����ֱ��

WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday he is ready to move to a second phase of sanctioning Russia, the closest he has come to suggesting he is on the verge of ramping up sanctions against Moscow or its oil buyers over the war in Ukraine.
Trump has repeatedly threatened Moscow with further sanctions but withheld them as he pursued peace talks.
The latest comments suggest an increasingly aggressive posture, but Trump stopped short of saying he was committed to such a decision or what a second phase might entail.
Asked by a reporter at the White House if he is ready to move to "the second phase" of sanctions against Russia, Trump responded, "Yeah, I am." He did not elaborate.
Trump has been frustrated by his inability to bring a halt to the fighting after he initially predicted he would be able to end the war in Ukraine swiftly when he took office in January.
The White House did not immediately respond to an email on Sunday seeking comment about what steps Trump was contemplating. The exchange was a follow-up to Trump's comments on Wednesday defending the actions he had taken already on Russia, including imposing punitive tariffs on India's U.S.-bound exports last month.
India is a major buyer of Russia's energy exports, while Western buyers have cut back in response to the war.
"That cost hundreds of billions of dollars to Russia," Trump said on Wednesday. "You call that no action? And I haven't done phase two yet or phase three." Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday that the U.S. and the European Union could heap "secondary tariffs on the countries that buy Russian oil," pushing the Russian economy to the brink of collapse and bringing Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.
China is a major buyer of Russian energy exports.
 

LONDON: Homeland ministers from Britain, the United States and the other “Five Eyes” alliance will announce new measures this week to increase border security and target people smugglers, British interior minister Shabana Mahmood said on Sunday.
The ministers from the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network — the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — will meet in London on Monday and Tuesday, Britain’s Home Office said, with measures to “smash criminal smuggling gangs” the focus of the talks.
“We will agree new measures to protect our borders with our Five Eyes partners, hitting people smugglers hard,” Mahmood, who was only appointed to her job on Friday after Prime Minister Keir Starmer reshuffled his ministers.
Countries across the world are wrestling with how to deal with the issue of migration, with the US President Donald Trump making a crackdown on legal and illegal immigration a central plank of his second White House term.
In Britain, it has become the dominant political topic, with the government under great pressure from rivals over how to deal with a record number of asylum claims and arrivals by migrants in small boats across the Channel.
Joining Mahmood for the talks will be US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Canada’s Gary Anandasangaree, Tony Burke, Australia’s Home Affairs Minister, and Judith Collins from New Zealand.
As well as people smuggling, the group will discuss new measures to tackle those behind child sexual abuse online and how to stop the spread of deadly synthetic opioids, the Home Office said.