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Trump visits largest US base in Middle East

Trump visits largest US base in Middle East

CNN16-05-2025

Trump visits largest US base in Middle East
CNN's Chief National Affairs Correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, reports from Qatar as President Trump visits Al Udeid, the largest US military base in the Middle East.
01:32 - Source: CNN
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Trump visits largest US base in Middle East
CNN's Chief National Affairs Correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, reports from Qatar as President Trump visits Al Udeid, the largest US military base in the Middle East.
01:32 - Source: CNN
Qatari PM defends offering plane to President Trump
In an interview with CNN's Becky Anderson, Qatari Prime Minister and minister of foreign affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani downplayed the significance of the luxury jet gifted to President Donald Trump, saying it was a "very simple government to government dealing."
01:07 - Source: CNN
Zelensky warns 'no time for playing games'
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he will head to Turkey and wait for Russian President Vladimir Putin for potential ceasefire talks; but he set some minimal goals for the meeting. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh reports.
01:26 - Source: CNN
Trump meets Syria's new leader
In a historic meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, President Trump met with Syrian jihadist-turned-president Ahmed al-Sharaa and announced plans to lift sanctions on Syria. CNN's Becky Anderson breaks down who the Syrian leader is and why this meeting was so significant.
01:27 - Source: CNN
Will Trump attend possible Putin-Zelensky meeting?
President Donald Trump continued to express interest in traveling to Turkey for a possible high-stakes meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump is currently scheduled to be Doha and Abu Dhabi on Thursday.
01:06 - Source: CNN
Trump addresses Qatari jet gift
In an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, President Donald Trump addressed his plan to accept a jet worth hundreds of millions of dollars as a gift from the Qatari royal family.
00:53 - Source: CNN
Syrians react after Trump says he plans to lift sanctions
President Donald Trump announced he plans to lift sanctions on Syria during a speech in Saudi Arabia citing the fall of the Assad regime as grounds for the release of pressure on the country. Syrians spared little time before celebrating.
00:51 - Source: CNN
Influencers showing Russia's view of Mariupol
Three years after it seized control of Mariupol following a brutal 86-day siege, Russia is using a more subtle power to keep its grip on the Ukranian port city: social media influencers. CNN's investigation found that residents of the occupied city, including school children, are being trained in new media programs and 'blogger schools'
ties to the Russian state.
02:10 - Source: CNN
Is Qatar gifting President Trump the plane he always wanted?
President Trump said he'd accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 from the Qatari Royal Family to use as Air Force One. For years, he'd complain that the presidential plane is "very old" and tried to make upgrades to the fleet.
01:21 - Source: CNN
Trump meets with Saudi crown prince
President Donald Trump is in Riyadh visiting with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on his first international trip of his second term. CNN's Kaitlan Collins explains what Trump is hoping to accomplish.
01:07 - Source: CNN
Trump makes Middle East a priority with Gulf trip
President Trump has arrived in the Gulf for a three-day trip that will see him visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Choosing the region as his first major trip as president sends a strong message about not only his priorities but also his foreign policy. CNN's Becky Anderson looks at three reasons why the region is important to him.
01:42 - Source: CNN
See Edan Alexander's reunion with family after release
Edan Alexander, the last known living American hostage in Gaza, was released by Hamas and reunited with his family on Monday, ending an 18-month ordeal that began with the militant group's October 7 attack.
00:40 - Source: CNN
Trump defends plan to accept jet from Qatar
President Trump defended a plan to accept a luxury jet from the Qatari royal family that will be retrofitted and used as Air Force One during the president's second term. Ethics experts have raised concerns about the potential move and questioned whether accepting the plane will violate the Constitution's Emoluments Clause.
01:02 - Source: CNN

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Trump says it may be better to let Ukraine and Russia ‘fight for a while'
Trump says it may be better to let Ukraine and Russia ‘fight for a while'

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Trump says it may be better to let Ukraine and Russia ‘fight for a while'

Donald Trump has said it may be better to let Ukraine and Russia 'fight for a while' rather than pursue peace immediately, as the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, urged him to increase pressure on Russia. During the Oval Office meeting, Trump voiced doubts about the potential success of peace talks, saying 'sometimes you're better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart'. The US president said he had told Vladimir Putin that the two countries were like 'two young children fighting like crazy in a park' when the two spoke by phone on Wednesday. Putin's reaction is not known, but the Russian leader would probably welcome the US agreeing to his previous calls for Washington to stay out of the conflict and stop providing military aid and support to Ukraine. Merz, who used his speaking time in the Oval Office to press the US president on Ukraine, told Trump that he wanted to work together to put more pressure on Russia and reminded Trump that the violence he abhorred seeing was a result of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. He told Trump that the German people owed the US gratitude for its role in defeating Nazi Germany in the second world war. 'America is again in a very strong position to do something on ending this war [in Ukraine], so let's talk about doing what we can,' he said. 'We are looking for more pressure on Russia, we should talk about that.' Related: The Guardian view on Ukraine's spectacular attack: 21st-century tactics still require support from allies | Editorial Russia has vowed to respond to Ukraine's daring drone operation 'how and when' it sees fit, the Kremlin warned, seeming to confirm reports that Putin had told Trump that Moscow was obliged to retaliate. Ukraine has been bracing for retaliation after its SBU security service carried out a surprise drone strike over the weekend, targeting four airbases and damaging up to 20 Russian warplanes deep inside the country, according to US officials. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, asked on Thursday what Moscow's response would be, said: 'How and when our military deems it appropriate.' Trump said Putin had 'strongly' told him that Russia would respond to the recent attacks on its airfields, during an unannounced phone call on Wednesday. The US embassy in Ukraine warned of a continuing risk of 'significant airstrikes' and advised its citizens to exercise caution. Hours after Trump and Putin spoke, Russia launched a series of missiles and drones across Ukraine overnight. At least five people, including a one-year-old boy, his mother and grandmother, were killed when a drone struck a residential building in the northern Ukrainian city of Pryluky. 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While Russian officials have previously indicated their willingness to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, analysts consider the deployment of such weapons on the battlefield highly unlikely at this stage of the war. Russia's nuclear doctrine permits the use of nuclear weapons in response to attacks that pose a 'critical threat' to the country's sovereignty. In a podcast for the independent outlet Meduza, Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based expert on Russian nuclear forces, rejected suggestions that Ukraine's recent drone strikes could justify such a response. He argued the operation did not threaten Russia's sovereignty or territorial integrity, nor did it undermine the retaliatory capacity of its strategic nuclear arsenal. A nuclear strike would also be strongly condemned by China, Russia's most influential ally, with Xi Jinping previously warning Putin against the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. 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Russia is at war with Britain and US is no longer a reliable ally, UK adviser says
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Russia is at war with Britain and US is no longer a reliable ally, UK adviser says

Russia is at war with Britain, the US is no longer a reliable ally and the UK has to respond by becoming more cohesive and more resilient, according to one of the three authors of the strategic defence review. Fiona Hill, from County Durham, became the White House's chief Russia adviser during Donald Trump's first term and contributed to the British government's strategy. She made the remarks in an interview with the Guardian. 'We're in pretty big trouble,' Hill said, describing the UK's geopolitical situation as caught between 'the rock' of Vladimir Putin's Russia and 'the hard place' of Donald Trump's increasingly unpredictable US. Hill, 59, is perhaps the best known of the reviewers appointed by Labour, alongside Lord Robertson, a former Nato secretary general, and the retired general Sir Richard Barrons. She said she was happy to take on the role because it was 'such a major pivot point in global affairs'. She remains a dual national after living in the US for more than 30 years. 'Russia has hardened as an adversary in ways that we probably hadn't fully anticipated,' Hill said, arguing that Putin saw the Ukraine war as a starting point to Moscow becoming 'a dominant military power in all of Europe'. As part of that long-term effort, Russia was already 'menacing the UK in various different ways,' she said, citing 'the poisonings, assassinations, sabotage operations, all kinds of cyber-attacks and influence operations. The sensors that we see that they're putting down around critical pipelines, efforts to butcher undersea cables.' The conclusion, Hill said, was that 'Russia is at war with us'. The foreign policy expert, a longtime Russia watcher, said she had first made a similar warning in 2015, in a revised version of a book she wrote about the Russian president with Clifford Gaddy, reflecting on the invasion and annexation of Crimea. 'We said Putin had declared war on the west,' she said. At the time, other experts disagreed, but Hill said events since had demonstrated 'he obviously had, and we haven't been paying attention to it'. The Russian leader, she argues, sees the fight in Ukraine as 'part of a proxy war with the United States; that's how he has persuaded China, North Korea and Iran to join in'. Putin believed that Ukraine had already been decoupled from the US relationship, Hill said, because 'Trump really wants to have a separate relationship with Putin to do arms control agreements and also business that will probably enrich their entourages further, though Putin doesn't need any more enrichment'. When it came to defence, however, she said the UK could not rely on the military umbrella of the US as during the cold war and in the generation that followed, at least 'not in the way that we did before'. In her description, the UK 'is having to manage its number one ally', though the challenge is not to overreact because 'you don't want to have a rupture'. This way of thinking appears in the defence review published earlier this week, which says 'the UK's longstanding assumptions about global power balances and structures are no longer certain' – a rare acknowledgment in a British government document of how far and how fast Trumpism is affecting foreign policy certainties. The review team reported to Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, and the defence secretary, John Healey. Most of Hill's interaction were with Healey, however, and she said she had met the prime minister only once – describing him as 'pretty charming … in a proper and correct way' and as 'having read all the papers'. Hill was not drawn on whether she had advised Starmer or Healey on how to deal with Donald Trump, saying instead: 'The advice I would give is the same I would give in a public setting.' She said simply that the Trump White House 'is not an administration, it is a court' in which a transactional president is driven by his 'own desires and interests, and who listens often to the last person he talks to'. She added that unlike his close circle, Trump had 'a special affinity for the UK' based partly on his own family ties (his mother came from the Hebridean island of Lewis, emigrating to New York aged 18) and an admiration for the royal family, particularly the late queen. 'He talked endlessly about that,' she said. On the other hand, Hill is no fan of the populist right administration in the White House and worries it could come to Britain if 'the same culture wars' are allowed to develop with the encouragement of Republicans from the US. She noted that Reform UK had won a string of council elections last month, including in her native Durham, and that the party's leader, Nigel Farage, wanted to emulate some of the aggressive efforts to restructure government led by Elon Musk's 'department of government efficiency' (Doge) before his falling-out with Trump. 'When Nigel Farage says he wants to do a Doge against the local county council, he should come over here [to the US] and see what kind of impact that has,' she said. 'This is going to be the largest layoffs in US history happening all at once, much bigger than hits to steelworks and coalmines.' Hill's argument is that in a time of profound uncertainty, Britain needs greater internal cohesion if it is to protect itself. 'We can't rely exclusively on anyone any more,' she said, arguing that Britain needed to have 'a different mindset' based as much on traditional defence as on social resilience. Some of that, Hill said, was about a greater recognition of the level of external threat and initiatives for greater integration, by teaching first aid in schools or encouraging more teenagers to join school cadet forces, a recommendation of the defence review. 'What you need to do is get people engaged in all kinds of different ways in support of their communities,' she said. Hill said she saw that deindustrialisation and a rise of inequality in Russia and the US had contributed to the rise in national populism in both countries. Politicians in Britain, or elsewhere, 'have to be much more creative and engage people where they are at' as part of a 'national effort', she said. If this seems far away from a conventional view of defence, that's because it is, though Hill also argues that traditional conceptions of war are changing as technology evolves and with it what makes a potent force. 'People keep saying the British army has the smallest number of troops since the Napoleonic era. Why is the Napoleonic era relevant? Or that we have fewer ships than the time of Charles II. The metrics are all off here,' she said. 'The Ukrainians are fighting with drones. Even though they have no navy, they sank a third of the Russian Black Sea fleet.' Her aim, therefore, is not just to be critical but to propose solutions. Hill recalled that a close family friend, on hearing that she had taken on the defence review, had told her: ''Don't tell us how shite we are, tell us what we can do, how we can fix things.' People understand that we have a problem and that the world has changed.'

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