Önder Özar Diplomasi Sevgisi: The New York Times - Morning Briefing - September 25, 2025 - by Parin Behrooz - covering the debut of Syria’s new president on the world stage. Also: Ukrainians reacted to Trump’s reversal on the war. Xi Jinping set a target to reduce China’s emissions. Typhoon Ragasa slammed into southern China. Plus, solving a Rembrandt mystery.

Thursday, September 25, 2025

The New York Times - Morning Briefing - September 25, 2025 - by Parin Behrooz - covering the debut of Syria’s new president on the world stage. Also: Ukrainians reacted to Trump’s reversal on the war. Xi Jinping set a target to reduce China’s emissions. Typhoon Ragasa slammed into southern China. Plus, solving a Rembrandt mystery.

September 25, 2025

	By Parin Behrooz

Good morning. We’re covering the debut of Syria’s new president on the world stage.

Also:

Ukrainians reacted to Trump’s reversal on the war.
Xi Jinping set a target to reduce China’s emissions.
Typhoon Ragasa slammed into southern China.

Plus, solving a Rembrandt mystery.

President Ahmed al-Shara speaking at a lectern at the U.N.

At the U.N. General Assembly yesterday. Dave Sanders for The New York Times

From jihadist to statesman

President Ahmed al-Shara yesterday became the first Syrian leader to address the U.N. General Assembly since 1967, when Lyndon Johnson was in the White House and Leonid Brezhnev ran the Kremlin.

It was a stunning turnabout for al-Shara, a former rebel leader once affiliated with Al Qaeda. He is still officially designated as a terrorist by the U.S. and the U.N.

In the speech, he described the decades of oppression Syria suffered under former President Bashar al-Assad and highlighted his efforts to remake Syria’s image.

“Syria has transformed from an exporter of crisis to an opportunity for peace for Syria and the region,” said al-Shara, who led opposition forces that toppled the decades-long reign of the Assad family in December.

Al-Shara reiterated his recent calls for talks with Israel, which has launched hundreds of airstrikes in Syria since he rose to power.

“Israeli strikes and attacks against my country continue, and Israeli policies contradict the international supporting position for Syria, which threatens new crises and struggles in our region,” al-Shara said.

“In the face of this aggression,” he added, “Syria is committed to dialogue.”

As al-Shara ended his address — at around eight minutes, it was one of the shortest at this year’s U.N. meeting — he expressed his support for the residents of Gaza. “The suffering Syria endured, we wish upon no one,” he said. “For this reason, we stand firmly with the people of Gaza.”

The many faces of Syria’s leader: My colleague Ben Hubbard, who’s met al-Shara twice, wrote an in-depth profile. You can read it here.

Volodymyr Zelensky speaking at a U.N. lectern.

Dave Sanders for The New York Times

Zelensky’s call to arms

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, asked world leaders for more military aid to fight Russia at the U.N. meeting.

“International law does not fully function without powerful friends ready to defend it,” he said. “Even having friends won’t work without weapons. The only guarantee of security is friends and weapons.”

Zelensky’s plea, accompanied by warnings that the world was entering a new era of drone-based warfare, came a day after President Trump reversed course by saying Ukraine could reclaim all of its territory from Russia. Many Ukrainians were unsure how to process Trump’s abrupt shift.

Also at the U.N.:

For the first time, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, announced a detailed target for reducing his country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, condemned attacks by Israel and the U.S. and said his country was not seeking a nuclear bomb.

ASK A CORRESPONDENT

All this week, Ana Swanson, who writes about trade and international economics from Washington, is answering your questions about tariffs. Thank you to all the readers who wrote in.

One of the main justifications from the Trump administration for the tariff regime is that it will return manufacturing to the U.S. Is there any evidence of this starting to occur? — Anthony Bernard-Sasges, Rhode Island, U.S.

Ana: There’s certainly no clear sign of a manufacturing resurgence occurring in the data. But it’s still early days for the effect of tariffs to be felt, and there are some mixed indicators that allow both proponents and critics of tariffs to cherry-pick numbers to support their claims.

The Trump administration has pointed to big investment commitments that companies have announced to shore up its claim that manufacturing is returning to the U.S. But critics say that some of these may never materialize and that tariffs can often hurt manufacturers by raising the cost of materials they need, like metals and parts.

So far, factory employment has continued to slump, and spending on the construction of new factories in the U.S. is down sharply from 2024, when it was pushed up by subsidies for clean energy and chip manufacturing.

Interested in providing feedback on this newsletter? Take our short survey here.

MORE TOP NEWS

A series of images showing the destruction from Typhoon Ragasa.

Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

One million residents of Guangdong, in southern China, were evacuated before Typhoon Ragasa made landfall. At least 18 people have been killed along its path. Photographers captured the aftermath of a dam failure in Taiwan.
A gunman opened fire at an immigration facility in Texas, killing one detainee and wounding two others. The gunman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
An Israeli airstrike near a market in Gaza City killed nearly two dozen Palestinians, according to a Palestinian rescue service. The Israeli military said it had hit two “Hamas terrorists.”
The Trump administration plans to pull visas and deport people it deems to have trivialized the murder of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Germany is wooing skilled Indian workers who may have been unsettled by the Trump administration’s newly announced visa fees.
The Danish prime minister visited Greenland to apologize in person to Greenlandic women for Denmark’s decades-long campaign of forced birth control.
Malawi’s president, Lazarus Chakwera, conceded defeat in an election, clearing the way for Peter Mutharika’s return to power.
After Chinese and Thai officials pressured a Thai museum to censor an art exhibition criticizing the Chinese government, its curator fled to London.
The Chinese architect Kongjian Yu, known for his “sponge cities,” died with three others in a plane crash in Brazil.
NASA launched a new mission to study the giant magnetic bubble that surrounds our solar system.

SPORTS NEWS

Football: FIFA discussed expanding the men’s World Cup to 64 teams in 2030 to mark the 100th anniversary of the competition.

Formula 1: Is Max Verstappen really in the championship race this season? The Athletic answers several questions.

Golf: Bethpage Black, the 2025 host venue of the Ryder Cup, is one of the hardest courses in the world.

MORNING READ

In Mexico City. Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York Times

Hernán Cortés vanquished the Aztecs and claimed Mexico for Spain five centuries ago. But unlike the grand pantheons and mausoleums honoring other major figures in Mexico’s history, the conquistador’s tomb has fallen into neglect.

The treatment of Cortés’s remains, which lie in a tomb in a stone wall, spotlights how controversy over the conquistador continues to shape views of colonialism, Mexican nationalism and the country’s strained relations with Spain. Read the full dispatch.

CONVERSATION STARTERS

A person standing on the wreckage of an airplane in Iceland.

One of the most visited attractions in Iceland. Bara Kristinsdottir for The New York Times

Overtourism: The eruption of a volcano in 2010 made Iceland a destination. Many residents have had enough of the boom.
Milan fashion: The mononymic designer Demna made his debut at Gucci with a movie, a runway show and a lot of buzz.
Shrekking: Social media users have coined a new term for “dating down.”

ARTS AND IDEAS

The painting “The Night Watch” depicts a few dozen people, many in formal dress, and a pale brown dog that appears to be barking at a drummer.

Rijksmuseum

Solving a Rembrandt mystery

You might not notice it when you first glance at Rembrandt’s monumental group portrait “The Night Watch.” But if you look closely, you can see a dog in the lower right corner.

Now, researchers at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where the painting hangs, have discovered Rembrandt’s inspiration for the dog: a drawing by another artist. The dog’s breed, however, is still an enigma. Read more.