New Trump tariffs against China kick in November 1
Washington — The US will slap an additional 100% tariff on imports from China and impose export controls on all critical US-made software from November 1, President Donald Trump said on Friday.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said: “Starting November 1st, 2025 (or sooner, depending on any further actions or changes taken by China), the United States of America will impose a Tariff of 100% on China, over and above any tariff that they are now paying. Reuters
Read Behind Trump to hike tariffs
US retailers ‘cut listings for Chinese electronics’
Washington — The chair of the Federal Communications Commission said on Friday that major US online retail websites have removed several million listings for prohibited Chinese electronics as part of a crackdown by the agency.
FCC chair Brendan Carr said in an interview that the items removed are either on a US list of barred equipment or were not authorised by the agency, including items such as home security cameras and smartwatches from companies including Huawei, Hangzhou Hikvision, ZTE and Dahua Technology Company.
Carr said companies are putting new processes in place to prevent future prohibited items as a result of FCC oversight.
“We’re going to keep our efforts up,” Carr said. Reuters
UN warns on Haiti’s escalating food insecurity
Port-au-Prince — Haiti’s food insecurity is expected to deepen by mid-2026, with about 6-million people projected to face critical hunger levels amid gang violence and economic collapse, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said in a report published on Friday.
About 5.7-million Haitians — more than half the population — are facing high levels of food insecurity, with 1.9-million at the emergency level, experiencing acute food shortages and high malnutrition, the IPC report said.
The IPC, a UN-backed index measuring hunger and malnutrition in global hotspots, projects 5.91-million will experience food insecurity by mid-2026, including nearly 2-million at the emergency level. Reuters
MIT rejects White House’s funding conditions
Cambridge — Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) president Sally Kornbluth on Friday said she “cannot support” a memo that the White House sent to nine elite US universities last week detailing policies they should follow to get preferential consideration for federal funding.
In an open letter to US education secretary Linda McMahon, Kornbluth said some of the policies would restrict MIT's independence and freedom of expression.
“The premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone,” Kornbluth said in her letter, which was posted to an MIT website.
Some of the policies included in the memo were capping international undergraduate enrolment at 15%, banning the use of race or sex in hiring and admissions and defining genders based on biology. Schools that pursue “models and values” beyond those outlined in the memo could “forgo federal benefits,” the memo reads, while institutions that comply could be rewarded. Reuters
Court blocks deployment of troops to Illinois
Chicago — A federal appeals court on Saturday rejected the Trump administration’s request to immediately allow the deployment of National Guard troops to Illinois, leaving in place a lower court’s order that blocked the mobilisation temporarily.
In a brief order, the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals said the federal government remains barred from deploying troops but that any out-of-state guard members in Illinois do not need to return to their home states for now.
The mobilisation had included hundreds of soldiers called up from the Texas National Guard. US district judge April Perry had issued an order blocking the National Guard deployment on Thursday after expressing scepticism about the administration’s assertions that the soldiers were needed to protect federal agents from violent protesters.
Perry’s order is set to remain in effect until at least October 23, though she could extend it. Reuters
Former Seychelles speaker wins presidential election
Victoria — Former Seychelles parliamentary speaker Patrick Herminie defeated President Wavel Ramkalawan in a run-off election, official results showed on Sunday, restoring full control of the archipelago nation's government to its longtime ruling party.
Herminie’s win with 52.7% of the vote follows his United Seychelles party’s triumph in the first round of the general election last month, when it reclaimed the majority in parliament that it lost in 2015.
Seychelles is Africa’s wealthiest country per capita, located across 1.2-million square kilometres in the western Indian Ocean and a prime tourist destination as well as a target for investment from, and security co-operation with China, Gulf nations and India.
Ramkalawan, a former Anglican priest, was elected in 2020, becoming the first president from outside United Seychelles — formerly the Seychelles People’s Progressive Front — since a coup one year after independence from Britain in 1976. Reuters
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