White House | Pakistan

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei visited US officials at the White House on Friday, where they struck a different tone from the recent dispute between the United States’ government and the AI startup. US media reported Amodei met with Susie Wiles, President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, as well as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “Today, the White House hosted an introductory meeting with Anthropic that was both productive and constructive,” a White House spokesperson told AFP. “We discussed opportunities for collaboration, as well as shared approaches and protocols to address the challenges associated with scaling this technology.” The rhetoric marks a departure from months earlier, when US President Donald Trump instructed the US government to “immediately cease” using Anthropic’s technology after the company refused to allow the Pentagon have unconditional use of its Claude AI models for military purposes. “We look forward to continuing this dialogue and will host similar discussions with other leading AI c...

US President Donald Trump has removed Attorney General Pam Bondi from her post, a White House official said on Thursday, following mounting frustration with her performance, including her handling of investigative files related to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump had also reportedly grown frustrated that Bondi was not moving quickly enough to prosecute critics and adversaries whom he wanted to face criminal charges. In a social media post, Trump praised Bondi as a “Great American patriot and a loyal friend” and said she will move to a job in the private sector. Trump said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, his former personal lawyer, will lead the Justice Department in the interim. During her tenure as the top US law enforcement official, Bondi was a combative champion of Trump’s agenda and dismantled the Justice Department’s longstanding tradition of independence from the White House in its investigations. But it was repeated criticism over the Epstein files, including from Trump...

A video shared on United States President Donald Trump’s social media account that depicted former president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as apes was deleted on Friday, following criticism that Trump’s post evoked racist imagery long used to dehumanise people of African descent. “A White House staffer erroneously made the post,” said a White House official, who declined to be named. “It has been taken down.” The statement came hours after White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt described as “fake outrage” a wave of negative reactions to the video, including from several prominent Republican lawmakers. Late on Thursday, Trump shared a minute-long video amplifying the Republican US president’s false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of fraud. Spliced into the video was an apparently AI-generated clip of dancing primates superimposed with the Obamas’ heads. The post on Trump’s Truth Social network drew swift criticism from prominent political figures, including Republican Senator...

US President Donald Trump’s plane was forced to return to an air base late Tuesday due to a “minor electrical issue” shortly after departing for Switzerland, the White House said. Air Force One returned to Joint Base Andrews out of an abundance of caution, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. It landed shortly after 0400 GMT. Journalists traveling with Trump reported that lights in the cabin went out briefly after takeoff. After returning to Andrews, Trump resumed his trip to the Davos forum early Wednesday. Trump and his entourage changed planes at Joint Base Andrews and took off again shortly after 0500 GMT, about two-and-a-half hours after his initial departure. With its classic blue and white livery, Air Force One is arguably the world’s most iconic plane and an instantly recognisable symbol of the US presidency. Trump has long been unhappy with the current Air Force One jets - two highly customized Boeing 747-200B series aircraft that entered service in 1990 under president George H.W Bush. Last year, ...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a meeting of his ruling coalition partners on Sunday after objecting to the composition of a Gaza advisory panel formed by the White House, according to an official and media reports. The White House announced this week the setting up of a “Gaza Executive Board,” which would operate under a broader so-called “Board of Peace” to be chaired by US President Donald Trump as part of his 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza. The executive board, described as having an advisory role, includes Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Qatari diplomat Ali Al-Thawadi, alongside other regional and international officials. Late on Saturday, Netanyahu’s office objected to the composition of the executive board. “The announcement regarding the composition of the Gaza Executive Board, which is subordinate to the Board of Peace, was not coordinated with Israel and runs contrary to its policy,” the office of Netanyahu said. “The prime minister has instructed the foreign affair...

Denmark and Greenland’s top diplomats held high-stakes talks at the White House on Wednesday, with US President Donald Trump warning it was “vital” for the United States to take control of the Arctic island. Shortly before the meeting with US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Denmark announced it was immediately boosting its military presence in strategic Greenland. Footage from CNN showed Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt arriving at the White House campus, while AFP journalists saw Rubio and Vance heading into the talks. Trump’s escalating threats over Greenland — a vast and sparsely populated autonomous territory belonging to Nato ally Denmark — have deeply shaken transatlantic relations. The 79-year-old Republican insisted ahead of the talks that Nato should support the US effort to take control of Greenland, saying it was crucial for his planned Golden Dome air and missile defence system. “Nato becomes far more formidab...

The White House said on Tuesday that US President Donald Trump is discussing options for acquiring Greenland, including potential use of the military, in a revival of his ambition to control the strategic island despite European objections. Trump sees acquiring Greenland as a US national security priority necessary to “deter our adversaries in the Arctic region”, the White House said in a statement. “The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilising the US military is always an option at the commander-in-chief’s disposal,” the White House said. Greenland has repeatedly said it does not want to be part of the United States. Leaders from major European powers and Canada rallied behind the Arctic territory on Tuesday, saying it belongs to its people. A US military seizure of Greenland from a longtime ally, Denmark, would send shock waves through the Nato alliance and deepen the divide between Trump and European leaders. The strong ...

Two US National Guard soldiers were critically wounded on Wednesday after being shot in a brazen daytime attack a few blocks from the White House, with US President Donald Trump terming the incident an “act of terror”. The incident, which left two Guard members critically wounded, was “an act of evil, an act of hatred and an act of terror,” Trump said. “It was a crime against our entire nation.” He confirmed that the man taken into custody after the daylight shooting two blocks from the White House was “a foreigner who entered our country from Afghanistan”. The suspect had arrived in the United States in 2021 “on those infamous flights,” Trump said, referring to the evacuations of Afghans fleeing as the Taliban took over the country in the wake of the US retreat after 20 years of war. “We must now reexamine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan” under former president Joe Biden, Trump said. “We must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who d...

After months of trading insults, US President Donald Trump and incoming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani smiled at each other, swapped compliments and pledged to collaborate on tackling crime and affordability in the nation’s biggest city at an unexpectedly friendly meeting at the White House on Friday. The political opposites, a Republican billionaire and a young democratic socialist, have clashed over everything from immigration to economic policy. But it was clear the two forged a rapport in their first encounter. Mamdani, a 34-year-old state lawmaker, stood by Trump’s desk as the 79-year-old president smiled up at him and patted him warmly on the arm, having only recently falsely caricatured Mamdani as an anti-Semitic communist, among other jibes. “We agree on a lot more than I would have thought,” Trump said after letting journalists and cameras into the Oval Office at the end of a private meeting with the mayor-elect. “We have one thing in common: We want this city of ours that we love to do very well...

Syria is joining the global coalition against the militant Islamic State (IS) group, a United States’ official said on Monday hours after US President Donald Trump welcomed his Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa for historic White House talks. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December last year, was the first Syrian leader to visit the White House since the Middle Eastern country’s independence in 1946. But the 43-year-old’s landmark visit to the Oval Office came just days after Washington removed him from its terrorism list. Sharaa’s group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda. “During the visit, Syria announced that it is joining the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS,” becoming the 90th member of the alliance and “partnering with the United States to eliminate ISIS remnants and halt foreign fighter flows”, a senior administration official said. According to the official, Syria will also be allowed to resume diplomatic relations with Washington “t...

United States President Donald Trump speaks often with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and trade teams from both countries continue to hold talks, the White House said on Tuesday. “The president and his trade team continue to be in very serious discussions with India,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “I know the president has great respect for Prime Minister Modi, and they speak pretty frequently.” Trump said last week in South Korea that he wanted to reach a trade deal with India — signalling a thaw in relations that soured to their lowest point in decades after the US president doubled tariffs on Indian imports to 50 per cent as punishment for India’s purchases of Russian oil. Indian refiners cut Russian oil imports after Washington imposed sanctions last week on Moscow’s top two crude exporters, Rosneft and Lukoil. Earlier this month, Trump claimed that Modi has agreed to cut Russian oil imports — something New Delhi has not commented on. A White House official said New Delhi h...

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will be at the White House on November 18 for an official working visit with United States President Donald Trump, a White House official said on Monday. The visit comes as Trump pushes Saudi Arabia to join the list of nations that have joined the Abraham Accords. In 2020, Trump reached deals with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco to normalise relations with Israel. The Saudis have been hesitant to join in the absence of steps toward Palestinian statehood. Trump told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in an interview broadcast on Sunday that he believed the Saudis would ultimately join the accords. The US president also said earlier this month that he expected an expansion of the Abraham Accords soon and hoped Saudi Arabia would join the pact. In August, he also stressed the importance of Middle Eastern countries joining the accords. Trump and the crown prince may also discuss a US-Saudi defence agreement. The Financial Times reported two weeks ago that there ...

US President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday banned reporters from accessing a core part of the White House press office without an appointment, citing the need to protect “sensitive material”. Journalists are now barred if they do not have prior approval to access the area in the West Wing known as Upper Press — which is where Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s office is located. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung defended the move, saying without providing evidence that reporters had been “ambushing” cabinet secretaries in the area and secretly recording video and audio. “This memorandum directs the prohibition of press passholders from accessing … ‘Upper Press,’ which is situated adjacent to the Oval Office, without an appointment,” said a memo from the White House National Security Council (NSC). The memo, addressed to Leavitt and Cheung, said the aim was “protecting sensitive material from unauthorized disclosure in Upper Press”. The policy comes amid wider restrictions on journali...

US President Donald Trump has pardoned convicted Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, a White House official said on Thursday. In a statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump had “exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency.“ Binance did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Zhao, one of the most powerful people in the crypto world, had to step down as chief of Binance when the company agreed to a $4.3 billion settlement with the US government to end a years-long probe into misconduct at the world’s largest crypto exchange. Trump’s pardon of Zhao paves the way for the crypto mogul to return to the business he helped found in 2017. He has already served his time in prison after a judge sentenced him to four months. Zhao’s pardon is the latest in a series Trump has doled out to executives convicted of white collar crimes. Earlier in April, he was appointed as a strategic advi...

The White House lashed out at the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday after it awarded the peace prize to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and overlooked US President Donald Trump. “The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace,” White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung said on X. “President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives. He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will.” Since returning to the White House for his second term in January, Trump had repeatedly insisted that he deserved the Nobel for his role in resolving numerous conflicts — a claim observers say is broadly exaggerated. Trump restated his claim on the eve of the peace prize announcement, saying that his brokering of the first phase of a ceasefire in Gaza this week was the eighth war he had ended. But he added on Thursday: “Whatever they do is fine. I know this: I didn’t do it for tha...

The United States will regard “any armed attack” on Qatari territory as a threat to Washington and will provide the Gulf Arab state with security guarantees, the White House said, after an Israeli strike on the country last month. “In light of the continuing threats to the State of Qatar posed by foreign aggression, it is the policy of the United States to guarantee the security and territorial integrity of the State of Qatar against external attack,” said an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump on Monday. In the event of an attack on Qatar, the United States will “take all lawful and appropriate measures — including diplomatic, economic, and, if necessary, military — to defend the interests of the United States and of the State of Qatar and to restore peace and stability,” the order said. The agreement comes after an Israeli strike on the key US regional ally on September 9, targeting officials from Hamas who were discussing a US peace proposal to end the conflict in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minist...

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and US President Donald Trump discussed regional security and cooperation along the lines of counter-terrorism, among other matters, as the two met for the first time at the Oval Office in Washington in the early hours of Friday morning, according to a press release from the PM Office. The premier was accompanied by the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Field Marshal Asim Munir, while the US President was joined by US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as per an earlier statement from the PM office. PM Shehbaz thanked Trump for “his public endorsement of Pakistan’s role in counterterrorism and stressed the need to further enhance cooperation in security and intelligence,” as the two discussed matters of regional security. The premier described Trump as a “man of peace”, lauding his “sincere” efforts in ending conflicts around the world. PM Shehbaz branded Trump’s style of leadership “bold, courageous and decisive,” and thanked the US president for his role in me...

Tech giant Oracle is set to provide security for a US version of TikTok’s algorithm, the White House said on Monday, under a deal for the sale of the Chinese-owned app’s American operations. The proposal moves TikTok’s US operations into a new joint venture based in the United States, a senior White House official told reporters, adding that the entity would involve a “majority-American board of directors.” Oracle, in turn, is expected to serve as a security provider. The agreement provides that a copy of TikTok’s content recommendation algorithm be brought into the US joint venture system, the official said. “It’s going to be fully inspected and retrained by the security provider on US user data, and then it’s going to be operated by that US entity,” the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity. Washington has forcefully sought to take TikTok’s US operations from the hands of the Chinese parent company ByteDance over national security reasons. Under President Donald Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, C...

A deal for the Chinese parent company of popular video-sharing app TikTok to sell its US operations would see the creation of a board dominated by Americans, the White House said on Saturday. “There will be seven seats on the board that controls the app in the United States, and six of those seats will be Americans,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News. She said a deal could be signed “in the coming days.” The United States has forcefully sought to take TikTok’s US operations out of the hands of Chinese parent company ByteDance for national security reasons. Under President Donald Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, the US Congress passed a law to force ByteDance to sell its US operations or face a ban on the app. US policymakers, including in Trump’s first term, have warned that China could use TikTok to mine data from Americans or exert influence on what they see on social media. But Trump turned to the platform, which is hugely popular with young Americans, to garner support during his ul...

WASHINGTON: Azerbaijan and Armenia signed an initial US-brokered peace agreement during a meeting with President Donald Trump on Friday, a deal aimed at boosting economic ties between the two countries after decades of conflict, the White House said. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told reporters that Trump signed separate deals with both Armenia and Azerbaijan on energy, technology, economic cooperation, border security, infrastructure and trade. No further details were provided. The agreement includes exclusive US development rights to a strategic transit corridor through the South Caucasus, dubbed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity.” US officials said the agreement was hammered out during repeated visits to the region and would provide a basis for working toward a full normalisation between the countries. Neither the joint declaration due to be signed nor the separate bilateral agreements with the US were released. It was not immediately clear how the deal being signed on Friday wou...