serious about it, they're committed to it."

Professor Ingersoll said followers of Mr Wilson's denomination did not think of Christianity "as a personal thing".

"It's public. They want the world to know their beliefs," she said.

"Everything is viewed through religion. They reject the idea there is anything not religious, so this war is about Christianity [for them]."

The Hegseth family is inducted

At the church service in downtown DC, I watched as hymns were sung, prayers were recited, and the congregation said "amen" and "thanks be to God" in unison at all the correct moments.

Then, Mr Hegseth and his family were called forward to be formally inducted into the DC congregation.

Joining a CREC church formally requires elder approval and often an official letter of transfer and release from your previous congregation. Mr Hegseth joined the church in 2023 in Tennessee.

Flanked by American flags, the family stood before the congregation. Mr Hegseth said "we do" to a series of questions about his family's commitment and allegiance to the church.

Professor Ingersoll said the pledge represented the family making "a covenant with the congregation", which puts new members under the authority of church elders.

A woman took notes as the pastor spoke about the duty to serve the "humble needy".

Christ Church is not easily recognisable as a church, but has at times attracted protesters. (ABC News: Bradley McLennan)


The service ended with a bowl passed for donations, a basket of bread and wine for communion, and a closing prayer in which members held their palms up to the ceiling.

Mr Hegseth did not stay long. A couple of handshakes, a few quiet words, then he was folded back into a convoy of black SUVs, a newly anointed man of a denomination that aims to transform the government he represents and works for.

After the September 11 terror attacks, US president George W Bush described the war on Al Qaeda as a "crusade" — a comment that sparked global backlash and was quickly walked back.

Professor Taylor said America's capacity for outrage had withered since then.

"Trump has worn people down. People are just really tired after 10 years of resisting, of reacting," he said.

"I think a lot of Americans just have accepted that extreme things are going to happen, and they don't really feel much power to do anything about it."

Israel bombed Gaza on 36 of the past 40 days while the war raged in Iran

Israel bombed Gaza on 36 of the past 40 days while the war raged in Iran


In that short time, Israel killed at least 107 people, permitted only 8 percent of medical evacuations, and admitted just 20 percent of trucks

By Alia Chughtai and Marium Ali
Published On 9 Apr 2026

The United States and Iran agreed on Wednesday to a two-week ceasefire following 40 days of war, with talks set to begin on Saturday in Islamabad, Pakistan.

But since February 28, when Israel and the US began bombing Iran, Israel has also, on a near-daily basis, launched attacks on Lebanon, Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

While much of the world’s attention has been on Iran, here are three main things that you may have missed in Gaza.

Israel bombed Gaza on 36 of the past 40 days

Since the declaration of a “ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip six months ago, Israel has violated the agreement thousands of times, with attacks on a nearly daily basis.

Over the past 40 days, Israel has not only continued bombing Gaza, but has also closed the Rafah crossing and withheld life‑saving food and medical supplies.

According to an analysis by Al Jazeera, Israel has attacked Gaza on 36 out of the past 40 days, meaning there were only four days on which no violent attacks, deaths or injuries were reported in the Strip.


How many people has Israel killed in that time?


Between February 28 and April 8, Israeli attacks killed at least 107 people in Gaza and injured 342 others.

Since the “ceasefire” in Gaza took effect six months ago, Israeli attacks have killed at least 738 people and injured more than 2,000.

In total, since launching its genocidal war on Gaza, Israel has killed or injured at least 10 percent of the Strip’s population, killing more than 72,000 people, the majority of them women and children, and injuring at least 172,000 others, with thousands more buried under the rubble and presumed dead.

[Al Jazeera]


On Wednesday, as the world awaited the much-anticipated pause in attacks between the US, Israel and Iran, Israel killed another journalist in Gaza – Al Jazeera’s correspondent Mohammed Wiswash, who was killed in a targeted drone strike.



‘Heinous crime’: Al Jazeera condemns Israeli killing of journalist


On the same day, Israel launched one of its largest-ever attacks on Lebanon in a single day, launching a wave of strikes that killed at least 254 people and injured 1,165.


Only 8 percent medically evacuated

On February 28, the day Israel and the US began strikes on Iran, Israeli authorities closed all crossings into Gaza, halting the transfer of wounded patients abroad and suspending medical evacuations.

Among them was Rafah crossing, Gaza’s sole gateway to the outside world through Egypt, which was supposed to open under the US-brokered 20-point ceasefire plan for the Strip. Based on the agreement, 50 patients per day, plus their companions – typically one or two per patient – were supposed to be allowed out of the enclave for treatment.

More than two years of Israeli attacks have left thousands injured and in need of urgent medical treatment. According to OCHA, more than 18,500 critical patients, including 4,000 children, require medical evacuations.

On March 19, Israeli authorities announced the resumption of limited medical evacuations through Rafah.

According to the Gaza Media Office, since February 28, 625 out of 7,800 travellers have been permitted to leave Gaza for treatment – about 8 percent of the agreed number.

[Al Jazeera]

Twenty percent of trucks allowed to enter Gaza

Israel has continued to limit urgent food and medical supplies, exacerbating severe shortages and deepening a humanitarian crisis.

According to the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC), the global hunger monitor, more than three-quarters (77 percent) of the population in Gaza are facing high levels of acute food insecurity.

Of the 1.6 million people analysed by IPC:475,000 people are in Phase 2, food stress.
1,027,790 people are in Phase 3, food crisis.
570,980 people are in Phase 4, food emergency.
1,885 people are in Phase 5, famine.

According to the Gaza Media Office, since the US-Israel war on Iran began, Israel has allowed only 4,999 of the 23,400 trucks stipulated in the ceasefire agreement into the Strip – just one-fifth of the promised deliveries.

Strait still shut and Lebanon fighting strains truce as US and Iran aim for first talks

Strait still shut and Lebanon fighting strains truce as US and Iran aim for first talks

By Parisa Hafezi, Maya Gebeily, Maayan Lubell and Ariba Shahid

April 10, 2026, 11:12 AM GMT+10

Updated 51 mins ago

Summary

• Iran says ceasefire must include Lebanon; Israel says it is not covered
• Israel offers direct talks with Lebanon, wants Hezbollah to disarm
• Islamabad locked down to host talks

DUBAI/BEIRUT/JERUSALEM/ISLAMABAD, April 10 (Reuters) - The Strait of Hormuz remained shut on Friday and Israel traded fire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, which the United States and Iran each described as violations of their ceasefire deal on the eve of their first peace talks of the war.

The two-day-old ceasefire ​has halted the campaign of U.S. and Israeli air strikes on Iran. But it has so far done nothing to end the blockade of the strait, which has caused the biggest-ever disruption to ‌global energy supplies, or to calm a parallel war waged by Israel against Iran's Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.

Iran was doing a "very poor job" of allowing oil to go through the strait, U.S. President Donald Trump said in a social media post overnight. "That is not the agreement we have!"

In a separate post, he said oil would start flowing again, without saying how.

PAKISTANI CAPITAL LOCKED DOWN FOR TALKS

Iran, for its part, described the ongoing Israeli attacks on Lebanon as a violation of the truce. Israeli forces launched the biggest attack of the war hours after the ceasefire was announced, killing ​more than 250 Lebanese in sudden surprise strikes on heavily populated areas.

Iran says the truce was meant to apply to Lebanon, a position initially supported by Pakistan, which mediated it. Israel and the United States say ​Lebanon is not covered by the U.S.-Iranian ceasefire. But in a shift on Thursday, Israel said it would open separate talks with the Lebanese government aimed at ending the war there ⁠and disarming Hezbollah.

The rival accusations of violations appeared unlikely to derail the first planned U.S.-Iranian peace talks, set to begin in the Pakistani capital Islamabad from Saturday.

The centre of Islamabad was placed under complete lockdown for a hastily announced public holiday, ​with a security perimeter thrown up for a 3-km (2-mile) "red zone" around a luxury hotel where all guests were ordered out to make room for both delegations.

Pakistani officials were tight-lipped about the exact timing of the arrival of the Iranian delegation to be ​led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf. A source involved in the talks said the Pakistani air force would escort the Iranians' plane.

The U.S. delegation, led by Vice President JD Vance, is due in time for the start of the talks on Saturday.

US INFLATION DATA TO SHOW WAR'S EARLY IMPACT

The ceasefire has brought an expectation that Middle East oil will resume flowing, and curbed benchmark oil prices based on delivery a month in the future. But the prices for present-day spot delivery have yet to fall and some refineries in Europe and Asia are ​paying record prices close to $150 a barrel.

March U.S. consumer price figures are due on Friday, the first official American statistics to show the war's early impact on inflation.

In the first 24 hours of the ceasefire, just a single oil products tanker ​and five dry bulk carriers sailed through the strait, which typically carries 140 ships a day.

Although Trump has declared victory, the war did not achieve the aims he set out at the start: to deprive Iran of the ability to strike its neighbours, dismantle its ‌nuclear programme and ⁠make it easier for its people to overthrow their government.

Iran still possesses missiles and drones capable of hitting its neighbours and a stockpile of more than 400 kg (900 pounds) of uranium enriched near the level needed to make a bomb. Its clerical rulers, who faced a popular uprising just months ago, withstood the onslaught with no sign of organised opposition.

Iran's agenda at the talks now includes demands for major new concessions, including the end of sanctions that crippled its economy for years, and acknowledgment of its authority over the strait, where it aims to collect transit fees and control access in what would amount to a huge shift in regional power.

Its new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, yet to be seen in public since taking over ​from his father who was killed on the war's first ​day, released a defiant statement on Thursday saying Iran ⁠would demand compensation for all wartime damage.
"We will certainly not leave unpunished the criminal aggressors who attacked our country," he said.

The United States, for its part, wants Iran to relinquish the uranium, forgo further enrichment, give up its missiles and end support for regional allies - years-old demands left over from talks Trump abandoned two days before launching the war.

FRESH ATTACKS IN LEBANON

Israeli ​Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement on Thursday that he had given instructions to start peace talks with Lebanon as soon as possible marked a shift after he rebuffed Lebanese ​calls last month for direct talks.

"The ⁠negotiations will focus on disarming Hezbollah and establishing peaceful relations between Israel and Lebanon," Netanyahu said.

Israel invaded Lebanon last month in pursuit of Hezbollah after the group fired into Israel in support of Iran. Around a fifth of Lebanese have been forced from their homes by the Israeli invasion, with troops aiming to occupy the entire southern swathe of the country.

Israel's military said early on Friday it had struck 10 launchers in Lebanon that fired rockets toward northern Israel on Thursday evening, and that Iran-allied armed group Hezbollah ⁠had launched a ​missile at Israel, triggering air sirens.

Hezbollah said it had targeted Israeli military infrastructure in the northern city of Haifa. The armed group had initially ​indicated it would pause attacks in line with the ceasefire, but said it would resume fighting after Wednesday's Israeli strikes.

A senior Lebanese official told Reuters Lebanon had spent the day pushing for a temporary ceasefire to allow for broader talks with Israel, describing the effort as a "separate track but the ​same model" as the U.S.-Iran truce.

A U.S. State Department official confirmed the U.S. would host a meeting next week to "discuss ongoing ceasefire negotiations".

Two Nobel Prizes For Trump: Will U.S. President Become 1st Person With 2 Medals Despite Never Winning It?

Friday, April 10, 2026


Two Nobel Prizes For Trump: Will U.S. President Become 1st Person With 2 Medals Despite Never Winning It?

By Sumit Ahlawat
-April 9, 2026

In 2025, US President Donald Trump lobbied hard for the Nobel Peace Prize, repeatedly emphasizing that he had stopped eight wars and that no candidate was more deserving than him.

Trump’s campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize was even endorsed by multiple world leaders, including Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Cambodia Hun Manet, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, President of Gabon Brice Oligui Nguema, and numerous other leaders.

However, one of the most forceful endorsements came from the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, who nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize on multiple platforms and said that Trump’s intervention in the India-Pakistan War in May 2025 helped avert a nuclear crisis and saved millions of lives.

However, when Trump failed to win the prize despite multiple endorsements, something snapped inside him. In October 2025, the Nobel Committee announced that Venezuela’s María Corina Machado was the winner of the coveted award.

After the announcement, Trump told reporters: “The person who actually got the Nobel Prize called today, called me and said, ‘I’m accepting this in honor of you, because you really deserved it.’”

Trump avoided expressing his disappointment directly, but in January this year, he could no longer hold back.

Trump tied his demand for Greenland to not getting the Nobel Peace Prize.

In a message to Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Trump blamed the country for not giving him the prize.

“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump wrote.

File Image


Many dismissed Trump’s message to Jonas as hyperbole or outbursts of a sore loser. However, subsequent events have shown that not getting the Nobel Peace Prize has deeply scarred Trump’s impressionable mind (pun intended).

Since then, Trump has gone to war with two countries, first with Venezuela and then with Iran.



Trump got away with the Venezuela War, winding up the operation in less than three hours with no casualties; however, the war with Iran, as security experts had been warning for months, stretched for more than a month, spread to the whole Middle East, and caused widespread economic turmoil throughout the world.


A fragile ceasefire has been worked out, though the chances of long-term peace remain slim. Furthermore, energy prices could remain elevated for years, and the world might be standing at the doorstep of an impending food crisis.

Worse still, no one bought into Trump’s logic of war. NATO countries abandoned Trump. One by one, many NATO countries, among them Spain, France, and Italy, refused the use of their military bases for offensive operations against Iran; the UK, Japan, and South Korea refused to join the US’s war effort, and Trump’s domestic approval ratings plunged to a historic low, with over 60% Amercians strongly disapproving of his decisions.

Experts said that for Iran, it was a ‘war of survival,’ for Israel, it was a ‘war of choice,’ but for Trump, it was a ‘war of whims.’


After this disastrous war, clearly, Trump has sabotaged his chances of winning a Nobel, at least for the foreseeable future.


However, that does not mean Trump has abandoned his desire to have another Nobel medal, at least the physical medal, even if he does not officially win the award.

In January 2026, President Donald Trump accepted the physical Nobel Peace Prize medal from Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado during a White House meeting. Machado presented the medal to Trump as a gesture of gratitude for his support of Venezuelan democracy.

Trump described it as a “wonderful gesture of mutual respect” and said he intended to keep the medal, adding that “nobody in history deserves the prize more than him”.

Now, following Pakistan’s mediation in the Iran-US War, there are murmurs that Islamabad’s efforts towards mediation and achieving a ceasefire deal should be rewarded with a Nobel Prize.


Pakistani media and Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) on April 3 called for the country’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to initiate a two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran.

In an opinion piece for The Nation, Lt. Col (Retd) Sayed Ahmad Nadeem Qadri said: “Pakistan’s recent actions align with these principles in several ways: it prevented a potentially devastating war, acted as a trusted intermediary for both sides (the USA and Iran), contributed to global stability by helping stabilise energy routes and international markets, and encouraged diplomacy over military action, resulting in the promotion of dialogue.”


“Such contributions reflect the core spirit of the Nobel Peace Prize, rewarding those who actively work to reduce conflict and foster peace. Pakistan’s mediation between the United States and Iran demonstrates the power of diplomacy in resolving even the most complex conflicts,” he added.

In fact, Trump could return the favor to Pakistan PM Sharif by nominating or endorsing him for the Nobel Peace Prize, just like Sharif endorsed Trump for the award multiple times last year.

If Sharif manages to win the award, Trump could be sure that, just like Machoda last year, Sharif would gladly gift his Nobel medal to Trump, calling him the more deserving candidate.

It is worth recalling that last year, Sharif repeatedly credited Trump with the ceasefire between India and Pakistan, even though New Delhi firmly rejected all reports of US mediation, saying that India agreed to the ceasefire after the Pakistani DGMO reached out to India with a ceasefire proposal.

Since then, Islamabad has signed a crypto deal with Washington and a critical minerals deal, and the US has greenlit a crucial IMF bailout package for Islamabad, which was on the verge of bankruptcy.

Given Islamabad’s critical dependence on the US and PM Sharif’s eagerness to cross all boundaries of sycophancy to appease Trump, he could be sure that Sharif would be more than willing to issue a statement similar to Machoda’s, saying he is receiving the award in honor of President Trump.

In fact, Sharif would be more than willing to read a statement drafted in the White House itself.

We have just witnessed a short trailer of Pakistan and its Prime Minister, Sharif’s subservience to Trump.


On April 4, the New York Times reported that the text of Sharif’s ceasefire announcement posted on the social media platform X was vetted by the White House.

“Sharif, adopting Trumpian parlance, said in a post on X Tuesday afternoon that diplomacy was “progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully” and that he was requesting that Mr. Trump extend the deadline for two weeks. He then tagged Mr. Trump and other top advisers. But behind the scenes, the White House had already seen and signed off on the statement before Mr. Sharif posted it,” the NYT reported.

Some people even speculated that the message was not only vetted but written by the White House, as Sharif initially posted the statement with the header: “*Draft – Pakistan’s PM Message on X*”.

Given this bonhomie, Trump can be sure that Sharif will have no hesitation in reading out a statement written by the White House if he manages to win the Nobel for its mediation efforts and would gladly gift the physical medal to Trump in front of the cameras.

President Trump, then, can boast of becoming the first person ever to have not one but two Nobel medals, without winning even a single one, a fitting tribute to Trump’s remarkable efforts towards world peace.

Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.

***

This is what has driven Trump mad with jealousy

Israel attacks Lebanon again on eve of US-Iran truce talks

By Usaid Siddiqui and Zaid Sabah

Published On 10 Apr 202610 Apr 2026

• As the US and Iran prepare for talks in Pakistan, Israel continues to bombard Lebanon after killing at least 300 people and injuring 1,150 in nationwide strikes on Wednesday.
• World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called on Israel to withdraw a forced evacuation order affecting two main hospitals in the Beirut area, as the Lebanese health system struggles to treat casualties of Israeli attacks.
• Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says if the US is willing to “crater its economy” by continuing to allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “kill diplomacy” by not adhering to the ceasefire, that would be Washington’s “choice”. “We think that would be dumb but are prepared for it”.
• Netanyahu says instructions have been issued to start direct negotiations with Lebanon, while Israeli media reports the Israeli defence minister saying “the war will not be stopped”.

• 7m ago

   (10:50 GMT)

  Tehran full of ‘sadness, pain’

  Iranians have welcomed a fragile ceasefire deal after weeks of Israeli and American bombardment, but many fear the US-Israeli war on Iran is far from over.

  “Everyone I’ve spoken with, it’s given them a new life,” a university student told AP news agency in an audio note via WhatsApp, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Everyone is really happy,” he said.

  But “Tehran has seen a lot of damage,” he added, and there’s widespread concern the fighting will resume.

  Maryam Saeedpoor, a photographer living in downtown Tehran, said she tried to take up painting to keep busy as blasts echoed across the city during the war, “but then I saw my hand was shaking, and I can’t”.

  She said she fears the strikes have already done lasting damage to industries and infrastructure that helped the country weather decades of international sanctions.

  “Tehran is the warmest, the most beautiful city in the world in my opinion, but now its face is full of sadness, pain,” Saeedpoor said via WhatsApp audio note.

  “They say they wanted to take out government leaders, but so many innocent people have been killed.”
• 17m ago

   (10:40 GMT)

  India concerned by ‘large’ civilian casualties in Lebanon

  India has sounded the alarm about the “large number of civilian casualties” caused by Israeli attacks in Lebanon.

  Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said India finds the current trajectory of events “very disturbing,” as a country which contributes troops to the UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL and which is “invested in Lebanon’s peace and security”.

  “Observing international law and respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states is essential,” Jaiswal added.
• 27m ago

   (10:30 GMT)

  Israeli strikes in Lebanon taking ‘devastating and inhumane’ toll on children: UNICEF

  The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF has warned that intensified Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon are having a catastrophic impact on children, after bombardments on Tuesday reportedly killed 33 children and injured 153 within minutes.

  UNICEF said the latest bloodshed adds to a “staggering” total of about 600 children killed or injured in Lebanon since  March 2.

  More than one million people have been uprooted nationwide, including an estimated 390,000 children, many displaced multiple times, it added.

  The agency said it has received reports of children being pulled from under rubble, with others missing, separated from families and suffering severe trauma after losing loved ones and homes.

  “International humanitarian law is clear: civilians, including children, must be protected at all times,” it added.

  

  Children play by their tents at the makeshift encampment, by people who fled their homes after Israeli evacuation orders, in Beirut, Lebanon, April 8, 2026 [Louisa Gouliamaki/Reuters]
  
  

Focus on economy first, Anwar says amid calls for action against Rafizi

FMT:

Focus on economy first, Anwar says amid calls for action against Rafizi

2 hours ago
Mohamad Fadli

The PKR president calls on members to remain calm in response to the party's outspoken MP

PKR president Anwar Ibrahim meeting members of the public after attending Friday prayers in Kg Cheras Baru, Pandan, Kuala Lumpur, today. (Bernama pic)

KUALA LUMPUR: PKR president Anwar Ibrahim has urged party members calling for action to be taken against former deputy president Rafizi Ramli to remain calm.

Anwar, the prime minister, said he would rather focus on issues affecting the country’s economy.

“They (issues affecting the economy) are far more serious than a personal problem.


“So I advise them to remain calm,” he told reporters after attending Friday prayers in Kg Cheras Baru, Pandan.

Rafizi has been openly critical of the government and PKR since he lost the race for the party’s deputy presidency and relinquished the economy minister’s post in May last year.

Five days ago, PKR central leadership council member A Kumaresan called on the party to take action against Rafizi, accusing the Pandan MP of weakening the party.

Earlier today, Rafizi challenged PKR to sack him when defending several statements he made against the party leadership, listed in a second show-cause letter issued yesterday.

In July last year, 19 PKR divisions in Johor called for the suspension of nine MPs from the party, including Rafizi, who had pushed for a royal commission of inquiry into judicial appointments and alleged interference in the judiciary.

The division chiefs said the MPs’ actions not only breached party discipline and ethics, but also cast a negative light on the prime minister’s leadership and opened the door to political manipulation by rivals.