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France riots: 45,000 police, armored vehicles deployed to quell unrest

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France was reeling on Saturday from a fourth night of rioting as the family of Nahel M, whose shooting by a police officer sparked the unrest, prepared for the teenager’s funeral.

The government deployed 45,000 police and several armored vehicles overnight to tackle the worst crisis of President Emmanuel Macron’s leadership since the Yellow Vest protests, Reuters reported.

France’s interior ministry said that 994 people had been arrested, compared with 875 the previous night, in violence which it said on Twitter was “lower in intensity”.

Nahel, a 17-year-old of Algerian and Moroccan descent, was shot during a traffic stop on Tuesday in the French capital’s Nanterre suburb. A private funeral was due to be held later on Saturday, sources told Reuters.

Roads leading to the funeral parlor and the cemetery would be shut off, a Reuters witness said.

Nahel’s death, caught on video, has reignited longstanding complaints by poor and racially mixed urban communities of police violence and racism. Macron had denied there is systemic racism inside French law enforcement agencies.

Buildings and vehicles have been torched and stores looted in the unrest, which has spread nationwide, including to cities such as Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg and Lille.

More than 200 police officers have been injured and hundreds of rioters and have been arrested, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said, adding their average age was 17.

Friday night’s arrests included 80 people in Marseille, which is home to many people of North African descent.

Social media images showed an explosion rocking the old port area of the southern city, but authorities said they did not believe there were any casualties.

Rioters in the center of France’s second-largest city looted a gun store and stole hunting rifles but no ammunition, police said. One person was arrested with a rifle likely from the store, police said. The store was now being guarded by police.

Marseille Mayor Benoit Payan called on the French government to send extra troops to tackle “pillaging and violence” in the city, where three police officers were slightly wounded early on Saturday. A police helicopter flew overhead.

In Lyon, France’s third-largest city, the police deployed armored personnel carriers and a helicopter.

And in Paris, police cleared protesters from the iconic central Place de la Concorde square on Friday night.

Darmanin had asked local authorities to halt bus and tram traffic, while Macron earlier urged parents to keep children off the streets.

The unrest has revived memories of three weeks of nationwide riots in 2005 that forced then President Jacques Chirac to declare a state of emergency following the death of two young men electrocuted in a power substation as they hid from police.

Players from the national soccer team issued a rare statement calling for calm. “Violence must stop to leave way for mourning, dialogue and reconstruction,” they said, in a statement posted on star Kylian Mbappe’s Instagram account.

Looters have ransacked dozens of shops and torched some 2,000 vehicles since the riots started.

Events including two concerts at the Stade de France on the outskirts of Paris were canceled, while Tour de France organizers said they were ready to adapt to any situation when the cycle race enters the country on Monday from Spain.

Macron left a European Union summit in Brussels early to attend a second cabinet crisis meeting in two days and asked social media to remove “the most sensitive” footage of rioting and to disclose identities of users fomenting violence.

Videos on social media showed urban landscapes ablaze. A tram was set alight in the eastern city of Lyon and 12 buses gutted in a depot in Aubervilliers, northern Paris.

Darmanin met representatives from Meta, Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok. Snapchat said it had zero tolerance for content that promoted violence.

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China to buy at least $17 billion in US agricultural products annually, White House says

The $17 billion figure does not ​include the soybean purchase commitments China made in October ⁠2025, the White House said.

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China has committed to purchasing at least $17 billion of U.S. agricultural ​products in 2026, 2027 and 2028, the White House ‌said in a fact sheet released on Sunday.

The commitment was made during meetings between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping last ​week, the White House said.

The $17 billion figure does not ​include the soybean purchase commitments China made in October ⁠2025, the White House said.

There has been a marked reduction ​in U.S. agricultural exports to China after last year’s rounds of ​tit-for-tat tariffs sharply curtailed trade, which fell 65.7% year-on-year to $8.4 billion in 2025, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

China has dramatically scaled back its ​reliance on U.S. farm goods since Trump’s first term, sourcing ​roughly 20% of its soybeans from the U.S. in 2024, the year before ‌he ⁠returned to office, down from 41% in 2016.

China will work with U.S. regulators to lift suspensions of U.S. beef facilities and resume imports of poultry from U.S. states determined to be ​free of avian ​influenza, the ⁠White House said.

Confirming earlier statements from the Chinese government, the White House also said on Sunday the ​world’s two largest economies would establish a U.S.-China ​Board of ⁠Trade and the U.S.-China Board of Investment.

The boards will resolve concerns over market access for agricultural products and expand trade “under a ⁠reciprocal ​tariff-reduction framework,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi ​said in a statement last week.

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Trump returns from China with stability but little progress

While the meeting produced a calmer tone and modest commercial agreements, key disputes over trade, technology and regional influence remain largely unsettled.

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US President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing this week ended with limited economic agreements and no major breakthroughs, highlighting the continued strategic and economic rivalry between the United States and China.

The two-day summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping reflected a shift away from last year’s intense trade war toward a more stable — but unresolved — relationship between the world’s two largest economies.

While the meeting produced a calmer tone and modest commercial agreements, key disputes over trade, technology and regional influence remain largely unsettled.

Analysts said China appeared to benefit from the return to more predictable relations after the sharp tensions triggered by Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in early 2025. Beijing and Washington later reached a temporary trade truce, but both countries continue to compete strategically and economically.

Reuters reported that Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the summit marked a return to stability after months of severe tariff escalation.

Trump travelled to Beijing with several leading American business figures, including Elon Musk of Tesla and Jensen Huang of Nvidia, although few major commercial outcomes were announced publicly.

The summit also failed to secure any public Chinese commitment to assist Washington in ending the war involving Iran, an issue that has affected global markets and weighed on Trump’s domestic approval ratings.

A White House official said Trump used his relationship with Xi to secure benefits for the American economy, pointing to reported agreements involving Boeing aircraft sales and expanded agricultural exports.

Chinese officials described the talks as “constructive and strategic,” saying both sides discussed how major powers should manage relations amid long-term competition.

Despite the improved atmosphere, longstanding U.S. concerns — including China’s industrial overcapacity and trade practices — were not publicly addressed during the visit.

The summit’s commercial results also fell short of Trump’s 2017 China visit, when agreements worth around $250 billion were announced.

Although Trump claimed Boeing secured a deal for China to purchase 200 aircraft, the figure was reportedly lower than earlier expectations of up to 500 jets.

No breakthrough was reached on allowing China to purchase advanced artificial intelligence chips from Nvidia, an issue closely watched by lawmakers in Washington concerned about China’s technological development.

Officials said some additional commercial agreements could be delayed until a possible reciprocal visit by Xi to Washington later this year.

Experts said the summit demonstrated that both countries are increasingly accepting long-term competition rather than seeking a return to closer cooperation.

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Large blast near Beit Shemesh part of pre-planned test: Israeli defense firm

The company said the blast was a “pre-planned experiment” that was carried out according to schedule.

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A large explosion near the central Israeli city of Beit Shemesh late Saturday was part of a pre-planned and controlled test, according to a statement by state-owned Tomer defense company that was cited by The Times of Israel.

Videos on social media showed flames and a large plume of smoke rising from the area following the blast, which was heard in nearby communities.

The Times of Israel said the explosion occurred at a testing ground belonging to Tomer, a company that develops rocket and missile engines.

The company said the blast was a “pre-planned experiment” that was carried out according to schedule.

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