JAKARTA, Indonesia — An American basketball player for the Indonesian league was arrested for allegedly attempting to smuggle illegal drugs to the country, police said Thursday. The Southeast Asian country has extremely strict drug laws, and convicted smugglers are sometimes executed by firing squad. Jarred Dwayne Shaw, 34, from Dallas, Texas, was arrested May 7, after police raided his apartment in Tangerang regency, just outside the capital, Jakarta, and seized 132 pieces of cannabis candies, said Ronald Sipayung, the Soekarno-Hatta Airport police chief. The arrest followed a tip from the airport’s customs that reported Shaw had received a suspicious airway package from Thailand, Sipayung said. Cannabis has been decriminalized in Thailand since 2022. Under Indonesia’s anti-drug laws, Shaw faces up to life in prison or the death penalty if found guilty, Sipayung said. A video circulating on social media purportedly showed Shaw, wearing a black T-shirt and shorts, resisting as he was being pushed away by police and shouting “Help … help!” when he was about to be arrested. Shaw has played for several clubs in the Indonesian Basketball League since 2022, and signed a contract with Tangerang Hawk last year. He told police during interrogation that he wanted to share the cannabis candy with fellow basketball players, according to Sipayung. He said the candy contained a total gross weight of 869 grams (30.6 ounces) of illegal cannabinoid inside a package. “We are still running the investigation to uncover the international drugs network behind this case and to stop its distribution,” Sipayung said. Shaw did not make any statement when he was presented by the authorities at a news conference Wednesday wearing a detainee orange T-shirt and a mask with his hands tied. The Tangerang Hawks’ manager, Tikky Suwantikno, told reporters on Thursday that they regretted what had been done by Shaw and that the club had immediately fired him because he had breached his contract. The Indonesian Basketball League banned Shaw from playing for life, said its chair, Budisatrio Djiwandono. “We don’t tolerate players, administrators or anyone in the field involved in drugs. There is no room for drug users in the basketball world,” Djiwandono said. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Indonesia is a major drug-smuggling hub despite having some of the strictest drug laws in the world, in part because international drug syndicates target its young population. About 530 people are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drug-related crimes, including 96 foreigners, according to data from the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections. Indonesia’s last executions, of an Indonesian and three foreigners, were carried out in July 2016.

MELBOURNE, Australia — An Australian local government has decided against repairing an often-vandalized monument to renowned British explorer James Cook because it would be destroyed again. But the mayor on Wednesday rejected accusations that the vandals have won. Statues and monuments to the 18th-century naval officer are common in Australia and are often defaced by opponents of Britain’s settlement of the country without a treaty with its Indigenous people. In 1770, then Lt. Cook charted the Australian east coast where Sydney would become the first British colony on the continent. The granite and bronze monument to the master navigator and cartographer in an inner-city Melbourne park was vandalized days after the anniversary of the first British settlers’ arrival at Sydney Cove was commemorated on Jan. 26. Opponents of Australia Day celebrations denounce the public holiday as “Invasion Day.” There are growing calls for the country to find a less divisive national day. The monument in Melbourne’s Edinburgh Gardens was snapped at its base and spray painted with the words “cook the colony.” Mayor Stephen Jolly, head of the Yarra City Council, which is a municipality near the heart of Melbourne, said his fellow councilors had voted unanimously on Tuesday night against spending 15,000 Australian dollars ($9,700) on repairing the monument, which remains in storage. Jolly said the decision to permanently remove the monument, which included an image of Cook’s face cast in bronze, was about economics rather than taking a position in Australia’s culture wars. “It’s about being economically rational. It’s AU$15,000 a pop every time we have to repair it and it’s persistently getting either demolished or vandalized or tagged,” Jolly told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “It’s just a waste of ratepayers’ money. We can’t afford to do that,” Jolly added. But Victoria state’s Melbourne-based conservative opposition leader, Brad Battin, condemned removing such memorials as surrendering to vandals. “We need to stand strong and remember the fact that this is part of our history,” Battin told reporters. “If you start to remove the history of our state and our country because of activists, then you’re actually giving in to those that are campaigning against it,” Battin added. Jolly disagreed that his council had given the vandals what they wanted. “No, I think they would’ve loved for us to put it back up and then they could’ve just tagged it again or destroyed it again and just had this ongoing sort of little war going on in Edinburgh Gardens,” Jolly said. “I think they’re probably the most disappointed people that it’s not going to be there anymore,” Jolly added. The base of the monument remained at the entrance to the park on Wednesday with a traffic cone attached to warn cyclists, joggers and pedestrians of the trip hazard it presents. Someone has scrawled a smiling face and a torso on the cone in an apparent reference to the memorial that had once stood in its place. Jolly said a local branch of the Captain Cook Society, an international group that celebrates the explorer, has offered to preserve the bronze plaques. Melbourne-based society member Bill Lang said discussions were underway to find a short-term home for the monument, such as a museum. Lang said the council’s decision not to repair the monument was disheartening. “It’s very disappointing for every open-minded Australian that believes that there are lots of things that we can learn about and learn from our history that we should celebrate,” Lang said.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A New Zealand parliamentary committee has recommended the unprecedented suspensions of three Māori lawmakers for performing a protest haka in the debating chamber last year. The haka is a chanting dance of challenge of great cultural importance in New Zealand, and the three lawmakers from Te Pāti Māori, the Māori party, performed one to oppose a controversial bill that would have redefined the country’s founding document. On Wednesday a committee recommended record suspensions and severe censure — the harshest penalties ever assigned to New Zealand parliamentarians — after finding the trio in contempt of Parliament. Government bloc lawmakers, who hold the majority, are expected to endorse the penalties in a vote Tuesday. But Parliament’s Speaker Gerry Brownlee took the unusual step Thursday of saying he would first allow unlimited debate before the vote due to the severity of the proposed punishments. The recommendations were the latest twist in the fraught saga over the bill, now defeated, that opponents said would have provoked constitutional havoc and reversed decades of progress for Māori, New Zealand’s Indigenous people. Video of the legislators in full cry drew global attention last November. The bill they opposed was vanquished at a second vote in April. However, some lawmakers from the center-right government objected to the Māori Party legislators’ protest during the first vote and complained to parliament’s speaker. At issue was the way the trio walked across the floor of the debating chamber toward their opponents while they performed the haka. “It is not acceptable to physically approach another member on the floor of the debating chamber,” Wednesday’s report said, adding that the behavior could be considered intimidating. The committee denied the legislators were being punished for the haka, which is a beloved and sacred cultural institution in New Zealand life, but “the time at and manner in which it was performed” during a vote, according to the findings. The committee deciding the fate of the lawmakers has members from all political parties. The government’s opponents disagreed with parts or all of the decision but were overruled. “This was a very serious incident, and the likes of which I have never seen before in my 23 years in the debating chamber,” said the committee’s chair, Judith Collins. The three legislators did not appear before the committee when summoned in April because they said Parliament does not respect Māori cultural protocol and they would not get a fair hearing. “The process was grossly unjust, unfair, and unwarranted, resulting in an extreme sanction,” Māori party spokesperson and lawmaker Mariameno Kapa-Kingi said in a statement. “This was not about process, this became personal.” The report recommended that Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke, who at 22 is New Zealand’s youngest lawmaker, be suspended from Parliament for seven days. The co-leaders of her political party, Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, face 21-day bans. Three days is the longest a lawmaker has been barred from the House before. Suspended legislators are not paid during their bans. Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer, the leaders of the party that advocates Māori rights and holds six of Parliament’s 123 seats, have lambasted the committee’s process as intolerant of Māori principles and identity. The pair received more severe sanctions than Maipi-Clarke because the younger lawmaker had written a letter of “contrition” to the committee, the report said. The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill sought to redefine New Zealand’s founding document, the 1840 pact between the British Crown and Māori leaders signed during New Zealand’s colonization. The English and Māori language versions of the treaty differed, and the Crown immediately began to breach both, resulting in mass land thefts and generations of disenfranchisement for Māori, who remain disadvantaged on almost every metric. But in recent decades, Māori protest movements have wrought growing recognition of the Treaty’s promises in New Zealand’s law, politics and public life. That produced billion-dollar land settlements with tribes and strategies to advance Indigenous language and culture. Such policies were the target of the bill, drawn up by a minor libertarian party that denounced what it said was special treatment for Māori as they tried to rewrite the treaty’s promises.

The Trump administration says Afghan refugees can safely return to Afghanistan despite warnings from rights groups and lawmakers that Afghans who worked for the U.S. military face the threat of persecution, imprisonment and even execution by the Taliban regime. The Department of Homeland Security announced on Monday it had stripped legal protections for thousands of Afghans in the U.S., saying that the security and economic situation in Afghanistan no longer justified granting them temporary protected status, or TPS. “We’ve reviewed the conditions in Afghanistan with our interagency partners, and they do not meet the requirements for a TPS designation,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. “Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer” prevents Afghans from returning to their home country, she said. DHS officials had previously signaled plans to cancel temporary protected status for Afghans but did not formally rescind it until Monday. Lawmakers and rights groups said the Trump administration’s decision would put thousands of Afghans’ lives at risk and betray partners who had risked their lives to work for the U.S. military during America’s 20-year war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. “It’s just absurd and divorced from reality to claim that Afghan refugees can safely return to Afghanistan,” said Eleanor Acer, senior director for global humanitarian protection for the nonprofit Human Rights First. “Many Afghans would face dire risks of persecution if they are forced back into the hands of the Taliban,” Acer said. “Journalists, human rights advocates, religious minorities, women’s rights defenders and people who worked with the U.S. military and government are all in danger of Taliban persecution or retaliation if they are forced back to Afghanistan.” Kim Staffieri of the Association of Wartime Allies, a nonprofit that helps Afghans who worked for the U.S. government, said it “is unfathomable that DHS can say the economy of Afghanistan has stabilized, that it’s much safer now and that Afghans don’t need TPS anymore.” Apart from reports of the Taliban’s human rights abuses, aid groups say Afghanistan is plagued by rising poverty and hunger. According to the World Food Programme, 3.5 million young children are expected to suffer from malnutrition this year, the highest level ever recorded in the country. Lawmakers, including some Republicans, said the administration was jeopardizing the lives of those who had stood by the United States. “Afghanistan is not safe,” said Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, an Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “The Taliban continues to crack down on human rights and target Afghans who speak out against them, including those who aided American servicemembers like me during the war. It’s cruel and wrong that President Trump is turning his back on those fleeing violence and persecution.” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, condemned the move as a betrayal and said it contradicted “overwhelming evidence” that Afghans with ties to the U.S. faced persecution and torture by the Taliban. “Deporting our partners to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is morally indefensible and recklessly endangers lives,” she said. Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, a former chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, praised President Donald Trump’s foreign policy overall but said he was concerned for the safety of Afghan partners. The Taliban “have made their thirst for retribution against those who helped the United States clear,” McCaul said. “Until they demonstrate clear behavioral changes, I urge the administration to continue prioritizing the safety of the Afghan men and women who risked their lives to help our troops.”

NEW DELHI — The Indian government on Tuesday disputed President Donald Trump’s claim that the U.S.-mediated ceasefire between India and Pakistan came about in part because he had offered possible trade concessions. Addressing a weekly news conference, Randhir Jaiswal, the spokesman for India’s foreign ministry, said top leaders in New Delhi and Washington were in touch last week following the Indian military’s intense standoff with Pakistan, but that there was no conversation on trade. “The issue of trade didn’t come up in any of these discussions,” Jaiswal said, referring to the conversations held between Vice President JD Vance and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as well as between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Indian counterpart, S. Jaishankar. Following Saturday’s understanding between India and Pakistan to stop military action on land, in the air and at sea, Trump told reporters on Monday that he had offered to help both nations with trade if they agreed to de-escalate. “I said, come on, we’re going to do a lot of trade with you guys. Let’s stop it. Let’s stop it. If you stop it, we’ll do a trade. If you don’t stop it, we’re not going to do any trade,’” Trump said. “And all of a sudden, they said, I think we’re going to stop,” Trump said, crediting trade leverage for influencing both the nations’ decision. “For a lot of reasons, but trade is a big one,” he said. The militaries of India and Pakistan had been engaged in one of their most serious confrontations in decades since last Wednesday, when India struck targets inside Pakistan it said were affiliated with militants responsible for the massacre of 26 tourists last month in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Pakistan has denied any links to the attackers. After India’s strikes in Pakistan, the two sides exchanged heavy fire along their de facto borders, followed by missile and drone strikes into each other’s territories, mainly targeting military installations and airbases. The escalating hostilities between the nuclear-armed rivals threatened regional peace, leading to calls by world leaders to cool down tempers. Trump said he not only helped mediate the ceasefire, but also offered mediation over the simmering dispute in Kashmir, a Himalayan region that both India and Pakistan claim in its entirety but administer in parts. The two nations have fought two wars over Kashmir, which has long been described as the regional nuclear flashpoint. New Delhi also declined Trump’s offer for mediation on Tuesday. “We have a longstanding national position that any issues related to the federally controlled union territory of Jammu and Kashmir must be addressed by India and Pakistan bilaterally. There has been no change to the stated policy,” Jaiswal said. Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said late Tuesday that Pakistan was expelling a staff member of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, accusing him of unspecified inappropriate activity and giving him 24 hours to leave the country. In a tit-for-tat move last month, India and Pakistan reduced each other’s diplomatic presence in Islamabad and New Delhi. So far, none of the expelled diplomats have returned. Pakistan and India routinely expel each other’s diplomats over allegations of espionage.

BEIJING — Xi Jinping didn’t even have to mention Donald Trump by name to get his point across. The Chinese president was giving the hard sell to a room full of senior Latin American leaders on Tuesday. He promoted his country’s stability and fundamental reasonableness, providing a clear contrast between him and his U.S. counterpart’s erratic trade war. “Bullying and coercion only lead to isolation,” he said in Beijing at the China-CELAC, or Community of Latin American and Caribbean States Forum. The context was clear. The world’s two largest economies remain engaged in a trade war that has also engulfed nearly every country on earth, including more than 30 Latin American and Caribbean countries who sent heads of state and senior officials to Tuesday's forum. In his first public comments since the U.S. and China agreed to a 90-day pause on most of their levies in trade talks over the weekend, Xi said Beijing was ready to work with Latin American and Caribbean countries in the face of “rising geopolitical tensions and bloc confrontation, unilateralism and protectionism.” While Trump has allies such as El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and Argentinian President Javier Milei, he has alienated much of Latin America with his threats to “take back” the Panama Canal and his derogatory comments about immigrants, said Bárbara Fernández Melleda, an assistant professor in Latin American studies at the University of Hong Kong. “It seems that Donald Trump is certainly Latin American-adverse, and the way he’s been speaking about the Latin American community in the United States has been really sad for us,” she said. “What’s happening, not just in Latin America, is that countries are saying, 'Well, if these big countries are getting hostile, we should just find other partnerships.'” China played up those tensions in the lead-up to the forum, rejecting the idea of Latin American and Caribbean countries being in anyone’s “backyard.” “What the people of Latin America and the Caribbean seek are independence and self-determination, not the so-called new Monroe Doctrine,” Assistant Foreign Minister Miao Deyu was quoted as saying by Chinese state media, referring to the 19th-century U.S. approach to the region as its “sphere of influence” that Trump has been accused of trying to revive. The Cuban ambassador to China, Alberto Blanco Silva, told NBC News after Xi’s speech that he viewed China “as a factor of stability, balance and opportunity — not only for the world, but also for Latin America.” China is Latin America’s second-biggest trading partner after the United States, and Latin America is the biggest destination for Chinese outbound investment outside Asia. Last year, total trade between China and Latin America exceeded $500 billion for the first time, up from $12 billion in 2000. Beijing has also been cultivating Latin American ties with an eye on Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy it views as a breakaway province. Most of Taiwan’s few remaining diplomatic allies are in the region, and China peeled away one of them — Honduras — in 2023. Chinese influence in Latin America can be seen in the electric vehicles on its roads as well as massive infrastructure projects, such as the $1.3 billion Chancay port in Peru. While there are concerns and criticism around such projects, Latin American countries’ relationship with China “seems to be more symmetrical than we are used to,” especially when compared with the U.S. and former colonial rulers in Europe, Fernández Melleda said. Xi said Tuesday that China would import more from Latin America, encourage Chinese companies to increase investment and provide 66 billion yuan ($9.1 billion) in fresh credit to support Latin American and Caribbean financing. The Chinese leader also said he wanted to deepen Latin America’s involvement in Beijing’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who in January agreed to accept U.S. deportation flights after Trump threatened him with sweeping tariffs, said Monday that his country would join Belt and Road.

BEIJING — The U.S.-China tariff cuts, even if temporary, address a major pain point: Christmas presents. Nearly a fifth of U.S. retail sales last year came from the Christmas holiday season, according to CNBC calculations based on data from the National Retail Federation. The period saw a 4% year-on-year sales increase to a record $994.1 billion. “With the speed of Chinese factories, this 90-day window can resolve most of the product shortages for the U.S. Christmas season,” Ryan Zhao, director at export-focused company Jiangsu Green Willow Textile, said Monday in Chinese, translated by CNBC. His company had paused production for U.S. clients last month. He expects orders to resume but not necessarily to the same levels as before the new tariffs kicked in since U.S. buyers have found alternatives to China-based suppliers in the last few weeks. U.S. retailers typically place orders months in advance, giving factories in China enough lead time to manufacture the products and ship them to reach the U.S. ahead of major holidays. The two global superpowers’ sudden doubling of tariffs in early April forced some businesses to halt production, raising questions about whether supply chains would be able to resume work in time to get products on the shelves for Christmas. “The 90-day window staves off a potential Christmas disaster for retailers,” Cameron Johnson, Shanghai-based senior partner at consulting firm Tidalwave Solutions, said Monday. “It does not help Father’s Day [sales] and there will still be impact on back-to-school sales, as well as added costs for tariffs and logistics so prices will be going up overall,” he said. But U.S. duties on Chinese goods aren’t completely gone. The Trump administration added 20% in tariffs on Chinese goods earlier this year in two phases, citing the country’s alleged role in the U.S. fentanyl crisis. The addictive drug, precursors to which are mostly produced in China and Mexico, has led to tens of thousands of overdose deaths each year in the U.S. The subsequent tit-for-tat trade spat saw duties skyrocketing over 100% on exports from both countries. While most of those tariffs have been paused for 90 days under the new deal the U.S. and China announced Monday, the previously imposed tariffs will remain in place. UBS estimates that the total weighted average U.S. tariff rate on Chinese products now stands around 43.5%, including pre-existing duties imposed in past years. For running shoes produced in China, the total tariff is now 47%, still well above the 17% level in January, said Tony Post, CEO and founder of Massachusetts-based Topo Athletic. He said his company received some cost reductions from its China factories and suppliers, but still had to raise prices slightly to offset the tariff impact. “While this is good news, we’re still hopeful the two countries can reach an acceptable permanent agreement,” he said. “We remain committed to our Chinese suppliers and are relieved, at least for now, that we can continue to work together.” U.S. retail giant Walmart declined to confirm the impact of the reduced tariffs on its orders from China. “We are encouraged by the progress made over the weekend and will have more to say during our earnings call later this week,” the company said in a statement to CNBC. The U.S. retail giant is set to report quarterly results Thursday. China’s exports to the U.S. fell more than 20% in April from a year ago, but overall Chinese exports to the world rose 8.1% during that time, official data showed last week. Goldman Sachs estimated around 16 million Chinese jobs are tied to producing products for the U.S.

Trump landed at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, shortly before 10 a.m. local time (3 a.m. ET), beginning his visit to the kingdom and the first planned trip of his second term. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will greet Trump and escort him to a coffee ceremony. This is the second time Trump has chosen Saudi Arabia for his first planned overseas trip as U.S. president, and bin Salman was also the first foreign leader to hold a call with Trump this term. Trump will later travel to the Royal Court for an arrival ceremony with bin Salman, an introduction of the delegations, a coffee service in the ceremonial blue room, a lunch with business leaders, bilateral meetings and an agreement signing. The four-day Middle East trip will also take Trump to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. In Trump’s vision, he’s set to usher in an American “golden age” in which the nation makes more of the world’s goods and sells more of its products. But when it comes to the president’s personal travel, he’s ready to ditch the old 747 known as Air Force One in favor of a luxe jet that the royal family of Qatar, a tiny yet rich Arab country nearly 7,000 miles away, wants to gift to the U.S. The image of the ‘America First’ president floating above the clouds in Qatari splendor doesn’t sit well with some of the MAGA faithful, much less the good government groups who warn the deal may run afoul of the constitutional clause that bars gifts from foreign nations absent congressional approval. “That’s a pretty strange offer,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis. said.

His surprise arrest by Philippine police at the request of the ICC caused outrage among his army of supporters, who called it a kidnapping at the behest of a foreign court. He has defended the anti-drug crackdown, and his legal team says his arrest was unlawful. The ICC maintains it has jurisdiction to prosecute alleged crimes committed before Duterte withdrew the Philippines from its founding treaty in 2019. Despite the ICC’s case also including alleged killings of criminal suspects by a “death squad” in Davao while Duterte was mayor — which he has denied — analysts have said his arrest has only hardened support for him and his family, in Davao and beyond. The former president’s two sons were also set to win posts on Monday, one re-elected congressman and the other winning the contest for Davao vice mayor and likely to serve in his father’s absence. The family’s political resilience and dominance in Davao could prove pivotal as Duterte’s popular daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, faces an impeachment trial that could see her banned from politics for life if convicted, killing off any hopes of a presidential run. Asked earlier Monday about her father’s likely victory, she said plans would be made for him to be sworn in as mayor. “The ICC lawyer said once we get proclamation papers, we will discuss how he can take oath,” she said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned Pakistan on Monday that New Delhi would target “terrorist hideouts” across the border again if there were new attacks on India and would not be deterred by what he called Islamabad’s “nuclear blackmail.” Modi’s first public comments since Indian armed forces launched strikes on what New Delhi said were “terrorist camps” across the border last week indicated a hardening of India’s position on ties with its neighbor, which were icy even before the latest fighting. Pakistan denies Indian accusations that it supports militants who attack it and says the locations hit by India last week were civilian sites. Modi was speaking two days after the nuclear-armed neighbors agreed to a ceasefire, announced by President Donald Trump. The truce was reached after four days of intense exchanges of fire as the old enemies targeted each other’s military installations with missiles and drones, killing dozens of civilians. The military confrontation began on Wednesday, when India said it launched strikes on nine “terrorist infrastructure” sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir following an attack on Hindu tourists by Islamist militants in Indian Kashmir last month that killed 26 men. Islamabad denied any links to the attack and called for a neutral investigation. “If there is a terrorist attack on India, a fitting reply will be given... on our terms,” Modi said, speaking in Hindi in a televised address. “In the coming days, we will measure every step of Pakistan... what kind of attitude Pakistan will adopt.” “India will strike precisely and decisively at the terrorist hideouts developing under the cover of nuclear blackmail,” he said, and listed New Delhi’s conditions for holding talks with Islamabad and lifting curbs imposed after the Kashmir attack. “India’s position is clear: Terror and talks cannot go together; terror and trade cannot go together. And water and blood cannot flow together,” he said, referring to a water-sharing pact between the two countries that New Delhi has suspended. There was no immediate response to his comments from Islamabad. Hindu-majority India and Muslim Pakistan both rule part of the Himalayan region of Kashmir, but claim it in full. They have fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947 over the region and there have been several other more limited flare-ups, including in 2016 and 2019. The latest military conflict between the South Asian neighbors spiraled alarmingly on Saturday, and there were briefly fears that nuclear arsenals might come into play as Pakistan’s military said a top body overseeing its nuclear weapons would meet. But the Pakistani defense minister said no such meeting was scheduled. Military analysts said this might have been Pakistan’s way of hinting at its nuclear option as Islamabad has a “first-use” policy if its existence is under threat in a conflict. Modi’s address came hours after the military operations chiefs of India and Pakistan spoke by phone, two days after they agreed to the ceasefire. “Issues related to continuing the commitment that both sides must not fire a single shot or initiate any aggressive and inimical action against each other were discussed,” the Indian army said. “It was also agreed that both sides consider immediate measures to ensure troop reduction from the borders and forward areas,” it added. There was no immediate Pakistani readout of the military operations chiefs’ talks. In Washington, Trump said the leaders of India and Pakistan were “unwavering,” and the U.S. “helped a lot” to secure the ceasefire, adding that trade was a “big reason” the countries stopped fighting. “We are going to do a lot of trade with Pakistan... and India. We are negotiating with India right now. We are soon going to negotiate with Pakistan,” he said, just ahead of Modi’s speech. Pakistan has thanked the U.S. for brokering the ceasefire while India, which opposes third-party involvement in its disputes with Pakistan, has not commented on Washington’s role. In Beijing, the foreign ministry said China, which also controls a small slice of Kashmir, was willing to maintain communication with both its neighbors, and play a “constructive role in achieving a comprehensive and lasting ceasefire” and maintaining peace. India blames Pakistan for an insurgency in its part of Kashmir that began in 1989, but Pakistan says it provides only moral, political and diplomatic support to Kashmiri separatists.