Happy Wednesday, and welcome to your morning wrap of the latest political and business news from around the world.
First up, US President Donald Trump has given a whirlwind speech to the United Nations General Assembly, saying recognising Palestinian statehood would be a “reward” for the militant group Hamas, the BBC reported.
His comments come after several countries in recent days have recognised a Palestinian state, including Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and France.
He reiterated that he has been trying to get a ceasefire in Gaza and, instead of giving in to Hamas’ demands, those who wanedt peace should be united in one message: “Release the hostages now.”
The line received applause from those in the room.
During his speech, Trump also said Nato member states should shoot down Russian aircraft that entered their airspace; the UN was not living up to its potential; that climate change was the “greatest con job ever perpetrated”; and criticised other countries’ immigration policies, saying “your countries are going to hell”.
US President Donald Trump.
Moving to the Middle East, where a Palestinian medical charity said Israel destroyed its main centre in Gaza City after ordering its evacuation, Associated Press reported.
The Palestine Medical Relief Society said an Israeli strike reduced its six-storey building to rubble, adding that the centre was one of the main facilities providing blood donations and testing services, trauma care, cancer medicine, and chronic disease treatment.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which, as AP notes, has repeatedly bombed and raided hospitals in Gaza.
In a separate development, Israel closed the border crossing between the occupied West Bank and Jordan until further notice after an attack last week killed two Israelis.
To market news now, where Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said stock prices appeared “fairly highly valued”, CNBC reported.
The comments came in response to a question he received during a speech he gave in Rhode Island about how much emphasis he and his colleagues placed on market prices and whether they had a higher tolerance for higher values.
“We do look at overall financial conditions, and we ask ourselves whether our policies are affecting financial conditions in a way that is what we’re trying to achieve,” Powell said. “But you’re right, by many measures, for example, equity prices are fairly highly valued.”
He also signalled the rate-cutting path wasn’t clear and that it was a “challenging situation”.
His comments were partly responsible for causing Wall Street’s main indices to pause overnight.
The S&P 500 pulled back 0.6% after reaching a new all-time intraday high earlier in the session, the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 1%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3%.
Nvidia’s shares were down 3% at the end of the day after the chipmaker announced a US$100 billion investment in OpenAI, which boosted its stock and the equity market as a whole.
In economic news, the OECD said global growth was holding up better than expected, but the full force of the US import tariff shock was still to be felt as AI investment propped up the world’s largest economy and fiscal support cushioned China’s slowdown, Reuters reported.
Global economic growth is now expected to slow only slightly to 3.2% in 2025 from 3.3% last year, compared to the 2.9% growth forecast released in June.
There was no revision to the 2.9% growth pencilled in for 2026.
"The full effects of these tariffs will become clearer as firms run down the inventories that were built up in response to tariff announcements and as the higher tariff rates continue to be implemented," OECD head Mathias Cormann told a news conference.
India, Indonesia, and China are forecasted to have the highest growth this year and next, whereas Italy, France, and Germany are expected to have the weakest gains.
Finally, Jimmy Kimmel Live! will return to television screens later today, ABC announced, although major station owners said they would still keep the show off the airwaves, CNN reported.
Sinclair and Nexstar Media Group, which together own about one in five ABC affiliates, both said they would continue to withhold the programme following comments Kimmel made in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death.
Kimmel said the Maga movement was trying to score political points by trying to prove that the 22-year-old suspect accused of killing Kirk was not one of its own.
His comments prompted Brendan Carr, President Trump’s close ally and head of the Federal Communications Commission, to publicly suggest that Kimmel should be suspended and invoked the FCC’s oversight of local TV stations.
Within hours, Sinclair and Nexstar said they would pre-empt Kimmel’s show locally, and then ABC suspended the show altogether in a move that has sparked a debate about government intervention and freedom of speech.
