A personal view of Australian and International Politics : November 2025

Sunday, 30 November 2025

US halts all asylum claims following the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington DC.

Extract from ABC News

Topic:Immigration

15 hours ago

Four national guard members patrol outside the Lincoln memorial. — Donald Trump has ordered a further 500 more National Guard members to the city after the shooting. (AP: Rahmat Gu)

In short:

A 29-year-old Afghan national shot two national guardsmen near the White House on Wednesday, one of whom has now died.

Following the shooting, President Donald Trump said he wants to "permanently pause migration".

What's next?

The US has announced all asylum decisions will be paused until they "can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible".

The US government has halted all asylum decisions after an Afghan national shot two National Guard members in Washington DC on Wednesday, one of whom has now died.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, allegedly shot Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24, near the White House.

They were both rushed to hospital in critical condition, and Ms Beckstrom died on Thursday.

A split-screen image of a man and a woman, both wearing National Guard uniforms. — National Guard troops Andrew Wolfe (left) and Sarah Beckstrom were shot just blocks from the White House. (Reuters: Nathan Howard)

US Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office said the charges against Mr Lakanwal, now include one count of first-degree murder and two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed.

Mr Trump called the shooting a "terrorist attack" and criticised the Biden administration for enabling Afghans who worked with US forces during the Afghanistan war to enter the US.

Ms Beckstrom and Mr Wolfe were deployed with the West Virginia National Guard as part of President Donald Trump's crime-fighting mission that federalised the DC police force.

The National Guard troops were treated at the scene after they were shot.

Ms Beckstrom enlisted in 2023, the same year she graduated high school, and served with distinction as a military police officer with the 863rd Military Police Company, the West Virginia National Guard said in a statement.

"She exemplified leadership, dedication, and professionalism," the statement said, adding that Ms Beckstrom "volunteered to serve as part of Operation DC Safe and Beautiful, helping to ensure the safety and security of our nation's capital".

The president called Ms Beckstrom an "incredible person, outstanding in every single way".

Trump wants to 'permanently pause migration'

Less than 24 hours after the shooting, Trump officials began ordering widespread reviews of immigration policies.

The president has said he wants to "permanently pause migration" from poorer nations and expel millions of immigrants from the country.

On Wednesday night local time, Mr Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who had entered under the Biden administration's "Operation Allies Welcome" initiative, that brought roughly 76,000 people to the country.

The program has faced intense scrutiny from Mr Trump and others over allegations of gaps in the vetting process, even as advocates say there was extensive vetting and the program offered a lifeline to people at risk of Taliban reprisals.

Donald Trump speaking into a microphone. — US President Donald Trump has said he wants to 'permanently pause migration' from poorer nations. (AP: Evan Vucci)

"I will permanently pause migration from all Third World countries to allow the US system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden's autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States," Mr Trump said.

He did not say which countries he considered "Third World," nor what he meant by a permanent pause.

Asked about the president's comment on "Third World" countries, the US Department of Homeland Security referred Reuters to 19 countries listed in a June travel ban.

On Friday, Mr Trump posted again on social media to say he was rescinding any document that Mr Biden signed using an autopen, a tool that US presidents, including Mr Trump, have used for decades, often to answer mail or sign checks, or sometimes to meet authorisation deadlines while travelling outside the capital.

The director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, said in a post on the social media platform X that all asylum decisions would be paused "until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible".

Who is Rahmanullah Lakanwal?

Lakanwal entered the US in 2021, after working with the CIA during the Afghanistan war.

He entered through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration program that resettled Afghans after the US withdrawal from the country, officials said

Lakanwal applied for asylum during the Biden administration, but his asylum was approved under the Trump administration, #AfghanEvac said in a statement.

A mug shot of a man with dark hair and a beard. — Rahmanullah Lakanwal is the suspect in the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington DC on Wednesday. (Reuters: Nathan Howard)

Lakanwal has been living in Bellingham, Washington, about 130 kilometres north of Seattle, with his wife and five children, said his former landlord, Kristina Widman.

Mohammad Sherzad, a neighbour of Lakanwal's in Bellingham, told the AP in a phone interview on Friday that Lakanwal was polite, quiet and spoke very little English.

Mr Sherzad said he attended the same mosque as Lakanwal and had heard from other members that Lakanwal was struggling to find work.

Some of his children attended the same school as Lakanwal's children, Mr Sherzad said.

An apartment block lit up in the dark. — The apartment complex where Rahmanullah Lakanwal and his family reportedly lived in Bellingham. (Reuters: David Ryder)

"He was so quiet and the kids were so polite, they were so playful. But we didn't see anything bad about him. He was looking OK," Mr Sherzad said.

Mr Sherzad said Lakanwal "disappeared" about two weeks ago.

Lakanwal had briefly worked as an independent contractor for Amazon Flex, which allows people to use their own cars to deliver packages, a company spokesperson told The Associated Press.

Lakanwal delivered packages from the end of July to the end of August but had not been active since

Reuters/ AP

Australia's emissions have dropped, but we've got our work cut out to reach targets.

Extract from ABC News

By climate reporter Jo Lauder

Topic:Energy Policy

23 hours ago

Photo illustration shows a downward trending line chart with emissions from a fossil fuel plant and a forest on either side. — "Net zero" has become a political slogan, but really it describes science. (ABC News illustration: Alex Lim)

Australia's emissions had the biggest drop ever this year outside the artificial kink in the curve during COVID-19 shutdowns.

The 2.2 per cent reduction in the past financial year is being driven by the record amount of renewables entering the Australian electricity system, which is displacing coal. Early forecasts for the September quarter are showing a 2.8 per cent drop.

There are more green shoots in the data released by the government on Thursday, with emissions dropping across all sectors, except for transport. At the same time, the rate of emissions cuts still needs to accelerate beyond the current levels, according to the Climate Change Authority (CCA).

"Each year that emissions reductions fall short of these required rates compounds the challenge, requiring even steeper cuts in subsequent years to stay on track," CCA said in its annual progress report.

While much has been made of the projections that Australia will miss its 2035 target, climate experts say that's because Australia has yet to set or strengthen the critical policies for the next decade.

People in summer clothes stand in front of a sign that says - #COP30, UN Climate Conference, Nov 10-21, 2025. — Australia only recently released its 2035 target in the lead-up to COP30 in Brazil. (Photo: Supplied)

Under the Paris Agreement, each target set by a country must be more ambitious than the last, and this is where the government now needs to focus its efforts.

"The process the government has to go through is to set the target and then decide on the policies to meet the target. And that's the next piece of work they've got to do," said Alison Reeve, the program director of energy and climate change at the Grattan Institute.

How Australia is tracking

Alongside the latest emissions data, the Climate Change Authority this week released its yearly scorecard for how Australia is progressing towards its 2030 and 2035 targets.

While emissions are 28.5 per cent lower than they were in 2005, Australia is projected to fall just 1 per cent short of its 2030 targets and, as experts have warned, will need to do significantly more to reach its new 2035 target of getting emissions down by 62 to 70 per cent.

This isn't surprising for Anna Malos, the Australia lead at Monash University's Climateworks Centre, as the target was only minted in September. Instead, she says it highlights the work ahead over the next decade.

"Emissions change in the last year has been one of the strongest on record. So that all shows that things are moving in the right direction," says Malos.

"One of the reasons why you don't see that change beyond 2030 in the projections is because governments are still considering what policy should look like post-2030."

Electricity is the workhorse of emissions cuts

So far, the electricity sector has been one of the two main drivers of Australia's emissions reductions.

A decade ago, Australia was mostly powered by high-emitting coal-fired power stations.

Fast forward to today, and renewables account for around 40 per cent of electricity. In October, they inched out fossil fuels in supplying spring-time energy — a trend that will only continue over the rest of the decade.

This has led to a drop of 3.3 per cent (5 million tonnes) in electricity sector emissions in the past year to June 2025, which surprised Grattan's Alison Reeve.

"Most of our emissions reductions are coming out of the electricity sector at the moment and there have been a lot of delays in building new things in that sector," she said.

"So I was surprised that we did as well as we did."

Australia has a target to get to 82 per cent renewable energy by the end of the decade, and without this, it will likely fall short of the 2030 emissions target. The Climate Change Authority is basing its modelling on the assumption that this target will be hit.

"The rate of renewable energy deployment needs to rapidly accelerate to meet emissions and renewable energy targets," the CCA report read.

The CCA projects electricity emissions to drop off drastically over the next 5 years as Australia's aging coal fleet is swapped out for renewable energy.

To achieve that, a lot of wind farms, transmission, solar and batteries need to get built at once, says Reeve.

"[It] really depends on what you assume is possible in terms of the industry just physically being able to construct those assets. And a lot of that is actually out of the government's hands. That is all on the private sector."

Transport is an ongoing problem for Australia

Transport is Australia's fastest-growing sector for climate pollution and is expected to be the top source of emissions by 2030.

This concerning trend has been driven by a shift to bigger, heavier cars that need more fuel, as well as more road freight. Domestic flights also factor into this sector.

The government is hoping to change this with its vehicle efficiency standards. These came into effect this year but haven't started to eat into the sector's emissions.

Under these laws, car manufacturers have an emissions cap for all the vehicles they sell that year, so any higher-emitting cars will have to be offset with lower or zero-emission ones.

The Climate Change Authority says there are already promising signs from those changes, with car companies starting to offer more electric and hybrid options for Australians, in addition to more public chargers coming online.

Still, to get to Australia's 2035 target, half of all new cars sold in the next decade will have to be electric — a long way from today's rate of 12 per cent.

Three SUV cars lined up outside a pub, with autumn trees in the background. — In October, more than 60 per cent of new car sales in Australia were SUVs. (ABC News: Georgia Lenton-Williams)

"It's very clear that more policy is still needed and more work overall is needed to make sure that we're able to really curb transport emissions and to save people money," says Climateworks's Anna Malos.

"Electric vehicles are already cheaper across their life span. At the moment, there's this higher purchase price, but your fuel costs and your maintenance costs are much lower.

"But it's also about helping governments make the right decisions on encouraging active transport, encouraging public transport, so that we're not just vehicle dependent."

Big industry's emissions

Emissions from Australia's heavy industry were down over the past year to June. However, part of this was driven by lower steel production, which required less coal, a couple of major emitters being offline, and lower residential gas use.

Grattan's Alison Reeve says industrial emitters need to start making large cuts to help Australia reach its targets.

"Electricity has been doing all the work, but also that there is going to be a need for policy to start pushing emissions down in other sectors in future," Reeve said.

"The review of the safeguard will be quite critical in getting the settings right so that we can get a faster rate of change within the industrial sector."

The safeguard mechanism is the government policy that regulates emissions from Australia's top emitters — just over 200 different facilities. They are required to make cuts each year or buy offsets to meet their targets.

This policy is set for a major review next year.

"When industrial facilities are making a decision about a really large investment to change their plant, that's probably a seven-year decision process."

"So, having that clarity about the 2035 target but also what settings are going to apply after then is really important so that they can actually build that into the decision-making process early," she explained.

"The assets that we've got in the industrial sector have incredibly long lives, they stick around for 40 years, and what that means is between now and 2050, when our net zero goal is, we're lucky if we've got one decision point for each asset as to when we change it over."

Bright orange liquid copper pours from a pipe as steam rises off it. — Emissions from heavy industry have been sluggish to move. (Supplied: Glencore)

At the same time as it announced the new 2035 target, the federal government released six plans for how the major sectors could reach net zero. For Climateworks's Anna Malos, these will be a vital signpost for industry investors.

"If we could lock those into legislation so that everyone knows that they will keep being reviewed, that gives the community assurance that there is a well-planned transition. It helps give businesses and investors the confidence they need to put money into the best place to reduce emissions," Malos said.

What is LULUCF?

The striking line cutting downwards across the emissions graphs is the land-use sector: Land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF). It covers the changes to trees and forests across the Australian landscape, which can either be drawing down or releasing emissions, and has been on a steady decline since 2005.

Those changes were driven by a shift away from heavy land clearing and a long period of drought, where the land dries up and plants lose their ability to store as much carbon.

"[From] 2005 to 2020, a lot of emissions reductions came from the land sector because we stopped land clearing. But the thing is, you can only do that once," Reeve said.

This sector has accounted for a significant portion of emissions reductions til 2025, and when the land sector is excluded, progress looks less impressive.

This matters because humans (and governments) have somewhat less control over this sector, and depending on it can mask the failure to make cuts to fossil fuel emissions across the economy.

Looking forward, the focus in the land sector is likely to be on maintaining and protecting these carbon sinks and reforesting some areas to store more carbon.

In summary? There's lots of work to do

Halfway through the decade, the Climate Change Authority's projections put Australia 1 per cent short of its 2030 target.

"One per cent of emissions is not huge. It's the sort of thing that could easily be taken out by a currency fluctuation, an industrial plant being temporarily offline for six months, a slightly drier year than normal or conversely, in some areas, like a slightly wetter year might help as well because you get more vegetation growing, which absorbs more carbon," Reeve said.

For both Malos and Reeve, it's no surprise that Australia isn't yet on track to hit its 2035 targets — it requires a massive step-up in efforts — but it's important Australians understand that the target is achievable.

"We're 10 years out from that target. None of the policies that we've got at the moment actually have their settings set for beyond 2030, so it's not surprising," Reeve explained.

"The way those projections are done is that there's a lot of things that just stop in 2030. And so emissions just kind of noodle along at kind of a fairly flat level after that," Reeve explained.

"A target is not the same as putting in place the actual climate policies to get there, and that's where the attention needs to be."

A close shot of Bowen's face, looking serious, an Australian flag and blue curtain wall behind him. — Energy Minister Chris Bowen has his work cut out to deliver policy geared to reach the 2035 target. (ABC News: Ed Reading)

Malos said there were a number of important policy reviews scheduled for next year that would help Australia lay the path for the next decade of decarbonisation.

"The safeguard mechanism will be reviewed … the new vehicle emission standards will be reviewed … and also the electricity sector. That will help not only reach our 2030 target, but to exceed that 2030 target, and make sure that the 2035 target is going to be met and exceeded," Malos said.

She believes the latest emissions data is proof that the work on climate action is starting to pay off, but change needs to happen faster.

"I think it is really good news that the policy and the way that investors are investing and businesses are acting is starting to gain momentum again, because we did have that long period of plateau post-COVID," she said.

"It's good news that emissions are dropping. It is also very clear that Australia will have to move further and faster to meet and exceed its targets."

Trump says airspace above and surrounding Venezuela to be closed in its entirety.

Extract from ABC News

Topic:World Politics

5 hours ago

A close up of Donald Trump wearing a suit and red tie. — Donald Trump said "Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers" should considered Venezuelan airspace closed. (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)

In short:

US President Donald Trump has said the entire airspace above the South American nation of Venezuela should be considered closed.

Mr Trump advised airlines from entering the zone, without elaborating.

What's next?

Last week Mr Trump said efforts to halt Venezuelan drug trafficking by land were imminent, ahead of reports the US president may meet his Venezuelan counterpart.

Donald Trump has said the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela is to be closed in its entirety.

"To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY," the US president said in a post to Truth Social on Saturday.

Mr Trump did not elaborate.

Last week, the US aviation regulator warned major airlines of a "potentially hazardous situation" when flying over Venezuela due to a "worsening security situation and heightened military activity in or around" the country.

That warning prompted six airlines that account for much of the travel in South America to suspend flights to Venezuela.

It comes as the latest escalation in a stand-off between Mr Trump and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The Trump administration is piling pressure on Venezuela, with a major military deployment in the Caribbean that includes the world's largest aircraft carrier.

Washington says the aim is to curb drug trafficking, but Caracas insists regime change is the ultimate goal.

US forces have carried out strikes against more than 20 alleged Venezuelan drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean since early September, killing more than 80 people.

A map radar showing flights above South America — Flight Radar showed minimal activity above Venezuela as of 11:45pm AEST on Saturday. (flightradar24.com)

Washington has yet to release evidence that the vessels it targeted were used to smuggle drugs or posed a threat to the United States.

Regional tensions have flared as a result of the campaign and the accompanying military build-up.

The New York Times reported on Friday that Mr Trump and Mr Maduro had spoken by phone last week and discussed a possible meeting in the US.

The report about the call came a day after the US president said efforts to halt Venezuelan drug trafficking by land were imminent, further ratcheting up tensions with Caracas.

Reuters/AFP

Saturday, 29 November 2025

Press freedom is being destroyed from Gaza to America. Don’t think it can’t happen here.

Extract from The Guardian

Opinion

Australian media

Kerry O'Brien

Anthony Albanese promised to end the ‘culture of secrecy’. With freedom of speech under attack globally, it’s past time he delivered

First things first. It would be remiss of me not to refer specifically to the appalling and outrageous casualty list of Palestinian journalists and other media workers in Israel’s war on Gaza since the brutal attack by Hamas on Israeli citizens two years ago.

Having excluded independent global media access inside Gaza, leaving us all to rely on local journalists to bear witness to the devastating effect of Israel’s bombardment on the civilian population of Gaza and the famine that has accompanied it, Israel has failed dismally to explain with any credibility why so many journalists have been killed.

Importantly, what we should acknowledge is the impact those Palestinian journalists have had in return for their sacrifice.

They have confronted the world with powerful evidence that has gradually taken on the look and feel of genocide in real time – in our living rooms as well as the corridors of the UN and its agencies.

It is significantly due to the courage and stubborn determination of those journalists that no reasonable citizen of the world has been able to look away.

In a world that is becoming more and more ill-liberal, including now the most powerful democracy of all, the message is becoming stark for our own country.

When the president of the United States sits in the White House with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, as he did a week ago, and seeks to dismiss the brutal murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist and Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi by agents of the Saudi government as: “things happen” – THINGS HAPPEN – and castigates the journalist who dares to ask the Crown Prince about it, it illuminates just how far the ground has shifted for journalism in the United States.

All those massive lawsuits against mainstream media outlets Donald Trump regards as the enemy, that are designed to intimidate against continuing to chronicle his alarming demolition job on the institutions that underpin democracy in America, are testament to the clear and present danger for a strong, free, effective and independent media everywhere.

And don’t kid yourself it can’t happen here.

On this night six years ago, as chair of the Walkley Foundation, I highlighted a rare unity of purpose within our industry called the Right to Know coalition to pressure the Morrison government to strengthen press freedom in Australia after separate federal police raids on the ABC’s Sydney headquarters and journalist Annika Smethurst’s home in Canberra.

Israel has failed dismally to explain with any credibility why so many journalists have been killed

Nine days later, December 7, 2019, Anthony Albanese, as opposition leader, attacked the Morrison government for its failure to support press freedom, in which he referred to the raids as reflecting “something sinister”.

There have been two parliamentary inquiries into press freedom since then, with some 30 recommendations for reform, and Albanese has now been prime minister for three-and-a-half years, but still raids like those on both the ABC and Smethurst could happen again, with a not terribly robust hurdle to jump.

In his 2019 speech, Albanese declared “journalism is not a crime. It’s essential to preserving our democracy.”

One test of his resolve would be to deliver uniform national shield laws to allow journalists to protect their sources without the threat of imprisonment. But today, although there are shield laws of one sort or another in place in every state as well as nationally, the overall framework has been likened to Swiss cheese, and despite ongoing appeals there’s no obvious sign of a process to harmonise shield laws.

In 2019, Albanese said, “We don’t need a culture of secrecy. We need a culture of disclosure.”

Well, in 2023, his government’s own formal review put the number of secrecy provisions in commonwealth law at 875. Two years later, there are more, not fewer secrecy offences. Not a good sign.

“Protect whistleblowers,” Albanese said in 2019. “Expand their protections and the public interest test.”

We’re waiting on the government’s revised whistleblower reforms to be tabled in parliament, and if it’s still wedded to the establishment of a whistleblower ombudsman, rather than a strong independent whistleblower protection authority casting a wider net, then we should be seriously disappointed that the government has fallen short of the expectation Albanese raised six years ago.

The lives of whistleblowers, David McBride and Richard Boyle, were upended because they were courageous enough to blow the whistle, in one case, on war crimes in Afghanistan, and the other, on indefensible debt collections on behalf of the tax office.

One big test of this government’s credibility will be whether a McBride or a Boyle would still face jail in the future under the new laws. Right now, that’s still possible. If these things are not in the public interest, what on earth is?

The lives of whistleblowers, David McBride and Richard Boyle, were upended because they were courageous enough to blow the whistle

“Reform freedom of information laws so they can’t be flouted by government,” Albanese said in 2019. But we’re told his proposed new freedom of information laws will have the opposite effect.

So on reflection, this government’s scorecard against the benchmarks Albanese set in 2019 as opposition leader is mixed. He’s certainly talked the talk, and to a degree he’s walked the walk, but given what’s at stake now – and I haven’t even mentioned where AI is going to take us even five years from now – we as an industry cannot afford to lose sight of important unfinished business. And in that regard, where is the Right to Know coalition now? The one that united our industry six years ago? Our broad challenges are growing, not lessening.

In September, the remarkable Filipino-American journalist Maria Ressa addressed our National Press Club. Her shared Nobel peace prize in 2021 – in her case, for safeguarding freedom of expression in the Philippines, particularly during the authoritarian reign of Rodrigo Duterte – brings compelling authority to the warning note she sounded directly to Australia.

Ressa contends that: “The greatest threat we face today isn’t any individual leader or one government. It’s the technology that’s amplifying authoritarian tactics worldwide enabled by democratic governments that abdicated their responsibility to protect the public … Tech platforms have become weapons of mass destruction to democracy.” If you haven’t seen her speech, do so, as a priority.

She commends Australia for taking on the digital giants with a world-first social media ban for children under 16 but says it was a mistake for the government to abandon its proposed law to tackle disinformation on digital platforms last year. We’ve caught the world’s attention on this. Let’s not stop there.

No one, including Ressa, is saying it’s easy. But we all have to be invested in this. Let’s not allow ourselves to get intimidated or derailed by those who would seek to distort the concept of freedom of speech for money and power.

After all my decades in journalism I have an unshakable belief in an unquenchable public hunger for news that informs, that feeds our curiosity and fires our imaginations; that stimulates crucial debate and can be trusted. That hunger is not just going to evaporate.

And if we think we’re doing it tough trying to cut through the shroud of institutional secrecy, or trying to call out those who would polarise our communities for grubby political ends, remind yourself of those journalists in Gaza or Ukraine, or Russia or China, or Myanmar or Afghanistan who’ve been shut down or gone to prison, or gone to their graves for an ideal – for seeking to report the truth.

We are all one community of journalists and there’s something powerful we can harness in that, that we should never lose sight of. That’s really why we’re here tonight. Thank you.

Kerry O’Brien is a journalist, former editor and host of ABC’s 7.30 and Four Corners and winner of six Walkley awards including the Gold Walkley and the Walkley for outstanding leadership. This is an edited excerpt of his speech to the Walkley awards on 27 November 2025

Donald Trump says America will pause all migration from 'Third World countries'

Extract from ABC News

By Rudi Maxwell

Topic:World Politics

14 hours ago

In short:

US President Donald Trump has said on Truth Social that he wants his administration to work towards pausing all migration from "Third World" countries.

Mr Trump has also used two posts on the platform to lob personal insults at Democrats Tim Walz and Somali American Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

The Department of Homeland Security says Mr Trump has ordered a widespread review of asylum cases approved under former US president Joe Biden's administration and green cards issued to citizens of 19 countries.

US President Donald Trump says his administration will work to permanently pause migration from all "Third World Countries" to allow the American system to fully recover.

Mr Trump also said on social media platform Truth Social that he would end all federal benefits and subsidies to "noncitizens", adding that he would "denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any foreign national who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western civilization".

His comments came following the death of a National Guard member on Thursday after being shot near the White House in an ambush that investigators say was carried out by an Afghan national.

Mr Trump did not identify any countries by name or explain what he meant by Third World countries or "permanently pause".

He said the plan would include cases approved under former president Joe Biden's administration.

"I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden's Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States," Mr Trump's post said.

UN agencies appealed to Washington to continue allowing asylum seekers access to the country and to be given due process, Reuters reported.

"We expect all countries, including the United States, to honour their commitments under the 1953 Refugee Convention," said Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesperson for the UN secretary general.

UN human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told a Geneva press briefing: "They are entitled to protection under international law, and that should be given due process."

Personal insults directed at Democrats

Over two long and rambling posts, Mr Trump also took aim at Democrats.

"The seriously retarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both, while the worst 'Congressman/woman' in our Country, Ilhan Omar, always wrapped in her swaddling hijab, and who probably came into the USA illegally," he posted.

"In that you are not allowed to marry your brother, does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its Constitution, and how 'badly' she is treated, when her place of origin is a decadent, backward, and crime ridden nation, which is essentially not even a country."

Mr Walz has a son with a learning disability.

Ms Omar, who represents Minnesota, is the first Somali American in Congress.

A week ago, Mr Trump called for an end to the temporary protected status of Somali people in Minnesota, blaming them for a surge in crime in the state.

He posted on Truth Social that Minnesota was a "hub of fraudulent money laundering activity".

Minnesota Republican members of Congress have written a letter, seeking an investigation into claims that their state's taxpayers were funding terrorist groups in Somalia.

Ilhan Omar speaks animatedly, wearing a yellow dress and a black headscarf. — Ilhan Omar says categorising all Somalis as criminal because of the actions of a few is unreasonable. (Reuters: Tim Evans)

Ms Omar pushed back, saying that in the US, the lawlessness of an individual should not be blamed on a community.

"Because if you believe in law and order, you understand that if a person commits a crime, they face justice," she said, adding that Mr Trump had provided no evidence for his claim that money from Minnesota had aided terrorism.

"That language is dangerous.

"That language puts the lives of Somalis, not only in Minnesota, but across the country in danger."

Trump orders review of green cards from 19 countries

The White House and US Citizenship and Immigration Services did not immediately respond to requests for comment about migration.

Earlier, officials from the Department of Homeland Security said Mr Trump had ordered a widespread review of asylum cases approved under Mr Biden's administration and green cards issued to citizens of 19 countries.

The alleged gunman was granted asylum this year under Mr Trump, according to a US government file.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services on Wednesday stopped processing all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals indefinitely.

ABC/Reuters

Putin may laugh but Europe is taking Russian aggression seriously.

Extract from ABC News

Analysis

By Laura Tingle

Topic:World Politics

2 hours ago

When asked about his stance on the Donbas region, Vladimir Putin said Russia would stop fighting only when Ukraine withdrew its troops. (Reuters: Vladimir Pirogov)

Lots of people have had something to say about a peace deal for Ukraine over the past ten days, with one notable exception: the man around whom this story spins, Vladimir Putin.

That was until Thursday.

The latest flurry of talk about a 28-point plan for Ukraine seems to have been designed to mess with our collective heads even more than most of Donald Trump's global interventions.

There was the leaking of the plan which was, or wasn't, actually drawn up by Russia, then adopted by the Trump team and which, for a while, was being seen as a fait accompli which Ukraine had to agree to by Thursday.

There was the grim message to his nation from Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy about being confronted with a choice between loss of dignity and a loss of a key partner.

There were hastily organised meetings between US officials and the Ukrainians and frantic scrabbling by shocked European nations, and lots of politely worded statements designed not to antagonise Trump.

A man in a suit speaking, seen from lower down. The man is surrounded by microphones. — The strategic depth of this conflict makes it more complicated than something that can be solved purely by Trump applying pressure. (Reuters: Anna Rose Layden)

Confusion all round

Journalists were left reading tea leaves for signs of where things were going amid references to positive developments. Always there was the search for ways to throw the story forward to the likelihood of a next round of meetings, including those that are supposed to be held in Moscow next week.

But through it all Putin said nothing.

When he did, it should not have been a surprise that his words appeared to flatten any expectations that things may have changed, or that there was scope here for compromise.

"It would be impolite to speak about any final versions [of the plan], since there are none," Putin told reporters at a press conference during a visit to Kyrgyzstan on Thursday.

"There was no draft [peace] treaty. There was a set of questions that were proposed to be discussed and finally formulated."

The Financial Times said that when he was asked about his stance on the Donbas region, Putin said Russia would stop fighting only when Ukraine withdrew its troops.

"If they don't withdraw, we'll achieve this by force of arms," he said.

International legal recognition of Crimea and Donbas — where Russia holds some but not all of the territory — as Russian was crucial, he said.

As the FT noted: "[Putin's comments] suggest he is sticking to his approach with US President Donald Trump, in which he has repeatedly signalled readiness to negotiate while holding fast to hardline demands. Meanwhile, Russia is slowly advancing on the battlefield."

What makes the stand-off in Ukraine much more complicated than something that can be solved purely by Trump applying pressure is the strategic depth of this conflict.

It's not just about Russia versus Ukraine, or a question of withholding military support on the one hand and sanctions on the other.

In addition to Putin's well-documented view that Ukraine is an absolutely intrinsic part of Russia, is the post-Cold War make up of Europe.

The Russians are aggrieved at what they believe was a major breach of an agreement by the West, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, to not expand NATO to the East — which it has done.

A European war

Putin has long argued that this has posed a threat to Russia. And it was talk of Ukraine joining NATO that was at least partly used as his rationale for invasion.

On the equal and opposite side, both NATO and Europe more broadly, now see Ukraine as its frontline against Russian aggression.

It's not just a question of supporting Ukraine but of Ukraine's massive military machine being the frontline for a wildly disorganised and fractured community of countries who are dealing with basic issues of disorganised and rundown national military organisations and infrastructure unable to move military hardware along roads or rail lines that are too narrow.

The ratcheting up of the Ukraine conflict into what is perceived as a European war is already well underway.

Putin was dismissive of the warnings by European leaders that Russia could attack Europe.

"That sounds laughable to us, really," he said.

But it is no laughing matter to a host of European political and military leaders.

Consider Germany. Three years ago, the Germans were reluctant to supply weapons directly to Ukraine lest it provoke Russia.

This was despite an historic declaration of a shift — a Zeitenwende or turning point — in its approach to defence issues after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Germany's history had made it cautious to be seen to be talking or acting aggressively. The Zeitenwende saw a commitment to a big increase in defence spending, trying to revive the moribund Bundeswehr — or German armed forces — which suffer particularly high personnel shortages; reducing its energy reliance on Russia; and becoming more supportive of the idea of European security strategy.

All that has changed.

Can there be peace in Ukraine? (Norman Hermant)

'Our last summer of peace'

Earlier this week, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul warned that Russia could be in a position to attack a NATO country within the next four years.

"Our intelligence services are telling us urgently that Russia is at least creating the option of a war against NATO by 2029 at the latest," Wadephul told the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum.

He argued that Russia's "imperial" ambitions extended far beyond Ukraine, as Moscow has significantly expanded its military capabilities and ramped up weapons production in recent years.

"Russia has largely geared its economy and society toward war. At the same time, Russia is recruiting more soldiers than it currently needs," Wadephul said, adding that almost one additional division is being recruited every month.

"These divisions, without a doubt, have their sights set on us — on the European Union, on NATO. The threat to our country from Russia is no longer a distant concern; it is already a reality."

He accused Moscow of using "hybrid war" tactics against NATO allies, including airspace violations, sabotage, and disinformation campaigns designed to destabilise these countries.

His colleague, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, that while military experts and most intelligence services had until now estimated that Russia might be able to launch an attack against a NATO member state from 2029, he said that "some military historians think … that we have already experienced our last summer of peace".

Two men in Ukrainian military gear riding on a buggy past another soldier on a misty road — Ukraine and Europe are almost certainly never going to be satisfied that even giving up territory that has been conquered will stave off Russian aggression. (Reuters)

'An imminent threat'

Chief of the German armed forces, General Carsten Breuer, has described Russia as "an imminent threat".

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk spoke of the country entering a "pre-war phase" earlier this year.

After the sabotage of a Polish railway line earlier this month, the chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, General Wieslaw Kukula, said "the adversary has begun preparations for war".

"They are creating an environment here that aims to undermine public trust in the government, in key institutions such as the armed forces and the police, and to create conditions favourable for potential aggression on Polish territory," he said.

The language is all getting very alarming (or alarmist, depending on your perspective). But it is becoming part of the normal framework in which Europe is discussing its future.

French Army Chief General Fabien Mandon stirred controversy this week when he said France had to be prepared to "lose its children" in a potential war with Russia, even as President Emmanuel Macron introduced voluntary military service.

"We have the know-how, and we have the economic and demographic strength to dissuade the regime in Moscow," General Mandon said. "What we are lacking… is the spirit. The spirit which accepts that we will have to suffer if we are to protect what we are."

Something has now been unleashed in Europe which is going to be hard to put back in the bottle.

Pragmatists can debate the realities of what Ukraine has lost and what it might have to give up.

But Putin will not tolerate foreign forces in Ukraine — since it was the spectre of NATO stretching there that so exercised him in the first place — and Ukraine and Europe are almost certainly never going to be satisfied that even giving up territory that has been conquered (let alone territory Putin is demanding which he does not currently hold) will stave off Russian aggression.

This is the deep-seated and complex reality which Trump's demands for an end to the conflict confront.

Laura Tingle is the ABC's Global Affairs Editor.