A trilateral meeting between the Russian President Vladimir Putin, his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump and Xi Jinping of China is “being prepared”, the Kremlin said on Wednesday (October 21, 2026).

“A possible first-ever meeting of the leaders of China, Russia and the United States… is being prepared,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters, adding that the aim was to include the meeting in the programme of the Asia-Pacific summit in Shenzhen next month.

Indian garment exports have the potential for a 25% increase next year and will better performance in the three major markets – USA, UK, and the European Union.

Prabhu Dhamodharan, convenor of the Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF), said in a press release that garment exporters are exploring new opportunities under the India–UK trade agreement, including setting up offices and design studios in London. Encouraging buyer responses will translate into higher orders from January. With regard to the European Union, implementation of the India–EU trade agreement next financial year will drive double-digit apparel export growth.

In the American market, with tariff concerns easing, India has an opportunity to regain the recently lost 2% market share within the coming quarter. A limited India–U.S. trade agreement, if finalised, will eventually help raise India’s traditional market share from 6% to 8%.

“With greater stability expected across these three major markets, we anticipate India’s monthly apparel exports rising from $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion in 2027 — a 25% increase. Indian exporters are simultaneously strengthening global competitiveness through technology, automation, and productivity improvements, positioning the industry for renewed export growth,” he said.

Total purchase of readymade garments by the U.S. declined 7.42% to $ 49.1 billion during January–August 2026. However, August recorded marginal growth of 0.46%, indicating early signs of market recovery. India’s apparel exports to the U.S. fell sharply by 26.4% to $ 2.7 billion, compared with 29.4% decline for China, 4.4% for Bangladesh and 0.8% for Vietnam. However, Cambodia grew 6.9% and Indonesia 2.6%, reflecting intense competition.

India’s traditional 6% U.S. market share dropped to 4% in August. Uncertainty over additional U.S. tariffs linked to Russian oil purchases had delayed orders from American buyers. Despite relatively stable volumes in other markets, India’s overall apparel exports declined around 7% during the first half of the current financial year. The recent indication that additional Russia-related tariffs will not be imposed for now has improved confidence among Indian exporters, he added.

The U.S.-backed Board of Peace is proposing a six-month, $2.45 billion plan to begin reconstruction and governance in Gaza as President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan struggles to stay afloat.

At a meeting of the group’s board in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday (September 23, 2026), the governors unveiled a 66-project blueprint to get things started while acknowledging enormous hurdles that must still be overcome. The projects include ambitious infrastructure, education and health initiatives that are designed to support Mr. Trump’s 20-point plan to end the Israel-Hamas war.

“The need is immense,” the board said, noting that full reconstruction from the physical damage across Gaza will cost roughly $35.2 billion over the medium term and another $71.4 billion in the next 10 years.

The proposal is largely aimed at potential donors who will be asked to foot the bill for reconstruction of the war-devastated territory.

The ceasefire, which took effect on October 10, was meant to clear the way for a broader process to rebuild Gaza under the guidance of the Board of Peace. The plan included additional Israeli military withdrawals from Gaza, the disarmament of Hamas, the arrival of an international peacekeeping force and a new apolitical Palestinian government to administer the territory’s day-to-day affairs. It also envisioned an ambitious program for rebuilding war-ravaged Gaza.

But the U.S.-backed plan has largely stalled. While the ceasefire halted the heaviest fighting and humanitarian conditions have improved, the Israeli military has expanded its control of Gaza and now occupies some 60% of the territory. Hamas has not given up its weapons. The international military force and new government still have not entered Gaza, and reconstruction has not begun. The vast majority of Palestinians continue to live in tent camps or ruins of their former homes.

The board’s high representative, Nikolay Mladenov, has said progress hinges largely on Hamas disarming — a step the group has refused to take. But he has also pressed Israel to scale back its military operation.

“I want to be very clear that we are not bound by a calendar,” he said. “We want to make sure that this works.”

Key questions that the board faces are not only laying out plans for reconstruction but also a timeline for the deployment of the international force meant to provide security in the territory and a new government, plans to disarm Hamas, and bringing in badly needed building materials.

U.S. Gen. Jasper Jeffers, commander of the international stabilisation force planned for Gaza, outlined a five-step approach to dealing with the thorny issue of demilitarising Hamas. It begins with the first wave of the multinational unit being deployed with troops from Kosovo and Morocco, to be followed by additional personnel from Albania and Kazakhstan.

Their task will be to demilitarise the territory and decommission all of Hamas’ military infrastructure.

The goal, he said, is to gradually turn security control over to the interim government, after which Israel will be expected to withdraw its forces.

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to claim he is winning both on the battlefield and as a peacemaker on Tuesday (September 22, 2026) in a speech to the United Nations overshadowed by growing spillover from his stalled war against Iran.

Mr. Trump will likely not hold back in renewing his frequent boasts that under him the United States is “the hottest country” in the world. He is also expected to seek to justify the Iran war, which has so far failed to fulfil White House objectives and provoked widespread economic damage over the Strait of Hormuz’s closure.

But the self-styled peacemaker could equally use the UN stage to tout his controversial efforts to end the Gaza conflict and his ongoing effort to bring more Arab countries into the Abraham Accords with Israel.

“No one knows what Trump is going to say, not even Trump’s speechwriters,” International Crisis Group’s Daniel Forti said. “This year, we expect more of a contrast between Trump, sort of both announcing and celebrating his record as a peacemaker versus defending his ongoing military operations around the world.”

Anti-UN speech at UN?

The keynote speech at the start of the UN General Assembly High-level week will provide Mr. Trump with a big platform to renew his frequent assaults on the global body.

Last year’s speech was characterised by Mr. Trump’s extraordinary accusations of UN sabotage when an escalator in the New York headquarters briefly stopped working and the teleprompter glitched.

Mr. Trump has regularly attacked the UN and its leader Antonio Guterres since returning to office, although Washington last week reportedly paid $725 million into its budget, avoiding the embarrassment of losing some of its voting rights.

He is also likely to meet skepticism over his claims of a historic win for the United States when a security deal is signed Tuesday for a U.S. presence in Greenland — a territory of Denmark that Mr. Trump repeatedly threatened, driving bitter divisions through longtime U.S.-led alliances.

As well as his closely watched speech to the General Assembly, Mr. Trump will hold side meetings with Britain’s new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Japanese premier Sanae Takaichi and Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodriguez.

Ms. Rodriguez has governed under intense American pressure since her predecessor Nicolas Maduro was captured by U.S. forces in January.

Escalator gate

Last year, Mr. Trump’s speech to the gathering of world leaders veered into a rant about an escalator that stalled as he was using it, suggesting it was done deliberately.

He also railed against a defective teleprompter, falsely accused London’s mayor of imposing Islamic law and said Europe was in “serious trouble” over migration.

Mr. Trump clearly has not gotten over the incidents. “They turned off the escalator,” he said last week in the Oval Office.

“Fortunately, my first lady was very strong and I was able to grab her back or another part of her body. It was actually a little bit lower than the back,” he said.

The offending escalator “has been checked and rechecked,” Mr. Guterres’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Monday (September 21, 2026).

“New arrangements were made to facilitate the US delegation’s use of a teleprompter, they now have a separate booth, so we hope that will work without a hitch,” he added.

Trump says he was victim of ‘triple sabotage’ at UN and Secret Service is looking into the matter

AI and war

Mr. Guterres kicked off the week of speeches by warning of the “specter of ethnic cleansing” in Israel’s settlements expansion in the occupied West Bank.

He also called for U.S.-Chinese dialogue on the future of AI and singled out global energy companies for treating the atmosphere “as an open sewer.”

Next up — just before Mr. Trump — was Brazilian President Lula Inacio Lula da Silva, whose country by tradition is always first to speak at the annual gathering of leaders.

Mr. Trump, who has supported Mr. Lula’s opponents and other right-wing candidates across Latin America, may not like what he hears. Leftist Lula, running for reelection, said last week that he would tell Trump to not “meddle” in Brazil’s upcoming vote.

The Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) has expressed concern over the potential impact on India’s textile and apparel exports because of the likely additional tariffs planned by the US following the signing of the ‘Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026’ by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Ashwin Chandran, chairman of CITI, said in a press release that the U.S. is the single-largest market for India’s textile and apparel exports. “Any additional tariffs under this Act will be very difficult to absorb for the MSME-dominated Indian textile and apparel sector that is already under stress due to several factors, including the continuing turmoil in West Asia. It will severely impact our ability to sell in the U.S., our most significant market,” he said.

“We eagerly look forward to the Union government engaging more closely with the U.S. to ensure that Indian exporters are not disadvantaged and rendered completely uncompetitive,” he said. A fair, balanced, and equitable bilateral trade deal between India and the U.S. is the need of the hour.

Balanced and predictable trade framework could strengthen bilateral commercial engagement, and support the long-term competitiveness of the textile and apparel sectors in both countries.

Although the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) signed by India would open new markets for Indian exporters, these FTAs could not substitute the U.S. market for the textile and apparel sector. “The FTAs offer a lot of potential, but the gains from these … will take time to materialise,” he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Tuesday (September 15, 2026) to keep the Kennedy Centre closed for good after a judge ruled his name cannot be added to the famed arts institution’s facade.

Mr. Trump said his hand-picked board voted “almost unanimously” to shut the venue immediately for emergency renovations, just a few hours after the federal judge’s decision.

But he warned the “very large and complex” repairs at the building in Washington cannot begin until a higher court rules on whether the centre can be renamed after himself.

“If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is not overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place,” Mr. Trump said on his Truth Social network.

The Kennedy Centre said in a statement to AFP that the board’s decision “reflects sound judgment and a clear prioritisation of safety above all else.”

Shortly after beginning his second term, Republican Trump installed himself as chairman of the centre, which is named in honour of late president John F. Kennedy, a Democrat who championed civil rights before he was assassinated in 1963.

The board voted in December to call it the “Trump-Kennedy” Center and installed signage with his name on it.

U.S. federal judge Christopher Cooper previously ordered Mr. Trump’s name removed from the exterior and overturned the board’s decision to rename the institution.

Mr. Cooper ruled on Tuesday (September 15, 2026) that Mr. Trump’s name cannot be added back, rebuking the centre for trying to circumvent his earlier order.

“Simply put,” wrote Mr. Cooper in his decision, the board “cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Centre without Congress’s blessing.”

Demolition threat

Mr. Trump himself called into the board meeting and berated a Democratic congresswoman who serves on the board and filed the lawsuit that blocked its renaming, CNN reported.

The Kennedy Centre takeover is one of several projects aimed at stamping Mr. Trump’s brand on the U.S. capital, including a triumphal arch and a half-billion dollar ballroom at the White House.

Workers removed Mr. Trump’s name from the building in June, but scaffolding and tarps have remained ever since.

Last month, the board moved forward with a plan to add a new signage on the building that would read “renovated and restored by President Donald J. Trump.”

Cooper on Tuesday (September 15, 2026) said that plan was in violation of his previous ruling.

Mr. Trump and his chosen leaders of the Kennedy Centre have argued that its main building, which was constructed in the 1960s, is in a state of dangerous disrepair.

As evidence of the safety problems, the president pointed to a recent incident in which a piece of the ceiling tumbled to the ground following a storm.

“If the Building were open, innocent people would have been killed,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social before the judge’s ruling.

Last month, as part of court proceedings, the Mr. Trump administration warned that the centre may need to be demolished if its plans to renovate the building were blocked.

A host of artists cancelled concerts at the venue in response to Mr. Trump’s takeover, while U.S. media have reported that Kennedy Center ticket sales have plummeted.

North Korea launched multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea on Saturday (September 12, 2026), its neighbours said, a day after the U.S., South Korea and Japan ended their trilateral military drill that North Korea views as a provocation.

The North Korean ballistic launch event, the first in about three weeks, came as the country was continuing its weapons display after rebuffing U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to scale back a major bilateral military drill with South Korea in a goodwill gesture.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the launches of several missiles from North Korea’s eastern coastal Wonsan area. It said the missiles flew about 250 kilometres each in a direction toward North Korea’s eastern waters. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said it has boosted its surveillance posture and was closely exchanging information on the launches with the U.S. and Japan.

South Korea’s presidential national security council issued a statement urging North Korea to halt ballistic missile firings that violate UN Security Council resolutions.

The U.S. Pacific Command said the North’s launch event did not pose an immediate threat to U.S. territory or to its allies. It said the U.S. remains committed to the defence of the U.S. homeland and its allies in the region.

On Friday (September 11, 2026), the U.S., South Korea and Japan ended their five-day Freedom Edge exercise as scheduled. The U.S. Pacific Command said the militaries of the three countries “trained side by side across air, sea and cyber domains, sharpening the interoperability that keeps the region secure.” It cited maritime maneuvers, air refuelling, cyber coordination and medical drills.

South Korea’s military earlier said the exercise is defensive in nature and meant to enhance a joint response capability against North Korean nuclear threats.

Hours after the trilateral exercise began Monday (September 7, 2026), North Korea’s defence minister Kim Song Gi criticised the exercise and threatened to take “strong and reflective countermeasures from the standpoint of power.” On Sunday (September 6, 2026), North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for building a more reliable nuclear deterrent in a ceremony marking the commissioning of the country’s second naval destroyer. North Korea has said its two destroyers can carry nuclear-capable missiles. The second destroyer was damaged earlier during a botched launch last year, but it was relaunched after repairs.

Mr. Kim has been focusing on expanding his nuclear arsenal after his high-stakes diplomacy with Mr. Trump collapsed in 2019. In the last month, Mr. Trump ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise with South Korea. He cited what he called a good relationship with Mr. Kim, who views the drill as an invasion rehearsal.

But Mr. Kim’s sister and senior official, Kim Yo Jong, rebuffed Mr. Trump’s move, saying just shortening the drill would not change its “provocative, aggressive nature.” North Korea’s military later launched about 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea, apparently following through with its previous threat to respond to the U.S.-South Korean drill.

Now apparently emboldened by his advancing nuclear programme and deepened ties with Russia and China, experts say Mr. Kim wants greater U.S. concessions in potential diplomacy with the U.S.. Kim Jong Un said earlier this year that he could return to talks if the U.S. drops its “hostile policy” against his country and respects what he calls the North’s status as a nuclear state.